# Shifting Sands

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2019-04-24  
**Duration:** 63m 33s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/Shifting-Sands-e1bkfpe

---

## Analysis

Chris and Jared discuss technical issues with the Williams Pinball app, including crashing ads, account reset problems, and significant recent balance changes that reduced coin earnings and table part rewards. Chris extensively analyzes the game's progression economy, demonstrating through tracked data that free-to-play players cannot keep up with table release schedules, effectively creating a paywall. They also discuss strategy differences across daily challenge modes and how Zen physics differs from real machine physics.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Crashing ads in Williams Pinball app can be reported via a button in the lower left corner, immediately removing the ad without watching it — _Chris describes testing this method successfully: 'if you push that symbol, up pops a window saying Report this ad... boom—ad goes away, and I'm immediately into the game'_
- [HIGH] Williams Pinball app requires Google Play Games activation before use, which is not automatic and causes account reset issues when logging in on new phones — _Jared's experience: 'it had that horrible guest 1,258... So I had to log out. Not log out—I had to close the game completely... it's got my correct username, but I'm back to 1 XP'_
- [HIGH] Recent Williams Pinball app update (day 27) reduced table part earnings significantly: Pro 15-star goals now award 3 parts instead of 6, and daily coin earnings dropped from 7 to 3 — _Chris's tracked data: 'I had been averaging seven coins a day... I'm only earning three coins... If you did the 15-star goal on Pro, you were getting six table parts. Now you only get three.'_
- [HIGH] Free-to-play players collecting for all 13 tables in Williams Pinball require minimum 92 days to collect parts, but new table packs release every 45-56 days, making progression impossible without payment — _Chris's calculation: 'You're going to need 1,300 parts. It's going to take you 92 days minimum... the next table pack after this one is going to release anywhere from 45 to 56 days after that. So you're going to have now 16 tables to collect for.'_
- [HIGH] Williams Pinball app still displays excess table parts collected but provides no way to spend or convert them, leading to waste — _Chris: 'I have over 300 extra Safecracker parts that just go nowhere—just extra... In the game itself, it doesn't show that I have those extra parts.'_
- [MEDIUM] Zen Studios acknowledged table part collection issue as a bug but it remains unfixed despite continued reports — _Chris: 'somebody had gotten a response from Zen saying, Oh, that's a bug. They shouldn't be collecting extra parts. Well, we're still collecting extra parts, folks.'_
- [HIGH] Champion Pub's optimal scoring strategy relies almost exclusively on the left-hand saucer fight mode, making other table shots feel pointless — _Chris: 'The best way to score in Champion Pub is over on the left-hand side... You can get your health meter all the way to about two bars from the top. That'll be $4 million for the purse... that's the only fun shot on that table'_
- [HIGH] Playing Williams Pinball with Zen physics trains muscle memory that transfers poorly to real pinball machines using Williams physics — _Chris: 'I'm so used to playing them with Zen physics, that as soon as you then go to a real machine... it screws up your muscle memory'_

### Notable Quotes

> "Well, not only is it quicker than watching the ad, but then the ad doesn't crash the app."
> — **Chris Freebus**, early section
> _Practical workaround discovered for app-breaking ads that users previously had no solution for_

> "I was tracking all my data, and everything was rock solid. I was seeing the patterns. I knew exactly what to expect. So I went and I wrote this big old article about... And all of a sudden everything was changing."
> — **Chris Freebus**, mid-section
> _Illustrates frustration at app changes invalidating weeks of documented research and analysis_

> "So you're going to have now 16 tables to collect for. See how quickly you fall behind? Yes. Very, very quickly."
> — **Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan**, mid-section
> _Demonstrates the core economic problem: table release pace outpaces free-to-play progression_

> "if I'm not even able to—where I am at my stage of collecting, if I'm not even going to be able to keep up with the table releases for doing it free, then it's a paywall. Then it is absolutely 100% hitting a paywall. You may as well just buy them."
> — **Chris Freebus**, late section
> _Core thesis: recent changes have made free-to-play progression mathematically impossible_

> "So you're basically get to buy the tables, but you still got to watch ads."
> — **Jared Morgan**, late section
> _Critiques Zen's freemium model where even paying customers still see ads_

> "I could play the crap out of a TPA table, and then you put me in front of a real table, and I'd just be like all thumbs."
> — **Jared Morgan**, late section
> _Acknowledges long-standing problem with virtual pinball physics training not transferring to real machines_

> "For science. Yeah. So, like I said, look, I'm still having fun with the Daily Challenge. I still look forward to when it resets. But I'm very frustrated if they've made things worse instead of making them better."
> — **Chris Freebus**, late section
> _Despite enjoying the app, Chris expresses core frustration that recent changes hurt rather than helped_

> "Because they're basically charging $10 a pack... for 10 bucks a pack, that—again, if you know that you're that kind of person that A is going to like the game and B is going to want all the things, then yeah, that's a no-brainer."
> — **Jared Morgan**, late section
> _Identifies the intended pricing model: $10 per table pack for completionists_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Williams Pinball app | product | Digital pinball game platform by Zen Studios featuring challenge modes, daily challenges, table collection progression system, freemium monetization with ads, and in-game currency (coins, tickets, table parts). Recently received significant balance changes affecting progression economy. |
| Zen Studios | company | Developer of Williams Pinball app and other digital pinball platforms. Acknowledged bug with excess table parts collection but has not fixed it. Handles customer account resets and progressive table pack releases. |
| Chris Freebus | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast. Also goes by 'Shut Your Trap' alias. Conducted extensive multi-week data tracking and economic analysis of Williams Pinball app progression systems, wrote detailed article about optimal monetization strategies, sent findings to Zen Studios. |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast. Located 'halfway across the world' from Chris. Recently reset his Williams Pinball account while setting up new phone, received 'Buy All Tables' offer during new user state, playing Netherworld with Medieval Madness machine locally. |
| Mel | person | Contact at Zen Studios. Chris sent email with Williams Pinball app findings to Mel asking for forwarding to relevant team members, received no response for two days. |
| Champion Pub | game | Classic pinball table featured in Williams Pinball app. Discussed extensively as having poor game design: requires grinding the left saucer fight mode for optimal scoring, all other shots feel worthless, Pro 15-star challenge requires $32 million score, Premium One Ball challenge is 'brutal.' |
| Medieval Madness | game | Pinball table in Williams Pinball app and real machines at Netherworld arcade. Challenge strategy changes significantly based on mode: drawbridge shooting optimal for multi-ball challenges, ball lock strategy optimal for one-ball mode. Zen physics allows repeated drawbridge shots similar to real machines. |
| Safecracker | game | Pinball table in Williams Pinball app. Chris collected excessive parts (300+) for this table. Unique challenge scaling: 5-star Survival goal (350k) is harder than 10-star or 15-star goals (600k each). |
| Attack from Mars | game | Pinball table in Williams Pinball app. Strategy varies significantly depending on challenge type, similar to Medieval Madness. |
| Fishtales | game | Pinball table in Williams Pinball app. Captive ball shot is center drain risk in one-ball mode but worth pursuing in five-minute or survival challenges for video mode access. |
| Getaway | game | Pinball table in Williams Pinball app. Chris tracking score data for Premium Challenges with 'almost all' scores documented. |
| Theater of Magic | game | Pinball table in Williams Pinball app. Chris tracking score data for Premium Challenges with 'almost all' scores documented. |
| Google Play Games | product | Android gaming service that requires manual activation before Williams Pinball app can recognize user accounts. Not automatically enabled; must be explicitly logged into. Failure to set up causes account reset issues when logging into app on new phone. |
| The Pinball Arcade (TPA) | product | Previous virtual pinball platform by Farsight Studios. Known for physics that don't transfer well to real machines. Jared noted muscle memory from TPA translates poorly to real table play. |
| Netherworld | location | Pinball arcade venue where Jared and Chris play. Features Medieval Madness machine, frequently used in tournaments. Real Medieval Madness displays different drawbridge ejection mechanics than Williams Pinball app Zen physics version. |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Williams Pinball app monetization economy, Free-to-play progression balance and paywall implementation, App technical issues (crashing ads, account resets, data persistence), Table part collection system imbalance and excess inventory
- **Secondary:** Challenge mode strategy and table-specific optimization, Virtual vs. real pinball physics and muscle memory transfer, Zen Studios customer service and communication responsiveness
- **Mentioned:** Freemium game monetization best practices (daily login bonuses, double XP weekends)

