# DPP #173 "Pinball at the Beach wrap up! Rumors and Reviews!"

**Source:** Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-02-12  
**Duration:** 51m 22s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/donspinballpodcast/episodes/DPP-173-Pinball-at-the-Beach-wrap-up--Rumors-and-Reviews-e2uon8v

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## Analysis

Don covers Pinball at the Beach 2025 event, discussing D&D dragon issues and LE production restart, major rumors from Stern (King Kong in May, prequel Star Wars in November, Ghostbusters remaster in Q4), Jersey Jack's Harry Potter announcement (TBA for TPF, LE+CE at $12-15k pricing), Spooky's Evil Dead dominating the show with 130 units remaining, and Christopher Franchi joining Spooky as exclusive artist with Beetlejuice likely in development.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] D&D LE production restarting after dragon wire/voltage spike issue resolved via length adapter — _Don speaking from direct observer accounts at Pinball at the Beach; described technical fix in detail_
- [MEDIUM] King Kong from Keith Elwin expected May 2025 from Stern — _Rumor consensus at Pinball at the Beach per attendees, competitors, and distributors_
- [MEDIUM] Prequel trilogy Star Wars game rumored as third Stern cornerstone for November 2025 release — _Recurring rumor at show; John Borg rumored as designer_
- [MEDIUM] Ghostbusters remaster (Premium/LE only) expected Q4 2025 with possible flipper gap redesign — _Consensus among collectors, competitors, and distributors at Pinball at the Beach_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack Harry Potter game launching at Texas Pinball Festival (approx 5 weeks out) with LE+CE tiers at $12-15k pricing — _Eric Menear openly wearing Harry Potter merchandise at event; Don heard confirmation of TPF timing and pricing_
- [HIGH] Spooky Evil Dead at 820 units sold with 130 remaining as of Pinball at the Beach — _Don reporting from event observation; 4 CE units on display, all sold during show_
- [MEDIUM] Christopher Franchi hired exclusively as Spooky Pinball artist; Beetlejuice in development — _Don observed Franchi at Spooky booth wearing Beetlejuice shirt; rumor based on prior art package and translites_
- [HIGH] Toy Story 4 LE price dropped to $10,000 MSRP — _Don confirms pricing adjustment at Pinball at the Beach show_
- [MEDIUM] Walking Dead game rumored but not 2025 release; likely held in reserve for sales gaps — _Rumor dropped by Naps Arcade during event; Don speculating on strategic timing_
- [HIGH] Avatar CE expected week of Feb 21-24, 2025 (coinciding with D&D LE availability) — _Direct intel from Jersey Jack contacts at Pinball at the Beach_

### Notable Quotes

> "The wire that goes from the motor that articulates the dragon's head to the left and rightward axis was just long enough to make it to node board 10. But when it was getting tugged on, every time the dragon would move around, it would stretch that internal cable, sending intermittent voltage spikes to the board that it couldn't handle."
> — **Don**, ~5:30
> _Technical explanation of D&D dragon failure root cause; confirms hardware fix deployed_

> "It seems like this will be premiums and LEs only. They won't be going back to that pro play field. I love that because I love the premium because the simple fact of that subway ramp that dives under the play field and then pops back up again."
> — **Don**, ~32:00
> _Ghostbusters remaster strategic positioning; Pro tier exclusion signals market segmentation shift_

> "Harry Potter, open secret. At this point, I don't think anybody's really trying to keep it under wraps, including Eric himself, who was resplendently dressed in a Harry Potter sweatshirt and a Harry Potter hat throughout the entirety of Pinball on the Beach."
> — **Don**, ~40:00
> _Confirmation of Harry Potter via designer's public signaling; validates leak credibility_

> "Game of the Show was from the other of the big three manufacturers... Spooky Pinball, makers of Evil Dead... Four evil beds were in attendance at pinball at the beach... and then all four of them had sold."
> — **Don**, ~48:00
> _Evil Dead market dominance at event; rapid sell-through demonstrates unprecedented demand tier_

> "only 130 of these left so at this point your numbers way out unless you're getting in with a distributor... I don't know if they're all spoken for yet... it seems to be a game where the edition size is perfect where I think demand is going to outstrip that"
> — **Don**, ~52:00
> _Evil Dead scarcity narrative and supply constraint; contrasts with oversupply dynamics of other 2025 releases_

> "Christopher Franchi has signed on to art exclusively... because he came to Spooky because he had a lot of ideas of games that he wants to do"
> — **Don**, ~58:00
> _Talent movement: Franchi departure from Stern to Spooky; exclusive artist arrangement unprecedented in recent industry_

> "I'm hoping for some Elizabeth Gieske action. I think she's the special sauce in all of this... If it's Dwight Sullivan, I'm down. If it's Elizabeth Gieske, I'm double down."
> — **Don**, ~28:00
> _Community perception of code designer quality hierarchy; indicates coder identity now influences purchasing decisions_

> "Tim Sexton, buddy, dude, my homie, come on, man... have it not be consequential in any manner. I just don't know how you come back from that without coming up with a reason for it."
> — **Don**, ~30:00
> _Public critique of John Wick/X-Men code implementation; community-facing accountability demand from designer_

> "I'm pegging 12.5 I think I'd be happy with for my avatar CE... Avatar, I don't think, has sold very well. and so i don't think there's going to be this abundance of supply"
> — **Don**, ~37:00
> _Secondary market valuation estimate; Avatar underselling despite strong mechanics_

