# Portland Pinball Places

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2017-08-02  
**Duration:** 67m 56s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/Portland-Pinball-Places-e1bkg1a

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## Analysis

Chris Frebus traveled to Portland and visited two pinball arcades—Ground Control and Quarter World—comparing their maintenance, machine selection, and overall quality. He played classic and modern machines including Centaur, Dialed In, and Batman '66, discovering that Quarter World maintains superior condition through dedicated daily maintenance. Jared discusses missing the opportunity to play the new Star Wars pinball at the Brisbane Pinball Masters tournament due to work constraints.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Quarter World replaces machine rubbers approximately once a month and performs major cleanings every Monday — _Direct quote from Quarter World maintenance staff member who stated this as her regular job duties_
- [HIGH] Ground Control charges 50 cents for Williams games and 75 cents for Stern/Jersey Jack machines, with $2 credit packages offering 5 plays — _Chris directly experienced and reported these pricing details from Ground Control_
- [HIGH] Centaur at Quarter World had replay set to 500,000 points and Chris earned multiple replays during extended play sessions — _Chris played the machine for approximately 1 hour 45 minutes total and reported the replay conditions_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack's Hobbit features independent line volume controls designed for headphone use, while Stern's Spike system headphone jack is located in the backbox requiring extension cables — _Chris compared direct experience playing both machines with headphones and discussed technical implementation differences_
- [HIGH] The Brisbane Pinball Masters tournament had 100 players competing on 15 machines and featured a new Star Wars pinball demonstration machine — _Jared directly reported on the tournament he attended as an Australian community member_
- [MEDIUM] Star Wars pinball was only at Brisbane Pinball Masters for demo purposes and was returned to AMD (Amusement Machine Distributors) in Sydney/Melbourne after the event — _Jared reported this based on tournament announcements but did not personally verify AMD operations_
- [MEDIUM] The tournament tables accumulated approximately one year's worth of typical play volume during the Brisbane Pinball Masters event — _Jared paraphrased information provided by table suppliers/collectors at tournament conclusion_

### Notable Quotes

> "Once you've actually experienced a pinball game, especially a modern one with a stereo soundtrack, through headphones, you don't want to have pinball any other way... it changes the way you play."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~18:00-19:30
> _Expresses strong preference for audio immersion in pinball and criticizes Stern's headphone jack implementation_

> "There's just a lot of going on, and I really have no clue what I was supposed to be doing. I was just having a fun blast just shooting around."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~33:00-35:00
> _Describes Dialed In experience; reflects broader pattern that game prioritizes fun/engagement over clear rule communication_

> "I wish that the point values were a little bit higher so that there's a sweet spot. There's definitely a sweet spot, and I don't think this one has it."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~36:00-37:30
> _Criticism of Dialed In's scoring system (10/30 point increments) as unsatisfying despite fun gameplay_

> "Centaur, if it's old and if it's not maintained well, it's not fun to play in the least."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~26:00
> _Uses classic machine as diagnostic tool for arcade maintenance quality standards_

> "What was the difference for me between Ground Control and Quarter World? You could just tell one was being maintained and the other one was, 'Hey, come play our machines. Yeah. You know, because we have them.'"
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~52:00
> _Direct comparison between casual bar arcade and professionally-maintained venue; highlights importance of operator commitment_

> "I'm so annoyed. I'm so annoyed. [about missing Star Wars at Brisbane Pinball Masters]"
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~65:00
> _Expresses frustration at missed opportunity to play new commercial release machine; demonstrates demand/FOMO dynamics_

> "The machines are really, really well maintained and the rubber is fresh and they feel waxed and these are a lot of fun."
> — **Chris Frebus**, ~48:00
> _Compliment given directly to Quarter World staff member praising maintenance quality_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Ground Control | event|location | Bar/arcade venue in downtown Portland; emphasized as bar-first with games secondary; Williams machines 50 cents, Stern/JJP 75 cents; machines appeared played-out and under-maintained |
| Quarter World | location | Arcade/bar venue in Portland with 30+ pinball machines, includes Tesla coil musical performance events, professional maintenance staff, $1-3 cover charge; superior machine condition vs Ground Control; features Centaur, Dialed In, Batman '66, Simpsons, and additional hidden room with 10 machines |
| Chris Frebus | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast; traveled to Portland and visited two arcades; experienced player comparing machine conditions and design philosophy across venues |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast based in Australia; participated in charity hackathon during missed episode; attended Brisbane Pinball Masters; frustrated about missing new Star Wars pinball demo |
| Dialed In | game | Jersey Jack Pinball machine; praised by Chris as 'Pat Lawlor table' quality with next-gen Twilight Zone vibe; features magnets, tech features, headphone connectivity, smartphone app integration; criticized for low point values (10/30 increments) creating unsatisfying score feel |
| Centaur | game | Classic pinball machine used as diagnostic for arcade maintenance quality; at Quarter World was well-maintained with waxed playfield, new rubber, bright lights; Chris played for 1h45min total with multiple replays at 500,000 point threshold |
| Batman '66 | game | Vintage pinball at Quarter World; Chris discovered it is essentially reskinned Dark Knight without left-side rocker toy; requires extended ball time to appreciate shot satisfaction; themed better than Dark Knight version in Chris's opinion |
| Wizard of Oz | game | Jersey Jack Pinball wide-body machine; Chris and Jared both found it slow and unengaging; Jared noted community player scored 1.2 million (difficult achievement on that machine despite low numeric values) |
| The Hobbit | game | Jersey Jack Pinball machine; Chris played at Ground Control; Jersey Jack released 'really good' Dial-In trailer for it; features independent line volume controls and dedicated headphone jack design (unlike Stern implementation) |
| Star Wars | game | New Stern pinball machine at Brisbane Pinball Masters tournament as demo/sponsored machine; brought in by AMD for event only; returned to distributor after tournament; Jared missed opportunity to play it |
| Game of Thrones | game | Stern Pro model at Ground Control; Chris noted it appeared beat-up/unmaintained despite being relatively new; later discusses headphone jack implementation challenges on Spike platform |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer praised for quality marketing trailers and thoughtful hardware design (headphone jack implementation on Hobbit and Dialed In); known for distinctive point value scoring system (10/30 increments) |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer with Spike system platform; criticized for headphone jack implementation (backbox location, no front coin door connection); multiple machines at both Portland venues |
| Pinball Map | organization | Community-maintained online database for pinball machine locations; Chris used it to locate Quarter World; started specifically for Portland pinball scene; well-maintained and up-to-date according to Chris |
| Brisbane Pinball Masters | event | Australian tournament with 100 players competing on 15 machines; organized by Jason Lambert and Jimmy Nails; machines accumulated ~1 year typical play during event; held at alternate venue due to insufficient space at Netherworld |
| Netherworld | location | Brisbane arcade venue; co-owned by Jimmy Nails (tournament director); too small to host Brisbane Pinball Masters tournament; location Jared wanted to visit for Star Wars demo |
| AMD (Amusement Machine Distributors) | company | Distributor in Sydney/Melbourne area; sponsored Star Wars demo machine at Brisbane Pinball Masters; machine returned to their operation after tournament |
| Addams Family | game | Classic Williams machine at Ground Control; Chris played one game with ball draining unexpectedly via outlane |
| Kiss | game | Stern machine at Ground Control; Chris earned three replays playing it; noted as good introduction to game mechanics |
| Pabst Can Crusher | game | Electromechanical reskin at Ground Control; Chris noted high-quality rubber and powerful flippers made it engaging; concluded EM machines of this quality would have been excellent in original era |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Arcade venue maintenance standards and operator professionalism, Headphone jack implementation on modern pinball machines (Jersey Jack vs Stern), Pinball machine scoring design and player satisfaction, Venue comparison: bar-focused vs arcade-focused business models
- **Secondary:** Game design and playability: classic machines vs modern wide-bodies, Star Wars pinball availability and demo distribution in Australia, Tournament organization and logistics (Brisbane Pinball Masters)
- **Mentioned:** Jersey Jack game quality and marketing approach

