# Episode 65 – Oktoberfest Pinball with Josh Kugler

**Source:** Head2Head Pinball  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2018-10-19  
**Duration:** 55m 17s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.head2headpinball.com/2018/10/19/episode-65-oktoberfest-pinball-with-josh-kugler/

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## Analysis

Josh Kugler, designer at American Pinball, discusses the newly unveiled Oktoberfest Pinball at Chicago Pinball Expo. The game features a vibrant, detailed art package by Jeff Bush, a unique playfield layout with wire forms and player-controlled magnets, 14 tent-based modes tied to historical Oktoberfest tents, a stein-based progression system offering strategic choices for both casual and tournament players, and two multiballs (corkscrew and beer barrel). The design balances accessibility for casual players with depth for competitive players, incorporating feedback from tournament player Joe Shover (Ferrix).

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Oktoberfest has 14 tent modes, mirroring the 14 main tents at the actual Oktoberfest in Munich — _Josh Kugler directly states this design decision was driven by historical accuracy of the festival_
- [HIGH] The game uses player-controlled magnets activated by an extra flipper button to grab and release the ball strategically — _Josh explains the magnet mechanic in detail, including timing windows of 2-3 seconds and how it helps skilled players maximize playfield multipliers_
- [HIGH] Corkscrew multiball is relatively easy to achieve and is the primary multiball in the game — _Josh notes it's easy to wipe locks and easy to get on your flipper to make the ramp shot_
- [HIGH] Beer barrel multiball features lock-stealing mechanics with no menu option to disable it — _Josh confirms lock-stealing is permanent and appeals to both tournament and casual players despite potential controversy_
- [HIGH] The art package is significantly more colorful and detailed than Houdini, despite using the same artist (Jeff Bush) — _Josh describes the contrast as 'so huge' and notes Bush 'got crazy with getting as much in there as he could'_
- [HIGH] The game includes a subwoofer in the cabinet, a difference from Houdini, to handle bass-heavy polka and rock music — _Josh explains subwoofer was added specifically for the musical mix featuring accordion and heartbeat rock and roll_
- [HIGH] Joe Shover (Ferrix) worked on code development and rule design and previously worked on Alien at Heighway — _Josh discusses Ferrix's involvement and his preference for tournament-player features like accelerators and multipliers_
- [HIGH] The game includes 14 steins, each tied to a tent mode and providing both gameplay advantages and thematic flavor — _Josh explains each stein has dual use: gameplay benefit and tent boost, with some named after design team members_

### Notable Quotes

> "It's nice to finally get that out there. And now it will be a whole new discussion of love and hate regarding that."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Early in discussion
> _Acknowledges the leaked status and anticipates community reaction post-official announcement_

> "The last thing we wanted was a cookie cutter of Houdini for sure."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Mid-discussion on art/design
> _Emphasizes intentional differentiation in art direction despite same artist and similar cabinet_

> "There's a lot of extra strategy around accelerators and multipliers that enthusiasts don't necessarily have to worry about, and they're still going to really enjoy the game. So there's really that for both."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Mid-discussion on tournament vs casual design
> _Core design philosophy: balancing tournament depth with casual accessibility_

> "One of the things that came out of this partnership is that there's, you know, a lot of things that are like the enthusiasts are going to love this and maybe the tournament guys aren't. And there's some things that the tournament guys are just going to absolutely love in this game."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Discussion of tournament player Ferrix's influence
> _Reflects design tension between casual and competitive audiences and how partnership navigates it_

> "It's surprisingly consistent on the auto. There's actually a spinner in front, and it's actually the spinner that helps trigger the timing on that, and it's sort of a nice aspect of the with the P-ROC."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Magnet mechanics discussion
> _Technical detail on P-ROC platform capability enabling reliable magnet timing_

> "When you're in a mode to increase the time. But not all modes start with the exact same amount of time. And certainly some are harder than others."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Tent modes discussion
> _Confirms varied difficulty and time allocations across modes, with stein selection affecting time_

> "Right now, you cannot stack multiballs together. It's something that Ferrix and I have been debating, and we haven't come to a final conclusion on that."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Multiball stacking discussion
> _Indicates design uncertainty still being resolved; subject to change post-Expo feedback_