> "My Little Pony is the big one that we're trying to manifest I don't reasonably expect anybody to ever do that but if they do, I'll go on record right now I'll buy the damn thing"
> — **Don**, ~56:00
> _Humorous but reveals community IP wish-listing; demonstrates licensing gap in attractive femme-skewing themes_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Don | person | Host of Don's Pinball Podcast; content creator and community organizer; attended Pinball at the Beach 2025 and conducted interviews with manufacturers |
| Pinball at the Beach | event | Annual pinball tournament/expo event held in St. Petersburg, Florida (February 2025); venue for new game reveals and manufacturer presence |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; released 8 D&D games at event (including 1 unnumbered LE sample); George Gomez present; confirmed 2025 release pipeline: D&D LE restarting, Godzilla/Jaws next, King Kong (May), Star Wars prequel trilogy (November), Ghostbusters remaster (Q4) |
| Dungeons & Dragons (Stern) | game | Stern cornerstone title with articulating dragon toy experiencing wire voltage spike issues; fix deployed via length adapter; 740 LE unit run with one unnumbered 'licensor sample'; Pro/Premium/LE variants at event; Don awaiting home delivery in 2-week window |
| Brian Eddy | person | Stern Pinball designer of D&D; attended Pinball at the Beach in approachable capacity; available for autographs |
| Keith Elwin | person | Legendary Stern designer; rumored to be designing King Kong (expected May 2025) |
| John Borg | person | Stern designer rumored for prequel Star Wars pinball (November 2025); designer of original Walking Dead |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer present at event with 10 games (Avatar CE, Toy Story 4, Wizard of Oz variants, Godfather, Pirates of the Caribbean); Avatar CE expected Feb 21-24; Harry Potter LE+CE confirmed for Texas Pinball Festival launch in ~5 weeks at $12-15k pricing |
| Harry Potter (Jersey Jack) | game | Jersey Jack next cornerstone; Eric Menear confirmed as lead designer via public merchandise at event; LE+CE tiers at $12-15k MSRP; rumored $5M licensing cost; expected announcement/availability at Texas Pinball Festival (early March 2025); concurrent location and retail availability planned |
| Eric Menear | person | Jersey Jack designer; lead on Harry Potter; attended Pinball at the Beach in Harry Potter promotional gear; also designed Pirates of the Caribbean, Guns and Roses, Black Knight: Sword of Rage |
| Ken Cromwell | person | Jersey Jack PR/marketing; stationed at booth during Pinball at the Beach; available for fist bumps and community engagement |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer; Evil Dead dominant seller at event; 4 CE units all sold during show; Christopher Franchi hired exclusively as artist; Beetlejuice in development; 130 Evil Dead units remaining (as of event date); Q4 2025 release target for next title |
| Evil Dead (Spooky) | game | Spooky Pinball game; 820 units sold, 130 remaining; all 4 CE display units at Pinball at the Beach sold during show; motorized topper mechanism revised after hair-jam issue; Game of Show consensus; high secondary demand; 8-month wait if ordering; games coming to Texas Pinball Festival |
| Christopher Franchi | person | Artist/designer formerly at Stern; hired exclusively by Spooky Pinball; created prior Beetlejuice art package (rejected by Stern); now repositioned to Spooky with Beetlejuice likely in development; described by Don as charming, crass-humored personality similar to Roy from Wings |
| Spooky Luke | person | Co-designer/technical lead at Spooky Pinball; mentioned implicitly in context of Spooky booth presence during event |
| Barrels of Fun (Dutch Pinball) | company | Manufacturer present at Pinball at the Beach; known for Labyrinth model; demonstrated concurrent announcement+retail availability strategy that Jersey Jack/Harry Potter will replicate |
| Toy Story 4 (Jersey Jack) | game |  |
| Avatar (Jersey Jack) | game | Jersey Jack game; CE production finishing week of Feb 21-24; Don estimates secondary value at $12.5k; underperformed sales compared to Elton John; multiple units available from distributors |
| Ghostbusters (Stern remaster) | game | Rumored Stern Q4 2025 release; Premium/LE tiers only (no Pro); rumored designer George Gomez; rumored coder Elizabeth Gieske (preferred by Don); flipper gap redesign speculated; collectors reportedly selling prior Ghostbusters in anticipation |
| Walking Dead (Stern) | game | Stern game rumor dropped by Naps Arcade at event; not a 2025 release; speculated to be held in reserve for sales gap mitigation |
| King Kong (Stern) | game | Keith Elwin design; Stern cornerstone rumor; expected May 2025 release |
| Star Wars prequel trilogy (Stern) | game | Stern cornerstone rumor for November 2025 release; John Borg rumored as designer; third cornerstone of 2025 lineup |
| Elizabeth Gieske | person | Stern code designer; highly regarded by Don for code quality; rumored/hoped for Ghostbusters remaster coder role |
| Dwight Sullivan | person | Stern code designer; D&D programmer; positively referenced by Don for code quality |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major pinball expo; expected venue for Harry Potter LE announcement/availability in early March 2025; Evil Dead games planned for presence; Spooky releases traditionally timed for announcement/play at event |

### Topics

- **Primary:** D&D hardware/production restart, Stern 2025 release pipeline rumors, Jersey Jack Harry Potter announcement, Spooky Evil Dead market dominance, Christopher Franchi to Spooky Pinball
- **Secondary:** Code designer quality and community accountability, Secondary market valuations and pricing adjustments, Three-tier (Pro/Premium/LE) manufacturer strategy

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Enthusiastic about event experience, D&D gameplay, Evil Dead dominance, and upcoming releases (Harry Potter, King Kong). Some criticism of code implementation on John Wick/X-Men and prior Ghostbusters design. Cautiously optimistic about 2025 pipeline. Mild frustration with secondary market inventory management and pricing.

### Signals

- **[sentiment_shift]** Code designer identity now material to purchasing decisions; community members explicitly citing code quality as factor in game valuations (John Wick, X-Men depreciation linked to code implementation) (confidence: medium) — Don articulating hierarchy of preferred coders (Gieske > Sullivan > others); expressing frustration with Tim Sexton's leveling system; noting code quality impact on resale interest
- **[design_philosophy]** Ghostbusters remaster rumored to include flipper gap closure and playfield geometry adjustments while preserving original art aesthetic; Premium/LE tier-only production signals Pro model discontinuation for reissues (confidence: medium) — Don discussing design priorities and community preferences at show; noting flipper gap as key design critique; referencing Premium tier's subway ramp appeal
- **[event_signal]** Pinball at the Beach 2025 positioned as community hangout rather than formal trade show; manufacturers present in accessible, non-booth format enabling casual interaction and rumor-sharing (confidence: high) — Don's description of venue layout, Gomez playing in four-person battles, Eddy signing autographs on-demand, Franchi parked at booth socializing
- **[licensing_signal]** Jersey Jack Harry Potter rumored at $5M licensing cost; pricing held flat at $12-15k MSRP suggesting margin compression; concurrent retail+location strategy indicates high confidence in IP conversion (confidence: medium) — Don citing early $25k rumors now debunked; referencing $5M licensing cost; discussing location availability at launch
- **[market_signal]** Evil Dead experiencing unprecedented demand with 4 CE units sold during Pinball at the Beach event; 130 units remaining with expectation of sell-out at/before Texas Pinball Festival; secondary market showing minimal supply at asking prices (confidence: high) — Don confirming all 4 display units sold; tracking 130 remaining; observing single secondary listing; noting 8-month distributor wait
- **[personnel_signal]** Christopher Franchi hired exclusively as artist for Spooky Pinball; represents talent migration from Stern to boutique manufacturer; Franchi had prior Beetlejuice art package rejected by Stern (confidence: high) — Franchi present at Spooky booth during event wearing Beetlejuice merchandise; Don citing prior art package and translite sales; exclusive hiring arrangement
- **[market_signal]** Toy Story 4 LE price reduced to $10,000 MSRP at event; secondary market showing CE variants markedly below MSRP; inventory management strategy evident (confidence: high) — Don confirming price drop at Pinball at the Beach; discussing secondary market pricing discovery
- **[announcement]** Jersey Jack Harry Potter confirmed for Texas Pinball Festival (approx 5 weeks from event date); LE+CE tiers at $12-15k MSRP; Eric Menear designed with $5M licensing investment (confidence: high) — Menear's public Harry Potter merchandise at event; Don's direct TPF launch confirmation; pricing statements
- **[product_strategy]** Spooky Evil Dead achieving market differentiation through motorized topper quality and exclusive edition size (950 units total); revised hair-guard mechanism addressing early user issues suggests post-launch refinement capability (confidence: high) — Don discussing topper quality as key differentiator; confirming 820 sold with 130 remaining; noting Spooky's hair-jam fix and plexiglass partition addition
- **[product_concern]** D&D dragon mechanism suffered voltage spike failures due to internal cable stretching; fix deployed via length adapter before LE production restart (confidence: high) — Direct technical explanation from Don citing Pinball at the Beach observer accounts and Stern's solution deployment
- **[rumor_hype]** King Kong (Keith Elwin) expected May 2025; prequel Star Wars trilogy expected November 2025 with John Borg as designer; Ghostbusters remaster (Q4 2025, Premium/LE only) with flipper gap redesign (confidence: medium) — Consensus among attendees, competitors, and distributors at Pinball at the Beach per Don's interviews
- **[business_signal]** Stern appears to be strategically managing 2025 cornerstones (D&D, King Kong, Star Wars) with Q4 Ghostbusters remaster held in reserve; potentially using Walking Dead as gap-filler for sales shortfalls (confidence: medium) — Don's speculation on Stern holding Walking Dead in pocket; reference to Naps Arcade rumor; discussion of Stern keeping 3 cornerstones + remaster + studio projects per year

