# Let's Play Garfield and Snoopy

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2023-03-06  
**Duration:** 74m 26s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/Lets-Play-Garfield-and-Snoopy-e203s98

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## Analysis

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan of the Blockade Pinball Podcast play through Pinball FX versions of Snoopy and Garfield, discussing game design, layout, and accessibility issues. They critique Pinball FX reviews for focusing on monetization rather than gameplay quality, and analyze table design philosophy including difficulty balancing, shot sequences, and visual clarity problems.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Pinball FX reviews are fixating on monetization aspects rather than evaluating the actual game design and quality — _Chris and Jared discuss recent Pinball FX reviews, noting reviewers are focused on season pass and licensing issues rather than gameplay_
- [MEDIUM] The monetization/season pass system in Pinball FX exists primarily to allow Zen to offer the Pinball Pass cross-platform — _Jared explains: 'That is the only reason why the monetization thing exists... It's not that you have to buy it'_
- [HIGH] Snoopy table has a drain-prone layout with double-stacked in-lanes similar to Stern Pinball's design approach — _Chris analyzes the geometry: 'the position of the outlane posts, they're all on the same horizontal plane... makes it very hard to escape a drain'_
- [HIGH] Snoopy's kite multiball requires shooting the left ramp three times total to qualify, with strategic risk introduced by lack of right flipper return — _Chris explains the lock mechanics: 'it doesn't feed it back to the right flipper. It always feeds it to the left. So then you have to let it go down, let it dead bounce off the flipper'_
- [HIGH] Garfield's upper lane change is completely hidden/obscured in normal play view with no visual indicator of completion — _Chris discovers: 'there is actually a lane change up the top there... In this view, you can't see a single thing up there. So it's completely obscured'_
- [HIGH] Foo Fighters pinball Pro model in Australia costs approximately $12,000 AUD and excludes upper playfield, bang-back post, and magnet features available in Premium/LE — _Jared reports: 'they're about $12,000 Australian dollars... With a Pro, you don't get the upper playfield. You don't get the bang-back post'_
- [HIGH] First round of Foo Fighters Pro tables is already sold out at Australian distributors; next stock arrives in June — _Jared states: 'down here in Australia the first round of Pro um tables is already sold out... the next round of Pro tables will be out in June'_

### Notable Quotes

> "You are completely missing the point, folks... You are missing the point. Why am I... They're focused now entirely on the season pass."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~15:45
> _Critiques Pinball FX review discourse for missing substantive game design discussion by fixating on monetization_

> "It's just a lot of saber-rattling. It's just a lot of noise about nothing, really."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~17:30
> _Dismisses community backlash about Pinball FX pricing as temporary posturing_

> "The thing is, it doesn't feed it back to the right flipper. It always feeds it to the left. So then you have to let it go down, let it dead bounce off the flipper, and then take the shot again. So there's always a little bit of risk introduced to it."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~27:15
> _Analyzes deliberate shot design strategy on Snoopy that creates difficulty through ball control rather than shot difficulty_

> "This is the thing about this game. It is... It's very much the case of... It's frustrating enough that you want to do it again. It's not frustrating enough that you don't want to see the table again in your life."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~35:20
> _Articulates design philosophy for balancing difficulty with replayability in pinball tables_

> "But there is actually a lane change up the top there, like a two lane change. Yeah. And in this view, you can't see a single thing up there. So it's completely obscured."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~47:30
> _Identifies accessibility/visibility problem in Garfield's layout design that impacts playability_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Chris Frebus | person | Host of Blockade Pinball Podcast, also known as 'Shut Your Trap'; primary analyst and commentator |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast (@JaredMorgz); provides gameplay and secondary analysis |
| Blockade Pinball Podcast | organization | Pinball-focused podcast featuring game reviews, design analysis, and community discussion |
| Pinball FX | product | Digital pinball simulation platform by Zen Studios featuring licensed tables including Snoopy and Garfield |
| Snoopy (Pinball FX table) | game | Zen Studios digital pinball table based on Peanuts IP; features Red Baron mode, dog food collection modes, kite multiball |
| Garfield (Pinball FX table) | game | Zen Studios digital pinball table based on Garfield IP; features upper playfield, pop bumpers, spinner, hidden lane change |
| Zen Studios | company | Developer of Pinball FX digital platform; publisher of Snoopy and Garfield tables |
| Foo Fighters (pinball machine) | game | Physical pinball machine by unspecified manufacturer; three-tier pricing model (Pro/Premium/LE) with Pro at ~$12k AUD; sold out first production run in Australia |
| Jessica Ligonato | person | Pinball player from US flying to Australia for BPAC event; owns Pink Panther machine; will compete in diamond chase challenge |
| Pink Panther (pinball machine) | game | Physical pinball machine with diamond chase wizard mode; will be played competitively at BPAC event |
| BPAC | event | Pinball event in Australia where Chris's machines will be displayed; Jessica Ligonato traveling from US to participate |
| Attack from Mars | game | Referenced classic pinball machine with easy-to-qualify initial multiball as design comparison point |
| WWF (pinball table) | game | Referenced physical pinball table with upper playfield ring design that Garfield's layout subtly resembles |
| Borderlands (Pinball FX table) | game | Zen Studios digital pinball table referenced as example of frustration level so high it discourages replays |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball FX table design and gameplay, Digital vs physical pinball design philosophy, Game monetization and review discourse, Layout analysis and shot design, Difficulty balancing and replayability
- **Secondary:** Foo Fighters pinball machine pricing and availability, Community competitive play and tournaments, Visual clarity and accessibility in digital pinball

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.55) — Hosts are positive about Snoopy and Garfield table design quality and accessibility, appreciating thoughtful shot design and replayability. Critical of Pinball FX review culture for missing substantive analysis, though dismissive rather than angry. Frustrated with technical issues (controller problems, cloud sync) and visibility problems in Garfield. Pragmatic and analytical tone overall.

