# INDISC 2019 - Main Qualifying - Final Hour **Source:** IE Pinball **Type:** video **Published:** 2020-04-19 **Duration:** 57m 19s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du3yDmANBrc --- ## Analysis IE Pinball coverage of INDISC 2019 main qualifying final hour at the Museum of Pinball in Banning, California. Hosts Bowen Kerins, Raymond Ashby, and Mike Welsh provide detailed commentary on players' performances across multiple machines including Excalibur, Safecracker, Iron Man, Warlock, and Monster Bash. The broadcast captures the competitive tension of final-hour qualifying with expert analysis of game rules, strategy, and player skill. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Top 20 score on Excalibur is 4.2 million; Jim Kelly has a 10 million score — _Hosts discussing Excalibur scoring benchmarks during player Chris George Campbell's game_ - [HIGH] Safecracker top 20 qualifying score is 1.6 million — _Hosts reference this benchmark multiple times during Safecracker gameplay segments_ - [HIGH] Luis's Safecracker score of 916,990 was the 65th top score — _Host explicitly states this after Luis completes his game_ - [HIGH] Safecracker at this event uses modified ROM with adjustable settings for tournament play — _Hosts explain that the stock ROM has been modified for settings adjustment, similar to Feekster World tournament ROM_ - [HIGH] Adam McKinney achieved a fifth place overall score on Safecracker during this qualifying session — _Hosts state this explicitly: 'Adam Kinney just before this put a fifth place overall on that Safecracker game'_ - [HIGH] Connor Stowe is from Oshkosh, Wisconsin originally but travels to LA, Portland, and New York — _Host responses to question about Connor's origin_ - [HIGH] Derek Price scored 300,000 on Warlock and achieved approximately 28th-29th overall position — _Hosts discussing Derek's final score and position after Warlock game_ - [MEDIUM] Jay Collins worked on getting Excalibur in working order for the tournament — _Host mentions Jay Collins spent significant time getting Excalibur ready, though context suggests this may be tournament-specific setup_ - [HIGH] Color DMD displays have supported 83 games since 2012 — _Advertisement/sponsorship read during Safecracker coverage_ - [HIGH] Bowen Kerins achieved a tenth overall score on Warlock during his own qualifying play — _Bowen states: 'I actually had a tenth overall on a junk ticket earlier today' regarding Warlock_ ### Notable Quotes > "So you want to hit the flashing drop target bank light your lock And shoot the ramp to start multiball" > — **Host (Excalibur explanation)**, Early segment > _Explains core Excalibur strategy to viewers unfamiliar with the game_ > "Honestly, I wasn't until this weekend. I mean, it sounded like Jay Collins, who worked on this game in working order, spent a lot of time getting it going." > — **Host (discussing Excalibur unfamiliarity)**, Excalibur segment > _Indicates Excalibur was not well-known prior to this event; shows community learning curve_ > "Safecracker is just not friendly" > — **Host (Raymond Ashby, after Luis's difficult board game experience)**, Safecracker segment > _Reflects the difficulty and randomness of Safecracker, a key characteristic of the machine_ > "You need a million plus, maybe 1.5 to have an okay score" > — **Host (discussing Safecracker benchmarks)**, Early Safecracker segment > _Establishes competitive scoring expectations for Safecracker at this tournament_ > "This is an incredibly short path." > — **Host (about Adam McKinney's board game path in Safecracker)**, Safecracker final segment > _Highlights strategy element of gate positioning in Safecracker board game_ > "And that's the end of his ticket, so coming back around... we also will be seeing, hopefully, Connor Stowe play on Monster Bash, and he will be next on Monster Bash with the potential for qualifying." > — **Host (Bowen Kerins)**, Transition to Monster Bash > _Shows the tournament structure and final opportunities for qualifying_ > "I just tell them Tee'd Off get $100 million here, and then everything works itself out." > — **Host (joking about Monster Bash scoring)**, Monster Bash segment > _Reflects the difficulty players face in qualifying during final hour, using humor_ > "Connor is an amazing human and very friendly, very strong player, well-versed." > — **Host (about Connor Stowe)**, Monster Bash segment > _Provides character assessment of a notable player in the community_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | INDISC 2019 | event | Main pinball qualifying tournament at Museum of Pinball in Banning, California | | Bowen Kerins | person | Host and commentator; experienced player who achieved 10th overall on Warlock | | Raymond Ashby | person | Co-host and commentator providing game rule explanation and analysis | | Mike Welsh | person | Co-host providing commentary during tournament coverage | | Chris George Campbell | person | Player from Captain's Auction; competed on Excalibur during qualifying | | Adam McKinney | person | Tournament player who achieved 5th place overall score on Safecracker | | Derek Price | person | Player who competed on Warlock and achieved approximately 28th-29th overall position with 300,000 points | | Connor Stowe | person | Player from Oshkosh, Wisconsin; traveled to LA, Portland, and New York; competed on Monster Bash during final qualifying hour | | Jay Collins | person | Worked on setting up Excalibur for tournament play; spent significant time getting the machine ready | | Luis | person | Player who scored 916,990 on Safecracker (65th top score); competed in final qualifying hour | | Excalibur | game | Gottlieb-era pinball machine featured in qualifying; unfamiliar to many players prior to this event | | Safecracker | game | Pinball machine used in qualifying with modified ROM; features board game mode and risk-reward decision making | | Iron Man | game | Pinball machine featured in final qualifying hour coverage; complex goal structure with Jericho and other objectives | | Warlock | game | Pinball machine with dangerous shots; featured in qualifying with multiple players competing | | Monster Bash | game | Pinball machine featured in final qualifying; Connor Stowe competed on this game with low starting position | | Museum of Pinball | organization | Venue in Banning, California hosting INDISC 2019 tournament | | Color DMD | company | Sponsor of main division; produces multicolor DMD displays for pinball machines; supports 83 games since 2012 | | IE Pinball | organization | Media outlet producing tournament coverage video | | Captain's Auction | organization | Entity associated with player Chris George Campbell | ### Topics - **Primary:** Tournament qualifying mechanics and final-hour drama, Gameplay strategy and rule explanation for specific machines, Player skill assessment and competitive positioning, Scoring benchmarks and performance evaluation - **Secondary:** Pinball machine design philosophy and difficulty balance, Tournament infrastructure and format, Player profiles and community personality - **Mentioned:** Aftermarket DMD technology adoption ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.78) — Overall positive and enthusiastic tone from hosts covering competitive tournament. Excitement about player performances, appreciation for game design, and friendly banter. Some frustration expressed about