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.72) — Chris expresses significant frustration with recent app balance changes that undermined weeks of research and made free-to-play progression mathematically impossible. Jared acknowledges similar frustrations with technical issues and poor monetization design. Both hosts enjoy the actual gameplay but are critical of systemic economic design and lack of developer responsiveness. Frustration is fact-based and documented rather than emotional venting.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Williams Pinball app free-to-play model is mathematically broken: 92-day collection period for 13 tables vs. 45-56 day release cycle means players collecting for all tables cannot progress without payment (confidence: high) — Chris's detailed calculation: '1,300 parts... 92 days minimum... next table pack... 45 to 56 days after that... now 16 tables to collect for. See how quickly you fall behind?'
- **[community_signal]** Chris conducting ongoing community data collection for Williams Pinball app: tracking all Premium Challenge scores for AFM, Getaway, Theater of Magic, etc.; sacrificing game performance to map exact score thresholds for research purposes (confidence: high) — Chris: 'I've already said I'm going to be keeping track of all my data... AFM is completely filled in... There's been plenty of times when I've been playing and I've purposely not shot a jackpot... For science'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Dedicated player frustration with Zen Studios responsiveness: Chris sent detailed findings/bug reports to Mel 2 days without response; balance changes made without explanation; players discovering issues independently rather than through communication (confidence: medium) — Chris: 'I don't hear anything for two days... all of a sudden I see those things happening... I was like the main thing you guys gotta do'
- **[design_philosophy]** Table design imbalance in Williams Pinball app: Champion Pub's left saucer fight mode is overwhelmingly dominant strategy, making other shots (jackpot ramp, etc.) feel irrelevant; creates monotonous optimal play pattern (confidence: high) — Chris: 'The best way to score in Champion Pub is over on the left-hand side... there's nothing... like the only fun shot on that table is hitting the jackpot ramp... that jackpot ramp is not worth that much'
- **[market_signal]** Zen Studios app still includes ads even for paying customers; Premium Challenge access (200 coins) still requires 25 ticket payment per play plus ad watches, creating dual monetization on already-paid content (confidence: high) — Jared: 'You basically get to buy the tables, but you still got to watch ads... you still have to pay 25 tickets every time to play it' even after purchasing
- **[market_signal]** Williams Pinball app table pack pricing established at $10 per 10-table pack; $30 USD / $45 AUD initial offer for Volume 3, expected to increase to $40 for Volume 4 as pack sizes grow (confidence: high) — Jared: '$45 Australian at the moment, which I think probably would translate to around $30... when Volume 4 comes, it's going to be $40, because they're basically charging $10 a pack'
- **[product_concern]** Williams Pinball app crashing ads (interactive ads specifically) were crashing app before/after table plays, creating scenario where ads blocked reward collection. Report button workaround bypasses without crashing. (confidence: high) — Chris identified specific crashing ads by icon in lower-left corner, tested report workaround successfully, prevented crashes and preserved rewards
- **[product_concern]** Williams Pinball app balance patch (day 27) reduced coin earnings by ~57% (7 to 3 coins/day) and table parts by 50% on Pro challenges, destabilizing progression economy that was previously predictable (confidence: high) — Chris's 4-week tracked data showing consistent pattern broken on day 27; coin averages dropping from 7 to 3, then anomalously to 11, then back to 3
- **[technology_signal]** Physics translation problem: Zen Studios' Williams Pinball Zen physics train muscle memory that conflicts with real Williams machines' actual physics, causing performance degradation when switching to physical machines (confidence: high) — Chris and Jared both note transfer failure from TPA/Zen physics to real machines; Chris: 'I'm so used to playing them with Zen physics... it screws up your muscle memory'
- **[technology_signal]** Williams Pinball app account reset bug: Google Play Games activation is not automatic or intuitive; new phone setup creates guest account; restarting app may require full game restart to recognize proper account; reset process itself is not reversible without Zen support intervention (confidence: high) — Jared's experience: started as 'Guest 1,258,' logged into GPG, still showed Guest, restarted, got correct account but reset to 1 XP with no tables unlocked
- **[technology_signal]** Critical design flaw: Williams Pinball app allows excess table parts to be collected indefinitely but provides no display of totals, no conversion mechanism, and no prevention system, creating frustration and perceived waste (confidence: high) — Chris documented 300+ excess Safecracker parts with no outlet; Zen acknowledged as bug but remains unfixed; Jared confirms same frustration of not knowing accumulated excess

