# Episode 58 - DEATHSAVES

**Source:** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2024-11-25  
**Duration:** 44m 7s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-16101670

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## Analysis

Alan, Alex, and Jeff from the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast discuss death saves and bang backs—pinball techniques that extend play by redirecting balls from outlanes back into play. The conversation explores the tension between treating them as legitimate skill moves (especially on modern Stern machines where they occur almost automatically) versus viewing them as cheating that harms operator revenue and invalidates high scores. Manufacturers could easily prevent them through software or hardware changes but choose not to, leading to debate about responsibility.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] 70% of Stern games go to homes, 30% go on location (per Gary Stern at Dutch Pinball Museum) — _Alan citing Gary Stern's statement to explain why manufacturers don't prioritize operator concerns about death saves_
- [HIGH] Modern Stern games perform death saves automatically with minimal player input due to bouncy trough geometry — _Jeff and Alex both confirm Sword of Rage as example; consistent across speakers_
- [HIGH] Manufacturers could prevent death saves with one line of code (killing flippers when right outlane switch triggers) — _Jeff and Alan agree this is technically feasible but not implemented_
- [HIGH] Death saves are banned in tournament play and result in automatic disqualification — _Stated at episode opening; consistent tournament rule_
- [MEDIUM] Some games intentionally designed with death saves in mind (Rick and Morty, Data East games like Rocky and Bullwinkle, Last Action Hero) — _Jeff claims Scott Denise intentionally designed Rick and Morty knowing 'bad boys' would perform death saves_
- [HIGH] Data East apron design from the 1990s enabled death saves and Stern inherited/continued this design without modification — _Multiple speakers confirm Stern never changed the apron design from Data East era_
- [HIGH] Rubber feet cups on games can prevent death saves but location players remove them — _Alan confirms rubber feet help but are stolen/removed at ~$5 per cup_
- [HIGH] Death saves reduce operator revenue by extending play without additional payment on pay-per-play machines — _Alan's primary operator grievance; Jeff acknowledges but argues inapplicable at pay-to-admission venues_

### Notable Quotes

> "if you can perform it on the game, other guys will. And if it's not something like some games... they're just almost comically easy i think it's like a design flaw"
> — **Jeff**, ~15:00
> _Core argument that death saves are inevitable and symptomatic of design choices, not player morality_

> "if the operator has it set up in a way in which it's possible. I mean, why wouldn't you do it? That's what I'm thinking"
> — **Jeff**, ~10:00
> _Frames death saves as rational player response to available mechanics rather than cheating_

> "70% of games go to homes and 30% go on location. So they don't care."
> — **Alan**, ~20:00
> _Explains manufacturer indifference to operator complaints using business data_

> "I just call it cheating plain and simple there's a reason you don't do it in tournaments it's because it's cheating"
> — **Alan**, ~25:00
> _Operator perspective: tournament ban proves ethical status_

> "if you're playing somewhere it's not like if the ball just pops up on the flipper on its own with just the slightest of efforts put in from me and no one is any the wiser i'm not gonna just i don't have the self-control to just like take my hands off of the flippers"
> — **Alex**, ~45:00
> _Reveals tension between theoretical morality and practical behavior when death saves occur naturally_

> "You're getting mad at like the 7-Eleven that's selling to people with bad IDs and you need to be getting mad at the people making the cigarettes, right?"
> — **Alan**, ~50:00
> _Analogy blaming manufacturers rather than players for design choices enabling cheating_

> "they give us all these settings. They give you a tilt, so if somebody's thrashing a game... And you can set that to be more sensitive. You can change the outlanes. You can do all these things... what happened is at some point in the 90s Data East comes up with their apron design and then never changes it"
> — **Alan**, ~60:00
> _Identifies the historical decision point where the design problem originated and persists_

> "my whole thing is like the scores on a machine should have integrity... i want to see what's a real score without death save that's what that's what i'm here to see"
> — **Alan**, ~70:00
> _Clarifies operator priority: score integrity and comparative leaderboard validity across machines_

> "if you're playing any pinball machine for 30 or 40 minutes, that game is bad. Like that's bad. I don't care who you are in the world."
> — **Jeff**, ~75:00
> _Counter-position: extreme game length itself indicates poor design, regardless of death save skill_