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## Transcript

 Well, hey there, everybody. Welcome to a very Wings-themed episode of Don's Pinball Podcast, number 173. And we're winging our way back from pinball at the beach. What a blast we had and was shared by all in the pinball community. Also, that Venn diagram includes the Central Florida community as well. I had a great time. I got a whole breakdown here for you. So let's listen to the theme song from the television program that probably launched Tony Shloop's career. Post Wings went into Monk. I mean, come on. It's Don's classic television podcast. Let's settle in. Keep your tray table out of your lap. I love wings. All right, man. Let's break everything down from pinball at the beach. Hello, everybody. Grab your carpet square. Get your Ritz cracker and your cube of cheese. Cheese is best eaten in cube form. And let's snuggle up and do a rundown of basically everything that has transpired between the show, the post show, and the space between, as it were. Come take a lounge chair in the space behind my eyes and let's hang out. We wax prophetic here on what appears to be an otherwise banal Tuesday evening. Stern Pinball, man. Big Daddy number one on the block. Elk Grove's proudest homegrown lad, I guess. Elk Grove Village. So D&D back in production on the line. The L.E.s are running now. A bit of a dragon fire. So talking to people that were there at Pinball at the Beach and should probably know these things. First off, all of the games there that had moving dragons were functioning just fine. It appears that the wire that goes from the motor that articulates the dragon's head to the left and rightward axis, I guess that would be yaw to our pilot friends, was just long enough to make it to node board 10. But when it was getting tugged on, every time the dragon would move around, it would stretch that internal cable, sending intermittent voltage spikes to the board that it couldn't handle or whatever. So the fix that has been sent out is essentially a length adapter, kind of like that seatbelt extender that Uncle Roy would have to use on the airplane in order to reach Nodeboard 10. So it seems to be now a non-issue, a slight oversight, but I guess this will bring the LEs back into production. So, LE people that are waiting, I know if you're with Flip N Out Pinball or Tilt, I guess you got all yours, but for those of us still waiting, the rest of the LEs will be heading on the line. that should have started, I think, yesterday, Monday. So I'm still D&D-less. I was hoping I would have had it on my way back from the beach as it landed in Chicago, just a stones throw, a pinball's throw away from Elk Grove Village, but such wasn't to be the case, so I had to go home. Not all empty-handed. I got a lot of swag at the show and everything. But this week, we should see LEs going down the line, so by the time we get to the Factory Friday video, we should see LE production. and then strongly followed behind that by the premium productions for D&D. And I think we're back on track. I listened to the pinball show this morning, and it sounds like there will be some Godzillas and a couple of Jaws coming out next. So that's fun, and that will take us into at least the spring, man. Can we get some better Carl Weathers? It's so funny. It's wintertime, and I have tan lines on my feet from flip-flops, first from Australia and now from Florida. So I found the secret hack to winter in the Midwest, and that is to not be in the Midwest during winter. It works great. I don't know why that didn't occur to me beforehand. So at Pinball at the Beach, we had eight D&D games, including one LE, an unnumbered LE. They called it a merchandising sample or a licensor sample. I think they just threw that on there so they can have an LE that exists outside of the 740 LE run time continuum, as it were. um otherwise the the rest of the games are split between pros and premiums uh that were there uh they're fun the pro is still fun but it's hard to go back when you have that articulating dragon spitting the fireballs at you uh to go back to just the pro where it just the dragon just appears to be gimped i don't know how else to put it he bobs up and down like one of those uh water drinking ostrich toys from back in the day uh it doesn't have the side to side motion it adds so much character and personality when this guy's like zooming around the play field man yeah super fun i'm digging the game i'm still not logging in yet when i play these uh but i got to have a ton more time on this game than was afforded to me at the factory still i can't hear nothing inside that little tent man the the volume levels are high you know it because by the second day your voice is gone because you've been screaming the whole time not realizing it but you know you could hear like that Worf was saying stuff, but I couldn't really tell what he was saying. I can't wait to get this game in a home and log in and play it and start leveling up characters and going on quests. I will say this, uses the screen very effectively for the battles. I feel like I'm playing a role playing game, man. When you hit the shot and you attack whatever monsters are there, you see their life bars drain. I am all about that life. I am all about that energy. I want to get back to it. So Stern had, you know, the first eight or ten feet of floor space in linear measurement walking into the tent. But it was at this show. And this is what people will be saying. It was really more of just all of us hanging out in a tent and playing pinball at the beach than it was like a trade show and such. I saw Gomez walking around. Hey, George, how you doing? Hey, Don, what's going on? I saw him just jumping into four person battles on Dungeons and Dragons and playing some games. It was super cool just to be able to do that. There wasn't a booth to man. There wasn't a lecture hall to go to. It was just, let's hang out and let's talk and throw rumors around. And the booze is flowing, and we're all having a good time. Brian Eddy was there in appearance too. And totally approachable. You want to get something signed, just walk up and do it. And then they did have an official signing later on that I totally spaced out and missed. Man, I should have gone down to that. I could have got Kerry Hardy's freaking autograph, man. The man was there in person walking around. You just walk up to him like just some vagrant, hello. internet celebrity guy. Super fun. I heard talk. This is hilarious. Somebody asked me, not because I'm a podcaster, just because I was standing there, is there a seminar room where we can go and meet the pinball celebrities? It was just a funny moment. I think I'm living in an AI simulation. Anybody else feel like that? I don't know if it's because I've been doom-scrolling Instagram, which is like half of the videos, at least the ones that I see, maybe it's my algorithm, are just like AI nonsense nightmare films. And now I think I probably slipped into that dimension somehow. Totally crazy. But rumors on the floor. Let's just shore this up. So the forecast, according to the rumor cast for Stern Pinball, is that we are going to get King Kong next from Keith Elwin. Holy crap, yes. Waiting for that. May seems to be the month that everybody has agreed on that this thing is going to come out. And then when it doesn't come out in May, we're all going to be mad at Stern for something that we made up ourselves. but that's currently what we're looking forward to. The next cornerstone is supposed to be, I'm still hearing this episode one, episode one, two, and three, prequel trilogy of Star Wars. Yes, it's Star Wars, but it's the prequel trilogy. I guess it had to happen at some point. I'm going to try to keep my spirits up, but, you know, pod racing pinball, I think it's been done. I don't think it's compelling. We'll see what, I almost call him Brian Borg. John Borg has to do with this design. He's rumored to be on it. I don't know who's on the coding. I don't know who is on the art. All that we'll wait and see. That's supposed to be the third release of Cornerstones for 2025. November is when I would expect to be looking around for a drop. And then, you know, everybody's going to be saying it's going to be next Tuesday. And then when it's not next Tuesday, they're going to be like, oh, Stern lied to me. I'm angry again. Again, something I made up. The rumor of the Walking Dead hit while I was there. Nap Arcade, what's up, buddy? Dropping bombs of information. love that uh from what i'm hearing though the walking dead is not a 2025 release it sounds like it's coming um but when who knows and now it could be that stern is getting these games ready to go and have in their pockets in case there is a a little gap in the line due to maybe some lackluster sales a game that fails to launch well uh they can then put it in there i think we can expect to see a remastered game once a year and three cornerstones plus maybe some studio projects just like we've