# Ep 74: Mystery Guest

**Source:** Final Round Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2023-11-03  
**Duration:** 90m 33s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.finalroundpinball.com/final-round-pinball-podcast-ep-74-mystery-guest/

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## Analysis

Final Round Pinball Podcast Episode 74 features a surprise guest reveal segment followed by an in-depth interview with Raymond Davidson, a Stern Pinball code designer. The episode covers Raymond's career progression from assisting on Avengers to leading code on major releases including Led Zeppelin, Rush, and Foo Fighters, with extensive discussion of LCD screen design philosophy, rule accessibility, competitive player involvement in game design, and personal pinball history across different machine eras.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Raymond Davidson worked on Led Zeppelin, Rush, and Foo Fighters as code designer/lead at Stern — _Raymond directly confirms his work on these titles during interview; mentions helping Keith with Avengers, Led Zeppelin as first full game, Rush with learnings from Led Zeppelin, Foo Fighters collaboration with Jack Danger and Tanyo_
- [HIGH] Rush received significant post-release code updates to improve clarity and rule communication with players — _Raymond states: 'Rush actually was notorious for people not knowing what to do, and so every update I kept putting more and more direction in there, more and more text' and mentions adding tutorial videos and clarification for time machine mechanics_
- [HIGH] Stern's smaller LCD screens require careful timing of information display, contrasted with Jersey Jack's larger screens that can show more simultaneously — _Raymond discusses text management strategy: 'Stern having a smaller screen you therefore have to feed text in larger font on the screen So therefore timing is everything' and notes Jersey Jack's approach to text saturation_
- [HIGH] Led Zeppelin multiball is easily accessible—players can trigger it by shooting the left ramp three times without hitting targets — _Raymond confirms: 'Shoot the left ramp three times. That's it? Led Zeppelin multiball, yeah. Yep.' and explains this was intentional: 'we wanted to make sure that it wasn't too hard'_
- [HIGH] Raymond considers Simpsons Pinball Party his favorite DMD-era game, though he has owned and sold it multiple times — _Raymond states: 'I always give the same answer and I still do think it's my favorite game and it is Simpsons Pinball Party' and 'I've owned that, owned it like three times'_
- [HIGH] Competitive pinball players like Colin MacAlpine, Bowen Kerins, and others are contributing to rule design at multiple manufacturers — _Marty/Jon discuss hiring of top competitors: 'Colin MacAlpine and Bowen Kerins helping out at Multimorphic, even Steven Bowden and American Pinball' as rules contributors at various companies_

### Notable Quotes

> "Rush actually was notorious for people not knowing what to do, and so every update I kept putting more and more direction in there, more and more text, more and more, you know, things like that."
> — **Raymond Davidson**, ~40:00
> _Illustrates post-launch code iteration strategy and player feedback integration for rule clarity_

> "You're just collecting these records. You're just getting these records, building your song mode, and then you're going into the song mode. But it was actually confusing at first."
> — **Raymond Davidson**, ~41:30
> _Demonstrates the gap between designer intent and player comprehension, fundamental to LCD design philosophy_

> "I think that's a good way of putting it. You know, what's fun. And then you also know from just watching people play pinball, especially if you play with people, you know, the various skill levels of everybody and you want to try to cater to as broad a group as you can while still having things underneath to shoot for."
> — **Raymond Davidson**, ~59:00
> _Captures the design philosophy of balancing accessibility for casual players with depth for competitive players_

> "Stern having a smaller screen you therefore have to feed text in larger font on the screen So therefore timing is everything. So as you playing something you need to be able to have that moment to look up and see that piece of information that told you."
> — **Raymond Davidson**, ~48:00
> _Key insight into technical constraints driving LCD information display strategy at Stern vs competitors_

> "I'm trying to shove as many things in their face and hoping some of them stick."
> — **Raymond Davidson**, ~43:00
> _Pragmatic approach to rule communication and player education through information density_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Raymond Davidson | person | Stern Pinball code designer/lead; designed code for Led Zeppelin, Rush, Foo Fighters, and assisted on Avengers; competitive player from Australia; first offshore tournament experience was 2016 at Texas Pinball Festival |
| Marty Robbins | person | Co-host of Final Round Pinball Podcast; former competitive pinball player; conducts mystery guest segment with yes/no questions; uses brutal criticism of guests as running theme |
| Keith Elwin | person | Senior designer at Stern Pinball; designer of multiple major titles; worked closely with Raymond Davidson on code for Avengers and other games; referenced as figure Raymond worked alongside |
| Jack Danger | person | Stern Pinball designer; collaborated with Raymond Davidson on Foo Fighters; involved in design decisions around multiball accessibility and rule philosophy |
| Colin MacAlpine | person | Top competitive pinball player; contributor to Multimorphic game design/rules; mentioned as potential mystery guest but confirmed to not be the guest on this episode |
| Bowen Kerins | person | Competitive pinball player; contributing to Multimorphic game design alongside Colin MacAlpine |
| Steven Bowden | person | Competitive pinball player; contributor to American Pinball game design/rules |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; produces games with code designed by Raymond Davidson and others; implements LCD screen-based rule communication strategy; employs top competitive players in design roles |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; referenced for larger LCD screen implementation and design philosophy; Keefer mentioned as competitive player contributor |
| Multimorphic | company | Pinball manufacturer; employs Colin MacAlpine and Bowen Kerins for game design/rules contributions |
| American Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; employs Steven Bowden for game design contributions |
| Led Zeppelin | game | Stern Pinball game; designed with code by Raymond Davidson with input from Jack Danger and Tanyo; known for complex rule set; left ramp three-times easy multiball; Raymond's first full game as lead |
| Rush | game | Stern Pinball game; code designed by Raymond Davidson; released with accessibility issues, resolved through extensive post-launch updates; surprise commercial success; implements time machine mechanic and Icarus multiplier |
| Foo Fighters | game | Stern Pinball game; code by Raymond Davidson; collaboration with Jack Danger and Tanyo; ongoing updates and refinement mentioned as current work |
| Avengers: Infinity Quest | game | Stern Pinball game; Raymond Davidson assisted Keith Elwin on code; features combo tracking displayed on LCD; noted for information design complexity |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | game | Stern Pinball game; mentioned for accessible two-ball multiball (Quill selection) for shot learning in competitive play |
| Simpsons Pinball Party | game | Bally/Williams DMD game; Raymond Davidson's favorite DMD-era machine; features TV mode stacking, mystery spot mode, and reverse flipper functionality; he has owned and resold it multiple times |
| Batman 66 | game | Licensed Batman game; features large point explosions and multipliers; Raymond's favorite LCD game; lacks super wizard mode tying mechanics together according to host |
| Iron Maiden | game | Stern Pinball game; mentioned by Raymond as game he really enjoys; designed by Keith Elwin |
| Fathom Revisited | game | Referenced in discussion about rules clarity and assumptions; mentioned as game where host had to learn about player comprehension gaps |
| Final Round Pinball Podcast | media | Podcast where this episode appears; hosts include Marty and Jon Hey; features mystery guest segments and industry interviews |
| Indus | event | Tournament or pinball event where Raymond Davidson and Keith Elwin interacted; noted as first overseas tournament for Raymond (2016) |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major pinball tournament; mentioned as Raymond's first serious competitive experience outside Australia in 2016; noted for competitive atmosphere unlike Australian competitions |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Code Design Philosophy at Stern Pinball, LCD Screen Information Display Strategy, Rule Accessibility vs. Competitive Depth, Post-Launch Code Updates and Player Feedback, Competitive Players in Design Roles, Raymond Davidson's Career Progression at Stern
- **Secondary:** Pinball History and Machine Eras, International Pinball Competition Culture

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Enthusiastic discussion of game design decisions and collaborative philosophy. Raymond speaks positively about his work and colleagues. Some self-deprecating humor from hosts but overall tone is celebratory of design craftsmanship. No significant negativity about manufacturers or games discussed.