> "it should be as easy as if you're in single ball play, and a ball rolls down the out lane, and it triggers the switch, flippers die, ball's over... In multiball, obviously, you have to have that live so it can go through."
> — **Jeff**, ~55:00
> _Proposes concrete software solution Stern could implement_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Alan | person | Co-host and owner of Wedgehead pinball bar in Portland, Oregon; represents operator perspective opposing death saves; concerns focus on score integrity and revenue loss |
| Alex | person | Co-host described as 'water boy'; plays pinball and participates in discussion; acknowledges performing death saves despite moral reservations |
| Jeff | person | Local Portland pinball player; self-described 'open cheater' and death save advocate; argues it's a legitimate skill move on modern Sterns |
| Wedgehead | organization | Pinball bar in Portland, Oregon; hosts location machines with modified settings (rubber feet, tight tilts) to discourage death saves |
| Stern Pinball | company | Modern manufacturer criticized for inheriting Data East apron design enabling death saves; produces long-playing games; prioritizes home market (70% of sales per Gary Stern) |
| Data East | company | 1990s manufacturer that designed the apron/trough geometry enabling death saves; design perpetuated by Stern |
| Jack Danger | person | Content creator on Twitch; popularized death save videos, introducing mechanics to wider audience per discussion |
| Scott Denise | person | Rick and Morty pinball designer; allegedly designed game knowing death saves would occur and included animations visible only via death saves |
| Gary Stern | person | Stern Pinball leadership; gave talk at Dutch Pinball Museum stating 70/30 home-to-location split, explaining manufacturer priorities |
| Sword of Rage | game | Modern Stern game cited as example of auto-death-saving; machine at Wedgehead performs death saves with minimal input |
| Rick and Morty | game | Modern Stern game with intentional death save animation/content accessible only via death save mechanic |
| Black Knight | game | Referenced as example of extremely bouncy right outlane slam that triggers easy death saves |
| Lethal Weapon | game | Modern Stern game referenced as having designed-in death save callouts |
| James Bond 007 | game | Modern Stern game Jeff characterizes as long-playing and fun despite length |
| Godzilla | game | Modern Stern game referenced in tournament context as example of long play extending tournament rounds |
| Rocky and Bullwinkle | game | Data East game cited as intentionally designed with death saves (older era) |
| Last Action Hero | game | Data East game potentially designed with death saves (tentatively identified) |
| Hook | game | Data East game potentially designed with death saves (tentatively identified) |
| Dutch Pinball Museum | organization | Venue where Gary Stern gave talk about 70/30 sales split |
| Roadsy | person | Route operator mentioned by Alan as running games on pay-per-play basis; affected by death save revenue loss |
| Next Level | organization | Pinball venue with 200 games on carpet sliders, pay-to-admission model; Jeff uses as example where death saves don't harm operator economics |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Death saves (outlane ball recovery technique), Bang backs (left outlane variant), Pinball machine design: apron/trough geometry, Operator vs player interests and tensions, Tournament vs location play rules
- **Secondary:** Stern vs vintage/Bally/Williams machine mechanics, Score integrity and high score leaderboards, Manufacturer responsibility for game design

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Alan (operator) negative/critical of death saves; Jeff (player) positive/amused; Alex (both roles) conflicted and somewhat defensive. Discussion remains civil but reveals deep disagreement. Alan frustrated by powerlessness; Jeff dismissive of operator concerns while acknowledging some validity. No consensus reached.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Location players modify game setups (removing rubber feet, adjusting leg heights, loosening tilts) to enable higher scores, compromising setup integrity (confidence: high) — Alan reports players flattening games, adjusting level, placing shims under front legs; father-in-law example of raising front legs and loosening tilts
- **[business_signal]** Gary Stern publicly stated 70% of games go to homes vs 30% to locations, explaining manufacturer indifference to operator complaints about death saves (confidence: high) — Alan cites Gary Stern's talk at Dutch Pinball Museum; acknowledges operators are 'small potatoes'
- **[community_signal]** Fundamental disagreement on whether death saves constitute skill moves (legitimate technique) or cheating (rules violation), with tournament ban cited as proof of cheating status (confidence: high) — Alan: banned in tournaments = cheating; Jeff: banned because of play length, not legitimacy; Alex: conflicted
- **[sentiment_shift]** Content creator Jack Danger popularized death save videos on Twitch, spreading knowledge of mechanics to casual audience who may not have witnessed them in person (confidence: medium) — Alex mentions watching death save videos on Twitch as first exposure; Alan notes Jack Danger publicly demonstrates them
- **[competitive_signal]** Vintage games (Bally/Williams, EMs) resistant to death saves due to weight and trough design; modern Sterns make death saves nearly unavoidable, creating competitive fairness questions (confidence: high) — Jeff clarifies he only death saves modern Sterns, not vintage machines; explains physical difficulty on heavy machines and tilt vulnerability
- **[product_concern]** Operator revenue impact: modern Stern games already play long; death saves extend play further without additional payment on pay-per-play machines, directly reducing operator income (confidence: high) — Alan emphasizes this as main operator grievance; Jeff acknowledges but argues inapplicable at pay-to-admission venues like Wedgehead
- **[product_concern]** Operator concern: death saves invalidate high score leaderboards and comparisons across machines due to variable setup (tilt tightness, rubber feet, table level) (confidence: high) — Alan's stated primary concern: score integrity and inability to compare Spider-Man to Spider-Man across locations
- **[design_philosophy]** Data East apron design from 1990s enables death saves; Stern perpetuates design without modification despite technical capability to prevent via software or hardware changes (confidence: high) — Multiple speakers confirm design existed in 90s, Stern inherited it, could easily fix it in code (one line) but chooses not to
- **[design_philosophy]** Some modern designers (Scott Denise on Rick and Morty) intentionally include death save content, suggesting designer awareness and acceptance of mechanic (confidence: medium) — Jeff claims Scott Denise designed Rick and Morty knowing 'bad boys' would death save and included exclusive animation for that action
- **[market_signal]** Blame attribution debate: operators blame players for cheating; players blame manufacturers for not preventing it; Jeff argument that manufacturer indifference shifts responsibility (confidence: high) — Extended analogy section (cigarette manufacturer vs retailer/smoker); Alan agrees manufacturers should be responsible for settings
- **[market_signal]** Wedgehead operator added costly rubber feet cup protections (~$5 each) to reduce death save capability, but location route players systematically remove them (confidence: high) — Alan confirms rubber feet help but are stolen; notes cost and ineffectiveness on route machines
- **[technology_signal]** Stern games' bouncy trough geometry and long flipper debounce make death saves automatic with minimal input; represents divergence from vintage/EM machine physics (confidence: high) — Jeff and Alex confirm Sword of Rage auto-death-saves; contrasts with heavy Bally/Williams machines requiring aggressive nudging

