# Stern Pinball Teases The Next Game & Mailbag Time **Source:** A Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2021-02-25 **Duration:** 31m 4s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://apinballpodcast.podbean.com/e/stern-pinball-teases-the-next-game-mailbag-time/ --- ## Analysis Host discusses Stern Pinball's recent puzzle-piece teaser image posted to Instagram Stories and speculates on upcoming game announcements (Godzilla confirmed, James Bond and Back to the Future rumored). The episode includes extensive mailbag segments covering Led Zeppelin strategy, new pin setup advice, Avengers Infinity Quest review timeline, and thoughts on ruleset complexity in modern pinball. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Godzilla is confirmed as an upcoming Stern Pinball game per Dwight Sullivan on Pinside — _We do know for sure Godzilla is coming, and that's just as per Dwight Sullivan on Pennside confirming it._ - [MEDIUM] James Bond and Back to the Future have been widely speculated as upcoming Stern games but have no official confirmation — _It's been speculated that James Bond is one of the games, and it's also been speculated widely that Back to the Future is one of the games. And again, no confirmation on that whatsoever._ - [MEDIUM] An official Stern Pinball announcement is anticipated within 2-3 weeks of the teaser (mid-March timeframe) — _I anticipate because they put this out that an announcement is due pretty shortly... probably within the next two or three weeks, it wouldn't surprise me one bit. If by mid March, we actually see something_ - [LOW] The puzzle piece teaser could be promoting a Vault edition rather than a new cornerstone game — _Maybe it's a vault edition. They, maybe it's not even a cornerstone game. It could be a vault edition as well._ - [HIGH] Host would like to see Tron and Walking Dead receive Vault edition releases — _my two picks, I would like to see Tron get Vaulted... The other one... Would be Walking Dead... they re-skin it... With the actual comics._ ### Notable Quotes > "We do know for sure Godzilla is coming, and that's just as per Dwight Sullivan on Pennside confirming it." > — **Host**, early in episode > _Only confirmed upcoming game from Stern as of this recording_ > "I'll admit that doesn't really excite me too much. You know, as a theme, I just, I've never been into it... this might be the most lukewarm theme I've heard from anybody since Munsters, possibly." > — **Host**, mid-episode > _Expresses negative sentiment toward James Bond as potential game theme_ > "Back to the Future, that is a theme that interests me. And I feel like that's a theme that really needs a modern remake of it for a pinball machine." > — **Host**, mid-episode > _Shows enthusiasm for Back to the Future possibility with gameplay vision_ > "Godzilla is another theme that I'm actually really excited about... I would have big old slumber parties with all my friends, and we would just put on Godzilla movies starting at 6 p.m., and we would watch them until we all fell asleep around 2." > — **Host**, mid-episode > _Personal connection to Godzilla theme and childhood nostalgia driving enthusiasm_ > "if you have something that's less than 0.95 and you want to show a great party trick for your friends or you want to blow it up to where you're going to have a potential 15 to 25 billion point game... That only works with 0.93 code. It does not work with the new code because they patched that, unfortunately." > — **Host**, mailbag section - Led Zeppelin strategy > _Documents exploit that was patched in code update_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer releasing teaser image of puzzle pieces for upcoming game announcement | | Dwight Sullivan | person | Stern Pinball designer who confirmed Godzilla as upcoming game on Pinside forum | | Godzilla | game | Confirmed upcoming Stern Pinball game; host speculates on which version (Toho, Monsterverse, etc.) | | James Bond | game | Rumored upcoming Stern Pinball game; host expresses lukewarm interest in theme | | Back to the Future | game | Rumored upcoming Stern Pinball game based on film trilogy; host expresses enthusiasm for potential modern remake | | Led Zeppelin | game | Stern Pinball game (existing) discussed in mailbag section with detailed strategy explanation | | Avengers Infinity Quest | game | Keith Elwin-designed Stern game; host planning detailed review by end of March/early April | | Keith Elwin | person | Legendary Stern designer; host compares difficulty of Avengers Infinity Quest to other Elwin designs | | Walking Dead | game | Stern Pinball game; host speculates about Vault edition with comic book reskin | | Tron | game | Stern Pinball game (Disney licensed); host would like to see Vault edition due to high secondary market prices | | Iron Maiden | game | Stern Pinball game; host mentions mechanical failure experience on Limited Edition unit | | Jurassic Park | game | Keith Elwin-designed Stern game; host finds easier to play than Avengers Infinity Quest | | Munsters | game | Stern Pinball game used as comparison point for lukewarm theme reception | | Lord of the Rings | game | Jersey Jack Pinball game; frequently discussed as candidate for Vault edition but host criticizes as grindy | | Ghostbusters | game | Stern Pinball game referenced for large animatronic toy design similar to potential Godzilla concept | | Guardians | game | Stern Pinball game; host criticizes center bash toy mechanic and hopes Godzilla avoids similar design | | Medieval Madness | game | Classic Williams game referenced as design inspiration for potential Godzilla cityscape playfield layout | | A Pinball Podcast | organization | The podcast series producing this episode | ### Topics - **Primary:** Upcoming game announcements and teaser marketing, Stern Pinball product pipeline speculation, Godzilla pinball game concept and design possibilities - **Secondary:** Game strategy and ruleset complexity in Led Zeppelin, Vault edition remakes and licensing deals, New pinball machine setup and inspection procedures, Avengers Infinity Quest ruleset depth and review timeline - **Mentioned:** Pinball ruleset complexity and learning methods ### Sentiment **Mixed** (0.55) — Host shows high enthusiasm for Godzilla and Back to the Future themes but expresses lukewarm/negative sentiment about James Bond. Overall positive about Stern's marketing approach via teaser. Generally encouraging tone in mailbag sections. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Host indicates awareness of pinball rule complexity concerns among casual players and plans educational video series (confidence: high) — I do plan on coming out with videos and I have a full video series lined out. I've actually got my first three videos on that completely scripted out... explaining my exact process on how I understand rule sets - **[design_philosophy]** Host expresses design preferences for Godzilla pinball, hoping to avoid center bash mechanic seen in Guardians (confidence: medium) — What I hope we don't get, I hope we don't get like Guardians where they had the group bash up the middle to where we just hit the balls into his mouth. I hope they don't do that way with Godzilla. - **[leak_detection]** Dwight Sullivan confirmed Godzilla as upcoming Stern game on Pinside forum (confidence: high) — We do know for sure Godzilla is coming, and that's just as per Dwight Sullivan on Pennside confirming it. - **[market_signal]** Host notes high secondary market prices for Tron and lack of availability driving desire for Vault edition release (confidence: medium) — Obviously the prices are just crazy for it right now on third-party market, and it's been like that for a while. And I feel like that pen would actually sell really well. If it became Vaulted. - **[announcement]** Stern Pinball posts puzzle piece teaser image to Instagram Stories indicating upcoming game announcement (confidence: high) — about four or five days ago stern pinball put out i believe it's on instagram stories they put out a teaser that just showed a bunch of puzzle pieces - **[product_concern]** Host documents mechanical failure on Iron Maiden Limited Edition unit post-delivery, emphasizing importance of pre-play inspection (confidence: high) — i had my iron maiden le... it goes into i think it was the sarcophagus... the mech just completely fell apart ball fell to the cabinet everything just fell - **[rumor_hype]** James Bond and Back to the Future widely speculated as potential upcoming Stern games (confidence: medium) — It's been speculated that James Bond is one of the games, and it's also been speculated widely that Back to the Future is one of the games. And again, no confirmation on that whatsoever. --- ## Transcript All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of a pinball podcast. Thank you guys so much for being here. It is episode 45. And today we are going to be talking about Stern pinball and their little teaser that they put out a few days ago. And then I'm also going to get caught up on my emails. I've lagged way behind. I'm legitimately behind two weeks. I apologize, guys, but I picked out a few of the questions and I noted them. So I'm going to go ahead and answer those. Just dig into the mailbag at the end of this episode. and yeah so let's go ahead and just get going so about four or five days ago stern pinball put out i believe it's on instagram stories they put out a teaser that just showed a bunch of puzzle pieces i'll go ahead and switch over if you're on uh listen to a podcatcher i'm going to show the actual picture right now and it's just a bunch of puzzle pieces that and it says coming soon and this is direct from Stern Pinball. Now, I have absolutely no clue what this could be. I don't know. And we've all speculated what the next games could be. We do know for sure Godzilla is coming, and that's just as per Dwight Sullivan on Pennside confirming it. But other than that, we don't know for sure what this is and what else is coming down the pipeline. Now, it's been speculated that James Bond is one of the games, and it's also been speculated widely that Back to the Future is one of the games. And again, no confirmation on that whatsoever. The only one is Godzilla. And even then, we don't know what version of