# Stern Pinball Avengers Infinity Quest 1.0 Code Drops and Mailbag Time (Ep. 46) **Source:** A Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2021-03-05 **Duration:** 30m 47s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://apinballpodcast.podbean.com/e/stern-pinball-avengers-infinity-quest-10-code-drops-and-mailbag-time-ep-46/ --- ## Analysis Host discusses the Avengers Infinity Quest 1.0 code drop, detailing significant gameplay changes including new Captain Marvel hurry-ups, increased scoring across modes, and an optional hard mode for Soul Gem. Also covers strategy fundamentals and addresses listener mailbag questions about Keith Elwin's design consistency, high-score techniques, competitive progression, and making AIQ accessible for casual/family players. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Avengers Infinity Quest 1.0 code was just released; the update indicates essentially all planned features are now in the game — _Host opens episode stating 'the Avengers code for Infinity Quest just got to 1.0' and explains 1.0 status means 'pretty much everything that they wanted to get into the game that was planned on getting on there is pretty much in there'_ - [HIGH] Captain Marvel now has a binary hurry-up that can max out to 5x multiplier by completing shots at both Black Widow and Captain Marvel ramps — _Host explains 'They have a new Captain Marvel hurry up in which she actually finally goes binary' and details the mechanic reaching up to '5x' multiplier_ - [HIGH] Soul Gem now offers an optional hard difficulty mode with only 2 flips instead of 8, starting with 20 total flips and 10x scoring — _Host states 'This is an in option that you can make the decision right when you getting into that mode' and describes 'instead of you getting eight flips at it...it will just give you two flips and not eight. And you're only going to start with 20 flips also...and also along with this is 10X scoring'_ - [MEDIUM] Space Quest final blow now comprises approximately 40% of total mode score — _Host states 'from what we could figure out, it appeared that at least 40% of your total mode score will be at that final blow'_ - [HIGH] Thor's super jackpots increased from 5x to 20x multiplier — _Host explicitly states 'Thor's super jackpots are also up to 20x instead of 5x'_ - [HIGH] If all six gems are collected, players can skip Thanos battle mode and go straight to six-ball victory lap multiball with 1 billion points — _Host explains 'if you have all six gems collected, you can actually skip the battle Thanos mode. Now, I think it does automatically skip, and you get a billion points in place of that, but you go straight to victory laps, which is a six-ball multi-ball'_ - [MEDIUM] Avengers Infinity Quest will be 'very important for the eSports portion of pinball' according to rumors — _Host states 'there's rumors going around...there's rumors that this game is going to be very important for the eSports portion of pinball'_ - [HIGH] Host has at least nine different legitimate strategies for Avengers Infinity Quest — _Host claims 'I probably have at least nine different strategies legitimately. There's so much that you can do'_ ### Notable Quotes > "Pinball does not get any better than this, especially when the design is created by my favorite game designer." > — **Host**, Early episode > _Expresses strong enthusiasm for AIQ and identifies Keith Elwin as favorite designer_ > "With Avengers, you cannot do that [go into autopilot]. And your game is actively alive the entire game, because if you do something by accident, you light something by accident, you start something by accident, you have to pivot and you have to decide how you want to stack certain things together." > — **Host**, Mid-episode discussion > _Highlights AIQ's strategic depth and decision-making requirements as a positive differentiator_ > "Super easy. Barely an inconvenience." > — **Host**, During Thor multiball explanation > _Pop culture reference (from 'Pitch Meeting' meme) used humorously when explaining Thor mechanics_ > "Keith's games are interesting in the fact that they're similar, but they're not...you can see that there's certain aspects that he puts into every single game...but at the same time I don't feel like that they shoot exactly the same" > — **Host**, Mailbag response to Matthew > _Discusses Keith Elwin's design consistency while noting each game feels distinct_ > "The fact is, is that some of them got upwards of 10 plus years on me. I think some of them even 15 plus years. And that's a lot of experience." > — **Host**, Competitive pinball question response > _Self-aware assessment of competitive experience gap; hosts acknowledges being relatively new despite strong performance_ > "I played baseball for close to two decade...eye coordination...tracking stuff without even moving because you have to understand different angles...that carries over to pinball." > — **Host**, Competitive advancement question > _Reveals baseball background as foundation for pinball success; explains tracking/coordination skills transfer_ > "I wouldn't go as far as the TMNT hack I've seen people doing where you're putting a rubber on the side of your play field. Don't do, I wouldn't recommend doing that" > — **Host**, Final mailbag question about game accessibility > _References specific community mod (TMNT hack) while recommending more conservative accessibility modifications_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Keith Elwin | person | Legendary