been seeing every year that i've been covering pinball um and even even since before then so yes i dig the walking dead uh for me coming into the spike 2 era the one thing missing from that game is an lcd screen and some clips and some integration maybe a little bit of code but the layout man layout is magic uh what do we see who the heck knows what i'm hearing the remaster for this year of 2025 and again it'll be like a fourth quarter release and that is going to be ghostbusters that seem to be the leading rumor amongst everybody i talked to whether it's you know pinball fans that probably should know something um you know competitors uh that are there slinging their wares and their predictions uh distributors that again should kind of know because they're the ones that are going to be sailing and servicing these games post-launch um that's kind of where uh i've been at and what i've been hearing uh as far as like who's on art who's coding these games I don't know. I would guess, and I'm just putting this out there completely on my own. I think George Gomez will take a crack at being the lead design for this remastered project to kind of coalesce everything. It seems to be the word from the community is that we love the art that was on the original with the notable exception of probably the back glass. So I wouldn't mind seeing the back glass redone, translate or what have you. I think, yeah, in this case, leaving the playfield art style alone works for me. Now, Zombie Yeti did this art from what I can recollect. Correct me if I'm wrong. And maybe he would need to touch it up a little bit in some areas because I'm hoping for a redesign. You know, bring that flipper gap to where it should have been all along and then adjust the geometry to compensate and then leave it alone. And I think that's good. What I'm hearing is this will be premiums and LEs only. They won't be going back to that pro play field. I love that because I love the premium because the simple fact of that subway ramp that dives under the play field and then pops back up again. It's fun every time I shoot it, man. It's like some whitewater level fun. I dig that. And having seen some professional level players play Ghostbusters and show me what's possible in the game, I'm back on it. This is a game that I always kind of dogged on, didn't really jive with me, even though the theme is gold. My playing skill wasn't enough to appreciate it. But now, having seen what is possible, what is happening, that's what I think is going to happen. I'm hoping for a slight redesign and to close that flipper gap. In lieu of that, I'd probably see a removable center post is probably what would be there. Maybe it could do with a D&D shield. We'll just go totally bumper bowling on this thing. But that notwithstanding, that's what I'm hearing is coming. That's what I would put my $5 on. And it seems like I'm not alone because, again, people with large collections that probably should know something by this point are going ahead and selling their Ghostbusters that until then were like, I'm never selling this thing. But who's punching up the code? I don't know. In my heart of hearts, I'm hoping for some Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske action. I think she's the special sauce in all of this. Now, when we're on Stern, up until this point, I haven't put a lot of stake into who's coding and doing rules for games. I was learning the designers and their styles. I was learning the artists, of course, a little bit on music and such and call outs, especially. But coding, I just kind of left that to the ether, man. It's like the last little stat that I'm coming to wrap my head around. But wrap my head around it. I am especially when I'm now able to appreciate the nuances of who's being on code mattering at this point. If it's Dwight Sullivan, I'm down. If it's Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske, I'm double down. If it's whoever's on Elwin's team, man, I'm there for that. Ray Day works some freaking magic, dude. This guy really, like, his hand is felt in Metallica Remastered. I love that. So in my dream team if Ray Day not on the Ghostbusters get Elizabeth in there and go with that When it comes to my boy Wason and Luscious Lux and Tim Sexton man I left wanting a bit If I heard that they were on a project in the future, I would be maybe a little bit more hesitant to like, let's see how it plays. Let's see how the code comes out, because I'm looking at John Wick and I'm looking at X-Men and no one's really mad about those games because of their layout necessarily. John Wick plays fast and fun. X-Men plays chaotic and random. But both seem to be lacking in the code department, man. Tim Sexton, buddy, dude, my homie, come on, man. We were talking. We were good friends. I love what you were doing with the light integration, with the gunshots on John Wick. But to develop a leveling system, which is fantastic, but have it not be consequential in any manner. I just don't know how you come back from that without coming up with a reason for it man can you help me out or at least you know tell the community what we can expect from this game I had to move on from my John Wick LE mostly for financial reasons because I have other stuff coming in but I'm compelled to do it and not mature with the code I think I'm going to die of old age before the code gets to old age man where are we at where are we at also with X-Men I want to know what's coming at least give me a forecast for what we can expect in the future you need some time to develop it need some time to troubleshoot it fine just you know some some dialogue with the community man like let me know what i'm expecting because i'm making major purchasing decisions based on what i'm seeing with the code and i'm looking at jaws is just such a great example i know it was done early way before release but post-release we've been getting some absolute bangers of code updates for jaws i love it i love what happened with stranger things i even like where bond is at now but can we can we can we at least know where we're going with wick and x-men all right so there's the stern rumors and such and their presence at pinball at the beach it was fantastic man they didn't come in there with three dnds they came in there with eight including an le and uh yeah i never had to wait more than one party to get in to play it so it was fun it was fun playing it but i i can't wait to get it home which should hopefully be in the next two weeks and finally log in, level up, get my bloopity bloops. I'm in on Dungeons & Dragons, man. I'm in. Oh, Ralph's taunting me over there, Retro Ralph. He's got his LE there having a good time. And I know it's going to be soon, but it's like, dang it, I want to play with this thing too, man. I'm hype and excited about this. All right, JP, Jersey Jack to you and I. We're also there with what I think was eight games. They had, no, it was 10. They had one of every other games there, though. that was cool uh wizard of oz was there yeah two avatars were there a couple of toy stories one godfather uh one pirate to the caribbean so it was there to be played and uh no smoke machine though man dr john out in australia has like the best mod for pirates of the caribbean i've ever seen when you shoot the cannon a literal fog machine goes off and blasts fog smoke in your face with a cannon sound effect it's phenomenal and i heard leora was behind it too it's just great just great man so playing the whole lineup there got to play avatar again the ce still waiting on that and what i have been told is probably about two weeks uh the week of the 21st 24th or something like that uh it should be ready which may coincide with when dnd is ready so we can get down for that uh toy story 4 had a price drop off msrp of course the le is ten thousand dollars now There was one there for sale at the show. I'm sure, in my heart of hearts, in the depths and darkness of Pinside, you can find yourself a Toy Story 4 LE for less than $10,000 right now. You can find a Toy Story CE for markedly less than $10,000 right now. I like that they're doing the price adjustments at least to move some of this inventory. I have to imagine that in the era that it was released, people were still buying pinball machines. I'm sure that distributors have Toy Story 4s in their back closets somewhere I'm sure for sure they have avatars but I don't think as many have ordered that I'm hopeful that avatar will maintain some value mainly because I'm getting one and I would like to sell it at some point I'm pegging 12.5 I think I'd be happy with for my avatar CE so if you want one at some point say in 8 to 10 to 12 months and you want to pay 12.5 get at me otherwise 12 I think would kind of be reasonable. And for two things, right? Elton John's holding its value. Elton John's the best shooting JJP game of all time that we've seen. Code-wise and enjoyment-wise, it's not as deep as a game like Avatar. Not as deep as a game like Godfather, for that