# Pirate Princess Jess - Episode 76

**Source:** JBS Show  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-11-12  
**Duration:** 76m 9s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-18175464

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## Analysis

Pirate Princess Jessica discusses her journey into content creation (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube) and pinball, starting from a pandemic-era accident with a tripod and ring light. She shares strategies for social media success, emphasizing completion rates on TikTok and the importance of enjoying content creation. The conversation covers her video game development work (NES homebrews) and her deep passion for pinball, tracing her entry into the hobby through bowling alley experiences as a child. Host Jamie discusses tournament pressure in Houston's competitive pinball scene and how to balance competition with fun through 'side objectives' rather than winning.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] TikTok prioritizes watch-to-completion rate over likes and comments for video circulation — _Jessica explaining TikTok algorithm: 'the biggest metric, more so than likes and comments and follows that they look at for circulating videos, is how many people watch it to completion'_
- [HIGH] Jessica's Foo Fighters pinball video reached 1 million views on TikTok and 250k on Instagram — _Jessica: 'I had a video that I made when Foo Fighters came out... that video got like a million views on tiktok... it hit 250 000 on instagram'_
- [HIGH] Stern Pinball reached out to repost Jessica's Foo Fighters content on their social media — _Jessica: 'stern reached out to me and asked if they could repost it on their social media'_
- [HIGH] Ultraman pinball prices in used market are around $3,500 — _Jessica discussing Ultraman: 'ultramans right now in the used market are going for like 3 500 bucks'_
- [HIGH] Spooky Pinball made significant code improvements to Ultraman post-release — _Jessica: 'If you haven't played an Ultraman since release, it's a different game now. It's incredible... the last couple years, the updates have been coming fast, and they've been good and they've been interesting'_

### Notable Quotes

> "Cut out any pauses. Don't pause for effect. If you're not talking, cut it out. Just quick."
> — **Jessica Bay (Pirate Princess Jessica)**, ~5:30
> _Core TikTok editing philosophy explaining platform's fast-paced content demands_

> "I put a dollar into Lost World Jurassic Park, and I think something inside my brain changed."
> — **Jessica Bay**, ~35:00
> _Pivotal moment describing her entry into pinball at bowling alley as a child_

> "It's like a drug. Oh, it really is. It's like a big dopamine rush that you want to win so bad."
> — **Jessica Bay**, ~48:00
> _Describing competitive pinball addiction and burnout cycle_

> "Instead of trying to win, is I try to see... my side goal that I set for myself when I play that machine... is to get that quick re-lock."
> — **Jessica Bay**, ~50:00
> _Introduces 'side quests' concept as solution to competitive burnout in pinball_

> "The code wasn't there. The code is there. If you haven't played an Ultraman since release, it's a different game now."
> — **Jessica Bay**, ~1:03:00
> _Demonstrates Spooky's code update transformation of Ultraman's reputation_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Pirate Princess Jessica (Jessica Bay) | person | Content creator on TikTok (225k followers), Instagram, YouTube; video game developer (NES homebrew games); pinball enthusiast and player; recently moved from Columbia, SC to North Carolina |
| Jamie Burchill | person | Host of JBS Show; pinball player competing in Houston Arcade Expo tournaments; struggles with balancing competitive mindset with fun in pinball |
| Retro Ralph (Ralph) | person | Pinball content creator and co-host with Jamie on roundtable discussions; working with Jamie to reduce competitive pressure in 2026 |
| Foo Fighters | game | Stern Pinball machine; Jessica created viral video about its narrative gameplay (1M+ TikTok views, 250k Instagram); features story about UFO hunters traveling in a van |
| Ultraman | game | Spooky Pinball machine; Jessica's favorite pinball game; initially poorly received at launch; significant post-release code improvements; currently $3,500+ in used market |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Ultraman; known for continuous post-release code updates improving gameplay experience |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer; reached out to Jessica to repost her Foo Fighters content on their social media |
| Lost World Jurassic Park | game | Pinball machine that inspired Jessica's childhood entry into pinball at bowling alley; played at her mother's bowling league venue |
| Wormhole | organization | Pinball arcade venue where Jamie previously worked; had Ultraman in rotation; Jamie had to leave and start JBS Show, losing content ownership |
| Houston Arcade Expo | event | Upcoming pinball expo featuring musician Bow Wow Wow and DJ Scott Denise; described as 'one of the best parties of an expo' |
| Week of Whoppers | event | Tournament series in Houston leading up to Space City Open; multiple tournaments every night of the week; highly competitive pinball tournament circuit |
| Space City Open | event | Major pinball tournament in Houston that follows the Week of Whoppers tournament series |
| Poison Girl | organization | Bar in Houston hosting pinball tournaments; hosted 66-68 players at recent Week of Whoppers event |
| Undercover Shot | game | NES homebrew light gun game developed by Jessica; released 2025; social deduction multiplayer game; physical copies sold out |
| Mothorn | game | NES homebrew Mega Man-style platformer; recent Kickstarter release; Castlevania-inspired |
| Black Rose | game | Pinball machine that Jessica purchased broken for $1,500 and restored during pandemic; her first owned pinball machine |
| Alien Deluxe Edition | game | Pinball machine that Jessica traded for; not enjoyable enough to keep as home machine |
| Doctor Who | game | Pinball machine at Firefly arcade in Columbia, SC; Jessica uses as example for setting side objectives during tournament play |
| Scott Denise | person | Pinball designer and DJ; performing at Houston Arcade Expo Saturday night |
| Bow Wow Wow | person | Musician performing at Houston Arcade Expo; known for song 'I Want Candy' |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Social media content strategy and platform optimization, Pinball culture and community engagement, Pinball tournament competition and burnout management
- **Secondary:** Video game development (NES homebrews), Spooky Pinball's post-release code updates, Pinball machine pricing and market trends, Houston pinball tournament circuit and growth
- **Mentioned:** Retro gaming and emulation communities

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Conversation is upbeat and enthusiastic. Jessica expresses genuine passion for pinball and content creation. Jamie discusses tournament stress but frames it as something he's working on with optimism. Both speakers engage constructively on managing competition vs. fun. Minor frustration about pinball market perception ('they still make these?') balanced by enthusiasm for the hobby's growth and community.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Houston pinball tournament circuit showing significant growth; Week of Whoppers series drawing 66-68 players per event at local bars; multiple nightly tournaments building towards Space City Open (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'We had 68 people at a bar called Poison Girl... 66 people were there last night playing pinball... A tremendous growth in Houston pinball'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Mainstream perception barrier to pinball growth: 'they still make these?' sentiment persists across both pinball and NES homebrew communities; novelty factor drives viral spikes but represents adoption ceiling (confidence: high) — Jessica: 'There's a large portion of the population that goes, pinball? That still exists?' and Jessica on NES: 'I cannot believe they still make these games... Just like people would be when they say about pinball'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Jessica's viral Foo Fighters pinball video (1M TikTok, 250k Instagram) demonstrates broad mainstream interest in pinball narrative/storytelling when framed accessibly; Stern's official repost validates narrative-driven content as marketing strategy (confidence: high) — Jessica: video reached million views on TikTok, 250k on Instagram; Stern reached out to repost; averages only 10-50k on typical pinball content but narrative-focused Foo Fighters exceptional
- **[community_signal]** Competitive pinball tournament players (Jamie, Retro Ralph) actively managing burnout through intentional mindset shifts; 'side quests' (sub-objectives unrelated to winning) emerging as burnout mitigation strategy (confidence: high) — Jessica and Jamie discussing competitive pressure; Jessica: strategy of setting machine-specific sub-objectives like getting 'quick re-lock' on Doctor Who instead of winning; Jamie: 'Me and him are making a decision to not take it so seriously in 2026'
- **[content_signal]** Narrative framing of pinball games (story modes, campaign structure) as viral content hook; Jessica's Foo Fighters success attributable to positioning game as story-driven experience rather than mechanical gameplay (confidence: medium) — Jessica: video focused on 'there's a story on a lot of modern pinball machines... on Foo Fighters they've got this cool narrative with the van and they're driving around the States fighting the alien overlord' received exceptional viral engagement
