# 021 - It's HQ Time!! **Source:** Punk Rock Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2025-11-14 **Duration:** 19m 3s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://share.transistor.fm/s/4b307527 --- ## Analysis Mike and another host celebrate opening their new Punk Rock Pinball HQ in Bloomington, Illinois, recount their first Friday tournament at Golden Ticket Cinema with 32 players, and discuss reactions to Stern's Walking Dead Remastered and Star Wars: Fall of the Empire. They analyze art direction differences between Zombie Yeti and Christopher Franchi, praising Star Wars' dramatic rules and tension mechanics while planning their first IFPA tournament at Poor Bros. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Punk Rock Pinball took keys to new HQ on Halloween night — _Hosts state 'Just took keys to this joint on Halloween night'_ - [HIGH] First Friday tournament at Golden Ticket Cinema had 32 players — _Host directly states 'We had 32 people come out. 32 players.'_ - [HIGH] Zombie Yeti art-directed Walking Dead Remastered — _Host states 'Zombie Yeti, who art-directed this one, wasn't the main designer, but he was the art director'_ - [HIGH] Star Wars: Fall of the Empire has dramatic moment-building mechanics similar to Jaws — _Host expresses strong enthusiasm: 'they're building like dramatic moments where you're like building things and stacking things and it's building suspense with the lights and the music'_ - [HIGH] Raymond Davidson led rules and code development for Star Wars: Fall of the Empire — _Host credits 'raymond davidson our friend uh i think he's just done a phenomenal job with' the new rules and code_ - [MEDIUM] The Pro model of Star Wars is being considered as better value than Premium/LE due to cost savings — _Host discusses Pro vs Premium: 'you save so much money' and 'a couple 2,500 bucks who needs the force'_ ### Notable Quotes > "Jeff lifted them all. God for Jeff... He just lifts the back of the game, like, sets it up on his hip. And then I would put in the legs, and then we'd slide him around. Amazing. Strong dude." > — **Mike / Co-host**, ~2:30 > _Gratitude for volunteer community support in setting up arcade machines at new venue_ > "My two cents on that is clearly Zombie Yeti, who art-directed this one, wasn't the main designer, but he was the art director, which is the designer. Yeah, that's like the boss of the art." > — **Stephanie**, ~10:45 > _Clarifies Zombie Yeti's role and authority in Walking Dead Remastered art direction_ > "It has shot immediately to the top of my want list was not expecting that... they're building like dramatic moments where you're like building things and stacking things and it's building suspense with the lights and the music" > — **Mike**, ~15:30 > _Strong endorsement of Star Wars: Fall of the Empire's rules design and moment-building mechanics_ > "I like a stern pro well we'll see I like stern pro you save so much money we'll see and you still get the experience okay with the pro you know you're not missing a lot like we loved our jaws pro loved it" > — **Mike**, ~21:00 > _Value proposition discussion of Pro tier machines vs Premium/LE_ > "We just black out and it just comes out it's like i said what I said... this is just, these are the conversations we're having every day. Because we're not going to probably slicken it up." > — **Mike**, ~27:00 > _Statement of unscripted podcast philosophy and audience expectations_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Punk Rock Pinball HQ | organization | New venue in Bloomington, Illinois; took keys on Halloween; hosts tournaments and arcade machines | | Mike | person | Co-host of Punk Rock Pinball Podcast; operator/organizer of PRPHQ; tournament organizer; competitive player | | Stephanie | person | Co-host of Punk Rock Pinball Podcast; finished third in First Friday tournament at Golden Ticket | | Jeff | person | Volunteer helper who assisted setting up arcade machines at PRPHQ; strong, unpaid community volunteer | | Zombie Yeti | person | Stern art director for Walking Dead Remastered; known for distinctive orange/red/blue color palette; also directed Kong, Godzilla, Foo Fighters | | Christopher Franchi | person | Stern artist/designer; created Monsters, Beatles Gold, Evil Dead; compared for stylistic diversity vs Zombie Yeti's consistency | | Raymond Davidson | person | Led rules and code development for Star Wars: Fall of the Empire; praised for dramatic moment-building design | | Golden Ticket Cinema | organization | Venue hosting First Friday tournament in Bloomington; 32 players participated | | Poor Bros | organization | Bloomington pinball venue hosting second Sunday IFPA tournament in December | | Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Walking Dead Remastered and Star Wars: Fall of the Empire; sent prizes for Poor Bros tournament | | Walking Dead Remastered | game | New Stern pinball machine; discussed for art direction and color palette; post-apocalyptic theme | | Star Wars: Fall of the Empire | game | Stern pinball machine; praised for dramatic rules, code, and moment-building