Godzilla that is coming out. And so I look at this, guys, and I admit I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out what it could be, but I honestly have no idea. Zero idea. Yeah, I can't even speculate what it could be. It's just going to be one of those three, I guess. I guess that's what it could be. And so that's kind of the teaser that we're dealing with right now. But it's good that Stern is putting something out like this because it gets people talking. It gets people kind of openly debating back and forth what it could be, what it might not be, kind of like what we're doing right now as a matter of fact. but I anticipate because they put this out that an announcement is due pretty shortly. I mean, maybe not within a couple of days, but probably within the next two or three weeks, it wouldn't surprise me one bit. If by mid March, we actually see something just for them to get things going again. Cause I assume that they're putting that out. I mean, but who knows? Maybe it's a vault edition. They, maybe it's not even a cornerstone game. It could be a vault edition as well. Don't know. Guess we'll find out pretty soon. Now, if it is James Bond, and I'll just go down the three that we just talked about. If it is James Bond, I'll admit that doesn't really excite me too much. You know, as a theme, I just, I've never been into it. I've never watched any of the movies. I've tried. I fell asleep during, gosh, probably across two or three of the different James Bond characters. Because obviously there's been many different actors that have played that character. And it's just, for me personally, it's just not something that I'm too excited about. And to be honest with you, with people that I've talked to in my pinball circles, I haven't met one person yet that is excited about that theme. Now, if you're listening to this or watching this and you're excited about the theme, please let me know. Let me know in the comments down below if that's a theme that excites you. But other than that, it's like, I don't know. this might be the most lukewarm theme I've heard from anybody since Munsters, possibly. I mean, it's that cold. So it'll be interesting if it does turn out to be James Bond at some point this year. Now, Back to the Future, that is a theme that interests me. And I feel like that's a theme that really needs a modern remake of it for a pinball machine. Because obviously there was a Back to the Future that was put out a long time ago. I'm sure if you guys have been to TPF, you always see it down there along with the DeLorean, which is a pretty cool setup, by the way. But the gameplay itself is very lackluster in my opinion. It's just not. I mean, I played it a few times, and that's good enough for me. But I do enjoy the theme. It reminds me a lot of my childhood just watching all those movies. I can still remember going to the theater when I was like five or six, and my parents took me out to go see Back to the Future Part III when they went to the Old West. And it was like 10.30 at night. and I thought that was the coolest thing, and here I am in my mid-30s, and I still remember that. So a theme like this, I feel like you could go all kinds of different directions with it, especially if you wrap it into the trilogy. Totally. I don't want it to just be just based off the first film. If they do come out with this, I would love for it to be the full trilogy just because you could go all kinds of different areas with it. I feel like you could definitely have your mode set up to different levels to where maybe you play through just the whole entire story. You play through the first movie, then you play through the second movie, and then eventually you get to the third movie. To me, that would be pretty cool to see. And who knows if that's going to happen or not. Now, Godzilla is another theme that I'm actually really excited about just because I grew up, again, on Godzilla. I mean, I was such a huge Godzilla fan that legitimately when I was between 6 and 10, I would have big old slumber parties with all my friends, and we would just put on Godzilla movies starting at 6 p.m., and we would watch them until we all fell asleep around 2. So keep in mind, we didn't have Internet back then or anything like that. It was between playing Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and watching Godzilla movies, or sometimes Rocky movies as well. But that brings back a lot of childhood memories, and so I'm very curious to see, once Godzilla does come out, what version of Godzilla are we going to get? And I go back and forth on what version I really want to see. To me, if they made a limited edition that was based off the original Toho Godzilla to where everything was black and white, kind of like what they did with Munsters, but to me this makes more sense with Godzilla. I feel like that has the potential to be a pretty badass pen, although I will say that's probably a little bit of a reach because I don't know how many people would actually like seeing something like that. Now, I think it's more likely that they'll probably have the newest version of Godzilla with the, I