# Episode 52 - Gateway Games

**Source:** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2024-10-14  
**Duration:** 54m 52s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-15782929

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## Analysis

Alan and Alex from Wedgehead Pinball Podcast discuss 'gateway games'—pinball machines that best introduce newcomers to the hobby. They establish criteria for gateway games (easy ramps, friendly plunge, central bash toys, good light/sound, simple rules, fan layout) and share their top five picks: Alan's list includes Attack from Mars, Theater of Magic, Scared Stiff, Monster Bash, and Lord of the Rings; Alex's includes Medieval Madness, World Cup Soccer, Scared Stiff, Godzilla (Premium), and The Sopranos.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Attack from Mars was the game that first hooked Alan into pinball — _Alan, personal anecdote about playing at Ground Control in Portland, Oregon before work_
- [HIGH] Theater of Magic was the gateway game for Alan's wife Casey — _Alan, directly confirmed by Casey in the podcast_
- [HIGH] Lord of the Rings was Alex's wife Megan's gateway game — _Alex, directly asked Megan on air and she confirmed it_
- [HIGH] Good gateway games need easy-to-hit shots, especially ramps — _Alan and Alex, established as first criterion for gateway games_
- [HIGH] Star Wars has a dangerous plunge that turns people away from pinball — _Alan and Alex, discussed as negative example of unfriendly plunge_
- [MEDIUM] Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness cannot be overrated because they get thousands of people into pinball — _Alan, opinion stated during discussion of Brian Eddy's designs_
- [MEDIUM] Lord of the Rings is impossible to lose the ball as a skilled player on factory settings — _Alan, claim about game difficulty compared to other titles_
- [MEDIUM] About 20-25 Sopranos machines ended up in Portland, Oregon — _Alan, stated as observation about hyper-regional popularity_

### Notable Quotes

> "Ramps are the most satisfying single thing in a pinball machine to hit when you're first starting out."
> — **Alan**, early in criteria discussion
> _Establishes primary design principle for gateway games_

> "You're not going to like my favorite games. Like, my favorite games... you're not going to like Iron Man. It's brutal."
> — **Alan**, discussing favorite vs gateway games
> _Key insight that favorite games ≠ gateway games; illustrates skill gap_

> "It's telling a story... you're defending these cities... it's just a great game."
> — **Alan**, describing Attack from Mars
> _Shows importance of narrative feedback for new players_

> "All a new beginner is going to be doing is trying to blow up castles and that is fucking that is more than enough on that thing."
> — **Alex**, describing Medieval Madness
> _Illustrates simplification principle for gateway gameplay_

> "They call it out. Oh, do you know where I can go play this dog, this soccer game that has a dog on the back lot?"
> — **Alex**, discussing World Cup Soccer
> _Shows how casual players remember memorable moments over complex rules_

> "It's impossible to lose the ball as a skilled player on this game... it is probably the easiest game to keep hold of the ball of any game ever."
> — **Alan**, discussing Lord of the Rings
> _Illustrates ball retention as gateway game criterion_

> "You get into modes and you just shoot the red shots. You kind of just fall into stuff when you don't know what you're doing."
> — **Alan**, explaining Lord of the Rings for beginners
> _Shows how forgiving rule design helps new players succeed_

> "I'm not gonna lie for your stupid podcast so lord of the rings was the one."
> — **Megan (Alex's wife)**, when asked about gateway game
> _Genuine, unsolicited confirmation of Lord of the Rings as gateway game_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Alan | person | Co-host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, owns Wedgehead pinball bar in Portland, Oregon |
| Alex | person | Co-host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast |
| Casey | person | Alan's wife, Theater of Magic was her gateway game |
| Megan | person | Alex's wife, Lord of the Rings was her gateway game |
| Brian Eddy | person | Designer of Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness |
| George Gomez | person | Designer of Monster Bash, Lord of the Rings, and The Sopranos |
| Ty Ueda | person | Owner of Pops Pinball on East Coast, coined term 'woohoo' for central bash toys |
| Zoe | person | Pinball player, expert at teaching in Howdy Partner format, located on East Coast |
| Greg Ferrer | person | Artist for Scared Stiff pinball machine |
| Attack from Mars | game | Stern pinball game by Brian Eddy, Alan's number one gateway game |
| Medieval Madness | game | Stern pinball game by Brian Eddy, Alex's number one gateway game |
| Theater of Magic | game | Williams pinball game by Pat Lawlor, Casey's gateway game |
| World Cup Soccer | game | Williams pinball game by Pat Lawlor, Alex's number two gateway game |
| Scared Stiff | game | Pinball game, both hosts' number three gateway game |
| Monster Bash | game | Pinball game by George Gomez, Alan's number three gateway game |
| Lord of the Rings | game | Stern pinball game by George Gomez, both hosts list it, Alex's wife Megan's gateway game |
| Godzilla | game | Stern pinball game (Premium), Alex's number four gateway game |
| The Sopranos | game | Stern pinball game by George Gomez, Alan's number five gateway game, popular in Portland |
| Whitewater | game | Pinball game with dangerous plunge, mentioned as counter-example to gateway games |
| Iron Man | game | Pinball game, mentioned as too difficult/punishing for beginners despite being Alan's favorite |
| Wedgehead Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Alan and Alex, celebrating one-year anniversary |
| Pat Lawlor | person | Designer of Theater of Magic and World Cup Soccer |
| John Rhys-Davis | person | Actor whose call-outs are featured in Lord of the Rings pinball |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Gateway games / introducing newcomers to pinball, Game design criteria for accessibility and fun, Specific game reviews and design analysis, Difference between favorite games and gateway games
- **Secondary:** Designer philosophy and impact (Brian Eddy, George Gomez, Pat Lawlor), Fan layout pinball machine design, Central bash toys and mechanical gimmicks, Sound design and call-outs in pinball

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Hosts are enthusiastic about sharing knowledge and celebrate the hobby's ability to engage newcomers. Discussions are affectionate even when critical of specific games. Light humor and self-aware about having opinions that may be controversial. No negative tension between hosts.

