# A Very Herculean Festivus

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2017-12-23  
**Duration:** 48m 31s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/A-Very-Herculean-Festivus-e1bkg61

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## Analysis

Chris and Jared discuss their holiday podcast schedule, Star Wars: The Last Jedi film reactions, Zen Pinball's free releases of Son of Hercules and Adventureland with detailed gameplay critiques, Stern's incremental music licensing for Guardians of the Galaxy, and Jared's restoration of a rare Gottlieb Star Race machine (800 units produced). The episode covers Zen's table design philosophy, instruction clarity issues, and touches on pinball community reception.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Zen released Son of Hercules and Adventureland for free on Steam and consoles before Christmas 2017, but not on mobile due to not being under Pinball FX 3 banner — _Chris describes Zen's free release strategy and platform limitations directly_
- [HIGH] Star Race is a rare Gottlieb title with only 800 units produced — _Jared explicitly states '800 of these produced' and identifies it as 'one low-run Gottlieb'_
- [MEDIUM] Stern is staggered-releasing music for Guardians of the Galaxy to appear responsive to community feedback, but licensing negotiations have been ongoing for 8-9 months — _Chris speculates about 'trickle-feeding' as a marketing strategy; Jared agrees it's plausible but this is interpretation rather than confirmed fact_
- [HIGH] Son of Hercules features stackable modes that create visual chaos and multiball effects — _Both hosts discuss stacking modes and wizard mode implementation in detail_
- [HIGH] Adventureland's instruction clarity is poor, with unclear toy mechanics and insufficiently explained rules on the DMD — _Chris provides specific examples of Sky High chair mechanic and Lissy car confusion requiring external learning_

### Notable Quotes

> "It's supposed to be fun. It's a space opera. It's amazing how people complain about acting or dialogue and it's like have you not seen Star Wars? I'm sorry, it's full of terrible acting and terrible dialogue, but that's what we love about it."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~5-10 min
> _Encapsulates Chris's philosophy on Star Wars appreciation and cinema enjoyment; contextualizes the podcast's casual, enthusiast-friendly tone_

> "You don't need someone to start telling you a story while you're actually shooting a ramp. What you're looking for when you do a ramp is basically little stings."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~30 min
> _Critical design feedback on Zen Pinball's over-narration; references real-world pinball design principles (No Fear, Addams Family audio cueing)_

> "I shouldn't need to go and read the tutorial and listen to the tutorial to understand how that game works. I should be able to walk up to a game and just play it."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~35 min
> _Core complaint about Adventureland's accessibility and game design; illustrates tension between video game vs. pinball design philosophies_

> "Zen has now dropped five tables. And let's be serious. These tables are actually free for those who got on to it early. Regardless of what the tables are or aren't, that's pretty good value."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~50 min
> _Contextualizes both hosts' criticism as constructive; acknowledges Zen's consumer goodwill despite design issues_

> "The playfield on this one is probably the best I've seen out of all of the African pins. There doesn't appear to be very much playfield damage on it at all."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~65 min
> _Assessment of Star Race restoration quality; emphasizes rarity and condition of the machine being preserved_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Chris Frebus | person | Co-host of Blockade Podcast, also known as 'Shut Your Trap'; based in U.S., discusses film and pinball design philosophy |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Blockade Podcast; based in Australia; restoring Star Race Gottlieb machine; involved in pinball machine storage and preservation |
| Zen Studios | company | Virtual pinball game developer; released Son of Hercules and Adventureland as free/discounted tables on Steam and consoles; fragmented app ecosystem across multiple platforms |
| Stern Pinball | company | Commercial pinball manufacturer; incrementally licensing and releasing music for Guardians of the Galaxy machine |
| Gottlieb | company | Historic pinball manufacturer; produced Star Race (800 units, rare title) |
| Son of Hercules | game | Zen Pinball virtual table with stackable modes, weather effects, lightning, mythology theme; praised for chaotic wizard mode |
| Adventureland | game | Zen Pinball virtual table with amusement park theme; criticized for poor instruction clarity and confusing toy mechanics (Sky High, Lissy car) |
| Star Race | game | Rare Gottlieb pinball machine (800 units produced); being restored by Jared; imported from Africa; 1.5x-wide cabinet format; excellent playfield condition reported |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | game | Stern Pinball machine; recently received added music licensing (Jackson 5 'I Want You Back', Marvin Gaye 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough') |
| Star Wars: The Last Jedi | product | 2017 Star Wars film; Chris saw twice (IMAX 3D and standard 2D); discussed audience reception differences and 3D effectiveness |
| Blockade Podcast | organization | Pinball-focused podcast hosted by Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan; recording on Tuesday during holiday season with schedule interruptions |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Zen Pinball virtual table design and gameplay mechanics, Instruction clarity and onboarding for digital pinball, Rare pinball machine restoration (Star Race)
- **Secondary:** Stern music licensing strategy for Guardians of the Galaxy, Video game vs. pinball design philosophy
- **Mentioned:** Star Wars: The Last Jedi film reception and audience dynamics, Holiday podcast scheduling and production logistics

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.58) — Hosts appreciate Zen's free table releases and value proposition but are frustrated with design/UI issues (Adventureland clarity, over-narration). Enthusiastic about Star Race restoration project. Positive on Star Wars film but resigned to community drama. Constructive criticism tone throughout rather than dismissive.