### Signals

- **[design_philosophy]** Raymond Davidson discusses intentional strategies to make complex rules accessible through LCD text timing, font sizing, and information prioritization, particularly for Rush post-launch updates (confidence: high) — Extensive discussion of adding more direction, text, and tutorial videos to Rush after launch; comparison of Stern's small-screen strategy vs Jersey Jack's large-screen approach
- **[code_update]** Rush received multiple code updates focused on improving rule clarity and player guidance, including tutorial videos and increased on-screen text (confidence: high) — Raymond states: 'Rush actually was notorious for people not knowing what to do, and so every update I kept putting more and more direction in there'
- **[design_innovation]** Stern games designed with easily accessible initial multiballs (typically 2-3 shots) to ensure all skill levels can experience core mechanics while maintaining competitive depth underneath (confidence: high) — Discussion of Led Zeppelin's left-ramp-three-times easy multiball, intentional design decision: 'we wanted to make sure that it wasn't too hard because we wanted to make sure, you know, at least people could experience that capture'
- **[personnel_signal]** Major pinball manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, Multimorphic, American Pinball) are actively recruiting top competitive players into design and rules development roles (confidence: high) — Discussion of Colin MacAlpine at Multimorphic, Bowen Kerins at Multimorphic, Steven Bowden at American Pinball, Keefer at Jersey Jack as rule/design contributors
- **[design_philosophy]** Competitive players in design roles bring understanding of what makes games fun for broad skill levels while maintaining depth, not just designing for top players (confidence: high) — Discussion that competitive players 'understand what makes a good game a good game' and can 'cater to as broad a group as you can while still having things underneath to shoot for'
- **[technology_signal]** Stern's use of smaller LCD screens creates technical constraints that shape rule communication strategy differently from Jersey Jack's larger screens, requiring careful timing and font management (confidence: high) — Raymond compares screen sizes: Stern has 'smaller screen you therefore have to feed text in larger font' vs Jersey Jack where 'they just put everything all up there at once' causing text saturation issues
- **[gameplay_signal]** Modern Stern games balance complex underlying rule depth with surface-level accessibility through careful LCD information presentation and accessible multiball triggers (confidence: high) — Discussion of Avengers combo tracking visibility issues, Rush mode stacking clarity, and intentional easy-access multiballs as design pattern
- **[design_philosophy]** Code designers at Stern approach rule clarity as iterative problem-solving, testing with players, gathering feedback, and refining text presentation and mechanics incrementally (confidence: high) — Raymond describes Rush update cycle: testing with players revealed confusion, systematic addition of clearer text, tutorial videos, and mechanic clarification
- **[design_innovation]** Modern rule design increasingly enables stacking of multiballs and modes simultaneously, creating point explosions and extended play sequences for skilled players (confidence: medium) — Discussion of Simpsons Pinball Party multi-mode stacking, mystery spot mode combination, and multiball overlap creating 'points explosion'
- **[industry_signal]** Professional pinball industry is transitioning from designer-only rule creation to collaborative model including competitive players, reflecting recognition that competitive expertise improves game design (confidence: high) — Multiple manufacturers now employ competitive players: Multimorphic (Colin MacAlpine, Bowen Kerins), American Pinball (Steven Bowden), Jersey Jack (Keefer), Stern (Raymond Davidson transitioned from competitive play)