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Chris is enthusiastic about Quarter World and its maintenance standards, appreciates Dialed In's gameplay despite scoring criticism. Jared expresses frustration about missing Star Wars opportunity. Overall positive about Portland pinball scene and machine quality experiences, with specific constructive criticisms of scoring and hardware implementation rather than fundamental negativity.

### Signals

- **[event_signal]** Brisbane Pinball Masters achieved high attendance (100 players, 15 machines) and table wear metrics suggesting major community engagement event (confidence: high) — Jared: '100 people and 15 machines'; collector-supplied tables accumulated 'about a year's worth of play' during tournament
- **[design_philosophy]** Jersey Jack implements thoughtful hardware design for audio immersion (independent volume controls, dedicated headphone jack on coin door) vs Stern's afterthought backbox-mounted solution (confidence: high) — Chris contrasted direct experience: JJP Hobbit has integrated design, Stern Spike system requires extension cables from backbox with no volume isolation
- **[collector_signal]** Jared's frustration at missing Star Wars demo due to work conflict demonstrates strong community desire to play new commercial releases; perception of limited access window creates urgency (confidence: high) — 'I have a really bad feeling that if I leave this, I'm going to miss my opportunity'; 'I'm so annoyed' repeated; considering birthday trip just to access machine
- **[design_philosophy]** Jersey Jack scoring system (10/30 point increments) creates unsatisfying feedback loop despite fun gameplay mechanics on Dialed In (confidence: medium) — Chris criticism: 'my best game I had 150,000 points... there's something unsatisfying about that'; noted lack of 'sweet spot' in scoring progression
- **[operational_signal]** Centaur serves as reliable indicator of arcade maintenance quality due to sensitivity to playfield condition, rubber quality, and brightness (confidence: medium) — Chris used Centaur as first test machine; noted 'if it's old and if it's not maintained well, it's not fun to play'; Quarter World's Centaur was 'so good' with waxed playfield and new rubber
- **[market_signal]** Star Wars pinball heavily restricted demo distribution in Australia—limited to Brisbane Masters event via AMD sponsorship with rapid removal (confidence: high) — Jared: machine was demo-only, returned to AMD after tournament; no other immediate access points in Australia except Gold Coast location
- **[operational_signal]** Professional arcade operators invest in routine maintenance infrastructure (dedicated staff, monthly parts replacement, systematic cleaning schedules) creating measurable difference in player experience and machine longevity (confidence: high) — Quarter World staff description of daily/weekly/monthly maintenance cycles vs Ground Control's apparent casual approach; Chris directly compared playfield quality outcomes
- **[product_concern]** Wide-body games (Wizard of Oz, The Hobbit) appear to lack immediate player appeal compared to standard playfield machines; Chris and Jared both expressed slow/unengaging feel despite quality production (confidence: medium) — Chris: 'slow, and I think it's because they're wide bodies'; Jarden experience suggests design doesn't translate to immediate satisfaction
- **[venue_signal]** Pinball Map effectively serves Portland community with accurate, current machine location data; demonstrates value of crowdsourced venue databases for player discovery (confidence: medium) — Chris used Pinball Map to identify Quarter World location; Chris noted map 'was started specifically for the Portland pinball scene' and is 'very well kept and up-to-date'
- **[venue_signal]** Quarter World demonstrates professional arcade operation model with dedicated daily maintenance staff replacing rubbers monthly and performing deep weekly cleaning cycles, contrasting sharply with Ground Control's bar-first approach (confidence: high) — Maintenance staff conversation where she described job duties: daily rotations, monthly rubber replacement, Monday major cleanings, light/play count checks

