# Ep 79 - Pinball Machine or Hot Tub?

**Source:** Special When Lit  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2019-11-20  
**Duration:** 46m 18s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com/ep-79-pinball-machine-or-hot-tub

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## Analysis

Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb discuss pinball industry news including American Pinball's IAAPA appearance and redemption game plans, Jersey Jack quality control issues with pinballs and toppers, Stern's Jurassic Park making-of video, and extensive analysis of Deep Root's first public prototype showing at Houston Expo. They speculate on Deep Root's pricing ($6k-$7k) and manufacturing readiness ahead of potential Texas Pinball Festival launch.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] American Pinball will display Oktoberfest, Houdini, and reveal their redemption game 'Flying Dutchman' at IAAPA trade show (Nov 19-22, Orlando) — _Kaz, Special When Lit American Pinball correspondent, reporting direct conversation with Dan from American Pinball_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack is shipping new Willy Wonka Collector's Edition with new topper, but some customers are underwhelmed and sourcing toppers from Willy Wonka slot machines instead — _Ken Rudberg, Jersey Jack correspondent; multiple corroborating mentions in host discussion_
- [HIGH] Stern released a nearly seven-minute making-of Jurassic Park video showing Keith Elwin and Harrison Drake discussing game design, with T-Rex prototype modded from remote-control toy — _Craig Bobby, Stern correspondent; video available on Stern's Facebook page_
- [MEDIUM] Deep Root's prototype at Houston Expo features Raza Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land theme with nuclear zombies on carnival setting, one main corkscrew ramp, wide LCD DMD, and stainless steel apron — _Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb discussing photos from Jeff Patterson/This Week in Pinball; prototype display at Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo_
- [MEDIUM] Deep Root's prototype uses Mirko playfields, not final Deep Root playfields, indicating design still in flux — _Bill Webb's analysis of prototype specifications_
- [LOW] Ken and Bill speculate Deep Root pricing will be $6,000-$7,000, positioning below Stern Premium ($6,499-$6,999) as competitive market entry — _Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb speculation based on Robert (Deep Root) competitive positioning comments_
- [MEDIUM] Texas Pinball Festival (approximately 4-5 months away from November) expected to be Deep Root's official launch reveal for press and ordering — _Ken Cromwell analysis of timeline to production readiness_
- [MEDIUM] Stern machines ship with low-quality pinballs that should be immediately replaced; this is industry-wide quality control issue, not Jersey Jack-specific — _Bill Webb and Ken Cromwell discussing ball quality across Stern, Jersey Jack, and other manufacturers_

### Notable Quotes

> "We need to raise about eight thousand dollars for us to pay for a machine have it placed have it insured have it maintained...if it's 50 bucks that we raise it's 50 bucks that goes to charity"
> — **Ken Cromwell**, Early in episode
> _Announces 24-hour charity stream December 20-21 goal: donate pinball machine to Chicagoland Children's Hospital via Project Pinball_

> "Stranger Things by Brian Eddy? A. Ken Cromwell? We shall wait and see."
> — **Craig Bobby (Stern correspondent)**, Mid-episode industry buzz
> _Cryptic hint about potential Stern Stranger Things machine designer, prompting Ken to call Craig for more details_

> "I almost would have gone with a black cabinet, though, if it was a prototype...you really had to read or listen to podcasts to find out, hey, this is preliminary"
> — **Bill Webb**, Deep Root analysis section
> _Criticism of Deep Root's prototype presentation strategy; placeholder artwork caused confusion about finality of design_

> "There's a certain aura about his games...there's something in the air around John Papaduke's games, and that stood out to me right away"
> — **Ken Cromwell**, Deep Root discussion
> _Recognition of designer John Papaduke's distinctive visual/thematic signature in Raza prototype_

> "I'm not even banking on a lot of that stuff yet...programming, you can see what programming does to a game in a matter of months"
> — **Bill Webb**, Deep Root playfield analysis
> _Emphasis on uncertainty of prototype evaluation; code updates can dramatically change game feel_

> "If that game is at the price point of $6,000 or under...I would be happy with this at $6,000 or less...If it was in at like $55,000 to $59,000, I would take a chance"
> — **Bill Webb**, Pricing speculation section
> _Defines value threshold for Deep Root machine and willingness to purchase at below-$6k entry_

> "Just because you can make one or ten doesn't mean you can make a thousand...if you don't have your final design yet, like how are you having parts made? How are you ordering parts?"
> — **Ken Cromwell**, Deep Root manufacturing analysis
> _Identifies critical manufacturing challenge with tight 4-5 month timeline to Texas Pinball Festival_

> "I don't think anybody in the pinball world is shaking in their boots as of yet because what's the next hurdle? Production and manufacturing is the key to all this"
> — **Ken Cromwell**, Deep Root competitive assessment
> _Tempering enthusiasm about Deep Root threat to established manufacturers pending production validation_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Ken Cromwell | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast; former Jersey Jack PR/marketing; actively involved in charity initiatives; planning documentary projects |
| Bill Webb | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast; owns Wonka and other machines; hands-on modder; discusses gameplay impressions and design analysis |
| Ken Rudberg | person | Jersey Jack Pinball correspondent for Special When Lit; reports on product quality issues and topper developments |
| Craig Bobby | person | Stern Pinball correspondent for Special When Lit; reports on Houston Expo, Jurassic Park video, and cryptically hints at Stranger Things designer |
| Kaz | person | American Pinball correspondent for Special When Lit; reports direct from manufacturer on IAAPA and Cincinnati show plans |
| Keith Elwin | person | Lead game designer on Stern's Jurassic Park; featured in making-of video discussing T-Rex mechanism origins |
| Harrison Drake | person | Lead engineer on Stern's Jurassic Park; featured in making-of video |
| Robert | person | Deep Root Pinball founder/lead; displayed prototype at Houston Expo; emphasizes machines shown are preliminary; frequently references Stern competitive positioning |
| John Papaduke | person | Designer of Raza (Deep Root's first machine); known for distinctive atmospheric/eerie game design aesthetic |
| Jeff Patterson | person | Photographer/journalist (This Week in Pinball); provided first studio images of Deep Root prototype to community |
| Brian Eddy | person | Designer cryptically referenced by Craig Bobby as potential designer of unrevealed Stern Stranger Things machine |
| Dan | person | American Pinball representative; communicates company's show and product plans to media |
| Special When Lit Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast based in St. Charles, Illinois; hosts Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb; Episode 79 analyzed; planning 24-hour charity stream Dec 20-21 |
| American Pinball | company | Manufacturer displaying Oktoberfest, Houdini, and revealing Flying Dutchman redemption game at IAAPA; expanding beyond pinball into redemption market |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Willy Wonka Collector's Edition; experiencing quality control issues with factory-supplied pinballs; releasing new topper variant |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer with large exhibit at Houston Expo; released Jurassic Park and Elvira's House of Horrors; created making-of documentary video |
| Deep Root Pinball | company | New manufacturer showing prototype of Raza (Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land) at Houston Expo; pricing strategy targeting $6k-$7k; Texas Pinball Festival expected official launch |
| Project Pinball Charities | organization | 501(c)(3) placing pinball machines in children's hospitals; Special When Lit partnering for Dec 20-21 charity stream; target donation $8,000 for machine placement/insurance/maintenance |
| Raza | game | Deep Root's first machine; full title 'Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land'; nuclear zombie carnival theme; shown as prototype at Houston Expo |
| Willy Wonka | game | Jersey Jack machine; Bill Webb owns standard version and modding it; new Collector's Edition with topper recently released; some customers seeking alternative slot machine toppers |
| Jurassic Park | game | Stern machine; gaining acceptance as one of most popular titles in recent years; featured at Houston Expo; subject of nearly 7-minute making-of video released on Stern Facebook |
| Elvira's House of Horrors | game | Stern machine (also called Scared Stiff by Ken); shipping to Special When Lit studio; featured at Houston Expo; scheduled to stream from studio next week |
| Flying Dutchman | game | American Pinball's first redemption game; pirate-themed; being revealed at IAAPA (Nov 19-22); represents expansion beyond pinball machines |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Industry event approximately 4-5 months out (March 2024 implied); expected venue for Deep Root's official launch reveal and press access |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Manufacturer News and Product Releases, Deep Root Pinball Prototype Analysis and Speculation, Pricing Strategy and Market Positioning, Quality Control Issues (Pinballs and Toppers), Manufacturing Timelines and Production Readiness
- **Secondary:** Game Design Analysis and Innovation, Charity Fundraising and Community Initiatives, Documentary and Content Creation