---

## Transcript

 this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are listening to the BlahCade Pinball Podcast I am your host, Chris Freemus, aka ShutYourTraffic. Joining me as always, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hello. For those of you wondering what that was, you know, from the last podcast. That's right. So do that, but not now, because you're in the middle of this one now. Yes, and if you've been playing the Williams Pinball app and going through the ads, then you certainly know what I'm talking about. it's a little in joke for those people who actually listen to the ads my favorite new in joke or not in joke but i i haven't seen it in a while but also i got hey guys i've got this really i don't normally do this there's this really super fun game and it's super awesome you should super check it out because like i can't stand saying super enough here let me throw the baby Wow. Okay. You might have haven't seen that one. It's for a... I think it was called Blitz 21 or something like that. So it's a card game. But you wouldn't know that because the entire video is nothing but this dude holding his baby and saying super way too many times. Why is he holding a baby if it's like a card game? It makes... It's literally the cheapest video video that they possibly could have made to advertise a game and they're not advertising the game at all. They're just talking rubbish. Then showing the game shot at the end with install now. Pretty much. Terrific. Yeah. Wow. It's fantastic. Yeah. I think, you know, I think the reason, unfortunately, I think we're being trolled here. You and I, because we're talking about these crappy ads and that's kind of what you want us to do. Unfortunately, Mr. Slots era is going, ah, yes, we got a free advertising. We'll get 0.111 more impression out of the extra coverage. Look, if you're going to have to sit through these things, you're going to have to learn how to laugh at them and resist the urge to click on any of them. That's the important thing. I have no problem with that. I've gone one further. We're going to get into that. Folks, I had a Twitter tantrum the other day. Oh, yes, I read it. Yes, we'll get into that in a moment here. But there are certain ads that were crashing the app every single time you watched one. And they were the ads that were interactive. I've now know which ones those specifically are, mainly because when they start up, if you look in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, really, really, really, really tiny is a little symbol. if you push that symbol up pops a window saying report this ad and why would you like to report it now unfortunately they don't have a thing that says because it crashes but I push other and then I push submit and boom ad goes away and I'm immediately into the game or getting my rewards so I avoided crashing so you tap the little button and it's quicker than watching the ad well not only is it quicker than watching the ad but then the ad doesn't excuse you the ad doesn't crash the app. Because that was the thing. It's one thing if you watch the ad before you're supposed to play the table. Okay, fine, it crashed. Whatever, you start back up. 30 seconds wasted. It was another thing when you're like, you just took my reward from me, damn it. Yeah, yes. That's cranky business right there. Yes. Well, I've had my own set of challenges with the Williams Pimble app this week as well. You got a new phone. Yeah, I got a new phone. Well, it did, yes, because what I did when we were first trying the beta of the mobile app, for ages I hadn't set up Google Play Games, which is basically like Game Center on iOS. And for you to be able to use Google Play Games, you first got to log into it. It's not just part of your Google experience. It's not just there ready to go. You had to actually kind of activate it. and that just involves logging in or allowing Google to access it. So I hadn't done that on the new phone and I started up Williams Pinball and it went, oh, okay, new user. And it had that horrible guest 1, 2, 5, 8, 6, you know, millions of characters. Yeah, millions. I went, oh, okay, this is probably not a good sign. And I went, okay, well, look, I'll just tap the, in the game, there's a little Google Play Games, PlayStation looking controller button that you press and that will open up Google Play Games and that will allow you to log on to Google Play Games. So I did that, told it, yes, I'd like to use my account. And then it still displayed guest. So I had to log out and not log out. I had to close the game completely. I thought, oh, it probably just needs a restart and it'll be fine. No, so I logged back in and started the game up again. And it's got my correct username, but I'm back to 1 XP, not 26 XP, and no tables unlocked at all or anything. I'm basically back to fresh, fresh, brand-new player, which is interesting because I got presented the buy all the tables offer when I did that. So if you don't care about your progress in XP and you haven't yet got that offer available to you, I guess that's a method of actually seeing the offer presented to you for all 10 games that you could buy it. I wouldn't recommend it, though. But it was good because I was able to give you the data you needed for a first-time user, which is, I guess, I'll take one for the team and consider that a user research. data that I wanted and because I was writing a nice big juicy article about how to properly gauge your interest in how to approach the game and so you can be positive through it and then the monkey wrench got thrown at me and I spazzed out and now I'm very angry. You're triggered. I was triggered. Why'd you get triggered at Williams Pinball? I've been treated for a while now rather than later we can do that let's rip off the band-aid shall we as you folks know I've been tracking my data what I'm collecting every day and you know this was born out of frustration of reading people's anecdotal posts about what I think was happening I think I've leveled up but now all of a sudden everything's gotten more difficult and I don't think I'm earning enough this or that. It was like, folks, we can map this. Let's figure this out. So yeah, I was tracking all my data and everything was, I mean, for four weeks, everything was rock solid. I was seeing the patterns. I knew exactly what to expect. So I went and I wrote this big old article about if you were a new user to the Williams app, what do you think you're going to want to do with the game? What's your approach to it? And it's best to just do exactly purchase all the tables right off the bat. Do you want to try and grind? If you're going to try and grind, what are your expectations? Because if you want to grind purely to level two for all the tables so that you can play all of them, but you have to be online and you don't care about visual enhancements and you don't care about the pro physics, then fine. Don't bother paying. This way you don't need to pay, and this is how long it's going to take you to earn. If you're wanting to fully unlock the tables all the way, bad news, you're going to have to pay. And get yourself to a certain amount of tables in your collection before you can actually start just turning the tables. And applying the grind model, but applying the grind model in a very focused and deliberate way. You've got to be dedicated. There's no doubt about it. You're going to have to be dedicated. So I was all set and everything, and I fired off an email to Mel with not the article but just some of my findings and said, hey, can you pass this along to whoever it is that deals with this stuff? Maybe they can comment and let me know if anything is in the works to make this better. That was the key point here, making it better. I don't hear anything for two days or whatever, and all of a sudden I get to day 27 of my collecting, and I notice, okay, great. No longer are the crashing ads happening. No longer are the tickets or the cards that – how you got five cards to flip. well in premium challenge on 5 star and 15 star goals one of those cards had disappeared you were still earning whatever it was you just didn't know what it was that you earned one day I noticed I was like hey wait a second I got extra table parts oh it must have been from that so anyway I said hey that's in there but I was like the main thing you guys gotta hard cap the table parts it's ridiculous and so all of a sudden I see those things happening and you know suddenly things are different and there's a ton more tickets being dished out. I was like, oh, interesting. So then I get to day 28, and I'm seeing that's consistent with what was on day 27, and I also know it's consistent that I'm only earning three coins. And more to the point, on the second day, I earned those coins in the premium challenge on the 10-star goal. So if you were playing anything previous, you wouldn't have gotten a coin for that entire day. I had been averaging seven coins in the day, and that just sent me off because I'd written this whole thing, and all of a sudden, everything was changing. Oh, by the way, 10 fewer table parts a day because they reorganized how the table parts are earned. Now, I should point out, if you are purely earning table parts via basic and advanced challenge, it's the same. You're not going to really