# Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 59: We Done Did D&D **Source:** The Pinball Network **Type:** video **Published:** 2025-01-11 **Duration:** 96m 47s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEurUE1nxg4 --- ## Analysis Triple Drain Pinball Podcast hosts Joel, Travis, and Tom discuss their experience at Stern Pinball's Dungeons & Dragons media day with guest Retro Ralph. The episode covers Ralph's transition from arcade collecting to pinball enthusiasm, details about D&D's game design (deep ruleset, 12 modes, extensive voice acting), and dealer/distributor confidence in the game's commercial viability. The hosts analyze what makes D&D succeed where recent Stern titles like Venom struggled, emphasizing audio design, voice cast delivery, and mode variety as key differentiators. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] D&D contains approximately 11,000+ voiceover lines with multiple character deliveries — _Elizabeth (Stern) stated this figure; Travis confirms 'That's what Elizabeth said.' and mentions comparison to Comp at 300 lines_ - [HIGH] D&D has 12 total modes across 6 towns with varying mode distribution (2 towns with 2 modes, 2 with 3, 2 with 1) — _Elizabeth explained town/mode breakdown during media day; Joel validates: 'That's twelve modes total'_ - [HIGH] D&D layout is significantly more accessible and open than Venom — _Tom: 'This layout is like ten times better than Venom... it's pretty open game... it's accessible'_ - [HIGH] Venom underperformed compared to other recent Stern releases, per Stern's own assessment — _Travis: 'Venom didn't perform compared to the other pinball machines that have come out. And Stern has said as much.'_ - [HIGH] Distributors and dealers are committing to D&D allocation across the board — _Travis: 'sounds like pretty much everybody's in. This is a game that they're prepared to sell, and sell well' and 'I feel confident saying that this LE will sell through by Stern'_ - [HIGH] Star Wars was vaulted (delicensed) and was the primary hook for new players — _Travis: 'Star Wars just got vaulted, right?... That was the number one theme that would hook a brand new player to pinball'_ - [HIGH] Brian Eddy's previous design (Venom) did not perform well commercially — _Travis: 'Venom didn't perform compared to the other pinball machines that have come out'_ - [HIGH] D&D uses Jerry Thompson for sound design — _Travis: 'Jerry Thompson, right, is on—' with implicit confirmation from Joel_ - [HIGH] D&D has 7 total playable characters (4 standard + 3 unlockable) with unique ad-libbed dialogue variations — _Elizabeth stated unlockables, Travis notes 'each character... they all ad-libbed differently' with distinct traits_ - [HIGH] Retro Ralph transitioned from 48 arcade games to approximately 6 pinball machines over roughly 3 years — _Ralph: 'I went from 48 arcade games down to three... now I have just pinball and a couple of arcade games'_ ### Notable Quotes > "You feel it immediately as soon as you hit start. That's the thing." > — **Travis**, mid-episode > _Describes the immediate audio/design hook of D&D that differentiates it from X-Men; emphasizes importance of moment-to-moment engagement in modern pinball_ > "This layout is like ten times better than Venom... it's accessible, right?" > — **Tom**, mid-episode > _Direct comparison showing design improvement; validates accessibility as key design goal for Brian Eddy's return to dynamic layouts_ > "Star Wars just got vaulted, right?... That was the number one theme that would hook a brand new player to pinball." > — **Travis**, mid-episode > _Identifies Star Wars delicensing as major market gap; positions D&D's commercial importance as replacement theme for new player acquisition_ > "I feel confident saying that this LE will sell through by Stern. And I think distributors and dealers will sell out of it eventually." > — **Travis**, late-episode > _Strong dealer/distributor confidence signal; Travis's professional perspective as pinball company employee carries weight in market forecasting_ > "I guarantee you, within three years from this time, you're going to sell the majority of your arcade collection for pinball machines." > — **Arcade Hollywood (reported by Ralph)**, early-episode > _Documents conversion narrative common in pinball community; validates crossover appeal and FOMO dynamics from arcade collector perspective_ > "There's 11,000 voiceover lines... Each character... they all deliver it differently. They all ad-libbed differently." > — **Travis (summarizing Elizabeth)**, mid-episode > _Reveals voice acting depth as intentional design differentiator; demonstrates Stern's commitment to audio as primary marketing/engagement vector_ > "X-Men needs to get better very quickly... the missions don't feel that interesting to me. Like, I feel like I'm in and out of them." > — **Travis**, early-episode > _Identifies engagement/hook problem in recent Stern title; explains why mission-based games struggle on surface without deep rules knowledge_ > "You have to hit certain beats, and it has to feel like you're getting constantly re-hooked in over and over again." > — **Joel**, mid-episode > _Articulates core game design philosophy for modern pinball; explains moment-to-moment engagement requirements independent of rules depth_ > "I don't see this as sitting around too long, which is great." > — **Travis**, late-episode > _Predicts rapid sell-through; validates market confidence from distributor/dealer perspective; contrasts with underperforming titles_ > "Every new game, if in your in the back of your head, you're thinking, 'I might want this game,' what that means is you've got to get rid of one of your games." > — **Joel**, mid-episode > _Describes home collector space constraints and FOMO dynamics; explains why D&D media day creates urgency for addition/subtraction decisions_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Retro Ralph | person | Pinball content creator and podcast co-host; transitioned from 48 arcade games to ~6 pinball machines; attended D&D media day; operates Electric Bat Arcade; new to competitive pinball community (~3 years) | | Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye | game | Newly revealed Stern Pinball title; designed by Brian Eddy with co-designer credits; features dragon mech, 11,000+ voiceover lines, 12 modes, 7 playable characters, accessible dynamic layout; subject of media day event | | Brian Eddy | person | Stern Pinball designer; previous title was Venom (underperformed); D&D designer featuring return to dynamic layout after years of other approaches | | Dwight Sullivan | person | Stern Pinball code designer/programmer; presented D&D rules and guided media day playtesters through game modes alongside Elizabeth | | Elizabeth | person | Stern Pinball staff member present at D&D media day; explained voice acting implementation, character variations, and mode structure; also mentioned as 'Geese' (possible phonetic mishearing by hosts) | | Star Wars Pinball | game | Recently vaulted (delicensed) Stern title; was primary theme for attracting new players; cited as major market gap D&D must fill | | Venom | game | Recent Stern title designed by Brian Eddy; underperformed commercially vs. other recent releases; criticized for layout; serves as negative comparison point for D&D's design improvements | | Uncanny X-Men | game | Recent Stern release; played by hosts; mission-based design criticized for lack of engagement hooks; compared unfavorably to D&D's moment-to-moment engagement | | Jaws | game | Recent Stern Premium title in Travis's collection; praised for theme integration and extra modes; likely to remain in his lineup | | Metallica Remastered | game | Recent Stern release; in Travis's collection; praised as 'fun' with strong player appeal; competing with D&D for space in collector lineup | | Godzilla | game | Stern release from post-COVID period; reference point for flipper bushing improvements in subsequent releases; in Travis's collection as 'Godzilla Color' variant | | John Wick | game | Recent Stern Limited Edition title; in Travis's collection; potentially at risk of being sold to make room for D&D | | Terminator 2 | game | Classic pinball title; recently acquired by Ralph; being used to learn vintage game maintenance and repair | | Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; organized media day event for D&D; has allocation/distribution system requiring dealer commitment; invites media creators and distributors for product reveals | | Travis | person | Co-host of Triple Drain Podcast; works for a pinball distribution/sales company; attended D&D media day; evaluates games from both enthusiast and business perspectives; responsible for allocation decisions | | Joel | person | Co-host/primary host of Triple Drain Podcast; collector with 6+ machines; analyzes game engagement theory and design philosophy; manages podcast Patreon funds | | Tom | person | Co-host of Triple Drain Podcast; collector with significant collection (85 machines referenced); attended D&D media day; evaluates accessibility and mode depth | | Jerry Thompson | person | Sound designer for D&D Pinball; responsible for voice casting and audio implementation | | Arcade Hollywood | person | Arcade YouTuber and friend who introduced Ralph to pinball; predicted Ralph's transition from arcade to pinball collecting | | Pinball Expo | event | Major pinball community event where Ralph was introduced to pinball and began collecting journey; attended by industry figures and media creators | ### Topics - **Primary:** D&D Pinball Design and Features, Stern Media Day Event and Dealer/Distributor Response, Game Audio Design and Voice Acting Implementation, Comparison to Recent Stern Titles (Venom, X-Men) - **Secondary:** Home Collector Space Constraints and Purchase Decisions, Transition from Arcade to Pinball Collecting, Game Accessibility vs. Depth Design Philosophy, Distributor and Dealer Business Perspectives ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Strong enthusiasm for D&D across all hosts and guest; confidence in commercial success and game quality. Minor concerns about X-Men missions and uncertainty about maintaining engagement at home vs. media day environment. Nostalgic appreciation for pinball history and community. No major criticism of D&D itself. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Strong distributor/dealer commitment to D&D allocation across the board; confidence in rapid sell-through of LE variant (confidence: high) — Travis: 'pretty much everybody's in... I feel confident saying that this LE will sell through by Stern... I don't see this as sitting around too long' - **[community_signal]** Stern organized dealer/distributor pre-media day event for allocation decisions; indicates strategic approach to managing supply commitment and distributor confidence (confidence: high) — Travis: 'Stern invited the distributors and dealers up too. Prior to the media, that morning' for joint evaluation before media day - **[event_signal]** Stern hosted media day with factory tour, designer presentations (Brian Eddy, Dwight Sullivan), and extended gameplay sessions; coordinated with separate dealer/distributor event for allocation decisions (confidence: high) — Joel: 'not only factory tour, but then... Brian Eddy and Dwight did a great explanation... they just let us play... for however many hours' - **[competitive_signal]** D&D accessible layout contrasts with technical depth; designed to appeal to both new players and experienced tournament competitors; 12 modes provide exploration variety vs. linear progression (confidence: high) — Tom: 'it's pretty open game... accessible' yet 'I was surprised at how really deep this game is going to be... doesn't... it just keeps building and building' - **[design_philosophy]** Soldered component connections criticized as barrier to consumer maintenance; absence of quick-connect options (Molex) noted despite availability in some manufacturer products (confidence: medium) — Ralph: 'I'm shocked that no one's got like quick connects for components... someone should do... There are manufacturers that do that... Molex connector instead of [solder]' - **[design_philosophy]** D&D emphasizes moment-to-moment engagement through audio hooks (voice cast, sound design) and accessible yet deep ruleset; contrasts with X-Men's mission-based approach criticized as monotonous (confidence: high) — Travis: 'You feel it immediately as soon as you hit start... that's the thing.' Joel: 'you have to hit certain beats, and it have to feel like you're getting constantly re-hooked' - **[licensing_signal]** D&D voice cast of 18 named actors with 11,000+ lines indicates significant IP licensing investment and expectation of celebrity appeal as primary marketing vector (confidence: high) — Travis: 'When they put the names of the voice cast, that means it means something. And so, you have to fully expect that they're going to utilize that voice cast.' - **[market_signal]** Star Wars delicensing creates significant new-player acquisition gap; D&D positioned as replacement hook for theme-driven casual appeal (confidence: high) — Travis: 'Star Wars just got vaulted... That was the number one theme that would hook a brand new player to pinball' and 'without Star Wars... you still need those themes' - **[community_signal]** Retro Ralph's documented transition from arcade to pinball collector exemplifies broader market trend; retention of only premium/unique arcade titles (SF2 Champion Edition, rare Sinistar cockpit) mirrors specialization pattern (confidence: medium) — Ralph: 'I went from 48 arcade games down to three... kept original Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition, Sinistar, Paperboy... rare Sinistar cockpit version' - **[product_concern]** X-Men mission design fails to maintain engagement hooks; modes feel repetitive and lack narrative/mechanical variety despite technical depth (confidence: medium) — Travis: 'missions don't feel that interesting to me... I feel like I'm in and out of them' and 'everything just kind of feels same, same' - **[product_strategy]** D&D features 7 playable characters with intentional unlocking progression and unique voice deliveries; developers expect players to complete game to access preferred characters (confidence: high) — Travis: 'when you beat the game, you unlock three more... they all ad-libbed differently... I really hope that people spend the time to work through the game' - **[sentiment_shift]** Brian Eddy's reputation recovery: Venom underperformance offset by D&D's positive reception and return to dynamic layouts after years of other approaches (confidence: high) — Travis: 'Venom didn't perform... And Stern has said as much.' Tom: 'This layout is like ten times better than Venom' --- ## Transcript [Music] the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast we are back we're back perfect this is the uh this is our episode that we're releasing Before Christmas right that was the goal to get uh that's your guys fault not mine knock one Christmas of 2025 yeah wasn't that that it was like hey we'll definitely get one in for the holidays um we didn't we didn't do that don't make promises your ass can't cash Jo which I'm which I'm pretty sure we made a promise before Thanksgiving too and we didn't keep that one either so uh to anybody that clicked on this thank you for sticking with us um thank you for the patreon supporters that are supporting us through months that we uh don't record so really thank you for that supporting Joel but that's not to okay so that is true Joel spends all the money not us I haven't spent like any of the money anyways so it's uh did you invest it no no it's just sitting there it's sitting there and we we had this conversation all time what what should we do guys should we do this should we do last time we pulled out money for Expo we're like let's let's put this towards Expo travel that was the thought but anyways enough about that uh we have a guest today did you see any money Travis did you my work paid for I don't know where Joel puts all this at he's probably he's probably investing in L's to flip them I bet that's what he does it's just anyways well thank you thank you for the people that support us and I don't hial welcome to this for thanks for having me love behind the scen you guys bust on Joel just as much as on the show so it's like oh it's yeah the jokes right themselves Ralph the jokes right themselves um we have retro Ralph here um so I'm assuming it's retro Ralph on all the socials is that right that's pretty much it yeah pretty much so um feel free to check out is YouTube but the reason we invited Ralph on here is because he was also at the um the Dungeons and Dragons media day so the goal for this episode uh is we want to talk about Dungeons and Dragons but uh before we dive into that we have to hit the button we have to play the song So Tom can do his dance are we everybody good Travis you good let's roll Tom great yeah perfect here we go we're three guys who like to talk and all so we came up with a CL our name we're Jo Andis talk all and we call ourselves triple train triple train triple train we're triple triple train we did it okay we've done it um real quick uh it's it's snowing outside right now Travis is it snowing in in St Louis yes I'm officially calling this the um the first holiday episode of 2025 for Christmas the wow okay and just to be clear first to Market that's how we roll it snowed a lot of inches Sunday night do you own a snow shovel yet no no okay so Ralph you live out in Arizona right yeah it's actually seasonably a bit cold here right now it's 57 de but it's 57 and sunny so I'm feeling I'm feeling pretty good right now so you don't need a snow shovel where you're at there is no snow shovel required although you go an hour and a half and you can have plenty of snow in like Flag Staff or Sedona if you want to do that so so you have that option see I'm just I'm just using Ralph strats Joel that's it that's not how's it working for you because you almost didn't come to the media day cuz you're like I'm snowed in like oh my God you would have thought it was an apocalypse out I know yeah I got there didn't I so just to clarify did you just move to a snowy place or something or like why did you ago no I've lived here for about 3 years now 3 years ago and you don't have a shovel no no come on you have one you're just this is just a bit right no there is no bits do you do just throw it into reverse and just just pile just R right no no no no his his driveway got shoveled his driveway got shoveled who who shoveled your driveway Travis Monica did Monica did and where did she get a shovel you Outsource it she got it from the neighbor that's the he life now would be really cool if you told me you had one of those like remember when like didn't Elon Musk make like a flamethrower I want if you did that that'd be awesome that'd be badass no I'm glad you mentioned that Ral cuz I literally did tell my wife we need that that exact thing and she just looked at me and just turned around and walked out the door so how cool would that be that pretty cool yeah I we I wouldn't have an issue with snow out my driveway that's for sure I appreciate Ralph that you think we have bit this is all real what what you see is what you get holy crap it's all been real this whole time this is like a whole new world for me right now this is it okay so um media day basically we got an email uh looks like Stern actually sent out an email to a whole lot of media creators in in um in the pinball uh Creator space and it was middle of December so they just said hey just heads up you know we're going to be unveiling a day our our game coming soon they didn't say what the game was this was before the trailer and they just told us what was it January 7th like that's a Tuesday what and um lucky for Travis Tom and I we're all within driving distance so we're like whatever we'll we'll give it a go like I mean They begged us to come so yeah and um but we had no idea who all would be there we had no idea who all would be there and uh to my surprise people like Ralph you know you guys you bought a plane ticket and you were there and uh it was awesome there was a great group of people there um and we had a great time um not only factory tour but then um Brian Eddy and Dwight did a great explanation of the game and then they just let us play they just let us play the game for however many hours and we had a good time um you got to play it Joel I played it just a few times yeah few times wish in hindsight I wish they would have had more than three because there were definitely more than there were I mean there were four player games going non-stop but um before we get into uh before we get into our thoughts on D and Ralph you're when did you get into like you're relatively new to this right so I got into pinball from a buddy of mine uh he has a YouTube channel too his name is arcade Hollywood and he was like really into like the arcade side of things right he he does a ton of stuff or last year he didn't but he's he's done for years he's helped with pinball Expo and um so he one year he goes well hey why don't you come to pinball Expo and my my reaction was like can we go to can we go to gal and go somewhere there like honestly I didn't even care I was like I was like I because I don't know I just I didn't know the I didn't know the world that I'm in now until until then so but it was the year I think it would have been the year after covid right because it was the Godzilla was the premier game in the stern area okay and and and I left that event going oh my gosh like I want to buy a pinball machine like I need one of these like how did I not know and I was so shocked at how many people like I thought we were going to walk into this pinball Expo and it was going to be like not that many people cuz I didn't understand the popular I don't know how because I was so deep in the arcade space but I think I would always just go to those like very arcade Centric locations that didn't necessarily highlight pinball but yeah so I just fell in love with it and then I bought my first game like probably a couple of months after that I bought a Jurassic Park Pro a used one and then it was just from there it yeah it just it just took off from there and he he said to me privately and many people did at that pinball X they were like I guarantee you within 3 years from this time you're going to sell the majority of your arcade collection for pinball machines and that's kind of actually happened I only have like I went from 48 arcade games down to three wow wow wow and my now I have just pinball and in like a couple of arcade games so so what's the three arcades you kept because obviously you must really love those arcades if they're still in your collection I have an original um Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition that's it's it's mostly original there's some that that those cabinets were kind of like Universal but it was it was a street fighter too um and then I have a Sinar which is a which is like a game that a lot of people don't like because they they don't know how to play it really hard yeah they think it's asteroids and they just shoot a bunch of stuff and then Sinar kills them in two seconds and they're like what happened I'm like well you have to mine the crystals to you know has a strategy to it sounds like Joel playing pinball so understand uh the third one is uh which I actually I might get rid of but the third one is paper boy just cuz I I like the unique controls of paper boy it's a very cool controller yeah you there's one more but whatever used to do wa wait there's one more hang on Joel what's the one more Ralph there's one more the one more is like this rare version of Sinar so I have two it's the cockpit version of it okay but it's like to sell it you have to find a unique buyer because it's this like it's like a I mean it's like a vehicle I mean it's like a little car so oh wow it's kind of yeah it's kind of unique you still have some like emulators and stuff though right I do have that I didn't count that so A couple of multi Cades and then I have an American pinball product apparently I have the the poly Cade something from American I guess it's not American pinball but they distribute it I guess or something I still don't understand that partnership to be honest but yeah nobody does well well okay I mean my path we we don't have to get into everything but my path was similar which was all arcade and then you get pinball and then you're hooked and all of a sudden all your arcade are gone cuz that's money or space that could go towards pinball and I know you have a a heavy um arcade oneup background modding emulating you know I've seen some of your stuff on that and um yeah so all the arcade games I have have been replaced with a chix cabinet with a pinor box and I'm good with that you know your Nostalgia itch that way right so so but what the reason I was asking this though is cu now you actually have a pretty good collection but it's all I mean it's all modern like it's all within the last two years right like what what's your current lineup pretty much so I have Jaws premium which I've made look like an LA that's I am the one weird thing about me though is I've got I I still really enjoy I enjoy like making them my own too like at first it was more about that and less about playing less about like getting hardcore into the gameplay and it's only been over the last like year and a half that I started playing more on location and being like wow I I really love like learning the Deep rules of a game even so so that that that's I think that's what's really attracted me to it it's the wow there's so much more than than just what meets the eye right there's it goes very deep and and well depend different games Do Right some are higher level that are easier and some go really deep so uh it's Jaws it's Uncanny X-Men which uh Tom seemed to got rid of his very quickly Pro or premium it was there for like a day it's all Travis's fault it's the Le on the the on the uncan uh John Wick leie I I get beat up for that one uh I traded my Godzilla color for the the the black and white okay um I really honestly and it's weird someone else I think it's the who's the guy from stumblr that does all the mods Davey yeah Davey claimed on a video that his black and white played better than his color and I agree with that I feel like either that or I've just gotten that much better I feel like I just play better on the black and white so I don't know if like geometry wise they tweaked something things on the black and white I don't know I'm assuming it has the new bushings so ever since after Godzilla it was when stranger things came out is when now all the flipper mechs have their the bushings have a tighter tolerance so pretty much any game that's been made after stranger things has that so there are yeah if you get a Godzilla that was made today colored Edition it's gonna the flippers are going to feel stronger than a Godzilla on reveal and me 40 bushings probably I think they're like two bucks of set they're to not saying you haven't spent these games are expensive Jo yeah yeah yeah I got I got rid of um I had to get rid of something because I can only fit six up against the wall although I do or five up against the wall so I have um you know in order them to be spaced so that you can kind of like have room move the game yeah so I um I got rid of venom for Metallica remastered cuz I really really fell in love with it when we when we got to play it a good choice that game is so much fun I think I think everybody listening will agree with that decision except for hottie shout out Frisco pinball but uh it's uh Venom's I mean I had fun with Venom but Metallica remastered is incredible yeah I love it and then I do have one um I mean I'd consider it an older game but I guess you know you can go back to e know EMS would be like probably considered the older games but um I just got a Terminator 2 and I and so I've been kind of and I I I was like on the I I wanted a Terminator 2 even when I wasn't into pinball because I wanted to put it next to my Terminator 2 arcade game because I had the shooting game yeah uh and I really there's a whole story on terminat 2 but it would it would take too long so and it's not that interesting so I wouldn't go into it here but I'm loving that because I'm getting into like I just changed the coils on the flippers so I'm like really trying to get into like what is what is it like