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## Transcript

 Let me just have a 60 second break. You have no idea how much I've drunk just in that time. Okay, let's go. The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round. Cut the pleasantries. Let's do this thing. Yeah, fuck you all. I don't know what episode this is, but actually I don't even know what podcast it is. What is it? Final round. That's Hello. Head to profile. Which is kind of what it is really. Yeah. I think here's the funniest thing about this. We're recording this, honest to goodness, with another show already done that we haven't even produced yet. I know. And when I say we, Marty, fill in the blanks. Okay. Well, you know, you know, it's been a while since I've been shooting blanks, but I will tell you that I... Mr. Moneyload, they call him. Go ahead. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I couldn't bring myself to edit because I was having such a good time just having three days off. There you go, fans. That's Marty Robbins. If you have to pick who your favorite host is. Right. I mean, hey. He talked about one holiday weekend. What about the weekend before you sat on it? No, we recorded that weekend. Incorrect, fucko. Incorrect. I know the date we recorded because it's in the podcast. Two weekends. You totally... No way. You screwed the pooch, dude. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. Doing a perfect time to bring on a surprise guest. And you— So we do this on Skype. I haven't even called the person because then you can see who it is. Okay I'm not even gonna look at Skype and wait for the name. Nope, nope, nope. I know we've got a special guest coming. I do not know who it is. You don't know who it is because I like surprising you, and I'm gonna give you a few Clues and I'm gonna let you ask me five yes or no questions. Okay? Obviously, Colin MacAlpine, you're not even gonna take the clues you're gonna do that right away. That's just over the last couple of days. I've been thinking if I had to have one guess, I'd say Colin MacAlpine. You've killed him twice. That's why he'd be the kind of person that you'd bring on. No, it is not Colin MacAlpine. Okay, there you go. But it's funny you should say that there are some similarities there. The One clue but you get four more guesses. We're not even gonna put the picture on the podcast We're not gonna put their name You gotta listen to the fucking thing to find out who this guest is sure which only builds excitement and total disappointment Well, it's something to do when you have no content anyway Yeah, well you gotta give me the clues down so one one clue is they've got something in common with Colin MacAlpine Which could be that they've won Pinberg well, do you want to know if they've won pin burger not is that one of your questions? You have three left after that. Yeah, have they won Pinball? No, they have not. Okay, cool. So, that eliminates a few people. Another person you've killed in Keith Elwin. Here's the other clue. Yes, I'm just going through in my mind who I think it would be. You have something in common with this person. Ah, big cock. I'm keeping that in, fuck it. Sorry. I mean, it's true. I mean, obviously I've now got to think of all the pinball people I've slept with plat02 D plyретins Kolleg� Pr reserve Creditvo Familie abort-Pasteux, Tatuman Yvrim, informativeperson Manufacturing mooieyelkodend ah Martina Guggenstayl�g & Frozen snekosittle ejafdllaryafmviocilzBecause ikkear cyba Musci unto silom danby mahsel p ker de dr How to narrow it down? I know you're hammered but fucking think. I actually am. I know you are. Um So what, I can just ask you any question or do I have to ask you a yes or no question? I can only answer yes or no. Okay, um Are they from America? Yes. Cool, cool, cool. Have I met this person in real life? Yes. I'll give you your last clue. Because it narrows it down because you don't know all the people that I have met. The reason I know you've met this person is part of the reason, and this is your final clue, that on a previous episode of Final Round, they were put to the test. Who will Marty save? And this person was left to die at the hands of Marty Robbins. So I've killed them? Yes. It's a long list. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I hate this segment and you know I hate it. No, you do not. And then we get these emails from people saying, oh, I love it, I love this. I'm like, oh, please don't. Don't. Don't. No, you fucking love it. You lie. You say you hate it on the broadcast. I don't. You, honest to God, if you're wearing a tracksuit, I would see that bone. You love this thing. Wouldn't need a tracksuit. Remember, they can't. All right. Last guess. Okay, so. Can you get it? I think you can get it. I like, the thing is, I think if you. Someone that I've met, someone that I've, so the clues are, they're American, they're ✓A So does that mean they're a massive drunk? Does that mean... Yes! This is what I'm saying! They're Australian? They work in pinball? What? Do they work in pinball? Is that what you're trying to say? I will give you that as your last question. Yes, they do. Okay. So they work in pinball. You have a guess and then you're either right or wrong and you bring them on. Um, I, I don't know. Um, I can't remember who I've killed is the problem. Like is the list that long of the people you just want destroyed? No, I, it's just that I just can't remember anybody from that segment. I can only think then Steven Bowden, but I don't know whether I've killed him. How could you have killed Steven Bowden? No, that's what I'm thinking. I just, I just don't think I could have, but he's in, did you just say stupid guest? Subtitles by the Amara.org community I probably had some sort of build up. Yeah. Wow. You know what? We'll tell you where to fast forward the show when you're listening back. Maybe skip the first 10 minutes. Because we literally just had a, I had all these questions I had to ask who it was. He gave me some clues and I was just like, I just don't know. I don't know. And then I went, oh my God, Raymond Davidson. He's like, well, let's bring him on. Why don't you tell Raymond what the first question you asked. Okay. So I had to ask him yes or no questions. So my first question was, does he have a big cock? And we couldn't establish the answer to that, so we assumed yes. You don't have to answer, Raymond. I'd only put you on the spot, but that's where fucking Marty's head went. That's just letting you know that's setting the scene for this podcast. By the way, thank God we have a mature Raymond Davidson on the show. And what if my guest was a young child? Marty, go to jail. Do not collect go. Well, let's face it, everybody is a young child compared to us. Well, that's a good point. Raymond, how are you, buddy? I'm doing good. I've not spoken to you for a very long time, Raymond. I hope you're well. Yeah, I'm doing great. Wow, that was sincere after he killed you earlier. Yeah. Yeah, he does that. Yeah, see? See, Raymond accepts it. He understands it was his fate. He's moved on from it. Okay? Raymond, why did he kill you? I think it was because I didn't talk to him enough at Indus. I think I just said, oh, you're like that Australian dude. Okay, cool. I'm going to go play my game now because I'm focused on competing. And then he found, I think Keith to talk to and Keith talked to him for hours and then he became his favorite. Wow. To be fair, both of you were shitty to me. Oh, that's right. Who was the third person? Oh, it was Karl. Karl was really nice. Karl, the one with the red carpet. Yeah, Karl was very nice. Hey, do you want an In-N-Out burger? Oh, it was gross. Anyway. No, but can I just say, can I just say, in my defense, so what you got to understand is that was my first ever tournament overseas, right? And tournaments in Australia, or competitions we call them, are just very social. What you're winning is a slab of beer if you're lucky. So no one gives a fuck. It's not really all that competitive. So when I've gone over to America to Indisc and I'm like, hey, you and they're like, yeah, cool. I'm like, okay, this is serious. I didn't realize that that's how serious competitive pinball is. And that was 2016. So that's a fucking long time ago. But I guess that was just for me. It was a bit of a culture shock because I just didn't realize that that was sound diction nighttime so you thing I'm going to say if you see Marty and if it's the first time you're ever seeing Marty, do me this favor, alright? Just go Marty, you're a bitch. Alright, just do that, would you please? You got yourJeff one, you got yourMarty one now. If it's the first time, leaveMarty that terrible impression because it's the first time you've ever seenMarty. Actuallyoltniche poisoned – You know, I'm a fan of the I didn't know that this was going to be you, Raymond, but I'm genuinely really excited to speak to you because Oh my God, shut up, shut up. No, because, you know, obviously you and I, we're industry folks. So Jeff, if you just want to sit this one out, that fine. Okay. If you want to just sit there, I'll sit it out like you sit out producing. You can sit there and contemplate your comedy career. If you could do that, that'd be great. Because what I think has happened since I remember I spoke to you for the first time on a podcast. I was in an island, Flinders Island. It was in the middle of Bass Strait talking to you on head to head. Since then, obviously, you've started working at Stern, but more so since working at Stern, I would say you've been on a bit of an upward trajectory It's a compliment. It's a compliment, but B, how's that happen? How did you go from helping people to now being more prominent in the design team? You mean at Stern? Yeah. Well, they like, you know, my work on, you know, I helped Keith with Avengers get that Interview passage It was kind of my first full game and then Rush I basically got to do it again with all the learnings I had from Led Zeppelin. And then after Rush was a big hit, you know, I was on Foo Fighters and that one was fun because I still had a lot of flexibility, but you know, I worked more with Jack and Tanyo very closely. You know, we all kind of collaborated on ideas and checks and balances, you know, make sure we all had our input. Yes, I don't know, I just kind of moved up the ranks, I guess. People were liking the work I did. You know, people were always saying the code on Led Zeppelin is great, the code on Rush is great. You know, that's good for me, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the code on Rush is definitely great. Code on Zeppelin is the best thing about the game. And I've said I'm not crazy about the layout, I'm not, but the code is actually really fun. I'll give you, it's not intuitive, so owning it certainly makes it a lot easier, especially when it comes to knowing the songs, knowing the guitar solos and the center ramp shots and things like that. But I find it a spectacular tournament game. I love the, uh, the whole Icarus multiplier. That was all Tim's idea. I was, when I found out about that, I was like, oh man, this is, this like makes the nerd in me and like, oh, this