difficult games (Safecracker) and unlucky outcomes, but balanced by admiration for strong plays. Hosts maintain encouraging and respectful attitude toward players throughout. ### Signals - **[event_signal]** INDISC 2019 main division qualifying final hour broadcast from Museum of Pinball; shows tournament structure with player rankings, scoring benchmarks, and qualifying positions being tracked in real-time (confidence: high) — Detailed commentary on player IFPA rankings, qualifying positions, and top 20/overall scoring thresholds throughout broadcast - **[competitive_signal]** Multiple players demonstrate specialized strategies on individual machines: gate selection on Safecracker, easier lock routes on Excalibur, orbit farming on Iron Man; hosts reference their own qualifying experiences and techniques (confidence: high) — Hosts explain optimal strategies: 'go for the easier locks' on Excalibur, 'time your press' on Safecracker selections, 'typically go after the orbits' on Iron Man - **[gameplay_signal]** Safecracker and Excalibur both feature significant randomness elements (board game paths, skill shot effects) balanced with player agency; hosts discuss risk-reward decision points (confidence: high) — Hosts detail timer mechanics, gate randomization, board guard rolls, and choices to cash out vs. continue in Safecracker; note Excalibur's skill shot setting the difficulty of required shots - **[community_signal]** Tournament attracts geographically dispersed players (Connor Stowe from Wisconsin traveling to multiple regions, international competitors like Oli from Finland); shows pinball community mobility and connectivity (confidence: high) — References to Oli from Finland, Connor Stowe traveling between Oshkosh WI, LA, Portland OR, and New York; Pair from Seattle - **[market_signal]** Color DMD sponsorship and deployment on multiple machines (Baywatch, Safecracker) at tournament; company has 83 games supported since 2012, indicating growing standardization of aftermarket display upgrades (confidence: high) — Color DMD sponsorship segment; hosts note DMD displays visible on machines during coverage - **[design_philosophy]** Hosts contrast Iron Man's simplistic objectives that 'all really come together' with more complex modern designs; discussion of how older games balance accessibility with depth (confidence: medium) — Commentary: 'The goals and objectives of this game were very simplistic by modern standards. Yeah. And yet, they all really come together on this machine.' - **[gameplay_signal]** Safecracker features time-based ball saves and multi-ball timer management; players must balance draining on purpose for points vs. completing objectives; hosts detail time award mechanics from bumpers and wheel (confidence: high) — Extended discussion of timer mechanics, ball saves, bumper time awards (5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes), and strategic choices about when to drain or continue - **[machine_intel]** Safecracker at this event uses modified ROM with adjustable settings (sequential vs. random awards, stash cashout option); similar approach to Feekster World tournament ROM (confidence: high) — Hosts explain: 'modified ROM... you can set the award and non-random' and 'They use the tournament ROM for Feekster World as well' - **[content_signal]** Live viewer engagement during broadcast; hosts respond to chat suggestions for which games to watch next; democratic game selection based on viewer voting (Monster Bash, Safecracker, Pirates, etc.) (confidence: high) — Hosts ask 'Guys, what would you guys like to see in chat?' and acknowledge multiple voting patterns ('Three Monster Bash. Four Monster Bash.') - **[community_signal]** Connor Stowe described as 'amazing human... very friendly... well-versed' despite low qualifying position and difficult luck; shows community culture values character alongside competitive performance (confidence: medium) — Hosts comment on Connor's demeanor: 'The smile is still there. The smile is always there. Connor is not in a bad mood right now... He's still in a fantastic mood, man.' --- ## Transcript TITAN TRIBUTE Oh, incredible. Saved his tournament life right here on ball three. Oh, he got it. He got it. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. We're going to actually look at some Excalibur. Ooh, Excalibur. I had a good game on Excalibur today. This is a very unique game. I've never seen this game before this weekend But it is really cool So you want to hit the flashing drop target bank To light your lock And shoot the ramp to start multiball So one thing which you might not be aware of Is that it's based off of your skill shot Which bank is actually lit Does that make any other difference? So you do get a plunge point value But I don't think you get a value I don't believe so Because the red one is the 250k, right? But then it gives you the back target all the way at the back that is so hard to hit. Yep. So do you want the points or do you want the easier locks? I went for the easier locks. I think the easier locks is the way to go. Maybe ideally you want the yellow bank because that is still hittable, but it's still some points. So we got Oli from Finland, I believe. I think it was just refreshed for a new player. I believe Oli just finished his game and somebody else stepped up. I think the gentleman was his last. This is Chris. This is Chris Campbell. Yep, of Captain's Auction. So you see he plunged for the blue skill shot there, so the blue target bank is flashing. Yep, so he'll want to complete that bank, and then if he does, he'll have lock lit, and he'll want to hit the ramp to lock his ball. Unfortunately, he gets a left out lane. There we go. We do get an update. I forget, you are familiar with this software since you've done some streaming up in Seattle. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not the streaming guy, but I help sometimes. Yeah, I believe I've listened to some of your commentary before. So now the lock is lit. You've just got to hit that center ramp. It starts multiball right away. So now the interesting part about this multiball is you're actually just hitting the targets to increase the jackpot, but the jackpot's not gotten until after you're out of multiball. I see, I see. Yeah. I see some people going from the center ramp during multiball. It's worth $100,000, I think, apiece. Yeah, 125,000. And it actually advances your bonus X as well. And the drop targets are multiplied by your bonus X. So bonus X can be really big in this game if you can get it high. So now he's out of multiball. That jackpot is roving around the play field. Is it timed as well? It is timed. It is a fairly long timer, but it is timed. I'd say four or five rotations. He unfortunately misses it. So he ended the game with not that many points. Yeah, it's pretty... So we already just multi-balled, get some targets, and hit the deck block. Yeah. Interesting. You're under 35,000 points, and it was very controllable, I felt. It's sort of similar to some other Gottliebs, like Robot War, where in multiball, if you have your bonus X high, then you get a lot of points, because your multiball points are sort of multiplied by your bonus X. Robot War had that big lead spinner thing going as well, right? Yes. Yes. i remember i ripped out a few times last year yeah good score on it they made that nasty by removing that gate on the right