to maintain the older games yeah um but speak you appreciate the newer ones even more well speaking of that the one thing that I'm shocked at getting into this hobby because I have been tinkering a lot more I'm kind of shocked that it's solder joints on everything like I'm shocked that no one's got like quick connects for components I feel like that's something that someone should do there there are manufa does do they okay pretty sure yeah I me I don't mind but like if you think the general consumer trying to get like some like someone off the street that doesn't maybe feel comfortable soldering something because I've had cold solder joints on several of my games but I just you know go under there boop boop and I'm done but y there are some some manufacturers do that where all major coils or or mechs are have a MOX connector instead of uh so you could swap out the whole Mech by literally unplugging it but um yeah yeah but I I wanted to I wanted to ask about your collection because I it sounds like you're at a point where a lot of people get which is like I can fit four games down here you can fit six so now every new game if in your in the back of your head you're thinking I might want this game what that means is you got to get rid of one of your games and so yeah that's now that the listeners know you know Jaws Godzilla Wick X-Men and Metallica those are your five and and Terminator 2 yeah and Terminator 2 so it's like this game so D and D you know you show up just like we did is this a game that I may buy you know you're comparing it to those six while Tom's comparing it to his 85 games he own I don't have that many Joel and uh okay 84 my bad and uh are you going to ask me right now if I had to get rid of something cuz I I'm like I'm already like going through my mind thinking which one's out the door which one's out the door and why is it John Wick be an arcade game say an arcade game you're making a huge ass assumption that I that I want DND d i I was there with you I saw you play you saw the twinkle you saw the twinkle I know you saw it damn it was I made it that obvious no I spoiler alert most of us enjoyed the game most of us enjoyed it a lot yeah I really did which one's which one's on the way out that's what we want to know all right so I'm going to I'm going to say right now I I'm really torn between two because there's no way Godzilla's leaving Metallica I've like really fallen in love with like the game is just fun like you you play it and you smile like it's just fun I don't know I have so much fun with it so I can't imagine Metallica Jaws I just feel like man the the way they integrated the theme is just too cool and then I love that they went above and beyond with all those extra modes like I I was talking to um uh Elizabeth geese it's Elizabeth righteth and I was like man I love the shark is broken like you're so that was such a creative cool thing like I actually like that more than the other one the other mode they did the topper mode yeah the eight bit mode okay yeah I like it better than that but I just there's a cool like horror you know creepy vibe to it um but so that leaves Wick and X-Men now X-Men needs to get better very quickly because I'm just kind of sick of going through the miss the missions don't feel that interesting to me like I feel like I'm in and out of them and I'm like oh cool like it doesn't I don't know am I am I alone with that thought I just feel like they you now know why Tom sold the game Am I Wrong Tom am I am I speaking out of turn Travis killed it that's all I'm gonna say he keep blaming me for it I just know where the points are Tom so I shoot it where I mean and you absolutely right and let me tell you the points are flowing from that Center ramp I think what we're all figuring out is and Ralph you're probably figuring this out too it's whenever you're you're playing pinball and you start realizing what's happening with the rules whether or not it's points or whether or not it's just the story yeah of the game you have to you have to hit certain beats and it has to feel like you're getting constantly reh hooked in over and over again so I talked to a lot of people about this that it's like as soon as you hit the start button that's the first hook right like hearing the sounds and you feel like you're pulled in then it's as soon as you plunge does that pull you in immediately to hit certain shots do you hear the call outs like the lights everything pulls in together and then it becomes once you're in a mode or a mission does it feel like you're getting pulled in at that point and that's kind of where X-Men suffers a little bit is everything just kind of feels same same even though it's you know it's technically not if you peel back the the curtain a little bit you really dig into it but just on the surface it's understandable how it feels that way just because the the call out some of the X-Men kind of feeling the same kind of when you hear things and it's just like even when we heard D and D the call outs there it was apparent as soon as you hit start the sound just felt different The Voice cach just hit different and that that makes a big difference I think overall and whether or not a game will stay long term for people especially hom setting because face facts you hear all the call outs when you're home you're on location you have a hard time hearing it at home everything gets pulled back everything gets revealed then you hear everything with that pen and we so that's the one thing that um at Stern I don't think any of us really have a good understanding of the audio in D and D I mean when it's we're in kind of an arcade room the games we were all being playing it it was hard to at least for me it was hard to hear the game but I have no doubt you got to understand what's the first thing I told you as soon as as soon as Dwight hit start when he was going over some things what's the first thing I leaned over and told you Joel I think you said I need to fart is that hurs about the music Travis right I told Joel and Elizabeth I'm like you feel it immediately as soon as you hit start and that's the thing it's like you Jerry Thompson right is on yeah it's yeah and I mean it's just you know and some sound packages are going to hit differently than others they certainly are but there's no way like when you look at how this game was marketed right it was about the dragon Mech is about the voice cast that's the two things this wasn't like look at the animations we have 10 hours of 4K video it was AI in our game right there's none of that right it was strictly here's the voice cast it's like 18 characters when they put the names of the voice cast that means it means something and so you have to fully expect that they're going to utilize that voice cast and I think it's even been put out there that there's what 11,000 voiceover lines or above that that's what Elizabeth said yeah it's a lot comp was like 300 yeah yeah well this game too each character you know they all have similar call outs as in because you could play one of four characters but then when you beat the game you unlock three more and so those three more characters what she was saying was they technically all have the same lines but yet they all deliver it differently they all ad ad libed differently so it's like even even though some of it may be similar it's like they they all have their own personal traits to them and everything so I'm and and she said unfortunately her favorite three characters are line wise dialogue wise are the three you have to unlock so so I really hope that people spend the time to work through the game and beat it and slowly unlock those characters so they can get to enjoy how much is actually built in that game but well they should be able to though Joel because a new thing on this game yes y I think that'll change things a lot absolutely and I just so okay before we get into the nitty-gritty what I what I want to say is the four of us all went but I think the four of us had different thoughts going into it and what I mean by that is you know Tom do I need this game do I need to buy this game because he's I know Tom you've said like you've bought the last few and some of them haven't stayed very long so it's like do I need to jump on this now should I wait I know Ralph is probably thinking do I want this game I'm looking at it as like okay I'm going to stream this in a month I just want to learn as much as I can Travis though had a unique persp perspective because Travis works for the pinball company and there was a decision there on is this game a game that the company wants to commit to selling and what just to peek behind the curtain like pinball companies you get an Al allocation where it's like this is the amount of games that Stern has for you are you taking him or not and the thing is if you don't then you might get less on the next game or the ne like you'll get dinged for it potentially and and the next game is for the record Stern this is Joel talking this is me talking this is this is what I've heard from all Distributors is it's just it's it is a decision you have to make a rather large decision of am I prepared to sell this at right yeah and and to beir your perspective yeah and Stern invited the uh Distributors and dealers up too prior to the media that morning so the only reason why we weren't there is because dri yeah because I don't own a shovel so that's why we weren't there for that one but yeah it's yeah I and I talked to you guys before this came out I know nothing about Dungeons of dragons all I know is is how I look at a theme how will it appeal to people and this one all the metrics and all the analysis that I had it scared me quite frankly because I didn't know and it's certain things weren't matching up I'm not going to say what those are publicly but certain things weren't matching up so I knew because it wasn't matching up up front that there had to be a strong push early on in the release of this for it to get out there and for people to notice it because it's pinball people are always going to know the next pin right like anybody that's listening to this podcast they're they're they already know because they're on pinside they're on Facebook they listen to content and we all know like we all talk about it but you know for this it was very much the unknown like what's going to happen and you know let's face facts too there was a lot of um a lot of uneasiness because you know Brian Eddy's last design was Venom was face facts Venom didn't perform compared to the other pinball machines that have come out and Stern has said as much so we were curious to see what that would be like whether or not it was going to be another fan layout or whether or not he was going to go to a dynamic layout and of course he opted for a dynamic layout which was great to see it's something that's fresh by him that he hasn't done in a few years so yeah it's that was kind of like my mindset was looking at this pinball machine and saying okay not only will the pinball enthusiasts will they be into it but will somebody Beyond pinball right now be into it like will this be the hook because without Star Wars because keep in mind Star Wars just got vaulted right yeah that was the number one theme that would hook a brand new player to pinball brand new because Star Wars is like by far the biggest theme out of anything so it's almost like you still need those themes to hook somebody new to get them interrested right because we're interested in pinball we all are and then theme but people that don't know Pinball it's going to be theme first that will draw them in and then they'll see something unique like pinball and that might get them going and I think that's what we're seeing here that's that's kind of the dynamic that's happening I'm happy it did I really am so let's um let's just go around then and um you know I'm curious Travis cuz you know spoiler alert you guys are excited about the game you are fully prepared to sell this game like it was it was a good what you saw on media day was was positive um but from a business standpoint yes yes from a business exactly so good and I've heard that from Distributors I've heard when it comes allocation like sounds like pretty much everybody's in this is a game that they're prepared to sell and sell well which is great I think I I feel confident saying that this LD will will sell through by by Stern and I think Distributors and dealers will sell out of it eventually I I don't see this as sitting around too long which is great so let's just go around real quick we'll start with Tom but Tom what was at the media day was it during the presentation was it during your initial play what what stood out to you in a positive way as in like okay that's cool or like what what is there a moment is there a Mech is there something about the rules what what stood out to you that you experienced on on media day um I was pleasantly surprised by like a lot of the modes um you know try of course I had Dwight and Elizabeth right by me kind of guiding me through the game but um I was I was surprised at how really deep this game is going to be and uh I don't I don't think anybody could really get through it in one session like it's it's it doesn't it it just seems like it just keeps building and building on top of itself and like I wasn't the biggest fan of Venom um I I I didn't think the layout was great on it this layout is like 10 times better than Venom uh the I mean the the shots are all there they're it's pretty it's pretty it it's pretty open game I guess I want to say like it's not uh it's accessible right access that's exactly it and maybe in some regards a little too accessible but um um I I just thought I thought it was great I I I honestly did um I know there's some things like if it was in a tournament I know I'd have to change some things but um but yeah overall it it it seems like it's it could be a winner I I think all that's accurate I know the modes I that was going to be my answer as well was just what was so cool was this was a game that I wanted to watch other people play because you can explore the map in so many different ways and and Elizabeth said there there are six cities each city or town there are six towns uh two of the towns have two modes two