# Episode 39 – Danielle Peck + JJPOTC Disc + Colin MacAlpine

**Source:** Head2Head Pinball  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2018-04-16  
**Duration:** 121m 23s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.head2headpinball.com/2018/04/16/episode-39-danielle-peck-jjpotc-disc-colin-macalpine/

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## Analysis

Head2Head Pinball Podcast Episode 39 features elite New Zealand pinball player Danielle Peck, who discusses her competitive achievements, travels, and upcoming university studies. The episode includes a humorous System 11 'System 11 World Championship' bracket game and covers significant industry news: Jersey Jack Pinball controversial redesign of Pirates of the Caribbean (replacing the innovative triple spinning disc mechanism with a single disc for reliability), and Zach Sharpe personal news alongside his loss of #1 IFPA ranking to Raymond Davidson.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Danielle Peck is ranked #2 in RPA in New Zealand and #5 in ISPA women's rankings — _Martin and Ryan C., opening segment introducing guest credentials_
- [HIGH] Danielle Peck was the youngest person to play at IFPA World Championship at age 12 — _Martin, opening guest intro_
- [HIGH] Danielle Peck started Bells and Chimes chapter in New Zealand, the first outside the USA — _Martin, opening guest intro_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack replaced the triple spinning disc mechanism in Pirates of the Caribbean with a single spinning disc due to reliability issues — _Eric Meunier video clip from Jersey Jack, explaining design changes_
- [HIGH] The chest mechanism in Pirates of the Caribbean had reliability issues with the diverter causing balls to kick back out — _Eric Meunier video clip explaining design changes_
- [HIGH] Raymond Davidson is now the #1 ranked IFPA pinball player, replacing Zach Sharpe — _Martin and Ryan C., news segment discussing IFPA ranking changes_
- [HIGH] Danielle Peck is starting a conjoint degree (Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science) majoring in Psychology, Sociology, and Chinese — _Danielle Peck, in response to university education question_
- [HIGH] Danielle Peck won both women's championships she has entered (TPF 2017 and Indis 2018) — _Martin, opening guest intro_

### Notable Quotes

> "Fire is terrible artwork and terrible sounds. It's so annoying to start every game...I don't like the shot layout, no offense to anyone who likes the game, I just don't, yeah nah, it doesn't push the buttons."
> — **Danielle Peck**, ~32:00
> _Strong opinion on System 11 game quality during the bracket elimination tournament_

> "It was such a great feature of the machine, I was hoping to get used to it because it was just so cool. The coolest part that, I mean, I was excited by it only because I wanted to see them stop and award something."
> — **Ryan C.**, ~47:30
> _Captures the community's fascination with the triple disc innovation and disappointment at its removal_

> "I could just tell, looking at Eric and listening to his voice, it was not a decision they wanted to do at all. I'm sure he would have done whatever he could. I mean, he's an engineer. He would have done whatever he could to make that work. And you could just tell that he was gutted that he had to make the announcement."
> — **Martin**, ~1:08:00
> _Insightful observation about designer sentiment regarding the Pirates redesign decision_

> "If you really think about it, you know, people are upset about, oh, it doesn't have this one feature anymore. It still has, like, four or so, like, unique things that aren't in any other Pinball machines."
> — **Ryan C.**, ~1:05:00
> _Balanced perspective on community overreaction to single feature loss amid multiple innovations_

> "I totally see the outcome of me giving out terrible psychiatric advice in the future, you know?"
> — **Danielle Peck**, ~25:00
> _Humorous self-aware comment about her psychology major and connection to pinball community_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Danielle Peck | person | Elite professional pinball player from New Zealand, ranked #2 RPA NZ, #5 ISPA women's, guest on Episode 39, competitive tournament winner, starting university |
| Martin | person | Co-host of Head2Head Pinball Podcast, Episode 39 |
| Ryan C. | person | Co-host of Head2Head Pinball Podcast, Episode 39, involved in pinball machine customization and discussion |
| Eric Meunier | person | Game designer at Jersey Jack Pinball, designer of Pirates of the Caribbean, announced design changes to disc and chest mechanisms |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer, announced significant design changes to Pirates of the Caribbean due to reliability concerns |
| Raymond Davidson | person | Competitive pinball player, newly ranked #1 IFPA player, replacing Zach Sharp |
| Zach Sharpe | person | Competitive pinball player, formerly #1 IFPA ranked, now expecting a child, runs Straight Down the Middle content |
| Dave Peck | person | Danielle Peck's father, previous guest on Head2Head Pinball Podcast, major pinball machine collector (120+ machines) |
| Pirates of the Caribbean | game | Jersey Jack Pinball machine, underwent major design changes to triple spinning disc (replaced with single) and chest mechanism |
| Keith P. Johnson | person | Pinball community figure who provided technical explanation for Pirates chest mechanism changes on forum |
| Zach Sharpe | person | Content creator, Straight Down the Middle, discussed Pirates of the Caribbean design changes and community reactions on forums |
| Bells and Chimes | organization | Pinball organization chapter founded by Danielle Peck in New Zealand, first chapter outside USA |
| IFPA | organization | International Federation of Pinball Players, maintains world rankings of competitive players |
| Rocky and Bullwinkle (or Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends) | game | Classic pinball machine Danielle Peck played as a young child |
| X-Men | game | Pinball machine with spinning disc feature, referenced in discussion of Pirates mechanic |
| Head to Head Pinball Podcast | organization | Australian competitive pinball podcast featuring head-to-head matchups and industry discussion |

### Signals

- **[product_concern]** Jersey Jack redesigned Pirates of the Caribbean's signature triple spinning disc mechanism, replacing it with a single spinning disc due to reliability and consistency issues discovered during testing (confidence: high) — Eric Minier official video: 'We found some mechanisms that required some tweaking...The first change we made was to the triple spinning disc mechanism...It's a much more reliable mechanism, runs a lot quieter.'
- **[community_signal]** Strong negative community reaction to Pirates of the Caribbean design changes on pinball forums and Pinside, with users organizing mock-up designs and demanding pricing adjustments (confidence: high) — Martin: 'people are going bananas, aren't they, Marty? Oh, absolute mental.' References extensive Pinside discussion and user outcry
- **[design_innovation]** Loss of previously marketed innovative triple spinning disc with optics, variable speeds, and inserts represents significant reduction in hardware innovation for the machine despite retention of other unique features (confidence: high) — Ryan C.: 'It wasn't just like, this is the next step. It's like, this is the next step plus the next five steps. We've just taken this massive leap, right, in kind of hardware. And then when he announced that it's not there anymore, it's just, oh, we changed it from three to one.'
- **[competitive_signal]** Raymond Davidson achieved #1 IFPA ranking, displacing Zach Sharp from top position, likely due to score expiration or rating downgrade in rolling 20-tournament ranking system (confidence: high) — Martin and Ryan C. news segment: 'He's no longer the world's number one pinball player according to the IPA rankings. It is now Raymond Davidson.'
- **[personnel_signal]** Zach Sharp expecting a child, marking personal life development for prominent competitive pinball community figure (confidence: high) — Martin news segment: 'Two bits of news on Zach Sharp this week...He's having a kid. Congratulations.'
- **[content_signal]** Danielle Peck featured as guest on Head2Head Pinball Podcast Episode 39, discussing career, education, and pinball community topics (confidence: high) — Episode title and content: 'Episode 39 – Danielle Peck + JJPOTC Disc + Colin MacAlpine'
- **[rumor_hype]** Hype for Pirates of the Caribbean declining due to extended production timeline (announced October, still in testing months later) and community skepticism following design changes (confidence: medium) — Ryan C.: 'I think that some people are just getting cold on the Pinball machine, possibly because, hey, hype doesn't last a year. You know, it got announced in October last year. You know, the hype is dying down. All the hype is shifted to Iron Maiden'
- **[market_signal]** Community expects price reduction for Pirates of the Caribbean following feature removal, though manufacturers suggest minimal cost savings due to engineering and prototyping investment (confidence: medium) — Ryan C.: 'Yeah, there's a lot of stuff...there's all these people, like, mocking up designs and starting, like, you know, I'll vote this thread if you want to change to this or this or this...there's all these people...everybody's saying, oh, you know, it better cost less money now.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Jersey Jack prioritized reliability and user-friendliness over innovative mechanical design in Pirates redesign, representing tension between hardware innovation and operational simplicity (confidence: high) — Eric Minier: 'I can't wait for people to get these games and play them in their homes' and focus on games that 'hold up for generations' and are 'more reliable'
- **[community_signal]** Community members with different stakes (collectors, operators, location players) have conflicting reactions to Pirates changes; designer sentiment appears disappointed despite justification (confidence: medium) — Martin observation: 'I could just tell, looking at Eric and listening to his voice, it was not a decision they wanted to do at all...he was gutted that he had to make the announcement'

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## Transcript

Music Welcome everyone Welcome everybody to the Head2Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 39 and my name is Martin and with me is Ryan C. Hello Ryan. How are you going buddy? I'm good and you? Yeah mate, we've got a really interesting guest on today. Let's just go back and forth. Did you know that this person is ranked number 2 in the RPA in New Zealand? No, I didn't. Did you know that they're ranked number 5 in the ISPA women's players? Oh, wow. That's a woman. That's two weeks in a row. Did you know that she was the youngest person ever to play an IFPA world champ at 12 years old? No, I didn't. Did you know that this person drove Route 66 in a hearse? That's amazing, Marty. Did you know this person just completed high school at 16 years and two weeks? Isn't that amazing, Marty? I think that is amazing. But did you know that they were named valedictorian of the AGC Senior College? Holy shit, I came last in my high school. Okay, that's amazing. Did you know that they're about to start university and they're going to do a double degree? I did not know that. But did you know that this person started Bells and Chimes in New Zealand and it's the first chapter outside of the USA? Oh my gosh. You know, she's only entered two women's championships and she's won both of them, TPF 2017 and Indis 2018. Isn't that amazing? That is amazing. And did you know that, oh, it says here she has an awesome dad. No, that's not true. The lamest intro ever, it's Danielle Peck. How are you going, Danny? Hi, I'm great, guys. That was the best intro ever. What are you guys talking about? Just a couple of random facts that we just happened to pick up. We just know a lot about you. Such research. I love it. It definitely wasn't sent in by your dad. I definitely not. Especially that the dad's the best thing ever, you know? Definitely not that. A bit of trouble, that one. So look, all those things are true and you are obviously very well known and you are a very good pinball player and I've actually met you a number of times and most of them have been overseas so you do get to travel around. How's that for you? Oh, it's fabulous. I love travelling around and meeting all the new people and, you know, getting to know everyone, see places. It's really cool. Now, on your travels, do you just kind of go to the pinball places or do you do regular touristy stuff? I mean, people seem to think that we just do pinball stuff, but no, we do heaps of stuff. Like, we go see, you know, touristy sites and we go to places, you know. I mean, pinball's a great thing to do while we're away, but we also like to do, you know, see where we're going. It's not just pinball based. So what would be your favourite holiday that you've had? Like all of them? No, the Hearst was especially cool because we got to drive Route 66 and I went to my first ISPA World Championship in Denver. That was so cool. And being the youngest person, like, fantastic. So why the Hearst? Can I just ask that? Oh, okay, yeah. I actually forgot, but basically we had four pinball machines in the back. Most of the time it was three, but on the last little leg in California we had four. I don't know why we just decided to do that for some reason, because we're a bit special. We like to have a lot of machines. So what number is it up to now, 120-something? I'd have to look on pin side. It is 120-something, yes. Okay, can you name them all? Yes, if I tried. It would take me a hot minute to do so, but I probably could. So for those people that might not know, we've actually had Danny's dad, Dave Peck, on our show before, and we did talk about a great collection that he has. So have you always had, like for you personally, always had Pinball Machines your whole life? Yes, like if you look me up you'll probably find a cute little photo of me when I was three or four and I was playing Rockin' Bullwinkle, man I always played. I played since I was in a little diaper, it was great. What machines do you gravitate towards the most? Is it the System 11s or is it the newer DMTs? Honestly, I like all of them. I used to say F-14 Tomcat was my favourite game, but I'd probably say Aerosmith and Batman 66 are probably my favourites now, but I'll play any game. I love them all, from EMs to really moderns. Is there any particular game that you really don't like? Yes. Wait, if it's a System 11 game, don't mention it. If it's a System 11, don't mention it. Unfortunately it is, but no, I don't care. Okay, wait, wait, good segue, good segue, because I've got a little 32 team bracket elimination, and I've put all this, how many System 11 