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.55) — Hosts express genuine enthusiasm for industry growth and Deep Root's prototype while maintaining healthy skepticism about manufacturing challenges and production readiness. Positive toward charity initiatives and Stern's documentary efforts. Critical of quality control and design choices but not hostile. Speculative tone dominates Deep Root discussion, with cautious optimism tempered by manufacturing concerns.

### Signals

- **[product_launch]** American Pinball expanding beyond pinball into redemption game market with Flying Dutchman; displaying at IAAPA and Cincinnati shows (confidence: high) — Kaz correspondent report: 'American Pinball is going to be at the IAAPA trade show...and are also scheduled to reveal their redemption game, which is called the Flying Dutchman'
- **[product_concern]** Factory-supplied pinballs arriving in poor condition across multiple manufacturers; customers immediately replacing with third-party alternatives (confidence: high) — Ken Rudberg: 'some people are a little underwhelmed...take out those balls from the factory and replace them'; Bill Webb: 'Deadpool came...already had looked like they had seen a rough life'
- **[product_concern]** Jersey Jack Willy Wonka Collector's Edition topper underwhelming; customers sourcing alternative toppers from Willy Wonka slot machines (confidence: high) — Ken Rudberg: 'some people are a little underwhelmed with the offerings from Jersey Jack...looking at Willy Wonka slot machines and taking the toppers off'
- **[content_signal]** Stern releasing professional making-of documentary video for Jurassic Park; hosts express appreciation and interest in expanding documentary coverage to other manufacturers (confidence: high) — Craig Bobby: 'nearly seven-minute video...with interview footage with lead game designer Keith Elwin and lead engineer Harrison Drake'; Ken: 'I would love to film a documentary and take my time with it'
- **[machine_intel]** Deep Root's Raza prototype features: nuclear zombie carnival theme, one main corkscrew ramp, wide LCD DMD, stainless steel apron/speaker panel, Mirko playfield (temporary), placeholder cabinet artwork (confidence: medium) — Bill Webb and Ken Cromwell analyzing Houston Expo photos: 'The play field itself I thought looked cool. The ramps look good...There's really...one ramp...corkscrew ramp...extra wide LCD DMD display'
- **[manufacturing_signal]** Deep Root facing critical timeline pressure: Texas Pinball Festival launch only 4-5 months away; hosts question whether final design/parts ordering is complete given manufacturing lead times (6-9 months cited) (confidence: medium) — Ken Cromwell: 'if you don't have your final design yet, like how are you having parts made? How are you ordering parts? Because if something gets delayed then you're ultimately, you're kind of handcuffed...four months away'
- **[market_signal]** Deep Root expected to price Raza at $6,000-$7,000 to compete with Stern Premium tier ($6,499-$6,999); positioned as value play for market entry (confidence: medium) — Ken: 'I think that this game comes in between $64.99 and $69.99'; Bill: 'I think it's going to be under $7,000. But if it was under six, I mean, I think they're really trying to, you know, lay the groundwork'
- **[competitive_signal]** Hosts downplay immediate competitive threat from Deep Root; manufacturing execution and production capacity critical unknowns that will determine actual market impact (confidence: medium) — Ken: 'I don't think anybody in the pinball world is shaking in their boots as of yet...Production and manufacturing is the key to all this. Just because you can make one or ten doesn't mean you can make a thousand'
- **[event_signal]** Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo featured Deep Root prototype debuts; IAAPA (Nov 19-22, Orlando) and Cincinnati Pinball Show (Nov 22-24) upcoming with American Pinball displays (confidence: high) — Kaz: 'IAAPA trade show down in Orlando, Florida, from November 19th to the 22nd'; Craig: 'Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo...this past weekend'
- **[community_signal]** Special When Lit organizing 24-hour charity stream Dec 20-21 targeting $8,000 donation to place pinball machine in Chicagoland Children's Hospital via Project Pinball; soliciting 1-hour stream blocks from pinball industry personnel (confidence: high) — Ken: 'we're doing the 24-hour charity stream December 20th and 21st...we need to raise about eight thousand dollars for us to pay for a machine have it placed have it insured have it maintained'
- **[design_philosophy]** Deep Root's Robert emphasized prototype is non-final; cabinet artwork placeholder, playfield innovation not yet visible; hosts note difficulty evaluating actual game potential from prototype state (confidence: medium) — Ken: 'Robert was very clear in stating, hey, this is not the final rendition of these games. His cabinet artwork, his placeholder artwork...will not be apparent at these prototype games'
- **[rumor_hype]** Craig Bobby cryptically hints at potential Stern Stranger Things machine; unclear if Brian Eddy or Ken Cromwell rumored as designer; prompts Ken to call Craig for clarification (confidence: low) — Craig: 'Stranger Things by Brian Eddy? A. Ken Cromwell? We shall wait and see'; Ken: 'he's the Stern correspondent. So I'm wondering if he has some inside information...don't dangle that carrot'