> "Ferrix really didn't like that one, and I sort of insisted no, we're putting that in there."
> — **Josh Kugler**, Discussion of castrated monkey stein carryover from Houdini
> _Shows tension between casual designer preference and tournament player preferences_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Josh Kugler | person | Designer/rules programmer at American Pinball; primary speaker; characterized as enthusiast-oriented rather than tournament-focused |
| American Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; unveiled Oktoberfest Pinball at Chicago Pinball Expo; previous game was Houdini |
| Oktoberfest Pinball (or Oktoberfest Pinball on Tap) | game | Newly unveiled American Pinball machine; theme is Oktoberfest festival; features 14 tent modes, player-controlled magnets, stein progression system, and vibrant art by Jeff Bush |
| Joe Balcer | person | Playfield designer at American Pinball; long-held dream theme was Oktoberfest; known for wire form designs and Joe Balcer's 'Wreck Lab' Easter egg references |
| Joe Shover (Ferrix) | person | Tournament player and competitive pinball player; co-designer of code and rules at American Pinball; previously worked on Alien at Heighway; brought tournament-focused strategy (accelerators, multipliers, lock-stealing) to Oktoberfest |
| Jeff Bush | person | Artist for both Houdini and Oktoberfest Pinball; created vibrant, detailed playfield artwork with heavy Easter egg placement; also designed cabinet/backbox art |
| Chicago Pinball Expo | event | Major pinball event where Oktoberfest Pinball was unveiled/officially announced |
| P-ROC (P3 Ramp Open Computer) | product | Pinball control platform used in Oktoberfest; enables precise magnet timing control via spinner triggers |
| Houdini Pinball | game | American Pinball's first game; Oktoberfest designed as intentional departure in art style despite same artist; steampunk/Houdini crossover theme |
| Martin Robbins | person | Co-host of Head to Head Pinball Podcast |
| Ryan C | person | Co-host of Head to Head Pinball Podcast |
| Vancouver Joe | person | Made Oktoberfest leak official about a month before Chicago Pinball Expo |
| Alien (Heighway game) | game | Game Joe Shover previously worked on; mentioned as context for his appreciation of being involved early in rules/layout design for Oktoberfest |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Game announcement and official reveal, Playfield design and layout mechanics, Rules design and software implementation, Art direction and visual design, Tournament vs. casual player balance, Stein/progression system design
- **Secondary:** Magnet-based player-controlled mechanics, Multiball design and stacking considerations