games are there? Like 31 or something? Something like, yeah, it's 32, yeah. I think I've kind of messed up a little bit because I might have missed out on one and put a couple of them in there twice. But this is the System 11 World Turd Championship, okay? I'm going to give you, yeah, a tournament. I'm going to give you two System 11 games, right? And you tell me which one's the biggest turds, okay? Okay. We have to get to 32, so it's a bracket elimination, so it has to be nice and quick, okay? Okay. You can explain yourself a little bit when we get down to the semifinals. Okay. Bad Cats versus Pinball. Which one's the worst game? Oh, I got both of those. Oh, uh-oh. Bad Cats. Is the worst. Okay. Bad Cats. Cyclone versus Swords of Fury. Cyclone. Space Station versus Jokers. Oh, no. Okay. That's a good one. Jokers. Jokers is the biggest turd. Okay, F14 Tomcat versus Game Show. Oh, Game Show, totally. That's not a bit of competition. I like it. Grand Lizard. Keep me peace. Grand Lizard versus Banzai Run. Oh. No, Banzai Run. Banzai Run. Yeah. Banzai Run. Yeah, no one likes that shit. I'm just saying, hey, Marty, remember when you asked me at that Silver Ball Museum thing if I played any cool games? I've never played before. Bons they're on. Yeah, the flippers weren't strong enough to get up to the top of the thing. It was so frustrating. Fire versus Earthshaker. Fire, totally. Fire. Black Knight 2000 versus Dr. Dude. Oh, no, Black Knight 2000. Controversial, but... What? Okay. I'm putting it into this interview right now. That is crazy talk. Alvira versus Big Guns. Big Boobies versus Big Guns. Oh no, that's... Accurate. Oh. No, Alvira. I'll say Alvira. Big Boobies. All the way. Okay. Dyna versus High Speed. Oh. Oh, that's really hard. Oh. Was it Dyna versus High Speed? Yeah, I didn't see these properly, so they're good games against other games. That's fine. No, I like Dinah too much. The other one, the other one. That's a high speed. Pimbot, since Pimbot's been here before, it's going to get a second chance. Pimbot versus Police Force. Oh, now I'm going to say Police Force. Okay. I like it though. Pool Sharks versus Radical. Pool Sharks, I can't. Radical's cheesy, but I like it way too much. I do like Radical. It's too good, it's too good. Roller Gains versus Road Kings. Oh, Rokings. Come on. Who doesn't love roller games? Who's one person that doesn't love it? Yeah. Millionaire versus mousing around. Girl, you trying to, like, make a joke. That's no competition. Millionaire. I'm sorry. No, it's millionaire. Riverboat Gambler versus Taxi. Riverboat Gambler. Okay. And this is where I stuffed up, I think. Taxi versus Transporter. Oh. That's terrible seating because they're both fantastic. Oh. Well, that's not a terrible scene then because it's supposed to be the biggest turd so it'll get knocked out the next round. See, you should make this easy for me, Ryan. I'm feeling attacked. Oh no, I don't even... Repeat the game. Taxi versus Transporter. It's going to go up against Bugs Bunny next so it doesn't matter. Oh, it doesn't even matter. It literally doesn't matter. Transporter. I don't agree with that. Okay. Whirlwind versus Bugs Bunny. Oh, Bugs Bunny. Okay, alright, second round, let's power through. Bad Cats versus Cyclone. Bad Cats. Jokers versus Gangshow. Oh, Jokers. Wow, okay, Jokers. Banzai Run versus Fire. Oh, Fire. Fire. He really doesn't like Fire. Black Knight 2000 versus Alvira. Alvira, yeah. Wow, do not like Alvira. Okay, High Speed versus Police Force. Police Force. I'm trying to figure out which is the one that you really don't like. I don't know what it is. There's about three or four. Pool Sharks versus Road Kings. Road Kings. I don't like Road Kings. Okay. Millionaire versus Riverboat Gambler. Millionaire. Transporter versus Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny. Alright, down to the final eight. Bad Cats vs Jokers. Jokers. Wow, I think it's Jokers. Fire vs Albira. Fire. Okay. Police Force vs Road Kings. Road Kings. I hate both of them, but Road Kings a little bit more. Millionaire vs Bugs Bunny. Millionaire. No question. The final four. This is when you have to explain yourself a little bit. Okay, I can do that. Jokers versus Fire, which one's the biggest and why? Oh, that's a good question. Okay, C. Okay, now I've got to talk about C. Fire is terrible artwork and terrible sounds. It's so annoying to start every game. When you push it, it's like, it's just like, shush. That was a terrible impression, but it's terrible. I don't like the shot layout, no offense to anyone who likes the game, I just don't, yeah nah, it doesn't push the buttons. What's the other one? I've already forgotten. Jokers. I see. I'm biased because I totally used to love that game because it used to have short legs on it, so I used to just be able to play it. But what a crappy rule set. I don't think it's anyone as well who likes it, but what a sad rule set. You can offend people, Danny. It's okay. Okay, that's good. And I'm sorry, but the Double Your Score, I mean, it's beautiful because you can really piss people off. But you know, it's not the best. So which one's the biggest third? Drumroll. Jokers. Okay, on to the grand finals. The last one of the semi-final, Road Kings vs. Millionaire. Oh, this is actually harder than I thought it would be. I knew what was going to be the biggest turd. But now I'm second-getting myself. Because, like, see, Road Kings has kind of a cute rule set a little bit. I mean, the shots aren't the nicest. The rules aren't as deep as, you know, the more modern of the Sist of Eleven. But I kind of have a little bit of heart for it. Because on the back glass, that guy's face and the little chariot thing, he's got the best face I've ever seen. If you don't know what it is, look it up on International Pinball Database. It's quite fantastic. What do you mean he has the best face? Like is he a good looking guy? He just looks like he's going to go for a bit of a poo, you know? He looks like he's having a terrified poo. Yep, I can see it. Visual, something's going on. It's kind of got full music though. And Millionaire? Millennaire, there's no redeeming factor. Terrible all over. I really don't like it. I'm sorry, I just don't. What is that blue? Hey, I've written this on Pinside. If you do some digging, you're going to find me ripping this one a new one. But what is that blue? The blue is an eyesore. What is the music? That's an earsore. What are the rules? It's a light. Can't deal. Like, maybe? I just don't see any redeeming factors in it. I'm sorry. Like, I know some people really like it because it is kind of a beginner's game, but to me, oh no, I just know it's not my bag at all. So Millionaire, definitely straight into the finals. So the guy taking a dump on the Millionaire back glass is the redeeming factor of Road Kings. On to the grand final. You've already explained what you don't like about the game. So drumroll, the biggest season 11 game, is it Jokers or Millionaire? Millionaire. Millionaire is a winner. Yeah. That's kind of a pre-determined outcome because I just don't like it enough, you know? But, I mean, Jokers is pretty bad. It was also the one game that your dad said that of all the System 11s he absolutely hated. So I figured it would be the same. Rhymes in the family. So, I mean, we were going to do the best of, but, you know, hate is funnier sometimes. The funny thing is, I actually like a lot of the games that I had to put through in the first round, like Bad Cats. I had to put Bad Cats through because it's got a bad rule set, but I love Bad Cats. Meow, meow, meow, meow. Like, who doesn't love it? It's adorable. What's your favourite out of them all? Oh, that's a good question. Currently. What do you want to play the most? If you have to walk into the room, you see all of them there. What's the game that you go to first? Taxi. But that's only because I did get it in disc, you know. I'm on it. That was pretty good. Mashed everyone. And then you went to Junkyard. And Danny, you didn't come to play, Danny. You came to play. I was waiting for that to come up. My quote of the century that I stole off of Rupert's Drag Race is great. I want to ask Danny if she is going to Pinburgh this year. Unfortunately, because I intend to go to university, I'm not going to Pinburgh this year. I actually had the ticket bought, but I didn't want to go because I wanted to go do uni because I'm a full-on nerd. What are you studying at uni? I have signed up for a conjoint degree, which is kind of like double degree, but it's a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science majoring in Psychology, Sociology and Chinese. I might do a bit of politics. Oh, that sounds so boring. I know. I love it all. Nerd. It doesn't sound boring at all. Move on, shit. So what kind of job, I mean, are you doing that because there's a job out there that you want and you think that this is the best avenue to get it or is that just the stuff that you're interested in and you want to see where it takes you? See, it's really interesting, but I totally see the outcome of me giving out terrible psychiatric advice in the future, you know? Totally. Well, you know, it's about buying Pimball machines, isn't it? Yeah. Yes, Ryan. I think he needs self-help. You know, I love it all. Yeah, that's awesome. So, I mean, before we move on to the news, will you be travelling less, you think, now that you're going to be starting university? Or will you still jump up the family? It just depends what time of year it is. I mean, I've been travelling less in the past few months anyways because I've got my external exams for high school coming up, which is like insane. But I think I'll get back into external travel again at some point. But, you know, especially if it's in that summer break, like around December, January, you know, I'm definitely going to make it to some things. Cool. Let's head to some news, Marty. What's been the hot topic of this week? Well, we're not going to start with necessarily the best news of the week, but I was, as is a regular thing, listeners, I've mentioned this before, but I do often get woken up to interesting news that's been linked by Ryan. And this one was news from Jersey Jack announcing some changes to Pirates of the Caribbean. And I just, I wasn't happy after watching it. Yeah, I mean the first thing that you kind of think of is it's a bit of a fail. There's nowhere else to put it. And I guess what we're talking about, are you going to play the clip, Marty, or are we just going to talk about it? Yeah, let's play the clip, shall we? Just for those people that haven't, we'll play the tip. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Eric Minier, game designer at Jerser Jack Pinball. I designed Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm here to give you guys an update on how we're coming along for production. Games are coming out soon. With that in mind, we've made some tweaks from the prototype games from the extensive testing that we've done here at Jerser Jack. So we test games in the field, we test them at pinball shows, we test them internally. And we found some mechanisms that required some tweaking in order to make the games perfect for you when you have them in your home. The first change we made was to the triple spinning disc mechanism. We decided to change it to a single spinning disc physically in the playfield. It's a much more reliable mechanism, runs a lot quieter. It's an established mech that's been used for years in pinball. No concerns about its reliability anymore. And as you can see here, we're still doing the random generated award. We still have the plundering, so you can steal from other people that you're playing against, the jackpots, random awards, multipliers, etc. The playfield art itself has been brought in slightly to use just the single spinning disc. You can see the art there and how it looks. And there it is. The other tweak we've made was to the chest mechanism. So the lid of the chest is now going to stay open at all times. This used to open and close with the diverter mechanism underneath the chest to kick the balls up into the chest. That was causing a couple issues at different shows, and now with it stationary, this is a much better shot. The ball shoots into there, doesn't kickback out, it's much more reliable, and I'm very happy with it. So the rigorous testing we've done here at Jersey Jack has found these issues before we put the games out for production, which is something I'm very proud of. I really want these games to hold up for generations to come, and I'm glad we made these changes. I can't wait for people to get these games and play them in their homes. I wonder if the stream they're going to show is they already have that single disc in there or if they're still going to just show that concentric spinning disc. I'd say it would be the single disc. Can I just say something? We've obviously spoken to Eric and we know some people at Jersie Jack. So it felt to me that he was really not wanting to have that announcement and you could just tell it was pretty gutting to him because those concentric circles were such a major selling point to the machine. It was just everything really centred around those. It was such a unique, really eye-catching sort of, I don't know, device and now it's gone. It's a bit of a weird one because I guess you have to see this from a whole bunch of different people's point of view. For the Jersie Jack, it's gutting for them because it's kind of by an FA, say, you know, you drop the ball by announcing something that is not going to be in there. And it's not like they announce something like, you know, like a diverter and then it's not a diverter anymore at the back that you can't see. As you said, Marty, it's one of the central focal points of the Pimball machine. And the other, I guess, is the end user who had pre-ordered the machine, waiting patiently, and then they're kind of still, at the moment, they might change, paying the same amount for something and getting less than what they kind of ordered. What are your thoughts, Dani? I mean, I don't have too many thoughts, but I mean, I can see why they're changing, you know, the game a little bit to make it a bit more reliable and more user-friendly. I mean, I guess it was kind of, especially the discs were kind of an integral part of the game, so I can see why people are upset and whatnot about it. So, I mean, overall, I don't really have much to say about it, but... Yeah, it's weird because if you look on a pin site or any forum where people are talking, people are going bananas, aren't they, Marty? Oh, absolute mental. And, well, you know, we know enough about the pinball community to know that, you know, it can be, people can get their pitchforks out at minor things. I don't see this as a minor thing. Look, I'm in two minds because I didn't really like the way the concentric circles made the ball way too random, so I don't actually mind that it's now a single disc. There you go, I've