# Episode 51 – Brisbane Masters Jimmy & Lambo plus major rumor **Source:** Head2Head Pinball **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2018-07-09 **Duration:** 123m 7s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.head2headpinball.com/2018/07/10/episode-51-brisbane-masters-jimmy-lambo-plus-major-rumor/ --- ## Analysis Head to Head Pinball Episode 51 features substitute co-host Stacey alongside Martin discussing the upcoming Brisbane Masters tournament with organizers Jimmy and Lambo. The episode covers tournament logistics (120+ players, 43 machines across multiple events), game lineups spanning modern Stern titles to classic EMs, and player preferences. A major rumor about an unannounced pinball machine is teased but not revealed in the provided excerpt. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Brisbane Masters is Australia's biggest tournament of the year — _Martin states this directly when introducing the interview segment; Jimmy and Lambo confirm it has grown from 60-70 players in year one to 120+ in year four_ - [HIGH] Metallica is tempting Stacey to buy a new in-box machine for the first time — _Stacey directly states: 'I haven't bought a new in-box machine before. So definitely considering that strongly.' regarding Metallica Remastered_ - [HIGH] Brisbane Masters will host 43 machines capable of supporting up to 160 players — _Jimmy states: 'We've got 43 machines coming along to the event, so we can potentially have up to 160 players if we really want to.'_ - [HIGH] The tournament spans four days with five different events including pin golf, strike elimination, main event, and Flip Frenzies — _Detailed breakdown provided by Jimmy and Lambo of Thursday-Sunday schedule with specific event types_ - [HIGH] Flip Frenzies at Brisbane Masters will have 90 players, possibly expanding to 100 — _Jimmy confirms: 'There's a slim possibility that the Flip Frenzies might be opened up to a little bit more players, but a lot of it comes down to logistics... We're hoping to open up to more than 90. We'd love to probably go to 100 if possible.'_ - [MEDIUM] Iron Maiden is considered 'one of the best machine releases in the last 15 years or so' — _Stacey states: 'I'm one of these people that's sort of on board with just the fact that it's such a great playing game and there's all this talk of it being one of the best machine releases in the last 15 years or so'_ - [MEDIUM] Pirates of the Caribbean can be 'a very, very long, drawn-out game' in tournament settings — _Stacey expresses concern: 'I find it can be a very, very long, drawn-out game at times' regarding Pirates tournament play_ - [MEDIUM] Star Trek Pro has a 'fast flow' gameplay that appeals to experienced players — _Stacey notes: 'Star Trek for me is probably ranks a little bit higher just because of the fast flow of the game'_ ### Notable Quotes > "you know, if ever either one of us was unable to make the podcast recording, Stacey would be the person that we would bring in" > — **Martin**, early segment > _Establishes Stacey's role as planned substitute co-host and community standing_ > "I definitely find it one of the best, mind you. I'm also a big fan of Star Trek Pro as well." > — **Stacey**, game discussion > _Articulates player preference for Iron Maiden and Star Trek as standout tournament games_ > "Just this morning we cracked over 120 paid-up players." > — **Jimmy**, interview segment > _Demonstrates strong registration momentum for Brisbane Masters tournament_ > "I probably looked at 60 spaces trying to find the right place." > — **Jimmy**, venue discussion > _Shows extensive logistical effort required to host large pinball tournament events_ > "That help—which, you know, the weight of just doing that alone for us at Memphis, that's 20, 30, 40 hours of prep you need to do." > — **Lambo**, logistics discussion > _Highlights behind-the-scenes labor intensity of tournament organization_ > "There's nothing worse than wrapping up a comp and everyone's going to be out within a few minutes. This way we get to finish our comp stuff. Everyone can hang around for another two hours and socialise." > — **Jimmy**, venue benefits > _Reflects tournament operator priorities: extending social/community experience beyond competition_ > "I'm definitely least looking forward to Star Trek Pro, and I know you guys all love it, but, God, I can't get my head around that game." > — **Stacey**, game preferences > _Expresses genuine difficulty with highly-regarded tournament game; contrasts with expert enthusiasm_ > "I know that's the general consensus. I actually don't mind Space Invaders. But if I had to pick one as the one that I don't want to play, that's probably it." > — **Jimmy**, older games discussion > _Shows even experienced players have reservations about Space Invaders as tournament game_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Brisbane Masters | event | Major Australian pinball tournament in its fourth year; held over four days with 120+ registered players and 43 machines; featuring main event, strike elimination, pin golf, and Flip Frenzies | | Martin | person | Co-host of Head to Head Pinball Podcast; Australian pinball competitor and tournament organizer; knows Stacey well outside of pinball | | Stacey | person | Substitute co-host for Episode 51; local Melbourne pinball player; PhD in chemistry; works in science and IT; competitive player in Australian pinball scene; attending Brisbane Masters | | Ryan C | person | Regular co-host of Head to Head Pinball Podcast; unavailable for this episode; makes judging/selection decisions on show; known for maintaining tight machine specifications in tournaments | | Jimmy | person | Co-organizer of Brisbane Masters tournament; Queensland pinball community figure; originated the idea for Brisbane Masters four years ago; competitive player favoring Iron Maiden and Metallica | | Lambo (Jason) | person | Co-organizer of Brisbane Masters tournament with Jimmy; longtime tournament runner in Queensland; passionate about event organization and community support | | Mrs. Pin | person | Pinball content creator; attempted to be guest co-host for Episode 51; hosts tournaments at her house; known for colorful personality and singing; participates in Slam Top 100 | | Bruce | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Podcast (US-based); attempted to be guest co-host for Episode 51; offered repair skills and personality; invited to be part of Head to Slam Trash Talker Invitational | | Nate Shivers | person | Referenced as 'gold standard' pinball figure; attempted to guest on Episode 51; noted as non-Australian | | Pinside Petey | person | Self-described 'serial pest' in pinball community; parodied himself as wanting solo podcast; declined co-hosting opportunity | | Head to Head Pinball Podcast | organization | Australian pinball podcast hosted by Martin and Ryan C; 51 episodes by this point; known for community engagement and tournament coverage | | Netherworld | organization | Brisbane pinball venue; donating machines to Brisbane Masters; hosting event; associated with monthly Flip Frenzy tournaments (40-45 players) | | Pinkadia | organization | Brisbane pinball venue; currently not open; donating machines to Brisbane Masters event | | Pinball House | organization | Brisbane pinball venue near event location; donating machines to Brisbane Masters | | Slam Tilt Podcast | organization | US-based pinball podcast; Bruce is co-host; collaborative relationship with Head to Head Podcast; mentioned in tournament context | | Metallica Remastered | product | Recent Stern pinball release; tempting Stacey to purchase new in-box for first time; competing favorably in player preferences; featured at Brisbane Masters | | Iron Maiden Pro | product | Stern pinball machine; two units at Brisbane Masters; widely praised as 'one of the best machine releases in the last 15 years'; fast-flowing competitive game; top player preference | | Star Trek Pro | product | Stern pinball machine at Brisbane Masters; known for fast flow; highly regarded by experts; challenging for some players (Stacey); favorites of Martin and Jimmy | | Findercon | event | International pinball convention; Brisbane Masters organizers planning to bring Flip Frenzy software there in a couple of weeks | | Australian Championship Series | event | Pinball tournament; Stacey participated in Adelaide leg earlier in year | | Kooling Classic | event | Australian pinball tournament where players tested Iron Maiden and TNA; referenced by multiple guests | | Death by Pinball | event | Queensland pinball tournament earlier in year; only game played was Space Invaders; Jimmy placed fourth on final game of 63-game tournament | | Barb | person | Creator of Flip Frenzy tournament software; described as 'absolute legend' by tournament organizers | ### Topics - **Primary:** Brisbane Masters Tournament Organization, Australian Pinball Competitive Scene, Game Selection and Player Preferences, Tournament Logistics and Venue Management - **Secondary:** Metallica Machine Reception and Sales Appeal, Pinball Podcast Community and Guest Hosting, Flip Frenzy Tournament Format and Software - **Mentioned:** Classic and Vintage Pinball Game Lineup ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Episode reflects strong community enthusiasm for Brisbane Masters tournament, collaborative spirit among organizers, and genuine appreciation for game lineups. Playful humor throughout (guest co-host clips, banter about game preferences). Stacey's expressed hesitation about some games (Star Trek, Space Invaders) tempers but doesn't diminish overall positive tone. No major controversies or negativity expressed. Strong emphasis on community support and shared passion for competitive pinball. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Flip Frenzy tournament software being exported internationally; Brisbane Masters organizers taking platform to Findercon in couple of weeks, indicating software commercialization and international expansion (confidence: medium) — Reference to organizers 'taking that software sort of around the world in a couple of weeks' time when they go to Findercon' and Barb credited as software creator - **[event_signal]** Brisbane Masters tournament grows to 120+ players in year four, now positioned as Australia's biggest tournament of the year; event format includes vault celebration-like elements with extended social time and multiple concurrent tournament formats (confidence: high) — Jimmy states 'Just this morning we cracked over 120 paid-up players' and describes growth from 60-70 to 120+ players over four years; 43 machines confirmed; four-day event with five different tournaments - **[community_signal]** Queensland pinball community demonstrates strong organizational capacity, volunteer support, and machine donor network enabling growth of major tournaments; private collection owners actively support competitive scene (confidence: high) — Jimmy notes extensive venue scouting (60 spaces considered); Lambo emphasizes 'we are so lucky up here in Queensland that we've got a lot of people that are happy to support all the events we have running'; multiple private collectors donating machines - **[event_signal]** Multiple Australian pinball events running with strong participation (Death by Pinball, Kooling Classic, Australian Championship Series); indicating robust competitive calendar and regional scene maturation (confidence: high) — References to multiple tournaments: Kooling Classic, Death by Pinball (63-game event), Australian Championship Series (Adelaide), monthly Netherworld Flip Frenzies (40-45 players) - **[market_signal]** Metallica Remastered generating strong collector interest; first-time new in-box machine purchase contemplation from experienced player suggests market demand or scarcity premium driving purchasing decisions (confidence: medium) — Stacey: 'I haven't bought a new in-box machine before. So definitely considering that strongly' regarding Metallica Remastered after limited play exposure - **[community_signal]** Substitute co-host Stacey brings different player expertise and perspective to Head to Head Podcast; positioned as planned contingency by Martin and Ryan C; demonstrates high community standing and competitive credibility (confidence: high) — Martin explicitly states: 'Ryan and I, ever since we started this podcast, we sort of said, you know, if ever either one of us was unable to make the podcast recording, Stacey would be the person that we would bring in' - **[product_concern]** Pirates of the Caribbean perceived as tournament-unfriendly due to excessive play length and game duration management issues in competitive contexts despite being a quality game mechanically (confidence: medium) — Stacey: 'I find it can be a very, very long, drawn-out game at times... I'm not sure if it's really really a game I'm looking forward to playing' in tournament environment - **[product_concern]** Star Trek Pro noted as challenging for some experienced players despite its technical excellence; game design complexity creates skill disparity in tournament settings, with Stacey unable to master shot sequences others excel at (confidence: medium) — Stacey: 'Star Trek Pro... God, I can't get my head around that game' despite experts praising 'fast flow'; Jimmy and Stacey acknowledge their relative mastery vs Stacey's struggle - **[rumor_hype]** Episode 51 explicitly teases 'major rumor' about unannounced pinball machine that is mentioned in intro but not revealed in provided transcript excerpt (confidence: high) — Martin states: 'We are going to cover a lot of news tonight' and episode title includes 'plus major rumor' but rumor content not included in provided content - **[sentiment_shift]** Stacey's retrospective re-evaluation of Avatar (previously disliked, now recognizes as decent game from Stern's early 2000s era) and Ghostbusters (acknowledged as playable but tournament-unfriendly) suggests evolving player perspectives on machine ergonomics and fairness in tournament contexts (confidence: medium) — Stacey: 'Although I've said in the past that I don't like Avatar, but at the time I hadn't really played it that much... it's not a bad game... it's not the worst game' and 'Ghostbusters... it's so brutal and it really doesn't give you much chance' --- ## Transcript you're listening to the head-to-head people podcast find us on facebook email us at head-to-head people at gmail.com Welcome to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode number 51. And my name's Martin, and with me... Is Stacey. Stacey? Where's Ryan C? Are you related? Oh, not really. I think we're from a similar place in the world, but he's retired, so... He has. Guys, he said last week that he has quit. He hasn't really quit. He's actually just not available this week. So we've got Stacey. Now, Stacey, who are you? Well, I am a local pinball player in the Melbourne scene. I've come through the ranks of video games and science, and I'm now playing myself in the silver ball game. So, yeah, so, you know, I do a lot of things around the place, mostly working in sort of science and IT. Are you a doctor? And I am a doctor, yes. You are a doctor. Absolutely. I've got a PhD in chemistry. It's