# Things That Make You Go Hummm

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2016-09-04  
**Duration:** 54m 23s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/Things-That-Make-You-Go-Hummm-e1bkg21

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## Analysis

Chris and Jared discuss their competitive experience playing 13 Star Wars tables on Zen Pinball FX2, ranking them from worst to best. They analyze design patterns across five different Zen designers (Zoltan, Peter Graffle/Deep, Thomas Price), identifying recurring issues like narrow shots, dead ball physics, and unintuitive gameplay mechanics versus strengths like responsive bounce and engaging modes. They also discuss broader Zen platform features and community leaderboard competition.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Masters of the Force has some of the narrowest shots on any Zen table with unforgiving physics, making mode starts a tedious slog — _Chris's detailed gameplay criticism of Masters of the Force, corroborated by Jared's agreement_
- [HIGH] Zoltan-designed tables (Masters of the Force, Might of the First Order, Boba Fett, Han Solo) feature dead ball physics and clunky pop-bumpers — _Chris identifies Zoltan tables sharing consistent mechanical design flaws across multiple examples_
- [HIGH] Peter Graffle/Deep-designed tables (A New Hope, Empire, Return of the Jedi) have responsive bounce physics superior to other Zen designers — _Chris contrasts 'Graffle bounce' favorably to Zoltan tables, calling it 'like TPA, like it should be'_
- [HIGH] Thomas Price designed Droids, Super League, and Aliens on Zen Pinball — _Chris explicitly attributes designer credit for Droids and cross-references with other known Price tables_
- [HIGH] Force Awakens is Chris's favorite Star Wars Zen table because it balances enjoyable physics with proper Zen table design — _Chris ranks Force Awakens #1 and describes it as hitting 'all the sweet spots'_

### Notable Quotes

> "It's like a whiteboard prototype that they didn't take through proper development."
> — **Chris**, ~08:45
> _Harsh criticism of Masters of the Force's design quality and playtesting rigor_

> "The Graffle bounce, as we'll call it. Or Deep bounce. and going from me playing Zoltan tables and then all of a sudden throwing in one of his it was like whoa hey this is like TPA this is great this is like it should be right"
> — **Chris**, ~35:20
> _Direct comparison of designer physics philosophies; establishes Peter Graffle as gold standard for Zen ball physics_

> "You want the table to actually make you go, I must get up to that point again, which is why I think the aliens table is just so attractive, because you want to get to all the modes."
> — **Jared**, ~50:35
> _Articulates core design principle for engaging Zen tables: progression drive and mode discovery_

> "Pinball is all about being intuitive. You should be able to pick it up and start playing it."
> — **Chris**, ~25:40
> _States design philosophy contrasting with Zoltan's complex, unintuitive approach_

> "I really wish... Apparently, they do actually put the table designer on the tables somewhere, like their name."
> — **Chris**, ~46:50
> _Highlights difficulty in identifying designer attribution on Zen tables; relies on Zen forums for designer credits_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Chris Freibus | person | Host of Playdate Pinball Podcast (also known as Blockade Pinball Podcast); uses 'Shut Your Trap' as on-air name; competitive Zen Pinball player |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Playdate Pinball Podcast; based in Australia; competitive Zen Pinball player; participates in score rivalry with Chris and Sven |
| Sven | person | Zen Pinball competitive player; plays primarily on Steam; engages in friendly score-chasing competition with Chris on Star Wars tables |
| Zoltan | person | Zen Pinball table designer responsible for Masters of the Force, Might of the First Order, Boba Fett, Han Solo, plus Fear Itself, Wolverine, Shaman, Tesla, Eldorado, V12, Excalibur, Paranormal, Secrets of the Deep |
| Peter Graffle / Deep | person | Zen Pinball table designer known for responsive ball physics ('Graffle bounce'); designed A New Hope, Empire, Return of the Jedi |
| Thomas Price | person | Zen Pinball table designer; created Droids, Super League, and Aliens tables |
| Neil Treby | person | Zen Pinball competitive player on Android; Farsight TPA beta testing volunteer; regularly appears in Chris's leaderboards |
| Dirk / mad07 | person | Zen Pinball competitive player on Android forums; consistently appears in top leaderboard positions |
| Zen Pinball FX2 | product | Digital pinball platform; hosts 13 Star Wars-themed pinball tables with multiple designers; supports cross-platform leaderboards and score competition |
| Pinball Arcade (TPA) | product | Competing digital pinball platform using ROM emulation; lacks integrated leaderboard features that Zen Pinball offers; subject of criticism for poor UX regarding score tracking vs friends |
| Fast Pinball | company | Develops account system potentially usable for integrated pinball ID tracking across platforms (mentioned as untapped resource) |
| Masters of the Force | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #13 by Chris; designed by Zoltan; features split Jedi/Sith mechanics; criticized for narrow shots and poor mode accessibility |
| Might of the First Order | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #12 by Chris; designed by Zoltan; features sunken playfield and flamethrower animation |
| Starfighter Assault | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #11 by Chris; features split Empire/Rebel sides; visually busy design |
| Boba Fett | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #10 by Chris; designed by Zoltan; criticized for excessive hurry-ups that require rapid learning |
| Darth Vader | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #9 by Chris; criticized as boring grind fest with stacked multiball chaos |
| Han Solo | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #8 by Chris; designed by Zoltan; set in cantina; forgiving but unintuitive rules requiring walkthrough reference |
| A New Hope | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #7 by Chris; designed by Peter Graffle/Deep; features responsive bounce physics |
| Droids | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #6 by Chris; designed by Thomas Price; spell-a-ramp mechanic; features 6 modes; becomes flowing once learned |
| Empire Strikes Back | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #5 by Chris; designed by Peter Graffle/Deep |
| Return of the Jedi | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #4 by Chris; designed by Peter Graffle/Deep; features holographic Death Star spinner mechanics and dual holographic playfields |
| Rebels | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #3 by Chris; based on animated show; features multi-part modes with tactical shifts; criticized for countdown timers |
| Clone Wars | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #2 by Chris; features ramp combo-heavy gameplay with overexcited announcer |
| The Force Awakens | game | Zen Pinball Star Wars table ranked #1 by Chris; described as 'home run'; features balanced physics and engaging progression |
| Aliens | game | Zen Pinball table designed by Thomas Price; frequently referenced as Chris's favorite non-Star Wars Zen table; features progressive modes that drive replay engagement |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Zen Pinball designer analysis and physics philosophies, Digital pinball competitive leaderboards and score chasing, Star Wars table design quality and mechanical implementation
- **Secondary:** Zen vs Pinball Arcade platform features and UX, Pinball game intuitive accessibility and learning curve, Mode design and progression drive in pinball games
- **Mentioned:** South Park television series (off-topic discussion)

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Generally critical tone toward most Star Wars Zen tables (9 of 13 ranked poorly), with particular disdain for Zoltan-designed tables. Positive sentiment reserved for Peter Graffle/Deep and Thomas Price designs. Enthusiasm for competitive score-chasing mechanics contrasts with frustration toward poor game design. Jared more reserved in criticisms than Chris.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Active competitive community around Zen Pinball with multiple engaged players (Sven, Neil Treby, Dirk) participating in cross-platform leaderboard challenges and score disputes. (confidence: medium) — Chris and Jared describe ongoing score-chasing rivalry with Sven over Star Wars tables via Twitter taunts; discussion of Android and Steam leaderboard positions.