### Signals

- **[content_signal]** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast approaching one-year anniversary, planning Q&A episode (confidence: high) — Alan's opening announcement: 'we are coming up on one year of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast'
- **[community_signal]** Community engagement through Q&A format; hosts receive regular questions from listeners (confidence: high) — Alan mentions 'we get a lot of questions sent to us and we try to respond to each and every one of them'
- **[design_philosophy]** Emerging consensus on what makes pinball accessible to newcomers: friendly plunge, easy ramps, central toys, simple rules, fan layout, good feedback (confidence: high) — Alan and Alex establish detailed criteria list and repeatedly validate against multiple games
- **[sentiment_shift]** Brian Eddy's games (Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness) recognized as industry standards for gateway design; George Gomez similarly validated (confidence: high) — Multiple games by both designers appear in top-five lists; hosts emphasize 'they can't be overrated because these games get people into pinball'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Recognition that forgiving rule design (where beginners fall into modes naturally) is key to gateway success (confidence: high) — Alan on Lord of the Rings: 'you get into modes and you just shoot the red shots. You kind of just fall into stuff when you don't know what you're doing'
- **[venue_signal]** The Sopranos machine shows hyper-regional popularity in Portland, Oregon (20-25 machines concentrated in one city) (confidence: medium) — Alan: 'Apparently, the city of Portland... there's a lot of them here... About 20 22 on location 25 of the sopranos they made ended up in portland'
- **[industry_signal]** George Gomez emerges as particularly prolific in gateway game design (Monster Bash, Lord of the Rings, The Sopranos all listed) (confidence: medium) — Hosts note multiple Gomez titles in top fives and repeatedly reference his game design principles
- **[product_strategy]** Recent Stern games like Godzilla (Premium) successfully incorporating gateway design principles despite complexity (confidence: medium) — Alex: 'we had to do we had to include some game that's modern... godzilla... it's a game that, like, beginners will play, and they'll want to keep playing'
- **[community_signal]** Howdy Partner tournament format uses experienced captains to teach newcomers, validated as successful teaching method (confidence: medium) — Alan mentions Zoe's skill at teaching in this format: 'she's always the best howdy partner captain'