notice a difference. I think it's one fewer table part, and that's it. If you're playing pro and premium, that's where the big hit gets taken, because if you did the 15-star goal on pro, you were getting six table parts. Now you only get three. Well, then what's the point? Well, I mean, there's still a point, but you're earning significantly fewer table parts. Yeah, for essentially a ticket spend plus an unlock spend. Yes. Yeah, so what's the point? well the point is the point is though that they're giving now they're giving like almost 200 tickets in the pro level in just like the 15 star goal right I mean there's a significantly larger amount of tickets that are being dropped in this well tickets are tickets are the disposable currency though like they're like yes but there's enough people that were but but for people that are trying to upgrade especially to level three when it's 3,000 tickets tickets are all the thing that you want. I mean, it's like, come on, I'm running out of tickets too fast. I can't upgrade even my most basic to get them up. It was that huge cliff you had to climb to actually get the 3,000 tickets. It's nice that there's all of a sudden this large amount of tickets. It's bad that there's fewer table parts, except for the point, and now check this out. So, I had all the table parts I needed for, I was down to just collecting for Champion Pub and for Safecracker. And I had all the parts that I needed as of day 16 of collecting. I didn't fully upgrade to level 4 Champion Pub until day 21. In that time span, I earned 96 Champion Pub parts. Right. Then, to date... Now, at the same time, I was also collecting Safecracker parts. to date I have over 300 extra safecracker parts that just go nowhere just extra so it's like guys you either got to cap the parts because if I'm collecting for all sorts of other tables I'm going to be so annoyed that's absolutely annoying and the thing is as a regular user not tracking the data you wouldn't actually know exactly how many extra parts you've collected you instead just get that sensation of, God, I'm getting that again? You know, especially when you're like, and this happened to me, I was only four table parts away from one of my tables, and I just kept on getting a different table. And I'm like, come on, I just need four more parts, that's it! And I wasn't getting them. And that was just me collecting for two tables. So if I'm collecting for all ten tables, that's good. Yeah, you get wrecked. Get rekt. So frustrating. So if they're not going to, and somebody had gotten a response from Zen saying, oh, that's a bug. They shouldn't be collecting extra parts. Well, we're still collecting extra parts, folks. So if that's going to remain, then they need to allow us to actually collect. Because the only reason why I know this number is because, again, I'm tracking, and I just added them all up. In the game itself, it doesn't show that I have those extra parts. No, it doesn't say 500 of 300 parts. Right, but they should, if they're going to, especially if they're going to knock down how many coins we're earning, then we need to be able to convert table parts into coins. Call it 10 table parts for one coin. I don't know, something, or five table parts for one coin. Something of that, there's got to be that kind of thing to help us in the collecting. so I had four days in a row of only earning three coins and then yesterday I earned 11 coins and I went oh hey maybe my tantrum worked and then I was playing today and I still have the 15 star reward on pro and I haven't played any of the premiums and I haven't gotten single coin yet so I don't think anything got fixed I think it was just an anomaly that I got this 11 coins in one day kind of thing so yeah that was why and I think though I think the main reason why I threw the tantrum though was because I literally had just written this I mean I spent an entire night writing it and had it all nice and organized and just to give you guys an example of the kind of things that I figured out if you were collecting from ground zero like Jared is right now like me like you and I just tell you guys the next volume is soon to come out I mean it probably I don know how many weeks but it right around the corner because we have it in beta So 13 tables, that's how many you got. You're going to need 1,300 parts. It's going to take you 92 days minimum to collect all those parts. That's if you're evenly spread out upgrading, or not upgrading, but getting the same tally all the way evenly distributed across them all up until you had the 170 needed total. So that's 92 days. Now, here's the problem. The next table pack after this one is going to release anywhere from 45 to 56 days after that. So you're going to have now 16 tables to collect for. See how quickly you fall behind? Yes. Very, very quickly. 100 coins. Now, when I was earning seven coins a day, and actually I think I figured this if you were just playing the... I'm not including if you were playing Premium Challenge. This is only if you were playing Basic, Advanced, and Pro. It would take you 34 days to earn 100 coins. right now if you want to earn 200 coins so that you can play premium it's going to take you 67 days so there's no way you would ever spend that many coins just to play something that rarely gives you coins exactly yeah it's so there was false economy yeah so there was all this kind of you know i'd broken it down and i'd said you know like in my case where i'm doing three only collecting for three tables, I had it figured that, oh, this is great. I'm going to have my third table fully upgraded. I'll have another two weeks minimum of collecting, which would give me another 100 coins for when the next pack comes in. By the time I get enough parts to fully upgrade one of those tables, I'll have yet another 100 coins. So I'll be able to rapidly upgrade, and in the end, before volume five drops, I would have 200 coins just waiting. So I would be ahead of the game. So technically, if you needed only four tables to upgrade, you'd be right keeping your head above water, right on the cusp. If you had five tables, too bad. You were not going to fall behind. So that's how close it is. Now, with how many coins I'm earning a day, if it sticks to three or averages to five, it throws the entire thing out of the way, and I won't even be able to keep up. Playing dedicated all day, every day. I wouldn't say all day, every day, but it's every day. Some of the challenges have made you play all day, every day. So Champion Pub One Ball can go to hell on premium. It is brutal. Well, I don't even have the totals for how much it costs. It's insane. But I can give you for pro one ball for the 15-star goal is $32 million, which… That's a big score on the champion pub. It's a big score, but here's the thing. I realize why I hate champion pub now. And I remember I had this exact same feeling when I was playing it in TPA trying to earn the goals, the wizard goals. The best way to score in champion pub is over on the left hand. there's a little saucer that's, I think it's in the corner or something like that. I can't remember what it's called, but it's where you do the spitting gallery shoot for that, right? It's the mode start and fight night start and extra ball. Or you earn the extra ball as well. Yeah, it's a really easy shot to hit. From a captured ball on the right flipper, drop the flipper, let the ball go right to the edge of the flipper, flip, boom, it's in, right? Every time you drop it in there, it raises the purse value of the fight. Right. and you can watch your health meter. Each time you do that, the health meter goes up just ever so slightly. For that first fight, you can get your health meter all the way to about two bars away from the top. That'll be $4 million for the purse. Then you capture it on the left-hand flipper, flip over to the ball lock, do the plunge for two times purse value. Now you're up to $8 million. Do it again for the second ball lock. Double that. Now you're at $16 purse value. Oh, wow. Okay. Now, for the first time, send it over to the jump rope. If you jump the rope 10 times, that's two times value. You're at suddenly $32 million. Wow. Now you've got to win the fight. Yeah. And I cannot tell you how many times I then lost the ball within two punches. Oh, Christ. Just infuriating. and the thing is it's the it's really the only way to get a good score especially on one ball quickly because that table there's nothing like the only fun shot on that table is hitting the jackpot ramp and that jackpot ramp is not worth that much I mean at its most it's what I think 1.5 million that's when you've completely totally maxed it and then you do one more shot and the jackpot ramp goes away completely you're not able to then score on it anymore yeah so it's like and that's everything else is catch and shoot and just start and stop and just so right yeah okay so that's the uh that's the negatives is that all the negative side well that was you know i started thinking about what are the most fun tables to do challenges on what are the least favorite. So, for instance, like Medieval Madness, depending on the challenge, it completely changes how you have to play the table. So, for instance, if you're playing 5-Minute Challenge with unlimited ball drains, go ahead and just shoot the