- **[market_signal]** Ultraman despite initial poor reception now commands $3,500+ in used market due to code quality improvements; indicates Spooky's post-release support model successfully rehabilitates game reputation (confidence: high) — Jessica: 'ultramans right now in the used market are going for like 3 500 bucks... people are, because Spooky has done such a good job with that game's code'
- **[community_signal]** Jessica transitioned from arcade venue (Wormhole) employment to independent content creation (JBS Show) requiring complete restart of audience/content ownership; illustrates content creator risk in venue-dependent platforms (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'I was at a place called the wormhole and then uh I left and then started the jbs show and had to kind of like start over because I didn't own that content'
- **[technology_signal]** Content creators shifting away from TikTok optimization due to platform instability and algorithmic silos; Instagram Reels and YouTube emerging as primary platforms for pinball content despite smaller audiences (confidence: high) — Jessica: 'I've been caring about tiktok less lately as a platform just because... it's getting banned every two months... I've kind of stopped eding for tiktok and i instead edit for instagram and for youtube'
- **[product_strategy]** Spooky Pinball's sustained post-release code updates to Ultraman have fundamentally transformed player perception and game quality; new quality-of-life features and complex game modes (Naranga kaiju mode) justify secondary market premium prices (confidence: high) — Jessica: 'The code wasn't there... If you haven't played an Ultraman since release, it's a different game now. It's incredible... the last couple years, the updates have been coming fast, and they've been good'

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## Transcript

 🎵 Hello and welcome to another edition of the JBS show. And today I'm so excited to be joined by pirate princess Jessica. Jessica Bay, how are you? Thank you so much for joining the JBS show. This is so fantastic. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm doing well. And yeah, I'm happy to be here. We were going to record last week, but you were sick. You got really sick, though. Yeah, last week was crazy because my work got insane and I got sick in the middle of it. But thankfully I've had enough time to recover physically and also catch up on work. I'm going to put the dog away. Look at her. Come here, Bagel. Bagel, come here. Come here. Hi, Bagel. Can I see Bagel? Yeah, come here. I'm going to bring her. Okay, she's a gold. She's supposed to be. Come here. Come on up. Well, I'll just put the camera down. There she is. Oh, my gosh. She's precious. She is a good. She knows she's good looking, so that's the problem with her. So she gets away with murder in this house. And because my wife and I are empty nesters, Jess, that it's just like, but she's pissing me off and I'm going to go get her. Hold on. I'm so sorry. No worries at all. We let our children name the dogs. And so Bagel and then before that was Turtle. We had a dog named Turtle. Those are good dog names, though. They're good dog names. They're fun. I like that a lot. So do I call you Pirate or do I just call you Jess? Just Jess is fine. Jess is fine, yeah. So when did you start posting on social media? When did you start your social media journey? Because anyone doesn't know, it's Pirate Princess Jessica on both TikTok and Instagram, right? Yeah. On Instagram, it's just Pirate Princess Jess. Okay. That was the original. And then after I started posting, that got taken everywhere by other people. And so I've had to kind of pivot to Pirate Princess Jessica, which is funny because I only chose that name because I liked the alliteration into a rhyme. And now it's kind of gone. But, you know, I started posting in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown. I ordered a book on Amazon and they sent me a tripod and a ring light instead. And I was like, oh, what do I do with this? And one of my roommates was like, oh, you should make TikToks. And I was like, all right, yeah, sure, we'll do that. And then I did that, and it just kind of went from there. That's bananas. It's like the universe sent you a tripod. That's crazy, though. So I need some help, okay? Because you have a ridiculous amount of followers, right? So you're going to give me some tips as someone that I started podcasting and streaming in 2020. But I'm kind of new just to the whole TikTok. I suck at TikTok. I'm more Instagram and YouTube shorts. That's where I'm getting my audience. Okay. Yeah, I love TikTok. It's a hard platform to crack because the attention span on TikTok is tiny. And the biggest metric, more so than likes and comments and follows that they look at for circulating videos, is how many people watch it to completion. And so for TikTok, you have to edit like an insane person. Cut out any pauses. Don't pause for effect. If you're not talking, cut it out. Just quick. I don't know if I have that in me. I'm going to be honest. I hate it. YouTube and Instagram, I love so much more because for TikTok, it's like if you want to just say something, you have to speak fast. You have to cut out your breaths. You have to get to the point, cut out a lot of the flowery. I mean, flowery language is fun as long as it's fun and entertaining. Okay. But like once you say what you want to say, you end the video. There's so many bits. And I think this is a generational difference thing. but like i i love a good drawn out bit and a good long joke yeah and there's so much stuff that i film and then end up just cutting out because i'm like it's unnecessary to the to the runtime of the video um i have actually been caring about tiktok less lately as a platform just because i don't know it's getting banned every two months and it's not getting banned and there's it's just a weird platform anyway so i've kind of stopped uh editing for tiktok and i instead edit for instagram and for youtube and that's been better i've only been on youtube for i think about seven months now and that's a harder nut to crack than okay tiktok oh really yeah you know i i had to start over i was at a place called the wormhole and then uh i left and then started the jbs show and had to kind of like start over because i didn't own that content and it's been a grind but you know what i'm really finding that people like is me just coming up and talking to them on facebook and instagram and just saying hey what do you you know a pinball related topic if so of such and people really like it i don't know i i don't know how good i am at it but i'm enjoying it I enjoy it. You seem pretty good at it to me. Oh, gosh. So what – well, you know, I'm not there yet. I'm trying to find my voice. Like I'm a recruiter and I teach that to my recruiters. I'm trying to find out what my voice is, and I just like talking and giving like a daily blog almost. And I love podcasting. That's my absolute favorite thing. I love talking with people. You know, the roundtable that we do with Ralph and Kale, that's just – it's just my favorite. I'm having a blast. Yeah, yeah. And see, that right there, I think, is the key to success, is having fun with it. Okay. Because it's not sustainable otherwise, right? Because I've been doing this for five years now, going on six years, and I'm not the most successful person that I've met who does this, but the people that succeed are the ones who love what they're doing. The second people start not enjoying the content they're making, They burn themselves out, and then they either stop making good content and people stop watching it, or they just kind of disappear off the face of the earth. And so right there, you're having fun with the round table. Okay. That's what's going to make it. I'm just going to keep going. All right. So let's talk. People are here for pinball and video games. Social media. You can get that elsewhere. But I needed it, people. I needed advice, okay? I need help. So video games or pinball, what do you prefer? And what gets the most views, too? Got to be video games, right? So video games get consistent views for me. Pinball, when it does well, does really well. Because people like, I mean, you're in pinball, you know this. There's a large portion of the population that goes, pinball? That still exists? I know. It drives us crazy. I just hate the flippers. Yeah. They're still making them. That's the one that gets me, right? They're still making them? They're still making those machines? There's more to it than just hitting the buttons. I just like to hit the buttons. Everyone says that. That's what we get. That's the barrier for Stern and for all the other companies. But we can talk about that later. Just what you said is they're still making those? Yeah, it's brutal. Right? But so then when I talk about pinball, it either gets no views at all or people see it and there's like a novelty to it and they become fascinated and it goes crazy viral. I had a video that I made when Foo Fighters came out where I talked about how there's a story on a lot of modern pinball machines. It's not just game modes. There's at least a little bit of a narrative thread. And I talked a little bit about how in Alien you play through the Alien movie and that on Foo Fighters they've got this cool narrative with the van and they're driving around the States fighting the alien overlord. and it's a really simple plot but it's it's fun and it's goofy and it's saturday morning cartoon like and that video got like a million views on tiktok really stern reached out to me and asked if they could repost it on their social media um i think it hit 250 000 on instagram and it's like my my content does not do those numbers right i have 225 000 on tiktok but i average way fewer reviews than that on TikTok because TikTok silos content based on interest and I have a wide net of interests so when I talk about Godzilla typically only the