of the towns have three modes and two of the towns have one mode so you do the math that's 12 modes total and they're all different they're all different and that was what was cool was even though I couldn't really hear them but like looking over and it's like okay what's going on in that mode oh that's clearly a switch based mode uh the one mode I've described many times there's like a sneak fact there's a sneak percentage so every time you hit the slings that percentage Goes Down And if ever gets to zero then guards pop out so now instead of hitting the shots you need for the mode you got to defeat the guards before you can hit the shots again for the mode really fits that theme 100% right yes and that's the dungeons too I watched Tom he was in a dungeon and it has multiple levels multiple phases to it and phase one was very different than phase two and it's like that's that storyline that just have me play this game in a different way like I'm all about that I'm all about that so I I huge hats off to Elizabeth and Dwight for some amazing modes and and I don't think I've seen like I don't know five there's just there's so much more every town has its own dungeon every dungeon has multiple phases like the wizard modes aren't even there's three wizard modes they're not even in the game yet like there is there's clearly going to be a ton of content in this game to explore um Ralph what what stood out to you what was the uh that twinkle in your eye when did that appear when did that appear on January 7th well I definitely didn't go into it like my I almost went into it thinking um oh I'm I'm not going to buy it like it's going to because I don't I'm not a Dungeons and Dragons like I didn't grow up playing it so I kind of just thought oh you know I'm going to go and I'm going to enjoy it and then I get to talk about it and that was kind of going to be it and then uh and honestly I love Dy and Brian they're they're both great but when they were going through like I would prefer when When someone tells me about the game like I watch your guys' content for that really cuz it's it's like a Consolidated concise like this is what you do they went very very heavy into it and so it's hard right you bring us all into the room and then you show us these games and I'm I'm just like oh I can't wait to play so I think so there was a part of me where where their voices started to sound like ww even though they were saying awesome stuff so I felt bad because I'm like I I don't care right now like now I want to just play it but I appreciated that they did that and also was really cool to I think you guys both mentioned it but it was really cool that Elizabeth like she was really into wanting to hear feedback but also coming over and saying like hey explore this or that so I thought that was really helpful but it wasn't until actually I played it that I go oh wow this actually is a game I think I would really enjoy and um some of it for me was was uh so there there I know it's been said probably multiple times but I thought it was kind of cool where that that shot where that third flipper is where you kind of like shoot I think it's like the left side of the gelatinous cube and it kind of loops around and then it holds it for a second it allows someone like me who's maybe not as skilled to like take some time with that shot and uh and and I I loved that cuz that shot was really satisfying when you shoot that ramp across the other way uh I just found I was like really happy with the way it was shooting like the shots were very very fun and then when you piled on the like painstaking long time they probably took in like kind of coming up with all these rules and cool modes to do I was like this is going to be one of those really cool at home games because there's so much to explore yeah and I was in my mind going back to X-Men and by the way I I do like X-Men it's fun to shoot I don't want to make it seem like I'm like it has really fun shots and stuff but there's just not as much to it so I was thinking wow this is one where I could invest a lot of time in at home where X-Men I feel like I'm already kind of bored with unfortunately so uh yeah it hooked me like that and to your point though Joel the one thing I would have liked to get a little bit more of is uh I hate when you can't when it is in a loud environment it is really hard to get a grasp of like how because there are so many amazing call outs that we heard in the trailers that we didn't really get to hear or experience as much and then the music sounded like it was going to be really cool and in the beginning when it wasn't as loud but if you remember the tail end of that day there was a lot more people in that room so at that point you couldn't hear really anything you were just hearing like the flippers and and and like you know they have the basically the mechanical aspects of the game but uh yeah I I'm excited and I think um there's some cool Innovative stuff in there too like the Dungeon Crawl thing is pretty neat sure I'll Reserve this part but I think this is one where I have a a way different opinion than I normally do about like the trim level and what one I would potentially buy if I was like looking at this game okay because you yeah you've mentioned X-Men L uh Wick l so I'm I'm guessing I'm guessing you're not you're not leaning towards the Le is what I'm hearing no no I don't think you have to here that's what's cool about it yeah yeah we'll we'll get more into that the the pro vers Su premium for sure um audio I've heard somebody say um uh that they feel that uh audio is like 50% of the pinball experience and that's what's tough about playing a game at a show yeah or even in this environment or arcade environment if you like it's you really are missing out on on a huge part of in my opinion The Experience uh which could be good or bad you know there have been pinball machines that I've streamed and I know 15 minutes into playing like this m I'm this how do I turn down this music like this m music is already grading on me uh While others it's like holy cow this is stop ripping on Rush I didn't say rush I did not say Rush um Travis at what point on Tuesday did you think to yourself okay we can sell these like this is this is something I can Market I mean honestly we kind of knew already on the drive up there because we were like working all the way all the way up there and just working hard on just marketing stuff and all that but I mean it was I don't know it's it's like my opinions on it it's kind of unique because I have the personal opinions and then I have the business opinions right because at the end of the day to sell a game of course you want to sell a game that somebody else wants it doesn't matter necessarily what your opinion is all that matters is is a customer and user happy with what they got you know so I think that's important so usually when I'm looking at a game first and foremost I'm thinking okay how does the average person view this and when I say average I meaning meaning like the average consumer that might get a game might not kind of knows pinball kind of doesn't may you know it's like the same way if we have a like an Xbox right we might buy a game on there it doesn't mean that we're going to frequent like every single message board and talk about the lore of the game you know we might go deep we might not so that's kind of how I approach that like just to find that Baseline average level of somebody that might get it and might go deep into it so just looking at this game when I when I saw it first off seeing a different layout big plus like big big plus because if you can get yes like attack from Mars and Medieval Madness yes it was big for the day that it was in like back in the early 90s late 80s like those days yes it made sense to have a fan layout to have you know the different sounds with that but now when you get into it these games they go mostly the homes nowadays they just do so therefore having something in interesting for somebody to to play is really needed and the way that you can do that is through a dynamic layout at the beginning that's why Keith elwin games are so damn popular because the layouts are always Dynamic they're always interesting that's where people go nuts whenever uh you know at the beginning for X-Men when it came out because the the layout was unique it was something a little bit different that a lot of people hadn't seen before so that's the first thing I noticed and the second thing I noticed is that dragon Mech is freaking huge like so much bigger than it looked in the videos like so much bigger yes the the videos the pictures it does not do it justice I was looking at that thing I was just like how the hell did they fit it in there and I I don't know if it's because of just like the cave part of it that's just they managed to get that sculpt really big and obviously that you know The Cave Part doesn't move the dragon head moves but it just it takes up a lot of real estate though an incredible amount and if you really to get an idea of how much real estate it truly takes up just watch back on Stern's gameplay reveal because this might have got lost on a lot of people because there's just so much going on for that and I got thoughts about that reveal but there's so much going on there that if you just set there and just watch nothing but wrath the Relentless which Joel wrath is the dragon I have confirmed that that does make sense but if you look at that Dragon you'll see how far it moves and it premium yeah it moves a lot and so that was the next thing I noticed and honestly I thought personally for me I thought the coolest Mech on there though was the cube I was actually more impressed by the cube than I was the dragon yes that was a lot than I thought it would be too yeah the cube was massive but that magnet though I really liked how that was implemented and I I wasn't expecting that at all because I don't remember that being on any of the marketing material how they explained it except for during the gam playay reveal they kind of briefly explained it but yeah Joel do you want to tell everybody what the that Cube actually has in it the gelatinous cube has a um so I mean in D and D the whole thing of the gelatinous cube like when you're battling it you're just stuck in it like it's a it's this it's really hard to battle because you're stuck you and and they implemented it really well because there's a magnet but the way the it's one magnet but because it's elevated off the off the Playfield uh they can use the magnet to one talk talk about what Ralph said where they can slow the ball down when it's on the lower orbit to just stop the ball for a second and then drop it on your on your upper plate on your upper flipper to give you a better shot with the upper because it's controlled at that point I think we all know in in three or four flipper games a lot of times the upper flippers get ignored by casual players because they're just not they don't think to look up there or realize you know they're behind on the ball or whatnot so the fact that they can use that magnet to help with that shot is awesome but then magnet is also it can grabb the ball on the upper side so there's an up down ramp on the left orbit and um if the ramp is down that means when you hit the ball it's going to go up the ramp and then go through the cube and um you hit that enough shot enough times it'll lock a ball up there but I don't know the exact combination but to start the gelatinous cube multiball you're supposed to knock that ball off the magnet so you're supposed to hit that that left side again but there is a way where you can lock a ball under it there's a way you can get a four ball multiball so I think I think it's I think it's by hitting the left side it releases the ball again but keeps that other ball locked okay where you can keep going I think because I could have swore they said that if you hit the right orbit while it's there then it's just a three ball multiball okay there's a there's some to do it I mean you might be able to hit that kind of horseshoe shot in the upper right because that would be a slower shot maybe that maybe the magnet will grab in but there's a way that you can basically get it to lock two balls then you hit the ball off the magnet and then it ejects of four so that that gelatinous Cube multiball can be anywhere from two to four balls and it's just a really unique Mech I mean magnets are awesome um but I I think the me that Mech is awesome the dragon Mech though um I know personally I I I want a game that's going to keep me entertained but I also want a game that anybody can walk up to and have a good time and and that was one of my issues with Venom was it was when when Venom was in my house there was there wasn't anything that I could point to to like tell my wife or whoever like just do that you you know and and watch what happens like they're just as much as the moving play field how cool as that is for a novice player they're not noticing they don't see that um and this game's the opposite this game has the gelatinous cube is really cool uh that upper flipper shot is really cool but the dragon the way we played it you have to spell Dragon so you hit the gold underneath him they had it already set up to three so you only had to hit that three times and then you had to hit the right orbit so it's like so and hopefully they leave it like that I think that's by far the smartest thing you can do is to have your main Mech fully involved as early as possible in the game because it feel it feels like a boss battle immediately like very quickly and that's excellent for casuals so three shots to the gold and then one shot to the right orbit and if they can do that then you're in an incredibly unique multiball I don't know if anybody wants to describe that or their feelings on that but um yeah I thoughts Tom has thoughts Ralph has thoughts too I bet let's start with Tom's thoughts Tom what are your did you ever even do the dragon I know you loved the gelatinous Q multiball every time I saw you play that was the multiball you were playing over and over again uh no I mean yeah I I played the dragon once or twice um but I was doing more of the pin save stuff so I was like continuing on my time I played it but