said it. But it was such a great feature of the machine, I was hoping to get used to it because it was just so cool. The coolest part that, I mean, I was excited by it only because I wanted to see them stop and award something. It's a physical mystery award, right? It's probably been done in some form on a Pimball machine, I think on No Good Gophers or something. Yeah, that's right. But, I mean, three discs kind of lining up perfectly. And every time they start, they've been streaming it for like a month and a half or so. Every time they do the stream, I log in, I ask, is the disc working now? And they say no, and then I log out because I don't want to see the film machine until that's working. And I say, yeah, maybe next week, maybe next week. They never showed it. So maybe that was the issue. It's not wear and tear. It's getting it to stop on a dime as they kind of, you know, boast about it. Yeah, yeah. And the biggest thing for me is are the people that are really bummed out, are they bummed out because they think the triple spinning disc is fun, you know, the way it interacts with the ball? Or are they bummed out because they wanted to say, hey, I've got a pinball machine, come over and play it. It's got three spinning discs that spin in a different direction. There's no other pinball machine on the planet Earth that does this except for my Jersi Jack Pires of the Caribbean. Why are people so bummed out? Because a spinning disc isn't, for me, that fun. It's like, oh, wow, look at the ball. Is it going to chuck it straight down the middle or is it going to put it on, you know, which way is it going to go? It's not that fun for me. As I said, the cool part was the possibility of the awards. Dani, you've got X-Men and stuff. Do you like spinning discs next to the flippers? I mean, it's alright, isn't it? It can be a bit random and annoying at times. I mean, from what I can tell, I haven't played the Pirates of the Carybean yet, the JJP one. But I mean, it looks actually kind of fun to have it there and to interact with it a little bit, you know? I just don't know, because I haven't played it. But it actually did look like a cool feature. Yeah, and that's kind of what I'm saying, Ryan, is that, I mean, besides the fact that, you know, you've got a really cool layout, and there's lots of other stuff in it that's still really good, but when we first saw this machine being released, we literally just lost our shit over it, right? And there was a lot of things that we lost our shit over, right? There was just so many things. But this is something that's really quite special. It was special. It was very unique to this machine. And it was innovative. And it's kind of not there. And it's now just being replaced by something that really... What was it? Twister. Twister's another one that's got it. It's funny because, you know, when they... What's in space? When he announced it, it was like, this is not only a triple spinning disc, it also has optos on it, it can spin at different speeds. It has the inserts on it. It was such a step forward. It wasn't just like, this is the next step. It's like, this is the next step plus the next five steps. We've just taken this massive leap, right, in kind of hardware. And then when he announced that it's not there anymore, it's just, oh, we changed it from three to one. And it's not that. It's the fact that it was so innovative. They know that. They're not happy that this is happening. No. I don't think that they thought this was... As I said, people get their pissy walks out. There hasn't been a controversy in a while. Stern didn't screw up the Iron Maiden release. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, damn them. Now people are like, what did we get angry over? We get angry over this. People are going to be doing something. Yeah, if there's a big delay in people getting angry over stuff, then, you know, it's like the media. Like, it's just distractions. That's true. So I think people are overreacting, but if you really think about it, you know, people are upset about, oh, it doesn't have this one feature anymore. It still has. I was talking to Zach from Straight Down the Middle, and we were just back and forth about it, and he's like, it still has, like, four or so, like, unique things that aren't in any other Pinball machines. It still has the rocking ship. It still has the compass. It still has that Maelstrom ramp that diverse and goes around kind of like a whirlpool. It still has that magnet area where it chucks the ball around. People forget about all these things. They're just like, oh, there's one feature. A ball's kind of integral, so you can kind of empathize with why they're kind of, you know. Well, I mean, as I said, a spinning disc is a spinning disc, and I know the ball movement was kind of slightly different, But they're still awarding the same stuff on the massive LCD screen. The biggest LCD screen that any manufacturer is bringing out. So they're still doing that. So I don't know. I don't have any money down on it, so maybe my reaction will be different. I think that some people are just getting cold on the Pinball machine, possibly because, hey, hype doesn't last a year. You know, it got announced in October last year. You know, the hype is dying down. All the hype is shifted to Iron Maiden and people are looking for something like, oh, okay, I guess I can cancel my order and get upstead and pull my money out. I don't know. It's fair. The chest, again, that was kind of a cool feature as well. That doesn't really bother me as much. No one cares about that. No, I know. But really what it was, if you think about it, it was, oh, okay, you ready? I'm going to say it. Here it comes. Raise yourself. World under glass. Whoa! I'm shaking. But it was. What was particularly good about this, and I know you've still got the rocking chip, what was really good about this game was moving parts. Moving parts under the glass made it a world under glass. You can trick people into thinking that it's moving by it. You can do the same sounds and then people will know when the chest is open. I mean, I saw these comments and I mean, there's a lot of stupid comments that have been kind of made over the weekend. And one of them was, oh, Houdini and Aerosmith, like the chest opens and closes, no worries. How come you can't do it, Jersie Jack? And I'm like, because it's not the same chest, you freaking idiot. Like it was like, and Keith P. Johnson came online and he explained that the diverter to put the ball in there, like the thing that kind of drops down. Because if you remember, you can shoot through the chest. So then it's a little mini loop to feed that upper left flipper. So the divert kind of pops down and it was all kind of like welded together. So, and that part I 100% believe because that was malfunctioning. But I'm not sure if anyone's actually seen the other disc malfunction. And if you go to the straight down the middle deluxe review thing, he says they've tested it for a thousand hours and it's reliable and this, this and that. So I don't know what the real story is. I don't think people said it's being cussed out. I don't think it is. I think this will be an ongoing debate and we'll learn about it more. It's still pretty fresh, only a couple of days old. We'll learn about it more in the next coming weeks. Again, just watching the video, which we will link you if you go to our Facebook page, it's there anyway. But I could just tell, looking at Eric and listening to his voice, it was not a decision they wanted to do at all. I'm sure he would have done whatever he could. I mean, he's an engineer. He would have done whatever he could to make that work. And you could just tell that he was gutted that he had to make the announcement. Well he threw me off because he started off with a yarr And I was like oh good news It good pirate news No just whenever he talks about pirate stuff he going to do it That right But also remember when pirates say yeah pirates aren good people So they're happy about bad things. So think about that. It's the world. It's the immersion. He's a method actor. He's just becoming, he's going to remove everything from the play field now. He's stolen from you is basically what's happened. And that's how everybody felt, apparently. And then everybody's saying, oh, you know, it better cost less money now. It's still, I mean, I think they still have to include something or do something, but it's not, I don't think it's going to be saving them that much money because they still spent all the time engineering it. They still had to prototype it. They still had it running and maybe on the bill of materials, you know, slightly by $20 or $30 or however much it costs in difference to make. But, yeah, there's a lot of stuff. I mean, there's all these people, like, mocking up designs and starting, like, you know, I'll vote this thread if you want to change to this or this or this. And it's like, I don't think it works that way. Hey, guys, whatever the pin side people vote the most, let's do that. I don't know. I think they've just, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. Anyway, let's move on because we can talk about it for hours. Zach Sharp. Two bits of news on Zach Sharp this week, Manny. Okay. I don't know. You tell me the news about Zach Sharp. He's having a kid. Congratulations. Yeah, well done. Congratulations. Still works. Yeah. And he's no longer the world's number one pimple player according to the IPA rankings. It is now Raymond Davidson. Yay! Well done, Raymond Davidson. So I've met Raymond a couple of times in this twice and you've met him as well, Dani. Yes. Oh, I'm so excited for him. It's so exciting. So you don't get a trophy or anything because the scores are always kind of floating. So it's just like you get like a post on the IFDA website and then everyone, I guess, sends you a text message and podcasts and say, yeah, isn't you world number one? But it's always floating. I don't think he won a competition that triggered it. I think possibly, I could be wrong, one of Zach's older results maybe expired or got downgraded. Is that how it works, Marty? Yeah, because what it is, it's your top 20 tournaments are used for your ranking. And I think that might be over a three-year period, maybe. You probably know more about this, Denny, than us. Oh, no, no, no, it's all right. I secretly thought that in my head, but it's okay. It would have been a combination of things. So he did win some tournaments relatively recently that were worth good points. You know, the IFPA US, the National Pinball Championships, it was worth 48 points. So that's a lot of points. In disc in January, when he won classics, that was 66 points. Now, let's not forget that I won your Heads Up tournament and I got 0.5 points, I think it was, something like that. So, you know, to be able to win. And look, also, you know, he won the IFPA World Championship last year. That was 125 points for winning that, right? Is this a fine part or are you just looking at his IFPA prox? No, no, no. Yeah, I'm looking at it and it is still 125. Well, there you go. Right. Now, I was looking at it a couple of days ago. So he's just, well, God, he is very good. One thing about him is that he is, the way I've watched his play style, he's very calm and he knows when to move the machine when he needs to, if that makes sense. He's not somebody who will throw it around willy and or nilly. He gets it, but when he needs to move it, he really moves it. But he's just got very good shot accuracy. Just knows the rules deeply, but picks his shots and makes them. Shot accuracy is just incredible. Danielle, do you watch a lot of Twitch and a lot of competitive symbol online? I mean, I watch it here and there. I definitely watched the Peppercircuit finals the other week. That was very good to watch. I mean, I don't watch it all the time because I'm such a nerd buried in my little school books. But I mean, when I do watch it, I greatly enjoy it. Okay. So you obviously watch Raymond a lot because, you know, he's a top tournament player. Yeah. So, yeah. So could I just also, I actually am now looking at his ranking on ISPA. And what I'll tell you is this, he came, this year, he came third in the Puppa Circuit Final. We watched that, he came third. Those points were worth 32, 32 points. They don't contribute to his overall points. Because it was a close-off event? Well, no, because 32 points. No, his other ones are so high. His lowest tournament value is 32.78 from 2016. So there you go. So he's actually now got to win. He's got to really win some big tournaments, otherwise there's not a lot of change to his standing. Unless, as we talked about before, older scores go off. Yeah. I guess that's when you stop going to all the little tiny tournaments around town. Well, there you go. So I'm looking at, he's got a Pingberg match play, so he came second, that was worth 60 points, and that was August 2nd, 2015. So he could lose those 60 points and it'd be replaced with 32 points. So he loses 30 points just like that. I don't know if he'd lose that much every year, but that's all good. See, what's really interesting, little statistics, me getting in here, it's really interesting because Raymond has such high values, He's got just a few high values that really drag up his mean average, like the 125 for that World Championships in Denmark, compared to Zapshark, who kind of has more high-ranking but not a random 125. Yeah, okay. Oh, sorry, so boring, I know. Let's move on to the greatest Timur machine that has ever made. Somebody once told me. Shrek, I know it's your favourite Pinball machine, Danielle. Oh yeah, totally. This week it got the colour DMD treatment. Do you also have a Family Guy or do you just have a Shrek? We have both. One's up in Auckland, one's in our house here in Pukakoe. Which would you prefer to play? I don't like, oh actually no, I like Family Guy because the call-outs are less repetitive. I mean, they're still bad. But interestingly, the people who come over to my house prefer Shrek a lot more. Are you invited three-year-olds to your house? Yes. Right on the nose. So, I won't say that I prefer Shrek, although I have said that before. I don't know what it is about it. I mean, I just think that when you've got a fantastic license like Family Guy, I don't think the pinball does it justice. Go with me on this. But then when you've got Shrek, which is a fairly average theme and you've got a fairly average layout, it kind of doesn't feel like it's a myth. It just feels like, okay, that's just what it is. It kind of matches it. Shrek is one of the highest grossing franchises of all time. The box office results for that movie are absolutely insane. But I guess they just drained all the milk out of it and it got dry very quickly. Just for those people that don't know, because there will be some people that don't know, Stern released Family Guy as a pinball machine. It didn't sell all that well and wasn't it that it was actually Jersie Jack back when he was a Stern distributor, he sort of gave them the idea, he said well why don't you re-theme it and so then they turned it into a Shrek machine. So exactly the same playfield layout, in fact I think it's got the same rules, just a different artwork and different call outs. Yeah, when I had the family guy here, you can also have the exact same hardware, so you can stick in a USB stick. So you can tell your dad, Danny, that he can sell one of them because in, you know, I guess 20 minutes you can convert one to the other. And it's actually really funny. Hey, though. If my mum knew that dad would sell Shrek, girl, you don't want to know what's going to go down, girl. My mum loves Shrek so much. She's in her toy room, right? She's up with all her soft boys. So if that leaves the family, then there would be a lot of tension in the family, should we say? Okay. So, yeah, look, again, it's one of those things with, you know, Colour DMD, releasing a Colour DMD, you know, 10 people go awesome. Yeah, they've pretty much done everything that people want except for... Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters, yeah, Ghostbusters every single time. And maybe World Cup Soccer or something. But I guess they have to space them out because if they did every single game that people want and then it was just fade off into obscurity, I hope that after they do it all they then do energised dots where it's all the dots in between. But I think they'd have to get a licence or something to do that. What else are we going to talk about? TNN.com. Yes. So the new code is out and I think we talked about that last week. Scott said that he's going to have a break from coding the Pinball machine and then he was going to the Midwest Gaming Classic and he decided to not take a break and he implemented speedruns. Do you know about this, Dani? Unfortunately, you cut out for like a good chunk of time, as you said that, so no, I don't know. Well, I know. No, I got it. So, the bottom line is, but I don't know, maybe you can tell me how it actually works, but bottom line it is, it's timing you to get to each of the reactors, but what I don't know is whether you just play the game and it just times you every time you get a reactor, or whether you can actually go, right, party game everybody, we're going to time each other to get to reactor 3 or reactor 4, whatever it is. Yeah, it's just a high score table, so it's not intrusive in the gameplay at all. You don't really know that it's happening. It's just at the end of the game, it might say, hey, you've got the highest score because you... It starts a timer when you start the reactor, like when it does the whole and shoots it out. And when you blow up the reactor, it stops the timer, and it does it for all nine reactors. I guess some people only fill the first couple of tables. It's nothing major, but I guess it's just for some people that are versing each other because some players are just trying to run up each other. Like, I've got the highest score. What's the next thing that you can do? People are obsessed with speedruns in the gaming world. All the old school games, Mario, how fast can you do it? And they usually do it through glitches and stuff like that, but with Pimball, I guess there's no real glitches. It's just all skill and a bit of luck. Well, it sort of does remind me when I was over at your place and we did the Reactor, it was the Reactor 1 challenge, wasn't it? When it was, as soon as you get Reactor 1, it's game over and then it's just the highest score. This could be something similar where, I was sort of saying before when I was asking the question, if you did like a party game and it said, right, you've got to get to Reactor 1, but it's actually timed. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, that would be fun, but there's no way to tell on this unless you physically timed it on your phone. But you're right, I guess there's so many different ways to play now. You can do the Reactor 1 challenge, we can do a Reactor 2, 3 or 4 challenge, you can play co-op, you can play team co-op, you can play a normal game of pinball. It's the pin that just keeps giving. And Danny, I believe your dad, Rode Dave Peck, he is the New Zealand distributor for Spooky, is that right? Yes, and you should totally buy a game off of him because he's a very good distributor. He'll get great deals for you, it's fabulous. No, no, it's very good. Now I can just jump in, talking about TNA for a sec here. Yeah, go for it. It's so exciting, like it sounds so cool and I love the idea and how they've implemented it. I'm so excited to play it. Have you got yours yet? No, it's taking a long time on the water, you know. We're a long, far away way. But you got to play it in disc, right? I actually didn't play it there. I was too busy in tournament mode. Sadly. Oh, that's right, because you actually, you were focusing on, it was like classics in the women's, weren't you? Yeah, so this is going to sound like really weird, but I have only played it as a whitewood. I haven't actually played it in the final thing yet. Wow. Everyone's heads just exploded, but I actually haven't played it since it's a whitewood and I loved it. So I'm excited to actually see what it plays like now. Well, it's a whitewood's good. When I was at TPS, remember TPS Money? Did you go to TPS Ryan? I did. I had an awesome time there. Is that the Texas Pimball Festival? It is. It was in March 2018. I played a lot of the Whitewood because I'm not going to get to play it again. It is a little bit slower than the production machine because you don't have that kind of clear coat that helps the ball glide along. But the sound system in that original one is like a $600 sound system. He never thought it was going to go to production, so he just splashed out and just put this insane sound system in there. It sounds better, obviously, because it's more expensive, but little things like the super spinner sound sound different coming out of a high quality speaker. And yeah, I wasn't even playing that game. If I had an original and Scott was like, hey, do you want to swap? I would say, yeah, give me your sharpie, shitty, white words. I would take that any day over the original just because it's unique and super spinner sound. One of the best sounds in pinball. Well, there you go. What else have we got? Shall we play, go to our segment called Iron Maiden Circle Jerk because no one has anything horrible to say about Iron Maiden and so every week we talk about it. It's called the Iron Maiden Circle Jerk so we're just going to talk about how cool Iron Maiden is. Jenny, I'm guessing your dad has a pro on order? I don't know. I don't think he does. He might. He definitely does. Come on. I mean he might. Like, hey, I don't know what he has anymore. I've lost track. We just get new ones in all the time, and I'm just like, what is this? And he's like, oh, it's this. And I'm like, okay. He'll have to have one for sure. I guess we saw the Deadflip stream in the last week. Was that this? Yeah, we didn't talk about it. Yeah, it was. Yeah, part two. And it has been recorded, so you can actually see an archived version of it. And our good friend, Keith Elwin, came out and did all the rules again. He really didn't want to do it. You could just tell he was just like, I really don't want to do this again. Explain in detail again. But he did. And I said I'm not watching too much footage because I can't wait two and a half months while knowing everything about the machine. But I did watch a little bit of it and it does look absolutely amazing. Manny, your thoughts? Well, okay. I did watch the stream and I'll ask you a question. So I was watching it and he was going through the rules. What do you think happened to me? Did you get really excited like I get excited? Either that or you're just like, ah, it's too complicated. I fell asleep. I'm not actually joking. I actually fell asleep. And it was kind of like, but I really wanted to watch it because I want to understand the rules and I want to understand your world, like getting, oh, about rules, right? But I actually fell asleep. Admittedly. What did you... Yeah, go for it. I was going to say, admittedly, I'd just come off a stream, so you know what that's like. Full of gin. Yeah. But what did you walk up to me while we were playing Metallica on the weekend? What did you walk up to me and say, oh, when I shoot the snake, like, how does it work? And I'm like, what the shit? I didn't say that. I was talking about lit shots and whether they count as a shot towards the... Yeah, that's really basic Metallica knowledge, like really fucking basic Metallica knowledge. Fair enough. What I'm saying is he'd be a much better player if he just gave a little shit about the rules. I don't know. But you know what? All I want to know is question and answer. I was like, well, you know, you've got to do this and you multiply by this and this just becomes... It's like, oh fuck, just tell me what I've got to hit. Just tell me how to get into Maltivore. I really want to get into Maltivore. Alright, Marty and Danny, just got two good ones. Do you guys notice that when you have a Stern Pinball machine, a brand new one, and there's a bunch of default high scores, and there's like on Tron, it'll be like GS for Gary Stern? Sure, yes. Yes. So, Gary Stern is a very prominent person there, and he's usually either the, you know, for a while he was always the high score. Now, I got excited when the firmware came out because my little routine, I know this is super nerdy, is that when the firmware comes out, I open it up in Pinball browser and I kind of just listen to the sounds. And there might be like 4, 000 sounds or something, but I just click auto play next and it just goes through more. And I'm like, oh wow, that'd be cool if that got put in there. I went to the high score table and Gary Stern is no longer there. Do you want to know who is in there instead of Gary Stern? What, K-Me? Yeah, K-Me. No, okay. K-Me the entries. Yeah, yeah. He's in there, but who else is in there? Because Gary Stern is not in there at all, and there's a lot of champions. You know how on Walking Dead has a, like, Bicycle Girl champion, X champion, Crossroads champion? There's a million of these ones, right? So, Levy, do you know Levy, the crazy- Levy, yeah. Yep, he's in there. Tom Soxton, right? Tim Soxton's like alter ego. A joke between them, right? He's in there over Gary Stern. Who else we got? Dials M. I'm not sure if that's meant to be dialed in or something. Esh is in there. Gomez is in there. Keith's girlfriend is in there over Gary Stern. And this is the biggest slap in the face. And to Gary Sern, Keefe's girlfriend's dog is in there. Oh my gosh, that's the coolest thing ever. The power jackpot champion is in there with Gary Sern and I found that fucking hilarious. That's something that you guys should appreciate. That's fantastic. Oh my gosh. Let's just say in the next code update, I'm sure that'll be addressed. Keith, do you want to hit your job? So, I mean, I put in the show notes there, Keith is the captain now, question mark. Because it's just that, you know, that mean, I am the captain now. I'd like to think with all these changes that are kind of going on in Stern that Keith is just like, this is the way it is. This is my game. I get to do whatever the hell I want. So, well done, Keith. Okay, before we talk about Ion Mane and MGC, I've got some of my favourite call-outs for you, Marty. Are you ready? I am ready. You love your call-outs. Okay, yeah. So, okay, basically I went through the call-outs and almost everything that is said is said twice. One in the Beast's voice and one in the not Game of Thrones UK girl voice. No one knows who she is, but she's apparently not the UK voice from Game of Thrones, but she sounds exactly like her. Mida's Lord. Okay. So, yeah. And it's a good mix. I think the beast call-outs are like 10 out of 10. Like, you literally cannot get better than these call-outs if you're going for this beast kind of thing. The UK chick, on their own, when you listen to them on their own, they're pretty weak. Like, once they're in the game, with all the background music going on, I think you need that kind of justice. You can't just have all the devil voice. You have to kind of have the high and the low. Alright. Okay, Marty, I've got some call-outs for you. Okay. You ready? Yes. 3X activated! Rolls off the tongue. Okay, now, which one would you rather, guys? Okay, Danny and Marty, would you rather have this person telling you to shoot the left ramp? Shoot the left ramp! Alright. Or would you rather... Shoot the left round. Which one would you rather? Oh, they're pretty similar. So similar. The beast sounds freaking awesome. I agree with that. I concur. And he's full of compliments as well, so this is when he tells you that you're awesome. You suck. Yeah, okay. Now, Iron Magen is full, I mean, we saw that Jersie Jack being full of kind of like first hardware-wise. Iron Magen is full of new software, software stuff that hasn't been done before. So, one of my hates of Ghostbusters is the bastardization of the word Super Jackpot, Because I believe there's no jackpot, it's just super jackpots. And there's triple super jackpots. So you can get a triple super jackpot that's only worth 3 million, and it's an amazing call-out that means nothing, because it can be worth 3 million. It's shit, right? On Ion Mated, you have call-outs for jackpots all the way up to, I think, sextuple jackpot. Right? So that's sextuple... SEX-TUPLE SUPER JACKPOT! Sorry, that's the super. So it goes all up to six, and then you've got the super jackpots, you've got super, double super, right? Double jackpot! I like it. Once you get all the way to the end, you get this. This is a world's first in Pimball machines. So, spoiler alert everyone. Yeah, skip forward 20 seconds if you don't want to hear this. Ultra super jackpot! So an ultra super. So I don't think that's ever been done before. What is an ultra super and how do you get it? I guess we'll have to tune in to find out. Yeah, hopefully it's worth a lot of points. Not like when you know big points and you get a million points. You know? You know when they call that big point and you just go, they are not big points. You are just now just shitting me. What game? Eric Smith has 10 million big points? You should know. Danny, it's your favorite game. Game of Thrones gives you literally, like, what? 1 million, 2 million? Not that much. Yeah. A game multipliers, maybe the big points should be multiplied by whatever your multiplier is or something like that. Maybe. I don't know, but I think Aerosmith, they should call it Guffins of the Galaxy. Aerosmith is okay. If you've got multipliers. Yes. No, Aerosmith gives you, Aerosmith, yes. Plural. No, it gives you like 10 million, 20 million. It's pretty good. Okay. Yeah. They're changing. So over the weekend, there were 30 plus Iron Maidens at MGC, which I believe is the largest Pinball