drawbridge left and right as much as you can. I just had that as my premium challenge, and it's insanely hard to get the 15-star goal, because I had four drawbridges down, and that still wasn't enough. So you have to have four drawbridges, plus you're going to have to start a multiball of some sort to get jackpots going in order to complete that thing. I had one time where I literally missed the challenge by 200,000 points. Wow. Which, you know, I have no hair, and I was trying to pull out what isn't there. Yeah, that's very frustrating. Now, conversely, if you play Medieval Madness one ball, The last thing in the world you want to shoot is the drawbridge. So now with one ball, what you tend to want to do is you want to shoot the ball lock and try and get that three times just to get multiball quickly going. Once you have multiball, now you can shoot whatever the heck you want to shoot. Because the drawbridge remains active. The drawbridge remains active, exactly. And then if you're playing survival, that's when you tend to don't go for the drawbridges and don't go for ball lock. You're instead wanting to go and try and max out all the ramps and get multiball madness because of the quick, the short ball times that are going. Attack from Mars is similar in terms of different approach depending on the challenges. But like I said, Champion Pub, I use the exact same approach no matter what the challenge. Junkyard, same approach no matter what the challenge. Safecracker. Safecracker. Savecracker is interesting because if you were playing the survival challenge, the hardest is for the five-star goal. So, for instance, advanced survival, you need 350,000 to do that, right? Okay. But you've only got five lumps for survival. Five one-minute lumps, yeah. Right, and so they're bigger scores. when you get into the 10 star, the score you need is 600,000. So only an extra what? It's an extra 250,000 points, but now it's spread out over an additional five advancements. So you don't run out of time all that often. And then check this out. 15 star? It also is 600,000. I don't know why it's the exact same score. Dude, you get the 15 star with no problem. So it's really odd that the five-star winds up being the hardest goal of the three levels. It's weird. It is. Fishtails is another one that's good for you changing your style based off of, like if it's one ball, there's no way in hell you're shooting the captured ball because that's like an immediate center drain. But if you're playing in a five-minute or survival, then sure, why not? hit that and try and get your video mode going. Video mode and get some big score. Yeah. Yeah. And you're done. Yeah. It's just, I think that's what I like about the daily challenges, to be honest, is it's teaching me, training me different ways of approaching the tables and how best to manage it. So that when I'm playing a regular three ball game, well, those first two balls, I'm going to kind of play like it's survival in five minutes. And that final ball, I'm going to play like it's a one ball. That's right. So it's just a matter of changing up your approach. You know, it's interesting because we've got a medieval madness inside of Netherworld, and it's often in the tournament. And I am finding that I'm applying the Williams Pinball gameplay approaches to it, and my scores have got a lot better on it. Yeah. And what's interesting as well, that when you shoot the castle and it ejects from the moat, it will generally always stay on that left flipper if you hold it. So it allows you, at least the one that I've got, or that we've got at Netherworld, you can just constantly shoot that drawbridge over and over again, just like you can in Zen physics on Williams pinball. Yeah. So that in itself is interesting in the fact that it's kind of there, but for Zen physics, not for Williams physics. Right. Hmm. And I've changed the name there. That's for our discussion before the show, because that's any way you can do it. And that unfortunately is where the problem is, is with the challenges I'm so used to playing them with physics, that as soon as you then go to a real machine, which obviously is going to be using the Williams physics that Zen has done, it screws up your muscle memory. I mean, this is why I always had a problem with TPA. I could play the crap out of a TPA table. and then you put me in front of a real table and I'd just be like all thumbs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it is having that effect. Although I know enough now that you apply the... It's more about the different challenge modes I found, as you say, give you different strategies depending on what you're going for. Like if you're going for safety, I actually find, strangely enough, that on this particular table, it's relatively safe to actually go for the castle and shoot the castle over and over again. I've got up to about 15 million on it just by doing that over and over again. And yes, the reject sometimes comes a little bit funny out of the castle, but you give it a bit of a tilt and you're usually fine for me. So I haven't really done the ramps and the other strategies in the game. I've really just been going for the castle all the time. So it's very strange how it plays out in real life, eh? Yeah, it is. I've already said I'm going to be keeping track of all my data still continuing up until the volume 4 releases and for sure that might be just me tracking the collections but I've also got this running total of what the points are needed for every single challenge we've got like AFM is completely filled in and I've got almost all of the getaway filled in almost all of Theater of Magic filled in so a couple of these tables are coming along very nicely and then there are certain other tables that are just like hello how come I got no scores so if anybody is interested in helping with these collections especially for the premium challenges my god I can't tell you how many times when I've been playing where I'm like I don't even care if I beat the 15 I just need to get to level 14, so I know what the end score is. So I can write that down and just be done with it. There's been plenty of times when I've been playing and I've purposely not shot a jackpot just because shooting the jackpot would have sent my score careening past what I would have been able to see what that score was. Let's say I'm on three-star level, getting to five-star level, but if I hit the jackpot, I'll never know what the five-star was. Yeah, you'd be like six-star in a five-star game. Yeah, so there's been a bunch of times where I purposely sacrificed the game just so that I could find out what the score was. For science. For science. Yeah. So, like I said, look, I'm still having fun with the daily challenge. I still look forward to when it resets. But I'm very frustrated if they've made things worse instead of making them better. They need to find a solution because, like I said, if I'm not even able to, where I am at my stage of collecting, if I'm not even going to be able to keep up with the table releases for doing it free, then it's a paywall. Then it is absolutely 100% hitting a paywall. You may as well just buy them. Right. Exactly. You may as well. And, you know, I got the offer in Aussie dollars for the current set of tables in the pack. And this will change every time they release if you're a new player and you're onboarding into the game. But I think it's $45 Australian at the moment, which I think probably would translate to around $30. Yeah, it's $30. Because somebody already mentioned that. Yeah, so I imagine when Volume 4 comes, it's going to be $40. Because they're basically charging $10 a pack. Yeah. Is what it works out to. and you know for 10 bucks a pack that again if you know that you're that kind of person that A is going to like the game and B is going to want all the things then yeah that's a no brainer most people you load up an app and you get hit with that price right off the bat and yet you see there's this collection aspect you're like screw that I'm going to I'm playing for free baby right yeah and then you find out that it's impossible and then you're like bring back that that offer I want in Yeah, too bad. No account has, unless you go and ask Zen nicely to reset it for your account. Which, again, Zen should be making this offer available probably every single time a pack gets released. Yeah, every pack. They should make the offer available. Because that will get people buying it. Although the problem is that they'll probably get far less revenue from doing that because of their ad imprints. It's just the thing. There's still ads in the game. Even if you do that purchase, there's still ads in the game if you do the daily challenges. Oh, yeah. You've got to watch the video, don't you? Right. That's a crazy thing. So you basically get to buy the tables, but you still got to watch ads. Right. It's just bloody clever because they're still getting their ad imprints. Because you think about it too That the same thing with me buying the premium challenge for 200 coins I still have to pay 25 tickets every time to play it True So I mean that the part that kind of irks me And then also it like you know hey yeah you should be offering a trade program How about offering either, you know, special offers on prices, but not only that, how