# Earths, Wins and Fire

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2019-04-13  
**Duration:** 70m 28s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/Earths--Wins-and-Fire-e1bkfqi

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## Analysis

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan discuss Chris's film industry background working on South Park productions, then pivot to Jared's extensive troubleshooting of his Star Race pinball machine's electrical problems—specifically a ground loop issue causing lamp flickering—and finally cover Zen Studios' mobile pricing strategy for Williams Pinball, which creates friction for casual players.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Chris worked as a camera assistant on South Park TV production, filming the Mr. Hankey commercial segment — _Direct first-person account by Chris Frebus describing his role loading film and interactions with Matt Stone and Trey Parker on set_
- [HIGH] Early South Park pilot had a substantially different final third than what aired on network television — _Chris describes receiving an early pilot before broadcast and observing differences from aired version_
- [HIGH] Star Race's lamp flickering was caused by a ground loop issue with unequal voltage (2v vs 6v) across two separate earth circuits in the playfield — _Jared's detailed diagnostic process using multimeter testing and guidance from JWG Enterprises technician John, resulting in a wire bridge solution_
- [HIGH] Early System 80 machines use barrel light sockets on shared metal strips that require replacement of the entire strip if one barrel becomes loose — _Jared's direct experience replacing light sockets on Star Race; compares to Christmas light strings_
- [HIGH] Zen Studios Williams Pinball mobile app offers all 10 tables in limited-time bundles (e.g., $30 for 3 days) but pricing doubles for individual table purchases if offer is missed — _Chris discussing data collected on Zen Studios app pricing strategy; notes offer was posted that day_
- [HIGH] Jared plans to have Star Race ready for an exhibition event in August with 10 days of constant play testing and approximately 50,000 visitor attendance — _Jared states he has a coin mech tuned up and needs the machine operationally sound for this exhibition timeline_
- [MEDIUM] Chris's camera rental house contact obtained an early copy of the South Park pilot through a six-degrees-of-separation chain involving George Clooney and an ER steadicam operator — _Chris's anecdotal account of how the pilot circulated; details about VHS copies degrading over distribution chain_
- [MEDIUM] Early Bally tables require an OCD (lamp matrix control) board to use LEDs instead of incandescent bulbs — _Jared mentions learning this fact but expresses uncertainty about specific board name; decides to stick with incandescent bulbs rather than upgrade_

### Notable Quotes

> "I don't think it was my absolute first job ever as a camera assistant, but it quite possibly was my second. And the only thing I asked for payment was a signed t-shirt, which, yes, I do still have."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~18:00
> _Illustrates Chris's direct involvement in early South Park production and his keepsake from the experience_

> "They cackled like mad dogs and would rip you know farts if they could... it was just what they're doing but they were talking about the infamous episode."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~22:00
> _Personal anecdote about Matt Stone and Trey Parker's demeanor on set while planning the Cartman's Father cliffhanger_

> "I was such an idiot. I was doing testing on the low voltage side of the power supply so the 5 volt and 8 volt circuit and I had the multimeter set on 20 for voltage and then I put the probes on the plus 42 and plus 60 circuits and I was getting zero on the multimeter."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~50:00
> _Documents Jared's learning curve with multimeter testing and the critical discovery that meter settings are upper voltage limits_

> "So I found a point at which both of the earth lines ran parallel to each other like the good one and the bad one and I just bridged them with a wire so I just soldered a wire onto each side and then measured around and i'm getting a good six volts along all circuits now."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~75:00
> _The solution to the ground loop problem: bridging the two separate earth circuits to equalize voltage_

> "Not only are you never going to be able to collect all the parts, coins, and tickets in order to fully upgrade all the tables... but now if you want to buy the tables or anything it's going to cost you twice the price of what it would have cost you unless you contact support."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~95:00
> _Describes the pricing trap in Zen Studios' mobile app for players who miss limited-time offers_

> "When you buy, when you get a new game on mobile, you got to play it a little bit in order to even see if it's worth it... Right. But unfortunately, if you're being thrown a limited time offer and it's not exactly a cheap offer, uh, no, it's not like dollars. It's like tens of dollars to buy."
> — **Chris Frebus / Jared Morgan**, ~92:00
> _Highlights the friction point in mobile gaming monetization for new users_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Chris Frebus | person | Host of Blockade Pinball Podcast; camera assistant who worked on South Park TV production in late 1990s; film industry professional |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast; actively restoring Star Race pinball machine; skilled in electrical troubleshooting and technical diagnostics |
| Matt Stone | person | Creator of South Park; directed Orgasmo and Cannibal the Musical; subject of Chris's anecdotes from set visits |
| Trey Parker | person | Co-creator of South Park; directed Orgasmo and Cannibal the Musical; subject of Chris's anecdotes from set visits |
| John (JWG Enterprises) | person | Board technician who provided remote guidance to Jared for Star Race power supply and ground loop diagnostics |
| George Clooney | person | Received early South Park Christmas card pilot which helped circulate it through industry connections |
| South Park | game | Pinball game title; discussed in context of film/TV production history rather than as a pinball machine |
| Star Race | game | Data East pinball machine undergoing restoration by Jared; primary focus of electrical troubleshooting discussion; destined for August exhibition with 50,000 visitor attendance |
| Zen Studios Williams Pinball | product | Mobile app featuring Williams pinball tables; subject of pricing strategy analysis by Chris; uses limited-time offers bundling tables |
| A-Ball Deluxe | game | Chris's pinball machine with intermittent drop target issues related to temperature; experiencing auto-triggering behavior |
| Blockade Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan discussing pinball restoration, industry topics, and community |
| Panavision | company | Camera rental house where Chris worked; employed marketing rep who collected South Park content and early pilots |
| Pinball Resource | company | Supplier of light sockets and pinball parts used by Jared for Star Race restoration |
| System 80 | product | Early pinball machine architecture; Star Race uses this system; notable for issues with barrel light socket vibration and earth grounding |

### Topics

- **Primary:** South Park film and TV production history, Pinball machine electrical troubleshooting and repair, Star Race restoration project, Mobile game monetization and pricing strategy
- **Secondary:** System 80 pinball architecture and components, Multimeter testing and electrical diagnostics, Exhibition preparation and burn-in testing
- **Mentioned:** Drop target maintenance on classic pinball machines