### Signals

- **[sentiment_shift]** Community backlash against Pinball FX monetization is dismissed as temporary 'saber-rattling' by hosts who predict customers will eventually purchase season pass tables despite initial resistance (confidence: medium) — Jared: 'I'm sure that that's how Zen is taking it as well... We'll just wait for you to lose your initial feelings about it'
- **[design_philosophy]** Garfield's backglass art is criticized as 'pretty hideous' and unappealing—'not an inviting backglass at all' despite acceptable cabinet art, suggesting thematic inconsistency (confidence: medium) — Chris and Jared both critique backglass: 'That's not... That's not an inviting backglass at all. No, it's just a poster'
- **[design_philosophy]** Snoopy designer (credited as 'Dolby' per Chris) demonstrates Stern Pinball layout influence with double-stacked in-lane geometry, suggesting cross-pollination of physical machine design patterns into digital pinball (confidence: medium) — Chris notes: 'This is by Dolby... that double stacked left in-lane is very reminiscent of the way Stern Pinball does their double stacked in-lane'
- **[design_philosophy]** Snoopy's dog food collection mode shows lucrative safe play alternative ($1.2M multi-collect) vs risky main modes, encouraging varied play strategies based on tournament vs casual contexts (confidence: high) — Chris explains tournament strategy: 'you definitely do this mode over and over again... some other ones are not easy and a little risky, so you have to change your playstyle'
- **[design_philosophy]** Snoopy demonstrates deliberate shot difficulty design through ball routing/control challenges rather than just shot positioning—kite multiball requires strategic left flipper dead bounces to access right ramp for lock qualification (confidence: high) — Chris analyzes: 'It doesn't feed it back to the right flipper... you have to let it dead bounce off the flipper and then take the shot again. So there's always a little bit of risk introduced'
- **[market_signal]** Foo Fighters pinball table first-run Pro models completely sold out at Australian distributors with 5-month wait (June availability) for next stock, indicating strong demand or production constraints (confidence: high) — Jared: 'first round of Pro um tables is already sold out... next round of Pro tables will be out in June'
- **[market_signal]** Foo Fighters physical pinball machine Pro model selling at ~$12,000 AUD in Australia with immediate first-run sellout; significant feature constraints vs Premium/LE tiers creating tiered value proposition (confidence: high) — Jared reports: '$12,000 Australian dollars... With a Pro, you don't get the upper playfield... bang-back post... magnet in the lock area' and 'first round of Pro tables is already sold out'
- **[product_concern]** Garfield's upper lane change is completely hidden/invisible in normal play view with no visual indicator of lane change status, creating accessibility and clarity issues (confidence: high) — Chris discovers and explicitly states the lane change is 'completely obscured' with 'no lights there' to indicate completion status

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## Transcript

 Blackade Pinball Podcast This is the Blockade Pimple Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, Jared Morgan. Hello, everyone. How's it going? It's another glorious weekend. Well, another glorious weekend, is that right? Yes. So, fun things. We've, here in California, have been just getting pelted with rain, which is very unusual for us to have it multiple days in a row. But then on top of that, it was from an Arctic surge. Oh. And so temperatures plummeted. And the other day we, well, not to ruin the magic or anything, but the other day I guess we had snow in Disneyland. What? Yes. at ground level in California yes in some yeah not in the mountains they were calling it I guess we have a new term for it I guess it's from the back east like grapple or grapple it's a it's not hail but it's not snow it's basically snow that has a lot of wet particles around it so it wasn't falling with rain it was just falling as that so when you looked at the sky it looked like snow was falling, but then as soon as it hits the ground, it just goes wet. Oh, so it just, oh, okay, right. Yeah. So it's almost like a, it's a crusty outside with a wet center. Yeah, kind of. And it was the weirdest thing because I, you know, scooped it up in your hand and squeezed it and it was like rubbery. Oh, that's really bizarre. It was like, that was like the texture. It had just like this rubber give to it because it wasn't quite ice, wasn't quite wet. That is very strange. I don't know. It was very weird. But anyway, so for like 15 minutes, people were losing their minds. I couldn't imagine because how often does it do that in California? Like never? So the last time it snowed where it shouldn't, I was in high school. It was like 30 years ago. Wow. Okay. Oh, God. Yeah. I must say that. let's hope all this like weird Carl Weathers and wetness is falling where it needs to fall though um i don't know if you have the same problem as we do here in australia but normally our catchments are up in the the sort of mountainous areas and um it it usually doesn't fall over the mountain mountainous areas it falls sort of more towards the coast so uh like the the dams and reservoirs remain empty so you know yeah our our reservoirs are filling up but they're not where we get our primary water from um we okay we get all of our water from the colorado river right okay um and unfortunately so does a few other states and right those lakes and stuff where it all feeds into those have been precariously low like i've seen some of them where they've like found dead bodies and stuff that were in drums thinking they'd never be found again oh they've been uncovered there's been uh lost towns that have been discovered yeah you know yeah yeah like towns it was was subsumed with the dam project um all coming back out up open again very weird um You know, you look at the lakes and they have a very severe tan line. Yeah. I've seen there's some lakes as well that have a marina precinct, and they've had to move the marina precinct ever so down the lip of the dam. We're talking like 500 feet of water down kind of levels. Yeah. It's ridiculous. So, yeah, we'll see what all this does. All I know is it's wrecking havoc in our local mountains. because they're not used to this severe amount of dump. Yeah. You know, if you were to go up north a little bit, you know, like to Mammoth Mountain, for those of you that know that, it's more towards the Sierras and everything, they're used to having, you know, 20 feet of snow. Snow around. You know, their buildings are structured as such. But in the local mountains here, they're not meant to have this much dump this fast. And I know that one of the grocery stores up in the mountain at an elevation that gets very little snow. They got slammed and the entire roof collapsed. Because it wasn't designed to pitch the snow off it. Yeah. So, you know, everything was frozen food. Everything was frozen food. That's right. Yep. You know. That's wild. Well, at least snow means water. So hopefully the snow melts in the right way and goes into the right places. Yeah. You know. In other news, I got a new receiver because mine had died. Okay. And I didn't spend a load of money on a receiver like I have in the past because I realized, you know, I only have the five speakers. I'm not doing full Dolby Atmos or anything. Yeah, that's right. But what I didn't think about, and this actually happened with my last receiver, you know video inputs they die off they do so I used to have my laser disc player back in the day hooked up to a receiver that had plenty of S-video inputs and only a few component video inputs and then the next receiver I bought didn't have any S-video inputs but still had the component video inputs and this latest receiver that I bought it has plenty of HDMI, which was all I was thinking about, doesn't have a single regular video input on it. It's all HDMI now. All HDMI. But not even a simple, basic cable. Yellow plug. Yeah, no yellow plug. You're going to have to get a converter. Like an old school to new school converter. I think I have one of those because at some point I was using a converter to convert to HDMI. because I didn't have enough. I only had like two HDMI inputs on the old receiver. Right. But, yeah, so that's caused a little bit of, okay, I mean the only thing really that I was plugging in was, well, the LaserDisc player now just plain doesn't get plugged in, but I haven't used it in years anyway. But the PS2 now has to be plugged in directly to the TV. Right, yeah. It's component video. Components. Which is funny. They sell a HDMI converter for it for like $30. I'm like, no. Not for a PS2 that I don't use very much. Next to never use. I literally fired it up today just to see if it still worked. And I was like, hey, I should play some games on this. It looks like fun. Yeah. Because it is fun. But then the other thing that wound up happening is, so my TV has ARC, which is that audio return cable, so you can send and receive over. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the receiver is eARC. Yep. And I don't think the two want to communicate nicely with each other, not on the HDMI 1.4 cables that I have. I think it wants the HDMI 2.1 or is it 2.3? You need twos at minimum to do it. So do you think any of the local stores sell those? No. Nope. Well, our local Best Buy does, but for a two-foot cable, which is not anywhere near enough, they want 50-some dollars. Yeah, definitely go Amazon for that. Yeah, Amazon I can pick up one for... Amazon is your friend. Yeah, I can pick up one for $5. But I don't have Prime. You shouldn't have to worry, though. It'll all be domestic anyhow, won't it? Yeah, but they still charge you... But it's $5 for the cable, and it'll be like $5 for shipping. So I just need to... Just get two cables, then. I got to hit that $25 threshold. You got to, yeah. Get some other random thing that you can also get shipped in the same consignment. You'll be right. Free shipping, then. Hooray. Or low shipping. But I need that in order for my headphones to work. Really? Well, because my headphones get the audio from the TV via an optical cable, of which here's problem number two. my old receiver had two optical outs and this receiver only has one and that's already being hooked up to the TV or how is it excuse me it's like an optical I don't know anyway I'm one optical short so I can't get a signal to the headphones that way and so the only way I can get it is from optical out from my TV because HDMI will be going up into the TV but because it's not doing e-arc it won't like and because this is fun too so because hbo and netflix and disney plus all now send out a dolby atmos signal signal my TV can't do Dolby Atmos. It was before Dolby Atmos existed. So you need to downsample it to 2.1 or set your settings to 2.1. Well, my settings used to do 5.1 just fine until all these companies switched to Dolby Atmos. So anyway, it's, you know... It sounds like just upgrading your TV to something less than... No, because my TV is 3D and you can't buy those anymore. Right, okay. So you're stuck with that until it dies and then you can't do any 3D content. Right. Right. Fun! Yeah, fun. Yeah, trying to get old technology to work with modern day stuff is an exercise in frustration, which is why, luckily, I don't have a DVD collection that I need to worry about. All my stuff is up in someone else's computer. Yeah. and all I do is I just have the latest TV with Google Home on it or not Google Home but Google TV with all the things that you need like Plex and YouTube and all that and it just works and I've got a soundbar that's all compatible nicely with Atmos and it all just works so you can do what you do and battle with old stuff because you need certain features uh but then you have to ask yourself how often do you actually go back and watch a 3d content all the time on your own all the time right so you're all you're going in there whenever i watch it whenever i watch a marvel movie i watch it in 3d in 3d i have them all in 3d so right um i do i've got a decent collection of 3d movies so if the opportunity presents itself I will watch in 3D okay because you know I have it got to use it while it works well that's true yeah nothing really new to report here I put my two pinball machines on the list for BPAC again this year so they'll be going over there and Jessica Ligonato who is flying over from the US to come over and repack again. Also has a Pink Panther. So we will maybe have a diamond chase competition on Pink Panther to sort of have a bit of fun with it. See, the way that Pink Panther works is you lock your three balls and then you do this mode where you have a separate counter that measures how many diamonds you've collected throughout the multiball. And that's essentially like the wizard mode on that game, if you want to call it a wizard mode. because it's not easy to lock all three balls. So once you get there, it's like, all right, I've got to get diamonds. And that's really what you measure your success by on the game. It's how many diamonds you get. So it's fun. It's not easy to get to. And it's quite rewarding when you get there. So it's a fun mode to sort of strive for and have challenges against. So it should be fun. You guys are going to be playing for pink slips, right? well we will be putting dollar coins because we have coins here not notes we're putting dollars on the on the pinball table for sure and dollary bucks yeah that's right it'll be fun uh all right folks so uh today's order of things happening we are going to uh play two of those tables that we said that we would uh play that we hadn't played previously uh that being garfield and snoopy so let me fire up the old pinball effects yep what are you telling me what do you mean there's a cloud conflict uh it's a sync conflict i just would have this thing up all right we'll go newer upload to cloud you know what probably would have happened is it would crack because we had some problems before starting the show, folks. So Chris had like a full system lock and everything. So that's usually what happens with Epic Game Store and the cloud sync. If you have an unusual end to your application, it doesn't sync it back to the cloud, which is why when you finished Pinball FX on Epic Game Store, it then reopens the Epic Game Store again because that's its sync process. That's when it does the sync. That's the one I want. There we go. Hey, it worked. Fantastic. I like it when it works When things work is actually quite good You know So Reviews have been coming out for this PS5 Yeah you know what the reviews are You hear what they're all saying Something monetary issues That's all I've seen I'm like that is not You're missing the point, folks. Yeah. You are missing the point. Why am I... Hold on, why is my controller not wanting to work? It's probably just not turned on. No, it's turned on. Oh. Oh, did you have to restart the PS2? No, this... My controller just shouldn't have an issue. It should just function. Should, quote-unquote, just work. It was literally just working before everything went to crap. Oh, before the big system restart. Yeah. Yeah, right. Well, that'll be the problem. All right. Hold on, folks. We're going to go back to this here. I'm going to try restarting this whole thing. yeah so they're fixating on the monetary aspect rather than the actual game itself and the all they can focus on in that respect is that oh well it doesn't seem like it's uh doesn't seem like it's worth the money since i already have all on fx3 and everything yeah i got nothing to say Yeah, and then you go into the comments section and it's, you know, holy hell. Oh, it's the bottom half of the internet. It's this comedian called Dave Gorman. He's got this show called Modern Life is Goodish. Okay. And he talks about the bottom half of the internet. He has this series, this part of the show called A Found Poem, where he goes and looks at a hot topic on the internet, goes to the bottom half of the internet where all the comments are, and creates this found poem out of his favorite comments. and puts it to an orchestral score. It's the funniest thing. So yeah, this bottom half of the internet is always a bad place to look. You never look there. Never look at the bottom half. But it's funny because here's what they're... They're focused now entirely on the season pass. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. That's what they're hung up on. They're hung up on the season pass and saying that, oh, there's that monetization thing. I'm like, you completely ignore the part where you can just purchase the tables. Yeah. And that thing is only for the pinball pass. And it's only so Zen can actually offer the pinball pass cross-platform. Yeah. That is the only reason why the monetization thing exists. Yeah. It's not that you have to buy it. So, I don't know. You can see, you can absolutely see why Xen had to drop it, like the whole ticket thing. Well but I mean again they can win because then it became well I should have been able to just pay 20 bucks and have my license carry over for all those other things Yeah right It like mm So you know pay 20 bucks and have my license carry over for all those other things Yeah right It like mm So But you know Does your license carry over for The Last of Us Remastered? Right. When you have The Last of Us on PS2? No, it doesn't. Nope. Because it's a new game. Again, we've had these conversations many a time. Yes. But, yeah, you're right. It's disappointing to see that that's the only coverage they're getting. I've got no words I just feel like let's revisit this in two years when there's another 30 some tables that have been released and let's see how many of those people that said I'm not giving them any more of my money have actually given them their money because I I know the sensation they're going to go ahead and buy one or two of those tables that they really wanted, like an Addams Family. And they're going to want to catch them all. And then they're going to want to catch them all. Because they're going to hate seeing those grayed out spaces. They absolutely will. Yep. Without a doubt. And that's what's going to happen. They're going to basically eat their words just by paying anyhow. So, whatever. It's just a lot of saber- It's just a lot of noise about nothing, really. Yeah, I'm sure that that's how Zinn is taking it as well. It's just like, we, yeah, okay, sure. Don't buy anything. We'll just wait. We'll be over here. Just waiting for you to, like, lose your initial, you know, feelings about it. Anyhow. So Snoopy. Yeah, I'm seeking out the Red Baron right now. And I gotta say, very easy to understand what I'm supposed to be doing right here. Yeah You just gotta shoot the ball that comes down Well, but I mean the call-out's Specifically saying Seek out the Red Baron and shoot him down This has got very good Okay, flashing line I'm still trying to work out with this mode Whether either ball can shoot the lane Or whether you gotta shoot it with the Red Baron ball I think it's either ball I think it's either ball either Oh look, there's Snoopy on the ball too Yeah, there is I do like how they paint the balls in this So I'm guessing I have to go to the tree, right? That's what I'm... Yes. That's the flashing lanes. Yep. That's what you need to get. I'm not good at passing in a multiball situation. Really? No. Okay. Ah, come on. Seems like you should be able to get a shot. It is an easy shot. But, like everything... Okay, we got one. Hit the red barren pool. shoot the flashing lane. Yeah, okay. I think it had to be the Red Baron ball. It had to be, yeah. Which is, you know, it's interesting. As a game mode, you've got to use a particular ball to shoot the shot. That's a fun... So it takes the notion that this table is actually an easy table away a bit, because you've got to actually be strategic. Right now, obviously, the Snoopy house is our mode hole, which I like that. Okay, let's do a different one. Astronaut Snoopy. Okay. I like this mode. It's quite fun. Where is Snoopy for space? Again, shoot the doghouse. Yeah. Okay. Easy enough. Oh, shot. Come on, Snoopy. Collect the samples. Let's blow the moon rocks. And there's moons. So there's flashing shots. Oh, right, there's actually moons. I didn't even notice that there was moons when I was playing this. But yeah, let's see the moons. So I have to get up to a ramp, clearly. Yep, you do. Hurry up! Your oxygen is running out! Oh, it's a hurry up, huh? Nearly. My oxygen is running out. Yep. Losing all of these games is driving me crazy! Oh, you just missed it. Snoopy! Summertime! Hey, there's dog food all over the place now. So the dog food mode is actually, I find, quite a lucrative mode. if you collect all the dog food and then shoot the dog house. You get like a million points each time you do that. So, it's not a bad... If you're playing in tournament, which at the moment, at time of recording, this table is in the events tab. So, you definitely do this mode over and over again and you'll get decent points. And the shots aren't that dangerous. So, yeah. It's pretty safe to do. Because there's some other ones, like the actual modes like the actual main modes that will reach up to the wizard mode, they're not easy and they're a little bit risky, so you have to change your playstyle a bit when you're in tournaments I think. Ah, da da da da da, get in there, nice, good shot. And it's not that hard to re-qualify for that mode again, either. So that will give you your right kickback. So this is the thing that took me a while to realize, but... Oh, nice. Nice beat. So you can see, just by doing that, how lucrative that mode is. Like, it's very easy to get points, because I didn't do that in my approach this week when I was playing it. And, yeah, I went for main modes rather than the sub-modes. And that was the result. I didn't get a particularly high score because I bombed out of the main modes. So this is by Dolby. Yep. For one of our new designers. Yeah. I actually quite like the design of this table. It's very flowy. It actually... It's very reminiscent, though, I think, that double stacked left in lane is very reminiscent of the way Stern Pinball does their double stacked in lane. So anyone who plays a lot of Stern Pinball games with that arrangement knows that that's exactly what happens on Stern Pinball as well. When you've got the two outlanes like that. Because you'll see that the position of the outline posts, they're all on the same horizontal plane. so normally normally with the outlane post the outlane post is slightly elevated from a geometry perspective and that is what allows you to get control of the ball but the ball basically already enters the um the outlane before you do anything about it and and it makes it very hard to escape a drain on that side on either side actually this one's a drain monster as far as that So I'll just point out again, folks, other than when this was in the Pinball Party app, which I played it a little bit in that, I haven't played it since this is my first firing up in PenFX. And I've only played it like a couple of times when it entered in, and usually only when it surfaced in the tournaments, which I think it's probably the first time it's come in. What is it saying? It says lock the ball is that with Lucy? Lock the ball is your very right hand shot. It's that green blinking shot. It's very late on the left over. That's a tough shot to get in. That's a very late on the right hand. Oh that's a great shot. Yeah nailed it. So the the whole kite molding ball thing is just essentially it's a it's a hidden spell-o-rama. you just gotta shoot that left ramp over and over again and that'll qualify for the kite multiple but it's like you gotta shoot it I think three times to qualify the lock and then you gotta do that again two more times and it's it's hard to get that it's weird too because it seems like it's such an easy ramp to to get yeah it feels it's nice and wide and you go well you know it shouldn't be that hard to nail over and over again. The thing is, it doesn't feed it back to the right flipper. It always feeds it to the left. So then you have to let it go down, let it dead bounce off the flipper, and then take the shot again. So there's always a little bit of risk introduced to it. And I think you don't want getting multiball to be too easy, I think. There should be some challenge to it. Well, I think your big point multiball, there should be a challenge. I am a fan of having multiball just start. It's a little bit like Attack from Mars and how easy it is to get multiball for the first time. You just shoot that shot and you're there, basically. It's a very easy shot to get. Yeah, like, because the... That multiball that you were going for in that right-hand side, you qualify that by rolling over the in-lanes at the top. That'll light that lock. Stop it, dog! I need to sneak past her. If I could hit anything. Hey, nice shot. Okay, we got that. But if it's... Sneak past Lucy, don't hit her. Successfully lane... Okay, so just hit the lit lane. Oops. Unfortunately, I think that count as a hit against her, huh? Yeah, maybe. Get one more. Ah! Oh, no. Everyone has to leave home. There's a skill shot. What? Oh. Thought I'd hit the skill shot on that. You missed it. You should change the lane. Guess not. How do I get to that, uh, baseball bat? Uh, you shoot the baseball... You gotta shoot the baseball capitol a number of times. Then the saucer will light light and you shoot it into the saucer. That mode will also light the left and right loops for kickback as well. So if you shoot the capture ball enough times it will light the kickback and you just redeem it basically. Collect some food I guess Yeah Get the food Cash all your food in Then redeem it At the thing Try and get them all Because