not being used for much, but, you know, it's time. It's good to tell people you're a doctor. Not on aeroplanes, but, you know. Yeah, so I'm just into things like video games and pinball. I love the competitive scene around here, and it's great to compete, unless I have to play against you and then I normally lose. But, you know, you can't have everything. You've been known to beat me as well. And for the listeners, Ryan and I, ever since we started this podcast, we sort of said, you know, if ever either one of us was unable to make the podcast recording, Stacey would be the person that we would bring in. And probably because outside of pinball, I probably speak to you a lot as well. For sure. Very knowledgeable, very animated player as well, I think we would say. Some might say vocal, yeah. Some might say vocal. So a bit of a background for you, I guess, in your pinball. And I'm not going to say how did you get into pinball because, you know, Jeff Teolis would come down on me. But, you know, talk about some of the machines that you like and machines that you don't like. Oh, that's always a tricky one. Well, one that I don't like, you would probably know, is the Avatar. Avatar. Although I've said in the past that I don't like Avatar, but at the time I hadn't really played it that much, it must be said. And I played it a little bit more recently, and, you know, it's not a bad game. It's not the worst game. It's from that year of CERN where things were a little bit different. Sort of early 2000s. I wasn't in the scene then, so I didn't really get to play those as they came out. But there's a few games in there like, you know, Iron Man and things like that, but they're good games. So it's not my least favourite game anymore, that's for sure. And I might have said in the past that I love Ghostbusters. You did too. And what do you think about that now? I don't like Ghostbusters. Look, it's an okay game, but it's so brutal and it really doesn't give you much chance sometimes and that's not fun for non-pinball players, that's for sure. I haven't really seen too many non-Pimble players play it, but they wouldn't be playing for more than a minute or two on most setups. I think it would make a good home game. If I could just play it over and over. But when you're in a tournament setting and... Yeah, tournament or paying for it or... You're paying for it. You're paying for it either way when you play Ghostbusters. You really are. So what would be the game that you're enjoying the most at the moment? The most at the moment, oh, I mean, you know, Metallica's great. When that comes up, it's always good fun to play in tournaments. And I haven't played it much yet, but I made it. It looks the absolute business. So I've had a couple of games on it, and it's super tempting me to buy one new in-box. I've never bought a new in-box before, or any at one machine. So definitely considering that strongly. Yeah. You made a good choice getting there. Yeah, I think I've done well. Well, so just let everybody know as well, you know, we did think about Stacey coming on board, but there were some people that sort of caught wind of the fact that Ryan wasn't going to be on this week. And I've got to tell you, people were trying to get on this show as co-hosts. And if you don't mind me, I'll play you a couple of clips of people that have been trying to come on the show. Hi, Martin, it's Mrs. Penn. I hear that Ryan has abandoned you this week, and I wanted to send you my auditory resume, just in case you're looking for somebody to accompany you on air. My top resume points, when competing against me in the Slam Shop 100, you know that you're going to be a shoo-in because I know nothing about pinball. My top arguments would be things like, the lights flash so brightly, or man that machine has some good flippers or that machine has the prettiest colors or check out the legs on that bitch I don't know about you but I just think that your arguments are going to be better no matter what I'm also way prettier than Ryan with the slim exception of when he goes out clubbing I mean he says so himself he scrubs up real nice then it's up for debate but the rest of time, I could bring a pretty face to the podcast. I also sing way better than Ryan. Case in point, I'm also willing to host as many Melbourne tournaments at my house as you'd like, and I have to tell you that we don't keep our machines nearly as tight as Ryan does. I can even put some rubber bands on the outlanes for us if you want me to. So if you want to have a tournament here every other week you're more than welcome all you have to do is get here i'll even bring gin if you are looking for a co-host i might be your girl i mean mrs pin for the win if you know what i'm saying drop the pro in ryan and upgrade to the le boom love you Help. Tough competition there. You know, she makes a compelling argument because, as we all know, Ryan not only chooses the numbers. I mean, he says Google does, but, you know, we really don't know. We don't even judge. And then he gets to pick the gift. So I think that I do have, you know, maybe a bit of an advantage there, but sorry, Mrs. Pin. But here's another one Hey, what's going on, Martin? Is that Bruce? It is, Bruce from the US How y'all doing, guys? Yeah, I'm really good You know it's four o'clock in the morning Oh, fuck, I'm a little off on time, ain't I? Yeah Well, no big deal, no big deal, no big deal I hear you need a host this week And I'm offering my great services to your show That's very nice of you I am actually looking for a co-host What is it that you can bring? My sparkling personality My charm My wit My sarcasm Well, yeah, that's true I can repair games I can repair games That's a big plus for you That's a massive plus for me My good looks and personality and I almost have biceps as big as Ryan. They have very good reasons, I must admit. There's probably one thing you don't have and that is you're not Australian. What? I know, I know. It's funny. We do kind of want to keep it Australian. I do have somebody Australian in mind. What? Yeah. Don't you have racism laws there or something like that? No, this is Australian. I feel like I'm being discriminated against. We're 100 years behind. Look, I will say thank you, but no thanks. However, I'll throw you a lifeline, because I know with this freaking trash-talking educational, you've been dicked around, you and Ron. So how about... Yeah, we have. Officially, I invite you as the head-to-head pinball ringers, so that way you are absolutely guaranteed to be in the tournament. What do you think? I would be honored to be part of the head-to-head slash slam tilt podcast team. Head to slam. Head to slam. Well, you know what? We've pretty much ripped off everything from you anyway, so we might as well have you as part of the team, right? Nice. I love it, guys. That's why I love you guys. You guys rock. Well, that's right. And we figured, you know, throw you a bone. Here it is. You can now be part of the Trash Talker Invitational. Forget about the committee. Forget about Chuck Webster. Chuck Webster, the bastard. well thank you sir I love you guys and have a great show keep it Australian I see where this is going yeah one day and have a great night man alright thanks mate speak to you soon thanks man see you in three weeks baby okay thanks mate bye so Bruce from the Slam Tour podcast he's trying to get in wow and he's got credentials he's got a lot of podcasts under his belt he does but you know he's not Australian true Very true. Do you know who else is not Australian? Who? This guy. Welcome to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. I'm Nate Shivers. So, I mean, even Nate, the gold standard himself. Wow. He's wanted to come on the show. I mean, this is pretty exciting stuff. But again, sorry, mate, you're not really Australian. There was one more I've got to say. Some would say A serial pest And in fact I'm pretty sure I saw his car Outside my work today What? I will post it up on Facebook But here we go Serial pest Well the good news is This stupid podcast Has got 50% better with Ryan being gone Now we just need to get rid of that Drunkie McLaugh-a-lot So I killed them. Welcome to the new show, Pinside Petey and the Fuckhead. I'll be telling you what's cool like me and Martin with his snicker and burping and occasionally drive his car into a ditch. Now, this is never going to work. I'll show you a podcast with Martin or any Australian or anyone for that matter. I'm a lone wolf. I beat my own drum. my mom says the reason I'm alone is people don't understand me and they're just jealous losers and you know what I say to that fuck off good to get that trademark in there isn't it absolutely so you know I had considered you know bringing on Pinside Petey until he said he just wants to go it alone and doesn't actually want to do a podcast with us He's taken himself out of the running, really. Pretty much. So there you go. You have beaten all of those people to be the successful person to be the co-host this week. Amazing. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So we are going to cover a lot of news tonight. We're also going to go straight now into an interview that we did with Jimmy and Lambo, who are going to be bringing us the Brisbane Masters tournament in a couple of weeks. and you are going. Absolutely am. Looking forward to it. It's going to be great. Have you done many tournaments interstate before? I have not done too many. I've done a quick one in the Gold Coast once when I was up there for EBX Pro and I went to the Adelaide or the Australian Championships in Adelaide at the start of this year. But that's it for me, interstate. Otherwise it's been Melbourne all the way. Yeah, fair enough. So this is, and you'll see we talk about this in the interview, This is pretty much Australia's biggest tournament of the year. Yeah. So here we go to Jimmy and Lambo. All right, joining us today all the way from, I can only assume, sunny Queensland, we've got Jimmy and Jason joining us today. How are you guys? Good, guys. How are you guys doing? Very good. How are you guys? Fantastic. So you've got a big event coming up in a week's time. Can you tell us all about it? Yeah, we've got the Brisbane Masters coming up in about a fortnight now, I think it is. Yeah, two weeks in. So just this morning we cracked over 120 paid-up players. Nice. So we just had an event this morning at Netherworld and a few more people signed up. The event's actually only a few blocks from Netherworld in the heart of Brisbane. It's one of the newest kind of bar precincts in town, so it's a pretty fresh-looking street. and lots of nice bars and restaurants nearby. And the venue we've got this year is capable of holding probably 44 machines, we think. Right. Pretty safely, and 120, 130 players pretty safe. Yeah, so the venue have been really good. They're organising, you know, food and drink specials for us. We got bump-in from probably Wednesday night now. We got access to the room from 7 in the morning until 2am every day. The bar's going to be open until 2 o'clock every night, which I think is a big win. There's nothing worse than wrapping up a comp and everyone's going to be out within a few minutes. This way we get to finish our comp stuff. Everyone can hang around for another two hours and socialise. I shouldn't have even bothered booking a combination. That's right, because Stacey, your going of course but there's actually and so it actually runs over four days so there's actually a number of different tournaments that you've got yeah so we've got over the four days there's five different events so this year we've actually opened up a Thursday night and we're doing a pin golf on a Thursday afternoon qualifying starts from 4pm on that one then moving on to Friday Friday we'll be still probably bumping a couple of machines in in the morning but then on the night time we've got a group three strike elimination. Then we move on to Saturday morning. We've got the main event, which kicks off around about 9.30 in the morning. Six rounds of three games in groups again. And then Saturday night, we have the first of the Flip Frenzies, which is going great guns. The Flip Frenzies are virtually sold out. Then on Sunday morning we have the finals for the main event and Saturday night sorry, Sunday night I should say the last of the Flip Frenzies which is a great way to sort of finish the event and basically have everyone let their hair down and just enjoy themselves to finish off such a big weekend. Right, so they're 90 player Flip Frenzies, is that right? That is correct. That is correct. There's a slim possibility that the Flip Frenzies might be opened up to a little bit more players, but a lot of it comes down to logistics, where the machines are holding up, things like that. We're hoping to open up to more than 90. We'd love to probably go to 100 if possible. But yeah, this stage is getting at 90 at the present moment. Is that the biggest you guys have run up in Queensland, or have you gone higher? When it comes to foot frenzy, definitely the biggest. We did have, I think, 60 or 70-odd players, they're truly classic Flip Frenzies, which was just amazing. I know when they run the Flip Frenzies here at Netherworld, usually have about 40 to 45 players there for their monthly ones, but yeah, definitely the biggest Flip Frenzy in Australia anyway. You're right. Absolutely, yeah. I've only ever been in Flip Frenzies that run the old school way on paper and or computer, but yeah. I think your software makes it a whole It's easier, right? Yeah, it takes a little bit of a frenzy out of it. From the organiser, for sure. Yeah, Barb's an absolute legend when it comes to that software. It's just amazing. And I know these guys are actually looking at taking that software sort of around the world in a couple of weeks' time when they go to Finder. So, yeah, it's going to be awesome. And so the main tournament you said has now hit 120 players. Is that a cap or, you know, do you want to go even more than that? We've got 43 machines coming along to the event, so we can potentially have up to 160 players if we really want to. So if there's still people out there who want to sign up and register, absolutely, get your names in. Be part of the biggest event we've ever had in Australia. And so tell me a bit about the history of Brisbane Masters. How long has it been going for and how has it grown over the time? So this is actually the fourth year of the Brisbane Masters. It was actually Jimmy's idea a few years back to actually want to run a bigger type event here in Brisbane. And I remember he actually approached me to co-run the event, basically. And we started, as I said, four years ago. Sorry, this is our fourth year, so three years ago, we started a little venue over at West End called the Archive Bar, where we did have a cap, I think, of about 60 or 70 players, I think. And it was definitely a very, very tight squeeze there. Great venue, really accommodating, everything like that. But that's where we started with 70 players. And fast forward four years later, you know, 120 players. We've got players coming from New Zealand and from the U.S. and all over Australia, of