pinball designer; creator of Avengers Infinity Quest, Iron Maiden, and Jurassic Park; identified by host as favorite designer; discussed for consistency and evolution across game designs | | Avengers Infinity Quest | game | Stern Pinball licensed Marvel game designed by Keith Elwin; subject of episode's primary focus; 1.0 code update just released with major gameplay and scoring changes | | Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Avengers Infinity Quest; released 1.0 code update with significant balance changes and new features | | Iron Maiden | game | Keith Elwin-designed pinball game; compared to Avengers Infinity Quest and Jurassic Park in terms of playfield feel and shot design philosophy | | Jurassic Park | game | Keith Elwin-designed pinball game; mailbag questioner's favorite pin; described as 'souped up version of Iron Maiden' by host | | Carl | person | Streamer who demonstrated advanced AIQ strategy involving Soul Gem and massive point multipliers; host hopes demonstration is uploaded to YouTube | | Ray | person | Community member who identified Mind Gem nuance: hitting faster-blinking shot (mind-controlled Avenger) allows mode completion without final Sanctum shot | | Walking Dead | game | Host's first pinball game; used as personal example of progression from 50 million to high-score scoring | | Guardians of the Galaxy | game | Stern game where host achieved massive scores, particularly in wizard modes; referenced as example of modern score inflation in end-game content | | Batman 66 | game | Pinball game where Escher Lefkoff achieves extreme scores (50+ billion); used as example of score maximization through rule-set mastery | | Escher Lefkoff | person | Competitive pinball player known for extremely high scores on Batman 66 (50+ billion); example of rule-set mastery | | Star Wars | game | Stern pinball game that host played at Nationals in Vegas; described as the only game that felt 'fast' to host; required 2-3 games to adjust | | Houston Expo | event | Tournament or expo in Cleveland where mailbag questioner observed host competing; host competing despite being relatively new to competitive pinball | | IFPA | organization | International Federation of Pinball Administrators; competitive pinball circuit; mentioned as inactive for approximately one year during podcast recording | | Pinball Enthusiasts | organization | Facebook group where host saw post about family struggling with Avengers Infinity Quest difficulty | | Matthew | person | Mailbag questioner asking about Keith Elwin game consistency; owns Iron Maiden Pro and Jurassic Park Pro; interested in AIQ Pro | | Chris | person | Mailbag questioner from North Carolina asking about high-score techniques for casual players | ### Topics - **Primary:** Avengers Infinity Quest 1.0 Code Update, Pinball Strategy and Gameplay Mechanics - **Secondary:** Keith Elwin Game Design Philosophy, Competitive Pinball Progression, Game Accessibility for Casual/Family Players, Pinball eSports and Tournament Meta, High-Score Techniques and Scoring Theory - **Mentioned:** Pinball Community and Content Creation ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Host expresses enthusiasm and praise for AIQ 1.0 update throughout episode, describing it as making 'a more complete experience' and being 'amazing.' Positive reception of code changes, strategic depth, and accessibility solutions. No significant criticisms or negative sentiment detected. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Host demonstrates active community interaction through addressing specific mailbag questions about game design philosophy, competitive strategy, and accessibility solutions (confidence: high) — Host takes multiple listener questions and provides detailed, personalized responses with specific game recommendations and strategy advice - **[community_signal]** Facebook pinball groups (Pinball Enthusiasts) discussing accessibility challenges with modern complex games like AIQ; multiple players experiencing difficulty teaching game to family/casual players (confidence: medium) — Host references seeing 'a post on Facebook on one of the groups, Pinball Enthusiasts...somebody with the exact same game, the exact same issue' regarding AIQ difficulty - **[competitive_signal]** AIQ expected to have significant strategic diversity in competitive play; host predicts divergence from typical mid-game tournament strategies due to multiple viable gem/multiplier stacking approaches (confidence: high) — Host states 'I don't think we're going to see that [similar strategies]' when discussing AIQ's divergent mid-game options and claims host has at least nine different legitimate strategies - **[design_philosophy]** Keith Elwin's design approach maintains consistent philosophical elements (upper flippers, captive balls, multi-directional ramps) while creating distinct playfield feels; each game differs in how these elements combine and play (confidence: high) — Host detailed comparison: 'you can see that there's certain aspects that he puts into every single game...but at the same time I don't feel like that they shoot exactly the same' and specific playfield feel differences between Iron Maiden (narrow) and AIQ (expansive) - **[community_signal]** Host emphasizes deliberate, focused gameplay practice approach over autopilot; reveals baseball background (2 decades) as foundation for pinball eye-coordination and tracking abilities; describes competitive progression through intentional skill