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## Transcript

 Well, if lady love gets on my side, we're gonna rock this town alive. I let her rub me up till she knocks me out. Cause she walks like she talks, and she talks like she walks. She bangs, she bangs. Oh, baby, when she moves, she moves. I go crazy cause she looks like a flower, but she stings like a bee. Like every girl in history. She bangs, she bangs. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alan, your host of this podcast and one of the owners of Wedgehead, a pinball bar in Portland, Oregon. I'm joined in the basement studio of my co-host Alex, the water boy. How you doing? I'm doing great, Alan. I'm doing especially great today because we're joined by a guest, a local pinball legend. he's a bad boy that's why he's here today his name's jeff and he's here to talk about death saves and bang back jeff how are you doing i'm doing pretty good uh yeah i am here to talk about death saves and bang backs i'm ready for all the hate mail that's about to come my way i think you might be in the more popular side of this and alan's gonna be well we'll we'll get our save our opinions i guess for once we get into it i don't think you'll get too much hate mail though is my prediction. Yeah, I think location players are for them in general. As we said at the top of this, in this episode, we're going to deep dive into the dark arts of pinball and focus on a couple of band techniques in which you cheat the ball back into play on outlaying trains. If you're a seasoned tournament player, you probably already know about these moves because if you do them during tournament play, it's an automatic DQ. Of course, talking about the death save and its little brother the bang back i say bang backs it's big brother it's a big boy it's a big boy both of these shadow techniques are banned during competitive play and despised by operators like myself but they are commonly practiced by many experienced players on location dust saves are performed with the ball rolling down the right out lane and bang backs are performed with the ball rolling down the left out lane they both involve a bit of force the amount of which depends on what manufacturer made the machine what surface the game is sitting on and we're and get into the meat of it in this episode. But in order to do it right, we've invited Jeff here. He's a friend of ours onto the show today. He's a local pinball player and open cheater. Jeff Hart. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah, local pinball cheater. Here I am. I'm admitting all my scores are fake to all everybody right now. Any high score I've ever gotten is illegitimate. I just want to clear the air. I think that's one of the more controversial why death saves and bang back to a lesser extent get this reputation is that the first time you see one, you're like, oh my god, that's cheating. And then you start wondering how many high scores have been set with death saves. And if you've been in the hobby for a while, you kind of realize probably like all of them. If the game, it's like, so once you realize how easy it is on so many games, especially modern sterns, you're like, oh, that's kind of like, it kind of is part of the game. And that's what Alan does not want to hear. He's shaking his head. That's my interpretation, or at least my opinion, is that it's part of the game. It's a skill move, right? It's if the operator has it set up in a way in which it's possible. I mean, why wouldn't you do it? is sort of what I'm thinking, but I'm open to other interpretations as well. No, I'm kind of with you on that. I'd say if it's like, if you can perform it on the game, other guys will. And if it's not something like some games, I mean, for anyone that hasn't seen a death save performed, like Alan said, it's going down the right out lane. You bounce it off a bit of the apron, kind of down in the trough itself or whatever. And then you hold the left flipper up. you sometimes scoot the whole game. That's where you get into, like, the debate, I guess, is that you can perform them with essentially zero momentum on the ball just by physically, like, thrashing the game around and moving it six inches where the ball was because the ball will hover in place on the play field. But my argument is that most of the time on, like, a modern stern, like you play Sword of Rage, it does them for you. You just hold the flipper up and they just pop out of there. So, like, I can't really argue against that. That's kind of my experience, is like, the Sword of Rage, specifically at Wedgehead, that thing, if it's going kind of fast, it just auto-death saves. Like, you don't even need to nudge it, really. 100%. And I've had that same experience. The spooky games just seem to have real balance. I would say then, though, does that make that a skill move? Well, if you're not getting... I mean, if it just does it on its own, is that really a skill move? I mean, that's the first point you got there, but... Okay. All right. but point taken my point about it being a skill move is that i think on stern games they're just almost comically easy i think it's like a design flaw in the way that they make their games well they do have the guy that they you know pay to promote the games show lots of videos of himself doing them too yeah i don't know if it's a flaw so much as a choice well i think they did they switched to that kind of apron design in the 90s when they were still data east i think They're not going to spend money on tooling to change it. Why would they? It's interesting, though, because I think if the manufacturers wanted to, there's a lot of ways you could combat the death save. I might be kind of skipping ahead into our scheduling here, the discussion, but really because it's like older games, they put staples or whatever, they put a piece of a rail down by the flippers to prevent the ball from bouncing back like that. You could also, if a game has a center post, it's really very, it would be weird to be able to death save around a center post, at least in my experience. Like, I mean, in software wise, you could easily just kill the flippers when you go down the right out lane. So if they wanted to dissuade it, they could easily. What do you have to say, Jeff? Yeah, I agree. I feel like if it was something that they wanted to dissuade, why did they take away the, you call them staples? I think I call them biff bars, the little rails down there. I don't know. That's just like what somebody said one time and I just, it stuck with me. I'm calling them biff bars now. Yeah, that's better. I don't know. Just bring those back, right? Or like you said, center posts. It's pretty difficult to death save if there's a center post there. And you don't have to retool the full geometry of the trough or the apron or anything. And they're also, like you said, you could just kill the flippers if it hits the right out lane switch, right? And they don't do that. So I'm not sure kind of why they don't if they're wanting to make it so you can't do it. But I don't think they care at all. The manufacturers. The manufacturers, they don't care. Wouldn't operators complain about it? We do, but we're small potatoes, dude. They don't care. It's just all home people now, homebuyers. Gary Stern just gave a talk at the Dutch Pinball Museum where he said that 70% of games go to homes and 30% go on location. So they don't care. I would be surprised if home players actually death save their own games, though. If operators cared that much, though, you could just modify the game. For example, the ways to combat this, like, Wedgehead has games on rubber feet to