course. And, yeah, it's only getting bigger and better every year. And, you know, definitely couldn't have done this without a good bloke like Jimmy. And, you know, also due to the really awesome pinball community we have here in Australia. It's getting better and better every year. And no doubt, yeah, just thoroughly enjoy it, basically. Love the organising side of it. So what are the challenges that you've had running the tournament in the past? And how do you make sure that you don't have those same challenges this year? I think on game day everything goes pretty well. Me and Lambo have been running big events and monthly tournaments for so long, we feel pretty comfortable even managing up to 100 people. I think it's just the logistics of A, finding a venue that understands what we want to do and is willing to accommodate us, and then having the bumping in and out of the machines, three days inside and people working like madmen. but it's usually just trying to find a venue that has the, I guess the infrastructure that can handle 40 plus machines getting plugged in and turned on and I think the space we've got now could probably handle 140 people pretty comfortably but in previous years we've been definitely limited by space, Archive could only handle 60 so long walls, probably 80 we did the mill last year it we were definitely maxed at 80 if we'd got one more person in there you wouldn't have been able to get to your machines whereas this year with 120 and 140 machines everyone's still going to be comfortable. There's a beautiful beer garden deck for people to go relax on and yeah it's a really nice space so there's plenty of room to get away from the room as well when you may have a 20 minute break waiting for your next round to start The food's good, the beer's good. So pretty lucky all around it. We did hunts, man I looked at so many venues for this. I probably looked at 60 spaces trying to find the right place. But it's real with what we've got. The other thing that's also been a bit of a hurdle I guess over previous years is of course finding enough people that are happy to donate machines as well. because, I mean, to try and get 40 machines, especially for this year's event, hasn't been easy. But because we are so lucky up here in Queensland that we've got a lot of people that are happy to support all the events we have running, we're very, very blessed, basically, to be able to count on these people. And obviously they share this passion for the sport as well that we have. So, yeah, we are very, very lucky up here. So what's the mix of all machines sort of coming from private collections or have you got things from other venues coming along as well? Yeah, so for Netherworld, donating a couple of the machines for the weekend as well as a couple of the operators that have machines here at Netherworld as well. Pinkadia, despite the fact that they're not open at the moment, they're happy to donate a couple of machines. We've also got Pinball House around the corner to donate a couple, but just about the rest of them are from private collections. So as I said, it's just fantastic that we have such great support base from all these people. And the majority of the people that are actually supplying machines are also playing in the event as well. And not to mention also, a lot of the guys will drop the machines off themselves and pick them up, which is extremely generous. We've also had a few guys that have offered just to hang around on Thursday and Friday and just help with the placement of the machines and getting everything level and set up. that up, which, you know, the weight of just doing that alone for us at Memphis, that's 20, 30, 40 hours of prep you need to do. So having a few extra hands to do that's a huge help. Yeah, awesome. So just going through the machines then. Okay, what I'm going to do, you've got them into three areas. So the 2000s, the, you know, the 90s DMD, and then the solid state and EM. What I'm going to do, I'm going to read out the machines, and I want each of you, because all three of you are going to be at this tournament, tell me which game are you most looking forward to playing and which one are you least most looking forward to playing? So we've got Iron Maiden Pro, in fact you've got two Iron Maiden Pros you've got a World Poker Tour, Spider-Man Vault, Batman 66 Limited Edition, Total Nuclear Annihilation, Star Trek Pro, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Stern one, Tron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Metallica, Iron Maiden Vault and Walking Dead Pro. I know the line-up's probably subject to change but based on those alone, what are your thoughts? I know for me personally I'm definitely looking forward to playing Iron Maiden again definitely enjoyed playing it when we were down at Koolingatta for the Kooling Classic haven't played it since and I'm one of these people that's sort of on board with just the fact that it's such a great playing game and there's all this talk of it being one of the best machine releases in the last 15 years or so I definitely find it one of the best mind you I'm also a big fan of Star Trek Pro as well, I know you are as well Martin and I don't apologise for getting you on that in Adelaide No, that's fine, I got your back But anyway, yeah I mean as I said, the Iron Maiden's a great game Star Trek for me is probably probably ranks a little bit higher just because of the fast flow of the game but yeah, definitely definitely for me one of those two anyway And which one are you least likely to enjoy when you're coming into a tournament? Well, I don't know I'd probably say maybe possibly Pirates of the Caribbean not because I don't like playing the game but I find it can be a very very long drawn out game at times and I'm certainly not dissing the game in any way as I said I don't mind the game but I'm not sure if it's really really a game I'm looking forward to playing and I mean fingers crossed I mean I probably shouldn't be saying this because someone will probably like if I'm lucky enough to get to the finals or someone might want to force me or something like that. I'll pay you no record of this. This is a private conversation. Feel free to tell us all your shortcomings. I'm happy to provide all this, no worries at all. Funny enough. But, yeah, I'd say probably Forest of the Caribbean for me is probably the least one that I'm looking forward to out of the newer games. As I said, not a knock on the game, but that's just the way I feel. Jimmy? Definitely can't wait to get my hands on it. and made it again. Super pumped and really enjoyed playing that at Cooley. Least like looking forward to, I'm a bit like TNA in a tournament environment. As equally terrifying as it is exciting, like at Cooley it was pretty interesting to watch people playing that TNA at Cooley Classic. It was a brutal machine, but other people managed to push out a million or two million point scores even in a comp environment, which is pretty impressive. Awesome. What about you, Stacey? I mean, as the other guys have said, Iron Maiden is definitely one to look forward to. I've managed to have a couple of games of it locally here. I mean, there's just so many shots. I don't think I've even actually shot at all the shots yet. There's that many to sort of master. So it'll be definitely fun to get back on that. Also look really looking forward to Batman 66 because that sort of new code that's come out looks really interesting and I haven't had a chance again to play that. so I've watched a few streams and things from Deadflip so definitely keen to get on that and have a crack. I probably... I mean, I haven't played World Baseball, but that should also be fun. I'm definitely least looking forward to Star Trek, bro, and I know you guys all love it, but, God, I can't get my head around that game, Zach. I don't know what it is, but, yeah. Happy to show you when you get up here, Stacey. Yeah, don't worry. As long as you don't do it during the tournament. It's fine. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. Excellent. So, yeah, that's probably my least favourite there. I mean, Walking Dead can be brutally hard as well, but I'm going to give that a crack. Okay. All right, so from the mid-90s, so this is the D&D era, we've got Black Rose, Party Zone, Creature of the Black Lagoon, Flintstones, Doctor Who, Twilight Zone, Getaway, Baywatch, Demolition Man, Shadow, Fishtails, Monster Bash, Star Wars, Data East and Circus Voltaire. I mean, already, like, each of the machines, even from the 2000s to this, what a great line-up already, right? Yes. Wrong. Not at all. Yeah. You've been looking forward to the Flintstones, I'm sure. Yeah. Who's that team? Me? No, no, no. That's got nothing to do with that at all. Yeah, I mean, it's a tough one to choose from. I know for me, personally, I'm a huge fan of Monster Bash. I mean, it's just such a great game. I know the one we are getting is in such great condition as well. So let's just say I'm very surprised we were actually able to acquire that machine because it is in such good condition. To be honest, from that list, it's just so hard to choose something. As you're saying, it's such a good lineup. And again, that's where I'm saying that we're so blessed and so lucky that we've got their support, that these people are happy to supply all these machines. I honestly can't pick. Honestly can't pick. Yeah, I can't even pick a bad one out of that. I know. It's actually not a bad one on that list. The only one that gives me the heebie-jeebies a little bit is Fishtails, because everyone knows how to play Fishtails. There's always that environment around Fishtails in a comp where you're sure that you should be able to get a good score. Everyone should be able to score reasonably well on Fishtails, but the one at Cooley, god damn that machine. It's annoying me at Cooley. What about you, Stacey? Yeah, I mean, similarly, they're all fantastic machines. The one I'd probably put down the bottom for mine is Baywatch. I've only played it a couple of times probably and never really had much fun with it, but it is another great game. But yeah, out of those, if I had to choose one that I'm not looking too much forward to, it's probably Baywatch. I think the only one that I'm probably not looking forward to, and it's not because I don't like the game or anything like that, but it's been many, many years since I've played Black Rose. So purely because of that, it's probably the one I'm probably not looking forward to playing. But as I said, you know, they're all games, all of them. Yeah, I mean, look, it's interesting because from a tournament perspective, Black Rose is an interesting one because there's not a lot of people that really know how to play it. It's also a relatively, I won't necessarily say unforgiving, but the cannon shot itself can be, unless it works perfectly, can be just absolutely deadly. The shot layout is a little bit awkward but if you can nail particularly the right ramp you can start getting your lock shots through the inlanes and start multi But once you in multi it still quite a challenging layout anyway So if it was for me, I'd be happy to get up on Black Rose because I understand the rules really well and I would assume that a lot of people don't. Right. Yeah, and I think you're right with that one, Mark. Yeah. All right. So the list of solid state and EM. Now, there's some here that I don't know of. Only a couple. So Conquest, for example. I don't know that machine. Yeah, Conquest is an EM. Yeah. It's the one and only EM that we've got there. This is for the Masters weekend. When it was offered, we sort of jumped at the opportunity that we'd be able to have an EM there. Yeah. Would have liked a few more, but there's not too many people offering up EMS, or, you know, we all know sometimes EMS don't really last the whole weekend of play, so it was a little bit disappointing, I guess, but as I said, once the opportunity came up, it was really good. But I mean, I've never seen it before either, so... Yeah. Well, still, you've got great machines here. So you've got Barracora, which is an amazing tournament game. You've got Grand Lizard, just go for multiple. Xenon, another great game. Vector. Oh, Stacey. Excalibur. TX Vector. TX, TX, TX. RoboWall, great, I've played that in tournaments Space Invaders Transporter, Bride of Pinbot, Buck Rogers Taxi and Pinball Champ 82 What are our thoughts? I know a lot of the consensus up here in Queensland is that Space Invaders is probably the one we're not looking forward to the most I still have a few nightmares about that one from the Death by Pinball that we had up here earlier in the year, it was the one and only game the entire weekend, I got a fourth place on. Right on, aye. Last game of the entire weekend. Yeah, that's exactly right. Last game. 63 games we had for that entire night, and that was the last game I got a fourth place on. So, look, I know that's the general consensus. I actually don't mind Space Invaders. But if I had to pick one as the one that I don't want to play, that's probably it. Maybe Brian Pimbot as well. I don't think it's necessarily the best tournament game, unfortunately, but, you know, we've sort of got to go with what we can get. You know, if the people are happy, you know, if that's what they're happy to donate, I guess, then we certainly can't say no to it. So, yeah, from probably the other side of things, I mean, I am a huge fan of Grand Lizards. certainly had a couple of good games on it at last year's Masters when it was there. So I'd probably just about say that. And I'm always a big fan of taxi as well. Yeah, I'm on that Grand Lizard as well. The one that'll be at Masters was on the floor at Netherworld for probably eight months. But since it's had a playfield swap and a complete refurb, and apparently it's looking mental. So super keen to see how it looks. It played beautifully while it was here anyway, but now with a playfield swap, apparently it's spectacular and super keen to see that. I'm definitely not looking forward to playing Space Invaders. 