Finally biting the bullet and making a thread for my homebrew. It will be slow going, but I have a few questions.

The theme of my game will be race cars and racing. There will be a few different modes within the pin to complete. The general playfield layout and mode style will very closely follow #Elvira's Scared Stiff. This will not be a retheme as mechs and modes will change. I plan to keep the lower 1/3 to 1/2 of the playfield the same for slings and flippers, inserts, etc. As my first homebrew, taking the layout of this machine felt good as it has amazing flow and is always a good time when I play it. Also, it's not too complex. I love the cross ramps, where when you make the ramp shot, it brings it back to the same flipper.

The biggest layout changes will be where the crate is, I'm going to have a 4cyl engine mech that stores locked balls in its cylinders. Also, going around the mech is an inner orbit shot like the newer starwars stern. The engine is my main mech for the game, as well as a turbo Spinner. Originally i wanted to do a v10 or v8 but after playing many multiball sessions, I realize more than 3 balls gets crazy.

The lower playfield will have a turn around with street signs for modes, the orbit shot will have a highway sign and there will be a pit stop where you enter the mode selection for race tracks.

The main mode will be track mode, where you choose a race track, and have to make right or left ramp shots to "make the turns". Your lap times will stay recorded between games as a mini subset of scoring. This should have a similar feel to pulling off combo shots in godzilla or starwars.

I want to add a drag race mode and have the "Christmas tree" of lights up the center where the elvira stiffometer is. I want to add a real time speed gate like Checkpoint had for a top speed mode.

Another mode is "autocross mode" where the leapers are traffic cones and they pop when you hit them. Hit them all to finish the mode. In wizard mode, if you hit the cones, you add time to lap times or get booted out of the mode, haven't decided how hard to make it, but I thought that would be a fun idea.

Maybe a rally mode and a drift mode if I can figure out some fun stuff that would distinguish these modes from the main track mode.

I also wanted to have an HO slot car in a burnout box that will trigger when you get something good, or spin out. Pop bumpers will have NoS bottles as caps. Lanes will be either "FAST" "GAS" or "e85"

I'm just laying it all out to see if any of this has been done already by other games. Corvette has a race mode, but I'm not sure what that entails. Seems the car themes have trickled off lately.

Has a game like this been done before? Am I reinventing the wheel? Or do I have something here worth exploring. It's a pretty solid vision in my head. Please let me know what you think.

I'm currently learning MPF. In terms of playfield construction, cabinet construction, and wiring, that should be the easy part for me as I'm pretty handy. Programming will be the worst. Im planning on using fast boards.

One big question I have as I start to load my playfield in CAD is, is there a place where existing games have the playfields sketched out already or scanned? A database of sorts or a template to follow?

Also, I have inventor 360 and I'm not a big fan of it. What are some cad softwares yall recommend? I used to be a cad designer and I'm familiar with all the big names, creo, solidworks, Catia, etc. That being said, those are expensive and I don't have a license.

Working on my main mech. It's an engine that eats the balls for multiball. It will spin around for certain events during gameplay and I'm planning to have LEDs in the cylinders to simulate spark plugs and combustion.

Next is the intake manifold and optos to make sure each cylinder gets fed properly.

Exhaust is going to be a cool wireform.

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