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## Transcript

 This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Shut Your Traffic A. Chris Frevis, and joining me halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hello. Sorry, I had to do that fast because we just spent the last 15 minutes trying to figure out why we couldn't get our podcast up and running. Fussing about with Google Tech. yeah you know things you know you would think that Google with Chrome would talk to YouTube very nicely since they're the same company and apparently they don't no software's hard that's the problem yeah and I think with Hangouts they're actually making it more of a business focused tool rather than a consumer focused tool so perhaps that's the reason why it's a little bit harder to do things today. It's still offered as a decoder in YouTube when you're setting up a live YouTube event. You think that if it's offered, it should work. Whatever. We're here now. There you go. Hey, in case you were wondering where the heck we were last week and you didn't bother reading tweets, during our normal podcast recording session, I was up in an airplane and Jared was doing a charity hackathon. I was. Yeah. So it was a little bit hard to coordinate last week. A little bit hard. Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, so I'm back down in Los Angeles from my trip up to Portland where I got to experience some arcade action. Oh, yeah. What did you play? So, well, everybody was recommending. I mean, I kind of posted, you know, hey, where should I go? And everybody kept on saying Ground Control. This place called Ground Control. And it's in the middle of downtown Portland, which was convenient because my hotel was on the west side of downtown Portland, and so it was only like a 15-minute walk, if even that. And so I walked over down to that place, and the best way I can describe it is it's more of a bar that happens to have pinball machines, which isn't even necessarily the truth, but that's the vibe I got. Let's put it to you that way. You walk in. There's bouncers outside the door that check your ID, which was odd to me. They checked your ID? They checked my ID, yeah. Because you look like 21. Bald guy with gray in his beard. Yeah, I'm trying to fake my way into an arcade, sure. Oh, man. You walk in and immediately there was a room to your right that had a couple of machines in it. If you walk down the hallway a little bit more, there was a couple of... And this was not just pinball machines. This was also retro arcade games. There was a couple of arcade games in the hallway, and that kind of led you into the bar, if you will. So there was a central bar, and it was kind of fun. They had a big screen set up, kind of like what was in war games, with all the big screens and Whopper, and one of them was even asking if you wanted to play Thermal Nuclear Detonation or whatever the game was in war games. Cool. That was kind of cool, but there was little tables set up and a long wall to set your drinks on kind of thing. And then the games were off to the side, up against the wall. So there was another row of games there, and then if you kind of curved around, there was yet another room that had four pinball machines inside of it. So everything was kind of compartmentalized. And that's why I say, with the lighting and they had a DJ going on. It just kind of felt more like a bar that had games in it. That being said, all the Williams Bally games that they had were 50 cents a play. The Stern and Jersey Jack tables that they had were 75 cents a play. And then it was the typical, if you put two bucks in, you got was it five plays, I think? Well, that's pretty good. You know what two bucks gets you here if you're lucky? If they even have that feature on? Three plays. Three plays. Three, that's it. But they rarely do that anymore. Yeah, so I mean, you were able to... You could make your buck go. It wasn't outrageously priced or anything. I was interested in playing because I hadn't touched it yet. They had a Hobbit, and I hadn't played that before. they had Pabst Can Crusher which is just a reskin of of yeah and I was able to put in some time on Kiss which I hadn't really gotten a chance on yet in general the games were you know they played fine they were a little bit beaten up I mean I shouldn't even say that not beaten up but you could tell they were played a lot. They were. But maintained well at the same time. Flippers had a little wobble to them or whatever. They weren't shiny, if you will. They didn't seem waxed. The rubber seemed like standard rubber that you come across when a game's been on site for a while. A little bit sort of chrome dust tarnished and a little bit sort of lacking bounce. Yeah. HOT in general looked kind of ugly. Which was shocking to me. Because I was like, this is a fairly new table, but it looked kind of beat. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, and even the pop-ups that eject up kind of like a medieval madness with the trolls, even though it looked just hammered, and they didn't come up in a crisp, non-wobbly sort of way. Instead, they just kind of looked like they were just kind of there dangling about and bouncing. I don't know. There was just a look to it that I just kind of was like, well, that's kind of, I don't know. It didn't grab me. Same thing. They had Game of Thrones Pro. Same thing. It just kind of was like, okay. But the lights were bright and everything. I was still able to have a good time futzing around. I actually didn't put in any $2 worth of coins because I only cashed in $5 and was just kind of quickly sampling some stuff. I got replays on KISS like three times. I think once through a match and twice through actually earning the replay. That's very generous of it. It was. You got a really comfortable introduction to KISS then. In other words, you really got to have some play time on it. But in general, none of the games impressed me. That was disappointing because I've been waiting to play some of these and I was kind of like, well, I walked away just kind of, eh. I didn't bother with most of the Williams Bally games because I played them to death, and I was intent on doing something that I hadn't touched. I couldn't resist putting a quarter into Adam's family because, you know. It's fun. And, of course, it did what Adam's family does, which was chewed up my ball within 30 seconds. Correct. So, in other words, perfectly tuned and perfectly level and playing the way it should, brutally. Well, not necessarily because there was a, when I shot, you know, when the ball comes down by the thing flip. Yep. And I didn't flip the thing, and it took a bounce and then went right out the out lane. Oh, that's all right. That's not right at all. That's all right. And I do got to say, with the can, or the can, perhaps the blue ribbon table, if that is how EMs used to play then I can imagine how much fun EMs could have been and remember a couple of weeks ago we were talking about those old wood rails and the very old EMs with the holes that you're like oh we're not supposed to shoot a ball into those yeah because this table had life on it I mean the rubber was really bouncy the flippers even though they're the little two inch flipper flippers powerful like state flippers. And then you add in it's amazing what a soundtrack and electronic noises does to a game. To a single level playthrough. Because it is just single level, isn't it? Yep. So that was my impression that I came away from. If all the EMs were like this back in the heyday, that would be something. That would be something. You know, I was just thinking with regard to Jersey Jack's The Hobbit did you see that they released a trailer like the Dial-In trailer for it the other day no I didn't yeah I tell you what another really really good trailer they know how to do their marketing there at Jersey Jack they really do I'll tell you one thing that I love and I had my headphones with me it was nice being able to plug in and actually hear the game. Oh, yeah. And I'm really, I kept on looking on all the Stern tables and I was like, there's no plug. I was like, oh, that sucks. I know it does, doesn't it? Once you've actually experienced a pinball game, especially a modern one with a stereo soundtrack, through headphones, you don't want to have pinball any other way. Like, it is, it changes the way you play. It makes the game super immersive and you basically go into just tunnel mode with it. And your scores do improve. I guarantee you. If that was the only table on in your room, then you wouldn't need the headphones. But when you've got all this noise and all these other games fighting and the volume isn't necessarily up loud, you want that isolation. It definitely helps you focus in on what you're supposed to be doing. So, yeah, I'm quite surprised that Stern hasn't implemented that. I think they have. That's the thing. on their spike system, there is a line out on the main board in the backbox. Yes, but they don't put it through the coin door. No, they don't. It's all the way at the backbox, so you've got to have a two-meter cable just to run a headphone cord to the front. Well, and you have to run it from the backbox through, so it's not like just the average consumer can come in and plug in, because I've played Game of Thrones with headphones, but it's always been somebody had a dedicated line coming out of the backbox. um it isn't actually isn't actually a plug like a 3.5 mini jack um plug i don't know in my imagination but it's a you know what it's done they go on oh well we can't afford the extra you know five meters of cable just to run that line through to the front um back the front coin door so you know we'll just uh just chuck it in the backbox and you know if people have it in their home they'll just use a long extension cord or something and they'll work