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## Transcript

 Hello everybody, this is Alan. I just wanted to jump on quickly here and say that we are coming up on one year of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. We want to thank you all for listening to a whole year of us talk nonsense here. Alex and I had discussed we want to do a Q&A since we get a lot of questions sent to us and we try to respond to each and every one of them. We thought it'd be fun to do a Q&A show to celebrate our one year anniversary of doing the show. So if you have any questions, comments, anything you want to ask us, please send your information to WedgeheadInfo at gmail.com. And we will record an episode shortly and try to answer every question we receive. That's all for now. Please enjoy this episode, and we look forward to hearing from you. We'll be right back. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. I am Alan, your host of this podcast, joined in the basement studio at the Waterboy's house. It's my co-host Alex. How are you doing? I'm doing excellent, Alan. Doing especially excellent today. I'm recycling my intro, I'm realizing. But I'm doing especially excellent today because we're talking about a subject that's near and dear to my heart. It's Gateway Games, a.k.a. How to Get Your Friends to Like Pinball. Exactly. I think if you've been in the hobby a long time, you've probably dealt with this. Pinball is awesome, amazing, incredible. We all love it. We all like it enough that we're sitting in basements recording podcasts. You're sitting at work listening to podcasts. We're all fucking, you know, we all know this shit's just the best. We know pinball rules. Not everyone knows that. yeah sometimes you gotta win them over a little bit yeah and some games are better than others so i think right out the gate it's very clear like we talk a lot about classics we talk a lot about ems on this show those are not necessarily the games that anyone's gonna fall in love with i don't think no right out the gate it's hard coming in with modern gaming mindset and playing those things they were products of their time they're incredible games they're not very beginner friendly for people that are used to like picking up and playing you know modern video games or things where they understand everything right away yeah yeah we're just going to kind of talk about what defines these games or what kind of characterizes games some of our favorites it's just stuff around this subject i guess we'll just kind of get into it it's something that like i spend a lot of time doing i spent a lot of time doing when i first got into the hobby was like my lovely wife, she did not care at all about pinball. And I was deep, deep in the fever. This was like 16 years ago. And I was just like, oh, I just want to go play pinball. Like, and so I had to be like, let's go to this spot because I knew they had games. But I had to be like, it's not just because they have a Valley Atlantis. Like, it's not just because they have this one game that I haven't played before. You know, it's like, no, but pinball could be cool. like we could buy drinks and we could have a good time like this is a date but also like let's just play some pinball like you know oh like hey they happen to have a pinball machine here yeah and i know you've done the same with your wife megan and yeah megan kind of got me into pinball but oh it's the reverse i do have i do kind of like have an idea what games she'll like what ones are going to work and we can kind of get into more of that like the specifics of that but yeah it's always just if you're trying to get friends into the hobby with you if you want to share that stoke there are better and worse entry points yeah and then these are going to be our opinions so if you're screaming on your commute listening to this you're like i can't believe they're saying this is not a good gateway game you know i mean this is our opinion i just know that i've done this a lot you know start your own podcast don't be nice guys everyone be nice to us we're just two guys on a facebook talking about pitbull no but i think we should get into like the list of things that I wrote down. I think this is, to me, when I think about a game, this is how I would describe what I'm looking for in what makes a good gateway game. And I think the first thing is easy-to-hit shots and especially ramps. Because I think the first thing is if you can give somebody an easy ramp shot, people love hitting a ramp. It goes up and around. It comes back to your flipper. People like that feeling. Even if they do nothing else in the game, it gives them a little woo-hoo. Like when you first start playing pinball, it's kind of easy to forget once you've been into it for a bit. But it's like when you first start playing, it feels like a miracle anytime you hit anything that you're aiming for. And ramps are the most satisfying single thing in a pinball machine to hit when you're first starting out. Yeah. But I'd say even before that, it's not on your list here, but you need a friendly plunge. If you're playing a game and it plunges and it puts the ball into danger immediately. Not like Star Wars. Exactly. Star Wars is like the exact. like if in that will immediately turn people off from pinball yeah so you just make sure most modern games have a friendly plunge they deliver it to a flipper at like somehow it might not be like there's varying levels of friendly but classic games that's the biggest single thing is yeah there's not a friendly plunge and there's no ball save i think picking a game again this is going against our type because we talk a lot on this show and myself owning wedgehead where it's like When people come in, they're like, well, what's your favorite game? And they're all excited. I'm like, you're not going to like my favorite games. Like, my favorite games, depending on how far you are into the hobby. But if you're asking me a question like, what's your favorite? Or they're new in town or they're trying out pinball. I'm like, you're not going to like Iron Man. It's brutal. Yeah. Right? Like, you're not going to necessarily like Whitewater. Because it's got a dangerous plunge. It's got a dangerous plunge. It can be a punishing game if you're missing shots. and you got to play under control. Yep. So even though that's my favorite game, that's not a gateway game. That's not the game I try to get people into pinball with, even though it's got awesome ramps and some cool mechs and stuff. But I think a game's got to be not punishing, you know? And, like, what games I like now, as my skill has grown, it's like I'm seeking punishing games. Yeah. Easy games are a little bit boring to me now. I still like it. I still like long playing games. I definitely seek out like the punishing shorter, harder, shorter, harder games for multiplayer specifically. And I play a lot of multiplayer pinball. And so it's like, I really wish there were more modern games that were punishing like that. That's another thing is that a good gateway game, we're not saying these are bad games. It's just some of them are better for, yeah. Purpose in mind, which is how do you get someone that you dragged out to an arcade, a bar, whatever pizza shop and you're like hey come play some pinball with me they're gonna go i don't know i'm not any good at pinball it's it's always that immediately that pullback of like no no no no i'm not any good and you're like like it doesn't matter don't worry about it right this is what we're talking about gateway games like how do you get that person to relax and just enjoy being bad at pinball but having fun next on the list so we had easy to hit shots especially rams not too punishing next one is a big central toy or gimmick or something you know ideally right in the middle ideally something that you want to hit yes and something that has a reaction and all of you can think of a hundred games like this because you're like oh yeah like the castle on medieval well we're getting specific games like medieval madness you know the group head or something there's like central bash toys are big our friend ty ueda over on the east coast one of the owners of Pops Pinball. He described this on his Die on the Hill episode about Rocky and Bullwinkle. He describes this as woohoo. So we've adopted that as the official phrase on this podcast, but I wanted to give him credit for coming up with it. We're like, I think these big central toys or mechs think the trunk on Theater of Magic, anything that like gives you a moment of like, woohoo, like this is fun. I think it's very helpful. I find a lot of the 90s games are really good gateway games. There are some that are not. But on average, because they all seem to have like a really interesting... They all get a cool mech. They all get a cool mech. And people want to see what that does. So that alone can hook you in. That could be just in and of itself. They might play three or four games in a row. And then they might finally get the trunk to turn around and lock the third ball for multi-ball on Theater of Magic and be like, oh, this is cool. Or open up the bookcase or see things hand. or any of those things can create from the Adams family can create a memory to people, to new players. You know, the other thing I say is like good light and sound show. This is just creating those pinball moments that you're like, whoa, I feel like I really did something. It's important for a game