100%, that's an easy decision right there. Just want to make sure you draw that during the flip forensics if you can. Nice quick games. Yeah, right. For myself, I've only really played, what, four of these games, I believe, Xenon, Vector, Taxi and Bride of Finbar. The others, I don't know, I've seen of them, but I haven't actually played them. I think I'm looking forward to Barracora. I mean, I've seen that in a few of the big tournaments over in the States. That looks like a really fun game. But I'll say Space Invaders. I'm looking forward to that the most. Someone has to. If you guys don't hate it, then maybe I've got a chance. Maybe I'll study that one and become the Space Invaders master. I know you're probably one of probably two. I think Dave is probably the one Xenophonist, probably the other one that's probably looking forward to playing it the most. He is an interesting after all. I'm a retro gamer from way back, so Space Invaders, no, has to have some connection there. Yeah, I'm another person that actually likes Space Invaders, but everybody knows that I've got really shit taste in pinball, so that would not say. But I would have said, Stacey, for you, Vector would have been one that you wouldn't be looking forward to. Am I right? Ah, you know. Well, I did come first on last weekend when we had to play that, so... But it's such a random game. Yeah, it's so hard. I mean, you've got to get that plunge right, you've got to get those targets down, and then you've got to manage to hit that left ground. It depends on how the flippers are going, I guess. If the flippers are nice and powerful, it's probably a bit more fun. Yeah, I've played that vector a couple of times before. It's not too bad to play, so it shouldn't be too difficult, actually. Okay. Well, what an amazing line-up, guys. I think that, I mean, you know the tournament's going to be great, and it's just getting bigger and bigger each year. Yeah, I mean, as I said, to have 120 players in this event this year just goes to show, obviously, we must be doing something all right up here. And, you know, we have such a great pinball community up here. People are coming along to all the monthly events and all the events we're hosting up here. Curly Plastic was a good example of that, again, only a couple of months ago where, you know, I think numbers this year were up nearly 30 on last year. So it's just absolutely fantastic. And I can't thank the pinball community, not just here in Brisbane and Queensland, but all around Australia. It's just fantastic. I know Jimmy and I are absolutely stoked with how it's all going. Yeah, like, I mean, Cooley probably was the biggest tournament weekend we've ever had in Australia, right? I mean, hunted down 167 wobber points in total. I mean, Lambo, you collected most of those, about 148. Definitely, was that the largest we've had in Australia? Like, I can't think of anything else. I think so, because I know even last year's Brisbane Masters event wasn't quite worth that much. So, yeah, I mean, overall, I think, yeah, it was just amazing. So I know, obviously, this weekend and a couple of weeks' time, we're going to definitely top that. Yeah. but yeah it's just as I said I'm almost speechless when it comes to baseball yeah fantastic and I mean everyone else in Australia is really jealous of the Brisbane scene at the moment I mean heaps of tournaments happening all the time what do you reckon have been the biggest factors in having that scene flourish so much I think I don't know what Jimmy's going to say but I don't think it's pretty much because people want it you know because I sort of run things off feedback and people telling me, like with the Brisbane Club this year for example, it was actually because of the players we decided to go from monthly to fortnightly and as a result of that, I actually thought that being, and moving to fortnightly I thought would actually drop numbers but still averaging probably about 40 to each event every fortnight. The Pinkadia events were getting nearly 30 to an event. The Flip Frenzy fell out up here at Netherworld within a few hours in most cases. So, yeah, it's just because the players want it. You know, because they want it, we run. But it has, it just, we mentioned it a few episodes ago where, you know, Queensland, you know, Brisbane, Gold Coast really is now probably the pinball capital of Australia just with the amount of events and the amount of venues. But why Brisbane? Why Gold Coast? That's a good question. I mean, I moved up here four years ago from Melbourne. And not long, the year before I left Melbourne, I ran a big marathon at the Peacocks. Pushed pretty hard on the media and on advertising. And I think we ended up with about 40-odd players. I got to Brisbane several months later. I did one post on Aussie Arcade for a pinball marathon. And I had 60 people registered by 9 in the morning. like, it was unbelievable, the response. They didn't know who I was. They never heard of me. A lot of guys were like, who are you? What are you doing? But again, they all turned up with machines in the back of their cars. I literally could not believe the response and how quickly it grew here. But that said, Lambo was running comps long before I got here, so there is some depth in the time spent, especially by people like Lambo. So the scene has been slowly building, and then we are very spoilt for venues with Pincaidia, Pinball House, 1UP Freeplay. I just saw there's an arcade opening in Townsville shortly. Yeah, I saw that. There's one on the Sunny Coast, which Vaughan Keaton was here this morning at the Flip Frenzy. He's doing an amazing job running events on the Sunny Coast. You know, Peter Holley, Gavin do an unbelievable job on the Gold Coast. So there's a lot of guys. Gavin's been running Covs longer than I've been in Brisbane as well. Yeah, I'll just mention that a lot of where this started can actually be attributed to Time Zone down the Gold Coast. Yeah. With Jump In and One down there, the Service Paradise and Cooling Out of Stores, they were actually the first ones here in Queensland to actually start a club. And so it's just basically built from there. So the Gold Coast Pinball Club based at Surfers Paradise was the first club to open up in South Queensland. And then the Brisbane Club followed not long after, and it's just basically stable from there, basically. And it's just been fantastic. And I also want to add as well that, especially with Jimmy and the guys here at Netherworld, before the Brisbane Club moved here to Netherworld, we were probably averaging probably 25 to 30 per meet. but since moving here to Netherworld and with all the support that they give, with all the promotion they give and everything like that, it basically makes a massive difference. We're all of a sudden getting, as I said, averaging 40 players a month. We had our biggest turnout at the end of last year of 61 players. Even the Tuesday night we had 49 players. So it's just getting massive, massive turnouts. and it's all attributed to people wanting to turn out and have fun. I think that's the other thing that's really a big bonus about all this is that we all just turn up and have fun. It's not necessarily about the competition. It's not about the points. It's just about turning up, having fun, having a few drinks, having a laugh, talking shit, basically. Yeah, and that's what it's about. So just back on the Flip Frenzy as well, Also, Jimmy, you're going to be running a Flip Frenzy in the US. This is true? Yeah, we're pretty thrilled. Thanks to some hookups from Jack Danger and Jeff Sivnato, I got in contact with Logan Arcade. And the guys there were super responsive. So myself, Scott, and Hugh from Netherworld are heading to Pinburg. And then the four days following, we're going to hang out in Chicago. and on the Wednesday nights we're running a Frenzy at Logan Arcade. Tickets for that go on sale tomorrow week in the US, which should go well. I think they have 26 machines on the floor there, so we can probably push it up to like 60 people if we want, if there's a response that's good. Yeah, well, people will know that on the podcast we have been talking about Flip Frenzy being such an amazing format. So everybody, if you are in Chicago, go along. And will you be having your famous software running it? Yeah, so Scott, or Barb, as we call him, is coming with us to Pinburg. And he'll be there just to oversee and make sure everything runs smoothly. And fingers crossed, we do hope that the software at some stage this year will be stable enough for anyone to operate it. There's probably like another 100 hours of coding that we need to do to make that possible. at this stage if someone misreports a score Barb's has to bounce into the software and go back a couple of steps but if that was to happen if I was running it on my own to do that I probably wouldn't be able to manage it often Barb's literally writes code on the fly which I've seen him do it's unbelievable especially when he drinks double gin and juice all morning as well I mean that's his he writes Autobots or automatic software for a living so he's very clever he's really excited he's only just got into pinball this year so he's pretty nervous about pinburg but he's a super friendly guy people are going to love him anyway and I know Jack's going to stream the Flip Frenzy from Logan Arcade Jessica's going to be there with us and Hugh, one of my technicians is coming so yeah, really hoping we get a good response when the tickets go on sale and yeah can't wait to check out Chicago really we're doing a Stern factory tour on the Wednesday morning considering hiring a car and driving up to Spooky as well so yeah, really excited about the trip, can't believe it's only a few weeks away Yeah, I know. Yeah, pretty terrifying actually. You're doing all the work I've got to put in for Masters in the next couple of weeks and I literally get, yeah, have Monday off with the family and then bounce. Right. And what are you looking forward to most with Pinbird? Probably being humbled in my pinball skills. Jessica has certainly said that, you know, prepare to be humbled a little bit but mostly just learning and meeting a lot of people that we've watched online for years spoken to online over the first last couple of years so just mostly keen to meet a lot of people and watch some really good players I hope I play okay I'm really looking forward, there'll be a lot of machines there that I've never seen before but just mostly the experience I can't just wait for the registration and opening of the event just cannot wait for it fingers crossed I at least see the first six balls I play, I'll probably be way too excited yeah, honestly as you know I've been to a couple of large tournaments over there that first moment is pretty amazing because it's just it's like you've obviously got a big tournament with with the Masters but you know ten times that and then that's what you've got it's pretty spectacular. Yeah, I believe. And that's something I've got to keep in mind too. Even at, I feel like I dropped the ball a little bit with death by pinball because the people there were in that mode. They were very, very excited to be there. And what they'd actually achieved was truly unbelievable. But I was so exhausted come the end. I just wanted to, you know, let's do the ceremony and let's get to bed. But actually, you know, once we released the results, you know, the whole room just erupted like it was the grand final of the football. It was unbelievable. So, you know, you don't realize how invested people are when you're running events like that. You definitely have to remember how important it is for everybody there, not just the winners. And that's, again, one of the reasons why I pushed the Masters to have B, C, and D grade finals this year, which I think is great. If you make the top 72, you're going to play finals on Sunday. but going back to what Lambo said that's come from the crowd here who guys that turn up week in week out to events but never quite make the finals or they're always kind of middle of the road for them they just really want to experience what it's like to come back the next day to feel that kind of head-to-head pressure that they watch the other guys do all the time so I think that adds to the quality of the event we've also pushed out A grade is now best of five on the Sunday. BC and D grade is still best of three. It's a bit of a shorter format, but that's because I want the lower finals to be done by the time maybe we get to the top eight of A grade. And that way there's a good crowd around, there's a bit of excitement around as the finals are coming up. We're also probably going to give a little bit of time for people to warm up Sunday morning. I'm also going to open Netherworld super early Sunday if people want to come and warm up in there. and I feel like if you're in A grade, if you've had a chance to warm up and it's a best of five, you've kind of been given every chance you can to win. The one criticism we've received over the last few years is turning up cold on the Sunday and it's only a best of three and you can have four house falls and you're going home, you know what I mean? It can happen so quickly Sunday morning So I really hope that this format just extends the quality of the event and also, I guess, the experience for the better players as well. Absolutely. I mean, any chance to play more pinball is always welcome. That is true. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for coming on today. Really appreciate it. As you've just finished a flick frenzy this morning as well. And any final words for you, Stacey, as you're going to be up there for the Brisbane Masters? I mean, just, you know, go gentle on me, as I always ask. You know, it'll be my biggest tournament outside of Melbourne, so definitely looking forward to it. And, yeah, see you up there. See you up there. Great. It'll be good to see you, Stacey. And, again, thank you to everyone that's travelling interstate or from overseas for the event. You know, very humbling to think that people will come up for that. So thrilled to see a lot of, especially my old Melbourne massive, pretty pumped to see a lot of my old mates up here. So, yeah, really looking forward to it. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thanks again. And I'll see you in Pinburg, Jimmy. Woo-hoo! Thanks, guys. Thanks. See you there, mate. Bye. So there we go. That was Jimmy and Lambo. Stacey, what did we learn? Well, we learned a lot about the Brisbane scene. I mean, it's been kicking butt for quite a while now. And it looks like, yeah, Brisbane Masters is going to be just an awesome tournament to go to. Yeah, absolutely. And just sort of labor on the point about Brisbane. Our very first interview that we did on Head to Head was actually with Jimmy. Yeah, that's right. Jimmy Nelson. And really what he talked about was, I guess, the essence of what makes a really good pinball venue. And his venue, Netherworld, still is just a very popular venue. and when you walk in, it is a venue that has pinball. They complement each other really well and good on him and good on the Brisbane scene for just growing to be so big as it is. As you say, like a lot of people say, you really have to get the venue right. The pinball will sort of take care of itself after that, but it's very hard to base a good venue on just pinball, right? You've got to get everything around it. Yeah, well, and look, we spoke to Bruce before, and Bruce was on a podcast recently, I think it was Eclectic Gamers, and he sort of mentioned that, I think he was saying that the takings that he gets really from pinball is probably about 20% of his takings. So if 80% comes from everything else, that's really what you've got to focus your attention on. Exactly. Pinball is a feature of the place. It can't be the focus, I think, in most places. Yeah, and we've spoken to operators and I had a machine that was on site for about a year. It's really hard to make a living off this unless you've got a lot of them and it's in a venue that's got a lot of traffic through it. Yeah, absolutely. So there you go. So shall we go to some news, Daisy? Yeah, why not? Let's do it. What shall we start with? How about that Iron Maiden code? Well, yes, so Iron Maiden 1.02 was released. Oh, man. How good is this? You haven't even got your machine yet, but you pre-ordered and we're up to 1.02. I know. And I've said before that I kind of enjoy the updating process, and someone actually sent me a note saying, I'll send you all the previous code updates and you can, you know... Oh, don't freak the motion. install it, play it, then install the update, play it, then install an update. But, you know, we will get it with 1.02 code. That's fine. Yeah, and so there's a couple of things there. The trooper multiball, there's some sort of fixes there, and also with mummy multiball. Added some more callouts and has added a dirty pool callout. Oh, right. How do you get dirty pool? So if you get an airball into the sarcophagus, apparently, and I will see when I get my Iron Maiden, it will give you a dirty pool call out and it will give you an instant lock. Nice. Would that work on the Pro as well? Or is that just for the LA? I honestly don't know. Because I don't know whether you can get an airball into that. But I think it may be the way that the sarcophagus lock is different on the premium and limited edition. Yeah. But also to note, we believe that the Iron Maiden limited editions are currently on Australian soil. Oh, very nice. So apparently the boat landed a couple of days ago and I might get it this week. That's excellent. Fantastic. And with fully fleshed out code. I mean, I think when it launched, it had a lot of code anyway. Most of it really was there. They obviously had to add, you know, final wizard modes and now to do some tweaking. Sure. Oh, man. I think that's probably the advantage of it being not a brand-spanking-new machine, having been fleshed out over a longer time with Keith, maybe makes that a bit more apparent. But hopefully, fingers crossed, It's a new standard initiative to just get stuff moving along. Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, you know, I think they've got a lot more coders there, a lot more animators, a lot more designers, a lot more engineers. I think there's a lot more people there now. Yeah. So, you know, maybe that's what they can do. They can just have these things with better code. I also think it comes down to, you know, shifting priorities when it comes to the release of machines. You know, the rumours were that, you know, Batman 66 had to be pushed out quickly. Right. There were other machines that got pushed forward from their normal release date. So, you know, it has to come out in whatever state it is. The danger of that is it comes out with code that's not great. And it makes people upset. People don't like it. Yeah. People buy and sell machines quickly. Yeah. A lot of their machines have been just so much better once the code's been tweaked and finished. It's amazing. Yeah, have you played Batman 66 recently? I have not played it, but I've seen it, and it just looks like it would play so much better than it used to. Yeah, it does. Yeah, that sort of multi-level villain action and actually having some minor villains to play around with and doing some cool stuff with them. I mean, it's so important to get that stuff out there, and, yeah, it came out, didn't have those things, and a lot of people probably had a lower view of it than they really should. Yeah, and I think that they've sort of turned it around. I think the stigma of that game has now gone and it's been a long time. What has it been, like 18 months now? Yeah, about that. Something like that. So, you know, they can recover from that. I think they have recovered from that. Releasing machines like Iron Maiden with really good code to begin with really helps that. Definitely. So hashtag there's the code. Let's get it trending. We also got another stern of the Union as well. Right, yes. So what did they have to say, Stacey? There's a bit of action in the army updates. I mean, I don't know if that makes much sense to us because it's mostly sort of American base, but a whole bunch of people have come in through the stern army. Well done, guys. congratulations maybe we'll get us to do an army in Australia one day that'd be great I mean you know we don't really do the army thing that much fair enough fair enough what else have they got they got some bare naked lady tickets yes available should we enter that competition Martin I don't know I don't know they haven't two it here I don't even know whether they have two it here but I do like bare naked ladies so they are good and I mean of course Ed Ed Robertson is a big pimple nut so that's probably why they've got that information in there. Yeah, I would say so. Toad updates, so they're saying, again, with Batman 66, still working towards the next release later this summer. Well, it's winter where we are, so I don't know. I guess that's in a month, maybe. Yeah, I think so. They said, Keith will follow Aerosmith's updates, followed by Ghostbusters. Okay. Oh, Ghostbusters updates. What are they going to do? Move the flippers closer together? That can be done in code, right? Make the ball not jump over the outlanes. Oh, those outlanes. I hate those outlanes so much, Martin. I know. And that's, you know, we talked about before why you don't like Ghostbusters. It really is that. I can deal with the flipper gap. Admittedly, you have to completely change your flipper style. but those those outlines wow when it jumps over there yeah it's still true that it plays pretty well when it's nicely set up but there is nothing those yeah but you can't do anything about those outlines you just lose the ball for no reason it's totally unfair it's horrible yeah fix them put something over the top of them stone well you can actually you can obviously get it off to market but you know they should have done that themselves that was the I believe they should have fixed that problem yeah I know But, yeah, I think they also had ghosting as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's another machine. It's not there. Slimer problems. Slimer problems. Yeah, I think they've managed to salvage Batman 66. Ghostbusters. Ooh, it's still a bit of a sore point. That's okay. They've also mentioned that the Star Wars topper, everyone keeps asking about it, is in the final phase of production, development and approvals. Do we know anything? We don't know anything about it? No rumours? No, I've not even seen... Well, the rumour I've heard is that it's... And remember, we are going to talk about a lot of rumours tonight, right? Right. So we're going to talk about a clanger of a rumour coming up. But you've got to remember, people just randomly send us messages and, you know, we repeat them because why not? It's a bit of fun. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, someone has said that the topper is going to be like R2-D2. Okay. That sort of makes sense. You know, like the topper for Doctor Who, with the Dalek that moves left and right. Right, yeah. So, I don't know. You ask me if I'd heard anything, that's the only thing I'd heard. I don't know what it would be, but, I mean, that would be very cool. A life-size animatronic Yoda. Let's do it, Stan. Come on. Come on. You've got the means to do that. Absolutely. Daisy has asked for it. You should deliver. The hologram of Mark Dick Hamill. Yes. Why not? Sure. Look, so the only thing I want to talk about with Stern, and this is, let's just label this completely unfounded wild rumour and possibly wishful thinking. Yep. So someone emailed me during the week and said that apparently and remember I say apparently apparently, let's make that allegedly so let's not break the legend but if it's true, you heard it here first right? that's how this works so apparently Stern have the rights to Ballywilliams machines what? this is what I've heard right, but it's set from the whole pinball arcade thing I don't know you know what, again I don't know what to make of this whether it's true or not. And it could be just, you know, Doug Skor has gone from Chicago Gaming over to Stern, so therefore, let's start this rumour that Stern are going to start making Bally Williams machines. But it's not impossible. It's probably not impossible. The licences are there for the taking. It's not impossible. It would cost a bit of money. Whoever's got the licences at the moment would know what they're worth. but just think about it for a second right if Stern did have the rights and now the ability to make Ballywilliams machines Wow Holy crap This would change things quite a bit wouldn it Well, it really would because, you know, obviously the ones that are coming out at the moment, so we've obviously had Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars, they are two years minimum in the making and, you know, Monster Bash, though it's not being completely confirmed, has been told to be the next one. Yeah. Let's take them forever. Well, it feels like forever. That's good for you, especially. Yeah, for sure, right? Because we have to report on this stuff each week. That's right. So, my mind boggles if they could do that and, you know, they could turn three of those out a year. Right. That would be a massive game changer. But as we said, complete unfounded rumour. Hmm. Do you guys know how the remakes have been done? Like, are they individual licenses or something for those machines? I think they are. Well, yeah, so they own the license already. They then contract them out, so there would be fees associated. Yeah, sure. So I think they sort of paid for the license maybe outright. I don't even know whether they do pay a per-machine fee. The short answer to your question is no. Okay. Fair enough. I really don't know. Someone write into us and say, you're full of shit, first of all. Whoever sent that email is just completely bonkers. And also, tell us how the licensing works for those Bally Williams machines. So, yeah, there you go. So, a bit of fun. It would be great if it was true, but I think it really is a bit of wishful thinking. I did see somewhere. I think it was on Facebook, probably on the Pinball Arcade page. Someone, I didn't know, didn't catch exactly who they were, but they seemed to be someone that was involved with one of the companies somehow, and they mentioned that something was happening. Yeah. What that is, I don't know. I mean, there's been rumours I've heard about, you know, or people saying that maybe they were going to turn pinball machines into, you know, gaming machines, poker machine type things. But I don't think that makes any sense, really. like, how many customers are you going to gain from that? Like, I don't think that pinball licenses really guard under the respect of, you know, your average pokey player. You know, compared to like movies or TVs or whatever things that we're using. Yeah, you know. Yeah, Medieval Madness, it's no Downton Abbey. It isn't. It really isn't. Well, and this is the thing, right. We just do this little podcast for this sort of, you know, we are pretty much in a bubble and pinball... For us it's everything, but for the average girl it's not. It's not. Do they still make those? Exactly. I mean, if I had a dollar, every time someone said that to me, I'd have $112. You've got a little golf cap. You're not going to always see it. I just need to make a note. Somebody's asked me that ridiculous question again. And they go, oh, I love that song, what's that song? You know, Pinball Wizard? And then they start singing it. Ah, of course they do. Why wouldn't they? Because I want to hear that song again. It's not a terrible song, but I just think that we are more than that song. It's so descriptive, though. Really just tells you what's happening. It really does. Moving on to The Hobbit. The Hobbit. What do you think about The Hobbit? I really enjoyed The Hobbit, to be honest. I didn't never have it, but I played your one, and I played Ryan's one, and I played it around the place. It's a fun game. It's a very open play field, apart from those beasts when they pop up. And, you know, I guess if I had it in my home, I might have got bored with the way that the code was set up, but when I played it, I enjoyed it. Yeah, look, that was clearly the problem with my very small collection that I have. I play my machines a lot so you know I don't know if Ryan was here he would sort of bang on how much he's needed that final wizard mode well there is new code that's been released this is 3.0 code and 3.0 and they've added there and back again wizard mode for playing all book modes that is quite achievable How many book modes are there? Twelve-ish? Around that number? Twelve. Twelve things? Not even? No, I think there's 31. Oh, 31. I'm pretty sure. Sorry. I was at volume one. Volume one has 12. The other two books had another third. Well, those 12 books made the first movie. That's how long it felt. That's right. There are four modes just about singing songs. Yes, there is. So, look, what they've done, you know, we obviously interviewed Keith P. Johnson a few weeks ago, and he talked about what he was going to do. I subsequently sold my machine, mainly because I needed to make way for Iron Maiden. And, of course, we mentioned that as soon as that happened, they released the code. I really honestly wasn't expecting it for probably about another three or four months, because I was led to believe that it was really going to happen after they really had completed the code on Pirates of the Caravan. So is it released or is it just details at the moment? I believe it's been released. Okay. Someone sent me a note yesterday. Actually, someone that was watching my stream said that... Yeah. Hi, Peppers. Said that they were actually playing it and they really like it. So the main things, obviously, is... Yeah. So there and back again, the wizard mode. the beast frenzy has been changed one of the cool things he said was the ring button now changes colour depending on what you need to do because there are you know the three things are one you can just collect coins or points gently one of them is you can delay you can delay multiple or you can change it to the mode whatever it is so you know if a coloured button floats your boat there it is Do you ever look down at the action button? Well, I never really needed to because it was always the same colour. But I can imagine why you would need to because it was actually really interesting the way that the button was integrated because up until then, really it was, you know, for Star Trek it was the photon torpedoes. For other things it was almost like a mini smart missile where it would activate a shot on the play field like, you know, ACDC would. Yep. with the VRP pass or whatever it was. So this was the first time really where it was strategic. So you could delay starting multiball so you could then bring a mode in and then start multiball because effectively it delays it by, I think, about 20 seconds. Okay, that was a timer, wasn't it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's timed. So, yeah, you know what? I can understand that it would now be more useful to look at it knowing what colour it is. Right. And it's even more complex in the Pirates with that one coming out, isn't it? That is correct as well. Maybe they're getting that tech sort of sorted out. Yeah, maybe they wrote the codes for