you get like 1.2 mil If you do that That's good points Nope not there No Nope not there Not there That's not the shot I don't think I can backhand it From there No. That's alright. Nice shot. Get that. No. Let's try and catch it in. Oh, almost. Nearly. Like that. Ah! Oh! Oh! No! Frustrating. This is the thing about this game. It is... It's very much the case of... Oh. I'll get it next time. Right? there's a lot of it's really nicely I think the sort of replayability of this it's frustrating enough that you want to do it again it's not frustrating enough that you don't want to see the table again in your life which unfortunately some of these ones are like Borderlands do you see video of Foo Fighters table with the with that death save post yeah how cool is it I was just like that's pretty bold um down here in Australia the first round of pro um tables is already sold out um so the distributor is already sold out the first round the next round of pro tables will be out in June here and you know even though I'm not a I'm not a massive fan of Foo Fighters I like their music I'm not a rabid fan and I was looking at this table going I actually went to the manufacturer's website to have a look at prices ah I was going, what are these actually worth now down here in Australia? And it turns out that they're about $12,000 Australian dollars with the current exchange for a pro. And I'm going, you know, that's not terrible. But with a pro, you don't get the upper play field. You don't get the bang-back post. You don't get the magnet in the lock area. Yeah, there seemed to be, I mean, I didn't really look at the video closely, but there seemed to be a lot that you're not getting. Yeah, but the funny thing is that I think, like, if you look at the cost, which is, you know, now you're up there. Nice. Oh, yeah. Not for long. Yeah, no, you've got to, it's really not easy to keep it up there, I will say. It's not super easy to qualify it either. Like, you've got to, like, shoot that, then the saucer, and the saucer's a late shot. But it's fun to get up there to the upper playfield. I see, we did it after that. Can you kick it? Alright. So this is just a combo shots mode. Oh great. Yeah, so you gotta shoot the center, then shoot the ramp, then shoot the side ramp. Is basically the shot making there. It's not easy. All these main modes are not easy. Nearly. Just a little more zeus. I want to win! Good shot. Oh, and then to the tree. Yeah. Did you notice there how when you made the shot, everything was blinking, but you couldn't... Like, the first time around, you didn't know what your second shot was. Because everything was blinking, so you couldn't work it out. That's a bit of a problem. Minor problem. Well, no, I think I worked it out pretty fast. You didn't... Oh, you did? Yeah. again this is a case where I think if there was a darker mode it would help because your eye would immediately be drawn to save there to it yep the times it's not super long on these so But you're right, it's... It's a good, decent layout. It's a good layout. Everything's nice and open. And I'm not doing the, wait, what do I do now thing. It is none of that. I know where my mode hole is. The modes that have started, I've immediately understood pretty much what I need to do. Yep. Um, you know, does it have the call-outs? Not particularly, but... They also, though, do seem to be, um... The call-outs actually make sense, like right now, where it just says Snoopy Subber Time. Great, I understand immediately that there's dog food on the table. You know what I mean? So... And that you should hit those things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't necessarily need to be specifically, shoot all the dog food that's on the table, but the call-out definitely is cluing me in to what needs to be happening. Yeah, that's right. What I need to do. Conveniently, that last shot was right in the middle, so you get your points on the click as well, which is quite nice. Hurry up, Snoopy's winning for his supper! You'll get that from the loop though, so you don't really need to swap it. You'll qualify from a loop around it. And normally if you shoot it up the right hand loop, you'll trickle down into the left hand loop exit anyhow from the pops. so yeah that's scored a good amount of points yeah so you got I mean it's lucrative mode like that's a good points there it's particularly if you don't cash it in after one or two bowl collections if you do all the bowl collections and then cash it in it's 1.2 mil I think do that a couple of times within the scope of the mode and there you go you lock your ball that's only one of three Right down the... So, you know how I was commenting before that the tree shot is hard because it doesn't go back to the right flipper? Well, it does, but you need to earn it. So, you could shoot the left ramp and then do that cross ramp, which would then return it back down to the right flipper, which then would allow you to do that shot over again. And so it's encouraging you to dial in that shot like that and then take that shot again and then repeat the process. So you can qualify it if you dial in that shot and get used to it. So again it rewarding that more advanced play to do it So it again a really nice little gameplay balance there All right well let go ahead and take a look then at Garfield which I don believe I have touched at all. Ever. I could say that, no, I agree with you there. I hadn't touched Garfield until here. Because it was out of the beta by the time this one was released on a Zen Pinball Party. Um, so I mean, the cabinet art looks good. Well, but that back glass is pretty hideous. Yeah, that is not... That's not an inviting back glass at all. No, it doesn't even really have the product name or... No, it's just a poster. It is. Yeah. Welcome to another fun-filled day with your favorite pet. I like the art style on this. We got a little spinner right there in the middle. Yeah, you got a spin disc. You got lots of ejects. Upper playfield pop bumpers. that upper play field reminds me subtly of the WWF upper play field with the ring but it's not quite like that but I just looked at it and went oh that's WWF style let's get into our proper view mode there that is the correct way raise left flipper hit the active food raise left flipper and hit trash or spider for super skill shot Okay. Hmm. Do that. Well I probably should have. Nope. Not quite fast enough. Alright. Let's see if I can work out what we're supposed to do here. Okay. New set in place. Various things are raising and lowering. That's a good... I mean a good start. It gives you a visual clue. Okay, so those orbits basically go up to, they lead up to those pop bumpers that then drop down. That's right. Interesting. And you might not realize, but there is actually a lane change up the top there, like a two lane change. Yeah. And in this view, you can't see a single thing up there. So it's completely obscured. Nope, can't see. Oh, there's the lanes. Yep. But they're not... Cannot see them. So, but there's no lights there. No. Hmm. Oh, I think the lights... I don't know. There needs to be some sort of indication up there that you've done one. Like, they're pretty much the same orientation as the two lanes on Attack from Mars and on Medieval Madness. You know, they could do with some sort of, like... You know how in... Oh, what is it? Creature from the Black Lagoon and Theater of Magic. how they have those little animated things above the lanes to show you what ones you've got and what ones you don't. They could do with something like that, like maybe donuts or something that Garfield likes to eat. Lasagnas. Can I go this way? Nope. No. Okay. I'm just trying to work out what to even do here. Let's see. Yeah. And obviously I'm not going to tell you anything. You have to work it out yourself. Because that's the rule. You've got to come in blind to these things. That's right. It does give you flashing lights. Yeah, I've got a little flashing light for a lock. Let's see if I can get that. Why in the world would I want to eat a mouse? Dinner time, Garfield. Don't worry, Odie. It's not an avalanche. It's just my stomach rumbling. Okay. New set in place. All that lines feed Garfield her points. Garfield, we're all out of time. There's a flipper up there. I didn't even see that happening. Yeah, there sure is. Not for all the lasagna in Italy. There you go. That thing was well hidden underneath that rail. Yeah, it is very hidden. This will do as an appetizer. Still don't really know. Are you sure this is what the diet book says I get for lunch? It needs more call-outs, doesn't it? What's that? It needs more call-outs. But there's just, like, random