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## Transcript

 Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special When Lit Pinball podcast starts now. Hello, what's going on, Pinball Land? Welcome. It's episode number 79 of the special When Lit Pinball podcast. I'm Ken Cromwell. And I am Bill Webb. Bill, we've got some news to discuss today, as we always do. But before we do that, I wanted to check in and see how you're doing, what's going on in the world of Bill Webb. Nothing, man. Just putting some mods on Wonka. Yeah, you got Wonka looking good, man. It's getting there. I know. You were just showing me some pics. Yeah. I can rip the... Dude, the next thing I want to do is rip all the legs off of it and lockdown bar and all that stuff and powder coat it. Powder coat it? What color would you go if you're going to powder coat your Wonka? Because you've got the Wonka standard. What would you do? I don't know, man. I'm still on the fence on that, dude. Either the red or a wicked-looking purple. I couldn't do blue on blue. You know what I mean? Right, right. So, I don't know. We'll see. Because that LE has kind of that candy apple red that they have in their powder-coated armor. See, and do I want to follow the pack and throw red on, or do I want to be different? What about like a gold, like a gold metallic flake for the golden ticket? Absolutely not, dude. You could probably get some of that WWE armor out of Stern. Probably. See if you can retrofit that. But no. No. No, no, no, no, no. No gold. No gold. I don't like gold on a pinball machine. Okay, so like you wouldn't brass plate it? Brass is different. That kind of looks gold brass plating. No, brass doesn't look cheap, dude. It looks like a gold finish, like a true gold finish. Okay. Where gold powder coating looks like, you know. I can't you powder coat brass like a brass look without getting it brass plated? I think you can. I think there's like chrome powder coats and whatnot. They look good, but I don't know. We'll see. You're going to take a pass. But more importantly, what's going on with Kent? Not a whole lot, man. I've got – we are waiting next week. I was going to say Scared Stiff is coming, but guess what? It's Elvira's House of Horrors, which I keep saying is Scared Stiff. So that's going to be coming in next week, and then we should be streaming that a week from today. So that's going to be fun. I can't wait for that. The studio thing is coming along as far as like the brand-new Studio C that we're broadcasting out of. There are a couple little things I want to do in here to further it along. Yeah, so I've got some festive LED wreaths going on in here that are blinking, and it kind of looks like a Christmas Las Vegas in the studio, which is pretty fun. I wanted to say this at the beginning of the episode in case anybody's interested. We're doing the 24-hour charity stream December 20th and 21st. If you are in the Chicagoland area and you work for a pinball company or you provide pinball content and you would like to come in and take an hour block and stream, you wouldn't be by yourself. We're going to be here with the microphones on. I'm looking for a couple shifts to be filled, and we could probably work around your schedule. The idea behind this is to raise enough money to donate a pinball machine to a Chicagoland Children's Hospital via Project Pinball Charities. So I've spoken with them. They are super nice. they've given me a dollar amount that we can shoot for and and it seems like we need to raise about eight thousand dollars for us to pay for a machine have it placed have it insured have it maintained that sort of thing so that's going to be the goal whether or not we get that far into it uh as far as the the total donations i don't know but hey you know what if it's 50 bucks that we raise it's 50 bucks that goes to charity and it helps somebody else get a machine uh for the sake of children and children that aren't you know having the easiest path of life so to speak yeah i mean For kids that are starting off life rough like that, dude, anything we can do is... It's very tough, man. Think about how blessed the people are right now that are listening to this. You've got healthy kids. Here, I feel blessed. I'm on four hours of sleep because my son was up crying all night. But he's healthy. I could hear it in his lungs. I'd rather have that problem. There's a lot going on in life. I know with you and your family and some things that have kind of arose over here in mind, and I don't want to start off the episode depressing, but everybody do yourself a favor. Count your blessings. And if you're healthy and you've got family, great. If you're not healthy, do your best that you can to get healthy. And if you find it in your heart and you'd like to try to help us raise some money for the children's hospital here locally in Chicago, we'll give more information as we get closer. But if you can donate some time to stream, we'd love for you to come in and stream for an hour. We get some variety in there. Let's go ahead and let's get into the pinball news. Let's do it. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. Hey, this is Kaz, your special and lit American Pinball correspondent. I spoke with Dan this week, and American Pinball is going to be at the IAAPA trade show down in Orlando, Florida, from November 19th to the 22nd. We'll have Oktoberfest and Houdini, and are also scheduled to reveal their redemption game, which is called the Flying Dutchman. It's a pirate-themed redemption game, and American Pinball is going to be releasing more info on that very soon. Also this week, November 22nd through the 24th, upcoming in Cincinnati. It's a big pinball show there in Cincinnati. Dan from American Pinball is going to be there and have Oktoberfest and Houdini's to play. They're also going to have over 120 machines on free play in tournaments and vendor halls. So if you're in the area, check out that show. So for American Pinball, this is Brian Cosner. people get a new machine delivered, they'll immediately take out those balls from the factory and replace them with something from a third-party vendor, and I would suggest you do that as well. With the release of Willy Wonka Collector's Edition and the new topper, it sounds like some people are a little underwhelmed with the offerings from Jersey Jack, so instead they've been a little creative and are looking at Willy Wonka slot machines and taking the toppers off of those. There's a pretty nice Wonka logo with color-changing LEDs in it that comes as part of a slot machine and fits really well on top of a Willy Wonka pinball machine. So if you're thinking that's something you might want to do, those are available on eBay and other sources online. For Special When Lit, this is Ken Rudberg with your Jersey Jack update. The Houston Expo arrives in the making of a classic. Hey guys, Craig here again, your Special When Lit Stern News correspondent. it. Well, while Deep Roots' Razzapin was quietly stealing the show at the 18th Annual Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo, the Stern Roadshow appeared to be out in full force with a very large exhibit primarily showcasing their latest titles, Jurassic Park and Elvira's House of Horrors, as well as a large array of Stern swag that was available for sale. Meanwhile, in the online space, if you have some time, I highly recommend checking out the making of the Jurassic Park pinball video that is now available via Stern's Facebook page. The nearly seven-minute video shows interview footage with lead game designer Keith Elwin and lead engineer Harrison Drake, as well as other artists, programmers, and designers that worked on the Jurassic Park machine, which is rapidly gaining acceptance as one of Stern's most popular titles of the last few years. Most notably, it shows some interesting dialogue and footage about how some of the ideas for the main mechanisms for the game came about, including their now-famous ball-eating T-Rex. In the video, they show that the prototype for the T-Rex was actually modded from a remote-control T-Rex toy with a magnet in the mouth. This helped them prove that the idea of a ball-eating T-Rex could actually work in the game. Anyway, some very good game and interview footage and an easy way to kill a few minutes while you wait for Stern's next release. Stranger Things by Brian Eddy? A. Ken Cromwell? We shall wait and see. That's all for this week, everyone. For Special One Lit, I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side. Oh, Craig Bobby. Give me a little tease