guess it's the Monsterverse or whatever it's called, with Godzilla, King Kong, and of course, Godzilla Kong is coming out here just within about a month or so. And so it wouldn't surprise me if they had a theme that's more based on that. Now, I've been joking around with people like, what should just be the Zilla version? The American Godzilla version with Matthew Broderick doing the call-outs and all that? That would definitely probably piss off a lot of people. And plus, that pin's already been done. But that would be kind of funny if something like that just happened as a troll. Stern, if you want to troll people, just put out information like that. That'll do it. Now, in terms of other things dealing with Godzilla, I feel like I wouldn't mind either seeing something like them having Blue Oyster Cult in it with their song Godzilla. I think that would be pretty cool. I think the potential for the call-outs and the sound effects. I mean, there's extreme high-end potential with this pen. And even when I think about the layout in my head and what could be under that glass, and I hope something like this happens, I think this lends itself to have an opportunity to have something very similar to the way Medieval Madness was in terms of the way that the castle looked. And imagine if you had some type of cityscape underneath there and somehow whether it kind of like Ghostbusters where they had the big state pup marshmallow man maybe you have a big godzilla figure in there that actually moves i probably just reaching here but i feel like that would be pretty exciting i feel like having a cityscape built in there maybe with some type of bash toy within that to where it could be to where i don't know something drops or something changes to where you're bashing another monster that Godzilla might be fighting. I don't know. There's the opportunities or the, not the opportunities, the possibilities are endless. But what I hope we don't get, I hope we don't get like Guardians where they had the group bash up the middle to where we just hit the balls into his mouth. I hope they don't do that way with Godzilla. I would not like that at all. But I don't know. I think that Godzilla has a lot of potential, especially when you look at it from an artwork perspective, call outs, just the lore of Godzilla, the ability to have big-ass monster battle fights in it to where you have the health bar, you have Godzilla power-ups, there's all kinds of opportunity. I think, to me, that would be a designer and a coder's dream to be able to work all that in together. And you could even have the, if I didn't say it before, you could have the team-ups too, because obviously Godzilla has had plenty of team-ups throughout the year. Just whatever you do, Stern, please do not put Son of Godzilla in there. Just don't do that, please. but if you are going to put anything in there that's freaking hilarious just have godzilla just flying across the screen doing his drop kick if you guys don't know what i'm referring to just go to youtube put in godzilla drop kick or flying kick it's hilarious i almost feel like that needs to be whenever you tilt that's what you see that would make life easy to be i think that would be freaking hilarious but yeah so we're going to find out about that hopefully pretty soon via stern just because of the puzzle pieces saying coming soon. And we'll see. Now, in terms of potential Vault editions, what I personally would like to see Vaulted, there's two things I would really like to see Vaulted. And I don't even know if this is possible, but my two picks, I would like to see Tron get Vaulted just because to me it's a great pen. Obviously the prices are just crazy for it right now on third-party market, and it's been like that for a while. And I feel like that pen would actually sell really well. If it became Vaulted. And it makes sense. Especially if Stern does have a deal in place with Disney still. So I hope that. That might come to fruition someday. The other one. That I would really enjoy seeing Vaulted. Would be Walking Dead. And that's even me owning a Walking Dead. And what I would really like to see. Is that they re-skin it. Kind of like what they did with Star Wars. To where they re-skin the Walking Dead. With the actual comics. Now I'm a huge Walking Dead fan. I've read the comics for nearly a decade now. And that in itself, I would have to actually take a pause and possibly switch out my Walking Deads for that. I think that pen, especially because that is legitimately black and white, the comic books, they really, I mean, they're very visceral black and white imagery. And to me, something like that has high end value on a pinball machine also, especially if you're taking a pin that already has an excellent rule set, just a world-class rule set by Lyman Sheets. And I feel like something like that, while the show may not have as much of a cultural impact right now, currently in 2021, because it's obviously on its last legs, I think from a pinball perspective, especially with so many people getting into the hobby, something like that might still be relevant for a lot of pinball fans