is so cool. I get to really blow up, you know, build up your ex. But what was also cool is you don't even have to think about it because if you're just hitting combos, it just sort of builds naturally. So I thought that was a really cool, unique rule in that game that hasn't really been in any other game. So Zeppelin, then Rush, now Foo Fighters. Are you on hold until the next Rock game comes out or are you going to be able to expand into something else? I mean, I obviously can't say what I'm working on. I mean, I'm still, you know, working on foo, you know, just doing more stuff on that right now. People are loving it and I love, you know, making it better and better. Can I ask a question then going from Zeppelin to Rush? Because I think, you know, I've said on the podcast, I think a lot of people have said that Rush was the surprise hit. Nobody was expecting it to be as good as it is. And from my perspective, the layout is fine. It's fine to shoot. It's fine. It's fine. Okay, it's just fine. But I just found the rules to be very accessible, like very communicative to me as a player. It was guiding me through the game, which I felt more so than Zeppelin. And I'm wanting to know whether that was a conscious thing from you. Uh, well, I guess it helped that you're in Australia, so you got the code. You probably played it after a few revisions, but Rush actually was notorious for people not knowing what to do, and so every update I kept putting more and more direction in, more text, more, you know, things like that. I did some tutorial videos. I tried to tell people, just hit the blinking lights, shoot the time machine when it's lit, and it was also hard to communicate because there's those lights on top of the time machine, and you can't really see them unless you're looking for them. So, yeah, it was actually a lot harder to relay what I thought would be pretty obvious of you're just collecting these records. You're just getting these records, building your song mode, and then you're going into the song mode. But it was actually pretty confusing at first. So we just kept tweaking it and tweaking it, trying to make it as easy to understand as possible. And I think now it's in a super great place. People are loving it. Well, I mean, it's good to hear. One thing I've learned from doing the rules for Fathom Revisited is as a person that plays pinball, you can't assume that just because you understand what's going on that everybody else understands what's going on. And I thought that there's some stuff that I put in there that was super obvious and people are still missing it and not seeing it. So is that, I guess, something that you've probably had to be aware of as well? We aí a Knapp, Grosz Jr. Knapp, Jansen C Demokrat, Unknown P keluar, David Hammin, Kelvin Kroetscherini Tiva Mark, The Veteran. Jannik P Av需要goo Jason Spickey, Write our furniture Karl Busch, Irlen Leon Hansom莚 Jeeva123lave Karl Lendero Japherson Wollinger Jarendra Last Tris Jayde R Gibson Muriel Once When You Live Nobody Knows Lashun greater, Louie Lot Qin Tila Iga Dannyых So this is really interesting. I'm just all about just trying to shove as many things in their face and hoping some of them stick. Oh my. When Jersey Jack gave us Wizard of Oz, they were the first real LCD screen and you could see in the four quadrants what's going on, horse of different color and all that kind of stuff. It gave you the information. As Stern worked with their LCD, you could see more and more information, especially on a game you worked on, on Avengers. I think we were talking in the UK this past weekend about things like the one thing I wish it would show is how many combos you have. But if you hold them together, I guess you can see it. But they do give you a lot of information how far away from each Avenger. I find that interesting. Zeppelin, you've got some information there. Rush is spectacular and you've added it since the code first came out. I think that's important because the rules are so deep and there's so many things happening underneath you. You just need to know your progress. Short of pouring apologies, Here is why we want to invite you to plan your football matches during the透 comrades scholarsJanuaryía 50th, 2021 Blade to our So, if you don't know as much about pinballesterday you can just look at what time it is on the clock. But, you know, just having that accessible at a quick glance I think is super helpful. There's a lot of stuff going on in that LCD in Rush, but it is kind of organized in those quadrants like you were saying so that you can always look in the same, like modes are always in the upper left, the time machine is always in the upper right and once you kind of figure that out then you can kind of look where you need to immediately and see what's going on. and I've found as well and not that we're going to do this whole Stern versus Jersey Jack thing but with Jersey Jack having such a large screen they therefore decided to just throw so much at it so there's too much to be seen on that on that screen that is kind of a good limitation I've found myself many times actually trying to show something on screen with text yes and and then I will play it and I'll look at it I'm like okay that was way too much text in way too Maybe it doesn't even physically fit unless you've either shrink the font or it just looks horrible. So I'm like, OK, I got to get that text shorter because A, it's easier to read if it's shorter and B, you can't read it that fast. So I got to come up with a way to phrase this information in the most compact, concise way possible. And it's kind of a fun challenge. But every time I go through it, whatever I end up with, I'm always super happy with the result. That what I was sort of getting at in that because Josie Jack got so much room they just put everything all up there at once Whereas with Stern having a smaller screen you therefore got to feed text in larger font on the screen So therefore timing is everything So as you playing something you need to be able to have that moment to look up and see that piece of information that told you So I think what you done really well and not just you but I think Stern in general with that screen is the timing of information that it gives you just at the moment you looking up and then back to the flippers Yeah, I noticed when we were streaming Avengers at the UK open We were trying to figure out how many combos this player had before they could get a portal lock But they shot a combo and immediately shot the Captain Marvel ramp And so just as the combo animation was coming up Captain Marvel was the last element that happened that over Rided over that word I've arrived around the road that overlapped Yeah, you gotta be aware of some of those scenarios. Yeah, so the information did pop up, but it was so split second. That's gotta be a tough thing because you aren't really in control of the editing. Does that come under the programming aspect too? Well, I mean, we can control when to show and the priority of things. So sometimes what we'll do is we'll have the combo animation be top priority. And so anything else that wants to show has to wait till it's completely done. The next thing will queue up behind it. But if you do that too much, then people kind of get upset because there's a big stack of animations they're sitting through. So it's actually really difficult to balance those priorities. You know, you want the immediate feedback, but at the same time, if there's something really important showing, you really want to see, especially if you're doing a pinball pin Slash challenge, you really want to see what you just did. Oh yeah, I know that very well. I've been call outs in particular when you've got the something that is so urgent and it overrides a call out as well. You can Frank Frankenstein some sentences together. I think in general, if a call out is happening and we want to make another call out happen, you either just don't do that second call out or you you wait, you know, till the other ones finished. And but sometimes if it's you know, it's been too long, then then it might seem kind of weird getting this out of context call out. So you got to pay attention to that too. One thing I love, and Marty, even though you don't do it anymore, you were once a competitor and you were quite good at it. That breaks my heart. One day, one day. That is something that I love that Stern and other companies are doing with people making the rules. They are getting some of the top competitors because, you know, you still have that important element of making a game fun for the non-competitors. www.flIA.com Keefer's been doing a great job with Jersey Jack Joe Katz. Marty, you're there. They've got Colin MacAlpine and Bowen Kerins helping out at Multimorphic, Steven Bowden and American. These are great, great players and they're going to have some insight on what's cool and what's not when it comes to rules. I'll add to that. They're not just great players. All those people that you mentioned, I'll take my name out if you will, but all those people- Done. Hey, not just good players, but understand what makes a good game a good game. That's the difference. And I think I just wanted to point out that I think a lot of people, when, when the LNs and all that started coming into people like, Oh, now you're just going to make these games really tough because you know, the competitive players are going to be the only ones that play it. And that's not true. I think because you've played so much pinball, you know, what works and what doesn't. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good way of putting it. You know, what's fun. And then you also know from just watching people play pinball, especially if you play with people, you know, the various skill levels of everybody and you want to try to cater to as broad a group as you can while still having things underneath to shoot for, of course. I like that Stern does this. I can't even think of the last game where you weren't granted a somewhat easy multiball. Maybe it's simply three shots, maybe it's two shots, whatever it is. This Week in Pinball, Johnny Pneumonic, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, transliteelectronic Question, where's the multiball, right? Makes it nice and simple to start and then kind of go from there. Well, Guardians of the Galaxy is a game where you can actually select quill and have a two ball multiball right away which isn't big points. You're not going to complete the mode unless you're super and the reason a lot of players do that in competition is to kind of feel out the shots. Oh, definitely. You can't make progress on Groot or Orb but you're feeling okay, well there's where the ramp is. theme song So, this is not me trying to be a smartass, but playing Led Zeppelin the few times that I have, I haven't really played it all that much. What's the chump multiball for that, the easy multiball? Shoot the left ramp three times. That's it? Zeppelin multiball, yeah. Yep. Okay. In competition, you'll usually have to hit the rock targets on the right to qualify it. But that was something we were going for. