# Chatting DUNE with David van Es | Barrels of Fun Pinball Exclusive Shooter Rod Sneak Peek! **Source:** Gonzo's Pinball Flipperama **Type:** video **Published:** 2025-04-23 **Duration:** 82m 53s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-wb7R7mLGo --- ## Analysis David Van Ness of Barrels of Fun discusses the development of Winchester Mystery House pinball, detailing how the company approaches licensed IP adaptation, the specific mechanics designed to capture Dune's cinematic universe, and his personal journey from stunt work and film to becoming a boutique pinball manufacturer. He emphasizes player immersion, collaboration with licensors like Legendary Entertainment, and the philosophy of creating 'worlds under glass' that serve both IP fans and pinball enthusiasts. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Dune pinball will be limited to 1,000 units — _Gonzo states 'the benefit of only doing a thousand games' and David doesn't contradict this; appears to be established production cap for Barrels of Fun_ - [HIGH] Barrels of Fun attended Legendary Entertainment offices to watch Dune: Part Two in a premium theater before public release — _David Van Ness: 'we were really privileged enough to actually go to Legendary offices and watch the film with them the first time... we actually got invited to experience it in probably the best theater I've ever experienced'_ - [HIGH] The Dune film franchise has made over a billion dollars and won Academy Awards — _David Van Ness: 'this franchise has made over a billion dollars... This has won Academy Awards'_ - [HIGH] Director Denis Villeneuve provided specific feedback requiring removal of clouds from the game's 3D environments because Arrakis has no water — _David Van Ness: 'one of the notes that came back from dennis was like there's no clouds because there's no water on the planet so we had to go through and remove all the clouds out of all our 3d world'_ - [HIGH] David Van Ness is legally blind in his left eye — _David Van Ness: 'I'm actually legally blind in my left eye' (mentioned as childhood context for career choices)_ - [HIGH] David Van Ness grew up in Lenswood, South Australia (near Adelaide) and moved to Houston in 2004 — _David Van Ness: 'I've been in Houston since 2004. But before that I lived in South Australia in a little town called Lenswood'_ - [HIGH] Barrels of Fun develops game concepts ('blue sky') before securing licenses, sometimes pitching these concepts to licensors — _David Van Ness: 'we'll do a lot of blue sky... we don't even have the license but we'll start doing sketches and the concepts for it and then once we get that nailed down we'll go and see the licensor'_ - [HIGH] Labyrinth pinball was initially developed in David Van Ness's dining room with whitewood prototypes — _David Van Ness: 'I would say at that point but i had nothing else you remember i built labyrinth in my dining room so all the photos and all the pitch decks i had was of a whitewood in my dining room'_ - [HIGH] Dune pinball includes night/day cycles in a 3D world with desert environments — _David Van Ness: 'we actually created whole night and day cycles in a 3d world in this game'_ - [MEDIUM] Game Four (unreleased Barrels of Fun title) will feature a mech that originated from a team member's idea — _David Van Ness: 'in fact game four will have a mech in it... came out of someone's idea and it was just sitting there'_ ### Notable Quotes > "did we create a planet under glass?" > — **David Van Ness (paraphrasing Brian Savage)**, early in conversation > _Encapsulates Barrels of Fun's design philosophy of total immersion beyond typical 'world under glass' concept_ > "I'm Luke Skywalker right now. I just did the shot." > — **David Van Ness**, mid-conversation discussing childhood Data East Star Wars experience > _Explains the emotional hook that drew him to pinball and shapes his entire design philosophy_ > "This is cinematic pinball like this is like an experience like I've never felt like anything before" > — **Colin (unnamed pinball player/media)**, post-playtest feedback > _Third-party validation of Dune's immersive design approach_ > "there's no clouds because there's no water on the planet" > — **Denis Villeneuve (relayed by David Van Ness)**, during game development feedback > _Demonstrates director's exacting attention to universe detail and influence on game design_ > "we want you to be in that world but we don't necessarily want you to be Sarah we don't want you necessarily be Paul we want you to be a partaker in this universe" > — **David Van Ness**, discussing design philosophy > _Core design principle: player as participant observer rather than character avatar_ > "the whole point is we're trying to create something that's fun for the pinball player you don't necessarily need to know what the license is to enjoy the game" > — **David Van Ness**, discussing licensing philosophy > _Clarifies balance between IP fandom and pure pinball gameplay appeal_ > "if i did it based on what people thought of the ip it would have never been made" > — **David Van Ness**, reflecting on Labyrinth licensing decision > _Demonstrates Barrels of Fun prioritizes developer/licensor vision over community polling_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | David Van Ness | person | Co-founder of Barrels of Fun; Australian-born game designer with stunt and film background; designer of Labyrinth, Dune, and Winchester Mystery House pinball games | | Barrels of Fun | company | Houston-based boutique pinball manufacturer founded by David Van Ness and Brian Savage; produces limited-run licensed pinball games with emphasis on narrative and display technology | | Brian Savage | person | Co-founder of Barrels of Fun; met David Van Ness through pinball machine trading/restoration; contributes design ideas to game development | | Dune Pinball | game | Barrels of Fun's second released game; based on Denis Villeneuve's Dune films; features night/day cycles, worm-riding mechanics, screen integration, limited to 1,000 units | | Winchester Mystery House | game | Barrels of Fun's third released game (just launched during this interview); licensed pinball adaptation of the Winchester Mystery House | | Labyrinth | game | Barrels of Fun's debut pinball game; based on Jim Henson's 1986 Labyrinth film; initially developed as dining room prototype | | Legendary Entertainment | company | Film studio and licensor for Dune pinball; involved in weekly creative collaboration with Barrels of Fun; heavily invested in franchise universe expansion | | Denis Villeneuve | person | Director of Dune films; provided detailed feedback on Dune pinball including artistic direction (cloud removal); known for Blade Runner work | | Gonzo | person | Podcast/video host (Gonzo's Pinball Flipperama); based in Australia; conducted interview with David Van Ness | | Colin | person | Unnamed pinball player/media figure who playtest Dune and described it as 'cinematic pinball' experience; conducted community poll about cinematic pinball | | John Papaduke | person | Early consultant David Van Ness worked with on display technology; involved with Magic Girl and Wizard of Oz LCD projects | | Data East Star Wars | game | David Van Ness's first pinball experience as child; Death Star opening mechanic was formative moment in his appreciation for pinball | | Tales from the Crypt | game | Licensed pinball game David Van Ness collected as teenager; exemplifies his interest in licensed narrative-driven machines | | Doctor Who | game | Licensed pinball; David Van Ness bought prototype version, sold it to Brian Savage to fund his son's healthcare | | Tron | game | Licensed pinball; David Van Ness won first tournament championship on this machine, award displayed in his home office | | Wizard of Oz | game | Early LCD pinball game that inspired David Van Ness's work in display technology; mark of LCD adoption in pinball industry | ### Topics - **Primary:** Dune Pinball Design Philosophy, Barrels of Fun Company Background and Founding, Licensed IP Adaptation Strategy, Cinematic Pinball and Immersive Game Design - **Secondary:** David Van Ness Personal History (Film/Stunt Work/Pinball), Collaboration with Legendary Entertainment and Denis Villeneuve, Pinball as Medium for IP Fan Engagement - **Mentioned:** Limited Production Model and FOMO Strategy ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.85) — David Van Ness is enthusiastic about Dune pinball, proud of Barrels of Fun's accomplishments, and demonstrates genuine passion for creating immersive licensed experiences. Gonzo is complimentary and engaged. The conversation is collaborative and celebratory of Winchester Mystery House launch. No notable criticism or negative sentiment expressed. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Barrels of Fun uses Pinside community data for market research alongside studio demographic analytics; considers community input but makes independent design decisions based on developer investment/passion (confidence: high) — David Van Ness: 'we do use Pinside for a little bit of market research'; contrasts with philosophy: 'if i did it based on what people thought of the ip it would have never been made' (Labyrinth) - **[design_philosophy]** Barrels of Fun deliberately designs games where IP knowledge is optional for enjoyment; player perspective is 'participant in universe' rather than character identification (not Sarah, not Paul, but Fremen/participant) (confidence: high) — David Van Ness: 'we don't necessarily want you to be Sarah... we want you to be a partaker in this universe... the whole point is we're trying to create something that's fun for the pinball player you don't necessarily need to know what the license is' - **[design_philosophy]** Barrels of Fun intentionally includes subtle immersive details reflecting film universe (e.g., Director Villeneuve's feedback on atmospheric authenticity); design driven by licensor collaboration and thematic authenticity (confidence: high) — Denis Villeneuve providing specific notes about planetary conditions (no clouds/water); weekly creative collaboration with Legendary Entertainment; David Van Ness emphasizing 'staying true to the film universe' - **[licensing_signal]** Legendary Entertainment deeply invested in Dune pinball as extension of film universe; studio prioritizes fan service over purely financial optimization; provides assets (3D models) directly to pinball development (confidence: high) — David Van Ness: 'we actually get the assets from the film so the 3d world... director's intent... weekly basis... how do we help them understand what's happening'; Legendary described as 'fan based studio' - **[market_signal]** Dune pinball sales performing well pre-launch (before public play testing); indicates strong IP/theme appeal in current market; success anticipated to increase post-public-availability (confidence: medium) — David Van Ness: 'the sales are doing very good. And this is before even people get to play it. And when they get to play it, it's going to be a different story' - **[personnel_signal]** Barrels of Fun leadership (David Van Ness, Brian Savage) actively involved in hands-on design and playtesting; team members encouraged to contribute mechanical ideas that feed into game development pipeline (confidence: medium) — David Van Ness: 'brian was actually messaging me today about an idea he had'; 'someone else can rip on that'; Game Four mech derived from team suggestion that was archived and later incorporated - **[announcement]** Winchester Mystery House has just launched (referenced as 'congratulations on the launch. I guess it's been a crazy couple of weeks'); interview conducted immediately post-release (confidence: high) — Gonzo: 'congratulations on the launch'; David: 'It