side okay next we have a sink back up from seattle nice let's see if he fares any better here so let's see uh what skill shot maca goes for does it go for the points or does he go for the easier locks it is kind of an interesting risk reward and get some quick points but he's just going to go for the easy one yeah because you when i when i thought that i thought about medusa where the skill shot set the value of a critical part of the game right so you already want to get the high points but in this game then you take the easy 250 but then you suffer yeah those red targets are very difficult yeah you'd much rather get the uh even the yellow are all right but yeah Yeah, definitely hard. Yep. So each drop is also 1,000 in bonus. Yeah. I'm curious if... Multiplied by your bonus X, of course. Just not having any luck with that right foot for that last drop. Completing a target bank advances your bonus X as well. So what's lit on the ramp right now? There's an insert lit underneath. So sometimes, this is a really weird insert, that I'm not sure exactly what lights it, but it says 10,000 times your bonus X. So sometimes the ramp will be lit for 10,000 times your bonus X. Interesting. But I'm not, it's lit at the start of the ball, and sometimes it lights by itself. Honestly, I think it's switch-based, maybe random. Oh, I think so. Well, he is in a multiball with 400,000. Congrats to her. So he's playing a very controlled multiball here. He's just making one ball. Oh, this is unfortunate. Oh, it's a fan of the ramp? Wow. The ramp did fall off, which was very fortunate for him. So that ramp is worth $100,000 and advances your bonus X, and it'll fall in the saucer, which is worth another $25,000. Interesting. So I guess the question is, do you start increasing your jackpot, or do you go for those points and bonus multipliers? And I honestly didn't know all that much to this game. I just knew how to get into multiball on the jackpot. Oh, look at that. I hit the rim. Boom, jackpot right away. Nice jackpot. 1.2 mil. Wow, so many jackpots. And you put a big move on the game. So he's already up to 2 million. And then the next round is two set of banks, right? so in this I believe you have to hit almost all the looks like two yeah it's one than two the shield are blinking right yes so per ball though so next ball it's gonna be down to one again right yep so he knocked down those what's a good score on this like three four million three to four million I got four million and it was 17 for a long time I'm sure that's surpassed by now oops Yep, yep, the bank. I'd be surprised if someone actually got more than maybe, or I wouldn't be surprised if someone got more like 10 or 12. Kelly, you're at 10 million. There's 10. Top 20 score is 4.2. Yep. Yeah, okay, that's not bad. Yeah, so he's on his way. Oh, he got the orange bank now. So one interesting thing we didn't talk about is there are those both lights in front of the yellow target bank. Yeah, from the in lane, right? Yes, so when you go through an inlane, it lights the opposite yellow target bank with that both light. And if you can combo in and drop both targets with one shot, it'll light that both light solid. And if you can do that on both sides of the playfield, it lights the special on those upper side rollovers. Special? Is that worth points? It's worth 500,000. Yeah, so quite a bit of points. I'm not sure if it's something you'd actually go for, but it's there. I mean, if it's lit from a saucer. We're looking at 4 million being the top 20. 500,000 is a good portion of that. So you see that both flashing in the upper right? Yep. That is time. And you need to hit both, right? Yes, you need to hit both cleanly. Tough. See, once again, now he's having trouble getting to the next multiball because he got orange. Yep. I'm not sure if he's aware of the rule there. I have a feeling this is a game many people are not familiar with. Yep. I know, I wasn't until this weekend. I mean, it sounded like Jay Collins, who got this game in working order, spent a lot of time getting it going. So does it have it lit now? Is it still missing one of the orange? I think it's that top left orange. Yeah, it's the top left. It's a little off. So now his lock's lit. It's blinking. It's a really early shot. Nice save. Oh, no. Oh, nice. Oh, no. too much but still almost three million that's not a shabby score for this game and at this rate it could just be practice game right i mean this late in the day if you're already in some people who just got some extra practice undead unicorn thank you so much for tuning in you have a wonderful evening they're telling us to go to bed i do have to play tomorrow morning who doesn't 845 checking right is it 845 geez it is yeah you know people are like oh you're going on a holiday playing pinball it must be so fun and relaxing like you have no idea yeah clearly no ideas unfortunately i was here steppen next from san francisco IFPA ranked 115th and he's currently in qualifying position 70th so this is literally his last possibility to qualify for anything I wonder what kind of car does he have or if he's just we could actually probably look that up can't we Yeah, I mean, we're watching Pair, I think it may be his last car at the end, but after this, maybe we can try any other games. Maybe like Harley-Davidson, a game that we are unlikely to see tomorrow. Or Wallop, which I don't know if everyone even wants to watch as much as play. Here's a multiball. So you do get a chance at the skill shot again when you start multiball, and I think at this point you might as well just try to get the 250,000. Oh, that's correct, and you get a multiball skill shot, okay. I don't think the skill shot has any effect on multiball. Just points. Points. Nice controlled play from Pair. So I'm curious if Pair is just using up a card or something because I'm not seeing any active cards for him. Oh, is it one of the famous bugs of I have no entry and somehow I can still recoup? He has one entry left, and this must be the first game of that. He's not going to be able to finish a full entry. I wonder if... Can people see active cards if they are not their own cards? That is a good question. No. No. Okay, so we can't see. So we have no idea where he is or what he's doing. But he is trying to pull off a game. He's still on ball one, and he's pulled off 1,100,000 points there. So he definitely can be able to pull off a good qualifying run here. Top 20 is 3 million, and he knows how to play this because he's definitely getting the easier drops over there to start multiball. Guys, what would you guys like to see in chat? Let me know because you might be able to influence that. So we have Baywatch. We've got Baywatch. We've got Pirates. We've got Cuball Wizard, Harley Davidson. We've got Safecracker, Warlock, Mousing Around, Cheetah, Iron Man, Iron Maiden. And Monster Bash. And Monster Bash. Someone mentioned Monster Bash in chat. We have Stargazer, Pirates, Safecracker sounds interesting. It says Magic Tiger. That's one of each. Two parrots. Two Monster Bash. Someone wants Sea Witch, which is unfortunately in the Classics Bank. Three Monster Bash. Four Monster Bash. We kind of see Monster Bash all the time, but if we ask the chat and the chat says it, it's going to have to say no now. We've got two for Safecracker. a pair unfortunately just blows through his ball two and three i'm afraid and