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. We went back and forth with Tanyo, Jack and I. We wanted to make sure that it wasn't too hard because we wanted to make sure, you know, at least people could experience that capture where it does the cool light effect. You know, if you have a shaker motor, it's shaken. If you have a magnet on the premium, it kind of throws the ball around. And so we wanted to make sure that was very accessible. So that's why the first one, you don't even have to hit the targets. You can just, you know, spot that just hit him a bunch. So those are kind of, you know, day to day things you kind of discuss with people and try to come up with a happy Person's name and student name recycling cosplay Marchegiani nonaltercynhair assembly Senior Intelligence which takes part in the Earful-approvedction swift june timeline noterexpl taped SA intentions yes sub восIAN i understand the air so i am stop let me consider eating time fault the and search I gotta say, I gotta say it's the one I grew up with. The one that started me on pinball is Pioneer slash Spirit of 76 is the four player version. A lot of people might not like that game, but it has sentimental value to me and I like some of the setups it has where you can actually get like a double double bonus collect and you can chain extra balls forever and just a fun simple simple EM and have a soft spot for it. Let's see the next era would be what early solid state? Yeah, solid state before you get to the ramp era. Okay, so yeah, not like whirlwind or funhouse, but before that, before that, I don't know. I mean, this might sound kind of bad, but they all they're all kind of all kind of the same to me. I don't know. I don't really. That's interesting. Why do you think that is? And and I, you know, my my instant reaction is how very dare you because I know I know it was just my gut reaction. It's not very dare you at all because I'm curious to know is that because you didn't grow up with them I mean spoiler alert. I think I've literally only played them like in tournaments At least that's where I started playing them right is I just learn where the inline drops are where the multipliers are and where the points are So I didn't I didn't really approach those from any other angle. I mean now of course I appreciate them and I love finding transparency privilege Beside Instagram of ozeland and Knapp In gladly at atestic disciples溜ウ atestic facial Fortnite pinecoats At SJC, shanaton, strokey Aut interconnected, Okay, so then let's go to alphanumeric. Probably Funhaus. That was one of my first games. Funhaus or Mousing Around were one of the earlier of that era games that I played growing up. And Funhaus was kind of one of the first ones where I realized I was good at pinball because I was able to like catch and stage, well maybe not stage yet, but try for a jackpot with an upper flipper and get the rewards. and you know show people hey look I'm putting him to sleep there's a storyline here and they were like blown away they're like there's a storyline like what so definitely funhouse I think and then mousing around I just had a special spot for that because I grew up playing it in a pizza parlor one of those games and I also found out on those system 11's the replay never went up unlike the DMD's so when I found those I was always super happy because I could play them forever because I just keep getting free games. But yeah, Mousin' Around is just a really fun game. I love the sounds in that game. DMD? Uh, that would be, well, I guess just any DMD. Yeah, I'm gonna do pre-PLCD DMD, so it's, it's your Bally Williams and it's also your early-ish Sterns. Don't fuck it up, Raymond. Don't fuck it up. I always give the same answer and I still do think it's my favorite game and it is Simpson's Pinball Party. Woo! It's just, it's funny that I don't own one because I've owned that, owned it like three times and every time I just play it to death. I like, I don't get sick of it. I kind of do a little bit but I kind of like, it's like okay I'm fulfilled now and then I end up selling it because I'm like I've got the wizard mode, I did the thing. But it's just such a fun game like when you're having and everything's coming together. Okay, I'm not going to try and be a, you know, change my mind, you know, that kind of thing but But I've said many times that I do not like Simpson's Pinball Party and I'm not, it's not my head in the sand going, I'm never going to like it. I'm curious to know what strategy I could take to playing it next time I go up to it to enjoy the game. What do you think I could do differently that would actually make me enjoy it? I think you would love the challenge of trying to beat all the TV modes in one go. That is one of my favorite things about it because you can reset your timer by shooting auto. You know start double scoring resets your timer and then you can also just light another TV mode and start another TV mode and As you're starting TV modes the other ones are all still running so you kind of have to shoot around the playfield try to complete them All you know try to bring in a multiball when you're feeling like oh, I need help You know I don't want to drain because I've got all this stack going now. I need some safety Then going back to the multiball keeping your timer going reflector headset Financial The other thing I would say is try to get the mystery spot mode. You know, just get to that reverse flipper auto mode because it's a blast. Oh, and then try to stack that with other multiballs. Then you're getting just the points explosion. Sounds like superhuman stuff. Just quietly. Well, it's fun. You asked, I answered. I know, but is that achievable? Yes. Okay. No, I want to. I genuinely want... There's very few pinball machines out there that are really good at pinball. I mean, I've seen a lot of pinball machines out there that are really good at pinball. I mean, I've seen a lot of pinball machines out there that are really good at pinball. I mean, I've seen a lot of pinball machines out there that are really good at pinball. There's very few pinball machines that I've completely written off Thunderbirds. But even though I say I don't like Simpson's Pinball Party, I want to like it. So there's actually a desire in me to understand it. Yeah, I mean, there's no shame in just finding one and playing it a bunch or even setting some of the difficulties easier or just finding, you know, dialing in on the shots and make sure it's a good copy where you can hit the side ramp. Make sure the upper flipper can hit the couch, you know, that sort of thing. That really matters. Make sure the outlanes aren't like all the way open. It helps if your slingshots aren't super sensitive and then you can kind of, you know, settle in for a while and kind of dial them in and play it for a while. Awesome. And then favorite LCD game? Ooh, um, the answer I usually give for this is Batman 66. Okay. I'm a fan of the crazy point explosions. When you get the multi multipliers, and then you get to wizard mode, and now you're doing this, doing that, getting lots of big points. Just huge numbers showing up on the screen. But, I don't know. The one thing Batman is missing, I think, is a super wizard mode. It doesn't feel like there's anything tying everything. It's literally all the points. So when I want my points fixed, I love Batman 66. I'm trying to think, I think like maybe an Iron Maiden is a game I really like. That's definitely always up there in my LCD list. I just love, cause that has the point explosion with the modes and the two minutes to midnight and soul shards and that thing. But it also has the run to the hills, which I feel is like such a fun challenge cause it matters, you know, beating all the modes, getting super jackpots. That's like my favorite rule style in pinball is you have to do well I'm a fan of Pinball and I'm a fan of Pinball. I've been playing Pinball for a long time and I've gotten really into it. So, it's been really fun and I'm looking forward to what it's like to be a pinball player. I'm also looking forward to how it's going to look like in the future. I've been able to learn about the game and all the things to get to the big thing at the end. Love it. What were you looking for there Marty? What I was looking there for was as a competitive pinball player and as a now rules designer or encoder, whether there has been some change in your thought process over that time? Not too much. I mean, I pretty much still like the games I like and I mean I like most games anyway. I'm not sure I have a view of the Pimball game, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to like the game. This week in offline is celebrate Pinball stirring procentile by Michael Park poem by Nathan's group this week don't mention Rick I so couldn't considered closing a regrettable I've got here very few the year before but this song steam on baccanchange importantly How wonderful this tournament was and yours truly was there, Ray was there. Ray came home with a lot of hardware and a lot of English pounds. He won the UK Open. He was the big winner. I saw. Thank you. Yeah, congratulations man. I was looking it up because Geoff had sent me a note saying that he did very well in like round one of Classics 2, so I decided to log into Neverdrains to deep dive and saw that he won Classics 2. I'm not going to mention it. Not at all. I don't want to mention it. Are you saying Jeff led some breadcrumbs and at the end you saw that he had the most points after the final round in Classics 2? I did. I saw that he had won Classics 2. But also what I saw even more importantly was in Maine he came 36th. Yeah, that was at 8 in the morning after winning Classics 2 and going to bed around 2.30. Pretty bagged. You know, that's I mean, still follow some of those McDonald's nuggets or tenders from the from two a ray ray. That's right. I took you and Phil Birnbaum out because Ray was in the finals with me along with some chump named Keith Elwin. I did see that. And because this is the whole thing, right? Just so it's like, I saw that you'd won. I'm like, okay, but clearly you must have had a pretty low playfield around you. And I saw the big hitters and I kind of went, Oh, you actually did really well. And, unfortunately, I did say that offline, and now I'm saying thatonline that I was very pleased that you won. I'm not going to say anything about it. Ray, what do you remember from Classics 2? I remember Jeff destroying Nineball the first time he had ever played it. And that was basically the victory game, right? Once you won that, I think that was your eight points, and you sealed it. It was a walk-off. I had not played one. I hadn't played Nineball, I bet, in five years. I had played it before, but I never played not even one game. And the thing was in the bank two consecutive days, and there were a lot of games. The other game I didn't play was Pinball Champ 82, the Zachariah game. Escher picks that against me. I put up almost 12 million on the thing with a red special not even working. I'm building it and I hit it and it still doesn't give you points. But oh well. I found the ramp, got a few champs. It's funny. Like, Ray, has that ever happened to you? It