that might not have played this before or not had a chance to flip it before. So that's a pen that I feel like could possibly do well as a Vault Edition as well. What do you guys think? What other Vault Editions are out there? Obviously, Lord of the Rings is one that you hear talked about a lot. I'm personally, I'm not a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I get it. I know that's sacrilegious to say. I have a lot of friends that tell me I'm just crazy for thinking that way. But man, that game is just such a grind. And I even enjoy the movies. I enjoy Lord of the Rings movies, Hobbit movies. But I don't know. it's something about that pen it just does not click with me and i've played it a lot on location and i just i mean i got through it besides valinor that's the only thing i haven't done but i've done pretty much everything else and it just i don't know maybe i need to get the valinor to truly appreciate it maybe that's what it is anyhow all right so pushing forward let's go ahead and get to the mailbag portion of this and let's see again guys i am so sorry for getting way behind on that And I think this might actually be easier for me to do. So if you guys ever have questions that you want to ask, because I do appreciate the interaction. I appreciate you guys taking time out of your day to ask the questions. But if you do have questions and you want me to answer them or have the opportunity to answer them, just let me know down in the comments or just let me know if you want this answered via video and I'll just put it in there. Now, since I didn't ask permission ahead of time, I'm not going to say anybody's name because I don't know, quite frankly, if they want their name out there or not. So I'll respect their privacy with that. But in the future, if you have a question and you want it answered live, just let me know, and we'll go from there. So, okay, going down with it, one question was, what is my main strategy for Led Zeppelin? Now, with Led Zeppelin, and I wish I would have been able to explain this on the review, but as of right now, and I believe the code is at .95, so this still holds true. and before I had one that was called the ex-wife strategy and what the ex-wife strategy was was I would just play communication breakdown non-stop I would get through that song that song itself is only about two minutes and 25 seconds long and it has a solo on the end of it that's roughly about 21 to 23 seconds long so I knew that I was going to hit that center ramp over and over and over again. It was easy to platinum, quite frankly, especially if you have good accuracy. And then I would just hit that right orbit, restart the song, do it over again. Now that strategy really, it's kind of nerfed a little bit from what I could tell just because now that you restart the song, I think that the points, they start out back to the bottom. I think the base points restart. So you would have to get really grindy while doing that. And I wouldn't necessarily recommend that strategy on 0.95 right now, but maybe there's a way to pull more out of that. Now, the big strategy that I love to do, and I actually call this the Godzilla strategy. I love this. And I would probably do this strategy even in match play, even in curb format. I can't think of too many reasons why I wouldn't do this strategy. And what it is, and you can bring in a song before this particular song, but it's just your mileage will vary. So just play around with this if you have a Led Zeppelin. What I like to do is I like to start Kashmir first. And Kashmir is legitimately an eight minute song on this game. But the big part of Kashmir is that your goal is to take your initial shots, which start at the left eject and the right orbit. And your goal is to take those shots and line them up on the center ramp. And the way that you do that, every time you hit a lit it'll move that shot over by one. So if you hit the left eject, it'll move to the right by one to the left orbit or the spinner shot. You hit that, it'll move to the left ramp. You hit that, it'll line up with the center ramp. And again, your goal is to line these two shots up. The right orbit will then move to the right ramp The right ramp will then move to the center ramp And this is all good because you have plenty of time to do this And now the right orbit is a tight shot Right ramp is a little bit of a tougher shot But if you can get these two things going, you are golden. You're golden. You're going to have a massive score, especially if you do this in the first rotation. Because I believe, I wish I would have had my notes up for this. I'll just go off the top of my head. I believe that there's four or five rotations total. I know that you can line up your shot for upwards of about four minutes at least, or as long as it takes you to hit your shots, probably three minutes and 30 seconds. You'll be able to have your shots lined up on the center ramp. Now, that's not in a row. The rotations will last anywhere between 40 seconds to clear up to nearly a minute long. And they'll just keep rotating along, and then it'll go to all shots, and it'll come