dissuade or, like, to stop people from sliding them so much. And you can easily nudge the game in place with rubber feet, but sliding the game is basically impossible once it's got rubber feet on the right floor. And that basically stops a big move. That stops what I consider to be, like, abusive, like, slide save death saves, where you're sliding the game and it didn't have the momentum. But it doesn't stop ones just popping out of the trough itself, like Black Knight is the example we keep going back to because it really slams that right out lane. well i think we should clarify that like all sterns here are very easy because they have very bouncy troughs and the way just the geometry of the way the ball rolls down that basically does it for you with any sort of amount of momentum but the old school way of doing them when i first started playing pinball these were mostly bally williams games that were out stern was around when i started playing but the majority games on location were out there and the bally williams games are heavier and they're death savable you can do it but it takes a lot more force to do it it was common that people would kick and shove a leg like that was very common i want to clarify before we go any farther that i pretty much only do them on modern sterns i'm not like doing them on yeah bally williams maybe occasionally i will if it's set up in a specific way but i'm not doing huge like yeah kicking legs to slide machines a foot or something to to save them on a bally Williams or you would never do it on an EM or like a solid state. I don't even know if you could even do it on those just like with the way those troughs are shaped. Yeah, I bet you can't try hard enough. I mean, you could try it on your Grand Prix, dude, but I doubt you could do it. The Grand Prix weighs about fucking 500 pounds. I don't want to try. To Jeff's point, it's kind of a self-solving problem because if you have a big heavy bally williams you just got to make the tilt tight and they usually don't have a long debounce from the factory or anything and then you can't really death save them at all because you'll just tilt if you try to like move the game enough to do it first of all stern's already played very long compared to most games of the past and the death saves extend that even longer but it's kind of just part of the game to me because it just happens it doesn't require anything like i think if you can do them without hurting the game there's not really much of an argument against them i think hurting the game is only one small part of it personally i'm against them for a lot of reasons but i just one i think it's just like i i just call it's just cheating plain and simple there's a reason you don't do it in tournaments it's because it's cheating if anyone sees a ball rolling down an out lane into the drain below the flippers everyone even if they've never played a game of pinball they know that that's the end of the ball like it's not confusing it's very clear That's what makes it so cool when you kick the ball back. I mean, some people think cheating's cool, but that's like, it doesn't mean it's not cheating. I mean, people cheat on their spouses. It's still cheating. They think that's cool. You're throwing a lot of judgments around here, okay? Like, I think that it's exploiting a design flaw to extend play, even like a child does that. And I will say that the big issue with it all is that it hurts operators, okay? It's not so much the damage to the game, although there have been players in town that are notorious leg kickers to the point where they've bent legs and damaged cabinets and that kind of thing. I do agree that you can do it on a stern without really causing any meaningful damage to the game, but you're adding extra balls, extra play time, and therefore you're putting less money into the games. So if we're doing a thing where majority of locations is a couple quarters in, a dollar in, you play a game you extending the game through nefarious means That just what it is Like you taking money out of the operator pocket for operating the game and you spending less money If I'm having more fun playing the pinball machine, I'm going to keep playing it longer, though. You playing it longer, though, without spending more money isn't making me more money. You're just camping on the game. It's like one ball per game. You're just camping on the game. Yeah, I mean, I've never thought about that side of it. I'm usually just, yeah, trying to get a high score on a machine. So that's the way that I can do it in some circumstances on some machines. I guess every time I do three death saves, I'll put another buck in the machine. And then walk away? Walk away. Don't need to play the game. I'll leave it for somebody else. That's the reason why operators look at it like that. That's what I'm saying. Like, that's why operators don't like them. I always thought it was more of a damaging machine was why they didn't like it. I think back in the day, it used to be when, like I said, if you're going to do that on, you know, like a Twilight Zone or something, you really got to fucking muscle that to get quality death save out of that. Again, not that you can't do it. You can. And I've watched people do it. And that's where it starts to get a little bit iffy. But even on a modern Stern, like we said, they already play long. So as an operator, what sucks in, especially in a market like Portland, where there's a lot of high skill players there's already a lot of people out there that already play the games really long already you know kind of stack replays they're already not spending a lot of money and that's what you get like and then you get people that are death saving you know like on top of it all and there's really despite what you guys have said there's really not much you can do to combat it because you set a tight tilt you could still death save because the death save if you're good at them kind of nullifies the tilt bob by a lot like if you're good at them you're sort of swinging it one side to the left side so that maybe you only get a danger and the other problem with that is we set our tilts tight at wedge but i set them tight because i don't want people death saving the games i don't even really want them to be as on certain games they're only that crazy tight because people will death save them if they're not like i have no problem with people nudging and bumping when the ball is in play at all even with like a heavy slap save or whatever that's all part of the regular play of the game but you have to set them tighter because like you guys both said if you can you will yeah you know it's like the steroid era of baseball it's the reason why they test for steroids in sports it's an arms race but first of all if your argument is that you're stealing money from operators or whatever, then that argument's invalid if it's a pay-to-play or a pay-to-admission. You know, if I'm going into Wedge and I'm paying $12, it doesn't matter how many games I play. No, I mean, for us, it doesn't matter at Wedgehead, but we still, Roadsy still runs a route, and the majority of machines are still on pay-per-play. Yeah, but I'm just saying, I'm just picking away at arguments for argument's sake. So if I'm at next level, where they got their games on carpet sliders, and there's 200 games to choose from so no one's worried about camping, then I don't think there's any real argument against it because I'm not hurting the game. It's giving me cool call-outs because I'm playing a lethal weapon and the designer intended for me to do death saves. That's another point. Yeah, can you think of any other