### Signals

- **[sentiment_shift]** Star Wars: The Last Jedi audience reception splits between hardcore fans (mixed/negative, quiet theater) and casual viewers (positive, enthusiastic); Chris argues that second viewings improve appreciation of film structure (confidence: high) — Chris describes contrast between 9:30 AM showing (hardcore, silent, split) vs. birthday party showing (casual, cheering, applauding). References fan expectations vs. director's intent.
- **[design_philosophy]** Son of Hercules features over-narration with long voice callouts that distract from gameplay and obscure which ramp/shot triggered the audio; needs shorter 'stings' like classic pinball (confidence: high) — Chris: 'We need quick call-outs. Stop these long, gigantic sentences.' Jared references Addams Family Bear Ramp and No Fear as models of proper audio cueing duration.
- **[design_philosophy]** Zen Pinball's Adventureland features poor instruction clarity; toy mechanics like Sky High chair and Lissy car loop are unintuitive and require external learning (tutorial/manual reading) to understand (confidence: high) — Chris: 'I shouldn't need to go and read the tutorial... I should be able to walk up to a game and just play it.' Multiple specific examples of confusing mechanics (chair launch, car loop) provided.
- **[design_philosophy]** Tension between video game and traditional pinball design: Zen tables require manual reading/tutorial engagement more akin to video games, whereas classic pinball is intuitively learnable through play (confidence: high) — Discussion of whether Zen tables are 'mini video games' vs. pinball machines; reference to real-world pinball design (No Fear, Addams Family, Champion Pub) that communicates through audio stings and clear feedback
- **[market_signal]** Stern's incremental release of Guardians of the Galaxy music tracks (Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye) appears to be staggered marketing to appear responsive to community feedback, but licensing negotiations likely completed 8-9 months prior (confidence: medium) — Chris speculates: 'Trickle-feeding the songs... whereas really they've been negotiating these for the last eight or nine months.' Jared agrees plausible. Point made that full music availability may signal code completion.
- **[announcement]** Zen Studios released Son of Hercules and Adventureland for free on Steam and consoles before Christmas 2017 as goodwill gesture; not yet available free on mobile (separate app ecosystem) (confidence: high) — Chris: 'Not only did they release it before Christmas, but they gave it to everybody for free.' Jared: 'These tables are actually free for those who got on to it early... that's pretty good value.'
- **[product_concern]** Adventureland's visual crowding and insert clarity make it difficult to identify key gameplay elements (e.g., ticket booth location) without external references or table flyover (confidence: high) — Chris had to pause, review table layout, and do 'table fly over' to understand where ticket booth was located; criticizes insert readability and visual hierarchy
- **[technology_signal]** Zen app fragmentation across multiple platforms (main Zen app, Star Wars app, Alien app, eSports app) creates barrier to consolidation; users must purchase multiple times to have all tables in one location (confidence: high) — Chris: 'I've got like four different Zen apps... None of it transfers over to the Zen app... It would be nice for it to just all finally be under one app completely and be done'

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## Transcript

 This is the Blockade Podcast, with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frevis, aka Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. G'day, Chris. How's it going, mate? It's going well. So, folks, we're at that time of year where schedules suddenly get very difficult. So we're recording on a Tuesday when normally that would be the release day. Well, not lately because I've been really slack and usually push back on Friday. My Friday, so U.S. Thursday. But, yeah, I'm going to have to really pull my finger out. And, well, you know, as we talk about in the show, I've got other things on at the moment, right? Other things. We'll talk about that later. Yes, we will. So, yeah, our podcasting schedule might get a little sketchy over the next couple of weeks just in terms of. Right. Yeah, whether we have anything to talk about or if there's news. I mean, we might bring in an emergency session. but when we normally record on the weekends and the holidays are right there on the weekend, well, I guess, actually, it's on Monday. It's Christmas, huh? Yeah, I'll be up on the coast. Yeah, I think we're actually going up to Malula Bar, which is about 40 minutes up the road. Yeah. That would be lovely to stay up. Also, yeah, we won't be doing any podcasting on that weekend. No. So there you go, folks. There's going to be some gaps. But that's okay. We did that last year and it was all good too. Yeah. No one missed us that much. Not that much. Not terribly much. Hey, I went and saw the new Star Wars Last Jedi. Seen it twice now. What do you think of that? Well, I rather enjoyed it. I was up until, I don't know, 1.30 or 2 in the morning in a Facebook argument with somebody that I don't even know about the movie. That's always a good use of your time. Yeah, obviously. There is a whole subset of people out there that hate the movie. And it's fascinating the degree with which they hate it. And it's, in my mind, completely unfounded. And it's more a case in... Folks, I'm not going to go into bit one of a spoiler here. So I'll be speaking in very broad generalities. But the main gist that I'm getting is people went in with certain expectations of what this movie should be, i.e. they expected another Empire Strikes Back, and when it didn't follow the mold, and I think they got that impression because with The Force Awakens kind of being very similar to A New Hope in terms of what went on and pacing. I think they expected that same thing out of Empire. When that didn't happen, they became very angry. Chris, is it the same director that's done both or is it a different director? No, this is another Ryan Johnson. J.J. Abrams will be back for the third one. He wasn't originally supposed to