mechanics; available in Pro/Premium/LE tiers | | Jaws 50th Anniversary | game | Referenced as comparison point for dramatic tension mechanics and distinctive art style | | Kevin/KJ | person | Tournament player from Champaign; provided podcast feedback about pacing and repetition | | Joe Sharp | person | Quoted regarding Walking Dead original color palette being like 'a rainy day' | ### Topics - **Primary:** Punk Rock Pinball HQ opening and venue operations, First Friday tournament at Golden Ticket Cinema, Star Wars: Fall of the Empire rules, code, and dramatic tension mechanics, Walking Dead Remastered art direction and Zombie Yeti's color palette - **Secondary:** Artist comparison: Zombie Yeti vs Christopher Franchi stylistic approaches, Pro vs Premium/LE tier value proposition on Star Wars, Podcast format and unscripted conversational style - **Mentioned:** IFPA tournament organization at Poor Bros ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Hosts express enthusiasm about HQ opening, tournament success, Star Wars design, and community support. Minor criticism of Walking Dead art direction addressed constructively. Some self-aware acknowledgment of podcast style imperfections balanced with acceptance of unscripted format. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Volunteer community members (Jeff and others) providing unpaid labor to support venue launch (confidence: high) — Jeff worked 12:30pm-5:30pm setting up machines, unpaid; community showed up for First Friday tournament - **[design_philosophy]** Zombie Yeti's consistent art direction style across multiple recent Stern releases (Kong, Godzilla, Foo Fighters, Walking Dead) creating recognizable brand vs Franchi's stylistic diversity (confidence: high) — Hosts compare color palettes, note Zombie Yeti uses 'a lot of oranges, orange red blue' across games; compare to band analogy (Ramones vs Pixies) - **[event_signal]** First Friday tournament at Golden Ticket Cinema successful with 32 players and strong community attendance (confidence: high) — Hosts report 32 player turnout; players from Champaign, Peoria, and local Bloomington area; CJ brought 7 games for competition - **[design_philosophy]** Star Wars: Fall of the Empire praised for dramatic moment-building mechanics rivaling Jaws through rules, code, music, and lighting synergy (confidence: high) — Host states game 'shot immediately to the top of my want list' due to dramatic tension mechanics; multiple references to suspenseful shot sequences - **[personnel_signal]** Zombie Yeti confirmed as art director (not main designer) for Walking Dead Remastered with full visual approval authority (confidence: high) — Stephanie explicitly states Zombie Yeti was 'art director, which is the designer... that's like the boss of the art. That's the person that approves it all' - **[market_signal]** Star Wars Pro tier being positioned as strong value alternative to Premium/LE by eliminating force ball save feature while maintaining core experience (confidence: high) — Host discusses Pro savings of '2,500 bucks' vs Premium; notes Pro players 'don't miss a lot' compared to LE; references positive Jaws Pro experience - **[competitive_signal]** Punk Rock Pinball HQ establishing recurring monthly IFPA tournaments with Stern partnership (prize support) (confidence: high) — Second Sunday tournament planned at Poor Bros in December; Stern sent 'bunch of stuff for prizes and giveaways'; event link to be posted in Facebook group --- ## Transcript This is the Punk Rock Pinball Podcast, Episode 21, Take 2. My battery's died in my Zoom field recorder. Well, here we go. Here we go. Where are we? Oh, I thought you were going to clap. No, I'm doing it. Oh, okay. We're rolling. We're rolling. This is a show. Holy smokes. We're in the show. We got to go quick because our batteries are dying. We are in our new Punk Rock Pinball HQ in Bloomington, Illinois. Just took keys to this joint on Halloween night. Came over here this past Saturday. Yesterday, you and some movers moved a bunch of machines over here. Our new really, really good friend, Jeff. Yep. You and Jeff set all of these up. You and Jeff set all these up yesterday. Anyway, Jeff just didn't want any compensation for helping. It's just not going to happen. He just showed up here like 1230 and we worked till like 530 setting all these up. And he's a beast. He'd just like pick them up, sit them on his legs, and I would screw the back legs on. Jeff, thank you so much. That is just very, very kind of you to spend. Nobody has a lot of time to just spend doing things. And it's just very, very kind of you to help Mike set these up because I was out of town. Yeah, and I'm not nearly as strong as you, Jeff, because I'm sore today. I woke up, like, sore. And I didn't even lift any games. Jeff lifted them all. Thank God for Jeff. It's like I figured we'd, like, team lift and sit him on a stool. And he just lifts the back of the game, like, sets it up on his hip. And then I would put in the legs, and then we'd slide him around. Amazing. Strong dude. Great dude. Thank you so much, Jeff. Yes, thank