games? I've got one other one that I know of. I think some Data East, Rocky and Bullwinkle is one. Last Action Hero, perhaps? I think Hook, maybe. Yeah, I think Last Action Hero. And the only modern game I can think of, off the top of my head anyway, is Rick and Morty. It's kind of cool. It's got a very cool animation. It's a little like Rick getting rebirthed or whatever after you get it. And you can only see that beautiful animation if you perform a death save like Scott Danesi intended. Because he knows bad boys are going to be playing his games. I mean, I'll say that the reason why we don't allow them at Wedge or why I'd be upset at Wedge in particular is that I think it invalidates high scores. just like what you guys are saying i look at i look at those scores as fake when i'm around town i look at a big score and i'm like that is so fucking fake and and what's funny is like we could have that same game and i was like yeah you will never fucking touch that on the setup there's part of me that's just a purist of like that's cheating and that's fake and i'm not going to be that person that does that like at all i just won't do them even when i'm trying to set up a game so you can't death save i'll make alex do it because i'm like i'm not fucking doing it like i just won't do it pretty good adam you won't even you won't even do it to test out if no if you can't do it no no no i learned them years ago and i wish i had never learned them uh but i haven't formed your reformed death saver i learned how to do them but i never made it a real big habit i learned um fairly early into the hobby i saw someone do one and i was just immediately like oh that's how you're getting all your high scores because it was the guy that had all the high scores in the previous town I lived in and then I realized how easy they were on like modern games and it's like okay like you can kind of just do these without making a big deal about it and that was always my personal threshold when I was just like getting into the hobby was if I could get away with a death save without the people around me noticing like that's fair game and that's still kind of like the only time I don't go out I don't really I don't really go out hunting high scores at random little bars across town or anything but it's like if I'm playing somewhere it's not like like if the ball just pops up on the flipper on its own with just the slightest of efforts put in from me and no one is any the wiser i'm not gonna just i don't have the self-control to just like take my hands off of the flippers sure yeah yeah i mean the way you describe it is also very funny like i don't know it just happened to pop like it's very like you're like i don't know it just it just but it just happened it was right so get the timing down and for anyone listening that is like that does these regularly or hasn't done one you like if you do them regularly you know what we're talking about and if you don't do death saves ever that's good alan will be happy with you don't learn them don't learn them we're not encouraging you to try to learn them on location machines uh you're probably it's like smoking cigarettes we're like yeah you're like yeah it's so cool but don't do it don't do it it looks really be cool, but don't do it. That's what I'd say. Death saves are the cigarettes of pinball. I think if they were truly considered a skill move, you should be able to do them in a tournament. I have a counter argument to that. I think that it's more of a length of play situation because extra balls are generally disabled in tournaments. And I think, you know, it's a skill move to get an extra ball, but those are disabled, right? Yeah. But if a ball's going towards the outlane and you slide it three inches and don't tilt and you move the ball into the in lane, they let you keep it but if it's past the in-lane switch then they won't let you keep it even if you slide it so i think it's i think it's a cheap move i think it is kind of a bad rule but i think they do it with death saves because it's an easy place to draw the line where it's like if everyone like people will notice and be like oh but it is weird because they allow lazaruses which for any listeners lazarus uh named after the dead man that jesus brought back in the bible i think is when a ball slams into the drain between the flippers and bounces out on its own is off the trough in in bounces back out on its own so it's kind of like the game just did a little death save for you essentially like it had the momentum to do it on its own and lazarus's are allowed in tournaments whereas death saves aren't which is a very bizarre and arbitrary thing to me when you play some of these games that essentially perform a death save by themselves like with such little input like we're talking about that's always been like i'm like that seems like a weird place to draw the line like you're like oh death save it goes in the right outline bounces itself out you gotta take your hands off the flippers but if it slams down the middle and bounces out that's totally fair game like that's pinball which is odd but i kind of think that they should be allowed in tournaments and it would make all the games even longer it would make everybody it would make it impossible to play a modern stern and maybe that would hammer home the point that these modern sterns play far too long for competitive multiplayer games whoa that's a that's a hot take dude well all of your gripes about death saves which i think are valid like it's like yeah you're like okay this is this is cheating it's been in competitive play it's all pinball players have to agree like well they don't have to agree but if you're playing in a tournament you're held to the rules that this is cheating and you're cheating by that definition you're cheating the operators and it's like i think that should be held against the designers of the game and i know that like you said they're not a big market to stern right now but i don't know i don't think that's the fault of the players for playing the game as Stern will set it up. Wow, dude, you really could work for like Philip Morris, man. You are like a slimy lawyer, dude. Like you're like, hey, man, if these kids want to smoke, they're going to smoke. Like just because we make highly addictive nicotine sticks. You're getting mad at, I'm trying to think of a good, keep the analogy going. You're getting mad at like the 7-Eleven that's selling to people with bad IDs and you need to be getting mad at the people making the cigarettes, right? I wish they would. But I just understand that for what they would have to do to change them, they would either have to change the physical trough and apron layout. They'd have to add one line of code. If right, switch. No, I agree. I agree. I agree. But again, they don't care. That is my end point, is that if this was an operator setting, I wouldn't care at all. because then operators or a home buyer can set them however they want, and that's it. It should be as easy as if you're in single ball play, and a ball rolls down the out lane, and it triggers the switch, flippers die, ball's over, no matter what. In multiball, obviously, you have to have that live so it can go through. But nobody's really death saving much during multiball. Jeff, are you death saving much during multiball? No, I'm not. I think maybe I have done it once or twice. Well, think about it if you have it trapped on the left flipper, dude, and it goes down the right out lane. It's already there. It just pops itself out. I mean, I'm not wasting a danger if I'm in multiball. That's the kind of thing where it's like, don't get mad at the