Homebrew Futurama Pinball Project
This Futurama pinball machine was originally built by Evan Kizer around 2005 using salvaged parts and boards from other games and a custom playfield and cabinet; I’ve included a print-out of an archived version of his AOL website that goes into some detail about where the idea came from and how he built it.
Evan was an avid pinball collector and a Seattle local; he went to Ballard High School, class of ’83. He lived on Queen Anne Hill, 21 steps to his front door; but still managed to collect over 20 machines at his home. Although there were a few notes and hints at ideas for other games on his website, our understanding is that Futurama is the only custom pinball machine he ever built. There are a few old articles and some short video clips of his original machine online including on Make Magazine’s website, but to the best of our knowledge the machine was never “routed” or put out for play in public.
Unfortunately, Evan passed away in 2021; per his wishes he was cremated with a pinball. His collection was passed on to his family who has kept and cherished much of it. At the time he passed, Futurama was partially disassembled and not functional; his family held on to it but was unsure of what to do with it since as a custom machine, it would have been nearly impossible to fix without Evan. His family didn’t want it to just be disassembled for parts… ideally they wanted somebody who would take it on and embrace the project.
The game has been rebuilt and redesigned with P3 boards (Multimorphic) and uses the Mission Pinball Framework for the code. Currently this machine is being developed soley as a homebrew project with no commercial intentions, however once the code is done we may seek approval + IP licensing to produce a commercial product if possible.