- **[competitive_signal]** Zen Pinball platform design encourages aggressive leaderboard competition through integrated score-chasing notifications and real-time rank progression display, contrasting unfavorably with Pinball Arcade's clunky friend leaderboard UX. (confidence: high) — Chris and Jared extensively discuss Zen's real-time notifications ('boom the notice pops up hey you're almost there') vs TPA's manual leaderboard checking. Chris: 'I wish Pinball Arcade did what Zen does with the as you're playing seeing who's next up on the scores you're chasing.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Zoltan-designed tables feature consistently poor ball physics including unexpected dead passes where ball rockets straight down middle instead of bouncing to other flipper; affects playability across multiple machines. (confidence: high) — Chris: 'The ball will come, and normally if a ball hits towards the upper portion of the flipper, it's going to bounce pass over to the other flipper, right? And on these tables, it hits there and just goes like a rocket straight down the middle.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Multiple Zoltan-designed Zen tables (Masters of the Force, Might of the First Order, Boba Fett, Han Solo) criticized for dead ball physics, narrow shot tolerances, and unintuitive mode starts. Described as collectively representing everything players hate about Zen tables. (confidence: high) — Chris: 'Everything that people hate about Zen tables, I'm a true fan of him. It's all his own fault.' Consistent mechanical complaints across multiple examples.
- **[design_philosophy]** Thomas Price tables (Droids, Super League, Aliens) praised for creating engagement through mode progression discovery and reward-driven replayability ('makes you want to come back'). (confidence: medium) — Jared: 'You want the table to actually make you go, I must get up to that point again, which is why I think the aliens table is just so attractive, because you want to get to all the modes.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Designer Peter Graffle/Deep established as gold standard for Zen table physics with responsive 'Graffle bounce' that makes tables feel more like TPA, contrasting sharply with Zoltan's dead, clunky feel. (confidence: high) — Chris: 'going from me playing Zoltan tables and then all of a sudden throwing in one of his it was like whoa hey this is like TPA this is great this is like it should be right.'
- **[technology_signal]** Pinball Arcade's integration with Fast Pinball account system remains underutilized; community perceives missed opportunity for streamlined leaderboard and progression tracking comparable to Zen Pinball. (confidence: medium) — Chris: 'Fast Pinball had their own sort of account system, they need to utilize that a lot more to do this type of thing. It's just so logical for them to do it, but they don't seem to.'
- **[product_strategy]** Zen Pinball Star Wars collection suffers from inconsistent design quality across five different designers, resulting in wildly disparate player experience and engagement levels. (confidence: high) — 13-table ranking from worst (#13 Masters of the Force) to best (#1 Force Awakens) demonstrates significant quality variance; Chris explicitly notes designer correlations in both positive and negative tables.