has been crazy'; framed as recent event with ongoing media day activities - **[product_strategy]** Barrels of Fun has at least four games in development pipeline; Game Four will feature a mech originated from team ideation sessions (confidence: high) — David Van Ness: 'in fact game four will have a mech in it what that just came out of someone's idea'; implies games 1-3 are Labyrinth, Dune, Winchester Mystery House - **[business_signal]** Barrels of Fun maintaining single 1,000-unit production cap as core business strategy; limited supply approach maintained across product line to preserve FOMO/scarcity value (confidence: medium) — Gonzo: 'the benefit of only doing a thousand games is that you know there will be a minority of people that say it's not a theme'; David doesn't contradict, confirms scarcity as intentional model - **[technology_signal]** Barrels of Fun integrating full 3D world environments with night/day cycles and screen integration into playfield experience; moving beyond traditional LCD display to cinematic immersion (confidence: high) — David Van Ness: 'we actually created whole night and day cycles in a 3d world in this game'; screen shows worm approaching, player steers worm with targets affecting jackpot positioning - **[licensing_signal]** Barrels of Fun approaches licensing as collaborative creative partnership; conducts 'blue sky' concept development before securing IP, then pitches visual/mechanical concepts to potential licensors as differentiation strategy (confidence: high) — David Van Ness: 'we'll do a lot of blue sky... we don't even have the license but we'll start doing sketches... we'll go and see the licensor and say look this is what we're looking at doing'; success attributed to superior presentation vs. competitors --- ## Transcript All right, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night, depending where you are. I'm obviously in Australia. It is late night here. I have David Van Hesse, who is Australian also, right? But you're not in Australia, you're in Houston. I'm in Houston. Doing good. I've been in Houston since 2004. But before that I lived in South Australia in a little town called Lenswood, which most people won't know about but that's like 30 minutes outside Adelaide Yeah, cool. Cool. I don't know why I thought you from Melbourne for some reason Yeah, I'm an I'm a South Aussie buddy Well, yeah good look thank you for coming on obviously having a chat we were here to talk about June obviously And and yeah, look straight away. I can say I'm so impressed. I mean, I love these films And just from that little trailer you guys released, it's very obvious you've managed to capture that world under glass, that common phrase we hear in pinball, really, really well, in my opinion, because I know the property quite well. So congratulations on the launch. I guess it's been a crazy couple of weeks. It has been crazy. I mean, this game has been in the works for a while now. And again, staying true to what we want to represent is we want to create a world under glass. Well, as Brian would say, he's like, did we create a planet under glass? And that was kind of the whole point, right? So it was how do we stay true to the film universe, but make sure people understand what that's all about. So ideally, if you're a pinball player, you're going to step up and you're going to have a good time shooting the shots and filling the shots out and seeing what they lead to. but if you're a dune fan now all of a sudden you're gonna see all little things that you've wanted to experience yourself in you saw in the film format you know i mean then it's film universe is so unique and utilizes the books so well it's like how do we make sure those moments that everyone experienced in the home in the theater or the home theater how do we get them to experience in a small play field you know and that's basically again we blue sky we sit down we talk about moments that we saw in the first film and the second film and how do we incorporate that into an overall experience which is obviously it's sight sound and honestly there's the textual feel of it too yeah there's a lot of sand in the in this planet that's for sure um so before before we start on that actually because we i've noticed on our channel on gonzo's there's a lot of newbies So just quickly, if you just want to touch for like a minute on Barrels of Fun as a company, like for the guys that don't know much about Barrels of Fun, like how did it all come about? Like I know obviously you worked in the film industry before. I know you worked in film for those guys, for people that don't know that. Were you a stuntman or is that a rumor? No, that's I went to the Stunt Academy in Queensland and I went up there and it was funny. only Australians would get this back in the 90s and early 2000s there was a gentleman who was on the flight center commercials he was always the pilot yeah so he's actually a stunty so he was actually my trainer at the stunt academy so basically we were working our way up because it's outside of Warner Brothers studio so a lot of people that were going for the stunt work would either end up working at Warner Brothers studio or they would work on the film sets there with the armorer so yeah no i did that for a little bit and the reason i did it was because i wanted to be in film but there wasn't really any film schools in adelaide so my friend was kind of like we could we were writing our own scripts and we're going to make our own film and everything else and it's like well we need to learn how this is done and we just saw a advertisement in the sunday mail you know stunt school yeah stunt academy up in queensland and And my mate goes, why don't you go and do that? Like, it's something, you know, our film's going to have action in it, so we've got to learn that. And I'm like, no, screw it. Let's go and do it. So I went and did that. And then while I was doing that and I was signing up to be an armorer up at Warner Brothers, then an actual film school opened up in Adelaide. So I went back to there, and that's where I actually got my formal training in producing, directing, and post-production. Yeah, right. Cool, cool. And speaking of the 90s. Just different opportunities. that's it that's it and i was just going to touch on it again the viewers might not know this but they can google it and it'll be cool little nostalgia i'm a sucker for nostalgia you mentioned queensland and warner brothers studios i uh have this distinct memory of my parents taking me and they had the police academy show that's it and they had batman forever i think it was batman forever yeah i had batman forever i had a photo here actually somewhere i got a photo of me and my sister with uh whoever played batman forever but anyway yeah a bit of a bit of uh memory lane and so how did you end up with barrels of fun brian savage how did that all come about so okay so in my childhood and this is going to be useless information i felt like i may have told the story a couple of times so i really when i was very very young i wanted to be a um an air force pilot and i'm actually legally blind in my left eye so when i was telling people i wanted to do this it was like oh honey like that can't happen for you because you're blind in one eye and I'm like he's gonna have 20 20 vision and ever since then I was like well screw I want to be a magician like I want to do something entertainment because a lot of my you know key core memories is going to the movie theater seeing Slash of the titans and gremlins and revenge of the jedi and stuff like that and dark crystal so I wanted to be in some form of entertainment so my imagination if I can't do a real job then I'm going to do something way out there yeah so my whole life I've always found looking for ways to be in some form of entertainment. And that's what led me towards pinball machines and arcade machines was that little bit of magic on the play field that made you feel like you're a part of it. You're a part of that world. So my first experience with pinball was Derry Star Wars. I didn't know anything about pinball. I didn't care about pinball. It was Star Wars. And I went up to it and I was like, there's a little Death Star. There's an R2-D2. He was like, oh, how does this work? It has a little gear stick on the side here. I'm like, all right. So I put my money in, and I shoot it. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just seeing the ball and whacking around, whacking around. And then ball three comes up, and it's the data east, like ball three. Like if you haven't hit the multiball, the death star opens up, and I see that in my eyes. It's like, whoa, like the death star is opening up. And I somehow made that clean shot into it, and I was like, holy crap. I'm Luke Skywalker right now. I just did the shot. And ever since then, that was the hook for me. Like it made me feel a part of that universe, that movies I grew up watching. Now I connected to it automatically. So from that point onwards, I started doing a route. And my first pinball machine was Dattery Star Wars. And there's Talos from the Crypt. I wasn't buying games because these are good playing pinball machines. I was buying pinball machines because I had a connection to them through my film experience. Like I watched Talos from the Crypt. I watched Twilight Zone. I watched Doctor Who. So these are all games, Man for the Opera. You can see where my themes go. It's like I was collecting them because these were things that interested me, and I was able to tangibly interact with these IPs through this machine called a pinball machine. So that's how I got into pinball machines was through the licensing, through the stories and the interaction of the ball with those IPs that I wanted to share with other people, which led to me having a route and putting it into pizza shops and chicken shops and gaming shops. you know, and that's, I did that throughout my whole teenage life until I got into the stunt work and then the film work. And that's what led me to the US. And then after I got more comfortable in my film and TV lifestyle, I started yearning to collect pinball machines again. And it wasn't because I wanted to start something. It was like, I would really love to get a tiles from the crypt. like i really love that pinball machine i want to get one so i didn't find one i ended up finding a doctor who a prototype doctor who um i bought that fixed it up and then i get another one and i just started restoring games just because i wanted to replace what i had back when i was a teenager that led to me selling games to other collectors because this is around 2007 when i got back into the community and uh here in houston and uh you know it's funny i won my first tournament was on a Tron and I got first place. It's in my office at home, a little Tron first place award that I won the tournament there when there was a launch party for it. You know, when games were small, I remember that time was like Rolling Stones, Tron, you know, playing a big buck hunter. But so I just started buying, storing, fixing, selling, buying other ones and I kept doing that. and that's actually how i met a lot of people and that's also how i met brian savage because i sold him my prototype doctor who which i didn't really want to sell but i was having a child and health care is expensive and yeah it was like hey i should sell it and he's like i don't know if i want to sell it because yeah but my son really loves doctor who he will cherish it he will take care of it so that's how i met him i sold it to him and he loved pinball just as much as me and just we started trading games and we brought a container in we fixed up a bunch of container games which was eye-opening we still got a