blinking happening. So now the screen's telling you to do something. Yeah, but I... As we keep on saying, telling me to do things on the DMD without pausing the ball to let me read what to do on the DMD is not optimal. It's no good. It's not what you need. Because like, okay, there I just lit Garfield on that one But he's still blinking You know what I mean? And no other lights lit up So Because in my opinion, if something is blinking Either I hit the lane and it stops blinking What are you doing? Which that one just did That one just did See how the other one is blinking with more intensity so the other Garfield is now blinking faster than the other ones. Oh, so is that telling me that's the next one I have to shoot? I think we all saw this coming. That's the message I'm getting from the light show. Yeah. Okay. It's almost like it's like a... What's that game we got to match to? It feels like that's how this game is designed. What's the first part of this? Hit the active food bowl for a skill shot. Oh, I see. Okay, so if I just do that... apparently I got skills on that yeah no point in delaying the bad news Center orbit. See, I just started something, and there was no audio indicator to tell me that I just started something. music didn't change, there wasn't a call out changed, nothing yep, exactly and I really don't know where I'm supposed to be firing and because there's no big flashing scrolling light showing you what lane is the center loop like what is the center loop here I can tell you it's the one inconvenient place right behind the it's just my stomach rumbling the spin discs uprights They're easier to catch. So the one that... And they taste a lot better. Yeah, it's... Oh, you got a multivolt. How'd you get that? You think I know? What? The mailman will be along soon. So that is the center loop, what you just shot there. Okay. But it really could do with some more visual clues about what lanes are blocked. Yeah. I mean, I'm just... Oh, what? What happened? Ball two of six locked for pizza special multiball. You can start multiball or lock more balls. I locked a ball. about the DMD, wasn't it? But again... There wasn't a single audio clue. You're going, where's my ball? There was nothing saying, hey, look up here. Look at the DMD in select. The music didn't change. There was nothing. That's right. Oh, you nearly beat my score there. Chris, you didn't quite get there. Maybe next time. Maybe next time. Probably next. Because my score isn't that high. Hold on. Who designed this thing? You see? It's Crofts. Really? Oh, right. That is interesting. That is interesting because I usually really like his tables. And I'm like, not feeling it. Yeah, not feeling it. I mean, it's got a lot to shoot. It just needs some visual clues. A little bit of extra time on the visual clues. Visual and audio. It's reminding me a lot of Bob's Burgers. Yeah. Which I feel suffered the same problem. There was a lot of blinky things happening, but no real indication of what you were supposed to be doing. Yep. that's why I don't really enjoy playing Bob's Burgers because it doesn't feel fun it's not a bad table and I guess I don't know I don't really like the show either so that's probably a problem as well so the theme doesn't really capture me I hate to say it but almost all those tables cause like I do like Archer or Fox Tables and it's a terrible table yeah like yeah it doesn't do the the show friend the justice no they literally just took random audio quotes and threw them in there without actually having the table the table could have been extraordinarily funny if it had been okay uh who said in place for a pinball machine yeah they should strive i think as part of when they're doing one of these bespoke tables they they really need to strive for custom call outs I mean that's what Stern and all the big name designers do they get you know like custom call outs done that you know help you do things in the game so I guarantee you that new Foo Fighters table is going to have a butt load of custom call outs yeah it's going to have a lot particularly as the there's a member of the band is a big pinball fan. So you can absolutely bet that they're going to be doing the quarter. I've heard of fast food, but this is ridiculous. The art style on that table, it's another zombie yeti, so it's automatically amazing. I'm helping poopy stick on his diet. No, I'm not. And Odie? Well, that's lasagna. No point in delaying the bad news. So what you're doing here, it's not immediately obvious, but you think your goal is to actually hit the lasagnas, which sort of is, but that's not where you actually collect your points. Oh. The points are actually on the flashing lanes. What? You mean all of them? Yeah. Yep. So basically, you're using lasagnas as like a score boost, and then you shoot a flashing lane, and that will actually give you the points. So at the moment, you're not getting anything. Now you've actually got it. so you and then the points are held so you're currently at 700,000 so you've just got another 700,000 so the more the Zarnish you boost and then I activated the dog so this is a table with no mode start it's all essentially kind of light spell around yeah it's not terrible spell around it's like basically match the symbols to start a mode. So if you look at that you got 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, so there's four modes that you start by matching ramp to ramp or shot to shot. Again this is this is one that you might have to actually have a little squiz at the instructions for to really understand how to play it which you know So is, you know, our indication for, like, is the game easily playable or not? Well, this is unfortunately probably a fail in that regard. Why in the world would I want to use a mouse? How easy is it to pick up? Dinner time, Darby. You've got your other mouse lock open. Don't worry, Odie. It's not an avalanche. It's just my stomach rumbling. I always think about the table that I hated at first was, please believe it or not, until I read the instructions. And then once I read the instructions, it became one of my favorite tables. But the thing is, the instructions really locked you into what the progression is of the table, what the story is of the table. And unfortunately, every single time I've had to read instructions on a Zen table, it doesn't further make me get the flow of the score. it is just a myriad of ways to score. Yeah, and we really saw that when we had a look at the instructions for Borderlands and how to get that skill shot. The instructions on how to get the skill shot were halfway through the instruction set. Yeah. Like, that doesn't... Like, you should, as an instructional designer, when you're laying out the instructions, you should have what you encounter first or most likely to encounter first in the game right at the front. so you can quickly go in there and have a look and only have to scroll maybe two or three pages to understand that feature that you've just discovered in the game as you explore a game so that would be my my absolute bit of feedback here is like with those instructions look at the i guess look at the um the way the game unfolds features instruct your instructions in that order. Instructions tell the story, essentially. That still wouldn't help order lines. No, because it doesn't... No, it's crazy. I can honestly say I have not played that game since we did the show. I gave it another go to try and really figure it out. Yeah, really give it a good shot. And, I mean, I did figure out how to do the skill shot. But ultimately, I just kind of lost interest over time. Yeah. It just didn't inspire me to keep on playing, as opposed to playing Brothers in Arms. And... Just one more game. It is kind of a just one more game. The funny thing with that one is, is I don't... The theming on Borderlands is so much better. Borderlands is a very appealing looking table and the audio on Borderlands is really good it's just the rule set the code and the shots Brothers in Arms has the shots has the coding at least as far as I was concerned it's just a bit of a boring looking game and it's kind of boring sounding it's got the sleepy music and... Garfield, we're all out of capsules. But you know, the same thing. You have to say it one way for... Not for all the lasagna in Italy. You know, when I first looked at Homeworld, I didn't have a lot of nice things to say about it. Well, have you warmed up to it? Yeah, I have, you know. Really? Like, it's... Garfield, get help! I've realized, I think, the intent of the designer on that tape. So, the idea is... I mean, I kind of got the understanding that the game is about the long