that and gone, you know what, copy and paste over into the Hobbit show. There it is. There are now 123 random awards to be given out in the Hobbit Mystery Awards. I know. Oh, God. I'm still looking forward to Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, it should be. Yeah, anyway. So they've added more speech. Okay. This is for locking balls and jackpots. Sure. Updated and added sound effects. Changed the mode hex icon display. We love a good hexagon. We do. And this one's actually quite interesting. So it says to improve contrast between played and not played modes. That seems really not all that important. Okay. when you've got that effectively, that honeycomb grid of all those modes, it was actually a quick glance. It was really hard to determine which ones you'd actually started, which ones you had not started, and which ones you didn't. It's a shame in the mouth, isn't it? Yeah. It's sort of a shat effect. Yeah. So now obviously that's more important to get to there and back again. So I'd say that's probably why they've done that. Yeah. One of the things, and Keith did sort of, This is when Keith made his big wah moment with a lot of complaints that people were complaining about Beast Frenzy and Smaug Multiball being stacked at the same time. Okay. And I didn't say anything at the time because, you know, he was a guest on the show, you know. But it didn't frustrate me too much. In fact, I didn't mind stacking those two together because it just made it more fun. but when you've got that one shot to kill Smaug and there's a beast off the map, oh my God, that's really frustrating when you've got the shot lined up, you've got it on the ramp, it's coming back to the flipper, all you've got to do is the flip and as soon as it hits the flipper, the beast pop up and then it hits the beast. Oh my God. So, you know, you can turn it on or off. So you can leave it as was always there. Do you like it that way? Yeah. So if you liked it as is, or if it frustrates you, you've now got the option to turn that off. Yeah, that's good. I mean, the more options, the better on these things, isn't it? Yeah. And one more thing, which I think is really quite funny. They've changed the knocker low setting to be softer. Ah, isn't that nice? Have you ever heard the knocker on a Jersey Jack machine go off? Everything on a Jersey Jack machine sounds like a knocker, though. Every drop back sounds like it's going to explode out of the machine. So I don't know if that's going to make a big effect. I don't know. You would know better than I. I've got mine on low setting at the moment, and I still jump whenever it goes off. And people that have been, and you can see it on some streams, people actually jump when it actually happens. So it's one of those funny ones where they pointed it out in the release notes and I sort of got a bit of a grin on my face and I went, that is something that I would definitely do is turn that down. I mean, I wouldn't turn it off. You've got the option to turn it off, but, you know, you want to know. You want some sort of sound. You definitely want that. Absolutely. But that's, I mean, that's one of my favourite things about JZDAC machines. The sound of all the mechanisms just really shows you that there's, you know, beef behind them, you know? It's a great thing, I think. Yeah, well, certainly with The Hobbit, it sounds very mechanical. Yeah. Even with the sound turned up quite loud, it is quite mechanical, and you do get used to that, and that becomes part of its charm. Yeah, absolutely. So you know Pinbird's coming up? Is it? Yeah. Do you know anyone that's going to Pinbird? I may know a couple of people. I think there's about five, maybe six people from Australia going to Pimberg this year. So Jimmy, who we spoke to before, he's obviously going. Absolutely. So what do we know about Pimberg? It's one of the premier tournaments that you'll have around the world. 800 players. Yeah. Lots of machines. Lots of machines. There was some news this week about it, was there? There was indeed. So what's actually happening is that They are going to be revealing All the machines and the banks Yeah On Papa TV Live's YouTube channel This will be on July 14 Oh, cycles Yeah, pretty coming up fast, isn't it? Yeah, and look I expect that the machines that are going to be there The majority of the machines from last year will be there because they all come from the PAPA facility, right? Sure. So I paid a lot of them. But they're actually going to reveal the banks because I don't know if you know, but probably I do need to read up on whether it's three or four machines, but let's just say four machines in each bank. There's an old, a mid, and a newer machine, and maybe there's another one in there to measure. So how those banks are put together is really interesting because there could be, you know, let's say two machines that you really like and then there's an absolute clunker. And by clunker, I don't mean it's a bad machine. No, but it's just one of your... Yeah, for sure. Something that will really kick your butt. And it's designed to do that, right? Yeah. It's designed that every group plays all eras of machines and it tests all skills. That's right. They also try to balance the sort of amount of time, I guess, takes a play, on average, through a bank by having fast versus slow type games. But yeah, do we know how many games in total there normally are at Binberg? Like, what's the... No, I think there's probably about 400. 400? I'm just putting that number out there, but... And what's going to happen? Isn't there going to be something else happening? Like, we're going to see all the machines that... Yes. So, what's actually happening is that proudly presented by Deep Root Pinball, their new ambassador, Steven Bowden, he is going to play every game. Wow. That is amazing. How long do you think it would take to play through 400 games? Five days. Five days of Deep Root. That's what it is. That's what it is. Oh my God, guys. This is what it is. We're about to get to five days of Deep Root right now. What a first assignment for Steve. Like, it's, okay, Steve, we're just going to put you in this building, play every machine. Yeah. I think to be able to get through them, he would probably have to plunge the ball, flip once, and then move to the next one. Yeah, probably. We'll see. It should be interesting, though, to check it out. It should be. Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully, Steve, if you're listening, and I know you listen, tell us how to play these machines because you know as you pointed out last week in our 50th that I'm, you know, not so great when it comes to rules Right I usually know how to get multiball That's always useful That's kind of useful but it's not really how you win tournaments Not the deepest of knowledge No, it's not So I've already looked at The list of machines that were from last year and already started to, you know, I say brush up on my rules, but it's such a fast chasm. I really should have started months ago when I got my ticket. Right. You'll be fine, Matt. I've seen you play. I've seen you play games that you're not confident in the rules on and you do all right. Well, if they are machines that pretty much you follow the blinking light, and that will get you the scores. Yeah, usually I can do okay. But many times, and I know you've been there many times, I've come off a game and someone's gone, you know you had that lit? I'm like, oh, shit, no, I didn't. Because I just didn't know to look there. Really, you don't know what it is, right? Because it's clutch play most of the time. Yeah. And you've got the pressure of the tournament as well. So there's a lot of stuff happening. The senses are going absolutely wild. I can't remember everything. Yeah. And I guess that probably comes from playing tournaments of this size often, I guess, is that the more you're exposed to it, the better that you get. That's right. I mean, obviously, the Americans have a good advantage. They're having a lot of places with all these machines sort of ready to play. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, we talk about, you know, the tournaments that we have here with 120 players. You know, that's 30, 40 machines. So it's not of this scale. and hats off to the team from Replay Foundation that are putting this on because it's a serious undertaking and I'm assuming that's why it's a full-time job for them. That's right. So also just letting you know that Deep Root Pinball will also be a sponsor of Puppet TV Live. So putting their money where their mouth is. There it is. That's good. I hope we'll see some high-quality streaming coming out of that. Yeah, well... Not that we don't already get that. In fact, Papa TV does a great job. They really do. And if they've got a bit of extra backing, they can get a few different things set up, I suppose. And with a bit of extra lighting. Yeah. Sorry, that's my Penn Stadium shill. Okay, that wasn't subtle enough. Absolutely. So, Stacey, let me ask you a question. Okay. Have you ever been in on a Kickstarter? I have been in on Kickstarters before I don't recall too many that have gone awesomely yeah I don't often get on them but there's been a few video game ones and physical comic book type ones that I've been on that haven't quite panned out the way you'd hope I mean it's a good idea and there are a lot of good things but you have to really understand the people that are behind it and their plan and really work out for yourself whether you think that's a good thing to go for and always consider that Kickstarters are not really a prepurchaser for something. They're really backing the people behind it. And if you sort of think of it that way, then obviously if you've got the money to put there, then do it. But grain of salt, always be wary. so have you ever been a backer of a Kickstarter that hasn't gone well? yeah a couple of times I'm still waiting on a campaign for a comic book that should have come through maybe about two or three years ago really? may or may not ever eventuate okay and you'll see where I'm going with this it's just a book yeah it's a comic book what are you paying for? I mean you're paying for I guess you're paying for the artist to do their job and for the printing process and the delivery really it's not rocket science is it? No but is this like a graphic novel type thing? Yeah graphic novel so I mean I'm talking about had you know artist writers you know all that sort of stuff behind it I think they had some issues keeping their team together so that sort of didn't help them and then I don't know what happened in the and they know that they produced some actual physical books, but they got sort of released through comic shops and not given to backers. What? Oh, yeah. So I meant to put the Kickstarter was for effectively like a combined part of a book of, you know, three volumes, let's say, of comics. Right. And they made the comics and they released them digitally, so I think they gave us to them digitally. and, you know, they released physical copies to stores, comic book stores, but we never got our physical bound release. Okay. Which is effectively the main thing I've paid for anyway. Okay. So the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I got my Kickstarter update. I think it was number 30, my 30th update regarding the Stern book. Right. It says, hello, backers. That's nice. It's always good to get a greeting in there Thank you It says we are making great progress in design And have just had the opportunity to dive into Stern's highly guarded CD archive This is a really big deal They are making a huge gesture of trust And dedicating time from their staff to make sure this book looks amazing And then they've shown some images Of some sketches I think maybe of Wonelly, maybe, as well. So, and they look good. You know, I'll give them that. It looks good. It doesn't kind of tell me when I'm getting the book. Right. You know, they don't get lucky to get those details out. No, that's right. So, anyway, they say, thanks for your support and patience, the Paperflop team. So, I don't know. I've ordered and I have pinball books and I might flip through them every once in a while but I think they're just a good coffee table book. Yeah, definitely. Something there when people come around and want to know a bit more about pinball or something to show them. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, hopefully there's no issues in behind the scenes and you get your book at some stage. Yeah, I hope so. Still confident? Oh. You know, after my headphone sparkle and my game band, which I doubt I will see as well, I'm now just, I'm not bothered. Yeah, fair enough. If I get it, it'll be nice. Yep. But, you know, the whole Kickstarter model is just, it's dead to me. But I do occasionally, and this is the problem. This is the problem not just with Kickstarter, but obviously with the pre-order model with pinball. And I'm obviously really guilty of it as well. What, you? I know. Pre-order the pinball machine? I know, right? But it's all about hope, right? Yeah, definitely. It's all about coveting something that you want, that you desire, that you are emotionally connected to. and when I go to Kickstarter and I just scroll through all the different things that are there on offer, there's so many of them that just leap out at me. That's right. That's the job of the Kickstarter campaign, isn't it? Yeah, but I'm sorry. Kickstarter is dead to me. Yeah, I think that's a valid point. Yeah, but I'd be curious to know, and again, if people know, write in, just like is Kickstarter, is it growing, is it declining? You know, what's happening with it? It seems to be thriving still, even though you just type failed Kickstarter into Google and there are so many horror stories. Yeah. So when we think about, you know, some of the bad things that have happened in the pinball community, like, you know, Predator or, you know, Zidware and all that kind of stuff where people haven't got their machines. Yeah. we've probably had, how many do you reckon we've had? Three or four incidents like that? Yeah, about that. Around thousands of failed Kickstarters. Yeah. And I don't mean Kickstarters where they haven't reached their goal and therefore it doesn't get funded and people get refunded. This is where they've actually been funded and people just never get their goods. Yeah. Because, yeah, I think you've mentioned it before that the business side of these things is super important. You can love the product behind it as much as you want, but if you don't have that business knowledge and know-how, it's going to be very hard to pull through and actually provide something for your customers. That's exactly right. And I know that it's really easy for us to lay a little bit in on Stern over the years. You're welcome. But I was having a conversation recently, hi Richard, about the whole Stern being a manufacturer first and foremost. Yeah. Well, that's what's produced all these machines. The fact that you know how to build these machines in quantity, right? Exactly, yeah. And then you've got magic. So you've got the Iron Maiden, which obviously we've both played, and it's magic, just