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## Transcript

 This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to The Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Freibus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me, as always, from down under on this, a Father's Day for the Southern Hemisphere, Jared Morgan. G'day, Chris. I'm wearing my big pointy hat. Yes. For those people who aren't joining us, it's a red paper crown with paper triangles stuck all around it. And what you can't see is the little jewels on the top of each point of the crown. Oh, there you go. So it's very, very good. It's the deluxe Burger King crown for those thinking of visual reference here. It's the big deluxe Burger King crown. So I did very well today at Father's Day. I got some more cologne, and I got the biggest log of Rocky Road you've ever seen in your life. This is so amazing. That's definitely a log of something brown and lumpy, yes. The scale, this is actually my hand, and that's the length of the Rocky Road. So it's huge. There will be a share on that one. I was going to say, there's a few calories in that one. Yeah, that's right. That one's definitely a diet piece of Rocky Road. So we'll be sharing that one. And later on today, we'll be going to see The Secret Life of Pets. Very good. At the cinema. Yes, that'll be fun. Yep. It is an amusing movie. Yeah, it looks really good. interesting things about Sausage Fest as well which I think I'd like to go and see but following up with the kids yeah that's when I'll wait for video and have the headphones on and you know and laugh your head off right exactly I think I was watching something when a commercial for that came on and my son kind of came in and he was like what's that and I'm like just ignore it you're not going to be able to see it until you're 18 yeah It's great. South Park is going to be having their 20th season, which is mind-blowing to me. 20th season. 20th season starting up. And so they've been running a commercial that has been basically, we've been with you throughout all the years. And so it starts with this dad and his little baby watching South Park, and it shows this kid watching South Park throughout the years. and of course they're showing just the most vile portions of the TV show and here you got this and it turns out it's a girl and she's all just prim and nice and looks like a perfectly pleasant girl and so it's all her little life events happening and then Mary with these South Park moments. It's pretty funny because it's just so wrong. Yeah, it's so wrong and so awesome. Yeah, that sounds great. That would be typical South Park. They wouldn't do it any differently, would they, when they were promoting their 30th anniversary. Because The Simpsons are up to like nearly 30 seasons now, right? They're at 26 or 27, yeah. They're very close. But yeah, that's pretty impressive. 20 seasons of South Park. I stopped watching probably up to about season 8, I think. You know what? There was a part, there was a time when I stopped watching and then I started watching it again probably, I don't know, maybe 6 seasons ago, 6 or 7 seasons ago. And And I was blown away at the leaps and bounds of how much better their writing was. Because it used to just be, you know, it was kind of your typical TV show, you know, and some of the jokes were getting kind of old, right? And then they all of a sudden started going topical. And it was brilliant, just nailing. And the thing is, because they literally write their show and animate it in one week. Do they? Yeah, they do. They do what they call this crunch period where all of a sudden they'll have some outlines and everything. They'll sit in there and go, and they'll just go six days in a row just nonstop and then turn that show in four days later. So they were able to really hit upon some of the news items that were happening, and it was fantastic. It was just like brilliant. I mean they would scrap entire episodes that they already planned because something would happen in the news. they're like, nope, that's what we're going to be talking about. And now they've morphed into doing a season-long arc of storyline, which has opened up a whole new battery of just humor. It's better than ever. Oh, wow, okay. I watched one sort of... I work in a pretty geeky organization, so I do share around a few YouTube videos of South Park Snippets and I watched a couple the other day and I was sort of sitting there just going okay I mean I used to watch this when I was like 21 or 22 and I'm looking at it now going it's a little bit sort of the humor was a little bit sort of cheap but maybe that was the like the earlier seasons that they were taking the grabs from I'm not sure maybe I should give it another go You got to give it another go. Especially the last season, I think it was the takeover of South Park by Whole Foods. And so it was basically the gentrification of South Park. And I think that was last season. Anyway, it was brilliant. Me and this other guy, camera assistant, we were just constantly every – because it airs on Wednesdays, I think. Every Thursday we were coming in and just throwing out lines of dialogue at each other and stuff. I love your heads up. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So we had in last week Xenia, also known as Sven, because Sven is much easier to pronounce than Xenia. Anyway, Sven joined us for most of the podcast, and that was a pretty good, fun time. But what it made me realize is that me and Sven have kind of a thing going on with Zen Pinball. All right. And so what that is is that because you've never – there is no nostalgia for Zen. You never worked in it. You never got to play it in an arcade. You never got to physically have the machine. It was never part of any significant moments in your life that you can recall or flashback to. That's right. So it's one of those things that I always find that I can go months without playing it, and I don't really feel like I'm missing it. But then I'll start playing it again and be like, oh, that's kind of fun. Well, what I realize is you need to have somebody to play against. You got to have your foil. And what you ideally need is a foil who is on equal grounds to you. And then it's that when it comes to then pinball with me. So we like to do back and forth where now and then all of a sudden I'll get a tweet from him saying, hey, better check your scores. And I'll check my scores. and be like, ah, he bested me on some of these, and then I'll do the exact same thing to him. So this past week, I have been playing exclusively all of the 13 Star Wars tables on Zen Pinball FX2. Ah. And I had a better score than Sven on probably six of the tables, so I decided to take care of the, or maybe seven, and yeah, I think it was seven of the tables, and so I decided to take care of the remaining six. and just knock him off. So I went ahead and worked my butt off. Yeah, because playing pinball is hard work. Proceeded to get a better high score on all the tables and then sent out a tweet alerting him that I had taken that burden off of his shoulder and he can relax now. To which he immediately sent a tweet the next day saying, yeah, you might want to check your scores on these two tables. From which then I immediately went and took care of one of those tables. So what it got me, though, realizing is all the different designers, because there's a total of five different designers that have worked on all the various Star Wars tables. And why is it that some of the tables I enjoy, some of the tables I don't? And let's try and pair up if these designers happen to match up to any of the other Zen tables that I actually do like. Yeah, totally. So I just kind of want to, I don't know, do a little summary. Are