to make you feel cool when you did something. Yeah. And so I think usually a lot of the big mechanical toys, they usually when they're integrated well, they'll make you feel cool. That's true. like showtime on adam's family showtime so good so good the one we all it comes back to it's just this is a hard game that i wouldn't consider a gateway game but it gives you a moment but like ghostbusters storage facility multi-ball a lot of the the godzilla building crashing down dumping it on a premium specifically yeah that's big that's enough for a player if they only do that in a game or they only do it once when you have a good mech it should make a beginner player feel like they're beating the game yeah that's in that's what they do like when people see something it's like you could just fucking walk away at that point people will be like riding high the rest of the day they're like oh my god did you like i got the fucking multi-ball on godzilla yeah that's what hooks people and keeps them coming back the other things we're looking for easily explained rule set shoot the flashing light philosophy yep again we're losing this in the modern day but i do think when you're teaching someone a game even if you're teaching someone like you have a godzilla near you and you know the building moves you know it's not a super punishing game just teach them how to shoot the building to light the lock and don't worry about so much else yeah you know what i mean like don't over shrink the rule set if the rule set's too big shrink it to one goal yeah don't worry about modes yeah and don't worry about team ups uh or any of that worry about the stack exactly you're trying to get them to do one thing and i actually saw my friend zoe was so good at this because we run our friendly howdy partner format where we have team captains and the team captains are usually the best player not always but they will help there to help teach your team the game you're playing and zoe was like i'm playing with randoms and players of beginner skill levels and so it's like i'm teaching them one thing about the game i'm not teaching them the whole game yeah watching their eyes glaze over i'm just going just do this that's that's your thing and whether or not you get there that's fine you know what i mean he's always the best howdy partner captain the best r.i.p zoe she's not she's not dead she's just on the east coast yeah she's okay and last thing that makes a good gateway game what is it alan fan layout boom fan layout fan layout no extra flippers flippers two flippers at the bottom standard in lanes shots in a fan so you hit different parts off of the flipper three flipper games are great four flipper games we as pinball heads like when you're flipper games even five flipper games name one it gets derided amongst the pinball community because like the hardcore enthusiasts now if someone just puts two flippers in the standard procedure everyone's like family out family out family out we've seen this a million times like derivative derivative bullshit derivative bullshit yeah they work really well and when you if you play pinball with someone that's not a you know experienced pinball player lately you just watch the ball roll off that upper flipper over and over no matter how many times you point it out and it's just like all it will do is frustrate them The shots off upper flippers are much harder to hit, harder to grasp immediately. It's just not a great idea. Yeah, it's easier to have a game like Attack from Mars. It's just easier to teach somebody a game like that. It's going to be more straightforward. Which I think leads to our next subject. We've talked a lot about our criteria of what we think a great gateway game is, what we're looking for when we choose a gateway game. I think we should give our top fives of each. What do you think? Yeah, let's go. You go number one. I'll go number one. This is the game that hooked me. So I know that I went from not caring, not even thinking about pinball I was on my own and walking into ground control here in Portland Oregon before work and it was playing this game Attack from Mars Attack from Mars was the first game where I playing it and it like teaching me how to play it as I play it It very very easy to understand that game It's like I can teach somebody that game, but I'm like, it's so easy. Like there's lights in front of each shot. Every time you hit one, the lights go up. They kind of count up. So you know you're building something that way. You hit the center bank and it lowers. it gives you speech and sound when you're attacking the saucers when you go it'll go back and it'll grab the ball and it'll give you a light show and it'll give you a call out and it'll say you defended this city so you're like oh i'm defending these cities like it's telling a story the shots are are simple and they're laid out in a fan it's just a it's just a great game it's absolutely and even now as a skilled player it's like i love attack from our plan yeah super fun yeah uh my number one another controversial pick here it's going to be medieval madness from the same designer brian eddie i'm not going to repeat any of yours just as a as a warning so i might have put them in different orders and stuff but medieval madness very much the same thing it has the best central bash toy mac of all time with the gate in the castle coming in the the gate coming down and going up and it's also got the trolls which immediately everyone's like oh you hit the thing that's like yelling at you the like how you cash in the multi-balls isn't immediately uh evident to like it's like okay you hit the shot all over and over and over and then you cash on the ball in the little whatever merlin shot it doesn't really matter if you don't understand that because all a new beginner is going to be doing is trying to blow up castles and that is fucking that is more than enough on that thing you can just do nothing but castles on that game and have fun and it has like one of the you know the first time you destroy a castle on there and you get that big moment and then you realize you can like do it again and it has the giant inserts and it has the memorable characters that correspond with the inserts it works really well brian eddie knew what he was doing with those two games yeah and their fan layouts and some people will be a little contrarian they'll be like both of these games are overrated you know and they're like they're classics for a reason yeah these games i think they can't be overrated they can't be overrated because these games get people into pinball. They got me into pinball. They've gotten thousands of people into pinball, even maybe even millions of people. I don't know. Who knows? Who can say? Who can say? Okay, what's your number two? My number two, same theme. This is the game that unlocked it for my wife, Casey. This is the game that I was even telling her. She's like, what are you going to talk about on the podcast today? I was like, gateway game. She was immediately, she was like, theater of magic. And I was like, yep, because that's the game that got you into pinball. That's the game that we were playing at a bar, and you were finally like, ooh, I like this one. This one's fun. I was teaching her that game, and it is fun. It's got a great trunk and the multiball start on that. It's got swoopy ramps. It's got kind of magnetic ball catchers. It feels like magic. It's a Papaduke game. Papaduke games are swirly and fun and fanciful. It's not particularly challenging either. It's also a fan layout. it's kind of all the things that we're talking about like none of the shots are hard it doesn't mean that you're a new player is going to be like just sniping shots but it gives you things to just slap the ball around and it'll do things you'll be able to hit both ramps just by flailing you'll be able to hit the trunk just by flailing i think that that's you know it's a good marker for a gateway game yeah my number two uh there's a theme here where i'm copying all your designers I'm going with World Cup Soccer. John Babadook, same designer. It's his first game. It's not a game that I particularly go out of my way to play now, but it's a game that I've had a weird amount of people in my life, casuals, specifically bring up. They call it out. Oh, do you know where I can go play this dog, this soccer game that has a dog on the back lot? They're always like, it just yells goal when you shoot. He's like, you just shoot goals. People don't remember anything about that game other than shooting goals past the moving goalie, and it goes goal. It makes you feel cool. I can't remember the sound call outs. It makes you feel cool. It's got a central mech and gimmick. The NBA jam call out guy on it. Tim Kittrow. Yep. Yep. And that's the sounds on that are like 50% of what's important. Yeah. I mean, it's yelling goal is huge. The fact that multi balls like that scoop shots a bitch to get when you need it. That game's not. This is one that I'm like, I think that game's still fun. I don't really play it much. I don't think it's that great, but it's a really good game to hook people in when you don't even you're like you just shoot one thing on here and people will have fun if they get it yeah that's one that it's like if it's your very first time playing pinball i feel like it's pretty fun one you hear it again and again man people love that game it's a lot of games that hook people yeah i think that's a great