people who followed me for Godzilla stuff see it and people who followed me for game dev stuff don't see that um so I talk about pinball it usually only shows it to the pinball people so I average between like 10,000 and 50,000 views on a video after it's had a couple weeks of circulation which is still great Like those numbers, my brain can't process that. But for something to get a million or even 100,000, that's like a holy shit moment for me. And pinball, like gaming content gets consistent views. Pinball content, when it gets views, it gets like big views. So you say which one gets better or more. Yeah. What a great concept, though, to introduce people that Foo Fighters is a story. That what a Foo Fighter is, is a UFO hunter. and it's campy but cool. That's neat. That's really cool. I love everything about that machine aesthetically, and I think it's hilarious that it came out so close to Scooby-Doo, which is also ostensibly a group of people traveling around in a van to different parts of the country. They're doing different things. Yeah, it felt like Ants and a Bug's Life coming out at the same time. Oh, gosh, what is it, 2002? too i liked i liked ants me too better than bugs yeah i liked it too because my kids were you know your age so i had to watch this crap and uh the julie leeway drive is one that made me laugh man i i got a kick out of that one more anyway it's a good movie all right so what type of video games though let's talk video games for a second well i like retro games i like uh i i have my my nintendo over here to the right of me my my old school nes oh my god and i have this is going to be a really niche one i collect nes games that came out after the life cycle of the nes was over right so there's So once everyone jumped to Sega and went to PlayStation, you were – So this is – all right, let me hear some of these. Yeah, because so this one I just got in the mail the other day from a Kickstarter. It's called Mothorn. This came out basically last month. It's a Castlevania-style – or actually probably closer to a Mega Man-style platformer. They're still making those? I'm kidding. Yeah. I had to do it. They're still making them? I had to do it, right? It was a perfect opening. I had to do it. You joke, but this is my other hobby where people go, they still make those? Yeah, has to be. Because, like, it's – and in case there's any confusion about what I'm talking about, it is a Nintendo cartridge, right? So this is an actual – Oh, my God. It's an NES cartridge that was printed and released this year. and this is what I've been into for the last couple of years is just following the development cycle of these because the dev community behind these kinds of games are just incredible and they don't do things that you couldn't do on an original Nintendo there's nothing special it's only 16-bit 8-bit so it's only 16-bits, there's only so much they could do right? 8-bits actually Oh, it's eight. But the amount of things that people have been able to push this console to do, like the original NES through years and years of learning and optimizing and trying new things. You're totally right. And then also modern game design philosophy with old school video games. Oh, I think I might have lost you again. No, I'm here. Oh, okay. It's eight, but you're totally right because the Sega was 16, and then Sega came out with the Sega 32. You're right. Totally wrong, Jamie. They fit. That's crazy. I love these kinds of things. I made one, too. This is my game that I put out. I released this earlier this year. It's called Undercover Shot. What's it called? It's called Undercover Shot. It's a light gun game, so you do have to have a CRT if you want to play it. The physical copies are sold out, so I can't be like, hey, go to Homebrew Factory and buy my game right now because they've all sold. I have no more copies to sell. I am looking at trying to see if I can get another physical run, but selling out a single run of an NES game in 2025 is – there's not a huge market for these things, so I'm not going to push my luck. It's a fun game. It's a little social deduction game, so you have four characters on the screen. One person is controlling them with a controller, and the other person has the light gun sapper. And it's trying to guess which of the four characters you're playing as to shoot them. It's because I was trying to get that like very fast multiplayer that NES games have just like press start, pick it up, two people play a game and go. And I think it worked out really well. We brought it to a bar back in Columbia before I moved. Columbia, South Carolina, not the country. and it did very well there they had a little prison CRT one of the transparent ones just set up on there people turned it into a drinking game having fun playing and it worked well, people liked it and so I kind of took that concept and ran with it but that's the kind of games that I've been playing lately I cannot believe they still make these games I am so blown away just like people would be when they say about pinball, but NES was such an incredible console, right? Because, you know, as a kid, we went from Atari, which is garbage, right? The Donkey Kong on Atari was garbage. The Pac-Man on Atari was garbage. It was all terrible. And then, you know, we start fooling around with Commodore 64. You're too young. But, you know, we're messing around. Do you really? Yeah, I wasn't kidding. Before we started recording, I said we probably played the same era of video games. This is, I love this stuff. Oh, wow. And I'm trying to convince a friend to sell me a Vectrex, if you remember the Vectrex. Yes, absolutely. Yep, yeah. I want to make a game for the Vectrex so badly, but I need to have a Vectrex. I can't believe that there's that many Vectrexes out there. Oh, there's not a ton. No. There's a person out there who put out instructions on how to take an oscilloscope and convert it into a Vectrex. And so if I can't get my hands on a real one, I might do that. But that thing is so cool. This is so cool. This is amazing. Yeah, I was a big-time gamer, you know, and I grew up in Long Island, New York. And, you know, during the winter, we played games and went outside too. So we just played the shit out of them. And so many great games on the Commodore 64. I was doing basic code at 12, 13 years old. and just learning how I did a really great GoSub video, not video, application for states games. And you would do the state. It would give you the first iteration was state capitals. And then we were fooling around with state flowers and this sort of thing. But I never did anything with that. It was just fun. It was just learning how to code in BASIC as a 12-year-old, you know. Yeah, there are rules. I'm going to let my cat out of the room for a second. Go ahead. We're having animal issues here today, ladies and gentlemen. We'll shake through it. I would try to pick her up to show her to you, but she does not like to be picked up, and I value my survival. There you go. She could murder me. Yeah, you don't need to deal with that. Bagel wouldn't hurt a fly, so she's just useless. I really would very intentionally hurt a fly. I love cats, but I don't mess with cats when they don't want to be messed with. So the obligatory when did you get into pinball question has to come out, right? So how does a video gamer, how does a gamer get into the world of pinball? So when I was a kid, my mom bowled a lot, like bowling alleys. Really? Yeah, she went to bowling league every Tuesday and Thursday. and they had a daycare at the bowling alley that I absolutely hated. And I could not tell you why I hated it. You know how sometimes kids just are like, I don't like that thing and there's nothing wrong with it per se? For whatever reason, I didn't like that thing. I didn't like that bowling alley. Yeah, I hated camp as a kid and I don't know why. It was fun. It was maybe too much kumbaya, but there was nothing wrong with that camp. But I can't put my reason why I didn't like Camp Bernie. I just have no idea. Exactly. And like I don't know why I didn't like the daycare at the bowling league, but my mom would go to bowling alley and she didn't want to like leave me at home and didn't want to pay for or couldn't pay for a babysitter. And the daycare there was like $10 or something like that. And I would be like I don want to go to daycare I don want to go to daycare And so I would sit with my mom while she bowls And then I get tired and fussy And you know how kids are Because again I was like elementary school age And one day my mom was just like, I can't deal with this right now. Because you know how parents are. Overwhelmed. They're working all the time. Bowling was like her one out. She was trying to bowl. Yeah. She let me not go to the daycare. But I was getting fussy and bored. And she was like, here's some quarters. Go play that pinball machine over there, thinking that she would get, like, probably 10 seconds of free time from me. And I was just enamored. It was a – the bowling alley had a space station and Lost World Jurassic Park. And I put a dollar into Lost World Jurassic Park, and I think something inside my brain changed. Um, and I, my new goal in life was to get good enough at pinball that that like $10 she would have spent on daycare could keep me occupied for like the two hours she was at bowling league. And, you know, I would play sometimes you get free games off the match, so it'd be longer. Uh, at first I was not good enough to last two hours off of $10, uh, in, in tokens and quarters. But I got there. I ended up meeting some of the other people who were playing pinball there. These adults being like, hey, is it OK if I play a two player game with your kid? She's really into pinball. And I'd be like, please, mom. I would be like, OK, I'm going to watch like a hawk to make sure you're not about to get kidnapped. But sure, play pinball with this stranger. Because like I'm I'm 31. So I'm kind of young enough to have missed that arcade culture of playing games against people that you don't know and fighting over high scores and things. But in a way, I sort of experienced that with these two pinball machines at this bowling alley. And then they eventually got a third game that they kept cycling out, and so I got to experience other pinball machines. But it just, I don't know, I was just addicted from that young age. I was like, this is so much better than any video game I've ever played. This is better than any sport I've ever played. It's kind of a sport and a video game and also its own unique thing. And I just, I loved it so much. And then, of course, the new problem for my parents was anytime that there was a pinball machine anywhere, it was, Mom, I want to play that. I've never seen Pirates of the Caribbean machine before. That kind of thing. did you do you play locally anywhere right now do you go out and play yeah so i just moved um i just moved from columbia south carolina and the place that i'm at now uh i'm in north carolina i haven't gotten into any leagues anywhere um because i don't know i like a pinball league it's like a social thing i'm not a very competitive person so the competitive aspect of the pinball league, I could take or leave. So the social aspect could be really fun, though. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I am too competitive. And it's hurting my pinball. I come in with unrealistic expectations. I want to have the best time. We had a tournament. This is an interesting time in Houston right now. We have something called the Houston Arcade Expo coming up. And so the Houston Arcade Expo is one of the best parties of an expo there is. Okay. It is just pinball. Bow Wow Wow is going to be there this weekend. I mean, I don't know any other songs more than I Love Candy, but I Want Candy. But she might sing it five times. Who cares? I don't care. Like Seal. You know, Seal just sings that Rose song a hundred times. I'm sure Bow Wow Wow is just going to sing this five times. And then Scott Danesi, who's a great pinball designer, is also a hell of a DJ. He's going to be there Saturday night rocking the place. So it's just a party, right? Yeah. But coming up to this week, we have something called the Week of Whoppers. And I don't know what Whopper stands for, but it's some kind of pinball point system, some crap. I don't know. So it started on Saturday, and there's a tournament in Houston every night of the week, Jess, for the entire week leading up to the Space City Open, which is this big tournament. People are doing every single tournament. They're crazy. We had 68 people at a bar called Poison Girl. I have this shirt here. I won this shirt last night. So I think it was 66 people were there last night playing pinball, which is just phenomenal, right? A tremendous growth in Houston pinball. But I'm having a tough time, Jess, measuring fun versus competition. And I need to just do more fun like you're saying, but I'm not doing good at that. I have a tip. I would love to hear it. I went through a period of time where I got really, really competitive with pinball tournaments. The pinball scene in Colombia is great. There are some people there that are really competitive as there are with everything else. Sure. And I had a taste of it. I won one time and I was like, I could get used to winning. And then I got way too into it. Yeah, it's like a drug. Oh, it really is. It's like a big dopamine rush that you want to win so bad. And especially if you're playing a machine that you know and you've played it 100 times and you suck on it, like I did last night, it just pisses you off. But I'm trying. I'm working with my buddy Ralph, right? And Retro Ralph, shout out. Me and him are making a decision to not take it so seriously in 2026 and just go and be part of the community and just enjoy it. and not give a shit about Whoppers. That's good. But a good way to be able to still go to tournaments and not get competitive is to give yourself side objectives that you're not competing against anyone else on. Like, there's, oh gosh, Firefly Columbia, South Carolina has a Doctor Who, which is just a spectacular machine if you mute it. I cannot hear that Dalek scream. one more time. It's a little brutal. And like my side goal that I set for myself when I play that machine, instead of trying to win, is I try to see you know the multiball in that game it's got the time expander, you lock the two balls in and then the thing comes up and then when you're done it drops the two balls out and you have the quick re-lock? That's my goal in that game, is to get that quick re-lock. Forget winning. I will play the game like normal. I'm not going to fail the multiball on purpose. But if I can get that quick, like, just relock the balls, restart the multiball thing, that's my objective for that machine. I'm not trying to go for a high score. I'm not trying to beat other people. I'm just trying to see if I can do that. And because there's something to aim for where I'm still playing the game, so I'm not, like, giving a free win, you can still do that and win the match. But if my objective is to get my little sub-objective on every other pinball machine, instead I'm just having fun with the game. I'm playing the game itself instead of playing against the people around me and I'm just socializing with the people around me. And that's kind of what helped me break out of my habit of being like too competitive with pinball because I got very competitive and found myself not having fun. No, it's an ass chap. It really gets me and I'm really working on it. It's something I'm really working on. Me and Ralph together, we call each other and we'll talk each other through tournaments and such and it's absolutely hilarious but uh okay side quests is what you're saying take some side quests pinball side quests show up have fun don't throw the game right i mean still compete still have fun still do your best but if your goal goes from oh i want to win to oh i want to experience something on the table that i haven't experienced before or try another mode then even when you don't win like even when you don't hit your objective that's something to shoot for on that machine and you're getting closer and closer to it like uh this game here ultraman this is my favorite pinball machine of all time i know that's a hot take um i love this game so much uh you love godzilla that much godzilla's good but ultraman ultraman's the one you like ultraman more than godzilla i like ultraman more than godzilla i okay this is a take we have to talk about because ultramans right now in the used market are going for like 3 500 bucks yeah Yeah, it's brutal. The market is really against you there. Hey, I will say the market might be against me, but that means if you are looking for a good machine on the cheap right now, Ultraman. But people are, because Spooky has done such a good job with that game's code. When it came out, I understand the hate that it got. I personally, I love the layout and I love the theme. I'm a huge Ultraman fan. I think I have like 12 different Ultraman seasons on Blu-ray. I cannot stop watching the shows. I get why people didn't like it when it came out. I still liked it because at the end of the day, I like a good layout. I'll just sit there and flow. But the code wasn't there, right? We'll be honest. The code wasn't there. The code is there. If you haven't played an Ultraman since release, it's a different game now. It's incredible. It's so much fun. It got discounted so quickly, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, because people were down on it. And Ultraman had the issue of trying something new, right? It has those subways that take the ball up to the inlanes. And so people, you play it once, you lose because you don't expect the ball to come out at your in lane and your reflexes on it are bad. And even when that's not happening, the code's not very good. So you're not having fun. So you don't try it again. And that is a bad experience. It sucks. And so if you go and play one on location, you would go, I'm never playing this game again. This is terrible. Um, meanwhile, Spooky is sitting there and they're updating the code and they're updating the code. And there was like a period of time where the update, there was like a long time between updates. And I've been told by people on Pinside that there was some internal drama, but Pinside likes to exaggerate everything. So I'm not gonna pretend like I know what was happening there. the last couple years, the updates have been coming fast, and they've been good and they've been interesting and they've been unique and it's small things some quality of life things, they added a mode you can turn on where the flipper shakes before it puts the ball up from that little elevator into your in lane so that way if you're not used to how the game works it kind of just reminds you, it goes, hey the pinball's going to be right here which is good for newer players but they've also added some really like just incredible and very complex game modes that I just really like. The Naranga game mode. Naranga is a kaiju from Ultraman that turns invisible and eats electricity. They've added a game mode where each of your shots becomes a different power plant, and you have to shoot the shots to keep the power up on those power plants and try to figure out which one Naranga is hiding at by the way that the light flickers, And you shoot the shot that has Naranga, and then you get to the top of the three-layer playfield to actually fight Naranga and do damage to him while trying to balance your power stations so you don't lose any of them. And it's just a lot going on at once, and it's very fun, and it's a very bold game mode that has just, like, you're keeping track of the ball like