development (confidence: high) — Host states 'I'm actually focused on doing a particular task' and 'maybe eight times out of ten, I'm actually focused on doing a particular task' when discussing practice methodology; detailed explanation of baseball-to-pinball skill transfer - **[product_strategy]** Avengers Infinity Quest 1.0 code update introduces major gameplay balance adjustments: Captain Marvel binary hurry-ups (5x max), Soul Gem hard mode option (2 flips/10x), Space Quest final blow (40% mode score), Thor super jackpots (20x), Thanos skip option, and new animations (confidence: high) — Host details comprehensive list of changes in 1.0 update including specific mechanical adjustments and scoring modifications - **[product_concern]** Competitive pinball skill gaps acknowledged; player with nearly 2 years competitive experience competing effectively against players with 10-15+ years experience, attributed to focused practice and sports background rather than natural ability or game balance (confidence: medium) — Host discusses competing 'upwards of 10 plus years' behind some competitors but achieving strong results through deliberate practice and eye-coordination skills from baseball background - **[rumor_hype]** Avengers Infinity Quest positioned as 'very important for the eSports portion of pinball' according to rumors; host recommends players practice and learn game in preparation (confidence: medium) — Host states 'there's rumors going around...there's rumors that this game is going to be very important for the eSports portion of pinball' and recommends players 'start setting up a little bit and figure out your game as much as possible' - **[technology_signal]** Host notes animations remain community criticism point despite other game strengths; acknowledges animations as 'the not so good part' of modern Stern pinball (confidence: medium) — Host states 'I know obviously animations is seen as the not so good part of this pen' and 'If there's one thing people do find stuff wrong with it, it's definitely the animations' --- ## Transcript All right, welcome back, guys, to another episode of A Pinball Podcast. Thank you guys so much once again for being here. I greatly do appreciate it, and I believe we're on episode 46. Now, for those that are listening on audio, let me know how the audio sounds, please, at apinballpodcast.gmail.com. Somebody let me know that the audio seemed a little bit low, so I adjusted some things post-production, and I'm hoping that I kind of got the audio levels figured out a little bit better. That way you guys aren't having to crank up your volume just to be able to hear me because that's an amateur hour over here. And I will take the blame for that. Anyhow, let's just go ahead and hit the ground running. We will be talking about next week tournaments, different thoughts on different possible games coming out, alien thoughts. I'll go ahead and get those out next week. But for today, we are going to 100% focus on the Stern Avengers Infinity Quest code drop that just came out yesterday. and then after focusing on that 100%, which now it doesn't make any sense now I say that, but after that, we'll dig into the mailbag to where I'll answer a couple of questions as well. All right, so for those living under a rock or not aware, the Avengers code for Infinity Quest just got to 1.0. And my God, I know what everybody's going to say, and you guys are completely right. I am totally just drinking the Kool-Aid at this point because I am a huge Marvel fan and I am a pinball fan. And so those two things naturally coming together, it's just, for me, it's just nirvana. I mean, pinball does not get any better than this, especially when the design is created by my favorite game designer. And it just, a lot of things are coming together for this. And life is good whenever I step up to this pinball machine. And it's just, it's an excellent experience. And now, lo and behold, that experience has gotten even better. Now that the code is at 1.0, that's basically indicating that, I won't say it's officially done, but pretty much everything that they wanted to get into the game that was planned on getting on there is pretty much in there. Now, for those that own an Avengers and you haven't updated it yet, I highly recommend that you do that. You will have a lot of fun this weekend, as there are some noticeable changes on it, especially if you actually are paying attention to the rules a little bit. and for those that don't have it but it's at a local arcade or you have a chance to go play it i highly recommend making sure that your arcade is up to date because it does change around some things on the game and to me it does make a more complete experience and so this update essentially there's just just to give you guys a quick rollover of it or the quick uh i guess the short and quick of what's been done to this update there's new animations which whether or not people enjoy that. That's totally up to you. I know obviously animations is seen as the not so good part of this pen. If there's one thing people do find stuff wrong with it, it's definitely the animations. And so that's understandable. Admittedly, it is. There's so many other great parts to the pen though. So it is what it is. Now there's also been lots of scoring changes and this will result in noticeably higher scores for some of you. And this is through different means. The pop bumpers, they'll score a little bit more just because if you put the Reality Gem