choice my number three again you've probably heard of this game it's the second in the trilogy of elvira games it's scared stiff it's a good game again just makes you feel cool. You can bash around. You'll get the crate multiball. You'll hear lots of call-outs, an amazing Greg Ferrer's art package. You got the spinning spider wheel in the back glass. The average player is not going to know, but you grabbing them and going, oh, look, you're in the spider. Stop it here. And you just tell them to try to stop it. It gives them an extra little skill game to try to land on something. And you go, you want this one? And yeah, it's got two separate multiballs. It's got a cool bony ramp. Like, it's just, it's exactly what we're talking about. It's easy, fairly long playing, not super punishing. You know, good toys and gimmicks, great light and sound show. And I can teach anybody to play that game in 30 seconds. Yep. My number three and one that kind of bucks a lot of our trends so far is Monster Bash. And this is another one that really just... How does that buck the trends? It doesn't have a central bash toy. It's the fan layouts. It is a fan layout. The ramps aren't exceptionally easy to hit, but I feel like this one has the way Gomez designed those ramps. And he always talks about the make point on his ramps and stuff in the make points really early on those deceptively early. Yeah. And so it's like you can smack a ball and get it kind of a sloppy ramp shot. And it just feels like the ramp sucks the ball up there. It is so it just I remember the first time. Like when I started getting good games on Monster Bash, it was like I'm a pinball god. Like I'm unstoppable when you combo ramps. It's just another one that it's like everyone wants – you see Frankenstein come down the first time. He's a bash toy. You see Drac come out. Those are both bash toys. Both bash toys. But they're not in the middle. They're off to the left and right. Well, still. I mean, yeah, but Dracula comes out towards the middle. I'm just saying this one's a little more advanced, but it's still one that will hook you immediately. No, no, no. The next one on your list is advanced. This is very much, it's got, it's a very friendly game. It's a very easy game. It's a very fun game. Great call-outs, great sound, fan layout, multiple bash toys, an easy-to-understand concept. Hey, all these monsters are in a band. Collect them all. We got to start, we got to get to the fucking show, man. That's so easy. It's so good. It's so good. It is good. my next game this is the one that fucks the trend a little bit but here's why i'll say that it's still a great gateway game and it's lord of the rings by george gomez and i say this because this is i love asking people that come in a wedge head i go what game got you in a pinball what got you in a pinball and so much of the time it's games we already talked about back from mars dog soccer theater of magic medieval madness this game comes up all the time it's an absolute a-list theme people love lord of the rings they love tolkien and it's a fan layout it is impossible to lose the ball as a skilled player on this game on factory like it is probably the easiest game to keep hold of the ball of any game ever would you not agree like is there an easier game than this it's pretty easy i think i like i truly a lot of the sterns from this era like 2000 sterns There's a lot that are comparable, but of the ones I've spent time on, this is the easiest. The absolute easiest. And this is why it's great for a beginner. It has a very deep rule set, which that's not great for the beginner, but it does have a center bash toy in Balrog. It's a fan layout. It's got cool, like, makeable ramps with the sword lock gimmicks. And the deep rule set is such that, like, they just hit some stuff and they're going to be in a multi-ball. Yep. You get into modes and you just shoot the red shots. You kind of just fall into stuff when you don't know what you're doing because you actually play it. You get to play long enough that you'll just fall into stuff. And the stuff you fall into is straightforward, even if how you got there isn't. And the light and the sound, the call outs. The John Rhys-Davis call outs. Unbelievable. And the music, the dot animations. The war. Dude, there's so much. I owned a Lord of the Rings, so this would have been my number one, but you already put it on yours. oh so i didn't do it it would have been my number one before we started recording i asked megan i was like real quick my that's my wife megan i bring up robin to show a lot i asked megan i was like real quick what was like a game that got you into pinball what was your gateway game and she was like lord of the rings and i was like okay give me another one i already knew that one give me another one and she's like well it was lord of the rings so if you don't like that answer i don't know what to tell you and i was like okay so it's lord of the rings and uh but she's like i'm not gonna lie for your stupid podcast so lord of the rings was the one it was one of the first games i bought and it definitely was the one that like kind of got megan into like understanding like objectives and stuff past just like keeping the ball alive and going for really obvious stuff and it continues to hook people in it's a game that people always beg them to remake or do a new version of yeah because it's just a game everyone loves it's i still think it's like the you know the best friendly gomez game and he's got a lot of them it's just it's so much fun to shoot they nailed every piece of the package i feel like yeah i mean it could have a better art package but if that's about it it feels like the movie posters do it feels of its time feels okay feel like it's aging well because it's just like it looks like the movies look and so it could have a better one yeah like if they came out and they're like what we've seen now today we had zombie yeti do a lord of the rings i'd be like i give me the original back and that's not a slight on him i'd just be like i can't yeah now i want to see what zombie yeti lord of the rings i think it'd be pretty cool with that new animated war of roerum coming even just like he probably wouldn't be the one to do it i mean it would probably be what's the other guy randy martinez that does like yeah or francie or something and stuff like that that would be that'd be pretty sick be sick all of the artists are talented enough they could probably do a better job but i just like it as is is all i'm saying yeah totally okay my number four this is i'm kind of going off the rails here with number four and five but number four is godzilla the premium specifically because of what we kind of mentioned earlier it's got that multi-ball i think is huge when people see that you can get a multi-ball where it dumps the balls off the top of the building the building crashes that's one of the best kind of hook mechs that stern's done in recent years in my opinion oh yeah and along with that it's got it's hard to show a beginner player the little tummy lock on the the mechagodzilla where you you know shoot off the ramp onto his tummy but but that's still cool like if someone sees that that's the kind of thing they'll want to do but for a real beginner the ramps just having the little like the pigtail ramp lethal weapon ramps as we call them that's big it's like having Yeah, that ramp return, it goes through the building. Having fun ball trails is huge when you're starting. That's still what I like. I mean, it's just they're fun to shoot. It's fun watching the ball do the little thing. It ties up. It kind of, like, gives you a second of relief. And it is, like, despite having really complicated, deep rules and not being super-duper friendly shooting, like, it's a bitch to hit that left ramp if you're just starting out. It's a game that, like, beginners will play, and they'll want to keep playing, especially if you're kind of a beginner in pinball in general. like if you're a little bit into it this kind of like a more advanced beginner you know hook game this is more but we had to do we had to include some game that's modern because like i said i truly think like most of the best ones are our 90s games but we have to be realistic and go you're gonna see these stern games and they make awesome games and this is one of them and i think it's not particularly punishing it's not a fan layout but it does have the the central mechanical toys and gimmicks it has that woohoo that one thing to know is that they like never make you use that upper flip i mean they do and they put in that big moment if you can somehow get through a mode or a multi-ball and they get a cash out on that and it does that magnet release to the flipper even if you miss that people like know what they're doing yeah it gives you that it's like you have a big countdown and it's like okay the light is on here you should at this point realize there's an upper flipper yeah and that that multi-ball start is reminiscent of the old kind of classic multi-ball starts that we were talking about where you know it gives you the song it gives you the blue oyster colt song jesus christ yeah just as a tip for anyone that owns that game you can change the default multi song to be like the 1954 theme or something else any any other game or song in there it well worth doing so you don have to hear the fucking blue oyster cult you hate that fucking hate that song oh damn i hate it i think