matter. But it is a fun jukebox in a box. Now, I don't think that Avatar is going to hold the value that Elton John will. But Elton John sold really well and is commanding a high value. Avatar, I don't think, has sold very well. and so i don't think there's going to be this abundance of supply that we see with something like guns and roses these may just be the lies that i'm telling myself maybe i'm just going to keep avatar until the grave and it doesn't even matter uh one thing's for sure after playing it again i want to get this thing in my home so i can really appreciate everything that they've brought to bear there as far as jjp people man ken cromwell was posted up in his quarter of the tent the whole time he got a fist bump every time i made my way over to that area of the room so shout out to ken uh other guy forgot his name sitting in the chair next to him uh someone remind me uh but also cool guy jesus uh one guy who i did remember uh aside from almost called him steve perry uh steve steve steven price no he did black knight sword of rage i'm totally blanking on his name shout it out internet um Steve Ritchie yeah he was there in full glory man what a legend um you know go up get something signed or go get ridiculed it's up to you And either one is fine with me. Eric Menear, though, was there. Menear? Menear. Not manure. Menear. I think that's it. Designer of Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes. Guns and Roses. I dig it. Godfather. Not the game for me, but I appreciate the aesthetics. And the Golden Lions is supposedly on JJP. What is this? Number eight, nine, ten. What game are they up to now? Their new release coming sooner than you think. Rumored to be Harry Potter. Rumored to have cost $5 million for the license. rumored to be causing us to sell our children to buy this next $25,000 to $15,000 to $12,000 game. It's all over the place. Here's the latest that I'm hearing. First off, Harry Potter, open secret. At this point, I don't think anybody's really trying to keep it under wraps, including Eric himself, the reported lead designer on this project, who was resplendently dressed in a Harry Potter sweatshirt and a Harry Potter hat throughout the entirety of Pinball on the Beach. I couldn't believe the goal of this guy. He's either trolling at epic levels or he's just like doing a victory lap before release because like this is going to be like the game like this game back to the future and Pokemon are like the three towers from Lord of the Rings. Right. Like there's only two. But bear with me for this. You know, like the three golden gooses. And it seems like Harry Potter is coming not at the end of the year. Like I was thinking not for Pinball Expo, but like in five weeks from now for TPF. so here's what i'm hearing yes it's harry potter i don't know if it's a wide body or narrow body um but they've they're on record not making wide bodies uh i have heard that once avatar ce production is complete which should be here pretty soon harry potter les will be going on the line this will be an le and a ce release limited edition collector's edition i've heard pricing is holding flat at 12 000 15 000 thank frick for that man because the early rumors of a 25 000 harry potter game i was believing them man you have five million dollars for licensing i mean you got to recoup that somehow so i'm hearing le and ce le's will be on the line when avatar ces are done again rumors nothing's confirmed from this um the only thing i was confirmed for sure was eric looked great in harry potter gear um but the idea will be that for tpf this game can be released probably announced and lead up to tpf and then games will be there to play and games will also be there in boxes to buy what way to go you guys i don't even think i have an air horn sound effect i do heck yeah so harry potter at inbox at tpf maybe sounds like it'll happen also concurrently to that game will be on locations around the country at the time of launch I love when a game can do that, when a game can be announced, be revealed, be available in boxes to go ahead and grab. Barrels of Fun did this with Labyrinth, who was also in attendance at Pinball on the Beach. We'll get to it in a second. Yeah, man, slam dunk. So this will be like a huge contender for Game of the Year. Right now, though, Game of the Show was from the other of the big three manufacturers. I'm talking about your friends and mine, our folks over here at Spooky Pinball, makers of Evil Dead, man. Four evil beds were in attendance at pinball at the beach owned by little shop of games. And I think when the show started, one was still not spoken for. And then all four of them had sold. Uh, we also had a Looney Tunes on site. No TCM. Dang it. I love that freaking game. Uh, and then Scooby-Doo as well. Still love that game. Uh, so yeah, basically it looked like my, my spooky corner at home, uh, only it was here and it didn't have Scooby-Doo and it didn't have Scooby-Doo, but didn't have TCM. uh regardless uh they had uh four games there of evil dead all collectors editions the only edition that they're making two of them had the moving toppers on them which did not have any issues at all uh and i want to take small credit for that for finding out an issue with mine um that quickly got revealed uh hint it was my own damn fault hint it was uh the hair got stuck in the motor hint i got some scissors out and i fixed it and there is now a plexiglass partition the motor that'll keep the hair where it's supposed to be you're welcome for beta testing um yeah but it was looking great and looking at the games now with like the standard topper that comes with every single game and then the upgraded one i can see why if now they've sold 820 games they sold 819 of these toppers because they are just that phenomenal man uh they had some toppers new in box going out as well things are heavy man heavy topper uh robust i think half the weight It's just in that motor, man. It is, like, not going to fail. No servos in this thing, man. Talking about, like, bulky electric motors. It just can't go wrong, man. Things are indestructible. Loving it. So the word from everybody, and this is what I was waiting for. I've had a lot of fun playing Evil Dead. Evil Dead at the factory. Evil Dead at home. Like, I'm extolling the virtues of this game. Like, am I the only one? And now that more and more people are playing it, it turns out, no, I'm not alone. Y'all like this game. just like just going up to people and you know people like to talk game of the show evil dead is what i'm hearing consistently uh people like dnd uh people like the avatar uh people had fun playing road trip but it was evil dead i was hearing most consistently unprompted just like game of the show i love what they're doing there and it was either you know i wish i could afford to get one or i want one but now like the numbers there's only 130 of these left so at this point your numbers way out unless you're getting in with a distributor jeff at madpinball.com i think he still had some games i saw some deals there uh people were hearing that it was going to be like eight months or so if you ordered today to get your game uh but i saw people heading over to uh to the mad pinball crew because i think they have some allocations from earlier numbers so just a way to go and get it nothing wrong with waiting to play a game before you buy it i mean i did um well i didn't wait to play it i ran to the factory and snuck in the back door and held the guys down until they agreed to let me play it. But, yeah, I was able to play it before I bought it. However, that window of purchasing a new in-box after playing it is starting to get narrow with only 130 left as of yesterday or the day before when I checked last. Games will be at TPF. I know people are already ordering games to pick up at the show. I don't know if they're all spoken for yet. Now, you can always reach out and say, I'm interested in picking one up at the show, and then maybe they would send down a couple extra if you know people were doing that so if you're interested that'd be a pretty good way to get a game that's absolutely battle tested it'll have about 400 plays on it after the weekend and then it's yours and you can completely skip the line um otherwise with demand being where it is with this game i've only seen one that showed up uh for someone selling their deposit and i think that was because they secured an earlier number if i'm not mistaken there may have been one person that's looking to back out but I haven seen people turning around and dumping their deposits yet I have to troll Pinside a little bit more and see if that happening But it seems to be a game where the edition size is perfect where I think demand is going to outstrip that, and the game will probably sell out here pretty soon. Had a lot of fun at the Spooky Booth there. So 130 left. Rumor-wise, kind of all over the place with Spooky. I still hear Goonies. I hear Gremlins, but it's mainly coming from me. now