you, Jeff. We also, on Friday, I'm going backwards chronologically. We had our very first First Friday tournament in Bloomington at the Golden Ticket Cinema. We had 32 people come out. 32 players. A bunch of people also came out to just watch, which was very cool. It was Spicy Rich's birthday. Happy birthday, Spicy Rich. We haven't seen him a lot. He probably doesn't listen to the show. Probably doesn't, but happy birthday anyways. And a bunch of the Pirogowskis came out. That was cool. All but Luke. All but Luke. He was on vacation with his wife. That's what his six-year-old son told me. His parents were on vacation. How do you schedule your vacation when the first monthly tournament at Golden Ticket in Bloomington is happening? Priorities, Luke. Where's your priorities, Luke? But that was his little boy that won the hat, right? Yeah. And then he was beating some people on Attack of Mars. He's good. A little kid can shoot. Yeah, he's six. and he is like a little badass. And Stephanie finished third place. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Right behind Joe and CJ. Yeah, it was fun. It was really fun. You know what my strategy was? Don't warm up. And I got screwed because I had to warm up. CJ made me because he brought two more games over there. He's got seven now. And me and Chris showed up and helped him set those games up. And then we took the in-lane rubbers off of all of them, and he set them all in the competition mode, and then he had me and Chris play a two-player game on each one and time it. He was just trying to wear you out. He was trying to wear me down because he knew I was a threat. Yep. I started off like shit. It was like a head-to-head deal. I started off 0-3, and then I won four in a row, which was not enough to get me to the finals. By round four, I remembered that I'm not that bad. I forgot the first three rounds. It was fun, though. The turnout was great. We had Kevin and Dwayne come out from Champaign. We missed Kat Davis. Yeah, Kat had a cold. She wasn't feeling great, so that's a bummer. And then we had the Peoria crew come out and represented, which was amazing. And then some Bloomington folks that we don't get to see very often came out as well. Yeah, it was great. Our neighbors. Our neighbors came, Rob and Kim. Yeah, I'm excited. So we've got that going on in December. There's still a date. I think CJ has to confirm the date with the movie theater. But the second Sunday, we are going to do a tournament. We're going to tournament direct at the Poor Bros here in Bloomington. There will be an IFPA tournament, Poor Bros Bloomington. Yep. second Sunday warm ups at three and tournament at four or something like that we post the event event The event link hasn been created but it will be in the Punk Rock Pinball Facebook group Yep. You can find it there. It'll be fun. Come down and flip. Stern sent a bunch of stuff for prizes and giveaways. Translates to giveaway. Yeah. Yeah, so that'll be a cool one. We'll start having some parties and things here. It'll be kind of on the down low for probably until January. Uh, so we may or may not post those publicly, but starting in January for sure. We will. Yeah. We're at the club. Um, and then we were going to just talk a little bit about our reactions to the walking dead, the new Stern pinball machine, walking dead remaster, and then kind of a fresh take on star Wars, fall of the empire. All right. So I'm going to let Stephanie tell us, what she thought after seeing the trailer for a stern's the walking dead remastered pinball machine i mean i think it looks cool i want to play it i am not gonna like make a trip up to chicago to go play it but when it shows up around here i'm super excited to play it i think it looks cool it looks way um more interesting i will say than the original walking dead which to quote Joe Sharp. The color palette is like a rainy day, but it's supposed to be, I suppose, because of just the post-apocalyptic theme. It looks cool, and I know that the art is getting a lot of hate on it, but my two cents on that is clearly Zombie Yeti, who art-directed this one, wasn't the main designer, but he was the art director, which is the designer. Yeah, that's like the boss of the art. That's the person that approves it all. So it looks like it looks very much in his color palette that he likes to use. It's very, yeah, you look at it and it feels like, yeah, it's that guy's art. Yeah. So if to those haters and complainers out there, maybe you don't like zombie yeti art. Maybe not. Maybe it's not the game. Or maybe like you're sick of it. Maybe you're sick of it. Maybe you're sick of it. You want something different. Because he does use like a lot of oranges. um orange red blue yeah like you can look at it and know it's his absolutely yeah i think but then you have the you have some people some other i don't consider us content creators we have some pinball content creators we're not that we just do a podcast we're not there like creating content all the time no uh we barely take pictures we barely even take pictures because we're mostly