uh no yeah like the dragon's pretty cool I mean you you like you were saying you you start the multiball and then you can pop your Shield up and there's just balls spitting around everywhere so on the pro it's six and on the uh on the premium Le it's eight yeah and uh you're you're basically battling the dragon and you have to basically hit the dragon as many times as it says I think it was like five uh versus like draining like 15 of your balls so like balls will continually shoot out but it kind of reminded me a little little bit of the like wizard mode on World Cup soccer like you had to shoot a goal but like when you drain the ball like it counts against you so it reminded me just a little bit like that but but this was more um I don't know like like cha it was a fight yeah it was more definitely more chaotic uh you definitely want to use that Shield when you're uh in that mode but yeah the and just to clarify so on a premium Le the the the head goes left and right but then it also goes up and down and what's NE is when the head's up you can't hit it um so so during that multiball during that chaos you you have to watch you have to wait to see when he swoops his head down and when he swoops his head down that's when you want to hit him to hit his jaw I don't know if you got to watch it we saw Carrie Hardy complete it so I think anybody could complete it it's not but you can't just well you probably could Well Carrie probably flailed but anyway it's you you do have to but there's a timing aspect to it it's not just hit the bash toy that's always there like there is a dynamic aspect to it and then on the pro the pro doesn't go left and right but it still goes up and down so you're you're trying to track you know all these balls that are flying around trying to make sure you don't drain any of them but then out of the corner of your eye you're like oh the head's down I need a head over there because if the heads up the the gold targets are actually kind of dangerous it's a wall basically I mean the ball's gonna come flying back at you there's a huge Nuance though did you realize what the Nuance was as soon as the dragon head went up I don't know if anybody else noticed this still there's still shots out there on the Playfield for jackpots yes I no that right exactly exactly so and that's that's very unique that some people notice it some didn't and I think that's great because that shows it's like the game really wants your attention right there but if you're you know the type of Knucklehead like I am that you want to try to score some points it's like yeah that's available too which is pretty cool because it's like you you still have to beat the dragon right yeah to get to your celebration multiball or Victory multiball whatever it was they called it but the idea of like still scoring jackpots and building up value when you can't actually attack the dragon it's almost like thematically it's it's almost as if you're getting your guys in place or you're getting your shots in place just to get a bigger shot off you know something like that so there is it's not just all Spam all day if you don't want it to be but what's great is you're not missing out on anything either if you do just want to spam the dragon the whole time as well absolutely Mark of a of a great mode when you do something like that and I asked I think it was Dwight I said you know are you concerned at all that tournament Players will just cradle up you know like five balls on the left flipper and just wait pop a shot when he goes down and he goes no the tournament Players are going to be too distracted by all the jackpots on the ramps and stuff so he goes they're they're not going to want to rush through this battle because they're going to want to be cashing out on jackpots and it's not until they're down to you know only having three balls left or something before they lose that all of a sudden now they're going to start attacking the dragon so having that that I mean that's really cool so I'm just for a novice to step up to the game I I hope I and I think that they may be able to experience a very cool multiball that basically has an endless ball save for a good period of time for them to just go nuts on because it's very thematic um let's do this Joel an easy way to describe this to the people that have not got a chance to play this yet and we'll just start with Ralph and just a couple of sentences what was your feeling as soon as you first got in to the first dragon multiball and you first experienced it oh I was like super excited I mean it was it was so excit I mean it exciting would be the the the word I would use but it it was funny because I got to tell this really quick because it has to do the dragon so Elizabeth was like telling me what town to pick and all these things and what character I should she's like what do you like doing and she was really explaining it to me and I was following what she was saying for a while and I was actually playing it was weird she's I was like I feel like you standing next to me is really making me play better because I was playing way better than I normally do which was making me feel good cuz I I I feel like if one of you guys came over I would probably be terrible and it would make me feel embarrassed but I got you pressure to me I experienced that when Joel was by me too so she goes after a while I started I guess getting distracted by the dragon and she's like saw was focusing on the dragon she's she wasn't meaning she's so sweet she's like you really like the Dragon like funny he said it he like you really like that Dragon like don't you and I was like yeah so so I kind of I definitely was one that it was fun but what was weird is I had a couple friends that went to CES and they were telling me that they stayed away from the dragon because when they were hitting that targets that they was like really like they were draining those balls and that it was a dangerous shot I don't know if those games were maybe not leveled right because I felt like as long as I was paying attention I could I could hit that and not like I I was safe I could safely hit it and it wasn't going like straight down the middle every time I hit it so I don't know but I was hearing some weird things about the pitch and the level of the games at CES so I think they were probably set up better for us than they than they were at the C that wouldn't shock me at all because the difference between a game that goes out across the country and gets set up you're you're at the mercy of whoever's setting that up and then how much it's being played whereas if you have it in a controlled environment like we had at the stern Factory hopefully those were set up and pretty well dialed in because if they weren't then yeah that would be will think that they put the pitch on all the G like I didn't I wasn't noticing cuz I was like so enamored with playing it but do you think they put those all at 65 just for purpos all those games are on training wheels for sure we were all on Joel mode no doubt it's Ralph mode too Joel it scored higher than tomod at some point what did you just say that's cuz I was in in the pin save mode I will say though that that's that's an excellent way to enjoy pinball though like we mess with Joel all the time about it but truth be told you get outside of tournaments I mean you you want the games to be enjoyable you want to get progression that's the key and that's why I like that Dragon multiball early on yes the T the targets are dangerous and they always will be just because it's standup targets they're closer to the flippers right exactly and you know I mean it's Stern flippers like that that comes off like a rocket now so it's you just you never know what that but I think having the shield early on yeah I forget was the shield available off the from the G yeah so it's almost like one of those things all you want to do then if you're a newer player or you just want to experience that maybe it's just plunging tap the button get your Shield up immediately and then just go to town while the ball saves on and you might be able to hammer it out and have your right orbit lit like super ear to get that multiball so that might be the meta to do something like that you guys have problems with The Shield at all cuz I had a conversation with Elizabeth about it yeah I think that there was probably like a minor bug in it I think cuz there was a few times I was just tapping it with the shield light on and it didn't come up should trying explain it codewise to me but she was saying like the code is looking for the switch to open close really fast so the fat it's meant to be a fast tap and she said her her and were actually having like not an argument but she was saying well look if it's a fast tap and like some people are naturally like going to like maybe a casual might hold it for longer but then The Shield's not going to come up so she was trying to say let's just make it a button press that maybe is a little bit more resilient to how long it's open close and I did experience that a little bit because in my I have a video of me playing and I I'm hitting it a couple times and then one time I kind of quick flick it and it and it and it came up no problem so um I don't know I guess there's some debate on that that could be though Ral cuz I I experienced the same thing and even like I thought I was just tapping it and it still didn't come up a couple of times okay and then it eventually came up maybe I'm just not fast enough I don't know get weird Tom got it up no problem no problem no problem yeah Joel you have the vasectomy okay that doesn't let's let's go ahead if we want to go there Joel we will go there I didn't I wasn't going there I appr mom and dad are going to argue here no I appreciate that only because I haven't gotten one yet and I think I'm need to so I was like hey what like Joel share the experience please the reverse the reverse commercial of anyway um but I will say with the tiis button there or the action button there that it does have like right above the um the lockdown bar it does have a Graphic that shows what to do with the action button right it clearly says like tap to raise shield and hold and release like that right so yeah and that's Nobody Does it yeah like literally only 5% of people do it but but it is there but honestly that's where I was like trying to tap it and even Dwight was right there and Dwight was like I think he eventually helped me [ __ ] I'm GNA have to say it okay Joel he event he eventually helped me get it up and yeah the shield did come up eventually so maybe it was just me maybe I'm the one with the problem I we'll figure it out I just want to clarify all that so the The Shield there is a physical Mech between the flippers that comes up and it stays up for a period of time and it depending on what character you have or perks it'll stay up longer or shorter um and it's and it's awesome because it really fills that Gap perfectly and you can even set up Shots by letting the ball rest between the shield and the tip of your flipper and then you can like backhand some shots you normally won't it is a very cool Mech it is not a reactive Mech and what I mean by that is it's not like a ball save thing like the lifing on um on Jaws or or a Magna save on another game of like oh crap and it's it's more you want to it's strategic and I love that so if you know it's like okay I'm the dragon the dragon's gold shot I have actually drained off that more than once when I was there and it's like if you're not playing attention or you try to do a bail off shot shock Tom yeah yeah try to do a bail off bailout shot and you hit the gold and then the thing comes screaming back at you it's like crap I I you know I I messed up I so what I'm saying though is if if your goal if you're playing somebody and it's like I just got to get into that multiball throw your Shield up give yourself you know 5 10 seconds of protection and then bash the gold and that's what I I think is really cool I don't I don't know of another Mech like that where I'm like strategically saying I'm going to enable this to give me a little bit of comfort for the next 10 seconds um now the button what they're saying is yes you have to tap it to pop the shield up if you're in a battle the button will Flash Blue and what that is is there's a range attack all every character has a range attack if you look at all the main shots they have a larger Arrow which is typically indicating the mode or what you need to do with that and then there's a smaller like equilateral triangle it is it is a a smaller triangle and what that does is if you push and hold the button you'll see a blue light like scrolling across those triangles very quickly very quickly and if you let go of the button so you push and hold and then you let go of the button that's where you're shooting your range of attack so you can attack creatures or what Elizabeth or Dwight was saying is you can purposely like Miss and it'll distract the creature so it'll keep them from attacking you a little longer and that shot has a cool down period so after so many seconds it'll Flash Blue again and you can use again so more strategy so when you're in a battle it's like do I want to attack do I want to hit my mode shots should I have my shield up should I be using my range weapon and then there's perks associated with that so later on um they said the arrow will either Slow Down based on your abilities or they said there's like a artifact that you can find that would give you two arrows out there so you're shooting and it's just that type of strategy slash like thought process of what do I what should I be doing right now playing defense offense modes I didn't know about the distraction that's really cool actually I did not know about that yeah and it's just and I get it for like how do you communicate all these nuances to joeo that just steps up to the game there I guarantee there were people at the media day that never knew there was a range weapon like they have no idea why the button Flash Blue told me to do I would Elizabeth did tell me about it but I don't think she told me about the distra three of you didn't didn't see the graphic I didn't read right now I didn't read a thing man well it doesn't say it