you up for that? Yeah, I'm up for a bit of a summary. I haven't touched Zen for ages. I guess I've just been so into just TPA beta testing and stuff. You're right, I never fire up Zen because, I don't know, maybe it's because the tables tend to be more long play. I don't have time for long play. But, yeah, I just haven't played them for ages either. I will say this too one of the reasons why I haven't been playing TPA is because since I'm on the new computer and my save file is not there none of my wizard goals are met and that bothers me so meanwhile I fire up Zen and hey look at that I remembered every single one of my medals that I've won or achievements that I've won yeah because it all just works Right, so I just don't feel like working and putting in time. I mean, yes, my high scores are still up on the leaderboards, but local high scores are all gone, and like I said, all the wizard goals are gone. So that got me also like, yeah, you know what, I'll fire up Zen. Why not? And I actually did try out a bunch of other tables, but the Star Wars ones I realized that I hadn't touched. I mean, other than a couple of playthroughs, a lot of them I've never put really much time into. so I'm just going to kind of go through the in reverse order what I think of the tables so the table that I hope to never have to play again would be Masters of the Force yeah oh my god it's painful this is a table that they did the same thing with Starfighter Assault where they split the table in two basically in half and half the side is Sith, half the side is light side and you're supposed to honestly I have not been able to make heads or tails with this table. There's supposed to be some way of shifting the balance towards one side or the other in terms of what your wizard goals wind up being but what I have found with this table is it has some of the narrowest shots I've ever come across on any center table. I know. You break everything. Oh, yeah. You slightly miss, and nope, your ball's not going to make it. And the thing that's really infuriating about this is some of these shots are basically what would be normally your common shots. These are things that you need to be able to hit a lot and frequently because it's, oh, you need to hit this twice in order to get this portion of the thing activated, and then you can go ahead and do this. as for starting your main modes. That's right. It is. It's main-driven. Yeah, so any time that starting a mode is this much of a hassle is ridiculous. I know. It's not much fun. You're right. Every time I play it, I can't even get to the point where I'm, like, starting a mode or even, like, lighting a lock or anything like that. Right. The basic progression things that you want to do in a pinball machine It's such a slog to get to that. And it's just like, no, I'm done. This table is just unplayable. It's like a whiteboard proto that they didn't take proto. Right. And the thing of it is there's not much scoring unless you can get a mode started. Now, if you get the mode started, then it becomes this little cardboard cutout Jedi's and Sith Lords pop up in the middle of the table, and you don't want to hit whichever side you're battling for. so if you're a Jedi you don't want to hit your Jedi, you want to only hit Darth Maul and that's when you score your points but it's a table that goes from I haven't even done that well basically you go from scoring tens of thousands of points to that mode where you're scoring millions so it's for a table that's all about balance of the force it's completely unbalanced and then there's also this weird thing, they call them Now, I don't remember a holocron ever being in a Star Wars movie. I have no idea what the heck they're talking about. But there's these Jedi holocrons and Sith holocrons. And by hitting them you wind up locking a ball I assuming and then it opens up this little mini play field thing which also turns out to be one of the most annoying mini playfields that Zen has ever produced Yeah it is incredibly insufferable Oh, yeah, it's absolutely painful. So that would be my number 13. Number 12, now this one I think you actually like, Jared, but it's Might of the First Order. Might of the First Order, is that the one with the big flame trail thing? Yeah, there's a Stormtrooper with a flamethrower. This also is the one that has the sunken playfield. Oh, yeah, where the balls look like they're actually traveling on the top of the playfield, but they're not. Yeah, that's actually all right. I had some fun with that. So the problem that I have with this one is it desperately needs dynamic lighting so that when you're going to be playing the lower playfield, that everything else darkens out and then that lights up. because I can never tell when I'm playing that field or the top field, and I always get it wrong, and the ball drops so fast that it winds up going right through the flippers on the bottom play field, and then I'm back to playing on the top. It's just that over and over again for me. It's weird. I don't have that problem with mobile at all. I'm quite easily able to distinguish the top from the bottom. Maybe it's got something to do with the dynamic lighting you guys get on scene. Well, no, but we don't have any dynamic. I mean, there is no dynamic lighting in Zen. Okay. well then it must just be you it's all your fault Chris yeah it's all my fault but it's also one of these tables where so much of it is obscured the shooting lanes you see just the entrance of the lane and that's obscured by whatever's stacked on top of it and so it just kind of becomes one of these things that are difficult to see now interestingly enough Those two tables, both designed by the same designer. Ah, okay. Right. It's Zoltan. Oh, Zoltan. Okay. Now, Zoltan also designed Fear Itself and Wolverine. Those are two tables I like, but he's also the man responsible for Shaman, Tesla, Eldorado, V12, Excalibur, Paranormal, Secrets of the Deep. So... Okay. You don't mix with the Zoltan. I don't know. The other thing I was going to mention with Masters of the Force, and this also does apply to Might of the First Order, dead passes. The ball will come, and normally if a ball hits towards the upper portion of the flipper, it's going to bounce pass over to the other flipper, right? And on these tables, it hits there and just goes like a rocket straight down the middle. But if it's towards the middle to front of the flipper, then it'll do a proper bounce over. Sounds like they've bought the tuning on it. Yeah, it's got some very... And on all of his tables, the ball is that lead weight. It's very dead. Yeah. It doesn't have much bounce to it, so they're very clunky feeling. All the pop bumpers are not tuned to be really responsive and everything. They feel dead. Everything feels sloppy and sloppy. Yeah, I hate that. So essentially everything that people hate about Zen Tables, I'm a true fan of him. It's all his old-time spot. Yes. It's all his old-time spot. so number 11 I'm putting it Starfighter Assault again one of these split in half tables half of it is Empire half of it is Rebel the game itself I don't have like it can be fun but it is visually difficult to look at there's so much going on that you can't tell what's a ramp and what's just a toy and then when you hit the pop bumpers lasers start flying all over the place. It's busy. Yeah, it's very busy. And then on top of that, the mission hole up at the top and it's very difficult to hit. Let's just put it that way. Oh, yeah. Off to the side. It's actually sort of invisible for most of you. You've got to do a combo to get into it sort of thing. Exactly. And I think mission holes should never be requiring a combo. No. Or any sort of hardware should be a direct shot into it, basically. Right. Moving