like playing and enjoying the atmosphere in the social environment we just have a podcast but a lot of content creators are like all these sterns look the same and it's like okay have you seen jaws have you seen a led zeppelin pro have you seen a monsters like there's a few that look the same and then there's a bunch that don't they put out a lot They're pinball machines. Yeah. And then there's a handful of them that look the same. I feel like eventually the Beatles' gold doesn't look anything like those other ones. No. It's a Spike 2 one. It's mostly like the Zambietti ones from the recent few years kind of look a lot alike, like Kong, Godzilla, Foo Fighters, Walking Dead, even though he didn't do it. But a lot of them look quite a bit different. Like the Jaws, whether it's the original Jaws like premium or the Jaws 50th, don't look anything like any other Stern pinball machine. No. Zeppelin Pro doesn't look anything like any other pinball machine. Iron Maiden doesn't look anything like those other machines. There's some orange in it, but like. He did that one too. He did that one too. Yeah. I liked your analogy though. Yeah, because we were talking about on take one before our batteries. I hope these batteries survive. Don't step on that, please. so you've got two of the biggest names in pinball art are christopher franchi who did this monsters i think you can see it in the shot he did the beatles gold he did evil dead which looks phenomenal and i feel like the the franchi ones have a bit of diversity to them and the zombie yeti ones have a bit of sameness He got a style He got a distinct style And I was comparing it to certain bands that I love that are great and you love bands like Zombie Eddie is like the Ramones or like Green Day or like you hear it you instantly know that Green Day That's the Ramones. Yeah. All their songs sound kind of the same or the majority of them sound very much the same, but they're great. Yeah, they're great. They're great. because like the uncanny x-men art which looks very much like deadpool art which looks very much like foo fighters art all three kick ass yeah they look kind of the same who gives a shit you know yeah whereas christopher franchi with his diversity i would compare more to a band like the pixies where they have all kinds of different tempos some of them are really catchy and melodic some of them are noisy and they're yelling like i think the franchise kind of skill set is more diverse i don't know if it's any better it's just more diverse it's art it's art it's art and at the end of the day like a good art on a pinball machine is awesome but i don't really if it plays good i almost don't give a damn about what the art looks like yeah if it shoots great and the rules are great who cares like a great art package is just like a bonus it's a bonus it's a bonus it's like the icing on the cherry on top but yeah that's our take on that yeah all right let's talk a little update on um the star wars fall of the Empire. Yeah. F-O-T-E. F-O-T-E. Because pinball people, why do y'all like to say G-Z, F-O-T-E, A-F, like, you gotta abbreviate every freaking name. U-X-M, A-I-Q. I hate it. I hate it too. Just type out the freaking name of the game, guys. But that's an aside. That's a different problem for a different day. But Star Wars Fall of the Empire. But when you said F-O-T-E, you got me on that i know it's just such a thing but star wars it has shot immediately to the top of my want list was not expecting that and that is due to two videos that i've watched recently with the new uh rules and code led by raymond davidson our friend uh i think he's just done a phenomenal job with and whoever else is doing like the music like the way they're doing the rules the code and the music and the lights for that matter are really creating i think something super special that is to me going to rival like the goodness of jaws where the the they're building like dramatic moments where you're like building things and stacking things and it's building suspense with the lights and the music and i feel like there's everybody wants pinball moments and i think this game with these rules has moments and i watched a stream that stern did with raymond was playing i think jack dangerous on mxv was wearing the punk rock pinball t-shirt thank you mike that's cool i watched that i'm like this looks great and then i watched the flipping out guys they did a stream of it the other night and you could tell like joel was playing and like he got to the wizard mode but like he needed to hit some shots to get it and it was very dramatic because it's like the shots are not easy on that game yeah and when you've got these you're on the precipice of executing things in the game that are going to blow it up and you know you are because not every pinball machine does that uh jaws does it and star wars fall of the empire does it yeah it creates like tension yeah and yeah yeah it's great and you could tell like because joel like did the thing and then they're both on the scene like yeah like that's pinball baby like yeah that's like that's