machine launch in history, possibly. Yeah. I don't know. That's what they advertised to that. 30 machines. There's a lot to have with one machine in any location. Yeah. And they had more. I mean, they had like about 50 Stern machines all up. And I'm not sure if you saw the pictures that Jared and stuff was posting on social media, but quite impressive. It looked amazing. Stern's showing why they're number one, and, you know, it's good. I mean, they're confident at the moment, and they have every right to be, because Iron Maiden is kind of ticking all the boxes so far, and no one has anything really bad to say about it. Colin MacAlpine, current Pinburgh champion and in the top 20 players in the world, he went to a tournament on the weekend and got to play Ion Maiden, so we thought, who better to kind of ring and talk about Ion Maiden than someone that's a top player and not currently employed by Sermon. It's hard to find a top player that isn't currently employed by Sermon. One of very few people. They're all going to be snapped up soon. One by S. Yes. Yeah. So here we go. So, yeah. With me today we've got the current Pinberg champ, Colin MacAlpine. How are you going Colin? Going well, yeah. Just got back from a weekend of pinball. Yeah, you're up in Oklahoma City playing in the Cactus Jacks Silver Ball Showdown. Talk to us a bit about that. It's essentially a mini Pinberg style at a really great location that no one would expect in this part of Oklahoma City. Just a family fun center, but thankfully the owner there, Dan, is passionate about pinball, and he has an amazing collection on CoinDrop that just phenomenal amount of machines. I think roughly somewhere in the order of maybe 40 or 50 pins, and then they have a bunch of people bring in from the local scene and some from North Texas bring their pins as well, some of the classic games. They don't have many early solid states or EMs probably because they either don't want to maintain those types of pins or because they sadly they don't earn as well. So yeah, but it's that way you have the same kind of variety of like a pinberg bank. So but the exact same format except one fewer round per day. So you're talking about like a two or three day competition or? Yeah, three days with the including the finals. So Friday was four rounds of four player on a bank of four pins spanning from EMs to moderns. And then Saturday, another four rounds of basically broken into divisions, you know, just A and B of 64 players roughly. And then finals were starting this morning. Okay. And how did you go? Okay. Not as well as I would have liked, but I washed out in the semifinals. So somewhere between fifth and eighth. I don't know how the points actually stacked up. Is there more pressure on you now that you've won a major to perform, I guess either for yourself or other people's expectations on you? Maybe a little bit, but I guess I don't view it that way when I do some of the bad beats that I had or if I was playing poorly. I can always just think to myself, this doesn't really matter because I've won Pinnball. So I guess one of the main reasons why we're calling you, besides having a good old chat, is one of the machines that you were playing on there was a brand spanking new Iron Maiden Pro, is that right? That's correct. So how many games did you get on it and what are your impressions? So I put, they did not have it in the qualifying rounds except as an alternate. They did use it as an alternate pin as a modern on the second day, and it did end up replacing another modern pin that broke down, but I didn't get assigned to that bank. And then they had it in one of the finals banks, and I actually played it for both my rounds, so both the quarterfinals in the round 16, and as well as the semifinals. I played a few games here and there in between rounds. Unlike other tournaments where you can't practice, where you're not allowed to practice with the pins in between rounds because this is a public location and it's based off Coindrop, the location wants to make their money. And so it's actually encouraged that you're allowed to play the pins before rounds, in between rounds, so that way the location can get maximum amount of money. What happens, because I had the same thing at my tournament on the weekend and people said, oh, am I allowed to play in between rounds? And I said, you know, sure, it's a bit distracting because they're in close space, but why not? But obviously when the new round started, I just kind of like went around and turned all the machines off or just kind of screamed at everyone to stop playing. And, oh, I'm having a great ball, I'm in multiball, it's like, it doesn't matter. What happens when it's Coindrop based? Is it the same rule? Just everyone, just you have to stop to start the new rounds? Yeah, you have to stop. And then also if you happen to, you know, because everybody's rounds, you know, especially when you get into A and the B division the second day, you know, some of the B division games, you know, typically will run shorter, the rounds, the four games. And so, you know, if they happen to then go and start playing on a game that's in a bank that's of A division or another group that's still competing, whether A or B division, and they come up and say, hey, we were assigned to this pin, then they have to abandon their game. Yeah. And then the group with the four match can start on it Okay So Ion Maiden Yeah Ion Maiden As a person that ranked I believe in the top 20 in the world so you more of an advanced player than the average Joe How does the pin shoot? It's a masterpiece. Okay. Martin is going to be ecstatic with how this thing plays. It shoots well. It has, from what I can experience so far, it has some great rules, a variety of modes. Some of the most satisfying combo I did is there's a lot of good combo points. So Keefe has done a good job with the rules of if you're hitting things in combination, you get more points. And I don't think it's quite as, I don't mean to be demeaning about it. It's not quite as simple as like a typical, like Alani, I know, Alani Ropin of the games, it's just double points if you hit a shot and combo. But I think with Keith, they actually go up a little bit more than that. So there's this one mode that actually in tournament play, once again, it's amazing how advanced this code is out of the box. Because the tournament mode, every player starts with the same mode lit, so that way it's fair to all players. But you can change the mode with the leftmost spinner because there's two spinners, even on a pro, which is remarkable. We're talking about actual spinners on a pro, not the phantom spinners. They've been on Guardians. They're very sensitive. Yeah, I don't know. The spinners are one of the best parts of pinball, and they've unfortunately cheaped out. It certainly had in the past, but thankfully, hopefully, they're turning a corner, and now they're going to put spinners. But in a lot of the cases, even on the ones that they do have spinners on, the premium LEs of most modern recent sterns, the spinners haven't necessarily been that important. That has all changed with an Iron Maiden. And so the fear of the dark mode is what you start out on. And there's this excellent combination I did where you shoot the left ramp and then it lights your spinners. And so I first immediately seized the right flipper, and I shot more of the central spinner, if you will, from the right flipper, which then is in orbit, and so it comes flying around the right. And instead of trying to hit it with the right flipper, the upper flipper, I let it come down to my right flipper and on the fly nailed the leftmost spinner. So I had both spinners going at once, and the spinners were a huge value in that mode, and it felt so good. It felt so good. Wow. Okay, so how about for the, I guess you didn't really have the average Joe player kind of in the tournament because people are usually the more advanced players. Do you feel like the design is also catered towards that average player that, like, do you think they'll have issues hitting that left ramp through the pops or like that inner loop, I guess, that repeatable inner loop? So, yes to both. But there's enough other things on the machine that are very accessible. So this is just the pro, but obviously I think a common thing for any novice players or newer players is get them into a multiball. So there's two different multiballs that are fairly accessible. One is from the captive ball for the mummy. And in between hitting captive ball, you only have to hit the gaping wide center ramp once after you spell mummy. And then I think then you hit it a couple more times. I think it's even spotting multiple letters that first time. So it's quite accessible. And then the other one is the drop target bank. If you complete that twice, it lights the locks for the trooper multiball. And, you know, now it's fairly dangerous when it's set up for tournament plays. Like, the people at Oklahoma City, they were really mean. And they didn't just take off the rubbers. They completely removed the outlane posts. Oh. I don't know who would do that for a tournament. Is that for yours? Yeah. Try an ACDC, no outlanes. Ooh. That's, wow. Yeah, so there's, it's this unsatisfying thunk you hear when the right sling, we get a right slingshot over to the left outlane of Iron Maiden and it would go thunk against the wood and down and you were down. Yeah. But no, but it's accessible. So it's accessible for the average player. All the major arrow shots that have a white light on them and they spell Eddie, and then you can start a mode at that, once again, that big, huge, gaping, wide center ramp. And so the modes are, it's fairly easy to at least start one mode. But you mentioned the inner loop or the mini loop. The loop from the upper left mini flipper is extremely difficult to hit. That's the super jackpot shot, is it? No, the super jackpot is actually a stand-up lane, a dead-end lane that's above the mini loop. Okay. And then from the upper right flipper, which is a full length flipper, that loop is more accessible. You need to hold up your mini flipper to increase your chances of hitting it, but then you only get single value because once again another cool rule. But on this particular setup with no outlane post, the side to side was death. And so even though I got knocked out in the semifinals, in the semifinal round I had a really great game on Iron Maiden. And I put up almost $200 million on ball one. And so that was quite satisfying. And I was doing it without using much of the upper flippers because, once again, I was avoiding the side-to-side. So what does that inner loop, because I haven't studied the game enough, what does that inner loop, the shot that you said is super tight, what does that represent in the game if it's not the Super Jack Pint? I have no idea because I think I only did it one time. Would you compare it to maybe like a gem shot, an instability, or...? Easier or harder? I guess you only hit it once, though. You can't really say, right? Yeah, I mean, maybe once was a little bit maybe over-exaggerating. Maybe I hit it more than that. But I intentionally, if you go and watch, I was actually on stream, so if you go and watch the, I think it's CJ Arcade is the Twitch channel. And so in the semi-final round when I was playing it, I was intentionally not doing a lot of flipping with the upper flippers. But it looked like it really wasn't. I think there's something in the rules where if you hit that mini loop, I'm calling it the mini loop because it's coming from the mini flipper. If you hit that mini loop, I think it doubles the value of the other loop from the right flipper. It's possibly on Keith Elwin's little cheat sheet or whoever wrote that little VIP pass backstage, whatever it's called. Yeah, yeah. Do you have a read of that little thing? Because one of the interesting things that I saw on there was that there's, yeah, different rules for, I mean there's always different rules for tournaments, but little things like the skill shot is worth a different amount, I guess. The tilt settings, like the debouncer on the tilt is different if you're in a tournament, so you can't slide the machine like crazy like you can do on most turns and get away with it. So interesting that he's kind of tweaked the rules for tournaments, I guess because he's played enough tournaments that you're kind of the guy who's the most successful with these things. Yes. So moving on to some other things quickly, you mentioned me the other day that you were going on a little car drive to play some Total Nuclear Annihilation, which was about an hour drive or so away from you? Yeah, it was, no, more than that. So I was up on a business trip in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and so one of the locations up there just got a TNA. And so I spent the night up there before the meetings were starting the next morning. And I went to a location called the Cidercade in Dallas. And they had a TNA. And it was, unfortunately, it was not with the rest of the row of pins they have against a wall. You know, I think about 20-something, 25 maybe, pins. And most of them are in pretty decent condition. I mean, little quirks here and there. But the TNA was in a separate room, and unfortunately that room was closed off for a private party. So I felt a little bit snake bit because it's about an extra hour drive from where I would be the next morning to drive there. But thankfully it opened up, and so as soon as the doors were open from that, I was immediately in there. And so I stepped up and on my first game that I played on that TNA, I'd played TNA in the TPS tournament and also the Whitewood from a year ago. But I stepped up and just found that Zen zone that we all like as pinball players and was able to destroy Reactor 9 on my last extra ball, Ball 3. So, very satisfying. Yes. You can get added to the list of growing players that have done it and maybe Scott Danesi can have a Is That You? and then just list like 20 people or something. Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, so I got to see the Is That You Bowen on the screen when I finished. But yeah, it's really good. It's a lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, there was really nobody else that was around and watching and even knew the significance of what I'd just done, so that's kind of sad. You looked around running for the applause and it just wasn't there. Exactly. I'm in my own little world as a pinball player and nobody really cared. I'm five feet away from me. People are shooting the basketball into one of those little basketball hoop games and they don't give a care about TNA. Well, okay, 2, 000 people have listened to your story now, so there you go, on the Calpine, destroyed Reactor 9. Geez, I mean, I could talk to you for hours and we're going to get you on the show properly, hopefully pre-Pinball. We can do our pre-Pinball show and you can tell Marty how to not suck. Geez, what else can we talk about quickly before we go? Your RUSAC, what have you done with it? Is it being open? Is it being used? Yeah, I put my Ritchie back on a maiden this weekend. Okay. Oh, gosh. You had that joke planned, didn't you? Yeah, I did. I admit it. That's a Pimball dad joke and a half. All right, Colin. Well, I know you're tired because you've just arrived home. We will talk to you soon and thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks. Cheers. See ya. So the bottom line is, this is going to be an amazing machine and, you know, I said months ago that I would buy this sight unseen and, you know, I think that's probably, well I did get to see at least pictures of it. I think this was a safe bet. Well, not the LE. Not the LE. Not the L.E. So. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess by the time this, the L.E. art and premium, I believe, is approved now. By the time people listen to this, it might already be shown. But the L.E. is going to have a giant spitfire, a green spitfire thing on the sides, and it's going to be all foiled out like the Batman thing was. I don't personally like the picture too much that they showed on the banner, which I believe is the picture on the L.E. I think it's lacking a lot of detail, but I think that might be because when it's all 3D and spoiled out, it needs to kind of have those big pieces out of the same colour and not intricate detail. Yeah, fair enough. We'll see. Well, we'll see. Hopefully this week, come on, Stern, get on with it. We want to see what my LE's going to look like. What else have we got, Nanny? What else have we got? Well, we've got more code. Well, in actual fact, Ion Maiden actually just got a code update as well. So I think that's now point, I don't know, maybe 0.92. Yeah, and it was really just a bit of clean-up. They were, you know, adding animations, removing animations, prioritising audio call-outs. It was just a bit of spit and polish, really. But it was the first update post-initial code release. So there's the code. Hashtag. And then we've got new Batman code as well. More Batman code. Danny, you'd be, yeah. I'm elated. You're the only Batman expert. Yes. So have you had the Batman from day one? We've had Batman not since day one, but it was a bit later. I don't know how long. We've had it for quite a while now, but it was before the code got really good like it is now. So how do you think it shoots compared to the other games that you gravitate towards? What do you think of it as a shooter? So, I actually really like how it shoots, even though it's a bit funny, The slippers are angled kind of a bit low but it kind of compensates where the shots are. I think that it's got Houdini style tight shots on that left orbit but I don't mind it. I find that you can kind of do it. I like the way of describing machines now. Houdini style tight shots. I know. Houdini tight. On a scale of one to Houdini, how tight was the shot? I just get some here. But, you know, I love how it shoots. I think it's fantastic because it's got this mix of code with good theme integration. Even though some people would detest the fact that I'm saying that, I actually love it. I think it shoots fantastically. Yeah, so I've always thought that it shot really well. But, you know, early days when the code wasn't there, did you find yourself still playing it? Or did you not really find it that enjoyable because of the lack of character? I mean, I totally played it. I thought it was still really cute because I love... This is going to seem real weird because it was a little millennial me being here. I love the scene. I absolutely love Batman 66, right? So I actually could play through the main modes like Capwoman and Penguin. Not so much Joker and Red Light. I don't like them as much. Just a technical opinion. But I played it a lot. Yeah, I liked it. But it's so much better with the TV modes now. Oh, so much fun. What is your dream theme, Danny? Like what, if you had one choice that you just, you went bang and then Stern would make the machine for you or whoever you want to make the machine, what would it be? I literally don't have one. They sound so lame. I just have no idea. Because, I mean, you know, I like, maybe I'm just a middle-aged man inside myself. But I actually like the things they're bringing out now. I mean, and I like all the things from the past, you know, I just like seeing what's there. And to be honest, little player me likes to just play them and find little things about them. You know, the theme doesn't bother me as much. Like, I can grow to love a theme if the pinball machine is good. Like, even Congo. I like Congo. So what I'm hearing is a lot of words, but really what you're saying is Harry Potter is the theme that you want. If that's what you want, Mari, if that's what you want. That's what everyone wants. Hey, my nephew would love it. My little nephew, he loves Harry Potter, so, I mean, could have it. Mari, Danny's too old for that shit, okay? It's for free themes, okay? It's for free themes. Fair enough. What do we got next, Marty? What else have we got? Well... What's this? I don't know what this is. So, what's really interesting, okay, so, a friend of the show, a guy called Alex, who runs AusRetroGamer, which is a sort of pinball and retro gaming website in Australia, they actually did a poll, and they asked the question, and I think the results are going to be announced soon anyway, But I've got them anyway. They asked the question, what is the best Stern pinball machine since 2000? And I'm going to ask you both for your vote. What is the best Stern pinball machine since, sorry, since 2010 was what the question was. Oh, okay. So since 2010. What did it came out in 2010? And then I'll tell you what one. Dany, you go first. This was, okay, see, like, I think y'all know from what we discussed earlier, I really, really like Aerosmith and Batman, and the issue is that I kind of like, actually no, because I like Walking Dead 2. And I like Iron Man, but Iron Man was a bit early, wasn't it? Oh, I like all of them, can we just say that? No, I'll tell you one that I don't like Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh, wow, okay. Here's the tease. No, it's just not my thing. I'd say Deadman. Another Bobbly Bobo fan. Hey, I love Bobbly Bobo. Let me read out the choices you've got, right? There's not that many of them. AC, X-Men. I was going to say Big Rock Hunter, am I right? I like Big Rock Hunter. I'd probably say, just based on code, I'd have to say Batman. Because it's really weird, because usually I don't like long playing games. Let me just reason this out. I don't usually like playing long games. And the fact that that keeps me coming back to it, even though I can play it for an hour, you know, I love it. It can have my vote, even though I do love Aerosmith wholeheartedly. Okay. Ryan, what would your vote go to? Yeah, the top two would be Metallica and Walking Dead. I will go with Walking Dead simply because I'm still kind of discovering how to play the modes to the best of my ability. Because, you know, for the hundreds of games that are played in the machine, I kind of get into a mode and I kind of hit the lit shots. But the order of the shots that you select are important and there's a lot of strategy behind them. And I still kind of dislike the layout of that machine, but the code works with it. So I'll go for Walking Dead. Okay. Well, mine was an easy one. Mine was Star Trek because that is just my absolute favourite. Stern machine. Simple rules for a simple man. Correct. I know what it needs to do. But everything at once. It's not massively deep. Well, I mean, obviously, you know, you can go through all the modes, but they're all a bit samey. But I just like the fact that everything is laid out at once. You can choose which way you want to go. But the voting for this actually finishes tonight in Australia. So rest of the world, the voting is probably going to be closed. What do you think was the number one voted game of Stern Pinball since 2010? Metallica. Really? No, it wasn't. Actually, yeah, no, I do agree with that. Oh, I want to see, see, I want to see either ACDC or Walking Dead. Well, I can tell you Metallica came fourth. Oh. Okay. How many people voted in this, Matty? It doesn't say. I would say thousands of people. Because this was actually, Osrachio Gamer is a very, very popular site, so they would get a lot of votes. Batman 66 was 6th. Okay. The number one. Okay, the first money. With 30% of the vote, The Walking Dead. Yeah. Yeah, no, people love it. I win. Yeah. Yes. And the second, with 13% of the vote, was Star Trek. Wow. And third, with 10% of the vote, Metallica's also 10%, but maybe, you know, it's 9.9%. But fourth, so third, was Tron. Wow. Okay, can I just point something out that really intrigues me? Yep. Yeah. I just, yeah, I just noticed that these, like, people are like, we want so many toys, but those ones don't necessarily have a lot of toys in them. Like, yeah, it's just like Ion Maiden. Ion Maden has almost nothing special about it except for the presentation and the codes and people are excited by that. That's why I think the whole spitting disc thing with Jersi Jack, would the game be better without any spitting disc? It might shoot ten times better that way. It just needs to be fun, I think, rules-wise and sound-wise. Interesting stuff, Marty. Very interesting. I find that fascinating. It was not what I was expecting. I also thought Metallica would be up there. I've always said that I believe Metallica is Stern's best machine they've ever made. It's not my favourite, but I can appreciate that it has just got everything that you need in a Pinball machine. So I was surprised that that came forth. Um, Pincade. Your dad, Rode Dave, Dave Peck, runs Pincade and you got to, you didn't do everything this year, right? You just were only in the competitions that were at your house? Yeah, at the apartment in Pukkakoe, yes. And how did you go in those tournaments? Um, so on the one on the Friday night, which is at the apartment, that was on the Spooky Games, that was on America's Most Haunted of Rob Zombie. I think I was like third qualifier, third top qualifier, I think, something like that. I was top qualifier for a good portion of the night, by the way, just going to say that. I got jealous and they knocked me down. Then I got out first round, and I got flies. So, I don't know how I did in that. I think I might have come. Something. But on the Sunday, which is the System 11 World Chant, everyone should come along to that. It's a great tournament. Totally recommend. In the main event, I was top qualifier. Then I got knocked out straight away, of course. The curse of the top qualifier. But I actually qualified first in the women's division and managed to win that, which is quite nice. So I brought myself back. Then in the classroom I was second qualifier to my father who was first qualifier and I managed to win that which is very exciting for me. Nice. Congratulations. And you got to play, I believe, a special machine from China was there as well. Thunderbirds made an appearance there. Yes, it did. Yeah, it was getting a lot of play over the day. It was garnering a lot of attention. Did you have a go yourself? Yeah, we had a couple of games. I had a couple of games both on the day and with that afterwards. And I mean, it's alright, innit? It actually is like one of the best looking machines ever. Like the cabinet lights up and that's really cool. I think that the coding, the software in it could use a little bit of polish. But I mean, if you want a simple game, like a beginner game, just like, what's it, $5, 000 or something? I mean, I wouldn't be angry at it. It looks cute. It's actually like a cute game. It's cute. Okay, it's cute. So I think when he was bringing it out, he was kind of comparing it to it. He wanted to emulate the D&D era. And, you know, with 120-something machines at your place, you've got all the errors there. You've got EMs, you've got the solid states, you've got the D&Ds. Would you, because the way people have been talking about it, it's more kind of like a solid state. Like it's got a D&D, but it's more like solid state kind of rules. Would you say that, or would you say it's emulating D&D rules? Good question. No, I'd say it's, no, I'd agree with those people. I think that it's very much solid state kind of rules. But I think that it could be developed beyond that. I think it's just like a bit of time that needs to be taken with it. Oh, cool. Yeah. Me and you, Mum, we went to kind of play it when it was getting launched in Melbourne and the launch kind of didn't happen for some reason. But I think you're the first person that's come on the show that's played the game, so we had to ask. You guys should totally pop over. It's still in our house. And, I mean, if anyone wants to buy it, make my dad an offer or make the guys, you know, just make an offer. I'm sure that we'll be able to sell it to you. It's looking good, you know? All things are going to go. But, yeah, forget the degree. Get into the family business. Well done. Yes. And did I mention if you want to buy Spooky Game, hey, you can contact Rotor Dave. I'm sure he'll love to sell you one, you know? It's all good. How do people contact Rotor Dave? What's his email address? It's an email address. Don't know if I can share. Just DM him on Pinside Rotor Dave. Pinside Rotor Dave. Just send him a nice thing. Are we done with the news, Marty? We are done with the news. Is this where we say goodbye to Danny? It is indeed. What else would you like to tell us, Dani, about yourself before you go? I didn't come to play, I came to slay. Well, you did indeed. You better work. How can you not have that on a t-shirt already? I was literally just going to say, Ryan, you should make a t-shirt with it on because you'd love it. I just thought it was the most hilarious thing because, like, you just, you know, I know you're modest and everything, But you kind of destroyed everyone in that competition on Taxi and Junkyard. Like your score on Junkyard was so much higher than everyone else. And then Jeff Kellis goes to interview and everyone's like, you know, I know you're kind of modest, but you just wanted to kind of say something funny. You just opened your chat, I can play, I came to play. I just finished that laughing. Yes, I'm a joker. Someone's got a... And you're working as well. Someone's got a printout on a T-shirt. So make it happen. All right. Cool. Thank you, guys. Would you like to say something to your dad? Something funny to make him laugh? Not funny. I'm just going to be all humble and say thank you for buying all the machines, Dad, and raising me to be a good child. I'm very proud to be your child instead of driven in the hurt. You know, thank you for the good life experience. Lots of love. Oh, there you go. That new Iron Maiden is in the bag. Wait, one more thing. One more thing to Dead. Sorry for embarrassing you by being on the podcast. Hope you enjoyed. Alright, Danny. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you very much, guys. Awesome. Thanks, Danny. Bye. Are we ready to do Slam the Top 100? Do it. So, let's think we can do a bit of a recap on what happened last week. So, first of all, we had a bit of a debate on whether we were going to change the rules of Slam 100 and we kind of left them at ease hoping that we might have some shits and giggles with some of the results. And so last week you managed to get the number one ranked machine on Pinside being Medieval Madness and I didn't. You got Rob Zombie. I got the number 93 ranked machine being Rob Zombie. So, given that they are so far apart, I'm pretty sure you said that if I got 10%, maybe even 20% of the votes, that would be a win. But you then did quickly retract that. Yes, because I knew it was going to happen. People were going to be like... Yeah, fuck Deadpool Mads. It's number one. I don't think it's number one. Let's be stupid and do the whole internet memes thing with like, hey, we're going to name a boat. What should we call it? Boated McBoat, mate. Ah, hilarious. Right? People do that for you. They're like, yeah, that's what this is. People are like, let's be really funny and make Rob Zombie win because that's fucking hilarious. So all these dickheads that voted for it, Jesus. Well. No, I can't call people that. What the hell? So it was record votes again. How many did we get? We got 81 votes. 81. Right. Okay. So. And I'm looking at these people here, okay? I'm looking at these people. Don't look at them. They are all awesome people. It didn't matter which way you voted, thank you very much for your vote. Voting counts. But in this instance... Fiona Luce. Give me a break. Come on. Exactly. She doesn't give a shit at the start. She does. Absolutely. Anyway. Jackie Moore. Her first vote ever. Jackie Moore. Yep. We love Jackie. Maddie, you couldn't pull up a call centre thing, but you've contacted some people to warp the votes. You didn win but you done well I can tell you now I did not contact anybody But the final results were 57 of people voted for Medieval Madness 43% voted for Rob Zombie. So I reckon that's a pretty even split of people really. You even got the famous Richard Gere to vote for you. So thank you Richard, appreciate your vote. So that was fun. It was just the funniest slam in the top 100 so far. So let's do it again. We cannot guarantee it's going to be funny. We may even have a serious competition. Who knows? But that was a lot of fun anyway. Shall we go? Please generate a number from 0 to 100. All right. Here's mine. 81. One is The Who's Tommy, Dada East 1994, one of your favourite machines. I love that game. I do, I love all the games that I get, okay? For one week I love all those games. Awesome. Now what's my number? Okay. 78. Oh, sweet. 78 is Stargate. It's a great game. Okay. Alright. You ready? You've got... Oh no, is that me that goes first because mine's higher? Ah, yes, you do have to go first. Sorry, I forgot our own rules. Fair enough. Okay, Marty, I'm getting the clock out. You have 30 seconds to talk about why Stargate is an awesome machine. Ready, set, go. So, this is, you know, it is a Gottlieb of the era, a System 3 from Premiere, and you know what, a lot of the Gottlieb machines of this era get a bad rap. But this was the best of that era. The actual playfield is jam-packed with ramps and toys. It's got the pyramid. Now, I know everyone keeps saying about just shoot the pyramid, and it's one of those games where, well, if you're going to do that over and over, you're sort of going to lose the point of the game. It's actually got great art. Time's up. There you go. It's coming down. I'm prepared to go. You ready? Go. This machine is the greatest Dada East Pinball machine that has ever come out. And I know it's still sitting at number 80-something, but it has an amazing shot layout. The rules are cool. It has that fan that blocks these flippers, which I don't believe has ever been done before on a Pinball machine. Noobs love it, okay? Beautiful yellow cabinet. If you love yellow, this Pinball machine would give you a massive boner. The UK flag. Everyone likes to see the UK flag? We've got nothing. I actually do like Tommy. Anyway, your other 30 seconds starts now. So, look, I'm just going to talk again about Stargate. The original and best Egyptian theme. Again, it's just got great art. The backbox art on this is fantastic with that 3D. The effects and infinity lights. It is a great game and it is one of the games from Gottlieb of this era that holds its value. So get this. And Lucas, you better vote for me because you've got this. Is that it? You got 10 more seconds? No, that's it. Also, Tommy is really dull. Is it? Yeah, it's not great. It's clunky. It's one of the clunky data roots. Every single Dada East is clunky, okay? And every single Gottlieb from that era is even clunkier. Oh, no. Witch shit rules. Plag shit rules. Alright. My 30 seconds hasn't even started getting some jabs in. Ready? Go. I believe this is our first Dada East versus Gottlieb. Guys, we're all pinball elitists here. If you're listening to a podcast, you're an elitist. You cannot let a Gottlieb win. The cool thing about Tommy is they're the guys who sing the Pimball Wizard song, right? So every time you hear a news piece on Pimball, okay, guaranteed 99% of the time you're going to hear Tommy's Pimball Wizard. And you might think it's lame, but that's what people associate with Pimball. It inspires Pimball Machine. Yeah. Okay. You're going the nostalgia vote. Well done. Okay. People like the Pimball Machine, mate. I'm 95% sure I'm going to win. 95. Yeah, you're probably right, but it's one of those things where Stargate you just really don't see around. I just don't even know whether that was many of them made. Well, 3, 600 units, so that's not really a lot. So I don't think many people have really been able to see Stargate. You should have used one of those mind tricks, that trick that you pulled where, like, you know, Britney Spears was popular. Everyone was like, holy shit, what the hell? That was some political bullshit, Manny. You should have pulled the same thing this time, but yeah. Well, fuck off. There you go, I get Jekyll on the boat. So, there you go. Okay. What did you get up to speak in... Ah, should we do a competition? Do we need to announce who won last week's competition? Ah, yes, we do. So, bottom line is, we put it up on Facebook for people to vote, and I'm not going to say that your instructions were really hard to understand, but it would be easier to work out the rules on Wizard of Oz. I won Spicey's Big Money, I won Slam the Top 100, and I picked two winners, because my two choices demolished your choice of Limp Bizkit. Sorry to the person that wrote that email and he's flipping first. It wasn't us. We weren't competing. Well, I... You are really competitive. Wow. We haven't even gotten to your tournament. Yeah. Michael from Werribee, he's only around the corner. He beat him an album, which is good, won the Alien artwork. And it definitely wasn't rigged because you guys voted for it. And it was good. I enjoy the fact that we don't need to post that to the US. So we do have some other stuff to give away which will be coming in the coming weeks. So look out for that. I think it's time for This Week in Pinball. Yes, it is. And so we did something together again this weekend. What did we do, Ryan? We played in a tournament together. Great tournament. The tournament director was a hot guy. Oh, what a dish. It was actually a great tournament. So this was Rage Chilled at Rises. So this was a comp that you put on at your house. What was the format for this? It was match play, so four player games, six rounds, and in each round there's two... I'm using the wrong word. Six times two? How do you say six rounds, but in each round there's two games? There were two games each round, and so effectively what you'd done is you'd put two machines into a bank, effectively. So each round you would play these two machines and it was four player match play and I think the points were like 7-4-2-0 or something like that. I can't remember what the points were. Yeah, so there's a point bonus for coming first. So if you pull off the first, it really propels you up the rankings. I did Swiss pairings, which basically means if you're coming last, the last four players that were having a bad day play each other. The best four players play each other and then every round the rankings move. And so, you know, the reason for that is the whole thing that Bob and Kieran said with Pimberg is you play with people that are in the same kind of boat as you and the person who comes first has as much fun as the person that comes last. Sorry, it's all the way around. So obviously with 20 people, there isn't 840 people to deal with. But I think that works well. I got some good feedback on that. You know, there's always, if you come last, some people didn't enjoy it as much, but overall the feedback was good. I spent a lot of time kind of getting the machines to play super fast. Yep. Yeah, really tough. And it's because of, like, Richard Rhodes and if Jordan Shredaway was going to come. He didn't come because it was his birthday on the weekend. Happy birthday to Jordan Shredaway. He's now 18. I mean, yep. So, yeah, I mean, if everyone was a really average player, then sure, I would leave the machines as normal and the machine wouldn't run over time. But you've seen Richard Rhodes blow up a machine, I've seen him blow up a machine. No one wants to wait 45 minutes while he gets a billion on ACDC or something. It's not fun for anyone except him. So I had to make the machines as hard as I can for the best player. And, you know, I kind of tried to explain to everyone before the tournament started that, you know, don't take that to heart. You're just trying to beat the people that you're playing with, not beat the machine and get into a wizard mode. And I think people were appreciative of that because four-player games can kind of drag on. And I'm sure, Marty, you've been to some tournaments that, you know, lasted a long time doing kind of a 12-round match play. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess, again, the good thing about this is, at a minimum, every player gets to play 12 games. So that's fine. And also to note, this was match play, but you didn't have finals at the end. You just decided that whatever was the points at the end of the six rounds, that was it. Yep, because people are getting paired up doing the Swiss pairings things, in the top four in the last round should be the best players of the day. So that basically becomes a final. And I guess there can technically be a situation where someone outside of the top four can ace those last two games and sneak ahead. But pretty much the top four finished in the top four anyway. So, yeah, how did you go, Marty? Yeah, it's funny you should ask me that question, how did I go? Because I had some good rounds and some bad rounds, but I did end up in the top four as you did. And something really interesting happened in that last round, Ryan, I'm not sure if you remember what I'm going to be talking about. Let's talk about Metallica, shall we? Yes, great game. It is a great game. Stern's best. So what you had done, you set this up like they do in a lot of comps where all the multiples are really hard to get, but Crank It Up is really easy to get. So I was on this particular game, I think I might have been the second or third player, and nobody had gotten into Crank It Up. And I literally had one shot to light crank it up and that was into the snake. And it's exactly what I did. I put the ball into the snake's mouth, lit crank it up and then what happened, Ryan? You can tell me what happened. Well, the freaking snake spat the ball right down the middle. Right down the middle so fast, couldn't even react, it was gone. Yeah. And how did I, I reacted pretty calmly, didn't I, right? No, you were like a baby. You were like a baby that had an ice cream and some guy just took the ice cream off the baby because you were getting ready and I knew you went into that instant info like five times. You're like, how many more shots? One more shot. How many more shots? One more shot. And I understand, and this is the fucked up thing, I felt really bad because that snake for some reason, when I got the machine, I got it second hand, I didn't bite new, it used to spit the ball out onto the right sling and then sometimes the right sling would chuck it straight down the outlane. So I asked on, I think it was Aussie Arcade, people were like, oh you put padding here and you put padding there and I did that and it took me about three hours to do it because it was just doing weird stuff and I finally got it perfect. And I would have tested it in test mode like maybe 200 times when I set it up. And that ball has never ever spat the, that snake has never spat the ball down the middle. And then when it happened to you, Stacy's like, oh yeah, that happened to me before in qualifying. I'm like, wah. It's the nature of Pinball and I felt really bad for you. But then after your kind of reaction and what happened on Tron afterwards, I know this pains me to say this, I'm sorry Marty, but I'm glad it happened to you because, well you tell people what happened on Tron. But also just to let you know, I missed out on coming first on Metallica by about 200, 000 points was the downside of that middle drain. So what happened when we got to Tron was I was shitty. Rhyme was the problem, really. I was in such a foul mood after that had happened. It was just this incredulous moment. But it really came down to the last game. All four of us, pretty much, if we'd won the game, would have won the tournament. I mean, it also did rely on some people coming second. I had to come first and you had to come second, yeah. It was possible for all of us. It was possible for all of us to win. And I was shitty, so I had to shift the game. Yeah, I managed to have my one... I mean, no one... I didn't see... I'm not sure in your groups, Marty, because we're only in each other's groups maybe twice out of the six rounds. No one really blew up a game. People had good games, good solid games, but because the machines were set up so hard, like, a 60 million on Walking Dead was like an amazing game, like a 3 billion on Attack from Mars. I got into simulation with double scoring on Tron. I got all three multiples obviously to get into there. I had one really good ball and that led me to about 53 million or something. Richard Rhodes got 30 and you and Marcus got somewhere under 10 million. And so the reason why I'm glad it happened to you is because it's almost training for like Pimberg. That's what you said. I'm Pimberg. Yeah. I'm glad it happened to you because like if that happens to you at Pimberg on day one, and people talk about it all the time. People talk about that Pimberg experience. They're like, oh, I just kind of got