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Josh is enthusiastic about the game reveal despite sleep deprivation; proud of the differentiation from Houdini; confident in the dual-appeal design to both casual and tournament players. Some noted tensions with Ferrix on specific design choices (lock-stealing, castrated monkey stein) but these are framed as productive design debates rather than conflicts. Hosts are encouraging and supportive.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Post-Expo feedback expected to inform final balance decisions on multiball stacking and potentially other rules elements (confidence: medium) — Josh states: 'These rules are subject to a little tweaking as we review what happens here at Expo and the gameplay' and 'Right now, you cannot stack multiballs together. It's something that Ferrix and I have been debating, and we haven't come to a final conclusion on that.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Internal design debate on lock-stealing multiball: tension between tournament player preference (Ferrix) and traditional pinball design; Josh insisted on implementation despite Ferrix concerns (confidence: medium) — Josh notes: 'Ferrix really didn't like that one [castrated monkey stein], and I sort of insisted no, we're putting that in there' and confirms lock-stealing is permanent with 'It's a lock-stealing game.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Intentional differentiation in art/aesthetic between American Pinball's first two games (Houdini and Oktoberfest) despite same artist; Oktoberfest is significantly brighter and more detailed (confidence: high) — Josh emphasizes: 'The last thing we wanted was a cookie cutter of Houdini for sure' and 'It's very, very different than Houdini...It's incredibly bright. There's a lot going on with it.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Theme-driven rules design: 14 tent modes directly mirroring historical 14 main tents at Oktoberfest Munich; rules design driven by theme research (confidence: high) — Josh states: 'Oktoberfest in Munich has 14 main tents. That's why we have 14 tent modes in the game. And so that sort of dictated that the art on the lower part of the playfield was to capture like you're at Oktoberfest.'
- **[design_philosophy]** American Pinball intentionally balancing tournament-competitive depth with casual-friendly accessibility via stein system and optional advanced mechanics (confidence: high) — Josh explains: 'There's a lot of extra strategy around accelerators and multipliers that enthusiasts don't necessarily have to worry about, and they're still going to really enjoy the game. So there's really that for both.'
- **[community_signal]** Partnership between enthusiast designer (Josh) and tournament player/coder (Joe Shover/Ferrix) bringing different perspectives to design decisions (confidence: high) — Josh details: 'Ferrix is a tournament player...I'm a little bit more in the enthusiast bucket...one of the things that came out of this partnership is that there's a lot of things that are like the enthusiasts are going to love this and maybe the tournament guys aren't.'
- **[community_signal]** Joe Shover (Ferrix), tournament-level competitive player, contributing to rules/code design at American Pinball after previous work at Heighway (confidence: high) — Josh discusses Ferrix's involvement: 'Joe Shover, who also worked on the code and the programming...He had worked on Alien at Heighway...he really enjoyed in this case getting to be involved in what we were doing with the inserts and where we were placing them.'
- **[announcement]** Oktoberfest Pinball officially revealed at Chicago Pinball Expo after long leak period (confidence: high) — Josh states: 'It leaked a long time ago. We sort of denied that for a long time. And then Vancouver Joe decided, you know, a month or so away to make it official.'
- **[product_strategy]** Player-controlled magnet button added mid-design after concerns about ball routing to upper right flipper; magnet helps skilled players but auto-magnet assists casual players (confidence: high) — Josh explains: 'Originally, that wasn't in the design...we were a little concerned about getting the ball to the upper right flipper...we convinced Joe to give us the extra flipper button so we can make that player-controlled.'
- **[product_concern]** Left ramp prototype was initially too thin and difficult to hit reliably; newer ramp protectors (longer batch) implemented to prevent over-shooting at high flipper strength (confidence: medium) — Josh notes: 'When we first put the ramp in, we weren't hitting it all the time because we didn't have the ramp protectors in...I just put in some new ramp protectors a few days ago. We got a new batch that are a little bit longer.'
- **[technology_signal]** P-ROC platform enabling reliable player-controlled magnet mechanics with spinner-triggered timing, previously difficult or impossible (confidence: high) — Josh explains magnet timing: 'It's surprisingly consistent on the auto. There's actually a spinner in front, and it's actually the spinner that helps trigger the timing on that, and it's sort of a nice aspect of the with the P-ROC.'