was really weird. Like, for me to win nine ball and pinball champ twice, the two times it was picked, when I had never played them. Does that happen? I'm a little bit different and I knew a couple of things about that and I had I had played it in warmup maybe a few times and I noticed if the ball is going as fast as possible, you'll never, ever, ever drain out the left side. So I had like 10 power inlanes and they were all, I wasn't touching the thing because I knew it would hit the top of the sling I guess if you will and go straight down. If you made a nudge or it was slow, then you had to do some moving to get it out of the inlane outlane. I just let it go and it looked like, oh my god, all these fucking power inlanes. By design. You won classics because of all the power inlanes. I'm saying I had 12 of them, but it was by design. Like, I'm not touching anything on the left side. Don't worry. No, that is actually a really good read. A lot of times I've seen people and myself nudge balls out of the outlane when it would have went in. So that's a good good thing to notice and yeah I hadn't played that blackout either until that one time that I had to play it with With you and was it with you and Keith or was it around before we played well? You might have played it before but we played it with Keith and Phil Birnbaum, but right hey You know what enough of me for fuck's sake. Oh, yes, I won We've got a guest on here. He won. He won the UK Open he came second in the Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. The Finally puts his hand up. Yep. Yep, and As Neil is coming over the game does a ball search and it kicks out my locked ball and so now all of a sudden I'm trying my hardest to trap and and I can't that that was the Super squirrely Indy 500 the flippers I felt were like lower or something so you couldn't trap as easy I was trying to trap a ball eventually Neil when he's over here. I'm like, okay Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. He explained exactly what you just heard. Now Marty, I immediately said to Ray, here's what you did wrong. Marty, what did he do wrong? Ask Neil McCrae advice? Oh that not fair Leave Shrek alone Anyway I was calling him that the whole weekend Come on Neil just say donkey Anyway what Ray did wrong and Ray like a million times better than me but I know if you got a ball locked and you letting the ball do a search guess what probably going to happen It going to kick out your ball I got Travis Muried I Travis Muried myself Hold the flipper up to prevent it from doing a ball search Of course If you've got a ball stuck hold a flipper up Lets do weird things Ahora local Hot wheels It does say the children Tweetlframes for Tweet Tweet We have another good point in a game with physical locks. So if you're running a tournament and you have an option of virtual locks, always choose virtual locks. It may be a little weird even on something like Foo Fighters. Why isn't it going in the Overlord? Physical locks create problems. Like if you're ever playing Deadpool, I think Deadpool originally was set up physical locks, but of course you're playing that in a tournament and you're playing single player. I'm like, no, I'm changing that right away. Katana lock. I'll have to rebut the Foo Fighters. I think the game plays a lot better with the captured ball and it's not in there very long. Like you hit it two or three times and then it's gone. So I would recommend not setting that one to virtual locks. I don't think it benefits that way the negatives on that one. Okay, right into final round of pinball. Finalroundpinball at gmail.com if you have ever had a virtual lock problem versus a physical lock problem. I'm not saying that isn't an issue. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. In a tournament, you don't need all the corners, do you? Well, but you wanted to play how you normally play the game, you know It's it just you know, especially with Foo Fighters where after you lock a ball You can get another skill shot or it feeds the plunger So you might not want to lock it at certain times that you might want to you know If the captive all's there it might be more dangerous than when it's not there, you know, it just changes the game Do you turn that off with avatar? No, I've never I don't even think you could and if you could would you? Well, it's the same thing. Like if they're turning it off in Speed Riders, why would you? Right. Yeah, no, it's exactly that. I sort of come to that because I think I've sort of made comment before and I'm not mentioning the person's name, Ryan C. But sometimes you can make games too tough that you lose the fun factor and the argument is, well, it's a tournament, it's meant to be the best of the best. My argument is, yeah, but you got I think so. I mean, if you can, yeah, I would rather have a game, you know, take a couple minutes longer, but have it be, you know, way more like I felt like I had a chance that game. It sucks when you feel like you just didn't even have a chance at all, or like, you know, the feather tilt situation in some games or, you know, there's definitely ways to go too far where technically you're making it harder, and you're making it so that you have to be better at it. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. In the text of a post, the Taito is the first choice, I think. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of like a hidden factor. People don't even realize how they're getting kicked in the nuts. Speaking of a hidden factor, Ray Day revealed something on stream on backhand pinball. What? At the UK Open. Yeah, he did. Because I went in and changed. Listen, we were running late. Things started at six because of a tiebreaker. I said to Neil, this thing is going to two if you're lucky. And we're supposed to be out there at midnight. And I said let me take off all the rubbers, reduce all ball saves. Some ball saves like have zero, like Godzilla, you couldn't even earn a ball save. Anyway, so on multiballs, I didn't want zero and on the new games, especially Stern, you can't make them zero, but I wanted to reduce them. So I reduced the ball saves on multiballs to eight seconds. Ray's in the booth with me and says, yeah, that might be fake. That might be something that Josh and Zach Sharp will always drop it down to eight seconds for their tournaments but count it out and I did. I took a timer even though I set it to eight seconds it was still fifteen seconds to default. No way! Yeah, it's fucking trickery. I loved it. I loved it. In your face sharps. Yeah. Okay, Ray, my last question to you. We hear it a lot from people that don't play in tournaments but play a lot of pinball. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I would say you should go to a tournament and find out for yourself, you know, report back to me. I'm sure you can find time in your busy schedule to go to one tournament in a year just like find one and try it out and then you know who knows you might even like it but you'll definitely will be shocked if you're thinking it's gonna be all rainbows and you know like oh I I get that score every time I play it and now it's like well a little harder. It is different. What would you say to somebody that came up to you at a tournament? Maybe they're from Australia and they said, hi, how are you going? What would you say to them? Back off fucko. I would be, I would say, hello, hey, how's it going? And I'd sit and chat with them. Is that a didgeridoo in your pants or are you just happy to see me? I probably ask some question along the lines of, so is it true in Australia the toilets go the other way or something stupid like that. But you know it's true, right? That actually does happen. Yeah. It's true. You've never been to Australia? No. I'm working my way there. I flew to London, I flew to Frankfurt. Those are some long distances. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I'm Dr. John. Make your way down to Melbourne. I'll look after you, show you the sites and we can compare. I hear Escher might be going down there. Permanently? I'm not sure. His mom's from Tasmania, I think. I think she has citizenship. Yeah, I know that he's, maybe his aunt does, is Australian. It's very easy for him to come over. He's got relatives here is what I know. Do you guys have, like, can I just literally book a flight and show up or do I have to do any visa or any advance things or anything? Because I hate anything that's inconvenient. Okay. Well, there were nine shots I had to take. Oh, no. Koala rabies was the one. Monkeypox. No, so what we, what we, what I know is that we've got what's called, I think it's called ETSA, which is a visa waiver program. So you go online, you pay $20 and you get a visa that lasts maybe two years and that's it. So it's just an online thing that I think you need to do. There's, there's an agreement between Australia and the U S it's very easy to do. When I came from Indonesia to Australia, I had to do it, but you did it right at the airport. It's easy, easy peasy. I've only flown to, um, you know, Europe and it seems like you just get off the plane and they stamp your passport and then you're on your way. I just think that your, what I perceive as your easygoing nature, unless Australians sort of say hello to you at a tournament, but besides that, your easygoing nature will, and I would say kind of chill vibe that you've got, would work so well in Australia. I just think that you'd- Well, thank you Marty, yeah. Well that sounds wonderful, yeah. I need to, I just need to buckle down and make a plan. It's just, you know, you gotta plan those things. No, I know. It's a it's a it's a it's actually an officially an undertaking. It's not just like a whim. It's an undertaking to come to Australia. Yeah, I get it. Really nice words from Marty and just words Raymond. He wants you dead. Fuck it. Don't do it. Stay in America. Have you seen all the spiders and shit that they have there in Australia? He's going to show you all of them. All right. And then he's going to be able to save me. I hope there's not someone else also in a similar fate at the same time. This is the whole thing. It's not about you. It's not you personally. It's just who you're up against. That's all it is. You know. I understand. Is that segment still a thing or did you guys panic? Apparently it's still a thing. I hate it. He thinks that I secretly love it. I hate it. But people keep writing and saying how much they love it. It's really annoying. Stay tuned. All right, Raymond. I can't thank you enough. Good to see you. Congrats again on the UK Open taking all those pounds. Holy shit. You did 7000. What'd you get? I think it was 6400 total with the classics and main combined. Yep. And that was 7800 American like they actually the exchange rate was in our favor for once. So that was sweet. I got 2300 Canadian for my win. I was pretty happy. Oh yeah, for you it'd be even more, right? Oh yeah. That's a lot of poutine. Awesome. Well thanks for having me guys. Here we go. 12,270 Australian dollars. Wow. But, Raymond, I've seen the way the Australians play pinball. Like fuck, I've never lost a tournament there. I went there undefeated. Fuck off. You're a cunt. You know it. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. The Undefeated what you're forgetting to mention here in all of this you fucking sucked out of a penis fucking mug, okay? We got photos to prove it you literally on my mantle cock mug, so you know what whatever Okay, I know what the image of the next the image gonna be oh yeah Knapp cardinal.com, www.knappcardinal.com, www.knappcardinal.com, www.knappcardinal.com. It's been a while since I've said this. What have we learned other than he lost in the classics two finals along with Keith and Phil to yours truly? What did we learn? What we've learned is that working for pinball companies is freaking awesome and if you don't, well, you're missing out. What if you have a really, really good job that you've been doing for 30 years and you're at the highest part of the food chain? If you were like a comedian? No, no, no. That's a gimmicky job. That's just shits and giggles. I'm talking a real paying job, supporting your family, things like that. The end. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please like, subscribe, and share. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. I mean, you just had a great conversation with him. You invited him to come to your country. Did he die? No, he's actually alive. So that's what I understand about this. Emotionally, he's dead. As I said, there's just, I don't know, there's people that you meet, and I've said this to you, that you are an Australian at heart. You just are. You just, you get Australia and Australia gets you. There's just a compatibility there. So not everybody that I It's quite itsy so. Thanks a lot, Knapp. 33 T participants 33 Warriors 33 rejection 33 rejection There we were inAfrica The only thing that I wanna say no that's it But it does preify. I do absolutely marathon And if I'mArt Alsad This week's topic is… We get portrayed as being a backward country that's just… You don't even know what you're in. I'm so fucking drunk. So, but just that we're backward and that we… You know, we actually have quite a large population. We actually have high-rise buildings. We actually have a thriving economy. We actually have very intelligent people. Principal Ell burdenson ლ Ona ◕♡ Oh fuck, who knows? Who knows? You never know who listens, right? What? No, I do! Here's something I do not do in public. I don't. I don't talk politics, I don't talk religion. That's it. Yep. And I respect other people's opinions, even if they're different than mine. That's fine. But it's just not a conversation I want to have. I'm also not one of those people that, oh fuck you like such and such? We can't be friends. That's fucking bullshit. I mean, I don't even know what you I would I have no idea your religious beliefs. I have no idea your political beliefs. I don't fucking care. I like Marty for who he is. I think there are some some extremes, you know, and I think there's some if you were to push it on me, then that's a decision I might have to make. But you don't and I don't and it doesn't have to be that divided. I think the last time you and I casually mentioned something political about the US, we got a very stern email sent to us saying, I don't think you should talk about politics stuff. And we're like, okay, well, let's not do that again. So we don't. Anyway, fuck, we got shit for talking about COVID for God's sakes. Ian, if you are still listening to this podcast, which I doubt you are considering how many times we've mentioned you and COVID, but if you are still listening to us, can you please send us an email and say hello because we miss you. There you go. I'm saying it. We actually do. Yeah, we actually do. It's quite a lot of fun. Okay. Okay. On a serious note. Sure. Jessie J. Mm-hmm. And Mrs. Pin. Mm-hmm. Oh, God. Are on a deserted island. Oh, we are doing this. I can do it. It's not even a boat. It's a canoe. It's sinking. There's a tsunami coming. You can help one of them get off the island and live. Jesse J. Who you recently snubbed? I had to remind you that she was there. I found some photo evidence. Yep. And Mrs.Pinn, who, between her and Dr.Pinn, sending you gin, that may be the fucking factor alone right there. devoteful Complet texto personal voice over andרכing anymore ae textbooks relevant for clans with medical problemsaye You think this is difficult? This is actually really easy. This is the- Woah! Easy- You're hurting somebody by saying that. Yep. No no no no. This is really easy. And I'll explain why. I would absolutely, categorically save Jesse J. Holy fuck! Yep. Why? Easy. Easiest answer. Have you seen what Mrs. Pin can fucking do? She would build a three story fort in the matter of two hours Technology NVậyO envision bacayjuk, animated Zenthten substance dusumeden te?诽 taiении im giereostiuste curtains anime beregeraciy más ne mangi o sunlight Kl контр con Firebrand Pattyreme, So pequeño interjections relying oğlum This Week in Pinball, John Papadiuk, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, transliteelectronic Do not appoint trimester as CEO of the Shutap euro. I hope you're okay with your answer because I know you like the end result, somebody perishing, but you've helped Jessie J with the knowledge that Mrs. Pin will be not only fine but an entrepreneur that she'll be franchising hotels. She will literally have a Pin Hotel. She will literally have a chain of hotels on Vancouver Island. Hmm, okay. We didn't get the death our listeners so often welcome, but we tried. Well, that's what you're saying. Normally you think if I save somebody, the other person perishes. Mrs Pin cannot die She is immortal is what I telling you So conversely are you saying that Jessie J is pathetic and can fend for herself Is that part of it too Nope What I saying is http Acceptment http auf dem http http Zhan CasanovaWFWqbuzli 337 MA3 sananina La Radice http://destinexploreadsricanesuccess.com http://destinexploreads Spikecon-dagpages.org http://destinexploreadascycle.com http://dastetreepnest.com Knoffsome했ler.webньwhch opensdesktuli.tatsu auto adoles ebook http://destinexploités.u HomeOnline.com http://destinex NHW 0 demokrat 이상99-20.2 instagram. erwival-ّaz courage trav.com Welcome to Aco tongan FC I was thinking about this the other day. I was thinking about licenses. We're about to see a new Jersey Jack game coming out of Expo, they say. Yes, El John. Yep. It got me thinking, okay, that's out. And I guess we're going to be seeing elements too from the Punny Factory people from Pinball Adventures. There's the mystery game that's coming out. We don't know what that is. Labyrinth. Yep. Which is, I personally think, is a phenomenal license if you can get Labyrinth. Okay, I love David Bowie. I love Jennifer Connelly even more. Um, if I recall watching that movie when I was a kid, it's amazing. Isn't he kind of creepy and stalking a woman that's underage and yep. Okay, I guess. Hey, guess what? Cancel culture is over. But he also has some funny jingly tunes and some little puppets as well. So that makes it all right. So okay, anyway, whatever. It got me thinking. As you think of all these different pinball companies, I'm not asking you to tell me what their best game is. Forget what the end product was. You could ask me if you wanted to. No, this is a different thing because that's been done many times. This has not been done on a pinball podcast. Okay. It's a first. It's going to be ripped off by everyone else. Here we go. I want you to name each company's best theme in the sense that you've been given this license. Whatever the end product was, forget about it. A C So that's not true? No. Go on. Hot Wheels. I'm an idiot, you're right fuck I'm an idiot. I was like I want that I'm an idiot repeated. Yeah yeah yeah. My little pecker, my little pecker. Hotwheels is certainly a good, well okay, it's not a license because whatever the, what is it called when the IP runs out or what's it called the trademark whatever. Yeah I know what you mean, public domain. Quick Demand, Thank you, fuck it. It's by the way, it's 3.30 in the morning here. I'm not cheating. What the hell? It's like six o'clock here, shit, dinner time. Oh, wow. Anyway, make it going, whatever. Hot Wheels. Yeah, that's certainly a recognizable one. Okay, I'll give you that. But I was thinking forgetting Hot Wheels. I was thinking when you found out they had Houdini, forget the shitty callouts that they have in it, but we're like, fuck, that's a, everyone knows Houdini. Yeah, I did. I thought that was a great license. Yeah. Very well done. Well done, nice. So that's it for Spooky. Now, Spooky has had a few, right? Looking at the licenses that they've had, what do you think on paper was the best license? Forget what the game was like, what was the best license? For me, is this what I think globally is the best license or me personally what I like the most? The one to me that, again, they get the license, you're dying to see this game. Like holy fuck, they got that? This is going to be great. Yeah. What is it for you? The But Of course you haven't seen it Have you even seen The Exorcist? Oh my god I think we've talked about this I saw The Exorcist When I was way too young And I think it's why I don't like horror movies I saw it when I was like maybe Nine years old Like I have a daughter Who's fifteen She might be sixteen And Is she named Regan? No I wouldn't want her Joe I Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I'm a part of a trilogy. I've seen the first movie. I want to see the other two. X is really amazingly well done. Jenny Ortega is actually the known actress in it, but she's got a bit part. It's not Saw X, is it? No, just X. It's called X. Okay. I don't know where I saw it. Amazon? I remember somebody telling me, like, this is kind of the new horror movie thing. And I was like, okay. I wasn't hiding behind a pillow scared, and fucking right I do that. I can listen to scary sounds looking at them. I'm afraid my heart will just stop, to be honest. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no. I've not heard of it, but it might be, just off the top of my head, a 2022 American slasher film written, directed, produced, and edited by Ty West. Does that sound right? Does it star Mayor Goth in dual roles? Yeah, yeah. And stars Jenna Ortega, Martin Joshua Henderson, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell? Just again, all of this is just, I'm spitballing off the top of my head. The original Google, Marty Robbins. There he is. Uh, okay. Do you know what? Do you know what I love about this? Okay. Watch the trailer and you'll like, you'll go fuck. I gotta watch that movie. So what's happening at the moment? There's, there's, if you read some articles, Hollywood's fucked at the moment is really what, what it is. So what's happening is a lot of these big blockbuster movies with big budgets are losing money and they, they could be great films. They could be shit films. It does not matter. All films at the moment are tanking. And everyone's referring to this flops. And it's not true. It's just that we're in a post-COVID world, we're in a world where movies, this is what I think is the single biggest issue with cinemas at the moment is that a movie will come out and 30 days later, you'll be able to buy it and stream it. So why would I go to the movies when I've got a home cinema here, I can wait for it to be able to purchase, you know, on iTunes or whatever it is, Apple. The There's the big screen experience, right? Oppenheimer certainly had that with the sound and stuff and if you shot at IMAX, that was something. Barbie was a monster movie this summer. It was fantastic. So you don't necessarily need to see that in the cinema, but it became an event for a lot of people. But the reason why I'm bringing that up... Top Gun Maverick? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to watch that on your home one. You got to see that in the big screen. Sure. I've not seen the original Top Gear, so whatever. Oh my God. Top Gear. Top Gun, whatever it is. Top Gear. so now what I'm saying is that X that movie had a budget of 1 million dollars yep and it made 15 million so by all accounts that's... thats a success 15 to one that's really good there's all these other movies Well, Barbie's budget was 145 million you've got to add marketing on top of that as well you think they say usually double it so you know that's a 300 dollar movie I'm not a fan of the word X because I don't like horror movies at all. Okay, I can't convince you to do it. That's fine. We're back to best theme, fucker. You've taken us off a different path. I thought Halloween was the best for Spooky, but I can't disagree with Scooby Doo. Okay, let's Jersey Jack. Now the speculation is they're going to get Harry Potter. The answer is Harry Potter, but it hasn't come out yet. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I have had, for me personally, they've had a license where I go, oh my God, that's the best thing. I mean, even though I've still got Wizard of Oz and I'll never lose, I'll never leave. Oh my God. Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, tucky, tucky, not working. Oh my God. And so I will never let that go from my collection, which is what I said about Star Trek and it's gone. I just don't know whether at this stage, Jersey Jack has had, for me personally, Oh my god license. That's all I'm saying. On saying that, I think their licenses are good. Pirates of the Caribbean, I like the license. Not a huge fan of the movies. The Hobbit, preferred that to Lord of the Rings. Wizard of Oz obviously is timeless. Willy Wonka, etc. Toy Story, great. Whatever. For me, if it's Harry Potter, that's obviously the number one. But for me, I don't have a, oh my god, I got to have it just because of the theme for Jersey Jack. That's just me. It's their games themselves.ajavijseane keys kvatsatomkne лишь This Week in Pinball?) I'm a fan of the Hobbit, the game, but the license was like, because how many times do people say, fuck, you got to do another Lord of the Rings. Well, Jersey Jack had the next best thing to having Lord of the Rings with a lot better art and assets. And it just, and the game kinda maybe fell flat a little bit, I know people that just absolutely swear and love it, so it wasn't what I wanted it to be and toy story, I know what's toy story for, but people still call it toy story, that game is extremely underrated and when it first came out I thought, oh this is pretty easy, maybe not my kinda thing, and the more I've seen it, the more I've talked to people, especially operators who say it earns so much for them, you can make it difficult, I mean I have I have no idea, and I'm saying this, I would not even tease this, I have no idea what's coming up at Indisc, but one of those operators is Jim Belsito, and he tells me how great an earner that is, and he said, yeah you could make it tough, and I thought, oh fuck, he might be putting it in Indisc if he makes it tough. He knows how to make them tough. It's a good shooting game, first of all. There's a lot going on, it just, it plays long because some of the things are easy to do in multiballs, but man, it's a good one. So to me, best license, not best game, best license, it's between Hobbit and Toy Story. Yeah, if I had gone ahead, I would say Toy Story for me as a better license. Sure. Can't disagree. Yep. There you go. So Stern. Wow. They've got a lot of the licenses and you can look. First of all, should we go to Bally Williams? I guess Bally Williams had licenses, too, didn't they? Yep, they did. Oh, fuck. You're going to say roller games. Go ahead. Oh, I wasn't because you put me on the spot. We haven't talked about this before. So it's just it's hard to even remember all these games. But oh my God, roller games, roller games is just played that turd tonight. It's a great game. It's not. It could be with better ROMs. Sudden death ruins the game. Yeah, look, this is the whole thing when particularly tournament players when they look at rules, rules, it's really imbalanced as terrible but to shoot and to progress. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I'm going well I hate people that like since everybody is I just I don't get the game I don't get it but I want to is what I'm saying okay so anyway let's go back on to Stern. Next episode on final round who will Marty save people who love the Simpsons Pinball Party or people who love AFL we'll find out next week. And yet again it'll be a double death. Okay so Stern. Yep. Oh, no, no, no, no, before we get started, Valley Williams, can you think, like to me, what's the best like, what's the one that's going to go, wow, I got to get that. I mean, Attack from Mars is the game, but that's not really the license that makes you go nuts over that. You know, you go back to the old ones. Is it Evil Knievel? Is it Captain Fantastic? Is, hmm. Yeah, that's such a hard one, you know. Creature from the Black Lagoon? Is a good one. Monster Bash? MonsterBash is fantastic. Monster Bash the one that comes to mind to me because it was the universal monsters They were legendary and a big reason the game is popular big reason Chicago gaming made that as one of their earlier games That's the one that comes to mind for me in that Bally Williams era. Yeah Doctor who for me is probably my favorite thing. You know what I mean? I just think that is a great theme and I also think it's a great integrate theme integration I think it's it's really good as far as themes go. Yeah, that would be for me I wonder like when they did those old bally kiss games, Rolling Stones and things like that, Dolly Parton, was that ever a wow factor for operators back in the day? I wonder. If you're an operator from back in the day, please email us at finalrampinballatgmail.com. Yeah, like… Honestly, do. What were the big earners back in the day when we're talking solid states? Yeah. I wonder what they were.nakosdaley wes nyaThik gen af cuens pact relatives,ляні Nowfeldriw6 go, Sturn, best license they've had that holy fuck we got this license forget what the game turned out to be what was the best license? So for me personally it comes down to two. You hate both of these games. I'm sure. I don't hate any game well fuck yeah okay one I'm not like can I guess what you're thinking? Yep. Let me just preface by saying I don't hate these games. I don't understand one of them. You just want I'm okay with the other one. No no I don't understand the one and I'm I'm okay with the other one. Okay. I'm sure you're gonna say Star Wars and Ghostbusters. Okay, you're incorrect Really, but yeah, you know because I'm talking about for me like where I for me personally going Oh my god. Oh wow, like Star Wars obviously is the best but I don't get it about Star Wars I don't Star Trek. It's not even Star Trek, even though I love Star Trek These are for me like my personal and one of them is Avatar, right? There you go. Set it. You're fucked It's a huge license. It's big. And also, I will say this to you as I've said many times, Avatar got me back into pinball because I went, Oh my God, I love avatar. I haven't played pinball for a while. But hey, I love pinball. And I love avatar. So I got back into people because of avatar. Tom, to me, and I don't know, again, operators would really have some good insight on this. I don't think it's Star Wars and Ghostbusters. I would think it would be Star Wars and Batman. The And it could be Dark Knight. It could be Batman 66. Those are holy shit unbelievable licenses to get. Those are the ones for me. Yeah, I agree. See I would say things like James Bond and Beatles, right? Oh fuck. You know what I mean? Like they, for me personally, I don't care. No, but Beatles out of all bands. That's the one to get. More than the Rolling Stones. Exactly. More than Zeppelin, more than Rush, more than Maiden, more than Metallica. So that's the one. ACDC, right? Like in Australia, ACDC is like, oh my God, right? So I'm looking at the list of Stern games and I'm trying to get, the one I'm going to say is hilarious, but again, it's for me personally, I look at all these licenses and I go, you know, things like Tron. Tron is an amazing license. It's like what they've done- Tron's an amazing game. Is it an amazing license? Correct. Come on. The Elvira, oh my god This is what I'm saying It's all very subjective because Elvira is important to me But it doesn't mean that it's globally a good license. She couldn't kind of get what I mean because you've got things like Game of Thrones amazing license Stranger things amazing license walking dead amazing license. You don't I mean but for me personally You're ready for it. Get yourself ready. Are you ready? Are you ready for the jelly? I don't think you're ready for this Hey, you have no idea how much I love Beyonce. Go on. Austin Powers. Wow. That's the... We got Austin Powers. It's fucking awesome. It's obviously the machines flawed. However, if you look at AustinPowers, it did so many things in that game that they then used in other games. Just letting you know. Sure. It's just for me license wise, I just think that is they nailed it. And I remember when that first came out, I was just I nearly born. But, you know, we're talking 2001. I didn't have the money I have now, so I couldn't afford one back then. But I oh, my God, I so desperately wanted to own an Austin Powers Pinball Machine. And today I would love to own an Austin Powers Machine. I'm not in the market, but I'm just saying if anyone happens to listen to this podcast creativity Pink, Strength Dismother Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. We are here to talk about the most popular games in the game industry. The first game I saw was X-Men. It's very similar to that kind of stuff. We see samey things. Homebrews! You hardly do it. No, it's innovation. It's all there, isn't it? I mean, the first time I saw Sonic, I was like, holy shit, that's awesome! There are so many other great games. I'm pretty excited to see what people can do. Well, yeah. I mean, if you think about it, Jack Danger's homebrew that he was creating, Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. Knapp Arcade, David David Van Es. I'm working so hard. I had to stop playing pinball competitions. Everyone having a real job. Yep. Yeah. Oh, it's so tough. Fuck off. All right. Bye, everyone. See ya.

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