on. Number nine, or excuse me, that was eleven, number ten, Boba Fett, which, hey, look at that, it's also designed by Zoltan. Alright. Yeah, I could never get into this game either. It just seems like, out of the first Star Wars pack, it's the one I never play. Well, my problem with it is that it's hurry-up city, and the hurry-ups are way too quick. Yeah. And you don't have enough time to figure out, like, catch the ball, and then figure out where you're going to be shooting before the hurry-up ends. so that's my problem with that table. If you put in enough time, you start learning it and kind of start getting the patterns of it, and that's interesting, but then if you don't play it for a couple of days and you go back to it, you're back at square one, so it's... Yes. It's sort of like, yep, you're done. You have to relearn it all over again. Yeah. Number nine, I'm putting Darth Vader. Boring table. Yeah. Painfully boring. It's a grind fest for scoring. and there's just not much going on. I mean, there's a lot of trails for the ball to go, but it's just a grind fest. And the next thing you know, you open up one multiball, and it's stacked upon stacked, and now you have no hope of meeting any of the jackpots or whatever because you don't know what the heck you're supposed to be shooting at because balls are all over the place. So it's like shoot anything. It's pretty much where it is. Shoot anything. And hope that you scored well. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That was one of the tables that took me a long time to beat Xenia's score on, just because it is a grind fest, and it's just like, oh, my God, the slog. Yeah, I just don't have much patience for those tables. If it's not instant gratification, I can start playing it nice and easily, then I'm not interested in playing it, really. Yeah. Number eight, I'm putting Han Solo. Hey, look at that. Another Zoltan table. Han Solo. is that the one that sits in the forest? No. Han Solo's got the cantina. Settin' the cantina. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's pretty... The thing I don't mind about it is that it is very forgiving. Unlike Boba Fett, Han Solo's very forgiving with the ramps. The problem is, is the entire time you're going, what the hell is going on? Figuring out what you're supposed to even do to get anything started is just a mystery. You really do need to read the walkthrough of that table to understand. You shouldn't really have to. Pinball is all about being intuitive. You should be able to pick it up and start playing it. I literally, two days ago, did just that. Read the walkthrough, then was able to play and get my score. I revisited it just an hour before we recorded this podcast, so two days later I had no clue what to do again. That's not a good... But it doesn't stick. So the only reason why it's above the other ones that are in front of it, the other five, is just because of it being forgiving, and it can be fun to kind of bash around on. And once you do know what's going on, it's entertaining. It takes a long time to get there. Yeah. Moving forward, now we're into kind of this zone where they're all kind of the samey-samey for me. And they're enjoyable, but they don't really stand out. And that is A New Hope, Droids, Empire, and Return of the Jedi. I don't like Droids much at all. So Droids, again, you've got to learn it. Once you've learned it, it becomes a very flowy table. Yeah. which it's another way to spell a ramp isn't it yeah I guess there's spell a ramp in order to build up what that lane is worth essentially for jackpot purposes but there's also a lot of modes there's about 6 different modes and the modes are fairly fun this is done by the same guy that did Super League and Aliens Thomas Price. So I think I personally like well, Aliens is probably my favorite table that's been put out on Zen. Super League I really do have a good time with. Yeah, it's fun. But it's hard to get a flow going. Droids you can get the flow going, but you are correct. You've got to figure out what it is that you're supposed to be shooting ahead of time. Once you get that down, then it becomes a much more open fun table. But it also can be a grind fest. Exactly. New Hope just kind of... Nothing stands out to me, but what I love about New Hope, Empire, Return of the Jedi, basically everything that... These are all by Peter Graffle. Also known as Deep. He's got the bounce. Oh yeah, I love that. That's what needs to happen in all tables. They need to have that bounce. The Graffle bounce, as we'll call it. Or Deep bounce. and going from me playing Zoltan tables and then all of a sudden throwing in one of his it was like whoa hey this is like TPA this is great this is like it should be right so yeah so then I I mean interchangeable for me is Empire Return of the Jedi once I figured out what was going on in Return of the Jedi I really had a good time with it probably more so than Empire but it's minuscule but that leads me then to my top three so the first number three would be Rebels which is based off the most recent animated show and the reason why I really like this one is because starting the modes is not terribly difficult the modes themselves are fun and challenging definitely challenging they're not easy to because they actually follow on from each other don't they if you complete one the next one starts automatically and stuff I don't you know what I'm not quite positive on that because I don't know if I've ever actually completed any of the modes I'm trying to think the modes are actually really long they're in multi parts I think that's what I'm thinking so you complete one part of the mode and then the next part of the mode starts up and so it'll be kind of awesome and you have to shift your tactics. You've been used to hitting a certain ramp over and over again, and all of a sudden it's like, nope, don't hit that anymore. Now you've got to do this over here. The only problem with Rebels is there are a lot of countdown timers. The countdown timers are fairly generous, but it still is a bummer because if you don't complete the mode, then you've got to try it all over again from scratch. That's the one thing that I love about Aliens and that I like about Force Awakens. that did it. Force Awakens, I guess, remembered part of the mode that you'd done, but with Aliens, for sure, so long as you start the mode, you're good. You can move on. So that's always kind of nice. My number two table... It's that thing. Aliens. It's just gotten so many... My number two table is Clone Wars. Also based on the animated show. It's just a ramp combo heaven. It's a bit of a grind fest also, but it's a very satisfying grind fest. That's the one with the really overexcited announcer. I don't really enjoy that game that much. I think because of the announcer and sort of the... I think the fact that it's a grind fest sort of takes the enjoyment away from me a bit. but yeah, that's just me. Now, interestingly, the designer of Clone Wars is the same guy that did Darth Vader. He's also the same guy that did Iron Man, and you know me, I like Iron Man. Yeah, bizarre. It is bizarre. I really wish. Apparently, they do actually put the table designer on the tables somewhere, like their name. Okay. Apparently. I found this out, but I haven't been able to see it easily. So, yeah, having that list is much better on the Zen forum because they actually have a list of all the designers on there. Oh, right. Yeah, that's what I was looking them all up on. Yeah, it was good. My number one table is Force Awakens, which I think was a home run for them. Yeah. It just basically hit all the sweet spots of what I like about Zen tables and what Zen tables are capable of, but also had the proper physics that I enjoy. It's