on it, that'll now count it. I think the Power Gem helps them out a little bit more as well. Super scoring or super mode scoring has been increased across the board pretty much also. And that in itself will make the Time Stone even more important, in my opinion, because utilizing the Time Stone, you can essentially just keep resetting your timer over and over and over again by a few seconds just by spamming whatever shot that that particular gem happens to be on with black widow being the easiest one to do this with but you can keep your timers going so your super combos your super targets anything that your disc stuff like that that can just get ginormous points and now that they're even higher with the scoring i'm sure that that can be a lot of fun as well another new one that is huge in my opinion and potentially game changing as well in terms of strategies, in terms of what some people might attempt in a herb format. They have a new Captain Marvel hurry up in which she actually finally goes binary. And this will start a hurry up. I think it's after two or three ramps to that side. I can't remember exactly what it is. But after you do this, you'll essentially start a hurry up at both the Black Widow ramp and then back at the Captain Marvel ramp. If you complete both of those, that will actually add an additional 1x to that shot, to the Captain Marvel shot, and that can max out to 5x. And so you can basically just keep building this hurry up up to massive points. Now, I can't even imagine what a 10x shot, if you put the Doctor Strange gem, the reality gem on there, how big that shot could potentially get. And then on top of that, and we saw Carl do this just last night on his stream, and I hope that he puts this on YouTube because it's quite amazing, to where you can actually move the Soul Gem over there too, and when you have a massive collect coming out of any particular mode, the points can just get crazy. But you have to have big brain thinking to do something like that. So that's, I mean, just the Captain Marvel hurry-up in itself, very excellent change. I really do like that part. The Space Quest also has a final blow with it that's been added to the Black Widow and Black Panther shots. And this, I was toying around with it yesterday, and it made my scores noticeably higher with that. And so apparently, I don't think that this is on the readme file, but from what we could figure out, it appeared that at least 40% of your total mode score will be at that final blow. Now, I haven't tried to multiply that with the Reality Gem shot. I do know your portal locks, they will not multiply that, though. It used to be able to, to where on the power quest, you could do something like that. And I would often try to get my power quest gem shot on the left-hand side to where I could just blow up that final blow on that Hulk spinner coming out of that mode. And I think it would be upwards of 15X. And that was essentially my strategy that I just called the multiverse of madness strategy because I had to pull in Dr. Strange for it also. And it was just, it was ginormous amount of points. but that seems to be gone, but that's okay. We can work around that a little bit. We'll find other strategies because there's so many different ways to attack this game. Now, Thor's super jackpots are also up to 20x instead of 5x for those that aren't familiar with what that is. Essentially, you'll just get into Thor multiball. All your major shots will be lit. You'll hit X amount of major shots, and that'll light a letter. At the Thor captive ball, you'll hit that captive ball, collects a letter. You spell Thor, that'll light your super jackpot at the Avengers Tower. Then you just kind of rinse and repeat to where you have to hit one more additional shot to light your letter. That's basically all it is. And then you can also spin the disc, and once you spell it strange, that'll get your add-a-ball lit at the Sanctum. See? Easy. Now you guys know how to play Thor multiball. Super easy. Barely an inconvenience. And I hope somebody gets that reference that I'm giving right now. Soul Gem. Another big one. Now, this is a mini wizard mode that is pretty accessible to the majority of players that get on this pen. However it has now been given the option in This is an in option that you can make the decision right when you getting into that mode And I think this is genius This is awesome I wish more games would do this in the future to where you can decide to play this mode on a harder difficulty. And essentially what it will do, instead of you getting eight flips at it to hitting a successful shot for your soul gem, whichever shot is lit up. Instead, it will just give you two flips and not eight. And you're only going to start with 20 flips also. So you cannot afford to miss. You can't afford to flip away like a raving lunatic. You cannot afford to drain. And also along with this is 10X scoring. Big potential points. Huge. I was able to do this just yesterday for the first time. And yeah, you have to be a sharpshooter, but when you complete it, it is so satisfying. It might be one of the most fun modes, definitely one of the most fun mini wizard modes that I've ever played. I am amazed that somehow they've been able to take this mode and just with that change and that option for you to do that. It's made it so much more fun. And also whenever we do get back and we start playing tournaments, I could see this particular mode being a game changer. Cause imagine