play, right? You're collecting resources. Those resources actually do take a long time to accumulate in the game. So the way that the thing, the game almost deliberately slows down time is actually, like, it sort of fits the franchise and sort of fits the actual video game aesthetic. So I understand that now. And once I got over that hurdle, I realized, okay, so everything, like, you know, the fact that you've got to, like, qualify for walking your chute eight times, well, that is kind of how the game works. You've got to do a lot of resource collecting before you can upgrade your ships and stuff like that. So, again, that's sort of like paying homage to the actual source materials, I guess, mode of being. so once you do that and you realize where the points are in the game which is obviously the modes just if you ever encountered this thing in um event mode in zen even if it's like limited flips or like time challenge it's all about the game modes and there's certain modes that will get you points quick you know so again once you get that layer and you understand that extra layer of gameplay with the game. It actually becomes quite a chill table to play, but also a rewarding table What is it? Something interesting on TV? You can sort of just flip around and enjoy yourself on the table. You just got to get past the fact that it's deliberately slowing everything down because that's sort of the aesthetic of the game. Once you get past that, I find it actually really quite a fun game to play So check this out Right now well It I supposed to hit the TV Yeah okay But there was still a bunch of things waiting and flashing It's not an avalanche. Because I'm guessing you can stack what's... Yes. Things that are open and happening. You can in this game. But that's... You can start multiple modes together. Like if you... You can do like a multiple plus a... New set in place. One of the other modes, and it doesn't seem to restrict you. But, like, if you have a hurry-up going on, which was what that TV was, it was a hurry-up mode, then feature the lights for it. Sure, you can let other things start. Something interesting on TV? It's kind of pathetic. You have priorities. I'll go to the free pizza. Nice. Because there's other games, you know, real world, you know, Williams or Stern tables that you can stack modes on. But they do a good job of directing you to what is the primary thing. And I'm thinking, like, if you think about Monster Bash. Yeah. You know, you can have multiple things at the same time collecting. But your main goal is Molding Ball. like if you because it's like monster bash because i've been playing it a fair bit recently it's all about the stack so you you stack like say two modes running you have the multiple primed and open ready to receive your ball and then you you basically put the ball up in the multiball and you're getting elevated scores because you've got two modes running but your goal is not the modes they they stop timers stop running for the modes but they count towards your ability to score more in the multiple. So that sort of balancing is what we need more of in the games here, I think. I haven't even paid attention as to how to raise multiplayer on this thing. Not really? No. Oh, that's how. Okay. Spell and coffee. Oh, right, okay. So just multiple rolling overs at the top there, and that'll get you the bonus multiplier. Yeah. So again, we're looking for typical pinball tropes. Yep. I mean, that's one. What is it? Something interesting on TV? Big vicious dog spins. Okay. So that spinner has qualified you for a mode that I think is running at the moment. I think you've got to... It doesn't tell you, though. Oh, no. Hit TV to spend an evening with... Hit TV. How do you... Oh, so that's the remote control. The TV's right there. but see how everything else is blinking also? But the problem is that it's not a TV. It's hit the remote. It's not a TV. It's a remote control. Oh. You know what I mean? So, yeah. Okay, now you're doing an evening with the remote. So if you keep spinning that remote control or the TV as they correctly name it. Okay, so deliver pizza at center orbit. what's the center orbit oh so that's oh right so the TV is is to the right of the spin disc yes but it's diagonally opposed so it doesn't look obviously it's a TV well I just I literally just saw it then I would have no if you asked me during play where that TV was I would have had no idea so the center orbit I'm assuming is hitting with the center flipper oh you reckon well I don't know that's What was blinking? That's what I'm saying. The things that are blinking are not... Promet. Again, if we had a look at the instructions, it would call out what the center orbit is, like with the arrows, so you'd know. But the DMD is not helping us here. Like, it's... If it is what you say, and it's actually the loop off the flipper, the upper flipper then that's not a center loop that's a side loop. Like that's the language you would use there if you're describing that. But it's like all the same if this and again this is what I don't like about these cartoon tables because they just light everything up right. This is a flatly lit everything is on kind of look and that doesn't help whereas if it was darker then you could use the GI lighting to direct where the area is that you want us to focus on. It's just my stomach rumbling. Well, you know, this is a fantasy table. Do what they did in Doctor Strange and make a whole ramp flash or something like that. Like, make the whole ramp glow or do something. Well, we've said that Zen needs to improve their light show. Yeah. Or, you know, in keeping with the design of this table, put speech bubbles over the ramp that you've got to shoot. Sure. Or something like that, you know. Garfield, we're all out of capture. A last weekly record. We'll have to eat dog food today. But I mean... Not for all the lasagna in Italy. Oh, okay, everyone to the clubhouse. I think we all saw this coming. No, you think about... If you look at what Jersey Jack does with their tables and their light shows. Yeah. Well, I mean, everything is blinking on their light shows, but the prominent shots are blinking more. So at least you know. Right. But you know what I mean? they're using the LEDs to, like, you know, the lights are moving in a direction. Yeah, that's right. And will change directions of, you know, they're acting almost as giant arrows. They are, for sure. As opposed to just this, which is a very old school... Why in the world would I want to eat a mouse? ...way of doing things. But if I go back and I look at a, you know, late 80s Williams table, I guarantee you, even though it has the same basic amount of inserts that this has, those inserts are directing me exactly where I need to go. Yep. Yep. There's no doubt on what you need to shoot. Like, I'm thinking of something like Belly's Game Show or something like that. I was even thinking of, like, Earthshaker. Oh, yeah, that's true. Same era, but, yeah, you're right. It tells you exactly what you need to shoot with big, glowing, triangular-shaped inserts. This has big glowing, primed, glitchy inserts, but they're dedicated to Jackpot, which only happens occasionally. So, you know, the little inserts are still doing it, but they don't trigger as much. Now, see that? You've actually got a mode started. You've got all the things. You've got, like, spiders going. So it looks like, in the DMV, which you can't see, You've got Faves and Arlene lit at the same time in the multiplayer. So it's telling you underneath your score the time left for each of those modes within the competition. So it's sort of like just, well, shoot anything and hope for the best, really, because everything's lit. It's very much like okay, just don't drain and shoot flashing shots. Which you're doing a good job of. And you've got 31 million points, so nice work on that. But yeah this seems to be the modus operandi on this table. Stack your modes and then into multiball and you're off to the races really. Oh, he just got that ramp. Okay so now you've qualified posty as well, but this is your last mode that's lit. But all your ramp shots are still available. Nothing is telling me that I did anything I don't see any progression After all of that I've got two inserts down at the bottom Lit with Gertl's Favors and Feed Me But all those blinky lights In the middle of the table They're just blinky lights to me They're literally not telling me anything It's not telling me how many times I've shot A lane You know I reckon Zen This is a future design idea which Zend could consider is they could they could do a multi-morphic here they could very easily put a larger format display