just a really enjoyable table. Yeah, that's right. Which is the one that's set in the forest? That would be Return of the Jedi. Yeah I don mind that There something about that table that I actually okay with Once I was able to open up the hologram of the second Death Star that pops up, a big red hologram in the middle, and when you shoot, it's got kind of a spinner a la ... Yes. Tales of the Rabianites. That also then syncs and captures your balls and everything, but it also then winds up bringing up two holographic images on the left and right side that are two different kinds of playfields also. So everything, you never zoom into a play field, a mini play field, it all pops up there on the table. Yeah. And once I started getting that stuff opened and everything, I really started enjoying it a lot. Yeah, you went, oh, I have to go and do that again. You want the table to actually make you go, I must get up to that point again, which is why I think the aliens table is just so attractive, because you want to get to all the modes. You go, oh, I got to levels. I got to mode six. Oh, I wonder what mode seven is. And it drives you to go forward and drives you to replay it. I think that's the secret to Zen tables. That's what they need to design. They need to make you want to come back. And a lot of them don't. Yeah, don't. So here's my invitation to everybody. If you want to join in in this kind of fun and join in in the taunting, I welcome it. Taunt me. at ShutYourTraps on Twitter and just tell me what table it is that you just crushed my score on and we'll see if I take you up on the challenge or not. Like I said, there are certain people that if they come in and say they crushed my score, I'm going to look at their score and go, yep, you sure did. You sure did. I'm not going to go there at all because I'm never going to get there. See, for me, it's hard because, of course, scores are not cross-platform. So I would not be able to compete with you on Steam and give you absolute flogging. So I could only play on Android. And we've got some good players on Android too, I think. I don't know if Sven hangs out on Android. I think he actually just sticks around on Steam a lot. But we have Neil Treby, who's also in the Farsight beta testing volunteers as well. And he's a very good player on the tables. He's always first in my leaderboards. And I usually, there's another guy called Dirk who is mad, mad07 on the forums. So he is a pretty good player as well, actually, on there. And I've managed to beat some of his scores occasionally, but I'm usually around third or second on most tables. So I need to lift out my game. So I'll have a go this week as well, see if I can get some time on the Star Wars tables and see how my score's going. I'll post my leaderboard screen that I get at the end of each game to show you where I'm currently sitting so everyone can follow along at home. And, gang, on Steam, I'm pretty much across every platform. I'm ShutYourTrap or ShutYourTraps. Sometimes they make me add the S because apparently somebody else already took the name. All you have to do is just look at the games. If you see Zen Pinball and Pinball Arcade in there, that's me. Go ahead and friend me. Pretty much anybody that asks, so long as I see that they're playing pinball, I say, yep, you can be my friend. Then you can look at my scores and play it that way. seriously I wish Pinball Arcade did what Zen does with the as you're playing seeing who's next up on the scores you're chasing because it just it just magnifies for me the fun of it because I'll be just bashing along not even thinking about it and all of a sudden boom the notice pops up hey you're almost it and also the palms get sweaty oh I can take care of that score and then if you don't oh, that's exactly the motivation for me to go right back into the game. Yeah, me too. I love it. I'm so close. Their total score is fantastic. They totally need to do that on Pimble. The Pimble routine is, oh, well, let me go check the leaderboards, and you go check the leaderboards, and then you're looking, and you've got to cycle into your friends, and then you've got to remember, oh, okay, so I have $28 million there at $34 million. Okay, fine. So then you go and you play the game, and sure enough, you get that $34 million, and then you're like, oh, but I was in sixth place, this person was in fifth place, so now who's one through four? Exactly. Whereas on Steam, it's always telling you who the next person is, who the next person is, until you become number one. And then even then, it pops up, well, now you've got to beat the super score of this person, which is a combination of all your scores across all the tables. Oh, is that right? Okay. Yeah, that's awesome. They really need to do that. And again, like we were talking about on a couple of episodes ago where FastLock had their own sort of account system, they need to utilize that a lot more to do this type of thing. It's just so logical for them to do it, but they don't seem to. So it's one of those things that I can just think of the answer now. Yes, we'd love to make an integrated FastLock ID system that allows you to track everything. That would be the response. Yeah. I think the response that I got a long time ago regarding that was, well, Zen is a custom program and we are dealing with ROMs and emulation. Oh. Right. I see. Okay. All right. So, Sven, hello, stranger, who had some weird, bizarre login name. It's a different account I use for YouTube. I see. And it depends on... Excuse me. I'm a bit surprised. Usually when I'm in Google Plus or Hangout, it uses automatically my other... my real name handle, but no, it doesn't. But anyway, now you know who I am. Yes. So now that you've heard my assessment and Jared's agreement on all the various Zen Star Wars tables, do you agree with any of my assessments? Yeah the first one of course being balance of the force I really despise this table it's terrible it's horrible when you asked me to exclude this out of our little war I immediately said yes please no discussion about that I'm quite curious the droids table. Yeah. That was one of the tables I didn't buy on Android, I believe, when they had the last sale because I didn't like it very much. But playing it today and looking a bit into the rules and so it turned out to be quite a nice table. It is. Once you can get any of the modes started, then it... The modes are a blast, and they're hard. They are difficult. But the modes themselves are really fun. It's just getting them started that's a little bit tricky. Yeah. I don't like The Force Awakens that much, to put it on rank one. It's a nice table. I like to play it. I think the one I like most is probably the Starfighter's Table. Really? Starfighter Assault? Yes, yes. I think that's the one I played most. I agree with you on the ones, Han Solo and what was it? Boba Fett, Darth Vader. Boba Fett is a different story. Darth Vader, I agree. Boba Fett I played today. You remember? Yeah, I do. That's the other table that he... He tweeted that he'd beat me on droids in Boba Fett, and then I tweeted him back, these are not the droids you're looking for. I hate you for that. But Boba Fett, the score he posted, that's going to be very, very tough for me to take care of. By the way, you were talking about Boba Fett and the timed shots. Yeah. You know that when you get to the bounty, you have the selection between 10 million, 20 million, 30 million, 40 million and 50 million I have seen that and I figured that portion out what I have not been able to figure out is what the heck are the missiles and how do you use them I haven't figured that out yet I could have looked it up but I was too lazy you are aware of the table descriptions which are on the blog of Zenpinball or ZenScript with all the detailed descriptions I'm pretty sure this will be mentioned there but as I said it's the same for me, I don't know what they do but depending on whether you choose 10 million 20 million and so on I think the timer is different on their shop. Yeah, if you pick 10 million, there's no timer at all. If you pick 40 million, it's a very quick timer. Yeah. But even if you're not doing the missions with the timers, even if you're just doing the combo ramps, they time out so fast. And the way the ball drops into your flippers, you're having to do a live flick. It's not even a roll and flick. There's no time to catch the ball and flick. It's just, I don't know. Yeah, that's true. But anyway, I like it. And the other table you didn't seem to like is the other one from the both new ones. What was the name? Might of First Order? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I pretty much like that, yeah. Maybe, I'm not sure whether more or on the same level as Force Awakens. I think they are both nice tables. There you go. Difference of opinions. And Rebels. Rebels is a nice one as well. Rebels is fun. I like it. I like it. So Jared is, all of our listeners, you can be thankful. Jared has a hard out today, so we're not going to go terribly long. I was here last time. That was pretty long. So I was talking about. It was all my fault. It was all your fault. It was all your fault, Swim. We're going to make sure that's not your fault anymore. we're going to mute you again. Bye, Sven. Talk to you next week. Bye-bye. Yeah, that's good. The mystery is solved. Oh, yeah, look, I was looking at the leaderboard scores for me on The Force Awakens, and yeah, it's like, it's always Martin Rosby. Like, for me, I'm sitting at about 66 million on that one, and Martin is like 265 million. So... I mean, that's... a huge difference. When you have to four times your score, your best score... I can't do that. It's very reminiscent of our talk last week. I want to highlight briefly one thing that came about with the tournament. Junkyard being one of the tables. Turns out that Junkyard is one of those tables that does Midnight Madness if your clock turns midnight. Midnight Madness scoring bonanza. So what people have been doing in the tournament is setting their internal clock on their machine while they're playing it so they can actually have a chance to score well on that table because getting to outer space in a 10 minute time period is really tough. It's not impossible but you've got to be nailing everything perfect. I just thought that was interesting that one more of those things where if Farsight would be able to put in tournament rules that would not be an exploit. That's right, it would turn off Midnight Madness deactivated, yeah. There was a few people that once they discovered that that was possible, they pretty much threw up their hands in disgust and were like, alright, I'm not even going to try for that table score anymore. Yeah, this is uncalled shenanigans. Let me go and get my broom. Right. And speaking of Farsight, they've done a bit of an extra beta on Android that they're testing at the moment on the back of the last release, which was 8Ball Deluxe to respond to a lot of the feedback they been getting about EM flipper noises from certain individuals Me being one of them They have put in the hum, the hold hum noise for the flippers, which is great, but the problem is at the moment, it's not in the Android sound pool. So there's a 250 millisecond delay between your flipping, the flipper holding, and the sound playing. and it actually got me looking into more of the flipper-related stuff from a sound effects perspective, and I've noticed a few bugs which I've told them about. And if you're on Android at the moment, the latest build, public build, will have this problem as well, so you can play along at home. But if you listen through headphones, you'll notice that there's actually no flipper stroke sound anymore in the game. And there is actually a sound when the flipper goes back to its rest position. they've got that sound in there but there's actually no flip noise anymore and it hasn't been in there for a while I think so that's another thing that needs to be fixed and as I thought would happen with the hold noise there's two ways they could solve the problem with having the flip sound come in and then the hold sound trigger as well and that is to record the flipper stroke and hold noise as one sound sample, as like a 10-second sound sample, for example. So you have zero delay when you actually flip and then hold. So it's just like one continuous sound bite rather than being stitched together like they do now with the audio. Right. And then maybe add in for people who are holding the flipper up for more than 10 seconds, put in an extra sound for like an extra hold loop that just plays over and over again in a loop. because at the moment what it does is they've recorded the hold winding sound for about seven seconds. So it loops and there's a definite cut between each looping point and it just sounds like, I just hear it and I go, no. Yeah. And so I think they really need to actually record the stroke and hold sound as one sound bite and make it like 10 seconds because no one really on an EM will be holding a ball for longer than 10 seconds anyhow. No. So I think that would be a good user experience. In real life, you didn't do that because the carbon arcing smell would make you think you're about to fry the table, and people would start giving you dirty looks, so you'd go ahead and just flip the ball just so that, you know. Yeah, that's right. You didn't get kicked off the table for abusing it. The other thing that I've got a problem with the whole winding, which I'm sure will be fixed because we are feeding back quite a lot of information to them about it, is the fact that the sound itself is really quiet. and if you've been in front of an EM with a winding hold noise, you know it's loud. It is really, really quite loud. Like when you hold it, the whole machine actually vibrates if it's badly maintained and it gets an audible hum whereas this is really quiet and it's because Farsight claim that when they do the audio, they mix it with a glass off sort of audio mix then this is definitely not glass off. This is more glass on, but even quieter than glass on. So I said, yeah, you need to boost it about 50% and sort of make it about the same volume as the pop bumper sounds in the game because if they're coils, they should be making the same sort of volume level matched with the other coils in the game. So, yeah, that's the feedback I've given them. Let's see what they can roll in to it. I even did videos, and in response to some of the guys on the forum that were having a few issues with finding out where they were in the tournament, they've also rolled into this beta some buttons that you can use to sort your position in the tournament. So they've taken away all the table sort buttons, like all the grouping buttons, and just put two in there. There's a few, I guess, usability issues that I found in the beta, which I've told them about. and hopefully they'll be able to address those issues. Just like what, I don't know if it's like this on Steam, but they seem to overload the meaning of the buttons where the button is actually a label as well. So almost like a heading for the view. So, for example, if you've got like a list of people, like a leaderboard list, then the label might be top score. So the button label might be, you know, top score. But then if you tap it, the button label changes to, like, individual score, like your own score. But the thing is that with a button, you need to know what state it will do when you tap it, not the current state. So buttons