be back for the third one. It was supposed to be Colin Trevorrow who did Jurassic World, but then they realized that he didn't really know what he was doing. Well, he is. You know, you've got to be able to work within the mold that is, you know, Disney's got their mold for the Marvel movies, they've got their mold for the Star Wars movies. You know, so you've got to be able to fit into it. But, yeah, so it's just... I went to a 9.30 a.m. showing and IMAX 3D on release day. I went with my buddy. I really need to stop going to movies with him because he hates everything. No, I'm not kidding. It's like the last two Alien movies. No, hate him. He claims he's a big Alien fan. Here I am wearing an Alien shirt today. When in truth, I always argue you like Aliens and that's it. You don't like any of the other Alien movies. He's a big military minded guy. So if he starts seeing tactical planning that doesn't meet his criteria, he's out. And it's like, dude. You guys know who I'm talking about here. It's like nobody cares. You know? But what was weird was that showing was very quiet. Nobody cheered, nobody laughed, nobody, nothing. It was just dead silence for that entire screening. and I didn't know what to chalk that up to and now I'm thinking it's because this was all the you know the hardcore fans and half of them were pissed and the other half were like I dare not say that I actually liked it because then they're going to be a battle so then I went and saw it right so then I went and saw it my son got invited to a birthday that they were all going to go watch the movie and parents were invited to so I went and saw it and totally different crowd they cheered, they laughed, they clapped when certain things happened they were having a good old time and it was like yeah that's that's what I thought that's what Star Wars is supposed to be about exactly it's supposed to be fun it's a space opera it's amazing how people complain about acting or dialogue and it's like have you not seen Star Wars? I'm sorry it's full of terrible acting and terrible dialogue, but that's what we love about it. You know? That is a Star Wars brand. It's got to have a certain amount of cheese with your crackers, man. Exactly. So, anyway, you chalked me up, folks, as one who really thoroughly had a good time. And if you feel like getting into an argument with me, go for it. You can pop on to blahblahblockade at gmail.com and drop me a note and we'll battle. Or take it to a public forum. Or maybe my friend on Facebook. Yeah, take it to a public forum so that I don't have to read the other film. Because I have zero fugs to give about that. I've heard that, as an aside, the second viewing for a lot of people is often the better viewing for Star Wars. I was able to, again, even for me, I felt like I went in with no preconceived notions. But having seen the trailer, there was at one point in the movie where I just kind of went, wow, it feels like the movie's winding down. But, man, we haven't even seen this thing from the trailer that I know is going to take up at least 20 minutes. And so there was kind of that. And like you would hear lines of dialogue that you heard from the trailer. And you're like, oh, yeah, I see. I was right. Those two people weren't staring at each other when that dialogue was said, you know, that kind of thing. so the second time I was able to just watch it as a movie but then on the same hand knowing what was going to happen I caught little bits of dialogue that totally gave away what was going to come oh really yeah it was like oh see you were dropping the nuggets all along we just didn't know to pick up on them because we didn't realize that that was a big nugget you know yeah the second viewing is like oh it's like yeah, some of those other movies like The Sixth Sense, for example, if you see that the second time, you go, oh yeah, I see what you were doing there. Oh yes, here we are. Here's a read into that concept. Yeah. You sort of get to appreciate the structure of the movie a bit more. Yeah? Yes. Appreciate it more on its own terms. My only argument with the second viewing was that it wasn't as good of a projection as the IMAX was. And I I didn't feel the 3D added anything. I'm one of those people that I want my 3D to be fun, therefore I want things poking me in the eye, as well as having a lot of depth. And there's nothing poking you in the eye at all in this movie. But then watching the second viewing, I realized that there were certain, call it background objects or little things that I didn't notice in the 2D version. I mean, I was then like, wait, wait, where is it? And I'm looking for it, whereas it really popped in 3D. So there is something to be said about the 3D viewing adding a smidgen. You know, it certainly is not essential, and it doesn't add a lot, but it was... It just adds clarity where it's needed, which, I don't know, you can probably argue that is that a fault of the framing of the shot or the digital framing of the shot, because all that stuff would be digital effects, I'd imagine. So, that's probably right. Things are flat. Yeah, when things are flattened, they blend into a background, as opposed to if it's slightly in front, all of a sudden it's like, ooh, yep. And I'll give you an example of, I mean, just one thing that's totally not spoiling anything. The porgs. The little birdies. Those things are all over the island. and I noticed them big time. What's that? They're basically the rats of Star Wars, aren't they, really? Yeah, something like that. In the 2D showing, they didn't because they kind of blend into the rocks and they really blended into the rocks in 2D. That was one of those things where they just popped a little bit more and there was all sorts of little elements like that out there. Just a little bit more visual weight in the context of the movie. Yeah, cool. Yeah. So anyway, that's all I'll say about that until more people have seen it. And then who knows? I probably won't need to say anything beyond that. Yeah. I just need to accidentally walk into a cinema sometime this week and just go and see it because otherwise I'm going to see it. Yeah. We usually have a pretty long season here in Australia, but I think I need to see it earlier if I'm going to even have a chance of seeing it in 3D. Yeah. All the