me with the Stranger Things. Now, he's the Stern correspondent. So I'm wondering if he has some inside information. I'm going to have to give him a call. But yeah, don't don't dangle that carrot. Potentially my dream designer with my dream theme could be the perfect storm. Now, we also need to recognize that Deep Root, because we don't have a correspondent covering Deep Root as of yet. Correct. But it looks like times are shifting. And by this time next year, we'll have a correspondent hopefully covering Deep Root. but they brought Raza Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Land into the Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo this past weekend. And I want to get into some of our impressions. Now, listen, if you're into pinball podcasting, there's no doubt that you've heard extensive coverage on Raza. Yeah. Thoughts and what's there and deep dives and videos and everything. So what we're going to do is not really get so deep into the pin, but just give some general impressions where we think it needs to go and how it needs to get there and that sort of thing. First, let's go back to American Pinball. So they're bringing the Flying Dutchman, which is their redemption game, to IAAPA this month or this weekend. And it's the first time that American Pinball is going to have this redemption machine kind of displayed. And you've seen it, man. It's a big machine. The Flying Dutchman, like a pirate-themed machine. I'm curious to see how this all pans out for them. I'm not going to lie. We'll see. Well, I mean, if the redemption machine hits, yeah, I mean, that's good. I just hope that we don't see redemption, as we talked about before, become the priority and pinball take the back burner, which eventually falls away. And you had noted it could be the slot machines that Valley Williams had to deal with back in the day. So we don't hope that that doesn't happen. Also, they're going to have machines at Cincinnati. Now, Cincinnati is out of Cincinnati. It's a newer show. And that's Eric Wurtenberger, a.k.a. Chuck Wurt, started that that that show. And it's very popular show. So if you're going to want to get out there, you can absolutely see not only American Pinball, about the other manufacturers, and that's going to be pretty cool. Jersey Jack pinball. Talking about some bad balls. This one hits home, man. I've got to look at mine. So Ken is saying, hey, listen, just watch out. You might get some bad or some pitted balls that are in your waka. You might want to switch those out. Has that ever happened to you before? Have you ever had a situation where you took those balls out and you're like, what the heck is that? No, but I have one that you're going to love, though. Okay. I love a good ball story. Dude. Yeah. It involves Wizard of Oz. Okay, good. So for whatever reason, man, I can't throw pinballs away. So I literally have a bag of rusted pinballs, right? Rusted pinballs. They're like rusting away now or pitted or whatever, right? Case of emergency, break glass. Yeah, dude, throw it on the highway to car, whatever useful stuff you might find. So my daughter found this bag, and of course you find pinballs in the pinball cabinets that are down there and wherever. Well, the one time, she's got the bag and she's throwing the dirty balls all over Wizard of Oz, and I'm like, oh. Oh, man. See, that's why you can't let her play in the play field. I know, dude, and I haven't told you that story because I was like, damn, Ken was right. Well, you just kind of devalued your machine by $400 with the rusty balls going through the game. I'm never selling it. It don't matter to me. No, that's true. That's true. Yeah, that's crazy. Now listen I will absolutely share I had this happen with other manufacturers It not just Jersey Jack I don know the quality control is going to sit and inspect every single pinball that goes into a machine because those get stapled into like an envelope and in a goodie bag like for a Stern machine, right? Yeah. When Deadpool came, it was new in box. I opened up those balls, and I was like, no way I'm putting them in there. They already had looked like they had seen a rough life, and I know they were brand new. It's just a matter of how they come to existence. I have no idea the process. Well, and you don't know how old they are, dude. They could have got shipped in the middle of summer in a giant pack, and that wasn't conducive to it. I don't know what the elements are. I don't know where they're coming. I guarantee you they're not getting – none of the manufacturers are getting the high-end polished pinballs. I mean, they're looking for something that's budget that's going to get you through. I would absolutely also recommend, if you can, buy pinballs in bulk and just have them there because when you get a new machine, you want to be able to swap out the stock balls, keep those stock balls in that goodie bag or in that coin box, wherever they are. And then in the same token, when it's time for a ball change, you have brand new pinballs. You're not scouring. You're not delaying because I know sometimes people will procrastinate. Hey, my balls are looking a little rough. I'm going to have to change those out pretty soon. It's easy to forget. Same thing with changing batteries. Just get ahead of the process. You know what I mean? It's almost a better play to swap all that stuff out when you change your batteries anyway. Yeah, right. Well, nowadays we're not changing batteries, but change those balls. Have fresh balls on hand. Now, the topper discussion was kind of interesting. For me, topper, I don't play the topper, so the topper's not a deal-breaker for me. And when we think about the Willy Wonka topper, it's not my favorite topper, especially the newer toppers that are there. But it's serviceable. It goes on top of the game. Now, people are, I guess, are looking for the slot machine topper, and they're implementing that into the pinball machine, which I think is kind of cool because you've got something that might be a little bit more aesthetically pleasing for some, and I guess they're available. you can buy these things on eBay. You know what? I like them both. Well, I like them both. Neither one are bad to me. Have you seen that topper? Yeah, the slot machine one? Okay. Dude, I thought about building my own, though. Yeah, you could. You could build your own topper. You know, a plexi, lighten it from the back, and having it scream when it's in attract mode. Good day, sir. Good day, sir. You wouldn't need to have a Gene Wilder mold of his head up there. I mean, you could do something that would look pretty cool with, maybe a close-up of a piece of candy and some nice lighting tied into a flasher or something like that. You could do something. Some sticker on some CNC three-quarter-inch PVC that's lit up, dude, with some flashers behind it. Yeah, some little edge lit. Look money. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's there for the taking. Stern Pinball, making of Jurassic Park. And that's something that I personally haven't seen that yet. Have you seen that video yet? I did see it. Okay, so what were your thoughts on that? It was really cool. I'm glad they did such a video. It was interesting to see how some of the mechs had arrived, like before they had George Gomez' Jeep, some of the stuff on there. It was definitely a fresh take on how the game came to light, and I have one, so it's pretty entertaining. I absolutely think when you see the background stories of the pinball machines and how they came to fruition or how they came through from a thought to a production machine. I don't think there's anything that's much more valuable than having that kind of archived and getting the stories behind the game from the people that played such a vital role. And if you own the machine, it kind of gives you a personal connection to the game. It lets you get to know the game better from a personal standpoint. But also, if you're on the fence on a game, to kind of see how something came up through the ranks is also beneficial. So I hope that they continue to do this kind of coverage with their games. And it's inspired me, too. I've really lately, within the last couple months, I've kind of thought about like – because, I mean, we are pinball content providers. We're pinball enthusiasts. I would love to film a documentary and take my time with it and over the course of 12 or 18 months come up with some footage and put it all together for a 30-minute documentary on something. And it's something I've appreciated. I'm a big documentary viewer, so