should always be future state. And what they are at the moment is current state. So I've told them that's wrong and you need to change that. Or one of the two things you can do, you can actually change the button to be future state or you can actually make a proper heading on the page that takes the label out and then changes the button label or something like change listing or something like that. You know, just a little bit of better UX on the buttons there. But that's just a minor quibble. The fact that we can actually now group and sort on the tournament results is good. Yeah, definitely good. Yes, as opposed to having to go to a separate website, which is what we've been having to do. Which is no good. No fun. Yeah, it's not the most efficient way of doing things. No. I also want to just kind of highlight something I've been doing the past. Well, I just finished the other day, but I've been doing it for 22 days in a row. It was this push-up challenge. And it was do 22 push-ups a day for 22 days. And basically what it was for was to raise awareness for post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers or former military because every single day 22 individuals commit suicide due to being overcome by post-traumatic stress disorder. That's 22 people too many. 22 people too many, yeah. So what started out, basically I was alerted to this challenge because one of our forum members, Leroy III, he was doing the challenge, started posting. And it was supposed to be then you're supposed to challenge somebody else and that whole ice bucket thing. Yeah, I don't go for that. I don't like the peer pressure. So I was just like, you know, it's interesting. I'm not going to wait for him to challenge me. I'm just going to do it. So I did post this stuff on Twitter, never got a response, which doesn't surprise me because it was all linked through my Instagram. So if you want to see... I didn't see any videos or anything playing. Were there videos? It's videos, but it was basically a link to my Instagram. So the easier way is just go to my Instagram account and yes, you guessed it, Just look up Shut Your Traps, and there you go. And you'll see the videos. I tried to do a different push-up every single day, a different type of push-up to try and keep it interesting, and there were a few that were kind of comical. Yeah, the one that I didn't actually go and watch any of the videos because I was expecting them to sort of start playing, and I went to the tweet and I was going, why aren't these playing? Whatever. And I just backed out. but there was one of them that had you in a frame doing push-ups on two tennis balls but your feet were on a block that's just insane yeah there was a few stunt push-ups that I was doing so anyway I just wanted to highlight because it is a good cause and it's one of those things where go ahead and do it for yourself not to mention hey you feel good at the end of the day we have to do 22 push-ups I could actually do 22 push-ups I could do 22 lady push-ups that's what Leroy was starting off with and by the end of his session he was actually able to do 5 manly push-ups manly push-ups there you go chip away one push-up at a time the last thing I was going to mention is I'm rather looking forward to doing this and whenever I get a chance to recommend this particular movie I do because I think it's a brilliantly fun and we're so far away from when it was released that you probably, if you have not seen it or heard of it, then you don't know anything about it, and that's the best way to go into it. So I'll ask you, Jared, have you ever seen a movie called The Descent? The Descent? I don't think so. Well, do yourself a favor and watch it, and I'm saying this to everybody. So here's the point. Do not read any descriptions about it. Right. Just watch the movie. Because the less you know about it, the more fun it is. I will say what the basic premise is, and that is a group of adventurer women go cave diving. Oh, yeah. Okay. And things go a little bit wrong in the cave. And if you suffer from any kind of claustrophobia, this is going to be the scariest movie you've ever seen. Okay. So warning, claustrophobics may not want to watch this unless they're in a well-lit room during the day. Right. Now, it is also a horror movie, which means that when accidents happen, they're kind of grisly. And accidents do happen. Because it's a horror movie. It wouldn't be a horror movie unless accidents happen. What I'm excited about is I am going to be lending this movie to somebody that I know tomorrow, and I can't wait to hear their response because they've already told me that they are deeply claustrophobic. See, I can't watch. There's a lot of horror movies or, like, you know, slash flicks I wouldn't mind watching, but the problem is that my wife hates them. She will refuse to watch them on movie night, so I would need to go and just hire them out and just watch them on my commute into the city or something like that. Yeah. She'll stay. Yeah, she just hard passes them all the time. Nope, not watching them. yeah and I don't know if you'd be able to sucker her into something like this it's a very slow build in terms of like you might get 20 minutes in and not realize what kind of movie you're about to be getting into that kind of thing so I don't know if she wouldn't go for it anyway so I'll hopefully be able to report back to you next week then what this guy's response was because I think it's going to be a one of those I've had a hidden camera while he was watching it moment I'll see if I can fit it in I'll see if I can maybe get it out and hire it and download it and watch it over the course of the week on my commutes in it's called The Descent it's directed by Neil Marshall I believe is his name who I think is an Aussie okay anyway that's enough of my nonsense let's let Jared get out of here at a decent time yeah that's right because look we're actually ahead of schedule it's 7 minutes ahead we're ahead but that just leads us to hey if you want to talk to us at all why don't you go ahead and follow us on twitter at blockade or you can follow Jared at jaredmorgs or myself at shutyourtraps want to send us an email go ahead and do that we are at blahblahblockade at gmail.com or you can just go to our website blockadepinball.com all the good info is right there that's where you can also download all of our episodes see all the timing notes of basic descriptions of what everything is going on in the show so that you can fast forward right to your favorite moment because we know that that's what you people do. That's right. Yeah, so enjoy. Enjoy. Fantastic. Well, hey, happy Father's Day to you. Thank you. For you in that weird time. We here in America are having Labor Day which means three-day weekend and I have no idea what's going on for Xenia in Germany. Probably beer. that's a default thing that is sausage pure sausage sounds good to me is it sausage or bratwurst I'm going to go with bratwurst alright so until next time play some pinball huh yeah see you later guys alright bye bye wizardamusement.com the west coast league of classic pinball makers of custom pinball shooter rods and buyer specifications swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table. Installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools. Even if you don't own a table, looks great as a pimple memento to admire. Prices start at $39, but mention Blockhead Podcast and receive 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization. Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockhead is delivered to. You can't prove unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and place it in board.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: b3b07e41-bdec-4cde-8c00-70d7ec807c23*