that you're up there and you have to actively make this decision. If you're willing to go into the hard mode and try to get more points out of this. I mean, there's so many different decisions that you can make. And for me, when it comes to playing pinball, I don't mind that. Some games, obviously, you don't have to make many decisions. You can pretty much go into autopilot. With Avengers, you cannot do that. And your game is actively alive the entire game, because if you do something by accident, you light something by accident, you start something by accident, you have to pivot and you have to decide how you want to stack certain things together. And in a competitive setting, I think that that's an excellent thing because none of the games will be boring to watch. None of them will be boring. Of course, a lot of people will kind of start to formulate their own strategies. I'm sure we'll see a predominant strategy start to come out, but I feel like it diverges quick. When you get to mid-game, what happens is a lot of these games, especially with modern games, when you get to the mid-game portion of that game, you'll still see a lot of tournament player strategies be very similar. I mean, they might have some difference, but the overall concepts are very similar. With Avengers, I don't think we're going to see that. And now that Space Gem has a final blow, that's 40% of the total mode score. Now that you have Soul Gem with a hard mode added on to it, if you want to, that's optional. Now that you have the binary hurry-ups, there's just so many different ways to play this. It's amazing. And also another change, if you have all six gems collected, you can actually skip the battle Thanos mode. Now, I think it does automatically skip, and you get a billion points in place of that, but you go straight to victory laps, which is a six-ball multiball. So essentially, you've already beat Thanos. You have the gems. You might as well just have the party come to you, and you're ready to rock and roll. I think that's pretty cool as well. So I really need to dig into that game a little bit more this weekend. I've been playing a lot lately because there are rumors going around, and I'm not going to say too much out loud, but there's rumors that this game is going to be very important for the eSports portion of pinball. And I'll go ahead and just say the eSports portion of pinball. I'll just say that. So if you have an Avengers, I would say start setting up a little bit and figure out your game as much as possible. All right, so let's see. What else should we talk about? Strategies with that. There's obviously going to be different types of strategies. I think that we have to kind of dig into it a little bit more. I get asked all the time, what is my main strategies on that game? I will tell you guys, I probably have at least nine different strategies legitimately. There's so much that you can do. And some of those, they work really well. Some of them, they don't. Some of them are just fun to do just on my own time. Others might actually be more tournament strategy based. I would say if you are newer to the game and you want a very easy strategy to do, I would say just the world breaker strategy is my personal favorite, which all that really is, is when you get the reality stone or reality gem, I would say just play that first, place it on the Hulk spinner, and then just rip Hulk until your hands fall off. Just keep doing that over and over and over again. What eventually happens after so many spins, you level up Hulk, and then that'll start your gamma ray or it'll light your gamma ray spins on that right insert or right switch on the in lane. Lose my train of thought there. And then once you roll over that, that'll light that spinner, and then you can just rip it to shreds. Now, it used to build up to 5x. I think that the new code might limit that to 4x. So the scoring potential may not be as massive, but it's still there. The only thing with the strategy, you have to really cash in. When it's time to cash in and get it set up, you have to cash in, because if you don't, then you pretty much just got a 2x shot on there without too much else going on. But it does still benefit you having it there because then you can go also, which this is why it's the world breaker, you can also go into the power quest mode in which your final shot would be on that left spinner as well to where you could double or even quadruple that score pretty much just based off what you have that Avenger leveled up at on that shot. So that's an easy way to do it. Another way that you can kind of help yourself out along the way, you can do your mind gem early on. If you need help completing that, I would highly recommend just bringing in Thor multiball if you don't have a portal lock or anything like that. And you could pretty much get through that fairly easily just hitting one of your shots, which is either your, I believe it's your Hulk, your Black Widow, Captain Marvel, or Black Panther shot. So you hit one of those shots and then once you hit that shot, the disc will then light, you hit the disc, and then it'll just go to your next span of shots. And you just repeat that three times and then your final blow will be lit at the sanctum. Now, I did find this out last night and this is a nuance I just totally overlooked, but Ray mentioned this just the other day that if you hit the faster blinking shot, which is pretty much, I believe that's going to be whichever