even on Netflix, I'm always watching documentaries, usually like crime and unsolved crime and conspiracy theories and things like that. Little FBI files on YouTube? Oh, man, yeah. I mean, I will dig deep into that kind of stuff, but it's like I can really appreciate where everybody is coming from in their approach to documentaries. I'd like to throw my hat in the ring and do something, and I think I'm going to do something like that soon after the first of the year, maybe after Texas Pinball Festival. I'd like to try to do something like that. I don't know exactly what the topic is. And honestly, Bill, I don't know that it'll be pinball related. That's one that you and I might be able to do together still, because I find a lot of that crap interesting. Yeah, a lot of that crap is interesting. Well, no, seriously, dude, tell me you can't waste three or four hours watching FBI files on how two kids wanted a green Dodge brand pickup truck, stole it, robbed a bank, and got high on heroin all the way to Florida. Well, that's one way to attack the documentary style. I don't know that I'd go that route, but yeah, I mean, it's pretty interesting. It's a fascinating story to think that they could get away with it. Yeah, stuff like that. It's just like, how out of your mind were you? I'm sorry, we're going way. No, no, you're fine. It's just I would really like to put my heart and effort into something that would appeal to the masses. Not that it would go viral and I'd retire on it. But the thing with pinball is that like that because of the niche aspect of the hobby, if you knocked it out of the park with content, you're really kind of capped on your viewers. And not that I'm a Steven Spielberg here or anything like that. I'm most passionate about pinball. I just don't know that the viewers or like, I don't even know that you need any more content like that in pinball. So I'm kind of all over the place with this, but I definitely want to get my feet wet and doing something sooner than later, sooner than later. Uh, and then Alvarez are shipping. So we were, we're excited to see that's come into the studio. I want to play the game because I'm still, when I walked away from it at, at, uh, where were we bill? Uh, expo expo at pinball expo. It, uh, It didn't make me crave to play it again, and I'm telling you I'm missing something, and I'm confident I'm going to regain my passion for this title once I get some more time on it, so I'm anxiously awaiting that. So let's get into Deep Root, though. So Deep Root, finally they bring their prototype games. They did. To the Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo. Now, Robert was very clear in stating, hey, this is not the final rendition of these games. His cabinet artwork, his placeholder artwork, a lot of the innovation that will be in these games will not be apparent at these prototype games that we're displaying. Let me ask you this. Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, what were your initial impressions? Take me through where you were when you hit your phone or you hit your computer and you saw those pictures, compliments of Jeff Patterson and This Week in Pinball. Again, Jeff jumping out in front of the story, being able to provide a first-hand account or a first look at some nice studio images of the game. Actually, I was at work. I think it was like 8 o'clock on Thursday morning or maybe 9 o'clock. I saw them, and I was happy to finally see what they were going to bring to the market. That there's a Pimmo machine. Their rough sketch. Because none of this is completely finalized yet, right? Right, right. The play field, I think, looks cool. I'm still curious to see what the innovation is. Okay, interesting that you say that. And I think for us, we really got to play it. I like the premise of the story, what they're basing it on. And I'm actually a big fan of that storyline that they have going. Nuclear zombies on top of a carnival. Real cool in my eyes. Right, right. And I know that's not everyone's dream theme. No, it's not, but I mean, it's creative. It's out there for sure, right? It's what speaks to you. Exactly. So the play field itself I thought looked cool. The ramps look good. Now, you say ramps. There's really, unless I'm missing something, there's one ramp, right? Yeah, yeah. That kind of diverts to a left or a right side to drop to. The center. The one in the center. Yeah, the plastic. The kind of corkscrew ramp. The clear plastic. Honestly, I think the biggest gripes that I have is, number one, we haven't got a chance to play yet. But I almost would have gone with a black cabinet, though, if it was a prototype. Oh, okay. So you wouldn't put any placeholder artwork on there? No. Because that was kind of confusing, and you really had to read or listen to podcasts to find out, you know, hey, this is preliminary, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's about probably that, and I would flush them out with the start button. But that's about my two biggest gripes at the moment. That start button you weren't really digging. So I guess that cabinet design isn't even the Deep Root package. No. No, I assume that they put it in something that a lot of people are familiar with so that you can kind of focus on the game and not criticize the cabinet. Because if you change the cabinet, there's going to be probably more people that are going to be not pleased with a cabinet change than those that would be happy to see something and something that they are familiar with. So I can kind of get that aspect. My first thoughts were when I looked at the game from the pictures. So John Papaduke has a certain aura about his games, especially his ladder games, right? Like there's just a certain presence about it, like an eeriness. There's just something in the air around his games, and that stood out to me right away. Well, they play a game of Ouija board on top of it every game before they leave the factory. I don't know what it is. But there's something about his games, and it appeals to me because there's like this mystique about them. and the colors and everything that I saw that were in the pictures, the layout of the play field, it looked exciting. It looked different. It didn't look innovative, which I guess is okay. I was just expecting something that was going to display innovation. Now, if the innovation is under the machine, whether it be for being able to service the game or that sort of thing, that's fine. There's absolutely innovation. But it wasn't the innovation that I was expecting as far as it's something new that hasn't been done before on a play field. and maybe the innovation is in the play field because we haven't seen the actual play field and what it's made out of because those were Mirko play fields. They weren't like the Deep Root play field. So still, there's a lot that you can speculate on, but I'm happy that we finally see a flipping pinball machine that looks like it holds its own. It looks like it's fun. I don't see anything other than the major ramp shot, that corkscrew ramp. I'm trying to figure out how do I even, like there's not like a main focal point on the game where you're kind of gearing up to interact with, except for that corkscrew ramp. Now, if that is it, that's fine. I mean, that's what it is. But it seems like there's a lot of smaller areas that each feature something small instead of something major where you're like, well, this is pretty crazy. Maybe this is it. Maybe it's not it. We still have to wait and see. Yeah, this is so preliminary, dude. I'm not even banking on a lot of that stuff yet. You know, I mean, programming, you can see what programming does to a game in a matter of months. That's true. I guess what I'm most happy about is that they actually have something that's flipping. It looks like it could be a fun time. I've learned in the past not to kind of pass judgment on a game until I'm in front of it because for me, it's the pinball experience. It looks like the game, the way that it's set up and the colors and the display I thought was really nice. I really liked the extra wide LCD DMD display I really liked that stainless steel kind of speaker panel I thought it looked really cool I on the fence on both of those right now Okay. I have to see it before. I like that stainless steel apron too. I thought it looked really, really cool. It looked kind of robotic retro, and it would absolutely stand out if you put it in a row of any of your pins. You would be like, whoa, what's this? And that's what I think you want out of a pinball machine that's new and