doesn't say that part Ralph but like right above the action it's literally right above the action button it says what the action button does I was looking at the dragon and so is Ralph I'm more disappointed in Tom than I am Ralph Tom I was totally immersed in the Playfield I didn't look at anything he loved it he loves that DD though so like I kind of like I get so excited about stuff so right yeah you see you see some flashing her like I'm GNA bash Ralph are you saying you're one of those guy have you ever played Rush before Ralph I have in tournaments but that's it not like for a long period of time are you one of those guys that when you drain out you automatically just hit the button no matter what oh oh yeah if I'm yeah if I'm playing Black Knight or is it Black Knight that has the Magna save oh yeah I hit it all the time I'm like why did I just do that there's no point of doing that yeah I'll drain down the I'll drain down the middle and hit my life preserver on Jaws just cuz I'm like [ __ ] then I well Deadpool has the boom button and I think a lot of people are just used to that where it's like you go to drain you're like let me get rid of that you know let see if I can get another shot in real quick boom button to unlit shot yeah that's that's high Lev you drain and you're all of a sudden Rush all you're yeah Rush all you're doing is just changing the diverter diverter that's all you're all the way out so but what's the shot on X-Men that you charge up if I if I drain I still do the bishop shot I still do it I'm like maybe I can get it one left you're like Bishop's coming for me that that is very similar to what Joel was talking about with the arrow it's like almost the same thing let's be clear about it because when Dwight was explaining to me the range weapon he goes yeah you push in hole and you wait for the arrow to scroll and you let go when you want to shoot I go oh just like the bishop shot he goes no I did it first it is not go he's like he goes it is not like the bishop shot and I was like okay I was like I'll make sure be told now it's not white was the one who came up with the bishop shot so from now on when we're talking when we're talking about X-Men and they're like how does the bishop shot work it's like the range weapon in DND that's how we need to this explains why Joel was put in timeout for five minutes okay I understand now that makes it was not so oh yeah while we were playing Joel reset our game right Travis I oh oh my God Tom I broke it I was I wasn't going to say anything Ralph do you know what happened here no did you guys break something I I didn't hear this dude the a-hole directly to your right at least that I'm watching on here he's the one that did it so I didn't okay what did you do okay here's what happened I played the game Ralph that's what I did no no no no no no you played my game I let you play my game yeah here's what happened I my extra ball for you Jo yeah exactly I logged in I played the dragon I got the Dragon 2 I'm like okay I played this enough let's let somebody else have a turn I look around and there's Joel just standing there like a little puppy dog and I'm like okay Joel I'll be nice to you so for the record I am nice to Joel without cameras on or anything like that so I'm like hey come here little buddy play my extra ball that's the bit that's the bit right there yeah so he get so he gets up and he starts playing and within like 10 seconds he just crashes the whole game and I'm like a man great and so you know what else Ralph what happened I go back I look at all my achievements gone nothing there they're all gone and you know what this aole did then he sends me a screen shot of all of his achievements that he has so mine are fine M as soon as they they did their whole Spiel and then they're like okay play well there's 20 people there and they all boom hop on games I was like I'll wait I'll wait a second so I went over I played two games X-Men Up's game then I W over and Travis was like Hey Joel you want to play my extra ball sure so I I bash the dragon a few times he came down I hit him two or three and then all of a sudden the head is just like it's just like Lim like just I was like oh so that's what killing the dragon looks like like I thought it was like dead on the and then all of a sudden the flippers die and everything drains and it and they're like Joel and and Dwight's like what happened and and they're like and all of a sudden they're Joel broke it Joel broke it I was like I've stood at this I've stood at this machine for 10 seconds okay like how is this my fault what's funny is watching watching Elizabeth and Dwight they're like no seriously like what happened like what had gone on I'm like this wasn't even my and Travis like well this is what I did I had to explain all the way go they like let me let me paint a picture for you the equivalent of this is like where Joel and I are the kids and we're downstairs and the parents are upstairs and there's a loud bang the parents come and then the finger pointing happens and I have to step up and explain what actually happened that's what it was very much to a te what happened there besides big thing though Joel Joel there is a big thing so we talked about the dragon we do need to talk about the other thing because Tom alluded to it and he obviously used it a lot and that's the pin save so that's like to me that's a big deal with this so Tom what were you doing with the pin save when you were playing so I so basically I would continue my character so you have the option of either playing you you can use your character and you can start where you basically last left off or uh you can kind of start from the beginning so it's it's uh it's a pretty cool feature I I I like that I wish more games had that uh because it would you know when you uh you're doing well and all of a sudden you you crap the bed cuz Joel's talking to you while you're trying to play um you know uh it would be nice to uh just you know go okay well I'll just log in and start where I left off so you by default when you when you log in with Insider connected there are four there are four characters and you pick what character you want if I play a three ball game and in that game I I beat two modes what that means is next time I step up to the machine if I pick that character again and I'm logged in my two modes are already beaten wherever I was whatever town I was in if I was out in a dungeon wherever I was boom that's where you pick off so they say your character never dies in the game you know when you drain all three balls you're knocked out so when you when you log in again or hit start again boom you're back up you're ready to go um what is neat though is out of the four characters um they said it there are four characters but they're actually four different parties is what they're saying so what that means is if if I choose the Wizard and I beat two modes with her and then the next game I pick somebody else I'm back to to zero so it's like you could have four different paths four different levels of accomplishment going at any point and then if you happen to unlock the other three technically you could have three other paths saved and that's what's really neat is you can you're basically getting multiple save files and you can pick up where you left off or if they're saying if for whatever reason you you don't want to do that when before you hit start you can hit the action button and you can do a one shot so you're still getting achievements but you're back to a cleared map and so that's what from a replayability standpoint to me I'm super excited about this game um like in a in a two-hour stream if I start at zero is there any way that I'm GNA see the end of the game in two hours of non-stop progression maybe I don't know but if I happen to play a mode I really like I could then just log in with a different character and play that mode again like that's well and it fits too because you know if you're playing Dungeons and Dragons and you know for five hours or whatever and you uh you know yeah you had to leave and come back in a week uh you could continue where you left off the I played Dungeons and Dragons for like two years with my brother-in-law and it we played one campaign for two years one extended storyline for two years of every Sunday getting together and our character picking up where we left off so I think the themea side of this is a nerd um to be fair if I played D and D my character would have like a zezy top beard he would such a bad so your fantasy character really the only attribute you need is a beard for a reason Joel it's based it's not based off real life I can't grow a beard I you could actually replace Travis on this podast be like a he'd be some warrior with a with a with a beard and a shovel I have a shovel in D and D the shovel that's awesome yeah um Ralph you had alluded earlier about trim levels uh so let's talk about that uh I think before you go on Joel Ralph are you still good on time because I know we're getting close yeah yeah I'm still good sure okay okay we're minutes all right let him roll then let him cook Joel go ahead oh you want to talk about the trim levels now um yeah I uh well I started with the Le and normally that's a bad thing to do because you you you you have the best one right and then you play it and then you go and play the other ones and depending on what interests you the most I think if you're someone that's like oh my gosh I want to have the best Mech and the best you know then and you and you you don't com you don't consider the game complete without the art blades and all the other things then I think you you just naturally want to buy that one but what I found is even though the dragon did all the cool like additional movement and it's definitely way more animatronic than it is on the on the pro obviously it's the same between the the premium and the Le I played the pro the most because I think people people must have started I don't know if there was like I don't know what happened but the room sort of shifted and like no one was on the pro so I went over and just started playing the pro and I was surprised because no one was behind me no one so I just was like all right I'll just keep playing I kept saying like Z want to come play and everyone was all enamored with the premium and Le but I didn't miss the additional stuff and I know that I do think my opinion on those types of things has changed as I've gotten more into like really the aspects of how the game plays is more important to me I think than like all the mechanisms and the that stuff now so I didn't miss it so I was thinking to myself if I was to buy this I wasn't missing the in the dungeon part The Dungeon Crawl like thing popping up and me having to shoot a ball into it for it to go down and then come back up and just give it back to me just didn't seem like that doesn't seem like enough of an advanced feature for me to go oh my gosh I need to have that so if you can get away from the idea that the maybe the dragon isn't as featur Rich it's not shooting the balls at you and stuff I was pretty happy with the pro and I and normally I don't know I have this theory that because Stern is getting a lot of like feedback that prices and I know some of it is just certain content creators just focus so heavily on price but I think they're and maybe I'm wrong but my my feeling is that they're intentionally trying to make the pros more feature Rich so that that that when someone does have that entry-level product they don't feel like they're missing out on so much and maybe that's wrong but it just feels that way to me that that's what they're doing you're 100% correct and George Gomez was in the room and he actually made a comment about that he said we had a really hard time figuring out how to make a pro and and what they meant was like we knew we couldn't get rid of the Dragon we knew we couldn't get rid of the cube he said so we we were like how do we simplify the dragon and we were happy with um you know getting him only go up and down but then they're like we knew we had to take something else out and they talked about taking the shield out for a long time but they felt that the shield gave such a really unique you know interactive Mech for the they took out yeah they took out the the dungeon scoop instead and and when I hear that I'm like man that game if they would have taken out the magnet and the g Galactic gelatinous Cube Cube yes I think I think they would have been pushing a lot more people to the premium but I I think the pro is loaded on this game if you just look at the two games side by side you genuinely can't tell the difference um and yeah I think I I would assume the pro will sell very well and be a hit on location um yeah then if you're into all the like making it look like the other ones now the everyone's really into the expression light kit so you can do that for the backbox lights there are no internal expression lights so you don't have to worry about that and they'll have the art blades I mean you can make it the I do the expression lights in the backbox when integrated is is really cool and adds a cool element to it but the fact that you can buy it now afterm market like you can have that same experience on a pro and just as long as you're okay making the concessions on the dragon maybe not being as feature Rich and then the Dungeon Crawl scoop then I think it's a it's a very viable Pro to me uh and I think that seems to be the theme that Stern's following lately I 100% agree um I am looking at the time I know Ralph has to jump off was there any final comments you had Ralph on thoughts or um anything this is how deep the game is I literally made pages of notes on the game because I didn't know where we were going to go with it it's there's so much to it when I got back I wrote a bunch of notes because there's so much I broke it down into like well I will I all right I want to be honest with this I wrote notes and I gave them to chat GPT and said summarize this into categories and it did a good job core gameplay key shots interactive toys like but there's a lot to this game and it's in early code so I'm just excited about it and I didn't think I would be because D and D as a theme did not really interest me