about offering like a weekend of everything's double collecting? You know what I mean? How about offering loyal people? Because they do that in a lot of freemium games. Tons of them. Tons of them. Like once a month they'll have a weekend of, hey, this weekend that everything is double or double coins, get on the coins, stuff like that. Um, or, or how about having it be where, you know, if you play two days in a row, you get a bonus prize. Yeah. And by the time you hit seven days in a row, you get a really good bonus and then it resets, you know, at the start of the week, again, rewarding people for coming back to the app daily. Right now, there's none of that. Isn't that what you want them to do? Exactly. That's the whole point, right? You want to be able to guarantee that people are hitting the app daily. And look, I haven't been. I've given up, really. Because it's to the point now where I was like, well, it hasn't helped that I've reset, which I'm sure Zen will eventually help me get back to where I was. I'm sure. Somehow. I don't know how. Because the game data has clearly been reset from Google Play Games. So unless I have a way to influence that, I don't know how it's going to come back. And that's a big problem. Like if, if you lose your phone or have to reinstall your phone, you better bet you, you'd need to actually get Google play games sorted out first before you even boot the app. And no one, no one will think to do that. So. No, that might not be an issue for iOS. I don't know. I think game center works slightly different. Game center is kind of always on. Yeah. Like even you didn't have to do any sort of finagling with it. Did you? It just worked. Yep. Yeah, and that's the thing. I think Google is slightly different. It's the same with, as an aside, it's the same with find your phone on Google. So you know how iOS has the find your handset feature if you lose it. Well, it has the same thing on Google, but for you to actually be able to find your phone, you first have to enroll in find my phone. So if you lose your phone, you're just, geez, I'd really like to find my phone. Well, bad luck, son, because you haven't already activated it on your device. And that's the thing that, like, the help article that you read for it says, prepare to find your phone. It's like, well, no, that should just be activated when I start my phone from fresh. Like, it's just silly. This is the sort of thing, right? It's just the way that some companies onboard into their OSs are different and unusual. Okay, let's talk about some positive things with Zen. So I will say this. On the subject, just before we close out the Zen discussion, I will say that if you are in the market for a new phone and you're on Android, I decided to, because I got a ridiculously good deal, I decided to get a Huawei P30 Pro, which has basically the most incredible camera that I've ever seen on a smart device ever. It uses Leica lenses and everything. What they've done with this particular handset is they've actually laid flat a DSLR inside the phone and it's got 50 times zoom. Wow. And the pictures coming out of this thing are incredible. It leaves the Pixel XL3 for dead, which was, from DxOMark's perspective, like the best on the market yeah and this this basically has 10 points above the highest rated smartphone at the moment and when we're talking about dxo rankings like a point above is a huge deal for a camera so this thing is just it is ridiculous and it runs williams pinball just fine there you go because it's got this um it's got a processor that i've never heard of before which is they call it a kirin processor and i was a bit scared about that because i've heard like i've I've had the poor experience from Samsung with their Exynos processors. They've been generally terrible, which is why when I've been buying a phone, I've always gone for a Snapdragon system on a chip phones, which pretty much all phones are using now. But this Kirin processor had me a little bit worried, but it turns out that from an architecture perspective, they've got like the thinnest silicon. So it's like eight nanometer silicon in the processor, and it's about on par with the latest Snapdragon processor out there on the market. So I went, oh, sign me up. So there you go. Tech talk with Jared. Tech talk. Oh, remember that one? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Okay. I hope everybody enjoyed that blast of there is just then from Chris. Blame him. Send hate mail to... I was just waking him up. Yeah. Okay, so positive things with Zen. Yes, like I said, Volume 4, it's in beta right now. Can I tell you the tables? No, I can't. Are there any surprises? No, not really, folks. If you've been listening to the show, you know what the pool is that they're pulling from. In other things, so Zen was at the Star Wars Celebration Chicago last week. Oh, yeah. And they had their booth, and there's where they made the announcement that all 19 Star Wars tables are coming to the Switch in September. In September. Which is kind of a long time. And then I started thinking about why would it be that long? Because they had the game up and running there at the booth. Well, all I can figure is they want to be on the Star Wars hype train. Of course they do. So the movie is coming out in December. That is about when all the merchandise is going to start being hit, and obviously when people are going to be tuning their attention away from summer and more towards the holiday seasons when the next batch of movies... It's definitely peak season over there in the US for movies, and for us as well, because we kind of inherit it. Yeah, now that everything's kind of on a worldwide release date. I remember the time, as a very quick aside, where we used to get movies that were in the US summer held over to our summer. That's how bad it was. Yes. Yeah, terrible. Yeah, that was pre-pirating. Yeah, and then they went, ah, let's not do that anymore. Yeah. Now, in their booth, they had this crazy cabinet. And when I say crazy, A, it's kind of large. It's pretty big. But B, it's got full video on the side cabinet. It's got that same, it's got curved LCD panels, like you would see, like, you know, in Times Square, how the panels wrap around buildings and stuff like that. Well, it's basically like that, and it's full video running on these panels. They're not stills. This is moving stuff on the side of these panels. Kind of looks insane. Kind of. And then Mel tweeted some more about it. Kind of, how come nobody's talking about it? Well, it's like, well, we're not talking about it because we don't know about it, and you haven't told us anything, so that's why we haven't been talking about it. We want to talk about it, but we just don't know what we're talking about. but then he tweeted that it had been I mean if you've did some different video of it and on the side you can see where it takes money or a card probably so it's like aha commercial unit that's what that is that's why it's built like a tank yeah and that's why it's got all the flash on the side because it's going to want to be saying hey look at me come play me I don't know sea of crappy redemption games in most arcades. I don't know if it's going to be purely the Star Wars tables. I almost think it is. It could be. Imagine those things being on location in cinemas around America in line with the Star Wars 9 release. You can guarantee that's what they're probably going to be doing with them. I actually know what kind of the plan is, but I don't think I'm allowed to say, so I'm not going to say. Okay, interesting. I've heard something that I can't then therefore repeat, but I don't think that you're necessarily wrong, though. I mean, it's going to be there for me. Yeah, it's trying to get your attention. That's basically for certain. But like I said, I don't know. I thought when I'd heard commercial cabinet that it was going to be all Zen tables, and if it was just the Star Wars, well, that... Look, if you walked up to a machine that had... what are they up to? 80 tables or something like that? 70, 80 tables? What are you going to pick? I'm kind of cool with the idea of, hey, come up to a branded game. Star Wars. You know the selection. There are 19 tables to pick from. Well, sure, hey, spend some time. And then maybe if you get people used to seeing those in these pubs or arcades and seeing this Zen machine that eventually then if they introduced like Marvel pinball. They'd understand what it was all about. They'd understand. You can see the whole swipe card system. It will pay, I think, an integral part in its spot in an arcade because that will allow them to do pin redemption on it. So tickets. I went down to Time Zone. I had a wedding to go to last week, which is why we didn't record. and I went down to TimeZone. They were on the swipe card system you often see in arcades, and there's two areas in TimeZone. There's the new releases area, and then there's, like, the tickets area, and there's three pinballs connected up with ticket payouts in that area, which just get loaded onto your card. And they had three games. They had Walking Dead. They had Ghostbusters Pro, which was just in terrible condition. Slimer. Slimer you couldn't hit, so basically you were in jail. of the game. You could not do anything with it. And there was also a Akadaka, ACDC