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Chris expresses affinity and nostalgia for South Park creators and his early career experiences; Jared displays satisfaction with solving the Star Race electrical problem despite frustration during diagnosis; both hosts critical of Zen Studios' mobile pricing practices but not hostile. The tone is collaborative, educational, and celebratory of problem-solving.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Jared documenting Star Race restoration progress on social media (Instagram/Twitter) with detailed photos of electrical work and light socket modifications (confidence: medium) — Chris references 'Jared has been posting pictures. Numerous pictures' and 'they're photos up on Instagram if you want to have a look'
- **[design_philosophy]** A-Ball Deluxe experiences temperature-dependent electrical faults with drop targets auto-triggering in warm weather, causing intermittent scoring without ball contact (confidence: medium) — Chris describes: 'When it's cooler weather, I don't have this issue... I don't have a clue what is going on that is causing this' and suspects drop target electrical connections
- **[market_signal]** Zen Studios Williams Pinball mobile app uses aggressive limited-time offer bundling ($30 for 10 tables, 3-day window) then doubles individual table prices if offer missed, creating friction for casual players (confidence: high) — Chris's analysis of collected data: 'if you're brand new to the game and you don't really... if you're being thrown a limited time offer... not only are you never going to be able to collect all the parts... but now if you want to buy the tables it's going to cost you twice the price'
- **[product_strategy]** Star Race restoration work continuing through August for exhibition with 50,000 expected visitors; requires extended burn-in testing for reliability (confidence: high) — Jared states 'I need to make sure this thing holds up electrically for 10 days of potentially constant play at the exhibition' and 'I need to do more burn-in testing'
- **[product_concern]** Star Race exhibited intermittent ground loop issues across playfield earth circuits causing erratic lamp flickering and control issues, requiring three days of diagnosis (confidence: high) — Jared's detailed account of discovering unequal voltage (2v vs 6v) across two separate earth loops and solving via bridge wire; notes System 80 machines notorious for bad edge connectors
- **[technology_signal]** Early Bally/Williams machines require additional board (OCD) to support LED bulbs instead of incandescent, creating upgrade friction for restoration hobbyists (confidence: medium) — Jared discovers 'with the early 80s Bally tables, you actually have to buy an additional board' for LED conversion and opts to use incandescent bulbs instead