back to that shot up the middle. And essentially your goal is just to line up those shots and then just well away on the middle. And what I like to do also is I'll hit the right ramp, hit the left eject to start one of the tour multiballs. See, I said it right that time. One of those multiballs or at least one of those modes to get to the multiball. And you can do ramp, you can do spinner, you can do whatever you want. Whatever you like bringing in. And what I like to do from there, I will actually use my multi-balls to build up my playfield multiplier. The only time I won't do that is when those shots are back aligned up on the center ramp, in which case I'll just chase balls over and over and over again. And legitimately, you will hit, if your aim is solid, you can legitimately hit 25 to 30 center ramps within one rotation. I've done it before. Game goes so quick. It's just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And you just keep going, keep going, keep going. And if you do this, even without a play field multiplier, your scores are going to start getting higher. Because all of a sudden, before you know it, it's going to be worth $4 or $5 million per ramp. And obviously, if you're doing that for 15, 20 times, it'll start to go up. Now you add a multiplier on it, it gets insane. And this is why I say that consider bringing a song in first besides that song to where you try to build up your values overall. Now, I think that's how the scoring works. If it doesn't, somebody please correct me. But I think you can basically build up value to different places throughout the game. And by doing something like this, I've actually gotten it to where I've gotten over a billion just focusing on cashmere. And even if I accidentally hit the right orbit or I get it up to the pops and it goes into the top scoop or the top eject up there and it tells me, hey, you can switch your song. Whatever you do, do not switch your song. Whatever you do, especially when you have those shots lined up, especially that. Because if you have those shots lined up and you switch your song, guess what? Those shots are not lined up anymore. Even if you come back, it's gone. Now, if you are on a code that is not 0.95, there is an exploit, though, to where if you drain, right, while the song is ending, the song has to end while your bonus count is going. Guess what happens? The song will then restart, but your progress will not restart. And so if you have something that's less than 0.95 and you want to show a great party trick for your friends or you want to blow it up to where you're going to have a potential 15 to 25 billion point game, if you're really on at least a 5 to 10 billion point game, just do something like that. It gets ridiculous. That center ramp gets worth about 12 to 16 million on its own without a multiplier, if you're doing that. But that only works with 0.93 code. It does not work with the new code because they patched that, unfortunately. But that being said, that's the strategy that I really like to do. And then you can just layer things on there as you like, whether it's different multiballs or Zet multiball. And like I said, whenever I'm in that, if I get into a multiball, I use that to build up the multiplier and hit different combo shots. And I just go from there. And I let the chaos kind of dictate how high that multiball or how high that multiplier gets. That's kind of where I go with it. You will score a lot of points doing that. So try that out. If you've got a Led Zeppelin at home, I highly encourage you to let me know how that goes for you. I think it will go really well. All right, so next question. I just bought a new pen that is due in next week. I see setup videos everywhere, but is there anything in particular I should know or check for before I start playing? Now, that's actually a pretty good question. What I like to do personally, and again, this is assuming you have the pen inside your house because there's a whole other list of things you probably want to do before you even accept the delivery. And that's namely just checking to make sure there's no damage, there's no box that you don't have to make claims or anything like that. But this is assuming that you've got the game inside your house. And this isn't a setup. This is just what you should check for or what you should know before you start playing. Well, what I like to do personally, as soon as I get my game set up, I will, number one, look for any loose things going on, Like any mechs that might be loose, any screws that might be loose, anything like that, that's good to check for. You know, I hate to say this. This is crazy. But check and make sure everything is there because there has been horror stories before because mistakes do happen. I've seen it a few times to where the ball trough is legitimately missing in there. I've seen that before. And so not saying that that's likely to happen. That's obviously highly unlikely. But it's good to at least check different things. for example i had my iron maiden le behind me game one it goes into i think it was the sarcophagus it went into and the mech all