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## Transcript

 Welcome to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is Episode 65 and my name's Martin and with me... It's Ryan C. And Chicago Pinball Expo is going on right now, Marty. I'm not there. You're not there. No. But our next guest is there, and he's just unveiled his new pinball machine. Who have we got? Who's that? And what's this new pinball machine you speak of? So American Pinball's Oktoberfest, Pinball on Tap. On the line we have Josh Kugler. How are you going, Josh? Josh, welcome back. Great. Thanks to be back on the show. I'm a little crazy here right now, as you can imagine. So not a lot of sleep the last 10, 12, 15 days. So I'm a little punchy. I bet you're happy. You know, you've been sitting on Oktoberfest for a while. I guess you'd be, you know, happy that you can actually get it out there and people can talk about it. Absolutely. Obviously, it leaked a long time ago. We sort of denied that for a long time. And then Vancouver Joe decided, you know, a month or so away to make it official. It's what we were doing. And most people expected it to be. But it's nice to get it out there. And it's nice for people to get to see that it's not just about beer and babes and not that there's anything wrong with that. But I think people are pretty surprised by the look of the game and what they're seeing with the game and what it's all about. So I think it's fun to finally get that out there. And now it will be a whole new discussion of love and hate regarding They're great that there isn't so much beer and babes and people complaining there's not enough beer and babes. But, you know, I think people are going to like it. Well, so then talk about just when people walk up to it and they see, like, we've obviously seen it's very colorful and it's very detailed. But how would you describe the overall look of the machine to people? Yeah, I think it's very, very different than Houdini. That's for sure. the art package, even though it's the same artist it's a completely different thing, it's incredibly bright, there's a lot going on with it, so it really is a different feel and it's kind of funny when I have both of the machines sitting here in my office, the contrast is so huge so I'll be curious to see everybody's overall reaction to that because it is so different, very bright, very colorful Jeff Busch the artist put so much onto the play field it's a real mix of things people are going to be spending a lot of time looking for things and spotting things he certainly got crazy with getting as much in there as he could but I like the fact that it's very different the last thing we wanted was a cookie cutter of Houdini for sure and well let's just talk about the extent on the looks the cabinet is kind of the same as Houdini, but the backbox is slightly different. Right. Joe wanted to try and do like a different backbox on each game. We went through a variety of concepts. There's actually one at one point that I really liked that was sort of like a keg shaped. For a lot of reasons, we kind of went around on that one and just sort of settled on this. So it's just a little bit different than the other. The speakers are the same. The monitor placement is slightly different. It's just a little bit lower. And that was driven by the back glass design on Houdini. We had actually raised it up from its original spot because we put the audience sort of down in front. So the monitor is slightly lower on this. The other difference with the cabinet is this game does have a subwoofer in it. Okay. Okay. For those fat German beats? Exactly. You know, it was funny because when we did Houdini, the idea was this, you know, crossover between Houdini and steampunk kind of a thing. And on this one, Joe's thinking, let's do this with kind of a heartbeat rock and roll. But as you hear in the music, it's a real mix of some of that and a little bit more of the polka feel. And there's quite a mix of music. And that current, I think, really had a lot of fun on this one getting to do that. it. One of the main tracks at one point was really heavy rock, and then one day I come in, need an update, and all of a sudden there was this accordion in it, and it kind of really changed the feel of it. But we only have, I think, one of the main tracks in. Eventually there'll be four, but I really like it. It's on constantly in the office, and so far I haven't grown to hate it, so that's a positive at this point that I still like listening to it. And usually, at least late at night, I can finally get it out of my head. Well, certainly by looking at it, you can actually tell, and it comes back to what you're saying about, you know, booze and babes. It really is trying to put you actually in the festival. So, you know, that's why you're saying it's like a world under glass. I would I personally would never say that. Some people may say it's a world under glass, but really what it is and the way it's also presented with the animations. it's though you are at an outdoor festival that has the tents that you can go into to do the different activities. But you've got the stage where you're seeing a concert happening as well. So that's kind of certainly the bottom half of the play field is really representing that outdoor festival thing. And then sort of the top half really is looking at some of the activities that you would do. Exactly. And part of that is, you know, the evolution of things when we start working on the game, Joe's working on the play field and we know the theme. Jeff starts working on the cabinet and the back last. And then the play field comes last because we really want the rules to be reflected in the play field. and it was interesting about