it out but you've to realize that that's not really, that's one aspect of it. Right? But these are going into arcades now. These are going into arcades now. If I were an operator, I would just get an extension cable, plug it, and then run it along the side of the machine and fasten it there so that you could jack right in. The only issue would be you wouldn't have volume control. And that's the thing. Have you, with the the volume control on Stearns. How does that work with the headphone jack? I don't know. It's always been loud as hell when I've put on the headphones. Yeah, see, that's no good. That being said, when I plugged into the Hobbit, I cranked the volume all the way up. I did too, but I think the thing with the Hobbit is it's got independent line volume controls. So you've got your own personal preference volume control on the front, but as an operator, you can set the maximum volume that's pumped through that port. So it's designed to be used with headphones, if you look at that, whereas it seems that the Stern solution is an afterthought, and there's no way of controlling the volume independently to suit your needs, and so you don't get ear bleed. But, yeah. So anyway, that was ground control. And so then I looked on the pinballmaps.org, I believe, which turns out it was started specifically for the Portland pinball scene. Oh, really? Yeah. And so it's very well kept and up-to-date of exactly what machines are where and stuff. And I was looking and I found a site that had just, I think they had 30 machines. I went, I need to go there. Unfortunately, it was about almost four miles away from my hotel. So not walking distance. Fortunately, Portland has really, it's kind of cool. They, uh, Nike is the one that sponsors it and they call it bike town. And it's these, uh, public for rent bicycles. And they've got kiosks just scattered throughout the city. And so you can walk up to any of these and you go to a little, a booth, you pay there was like 12 bucks for the day or, uh, And by day, that meant, I think it was 160 minutes of ride time, something like that. And let me try and work this out. So with the ride time, basically, it's from the point at which you take the bike to when you put it back into the holder again, right? Yes. I think we actually have exactly the same system here in Brisbane. It's called CityCycle here. It sounds almost identical. Are the bikes really, really chunky and heavy? Oh, my God, they weigh a ton. It sounds like exactly the same system. And they have eight gears on them, but if it starts to torque too much, it starts skipping, so you automatically have to lower your gear. That's exactly like CityCycle. They're better than nothing, right? Oh, absolutely. But they're still a bit of a trip. yeah so I rented one of those and took the bike ride across town to this other place called Quarter World if that was what the name of this place was nobody had recommended Quarter World to me which I thought was odd plain words for Waterworld basically and then not only that but I was reading some reviews just real quickly and everybody was like oh it's a dive bar that has machines I was like oh no that means it's going to be even worse than ground control But I was like, hey, you know what? They've got a Batman 66. I wanted to play that. And they had a – and most importantly, they had dialed in. So I was like, I've got to go there. I've got to go there. So, yeah, I pedaled across town. And, oh, yeah, it was a slow ride for me because that bike was a ton. Not to mention I hadn't been on a bicycle in a while. So I went to this place. Now, they actually charged a cover charge. It was a dollar to get in. but after I think 5 or 6pm it becomes like 3 bucks to get in but this place was more like an arcade that happened to have a bar in it because you walked in and you go down this hall again some classic arcade machines in the hall you turn the corner and boom big old square room two walls lined with pinball machines and in the middle was a little classic arcade machines and then on the third wall there was the bar and on the fourth wall I'll tell you about it in a moment. So it was nice and dark and just the way an arcade should be and I just kind of took a look at the machines in general just a quick glance and they all looked much shinier and better maintained it seemed and deciding what I wanted to put my first quarters in I hadn't cashed in any money yet, but I had 50 cents just in my pocket, and I went, hey, look, there's Centaur. It's like, okay, this is a good test to see how well-maintained a machine is, because Centaur, if it's old and if it's not maintained well, it's not fun to play in the least. Plunked in my 50 cents. Holy crap. So good. Waxed playfield Brand new rubber That ball was dancing Lights were all nice and bright The backbox if I not mistaken doesn't Centaur have an infinity glass? I thought it did, yeah. I did too. This looks like somebody just basically took a photo and made a back glass, glued it to the back of a piece of glass, and up it went. Because there was no ring lights rotating, no mirror in the back glass at all. I was like, I could have sworn this had Infinity Glass on it, kind of like Xenon. But anyway. Well, maybe it doesn't. I'm not sure. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm not 100% sure. But small pittance, no matter the case, because the table was playing fantastically. Here's the thing. Replay was set to 500,000, and it was a five-ball machine. Well, you'd be able to get that pretty easy. Yeah, so I got my first replay. and I was like, oh, okay. And then I played another game and I got another replay and oh, okay. And then I had a really good game and scored like 1.6 million and I got two replays. I went, okay. Okay. And so then I started going, well, if this is the case, let me start doing things. Let me start experimenting the way that I would experiment in Pinball Arcade. So my first experiment was trying to hit Double Queen's Chamber. And let me tell you, It's a whole heck of a lot harder to do on the real thing than it is in Pinball Arcade. Because the ball, although you can hit a nice solid shot to get Double Queen's Chamber, when it hits the captured ball, it doesn't hit it all that hard. And so you can knock down the first drop target. You might get lucky and be able to get that ball to bounce high enough to hit the third drop target. After that, you ain't doing it by doing Double Queen's Chamber. You have to do direct shots to the ball to get those drop targets down. So that was something interesting to learn. I discovered the table was slightly off-level, so that also might have played a factor to it, but I don't think it played that much of a factor with that. Well, so anyway, I'm playing this. Next thing I do, I notice I look down at my watch, and I've been playing it for 45 minutes on an initial 50-cent drop. Confessment, yeah. and I've got three credits up on the board. I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm like, okay. So I start playing doubles. Yeah. And every single game I'm earning a replay and I'm earning a replay. I'm like, okay, this is starting to get to the point where I just need to walk away from this. I need to walk away because I want to play other machines but it's also, my brain is like, no, you can't walk away. You've got credits on the thing. So. I would have gone, that's nice to play but now it's time to play Daldim. I wound up playing it for about an hour 15, maybe. Yeah, okay. And finally I was like, okay, I'm stepping away. Stepped away with two credits. Went, cashed in five bucks worth of coins. Went over and yeah, played Dialed In. And I did do the two dollars sink in on that one. Let me tell you something. That game is really fun. That's a good game. My impression of Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit, I just haven't... I don't know, they're slow, and I think it's because they're wide bodies. Nothing about it has captured me. Dialed in, it felt like a Pat Lawler table. It felt like the next generation version of everything that he did with Twilight Zone. There's a lot of tech going on on that machine, let me tell you. and there's magnets going on, so your ball is, you know, it's like the power. Your ball is getting yanked around here and there, and the sound, I was able to plug in my headphones, and so the sound was really cool. There's just a lot going on, and I really have no clue what I was supposed to be doing. I was just having a fun blast just shooting around. At one point, it took a selfie of me and posted that up on the backbox, which was kind of funny. I didn't figure out how to connect my phone to the game. And I don't know if I think I was supposed to have downloaded an app. Yes, there's an app in the, well, I've seen the app in the app store, at the Android app store. And yeah, you download it and then you play. But it sort of should be like, well, it should onboard you in the game. Like it should say, you know, it should like make it part of the game that it actually gets you to install the app. I don't know. Yeah, I thought it was going to be just a matter of you turning on your Bluetooth and it connecting to you. But, yeah, apparently it's not. So I didn't mess around with that aspect of it. But my only complaint about the game is what Jersey Jack is doing with scoring. It's another… Like 10 points, 30 points. Yeah, you know, my best game, I had 150,000 points. And that was with me having good ball times. my poorest game was like at 25,000 points. And there's something unsatisfying about that. I know we've talked about that before. We have. I wish that the point values were a little bit higher so that there's a sweet spot. There's definitely a sweet spot, and I don't think this one has it. Man, I'll tell you what. Somebody at our league was playing Wizard of Oz, and they blew that thing up