you are in anything. You're keeping track of Naranga and where he is. You're trying to power up your other power stations. You're trying to make sure that you can bring back online the ones that failed by using your science patrol assist shots. You know everything about Ultraman. I used to own an Ultraman. Yeah. The only reason I sold it. We had an Ultraman at the wormhole, and it just – why did you sell it? Because I had to move. Oh, yeah. Moving sucks. I had a really cushy setup for a few years. A friend of mine bought a house that was way too big for him. and so he uh rented a room out to my girlfriend and i and then he realized that he just wanted to stay in his bedroom and play video games all the time and so we he was like yeah just you guys use the rest of the house i'm not going to put any furniture in there i don't i don't really care and so i was like that means i have space for a pinball machine for the first time in my life and well I didn't have room for it but I had a Black Rose that I bought in my tiny apartment and fixed up over the pandemic I bought a broken Black Rose for like $1500 and you fixed it? oh yeah Black Rose is so great oh it's such a good game and so that was technically my first game and I fixed it and traded it around and then fix it, get it working trade it for Broken Machine of slightly higher value, get that working trade, that whole shebang. And I ended up with an Alien Deluxe Edition, which is a fun game, but it was not, it wasn't one that I was enjoying enough to have be the game in my home. And so I traded that for two games, and then I started trading those up again. And the long and short of it is when I moved into this house, I had room for two games, which meant I was trading things around, and I ended up with an Ultraman because it was dirt cheap. And I was like, I'm a huge fan of Ultraman. I know people say this game is bad. I remembered not liking it the first time I played it, but I'm going to give it another try. And I got it right out of the box. Everything was broken. I traded brand new. I think it was my Johnny Mnemonic that I traded for it. I traded a Johnny Mnemonic. That game rules. That game is fantastic. One of the worst movie, great pen combinations. I have this joke where I go, shitty pen, great movie. Johnny Mnemonic's got to be up there, right? Yeah, Johnny Mnemonic is. And you traded it. And I traded it for a new in-box Ultraman Collector's Edition, which the Johnny I got pretty cheap because it was missing a ramp, but I was working at Marco at the time, and I was like, they have one ramp in stock. I can just buy it right now and then it's no longer missing a ramp. And then the hands were broken, the ones that grab the ball. The hands are always broken. The hands are always broken, Jess. This is the problem with that damn machine. It's such an easy fix. It just requires you to take some things apart, which I think people are afraid of. but it's if you don't know how to fix them there's so many guides on fixing them it's so much easier than you realize if somebody's trying to sell you a Johnny Mnemonic with broken hands and you have any ability to take something apart and put it back together it's so much easier to fix than people want you to believe get yourself a Johnny Mnemonic on the cheap great game that's a good tip she's full of them today people might not like that one I had no it's a good take Steve from Marco, Steve Midge, argued with me. He was like, that is not an easy fix. What are you talking about? And I was like, it just took me a couple hours. It's fine. We have different definitions of easy, I think. I keep interrupting you. I'm sorry. So Ultraman, you got it cheap. You fixed it up, though, and it was rocking for a while? Yeah. I got it brand new in box, Ultraman Collector's Edition. when I opened it the coin box had fallen back in the play field and unplugged every single wire in the machine and busted a hole out of the back of my game which was a nightmare but Spooky's customer support is it's the only Spooky game I've ever owned I called them in I bought it not from a distributor but from somebody who bought it brand new and decided they didn't want it and just sat on it and let the value go down for some reason um and i called spooky support they didn't make any money off of me i didn't buy the game directly from them and they still walked me through the very long process of fixing every single wire under that machine and i got it and i updated everything and i had so much fun with that game it's so good in its current state uh the light show is incredible The modding community for that game is huge. There's the big, like, the third, it's got that three-level play field, and the third level has that big just, like, piece where there's, like, a bridge and a ramp, and it's just metal. People have created a really cool, there's a person out there whose name I cannot remember, but he's on Pinside, and he sells it. And it's just this beautiful sculpted piece of scenery where it's, like, a destroyed subway that fits over that without affecting the functionality of it. Somebody else has created some gorgeous decals for the ramps, and it really just kind of comes together and makes it look super nice. I'm not usually a huge fan of aftermarket mods for pinball machines. I think a lot of them are very tacky. But the community that likes this machine loves it so much that the things they've made for it look like they are part of the machine. Like, if you told me to stalk with them, I would believe it. And, like, it's not an easy game, right? Which is why, again, I think if you were looking for a home game, getting one of these on the cheap is great. Because it's a game that's going to take you a long time to learn and a long time to beat. But all of the game modes are unique. They're fun. I mean, the music is just incredible. If you like Ultraman at all or you like any kaiju media it clearly a love letter to that franchise at least in its current state And I know people don like it I think people complaints especially if you played it when it first came out are super valid But I think people are going to start to realize that Ultraman, it's good now. It's just software updates, but they're really good updates. You heard it here first. Jess gives a thumbs up for it. She says, go buy it. She says you're going to make money on it because you can get it for $3,500. I think you probably will. I think they will probably go up in price. Don't buy pinball machines to make money. Buy pinball machines if you want to play. But I do think if you are interested in Ultraman, I think eventually – because all it takes is one pinball streamer that plays it and shows how good the game currently is. I mean, I know Bug from Spooky plays it all the time, but he works for Spooky. Yeah. You need somebody who's unbiased to play it. I actually think if the game sucked, Bug would probably say so, despite the fact that he works for Spooky. But somebody that is viewed as unbiased playing it and showing how much fun that machine actually is, and people will go, oh, wait a second, hold on. Why did we all sleep on this game? Yeah. You know, I do enjoy it. I like Halloween as well. I do like playing Halloween because I like the layout because I got so used to playing Ultraman that when I first stepped up to Halloween, I was like, well, I'm going to do the Ultraman things, and I should be okay, and I was fine on the tournament. But I don't enjoy playing Halloween as much. I don't go back to Halloween as many times as I did go to Ultraman, so there's something to that. Yeah. Something about the theme of Ultraman will always grab me. Did you get rid of it? yeah so i i sold it to uh my friend josh who owns transmission arcade in columbia south carolina um because i i mentioned him that i was moving and he was like hey if you need to sell your games like let me know uh and i was like well i have buyers for my revenge from mars and my houdini but i was i i will give you a deal on ultraman so it's in a public place where people can play it and give this game another chance. You are a shill for Ultraman, and I love it. I love that you did that. That is fantastic. So can people still go and play it? Yeah. I don't think it's currently at Transmission. Transmission routes their games all around town. Last time I heard, it was at a game store called The Games Block in Columbia, South Carolina, which is very funny because the owner of The Games Block are actually friends of mine, and I was laughing when I saw them post on Facebook that they were excited to have Transmission putting Ultraman in their store. Because I was like, oh, oh my God, that was my game. Like I used to own that machine and it's in their store. You can go play it right now. My high score is still on that machine as the Grand Champion high score because it is a hard game. Yeah, I did have it in my house for a year and a half. so if you if you think you're better than me at pinball you can go and try and realize that i am extremely good at pinball as long as we are only talking about ultraman there you go houdini you got rid of houdini as well houdini is a hidden gem isn't it yeah so i i'm an american pinball apologist uh i've been told that's my worst trait um so you're excited about the seventh one coming out that won't be Cuphead? I am excited about not Cuphead. I'm sad it's not Cuphead. I like Cuphead as a theme idea quite a bit. But I don't think American people... They were doing some wild things with Cuphead. I got to see pictures of it. Yeah, I did too. It's really cool. I don't want to break the trust of the person who showed me things. I don't want to break it either. I'm not going to do it either. But there was some really neat stuff, right? But I understand there was a a dice mechanism that I think I could talk about that. Can we talk about the dice mechanism? Cause it's