that was Joe Shover, who also worked on the code and the programming and did a huge percentage of the rule development in the game. He had worked on Alien at Highway. He commented that on that project, a lot of that stuff was done before he joined and he really enjoyed, in this case, getting to be involved in what we were doing with the inserts and where we were placing them and the artwork we were going to put on it because a lot of that does get driven by the rules. And when we first decided to do Oktoberfest, and this has sort of been a dream theme of Joe's for a long time, Balser, that is. And as I started to think about it and doing research, because my first reaction is, okay, Oktoberfest, it's beer and babes. And then I did my research and realized, okay, that's not what it is. It's a fall festival. It's a family festival. It's actually very similar to one that takes place on the town I live in. where there's a beer tent and there's a food tent and there's entertainment and there's rides and there's a midway. And so right away, the idea was, OK, we need to take people through that experience of Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest in Munich has 14 main tents. That's why we have 14 tent modes in the game. And so that sort of what dictated that art on the lower part of the play field was to capture like you're at Oktoberfest. and then we tried to do that with the display when you're out of mode you're sort of looking out at the buildings of Oktoberfest as things start to happen so a lot of that was driven by you know how we were going to best tie the theme into gameplay so let's let's um before we get into the the software because you're the the rules man um let's continue on a little bit with the layout so you've got i guess three ramps on the on the play field you've got the one all the way to the left, which is a lift ramp. So when the ramp is up, the ball is orbiting all the way around, and that will feed, I guess, either the right flipper or the top lanes. Is that right? You have an upper right flipper, so you have the lower right flipper, you have the upper right flipper, and you have the top lanes, and it's not going to go into those top lanes too much unless the magnet's activated that's up there. That's right, yeah. So we'll come back to this in a minute. Yeah. and then you've got the side ramp which you can only hit from that upper flipper and that'll send the ball around into the barrel and then you've got the what are you guys calling it? The 180 ramp where the ball comes straight back at you? Right now we call it the right ramp. I'm trying to remember if there's anything in the rules where we call it different. It's funny because around here everybody has a different name for it. Okay. And okay, so So you've got the pump bumpers there. Yep. All right. So I guess software because you're the software guy. I mean, that's where the game comes to life. Just a couple of things on the play field I want to touch on real quick. So the game has four magnets. On the lower right side, kind of lower down on the play field, are two banks of stand-up targets, October on one side and Fest on the other. And then there's a magnet around those to help get some action on those targets. Then there's also a magnet above the upper right flipper and one above the lanes. And those two magnets are player controlled. So there's an extra flipper button on the right side of the cabinet just below the regular flipper button that if you have earned what we call mag nabs, you're able to activate that to control, grab the ball above that flipper to release it to help you hit either the ramp shot or the bartender shot. and there's actually also a cap, a Newton ball next to that shot. We call it the high striker. It's a Newton ball with a captive ball behind it that when you hit it, it ricochets around, and the high striker is, you know, that thing at the midway to see how strong you are. So that's incorporated there as well. The other magnets above the lanes, because with the orbit activity, because the opening shot doesn't feed the lanes, that magnet is pretty critical if you want to feed the lanes at the top, which are called the tap lanes. You're trying to spell T-A-P, and that's your playfield multiplier. So for a skilled player who wants to work on their playfield multiplier, they're going to want to learn to use that extra flipper button to be able to grab the ball at the top, feed those lanes, and get the playfield multiplier up. Okay, so how long does the playfield multiplier stay active for? And I guess the bigger question is how do you earn yourself MAGNABS? so there's uh two two primary ways to earn magnabs one is the right ramp and the other is the newton ball so throughout gameplay it alternates between those uh that's where you can pick them up there's also something called an auto magna which is when uh the game will automatically grab the ball for you uh and these rules are subject to a little tweaking as as we review what happens here at expo and the gameplay uh so feeding through the inlanes will activate the appropriate magnet again to help you get into the tap lanes or to help you get to a cleaner shot off the right flipper because that's a tough shot for a lot of people so the auto sort of does that for you um in those cases that's kind of there to help so there's an interesting balance we tried to come up with where if you don't know how to use the button those magnets are still going to come into play and help you. But if you're a skilled player and really looking to maximize your scores, then you're going to want to learn how to use that button. So those magnets, like I would have to assume, are really strong because if you've picked your mag nab for the