that is not gonna help him out there i would have thought keifer had seen enough parrots for his whole life but i'm frankly not hi guys so we have another safecracker over monster bash that's a rare game this yeah i I would like to see some Safecracker. I think that would be interesting to talk about. That's not a game you would consider a tournament game, but it's here at InDisc. Yeah, there's modified ROM, then you can set the award and non-random and things like that. I mean I no expert of Safecracker don get me wrong I do think this is a stock ROM it just adjusted settings Oh really Stock ROM Interesting They use the tournament ROM for Feekster World as well Yeah. So it looks like Louis is coming in to try to qualify here for Maine. So that's great, we get the board game camera as well. So let's talk a little bit about Safecracker. the idea is you want to get into the board game break into the vault get the cash now now her drain there actually doesn't mean too much because it's a time game as opposed to um a ball game so you have a certain amount of time you get to drain and get your ball back it's basically a ball save for about 60 seconds you can see the timer it's the bar at the bottom of the score display yeah probably shorter than 60 seconds but And the way you get into the board game, the main way is by completing the flashing drops in the upper right, all the way up here. He needs his mouse. And that will open the entrances to the vault, that will light your locks. Oosh. Oh, wow, Luis is straight back into the main. I didn't even notice. Yep. So you mean the drops around here? Yes. So the drop's there, there, and there, right? And completing those will light the lock on the ramp. Yep. And there we go. Then you've got to hit the lock at least once. To open the gates, you can see the yellow tiles in the board game right here. Those are the gates. Yep. So she's going to get that shot straight back up to the top. and I basically was told not to use that upper flipper, and she decides to do the same. But this is nice. You've got the wheel value, and it's lit in the middle for a disabled computer. This stops the timer for about 10 seconds. Yep. Or if you already ran out of time, I believe it just will let you drain still. It gives you one ball save, I believe, and then the computer is back up and running. so she's gonna drain there but she's able to keep going and there's a lock so here's the choice you could uh choose to keep locking balls to open more gates or you could go right into the board game um but when you go into the board game depending on okay she's still got time when you go into the board game depending on which entrance you go to So she's going into the roof entrance right here. And that is actually the best entrance to go to because your character will go clockwise around the play field to the nearest gate, the nearest open gate. And that is the shortest path. So if you're careful, you can pay attention to which gates are open on the board game and choose the right entrance. Now, with this modified ROM, she now gets to choose whether or not to keep going or go into multiball. So it's a kind of interesting risk-reward. If you quit out, you go into multiball right away, or you can risk it. And she risked it and got Cyberdog. Now she can re-enter the board game by going through an entrance by the sewer. And you can see her character is still running around the board game. So if you're going to try to restart the board game, you want to time it for when your character is near the exit, near the vault. So she actually gets it. She defeats the Cyberdog by entering back through the roof. But unfortunately, that's going to make her path longer. It will. And she then unfortunately rolls into an alarm. So she will not get to choose a multiball. Man, Safecracker is just not friendly. Now, on the plus side, she did get 10 minutes as an award there. So she was able to drain again. So she's up to 365,000 points. I don't know what kind of score she's looking for. You need a million plus, maybe 1.5 to have an okay score. Wow, okay. I think that's what I saw anyways earlier today. So spinning that dial on the left relights the wheel award at the bank shot. Ooh, that came back down from that ramp, that center ramp. So she locks the ball again, or locks the first ball. Next up on Safe Tracker is Adam McKinney. Top 20 is 1.6 million. Oosh. Ow. Timer's still going. Timer is still going. And into the... Oh, the roof is not lit. Only the cellar is lit. Bad luck will help that. So I think the roof is now lit? No, for the later multi-balls to add exits, you have to complete this target bank right here, I believe. The locks only open the gates, which affect the path your character will take. Gotcha. Simple. Really simple. There's a lot going on in this game, for sure. so it's kind of funny because you the game is pretty there's a lot of randomness but there's still a lot of strategy going on in here yep i was not familiar with the modified rules so i got a very confused with this she does enter the board game but you can see how long her path is because of the closed gates but see in this situation she's gonna be able she unfortunately gets knocked out of the board game there. But you're able to choose whether or not to keep going or start a multiball worth something. That's nice. It gets the lock wheel award. That's probably the best award on there. I agree. The other thing about this game is it does have more miniature flippers than a normal game. Unfortunately, she drained and her final score is going to be 916,990. That's a pretty good score for not getting to the vault or starting a vault multiball. Yeah. That's some bad luck with the rules. So even though the rules are, with these settings, they're sequential. The display goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and you can try to time your stop to get the number you want. It's really hard. Yeah. It's not easy at all. So you sort of want to look at the tiles ahead of you on the board game and figure out like a plot give or take area, safe area and try to get that number. Yep. So now we have Adam McKinney stepping up. This? So the main division here at InDisc 2019 is sponsored by Color DMDs. Color DMD displays produce multicolor displays for pinball games. They're awesome. Since 2012, they've added support for 83 games. We have it here on Baywatch, and maybe you'll see that later. And Safecracker. Yeah, and Safecracker. Look at that. Many new titles are in progress. Is your game supported? Find out now at colordmd.com. So thank you, Color DMD. that score Luis just scored was actually the 65th top score. Oh. Yeah. So not a bad game, actually. I mean, I've seen a lot of worse scores on Safe Cracker. Particularly in the board game, if you get on the square where the guard needs a bribe, he's going to take all of your points. Yep. I saw that happen to a lot of people. So he got the ATM award there, and now he's going to choose between going again, and he does. He gets another 15,000 for the stash. So now his stash is 60. He could risk it or go 60,000. So he risks it. At this point, the guard's going to be close on your tail, so I might bail out. Yep. So the guard's going to get a roll of 1 to 6. He gets a 4, which you can see moves him up right there. He decides to cash out. Wise move. So now he's going to go right in the vault multiball. On