players. Just, like, complain to the player. Don't get mad at the game, baby. I hate the stern, dude. I hate the game because there's nothing for me to do about it. Yeah. That's all it is. It's like they give us all these settings. They give you a tilt, so if somebody's thrashing a game or coffin dropping it or whatever, it'll end the game. And you can set that to be more sensitive. You can change the outlanes. You can do all these things. That's always been a part of pinball. But what happened is at some point in the 90s Data East comes up with their apron design and then never changes it you know and then now death saves are not only possible but they easy Yeah they also spread like in the 90s, I imagine it was very rare to see somebody do this, whereas now, like I made the joke about like Jack Danger showing everybody how, but realistically, that's how I saw a death save for the first time, was just watching Twitch, and I imagine lots of people have seen videos of people performing them, even if they haven't seen it in real life. What's upsetting about it is that there's no counter to it. I mean, really. Like, you have to set something, you have to set a tilt so tight to get people to not be able to do them that then everyone just bitches and moans that they didn't even touch the game and it tilts. What about, like, some foam on the apron or, like, down in the trough down there? I've tried. The ball would bounce off the, you've tried foam? Doesn't work? I've tried. I've tried many, many, many different materials and I have yet to find the material. Actually, I found one. I found one that deadens the ball enough. Yeah. But it's about sourcing it in large quantities and making a mod or something that would be able to do that. But I've been on the hunt to do it. And I do think the rubber feet cups help, but the problem is on location, on route, people will just take them off. That's messed up. And they're not cheap, dude. Each one of those is like $5. People just do, like, I'm just shocked that people will, like, adjust the level of games on. Oh, yeah, they'll flatten games out and do all sorts of shit on location, man. It's crazy. That's out of pocket. I mean, I'll death save, but I'm not going to put, like, coasters under legs and shit like that. That's, in my opinion, that's, like, a step too far, even for me, a vowed pinball cheater. See, I guess that's the thing. We do have, you know, a line in the sand where I'm like, well, that's cheating. adjusting the like the adjusting the level of the game is cheating so i can roll it back a little bit on being maybe too hard on alan earlier being like well it's not cheating because it's in the game because it's like well someone could do that to the game and then be like i set that high score the game was as it is we've had people put we've had people not only drop the back legs all the way down raise the front legs all the way up throw trays or two by fours or whatever underneath the front and then they'll put up a stupid score right like dude my father-in-law my father-in-law raised all of the fronts of my games while he was staying here for a week yeah that's like come on he also loosened all the tilts which i thought was hilarious that's what i mean though it's like it should be if they're gonna be allowed or whatever they should be settable and they're not currently settable that seems like a very easy thing to add that would make a lot it could happen in software for sure like we talked about it could happen in software they haven't done it it should be a part of software of all games i should be able to go in there and turn death saves off you know as long as we did that then i i really wouldn't care because my whole thing is like the scores on a machine should have integrity the reason why we don't compare scores on one spider-man to a spider-man in somebody else's house is because you don't know what the fucking setup is there's so many variables that you can't really compare a jurassic park to another jurassic park even in the same town you know what i mean so it's like part of that is like i want to preserve the integrity of the score that's on the game and i want our games to not have death save scores on them you know that's part of my setup because like i want to see what's a real score without death save that's what that's what i'm here to see that's what i want i don't disagree necessarily I also think that hearing you talk on the podcast previously, you kind of have like a, you hate games that play long. Oh, for sure. Which I don't necessarily, it's like, well, it's too easy. It's too easy. Well, if it's so easy, get the high score on it, right? Like if it's easy for everybody, there's still like a skill and like endurance in being able to play it long enough and stay focused and keep hitting the same shot and not miss and all that stuff. Oh, I mean, I do get the high score. I mean, I'm not worried about getting high scores. I get high scores all the time. No, I'm not talking about you specifically. I'm just saying, like, in general, I like games that play a long time because it's like, all right, I'm getting my money's worth. I'm here. I got to lock in for 30 minutes or 45 minutes or whatever. Yes, I understand that players like them. That's why the new games are so popular. They make them the way they do. They're to stroke fragile egos of people that don't want to have a challenge. Well, I'm just thinking like, Jeff, like you're a longtime pinball player. and you say you like long playing games sure but when you're playing in a long tournament and you're stuck in really long rounds you're stoked that you're playing another round of Godzilla that's why I don't play in tournaments anymore okay that's like I I've played in like very few tournaments this year I used to play in a lot more it's definitely something where you're going to spend your whole night playing in a tournament and that's not something that I want to be doing necessarily all the time and I wouldn't say it's just a stern thing just maybe just a tournament thing but they don't help for sure for me it's like one i like i like variety i i don't it's not that i won't play long playing games i like playing sterns like james bond 007 and it's just like man you're like you just tear the cover off of that game but i love it it's fun like i think it's a fun game i think a lot of those games are really fun um but i think there's solo play experiences that's kind of like you know pinball can be argued that it is a solo play experience all the time, right? But I like to kind of bounce back and forth. And I do think that there's a point where in my own mind, if you're playing any pinball machine for 30 or 40 minutes, that game is bad. Like that's bad. I don't care who you are in the world. Like the best play pinball player of all time. I don't care. Like that's, it should be set up harder because what makes pinball fun is that it's a challenge. The thing about it is like the rule sets, even the modern ones that are super deep they're not as deep as of regular triple-a video game coming out nowadays it doesn't provide 80 hours of content right you're still doing kind of the same objectives over and over again maybe there's another objective and another one in another one but at a certain point anyone could beat the game if you play for an hour i just think that pinball's not good at an hour it's a steel ball rolling down a slanted piece of wood you have two buttons with which to interact with the ball like you get three you get a lockdown yeah now you get action buttons but for me it's like what makes pinball fun is that the ball is wild and that it's chaotic