right flipper and you've hit it right there, like are there times when it's gone right through because it's so powerful or is it pretty consistent like grabbing that ball? It's surprisingly consistent on the auto. There's actually a spinner in front and it's actually the spinner that helps trigger the timing on that and it's sort of a nice aspect of the with the P-Rock we get the timing just right and a little bit of that was was luck that we have this this spacing just right for that when you using the button it a little has to do with your timing uh but yeah certainly a super hard shot could blow through but it worked surprisingly well And it was a lot of fun the first time we triggered it which we were kind of doing manually with a keyboard to test it out. And one person was flipping it. Somebody else was going to hit the keyboard to trigger that button because we didn't have a cabinet with the extra button in it. And the first time we attempted it, the shot got made, the magnet fired, and it was pretty like, this is going to work. And originally that wasn't in the design. And when Joe Schober and I, who I'm going to call Ferrix, because that's what he goes by on Pennside, when we were looking at the layout, we were a little concerned about getting the ball to the upper right flipper, just because of the way of the flow of the game. And it turns out that probably wasn't as big a deal as we thought. So we convinced Joe to give us the extra flipper button so we can make that player controlled. And I think it's just a nice add to the game, again, for the skilled player, with the novice, it's not going to take away from the game if they don't realize it's there and never figure out how to press it. So how long does the magnet last for? What's the interval do you have to be able to hit that? I'm assuming that it times out, right? Yeah, so it fires really just for a couple of seconds because at the same time, once it grabs it, you don't want it holding it for too long either. So it's a couple of seconds. So, yeah, you can hit it a little bit before you get there, but you're probably looking at a you know two to three second window and obviously if you hit it too soon then there's a greater likelihood it's not going to fully hold the ball it might slow it down but it works surprisingly well and the auto grabs rarely do I see it get you know fly through but what is funny sometimes whether it's you doing it or a game once in a while it'll do something unexpected with it like accelerate the ball so it's it's pretty the The first time that happened where it accelerated the ball at the flippers, it certainly caught the player by surprise. So is that side ramp then, you know, some side ramps on some games are harder, some are easier. Even without the magnet, how would you rate the difficulty level of being able to get that side ramp? I would say it falls sort of in that medium range. It's certainly easier in my mind than Star Trek Next Gen. probably easier than Simpsons because that's a tough one to see so in that regard so I'd say it's a little bit easier than Star Trek I'm trying to think of another example I've certainly hit it plenty at full speed coming around the orbit and it it'll fly up that ramp at that point and so it's certainly you can make it lots of ways and the magnet certainly helps you get a feel for it because that speed Not everybody can get that timing right when it's coming really fast around the orbit. Well, that's why I was asking because one of the most satisfying shots you can do in a game is when you do a left loop to a shot off the right flipper up a ramp. Games that do that, you feel really good when that happens. So I was trying to really ask whether that's going to happen a lot in people. Yeah, absolutely. If you have success doing that on other games, you'll have no problem doing on this game. It's a pretty big opening. It's a little low on the flipper, but it's a nice, easy shot to make. Yeah, I hit it all the time. Jim and Joe, when they play, they hit it all the time. When we first put the ramp in, we weren't hitting it all the time because we didn't have the ramp protectors in. And the first ramp we got in, the prototype was a little bit thin. So there was a couple of days of concern because we were having a hard time making the shot. And now we almost have a different concern where we have to make sure the flipper strength isn't too high because it'll fly through there. And actually, he just put in some new ramp protectors a few days ago. We got a new batch that are a little bit longer. So, again, it goes up there awfully fast. So it's definitely a makeable and easily timed if you have that skill. All right, so let's talk about, before we talk about modes, the multiballs. There's, I believe, two multiballs in the game at the moment. So there's two standalone multiballs, and then there's some multiballs tied into modes and wizard modes. But they're sort of the two that run in parallel with everything else. Yeah. So the first one, I guess, and the main one is the corkscrew multiball. Right. Yeah, so corkscrew multiball. One of the things that Joe wanted to do early on was he wanted to do some crazy stuff with wire forms on this game. That was his vision. It actually took him quite a while to kind of get what he wanted. So the corkscrew wire form, which has, it comes down and has a loop that goes under, then it has a zigzag with two or three or four back and forth, and then it goes into a second loop. is the primary, and it's fed from the left ramp. So when you light lock for that, the ramp flat drops, and you shoot it up, and it's a pretty steep shot, but very makeable. And then it stages up to three balls at the very, very back of the play field, pretty