normal settings, you have to get all the way to the middle of the board game to get here, but with these settings, you can cash out any time. Just right here. The jackpot will be your stash value. And the jackpot is on the ramp. Jackpot's the center ramp right there. Then you relight it with the spinning dial on the left. And he does relight it. How we doing, Mr. Kearns? Welcome, Bowen. Oh, hi. Another drain there, unfortunately, and he's out of multiball. He's got a ton of time, though. Yeah, he does have a bunch of time. He could get back into the vault. Trying to get those drops up top. Needs those red drops. Yeah, there's a lot of value in draining on purpose in this game, honestly. You get a bunch of points out of every pop-up or every drop target you hit. and he's got so many drops to hit to get to the next lock. Just that one right there. Boom. There it is. There it is. Now I want that ramp. And honestly, trying to waste time going for things that you're not really progressing to get to the board game. Definitely some strategy involved with that. He's looking really good here because he's got 45 minutes on the clock. He's got also the flashing pop bumpers add more time than regular pop bumpers do. And being able to get those bumpers all lit up like he has here and the top blade is giving me five minutes. He's at 50 minutes. Yeah. And keeps getting time. 1,000, 1,000, 3,000, another 1,000. Like that's good value. It's very good value. And the lock is already lit. Yeah. he also got an alarm oh he hasn't finished the alarm target which would help him in the board game that's right so here expect the backhand lock nice shot there and there's a decision to make here about uh locking the second ball which will open up a different gate uh to enter the vault right now the only place to to win the stash is um that gate four which is probably the most difficult gate to hit. So you see him going for the ramp again to try and get a second lock. This is going to be a roll, like rolling it over and try to get a nice shot. That was a short plunge there. Beautiful shot on the fly there. Terrific. Good knowledge knowing there is that short plunge to get straight down into the play field and not wasting your time in the pops. Going for the main entrance. He's got five minutes left on the timer. That's going to be his very last ball save. He's out of time, so he cannot lose the ball again that's right but with the uh with the board game available he's got a good chance to earn more time for the from the board game uh and that was nice but he's got to get into the end of that ball through the main entrance right here nice try a shot there just a little to the right yeah you see him kind of a little head shaking you're like come on you got this you got this oh boy it's actually up to 60 650,000 it's turning into a nice game here it could just get another board game we could pull off a decent game definitely gonna play for points oh I thought that was gonna go but instead of hits the a target bounces out he's still getting lots of value and now all of all All the pop bumpers are maxed. So they're going to each score 5,000 a bumper or something near that. Yes, big shot there by Adam McKinney. And because he got that second lock, that gate is open, giving him a very short path. This is an incredibly short path. Have you talked about the selection that you can make here? Yeah, so the selection. Oh, this is money, 20,000. Yep. So his selection now is either to start multiball at 45,000 or risk it and continue. he's going to risk it and he gets another 20,000 there's another aspect to the selection which is that the numbers that are on the display are going in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and if you time your press well enough as he did you can actually score whatever space you want to and now he gets a free game this is amazing, he's going to get to play again after this for free yeah? no At this point, a coin's supposed to come out of the game. And here's how you can get, it's $140,000 per ramp, but also 10 minutes of time for every ramp. Is it over? You just lost two balls. There is a little ball saver on there. There is a ball saver. I didn't see the flashing ball saver. I don't think there is one, honestly. Very nervous there. There's a jack, and you have to hit the little wheel. So we like the Jack. Oh, beautiful. Very nice. 20 minutes at a time. He got the ball up there, but he did not spin that wheel, unfortunately. So we'll see. He hit a third one He at 1 million now And so he does get the the spinner At this point this is one of the far better games going Top 20 is at 1.6, I think, we looked up. This is the last second chance to hit a jackpot here. No. He gets the 10 minutes that he earned during that multiball. Gives him more time, more chance. And with the pump bumpers maxed out, the bumpers are going to add time for him all the way across to 20, 25 now. Yep. Time does decrease much faster at this point in the game, though. You're absolutely right. That's a very good observation because the game is just going to eventually take your butt, take you away. But thankfully, it's still not out yet. So here he comes. Hopefully, we'll gain a little more time when he's in those pops. Reaching that 1.6 mark. He does have to, unfortunately, hit the drops on the right, which are kind of dangerous. Yeah, so he opted to take a ramp shot to feed the left flipper to shoot those drops. I mean, the drops are giving him 1,000 a pop or 2,000 a pop. They're worth quite a bit. Look at that. Nice nudging. Wow, this is a beautifully played game, this headcracker by Adam. with the bumpers awarding looks like it's 2 or 3 thousand a bump he's got his lock lit he almost hit it he does have the disabled computer on the bank lit as well I'm sorry I don't know what happened there a ball got stuck And I know Escher had a similar issue before. So this shows us one interesting thing I didn't know about this game is if you show you do not lose your bonus. We're running. Yeah, there's concern that Adam may not be able to finish the ticket as good as those games were. Time is running low. That's what it is. The lines are running short, so he's got to get himself on other games. We'll see that here. Just to let you know what we're doing here. This is the end of qualifying for the main division here at the Indisc Festival in Banning, California at the Museum of Pinball. Just an absolutely wonderful event, one of the best events of the entire year in the world, really. I'll tell you who we are. I'm Bowen Kerins. I'm Raymond Ashby. And I am Mike Welsh. Thank you for joining us. We've been moving around from game to game to watch different players as they attempt to qualify for the top 24 to play tomorrow for Big Bucks. And here we are on Ironman, which I was fortunate enough to get to do or die and then hit it a second too early. I'm sorry. What? Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, I hit it a second too early, got 250,000 on it, and couldn't then re-hit it. Wow. Yep. Congratulations. I felt pretty foolish on that. Wow, that's amazing. Yep. Just getting to do or die on the difficulty level of this machine is fantastic. I've had the opportunity to play on some several hard ones, so I've enjoyed this game. It really helps. It's strange how, on the one hand, the goals and objectives of this game were very simplistic by modern standards. Yeah. And yet, they all really come together on this machine. That was wonderful there. Very nice. That was great, Damien. Yep. he's in the middle of running the Ironman fast scoring and he's actually got Bogey and he has Jericho lit oh wow there it is so Jericho is lit when you've done get to Mach 5? Mach 6 the one in the middle there but you can get a lot of different goals So if you make six different goals throughout the game, then here it is. One of the things that was interesting about that is that the timer continues to count down on those other things, like the Iron Man scoring. No, it doesn't. Wow, he has a lot of time. Never mind. Maybe an older version of software. So what would you be doing here? I typically go after the orbits. I'm usually pretty good at doing loop passes on this game. Okay. So on this one specifically, it seemed like live catches were better. But, yeah, you go for the shots that are lit. The ramps also quite often, depending on the machine. Yeah. It really all varies from machine to machine. Yeah, at least in Jericho, there are the six objectives, the Ironman targets, the lanes, the monger. The Whiplash, the War Machine, sorry, the Drones, and the Rams. Any one of them is worth N million for each one. So that's second objective complete. That's 2 million. And every shot is worth... Oh, get out of there. Get that out of there. Oh, good effort. I'm surprised that didn't tilt. Very strong scoring in Derek overall. And that's a great score. That's got to be one of the top ten scores there. We also saw Adam Kinney just before this put a fifth place overall on that Safecracker game. Yep, that was a great game. That gives him a viable ticket if we can get him all the way through five games. Moving over to Warlock here with Derek Price. And I played this game in qualifying, and it has several very dangerous shots. That being one of them. This shot is extremely dangerous. and we've seen him shoot it twice and gets a nice little to the right tip of the flipper. I think I actually had a tenth overall on a junk ticket earlier today. And, yeah, my buddy actually asked me what on earth was I trying to do because he thought I tried to tap pass from left to right on this. What I was actually doing was tapping to shoot it into the collect shot and successfully doing so. And he still thought I tried to tap it over. I'm like, did you not see me perfectly hit the collect shot? Just a little tap. Just a little tap in it. Nice. So that score was 300, it looks like 300,000. Yeah, 300,000 on Warlock. He's going to play for some points, but not really as many as Derek was hoping for there. Yeah, not quite enough. Oh, man. And what overall position did that put Derek into? 28, 29. Oh, my God. And that's the end of his ticket, so coming back around to be able to go that. We also will be seeing, hopefully, Connor Stowe play on Monster Bash, and he will be next on Monster Bash with the potential for qualifying. Yep. He's got 622 going in, so he needs a top, at least top 15 or so. Yeah, I just tell them to get $100 million here, and then everything works itself out. Yep. Yeah. Connor was an extreme. I've never met Connor, but I did scorekeeping earlier, and he was extremely pleasant to scorekeep for. Yeah, Connor is an amazing human and very friendly, very strong player, well-versed. Where is he from? He is originally from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. All right. and quite a few different places. Sometimes in LA, sometimes in Portland, Oregon, sometimes in New York. He gets around in traveling. He does unfortunately lose his first ball and there's his second ball. And he does not have much progress anywhere. And this is one reason why I didn't touch this game, unfortunately. But the smile is still there. The smile is always there. Connor is not in a bad mood right now. And, oh, maybe now. Oh, no. He's still kind of smiling, though. He's still in a fantastic mood, man. Yeah. I mean. There's a few pinball players. Anything could be happening, and they're smiling. I'm here playing pinball. My ticket just got smashed to the smithereens by scoring $3 billion on Monster Bash. God, man. I'm unfortunately not as thrilled as Connor is with that $3 billion. I know that Connor wasn't thrilled by that, but he must have had a wonderful run in other games to get that close. And I wouldn't say the nerves got to him at all there. It's just that ball to him. Look at what's happened. Steve Stein is now playing. He's getting the same treatment. Yeah, this game just seems to always treat me poorly, and that's why I wanted to stay away from it. So this was one of my qualifying games as well, and I take a different approach than a lot of players do, which is I shoot with a center spinner. No, no, no, no. Get out of here. You're going to break something. You know once he turns around, he's going to be like, what on earth are you doing? Yep, there he is. Speaking of Monster Bash, so going ahead. Oh, man. Oh, no. The plague has arrived. The plague has arrived. I want to break something. I want to infect somebody. Can you break Monster Bash? Unfortunately, we just saw Connor. Monster Bash broke a bunch of us, actually. A dream to see Connor in the Final 24 here at this tournament. He deserved it. He had four out of five games running strong and then three million on Monster Bash. Yep, three million on Monster Bash. Wow. That was a beautiful, beautiful run. We've got a Stargazer here. This is Adam McKinney continuing his run. Okay. He's got 326 out of a possible. Oh, almost. Almost to Lazarus. and he's done. But that is a viable score right there. He's going to go over a million and as the numbers sort of weirdly pulse on the screen because of whatever digital artifacting or something, we got a million 34,000 on Stargazer and that's a very strong score. So that's three strong games from Adam McKinney. This format, though, the way it's so punishing is what we saw from Connor. Yep. You get the one bad game and your ticket's not getting there. There are other tournaments, including the Poplar World Championship, where you can get away with one bad game if your other games are strong enough. You just have a zero. Yep. So here's Jockton's currently playing Stargazer. Yeah, we're going to continue on Stargazer. This is just a fantastic and rare game to see in competition play. also the layout of the inlanes there aren't any and those little whoopee thingies that I don't know what to call them but like that right there the little rollovers the different rolls you get on this game are so unique that you end up doing things on this game that you would never do on any other game like try to back flip it into a rollover and then keep doing that and then hit something else. So we're going to try to follow Adam McKinney, apparently, to see if he could qualify. Adam has moved directly to, wow, that was fast. Nice. He got on a warlock quickly, and there's only 12 minutes left in qualifying, so he has to play this game and get on another machine and score well in both games. Oh, wow, look at that. What a save. Oh, nice. This is beautiful there. And that back spinner is where it's at in this game. Making the top right spinner is where not all the points are, but it's one of the most efficient and safe ways of scoring points in this game. Now, how's this ticket looking like? I mean, is this his second