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## Transcript

 this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are watching the BlahCade Pinball Podcast i am your host shut your trap joining me as always hey you know what i'm totally messing this up i don't know what's uh what's my problem watching i said watching instead of because i've got youtube up in front of me let's start this again. Fun. You are listening to the BlahCade Pinball Podcast. I am your host, Chris Rebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hello there. That's stinging, by the way. Oh, I'm sure it is. I had no doubt that it wouldn't, you know. I haven't had a good blooper like that in a long while. No, no. It's pretty much introduction by numbers. it. Yeah, so it's good. You know, it's good to feel that this isn't just a pre-recorded bit. It actually happens. That's right. It's real. Yes. In front of a studio audience. Somebody just posted in the chat a special rewind feature like in FX3. Exactly. Just push that wizard bar. Now if only we could get the bonus scores and, you know, crank up the viewership numbers. So Jared and I were just before the show starts, he comes in, we kind of check our levels and kind of do a little bit of banter just so we can get everything up and running for the actual show. He was starting to talk about some stuff that he had been watching. Those of you on Twitter will know what he was watching. But he was talking about a movie before that, which was the movie Orgasmo. And if you don't know about this movie, it is Matt Stone, Trey Parker, the guys behind South Park, this was their second movie that they ever made I believe, first one being Cannibal the Musical oh I just got from the other room was asked what about Basketball Basketball they starred in but it was not their movie, they didn't write it they didn't direct it it was a great movie though really? oh man I found it terrible it's been a long time since I've seen it I just like the fact that real big fish are in it That's where I found out about Ruby Fish, the van. They're great. Anyway, Orgasmo is basically about a Mormon, which is one of Matt and Trey's favorite subjects. Yes. A Mormon guy that goes ringing the doorbells, and on one of the doorbells that he rings, it happens to be, obviously, he's in Chatsworth, California, or something like that. The porn fest. Yeah, that's where they're filming a porno. and next thing you know, he's brought into the world of it, and he's trying to justify his existence in this because he needs the money because he's about to get married and all this stuff, but it obviously goes against everything that he's ever thought about. But it is one of these movies that is so entirely filthy and just entirely spot on on what they're making fun of. Oh, yeah. It's so on point. Oh, it's just fabulous. What I was going to then tell Jared and I was like, I need to share this with everybody. So as you guys might know, I am a camera assistant in motion pictures. Yeah. I used to work at a camera rental house. The rental house was Panavision. And while there, one of our marketing reps used to get all sorts of submission videos or just like not necessarily submission videos, but projects that the DP had been working on and stuff like that. and he became known for collecting these just brilliant bits of little, just bizarre comedy. It's the first place I ever saw William Shatner doing his live reading of rocket man at some award show. And I'm not kidding you. It's spectacularly awful. Yeah, it is, but it is hilarious to watch. So those are the kinds of things that he used to collect. Well, at one point he got sent the infamous South Park Christmas, card, which is the five-minute video called The Spirit of Christmas that started their whole trajectory. And it's because, I mean, talk about just like six degrees of separation kind of thing. One of the gals that worked at Panavision, her brother was the Steadicam operator on the show ER. George Clooney was one of the people that received this Christmas card. And so he shared it and it got shared. So it was one of these things where by the time we got it, it had been copied you know six or seven times on vhs you know believe me when i finally got to see this thing without all the warble and video degradation i was like oh that's what it actually looked like how about that um but anyway that put those guys on his radar he had reached out so he got a copy of the south park pilot before it ever aired and i'll tell you right now the south the pilot for South Park, the last third is completely different than what actually aired. So we knew about these guys long before... They actually got a network. Yeah, before they were on network. Well, he knew that I was a big fan, and at some point, he comes to me and he goes, hey, there's a... they're doing a shoot for the actual TV show South Park, and they got no money and the program that I was in basically after two years they kicked you out and you became a camera assistant. You were on your own. So I was getting near the end of that run and I needed experience. So you wanted work experience basically. Yeah, I needed work experience. He was like, do you have any interest in helping out on this? I was like, yes. Absolutely. Let's do this. So I don't think it was my absolute first job ever as a camera assistant, but it quite possibly was my second. And the only thing I asked for payment was a signed t-shirt, which, yes, I do still have. But what we wound up filming was the Mr. Hankey commercial. Yes. Right. I love that. It's in the early series. Oh my gosh. And those guys, I'm outside this house that we're filming in or whatever and i was loading film at that time and at one point this is my favorite memory at one point they came outside the two of them matt and trey and they were having this discussion and they said they were believe me terrence and philip are these two they i'm not kidding you these two cackled like mad dogs and would rip you know farts if they could i mean it was you know it was just what they're doing but they were talking about the infamous episode which was Who's Cartman's Father? And they did this. It was a multi-part episode but the cliffhanger was like, they left it as a cliffhanger and then there was going to be a gap between episodes. A long gap. And then they came back on April Fool's Day. Brilliant. And the whole thing was nothing but a Terrence and Philip episode. It had nothing to do with who Cartman's father was. that. It was such a bait-and-switch. It was great. And people got irate and demanded that the episode be concluded and sure enough, they wound up doing an episode that concluded it. But I remember them talking about this and laughing at how much they were going to troll people by not revealing, just leaving it as a cliffhanger and stuff. So it was one of those things that when this stuff finally came onto air and I saw it, I knew exactly what was going to be happening in terms of, oh, they're not going to answer this. And then much to my surprise, a couple of episodes later, they actually did answer it. And then I read about how there was all this demand that they do it. And everybody knows their schedule. They were cranking these episodes out. It's weekly. Well, that was when they were doing it. That's how they do it now on computer. Back then, they were still doing cardboard. Really? Stop frame? Frame by frame? Yeah, they were still doing that. So it did take a little while to... I mean, it might have been all put it in the computer, but it was a much longer process. But when I say much longer, it's not the six-day episode. It was probably maybe three weeks per episode. It was still quick turnaround. So they were able to quickly turn around and crank out this episode and see how it was satisfied with the people. Anyway, that's one of those things that I have an absolute affinity for those guys. One of the camera assistants that I work with and who wound up writing a script helped me write the script that I'd done two years back or so he went to school with those guys in Colorado and is actually in Cannibal the Musical right jeez yeah it's what a trip that's insane yeah Orgasmo was a fun movie and like I can just imagine what those two would be like on set it's funny that their embodiments of Derrickson and Phillip and I gotta say folks this was what they were like back in 1998 I don't know what they're like today no it's true I mean lots of life has happened in the in between so who knows what they're oh yeah they may have mellowed out somewhat but I would still if they actually ever did another film project I would that's one of those that would just be like I would love to be on set for that Isn't the Book of Mormon one of their productions, isn't it? Yes, they wrote it. Yeah, we're going to see that next week. Oh, are you? I haven't seen it, and I've been dying. It would be great. It would be so good. People would just say it's just the best thing they've seen for such a long time. Yeah, and I'm very much looking forward to it. It's the day after I'm going to a wedding down the Gold Coast. So I'll be going down the Gold Coast for this wedding and then going back on train, probably. And then in the morning, or wherever it is, I think it is, we'll go and see this thing around lunchtime. So it'll be great. This sounds like a weekend that we won't be recording a podcast. Potentially, yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't know how early it is in the morning. I have to check the calendar. But yeah, put it as tentative for now. There you go. Okay. Okay, well, let's see. What should we dive into here? Why don't we go ahead and dive right into, Jared has been posting pictures. Numerous pictures. Numerous pictures. He's back working on his Star Race. And it looks like he's getting himself into trouble. So why don't you tell me what the heck is going on with your machine? So for a while ago, I had some troubles with the lights just randomly sort of flickering or dropping out, like the whole general illumination and controlled lamps were just dropping out. Okay. I thought, oh, whatever, it's okay. And what happened was, like, you would actually, with the glass off, you would actually strike the play field and the problem would go away. So it was, like, vibration related, and that's usually a problem with sockets, like