cool. It's pretty cool. Isn't it? That it could read the, that it, you know, that game boggle, you know, that you play, it's kind of like a boggle thing that they had designed where then it would read the die. I, uh, I think if American pinball is smart, they're going to keep that layout and just retheme it. Cause it's, it's such a cool layout. It is. It is. It has a lot of, you know, well, everyone's seen the pictures. It's been out there. I mean, Canada posted it. Well, Canada posted a bunch. Oh, that makes sense. I mean, you know, it does, right? As long as we're not the ones spoiling it. We're not the ones that did it, but it did have, like, an ode to fishtails. Did you see that, like, right up the middle? It had, like, a little fishtails thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? So that was kind of cool. But, you know, I don't know. When I first started playing pinball, one of my friends would rotate a bunch of his machines. He didn't have room, so he put one or two in my house. And I just started playing pinball in 2020, and now I've got Houdini. You know, 2019, really. And now I've got Houdini as one of my first games in my house, and I hated it. No. I hated it. It sounds like you came around on it, though, because you said it was a hit and run a second ago. Because what happened was I got rid of the quick. It was the quickest game that I rotated out of my house besides Shrek. I couldn't stand Shrek. I couldn't stand the call-outs from Shrek. It was just effing ridiculous. So I got that the hell out of there quickly, and American Pinball's Houdini. Years later, I started playing Houdini again, and my skills are better. it's just a very hard game right but if you learn the code and know what to shoot it is well that's with any damn game jamie but specifically with houdini they did some wild stuff there with the ball thrown up into the uh great great game yeah i i love houdini so much um and i i think you're right that it is one of those games that the better you are at pinball the more fun you have with it because there are some games where people will be like oh this is a skill issue and you have to have like a certain level of skill to enjoy um i don't want to be a gatekeepy person and be like you can't have fun with this machine unless you are no that's not what we're saying but you know it is a tough tough game and you know especially the lock shot that's brutal that kicks your ass. And then throwing cards. I can't throw cards. Okay? That's the hardest video mode I've ever played. I cannot hit anything to save my life. I see people throwing cards, and they're getting 200,000, 300,000 points just by they're so good at it, that it pisses me off. And I still can't throw cards. I never choose it. I never choose it. I can wizard mode that game with a fair amount of consistency because, again, I had it for like a year and a half. And I played it, I think, dozens of times a day. I cannot hit anything with cards. People are going to be like, what do you mean you can hit every shot on that table and not hit cards? Yeah, no, it's not just you. I'm not the only one. It's so good that I'm not the only one. I love American Pinball so much. And it always catches me off guard because everything of theirs that I've played, that I've had so much fun with, and then every time I turn around, people are complaining about them online. Well, okay, so Hot Wheels, they should have put in an Indianapolis 500 type of spinner. Okay? Something, remember when the kids played the Hot Wheels, there was always that spinner, and there was always loops, and there's always, you know. Yeah. The fact that they didn't put that in, that's a mess, right? I guess, but it's fun without it. It is fun. It's a tank. Everywhere I hear that Gecko's on location does real well, right? So good game. Yeah. Then what did they put out? They have Oktoberfest, which is a ridiculous game. It's a ridiculous game. But you know what? When you put some time into Oktoberfest, it's pretty darn fun, okay? It's a complicated code. You have to understand that your mugs mean something. When you just walk up and you're just trying to get these damn flasks or whatever the hell they call it, it's just different. Okay. But Galactic Tank Force is a total mess. No, it's so much fun. It's too close. It's just too close to the, the tank is just too close to you. I like that. You do? It changes the entire flow of the game, right? Because there's, I mean, there's only so many shapes a pinball play field can take. and I get not liking it because it is very different but I love how close it is because you can't just beat on the tank the way you would hit any other thing that's in front of you. If you do that yeah you're dead. It presents an entirely new challenge to approaches for shots that are otherwise solved because it's right here down in the middle of the play field and so hitting the tank is different but also hitting things around the tank is different. You have to kind of just take things at different angles. And I thought that was so cool and such a, like a unique and risky thing to do. It just also never worked. Okay. To be truthful. You, you, you would, we had a signature edition at the old joint. All right. Number four. Cool. And here's how they, you know, God bless American pinball, but they sent us, you know, it had a tank. It had the whole tank thing. And we, We got so many boxes full of this tank crap, and we're trying to put it together. I'm with engineers from Barrels of Fun, and we're trying to put this together. And they gave us instructions that were printed up on a laser printer that was out of color ink. So it was all red. Oh, no. You know what I mean? That's just not trying, okay? This is number four off the line. Number four. Yeah, that's pretty bad. It's going to a pretty prominent arcade in Houston, Texas, and you couldn't check the color ink on your laser jet? I mean, on your ink jet? That's pretty bad. And then, you know, we couldn't keep it in a tournament because player four could never lock balls, right? It just could not handle that. So it just could not handle a four-player ball. And even David Fix, like I started talking to David Fix about it So I'm like, he asked, and I can say this, he asked me not to stream it back in the old wormhole days because he's like, it's not going to work because it just didn't work. And, you know, the code wasn't there. Now, I did hear that they updated the code for INDISC and they changed a few things and it did well. That's good. So that's good. But don't send people inkjet, no color ink to figure that out. I can't talk to the only experience of a Galactic Tank Force because I've never owned one. Yeah. And the only times I've seen ones are at conventions and shows and things. But you gravitate towards it. You like it, huh? Yeah. Oh, it's so much fun. I did wonder why there was never any line to play that game. I was like, oh, I can just keep playing DTF. Nobody's waiting for this machine. This is great. The campy acting is fun, okay? I've put hundreds of games on this machine, hundreds. really like three four hundred just jamie because i wanted to love it and i fell in love with the acting but also the code was so bad that there would be like glitches in the cutaway scenes and it would take forever and okay yeah but if i cared about that i wouldn't like ultra man either that's true no ultra man they have fixed both of those but there was a time period when i got ultra man where the overlay had some glitches and sometimes you just can't see your score and All of that has been fixed, but I loved Ultraman through it. I joke because it's my favorite game, but I can ding it a little bit. Did you ever own a Godzilla? No, I didn't. I'm a huge Godzilla fan. I'm wearing a little Godzilla baseball jersey now, and I've got my collection of Godzilla VHS tapes because I refuse to watch things in a convenient way. But I've never owned a Godzilla. my thing with owning a game is I want to own something that I can't go somewhere and play and I can go to any arcade and play Godzilla it's a spectacular game, I have nothing but good things to say about it gorgeous artwork, flows great, amazing code, Elwynn's a genius this is all known I don't need to own one because I can just go anywhere Right. I mean, anywhere you go. My issue with Godzilla and I have a slight issue with it is that I suck at it. And that's a good issue. Right. Like, I really, really suck at that left orbit ramp. Whatever the hell that thing is called. Can't hit it. I I'll tell you what. I cannot. Yeah, I can't hit the I can I can play the pro all day. The premium, I cannot hit the ball lock, the tower to lock my ball. I cannot hit that. It's so much better than the Pro, too. It's so much better than the Pro. All of a sudden, it'll shoot through, come through, and if that magnet doesn't catch it, it goes right down the middle. And sometimes you don't get a ball save. That happened to me last night, by the way, Poison Girl. Not to speak from experience or anything. No, I'm just telling you, this game chaps my ass is what it does. and I just can't get a flow, right? Like it just, you know, there are games that talk to you and there are games that don't talk to you. And this one doesn't speak. And I want to love it so much. It's the most popular game besides, what was it? Adam's Family, probably ever made. Yeah. And I can't play it where it should. I'll tell you, I can play the pro, but I also struggle with that game. It's fun though. Um, I, my thing about Godzilla is it came out at the same time as Rush. And I think Rush is my favorite Stern of all time, which. Really? Yeah, I know. Rush is so hard. I can't play Rush either. There's another one on my list that I suck at. I think, I think John Borg is the best thing that's ever happened to Pinball. I think every game that he's touched is a masterpiece. I'm exaggerating a