everything aligned, and you get that one magical pinball. I'm now wondering what's going to happen next whether anything now that gets released whether people are going to say well it's not as good as I made it that's right I mean I think that's going to definitely happen it always happens you're always looking for something as good or better than what you can get prior right so yeah but I mean all the talk I've heard about what's happening at the moment they've got a whole bunch of stuff that is really impressive but obviously the people who get to see those things are going to say that, you would think. So, I don't know if time will tell, but fingers crossed, I've got a good feeling about it. Yeah, well, I'm going to go with your positivity because if you think about, and, you know, we talked about, with Joe Kamenkow last week, how he was talking about machines got made in 12 weeks because they had to. Yeah. Also, back then, and we're talking about the heyday of pinball and that was probably its third or fourth resurgence when they could just make a lot of machines. And let's even go back to the 80s, right, when most machines that came out were unlicensed. Time fantasy, right? You know, with the acid snail, which we talked about. Yeah. You could literally do any bloody license and it would do well. And you could do really crazy playfields and it would sell. Yeah. so we are kind of that that environment and it's not just the pinball industry if you think about the music industry it's the same it's like you know record companies will only back a surefire hit these days everything else they just drop them straight away so everybody's only looking for something that will sell I'd love to get back to that stage where they are producing so many machines that just anything can happen they can just fuck us up by releasing something like Orbital Room. RooSac 2000. RooSac 2000. Bring it on. Gary Stern, if you're listening, RooSac 2000. All we ask is a little bit of a head-to-head logo on the playfield there somewhere. Even under a ramp, I'd be happy with that. You and Ryan will personally sign each playfield as it comes out of the factory. That's exactly right. And so, you know, if you think about what Jersey Dash is trying to do, and I would say Pirates of the Caribbean is that. It's that answer, which is, you know, sky's the limit. We're going to do whatever we want, right? Yeah. And I think that's why they've had to sort of just tone it back a bit because it probably just got a bit too ambitious with everything that they're trying to do at once. Yeah, I think that's right. And it's just not quite the right environment yet for doing that. Yeah, because at the end of the day, you've got to turn a profit. You do. And that's not easy. And as we know, guys, that is not easy. But I love that day. I welcome that day when we can just have crazy out there, as I said, like Orbiter One. Have you played Orbiter One? I have not, no. I've heard you talk about it and I know of it. I have not had the chance. You know. Yeah, that's like, yeah. The edges of Thinmore that you were exploring. Some would say it's not really even pinball, but, you know. Anyway, that's it. That's it. I've done talking about Stern. Moving on. So, we do love a good pinball event, don't we? We do love them. We don't get them that often here, but we try our best. We certainly don't. There's really sort of three probably major events in Melbourne that we get. One of them is the big tournament probably is Melbourne Match Play. Yep, absolutely. big tournament. PAX. PAX is big. PAX is huge. The pinball section of it is probably a smaller part of PAX, and I know that you're there. You're part of the retro gaming area there as well as the pinball. Classic gaming, yeah. Yeah, classic gaming. And for the second year, I'd imagine, or is this maybe our third year? Third, yeah. It's been coming up on third, I think. Yeah. So, Flipout is coming to Melbourne again. So, this will be December 1 and December 2. Excellent. What do we know about this? Well, Flipout is held out in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It's a massive event in terms of number of machines. We get 40 to 50 machines, I think, we had there last year. Yeah, that's right. We often get pretty exclusive, cool stuff happening. So, last year we had Pirates of the Caribbean to play. Yes, it was pretty awesome. Yeah, that's right. Jack comes and visits us, which is really great. I mean, it's amazing to see one of the biggest pinball companies coming out to Australia. It's quite an easy trip. He does it. He's always welcoming and great with the crowd. So, yep, it's fantastic. So he's coming out again this year? Yeah, great. And this has been pretty much been held by Mr Pinball Australia, the business Wayne. And so really you know the parallels in other markets and other countries but effectively anything that not Stern goes through Mr Pimble Yeah right So we recently streamed Houdini from there Total Nuclear Annihilation So, he's got all the Jersey Jack machines. So, and he's got a magic girl. He does. The one that we streamed, you know, that one that doesn't play, that where you had that great... Oh, it's a world record, I'm sure. Yeah, it was. So, and we will also be having a big tournament there. A tournament? We haven't had a tournament in a flip out. Really? We've had mini sort of tournaments. We haven't had a... Yeah. That's right. We've not normally had five months to plan. This is true. So normally, so last time unfortunately we didn't get to the 30 day notification. Ah, right. Yep. NBA styles. Yeah. So, but this time we do. And So we're going to try and do this. I'm going to be very ambitious with what I'm trying to set up. So I'm not going to go into too much details because if I do, then I'm going to be held to it. That's right. But I'm going to try for the most professional streaming that certainly I've ever done and hopefully that Australia has done over as many machines as possible. So I'm currently doing a lot of research. And as a side note, thank you, Jack Danger. Jack Danger on the Dead Clip site put a how to stream guide. So I've always followed him and I've always spoken to him and got tips on him how to stream anyway. So I did learn a couple of extra things as well. But, you know, if we want to make this a big tournament, let's put the production quality into it. So we'll see what we can do. Excellent. Sounds good. So there will be the main tournament, and there'll also be a Flip Frenzy, and we're hoping to have a special guest for that, so you will hear from that soon. We are going to have other international guests as well, so that will all come in time. You are giving the sizzle and the crackle, laying it down. When's it going to happen? Is it December, early December? December 1 and December 2, I believe, are the dates that have been booked in. Yeah, I'm sure. So there will be a Facebook page created for it. But can I also just, just as another side note, if you don't mind. Of course. Do you watch Twitch besides pinball? I have watched a bit of Twitch besides pinball, yeah. I'm obviously coming from the gaming, video gaming world. I've watched a few video game streams, particularly things like Evo, which is the big fighting game championship that happens. So you get Street Fighter and Tekken and all that sort of stuff being played on the world stage. And they do some really good streams. Yeah. Well, so I just logged into Twitch the other day as I was going through my Jack Danger dead flip tutorial and I was fixing some stuff. So I just happened to go on the front page of Twitch. And they were streaming, this was in Australia, and it was a Street Fighter V Arcade Edition tournament. Yep. Oh, my God, Stacey. I've never seen anything like this. This was like, if you were watching, I may be using a bit of hyperbole here, guys, so, you know, I am known to exaggerate somewhat. but this was like watching the Super Bowl, if you're in America, or, you know, the AFL Grand Final. Yeah. They actually had a studio, like a studio set, with two sets that they would go between, and with live cameras following the commentators, and then the players themselves, and the players, like, had company sponsorship all over their... Like, you're saying this like that's a normal thing. Oh, yeah, no, that's true. There's some massive competitions in terms of the fighting game genre. They get good sponsorship from the big companies, like the companies that make the games, like Capcom and Namco Bandai. Yeah, there's plenty of action, and those screens, like for Evo, can get up to 200,000 viewers, like massive, massive numbers for an online thing. So, I mean, obviously, video games are probably more popular than you would have to say, in terms of numbers. Not necessarily better, but just have that probably more accessible, obviously. So, yeah, and obviously, then again, there's the competitive games, sort of, you know, MOBAs and, you know, first-person shooters that similarly get massive esports-type production values applied to them. Yeah. Well, yeah, it just literally opened my eyes because I really only watch pinball on Twitch. And to see something like this, which had, you know, it was broadcast quality, like TV network type stuff. I just didn't realise that it was that professional and it was that much of a sport. Now, you know, we talked about esports and pinball as a sport. That right there was presented as a sport, as a competitive sport. It'd be hard to get pinball to that level, but I'd love to see it one day. It would be fantastic. Like, yeah, I don't know how we do it. Obviously, you know, the numbers in terms of the number of people that actually get those video games is always going to be exponentially higher than similar people have access to pinball. So it's just a real tough game in terms of getting that comparison. Yeah. But so, yeah, I don't know how we do it. But all we can do is keep on improving the quality of what we're doing, really. I mean, that's all you can ask for. That's exactly right. I'm happy to see any pinball stream, to be honest. I just love being able to catch the action. Like, we don't get to go over to too many tournaments. Like, obviously, we're heading back again soon, which is great. Yes. But, you know, for us, stuck over here, we don't have any options other than to sort of catch what's being presented. And, you know, with Jack Danger and Buffalo and those guys, Dan Pupp and TV obviously providing us streams, it's great. You get to see all the best players playing. I mean, there's been some awesome finals, like that New York City Championship. Those finals were just amazing. and seeing Bowen come back from the brink, plunging the right out lane on Iron Maid, and then coming back. Just fantastic stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So, anyway, and you're right. I think the advances that we've seen in recent times with streaming of these large tournaments has come in leaps and bounds, and will only continue to do so. So, we look forward to seeing that. And, I mean, the other advantage, just as quickly that these people have over us. Their setup is sort of located in one place. It's easy to get direct feeds. Yeah, sure. So we have pinballs. If you have 40 pinballs, that's going to be taking up a big area of real estate. So we've got to work out how to cover that in a better way. And the problem with that is that the only way to cover it a better way is with money, you need more setups, you need more cameras, you need more of everything. So it's not easy and just we're improving, but hopefully we'll see some really awesome stuff coming out this year and see where we go, take it from there. Absolutely. All right, Stacey, do you want to play Slam the Top 100? Do I ever? Yeah, I think you do. Absolutely. It's only the most fun thing that we do. So, yeah, it's not really saying much So let's recap on what happened last week though Right Let me summarise Ryan picked the better gift for himself That's always the telling factor, isn't it? It really is Though with mixed results this week Oh, really? Yeah So the game that we were debating last week was Indiana Jones, the good one, versus Tron Legacy. And I won. You won. I did win. I know. With a whopping 51%. That's right. So I got 50 votes. Brian got 48 votes. I win. Excellent. We also had a bonus. It was a bonus. He was a slam-the-top podcaster. Yeah. I didn't do so well in that one. Jeff tried. He tried to pump you up, but... He did. Steven Bowden is both an expert in knowledge, facts and niceness, and that came through. Yeah, it's like, you know, you have to vote for the nice guy. Jeff Chol is nice as well. She's all right. You're flipping the bird in the picture that we use on the website. That's not really going to help. Anyway, so what we do for those people that are listening for the first time, slam the top 100. We pick a game from the pin side top 100. It is randomly chosen by Google Assistant, and then we vote. We then argue the merits of each machine. Then we have an opportunity to counter. we can either rebut the other person's machine or we can talk further about how awesome our machine that is that we've got. Right. How did I go explaining it? It's normally Ryan that explains those things. Yeah, something I think that makes sense. It does make sense? Okay. All right. So here we go. And Ryan normally does this. So let's see if I can do this just as well, i.e. whether I can cheat just as much. Okay. So I'm going to pick my number. Okay. Hey, Google, pick a number between 0 and 100. Okay. 4 4 Twilight Zone Twilight Zone? Have you done Twilight Zone before? No, we haven't done Twilight Zone Excellent Okay Is that the best one you could have picked? Given that you've probably done the other three above it? Probably The problem is you know how much I hate Twilight Zone Anyway Okay, here's another one Hey Google We'll pick a number between 0 and 100. Okay. 16. Ah, Theater of Magic. Theater of Magic. Okay, you ready? Yeah. Here we go. Twilight Zone. Well, it's number four for a reason. It is a lot of people's favorite machine. Yes, I have been on record saying it's not one of my favourite machines. I think I may have even said it worse than that. But I do know that it is the better game. Because this is the game where they said, Pat Lawler, man, you can do what the fuck you like. And he did. It's obviously a wide body. It is absolutely packed with so many things. including obviously the gumball that has the powerball. You've got the powerfield up there with the flippers that are magnets. You've got great ramps up the centre. You've got magnets. You've got a great rule set, a really deep rule set, with obviously trying to get into the zone. It is beautiful art as well. Great sound as well. really great call-outs and incredibly good theme integration. I give you Twilight Zone. All right. That's a reasonable sort of thing to say. We'll have to see what I say in response to that. Okay. My wonder. I'm glad that you owned up to not liking it. Yeah, well, I just thought you were going to bring that up. Getting ahead of the game. I knew that was coming. All right, you ready? All right. Let's go. Theatre of Magic. It's got that magic