innovative. If you want it to command its attention, you want somebody to walk into a room and be drawn to that. And I think, I don't know if that's placeholder stuff either, but if it is, I would like there to be an option for me to have that, and I would like there to be an option for me to have the game in a standard cabinet like we're used to or a new innovative deep root cabinet, depending on how that turns out. You know what? Okay, so we're going to stray away from the notes here on this. So if that holds true, and this is complete speculation, everybody, Don't go run into the horses or the bank on this deal. But if that game is at the price point of $6,000 or under, how do you feel about what you've seen so far? Okay, and that was going to be where I was going to ask you, too. It's like, what do we speculate the price point is going to be on this pin? And I think that this game comes in between $64.99 and $69.99 when Deep Root officially reveals their pricing. I think it comes in close to maybe a little bit less than that Stern premium level. And the reason that I cite Stern is because Robert frequently does when he talks about their market share. So if he wants to be competitive within that market share, the pricing is going to absolutely affect its success or its ability to penetrate that market share that Stern has. I don't think that the game can be sold at a pro-level pricing or less unless they're willing to take one for the team and take a loss on this until they're able to get one of their higher-end games up and running. You know, companies will frequently do that. Like Apple and Samsung will take losses on first gens of things, and then they ramp up production. Sure. So I don't know if that's a strategy. Where do you think that the pricing – what was the question? You said if the pricing came in at what? Six grand or less. Yeah, I would be happy with this at $6,000 or less. I don't think it will be less than $6,000. I hope that it is. If it was in at like $55,000 to $59,000, I would take a chance and I would buy one of these things just because it looks like it would be worth the $6,000. I think so. I think, dude, that's a value pin at that kind of price. I was going to ask you, so what do you think? You think it's worth it at under $6,000, and what do you think the pricing comes in at when we ultimately see it? Again, speculation. I think it's going to be under $7,000. But if it was under six, I mean, I think they're really trying to, you know, lay the groundwork, man, for some bigger, you know, let people know that the big boys are in town. Yeah. And they came to play. Right. Right. I don't think anybody in the pinball world is shaking in their boots as of yet because what's the next hurdle? And it's going to be finalizing your design and then going into. Even final design. Production and manufacturing, ordering parts. Production and manufacturing is the key to all this. Just because you can make one or ten doesn't mean you can make a thousand. And that makes me nervous. Not nervous because I don't think they're capable, but nervous because when I think about timelines, Texas Pinball Festival, if that is going to be the reveal, so to speak, of the launch of the company, and we're going to finally have presses going to come in and be able to cover this, and you're going to be able to order these games, we are like five months away. Four. Okay, so yeah, you figure November, December, January, February, March, four months. If you don't have your final design yet, like how are you having parts made? How are you ordering parts? Because if something gets delayed, then you're ultimately, you're kind of handcuffed. Unless they're going to make a lot of parts in-house. But even then, I don't think you can make every part of a pinball machine in-house. It just goes away. Well, let's spin this wheel of speculation again for a second. So what makes you think that we just saw the prototype? I mean, the final version could be sitting at their warehouse and all the parts are on order. And, dude, they got six-month lead times, but the parts have been on order for a while. That's nine months. Absolutely true. And they're just throwing us, you know, hey, we're going to show you this for now because we're going to do something around March. And, dude, they're going to come and March hammer and, you know, first thousand games already. Place your order. I guess you hear about the employees that they have there and their well-known names that have been in pinball for a while. And they've got Deep Root Studios, people they brought in from other companies, reputable people. I don't know that we'd be able to figure out if people have been hired to manufacture games yet. I mean, are there assembly line workers? Now there's that octo-manufacturing. Does that eliminate the assembly line worker? I don't think that that can happen. But, again, I'm not running this company. Robert's got an idea in his head. I give the guy credit for what he's accomplished so far. He just hasn't attained the ultimate goal, and that is getting a machine to production, sold, and out into the consumers yet. Yet. Dude, we're still halfway through this race, though. Well, I'd say a little further than that, man. So what makes this successful at the end of the day? What do they need to do for this to be a successful launch for retro atomic zombie adventure land? I think just production, man. I think literally, dude, the moment they drop, whatever innovations that they do have, have them in the game and be able to ship these things. Because the first, what, 60 to 90 days, dude, that's your hot point on a game. Have you heard anything about their distribution methods? Is it going to be direct sales? Do they have distributors that they have on board yet to sell the games? Because, again – I thought they were looking for distributors. I remember them looking. I don't know of any distributors that have gotten into an agreement with them, so I don't know how that's going to work. I think for them to be successful, the price has to be appealing. It's going to have to be less than a middle-tier Stern, which would be your premium. And I'm talking about on this particular launch to break into the market. you can't miss any more deadlines and you have to be able to have this manufactured and delivered in homes by summertime otherwise I think at that point you might be fighting the uphill battle and honestly if they were to push that game and give it a run of two years or three years they might be fine on that front too what do you mean push the game out for two or three years have an extended run on it you can purchase a stern two or three years after initial launch Well, they don't have to worry about licensing because it's their IP, right? Even if they pushed another deadline, I don't know if that would completely turn people off if what they come out with is groundbreaking and earth-shattering with innovation and everything else down the road. Hey, listen, we blew past a year and a half or two years of deadlines, but this is the reason why. We wanted to change the face of pinball. Yeah. I mean, you make an interesting point. I'm just thinking that now that you have some momentum going in your favor, it could be extremely detrimental to fumble down the road and then have another delay, which is all I'm saying. And a lot of it's going to be impatience on the part of consumers. And part of it is there's a collective of people that are against anybody new coming in and shaking things up. Yeah, but, dude, we're all addicts. We're all buying this stuff as it's coming out. We're talking about it right now. I mean, we've been talking about it for a long time. Listen, you're looking for your new brand of... I'm just looking for something fresh and new. That's exactly my point, dude. Yeah, right, right. Here, if it's Stranger Things that's coming down the pike, you know, dude, you're in. Yeah, I mean, assuming it doesn't suck, I'd be in for Stranger Things. You know, and even if it did suck, I would end up buying one. It's just I don't know that I would keep it, you know, if... I don't know. Yeah, but there's even games that you like that you can't keep just because of sheer... Well, this is, so this is the thing, right? It's like, I feel like I've experienced just about all there is to experience in pinball from playability factor. I've played not so much in the EMs, but from System 11s to modern day pinball. I've played so many games. I know what to kind of expect out of each title. And I'll rotate games because games that I'm hot on, and