Avenger is actually under mind control from Supergiant, that you would just hit that shot and from there you could once you do that three times total or with each span basically so you hit that shot hit the disc hit that shot hit the disc pretty much you won't have to hit your final shot at the sanctum you'll be able to completely defeat the mode so i have not done that yet at least i don't think i have i need to look closer into that but keep that in mind and see if that works that might help you out along the way now the reason why i like to do mind gym early on in this form is then I like to place it on the black widow ramp, which is your left ramp or basically straight up the middle. And I will level that shot up as high as I possibly can. And then I will bring in reality gym Now the reason for this I want that shot to be fully leveled up maxed out because then once I start Reality Gym especially if I have portal locks if I have that, if I have another two or three X on that play field due to an extra portal lock ball being in play, I will then rip the disc, will build up the overall mode up to seven X total because you're ripping that disc and each letter counts as a play field X essentially, or a shot X. And from there, you'll just hit the mind stone or your action button or your mind gem that's been just leveled all the way up. And guess what? Boom, you're out of the mode and you've completed it and you have a crap ton of points to show for it. So that's easy ways right there to kind of build something for you. And that might give you guys a little bit of a foundation to look at, to play around with. But there's many other different strategies as well because a lot of these gems and a lot of these different shots, they really go in well and they're very cohesive together. And I highly recommend just kind of looking through it, kind of figuring it out, just play around with it. Now, I'm sure you guys will come up with your own strategies as well. Now, if you do have a particular strategy that I have not mentioned, feel free to comment down below and let me know what that is. All right, so we're just going to jump straight into the mailbag time so I can answer some of your guys' questions. But first, I'm going to get a drink of green tea. All right, we're all good now. All right, so Matthew on YouTube, he said, I have an Iron Maiden Pro and a Jurassic Park Pro next up to buy is Avengers Infinity Quest Pro. The only thing holding me back is do they all shoot to Elwynn-ish? I think Jurassic Park is perfect, my favorite pin ever. What's your take on Keith's games? You have them all. Can you feel shoot the same? Can they feel shoot the same? thanks for the video stay safe well thank you for the comment matthew um i actually just to clear the record i actually do not have a jurassic park i originally ordered one but i ended up backing out on the le due to certain i'll just say issues but that's neither here nor there but i do have significant time on that machine especially because it's on location just down the road from me but i do have elwynn's other two games behind me iron maiden and avengers now i would pretty much say, L1 games are interesting in the fact that they're similar, but they're not. And I hope that that's not too confusing for people that haven't been able to play all of his games. But you can see that there's certain aspects that he puts into every single game, whether it's an upper flipper, whether it's some type of captive ball shot on there, whether it's, you know, just ramps that are going every which direction i mean that you can see the elements in there that come in game to game but at the same time i don't feel like that they shoot exactly the same and there's certain times that i feel like you know it's like take for instance if i look at iron maiden right next to avengers infinity quest it's weird because iron maiden when i look at that play field it feels like that even though it's a standard body somewhat to me and this is going to sound weird to some of you guys but it feels like to me it's even smaller than a standard body like it's narrow and i don't know why that is maybe it's just kind of you know because of the up the middle shot where it's located and then the spinner that's right next to it maybe that's why i feel that way but then when i look over at avengers infinity quest it almost feels like a wide body in a standard body. It really does. That play field just feels so expansive, but yet so quick at the same time. And I think that's what really makes it unique. So I would say that you are going to find similar elements, but I think you're also going to find more differences in your overall experience. Now, when it comes to what's going to play similar, I would say, I would think Avengers actually plays a lot different than what Jurassic Park and Iron Maiden does. I personally feel like Jurassic Park feels like a souped up version of Iron Maiden. Like I can still feel the Iron Maiden experience in there, but Jurassic Park is clearly superior as well as is Avengers. I think what these pins prove is that Elwynn is getting better, which is scary. That's outright scary. And that's what makes me excited to see what his next game is going to be. So hopefully that helps. That's just the way I feel about it. All right. Next question is Chris from North Carolina. I see that you've posted some high scores on Facebook before. What's the secret to getting to these types of scores and how can a