when it's awesome uh-huh yeah and not every game does it and that's okay it's totally okay a lot of games don't do it most of them don't do that and it's okay it's okay there's good games that don't do yeah like cactus canyon doesn't like it i mean no moment there are wizard modes but like it's not like it's not like jaws where it's like oh i had this ready and if i would hit this that would have happened oh and you're so pissed you drink yeah cactus canyon's got they got none of that no uh uncanny x-men doesn't have that yet there nothing that and i love the game we own the game but it doesn do it the only one so far that really do it for me it like Jaws is that And like the Black Knight Sword of Rage there certain things There's like suspenseful moments for me on the Black Knight. I have certain stuff set up and then a drain. Yeah. And the Fall of the Empire has got it. Yeah, maybe there might be some trades in our future. Yeah. There's a game here I'm looking to maybe move and we might have somebody that wants it. and if he buys that game then i'll be trying to find a use probably i'll probably get the pro on the fall of the empire oh really i think i'll go pro okay the pro seems really good it doesn't have the force ball save and that did look fun when they those guys were able because it was tricky to make it work it was cool and it worked in some ways that looked really fun but man i like a stern pro well we'll see i like stern pro you save so much money we'll see and you still get the experience okay with the pro you know you're not missing a lot like we loved our jaws pro loved it like the 50th better but man you can save like a few thousand dollars a couple 2,500 bucks who needs the force who needs the force because what i like about the pro is that when you spell the... What did you do? You spell Jedi for that or whatever? It's just a ball save, so you don't even have to execute anything. It just gives it back. So I can't fail at the force because it's just going to kick it back. That's true. I'm thinking pro. I'm thinking the pro is a killer value on this game. Well, that's cool. That's probably going to happen sometime. Can't wait to get it. I got to return a text message. Not about that. Okay. Our battery's still alive. I think we said what we needed to say. Did we? I didn't tell my KJ story, but I can tell that next time. Just tell it real quick. Okay. So at the tournament the other night in Bloomington, our friend Kevin, I like to call him KJ. I don't know if he likes it. But I think his company's like KJ's. Yeah. So he's probably fine with it. we're just sitting around in between rounds and I said something about the podcast and he looks at me and goes, you got to do something about that. What? I'm like, what do I need to do about it? What are you talking about? You got to do something about that. You got to sometimes, you just ramble on. You just ramble and you'll repeat yourself. And then I says to him, I says, like kevin it's it's not scripted we're just winging it here just well i mean we have like some rough idea about what we're going to talk about like today we knew we were going to talk about the club yeah we're going to talk about the walking dead i was going to talk about how i want star wars but that's that that's it yeah and then we hit record and then we say whatever is going to come whatever comes out comes out yeah we just black out and it just comes out it's like i said what I said and I know sometimes I'll reiterate things but I do that on purpose a lot of times because sometimes people don't hear it the first time you got to reiterate it maybe you're smarter than the average person Kevin he probably is uh but so I says to him I'm repeating myself it's not scripted Kevin we're just winging it and he says to me I can tell well and so on that note so then i says to him i'm like you don't have to watch it you know like if you're frustrated by it you can skip it you don't have to watch them all and i said to that i will quote our friend steve wallace he's not our friend he's the guy on youtube we watch all the time camping with steve steve wallace uh if you want to watch some stealth camping and just some random weird camping videos, Steve Wallace, funny Canadian guy. But at the end of Steve's videos, he always says, like, if you can tolerate this kind of thing, and that's what I would say about this, because this is just what we do. Yeah. We do it whether there's a camera in front of us or not. Like, this is just, these are the conversations we're having every day. Because we're not going to probably slicken it up. Nope. And sometimes we may not be that concise. That's just how it's going to be. So please like and subscribe. If you don't like this kind of thing, one time Steve said, and if you don't like this kind of thing, maybe give it a chance. Maybe give it a chance. Or you don't have to subscribe. You don't have to watch. You could unsubscribe if you're subscribed and you don't like it. That's fine. That's fine. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 5f829745-d92e-427b-8a97-ee79ff494c22*