Christmas releases. Yeah. Speaking of releases... Well, that's all very interesting. What else? Zen surprised everybody. So I said that when they... They... They've done the Twitch stream of Adventureland, and they were then going to be doing the Twitch stream of Son of Hercules the following week, and I kind of guessed, eh, they'll probably release it before Christmas. and not only did they release it before Christmas, but they gave it to everybody for free. Which one? Steam, yeah. Well, on consoles and Steam. They're not available on Android or iOS yet. I mean, you can buy the table, but not for free. And according to Zen, that's because it's not under the Pinball MX 3 ban. It's not Pinball 3. Yeah. That's right. Exactly. Which, look, it's fair enough. Again, the tables, I think, were actually priced a little bit lower than they would normally have been on Zen Pinball 2. So I think they tried to help us out a little bit by giving a little bit like giving the tables to us a little bit less than normal which honestly they still like two bucks a table so I actually okay with that Because I got to say they not bad for an original theme table, right? Yeah, you know, they both have their pluses and minuses. I know it's not my favorite, though, but I'd like to hear what you think about that. Well, I will say right off the bat that my favorite or what I'm leaning more towards right now is definitely Son of Zeus. Totally. and the reason I say that is there are some insane lighting effects going on on that table and there's also Carl Weathers which is way cool yeah there's lightning bolts far out lightning bolts is after ball there's wind that all of a sudden takes your ball away and it doesn't feel like it's a magnet either it feels like wind is blowing against the ball and pushing it up somewhere and it is also you can stack every single mode on top of itself which just causes mass chaos on the screen I didn't know that, that's very cool they've basically done a Jersey Jack with this table and made basically a crazy table, because it even looks a little bit like it has the same something like Lord of the Rings like the the jesus jackal or the ring sort of feel yeah yeah i feel like it like that volcano and the way you interact with that i meant it i was so annoyed i like i got to the point where i've got the the volcano god that drain the water oh come on one of those ones that if i had more time i'd just go oh i have to play this again now i have to i've got to do it well it's It's interesting too because if you drain the ball, the mode still is active sometimes, I've noticed. Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, it was on my last ball. It would have been fine. But yeah, I dipped out. That's fine. I'll just play it again. My complaint with the table would be the inserts aren't clear enough about what they are, what they do. They're kind of far away, and you can't really read the detail. And there's this whole thing of there's a four bank drop targets thing. that spells gods goes down and then sinking the ball into the hole there, you collect a god. And I've twofold. A, I don't know what the heck collecting the gods does. I think it adds multi-balls, but I'm not sure. Two, you never know who you've collected. Like there's nothing on the table itself for inserts that light up so that you know who you or how many you have. Because then once you put it in there, you're given the option, start multiball, collect more gods. Well, I want to know how many gods there are to collect. I want to know how far I am away from having a full tilt. Yeah, that's actually a good point. I sort of just went, no, I'm not going to. I've been listening to a lot of the head-to-head pinball podcasts talk about the Lyman Shear. It's very much risk and reward. And this sounds like one of those risk and reward tables. Like, oh, do I just cash in my multiple now or do I collect more cards and go for a... at the end. So this is a very interesting play by Zen here from a rules perspective and from a table offering perspective. Yes. And I kind of really like the way they're going with it. It's got a lot of promise. Yeah, so after playing a few games of utter chaos, I wound up trying to aim my shots. And that's when I truly noticed that, oh, yeah, you can stack. you can get one mode going and then, oops, I hit a stray ball up this ramp, oh shoot, I just started a second mode and so that's where I noticed that you can stack these things and get multiple things going on at the same time. They showed in a video it was during the Twitch stream they got into wizard mode and absolutely every mode starts at the same time and it is just oh jeez visual insanity It is. I mean, and I forget how many pinballs wind up being on the table at the same time, too. I think it might be eight or so. I mean, it is just nuts. And there's all these Carl Weathers effects and everything. It's just craziness. Man, I'm going to get up to that. I'm going to get some time on this thing and just get a good solid thrashing. My other gripe, and it's not a huge one, but it doesn't stop talking. and what the problem that I have with that is that you hit a particular ramp shot and all of a sudden the person it's one of two voices it's either Hercules talking or it is I want to say Medusa or Hera I'm not sure which but anyway it'll be like you go up a ramp shot and all of a sudden you'll be like oh you've now visited my birds who will come down and swoop and you're like yeah I'm done already I'm already doing two more ramps. It's like, we need quick call-outs. Stop these long, gigantic sentences. Because then I started not really being able to associate where the noise was, what ramp I hit to cause what sound. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that sometimes when they're doing sound call-outs and things like that in Zen, they tend to over-narrate them. And that is a problem. They really need to reference tables in the wild and go, how do they communicate back to the user or the player what they're doing? And really the reason why it's basically little stings is what you're looking for when you do a ramp. Like let's look at No Fear, for example, where it's like you shoot a ramp and it says, do it again. And it's just like that feedback loop that you need to go, oh, I need to do that again. Like that's what you need. You don't need someone to start telling you a story while you're actually shooting a ramp. right? Well, you think about when you shoot a bear ramp in Adam's family, that sound lasts exactly the length of time it takes for the ball to travel around. Correct. It is genius the way they're entering the sound. Yeah. No, you're right. It is distracting to an extent, isn't it? When they do that. Yeah. Son of Zeus is also a not remotely possible in the real world table. yeah this is well and truly stuck in the fantasy realm yes uh it's nice because like lately zen has been focusing quite a bit on semi-realistic tables yeah in their releases um so it's kind of nice to see a pure zen storytelling experience like they're just all about and really within the limitations of regular pinball telling that story is actually quite difficult so yeah going for something of mythology like this is a great fit for a let's just go ridiculous and go fully fantasy. There's not even cabinet walls. It's a floating Mount Olympus, basically. It's floating out there in the world. Anyway, that's some of Zeus. Flip over to Adventureland. Adventureland is very doable, I would say, in a real world and setting. Yeah. Potential to be doable. That double loop roller coaster ramp would be interesting. It needs an accelerator magnet on it, sure, but feasibly possible. Feasibly possible. But I mean, all the toys on it, all the toys are very much doable for the most part. And the backbox game feels very much like it would be for a real table. so it's got that going for it the thing that annoys me with it is it's got their bad voice actor people and it's Predator voice actors what's that? the Predator voice actors yes exactly the guy and the gal and it's just that's why I like that table I played a little bit and I went okay fine and then I went over to Zeus and I went ah, this is what we're talking about. And I just completely forgot about the other one. Like, I don't know. It seems to just be great enough, honestly, to actually form an opinion. The other problem that I had with the table is it's so crowded with stuff, you quickly get distracted and aren't able to actually see what it is you're supposed to be doing. and it wasn't a I had to finally do a table pause the game and do a table fly over and look at the table itself and see what shots are possible, where goes where because I need to find the ticket booth I had no clue where the ticket booth was now I know where it is I couldn't tell you where it was either I was just shooting around it's actually dead center at the very top but the point is that you kind of go you're not even aware that the ticket booth is important because you would have to have read the DMD in order to understand that, oh, you need to buy a ticket in order to activate this mode. And you know how Zen's DMD business is. And because the DMD is rolling by at three times speed, the normal speed can actually crop. Why do they do this? Just slow the animations down, guys. So it took me a little while to kind of figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. And once I figured that out, the game was a little more fun to play. But then I got into this thing. There is a... I think they call it the Sky High. And it's on the left-hand side of the table near the top, and it's basically a twirly ride, you might say. Spinning chair ride, right? Yeah, spinning chair ride. There you go. So I activated it, and it went up, and I hit a shot, and all of a sudden the table zooms in on it, and and you're told, use the flippers to launch the ball. And I was like, I don't even know where the ball is, and what am I launching? Where am I launching? I thought the ball was in the spinning chair, and I was trying to launch it off the spinning chair, and instead it turned out that, no, it was actually in the play field, and it ran around. Yes. A what? That's insane. Yeah, so the spinning chair goes, and the ball launches out from the bottom of the table, and you've got to time it so as the chair is coming around, the ball hits the chair and gets locked in the chair. And so you can lock four balls that way. But you don't know how many games took me to figure that out. Oh, that's ridiculous. The other thing I don't know too much about is that what they call the lissy thing that spins in the back middle. How the hell do you use that? Basically, there's a lit-up line. For those It's a car that is basically going to be going around and around and around in circles in a very tight loop, and your pinball is in this car. So there's a lit-up line of lights, and when the nose of the car hits that, you hit your flippers, and that acts as like an accelerator, and that spins it around one time. And if you mistime it, then the car doesn't do the full loop, and it just rocks back into place, and then your ride is over. Yeah, about one loop, I think. Because I have no... Again, the stupid instructions in this game... Yeah. They just don't give you the level of detail you need in a timely manner. Like they just need to They really need to adjust that timing It really makes for a bad gameplay experience It not fun at all It's where, again, the whole game should pause. The DMD should tell you exactly what you're supposed to do. And then it's going to say, ready, go. And then you go. Think about on Championship Pub when you do Jump Rope. The DMD tells you... Exactly. exactly that's what we need in moving forward they need to actually explain the toys better because they don't at the moment they just assume it's so intuitive because it's got themes and it's not so yeah yeah that's why i think i'm not liking that game because it's just too many intricacies of the table that are poorly explained enjoy it until you actually know it you I shouldn't need to go and read the tutorial and listen to the tutorial to understand how that game works. I should be able to walk up to a game and just play it. Well, because down at the bottom, right above your flippers, there's insert lights that I believe say free ride. I have no idea how to light those. I have no idea what happens when you light those. I'm sure the instructor can tell you. It's not intuitive. Right, but it's not intuitive. on Hercules, I believe each time you hit a mode, you light a letter of his