game or does he have any other tickets? This is his fourth game. We saw him play on Safe Cracker. And they did very well again just now on Stargazer for the last 20 seconds anyway. Yep, for a million points. Okay, so it's a ticket. It's a viable ticket. It's a viable ticket, but that train is going to cost them. It's a viable ticket, but honestly, this Warlock score is not going to be super damaging right now. If he ends at 200, 300,000, he's going to be okay to have a chance on his fifth and final game. Okay. But what he needs to do here is what he did on ball one, which is to shoot the number three drop targets in the upper right. Oh. He gets a left out lane. Just like that is gone. That puts him at 256,000. Okay. Maybe a post transfer would have worked there. But with the way he's going through the games and trying to get them, I wouldn't be surprised if he's playing lots of games he hasn't played very much of. Yeah, and games without much of a cue as well. because, I mean, he literally has 10 minutes on his final game. So he's got one more game left. That's it? Oh, don't go to mouse and around. Whatever you do, don't go to mouse and around. He's looking. Don't do it, man. He's thinking about it. Don't do it. Don't take that cheese. Don't take the cheese. You're going to get trapped. He's not going. What is he going, a cue ball? Maybe he can play safe cracker again. He might get a cue ball. He played too long on safe cracker. I honestly want to finish up my ticket now. Oh, you haven't finished your ticket? I have one game left. It's a busted ticket, but I kind of just want to play again. Well, go play. Yeah, you got it. Go play Mousin' Around. We'll put you on camera. I really don't want to play Mousin' Around. I want to check out the Monster Bash. Go get that cheese. Thank you guys Oh he going He going All right What are you going to play He going to play Monster Bash Look at the confidence that he has in playing Monster Bash Come on. Yeah. Give a smile. I felt I had a lot more success shooting the center and going for Mosh Pits. Yep. I got Mosh Pit and then I did horrible. I didn't do anything like that. All right. So we're watching Jockton Streeley play on Pirates here. and we're stinking on Pirates because this will also allow us to watch the entire game, Game 5 for Adam McKinney. Yep. And Jocton's played well. Jocton qualified for the Final 24 in Classics 2 today. Yeah, he's a good player. Good local player. I've never seen him play before. He was strong. Oh, yeah. Strong player. So how do you like Pirates? I haven't really gotten the chance to play very much of Pirates yet, so I have trouble getting a really informed opinion. There is one in my hometown, actually. Okay. But it's broken a lot of the time. Okay, that's not good. And so, unfortunately, I don't want to judge a game by that. I really like the layout of the play field, honestly. That little shot under the flipper, it's cool. and the whole play field has that kind of fun layout to it. Like that shot, that shot serves two purposes. It can come back around the upper flipper or it can flip up into the lock. Yep. There's so much there that the designer, Eric, what's his last name? Eric Murnier? Murnier. Murnier, I'm sorry. He's, this is his first design. He did a good job at it. It's an absolutely excellent play field, I feel. It's got great flow and interesting toys, shots everywhere. It's cool. Oh, yeah. I enjoy playing it. All Jersey Jack games have a very strong... Rule set. Lighting effects, rule sets, very similar in... Not similar in style to Wizard of Oz and Hobbit, but, I mean, similar in that there's just... Just a crap load of things going on at once. Oh, no! Oh, my gosh. Oh, man. And there's just... Oh, he had a ball save still. Yeah, he had one extra... He had a ball save. But he's out of multiball, though. And it's gone. He'd be warned. And it's gone. That's too bad. 1,000 points for that multiball. That's too bad. That's a lot of points, I think. No? No, not really. 1,000 points? Nah. And a spin? Nah. The spin's right there. It's 1,000 and a spin. There's 1,000 and a spin? Yeah. So you can get, like, what? Like 10 plus? No. Yeah, then he has to spin again and try to avoid the whammy. He's got... Oh, he's got to took a multiball ready. He's got enough gold. See how it's blinking on the right scoop? So he just needs it in there and start another multiball and try to combine it. Yeah, basically the gold is... What do you mean by combining it? Oh, you can combine multiballs here. Okay. Absolutely. So basically, I mean, it's nice when you start having the chest multiball kind of set up. Bring in a multiball and then just try to bank that. And at the same time, you can restart the multiball with the upper inside loop. Oh, so right there, he's got the left ramp lit for a multiball. He's got that multiball there, and then he's got the Tortuga multiball. So he's got a lot of stuff going on. That was a nice little tap over. Excellent. And that was a really fast recovery, too. It's been ram, ram, ram, ram, ram, ram. That's good. So that's one multiball. The world's end. Now he wants to try to bring in Tortuga. What was the character that he picked? Oh, he's got that whatever, the ugly-looking character there. Yeah, that guy. You know, the guy who, that guy. Yeah, that guy with the bad teeth. Now he's trying to backflip the Tortuga. There it is. Wonderful decision there. Tortuga multiball. And he's going to get some skull holds of whatever the heck that is. Yep. And ball two is locked for a different multiball, the chest. And he's up top for a different multiball. There's multi-balls everywhere. Yeah. Balls all over the place. He's having fun. Dogs and cats. Yeah, why not? The trading balls. He's got the super jackpot. Oh, and he's got. And he back flipped it. That was so solid. I believe he has another multiball. Is it super? A multiball just started again. The Deadman's Chest multiball is gone. There's three multi-balls going on at once now. He has a Devil's Triangle, does he? And some, I don't know what Devil's Triangle is. That's the one in the left orbit. I think you're confusing this with some other guy named Brett. Okay. I was going to say no, so I'm going to just go. But he's got a nice setup over here. He does. And lost a couple balls there. map award might be add one ball here award one treasure uh that's okay that's all right our frenzy our our our add one x our bonus yep i gotta tell you though i i like picking um the character i forgot what he what his name is he's like a captain he's like a good looking captain but whatever uh he uh he makes a jackpot like a multiball rules easier so when you're a multiball you can start getting award one character a lot more jackpots but i don't know what that oh yeah that's a pretty low reward there liars dice jackpot this is a wonderful multiball yep now he can combine the mode he wants to hit it up that mode and start the start the mode again up there oh that's gonna do it for the multiball he picks off a couple extra jackpots on the way out Man, not bad. $350,000. That was a nice choice right there, getting a grace period super on the Tortuga. There we go. R. Get that in there, too. R. R. R. There's a lot of R's. I don't know. Instead of spelling it R, A-R-R, why don't you just do an R? Oh, just a single letter R? Yeah. Oh, then it would be R. I don't know. I mean, I think that you could