most people enjoy it so i do really want to replace it i need to go in with pen browser and mess around and see if i can replace the blue oyster cult song you're gonna avoid your warranty i mean yeah it would be worth it for son he's just saying hypothetically stern he's not gonna do that But I'm just totally not going to do that. If I could hypothetically get Simon Says by Pharaoh Manchin there, it would be worth it. Anyway, okay, that's my number four. What's your number five, Alan? Okay, now this is another one. This is very – I've learned this is hyper-regional. Apparently, the city of Portland, where I grew up playing pinball, and now I own a pinball bar, it's The Sopranos, also designed by George Gomez. This is an extremely popular game in the city of Portland. uh there's a lot of them here lots of them on i think the last time i looked there was like 20 22 on location 25 of the sopranos they made ended up in portland it seems like it they've been operated since i started playing when they were you know just a couple years old when i first started playing you know based on the tv show at the time it's again it's kind of a hack shit show right we can all agree it's a bad show it changed tv and it changed pinball dude um again there's another gomez game fan layout super fun ramps like a little boat lock ramp a little uh stripper ramp the central mech with the safe that goes up and down that's a bear to keep running well but it's a very cool moment again the monster bash creature shot but now it has a little fish that talks a little talking fish yeah you're talking with the fishies it's got it's a pretty good combination of the two gomez games we had on here wraps up in kind of widely loved drama theme which is really an oddball theme for pinball but it's got so many great call outs it works moments and it makes you feel cool for doing the things again not a punishing game not a hard game just a fun game I particularly love the call out when you're in the pops and you get the beat down. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, I got a family. Like, I just love this game where, like, this kid can fucking earn. This kid can fucking earn. We just quote that all the time. All the time. And this game just goes nuts. This game out-earns anything else. This game will out-earn a Godzilla in Portland. It is crazy. There are people in Portland that you would not suspect. They don't play pinball. They play Sopranos pinball. That's it. That's the only good one. It is a weird thing. It's something that it's never been fully explained to me, but they've always been around. And I see it, man. We have, uh, Rhodes has two Sopranos and we haven't had one on the floor at Wedge for a while. And I have a sweet lady that comes in and every time she gives me hell about it. I hear about this game when it's not on the floor, man. It is crazy. But then people want to rent it. Other businesses that Roadsy routes at, they always want a Sopranos. It's absolutely. This is the other game that Casey was like, Sopranos, Theater of Magic. And I was like, yep, way ahead of you. Yeah, it makes me think that Gomez should really do like a Breaking Bad or something just because it would somehow end up with the same magic combo. He's, yeah, we'll get to that. Okay, my last pick for the games, because I'm just kind of like trying to get some variety on here, and I was going to put two gateway games for Solid States, Bally specifically, and I put down Skateball or Centaur, which are just not really, they don't fit with any of this at all, basically. but they're just two friendly, cool-looking, solid-state games where if you're trying to get... It's not where you should bring someone for their first game of pinball ever, but if you're trying to get friends into old games, these are two that I highly recommend because they both look badass, so people want to play them. And they're both pretty friendly. They both just work like... I don't know what even it is about them specifically that makes them so friendly compared to other ballets. Like if you try to play Frontier with someone, they'll just be like, I hate this. I hate old games. But you can play Skateball or Centaur. In Centaur, you can obviously get multi-ball Skateball. There's no multi-ball, but it just kind of like works easy. The shots are fun to hit. Nothing's too punishing except for, I guess, the drops right in the middle. You just tell them to avoid those center drops. And so I just wanted to say like it's like those are two specifically. If you're trying to get people into solid states and you can hunt down one of these games, there are two games that we happen to have on location every once in a while. They pop up in Portland. And that's just kind of I just wanted to put them on there to say there are exceptions to all of these rules. There's niches among niches here in pinball. And so you can always kind of try to find ones like a good place to get people in, worm them into your niche of the hobby, I guess. Yeah. And I think we've talked about these people, these different designers. I think certain designers are better at this on average, just in general. We talk about Steve Ritchie a lot. He is not the guy, I think, as a great gateway game in the modern day. I do think that he does make some easy games, like I would say Spider-Man, Stern Trek, Stern Star Trek, not Star Trek The Next Generation. Even though that game I love to pieces. I love that game. But Stern Trek, I think, is pretty cool. It's got a cool central mech. It's not a fan because it's got the extra flipper, but you don't have to hit that warp ramp either. pretty wide shots and tells you what to do but we're talking about i think personally the king of the gateway games to me like we already said it's mr george gomez that guy has the juice man it's from a game we didn't talk about deadpool modern game he did deadpool everyone new players love that game and makes them feel cool glowing scoop they do a really good job illuminating and when you need that in that scoop for being a small scoop it's pretty easy to just kind of like get fall in there yep when they get to do the katana lock it makes them feel cool because that's a super cool shot yep um you can easily get into little deadpool it's got cool animations and sound and it's funny and again it's not particularly punishing by modern game standards it can be a long playing game and i think that that and everything he did from monster bash lord of the Rings, Sopranos, all games we already talked about on this episode. Like, to me, George Gomez is the king of Gateway Games. Yep. I agree personally, but for sake of conversation, I would say other big contender would be Brian Eddy. Yep. Especially his Sally Williams games. Yes. Although I think Stranger Things is right up there with them. Yeah. And it has a lot of the same ideas. I mean, it's kind of a recycled layout or version. And it's a modified version of Attack from Mars with a lot of the same kind of idea and all the good things about that game put into a new package with a theme that people will like. I will say, though, that a game of his that's great that I don't think is beginner-friendly, The Shadow. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. He has some that aren't. That's why I— Same thing with Gomez. Same thing with Gomez. Johnny Mnemonic? No. I think it's still pretty friendly to shoot. I just don't know what the rules and stuff— Corvette? Yeah, that's a hard one. It's like some, these games are fun. I actually really like those games, but they're like, those aren't, you know, but so even these, like no designer just stays in one box. Right. But yeah, John Papaduke kind of does. John Papaduke does. He's, he's a, I think he's, I think these other guys' best beginner games are better, but John Papaduke's games all kind of feel the same and they're all pretty good beginner games because they all have like fun ramps to shoot, big center bash toy or whatever. Tales of the Arabian Nights, which we didn't bring up, another great gateway game. I was playing that. I was taking my dad, who grew up in kind of the pinball golden era. In the 70s, he was just graduating high school, so he was going out and playing all the old classic games, but he hasn't been into pinball for three or four decades. and I took him to Ground Control when he was visiting years ago and we're upstairs and we're playing all these games and he comes to me excitedly as I'm playing Whitewater and he goes, Alan, Alan, Alan, have you played Arabian Nights? Have you played Arabian Nights? I was like, yeah, I've played Arabian Nights. He goes, this is the best one. He's like, oh. He's like, this is the best one. He's like, immediately, he's like, this one is the best. And, you know, it's a great game. My brother did that just recently. My brother that's not really into pinball at all was in town and we went to wedgehead and he did that with uh bond 007 yeah and he just came as game because he's like i don't know why you've been trying to avoid buying sterns man he's like these sterns are way better than everything else he's like i don't know he's like these are all faster and they're cooler and i was like i guess i think that game is a great i mean again it's a game so it's another one that there's not a center bash toy but you can kind of slop your way into a multi-ball by hitting it yeah hitting those drops and then hitting up the middle it's fun when you see like the little db5 