little bit because it's fun, but I. No. There's something about the games that he makes that just click with me. Like Star Wars, the new one, Fall of the Empire. I've only put like five games on that machine because it's so new. What do you think about it? I love it. Do you really? Because there's a lot of controversy with that game. That was one that I played it, and I was like, oh, this is so much fun. This is so good. Let me see what people are saying about it. and I was surprised, and I had the exact same reaction with Rush. Because, like, people were not super kind to Rush when it first came out. No. I don't know if that opinion has changed. I think it has. The code has definitely gotten better, and it's just a hard game. It's just, it is what it is, okay? It's a hard game. I prefer the premium over the pro there. Yeah, yeah. That one, that is one where the pro was kind of hard to play because that shot just sort of dead ends down without the up kicker. But even the pro is fun. Even the pro, that shot does come back right towards the middle, though. And when I see it going towards the middle, normally I panic, and I don't do a very good job shaking the machine. So that's down the middle. That is one that used to scare the hell out of me, is doing that slap save to stop the ball going down the middle. I know they're so good at it. I think it took me 10 years to properly understand what I was doing. Okay, so I've got a good four years left. And I'll be able to figure it out. I'm not a fast learner. You can beat me. I'm not going to pretend like it should have taken me 10 years to learn that. I think half of your audience hearing that went, 10 years to learn how to slap save? I'm not good at pinball unless I'm playing Ultraman or anything from American Pinball or anything from John Borg. So the art, people really crapped on the art. They said it was samesy. I don't want to hear anyone crapping on pinball art after I saw so many people say that Harry Potter's art was okay. Okay. I don't know. I think people just want to complain about something. I think it looks fine. It's a licensed table. Star Wars has a certain look to it. There's nothing – there's only so much that you can do without – with Disney breathing down your neck. I think the game looks fine. What about the Death Star shot? Because that's hard. They were having some reject issues, but it seems like everything coming out of the line now has got that fixed. Yeah, I think I might have played on one that was, like, just really well locked in or something. Okay. Because I – like, I'm not going to sit there and be like, oh, the Death Star reject issues are a skill issue. Look how good I am. I didn't have any issues with Death Star rejects I've seen gameplay of other people playing it and I've seen shots that should go in get rejected I think the one that we have here near me in North Carolina is just set up really well good but yeah I do feel like that would be very frustrating but like I mean there were reject issues with the scoops on Rush that was causing damage to the scoops and they put out like a a fix for it um and i'm not going to sit there and be like oh just wait for the fish or the fix a ten thousand dollar game should function properly when it comes out right stuff like that where it's like if the excessive rejects are that big of an issue um somebody going to find a fix for it somebody going to create a plastic that funnels the ball incorrectly And that not me defending Stern Stern should have a game that works This is not an excuse But stuff like that, I always just kind of am like, yeah, there's rejects, but as Stern fixes up manufacturing, there will be fewer of those situations, and it sounds like they're kind of already getting there. I think they are. I've played it extensively at Eureka Heights, which is my bar that I go to, and haven't had any issues there. It works really great. It's printing money on location, I'll tell you that. Yeah. It looks like Star Wars. Yeah. It's much better than the 2017. I can tell you that. I like it better than the 2017 version. The 2017 version is too action-button nutty. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't know how to change my people, and I don't know if I should be taking Han or R2-D2. It's just too much for me. Whereas this, I hold the left flipper down. I go around. It starts. I get myself a skill shot, and we're off to the races. Let's go. Yeah, I like the old Star Wars one. I think it's fine. I think this one is exceptional. I think people are going to have – we're going to start seeing people in five years be like, oh, I always liked that machine. Be vocal about it now, darn it. So you brought up the Harry Potter AI art. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was a mess, right? I think they sent it to the wrong printer. Is that what happened or something? They sent the wrong copy, obviously. yeah something i don't know the whole thing is really sketchy because like um who was it that put out that article where the the press kits had different art than was actually on the machine um and the press kits made it look like it was because like i i can't get anyone to send me a press kit um i think barrels of fun and uh multimorphic are the only people that have ever sent me a press kit for any of their games. They should all send you one if you want to. Barrels of Fun and Multimorphic are great companies. Texas-based. There you go. They're good people. I talked with the Multimorphic people a little bit when Princess Bride was coming out. They're just so cool. You can tell that they're so passionate about this thing that they've made. I love Jerry. I love Jerry. Okay. I've had Jerry on multiple times, and I've gotten to meet Jerry. And, you know, what do you think? Will people adopt this platform? Oh, I hope so. Have you got a chance to play any? Have you played the P3? Yeah. So when I worked at Marco, Kyle Kyle Spiteri, who's with Stern now, I believe it was him who had a P3. Somebody had a P3 at that company, and it was at the off-site studio where we did all-hands meetings for a little bit. And so I got to play that while it was there on free play. And no one took advantage of this, but the studio, everyone who works there, you can just go at any time and play pinball machines. And it was two minutes from where I used to live. so sometimes I'd get in my car and just drive over there and just play pinball machines all day on like a Saturday or something never ran into any of my co-workers doing that it was at the point where after like a couple weeks of doing this I was like hey am I like breaking the rules and they're like oh no we all just you know go home on our weekends and I'm like ah you have social lives yeah yeah tell me what that's like and so I played the hell out of the P3 that Kyle had in the studio when I was working at Marco and that game is awesome. It's different. It's very different. It is. It's different. It is different, right, with the flipper feel, the P3 debt bouncing, and the things that you have to do. But I got addicted to Dungeon Door Defender. That's the one that got me. Okay? I couldn't stop playing it. I got completely addicted to it at the wormhole. And then we had a Weird Al at a heist. But Portal, have you played a Portal? I have not played Portal. I have not been in the vicinity of one since Portal came out. You've got to find a place. It's so good. You've got to find a place to play Portal because it's what they do. You know, we talked about American Pinball and some of the ball paths and, you know, the shooting. You should see what they did at Portal. It's bananas. I love watching other people play pinball and I've watched I think every piece of Portal gameplay that somebody's posted on the internet I've watched I'm obsessed I love everything they've done with that machine I think it's so cool I think the callouts on that game are some of the most fun I've heard on a pinball machine it's just spectacular the way they've named all of the things on the play field, like the aerial faith plate. And it's just, I don't know, it's just so good. I don't know anything about Portal. And when Jerry said, come on over and check this out and be part of the launch, I was blown away. I was so excited. But I didn't know anything. So I called my kids. I'm like, talk me through Portal. Let's go. I got them on FaceTime. I go, what the hell is this thing? How do I get through it? And they're like, Dad, it's the best. So they yada, yada, yada. And I really had the best time. And it's gotten better. Oh, man, I want to play that now. Yeah, my finances took a little bit of a hit when I moved across state lines. So I didn't go to like Expo or any big conventions this year. And so there's just like a handful of games that have come out that I just have not seen. and it's at first i was like oh there's all these games out that i haven't played yet but now i'm kind of excited because i mean it's next time i go to a show there's going to be next time you go to a show unfortunately you'll play a winchester and you can't get one but uh and uh you'll play a beetlejuice and we can't get one but uh what do you think about the current landscape all these phenomenal games are coming out right now it's 2025 we're really kind of lucky aren't we yeah i So when I first got into pinball, I was pretty young, and there was just this kind of magic of all of these games that I had never heard of, most of them from movies that I was too young to have known anything about. And then it hit a point where I felt like I had seen and played pretty much every modern game that was out there, and new games came out, and that was exciting. I bet it was like one new game a year, maybe two. now we get so much I know we are so spoiled because right now the games that I'm looking forward to playing I'm excited to play Winchester I'm excited to play I still