casual player get to that point? All right. So that's a good question. I guess that you're talking about just the massive scores in the billions grand champion scores and all that. Okay. So the secret to getting those types of scores is pretty much one, you got to make sure you have extra balls it i mean it is very difficult to get those types of scores on three ball uh two i would also consider the time that it's it is hey what's the word i'm looking for the time that it takes to get to a certain level to where you understand the rule set a lot of these games where you see those high end scores from anybody not just me from anybody They don't happen by accident. There might be one or two that do that sneak in there, but a lot of times people are well aware what the rule set does and how it goes together. A great example of this is Escher Lefkoff on Batman 66. If you guys haven't heard about that, I mean, this kid will put up billions upon billions upon billions. We're talking running away with 50 plus billion on Batman. And it's because he has a very particular way that he's going to approach it and very particular things that he's going to stack together. And so a lot of these games that you can do something like that. Also, a lot of the scoring is built in to wizard modes as well. So when you're dealing with modern pens nowadays, especially for the past three years, your scoring gets massive in there. I know a lot of my scores on Guardians got massive towards the end of it. I know for Iron Maiden, Run to the Hills, that got massive. of, I mean, that's just kind of what happens now. And that's just the way that the games are coded. Now, in terms of how can a casual player get to that point, I would say just being consistent. If you have a pin at home that you're absolutely wanting to blow up, I would say get very consistent with the shots. Find those shots, practice those shots, just get used to hitting those shots. And then from there, get used to finding modes that are easier for you to complete. And from there, figure out ways that you can multiply your score with those modes. Figure out where you can put either a multiplier, a play field multiplier. Once you do that, you'll find that your scores will start going up higher and higher. The other thing that you want to put a premium on is your recovery skills. Now, if you learn how to nudge, people that know how to nudge properly and do it very well are very hard to beat. And the reason for this is because one, they're keeping the ball in play longer. Two, they get to take more shots at something than the player that isn't getting a ball in the flipper. So that becomes very important as well. But those are the things that I would recommend doing. I mean, it'll come in time. When I first started playing, I had Walking Dead. That was my very first game. I hadn't played pinball too much. and I didn't know what was what. And it took me just a little while to figure out how to get to just 50 million. I mean I didn look up hardly anything at first I was just trying to figure out along the way But I do feel like once you start getting your flipper skills down once you start learning how to nudge and once you start understanding the rule set to a certain point, that'll help you out along the way. And so that's what I would recommend doing. Just time, just being diligent on figuring out your game, figuring out your shot, and those scores will eventually come. That's what I'd recommend doing. All right, thank you for the question, Chris. Okay, so let's see. I got two more questions here from people that did not want to be named, but I will read them off. So the first one is, I've seen a few streams of you playing Houston Expo. Okay, let me start that over. I've seen a few streams of you playing at the Houston Expo in Cleveland, and I was surprised to see, looking at your profile, that you're relatively new to competitive pinball. I've been playing competitive myself for over five years, but still struggle in tournaments. How have you been able to compete with top-tier players as quickly as you have? Okay, that's a good question. So really what it boils down to, and I realize I am very much a new kid on the block now. I've been playing competitive pinball now. I mean, I don't know if we can count this past year because there has been no IFPA for about a year now. But up until that point, nearly two years, closing in on it. And, you know, the way that I've been able to do it quickly is that I work hard at it. I mean, just to be honest with you, I play a lot. I'm very, very focused on what I'm trying to do whenever I play. When I do play here at home, maybe eight times out of ten, I'm actually focused on doing a particular task. And that's not just blowing up the game. I mean, I'm actually actively working on something. I think that that's very important. It's rare that I play pinball and I go into autopilot and I just flip the flip. Now, of course, there's times I do it. I just want to be mindless and just have fun. But the way that my brain works, I enjoy and I get joy out of doing something such as pinball, which is a great hobby, but I enjoy doing it to the best of my ability. So whenever I step up to a pin, I'm trying to figure out actively how do I beat this pin or how do I achieve what I'm setting out to achieve if it's a particular objective. That's what I enjoy doing. And I'm well aware that those are things that I have to do because I'm so far behind. a lot of these players