few out back that maybe we'll save eventually they're pretty rough um and then while that was happening i was still in film and tv but i also then from just restoring games lcd started coming about with wizard of oz and i was talking to john pop-up boot to back in those days about magic girl and he realized what i did was display work and i also saw what they were doing with visit of ours so i just started putting my name out there because that's what it is display work was hey if you need a consultant i'm more than happy to help out you know i had a day job like i would do this at nights and that's how i slowly slipped into the pinball industry basically helping with display work with other little startups and companies and work my way out from that point yeah right so there you go there's a bit of history there uh i just thought we'd fill people in because not everyone is up to speed on everything but we'll jump on to uh june um i think you know when you've got a film franchise this big and obviously um the director did amazing things with blade runner and i hope to god we see that as a pinball game one day. But, you know, from the director's intent of using, you know, sound effects, music, intense music to create moments. And, you know, they're not fast-paced movies. They are very slow-paced. And the first one and the second one, they pick up from each other. And, you know, it's not an action-paced film. But I think the planet that is captured and the world on the glass that is captured um is is it must have been challenging because obviously when you're dealing with something that is mainly sand and basically um uh you know particularly a tone and we know that the tone of the film is uh and i think you guys captured that in the artwork awesome because you've got the the sand and the browns and the golds and all that but then you got the blue which again if you don't know june you don't realize that it's the blue from the eyes as well and I think you guys have done a great job capturing that talk to me about how I mean obviously it's taking this license and going okay we're going to implement this because it's obviously something you guys liked as a theme as well right because I know you do themes that you like yourself it's not just for the community as well well it's a combination of you know when you go down this path you have to plan out what is the strategy right so yes we're going to do licenses that we enjoy but they also have to make marketing sense like is there a market for this um and you know legendary entertainment with the dune universe is so massive um and it doesn't just cover just the films like it's just they got a tv series they've got more movies coming this is a very expansive world i mean dennis's vision for this is so massive he's all about atmosphere you know and setting up the long game um it's just sometimes do we get to see what the long game is going to be so and there's so many different elements to this film that are very action driven too and that was when we were looking at this and we're talking about and when we're talking to legendary about other stuff as well because they have more than just one film is we're looking for something that would translate to a player's perspective so the whole point of looking at this film is i mean this dune the dune universe is literally like the lord of the rings on science fiction like it's such a massive cast of families and how they're all getting into each other and like the politics of it so there's this great world of we can explore so there was really important like a lot of times a lot of pinball machines you want to be playing by someone's you know their point of view of what it is and what we try to do we did on labyrinth as well it's like we want you to be in that world but we don't necessarily want you to be sarah we don't want you necessarily be paul we want you to be a partaker in this universe so the whole point of dune was you're a freman and you're living on Arrakis and you are battling the harvesters, the Harkonnen, and you get to experience the rise of Paul, of Paul becoming who he's meant to be in this game, which is why, you know, Dune Part 1 and Part 2 is really important because it is technically just the one book and it encompasses the whole world in that era of him becoming who he's meant to be. so there's no need to extend or do anything it is like this is its own story its own arc that we wanted to focus on i mean this is just not one license this is two licenses and then you know you've got other license on top of that because there's other complications to it but again when you have a incredible partner like legendary that just they are very a fan based studio like yes it has to make financial sense for them to do this type of stuff but at the end of the day are they serving the story and that's honestly makes them the greatest partners because they're looking at everything we do and it's like is this serving the fans of the universe um and so it's it's a constant chatter back and forth on a weekly basis with them of like how do we help them understand what's happening in this mode and how do we craft that to make them feel a part of it that's why it's important to have a little thumper on there the thumper is so important to you know pull in the interactions with the worms you know it's like we didn't have a giant worm make them why are we doing this in the first place you know but has to encompass the universe and how do we get the player to connect with the moments and the events in the film universe yeah and it's interesting because it is sci-fi and sci-fi i think regardless whether you don't know june or whatnot it is a really popular genre um and i think you know the the benefit and we spoke about this before the benefit of only doing a thousand games is that you know there will be a minority of people that say it's not a theme that i want or they don't believe it's a theme that will do well for argument's sake um but in my opinion there's more than a thousand people that like sci-fi out there in the pinball world right and genre a theme is important sure but i also know a lot of pinball collectors that have games i know someone has a labyrinth that never had watched the movie well just love the look of it and love the play of it and bought one i appreciate you bringing up labyrinth because labyrinth is a really good example of something that no one really ever asked for or requested and if i did it based on what people thought of the ip it would have never been made but when i'm exploring licenses with licensors it's not just getting the latest and greatest which we all want but how will that world translate to pinball my biggest mistake i think on labyrinth was i told people to watch the film first before playing the game and then i noticed some people had some pretty harsh reactions because the movie is very dated right if you have a connection to me when like your connection to the film when you're younger it's a way different experience when you're asking a 50 year old man watch labyrinth for the first time and then have them play the game what i found very interesting if they actually played the game first and then watch the film actually they connected to the film much better because now they understood why all the moments were happening in the game so again we approach this as if we can make a good flowing compelling pinball machine and then we can the IP brings that well together we're marrying those two together you know the whole point is we're trying to create something that's fun for the pinball player you don't necessarily need to know what the license is to enjoy the game and hopefully the IP will bring some new people that never played pinball before into pinball so it's that trying to find that intersection of where they all basically cross over well and I think that's one thing like you know there'll be people that a huge june i mean there's a cosplay thing that we do here well i don't but there's an event that happens often and there's a lot of people that dress up as june characters uh and i reckon a lot of those people have never played pinball um so if themes have a way of bringing new people in because the most common thing i hear is is pinball still a thing um yeah you know and that's why i think some of these themes that are so like i i think generally if you made a taylor swift pinball machine you'd bring a whole heap of new people into this community right maybe that's a good thing i don't know but look i agree i think the theme uh is important and something uh touching on that um when you were speaking you said you were speaking legendary you were speaking to them even before the second film film had even come out right yeah absolutely it's like a four-year plan Yeah, we were really privileged enough to actually go to legendary offices and watch the film with them the first time. So we actually got invited to experience it in probably the best theater I've ever experienced in my life. And it was quite a moment. In fact, I took a bunch of the people working on the project. and let's just say it was a very cool moment for everyone on the team to you know be a part of experience like that and then you see that and you come back like well now we need to add this to the game we now we have to do this you know and it's you're constantly like oh how can we improve it you know and a lot of people forget that this franchise has made over a billion dollars Like this is no slouching IP. This has won Academy Awards. You know, it's big. And, you know, it may not fit some people's taste. But, you know, we're very happy to bring it. And honestly, the sales are doing very good. And this is before even people get to play it. And when they get to play it, it's going to be a different story. It was kind of interesting on the media day, Colin said it. And it kind of struck me. And he goes I don't I don't know what to put my finger on it like he's playing and he's experiencing and he goes This is cinematic pinball like this is like an experience like I've never felt like anything before and then I saw like two days later He put a poll out What a if there anyone had a pinball cinematic experience Yeah yeah and Honestly he not wrong because I remember when i first played it with all the toys everything on the play field and i playing ride now ride is the moment when paul is bringing the worm to him and this is the first time he's going to ride the worm so the whole mode of that is you start the mode at night so we have uh night and day sequences so during the day you're collecting spice and you're attacking harvesters as you hit the spinner it will progress through the day to a night time cycle once you get to the night time cycle you go to the prophecies and the prophecies are moments of paul basically becoming who he's meant to be so one of those modes is right so the whole point of remote this like prophecies happen in two tiers So, tier one is you have to set the thumper to call the worm. So, an example, you have the mountain on the right side. So, the first thing he does, he needs to find the right sand to attract the worm to him. So, he goes to the top of the mountain. You hit the shot at the top of the mountain, and then you see him hit the thing, and then the shot comes down to the middle of the playfield because he's going to come down the mountain. So, you shoot the middle of it. Again, he taps it like in the movie three times. and then you hear Chansey say lower and then the scoop opens up so you shoot the scoop now he sets the time and now you have to hit the the thumper pot the thumper bumper to start the timing so you hit that and it starts hitting and the lights are going off and then you got one you