light sockets that go, like, all the barrel light sockets, they tend to get loose. and they flop around. When they flop around, you can actually sort of get, like, partial shorts. So I thought, well, I'll go through and do some work on the really bad light sockets and sort of do some reparation on them just to make them a little bit more secure. And in the last order, I got a whole lot of light sockets from the pinball resource. So I've been systematically going through the table and putting new ones in and replacing all those terrible bracketed light bulbs that these early system agents had. They're based on this big common metal strip with barrels attached to the strip. And once one barrel gets rattly, you've got to throw away the whole strip because you can't just replace the barrels. It's like those Christmas light strings. Oh, it totally is, yeah. Except, yeah, so you've got no choice. You have to actually go and replace all the lights on that strip. so I got enough of the underplay filled lamp sockets to do all of those and that was my first my first task and that went pretty well they look a lot better now and the brackets themselves actually position the light bulb closer to the insert which for LEDs is fine of course because they don't generate the heat but incandescence might have been a problem but who uses those these days, really. Me? Oh. Doing it wrong. No, no, no. I'm not doing it wrong because with Bally, if you want to use LEDs, you have to buy a new board that can run... Oh, an OCD. Oh, really? They have a switch matrix on those early games? No, apparently... Oh, not a lamp matrix. Yeah, apparently with the early 80s Bally tables, you actually have to buy an additional board that can handle it. the OCD board. Yeah. Something like that. I can't remember anyway. It's like when I found out what it was, I just went, eh, I'm not going to, nope. It's roll with the old bulbs. Yeah. So what I did find is, as an aside, before I continue the story, the, the little general illumination sockets, which is sort of the ones that are designed to make the bulbs that flush in the play field there. I didn't get the ones that apparently there are two shortness lengths on these ones, or the brackets have a higher position for the barrel on the other ones, and I got the wrong ones. So the bulbs are sticking up a little higher than the other bulbs on the play field. But I don't really think it's going to be too much of a problem. The bulbs are all behind rails and rubbers. So it's not like the glass. So they're not going to shatter if a ball hits, and it's going to get knocked around a bit, and that's fine. I've got heaps of them. So, yeah, that was fine. because I think the main culprit with all the rattling around were these general illumination sockets that were near all the pop bumper rubberized areas. Yeah, there's nothing that vibrates near pop bumper. No. And I'll tell you what, if you've ever played one of these System 80 God Leaps, the pop bumpers are strong as anything, and they just shake the whole table. They are very, very strong. So yeah, there was a lot of rattling going on around there. So I did all those, and sort of midway between doing all the insert lights with replacing all the light bulbs with the new sockets, I did a play test of the game. It's always good to check your work regularly when you're doing this sort of thing to try and identify problems. So particularly with the amount of solder that you're throwing around when you're doing rewiring, it can get a bit messy in there. So you do get some random problems sometimes that are easy to fix if you do it shortly after finding out where you were solving. So I flicked on the game, started playing it, and about midway through a game, all the controlled lamps just started going crazy. They were just flicking all over the place, and they weren't locking on, but it was like they were getting half voltage. And they were just really erratically blinking, not like they normally do with the clock circuit on a System 80. I was going, that's definitely not right. So I didn't know what was causing it. So, of course, naturally you turn it off and then you start to do some investigation. So I thought, oh, normally it's just a connector issue because System 80 machines are notorious for the bad edge connectors on them. So I thought, oh, well, I'll go in and have a look at those edge connectors and just reseat them and, you know, do all the usual stuff you do when you're doing initial fault finding. and did all that, and I was still having the flickering issues. So I then took a look at the power supply in the head box, and one of the two LEDs that show you that the board's healthy wasn't lit. And I was going, oh, no. Okay, great. So I then got onto Pinside and did some Googling about how you actually test. I've never actually done live voltage testing on something like a power supply before. So it was brand new territory for me. I was going, oh, I hope I don't blow anything up by putting the probes on anything. But the engineers at Godly were smart. They actually have these things called TPs on the board, which are test points. So they're just these lugs that you can put the probes onto safely and take readings for the key parts of the circuit. And I'm such an idiot. I was doing testing on the low voltage side of the power supply so the 5 volt and 8 volt circuit and I had the multimeter set on 20 for voltage and then I put the probes on the plus 42 and plus 60 circuits and I was getting zero on the multimeter I was going hmm I getting no power to those circuits but the displays and all that sort of stuff which is what that part of the power circuit are doing are controlling, they're all lit and working and operating fine. What's going on? It's like, what is happening? Is the blown LED a cause of the falls or what's going on? You know what happens when you start to look at things wrong with a pinball machine. You just don't know where to start. Yeah. so um i i realized hang on a second there's other settings on this multimedia that i should try like there's like you know there's a 200 what does that do so i turned it on to 200 and lo and behold i was getting a reading so turns out i learned that the the little uh different settings on each of the different things like for ohms volts and amps um they are the upper limits of what that particular reading set can do. So if it's on 20, it will measure up to 20 volts, but no higher. If it is 200, it'll measure up to 200 volts, but no higher. So I learned something about multimeters. I need to learn so much about multimeters because basically whenever I use one, I don't have any clue what I'm doing. and then somebody tells me, oh, flick it over to this and check for this. And I go, oh, okay, yes, for the task that I'm doing. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. And then if you ask me to do it again two weeks later, I would be right back at square one. What is this thing that I got in my hand? So, yeah. I'm very much the same, but I've got a lot better at using it over the last couple of days, let me tell you. So anyhow, continuing the saga, I got the readings. I was talking with the guy who actually did all the board work for me. He's a really, really great guy. He didn't have to help me at all, and he did over the years. It's nice when they do that, right? Yeah, he's a really, really great guy. He's John from JWG Enterprises. And he was guiding me through a few things to check, and so I was saying, oh, I've checked all the bridge rectifiers to make sure that they're not open. He goes, I don't know what you're doing with those readings. So he just goes straight up to the power supply and put the probes on or the test points and tell me the voltages. And that's when I said, oh, look, I can't get voltage out of, I can't get reading out of the other two, because that's weird because your displays are working. Those things, if your displays are working, you're getting the correct voltage, so that should be fine. And then he was saying, oh, so try and test the input voltages going into the board. There's this edge connector that goes straight from the transformer panel on the bottom right up to the power supply. and he goes put your probes what like the black one on the earth line and then the red one touch each one of the terminals like inside the plug and just stick your probe in there and get a reading from each one of those terminals and tell what the voltages are and they were all intolerance they they were coming up with the right amount of volts coming in plus or minus um nothing too outrageous at all so like the logic voltage was fine at about 5.03 volts anything lower than that and you start to get weird behavior because obviously that's what he was thinking. It was like a line issue. But then he said, oh, okay. Have a look at the earth lines on all of, you know, how it's got the common earth braid that runs around the whole play field basically. Well, he said, put the multimeter on that and do it from the common ground on the big transformer panel on the bottom. Stick your black probe onto that. then put your red probe on all of the earth straps and see what voltage you're getting and this is where it started to get interesting on one see there's multiple there's multiple loops in this game because of the playfield width so it's not one common loop that goes around there's actually two separate earth circuits all like wired back to the same common okay and one of them was measuring two volts and one was measuring six of course lamps operate on six volts dc so the one that was operating on two volts was obviously wrong and what's probably going on is there's a bit of a crook connector in the backbox um and it's uh it's not letting it's probably a little bit tarnished or got a little damage to it or maybe even the pad on the board where it connects into is a bit dodgy um so uh yeah it i was going okay well there's two different voltages well i would make sure that you have correct voltage over those two um earth straps and that should probably help with the um the weird flickering problems um so i found a point at which both of the earth lines ran parallel to each other like the good one and the bad one and i just bridged them with a wire so i just sold tacked a wire onto each side and then measured around and i'm getting a good six