My Little Pony is the big one that we're trying to manifest I don't reasonably expect anybody to ever do that but if they do, I'll go on record right now I'll buy the damn thing but Beetlejuice seems to be recurrent and happening a little bit more and this may be Christopher Franchi was there at the booth okay, hanging out at the pinball at the beach booth or the booth area with Spooky was where I spent about half my time just because everybody I know was over there the most popular game of the show outside of D&D, it was definitely Evil Dead And I think I saw lines deeper for Evil Dead. Well, it's only four games. They had eight Dungeons and Dragons. Regardless, both games were very well attended. And Mr. Christopher Franchi was parked at the booth for most of the time. And the dude is just hilarious. He's like Roy from Wings, man. Just charming and always with some crass humor. And I dig it. Speaking of trolling, he had himself on, this was day two, a Beetlejuice t-shirt, right? Now, Christopher Franchi has also done a Beetlejuice Translate. He's done a Beetlejuice treatment. I guess he went to Stern. The rumor is that nobody wanted to go in on the theme at that time, and so he passed on it, much to his chagrin because he had a whole art package designed for it. He's been at multiple pinball shows with the Translites that he's done of Beetlejuice, just selling them without a game or anything. So, like, that seems to be the strongest rumor that's right now. Now, I know pinball companies don't like to show their hand too early, right? You don't want to cannibalize sales of your current game with people knowing that something new is right around the corner. But at this point, with 130 Evil Dead left to sell, probably sell out at or by the time TPF happens, I don't see any cannibalization of sales of this getting out. Hopefully, production goes okay and we see this game November, December. uh with spooky releases a game they try to judge the edition size to see what it's going to take to keep their factory busy for that entire calendar year uh so you know they probably could come out with two more games right now and build them all concurrently uh but what they want to do is space things out so that they're busy enough that everybody's got something to do um but they're not like rushing forward ahead where there's going to be then like a drop off in sales and production let's say so they tend to really target november december january for new games teased, released, and then starting to be built in January. I think we'll see that trend continue. So it seems like at the end of the year, your options for new in box of new reveals are going to be Ghostbusters, the prequel trilogy of Star Wars, and something from Spooky Pinball, which has signed on Christopher Franchi to art exclusively because he came to Spooky because he had a lot of ideas of games that he wants to do that I guess the spooksters also want to do. And I think we're finally going to see Beetlejuice, man. I hope. Now, I don't have anything official to confirm this at all. Completely rumored at this point, and it might just be a clever trolling by Mr. Christopher Franchi, who reminds me of Roy from Wings. Quagmire, what do you have to say about this? What we need out there now is another Tim Daly. Who's Tim Daly? I don't even know who that is. From Wings? Nope. Tim Daly. He was on Wings. No, nobody here watched Wings. Is that the one where there's a guy and he's a pilot or something? No, there's two guys. They're brothers and they're both pilots. Wasn't there a fat guy with a mustache? That was Roy. He's hilarious. Was this a cartoon? No, my God, no, no, no. It took place in an airport. The thing was on for 10 years, and the funny repair guy was Lowell. It made Tony Shalhoub's career. Who? The tennis player? Yeah, you know what? Screw you guys. I don't even know you. Crazy people living under a rock don't know wings. I love wings. Everybody loved wings, buddy. uh so yeah so if if roy is christopher franchi then does that make the two brothers uh bug and spook and and spooky luke uh probably so who's tony shalhoub luke peters i could see that it's spooky dj uh one of them who else was oh somebody was lol all right so so um if dj is Tony Shalhoub, then Lowell would be the other guy, and then Morgan could be the daughter. Who does that... Who would I be? I'd be the guest star that would show up in that special episode and be the out-of-town love interest for one of the characters, and then I have to beat it before we finally do fulfill that engagement because I'm such a jerk, and then I'm in and I'm out. Man, guest star roles. Perfect for me. so how did evil dead hold up mine's been holding up just fine at home the only thing i've had to do literally was just adjust the end point to one of the servos uh for the uh the diverter on the shooter lane uh other than that i haven't had any issues since then uh apparently there was one mechanical issue that was sorted i didn't see the glass off of any of these games the entire time we were there um there was something with the trough and the guys explained it to me and it completely went out of my head but they said it was this mechanical thing we already have a fix for it it's it's already fixed and it's working fine now so whatever it was uh it was fixed at the show didn't see a play field lifted didn't see glass off of any of the spooky games and i was there about half of the event half the time i was there if i wasn't going to get in a blt from the boulevard grill or if i wasn't hanging out at the beach uh or uh swimming in a swimming pool or at bush gardens tampa i was i was there so i would have saw it if it happened so the games are reportedly tanks which is just a fantastic thing to be for a brand new game that's coming out and really speaks to the qc to the point that somebody said now they're not sure if they're willing to risk uh getting a new inbox stern right now they'd rather go with spooky because it's more reliable what world are we living in now man this is fantastic so that is awesome um deborah messing was she in that show or was she in will and grace or was she in ned and stacy but Thomas Hayden Church was in Ned and Stacey. But who was the other girl from that show? That wasn't the lady from Dharma and Greg, was it? Oh, my God. I got to go down a TV rabbit hole after this. So those are the big three. And what we know that is rumored to be coming out from them and roughly when. So that's all good information. What else did we have there? Should we talk about Ramp's Pinball Journey? Ramp's Pinball Adventure, formerly Tilt Bob. They were there with Road Trip. Okay, this has been covered on NAP Arcade. Go look at the images. I got to play this game. I got to play this game multiple times. I got to be interviewed about this game. And then I got to get torn apart by Walt Wood on YouTube about my interview, about Road Trip. What kind of interception is going on here, Walt Wood? Freaking love you, guy. What a legend. So in my defense, when I played this game, it was like one of the first stops walking in was going to play this. I played it twice, and the game has no code in it at all. there's like some scoring that happens but and there's music and that's about it right this is a very early build 0.3 code they're calling it so it it's too early to judge this game first off we can't say anything concrete about this good idea bad idea whatever way too early um but playing it two times and then getting interviewed on camera is also way too early um guys asking me what do you think about the layout what do you think about the art what do you think of the music And it's like I've literally played this game with no code two times. I don't know. The music, the best I could say was it was not offensive, meaning like it didn't take me out of the game. Like it didn't it wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was just there. I didn't really even notice it. So you notice bad music. You notice really good music, too. It was neither of those. One of the one of the hiccups to this or one of the features, I should say, is that you'll be able to add your own soundtrack to this game. A way to skirt licensing, I guess. We saw Blues Brothers take a similar approach. Good idea, bad idea. Who am I to say? Who am I to say? Don, how's the game shoot? Fine. Flippers feel okay. Not snappy like Stern, but what is other than Stern? But you're able to hit the back of the play field. Problem may be that there's nothing in the back of the play field to do. There's nothing to do downtown. And part of why I want to hold off judgment on this game is, number one, they're not asking for money yet. Thank Flip for that. otherwise this game is just really early this is the first time they showed it typically in this stage of a life cycle you wouldn't show a game like this so I can't judge it too harshly I do have some thoughts though after spending some time with the folks behind the game spending some time with the game