name. I'm not 100% positive on that, but I think that's the case. But again, a simple DMD instruction saying completion of a mode lights a letter of Hercules. Done. I don't know, maybe you normally mean that on the instruction card that is on a real table. This is what I was actually thinking about. Like, there should be a way we call up the instruction card for basic gameplay tips when you're learning this table. Like, it almost should just flash up. You know how people like Abe does the table overview with the history of the game and stuff when you first load the table? It should almost present something like that that allows you to quickly tap through, like, four or five of the key features of the game. and then give you a quick video, like a two-second video run-through of key shots you need to make to do those things, and then let you get into the game. And then let you do that tutorial, that quick start tutorial, I think I'd like to call it, at any point, so you can learn it if you forget it. That would just be such a good user experience if they did that. I mean, it's not hard to call up the instructions. You pause the game, you go into options, and you put table instructions, and then you can read through them. but I don't I think you're the same way typically you walk up to a table and you just start bashing around with it and hope that you're going to figure some things out and then when you want to know more you start actually reading other things but with Zen tables that that's almost the surest way to not enjoy their table that's it you know You know, maybe we as consumers, we're kind of mixing the lines between pinball and video game here. Maybe. Maybe the idea with Zen, it'd be interesting to actually hear some of the guys from Zen comment on this. So I might flag them in the podcast to see if they want to respond. But I feel that sometimes you actually need to get that, almost like read the game manual, like you write normally with a video game, to understand the particular things, the features in that table, understand how to play. So I'm just wondering if each table is kind of like a mini video game within itself rather than a pinball machine in the way that it's supposed to be intuitively understood by the gameplay. Maybe tutorials is actually something that needs to be given more, I guess, wait when you're actually using Xen somehow. It would really be a good idea if you just took five minutes to familiarize yourself with the tutorial because you're going to enjoy the game a lot more if you do. And if they said that at the beginning of the onboarding for each new table, that might actually be better than just going, here's a table, have fun. Oh, and also there's instructions, but you could be going through a menu to get those. It might be nice to actually have that information a little bit more in the user experience. I think for me that would actually make me go, okay, it's important enough that you might want to read the instructions first. As a user, that says to me, well, perhaps I should actually give this a little bit more time than just going in and playing initially. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know either. but all I know is that in the matter of, what, two months, Zen has now dropped five tables. Yeah, pretty solid. And let's be serious. Let's just take pause for a minute. These tables are actually free for those who got on to it early. So really, regardless of what the tables are or aren't or how they present the instructions, that's pretty good value. Yeah. Right? I would say so. So thank you. So thanks, Zen, for at least giving them to the console communities because, you know, Christmas presents are good. We'll wait on mobile for now until you merge the tiles. Please, please just merge Zen 2 into Zen 3. Just stop branching them out. Well, that was what I noticed. But, you know, just do it. That was what I noticed. with... So my wife gave me my Christmas present early, which wound up being an iPhone 7 Plus. And so now I have a screen that's big enough that I can actually play pinball on, and more importantly, I have enough memory that I can actually have tables on it. Kind of handy. Yeah, it does come in handy. And the thing that bugs me with Zen right now is you can get... For free, you were able to get basically Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars. But it was in the Star Wars app. It's not in the Zen app. You can play all three Alien tables for free. But it's only in the Alien app. None of it transfers over to the Zen app. So I wound up having... Oh, plus they have their eSports app. so I've got like four different Zen apps yeah this is because I haven't bought anything on for the phone you know it's certainly different if you want free you get them fragmented if you want them all in one place you pay for it I guess yep but even still it would be nice for first to just all finally be under one app completely and be done and you can erase all the other stuff. It would. You can do that. You've just got to pay for them. You can absolutely do that, Chris. You've got to spend some money there, mate. So go do that. Okay, fine. You know, I was just posting about the podcast here on our Twitter feed and lo and behold I see an announcement from Stern about Guardians of the Galaxy and they've got two new songs. So they just added in. I want you back from Jackson 5 and Eat No Mountain High Enough from Morbid Gay. Oh, very nice. It sounds like they're licensing them as they get approvals for them. It sounds like it. It sounds like it. I have a short story about that where they're actually trickle-feeding the songs as like, wow, look how good we are with answering the community feedback, whereas really they've been negotiating these for the last eight or nine months, and they're trickle-feeding releasing them out. does. I would buy that. I would totally buy that. Because Stan, oh, look how good we are. We're actually just stage-releasing all the music to make us look really good. Fig jam. Yeah. Maybe once all the music is out, then that's when you'll know that the code is finally finished. That could be actually a very good point. so uh yeah yeah uh before we we part ways because uh we don't have that much to talk about this week but jared does go for it jared yeah i