haven't played Evil Dead which I've heard is just an absolute work of art you need to go on pin maps and get yourself and play Evil Dead I really do that's a no brainer for you there's an Evil Dead within 50 miles of you I guarantee you and go play it Probably right. I just need to actually get out there. Just get out there and go. They knocked it out of the park. Oh, my gosh, yeah. It looks incredible. That's another one that I've watched. Every time Bug has streamed it, I've watched. I think everyone who's played it on YouTube. If you have posted footage of yourself playing Evil Dead, I've watched that video. That's awesome. It's so cool. Predator looks like fun. Predator is fun. I was lucky enough to go to Expo for just a few days, but I got to play Predator right when the door opened. I went right to Predator because I'd already played Winchester a bunch. So I was like, I don't want to wait in line and take somebody's spot who hasn't gotten to play it. And it's better than you think. I don't know. That's not a very good advertisement for it. You know what I mean? people people were weird about alien when it came out well the highway version was all f-ed up right yeah but the pinball brothers version the pinball was great and yeah people were weird about that and i feel like people are being weird about predator in the same way and i loved pinball brothers alien so i know i'm gonna love predator that's another one that i've watched a lot of gameplay footage of i love the predator movies so much i um i don't know if you can see i know i've got a book hanger behind me that has a bunch of predator movie tie-in novels because that's the kind of trash that i like to read oh my god did you watch the new one that just came out oh badlands i have tickets to see it later this week i'm seeing it with some friends which is the only reason I didn't go and see it opening night. It looks awesome. I love those movies. It does look really cool. There's not a world where I don't love that game. I didn't. Ralph gets on me because I don't like the music from the original Predator. I think that the movie is a little cheesy, and I went back and watched it recently, and I still stand by that. But you can't. The Predator itself is a pretty badass franchise. It is pretty cool. I feel like there's like a handful of movie monsters that are just such a part of the like cultural ethos that that they're just always going to be brought back and reused. And I feel like Alien and Predator are definitely like two of those. In my brain, Alien and Predator are as iconic as Dracula and Frankenstein. And I know people probably aren't going to agree with me on that one because Dracula and Frankenstein are like classic gothic literature. But the movies are really good, man. They're pretty darn good. Let's switch topics. When you go out, what are you playing now? What are you gravitating your quarters in? I mean, Star Wars right now has been really good. But then also, there's a place that opened up here over in Raleigh, which is like a 40-minute drive from where I am, called Super Rad. And they have nothing newer than like 2001. And I have been playing Fish Tales. Fish Tales is great. I love Fish Tales. I forgot how much I love fishtails. If you can get the flow of that cross-ramp shit going, I can't, but most people can. And it's really awesome, man. It's so exciting to get that fish and the bass. A beautiful shooting fishtails is really wonderful. I love fishtails. I love whitewater. I love those area games. The only game I own is World Cup Soccer. Oh, that's a good one. World Cup is one of those games that if I see it, I will always play it. Right. Dog soccer. Dog soccer is so good, Jess. It's so good. It's been loaned out. It's, you know, people in Houston say, are you done playing World Cup for a while? I say yes. And so we swap games and I've got an Iron Maiden next to me right now. I was trying to figure out what that is. I think my internet connection is a little weird because you're a little bit pixely. I can see the lights. It'll fix that. It's an Iron Maiden. There we go. By the way, all that pixelation will get fixed in edits. But, yeah, Iron Maiden, I'm addicted to it. And I play it every day. I'm trying to get to two minutes of midnight, ladies and gentlemen, and I am struggling. Okay, I can get to Cyborg. I can get to a whole bunch of different stuff. But I sure as hell cannot. Get to two minutes of midnight. And if anybody has any tips, I would really, really appreciate it because it's hard as hell. And getting soul shards and all this stuff. It's such a brilliant first game from Keith Elwin, isn't it? It's just. Keith Elwin, I swear, that man's a genius. Oh, yeah. Part of it is I don't think that there's a lot of bad pinball games out there in general. so I constantly be like, oh, this guy's never made a bad game. Everything he's made is good. I'm so easy to please, though. I was going to say, Avengers doesn't strike my fancy. I can't see – I can't do Avengers. But, like, Jurassic Park is so darn great. I had an Avengers. You like Avengers? Yeah, I had an Avengers for a while. That one's fun. That one is the – because that game has an end. I don't know if you've ever beaten it. No, no way. No chance. Again, I'm only good at pinball machines that I've owned because I need to play it a thousand times to be good at it. But that's one of the first – I think it might actually be the first game that I've just ended and finished. And so I don't know. That's pretty wild. That moment where it just stops and the game is over. Yeah, and the game is over. And I didn't know that that was how that game ended was such a moment for me to just be like, wait, did I just break the – no. It's oh, oh, like that. That was so special for me to experience that for the first time, not knowing what was happening. I will always love Avengers because of it. Well, it's so funny how we just get affinity towards these some of these games that they strike our fancy. And that's what's so great about pinball. We have literally spent an hour and 15 minutes talking mostly pinball. We didn't go down the video game world too bad because I think you were born 20 years too early. Too early or too late? Too late. I mean, too late. That's what I meant. Yeah. Because you have so many of the same things as a 50-year-old like me that we got into. It's kind of funny for me, to be honest with you. And as I was going through it where they're like, oh, yeah, we need to tell just what's happening because this game came out after she was born. So she's not going to know it. I'm like, that's true. I don't know what you're talking about. All right. Lastly, do you consume any of this pinball media that I'm, I guess, a part of? Do you consume any podcasts? Do you watch any streams? Let's give a shout out to anybody. Oh, thank you. I do. I do watch this show. I promise I'm not just flattering. I know that sounds like I'm being like, well, I watch your show, but I do. Most of the content I consume is either going to be people playing pinball. I do watch podcasts. I'm not somebody who watches every episode of a podcast, but I watch this one. Most of what I consume is short-form content. And so like Pinball Jen. Have you met her? Not in person, no. How is that a shame? So you have to go to these shows because do you know how many people would love to meet you? And there is something really weird. I went to Expo, and my favorite part of Expo was seeing the other creators. And it's so great to see Jen. She is as lovely, and I've had her on the podcast early on. um she is as lovely in person as she is on screen on your screen yeah she she seems like it's like she seemed like she'd be an absolute gem to me uh she because like i know the games i don't know the industry very well i i pick her brain all the time where i'm like what's happening here what are people talking about um i worked at marco and yet i turn around and people talking about other people and drama and this and that and who said this or who made that. I'm always like, Jen, help. She's great. She's plugged in. Hup Challenge is fantastic. Oh, Nudge Magazine. I love Nudge. Okay. And honestly, I watch Spooky's streams, Bug's streams. Well, you would love Ian. You would love Ian. Ian Jacoby is a good dude. He really is And I do I need to get out to a show so I can properly meet people I have narcolepsy Which does make travel difficult But I'm going to figure it out one of these days Oh my gosh Well I don't know what to say But I hope you Because I'm an idiot Sorry I didn't mean to make it awkward Don't even worry about it I got Crohn's disease There we go we'll throw it out there for people too That sucks too So disability representation. Well, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, Jess, for joining us on the show. Oh, my God. I just wanted to talk pinball with you. I love your content. Follow her, please, on Pirate Jessica. No. Pirate Princess Jess on TikTok. Pirate Princess Jessica on Instagram. See, I'm a better interviewer than that. I'm a much better interviewer than that. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much. No, you're good. I really had a blast. I'm always excited to talk pinball. I had a blast, right? That was so fun. You know, it's what brings us all together. And we all come from different parts of the United States and the world. But what's so great is when we're playing pinball, whether it's a tournament at an expo or just at your local brewery and bar, nobody gives a shit about anything. They just want to play pinball and talk to you about it. It's perfect. And I love this community so much. So thank you so much for being a part of it. And you have a great evening. I'm so glad you're feeling better. And I'm so glad we were able to do this. Thanks, Jess, so, so much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 6b55ae59-8443-40dd-ab5f-22ba4426b25c*