got two shots back up onto the mountain because now you have to get to the top of the mountain to ride the worm you shoot up there you can choose to collect your jackpot or can you can you can continue on to tier Tier two. Tier two is he's coming for you. So the whole idea, it releases the ball. You've got to hit the worm. It rises up just a little bit and now you've got to put the hooks into him. So you've got to hit it once. You've got to hit it twice and then you go left and right hook and once you've done that, then it rises up out of the play field. You get your hurry up jackpots and that's the end of that mode. But it was just when I played that for the first time, well, there's two moments, but like playing that for the first time, I was like, wow, that, I got to experience what Paul got to experience. You know, when you have all the Fremen chanting and celebrating at the end as he scoots along the bottom of the sand dunes was really a moment. Absolutely. Go ahead. I was just going to say, for those that don't know, the worm is the thing behind me. what Dave's talking about is in the film there's these little black beacons that they put in the sand and they basically thump the ground. It's like sending like a vibration through the ground that attracts the worms, right? Yeah. And the little toy you've got in the game is so cool, seeing it go up and down. There's only one in the play field, isn't there? Yeah, there's one in the play field. We have our representation, but, yeah, basically we have a sand dune with a little thumper about that big on it and it's actually connected to a pop bumper. So when you hit it, it will go off and you can call the worm. And in fact, there's an insert trail that goes up to the physical worm. So there's a hurry up mode. If you've called the worm, you can actually see the worm slowly making its way up through the inserts up to where the physical mech is. And if you time the ball exactly on it, that's when you get the most points or you get eaten. It's as simple as that. It gets taken away. And is that using your trademark? I mean, I'm going to call it Barrels of Fun trademark now, the screen at the back of the playfield, which obviously extends the universe and extends the playfield. Is there a moment where you can see the worm in the distance coming towards you, like on the screen? Yeah, there's moments, for example, Desert Power multiball, which is essentially the last scene when they attack the emperor and his quarters where they bring all the worms to attack. That is a moment where you literally see a worm riding off as you're riding with it. And you can actually, in that mode, for example, there's a power multiball, is you can actually steer the worm left and right. So if you look where the worm is, you've got two stand-up targets. One's left, one's right. So what you can do is you can hit the left target, and it pushes all the super jackpots over to the left. And the further out, the higher value they are, and then it slowly comes back to the center as you collect them. and then you can hit right and then you can push the worm to the right and collect the jackpots on that side yeah and that interaction of that screen is so cool i mean i even saw the um the little flying uh i always forget what they're called yeah where like you have to hit the lanes to to blow them up uh and then obviously the um the mech in the corner where once it explodes we've got the explosion on the screen i think capturing those and you know you you said it it's those that immersive experience of um you know the director's intent right um which is i think what colin's touching on having that um it's like you're playing a film as opposed to playing a pinball machine it just yeah it was funny one of the notes we got back because we get we've actually get the assets from the film so the 3d world like we're getting those things that we can utilize in the game itself so we've created whole night and day cycles in a in a 3d world in this game and it was funny is our artists put clouds in there to give it a sense of you know real world and one of the notes that came back legendary from the director was bad from dennis was like there's no clouds because there's no water on the planet so we had to go through and remove all the clouds out of all our 3d world because he's 100 right there's no clouds on arrakis it's it's a dry planet and that's the attention to detail i mean he's a phenomenal director um so stripping it back a little bit i would so i'm assuming you guys had no idea did you have a play field already kind of of what you wanted to do next with the intention that possibly it was going to be june or did you get the license first and then do the play field license always is number one so So part of our process is we'll come up with iBlueSky. So we'll talk amongst us about here's the IPs we have opportunities with. This is something that's working in this market demographic. What is, you know, we do use Pinside for a little bit of market research and community and stuff like that. But we also get the data from the studios of what their demo is and what are they marketing to and stuff like that. So we basically get all that in. we talk amongst ourselves of what again i have amazing people working for me and i want to empower them to do the best game they possibly can so i need them to be also invested in doing a game like i mean you know sex in the city like is that a game that would probably sell well possibly but i don't think i would get anyone too excited about doing that here yeah you know so it's about finding the right license that energizes at least a couple of people in uh development groups to go and develop that ip and a lot of times we'll do a lot of blue sky called blue sky that's a just a development term where we don't even have the license but we'll start doing sketches and the concepts for it and then once we get that nailed down we'll go and see the licensor and say hey this is what we're looking at doing and a couple times we've lost licenses because they've already just signed a deal with another company um and sometimes they'll see what we do and you know there's always multiple people talking to other people that we win a job mainly I say it's a job we'll win the license because of the presentation that we're given to them showing them how we're going to approach this that is I think very different to how everyone else does it well it must be and it must be very impressive the way you presented it because to get them across the board because you haven't done labyrinth yet right no labyrinth was in concept stage so we had mock-ups we had a prototype but nothing um it's kind of embarrassing to i would say at that point but i had nothing else you remember i built labyrinth in my dining room so all the photos and all the pitch decks i had was of a whitewood in my dining room of how it was working so we've grown a little bit more that we have our own little development space and we can do that but we will go after an ip we'll develop the concept and then we take all those ideas and then we start playing it down onto the playfield that's how we approach it you know and it says sometimes someone has an idea for a mech um brian was actually messaging me today about an idea he had and it might not necessarily be for the next game or the game after that but it's always good to have you've got an idea just write it down put it into you know our little message boards and then someone else can rip on that and in fact game four will have a mech in it what that just came out of someone's idea and it was just sitting there and as we were working on it all of a sudden we realized what can we use for that and all of a sudden we realized oh that that idea was really good now we're going to put it into this because it makes logical sense so we're constantly always looking for new ideas and new concepts and just keep pushing us down the line and look like i said i think considering you guys went to legendary without having basically you've a startup company with no pinball game you've ever made no you know you haven't got 10 it's impressive right so you guys obviously pitched it really well um and i touching on the design um it's a very different game to labyrinth it shoots very different by the look of it um you you design the game and someone else as well so there's I don't like giving credit to one person like so I had the general idea of how I wanted it to flow and work but like you've got Travis Travis Moseman you got Paul Salas you've got David Eric Phil Bowen Jess there's so many people that are involved in the development process. So we have a general idea of what we're going to do. You've got to remember Labyrinth was not built in SOLIDWORKS. It was built using Illustrator and Photoshop, basically all the tools I had to create this world. And one thing I learned, like, we're going to take this to the next level. We really need to get it into SOLIDWORKS. We need to get it into a 3D design platform so we don't spend as much time on the whitewood stage we always still do a lot of whitewoods but if you can get into it into solidworks we can actually see a lot more detail of things that could mess up or not mess up which you won't even discover until you've done multiple whitewoods so bringing it into so from game one it was very rudimentary and very homegrown everything i learned from john poppadook all the way through at spooky learned how that process was done and then when we set out to do this i had to find more efficiencies on game like there's a lot of mistakes i learned on game one when it came to game two we started in solidworks instead of starting out with an illustrator and stuff like that so we started it started coming together much quicker because we were starting using the tools that help us think about production labyrinth was not developed with production in mind it was designed with i want to make this game now that i've been through the process of building a game out there a lot of the design of of dune is like okay what have we learned from game one and how do we try and avoid those on game two so paul was responsible for the worm mech travis was responsible for making sure all the layout inside solidworks was where it needed to be. He had, you know, watching ball paths and stuff like that. I just had a general idea of we're going to put this here, we're going to do that here and here and here. And then it becomes a mishmash of meetings where we look at it, we'll go over it, we'll talk about it. Have we thought about doing this and doing that? Well, this has a hole here. What can we put there? It's a very team-orientated development cycle. So to give credit to one person is, I think, not fair to the team at all. But I guess I was the lead on it. Travis did a lot of the overall layout for the whole game in SOLIDWORKS. But everyone had their input on it. Like even to the point of the rotating worm coming up, like the original idea that was not going to happen, but it was kind of like you get extra points if you make that to turn. And we obviously got it to turn. Yeah, and it's funny because we're so used to, and I totally get where you're coming from as well, we're so used to um companies going on this game was designed by that person and that puts that person on a pedestal right um and uh but yeah you i mean obviously it's a huge team gets involved in um putting something like this together um i i think the whole thing has just come with even with the point with legendary legendary had input on this like there were things that they wanted to see like why aren't you doing this and it made absolutely sense to include that yeah and i think look like i said i mean every time i see this it