and some deep concerns I have for it I think I'm going to share that on a special little Patreon episode which is running a little bit long here so you Patreon members look for that to drop sometime tonight coinciding with episode 173 here but i will say uh they seem to be open to feedback which is i mean you have to have that um they seem to be a little standoffish about most of it that i had which is not not helpful uh so let let me take you on a journey back to pinball expo 2023 when we had a new game from a new manufacturer turner pinball was there with half of a ninja eclipse well it was all of the play field and all the graphics and half of the cabinet less filling less fiber um took a lot of arrows with that he was at the time asking for twelve thousand dollars uh for this game uh putting it square at like stern le levels at jersey jack le levels at barrels of fun labyrinth levels almost eleven thousand to twelve thousand chris correct me if i'm wrong but it was somewhere in there and only had half a cabinet and he got a lot of criticism for what he brought essentially something that looked like a sizzle cabinet he took that back uh put in a shooter rod uh put in a full-size cabinet full-size coin door and everything and then came back priced at a stern pro and sold out all 100 games so fantastic so uh bringing a game early to a show to get feedback always a great idea even if it hurts a little bit because you need that objectivity from people that are actually going to give you money uh so this game is in a similar stage of development according to my perception, where let's bring this thing out. Let's not talk about price, not talk about deposits, whether they're refundable, non-refundable, whatever. Play the game. Tell us what you think. Take that information back and improve on it, implement it, and then bring it out. The moment that we can truly judge this title is when they're asking for money and what level it's at. From what I played on this game and kind of my final thought here will be, if it's twelve thousand dollars it's a complete mistake if it's four thousand dollars it's interesting and everything else is somewhere there in the middle i don't know i asked them about a ballpark budget like were you looking to bring this thing at and and they didn't have an answer they're not even ready to release that which is the right answer man don't don't tell me that this thing's gonna be 10 grand and i can look at down a lineup of games that i can get for 10 grand or less that are like miles above uh what i played here so is it fun it's got some innovation in it right now i would say that this game if it was just a homebrew title uh pretty fantastic for a homebrew title um you know kind of yeah like great um friday the 13th great saw great greatest showman great no no uh but uh well that's not fair because a couple of those were saw remakes um i mean uh whirlwind remakes weren't they um weren't they all remakes they were all remakes what's a ground up game oh elf that was sitting right next to it it's about as fun as elf is so there you go and tilt bob is a guy that did elf now it's called ramp ramp is the name of the raccoon more of this including what i think about it honestly over on the patreon for those folks there so who else was there barrels of fun was there with two labyrinth games with two toppers uh up for sale only issue i noticed was a new out of the box issue the nut on the right flipper had loosened itself uh we went ahead and tightened that down from from next to the cabinet it was fine people were going over there and playing labyrinth labyrinth is you know a year out now there was a numbered 800 and 801 of the reported 1000 to 1100 units that they would be making so it looks like they're coming towards the end of their run now in the goodie bag that we got at pinball at the beach including the awesome beach towel and some of the other accoutrement uh you got something from barrels of fun a small jar of kinetic sand and a bottle opener blazoned with the company logo I not putting much stock into the bottle opener other than being a cool tchotchke plus we at the beach but the sand why would they be giving me kinetic sand otherwise other than the fact they know that i get bored on airplanes um this is leading strongly to the dune rumor we've heard fifth element i'm hearing that's completely straight out i'm hearing dune is what's coming I'm hearing movie Dune I'm hearing new movie Dune Which would be a departure You'd think they would go for that classic Who's that guy that did Twin Peaks Didn't he do the original Dune movie Otherwise there's a ton of lore in that book That book is thicker than a bible Plenty to draw from there But I'm thinking they're going the Timothy Charlemagne route Which okay When it comes to Dune In today's landscape I don't see it as being a top 10 theme But neither was Labyrinth And at this point, Labyrinth was amazing, mostly for me because it was a Jim Henson title. And I want Jim Henson pinball like nobody's business. But when it comes to Dune, I think it could be interesting playing an Arrakis, right? The spice melange, the spice must flow. You know, I'll wait and see what they have. When are we going to see it? Probably one of these damn pinball shows. If not TPF, then maybe something else. I'll tell you this. I was talking to somebody affiliated, I believe, at least tangentially with Barrels of Fun, and mentioned that I'll be down there in a week and a half for the Twippies in Houston, which coincidentally is also near the factory. And I heard they may have something cool going on during the Twippies. I had also heard that they were planning on doing a factory tour. I got to go check with Jamie at Wormhole and Kineticist and see what all the details are. I've been so preoccupied with Pinball at the Beach and some of my other projects that I haven't really even looked at what the itinerary is. all i know is i got a ticket to the twippies i know that tickets are still available and it sounds like there'll be like a barrels of fun add-on factory tour or something and maybe they'll have something to show us how cool would that be it would be dynamite cool so we'll look for that cgc was not there there was a cactus canyon and there was two pulp fictions including an le which i didn't get to play somebody was on it every time i walked by and feel like standing they're waiting i will say that the topper for pulp fiction it's impressive it looks good in person i don't know this is greatest topper of all time but it's it's definitely better than what we've seen from some of the other manufacturers of late jersey jack's really stepping up their topper game it seems like a jersey jack ish topper it seems like it's got much more to it than a stern topper and i'm liking where spooky's going with their toppers now of note toppers will be coming with every one of their games going forward they'll be available of these really cool ones and they've caught the topper bug i love it so yeah in person it looks fine especially from the player's perspective i dig the light show it's something that i can't whip up myself so yeah it's fine uh my pulp fiction is currently topperless but not for long because the electric playground has released their interest list for their pulp fiction topper which they are not showing publicly yet the reason is because they're still working on some final art designs so they don't want to reveal it until they finally settle on something. But this is a project that privately I've kind of watched develop and I've been enthusiastic about it since I first heard about it. And so, you know, as soon as they drop the list to get on to order one, I'm in on number nine for my pulp topper. So my pulp will not be topperless forever. And I'm super excited about this. I've seen concepts of what they're doing and it incorporates a lot of what I love from other products that they've made this time in a game that i actually own so we're gonna get in on that um from what i'm hearing though there's not going to be an addition size per se it's not that they're doing a hard stop of only 99 of these or 100 of these or 500 because that's how many pennies a five dollar shake was uh but what they will do is build batches and then they may just decide not to build any more batches um so it will be limited in number but not like a hard cap but you know there's going to be production of you know 25 to 50 and then maybe that's it so if you're interested you know get in on that list there's no commitments no deposits to put down um and full reveal will be soon i don't know when soon is maybe tpf we'll see but the guys are very much working on it and i like i like the care and detail that the electric playground puts into their stuff so that is cool cgc is supposed to be doing halo at some point well listen uh halo is going to be a raw thrills product that cgc builds and given that they've just hit 500 and their pulp fiction le is here like two years after release um you know 