to 1.2 million, which if you imagine the scoring that you're getting on those games that is an epic score he was basically the number one player in Australia did that but again it doesn't sound impressive does it? no well 1.2 million you sort of have to be in the know don't you if you're writing to your friends about it they'd be going well that's not very big but then you know anyone in the pimple you've got 1.2 on that game wow that's huge yeah you know so i uh i stepped away from that i did play batman 66 and then real quickly realized it's i didn't and i didn't know this but it is essentially the dark knight it is just got a different uh spinner or toy at the back correct that means it doesn't have that rocker it doesn't have that that big left hand side rocking mechanism correct yeah so it's it's when you first play it and you this is my experience anyhow when you first play it and you try and get into it you are pretty disappointed um generally but i had how i happen to have a pretty good go on it i've got the old replay after replay thing and allow me to really get sink my teeth into it and once that the thing with that game it's all about shot satisfaction so yeah it's it's pretty wide open playfield, but the way you combine your shots to get the points, that's the satisfying thing about that game. But you don't know that until you've actually had a lot of ball time on it. It's clearly designed for the home market and not for an arcade. I'll tell you what, I like the theming of it better than The Dark Knight. It's silly. It's fun. It is. It's classic Batman. I thought that was kind of cool because with The Dark Knight, I didn't like the giant spinning Joker at the back. I didn't understand what it was, and with this, the toy that they have at the back, you understand exactly what it is. It rotates. There's the phone. Oh, hey. Hit the phone. It rotates again. There's the Batcave. It makes more sense. Yeah. I dug that aspect of it. That's right. I agree. The theme is well integrated into it, and the art looks good on the play field. But it's one of those games you really do need to get some game time on to fully appreciate. Yeah, I then played Ghostbusters Pro. What did you think of that? Again, I haven't been able to really form an opinion of the game. It kills me too fast. It's brutal. It is brutal, and my initial reaction was, I've got to say I didn't like the LE better for whatever reason. I couldn't necessarily put a finger on it. But other than it visually just looks better, and it seems to have more fun with where it places the ball. Well, yeah. And, well, the LE, which I still haven't had an opportunity to play, I know I'd automatically like it better because it's just like you've got the storage facility that is actually a storage facility. Yeah. And you've got the subway that is, you know, it goes under and comes back up again. Like there's just that ramp. It just feels, on the pro, it just feels like an afterthought. Yeah. Or it's like, gee, how can we make the game, like we've taken out this massive assembly on the game how can we jerry-rig a plastic ramp to do most of the things that that does without detrimenting detrimentally impacting the gameplay oh well i guess this will do it really does feel like an afterthought and that's what i resent about the game the pro version and the fact that doesn't have like you would think that integrating magnets for the ghost slings right be cheaper than putting in um solenoid driven slingshots but you didn't think so but there again they they didn't do it and like that i think if if it had the the slingshots the the ghost slings and it left that plastic ramp in i'd be okay with it probably but because they've just cheaped out on everything in the pro version it just feels cheap and nasty to play like i i groan every single time it gets picked in tournament because I hate it, number one. And it's really hard to get the containment multiball on the Pro for some reason. It looks great when you get it. Boy, once you get it once, you want to get it again. But it's so hard to do it. It's just unsatisfying in every way, that game. Well, and I tell you, especially coming off of Dialed In, which, granted, costs, what, $2,000, $3,000 more than the Pro version of Ghostbusters, Yeah. Um, but the apparent fun factor, cause like dialed in has much like the Ghostbusters. LE has that little, uh, digital screen, your hologram kind of screen. And it, that thing is important on dialed in. It gives you info and it's a key shot that you shoot a lot. Um, all sorts of things happen with that. And the Ghostbusters LE, when I played it, it was kind of just a thing. I didn't really notice it being incredibly important. So, I don't know. It was interesting playing those two back-to-back. I mean, granted, like I said, the Pro version you can hardly compare. But anyway, I got done with that. I had 50 cents left in my... Or, excuse me. Right next to Dialed In, they had Game Show. Oh, yeah. Valley Game Show. Yep, with Keith McTeeth. With LED lighting. Ooh. That thing blinded me. Yep. It made you a wood. And not only that, it strobes. And so it's a dark table. Like the top half of the play field is dark because there's so many plastic ramps blocking everything. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the flashing strobing action of the lights would happen, and you would lose track of the ball completely. It was just like gone. yeah that wound up being pretty tough because of that. Because of the light show and you're in a dark arcade and it was just like wow who thought that this would be one of the tougher tables that I would play you know this old Bally It's funny you know because I found the same thing with the transporter, that transporter pin because it had these really blinding flashes at the bottom of the like right near the flippers and I think probably with normal incandescent flashes in them, it would have been okay. But the thing is, everyone's upgrading them to those 30 light intense, super bright LED flasher stacks. The thing is, I think the game was kind of never really meant to have that much light in that area. And that's the problem. The game was designed for incandescence and not LED. So therefore, everything about the game and how it works and operates, you're kind of like completely changing the way it operates. I'm not entirely sure, but I think they actually added the... It looks like little beacons or little megaphones that you see on the thrones. Those are your strobe flashers. Those were on Ballet Gameshow. I don't know that that was a feature back then. The little lenses that they put over the flasher globes. Yeah, they're pointing outside. I don't think it was on Valley Game Show. No, I don't think so. That was too early for them to think that. Exactly. So what I'm saying is they added a feature that makes it really difficult. Oh, man. I do love Showcase Bonanza on Valley Game Show. Well, the volume was barely audible, so I couldn't hear much. Such disappointment. It's so good, the soundtrack on that game. I did manage to light up all of the prizes at one point and then hit the ramp and it was like, you want a new car, you want a new TV, you want a boat, you want a truck. I was like, okay, that felt satisfying. It's a sporty new truck. I love it. I wound up with 50 cents left and I was like, what am I going to play? My choices was I could either play X-Files, which I don't believe I've ever played, but I was like, Sega. No. And then there was Flintstones, which I know I've played once or twice, but I so hate the theme because it's based on the movie, not on the actual cartoon, that I've always avoided it. Yeah. And Nick Moran is going, hey, ball saved. No. Right. And so I just kind of went, all right, I'm going to go with Flintstones over a Sega table. So I went and played Flintstones. You know what? It's actually kind of fun. It's fun. It's actually kind of fun. If you can push past the theme and ignore Rick Moranis giving you the shits. Yeah, the ball travels interestingly on that. No, I was actually having a decent time on that, which was shocking to me. That around the flipper ramp is cool, isn't it? It is. It shocked me the first time it happened. I was ready to flip on the right side, and the ball went right past my flipper. on this little habit trail that you don't even notice and drops on the left side. I'm like, Oh, Hey, look at that. Um, it freaked me out the first time. I remember playing that back in the nineties and I still lost my mind when it did to me back then. And you've seen that now. It just brought me straight back to that point where I went, well, when that happened, it was cool. Um, so pocket empty of quarters. I went back to see if a centaur still had any credits on it. There were my two credits. Nobody had played centaur in that entire time that I was playing everything else. I was like, okay. I played for another half an hour at least. Wound up getting it up to four credits. While I was playing it, this gal wearing a Quarter World lab coat, you might say, walked over and was playing Simpsons. It was right next to me. She had a little notebook out. She first messed with the coin door, was writing down some notes in her notebook, and then started playing some balls on it. And I was like, oh, maybe she's on break or I don't know. So waited for her to finish. And I just made the general comment. I go, hey, I just want to let you know I'm really impressed with the arcade here and that the machines are really, really well maintained and the rubber is fresh and they feel waxed and these are a lot of fun. And she goes, thank you. That's my job. Oh, right. So it turns out that that's her job. she roams the arcade every day has, you know, goes through a different rotation of tables every day, checks all their lights, make sure the, the, the play counts are how they should