volts along all circuits now because earth is earth you don't have to worry about doing anything weird with that just different path to ground so that's fine so did that and it's going okay um so it wasn't the power supply it it wasn't the bridge rectifiers it wasn't um fuses like he actually was going oh just check the fuses because sometimes you can have a fuse that measures good but it's actually signed to fatigue and when you get fatigue fuses you get voltage problems which is like okay sure but no they were all fine as well but no it was the the earth strap well seemingly the earth strap from one side of the playfield to the other was dodgy so that was like three days worth of diagnosis to try and work that out but uh yeah we are we Back to an operational machine. It's funny, though. When it boots up, it still does a little bit of flickering, a little bit of weird lights. But then after 10 seconds, it must warm up enough, and it just locks back into normal operation. So I was also – go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say that's kind of – like electrical things don't just solve themselves. They don't fix themselves. No. But it's weird how they can be inconsistent because you mess around with your table. I was just like, you know what, I haven't played my table in a while because I stopped playing it because of two things. One, I had a broken drop target and I didn't want to break anymore. And then two, I was having this weird thing with the, this is A-ball deluxe I'm talking about, where all drop targets would get dropped and I would hit the A-ball target and then as soon as I hit one of the stand-up targets behind the drop targets, all of a sudden it would just do a repetitive score. Like, no ball contact. And I was like, what the heck is going on? And that started freaking me out, and so I just shut the machine off. But when it's cooler Carl Weathers, I don't have this issue. And so, sure enough, I went out there and I played, and I played for a good long time thinking, well, maybe the machine needs to warm up. I didn't have an issue. I don't have a clue what is going on that is causing this. But it does make me wonder if it's drop target related because at one point, it wasn't the main bank of seven drop targets that started the auto-triggering. It was as soon as I knocked the eight-ball target down. So I'm wondering if it has something to do with the drop targets, which, again, once I replace them all, I'm going to be pulling the whole rigs out to replace them, and then I can give a proper look. But it is one of those things, though, like when all of a sudden it's working good enough, you're kind of like, good enough, let's go! It might be that there's – is the target that you hit after shooting the eight-ball drop target a target that only really matters after you hit the target? Well, there's not a – behind the eight-ball, because it's in the lane, behind that is a saucer. This was happening – when it started doing it on that, it was the second I knocked down the eight-ball that it was happening. where it seems to be of that bank of stand-up targets that are behind all the seven drop targets, it was the number one or the D target that seemed to be the one that was triggering. As soon as that one got fired, it would just continually score. But I didn't... Again, this is where I need to learn how to use a multimeter because I can't check a connection, so I don't know what I'm looking for. I think I found that you just put it onto the V setting, the volt setting, because that's what you're measuring. through all the different circuits. You just want to check faults. And you just need to identify a good place to put your black probe underneath the playfield, usually on the main... I don't know if the Belly Williams tables have a big transformer board in the bottom. I think they normally do. But, yeah, just find a good place with a lot of green wires going into it and tack it onto there. And then just start probing around. The thing I've found is that as long as you're only touching one thing at a time, there's no chance of damaging anything by doing multi-meter tests, which is what I was scared of. Yeah. But you're not. All you're doing is the circuit's being completed inside the multimeter, so you're not at risk of damaging anything, really. Yeah. But I had to do – the other thing I had to do is, like, the one thing I didn't order when I went to PBR, because I just didn't think I needed it, were another variety of insert – not insert lights, GI lights that have two lugs at the top, and they allow you to um like daisy chain uh the the line and the earth um wires along the top of the run and one of these ones was just totally shot like the barrel was spinning all the little lugs at the top were spinning around freely like there was just zero connectivity yet it was still shining but i figured if it's rattling around a lot there's a possibility that could be a root cause of all these light issues I'm having as well because it in vibration is a really bad thing in in in the light sockets if you have vibration you really can do some crazy stuff with light so I thought no I want to just systematically go through and eliminate so for this one because I didn't have a replacement I had to take it out of the machine and just run a wire from the top lugs down to the barrel and then put a tack of solder on the top tab between the little rivet where the the little plungery bit goes in and out of the light socket where you stick your bulb in um and it looked like a frankenstein job there's photos up on instagram if you want to have a look yeah they're not pretty they're really really ugly but look it does a job and it it's it's a solid solid connection now i did multi-meter testing to make sure i hadn't made it open or anything like that and it's good but yeah it's just frankenstein compared to the other beautiful clean shiny sockets that I've got in the game. It looks gross. Good enough until you do the next order. That's right. The real goal that I'm doing here is I want to get this thing right for August because I've got the coin mech for it the other day and I had to actually adjust that as well because it's the manual one. I had to do some bending of the main weighing arm, the arm with the little weight attached to it because this was a second hand mech and I had to bend all of the little sort of lugs back up again. So it was really quite a tight fit because there was coins getting stuck and I was going, ah, this is just what I need. This is like a crucial thing. Like if you're not, if your coin mix is not working, you're not going to make any money. So I need to make sure this thing's working real well. So yeah, I've got that tuned up real nice now. It's accepting coins every time, which is really good. So I just got to make sure this thing holds up electrically for 10 days of potentially constant play at the exhibition, like a captive audience of, you know, usually around 50,000 people that goes through the event every year. So, you know, it's going to be an interesting test for it. So I need to do more burn-in testing. There you go. In other words, play it a lot. That's right. Oh, darn. Oh, what a shame. What a shame. All right, let's switch it up a little bit. Every week I've been talking about the data I've been collecting on the Zen's William Pinball app. And I'm coming to the conclusion that what I need to do is write a guide essentially for new users, if you will. How to spend the Smurfberries. Call it that. No, I'm not going to call it how to spend Smurfberries. Because, look, what I've discovered with all these discussions is, yeah, there's a lot of people that they absolutely positively, all they want to do is just pay their money. That's all they want to do. but if you're brand new to the game and you don't really, I mean, look, when you buy, when you get a new game on mobile, you got to play it a little bit in order to even see if it's worth it, you know, being on there or do you just want to delete it? Right. Exactly. But unfortunately, if you're being thrown a limited time offer and it's not exactly a cheap offer, uh, no, it's not like dollars. It's like tens of dollars to buy. I mean, basically what somebody posted today was they're offering you all, all 10 tables right now. Oh, wow. For a three-day limited time offer for $30. So it was $10 a pack, which is what you would pay on Steam. But for mobile gaming, that's pricey. Well, you look at how much a season costs on Pinball Arcade. I'm not looking at Pinball Arcade. I'm talking about purely, oh, well, season on mobile. Yes. Yes. But, I mean, I'm talking about for the casual mobile gamer. Yeah, it's a big. It's like, whoa, you want me to throw a chunk of change? 30 bucks to you? Like, what's going on there? Right. But the problem is, is if you don't take up the offer and then you start playing the game, well, bad news, folks. Not only are you never going to be able to collect all the parts, coins, and tickets in order to fully upgrade all the tables and play them at the, you know, using the pro physics and pro difficulty. built-in uh but now if you want to buy the tables or anything it's going to cost you twice the price of what it would have cost you unless you contact support and say hey look i didn't see the offer come up when i when i got the yeah i mean there's ways around it but it's not easy and and as of yet zen has not repeated the offer like a lot of mobile games that i play maybe once a month they'll be like hey special deal and it'll be one of these you know hey all the in-game current is half off. Yeah, exactly. So Zen hasn't done that yet. Who knows if they're going to? It would be highly advisable for them to do that. I don't know why they just don't have it as a permanent offer. Just always tantalizing you at the top of the game. Why is time critical a thing? Because, like you say, how do you know if you're going to like it? If it's always there, then why are you charging so much for all your other in-game currency? it's i mean look i'm not gonna i'm not going to fault them for doing mobile pricing i'm not that's and i know that's a big point of contention on on the forums and i know you fall in this camp somewhat with look if i want to buy the tables why not charge me exactly what i'm being charged on pc and stuff but the pc is not offering you a way of