do so i have got um someone has taken me up on my kind offer to store pinball machines so in this particular case uh i've got another one that I'm going to do up a bit for the guy who I did the Jackster Open for. Well and truly out of room in his warehouse and he needs somewhere to house this thing. And it's a bit of a long, a long tail restoration on it, but he is looking at, yeah, keeping it at place for an extended, extended period of time. So this one is an interesting title. It's Star Race by Gottlieb. Now, Star Race is one low-run Gottlieb. There was only 800 of these produced. And as I found out, it's actually rather sought after title because of its scarcity. So I've got a bit of a sleeper here in the house. It's a pinball machine, so one that's been imported in from Africa. so that means that the cabinet is really quite rough. But this playfield on this one is probably the best I've seen out of all of the African pins. There doesn't appear to be very much playfield damage on it at all. I think we might have some slant lifting of insert numbers and stuff like that. But no planking? Yeah, no, no planking, no. the underside of the playfield where all the bits are attached, very good conditions. There's only a couple of scorch marks from some coils that have gone bad. And the top of the playfield, because there aren't any cooked coils, hasn't suffered from heat damage or any sort of burnt fruit. So all the art is looking really quite good. The plastics are in really good condition. So, yeah, it's a very interesting game. this particular game, you know how there's godly wide bodies, then there's godly super wide bodies. Basically, it's one and a half pinballs in one. It's a square. It is quite literally this thing is it's like a little, I think genie is of the same ilk. Yeah, genie's king. And this is the same. It's got a lot of real estate on this play field. It's got two very targets. it's got a total of eight drop targets it's got a very interesting ball path in the top left hand corner where the ball loops back on itself and comes back down but I think it's got one of the longest shots and pinball as well as from the the left hand side of the playfield to the right and to the upper loop area so there it a pretty interesting looking table the arts really nice on its very green of course because of a sea theme It sort of strange It like a space sea theme It's very green. But it looks really nice. The back glass, unfortunately, is in terrible shape. But I'll just get a Translight printed up for it on there. I'm not really too concerned, to be perfectly honest. The back glass is up, and I really focus on it. It's all in the play field for me. So the boards are actually with a guy at the moment getting completely shopped. So they're being worked on, which is good because it'll be then basically factory fresh again. Yeah. So it should be really quite reliable. I think the ground mod that all Godleafs kind of need done will need to be done as well on it. But that's fine. That really is something you need to do when you get all the boards together. You need to link them together with the ground. but from a missing bits perspective which is often a bit of a problem with these Africans I've only noticed one there's a bracket that these would be on so that's missing but I know where I can get one of those very cheap so no problems with that at all. Everything else is complete I'm just missing some flipper parts on one of the flipper bats all the other flipper parts are being Godly, pretty solid. So Godly Yeah, yeah. Pinball Resource has new stuff. So I'm coming. Well, they've got the rights to produce all that stuff. Yeah, they've got heaps of parts. I mean, the guy that I've got this from has a ready stock of Godly parts because they deal in a lot of Godly's there. So I'm just probably going to go through him because Pinball Resource as an international customer is just a punish. Like you've got to do a small order. Because it's weird. The guy will actually... You pay when you receive the parts. Yep. It's really weird. So from an international perspective, of course, I totally understand this. He's like, oh, maybe just do like a rubber order. Order a rubber kit. I'll make sure you're good. And then go nuts, basically. I'll send you whatever you need. Right. But look, for the amount of parts I'd need to order for this to get working for the bloke, like, you know, we're talking, I reckon I'll probably get like an entire set of parts, included strokes and everything, rubber kit, everything for like 300 bucks from this bloke. Oh, nice. Pay the money and just get everything, basically. Yeah. New drop targets, everything. So we'll work at a price and get it done. But it's a beautiful looking table. I've got to say it's very slow sounds like fun it's going to be busy, I've actually got the bottom of the cabinet off at the moment because naturally the supply with the bottom is chipboard and being an African it's rotted completely so yesterday was just hammering through it and ripping it out and I've got it down to a layer of two ply around all the edges So I can put in a new 15 mil sheet of MDF or ply into that space and it's going to be really nice and tight. Okay. Like a whole pile of construction adhesive on there and really get it back to secure again because it's pretty wobbly at the moment. It's fun. Like I think it's going to be fun to do this one up. I have heard though with this particular era of pinball is that everything is lead paint. so you've got to be pretty careful from what I hear it's lead paint all the way through the 90s yeah because you're right actually because commercially I think in the US they banned lead paint for home use but for commercial use there was no limitation on it so yeah like it's lead everywhere I don't quite know what to do about it because the cabinet of course is planked and looks like crap I might just spray a bit of clear over it, like clear coat Tupac, but just like varnish, like spray varnish. If you're not sitting there trying to make it absolutely piano smooth, then who cares? The guys that are having to do that sanding job, they're wanting it to be basically a new car. so if you're not doing that yeah just varnish it and be done with it yeah I just like I'll just give it a really really light