then I play a lot of, I'll move along and then I'll get the itch to own it again. So I'm already buying stuff two, three times. Well, you lease games. I know, right? But it's like I want something that's going to really make an impact on me and make me think about everything else that I've played in a different light. And it doesn't mean that it's going to be in a negative light, but maybe it makes me appreciate it on a different level. I just want something to kind of shake up my playing experience. And is Deep Root, are they the company that's going to bring that to me? I don't know. Am I excited about what I've seen so far with Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland? I'm excited. I'm optimistic, but I'm also a realist. I am not 100% certain that it is going to change pinball as I know it. And I think that was one of the things that they had discussed was that they were going to kind of change, for the lack of a better term, the pinball landscape by coming into the market with innovation, pricing, and whether that's going to be value pricing or not, and just having a different approach to everything that we really are fond of. You know what, though? I mean, I think all of us in pinball are kind of hypercritical on stuff at points. Here, so, you know, and this will be the last thing that I'm going to add on this topic, but, dude, over the weekend I had a co-worker stop by out of the blue. I'm like, hey, dude, come on downstairs, you know, check this game out. He hadn't seen Wonka. He played the game on it, and he's like, dude, this thing is cool. Yeah, right. You know, and he'd seen Wizard of Oz before. He saw Jurassic Park, and then I'm like, dude, this game over here is terrible, but I'm going to make you play a game. So he played Cactus Jacks. He was like, dude, that game is terrible, but it's great. I mean, he literally said that because he's like, dude, you got the things dancing in the background and the polka music. He's like, dude, this thing's so cheesy, it's awesome. Yeah. And it probably wasn't a terrible – I don't know if it was a terrible game when it got released, but, I mean, pinball's evolved. and that game just doesn't date well, right? It doesn't survive the times. It went up against Terminator 2. Right. And Getaway. Yeah, dude, it's not. But I think there's something in every machine or era that we all can appreciate. Well, I mean, it is what it is. So we'll see what happens with Deep Root. We will see what their next step is, what they show next. And I don't know, maybe they don't show anything until Texas Pinball Festival. Bill, there was a pin side thread that showed up today, and it made me think of you immediately. and i wanted to i wanted to bring this up now the thread it's by uh pinsider dante's mark and it simply said i love this pinball machine or hot tub and it rang with me too because i've literally sold pinball machines to add things to my house hoping that i was going to get more enjoyment or spend more time with them than i would have on the machine that i had sold them Now, you own, what, eight or nine pinball machines right now? Something like that. In Studio B or Studio W, whatever it is. And you also own a hot tub. But it's not your first hot tub. You've owned hot tubs before. You are a hot tubber, and your wife enjoys the hot tub. Pinball machine or hot tub? And that was it. There was no prerequisites that you had to consider So I just going to ask you the question from Dante Mark on Pinside Bill Webb pinball machine or hot tub All right so I been thinking about this for about an hour or two now right Right. So pinball machine holds its value, okay? Yes. You might lose a little bit of depreciation, but not a whole lot. Sure. Hot tub? Not so much. You lose your butt on. So if you buy one, you better make sure you like it. So that's the first thing there, okay? Right, right. Now, my wife and I, before she was pregnant, we had the little one every weekend, at least an hour. And some people are like, wow, you guys use it a lot. Hot tub's therapeutic. I mean, it's healthy. You have a couple of drinks. Sure. Spot. Well, I wasn't going. Oh, no, no, no. You have to have a drink or two in the hot tub. You wake up the next morning, dude, you feel like a million bucks. I'm just thinking about blood circulation and kind of hydrating your skin. And stress relief and blood pressure and muscles and all that stuff. Just the muscles. Right. But at the same token. Pinball machine doesn't do any of that, Bill. Pinball machine does not. It actually will raise your blood pressure. And make you more tense. Yeah. And make you drink more and increase your blood pressure. Yes, it will. Yes, it will. But at the same token, you know, if you're going in with your wife, you're going to have to talk to her for an hour. So you might want to think about that if you're not in the best. Oh, no. Sometimes it's. That's specialinlidpinballpodcast at gmail.com and care of Bill Webb for anybody that would like to contact Bill on that last one. Hey, listen. I would like to meet the person that's never had an argument with their wife. That's it. That's all I'm saying. I'm sure they're out there. Exactly. I'm sure they're out there. You know, so sometimes, you know, you have those frictional moments. Benefit to that, though, is, you know, you have friends over and have some drinks. It's a good time. You know, relax. So, all right. So, if you have friends over, let's say you're entertaining in the summertime, are they more apt or are they more willing to jump into the hot tub for an hour or go downstairs and play willy wonka in the chocolate factory for an hour uh dude go in the hot tub go in the hot tub we've had more hot tub nights than we have pinball nights isn't that amazing like you set all this stuff up and you like to entertain i like to entertain but when people come over that are not my pinball friends they are not impressed by pinball machines at all but if you had a hot tub like you do hey let's go in the hot tub yeah right i sold twilight zone last year i think i got like 7,000 or 7,500 bucks. It's a good size hot tub. And it would have been a good size hot tub. But I went and I put in a stamped concrete patio. I put a huge gazebo up and I was able to get furniture for it. And it came to like 7,500 bucks. I mean, like on the nose. And then I thought to myself, I spent so much time out there and entertaining was so much fun out there that it was worth it to me to have let Twilight Zone go because I was spending more time on the gazebo than I ever would have on Twilight Zone. To your point, I can't sell this and get something else, but it's like I've created kind of a sanctuary in my living space that I ultimately wouldn't have had if I didn't liquidate a pinball machine. So it's kind of a catch-22, but when you say hot tub or pinball machine, I think you can replace hot tub with just about anything else involved with home improvement. Pretty much, yeah. I mean, and it's interesting. That's what's great about being in the hobby for a while and having a collection of machines because if you needed to move one along to, you know. Buy a hot tub or enjoy it. And honestly, here, the other negative I want to jump in here and say is last year when we got down to negative 22. Yeah. Okay. My hot tub was still running last year. Yeah. During this negative 22. The old hot tub. We actually got another one in March. Right. But I had that on and the garage heater. When we were down to negative 22, what do you think my electric bill was that month? Very power and efficient hot tub. I don't even know. Did it double? Dude, $380. What do you normally pay? $160. Oh, okay. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just a bit offside. I mean, I about had a coronary when I saw that. Yeah, but you know what? That's only for like a month out of the year. It's not like it's... It's not detrimental, but it was still like... And you jumped in there at negative 22, right? No, dude. Oh, you didn't? My wife was already pregnant at that point, so we couldn't go in. We weren't telling anybody. Everyone's like, hey, when are we going in the new hot tub? Well, you know, that was kind of a gift to the wife. Was the hot tub the reason for the new baby coming? No. Okay. No. It was the elephant in the room there as we're talking about hot tubs and babies. No, but that was the pregnancy gift to the wife was the new hot tub. That she couldn't jump in. That she couldn't go in. Right. So it was fine. But she's going in there soon, right? Was it like less than a week or something? 