and that you get to a point in a game and you're like damn i'm killing this game i am the king of godzilla or i am the king of whitewater i'm the king of adam's family and then you go up and you play it and you're like you are not the king dude like that game you are not the king no more you know like it just hands you your ass and then you go oh no no no gotta do this again like the variability of pinball is what makes it fun i personally think that like pinball is like a great game should last like on a modern game like a perfect game it should be like 15 minutes that should be like a massive game we've now we've changed the topic from death saves to just you think all pinball should play shorter which yes your position on death saves makes a lot of sense especially with that context I'm still with Jeff on that. Like, I enjoy playing long games, even though it's not what I can ever play with my friends. I'm going to give you guys another piece of info here. So from an operator, right, you know, we used to run on coin play. Wedget used to run on coin play. We switched to free play, partially because I don't want to have to be irritated by this all the time. Right? That's part of it. A big part of it is that games get more expensive. Right? The games cost more to buy. And as we put them on location, they play longer and longer. So they take longer and longer to pay themselves off from people playing just by natural causes. Then you add people doing death saves, which elongates them. If you're playing 30, 40 minute games and winning free games, you're not putting any money into that machine, you know, as you play it. And the thing is, is people balk at, especially in Portland, because we have so much competition that operators are keeping prices kind of behind the times where most of the country is. but it's like, you know, a modern game should cost a dollar, especially if it's going to play like Deadpool. Like if you're going to play a game like Deadpool and play a long game like Deadpool, it should absolutely be a dollar if you're going to play 20 minute games on average. Right. For sure. I've never complained about pricing on machines and I've never complained about setup on machine. I mean, I'll play a short playing game. I like both. I'm not, I'm not only looking to play a 30 minute game. Right. Like I'm happy to go to Wedget and play those games that are set up tough. Like, I get joy out of playing the pinball machine in front of me and trying to get the best score that I can. And, you know, if you get the high score on the one that plays really long or one that plays really short, doesn't really make a difference to me. I find joy out of both of them. But I see that argument for sure. Big argument with that is that a lot of people do care about it costing a dollar play or even potentially costing more in the future. But the biggest way that we could change this, and this could happen as operators, but we would have to we'd have to change the perspective of how long a game is supposed to play is like games could cost 50 cents again if we if games lasted 90 seconds to two minutes. Yeah, like we went back to EM. like if if you played a frontier or something if that was the concept like games could cost 50 cents brand new even if they still cost us operators seven thousand dollars it's true you see what i'm saying like but that's not what we're getting and the problem is is we get sort of longer and longer playing games because people are buying the games that cost more money which it makes i understand why the manufacturers have to charge more than they did because everything costs more But then we as the operators have to charge more per play at a certain point because we're paying more. And then the ad the admin is like, oh, yeah, it used to be 75 cents. It used to be 50 cents, but it plays a little bit longer. The ball saves are a little bit extra. There's more multi balls with ball saves. Death save it really easy. Yeah, you can death save them really easy. Your money's worth. Yeah, exactly. The other thing is, I think that you guys have discussed this before is that and we just talked about it earlier, I guess, that 70% of games are being sold to home buyers now. And people don't want to get bored of their toys after two weeks. They want to be able to get all these complicated rules and get deep into it. So they have to be set up to play longer and play easier for those people to get into the deeper parts of the rules and not get bored of, okay, I've played the same multiball X amount of times over and over and over, and I can't get any farther because it's super brutal and set up really mean. And here for all the home collectors listening out there I have zero concept as to why you wouldn set up your own personal game to be harder than shit Here the thing about owning pinball machines is when you play the same one set up in your house you get, it doesn't matter what it is, dude. It doesn't, there's literally no game that you will not get sick of playing. Yeah, I've owned a couple of like very deep games when I had Lord of the Rings and Hobbit at my apartment over COVID. You still get sick of it no matter how, I mean, there's more modes in Hobbit than any pinball machine ever. So I do kind of agree with that always that it's like setting it up easy just to get to like see more stuff. If you leave it, if you set it up really hard and you have a deep game, you, it might take you a year to get there and yet might keep you motivated to play those games more often. But what happens is, you know, like I said, it's fragile egos get in the way of like, well, I've had this game for three months. i haven't gotten king of the monsters i'm gonna close yeah let's put on five ball let's let's set up extra balls let's close off an out lane or something or they buy a twilight zone and like let's put a rubber band so it doesn't drain out the left side like a frontier for sale with rubber bands over yeah like you know like whatever to each your own man you set up your own game however you want we've been on the record as far as like a game is the way you set it up and that's the way it is and i also believe jeff that there's no point in bitching about when i go out and i play a game that's just super easy i'm just like i mean this isn't how i want to play it it's not what excites me because i like the challenge but i'm not gonna bitch about it i mean that's i'm playing someone else's game that's how they set it up that's how they set it up you play you play it as it lies you know like that's just how it is yeah i guess that i would just kind of push back against that a little bit you say well i want a challenge i think that there is a challenge in games that play quote unquote easy because they're easy for everybody so if someone puts up a high score on it it's like huge but still a challenge to beat them even if it plays really long you know what i mean it's just i agree with that preference it's not your preference to play for 30 40 minutes or whatever yeah it's a different to me it's a very like different thing i come back to this like always where i'm like i feel like we need like genres or like distinctions and pinball or something because like playing a game like that and getting a good game together would you have to know all of the deep rules and you have to execute at like a high level for 45 minutes is very difficult even if the game itself is playing obviously way longer than like a solid state or something so it's it is just a different kind of thing i'd say yeah i think that that's fine people some people like really long playing games to me that's not pinball that's not