be, you know, adjust them accordingly, um, cleans them, wipes them down, says they replaced the rubbers like once a month. Wow. On these things. That's a lot. It is, it is. And this is why I was I was like really impressed Um she was saying that on you know every Monday most of the machines get a major cleaning done on them So that was the difference for me between Ground Control and Quarter World You could just tell one was being maintained and the other one was, hey, come play our machines. Yeah. You know, because we have them. So that was kind of and I asked if they had a rotation of machines. and she goes, I know that there is other machines and maybe every two months a new machine will get dropped in because dialed in just got put in. But for the most part it winds up being always these kind of collection. It's not a constantly rotating collection. And then all of a sudden I heard the loudest sound I have heard in a very long time. Ghostbusters? Because, no, it turns out at 4 o'clock in this place on a couple of days during the week, but this was on a Sunday, they do what's called a Tesla show. So on the fourth wall that I didn't describe yet, they have a giant Tesla coil hanging. And they bring down a cage, and then two guys go up into a booth, and they've got keyboards hooked up, and they play electronic music that fires the Tesla coil in rhythm to the music that they're playing. A Tesla coil, the sound of that thing firing up and shooting is, I believe they said 90 decibels, or that of, like, if you were at a monster truck rally. Yeah. Fortunately, they had a gigantic bowl of earplugs. Yeah. for you to put in, but you can pretty much bet nobody's playing any game while that thing was going off because you couldn't hear anything. But it was kind of cool watching the lightning dance in time too. They were playing the Game of Thrones theme that started off with, and it was just cool seeing the lightning going. And then the next song they played was the final countdown which... And the lightning would be super intense. Yeah, so it was kind of... I need to clarify, that's what you're listening to there is actually a musical Tesla coil. It's the thing generating the music. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's actually, I actually saw a demo of someone playing the Super Mario Brothers theme with that thing as well. And they had it in a big car park. And yeah, it's a fascinating piece of equipment. Yeah. It's really crazy. So I didn't know how long this show was going to go on. And I was like, you know what? I need to hop back on the bike and ride home before it gets dark, even though I completely forgot that in Portland it gets dark way later than I'm used to because they're farther north in latitude and it's summertime, and therefore it doesn't get dark until 9 o'clock as opposed to the 7, 30, 8 o'clock that I'm used to it getting dark. So as I'm walking out, I happen to see some other people. I exit the hall, and I kind of look, and I see some other people in another room. I'm like, oh, what's that? I walk into that room. There's another 10 machines in there that I hadn't even known. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. Secret machines. I wouldn't call them secret, but yeah, they were there. And I was just kind of like, I'd like to play them. But again, none of them were machines that I hadn't played before. I think the only one that I would have probably sunk quarters in was Guns N' Roses. But yeah, I was like, no, no, I need to go. I need to go. So anyway, what I'm trying to say, folks, is if you're ever in Portland, go to Quarter World. It's pretty awesome. Quarter World sounds wicked. It's pretty awesome. um boy we've spent a lot of time on the oh the intro haven't we yeah well that that basically because we're short on time the intro turned into the actual main event but the i'm a little bit frustrated so the last weekend uh was the brisbane pinball masters um here and there were it was a big turnout they had 100 people um and 15 machines and um the usual the usual suspects that always win one but they actually had a star wars a new star wars there um and so pissed off i wanted to actually go there at lunchtime on to netherworld at lunchtime on friday but i couldn't get away from work and i thought oh i have a really bad feeling about this i have a bad feeling that if i leave this i'm going to miss my opportunity to do it and they announced yesterday that it was going to be packed up on Monday and returned back down to amusement machine distributors back in Sydney or Melbourne. And I go, it's going to be packed up in the morning, so I can't even go down there at 12 o'clock at opening time and just get on it and just have a go. And I'm just going, oh, I'm so annoyed. I'm so annoyed. So it was only there for demo purposes? Well, it was only there for the Brisbane Pinball Masters. they brought it up the AMD sponsored it directly for them BPM so okay yeah it was there for a short time so I think the only chance they're gonna have to play it now is probably to go down to the Gold Coast when they get it down there and of course that's pretty much a no chance of that happening right because it's so hard to get down there my birthday is coming up though in August so maybe I'll just say you know what for my birthday I'm just going to go down to the Gold Coast and just spend the day down there and play my guts out on all the pinball tables like down there yeah but but yeah the the tournament itself was went so well um the the people who supplied the tables were all collectors um and they said probably at the end they had a look at the counts at the end and basically the tables had about a year's worth of play on them by the end of the tournament a year's worth of play that's crazy insane so yeah uh it was a huge huge event but Yeah, credit goes to the organisers. There's a couple of dudes there. Jason Lambert, who's like one of the key guys who organise it, and also one of the co-owners of Netherworld, Jimmy Nails, who's also a tournament director. And, yeah, both of those dudes, hats off to you guys. It would have been really hard to organise. And actually the event was so big they couldn't have it at Netherworld. They have to have it at another pub with more area in it because there's just not enough room in Netherworld to have it. So yeah, awesome. I'm so glad it went well. I didn't go in it because it's just like two days out of a weekend. There's no way I'm getting that off. Firepower 2 dropped on Pinball Arcade. Yes, it did. Did you mess with it? Oh yeah, I've had a good go of it. It's fun. I'll actually say it actually is quite fun. I've got the Max Multiplier. Yeah, I did. I worked for the max multiplier just so I could appreciate Norman's work on And it was satisfying It's kind of satisfying in the way that When you get the bonus count on Tales of the Arabian Nights Where you just hear that going higher and higher And higher on the pitch and you're like Come on squelch out It's so good And then at the end it gives you this kind of satisfying Conclusion like Thank you for reaching the end Of the bonus count it does it's good I like it it's good for that perspective and yeah it is really it's all about the bonus in that game isn't it to get your points up yeah but that being said I'm telling you I don't I don't see the purpose of the game there's nothing in it that made me go oh this is so much better than firepower you know it's interesting having an orbit yeah granted that but why couldn't why do I have to have an ABCD lane at the top. That's so generic. The ramp is not satisfying at all. It doesn't really do anything. The two-ball, multiball is interesting because you can actually get it going pretty easily as compared to firepower where it's a task to get it going. There's a lot about it. Again, it's the budget cut. There was a reason why they made it the way they did it and I think it was to encourage more play. Exactly. And it's exactly the same reason they made Space Shuttle the way they did as well, because they were trying to make the barrier of entry to pinball players lower. So that's why you could actually have a multiball just on one ball locked if you wanted to. It was all about to drive players back to the game when video games were just starting to take off and it was like the new shiny. So yeah, they had to think of a way of bringing them in. And then what's funny is my Firepower has the wrong soundboard in it, so I don't have the speech portion. So all I have is the sound effects, and so I'm playing Firepower 2, and I'm like, yeah, it sounds exactly like my Firepower, because I don't have any speech on mine. so that was kind of funny but yeah again I'm just kind of I'm sure it might be fun to have a go on but I don't see it being any more fun than the actual original firepower so to me we now have two firepowers yay? yeah it's alright I guess it's feature is the bonus and that's why it would have been included in the game but that's kind of like the only attractive feature to it. Look, put it this way, there's worse tables in Pimble Arcade that you would have to deal with. So, put it this way, if they start cycling in Firepower 2 more than they do going nuts, they're kind of happy in the tournaments. Right. You know what they also did? Black Knight Emulated. Ah, I did not try that yet. I forgot about that. Oh, yeah. It is out, and it is very nice to see. there's more speech in it now because it's emulated, and they've better realized the light shows in it now. They did that to an extent with the scripted version. They introduced a new light show for Moldy Wall, but it's much better integrated now. Okay. So I think they might have cleaned up the speech just a little bit as well. Probably. A little bit. It's sort of in the first unscripted, when the scripted version is sort of like fight again, three