ejection seat and stuff it's cool great sound light again cool very cool ball returns that like feel good when you hit those ramps hard hard shots maybe for a new player but not a punishing game right so i think that's a good balancing of that game so we talked a lot about what makes a good gateway game examples of our favorites what makes a bad gateway game alan okay games with close-in shots yeah like walking dead close to the figure yeah like walking dead that immediately comes to mind that's a hard game in general with some of the feeds but it's got close and bash toys it was a very popular show but that game is is it's hard for good players yeah and for new players man it's hard to find the fun in that game until you get your skills up uh and a lot of it that i point to is like close-in shots games with upper flippers like we talked about or lots of auxiliary flippers yeah the one that comes to mind is another great game twilight zone by pat lawler that's a game that i grew up i love the twilight zone grandpa loved it i love that show i still love that show it's one of my favorite pieces of any art or medium that's ever existed in the same way that alex loves godzilla i love the twilight zone it shaped me as a person so when i got into pinball i'm like oh there's a twilight zone pinball machine oh it's made by pat lawler who made the adams family oh like this is people think it's one of the best machines ever made and then i would go out and play it and be like i hate this like and now now i don't feel that way right like me the first time i played tron legacy yeah and i was just like oh i'm so excited for this i love tron i love fucking daft punk i played it and i was like i have no idea what i'm doing i'm just getting fucked i just didn't get it non-standard non-fan layouts lots of extra flippers confusing where ball paths are going and coming out of not the best way to get somebody into the game yep likewise games with tight frustrating shots like uh the modern teenage mutant ninja turtles is very difficult for people that aren't good at pinball that one it's nuts to me how hard that thing can be to shoot sometimes the right side specifically like that right ramp right orbit our bitch and then uh like houdini you see this the some of boutique games don't have like the polish it's like they don't realize i guess and you see this with some of the spooky games too where it's like these shots are too tight and they will just be endlessly frustrating because the one thing that can really suck i mean these annoy me just on a like even when you're past being a beginner is if you can't make the shot and you just keep trying it's no longer fun and so that's yeah like if you're cradled up and you can't make that shot five times in a row the shot's too tight or i mean you might be really bad at shooting but that's usually not the problem when it comes to like something like that games without ball saves which is all classic solid states and ems we love them here we love them here that you hear it on the podcast you listen to this podcast you know us if this is the first time you're listening to an episode buckle up this is what we usually talk about this isn't we're not always talking about gateway games we i love games without ball saves but they're not the way because people feel oh i just flinch the ball and it's gone this is why i don't play pinball i'm terrible this is why ball saves began in the system 11 era and why they still persist today yep you know i think another one i put on this list is low scoring games are not great gateway games i say this because you see it on like the pinball subreddit or you see it people go i joined the billion club i did the billion club i did the whatever yeah people like seeing big scores and you get used to those scores because in modern pinball, we've gotten, Stern's good at, like, the game score pretty consistently across games. They're not supposed to. Like, that's not, like, an actual thing. Like, you're not supposed to be able to compare a score from one game to another, but they obviously do that so you kind of have, like, a metric of, like, okay, a good game is a billion points. No a very good game or a great game is a billion points Yeah like a GC game Right like but you know a good game just for an average person is 100 million or more right like it gives you those kind of like benchmarks and it scales yep and that's why when you go to like a jersey jack and you play a game and you get like 60 000 points you're like well what did i do like i've been stranger things and i got like you know 10 billion and now i played jersey jack or whatever i played hobby and i got like 30 000 like what the fuck yeah that can be really discouraging if you don't understand the difference in scoring across games yep i would also say games with like crazy randomizing features oh yeah like magnets or discs which uh pat lawler was fond of doing there's a thing in pinball where the ball moves crazy and it gets a lot of spin as it's moving new players don't realize their spin so every time they go look at what the ball just did it must be the magnets under the play field now there are some magnets famously in games but very usually it's very clear very visible the bag that will grab it stop it and then throw it yeah we're talking about like like when you have the power in the adams family he did it one time on the best-selling game of all time in the adams family and now everyone go oh there's probably magnets you hear people talk to their friends about it oh it's a magnet issue and you're like no the pulse is spitting but the games that do have magnets like that or like his other game whirlwind where it has the spinning discs and that upper ramp shot drops it right into those spinning discs. That's just frustrating for new players. I think it makes those games fucking awesome. Yeah, we love it, but it's not great for when you're starting out. And last thing on the list is complicated rules when they affect your scoring to a massive degree. And the biggest example would be like Star Wars, where you can be starting out and be like, hey, I feel like I had a pretty good game of Star Wars, and you look at your score and you get you know 50 million and you look at the high scores and someone has like 27 billion or something yeah i know how to fucking play star wars yeah and that shit is really discouraging and then you're like oh well how do i play this and you go to look up a tutorial and it's over an hour long and someone's like all right now you gotta do this and you're moving it this is the tatooine modes and this is you know like and it's just it's yeah it's not That's not a good gateway game. That's a hardcore game. So now I guess to kind of finish this up, what's a great game? I think we talked about some of them there as we ran down, but I wanted to each of us give a great game, like a top 50 pin side game that isn't a great gateway game. And mine is Iron Maiden by Stern. It's Keith Elwin's first game. It's my favorite Keith Elwin game. It has a few punishing shots, which I think he kind of eliminates from most of his later games. They're less punishing. He has some very tight shots on that game. Some very high risk, you know, lower play field shots close into the flippers. Yeah. And the left ramp through the pops, you know, you have to be a sniper. You have to be a good player to hit that shot reliably or when you need it. And the rule set is kind of like Metallica, another great pinball machine, but it doesn't do a great job of describing to the player all the things that you're building at the same time you're building lots of different things and it's definitely better suited for like advanced pinheads who will say the rule set i think it's keith's shortest playing game like the ball times are the shortest it's gotta be other than the bond 60th which was like a throwback layout i just think that like godzilla and jaws are much better entry points to like keith elwyn games like they're both they play longer they push the shots way back and they're just less punishing and they they still feel like intermediate games not like like super beginner games necessarily although Godzilla I agree with you you having it on your list like that makes sense to me yeah but it's like I can't teach my mom to play those games so they're not gateway games yeah for my pick of a good game that's a horrible gateway game I went with Rick and Morty a game I'm very familiar with and I love it it's it's got pretty simple rules it's got a pretty you know simple easy to understand layout does have an upper flipper but it's punishing enough it's hard enough that shots are hard most people aren't even going to flip it long enough to get into a mode or something if they're getting if they're new to pinball it's got good moments in it it's got really good you know light show it's got phenomenal light show and it's got good call out great call outs again you're not going to see those if you're new unless you somehow stumble into that multi-ball really fast on accident when you're new you're not going to see shit and you're going to be like well how is this even rick and morty i'm just looking at an empty garage on the screen there's no big toy in the middle there's nothing that you're like i gotta see this what happened yeah i want to do this like there is like there's like the pre-loaded ball i'm blanking on the name for having the the ball in the subway or whatever