Originally published as an Advisory Hour Substack post on 2026-11-01. This first-party site copy preserves the text, localizes public supporting media, and connects the record to its project trail.
Original post
The next machine in TiltLab is MUD TRUCK ‘99, and this time there’s a race going on around the cabinet.
After Margin Aces, I wanted to push on an idea I’d been sitting on: what if the pinball machine had a setting? A place the machine is actually standing in, with things happening around it.
Then I had a slightly crazy thought. What if one of the machines was just parked in the middle of the Truckmud track? Trucks going around it, mud flying, maybe some rain.
Back in August I posted Truckmud ‘99, a racing game in GameLab with a lifted red truck, a rainy county fairground at night, ramps, puddles and three sponsor trucks to beat. This machine stands in that fairground’s infield, in the mud, a few strides from the track.
And the race out there is the one you’re playing. Make your shots and your red truck pulls away from the field. Stop shooting and it slows down, and you get to watch the sponsor trucks go by.
Which is a pretty direct way to find out how good your aim is.
The mud is the other half. Every truck that comes past throws mud at the cabinet, and it lands on the table. Three patches of the playfield cake up and the ball gets sluggish. Mud on the table is also mud on your tires, so a dirty table slows your truck down too. The rain washes it off slowly. A shot through the Puddle, up the middle, washes it off all at once.
The weather follows the balls you have left, from drizzle to downpour. On the last ball it’s pouring, and Bayou Bolt jumps out eight lengths ahead. You have to catch him. With flippers.
Most of what you see around the cabinet is the game itself, pulled in from GameLab when the machine starts: the track, the ramps, the grandstands, the floodlights under a storm sky, and the trucks, dents and all. The engine you hear under the table is the game’s own, pitched to your speed.
It also brought a couple of fixes back to the whole floor. The shared rig now watches for a stuck ball and bumps it loose, and on a phone that can vibrate, every machine buzzes when the flippers fire.
I think it turned out pretty good.
The video is a new thing I’m trying. It’s not really a trailer. It’s closer to a mini story. Rin Calder, a repair specialist, drives the track and explains the machine while Seven hangs on in the truck bed and does not enjoy any of it. It’s made with a new local video pipeline I’m testing. It’s not perfect. If you watch closely, a puddle shatters like glass and Seven does something to the tailgate that I can’t explain. But it’s pretty decent, and I like the format more than a straight trailer.
Rin calls it the dumbest good idea I’ve had. You know? I’ll take it.
For now, the track’s muddy and the rain’s coming in. Keep shooting.
Play now: MUD TRUCK '99 · TiltLab pinball | Eric Rhea
Read more: Mud Truck ‘99 in GameLab
Connected work
- Play MUD TRUCK '99: Make your shots and your red truck pulls away from the field.
- About the machine: Read the rules of the pinball race.
- Mud Truck 99 in GameLab: Visit the browser racer behind the pinball machine.
- Mud Truck 99 Pinball in VideoLab: Watch the film from the source post.