enemies and and it's now fighting in these enemies i think it's what it's sounding like okay so yeah i think it's it's different in the way that actually captures the audio and they have in the beta they've just coded in pro mode into it okay very good so you can i know that there's a couple of dudes on the beta testing forum at Android who are very excited in finally being able to go into the operator settings and tweak the way your awarded locks and make the locks available on the loop, like the U-turn loop in the bottom. So change how they're actually ordered because it's too easy otherwise to get locks. I think probably it's arguably something that needs to be introduced into the game because it is a little bit too easy to get locks in that game. But, yeah, it's good. It's so good to see it properly emulated now. You're mentioning of Black Knight, which I'm sure means that the artwork is much better now. No longer looks like it's been torched. Well, again, I'm on mobile. I feel it looks kind of the same as it did always. There's a lot of orange in that game. yeah but can you now actually read the MagnaLock area yeah I think so it used to be a black pit yeah I think they've cleaned that up a bit I did notice oh I actually saw I suggested the Farsight they actually do a before and after on Firepower 2 because you know how last week I told you that's all the before shots right and what was interesting was I was looking and I was like, it still looks like the playfield is jacked up. Then I looked at actual pictures and that's the way the playfield looks. Yes. Shocking. I know. It's pretty low-key, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah, but man, the before and after shots. Gee, they did some touch-up on that playfield. Where did they post those? Because I didn't see them. Well, they haven't. But I'm encouraging, I'm sort of telling them they should and maybe put it into the newsletter or something like that because it would be very interesting for people to actually have a look at the before and after on this table. It's notable. Hey, the other thing, the newsletter. Did you see the newsletter? I did see the newsletter, and fortunately the season might finally have a really good table coming its way. It might, yeah. The clue shows a dude who has his head replaced by a soccer ball, and he says, My head is spinning. well if you know anything about any of the soccer tables that are out there the only one that features a spinning ball would be World Cup Soccer 94 that being said we do know that there's going to be some licensing clean up if you will yeah there's going to be some fist ring there will be some fist ring going on in that table yeah so we're pretty much looking at say goodbye to any World Cup mentions which bears to beg the question, is this only going to be called WCS 94? Or is it just going to be called Soccer 94? Or do they have to change the name? I imagine they're going to have to change the name. They're not going to be able to call it World Cup. Is World Cup trademarked? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, then they may have to. Yeah. I think they're going to have to change it. But is WCS trademarked? WCS 94? Yeah. I don't know so that might be a quick workaround I imagine you're going to see the mascot the dog festered unless that's not unless that's not licensed to FIFA and instead it's licensed to USA Soccer I don't know in the threads people were worried about the voice but here's the thing that guy is already that voiceover artist is already in six other tables that are in TPA. Yeah, he's actually Williams. He's Belly Williams as voiceover dude. He's the one who does all the voices for Attack from Mars and for... He even does the stiff in Scared Stiff. Like, he is the voice artist for that. No issue with that. And I... With the DMD screen, they might not have to touch it. It might be generic enough that it's okay. Yeah, even when the doggy appears on the screen, you gotta figure the DMD graphics are not amazing and so that might be the loophole I don't know so I don't think World Cup Soccer is actually going to have that much festered on it which is good I think you'll still be able to have all the fun of it and it's a blast of a table it really is those long long ramp shots are just so good but they better be made hard because even on a well-maintained machine, that ball doesn't really go super fast around them. At the top end, as it goes around the top, if it's a weaker shot, it will just make it around. If it's a good direct shot, it will go around pretty fast. Yeah. But I would like to see some nice tuning on that. Well, the tuning I'm concerned about is the spinning soccer ball. yeah that's going to add a very interesting dynamic to it it is because this is where we go into ball spin and of course it doesn't have ball spin I'm very curious to know because there's a lot of different trajectories that can happen with that thing yeah yeah I'm very interested to see what they integrate to put that in the best news for me is that this means that all of our worries about having AG soccer before having World Cup soccer can go away yeah but the thing is that the Godly version the Godly Premier they actually released a soccer thing called World Challenge Soccer so it was basically World Cup Soccer without any of the branding in usual Godly Premier crappy style but they got around by saying World Challenge Soccer so you know there might be an opportunity for them to say World Challenge Soccer 94 here What a kick in the nuts would it be if that what we wind up getting instead of World Cup Soccer There is no spinning soccer ball in that game, though. And the clue clearly says my head is spinning. So I think that's the giveaway right there. It's got to be that. I mean, there's only three modern soccer-themed tables that I'm aware of. I mean, that's a godly one, World Challenge. There's Capcom Flipper Football, which there's no way that's getting into the game. There's Striker Extreme. Striker Extreme, yeah. But I don't think that has a spinning ball. No. And then there is the AG Soccer Ball, which it only has spinners in it. So if they said my head is spinning and they're saying it's got spinners, then that's an epic troll on Fast Science Pass. And hats off to you, sir, if that's the case. So what I'm... A question was posed to me recently, which was how much festering is acceptable to our audience? And my opinion kind of has been, hey, so long as the flavor of the game is still there, I'm not concerned terribly much about the art getting jacked up. No. But it does pose an interesting question regarding NBA Fast Break. Yeah, it does. And if you take it to its extremes, if you had to take out the NBA, so suddenly the game is just called Fast Break, you no longer have the trophy, you no longer have NBA, you also no longer have any of the team names. So here's my question. Would that affect your like of the game? No. You don't have any connection at all to it. No. Because you don't follow American basketball. No. For me, it's more about the cities. So if I have to play as the Los Angeles Breakers and there's the Los Angeles Flippers, then I don't care. Yeah. I know who I'm playing, and that's all fine and dandy. and as far as the team rosters that pop up when they're calling out names, well those rosters are so old it's laughable. I mean literally this game came out when Kobe Bryant was just entering the league and so he's hardly mentioned in the game and instead the lead scorer is this guy named Nick Van Exel which is kind of a Laker joke so I'm not too concerned about the lack of stars being called out in the game? Because again, most of these names, I've played the game recently and I was like, boy, I don't remember these players that it's been so long. I think it's an interesting proposition because the gameplay itself is so awesome, the scoring is so awesome, would you quickly just forget it and let it fly? Or would it bother you so much that you're like, no, this isn't the game? Look at what happened with No Fear. They had to take all the licensed sports people's names out of that game. It's downhill racing! I wish they had replaced it with a generic name. Yeah, with Joe Slicks. Yeah, there is a weird silence. It's a weird silence. I would hope that if anything has to be done with World Cup Soccer that just replace the name with a generic something. Yeah, they replaced the sound file. They know they've got this... I've seen screenshots of this cool little sound extraction tool that they've got. so they basically mapped the sound file one to one with the sound file in the game so they could easily drop in any sound file in place of that other sound file and it would work just the way it normally was it would be really it would be easy enough to do it from a sound perspective and if all they're doing is changing the sound calls and not the game code then that's actually pretty doable really you would open up a whole bunch of licensed games for us to play because I'm telling you folks I hate the idea of Kickstarter me too I don't like them dipping into that well anymore and I would rather them find a workaround now if somebody was complaining on the forum they're like well I thought the stated goal was to reproduce these games as accurately as possible well dude what would you rather have? Nothing or a playable version of the game that just doesn't that happens to not have the same graphics but you know, why don't you go over to Internet Pinball Database and look up the pictures so you can see exactly what it should look like. Yeah, exactly. I don't know, yes arguably that person who made that comment is technically correct. The game's mission is to preserve Pinball Machine but I think you probably can read into that statement, that mission statement in different ways. Like it's to preserve the pinball machine