in the middle of the playfield like what we morphic does but not have although all the limitations of the multi morphic platform being that you know mechanically you can't put anything through a screen but imagine if that middle playfield there was adaptive and it showed you interactively what things you were supposed to be hitting. That would be... You could very easily replicate the multi-morph games that are available because there are no technical limitations. So multi-morphic, I think, is a very, very possible target here for Xen if they wanted to pursue them. Don't worry, Odie. It's not an avalanche. It's just my stomach rumbling. See, there's that shaker motor in place. Mm. Which, then if you're going to put shaker motors in your pinball, then you better, when it comes cabinet time, support people that put shaker motors in their cabinets. Yep. Great, now feed me is blinking again. Yep, so now you've got to... So, seriously, what in the hell are all these lights telling me? Nothing. Nothing. They're just symbols. To me, it's, oh, hit this lane four times, and then jackpot would be lit. That's what I would think, but nope. I don't even know. All lit lanes beat Garfield for points. Bumper hits, raise. scores. I just hit a lit lane. Except for, okay, you want a lit Garfield lane, right? Yeah, well, no, you want to lit anything that's flashing. You just collected it. And then basically, because I just saw it on the DMD, but that's because I saw it on the DMD. There's no audio callout saying, great, you've collected a thing. You mean I win again? But the inserts that are there, nothing changed. That's right. You didn't get like a little blinking animation or something on them. They just kept scrolling. Well, and again, I'm just saying, if I hit, if you have four inserts, each time I hit the lane, I expect one of those inserts to light up. That's what I expect. Or do something. Or do something. Not just continue to blink as if, hey, you can shoot this direction. Yeah, exactly. That's cool. Isn't this great? That's a whole lot of points for me to just like not care about. Yeah And this is your Oh wow you got a super skill shot there How'd you do that? I don't know Because I hit the backside of the spider You shot the fridge or something Or did you hit the spider? Well it's either hit the spider or hit the trash can That's your option if you do the left Okay If you do the left flip her up The super skill shot Yeah right The super skill shot is a trash can I think the spider blocks the trash can No because you can hit the spider too It gives you the option It does, but to get the super skill shots harder because the spider blocks the trash can occasionally. What the hell am I doing? Oh, what's this then? Shoot the ramps, then clock the time. Which ramps? Those two. Okay, those two, I guess. Shoot the ramps, then clock. So ramps, then clock. But how do you work this out? Because there's only... Okay, so they're scrolling. Yeah, I see the scroll. They're scrolling to show you what you're supposed to be shooting. But look what they do here. They drop the lights. Finally. Yeah, finally, right? So we actually have a reduced lighting scenario in the table, which is great. We'll do this more. Ah! Like, ah. And, yeah. I think that's the end. Unless we're another inch full. But I don't want to lose. It's not fair. So where does that put you on the leaderboards? Probably 20 seconds. 20 seconds. What is the go why and look at the, sorry, whatever, why. Hang on. Why on a PlayStation controller? So the buttons are here. The buttons are here on this screen showing you Xbox functions, but on the main screen, they're not. They're just black squares. So these have got obviously hard-coded buttons for the Xbox controller here, not dynamic buttons. So that's an interesting bug. So what are we, 115? 232? Yeah, 250 million for number one. Oh, yeah, good old Wimps. He's always up there on the top. he's a good player I've beaten him a couple of times though oh somebody the other day somebody pinged me on Facebook because they were watching a stream and somebody finally knocked me off the first place position in Safecracker which I pretty much held all throughout the early access and it was to their credit a very good beating like they I had like 5 something like 5,700,000 on Safecracker that I earned through obviously Assault from the Vault. Yeah. And they got like 6,500 or something like that. So they had a really, really good Assault. So good on them. But then I just went to some other game modes and just got first on those instead. I'm still up there. All right. So there we go. There's our two plays. I think you can tell which one I enjoyed and which one I didn't. I think that was pretty apparent. And again, I'm really surprised because I usually like most of Thomas' stuff. I agree. So I'm quite surprised on that aspect. So I think Thomas had the right idea here. Like, stacking modes is a really fun thing to put in a pinball machine. I just think the way they're called out could do with a couple of extra iterations and again, you're not changing the rules here, you're just changing how things, the mechanics of gameplay work in the game so they could which they won't do, they won't go back and revisit a table which sucks, I mean I really want them to take they need to take the approach that Stern takes and that Jersey Jack takes which is put the tables out in the wild, let your customers play with it, get feedback for what they like, what they don't like, and then change the code accordingly to bring it up to par. Because I understand it's hard making these things in a vacuum. You don't know what's going to work, what's not, what you want, what you don't. But listen to the feedback and put those tweaks in. Update the code. You know, Stern and all the manufacturers used to do this all the time. Belly Williams were famous for putting, like, you know, whitewoods on. Oh, they just send out new ROM chips. Yeah. Well, no, they put a whitewood out there to playtest and actually get people to, yeah, you know. So there's, I mean, it's so much easier to do that in a platform like Zen has, but they don't do it. And it's probably because of time constraints and the fact that they're still building up their dev team. But, like, you look at how Stern does it And the developer of the game essentially owns the game and owns the code, not owns it from an intellectual property perspective, but they're responsible for improving the code over time based on the feedback that they're getting. Yeah. So I don't really see how there shouldn't be like a maintenance cycle factored into a game's release. Maybe there is, maybe we're just not aware of it, but it doesn't feel like there is at the moment. And it's a real shame. because there's stuff left on the table that could be fixed to make some of these games much more enjoyable from their initial release. I just really wish they considered doing it, or at least if they're doing it now to an extent, they need to double down their effort on it. Anyway. Anyway. All right. That's our very cheap opinions on the matter. You know, it's easy for us to sit here and go, oh, they should do this and should do that, but we don't know the probably heavily constrained problems they're under trying to get their two- or three-year roadmap executed. So, you know, it's easy for us to say these things, but it's hard for them to actually do it. So we get that, but we're still not going to stop talking about it because, you know, it's very frustrating. Absolutely. All right. Well, that's all the time that we have for you guys this go-around. And we will be back probably in two weeks to, I imagine, maybe hammer out a couple more of these tables. Maybe go old school, go visit those South Park tables. Oh, yeah. We'll see what... They're always fun. The Butters. I love the Butters table. The Butters table is great. Yeah. It's fun. The other one I'm not so fond of. Yeah. But, and who knows, maybe by that point, Zen will actually have some new news for us to discuss too. Probably will. I think we're due another pinball show this month, and it'll probably be centering around what they're going to do about the whole tickets thing, or coins as they call them now. Yeah. And getting those back to people, I would think. Yeah. So yeah, that'll be interesting. All right. But that's what we're guessing we're going to be talking about next time. But as usual, Jared has the call. It's always going to be stuff and things, which you're used to now. That's right. Come to expect from the show. So until then, folks, bye-bye. Bye-bye.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 9138dd26-4ca2-4782-b47e-95c5d5e26e19*