of a sudden i just heard a loud clank and what happened was the mech just completely fell apart ball fell to the cabinet everything just fell and that was my first game on iron maiden limited edition and i did not check and make sure things were secure or anything like that obviously it just kind of fell apart in transit so make sure you do that that's very important anybody gets a new pin make sure everything is where it's supposed to be the other things that i like to do personally i make sure the eject power from the trough is down as far that i could put it just because i don't want damage into my shooter lane or anything like that i will make sure the flippers are aligned properly because there has been a couple of times in which the flippers were slightly misaligned. It wasn't that big a deal. I don't think people would really notice it in general, but for me, I noticed something like that. And that's pretty much the main things that I do. Other than that, I mean, I'm sure there's other things that I'm missing off the top of my head. If anybody in the comments down below wants to tell us what you guys do whenever you're setting up a new pen like that, that's something you can do. And that's just for new in box. Now, obviously when you're getting an EM or something older, it's a whole different ball game and that's something that I am not very smart on I have no idea how to do a lot of that that's more my wife she loves the em she tries to restore them she gets them set up and she knows a lot more about that than I do all right so next question and hopefully that that works out for you all right next question are we going to see an infinity quest review soon I hope so I hope so I know it's taken a little bit longer for this to get out and obviously this came out before Led Zeppelin, but my Led Zeppelin review came out before then. The reason for that is obviously Led Zeppelin is not near as deep as Avengers Infinity Quest I feel like I have to experience a lot more with Infinity Quest to really come out with an in review on it Now, if you want my just fly-by review, it's a great game. If you're thinking about getting it, I would recommend that you get it, depending on what a lot of your options are. But Avengers is a really fun game. Now, if you're brand new to pinball, and you haven't been playing that long, and you're not a huge Marvel fan, it may not be the pin for you because it is a difficult playing pin. Honestly, for me, it's my most difficult one to play that Elwynn has designed. I have a much easier time with Jurassic Park. I have a much easier time with Iron Maiden. Much easier. Now, I've talked to a lot of people that don't feel the same way. Other people feel like Avengers is actually the easiest Elwynn pin. And obviously, we don't see the eye to eye on that. But when it comes to Infinity Quest, I really do enjoy the pin. hopefully I have something out at some point at the end of March. It's just, it's going to take a lot of high end effort to do that. Just like Led Zeppelin, it was over 30 plus hours putting all that together in total. And I imagine Avengers might even be more than that because the rule set is just, it's crazy. It is insane. Just the last code update, add it back in the main wizard mode that was redone and then it added in a mini wizard mode that's up front after you get the soul gem and two other gems which is the thanos attacks which is actually really fun but that one mode in itself the thanos attacks mode has made it to where any strategy i had early on i'm having to retool completely just because the the chance is there or the risk is there that you're going to lose a gym and if you lose a gym all the work that you just did to set things up is gone and you have to readjust again so it's one of those pins that i have about four different strategies on how to attack it and i'm still trying to refine what the proper way is to go to try to minimize risk and you know i'm getting in the weeds on my explanation but with all that being said it's for me to get a full review out it's going to be very hard but it is a great game and i will get one out pretty soon. I'm hoping at the end of March. That's my goal at the latest beginning of April. So hopefully it'll be there. All right. So next question, I kind of skipped ahead here just because I was thinking of the rule set. The next question was actually, do I think that rule sets are getting too complicated and what can be done to help the average casual player understand them better? So when it comes to rule sets with pinball, my take on it is they have been difficult all this time. To me, they have not gotten easier just because it's 2020 or they haven't gotten more difficult just because it's 2020, 2021. I think rule sets have been difficult since the early 2000s. Now for me, early nineties DMDs, those are a little bit easier to deal with. Obviously solid States, a lot easier to deal with. And obviously EMs are much easier to deal with from a rule set point of view. But I do plan on coming out with videos and I have a full video series lined out. I've actually got my first three videos on that