in the way it functions, I think. So if it's scoring the same and playing the same and having 95% of the same call outs. Is it the same game? like um like put it this way is playing flash gordon with a different play field out on it the same game like right really uh yeah it is because the shots are exactly the same is you know playing flash gordon with a addition of a soundboard in that allows you to overlay um sound things when switches are triggered still the same game because you're still playing the same Flash Gordon layout. You know what I mean? But if you change up the rule set, now it is a different game. It's the same layout, but it's now a different game. It's a different game, yeah. Like, for example, Brider Pinbot 2.0, different game. Right, different game. Yeah. Well, Jackbot versus Pinbot, same layout, different game. Different game. Absolutely different game. Yeah, exactly. So that's a good contrast. If you're changing rules, then yes, that is definitely a different game. But if you're just changing the art and some of the call-outs and nothing else actually changes from a game rules perspective, then from my perspective, it's the same game. Arguably, sometimes it's even better if they change the sound and the art packages because some of them are pretty terrible. Like they were Photoshopped to death, art assets. Imagine getting something like, you know, one of the terrible early stones that had just Photoshop assets everywhere and just completely re-themed the play field with your own design, you know. Yeah, because I think that would kind of lose some of the appeal then, obviously. It would lose some of the appeal because it would look so much better? well no but I mean if you there is a certain nostalgia aspect to these things I guess again this goes back to the locking in of the terrible and the locking in of the general theme and feel of the play of the table because I've seen it done in visual pinball where people have used the exact same layout as a well known table I think the one that they did it with was I think they did it with high speed when they first came out with visual pinball back in 2002, 2003 something like that or even before and I forget what they called it but I don't think I'm getting this mixed up with Indy 500 either or one of those two but anyway you knew exactly what the playfield was but it was completely rethemed and it just didn't lack, it was missing the charm There are certain aspects you just kind of go, you know what, I do miss that. You do want to see some of these things, and these guys did know what they were doing. Think about it. Is the game as much fun to play on a Whitewood? Well, no, definitely not. With early code? No. It's a different experience. It is. But again, that comes back to code as well. It was early code on a Whitewood, yeah. But if you've got, if the game itself is just shoot the flashing shot and the white wood has all the inserts and they work, it technically just plays the same as it would with the art on it. But you're right. It does have an impact on your perception of the game. It does. Basically, it's the art was there to sell it. That's what it was there for. like you were supposed to walk up and as a fan of Game of Thrones you're supposed to walk up to the game and go wow I want to play this game because there's my favorite character on it and I can shoot a ball over its face so you know what a weird concept our brain goes is it acceptable? not acceptable exactly it's weird but it is what it is so yeah this will be an interesting test to see what the public thinks they did it well they actually did it really well with Gavin's family like unless you knew unless you knew that that face was festered chances are you would not even pick it so if they're subtle about it and they just they just do just enough to get around the copyright issues then I think it's going to be pretty fine actually yeah but yeah you're right that ball spin physics issue hey maybe this is the place where we get ball spin maybe they go surprise ball spin. Interestingly enough, it wouldn't even be the actual ball that's getting the spin either. You're putting the physics of ball spin on that spinning soccer ball and letting that play with the trajectory based off of speed and impact of the ball hitting it. It's doing it on a fixed point large scale and maybe that can then be implemented later to a moving point much smaller scale. I don't know. You think about it though, like the actual ball contact area of that spinning ball, there's actually only two areas that the ball will ever touch on it. And there's a zone probably about, if we're using centimetres, in the main part of the play field of let's say 10 to 15 centimetres of actual area that the ball can contact on the thing. So if they wanted to fake the physics, they could actually put based on where the ball hit all the way up that 15cm arc different throw. In other words like what they do on the flippers? Well yeah, they could. They could actually map it so at this point, if the ball hits this point, it gets flung off in this direction. If it hits this point, it gets flung off in that direction. And it's almost like hot zones on that whole ball basically. And the other point where it contacts is in the pop bumpers. so there's actually an exposed part of the ball just because there's not enough room and they had to leave it open basically but again it doesn't really matter what happens up there because the amount of impact the ball has on the physics up in that area is minimal but yeah you want to get I reckon if they just put like if they could manage to put 15 different like tuning action points on that ball's contact surface I reckon they could pretty much fake it it'd be interesting to see how they implement it because that's how I'd do it if I had to actually map physics to that ball I'd actually do it as the ball itself doesn't have any physics because it would be really hard to map a spinning object and actually maintain physics on it all the time so speaking of physics I want to circle back around to Centaur because this just made me realize something too those return lanes or the outlanes you can bump back in dude those are hella fun with real rubber. Oh, yeah? Oh, my God. I was getting good at it. It was great. Ball would go in the out lane, and you time it right, and you just give the table a hard nudge in the direction you want the ball to go. Boom. Every time. Straight back in. Straight back in. And I was just like, oh, this is genius. This is great. I thought that it was a little too frequent in TPA because the previous Centaurs that I had played were all dead rubber. Yeah. fresh rubber, man, it works like a charm. It's great. Basically, it works the way that Farsighted... Exactly. The other funny thing... So, a complaint that we always have in digital pinball, a lot, especially with TPA, is when the ball goes through the flippers. Well, when you have a very nicely waxed playfield, and you got fresh rubber, and there's nothing above the flipper to block the ball from zinging over the top, like on Centaur. I had probably the ball jump over the flipper about five different times. So the ball through the flipper is IRL as well. I'm like, no, you're not supposed to be able to do that, but it would just come at the proper backspin and hit the flipper and it would go right over the top. I'm like, no! So there you go. Again, fast side emulating real technology. Yes. Anyway, so programming notes. We should be having a session next week, and I believe the following week should be good. But once again, I'm going to be traveling up to Portland, and I don't know. All bets are off when I go there because I don't know what is going on, what the scheduling is going to be happening. So, folks, there will be more time off, but that also means I might get another crack at Wonder Quarter World. Yay! Yay! More trip reports. More trip reports. maybe I'll take some more photos this time. I did take some, but I didn't take a lot because my phone storage was full. Uh-oh. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why when I buy my next phone, I'm not getting the 16 gigabyte phone. I'm going for the 120 gigabyte phone. You're getting all the storages, basically. Oh, I'm constantly just running into... I don't have... I only have maybe seven... pinball arcade tables on my phone because I can't hold anymore. That's the programming note. Hey, if you want to drop us an email, please do so. Let us know what you want us to talk about. Let us have comments about the show. In general, say hi. We don't care. Drop that at blahblahblockade at gmail.com. Make sure you sign up for Twitter feed at Blockade. If you want to follow Jared and myself, I am at ShutYourTraps. He is at JaredMorgz. and you can also visit our website, which is pinball, our pin ball. I mess this up every single time. I swear I do. Block. Block. Yeah. Block. They can ball. I'm going to try this again. Take 27. Block. Ball. That is where you can find all of the previous downloads as well as show notes and links to stuff, stuff and things. And things. All right. Yeah. Well, I'm going to go get slammed in another week of work. And so am I. And so am I. Because that seems to be what's happening at the moment. Yes, that is what's happening in the moment. And Jared's daughter's face is hovering in front of the camera. What? With that, folks, it's time to go. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter odds easy to install, totally unique mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales, restoration, customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to we can't improve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball you

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v1)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: ab413fdb-e85c-4ca5-bc5a-de14135aa123*