touch. It's a game. It's a fun game. It's a magic theme, which is always welcome. There are plenty of shots to go for. Cool little trap door that opens up for a mystery. It's got one of the best video modes you could possibly imagine, where you're not only playing pinball, you're playing video pinball. The box toy is one of the best toys in pinball, I think. That's that it spins around, revealing a magnet on one side to start multiball, and then you've got the whole shoot to start your modes and get your jackpots. And we've got saw, we've got orbits into ramps, we've got everything you could possibly want in a pinball machine. Great modes to play for. I present you, Theatre of Magic. Well done. All right, well, let me start by saying some bad things about Theatre of Magic, if you don't mind. It's You know, it has to be Gimped for tournaments because Everybody just goes for the Theatre shrug, theatre shrug, you know Orbit, orbit, orbit, orbit, orbit Boring You know, the Bloody trapdoor doesn't work Most of the time And when it does, it just spits the ball Out randomly, usually down The middle Quite an unforgiving game, and let's not forget the box, right? That box, yes it's a great toy, it never works it really never works, it breaks down constantly that's, no, it's the truth, there you go Right, resorting to lies James Martin, really It's our Ryan Wins Pat Spacey would not be proud of such things being said about fear of magic so you can see some action on the Melbourne Silver Ball screen Sure somewhere One of the, I mean, I'm going to say one more good thing about Theatre of Magic, the Great Wankerini is there. That should be enough to win. Right, Twilight Zone. Problems with it. Let's start with plunging the ball. You've got a skill shot you can go for. Great. You can get up to 10 million points. Fantastic. What happens after you get that skill shot? Shoots the ball up into the pops, and it drains out the left out like most of the time. What sort of a silly design is that? Okay, sure. You can put it into the scoop. even then you're often in trouble it's so black and white, I mean come on people have you heard of colours? I'm sure there are plenty of other bad things about it too I can't quite think of them, I should have brought up its flyer, I'm sure I could have got the information for that look the magnets on the side it's basically another random game as to whether you're going to get that ball to go up into the up through the power The diverter often breaks down That's actually true The number of times you can't shoot the ball into that Power field is pretty high You know It's an okay game but it's no Theater of Magic There you go, I think you did well for your first time That's what went out to us Just give me the betting gift and we're all good Well, I'm going to be in control Of the gift so we'll see how we go So that was Twilight Zone Versus Theater of Magic very popular games, both of them. They are. They're both very popular. It'll be really interesting. Excellent. It's a bit of a segue into our week in pinball. One of the first things, I know that some people that follow the podcast know this as well, but there's actually a Facebook group called Pinball Wars, and they do effectively do what we just did, where they just put one machine against another, and then they ask people to say which one they like. And similar to what happens on Head to Head, it's the graphics that are really important, aren't they? Yes. So, Riff Bear is the person that curates this particular group and he often does animations highlighting the different machines and, you know, people that we know are in those videos as well. They are. I know. And look out for a future competition on Head to Head as one of our friendly listeners may just get themselves in one of those videos. Maneza Jev. You'll know exactly what that is when you go Pinball Wars. Look it up on Facebook. It's a lot of fun. It is. And what did you get up to in Pinball this week, Martin? Well, I did, as I said, we streamed TNA, and I haven't played TNA for a few months. Right. And, oh, I'm tempted to get one. And I'll tell you why I'm tempted to get one, because it makes you play this game differently to any other game you play. Yeah, definitely. It's not only, obviously, it's fast, but the flippers in particular, you never feel safe. You've got to absolutely nail your live catches and your drop catches to really be able to have control. Because, you know, going down the inlanes, it doesn't stop. It bounces over. It's really hard to trap up. Obviously, it is fast as all hell. And you just, oh my God, you can't get sick of that music. It is so good. And when we were streaming, we were streaming with Lucas, friend of the show Lucas. Hi, Lucas. who, let's face it, is a massive metalhead and really, really doesn't like electronic music at all. In fact, on record saying he doesn't like electronic music at all. He could not stop tapping his feet to the beat and nodding his head in time. Nice. And he just got it, you know. We talked previously about Ed Ed Robertson saying, from the Barenaked Ladies, saying how much he likes the music as well. You just can't help love the music because it is, let's call it, it's machine appropriate. It is. Scott Zanetti is a wizard, effectively. He really is. A wizard of every possible aspect. He really is. Also went to the Argonauts this week. You were away to the Argonauts. I missed the Argonauts. I was gallivanting off in near the snow, so could not make it, unfortunately. Second one I missed, maybe third. Yeah. How did it go? It went well to a degree. It's qualifying, so there's seven machines there, and you play eight games. So effectively, you've got to play all seven machines. It's best game format, so top score gets 100 points, and then 97, and then down it goes. And then you get to play one other machine as your bonus machine. So it counts, so you have eight scores. And I managed to qualify first. First, excellent. Good work. I did. I got a monster game on Dialed In. I managed to get 3.3 million. It was really good. I also had a massive score on Playboy. The old Bally Playboy. And a third machine. I can't remember. I think I also got the top score on as well. So I did well and I managed to qualify first. Excellent. I then got into the semifinals, and it was head-to-head, and I beat my opponent in straight sets, which was good. Excellent. And then into the finals. And that's kind of where my luck kind of ran out badly. I know that feeling. Yeah, it was. And so I actually got to pick the machines, and I didn't really pick all that well. I was trying to, because I was up against some big players. So, you know, Richard Rhodes was there. Right. Daniel Luth was there. Jordan was there, right? They're the three people I'm up against, right? That is a quality top four. He doesn't get much better in those. Right. Heavy hitters, right? So I kind of tried to do a bit of an unusual pick just to throw the group. Yeah. What did you go? Oh, man. What I went for, I probably shouldn't have. First game was Indy 500. Yep. Now, this game, hi, Min, this has got brand new rubbers on it, and it is bouncy as all fuck. So, you've played it as well. I have. That lock shot. Still very tricky. Yeah. Rejected. It doesn't like sticking. Nope. So, I pretty much came last on that game. Ouch. and I mean Richard and Jordan are very good at that game too yep absolutely but you know the other choices were Dialed In, well they would have killed me on Dialed In Shadow, they would have killed me on Shadow Star Trek Next Generation I just cannot play that game so I sort of picked ones that I knew I had some sort of advantage if luck went my way the second game we played was then Medieval Madness and you know I was chasing down Richard who got a respectable score, I think it was like 58, 59 million. Yeah. So on my last ball, I hadn't really done much except that I had... Well, not that I hadn't done much. I'd lit four of the... Madness modes. Madness modes, and I had trolls lit. Yeah, right. So all I had to do... Pop it in that scoop. Pop it in that scoop, and I fumbled, but managed to get it in there. Yeah. I started it, then got the trolls down, so I got extra ball time. Got that all done and then Royal Madness was lit. Yeah, nice. Got Royal Madness started. Managed to get a number of the shots. I had two shots to go and then the ball drained and I ended up on about 51 million so I didn't catch him. So what it meant in the last game which was on Playboy, Richard had already won. He was on eight points and the three remaining people, myself, Daniel and Jordan, We were all on two points each Right So really It was a battle Yep It was a battle to see Who would come second And I came last Ouch And then Daniel came second last And Jordan came second And we won So There you go It's still a good tournament And great games to play In really good condition And that's You know It's a private collection So they are people that we know As part of The Melbourne Pinball scene That have got their machines in there so they are very well maintained so well done guys everybody for putting that on and look the only other thing I've been doing pretty much for this last week is been researching streaming setups and I've got a lot of equipment to buy so that's what I've been looking at is how I'm going to stream I'm hoping probably 8 to 10 machines at once so that'll be a good effort if you can get that sorted it will be how was your week? my week was not highly pinball related I had a bit of a trivia school holiday so went on a bit of a snow holiday with the kids so didn't get too much time to do too much pinball related action bit of work on my pinball machine I've got a last action hero it's been sitting here with a couple of switch problems it's been trying to deal with that I've got to work out how to either solder or glue a bit of metal back onto one of the switches. It's been eluding me so far. I've also got to try to deal with the magnets and the ripper kick device, which is sort of a known issue. It's got a few fuses that tend to blow, but I think it might be one of the transistors on the controller board, so I'll have to do a bit of testing there, see if I can get it going. That's not as critical as the switch. The switch is on the crane shot, so kind of one of the main shots in the game and if it doesn't work then you basically have to sit there waiting for a ball surge every time you hit that shot so that's not going to fly. It should be fixable. I've got it all sort of out and ready to go so hopefully getting that sorted and maybe sending that machine to the Argonauts Arcade as well. It's okay. I don't mind that game. I actually quite like it. It's a good fun game. It's a data race. It's a data race of its time, yeah. But, you know, it's not too bad. It's got a whole bunch of fun modes to play, and, yeah. What can you say? It's a dart race. Pretty much. I don't mind dart race as much as someone like Ryan, so... Yeah. That's fine. And, of course, we streamed Star Trek on Sunday, so that was good fun. Well, because, you know, you mentioned in the interview that you're not necessarily aware too much of Star Trek, so I thought I wanted you to come over. Yeah, I'm sort of... Not that I don't understand the game greatly, but it just always seems to get me a bit rattled, so... Yeah. It just was great to come around, you know, to teach me a few things, just get settled. Like, I mean, I've got to really nut out what all those away team missions do. I learnt a few things on Sunday, so it's handy. But, yeah, getting control of that mission, and it's set up super hard. It just becomes another level of difficulty, so... it's a lot about control and so I feel much better after Sunday so thanks for that I think the one thing about Star Trek is that it is quite a situational game, there are many things that you can be doing at once that you need to be aware of and what I was sort of saying to you is when you're in these big tournaments and you get your 30 second warm up time particularly on that machine, there's just some things you should really be trying to see how they work kick outs and all that kind of stuff because that will be really important when you actually get in the game. Definitely. So warm up is really important people. Absolutely. So there you go. That was our week. So the last thing to talk about everybody is we mentioned it last week and this is the competition that we're putting on to win a very super limited edition head-to-head pinball t-shirt. There's three of them that we're going to be giving away. Awesome. Stacey, do you know the details of this competition? Do I? I might know the details of the competition. I believe it's a video to be sent to Facebook. Isn't that right? Isn't that right? It's a four or five minute video just of your face telling us exactly why you deserve to win this competition. That's correct, isn't it? Well, that's no, because Brian didn't want to do that. He didn't want to do that. So what you've done instead is spot the difference. Is that correct? That is correct. So you will see on our Facebook page in the next 24 hours a spot the difference picture. And it is a picture of Ryan and myself. And what you have to do is you have to write in to head2headpinball at gmail.com. That's head, the number two, head, pinball at gmail.com. and you need to tell us as many differences that you've noticed in the pictures side by side. What happens if they find a difference that isn't actually there? Is that automatic disqualification? No, I think the way you can do it is whoever's the most correct and if you get all of them, I'm not going to say how many changes there are, if you get them all, then we'll go into a random draw for everybody that's got it right. But, you know, it's a bit of fun. It's a bit of shits and giggles, right? It is. It's a great set of photos, too. So you'll all be very familiar with this photo if you've been to our Facebook page before. So those details will be on Facebook in the next 24 hours. Awesome. So I think we're at the end of this podcast. It's the podcast already. That has gone very quickly, hasn't it? It has, absolutely. That's what happens. Every week we just keep talking and talking and then we get to the end. Fantastic. Have you had a good time? I've had an awesome time. Thank you so much for letting me come up. Hopefully my verbal diarrhea has filled the time nicely for you. It has. It's done very well. I'm no Ryan C, but goddamn, I sing better than him. That's for sure. Are you going to sing me out? You want me to? Well, what are you going to sing? I don't know. What was that song you mentioned earlier? No, I'm not. I'll sing you out if you like, but you have to tell me what song. I don't know. Oh, okay. Never mind. Next time. Next time. Next time when you're in On As I Reserve again, you've got that amount of time to think of a new song. But I really do appreciate you coming on. Ryan will be back next week, as will I. This has been the Head to Head Pinball Podcast, episode 51. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Bye. See you later. Thank you. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 243bb15b-9051-404d-8684-8e231db01564*