earning all the tables free that's just not, or the consoles, they're not doing it either. They're doing, this is freemium pricing. But unfortunately there's a cost to freemium pricing. And if Zen is not going to institute a regular kind of appearance of price drops or sales, then that's when they're going to need to fix some other things with how you're earning. Because currently with all the stats that I'm collecting, these three tables that I didn't, that I was starting off from scratch with for William volume three, I've already maxed out all the coins. I just, and I've, uh, paid for the upgrade on one of the tables. I'm just waiting on coins to upgrade the other two. I will have them upgraded before the next table pack drops. So that's not an issue. So once you're caught up, the next time a table pack drops, it is absolutely 100% possible, possible to do. Here's the question. I don't know what would happen if you had six tables. I don't know how. At some point, it's going to become impossible. Well, that's me because I haven't got all my tables maxed out like the previous ones, Volume 1, Volume 2. Right. So I'm in the position where I'm getting random table parts for tables that aren't Savecracker, Theater of Magic, and what's the other one? Champion Pub. Yeah. I'm not getting the drops I need to actually level those up. I'm in that position. To be honest, I've stopped playing the game. I'm over the grind. I might fire it up once or twice, but I'm not doggedly going in there every day and doing the challenges. It's just too much hassle. As we've discussed before, grind is fine when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, but if you're grinding and feeling like you're not getting anywhere if anything you're sliding backwards then that kills the fun entirely of it Kind of where I at the moment like I looking I looking like if I telling myself now that if I want to play pinball I just going to fire up Steam and just enjoy my time playing it rather than going oh I need to get that table part et cetera I like the challenges and stuff. Because for me, honestly, and I've said this in the forums, I don't play the Williams app to play regular pinball. I play it solely to play the challenges. Yeah. So, truthfully, once I've fully collected the challenges, now I'm not going to do it this time, because now that I know what I need to collect for the next time the table pack drops, I want to be prepared for it and hopefully speed things up even faster. But otherwise, it would be, well, there's no point in playing the challenges, and I'm not really interested in playing it on mobile, just a regular game of pinball. So then I don't play the app. so I mean you know but then I was talking to some people and they're like hey I only have a mobile device that's the only way I can play so I get where people are coming from as well like I would be in the same boat like I said if I didn't have Steam and the selection of pinball I have on Steam now I would be probably just buying everything outright on mobile and sucking it up because I know that's the only option I have to actually play or going and buying a dedicated game console like Switch and doing that. Yeah, so what I'm discovering, like I said, this happened two days ago on day 16 of my collecting. I finally have all 100 parts for all three tables. Like I said, I already maxed out and upgraded Theater of Magic. I was just waiting on parts for Champion Pub and Safecracker. I now have those. but of course I'm still flipping cards and I'm still getting those table parts. What I don't understand, what Zen really needs to do, first and foremost, is look, you in total it's, what is it, 170 parts that you need? You know, between all the various star levels. The game should recognize that you've collected 170 parts and just stop and instead, when you hit that point start giving you extra coins yeah but the thing is the coins are the unobtainium in the game like coins and mel said this coins are the hard currency they are the hard currency but they don't need to be impossible currency yeah well they do if they want to make money that's a problem no they'll still make money i think it's because i doubt people are going to be doing what i'm doing which is I'm playing all four challenges, and for the most part, I'm getting to 15 stars on all four challenges. The only one that I'm not getting 15 stars on regularly is the premium challenge, because it's rock hard. Safecracker five-minute challenge on premium is nigh impossible. Let me tell you this. The score total just to get 10 stars was 1.26 million. Oh, jeez. You have to play absolutely bang-on perfect. You have to get the vault. I mean, you have to get the token. Not just once, because you need to get the token, so then you can get the multiball, so then you can hit the jackpots. But then you're going to need to get another vault token. There's not enough time, because the stupid countdown timer keeps on going while you're playing the board game. Yeah, I know. It's so stupid. Usually if it's in an out-hole, not an out-hole, like a trapped portion of the game, the timer should stop. If the timer would stop in the board game, it would make sense. Well, and it's funny because it's not consistent on certain... Like, if you're playing Fishtails and you get into the video challenge of shooting the water skiers, the timer stops. It's like they haven't done it properly. If you're playing Black Rose and you're doing the knife throw or the swing from the rig, the timer still goes. It's like, how is that any different? Essentially, the board game is the video mode. It is. It's the video mode. Yeah. So they should look at that. They should look at pausing the timer only when the ball is on the play field. When the ball is in play. Yeah. When the ball is in play, that's when the timer goes. Yeah. The five-star on Safecracker for the premium five-minute was $850,000. and even that was a stretch. 850 is hard. It took me multiple attempts just to get that and that 1.26 million. It was one of those things where I was having just like a phenomenal perfect game and I beat it and I'm not kidding you, I beat it by six seconds. Jeez. You would have just put their phone down and just breathed a sigh of relief after cracking that one. I played two more times after that just to see how impossible the five minute 15-star goal was, and then I went, this is a waste of tickets, so I'm not even going to try. That's the problem, right? Because that premium one, you're burning tickets, which is you're burning your upgrade path for all the new tables that are coming out. 25 tickets pop, and basically what you're getting at 5-star level, or yeah, 5-star goal, you're getting next to nothing as a reward. It's all trailblazers. You're better off just doing basic, like resetting the basic challenge. No, at 10 stars, you get 5 table parts. That's pretty good. If you're on a table part hunt, five table parts, that's the second largest drop in the entire thing. Largest drop is pro 15 star at six table parts. And by the way, the table parts, they're consistent. I've mapped that. They're absolutely 100% consistent. I'll go over those in a second. The 15 star reward for premium, basically what you're going to be getting is, in the neighborhood of 150 maybe slightly more tickets, that's it. It's otherwise bolt trails and flippers. So the 15 star is hardly worth playing. No. Why there's not more? That's where they should put the coin drops, to be honest. They should put a healthy and good coin drop in the premium. Like a 20 coin drop or a 10 coin drop or something like that. Just a 10 coin drop would be enough for me to blow through my tickets. I'd blow through tickets for a 10 coin drop. Hmm. But that's because right now I'm averaging and I've said this before, I'm averaging seven coins a day. So every 14 days I'm getting my hundred coins. But it needs to that is enough to where I'm going to max out my tables and have basically enough time to earn another hundred coins before the next table pack. Yeah, right. So I will be just getting my head above water, but it's never a case where I can get way in advance of it. No. You don't have a huge bank of coins. You don't have a huge bank of tickets. No, no. So that's where it's... Anybody coming brand new to the app right now is not going to be able to do what I'm doing. They have to spend money if they're going to want to be able to play anything on a fully maxed table. without spending months. It really would account for months. It really is months to get to the point. At that point, you're going to be... Because the pool, you're going to be dealing with 13 tables that you're going to be collecting parts for. That's at most, in a given day, you can earn 36 table parts. Yeah, right. Do you think that if a new player only made the decision that yes, all they want to do is grind and play, do you think it would be worth their while spending the coin value to unlock the premium challenge so they have an extra shot at more things? No. Or whatever? No? I honestly don't. Again, all you'd be sacrificing really is five table parts a day. So now you'd be collecting 31 table parts a day. To drop 200 coins to be able to play premium, and premium, again, like I said, it kicks my butt regularly. It's not worth it for the collecting purposes. Right, so really it's a nice-to-have, but this is like a key factor to actually getting forward in the game and getting the unlocks, right? No. And it's one of those things that I would like to present to Zen and say, hey, guys, I don't know what kind of data you're collecting. I mean, obviously you're collecting across a large, large field of all the users, But let me break it down for you on a personal user's level and show you how this isn't working. Yeah, I think Mel will be very interested in your experience. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it might be time to send an email. So I just want to kind of run through just to let you guys know, I mean, how consistent this is just in table parts alone. Basic five-star, one table part. Ten-star, two table parts. Fifteen-star, three table parts. advanced five star two table parts 10 star three table parts 15 star five table parts um so advanced 15 that's a heck of a one you want to go for that one because you're gonna get a lot uh pro five star three table parts 10 star four table parts and then the biggie uh 15 star uh six table parts and the beauty about advanced is that you don't even have to pay any money to like do it it's just The video watch and off you go. Yeah. Yeah. So somebody then broke down what the video watches are. And here again, you want to know how Zen's making their money? They were saying that what they read, and this isn't necessarily what Zen's deal is, but for every thousand video views, Zen would get $3. Right. Okay. On any given day, because I have to go through the three challenges in advanced, plus I'm always flipping the video card for all the other things so on any given day I'm watching 12 videos right minimum minimum and believe me in advanced 15 star I'm watching way more than that so Zen is still earning their money so that video is actually a pretty important revenue stream for them as far as making money back on this package yes yeah interesting and the way they've done it it's not like just a random pop-up video every now and again it's like you choose to do it too like it's uh oh yes i i am going to watch this video of my own accord it's not just a random ad that pops up and frustrates you it's like i'm making a decision to watch this video yes so it's probably it's even better because they're getting more qualified video impressions from that rather than like some someone going oh look if the video coming up, I'll just like, you know, uh, um, defocus the app and refocus the app and it'll go away sort of thing. Right. Yeah. So they'll be getting quality imprints on that too. So, so I've taken to having something else, like I'll have my computer screen open or I'll have something, you know, watching TV or whatever. I'll have something else going on, uh, that I can quickly go to and read while the video pops up. Yeah. So I'm less annoyed by the videos. Although I really love the way the guy says, um, yeah, Look, how many different slot machine games can there possibly be an app for? Oh, I think I know the one already. It's Slots Era. No, no, no. You put too much on the R. It's all on the A. So it's Slots Era. Actually, strangely enough, I always listen to that ad because it's, You won. It's just like the dude is just. My other favorite one is the – it's obviously some Slavic video poker game, and it's – It's still Slots Era, I'll tell you. It's a mature – oh, it's got to be the same company. No, it's actually Slots Era. It's the same game, but they've done a different ad to target a different demographic. Well, but this one is for 18+. Yes. since it's 18 plus. But the thing is, the female voice goes, adult game for adult emotions. I'm like, what is that? Exactly. What is adult? I don't get what you're saying. It is one of those things where it's just like, it's such a fabulous broken English. It is wonderful. And then I started getting these ads for like Japanese games. Games, yeah. So there's one that is for, what is it called, like My Emperor or something like that. And it's basically how big of a ho-bag emperor can you be when collecting your harem? Because they'll be like, do you want to be a noble emperor or a romantic emperor? And the finger always selects romantic, and immediately there's just this harem of girls around the guy. And hearts go in his eyes, and he's just like full hearted. It's terrible. and then there was one where it was the typical cutesy Japanese sprites kind of look and so then the person, they show the finger scroll to do a macro view of it, right? For their stats, and all of a sudden it goes into fully drawn anime style character but the camera goes like BAM! Right on the crotch, and then BAM! Right on the chest. Where's the tentacles? I mean, come on. terrible. Oh, that's later. That's an unlock. So I do get amusement out of the ads. I mean, there's no doubt that I've been getting amusement. Yeah, Mr. Slot Zero is my favorite. I think out of all the ads, I go, oh, yes. Slot era. It's comical. He's actually in a couple of other ads, too, but he doesn't do that. He doesn't do that voice. He does it like a lighter voice. So that's his deep authoritative voice, and then he's got a lighter. You can still tell it's him, but he's not doing the elongated endings on all of his words. So something else I wanted to start tracking, and this is new for this week. I wanted to see what is the percentage of use of the tables and the frequency of the various challenges, etc., etc. So what's interesting is the game... Let's see if you can take a guess. What game appears in the most challenges? Like, has the greatest odds of appearing daily? Oh, probably Party Zone. No. No? No, not even close, actually. Oh. And this is only for me, too. So this is for me. I may be complaining. My next guess would be Medieval Madness. Not that one either. It is Attack from Mars. I've had it show up with a frequency of 71%. Oh, wow. That was going to be... It was either Medieval or Attack were the ones I was going to say. I do get them a lot as well. Getaway is my second highest at 50%. Followed by... Oh, excuse me. That's not my... That's 50%. Fishtails is 57%. Interestingly, though, Fishtails is only appearing currently in my pro and premium challenges. It didn't appear at all in my basic and advanced challenges. Theater of Magic showed up 43%, Safecracker 29%, Champion Pub 14%, Medieval Manus 36%, Junkyard 36%, Black Rose 36%, and Party Zone 29%. it's funny that I've heard some people deliberately not updating, um, say cracker. So don't have to play it. They hate it that much. And that's what I need to understand. So they're not, they're not even, they're not upgrading it at all. They're not even doing it to one star. They can just not have it. Yep. Interesting. Yeah. Because safe cracker in the basic and advanced challenge. Well, let's see, hold on. Let me look at my information. Excuse me. I've had it in basic survival three times and I didn't find survival that terrible for basic challenge. Um, but yeah, God survival, it's, it's tricky. You can do it on mobile in basic, but it's like the 15 stars, you're sweating it, um, to try and just, just all about TNC multiball or vault multiball. Well, see, that's where I found, I think my least favorite mode is five minute. because it's the least forgiving. You have to have a... I was just doing a five-minute premium attack from Mars, which... Talk about stupid numbers. You have to... For premium Premium five 15 stars 4 billion You essentially have to destroy 5 of the 6 saucers in order to do that and you better get Super Jackpot in multiball also. Right. I was sweating bullets trying to get that. But doing Survival Challenge which was 5.4 billion for Attack from Mars, I didn't sweat it that bad. And it's because I'm only battling that little chunk at a time, and the game can go on longer, which means I can unlock... Because Attack from Mars is definitely one of those tables where the longer you play, the better you can score, because everything is building and building and building. Correct. That, as opposed to, like I said, Safecracker doesn't work that way. No. What's the other one? Party zone doesn't really work that way. You've got to basically get multiball and then get two-time multiply and keep that. And that's it. I mean, if you don't get – and that's where all your scoring, though, is in multiball. Same thing now – okay, so you clued me into the junkyard thing. Yeah. And it was killing me because I was not getting mamushka. So I was like, is there a way of making mamushka pop up? Is there something that you're supposed to do that you can dictate what that random thing is? No, it's completely random. But then I found a new hack. So Mamushka grants you 100,000 points per switch hit, which obviously, like what Jared was saying, you just let it auto fire and drain and fire and drain and boom, next thing you know, challenge will be done. But I wasn't getting that. But I looked up something. So in the lower right corner of the time machine, when it's scrolling through the dates, there's a time, military time popping up. And when it says three minutes, 33 seconds, hit the flipper three times. That will start what's called a secret. I think it's called secret mania or whatever. Just like the the gear up trick. Right. Get away. Right. And it's worth 30,000 points per switch. I did my 15 star premium challenge I started I was only had one star completed when I started that I basically put my phone down walked away and about 7 or 10 minutes later it finally finished the challenge and it barely finished I mean it literally finished it with only 15 seconds left on the survival bar but it did it and so 333 both flipper buttons Yes, you do press. I think you're supposed to press both flipper buttons. So that's one of those things, if you're having a hard time getting Mamushka at all, and you see that 3-3, because the 3-3 doesn't always pop up. Is it going to be the last number in the… It's going to be the last number that highlights. Right, right. Yeah. But there's another trick that you can use to get past those survival and five-minute challenges on Junkyard. And also the tournament challenges. If you are on Android. If you're on Android, yeah. Basically, if you know you're up against a good player when you see their score, or you know you're up against a player who understands the hack, when you see their score going up rather fast, and you're like, ah, they just got my mooshka, I'm in trouble. The other thing I wanted to track was how often the challenges are cycling through. Yeah. And basically what I'm finding is, like for me, in basic challenge, survival came up 43% of the time, five-minute came up 36% of the time, and one-ball came up 21% of the time. And those percentages are virtually identical. Not – okay, advanced. Survival again comes up 33% of the time, but this time five-minute and one-ball are switched, but it's 21% and 36%. so the percentages are actually fairly kind of locked in somewhat but I only was sampling for 14 days so we'll see what happens as this continues that's still a fair amount of time it's not like you're only getting one mode yeah that's a fair sample size like 14 days of continuous play is a good sample size I would think that's valid data well the only reason why I question it is because in the days since, so three days later, I had fishtails, which, again, was never appearing in survival, or I mean, excuse