completely scripted out. I just need to film it and get it all done. I'm going to come out with a series explaining my exact process on how I understand rule sets and how I process rule sets. I actually, believe it or not, behind the scenes, I study a lot on memory techniques. I study a lot on how to organize my thoughts properly, how to study properly. And I know a lot of people don't want to hear, well, it's pinball. It should be fun. You shouldn't have to study and all this and that. But I'm not saying I sit here for hours at a time. I'm saying I've developed a system to where I can look at a rule set, whether it's the PDF sheets that Stern puts out, which is great. All the information is out there. And I can look at that and I can formulate exactly what to do probably within 10 or 15 minutes. It's not difficult to do. I think people just psych themselves out that it's too difficult to do. And when you think something's too difficult, that becomes your reality and you're not going to try at that point. So I don't feel like in general that they are too complicated. I think that they can be complicated for certain people depending on how they think about it. But I feel like if you make an effort, you're going to figure it out pretty quick. And the common train of thought is that a bunch of world-class pinball players know the rules to everything. And there are some rules junkies out there. Don't get me wrong. There are people that I've talked to who I feel like have forgotten more pinball than I will ever know, you know, and you don't hear their names too often. Some of them, you would recognize the names obviously, and some of them work for the companies and that's just the way it goes. But you know, when it comes to these rule sets, the, the dirty little secret out there is that a lot of us don't know the rules to everything. And sometimes when you're figuring out the rules to something, even if you're playing in competition, you're just figuring it out to the point of navigating through the game to a certain end. You're not necessarily trying to get the wizard mode. Now, that being said, if you are listening to this and you feel like your game is very complicated on the rule set, what I encourage you to do, especially if you don't want to study it, if you don't want to read up on it, attempt to get to the wizard mode. Now, that doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to get there. You may not be skillful enough to get there, But set your pin up in such a way to where that is your end game goal. Don't worry about score. Don't worry about any of that. Get to your wizard mode. Try to do something like that. Even if you have to set the pin up on easier, even if you have to bring down the settings to make starting a mode easier or starting a multiball much easier, do something like that because what that does immediately, it programs your brain to start to see the entire play field. And then you start to see what happens when you hit, say, the targets. What happens when I hit this captive ball? What happens when I start a mode? And then all of a sudden you start to see all the different parts of the game, and you see them so often enough it starts to really click. And you start to think about, well, if I do this, then this will happen. Then if I do this, this will happen. And that's kind of an easy way to do it to where you're still having the fun element and you're getting to play your game and you're getting to figure things out along the way. So that's one easy way, I would say, if you're trying to learn a rule set that you feel like might be complicated, just do that. And at the end of the day too, if you're ever playing a pin and you're not sure what to do, just stick to the main principles of modern pins, which is figure out where the modes are, how to start your modes, figure out where the multi balls are, and then figure out if there's a playfield multiplier on there. Those three things right there and you'll be golden. And even then you don't even need the multiplier to have fun. If you're just purely having fun, you don't care about score, just find where your modes are, find where your multiballs are. Things fall into place because you're logically going to start following the lights. Most of these modern games do a great job of leading you the direction that that particular game or coder or designer want you to go. Hopefully that makes sense. So, all right, we're going to wrap it up there, guys. We made it 30 minutes in. If you guys made it this far, thank you guys so much. I really do appreciate it. Again, we will be coming out with more videos on all that stuff. If you have any comments, please leave it down below. If you have any questions that you want answered, feel free to either email me at apinballpodcasts at gmail.com, or you can just leave a question down here in the comments, and I will get around to it. But that's all I got, though, guys. If I don't see you guys before, you guys have a great weekend. Thank you guys once again so much. Later, guys. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: e7f1f38f-98c9-4c2d-a806-7dd53ec6bba1*