just because i know the film so well and the law and and uh like you just get pulled in because like i know what's and i understand when people go well none of it makes sense to me because i've never seen the films um and but it for people that have or even people that haven't and no sci-fi this is captivating because obviously we know it's a planet um i get star trek vibes from one of the episodes from next gen looks very similar to um this planet um that i always connect back to nostalgia wise and it just presents so well and i think the combination of the layout and the artwork uh it's intriguing because it looks tight in some of the shots but then you you see it from different angles and it actually isn't like looking at these shots here between the worm and these shots here i mean obviously it's very obvious that it shoots very different to labyrinth um yeah i have a labyrinth and i love the way it shoots but it does kick my ass i must admit it definitely makes you a better player like i'm not a person that traps up and stuff like that but labyrinth has very much taught me to uh have it to stop the flow and get your shots right and i think that was one of the things with labyrinth suffered from was it's a very family-friendly license however the game is was play tested by some of the best pimple players in the world and there were that was the feedback i was getting so i was unintentionally designing a game that ended up being a really really good tournament game um and you're really going to be good at what you're doing um so and also you know being told I've made some of the worst outlanes in pinball history. I made it very clear, like what Travis did, is make sure we had adjustable outlanes on this game. So I think, again, I want to make sure the game is accessible to everyone. And again, I want to capture those moments. So maybe, you know, I look at this and was like, well, we can put more shots in, but we should open this up a little bit more to make it easier for people to experience the moments. there's no point having 20 toys in this if if two of those toys take away destroy the moment how are you going to enjoy the other toys like you know it's like going to a buffet a buffet is actually honestly really good when you don't overeat because you can experience a little bit of it but we always can't control ourselves because we gorge ourselves so so their approach to this game was very much like how do we make sure the moments in this film universe speak and connect to the player like they feel like they're a part of it you know and that's why like the whole point of when people watch dune is like they want to ride the worm riding the worm is like the ultimate experience so that's why in the the trailer you're showing now it's like we wanted that to feature very prominently because that is the moment that you're in the movie theater when you're watching this and he steps up and you get the the chorus going you're like yeah like that's it you know that that's that moment you know i mean let's be honest when people saw part one and didn't ride the worm everyone was kind of like what like when's the next film coming out like i love the end of that film as it's the lady right and she's up there she sets it and she puts out the things and like oh it's coming like oh paul's not gonna ride the worm she is then all of a sudden you know she gets stabbed and she's gone you know like i felt ripped off at that moment but it built the second film up so well that yeah like watching these films back to back is a real experience and that's how i tell most people to watch these films i was like have you never seen it no i said we'll sit down and watch both of them get yourself six hours in the day and watch both of them because uh i think that's uh the best way of doing it uh because yes i remember watching it and then going oh man do i have to wait two years for the next one now um it left me hanging it left me hanging and it you know again that's kudos to the director because um he's got this way of turning film into art um by creating these experiences and and um you know harnessing you know sound effects and the music the musical score on this film is i think probably one of the best you know along with maybe interstellar and blade runner i think june um um han zimmer just knocks it out of the park well what was very interesting with like for example mixing the trailer for this was there's so much audio that goes on in this film and like it gets real like everyone goes it's very uh similar notes but there's so many levels of complexity in the frequencies of the of the soundtrack it was like i mean i i learned about your background regarding a home theater like if you want to test out if your subwoofer is working correctly like and you've got the lows and the highs this is kind of like back in the day when i was beginning to high five remember you used to get the thx certified uh dvd and you put the demo disc in and you would basically do all your frequencies this is the film that if you're going to test if your sound systems is accurate this is the the movies that you do it on and that was why we upgraded the amplifier in this game because we wanted you to experience it like again dune is one of those experiences it's not just about you know the visual spectacle but it's also the sound spectacle of it you know and you gotta build that up and that's something that we will keep tweaking all the way until we feel like this game is complete with legendary is you know we'll keep tweaking the rules and the audio and all the little things that we're doing with it until we feel like we've given the best experience we can like this is not just a pinball machine based on the movies this is a pinball machine that expands that universe that you get to be a part of and again i guess i probably sound like a salesman but it's like i truly believe this like this is like we only get to live once and you talk about making only a thousand games there are so many games and so many things I want to do with my team like I don't want to spend more time on building one game of something there's like life is too short like living through COVID and all the different little world and personal stuff like life is too short to get caught up on this other stuff like let's make cool stuff to share with people you know and that's kind of what I'm really focused on let's let's make the best version of this game we possibly can get that out there into our community into our family share that experience with them and then show them the next one you know um like like when people i just can wait to experience this with people in public i really can it just yeah just crank it up and let it fill and it uh safe to say i know when you had all the content creators there at the moment there's no call outs in the game or just very minimal call outs there's call outs there the problem is when you have it cranked up really really high we haven't tweaked the sound so like still guard you know still guy talks really low like you know he's got an accent so he's like so there's a lot there were call outs that we had to balance a little bit but there are call outs from the film in there we are recording additional call outs with a male and female actors um that are going to come within the next couple of weeks so um yeah we've got film from we got video film from the assets we got audio from the film we have soundtrack we have our own composed music that goes along with it we have our custom call outs Like that's all a part of the experience. And it's kind of interesting. People go, well, there's very little code in it. And it's like, just look at labyrinth. Like it got there, you know, and there's still even more little stuff to be happening with labyrinth down the road. As we get a little bit of breathing space between this game and the next one. Yeah. But it's like, it's interesting because there's a group of people that want finished code immediately out of the box, which I would love to do, but you got to remember, we're a very small company like we don't have teams and teams on teams we have one team but then you've got groups of people that want to buy these games and every month they want to experience something a little bit new new and new you know so like there's finding a good cadence between when do we want to drop this mode so people can experience and then the next one and the next one and the next one so it's trying to find that balance of you know yes we would love have it code complete from the beginning but there's such a bubble that we develop in like it's always good to actually see what people like when they play it and then we can change it we can cater it like oh we didn't even think about that mode there's many times not inside barrels but working for you know other companies that you'll read someone's feedback and you're like you know what that's freaking brilliant like why aren't we doing that you know and then you end up implementing in a different way that is, A, approved by the licensor, but there's many ways how you can develop stuff. And that's one of the good things when you release this out into the wild, you get good and bad feedback, and a lot of the feedback is good. Even if it's bad, we can learn from that and get better from it. And it is very subjective as well. I mean, what's good for someone, like I've got a game with a friend of mine that he absolutely hates but I absolutely love, right? and there's nothing in between. But, yeah, I mean, look, getting constructive criticism is always going to help. You have to think, too, who grew up loving all the Data East games because they always got the licenses that I loved and then you had the William Bally snobs like, Data East, why are you playing Data East? And it's like, well, because they have Rocky and Bullwinkle, they have Star Wars, they have Tales from the Crypt. What is there not to love about them, you know? Yeah, and you see a bit of that still today, to be honest. But so talk me through, talk a little bit on this play field because there's a lot going on. And skill shots, how many skill shots are there in the game? So we've gone back and forth about having skill. So a lot of people like to be able to choose skill shots. And then you have people that also don't want people to have a choice of skill shots. So as of right now, we have a skill shot under the left flipper, the left upper flipper. You can shoot behind the scoop, into the scoop. If you can shoot around the pop bumper, so you can actually do a curve where it would actually go around the pop bumper, not touch it, and come out through the spinner. And then obviously there's always the out lane skill shot as well. So there's three at the moment, basically. Yep. I find this ramp here so cool because when I first saw the teaser trailer, I was like, well, hold on, how do you even get to that? And then no one really noticed this little finger mech here that flicks the ball back. So I'm assuming, obviously, you go up the ramp, you come through the wire form, that comes down, this comes up and holds the ball, and then flips it. No, it's actually always up. So when the ball is coming through and it needs to pass through, it actually just pulls down and passes through at the top. Yeah. but then that feeds it into this outer over or this outland right yep and so there's a physical bowl lock underneath that bowl underneath that apron so that's where the paint box is so if you light uh the paint box the paint box will come out and the ball will go into that and it's a physical lock so we can catch a ball in there so for example you can set up where it's a ball save So if you have a ball locked in there and the ball goes out, the other ball will come out and kick that ball back into play and then drain the other one out. Right, okay. And that starts that mode where you have to keep your hand on the button and you're going to play with one hand, right? Yeah. So actually there's two modes in there. So the snorkel, the sand snorkel is where you get a kickback. It's basically a lame ball save. the pain box is lit um when you qualified it so it's basically two different modes yeah there's a lot of little things going on in there and those rules are constantly evolving too um so obviously we've got this under here there's the pop bumper which is really cool um and funny enough i actually saw when we first saw this um the sneak peek this trail in the sand Actually, I thought the ball travelled on the sand. Gotcha. That was just sweeping. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I'd like to see the ball playing on sand somewhere. And that's what actually threw me off because I didn't realise it was elevated. Yeah. We've got this left ramp. Then we've got another shot here next to William. I believe you called the worm. So we needed a co-name because if we called it by what its real name is, then everyone knows what we're working on. So he became William because the worm in Labyrinth is, his name is actually William. So it was just easier to call him William. So William has stuck. Um, and I was trying to work out, um, this ramp here. Yep. Um, to get in, that is basically feeding, um, where is it? So that feeds, so you just shoot straight up the middle. It goes over the top of the and that's a jump that goes into a horseshoe underneath the harvest and you see that little white dot that's actually a post that comes up so that will just automatically feed to the upper flipper but when you destroy the harvester when you destroy the harvester that post will come up and then you'll get the animation of the harvester exploding with the with the LCD and the toy itself. Very cool. This worm is static. This one here is just a figure. I'll take it. And then talk to me a bit about the mountain because obviously we've got these holes there. What was the idea there just to give you like to see the ball and the ball traveling? A opportunity to see the ball traveling but it was more of you know the citadel where like the birds the bird nests and stuff like that so this was like making sure that people understood this is their home so the whole point is when they get into the home there's multiple ways going in and out of it so you have your outer right orbit that will just be a traditional orbit that will go around then you have a lift ramp that you see there that will drop down and that will feed the right wire form back to the right flipper however where you got the second big hole the the back hole on that there's a diverter there on the back end that will allow the ball to jump out the back of the mountain towards the harvester and that's actually where you'd get your kill shot on any of the opticopters that are floating around in there so so if you're really good you can shoot up there it will come out the back then it'll feed the upper left flipper and then you can hit the inner ramp and that can also loop back around to the flipper but also it can be diverted back down the right wire form yeah there's so much going on I think I've watched that gameplay and that so many times just to get my head around what's happening at the back here but even this mech here is really cool where the ball the two posts come up again your little trademark from the left orbit from labyrinth where it holds the ball and this obviously has a magnet in there that throws the ball around? Correct. So there were moments. And there's no target? There's no targets. We've got slings in there. They're not active slings, they're passive slings, but we've got switches in there. So we can detect if the ball is hitting the top side, the bottom left side behind the stand-ups and also on the right side. But the whole point of that area is, something we learned on Labyrinth, is people really enjoyed having a drop target and hitting the drop target and hitting a spinner behind it. So when it came to this game, working laying stuff out one of the mechanics that we saw from the film it was training where you had the shield and you you know if you did fast hits you would not make any real damage you had to be slow hits so the whole idea of that whole area was to trap a ball in there like it's basically training with gurney you now have the opportunity to hit that ball and as it jumps around you're hitting the shield and you get in the hop. So you have to now lose slow hits and stuff like that. So it was really a combination of the kinetic satisfaction that we got from labyrinth was how can we take that to the next level, which is basically making sure theme wise, I wanted something to represent the shield as you're personally fighting was how do we do that? And that's the evolution of what we got in that corner right there. and you can feed that from the front and you can also feed it from behind. So you've got that left middle ramp. You can actually shoot behind that and it comes in there. Now there's an up post in there so we can actually contain the ball in there so you can't put two balls in there. Occasionally you can slip one through if the code's not tweaked properly. But, yeah, you can shoot that spinner from behind and you can shoot the spinner from the front. It's really satisfying in both ways. yeah i was going to say the the idea of using it both ways is pretty cool because it just creates another ball path uh there's have you how many ball paths are there have you counted exactly um it's been so long says one two you're talking about shots not dead shots you're talking about one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten shots that i can count off right now So you got the left spinner you got the left spin of the let's technically a dead shot because it goes into a scoop And then you've got the right the left ramp That feeds into the inner lane. You got the left inner orbit that goes around Then you got the middle shot over William for the half so that will come back around then you've got the inner ramp That will go up and feed the inner ramp again. You got the middle spinner, correct? and if you hit that middle ramp you can do that two different ways or it feeds itself or feeds back down the wire form and then you can shoot behind that middle ramp to feed it into the the mosh pit and then you've got the right outer orbit which is will feed it to the upper flipper or it will feed it up onto the wire form or vice versa yeah so one two there's a lot of shots nine yeah there's a lot yeah um the the i think the artwork um because i know there's a lot of opinions about oh it's brown and it's you know because obviously those people don't know the law or whatever it is i think the the the usage of the artwork and the cleverness of covering their faces so you probably don't to deal with licensing there but it's i could imagine trying to get chalamain and orzandaya on the playfield would be difficult um but it sets it sets a tone right like the spice is something that plays a huge element um and obviously he's got some in his hand um did you the the idea of using um the sky color with the you know was that influenced by them or was that you guys more that's I saw Johnny Bergman, a.k.a. Johnny Crap. He knew exactly what he was doing. It's kind of funny when a few people saw this for the first time. It was like, wow, there's more blue and oranges in this than I thought it was going to be. Honestly, everyone had the same kind of concept of what everyone was thinking. It was like, oh, it's just all going to be brown. But with the color of the night and day on the playfields, again, the night and day cycle is really important to our gameplay. is the left side is night and the right side is day. And how he pulled that all together to basically nicely blend into each other was phenomenal. And you probably don't have good pictures, but if you, like, zoom in, he used, like, the topography of the land on the in lane. So basically he made sure, like, it looked like if the ball was – if there was real sand on this play field and a ball was going in that path, the sand is actually being pushed away where a ball would be traveling so he you know he he tried to make as very organic as natural as possible i mean he totally crushed it i can't be more than happy that's very similar to like with labyrinths where you've got that the path on the artwork well that's where i've got to go right like it really the art the art really determined your shots right yep um as opposed to the flashing arrow you know um and the rest of the lights that everyone always goes for but with labyrinth it was really cool because the artwork really painted a picture of the way you're meant to be going and where everything was and i think this does a really good job doing the same thing um and a good example of that is like you can see the sun the sand being swept up the outer lanes but if you go up to the upper flipper the upper left flipper you actually see the mountain rocks which actually it points out the direction of where the ball you want to hit the ball to get up those ramps So, like, again, he's using that whole feel of, like, using the art to help. Doing play-filled art is not just a montage. It's basically trying – it's an extension of the UI. You're training the player of how they can use – how they see the art and how that translates to how you're going to play the game. and uh yeah look i for me that moment when i saw kind of the night and day switching with the lighting i thought that was that was really impressive um i know from some angles with the lighting that new lighting system you've got you can see some of the if you're kind of right down low you can see the dot in the lights but i'm taking it when you're standing over the machine you don't see those no at all no so that was the whole design of it we didn't want to do where you're just putting lights over the top and shining down we were going to include this it had to be put into the the plate the cabinet itself like i didn't want people if you're standing off the side you're getting blinded by leds at you like we i wanted to make sure it was purely aimed at a 45 degree angle down onto the playfield um i mean that was one of the biggest criticisms we had on labyrinth was everyone said it was kind of too dark and um it was like well how can we make this a better experience and i didn't want it to be like how everyone else does it i want to make it where it's contributing to the experience um then that's where the best value that we feel that we're providing everyone if you're a true collector you don't want to add stuff to your game it should come with it naturally and that's why we have the shaky motor that's why we have the infinity glass that's why we put the light on there that's why we have the evergloss decals because we want you to understand we're giving you a premium product for a really really good value compared to what it's on the market today that doesn't even include we've developed under the glass itself and the optional upgrades that you guys are offering right yeah um is basically what exactly for the people that haven't they haven't seen so it will be a topper um a topper a shooter rod basically all things that don't really take away from the experience it only enhances it so like you can still get the whole experience playing the game. These are little things that if you're a big Dune fan, then you're going to want them. If you're just a pinball person, they're not necessary at all. Some of them we're doing a little bit different this time