me, in basic or advanced. All of a sudden, that's where I had it popping up. So, you know, I say give it a month and see what those numbers are then. That'll be a much better. And separate the data week to week as well, I would think, because you might find they do a weekly cycle and they switch things up weekly or something like that or fortnightly or something. Yeah, I'm not going to do that much of a spreadsheet. No, no, that's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. What? Compared to what you're doing now. Okay, I wanted to talk about this too because this is very relevant to our realm of speculation. months ago, like seven or so, I mentioned the fact that in the podcast here, it was, what is Pimble Arcade going to be doing? What's the future of Pimble Arcade? And I said, if we don't see anything happening in six months' time, it's pretty much all but dead. I mean, that's, let's face reality. The only thing that we've heard at all, and it was just repeated in the latest Twitch stream by Firesight, was, yes, they are working on a table. One. One. A single, solitary table. Hardly the wonderful outpouring that people would expect from them. So over in the beta forum regarding the PC release, I guess, yeah. we were kind of joking about it and I was, you know, saying basically that, uh, TPA may not be dead, but there's certainly a priest on standby ready to read it. It's last rights. Yes. And, um, and then Sven pointed out, he goes, well, maybe they're just, uh, at least I think it's Sven. Somebody pointed out that maybe they're just biting their time and waiting for the hype on, uh, the Williams pinball to, to die down. Then they'll, then they'll jump back in. And I was just like, yeah, you know, nobody wants to hear actors talk. We'll let this fad pass on and then we'll go back to being the kings of silent film era. And then a few years later, oh, crap, now there's color, too. You know, so you can't you can't just sit back and relax and wait. And so then an individual from Farsight who was not speaking officially on official terms kind of poked his head in. and I posed the question. I said, Hey, do you know, are we out of line for, uh, for saying this stuff? Are we, you know, just, are we lacking patients, you know, but seriously, why no Gottlieb tables? Why, you know, there's plenty of EMS and SS, uh, salt state tables that people would want from Gottlieb. Why are we not having those? Why are we only solely waiting on this one license? Stern stuff table. Yeah. And the response, response was quite telling in that it said, if there were any tables left that weren't super expensive to license or lame, we'd probably be making them. Well, that's a pretty giant blanket statement about anything that is not modern Stern. Yeah. Um, and then they kind of went on to say we're Farsight Studios, not pinball video game studios. Well, Well, folks, TPA is dead. Yeah. Let's just call it what it is. Honestly, TPA and potentially Stern sounds like it's on its last legs as well. I don't know what this magical table is. But a single solitary table is not going to set the scales back. The thing is that Elvira doesn't have long hair. She has a beehive. So it may actually not be Elvira. But even still, he's saying that they can't afford the expensive licenses, and they don't want to do any lame tables. What is this table going to be then? Like, if it's anything related to Stern, it's going to be expensive. Right. Which would explain why there's no Stern table action happening, because, well, licenses don't come cheap on those tables. And we were speculating that they incorporated any digital licensing into their licensing agreements, but that was pure speculation. so we don't know um yeah so like i said i'm i'm at this point it's kind of like i'm not going to be in our podcast really updating speculating guessing anymore because there's no point in it i don't i mean i'm not going to keep a torch alive for something that the studio itself doesn't really want to have the torch lit for i mean it sounds very clear that they don't care anymore like they they are looking at other opportunities and they've moved on good luck with the new opportunities. Go and release more of the partyware that you love to release. Well, in the statement it said also Xen is branching out themselves, but that doesn't mean it's completely abandoned. They're releasing Operencia. Which I started playing this week, and believe me, it is not Orbles, or whatever the heck that thing was. No, and it's not Party Arcade. Right. it's actually a well crafted non buggy game with depth in it and at the same time they're still cranking out top quality yeah anyway like I said that's if the main studio can't be bothered to care then why should we the fans so there you go happy to be proven wrong happy to be proven wrong but yeah but absolutely shocked if i am i mean if i had to put money down i think i'd be collecting so yep uh it would it would not be a roughy bit it would be a thing yeah yeah all right folks we're going to uh pretty much call it there for this week um hey have you got a t-shirt i know you haven't because i checked the sales uh head over to redbubble.com and type in blockade and you can find all the various designs we have but hey maybe you don't want a t-shirt maybe you just want to contribute to the podcast itself you can do that too we are on paypal and we do accept donations if you head over to our website blockadepinball.com episodes there is a little section that i uh what does it specifically say donations or uh support the show it's actually in every every single show note down the bottom You can click on that, and that'll give information on how if you just feel like being generous and supporting the show, you can do that too. Do you have a question for us? You can always send it via email, blahblahblockade at gmail.com, or you can do what a lot of people do, which is contact us on Twitter. You can do either the show, which is at Blockade, or you can do Jared and myself individually. I am at ShutYourTraps. He is at JaredMorgs, and we'll respond and get back to you. We usually try to do that. you can even leave comments in uh youtube we try to get back to those also um yeah yeah okay that's all the socials oh one last thing to just because uh jared were you familiar at all with cowboy bebop uh slightly slightly yeah i haven't watched a lot of the anime so i am a huge fan of cowboy bebop I watched when it first came out on Cartoon Network or Adult Swim at the time and within two episodes I was on eBay buying the soundtracks because I thought they were all fantastic and so I've been hooked ever since well Netflix is making a live action version of the show the live action version of Sonic the Hedgehog bleh why would you want to watch a live action Sonic the Hedgehog I have no idea I don't either. So anyway, it's been kind of like, well, who's the cast? Who's the cast? Who's the cast? They just finally announced a chunk of the cast and it's kind of had me go, huh? I have a feeling that would have happened no matter what. But the one that everybody's kind of going, the main character is Spike Spiegel. They've cast John Cho as who you would remember as Harold from Harold and Kumar. and also has he's also been the most recent three Star Treks. Right. Okay. And you kind of, because in the cartoon or in the anime, Spike is very thin and tall and gangly and that's not necessarily John Cho who's significantly shorter than what this character would be. But I can hear his voice doing the lines. I'm not offended by that. But people were doing the immediately, you know, how they were claiming certain movies were being whitewashed. This one, they were calling it being yellowwashed. They just went straight out and hired an Asian actor just so the people wouldn't complain, even though Spike is Jewish. And I went, Spike is Jewish? And they're basing that purely because his last name is Spiegel. There's not a single... Religion doesn't even come up. Not only not does religion, but nor does ethnicity. because, by the way, Spike is from Mars. So it's not like he's from Israel or anything like that. So it's one of those faux outrages that I just kind of went, okay, whatever. Good for you. Yeah, the guy they cast as Jet Black is Mustafa Shakir, who the headshot that they posted of him looks pretty good for what Jet would look like. And again, people were like, oh, what? they had to cast a black actor because his last name is jet black. But if you watch the anime jets, not white, he's not black. He's just big and has mutton chops. So it doesn't really matter. Um, yeah, no, it's an anime. Um, and then they, they cast, uh, some gal by the name of Daniela Pineda for Faye. Uh, I know nothing about her. Um, so it's going to be hard for me to determine if she'll make a good Faye or not. Um, and then a guy by the name of Alex Hassel who I have no clue who that is and he's going to be the villain which is why is my name escaping me anyway he's the villain they still have not cast Radical Edward because they can't find a girl with no bones because if you watch the anime Ed has no bones it's completely rubber nor have they cast the dog yet so Oh, Vicious. That's the name of the villain. Vicious. But anyway, just wanted to throw that out. It's shaping up. It's actually happening. We'll be getting 10 episodes. All I can say is if they don't... If they didn't at least reach out to Yoko Kanno, who did all the music, Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts, if they don't at least reach out to her and see if she wants to do the show, then they're doing it terribly wrong. It's one thing if the person turns you down, but if they're not even sought after, approached, then that's to be larger than whoever they cast, because the music is 50% of the show. Right. Anyway, just wanted to drop that in there. I know. Hey, this is what I'm saving for the end of the podcast now, folks. It seems. Yeah. All right. We're going to skedaddle, and we will talk to you all again next week, I believe. maybe we'll find out but hey thanks for listening we appreciate it bye bye goodbye wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales, restoration, customization Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that BlackAid is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 75ac552a-e1c7-4ba0-958e-f961276f6d8f*