how i interact with pinball it's just not it makes me not want to play a game that's just the way it is and that's everyone everyone enjoys the game in their own way i think so i don't think there's a problem with having a difference of opinion on it with the deep rule sets it's not even just that it plays long it's that don't make me take a college course to understand what i'm supposed to do i don't like that shit i agree 100 like i hate looking at scores and going like because what happens is there's a long playing game somebody puts up a massive score say it's something like you know three times my best score that i put up on a 25 minute game and i'm like that was pretty good why is their score 3x my score right so i'm like oh shit now i gotta like learn now i gotta like find the path that gets me there and that and that's when i'm like not worth it it's not worth my time to know it i and then i just won't play it i agree yeah it is like you said a college course of okay i need to memorize all of this stuff these multipliers and i have to hit it at the exact right time to stack this multiplier with this mode and this multiball. And then when you, it's just like all of this stuff that you have to set up and keep in your mind and it gets a little bit too much at times. Yeah. That's why I think it's just, it's a very different side of the same hobby. I still think that there is like a challenge and skill in just learning, like the people, I respect the people that learn those deep rule sets. I know some people really enjoy them. It's not necessarily my favorite. That's why I really think we need like a distinction between i think we all i think all of us here like chasing a high score yeah you guys will cheat to win i'm i'm a goodie a good little boy who does not cheat to win okay we had to get this back to death saves so and i'm supposed to be i'm supposed to be the moderator here yeah you weren't a moderator just turned into two-on-one i'll propose the the compromise that we would love to see in a perfect world that will keep both sides of this argument happy right would be an easy and cheap implementation of a death save disable option in the menus of software yes and that could be used for tournaments kind of the same it's the same yeah like a turn up setting yeah it would be like if you hit tournament mode you don't get extra balls and you can't get a death save on the right out lane and then if operators actually care enough and some of them i guarantee would not because they don't care about anything there are some operators that won't just even connect it to the internet or update the code or exactly fix anything so like can you guys that's what alan wants to see jeff would you what would your feelings be if operators had the ability to just disable it the how we described earlier and you could kill a flipper when it goes down the right outline totally fine with it see as someone that does feel the same way i don't have a problem with that they're not being possible but if they are it's like you said it's like an arms race right like if other people are doing them to get their high scores i'm gonna do it too you know neil armstrong winning all those tour de frances like yep you're gonna cheat because everyone else is cheating so he was the best cheater you know like and whatever like exactly i'm glad you finally see you get it you guys are the lance armstrongs if you can't beat them join them in the other the other easy to implement and this i'm just reading through alan's notes but i love this so i want to read it off because i think they should absolutely do this yeah yeah another easy to implement software thing would be if the game detects a death save and they obviously have that ability like we talked about the data east's called it out the spooky games call it out if it detects a death save it puts an asterisk on your score yes on the leaderboard yes not even an asterisk on the score separate score that says cheater high scores okay that's like you're not like judge dread yeah like all those buy-in scores yeah like the buy-in score i don't hate that that's kind of cool so you have like the true you know you could have like the protestant James Rees like our protestant high score for uh alan there you know the puritans yeah the puritans you can have then you sinners yeah you philistines i think that would be hilarious dude if they did that on like black knight or something it would be genuinely like interesting to see the difference in scores and and yeah i'd like to do that and that would be funny because it's like you could leave the death saves like you even if nothing else changed but there was the two leaderboards i'd be like okay well now i have to make sure not to fucking like flip if it does you know i would genuinely be like okay i'm going for like the good high score yeah or you try to get both yeah well that's probably yeah yeah yeah you'd be like oh fuck it i'm gonna like keep going like i want to try to beat the game so then you get it but you get that one with the asterisk i like that a lot i'd be into that that's why i wrote it down good idea well jeff we want to thank you for coming on the wedgehead pinball podcast you're a great regular and friend of ours in real life and uh you're a great asset to the community i I'm glad you decided to come on. You wrote us an email about this topic, and I was like, hey, you want to come on and argue the pro? Because, you know, I'll sit here and argue the cons, and I think you were a great sport. So thanks for joining us, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, happy to come on. But this is the end of another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. This is the moral of the episode, always, is go out and play some pinball on location. Normally, we try to tie it into what we're talking about. what alex is saying and jeff is saying you should go out and death save as many games as you can i did not say that go buy yourself a pack of marble or reds and death save some games man put some coasters under the legs slide that motherfucker around i will not say that but i will say to go play some pinball go play some pinball on location regardless of your feelings and death saves you know be respectful to the games yes don't hurt them if you're gonna death save please do not kick them and with that being said until next time good luck don't suck on my past life and it doesn't have much time because at five o'clock they take me to the gallows The sands of time for me are running low. Running low. Hey man, what the hell do you think you're doing? Yeah. Mr. Cartmenis is here to make sure you all get into college. Getting into college? Man, we ain't getting no college. Fuck you. How do I reach these kids? Geez. The reason that you think you can't get into college is because you haven't been taught how to cheat properly. How do you think white people always get their head? Because we cheat all the time. I mean, because they cheat all the time. This is Bill Bieliczek, coach of the New Robert Englunds Patriots. He's won three Super Bowls. How? He cheated. He even got caught cheating, and nobody cared. Bill Belichick proved that in America it's okay to cheat, as long as you cheat your way to the top. Hey, I don't want to be called a cheater. No, no. If you cheat and fail, you're a cheater. If you cheat and succeed, you're savvy. This is bullshit. I don't want to waste my time learning to cheat. Go ahead. The door's right there. Bye-bye. Have fun. We will miss you. How do I reach these kids? you

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-15 | Item ID: e56a1899-5689-49ed-844d-672a8e350939*