much at the top of the back panel. Okay. And also with that ramp as well, I think, and we'll probably talk about modes later, There is actually a mode as well, which is really looking at that ramp shot, which goes all the way from the left through to the loops and back again, right? Yeah. Yeah, so early on we decided we certainly need to have at least one mode, and we'll probably look at potentially some other ways over time to use it to make sure that ramp was getting played and that wire form, because it is pretty cool. So core screw multiball is relatively easy to wipe the locks, especially if you purchase the right stein or pick the right stein. And we'll come back to that. Talk about that, yeah. So we'll get back to that in a second. And so in most of the games that I've played, it's pretty – I'm typically going to get that multiball because of the way it sets up. And it's nice and easy to get the ball on your flipper and be able to make the shot up the ramp. And it's a pretty fun mode. The other multiball is beer barrel multiball. You light locks hitting what we call the prost targets, and prost is cheers, which is five stand-up targets almost straight in the middle of the play field that then light the upper ramp or the side ramp to lock. The ball kind of does a loop around, auto the bartender, and feeds into a beer barrel. And this is a case where you can steal locks. so if there's two balls in there you have lock lit, you shoot it in there whether it's your first, second or third doesn't matter, you're going to get the multiball and since you can't really see the balls that are in there, you sort of have to pay attention to gameplay to know if you're about to get the multiball or not so obviously you can plan your stacking appropriately and okay and for the OCD tournament players out there, is that an option in the menu or is that um is this a lock stealing game full stop uh it's a lock stealing game uh it was something i had wanted to do and when ferret came on board he was big on that he really wanted to do that and what's kind of interesting about october fest is ferret is a tournament player he's a competitive player he's a serious guy about his pinball and i'm a little bit more in the enthusiast bucket it uh you know i don't take it too seriously i'm not overly focused on every play field multiplier and accelerator and all of that um so but one of the things that came out of this partnership is that there's you know a lot of things that are like the enthusiasts are going to love this and maybe the tournament guys aren't and there's some things that the tournament guys are just going to absolutely love in this game there's a lot of extra a lot of strategy around accelerators and multipliers that enthusiasts don't necessarily have to worry about, and they're still going to really enjoy the game. So there's really that for both. But we thought lock stealing still worked in both cases. Okay, so then looking, I guess, overall, walking up to this rules-wise, the things that I sort of notice is there's a couple of main things to do, right? So you can obviously go for the multi-balls that Ryan and you were just talking about. You can go for modes via the tent. you can try and get some perks via the bartender. What other major things are you trying to do? And also with those things, so like the tent, for example, how do you light tent modes and how do you light your bartender to get your stein? Okay, so the bartender is a bash toy. You bash the front of it and then the bar door below him opens, which feeds into a subway. And when you enter the bartender, you get offered a bunch of steins to choose from, and each stein gives you two things. It gives you some advantage in the game, and each stein is also associated with one of the tents where it will boost that tent in some way to help you. so for example one of the steins makes it easier to spell octoberfest letters and then in looper it increases the time you get and some of the bonus time you get when you make the shots so there's 14 steins so one map to each tent and each with different capabilities and again from a strategy standpoint you know players will kind of decide which they want one of them gives you extra tilt warnings something i wouldn't typically go after because i don't find i tilt that much but for somebody who's super active that might be the stein ryan teeth all the time you can and you can purchase or acquire the same stein more than once and typically it'll provide added benefit two or three times one of the steins extends the playfield multiplier time So again if you're a tournament player That's probably a Stein early on You're going to want to grab Because you're going to be focused on Wanting to extend that playfield multiplier time As long as you can If you're more of an enthusiast You might go for the one that makes it easier to spell corkscrew So that was one of the Really early concepts I had For the game was this idea that You would acquire beers Which we then turned into Steins And then Fer did a really nice job about kind of refining that and expanding that with this sort of a dual use. And he and I have had quite a few debates on what Stein should do. And, again, that's a classic case of where him looking at it from a tournament perspective, me looking at it as an enthusiast. I mean, you know, the Stein is the beer and the beer is – is that what you're referring to as accelerators? They're making you accelerate through the game? Yes. Yes. Okay. So beer is good in this case. It's not going to make you drunk and play worse. It's going to make you play better. Right. Right. But who's to say that drinking doesn't make you better at something? That's right. So tell me, what is Sloshed Roche Lager? So