19 days. 19 days. You guys are back in the hot tub in the 50-50s? Oh, absolutely. So going back, I know this is a long thing. Yeah, going back. But I have a little more on this. Let's wrap this up before we play Drain It or Save It. If you've got more than three or four machines and you've got to let one go and build it back to buy a hot tub, do it. Yeah, or if you need to go ahead and put a stamped concrete patio in a gazebo because you're going to entertain and hang out with your family, I would absolutely recommend doing it, too, because you will just have that enjoyment for years and you don't have to worry about swapping it out, so to speak. Yeah, but be happy with your purchase. I mean, if you're an outdoor person, yeah, that's money well spent. If you're not, well, stick with the pinball machine. It don't cost you an arm and a leg to run in the middle of winter. So finally, before we wrap up this episode, Bill, there's another thing that, and this kind of came about into my head when I was, we were talking, so we had Chris Calouris on our podcast last week. Guys, he was an excellent guest, very respectful, and I enjoyed having that conversation with him about pinball. Oh, yeah, very mellow. Yeah. It was just a great conversation. Very honest. But at one point we were talking about Alice in Wonderland, that being one of the releases from Deep Root, and that's originally a John Papaduke or J-Pop game. And we had discussed seeing that foam core of that pinball machine in the play field and how impressive it was to kind of just look at the picture. And it got me thinking, man, because before we got into any of this, and when I say any of this, I mean the podcast and the streaming and providing pinball content in general. So we were sitting down, we were collaborating to do a homebrew pin, and we had not released the theme yet because it was a licensed theme. And at the time, we're like, we're going to get this machine fully working, and then we're just going to reveal it at like Expo or something, and we're not going to go through steps of the process with people because even looking at today's standards, if you reveal getting too early, you can lose interest by the time it's released. So just thinking about that foam core made me want to do a foam core, man, like play field design. And interesting on the Alice in Wonderland cabinet, like the cabinet itself was made from foam core, from the legs to the cabinet to the back box. So everything was made out of foam core. I think if I got like $100 in foam core, I could be a pretty happy guy over the course of a few weeks just mocking stuff up. You could. And just how cool would that be? It would look beautiful. So a part of me wants to get back into that. Now I've got the freaking Brian Holderman meteor re-theme going on, so that hinders it a little bit. But I think at some point we've got to get back to our roots, man. And that was like one of these things that we collectively wanted to work on, and that's kind of what got us closer was going through ideas. And we had meetings about this. We had whiteboard discussions on this. And at the time we had Joe, our buddy Joe was involved in that too. Well, dude, the one cabinet that had a slight error, dude, there's even a cabinet ready for a prototype. And you bought all the stuff for it. I have all the stuff for the prototype, the cabinet, like to kind of complete that. the uh and here how long was that in the making dude that's two years in the making right as of as of this month right we started that cabinet was two years old and we were like we'll use this for the prototype yeah two years in the making i know i know i just i think at some point we need to when life settles down a little bit and because honestly man it's just it's been there's there's been stress in the air in general lately like when things settle down a little bit i'd like to be able to get back into into that i want to finish up you know in the spring i want to finish the cabinet for the Meteor Retheme, but I want to be able to start on that homebrew package too. Playing Justin Kalinowski's Castlevania at Expo this year was inspiring for me too, because I saw that from a CAD drawing when he started that. And then to kind of see that all the way through and brought to Expo was like, man, he was pretty efficient with that. And that was a really fun shooting pinball machine. So, you know, kudos to him and kudos to everybody that's out there that's doing this kind of stuff because it's just not easy. And time. Just the time. Even if you have all the parts, dude, it's just the time putting into this. Well, and we go back, it's like we want to play something that's different. And we want to play something that's going to change our perspective on the hobby or on the scene. Maybe we just need to create that ourselves for ourselves. Because let's be honest, the chances of us coming up with something that would ever go to production is very very slim. Because we don't have the financial backing to ask American Pinball to fire up a third line and manufacture our game. And get the license that we want. And get the license that we want. Are you still on board for that license? Yes. Okay. Yes. Actually, Roger Sharp said that he would come here to stream with us for that 24-hour charity stream. So he's going to be here for an hour. We should pitch him that license and see if he thinks that that would ever be attainable for pinball. Because it's not anything that's very obvious from a license, but it lends itself so very well to pinball. You've never heard this talked about as far as people. Never. It's a dream thing that never came up for anybody. Ever. I've never heard this dropped one time. And everybody knows it's not Spies Like Us from last week. No, no. But a lot of our ideas that we did come up with, I've now seen people take the lead on. We considered airplane. Somebody did an airplane pin after that. Not because we brought it up, but just because of great minds. Yeah, that was their idea. I still think National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was a theme that we really got into. The concern with that was that because it's so seasonal that it might be odd in the middle of July, like firing up your National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation pin. But that came in. And then the other thing was like music. There's really not a whole lot of music in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. No. And music is such a big part of pinball for me. The theme that we are considering or that we've agreed on has just a killer soundtrack, and it's an awesome movie. So it's good times. So we'll see. We'll see how that goes. One day. You got anything else? No, man. I think that's about it on my end, man. We're just trying to survive. How about you? Yeah, no, I think that's it. It's a little bit of a quick episode today, a special only pinball podcast. We'll have some more stuff. We did not do drain it or save it this week, so our apologies. But I do want to absolutely recognize Rob and Kim at Lermods.com. So if you're looking for custom quality mods and lighting for your pinball machine, go to L-E-R-M-O-D-S and visit Lermods.com today. Now, we have a coupon code there. It's SWL10. So it stands for Special Winlet 10. go ahead and enter that in the cart and you'll get 10 off your entire order so that's swl10 i want to thank the correspondence uh dr john didn't get one in this week because he's been pretty busy doing his doctor things but we'll see him next week oh but for ken and craig and brian uh thanks for the effort guys thanks for the content every week we're getting a lot of good feedback on the correspondence segment so i'm pleased it's starting to kind of get into where i kind of wanted it to be um if you want to contact us you can go to facebook right so we're special one lifting ball podcast you can follow us on twitch special when lit podcast and how can they find us on facebook or on instagram bill instagram is special one lit pinball awesome buddy well i appreciate it man it's always good always good having you in studio and uh you know for ken cromwell or i do that every week bill i'm so sick of myself leave that in leave that in right there ken leave it out but leave it in all right leave it in for bill webb i'm ken cromwell everybody have a good morning good afternoon good evening and don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball so long everybody i should leave that in

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: d76b818b-82d7-4a2c-901b-298a4117d97d*