with our shooter rod. In fact, this will be an exclusive for you. We actually got the samples in today. I don't know if you can see and get it focused, but this is actually the finished knife. Crystal blade. So you'll get this. And I don't think I've got them here, but we also, they're in the other room. So when you buy the shooter rod, you're also going to get 3D, not 3D. Yeah, well, 3D sculpts of the city that go over the slings and the inlanes. So that basically, that's sitting over top of the city. Now that will come up. So when you buy the shooter rod, you also will get the additional accessories that will bring that world up into a three-dimensional world. yeah so nice yeah and people don't really care i don't know if i can focus in on it it's probably not an autofocus let's see no it doesn't look like it's going to do it but like it has the inscription on it this is actually from this the actual scan of the prompt itself so it has all the rights in it and stuff like that so yeah wow and i'm assuming you already know what the top is going to be what the top is going to be but you'll have to see it when again something we learned from our first round was we had all that stuff ready to go we wanted to show everything but over the time span of getting stuff here on time that we can't control logistics of is we've made a very conscious effort to make sure like when we have accessories and we show them to you like when they're for sale they will ship the same day you place your order i don't want to do the pre-order stuff on accessories because it makes logistics really really complicated so when we put this on sale it's because we've got boxes of them out back ready to ship it was funny because just reminiscing on like obviously we heard this rumor about june for a while um and i was like you know i really wanted to be june but at the same time i was enjoying uh i think it was colin that was putting all the little Goonie trinkets everywhere around the tour of the factory. And I was like, God, I really hope it's Goonies, but I really wanted it to be June as well. And we were having such a laugh about it because everyone was like, well, they've got a pirate ship in the warehouse. We've got pirate ships. But you've got to remember, I'm a collector. Like, we started this company because we're collectors. Like, we're not, I mean, I'm planning to be a manufacturer. But if I mean, you know, truth be said, if, you know, if I was in this to make myself really rich, I wouldn't have started a pinball company, but I'm a collector. I mean, why do you think I've got a tiles from the crypt? You know, one-to-one replica. This is actually pulled from the actual mold from the TV series. But like, actually a lot of my trinkets have been moved to the other, other side of the factory. But like I collect stuff I've got, you know, I can't, no, here he is. He's hiding here. You know, like you come into our office, you just going to see stuff everywhere. everywhere you know because again i'm a fan i'm a collector i collect stuff i've got stuff all my life i got x files trading cards you know the gaming cards like no one plays that anymore but i still got my full set you know you know the smoking man um but yeah we just collect stuff and it yeah any mad max stuff there was a rumor that it was going to be mad max because you're australian right so well actually i do i actually do know the producers that made the first three films um personally friends of mine they're actually pretty old right now um but i would love to do mad max the question is i would love to do it based on the original series but at the same time fury road like the new incarnations are freaking magnificent but i mean you want to talk about you think dune's a brown game you can imagine what mad max is gonna look like yeah yeah actually going to be going there's a guy in queensland and i'll have to find it and say he's re-themed a getaway into a mad max and he's got this massive va and it revs while you're playing and it is a cool i mean that is the theme that i think would be cool for pinball but uh you know with what you've done with june and i honestly i love um your customer service um like i i had labyrinth and I had a slight issue with the top bar and it was something that I had done wrong. But I emailed the guys, they responded straight away. And, you know, it's very obvious you guys are just fanboys that are doing this. Of course, it's a business, granted. But, you know, it's very different to being this big machine that obviously is there to make money or pump numbers out. Well, we don't exist if we don't have you guys supporting us. Like, we don't have unlimited resources. We don't have massive teams. We live and die on the product we make. And if we don't believe in that, then why are we doing it? So it's like we have to be the best that we can be. And trust me, we still got a lot to learn. Like starting from two people to growing to over 33 people, going from a dining room to 19, 20,000 square feet, now having to expand an additional 13,000 square feet to meet the demand. But also in a time of turmoil in business worldwide, globally, like it's not easy, you know. But again, we believe in what we're doing and, you know, hopefully we make stuff that is compelling enough to have people want to buy our product. That's really what it comes down to. I think Don captured it quite well in his little live stream he was doing because he was just walking down your corridors, right? And he's so captivated because me and him talk about all the Universal Studios and Disney and he's such a child when it comes to that. But, you know, even just your wallpaper, right? It was like, Donald was like, we could just live in this corridor and look at all this awesome artwork, right? It's the inspiration. It's the inspiration. Like, my first experience going to Disneyland was when I was 12 years old. And that was, you know, growing up in Australia, we never had anything like that, anything. You know, the closest thing, we had Time Zone and stuff like that, and there was an arcade, you know, or Splash Mountain. Not Splash Mountain, Magic Mountain. everyone from adelaide mountain was right that was as close as we got or going to the royal shows you know like we got to do some you know carny rides which you know i love my carny stuff but like when i got to experience disneyland for the first time like again me loving movies and fantasy and stuff like that stepping into disneyland was another level of immersion like holy crap i'm not seeing a 2D world here. I am literally in the movie itself, you know, and that was like, that just sparked my imagination of like, this is possible. Like, like there was a thing when you watch a movie, well, that's in the movie, that's in the movie, that's in the movies. But when you actually step into a world and you see it, you're like, wow, what can I do at home with my go-kart? Like, can I now put that in? Like, can I turn that into looking like something? Like it, it, it sparked that creativity of, can I do this? You know, and that's something, that's why I have all those theme park designs out there because it's inspiration. It's things that keeps me wanting more. Like if we don't dream and think of stuff, it will never happen. And so many things in my life I would have never got to do. you i when growing up many times people tell you even my dad like you can't do that you got to get a real job you got to do this like you got to have you know base in form of reality and it wasn't like they were trying to crush my dreams but they were telling me what their reality is you know but i had also parents that said just chase it chase chase your dreams you know if i got an opportunity need to email someone or call someone like i would call them you know like when i found out because i was into movies a lot then i got into beta and laserdisc laserdisc weren't in australia like i had to call up uh america there was a laser shop place in the late 90s that would mail me laserdisc from the u.s and i was getting movies that were coming in the u.s before they were coming out over here i think it was like kramer like laserdisc kramer or something it was out of Los Angeles but like if there's an opportunity and I can get my foot in the door or just go up and talk to someone about it I'm going to take it you know a lot of people are like well David how did you end up doing that it's all because I went up and spoke to them or I emailed them or I called them you know and a lot of my whole life and then drives my wife crazy is why'd you do that it's like I was interested I was curious like and what's the worst thing they could say to me no okay fair enough i'll move on you know well that's the same way i tackle doing content like some people go oh you messaged them direct i was like well why not what's the worst that can say right yeah yeah you know no it's uh i i can totally relate with everything you're saying i mean it's the same thing you know i come from an italian background where uh the idea was you just work and doesn't matter if the job is crap or not you just work your ass off and uh you come home eat sleep go back and repeat right like there are no dreams uh it's all you get the opportunity to take after the parents company and you can get to grow it yourself and then you get to teach your kids the same thing yeah yeah so look i can totally relate and i think the most inspiring thing about that and i say this to a lot of people i would love to do something in pinball but you know we think we're so far away in australia then you look at you who went from australia and you went all the way across um and you know and you achieved all these things that you know it's a testament to obviously your personality as well but um look i think the the game's great i'm going to hit you with a hard question right and you might say i don't want to answer this or do an answer it that uh in relation to the gameplay of the game right i'm a bit more open-minded and i tend to see well you know people need time on a game to learn how it shoots and people need time to play and, you know, it's not a Jack Danger or a Keith Owen who stood up to the game to play. These are content creators. The fact that the game looked a little bit hard for some of these people, right, I think it shoots well. Even Kerry Hardy told me it shoots easier than Labyrinth, right? He's constant feedback to me. He's like, this shoots so much better than Labyrinth. This is so much better than Labyrinth. It was his constant feedback. We can't make Labyrinth a bad game, but it's a tough game, right? It is a brutal game. Yeah, so I'm putting two and two together. I'm going, well, these guys are struggling a little bit. Like even – I always forget the gentleman's name from Cool Toys. I'm bad with names, honestly. Yes. So he's a good player. He wouldn't say that he's like a tournament player, right? But there were times where he was struggling a little bit. But then he hit those shots after a while. And I think, you know, when I'm hearing people saying that this shoot's different and better – I don't like using the word better because it kind of makes labyrinth not seem good but you know like there's that how do you want to touch on that because obviously absolutely so this was the first time that we did something more traditional how the pinball uh pinball launches a game right like there's been a tradition from you know the media days you know so they like uh stern did it with wick and then jersey jack did it with you know avatar yeah so we kind of felt like you know this is probably the direction everyone needs to go to give them a good opportunity to be to experience it yeah what i discovered was a lot of people that were