and it's pretty cool when someone can come up with something unique enough and deep enough that someone that's not even a fan of that particular IP wants to buy it pretty cool for sure so just to clarify do you are you buying one is there one in order have you pulled the trigger I never did tell you what game I was going to get rid of but it would go too deep because then I'd have to compare like John Wick to X-Men and then it get weird but um uh and because I know everyone's got like really strong opinion opinions on John Wick but I do think I'm gonna get it I really do yeah okay awesome I might have sent messages saying please hold one for me but I can't confirm nor deny that perfect perfect well we're we really appreciate you being on here today um it for me this was fun great seeing you in person again and if you want to go ahead and plug away anything you got to plug plug it up yeah if you guys want to hear my uh I I uh with I had Ian from nudge magazine was uh came over to well we went into the hotel and tried to record a podcast and got kicked out by security so then we did it on the world's smallest couch in my hotel room but I felt like it went it went pretty well so you can see that on um my podcast channel is retro Ral live and the podcast is the flip side but it is also on Spotify so if you do the flips side podcast and then retro Ralph you can find it on Apple podcast and Spotify and then my core YouTube channel is just retro Ralph where I do like more longer form content so it's like it's like very highly produced versus the podcast which is more like turn on the microphone and hear my thoughts kind of thing it's great stuff thanks I appreciate that awes it's been fun well thanks again for hopping on and um yeah we'll definitely hopefully we'll see you again at the next me event yeah thanks guys appreciate it all right thank you okay let's uh let's hope that wasn't an awkward transition as we had to stop an episode and restart an episode good news is Travis you now once again have the third best beard in triple drain in this we do the intro again because of that yes because um okay where were we so d and d uh what let's just go ahead and let's just go just so it's not a gush Fest honestly we all enjoyed the game the game was better I I will say honestly the game was better than than I was expecting not that I had low expectations I just didn't know what I was walking into um I had no expectations that's what you're saying yes I okay I but I don't mean that in a bad way but anyways um you cleared your mind I honestly I honestly wasn't sure what to think because like I like I'm not a big Dungeons and Dragons fan like I I appreciate the you know the role playing and all that stuff but I it's just not something I I do um but like the theme is definitely a good theme for pinball my thing was coming into it I was thinking I don't think the stern video did a great job showing how it shot and and what I the issue was I agree with that Dwight and and Brian wanted to explain so much there's so much going on in the game so they kept telling Nick waya to trap up and so it would be like he'd hit a shot and then wait for them to explain what to do next you're talking about the game play right not the reveal trailer but the gameplay okay any of it all the product that they had put out none of it really showed like does this game have any flow do do the shots combo well do they this do they that so my first big surprise you know with my first game was like this game actually shoes pretty well like I'm happy with the way this shoots there are some fun shots here I'm enjoying these upper flipper shots the game is pretty fast that orbit that Ball's flying around so that was something that was a surprise because I don't feel like the media that was produced showed that well but the other side of it was being that I do like DND I know how complicated D and D can get like I know it and part of me knows it from trying to explain it to Travis like trying to like this is here try to this is probably what you should expect this is what you can do you know he's asking like well what's the diff like what's the difference between dexterity and Constitution and wisdom and knowledge and all this stuff and uh I wasn't taught what Constitution was in that form Joel in Oklahoma Constitution means something different than Indiana apparently or D and D so yeah um this is a side comment but I saw it on online and I think it's great this is the quote so it's um it's uh knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad I don't know I just thought that was a great I just thought that was a great quote overall but anyways um I so I was very curious about that I know Dwight can get real deep and nerdy and it was kind of a how deep and nerdy are they gonna let him go because I do feel like that game could get super overwhelming really quick or like very you know there was people saying well maybe you'll hit a shot and then you'll roll a die and you'll see this and maybe he'll do this and I'm like I don't want I don't want a ton of decision making I don't want T of stop flow stop and go like and I one of the quotes that Dwight said was there were a lot of decisions they had to make of Are We pulling pinball into D and D or are we pulling DND D into pinball which one weighs out should this be more DND D or more pinball and they said they always chose pinball they w at the end of the day this is a pinball machine and um I think a perfect example of that is the Dungeon Crawl section which is kind of a video mode but it 100% could have been a a a full video mode but they're like no this needs to still be a pinball game so you get into the dungeon you hit a number of shots then you pick left right and then you're either in a room or you're moving more but every time you make a decision you have to hit another pinball shot I'm okay with that I know you guys have some differ opinions on that but Dungeon Crawl what's your overall thoughts on Dungeon Crawl yeah I just I just thought like hit the shot and then like use your flipper buttons to move around and then like be done with it okay to be honest um those were my thoughts um I could see somebody maybe like struggling to hit the shots like over and over again um or like you know you get to a point and that's like I just want to battle so like let's let's get to wherever we're going in this dungeon okay I got some monsters now let's go you know like but I don't want to keep hitting shot overshot at the same thing over and over again to try to do that I guess I guess that was my opinion on it sure um so like I think like a little bit of video mode is okay like you know but sure I am curious that as of right now so this is what's unique with the Dungeon Crawl is this is the thing that's going to reset every Sunday and um what's weird is online people are like well how do you do this if your game's not connected to the internet like it's built into the game itself the seed there's a random seed that changes every single Sunday so this would still happen even if you weren't connected to the internet um it's built into the game but um the thing about the Dungeon Crawl to my maybe I'm wrong but I don't think it really has anything to do with the story if you're going to do the Dungeon Crawl it's just to get stronger so by fighting guys or to find the treasure room and the treasure room is supposed to have more Loot and the loot is how you're going to increase your Shield or your attack or your R weap that's how you find some of the trinkets right yeah but I it's like a side quest think of it like a giant side quest but I don't know if the side quest is necessarily needed like I don't know if you have to do the side quest maybe you do I don't know how much it's needed but as of right now once you get into the dungeon craw rul the rules want you to do it though the way the game is structured it wants you to get into the Dungeon Crawl okay but because keep cuz keep in mind it's it's the uh the two Targets right yep the two stand ups that's what lights it or or if you hit the center vck that spots it and that's like one of the easiest shots in the entire game so because one of the easiest shots spots it that tells me right there from you know a story based purpose or progression purpose of the game they really want us to experience the Dungeon Crawl so when you're in it though I know you're you're in a hallway and it's like hit a few shots do you want to go left right whatever well if you pick a room it's either going to be a treasure room so great you got something or it may be a battle so now you have to fight something I don't know yet to get out of it though I think you have to find a Stairway so it's like I don't want no you could you could hit a trap too like if you Rand hit a trap I think it automatically ejects you out if you get a trap he said there was three ways to get out yeah cuz I remember hitting a trap and then I was done as you're not going to get locked in it that's the one thing that um you know you're dunge true true but I I'm what I'm curious of is will people be avoiding it as in you you can only do it when you're not in a mode so it's one of those like oh I got Dungeon Crawl lit at the vck but I don't want to do it I wanna I'm gonna hit the shots around it and try to travel or do a mode or something like that's where I'm curious is how important it is to actually play the dungeon do you want me just to say the quiet thing out loud what all three of us are thinking that we we just felt like like maybe it just felt too slow at that point right like that's the way I felt when I got into the dungeon all of a sudden I realized I have to hit a shot just to move forward and then I have to hit another shot to move forward again then another shot to move forward or another shot to make a decision to move somewhere with the action button or the flippers or whatever right okay yeah so it's kind of like if I me from like if I'm thinking of this how to keep somebody engaged that's playing it it's as soon as I'm in the dungeon I want action nearly immediately so if I got hit one more shot to move that's fine but then something needs to happen besides just walking more okay to move again right like there needs to be like hopefully I assume they can do that since the dungeons are going to change like whatever's in it and where it's at but to be fair about all this I also don't do any dungeon crawls at all on any other games or anything so I don't know if from a narrative BAS say that that makes sense or whatever I just think that maybe the action needs to be pushed a little bit more when you're in there because just like you mentioned Joel you don't want the feeling of being stuck somewhere definitely makes sense like for DND d d and d is absolutely hey we the rumor is for us to beat this big bad we need this armor well this armor is in this town and you go to the town and you do this and they're like well that's that's rumored to be in this dungeon so I'm in a dungeon which is a maze and we're exploring we're battling we're surviving big bad boom we got it on to the next one it thematically absolutely makes sense what I think you're pointing out though and I agree with is personally the modes are more fun than the Dungeon Crawl like if I know I have 12 modes I want to be spending my time playing my 12 modes and my my dungeons that are attached to the modes because each phase of the dungeons is different that's where I want to be playing so the Dungeon Crawl itself is a yeah it's one of those side quests or those side modes that I'm like oh okay well I'll play it cuzz I'm here but I'm I'm ready to be out cuz I want to go play this this is more fun so yeah you just got to frontload the action that's all it is frontload frontload the action that way maybe if you get through like battling something or getting your first trinket then you can make a decision on where you're going from there right instead of like the decision just being taken from you and it's just hitting a shot just to move your character forward right orbe because that's asking a lot of a player to come up and hit four shots something happens it really is in all Realties so you may we just haven't been sold yet on the value of doing the Dungeon Crawl like it's worth maybe if there was that urge of like no I need to keep exploring because I might actually get to whatever I may get this loot I may get this I that goes into the that goes into the Pen Save though too right like if you have the pin save you could play more and I get it like there should be value in doing something but I think in the case of pinball you always want something to be exciting for somebody you never want something to feel like it's wood chopping especially if you're doing a narrative progressional system so it's it's almost like I've explained this to other people before I talked about earlier in this podcast when you think of it from like a marketing standpoint it's all about hooks right how am I going to hook you so if you go immediately into the dungeon what's the immediate Hook when you're in that dungeon it's like okay I need to go find something but you're going to have players have a different reason for being in the dungeon like me I just want to cause chaos when I'm in the dungeon I want to find the monsters and battle them you know and I then after I battle them then I want the trinket I don't want to like look and avoid them and then find the trinket but I know some players they may think that way they may not want to battle somebody they may want to find the trinket or find the trinket yeah so somebody like Tom want to the want any danger he's a pacifist Tom's a pacifist he want you know what I mean it's like that's where the action's at so you know I don't know I I just think maybe if they brought the action up a little bit closer to the beginning of it yeah that then it would make sense to feel like okay maybe a higher level then you have kind of the wood chopping Tendencies of a Dungeon Crawler like maybe that's how it works because it just gets more difficult right the more levels you go and maybe the more decisions you make maybe the more difficult the enemies get but you know it's it's still early though that's just the first thoughts when we ini played