slam probably like the vacuum cleaner there sucking up all the dirt while I'm doing it and that will probably get rid of a whole lot of the risk with the lead paint and then I'll just clear coat over it and then I can just use acrylics to go over the clear coat and just touch it up and then put another layer on top job's done right I don't really care the play field, not sure it might be a candidate that it could do with a clear but I don't have the equipment to do it, I don't even know if you can get two pack in aerosol or not I've heard people have the only issue that anybody says with the aerosol is that you're you can't control the spray You know what I mean? It might all of a sudden sputter. That's the only issue with the cans, as opposed to if you had it with a compressor. But you also figure what you're spraying is such quick shots that it might not even be an issue at all. There's where you get your king out of it for getting a board out and having a go and just trying it out and seeing what happens before doing the real thing. of wood and having a shot with it. That would be a really inexpensive way of trying. Yeah. I might end up doing it. I know a guy that did the paint-on lacquer for his Gorgar, and it looked beautiful in the end. Oh, really? He actually painted it on? He painted it on. It wasn't two-part automotive clear. It was just a hard lacquer, like what you would coat a wood floor with. I'd be okay with that. I don't really think for this era of pinball, I don't really know if 2-pack is maybe the way to go. It would look nice. Yeah, I mean, a lacquer's going to look nice too. The main thing with clearing is that the colors are going to suddenly pop. So that'll be nice. I think I should at least give it a go. But this thing is something that I can just play around with. so that there's no rush. I can just take my time with it. I really don't have any sort of – I think the only thing that's going to drive me forward is just getting the cabinet done so I can put it on its legs and then have the guy come over and just make sure the boards are actually working all right because he's going to come over, install them, or I'm going to pick up the boards, put them in, connect them, then he's going to drive over because he's got like a truck just full of components. so he can actually do site repairs on boards most of the time so gonna come over and do that what he's going to do is i think pilot warranty he will verify that all the boards work so if if he turns on the machine and something goes wrong it's up to him to fix it basically so um i want him to actually do it and i think there might be some you know in the bottom of the cabinet how it's got the transformer and the main house fine in the bottom right that will be something he'll need to convert to 240 volt line voltage for me because it's African voltage at the moment. I do not want to stuff with that. Count me out for that. So yeah, happy for him to just do that work and get it done really well. And then I know it's going to work really nicely and be a strong contender. So there you have it, folks. It's going to be a fun project. yeah you'll be hearing much more about it in our podcast coming up as Jared works his way through it he'll be paying you back for all the firepower I got nothing here yeah maybe now that I can actually stand for I can stand for maybe a half an hour with no issues I might actually be able to start getting back into some stuff just do it slowly if I stand any longer than that my knee starts kind of walking up on me and that's not good yet so the good thing is that for both of us these things that we have in our house they aren't going they have legs but they're not going to walk off anywhere so you can just take your time and do it at your own pace and no one's pressuring you to get it done so get it done in your own time yeah all right folks well it's uh that time meaning if you want to follow us do so on twitter at blockade is the show's handle if you want to follow myself i am at shot your traps jared is at jared morgues why don't you go ahead and visit our website which is blockade pinball.com there you can find past shows as well as show notes and websites when we talk about websites links to that kind of business. And as mentioned earlier, you can always drop us an email at blahblahblockade at gmail.com Quick note, we did have our Zen tournament with Force Awakens and I was very disappointed in myself. I didn't make the top five. I failed by 400,000 points. Which is infuriating to me. But it was really hard to get that score to begin with, too. Oh well. this week, which probably will be over by the time this podcast airs, we are playing Son of Zeus because, hey, it's free and I figured we'd be able to get a lot of people Why not? Because it's a great table. Yes. And because it's so new, it's actually going to be interesting, right? Because everyone's fresh with this one. Right. Nobody should have mastered it yet, I hope. Hmm. Oh, maybe PinballWiz45B might have. He's not playing in our tournaments. I don't know. He's like dismissed himself from our tournaments. he played the very first one and has not played in since must be busy busy, lucky him, alright folks so until next time, which we don't know when that will be, thank you so much for listening probably sometime in the new year we'll see you in the new year, right? let's agree to that we can definitely agree to that we can definitely promise that we'll give you a podcast in the new year sometime, so how about that in 2018, there will be I'll go so far as to say, there will be more than two. There'll be more than two podcasts. That's a big thing to make, but let's go with it. New Year's resolution? Big tick. Yes. We set big goals here. We'll talk to you again soon. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye. See you later. WizardAmusement.com. The site to visit for custom pinball shooter modes. Easy to install. Totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. river amusement.com sales restoration customization don't forget to leave a review on itunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to we can't improve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v1)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 18f2f330-3d37-4514-9d46-043f39505819*