inviting um they even self-admitted they're not the greatest players but there's some decent players in there um but a lot of them actually hadn't watched the film before either so that was a learning experience and we had this whole agenda like we're going to sit down tell you about the process and that and then what we learned on honestly we should have just let them play the game like we had this you know we were trying to do the right thing like i've held media events for film and tv and stuff like that so it's very rigid and structured how you do it um pimples very different i'm if i was to do it again i would do it completely different like um actually i think i heard don was talking about they actually gave them 20 minutes like individually 20 minutes alone with the game without really anyone with it yeah which is a really good idea but again this is our first time trying to do it more traditional um but like all pinball machines you got to find the shots and we designed this game to be way more open compared to labyrinth like this should flow much better and i think people will have a much better experience with this game um and and like i've heard from other you know the people that are here for the media day is We showed them the factory. We talked about the product. We watched the trailer. We even watched the Stern trailer because, dude, I'm excited about King Kong. So I wanted to see it. I didn't want everyone just sitting there like off the side like, oh, this is trailer. No, let's watch it together. I'm a collector. I like this stuff too. I'm excited to see it. But I realized I should have gave them more time because, again, I wanted to feed them. And so you're like me. You're an Australian. Like when you invite people over, you want to eat. You want to have a good time. them it's like it's family right um so i mean everyone still talks about everyone still talks about the the meat that you put on at the last open the michelin um uh smoked meat you put on don and uh everyone still colin still talks about that well again i grew up in the country my mother's family we grew you know raspberries strawberries cherries like so it was always a family like you invite people over you feed them and you feed them well you know trust me the accountant not too happy about it but you know yeah but next time what i would do is i'll make don and jamie watch june first make them watch three hours of june then you can play the game nine o'clock you're gonna meet at the movie theater we're gonna see here we'll go two films back to fact if you fall asleep through part one that's okay i've done it too but we'll get through the two films then we'll come over and then we're going to lock you in a room full of sand and you're going to play the game that's what we're going to do next time look i don't think there's any uh you know there's a lot of people that obviously go this should have been done this way it should be done this way it is well look i'm a huge ambassador of it is what it is right and it it doesn't mean something's bad doesn't mean something's not good um i i think it went away and everything happens for a reason right that's my take on it and uh everyone i spoke to loved the game jamie loves the game uh i was speaking to him the other day um and uh don don loved the theme and you know he's uh spoke very highly of the whole experience um but you know i think everyone's got a take on how something should be done but like you said you know you're open to admitting that maybe next time do a little bit differently i mean so every game that we do is going to have a different way of launching um but again this is the first time that we did it more how everyone else is doing it i don't know if i would do it that way again um but again this was a learning curve and um my thing is the game is fantastic like and i'm not just saying that because i'm selling it but it generally is a real experience and i know when people get to experience it for the first time It's going just like Labyrinth. Like people did not care for Labyrinth, but we had a lot of people buy Labyrinth because their wife liked that license or their kids liked that license. And then the husband got to play it and realized, oh, this is actually a fun game. And, you know, through word of mouth and experience, it grew. And, you know, we haven't even really, like our Instagram post of just the teaser alone has crossed 80,000 likes within the first 24 hours yeah you know we haven't even broken through to the dune fans yet you know we're talking about just the people that are very passionate about pinball just like you and me that are seeing this for the first time right they're going to get to experience it at the shows coming up allentown golden state like all the shows coming up northwest it's going to be there it's going into private collectors who are going to invite their friends over now we're talking about the experience that you and me love going to our friend's house getting to play a game we've never played before you know that's the stuff that gets me excited when people get the experience with the sound cranked up and they get to hit that harvester for the first time and get that exploded or they get a a combo going on when they get to ride the worm and they get to experience that i got a feeling they're gonna want to do it again and they're gonna want to do it again and they'll go home and they'll be thinking about it and they're like wow they're making up to a thousand of them and it's not going to be around forever my you know why not right like yeah it's a cool it's a cool unique experience that i am super proud that we've made it and i can't wait for everyone to experience it again i just i love what i do man i just like i don't care if this goes anywhere it's just you and me talking i just i'm just so proud of what my team has put together um and it's been a learning curve of everything that we've done here again And from the dining room to this space, it's been a test. And I can't wait with all the stuff that we've got planned up, not to take away from doing itself, but, like, we really love what we're doing and super proud and we can't wait for you guys to experience it. Yeah, look, and I said in the conversation that, for me, I can't picture companies like Stern making nostalgic themes because they're more about the now i don't really call king kong a nostalgic theme it's an open rp and that's great but like you know i couldn't i couldn't picture them doing a fifth element game a blade runner game uh you know a um i don't know a demolition man if they hadn't already made one whereas you guys and boutique companies can you know pinball brothers with supposedly predator and all that so that's the beauty of these boutique companies and look at even what spooky's doing for instance um making games that they want you know you want and really a thousand people will want um you know because like you said i had someone come to mind and uh saw an avatar didn't know there was an avatar in perth played it and then was blown away as like i need one of these and like you said that's all it takes right is just uh getting together and experiencing something and i'm sure everyone that jumps onto june is is more than likely going to be captivated buy it uh if for those that don't know if you own a labyrinth you can go into the draw to enter and uh win a june pinball game which is released on my birthday i think it's being released on the first of may yep so that is the draw that's going on so if you haven't registered your game on our website go to our website collectfund.com make sure you register your game and that way you're entered into the raffle and you'll have the opportunity to actually win as we were saying game two which is now doing pinball so uh super proud to be doing that and again it is a thank you to everyone that has bought a labyrinth second hand on you um because it doesn't matter if you bought a second hand on you you are still part of our family and you're supporting us even through a non-direct sale um you know we want to give back and again we wouldn't be here we wouldn't be in this facility if it wasn't for this little game called labyrinth and we want to give back and show our support to you guys so again make sure you register the game just in case you might win one very cool very cool well i registered hopefully you can ship one to australia but and it's my birthday take care of the shipping i'll give you the game but you got to take care of the shipping yeah that's fine i i was dealing with jerry a multi-morphic and i was like jerry you got to send over final resistance he's like sure but you're going to pay shipping i was like done and i'm impatient so i was like i'll pay i'll pay air freight shipping send it to me now i don't to wait three months but no all good all right dave look we've gone way over so i really appreciate you i'm sorry wait too long no i'm i'm really bad at that as well so it must be an australian thing but i really appreciate the time i think we've got a hit i'm hoping that we'll see some gameplay soon so you guys can do this gameplay thing um and uh i'm hoping to get one obviously in australia at some point uh we've got um melbourne expo is november and then there are a few little shows before that uh i've got a show in august i don't think we'll see one before then but uh obviously you said it's gonna be i think dr john is planning to have one at neither world it's just like you he's waiting to see if he wins the lot uh the raffle first and if he missed the raffle then they would you know we'll be sending the game over but i know he's going to bring one in i think directly gonna air freight it in um so i know there's gonna be one out in either world he's gonna take it over there to get people experience and obviously you know uh mr australia pinball wayne he's gonna be bringing a bunch of those games in but he likes to fill up a container uh so we can get that done on one hit so uh there will be dunes heading down that way and there's actually a i can't say anything but there is some stuff in the works for australia coming up that I'm looking forward to be a part of. So that's down the road. Awesome, awesome. And the first place that the public in America can play this game, where's that going to be? So there's going to be games in private collections. So hunt out anyone that says they have it. But Allentown is technically going to be the first show. So Joe at Pinball Star and Melissa at Cointaker all have one game each going out to that show. So the first show would be Allentown. Allentown and then I think we're trying to go on out to Jagerpin through Nitro. So the first couple of shows I've got we've got lined up plus also shipping privately as well. Cool all right well look I thank you very much mate it's been great and I look forward to maybe chatting when we get one was on my other channel for those that don't know I've started my own little channel which is called Pinball Underground. I'll do that with my friend Ryan he's more Aussie than me real hockey has a mullet uh and uh we're going to be streaming games and hopefully when we're streaming games bringing the people that have made those games into those conversations as well so hopefully we'll get a june and get you back on board and talk about it then and yeah take it from there mate i'm happy to come on for a chin wag you just let me know where to be no problems a little thank you very much guys don't forget to like subscribe and obviously support these guys they make an incredible product so thank you once again for watching And we'll catch you in the next one. _(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: acee5c28-58a4-4979-9257-45974e4f6f32*