that play on the circuit. I mean, the fact is, is that some of them got upwards of 10 plus years on me. I think some of them even 15 plus years. And that's a lot of experience. And experience is huge. When you've been in those spots before, you kind of know what to expect and you can draw on those experiences that can help you in that particular moment. And so I realized, I'm very honest with myself that I know what I'm terrible at and I know what I'm good at. And I know I have to really work on the things that I'm terrible at, but I know I also need to double down on the things that I'm really good at. And that's kind of been my strategy this whole time. Now, I will say I have a little bit of a built-in cheat early on playing pinball just because I played baseball for close to two decades. And so doing something that long, nearly year-round with off-season workouts, playing games, traveling a lot, being around a lot of high-end players when I was younger, You know, there was an extreme need to have high-end eye coordination is what I'm trying to say. Like, I'm not even talking about just hand-eye coordination, but just high-end eye coordination. I mean, just tracking stuff without even moving because you have to understand different angles when it comes to baseball. You have to make very much educated guesses based on the spin of a ball, based on the speed of a ball. and I found that that carries over to pinball. So any of the pins that I play now, nothing ever seems fast to me. I've had maybe one game overall that actually felt fast and I was able to adjust to it fairly well after about one or two games on it. And that was at Nationals back in Vegas and I believe that was Star Wars out of all the games. So it took me about two or three games. I think the third round I finally figured it out or maybe it was the second round I figured it out. But, I mean, that's kind of what it's all about. And that's helped me a lot, a whole lot, just knowing the speeds, knowing how to track a ball, knowing how to slow the game down. So that's pretty much where it's been. All right, so next question. And sorry, guys, if I'm stumbling over my words so much, I've got cotton mouth just so bad. And I don't want to just keep drinking on stream or on the podcast, but I've got to do it one more time, guys. All right, we're good. Green Tea's gone. All right, last question, and we'll wrap this up. I recently bought an Avengers Infinity Quest for my family, but my wife and kids are having a really difficult time playing it as the shots are hard and the rules are difficult to grasp. I feel like this game is too hard, and I'm thinking about trading it for a different game. Is there any way I can make this game more accessible to my family? All right, excellent question, and I see this a lot, And I actually read a post on Facebook on one of the groups, Pinball Enthusiasts, I think. There was actually somebody with the exact same game, the exact same issue. So I don't know if you're the same person, but here's what I would say. And this goes for any game. If you guys have games at home and you're worried about them being either too difficult for you or too difficult for your family, there are multiple things that you can do to make it easier. and you know what i'm going to say is let's just go with if it's too difficult for your family i would highly recommend switching the game to five balls i know that that sounds crazy to some people that just think modern games should just be three but for these purposes of making the game fun and making it to where it can last a little bit longer i would do that i would also increase the ball save times i would consider closing your outlanes you can move those posts and make it smaller. If it's already on its lowest setting, I would look at increasing the size of your rubber on those posts right there. That way it kind of gives it a little bit of a bumper. Now I wouldn't go as far as the TMNT hack I've seen people doing where you're putting a rubber on the side of your play field. Don't do, I wouldn't recommend doing that, but there's certain things you could do to help increase the size of the rubber that can keep the ball in play a little bit. I would also dig into the features and adjust your modes. Make them easier to start. Make them easier to complete. Make the multiballs more accessible. And that's the way that I would do it. Just go through all that. And I think that you'll find that that game will be a lot easier to deal with right there. And I know, shockingly enough, whenever I mention that to people, a lot of people don't even realize you can go into the features and make all those adjustments. But you can. They're all in there. you can change the game to however it suits you, make it a little bit easier for yourself, get to where you can kind of see more parts of the game and get to where you can understand the shots a little bit better. Right? So that's all I got. We're going to wrap it up right there, guys. Thank you guys so much for being here. Please, if you have not already, leave a like on this video. I greatly do appreciate it. If you have any more questions, just send them to me either at apinballpodcasts at gmail.com or you can leave a comment down below. So, but yeah, that's all I got. You guys have a great weekend. Play yourself some pinball. And yeah, that's it. I'll see you guys later. Later, guys. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: a0b0b007-df4d-420a-a5c3-7f3ee8a13e25*