sidetracked and something happened and I got one zero and then, you know, and then I got like five zeros and then that was it. And then I'm in like Division D or some shit like that. And I think, you know, for a tournament that goes that length, and this is a short tournament, this ran for about four and a half hours with like a half an hour break when Stewie's died, right? Yep. So, yeah, I mean, if you can't keep your concentration for four hours, then you're fucked at Pimberg. No, look, it was more than that. It was, you know, there was other games that I'd played previously that obviously I just should have done better. There was a round where I came last and third, or another one where I came third and third. So, you know, there was plenty of other times throughout the day where I should have played better and not been in that situation where one game actually matters. I was more pissed off that it was your machine. If it had been Pinball, it's like, oh, well, there's 500 machines here. It doesn't matter. I don't know who owns this machine. It was your machine. You had that smug look on your face. I was like, oh, no, no, no. I didn't. My face was like... Well, I mean, I scored last on that Metallica, okay? And because I scored last with Metallica, I missed out on coming first by one point. So you came fourth, Marty, I came third. And Marcus and Richard tied for first. They had a playoff on Attack from Mars. And Marcus, who's... I had a look at his AFT-air profile. He's played 118 games, you know, tournaments. That was his chance to come first. Unfortunately, he couldn't pull it off. He came second and Richard pulled up the first. It was a good day. It was a great day. I absolutely loved it. You know how pick I am with certain things, and Argonauts was my favourite tournament, but I was still like, oh, I wish the machine played less floaty and this, this and that. There was no excuses for me with this one, because they're my machines, they're the games that I like, I can set them up as fast and brittle as I can, and there's no excuses for me not to have fun. I did find it hard being a player, a tournament director, and a host. That's quite hard. But I mean, you talked about, you know, you copped a bad round. I mean, my worst round was when Sea Witch went down, and it was during our little break. And the funny thing was, it just stopped working kind of like in between games. And someone said, hey, Sea Witch isn't kind of like powering up. Switched it on, switched it off, didn't work. Received all the connectors. I started to stress out. I'm like, I haven't prepared another game. I had other games there, but I didn't prepare another game to be as brutal as all the other games. So I thought, am I going to sit there and set up Wizard of Oz to be absolutely brutal, or am I going to ring Bruce Nightingale from the Sutter Podcast? So I jumped outside, and I rang Bruce, and I could tell that he was at his bar, and he was quite busy, and I'm like, Bruce, my series isn't powering up properly, what should I do? And within 10 seconds, he's like, hmm, okay, how many dings is it doing? Is it doing six dings? I'm like, I can't hear it, maybe. If it's doing six things, it's the fuse F6 is blown, or F4 or something like that. How do you know this stuff? I know, and I'm like, what the shit? And I'm like, if it is that, what's the fuse value? And he's like, you're pushing your luck. And I'm like, well, he was like, how the fuck am I meant to know that? And I'm like, well, how do you know this to begin with? So I, sure enough, went into the machine and I checked that fuse. Sorry, first I listened to the dings, it was six dings. and I checked the fuse and sure enough it was blown. So I asked you because you were trying to set up a stream, I said how much longer do you need? I drove down to Jcar which is an electronic store which is a gut-send that this thing is like eight minutes from my house. It has every single like little electronic part that I could possibly need. I bought a bunch of fuses, bought it back, stuck it in and it powered up. The fuse did blow, I didn't know if it was a quick blow or a slow blow so I just like used it. And it did literally, it blew again right at the end of the tournament, like after the games had finished. So it lasted the tournament. Most people love, people love that game when they won. When they didn't win, they're like, oh, why do you have this machine in there? Like, oh, machines suck. But yeah, people, I was the only bank that I didn't get to play myself. I got to play that twice, I think, and really enjoyed it. Yeah. The longest playing game was Walking Dead, believe it or not. That's how brutal my gains were. Walking Dead at a 7 degree angle was the easiest machine. Yeah, that's about it. I hope to have it again. The next one is already in the IFPA calendar, but I'm trying to figure out if I keep it at 20. What did you think, Barney, about the crowded nature of the room? Because we did push machines to another room so that everyone was inside and not outside. If you don't mind me giving you just some healthy criticism, it was pretty tight. The only thing I'll say is that for 20 people, many times people bumped into me as I was playing as they were walking to the toilet. Many people, as you know, my pet hate, were having a conversation right in my ear as I was playing. You can't stop that. I know. No, you can't stop that. I was kicking myself, I should have headphones, that's my own fault. The peripheral vision of this stuff as well, I realised when I was playing Attack from Mars and people walking in and out of that toilet, I was just like, yeah, that was a bad position for a Pinball machine. But I wasn't planning to configure the room like that, but the night before I looked at the Carl Weathers report and it was raining, it was an absolutely miserable day in Melbourne, so people couldn't hang out outside. But if I did it again, if I don't cancel the one that's up next month, I would like to expand it a little bit because I think it's more fun the more people you have. But I guess I'll have to chuck maybe five or six pins in the garage. Yep. Yeah. That would work well. Especially if you don't track mud in and out. But it was fun. Yeah, it was a good time. It was a great time. Well done. Okay, I have three quick things to say. I got a pinball-related injury and it just kind of hiddled in time. You didn't see it, but I was moving stuff around a couple of days before and actually moved a chair behind Demoman and I'm doing this thing now. My pinball nuance, like weird stuff that I do when I'm playing pinball changes all the time. Now I kick my leg up, right? Like, you know when a girl in a movie is being kissed and they lift their leg up? Yes. It's really fast. That's my best way of describing it. I was playing Demoman. I went to save the ball. I kicked my leg up and there was a chair right behind me. I kicked this chair so freaking hard that right on my Achilles heel, I couldn't walk properly for three days. I was limping around for three days. That's how hard I kicked it. I've got pictures of my bruise and everything. I'll show it to you later. I got tickets to go see the Iron Maidens. What is the Iron Maidens? Who is this you talk about? It's the female version of the Iron Maidens. A female cover band of the Iron Maidens. And that's in a couple of months. There's no way. The Iron Maidens, they'll come here in like five years. I won't care by now. This was that instant. People heard the podcast in Australia and thought it would be funny. So I'm going down there with a couple of pinball guys. It's literally like 500 metres from your house. It's a three-minute walk. I should go. Yeah. You should go, but you're not. I might do. Okay. Yeah. Come down. It'll be fun. Oh, it'll be fun. Just as a gag, as a laugh. No, I reckon that'll be good. If they're going to tour the world, or I don't know if I'm afraid to explain, as the Iron Maidens, they're going to want to be able to play those instruments really well. If they don't, well then it will be just with the giggles. And the last thing was I headed down with Jared Mendoza of Facebook fame and Nima to Pimble Paradise during the week and we played Cards Against Humanity, which was absolutely hilarious. and then played some pinball for three hours and I got my ass kicked. Those two guys are the experts of trash dogging. Trash dogging actually affects me and I'm glad that it's not allowed in official IPA kind of stuff because they got so cocky, like you're going down on Sunday. And they were both there and they all came in the bottom half. So that's my trash talk back to them. I came through and you guys came through. So take that. Hi. Awesome. So shall we go to the mailbag? Let's do it. All right. Well, we've got one email and another message. Let's talk about the email first. So this is from Greg G. Hello, Greg. He said, been listening to you since started. However, like everything in my life, way behind the times. So I only listened up to your December broadcasts. Jeez, up till December. He's going to get to your drunk podcast. Oh, he hasn't even got to the drunk podcast yet. So, yeah, it's all pretty downhill from there. Enjoyed very much the two episodes where you introduced some Americans to Aussie slang. I appreciate that. He said, it reminded me of one of your early shows when the discussion wove into what would make a good Australian theme, Pin, and Martin's suggestion of Bogan. Did I? I don't remember that. I don't remember who it is. He said, I've long thought an Aussie-themed Pin of us taking the piss out of each other and every other culture at the same time would be a ripper. in the overseas market. The world at large needs to be educated on the symbiotic nature of drop bears, bogans and blue-ass flies. What is a blue-ass fly? I have no idea what that is. I can't remember what that is. My only other suggestion is that any Aussie-themed pin worth a salt would have to have the chorus of the Cosmic Psychos, Come On, played at 11 as the attract mode call-out. I don't know what that is, but I will... I will have to Google Cosplay Psycho. Come on. We also got an email from Robert Byers last week who's still making his way through and he kind of commented on the Aussie theme, Pimball Machines as well. I'm not sure if you saw that message on Facebook where he said he was up to the episode where we talked about... What's that guy's name again? What's a man? I don't know what it is. Or is it big titties? Whatever that song was. Anyway, he's still way behind so he'll catch up one day too. He'll catch up. And we also got a really exciting message from our Facebook page. Can you read that? No, from our website. Can you read that one out, Ryan? Why are we reading this out? Don't validate this guy. Okay, if you want to do it, I'll do it. I didn't think you were going to do it. No, because we got our first hate mail. Is this our first hate mail? I think it is. Ah, okay. I think it is. This is exciting. It really is exciting. And I'll tell you why it's exciting. It's because... It's directed to you, motherfucker. It's directed to me. And what I said to Ryan, it was really funny, what I said to Ryan was, I said, you know what? I used to remember hearing Nate Shivers talk about the fact that he used to get these anonymous hate messages all the time. And I went, fuck it. But we've hit the big time, bitches. We are now getting our first bit of hate mail. And then Ryan said to me, oh, I want one too. I don't think I'm a very likeable guy, but let me read it out. Let me read it out. Okay. I'm going to read it out in an arsehole's voice, right? Go on, do it. This is from Sparty Marty. Hey, how much did Pompous Marty, that's your Unifam by the way, Pompous Marty, have to pay He needs to jump the queue on his alley. Which is what he's trying to say. Why was Martin so stressed out for two weeks and then magically got his alley? Because obviously you paid for it. Oh my God. You, you sir, you farty, oh farty party. I thought it was farty party. Yeah. You farty party. You win the dickhead of the week. It's our new segment, dickhead of the week. Dickhead of the week. Send all your hate mail in. We love it. We thrive off it. I honestly, it was a badge of honour. You were like, oh, did you read it? I'm like, yeah, this is freaking awesome. Well done. Thank you, Party Party. You made my day. I don't, no, but, okay, maybe it's like funny because it doesn't make any sense at all because I know how stressed out you were about not getting the machine and everything. But what if it's like real hate? What if it's like, Ryan, you stutter? Okay, wait, I did a whole Jeff Teolis episode. I can survive it. Yeah. Yeah, set it down. Yeah, but anyway, the point is that the people that were in the queue after me have also received their LE, so I didn't have to pay for anything except full price. Completely full price. This street price that the US have is just crazy. I paid full price and shipping on top of that. So, there you go. That's just what we paid. We don't have competition here, so that's what we have to do. Anyway. How can people find us money? Well, okay, Slam Tilt just said, just head to our new website, so can we do the same thing? Or, I can record something really cool, and I can put it in my new soundboards. Well, you can do that, because also, I had a bit of feedback as well this week from some friend of the show, hi Paul, said, you know what, sometimes the podcast just ends all of a sudden, and he's like, oh, what happened? So we need to give like a 60 second warning. Okay, in 60 seconds the podcast is going to end. Alright Marty, before we get to that, this is the devil telling you where to shoot. To your right! And this is what he says when you try to hit that shot. No, your other right! Ah, devil, you're so funny. You're hilarious. Go to Facebook, Head2HeadPinball, go to Twitter, H2HPinball, email us, head2headpinball at gmail.com, or Instagram is head2headpinball, or go to our website, head2headpinball.com, and send us anonymous hate messages. We love it. Send me some sound bites. I want to become like American radio where they just play like really annoying sound clips all the time. I've got a sound board now. I've figured it out. It took me ages. I've figured it out. Send all your funny gags and I'll just, just when Marty does something, just when you swear. Yeah, watch your personality. We can have our own laugh track. Oh shit, I just did it. Okay, that's my laugh. Now you do your laugh, Marty. I've been doing it all episode. Anyway, thanks everybody. Thanks Paul R.J. We'll speak to you all next week. I really want to sing Wasted Years. Just for Lucas. Sure, I'm singing. I don't know the lyrics. I know you have to do it. That's the problem. I've got to learn them. That's the problem. No one does. All right. See you, everyone. See ya.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v5)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-08-03 | Item ID: 318fa3a4-4f21-4975-9c27-11e391cf630e*