2027 maybe there'll be a halo uh with or without the top or you might still have to wait for that it's cgc it's a waiting game it'll be well built hopefully and uh you know the price will be reasonable if if uh historical figures are to be trusted um but yeah halo pinball i'm excited about it but i'm not going to hype myself up because I know it's going to be years and years and years and years and years and years until we get to that. DPX, notably absent. Didn't see a Back to the Future there. Didn't see Analysis Adventures in Wonderland there. Nobody's seeing Analysis Adventures in Wonderland anywhere. We're halfway through February, and they've got a hard date of December 31st to get these 500 games done and shipped. Otherwise, you're going to be able to request your deposit back in full. Yikes, man. hopefully there's some uh they're coming with that code update too i wish they were streaming this thing every week showing like the code developments and things and what they're doing a lot of the feedback they got and i'm sure they weren't anticipating this is that upper play field is useless man on this game um it only mattered in like one of the modes the modes are randomly distributed just like on pulp fiction so like if it's not there ready for you uh you can't get up there and then even once you get up there there's not a whole lot to do because it uses those magnetic flippers or whatever i've heard they've addressed that and they've come up with more ways to get up there there's got to be a way to just if you want to go and play in the upper play field you can just shoot and get up there upper play field designing pinball companies take note of this if you're going to utilize that at least make an open way to get up there whenever we want to get up there right if i want to go up there on scooby-doo i just shoot the ramp it's the easiest shot in the game and boom now i'm up there playing on a upper play field having a great time um with alice's adventures in wonderland uh playing the game game shoots fine it makes noise does stuff whatever but if you want to go the upper play field kind of not a way to get up there space hunt i'm not letting you off the hook you've got an upper play field as well and it's hard as balls to get up there because that ramp is so long that it's got to be an absolutely perfect shot okay i'm gonna talk about this a little more when it comes to ramps because one of the things that bugged me about road trip right now. And that is you can't just shoot your shot up that main ramp of the game. You have to cradle and make sure it's a full power shot. Make sure it's relatively accurate because if you get a little rattle going up there, you won't make it. And even if you can get up to the rotisserie, you still need the power to get through there. I was having balls that I thought were fairly shot up there and then rolled back halfway up the rotisserie. That's a problem. And I'm going to talk about how to solve it on a Patreon episode. I got a whole list of things. we're gonna go through the riot act of what i want to see with ramps road trip but dpx wasn't there and nobody else is getting their houses yet anyway and we're halfway through february well hopefully games start going out to customers i know people are excited about this title they want to get it they want to play it i want them to invite me over so i can play it more and check out this new code and see what this upper play field has to go about doing up there or whatever um and i want to play with the juggalo or the jabberwocky or whatever that's in the back in the play field so get these games out get these games out otherwise i can see people holding off hope that maybe it won't ship by the end of the year so they can get out and get in on a kong or something uh who else was there so there wasn't a lot of vendors uh what who was there was rocket city pinball what's up andy how you doing his freaking start buttons are so much better than stuff that i make um you know attention to detail low layer lines uh low layer height multiple color changes i just love him man i love his whole whole setup and everything 30 for a start button if you're paying 30 it better be good if you're paying 55 it better be phenomenal and let me tell you his evil dead start button it just blew me away man all right so there is a clock that factors into the films somewhere i haven't watched the second one yet but on the playfield just above the lower playfield there are some Christopher Franchi art of a clock it's like a clock in a wooden housing with a pendulum and all that business right so this guy has taken that and the actual clock face printed fantastic uh is the start button but for 55 you get the whole housing around it as well with the pendulum and the wooden housing and the whole thing just bolts on the front of the game i'm gonna go put that on tomorrow when i get home it impressed me so damn much that i said you know what i'm not even gonna try to do something similar myself even though i like diying stuff and i like reverse engineering stuff and coming up with my own version of it i ain't even gonna try because it looks so good so i was like here take my money give me this damn start button i want to go play with it i bought the launch button too because like the detail that he did after doing a lot more 3d printing now i'm appreciating the craftsmanship that he puts in his stuff so go check it out i bought the launch button and i bought the the start button with the housing i want the whole thing because it was so cool man It's like the whole clock and you push the clock face to start button. I love it. Spooky pinball. I love you guys. I don't love the tiny start button. I like the big ones. I like the big ones that Stern uses that I can swap out easily and have like a nice big lit button that my finger can easily find. I want to go hunting for the small button, man. I want the big button there. Now, I also want launch shooter rods instead of launch buttons. I'm never going to win there. I understand that. I'll pick my battles. I do like a larger start button, though. um and so uh where where spooky does not provide that for me out of the box uh rocket city pinball has got it so i'm in on that i love my i love my bigger start buttons bro i love a bigger start button so he was there uh lit flippers was also there this is a guy that does some kind of resin made flipper bats and then they get a little led light that hooks on um underneath the plastic just adjacent to the the lateral aspect to the fatter part of the bat and they glue up really cool colors and they look pretty impressive and i would like to have them on all my games they're 45 per flipper and so for 90 bucks just to do a set of flippers more if you've got three i'm just not a buyer at this point they do look cool i'll tell you what if i had one pinball machine and uh you know i just wanted that was my baby and i was gonna pimp it out as much as i could i'd probably i'd probably put precision flippers on to be honest if i just had one game um but uh lit flippers look really cool um i do like that but 90 bucks you know i've got like 15 games at home dude i'm not paying 1500 it's about lit flippers on all of them even though it would look cool and even though i like what they look like um i think 45 a set i'd be interested 90 ah gosh guy i don't know man um i i get that there's a lot of details in there leds can wire them in whatever uh but anyway homeboy was there uh there was some other guy selling shaker motors for 250 for some old Bally Williams games and stuff. Is that how much they are if you want to put a shaker motor into a Twilight Zone? It's $250. They're like $109 from Pinball Life and from Stern and whatever for just the Stern ones. That's what I'm used to, but I'd have to have a shaker motor in every game. I'm not going to put lit flippers on every game, but I'm going to put a shaker motor in every game. So I'm already paying $1,500 for a shaker motor in every game. I don't want to spend another $1,500 for lit flippers. Jesus, man, what are we doing? I guess when you step back and look at it, it is it is pretty nuts well guys thank you for spending this time with me at don's pinball podcast let's go into that wings outro and we'll get to the email addresses and such don's pinball podcast is brought to you by don's pinball podcast email him at don's pinball podcast at gmail.com join the discord hop on the facebook page like and subscribe to the youtube channel at don's pinball podcast so you don't miss the live streams which hopefully will become weekly at some point patreon members patreon.com backslash don's pinball podcast entered to win translate giveaways every week as well as additional bonus content also support the show and never come over and listen to it that also is always allowed take care of yourself and each other we're just having fun in the world of pinball

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f4a3dfc3-688a-4053-ae1f-d9035e6153fa*