go either way with that. It would just be R at that point. I think that decision is fairly arbitrary. Okay. That's a huge award. Yeah, 6X. Oh, 6X bonus, you're right. Yeah. I actually collected the 6X. Oh, get out of there. Oh, he collected the 6X bonus? He didn't light it. He didn't hit the 6X target. Oh, man. Shoot. Oh, that would have been big, but he still gets $40,000 in bonus on top of a $300,000 score. Game over, bud. Man, what a game over. That was a solid game. 387,000, one of the best scores we've seen on Pirates That's going to be top 10, I'm sure Throughout the entire two-day qualifying Oh yeah, that's a top 10 score And then here we are, this is Adam McKinney Alright, here we go Basically our last chance competitor here To try and break through And make it in the qualifying Now, do we know what he needs? Do we have any targets? What's he at about, what's his total coming into here? Alright, let's find out Right now he's already in at 24th. He's in 24th. So can he improve with this or no? Yeah, so you're saying if he does nothing here, he's in. Wow. Even though it knocks him down. Yeah. Ah, okay. So we're actually looking at the potential for Adam to break into the top eight and earn a first-round buy. Wow. So what would we be looking at there for a first-round buy? 746 points. Okay. How many points does he have right now? Less than that. 505 on this ticket. 505 on this. Okay, so basically he's not going to break top eight, but he can improve his position. He's going to get in the final 24 with 505 points? No, he already has a ticket that's in 24th place. Oh, okay, so he's already. Wow. Oh, that's interesting. All right. I understand that. So if he wants to improve his position, what kind of score does he need here to beat his 24th from before? What, 150 points or so? 160? Yeah, 155 points. 155 points. The match is existing. Okay. All right. So 155 points, that would be what? Maybe around 150 million, 150,000 or so? 150 million would be very good. Yeah. Let's see. We can check the game standings, game scores. I'm going to guess 150,000. Just about. Or maybe more. He's getting some gold. Arr. Arr. 250 to all skulls. All right. Okay. So to get 155 points, you will need just over 200,000 total here. 200,000. Okay. To put him in a position where he would improve. Are you doing it? He started his multiball, so let's see if he can combine it. And that's a nice hit there. Right at the very beginning of that multiball, he put a ball into the start chapter. Good. So that's going to populate this gold. There's a junk load of gold on screen if he wants to push the button. He's got to push the button. There we go. He just started another multiball, so he's got two of them. This is an extremely strong. And he started, wow, he started at world's end. How did he pull that off? Yeah, he's got a nice setup. three different multiballs already running fast. He needs some gold, and then he needs what? He needs to just pick off as many jacks as he can here. Gold would be nice because gold would give him the opportunity to perhaps bring in the Tortuga multiball even into this. Oh, Super X is lit. Hit it. You really want that. Adam very much knows how to play this game. Oh, yeah. Look at the lights here. What's going on here? oh look he's got it he's got the shot over there well he's got the shot but that's going to give him one lock so that's not a multiball yet he's got to do what i think not yet not yet it's just graphics come on dude that looked amazing you're just looking at special effects oh my god come on oh i wish that started a multiple that would have been enormous he would have been able to continue all that instead uh he's got uh no it's done one more shot there to start. Look at this mode that's running. It's got every character it looks like. And he needs a left orbit to finish that. ShotX is lit, but I mean now he's out of multiball. I'll take the ShotX right now on the left orbit and finish this mode off with the multiplier. Okay, let's see if he can try to lock the other ball now. Oh, no. He went overboard. This is just outstanding play though, man. This is doing good. Exactly what you want to see. So 130, he's like 70,000 short of starting proving his... Oh! Bad roll there. That was kind of weird, yeah. Give it a little bounce over. Is it 135? Total bonus? Is the bonus 30? Oh, no, it's not 30. Not yet. Not yet. He's getting excited. He's waving. Team K is at 150, so... 150,000. Come on. He's looking at a situation where he needs 200,000 total to improve his standing. All right. He's got 20-some goals, about halfway to Tortuga multiball. Oh, ZZ Top is saying he's shooting for around $180,000, so let's see. Yeah, he needs $200,000 to improve on his existing ticket. So if he gets $180,000, he should void. You're right. He'd be better off not entering another ticket because that left him. Right, that might damage his scores. That's right. Yeah, you just go down to the bottom. What did you say? He's got to shoot the left orbit to start multiple? Oh, no. Oh, it's gone. Oh, my gosh. That was just nasty. It's gone. All right. That was nasty, and that's not going to be enough for Adam to improve his position. So he might just void it. Unless he hasn't. These games that he's played are not in his original ticket. He has to make it here to put in the ticket or void it. Man, that's one ugly guy. Why would you pick that guy? Voiding is probably the right decision. All right. So just the one score. What are the barnacles and stuff? his face that's barnacle bill buddy yes all right barnacle bill makes everything barnacly do those itch you think uh you have them on your face you think they itch yeah yeah how do you know what do you say it in such a confident way it's like wow i i live in uh new Robert Englunds we have everybody everybody's got barnacles barnacles when you take when you take a bath do you like jump up and splash kind of like the waves do No. The whales do? No? Nothing like that? No, only Pacific Life people can do that. Okay. All right. All right, Carl. Where are we going now? Are we done? We're done. We're done? What? Nobody's playing pinball? That's it. Is it time to sleep? I guess it's time to sleep. It's over. So do we have the final tally? It's well worth just cheering for Carl here for all of the work to set up this stream. This is incredibly professional quality all throughout. Thanks to all the scorekeepers, the volunteers. Oh, absolutely. The people who brought in these nice couches, the rafters. The couches, I think, are really cool. This area clearly takes a very long time to set up. All the folks at the Museum of Pinball and sponsors, including Scorebit and Color DMD. Yep. And Stern Pro Circuit, of course. It's an honor to bring you this broadcast, and we'll see you in the morning. Bright and early for the Final 24 here at Indisc. Well, do we have the Final 24? Can we? Oh, we don't have the Final 24. It's on the website. Neverdream.com. Fine. 2019. Fine. We're not going to say it. He wants to go. Carl wants to go. Oh, I am ready. He's tired. So, did Adam survive? He survived. He survived and took 24th. Nice. All by doing nothing. Yeah. Nice. All right. Thanks, everyone. All right, Pinheads. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Good night, everybody. Good night. Thanks, Bowen. _(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 31300282-e1e0-4e2e-bde6-b6840a603cd3*