it I think everybody kind of felt that way that I was talking to various people like I didn't really hear anybody saying I want to hurry up and get into a Dungeon Crawl over the modes I think a lot of people were pleasantly surprised over the modes absolutely I mean my goal when I was playing was I want to I want to play the mode I want to beat the mode so I can experience the dungeon in that town like that's where that's where the fun was um and that's D and Dungeon Crawl is different too right Jo we had to establish that yeah and honestly I don't I never I don't think I ever did gelatinous Cube multiball cuz I was so focused on modes I just wanted to keep exploring these modes and the uniqueness and the rules of the modes but um but Tom why do you hate this game and why haven't you bought yet yeah h i don't hate it uh but I I I haven't bought one yet I I've been debating about it though I mean definitely going to stern and checking it out definitely is pushing me more towards getting one um and especially the replay value of it is definitely doing that I don't know well I know typically what you've said before is you like buying because you bought a bond Pro you had bought a wick Pro you bought an X-Men Pro like the idea is you just it's nice having the game in your house right um so that you can explore it you can learn it and you can be better prepared for tournaments um is your are the tournament Wheels already turning like how you thought that for sure like I'm I'm already think like so I know I talked about this with Travis the biggest thing like in tournaments is that uh left shot setting up your right flipper with the magnet so like to me it was like going back to t-ball and like you know the coach is putting the ball up on the tea and saying okay Tom hit that ball into play and it's like all right and you just hit it like right up that ramp like it was nothing yep and then you go to the major leagues and you're like oh [ __ ] this guy is throwing a 90 mile hour fastball at me you know so I but I do think like like if I was gonna be a TD and have this in a highlevel tournament there's a there's a scoop at that shot that shoots the ball up uh I would probably uh hopefully in the code try to weaken it so like that it could not go up to that flipper and make people actually hit the shots to go to that upper flipper so the far far left shot the far far left kind of lower shot medieval man would be the Catapult shot that shot which fsmo like store it's the easiest side shot in the history of pinball easy it's really easy to hit it's the easiest side shot in the history of pinball like the the easiest Bell out shot so like I could see it feeds the upper flipper yeah the extremely high level players like Asher and Zac and Jason Zer and yada yada yada just just destroying that and just you know right flipper hit that boom up to the upper flipper so it will be absolutely hilarious at Expo this year it will be hilarious like we're talking this will be a two-hour game at expo at least at least for those guys yeah unless doubt you're saying unless it's tweak cuz honestly defeat the Upp tweak it at Expo that's what's going to be hilarious that Shield's going to be there you don't know that oh they won't I don't think they will and I don't know maybe there's something Dwight's planning in the code I you know for tournament Players I I don't know you know I don't know those things but the the other thing what I okay so what I was going to say is that upper flipper you can feed it by hitting that shot which spits the ball directly up to that you can hit the left orbit which will feed it fast sometimes the yeah that's fast yeah because the gelatinous cube blocks your view and so if the magnet doesn't catch it you're like it's fast yeah you're not going to find that shot it's like maybe I mean I can't even give a percentage I just know it's probably the most difficult like shot in the game by far the most difficult combo so left orbit left orbit upper flipper it kind of reminds me of Avatar in that way right where the ball super fast when there's no magnet it is yeah and there and there's also like a little horseshoe shot up there upper right where you can drop the ball on The Flipper and and shoot it so there's M ways to that magnet also grabs that there too yeah the magnet still slows it down like yeah which which is fine I I think right right I'm not saying that's a bad thing I'm saying it's a bad thing maybe for highlevel competition yeah I I don't think that this game is meant for tournaments or high level tournaments I think it's meant for launch parties and local stuff and Strikes and that's totally cool you know and and I hope that the direction they take this pen isn't worried about too much about all that stuff right because there's plenty of pins out there and I think having something that's a little bit different that's more story based is perfectly fine so that's what I would like to see um I agree and the other the only other shot which we haven't mentioned yet which I I'm a little concerned about is the captain ball the captain ball is considered the critical hit ball and you don't have to be concerned I know what you're going to say but as right now in the code it is a it will give you any shot it'll give you a valuable shot so if you if there's one bad guy out there and he's on the left orbit and you can't hit it for whatever reason you can just hit the captain the ball and it'll spot it and it's constant it's a constant so all you got to do is make it not constant and there that's what I'm saying is I feel like yeah it's yeah they did tell us that this was like the CES code true and it was at 78 so they have to change it yes say the game was a lot easier so it was either Dwight or Elizabeth I remember Dwight saying right right theoretically you could beat an entire mode by just bashing the captain B and there's no way that they can't they can't have that but I I know saying you can though because think about it if it's really that exploitable why did nobody else figure that out during media day during the dealer day nobody else figured that out you know and that a large portion of that is because people don't generally look for that they just don't that I mean I know we are because we're aware of it and we think of okay how can I finish this like we're thinking in terms of a minmax point of view right how can I do this as efficiently as possible right so in a tournament of course you know send it to comp mode boom just one hit that's it or you have to do something to qualify it for something that's in default I don't think people are going to notice it or even really care all that much because otherwise somebody would have picked up on that right because there's there's nothing out there that tells you that's that's the way it's going to work it's not on the artwork it's not on anything well the insert right now even the insert isn't there's an insert in front of it and it's not lit all the time but I tested it like even if the inserts off you can still hit it and it spots a shot so I assume in the code in my opinion it would be a spot a shot once per mode or there's a there's a cool off period to it like you can spot a shot but then you have to hit five other shots before it's lit again and think of it this way too it's like what like what shot would you really want to Spot while you do that like a side Loop a side ramp yeah you know it's I just think it's not it's not going to be that big of a deal overall because otherwise other people would have would have caught up onto it so there's just I I mean there's some silly nuances in it like those face facts like that is one of them I think um you know for people that see it or can't unsee it I mean if you're playing the pre or Le you're essentially lifting up a scoop to be in front of a scoop right it's like scoop setion is what you're having you're going to hit the vck in the very back in order to raise up a scoop in front of it so you know that's I mean that's certainly a choice to kind of turn a Stern into a P3 nearly right with that sco coming up but wow but I mean Ralph even mentioned though he was like he didn't feel like that added enough onto the game for him which I get that's probably like out of the three mechs in the game that's probably the most forgettable part right the gelatinous cube pretty cool with the way the magnet is you know obviously the dragon moves around and that just kind of makes the little dungeon that pops up it's just kind of like I don't know I think it'll be an afterthought for a lot of people but that just goes to show you that's why the pro will be good value for people that see that as well because they're not gonna you're still shooting the same exact shot right you're still getting basically the same exact thing out of it except people may enjoy hitting the spinner more than just a scoop that pops up cuz you still have that spinner in the back you know and it's opto spinner I agree if they would have made the dragon head almost like the T-Rex head in J Jurassic Park where it was just the sculpt no movement no interaction but the fact that they allowed it to still be up and down like they really in my opinion as a buyer of pinball I love that they're make like I thought X-Men I think X-Men Pro was loaded I'm glad that this looks loaded I'm all for them having Pros that are awesome um as a distributor maybe it makes it harder to sell the premiums and Le's but it's just I to me I I love it in a way because I you compare it to Brian Eddy's last game in my opinion Venom Pro should have never been made like that game they stripped out everything about that game like yeah there there was no change it was all just software so that should have just been a premium Le game or something they I don't know they could something I don't know but I'm glad I feel like this the exact opposite where the pros awesome and it's okay if the pros sell well I mean I'll I'll be up front like we're I think we're pretty much sold out of our Le so it's not like I'm Win Schilling this like the Le looks good in person people thoroughly enjoy it and yeah it's it's selling very well but I think too like Stern by putting the mechs the way that they did there's going to be lots of people that will play this Pro on location and be like Oh yeah this is a fun experience too and really the only thing like the two things that you will be missing I don't think people will really notice the difference between six ball or eightball it's just so many balls going around right eventually like you know we reached our ball threshold of like noticing anything else right y but I think with people noticing the dragon head moving and blocking some shots like the loop right and the ramp that for me that didn't really feel like experience as much as like a like a kind of like an annoyance because I had to look around it to see if that shot was lit and this is when the ball was staged on on the magnet now I don't know if that's a software thing or if that's the way it's always going to be but I could see some people you know not liking that now what I did like about the dragon is that of course it moved up and down but I didn't mind it blocking the right orbit shot I thought that was pretty cool that you could hit the right orbit still hit the dragons I think a lot of people like that but again you know when you look at it the pro could be pretty good value because the Cube's the same the dragon still articulates up and down you can still bash it you can still hit it and you still shoot it up the middle into a vck anyways into a spinner and I think that's like if that shot didn't have the spinner to it yeah yeah there would be a lot of people like what is going on but having the spinner in front of it I think that that that adds to that shot a little bit so I think looking at the way the end consumer would look at this I think they'd be fine with it I'm loving it I'm loving it as a as a consumer that the pros are are loaded like this and um but yeah but unfortunately I am I'm out of time now I I need to go um we did it Tom we went so long that Joel has to go no I'm getting messages from my wife that's saying the you she's got something she has to do within 30 minutes so I'm like cut your nuts off oh well all right right okay uh let's plug it up let's plug it up plug away Tom all right uh when you're not finding me here on Triple drain you can find me on my other stuff which is Fox Cities Pinball which we do a lot of tournament stuff and uh more tournament stuff and you do it very well thank you Tom thank you Travis plug away man yeah you can find me right here on Triple drain pinball podcast you could also find me over on my other job which is pays a little bit more than triple drain thank Joel cuz Joel takes all of our money just like we talked about earlier not true it's not true it's not true it's not true we took it to Vegas we bet on black it's fine but um but yeah I'm also with the pinball company you can find me on YouTube I do like tutorials talk about pinball and all that I don't care if you buy from us or what I just enjoy making content bringing value to the community and making pinball seem a little less complex and a little more fun so awesome that's my Spiel on to you Joel and your cool beard yeah and I'm Joel I do the uh the flipping out pinball stream on YouTube every Wednesday night with my brother as well as this podcast feel free to check out our stuff we have some random stuff on what is it Zazzle Zazzle uh our main merch is on zizzle Zazzle our main merch is on silverball swag check that out tppy are coming up if you want to give us a vote go for it you can vote for Fox Cities pinball company flipping out all the stuff triple drain Travis loves votes he loves he loves so much don't bother voting for anything I'm on except for this that's fine like I I other than that I don't care that's fair and um yeah thanks for all the people on patreon support us that's fantastic we'll answer everybody's questions on the next one because we totally ran out of time so we have your questions just remember it always is yes so with that uh Tom you have the last words uh have a good one _(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 21c4852c-a259-45b7-86d4-2163abc21636*