already there's a better stage ball stage ball yeah there's the stage ball portal which is cool but you're like no one sees that from like a casual perspective they don't even understand what's going on and i honestly makes it harder for them too because like the ball just shows up like yep and it's it doesn't have any crazy ramps it's uh it's hard for me because it's it's kind of a funny one because it's a theme that attracts a lot of casuals it gets a lot of people that aren't pinball people's interest just because they like the show it's a pretty out there theme for pinball it's not something based on an 80s ip but when you combine that like widespread appeal with a very difficult layout it really gets a lot of people upset there's a lot of people that are very new to pinball they learn there's a rick and morty pinball machine they go out of their way to play it and they think it's the worst fucking game of all time and to them i say like come back in five years when you've been playing for a while and i bet you love it yeah or even just a year or two like of playing regular pinball like just if it's not like you need to study like a fucking buddhist monk to play it but it's just one of those things that it's like i think you just need give it more of a shot than that yeah yeah and i'd be curious if anyone disagrees but it feels like a bad gateway game to me oh i would i would agree with that 100 but yeah tips for making their first experience fun so it's like you've you've dragged your friends your roommate your co-worker your mom your sister your dog to a place and how do you make sure you've one you choose a well-established gateway game yeah like we discussed a bunch pick one of those next i think just as important is choose a location that you know that they would like for reasons that are not pinball yeah i'd say that's like number one honestly is like don't make them go to some miserable spot because there's a pinball machine go find somewhere that's a good spot we're all degenerates right like we're all pinball degenerates like i'll go to a barn that has a bunch of pins just to play something weird don't make them don't subject other people to that don't do that don't do weird shit and even just like you don't want to go to a super loud arcade you don't want to be like an overwhelming experience if you can find a place that has some pins if it's like a pizza shop or if it's like a bar or something that's usually a better place yep for the for the first bite you know no wild kids yep my other big thing i always tell people this this is what i used to do all the time and it worked really well is pay for their games of pinball yeah do not let them pay for pinball yeah don't let them even think about it because it really you're not going to be spending tons and tons of money here like if you can get a new player through three games that's pretty like miraculous like if you have their interest for three games that person probably already likes pinball a bit yeah and you're like if you don't have three bucks to invest in like getting your friend to like pinball, then you probably shouldn't be out playing pinball. Yeah. I mean, it's just like buying your friend a drink. I'll, I'll float you five, six, seven, $10. Yep. If you're playing and enjoying yourself, that's all I care about. We might get a match. I'll get to go, Oh, look, you want a free game? Like we get those moments and it's like, it divorces people from the idea. Like, man, I put a buck in, I suck at this. I didn't do well. And then I saw you doing well. And then it made me even more self-conscious. and I'm like, why am I keep putting money into this? Maybe I shouldn't do this. And you go, don't worry about it. Yeah, don't even let the money part of it cross their minds. Yeah. Another thing is don't dump the entire rule set on them before you play the game. We kind of alluded to this earlier with like Zoe is very good at this. Give them one thing, maybe two things to do. Yes. And that's basically it. Past that, it's like show them that you can slow the ball down. Yeah. Like really basic stuff. when you're starting out with someone that's not played pinball much at all before and like you know the next time you're out you can explain like oh there's there's these like modes or something you could yeah you can elaborate on it later don't give them more than like 20 30 seconds of instruction i see this happen all the time at wedge i'll see someone who's like clearly jacked up and is so excited and they have the friend that's kind of like yeah i guess we're doing this like and they're trying to be like all right so now we're okay so now i gotta pick this house and um you know i gotta be lannister and because then i'm gonna do and they're just like their eyes are glazing over and it's easy it's easy to fall into that because it's it's our hobby we all love this shit we're passionate it's very interesting to us we wish someone had explained all this to us when we were new but you're looking at it through the eyes of someone that's already in the hobby you just gotta remember like how little is going to be retained you gotta put some bait out there you gotta chum the waters you know think about it like that you're not trying to reel in the biggest fish you've ever seen just you should just chum the waters a little bit okay and then i think this is super important it's celebrate their first moment whether it's their first multi-ball it's their first jackpot it's their first mode completion celebrate it like they just won the lottery and they've agreed to split it with you like that's how you should be celebrating you should be like damn this is the best day of our life make them feel cool yep Whether you've seen that a million times or whatever, and you're like, oh, whatever. I destroyed a castle, whatever. Who cares? Give me the ball back, right? You're like flipping both flippers. You just give me the ball back. I don't even want to see this animation. When they do it, make it seem like it's the coolest shit in the world. Yep. You know, that's an easy one, and it goes a long way. Yeah, I think that's very important. And last thing on our list is if it's someone's first time playing pinball, first time playing pinball as an adult whatever do not make their first experience a tournament or a league night even a howdy partner even a howdy partner please just let them experience pinball in its with their friends with their friend having like a drink or having some coffee or just hanging out just chilling don't make it a stressful thing full of people they don't know where everyone's going to be trying to overload them with stuff just take it easy take it easy if they have a good first experience or a good couple first experience, that's when you're like, hey, maybe you want to join me on a league night. If you live in Portland, you're like, Howdy Partner is the best for new players. But like I said, I wrote this outline and I wrote, do not make their first experience a tournament or league night, even if it's Howdy Partner, because it's much easier to get your friend to trust you to go out and for you to one-on-one play games with them and try to show them how cool pinball is rather than them getting paired up and having to play in groups of people they don't know. Yeah, having to wait around. Yeah, like it's just make sure that they get chum the water first before you start reeling in the fish. Yeah. I think that was a good episode. We just wanted to touch on this. It's something that we all want more people in the hobby, right? The hobby needs to grow. I want to see this thing mainstream. My goal in pinball is I want pinball to be popular like it was in the 70s. Yeah. Okay? I don't want this to be a niche nerd hobby anymore. I think it's cool that it still exists. I love nerds. I'm a nerd. But we need more people. We need more pinball on location. We need pinball to be everywhere like it was in the 1970s. And to do that, we all got to do our part. You got to go out there and you got to convert people. You got to grab people that currently do not play pinball, which is just an extraordinary amount of people. Almost everyone. Almost everyone. I mean, we're the 1%, right? We're probably less than 1%. So we need to get more of that pie. And so do your part, you know, recruit more pinball players. Start a sleeper cell in your local community. MK Ultra, mind control, make them play pinball, right? Useless list, go out, grab your friends, take them to a cool, chill spot and try to find one of these gateway games and focus on that first. because this is your best chance to get them into it. And first impressions matter. You only get one chance to make a good first impression. Try to do it with one of these gateway games. Use the pinball map. You look at your region. Try to find somewhere that would better suit this. And for everyone listening, thank you once again. Until next time, good luck. Don't suck. Now that ain't working. That's the way you do it. Let me tell you, damn guys ain't dumb. Maybe get a blister on your little finger. Maybe get a blister on your thumb. We got some install microwave ovens. Got some kitchen delivery. I think we're going to end this episode with some more tips for making... You already said we're going to end this episode, Alan. Well, cut that out, dude. It's called editing. The magic of editing.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: e644ac84-f138-467c-8340-c0466f68b64e*