Pro. And it's surprising if you're a good pinball player how many tickets you can rack up on this. So I think that the capped payout was about 80 or 90 tickets per table. And at the end of playing with the replays and free games I was getting as well, I think I was up to about 280 tickets at the end. So like that aspect of it for kids though, if they're walking up to a franchise they know with the riches of star wars and they get to get some tickets from it so basically it's a redemption machine yeah well of course they're going to play it like like it's it's it's flashy it's getting their attention not only that but a redemption machine that isn't like you know some of those where it's literally drop the coin and five seconds later it's now time to drop another coin yeah this gives you some actual value like you actually get some gameplay out of this yeah and it might be if they're smart what they'll do is I'll actually make it a timed game. So you will have five minutes to actually do all you can on the table and however many tickets you get from that five-minute game is how much you get because otherwise we know that those games can play for a long time. So if they are actually testing, think forward at what they're doing now on mobile, think how they could apply those challenges into the daily challenge model within the arcade setting. So every day you walk up there, it's a slightly different game experience. You know what I mean? I hadn't thought about that, but I know we're asking Mel when he's on. Yeah, because that, to me, makes logical sense from a product perspective. You want to basically vary the gameplay so that people will want to come back to this thing and play it again. And that's a really good way of doing it because it's proven on mobile that it's successful. So why wouldn't you do it in the arcade? It just makes absolute sense to do that. So there you go. You just throw a big old ad as soon as the game is over. You know, when it's doing game over, did you like this? You can download it on your phone. And have a QR code that takes you directly to your app store. Yep. And then what would be the benefits of actually having the app installed on your phone? Well, you could actually get bonus tickets, couldn't you? Because you'd be able to scan your barcode from, scan the barcode that's on the game, activate it in your app. It's all tied into your Zen login anyhow. Right. So you then basically have the ability to upgrade, like do like a power upgrade on your game if you have the app installed on your phone. Like how many different opportunities could Zen explore here? And the app is a dedicated Star Wars app anyway already. That's right. So you could just add that feature into the app, and you basically got your tie-in right there. And so it's basically constantly reminding them of this in-arcade experience, and it's constantly reminding them of it on their app. You know, it's a very easy way to – it's like, I wonder if we just explained the white paper that he was talking about. because interestingly, we have to send this to him after and see if he goes, where did you find the white paper? It's amazing what happens when me and you get together and start spinning our wheels and we come to a conclusion that makes too much sense to not be the truth. That's right. I'm also wondering so with Star Wars coming to Switch the only thing that's missing then is the marble tables. Well, come on, if they were already talking to Disney about Star Wars and doing this whole push you think they didn't talk to them about the marble tables? Oh yeah, and just wait you watch the reaction to this in the arcades, if it's not going to be, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't positive, like the marble is going to want to get into this merchandising train The only thing that is makes me hesitant about that though is we haven't had a new marble game in two years? Yeah, what was the last one? The last one was the Women of Power. No, it was Women of Power Champions and A-Force. And right before that was Ant-Man. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while. So they might be done making Marvel pinball, but that still doesn't mean, again, they have a huge collection of those that would totally be able to fill out a cabinet. And again, the Switch owners are going to want it at some point anyway. it's just a matter of probably them finding the timing of when things go so also while at Star Wars Celebration another tweet Mel sent out was a picture of him with Gary Stern with all it said was hashtag pingball hashtag Stern hashtag Zen Studios hashtag future future so hashtag guess what's happening I mean is he just trolling us or is it April 1st? No, it wasn't. It wasn't. Actually, it was recent. I remember seeing it. Not surprising. That was my response, actually. I said, why is this surprising? I don't know. I don't know if he'll be able to say anything about that or not. Well, it's essentially public. No, no, no. I mean in terms of if he's going to be able to say, yes, we signed a deal. You know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe he was talking to Stern and saying hey you know we got this table called Aliens It would be perfect for a physical machine Same thing with Super League Soccer Perfect for a physical machine Maybe they doing that Maybe they are Future Because Zen is a contract manufacturer. They will do other people's tables if they're paid in the right price. Right. There was also this discussion of everybody running with it going, oh no, does that mean all the Stern tables are going to get pulled from TPA? I would say it doesn't necessarily have to happen that way. First off, the first tables that Xen would go after, do you really think it would be ACDC, Mustang, Ghostbusters? No, they're pretty old. No, they'd be going after the brand new Iron Maiden. Star Wars. Star Wars, come on. Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah. Things they already have the license for. Mm-hmm. And there's a lot of Stern properties that actually that Zen also have a relationship with. There's a lot. And I would almost make it to the point of maybe with the contract, the way it was set up is, hey, you can keep those tables as long as we're not finally selling them. Once we get along to selling them, then you're no longer able to sell it anymore. I mean, it might be that kind of a situation. But, I mean, of those, I think Ghostbusters is the only one that I would want to see Zen crack at. Yeah, I really don't care about ACDC. I'm over it. And, well, Mustang, it's no. There's nothing really outstanding about it, so I don't really care. Yeah, and the same thing with Star Trek. I'm kind of like, you know, it's fine, but there's better. There's better. I never run to that when I see it in the arcade, you know. You know what I found interesting the other day? I got an email from the IFPA. and the email said it basically has an ad for Williams Pinball in it so they've basically I got that email too, yes, now that I'm thinking about it they've dedicated the entire email to hey, get Williams Pinball on iOS and Google Play and yeah it's from the IFPA a video pinball game being promoted so there you go look we've said it before Zen kind of is on the way they know how to market they know what they're doing they know how to time things and you know spread the word they kind of think about these things they put some effort into how they're going to market their products yeah they don't just go we made it here you go have a nice day advertise for us please you know Was there anything else I was going to say about Xen? I don't think there was I think those were the big touchstones to go upon I got a message I got some news about Zachary at Pinball actually some good news for mobile players I was having a chat to Mark on Steam chat the other day and he was saying that he actually took me off to a Facebook post that they shared So it's official that they're about 25% through making iOS and Android versions of the new version of Zachary at Pinball. Okay. So that's really good news. And apparently they'll update the Facebook page when they're at 50% as well. So if you haven't already, just sign up to Facebook, the Zachary page on Facebook, and you'll get updated about all the news. So that's pretty cool. So they're surging forward as much as a small studio can surge forward with this sort of thing. Good. to hear. Tell you what, folks. I'm going to give the socials, and then stick around afterwards because we're going to have a bit of nonsense. If you only want to be here for pinball, then there you go. But nonsense to follow. Have you bought a t-shirt like I'm wearing today? Look at that. Isn't it sharp and nifty? You can get it in any color you so much desire. You don't have to have white text, you can have black text. It doesn't matter. Hey, head on over to redbubble.com, then give a search for blockade and voila! You'll see our collection of stuff. And it's not just shirts, but it is also phone cases and stickers and mugs, that sort of jazz. All economically priced. And available in your region with economic shipping. Exactly. That was our big reason why we went with them. if you have not followed us on twitter you need to do so head over and first type in at blockade and then go follow that would be for the show and then because you're already doing that and you want to know what jared is up to like right now he's showing off his camera and taking all sorts of nature pics native australian flowers and stuff but very very close up his is at jared morgues if you want to head over to mine where for some ungodly reason I posted Pokemon 7-Eleven stuff because I was earning free points by doing that, then that's a, shut your traps. I know, exciting, right? Exactly what you want to see. You are such a freemium whore. You know, I have no qualms about that. You send me stuff, I will pitch it. There's no doubt about it. I am freebies all the way. Hey, it's in my last name. What can I say? That's true. If I were a radio disc jockey, I'd be so in trouble with payola. You wouldn't even know. I just can't say no to free. What can I say? So, yeah, do that. If you want to send us an email about any topic, you may do so. It's blahblahblockade at gmail.com. And then make sure you head over to our website, which is blockadepinball.com slash episodes. And there you will find all previous episodes, show notes to go along with it, that kind of jazz. wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rolls easy to install, totally unique mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales, restoration, customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to we can't improve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball Look, when we're in this lull between pinball releases and we're under gag order and can't talk about things, then we have to talk about other things. And so I had seen a post by somebody I follow that literally asked the simple question, which is the better comedy? And he listed four comedies. And I went, just four? That ain't right. And they were 80s comedies. So I started in my head going, well, what would I clump together? And I came up with a bracket of four. And I was like, oh, but what about these other men? And I came up with another bracket. And then I was like, oh, but then the next thing I know, yeah, I've got 64 different comedies that I put into a bracket system for a playoff style to figure out what is the king of comedy for the 1980s. So, Jared, I'm going to rapid fire you with these. And now here's the fun thing. I actually seeded these. It wasn't random, folks. I hate to say it. I actually had all these clumped. I'm going to cut them out in my little groups of four to start with. because at first I was going to be really mean, and I'll give you an idea. So my number one, I had two number one seeds because you've got two sides of the brackets, right? So my number one seed was Caddyshack, Stripes, Vacation, and Bachelor Party. And I was going to make everybody just pick one from that, which is just, that's mean, and I like being mean that way. But the bracket that I was doing online wouldn't let me do that, so I had to then split those up. but eventually that's going to go against the number eight seed, which is Porky's last American virgin night shift and private resort. So you can see why those are the eight because they're just kind of like, really are those comedies? I don't know, but you can't do eighties without an 80s sex comedy. So they had to go in, right? Really? An 86 comedy. Which one is that? Porky's Porky's is, and last American virgin is, and private resort is, and night shift sort of is night shift is the typical, um, that, That's the classic 80s staple of, hey, we fell into running a brothel. Right. Okay. Sure. You've got to realize that, as is quite normal with movie discussions, there's quite probably a lot of these movies I was going, I've never seen them. You can state that if that's the case. So I'm just going to run through these real quick and just get your immediate gut reaction of what you would vote for. And, folks, please vote. head over to the Blockade account. Currently, all of the left half of the bracket is up for voting purposes, and in about a couple of days, I'll be posting all the left-hand side of the bracket, and that'll start getting it pared down really nicely. It's the Bill Murray showdown. Caddyshack or Stripes? Caddyshack. Good. Correct answer. Chevy Chase versus Tom Hanks. Vacation or bachelor party? I haven't seen either of them. Shame on you. I'm going to guess that. Porky's or Last American Virgin. No idea. No idea. Okay. Nice shift or private resort. Which were, check this out, Michael Keaton's first movie and I think Johnny Depp's first movie. All right. I haven't seen either of them. Okay. Don't worry. You're not missing much. Fletch versus Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Neither of them. uh fish called wanda or i know i'm gonna be disappointed in general this is this is we're gonna publicly humiliate you by you know just showing what you need to be watching um another of those either not not fish called wanda not whatever the other one planes trains and automobiles i don't think so wow okay uh police academy versus naked gun oh yeah police academy oh really okay yeah it's got that cool dude that does the voices in it like you know michael winslow strange brew versus airplane um airplane okay 48 hours versus trading places eddie's first two movies and both of them came out in the same year oh i might have seen trading places i can't remember i'm gonna go with that okay uh beverly hills cop and coming to America? Beverly Hills Cop. Mannequin or Splash? No, I haven't seen either of those. Don't see Mannequin, don't. Just One of the Guys or Tootsie? I haven't seen either of those. Okay. See, Tootsie is the more well-respected of the two movies, but Just One of the Guys is the one that you'd actually want to watch instead. Better Off Dead or The Sure thing? I haven't seen those. Okay, you probably haven't seen this next one either. One Crazy Summer or Sixteen Candles? I've seen Sixteen Candles. So, let's go with that. Okay. Weird Science or Three O'Clock High? Weird Science. Okay. Real Genius or Short Circuit? Short Circuit, because I've seen it. Oh, God! Okay. When you finally get around to watching Real Genius, don't know how wrong you were. Um, say anything or pretty in pink. I haven't seen those. Okay. Breakfast club or Heather's. Oh, breakfast club. No, the correct answer is Heather's, uh, revenge of the nerds or back to school. Back to school. Danger field movie. Okay. Um, last time's at Ridgemont high or Valley girl. Neither of those. Okay. This, by the way, we're starting with saying anything. We were into the left bracket now. Um, uh, Okay. Peewee's Big Adventure or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? No, Bill and Ted's. It'd be awesome to everybody. Okay. Summer School or Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Ferris. Adventures in Babysitting or Girls Just Want to Have Fun? Neither of those. Sounds like a good decision. Weekend at Bernie's or Twins? Oh, geez. Twins. Critters or Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice. Close. Time Bandits or Princess Bride? I don't know if I've seen either of those. I might have seen Princess Bride a bit of it, so I guess we'll go with that. Used Cars or Hooper? I don't know if I've seen either of those. Okay. The one is with Kurt Russell and the other one is with Burt Reynolds, so I called it Burt Russell. Cannonball Run or the Blues Brothers? Blues Brothers, I guess. Roger Rabbit or Back to the Future? Back to the Future. Back to the Future. Back to the Future movies, by the way. These two both came out the same summer. Gremlins or Ghostbusters? Oh, Gremlins. Stupid movies. Caveman or Ice Pirates? I've not seen either of those two. And then finishing off, Johnny Dangerously or History of the World? I haven't seen either of those two either. There you go. So for people like Jared, there's your list of things you need to rent or watch on Netflix. Yes. So off you go now and go and do that. You know what's funny is I went through I literally found a site that had all the comedies from every year from the 80s and I was going through them. It's amazing how many of those would never make it out of a pitch meeting today. It's like, okay, there's this kid and he's trying to get into Harvard, but he isn't accepted, so he dices skin black and it's like, wrong, no, no, we want no part of it, but hey, it's Soul Man and it was a hit. Do not want. Do not want. Or the... So a young 15 or 16 year old boy gets taught the ways of love by a woman in her 30s. Nope, not making that movie. Nope, nope, nope. And that's like half of all the sex comedies that came out in the 80s. Right. 80s was an interesting time, wasn't it? Yeah, it's just really kind of funny when you go through these and you're just like, oh my gosh. Yeah, there's... In today's climate, there's not a chance that these would ever make it out of the pitch. nope nope there was your bit of nonsense please folks though go check it out and get your votes in the polls are open for five days once I start posting them and once that is done then I'll do the next bracket and keep on going down bit of fun on twitter it is just a tad bit of fun alright we already did all the social so we're good we're done we'll talk to you all next week yeah bye bye bye bye

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v1)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: b3bd0aa4-8405-47db-a878-609087ddf3d4*