we wanted to have a little fun, so we got various members of the design team, and we named beers after them. But what's funny in the game is Otto pronounced it as Sloshed Roche Lager. Fair enough. But actually, it turned out through sheer luck that I actually think that's a pretty valuable sign because it does help you with the Oktoberfest letters. But there's Frosty Ferret and there's Wreck Lab Red Rum. Yes, is that what it is? Which is Wreck Lab is, you'll find that in most of Joe Balcer's games, it's Balser backwards. Yes, exactly. So a little bit of a shining reference there. So we had a little fun coming up with those names and then coming up with the logos. As you guys know, I'm a tequila drinker. So when Jeff did the first logo for my Stein, I said, no, Jeff, I said, you got to get a tequila shot in there as well. So the revived version was sort of you can see me holding the big beer in one hand and the tequila shot in the other And we have some voice calls in there that have a little fun with who the Stein is or what it about And there a Stein in there that is the castrated monkey Bring that back. Carry over from Houdini. Ferret really didn't like that one, and I sort of insisted no, we're putting that in there. So what I noticed, I think, is that when you're then choosing a tent mode, if you've got a stein activated is that right will you see that that particular mode has got a stein activated with it yes so when you when you when you go to pick a tent you use the flippers and you basically see the front of each tent uh the idea was that you're sort of standing in the fairgrounds and looking around you to figure out which tent you want to go into uh and the front door has two crests one is uh what the tent activity is uh whether it's a midway game or a drinking game. And then on the other door, it'll show the coat of arms of the stein if you have collected it. If not, you just sort of see a blank coat so you know you don't have it. The game will, when you go in for stein collection, if you don't know what to do, it'll give you some steins based on which we think might be good for you or which tents you haven't visited yet. now when you do do a tent activity if you do not complete it you're able to revisit that tent again but if you successfully complete the the activity or the mode then you're not able to go back to it again and the coloring of the tents on the play field kind of let you know that uh i think it's a whitish color so well this is subject to change uh but it's a whitish color a yellowish color if you visited there and it's green if you successfully have beaten it okay so what i mean maybe we should have started with this but what is the general goal of october fest are you trying to complete all modes to get into the wizard modes or yeah i would say the primary objective is to work your way through the 14 tenths now you don't have to complete them all uh to get to the flipper meister mode, which is the 14th 10th, but obviously there is value in completing the different activities. Also, it's a little different on this than Houdini. On Houdini, once you beat the mode, the mode ends. In this case, the mode continues until you run out of time, and if you've completed the necessary shots, you're then sort of in victory laps. You're able to continue to play that mode for bonus points. So it's not quite like it is in Simpsons, but it's similar in that you can continue to collect points and leverage what you're doing. And does every mode have a similar time given by you guys to finish it, or do different modes, because of the requirements in the modes, have different time allocations? Most of the variations tie to whether or not you have the appropriate Stein or not is one factor. But then within modes, there are things that can increase time. And the tent lanes, which are the lanes at the bottom, also have the ability to add time to modes. There are a couple of different ways when you're in a mode to increase the time. But not all modes start with the exact same amount of time. And certainly some are harder than others. There's a particular mode called Juggler, which is an addable mode. So you have two balls to start and then you can add a third and a fourth. And the first few times I played it and this was a mode that Ferret coded, I'm like, this is a tough mode. And I said, you need to put a much longer ball save on this thing because, you know, it's a three or four shot shots to get to that add a ball. And it's it's tough. It's a fast playing game. Yeah, it's surprising when you kind of look at the land, you think it might not be. But because of that lift ramp, I mean, it's typical kind of Joe Bosa style where you've got a good combination of flow, but also the stop and start of, you know, balls kind of getting staged and popping on the wire form. Yeah. So there's some of the it's certainly a mix. It plays very fast. It's probably it's certainly less stop and go than Houdini. And we've tried to, you know, kind of stay with that. so there isn't quite as much when you're picking steins and you're picking modes but we've tried to keep that quick there is a mystery award which is also at the scoop you pick a lucky duck so you'll notice there's ducks on the play field, there's ducks in the modes earlier we were just talking through stuff and we said for the mystery award it should be, when you go to the carnivals They always have like the floating ducks and you pick it up and underneath it tells you if you're a winner. It would be a natural. And what we didn't actually know at the time, and I think Ferry Googled this while we were talking about it, but it turns out there's this thing called Oktoberfest ducks. It's like a thing. There are all these little ducks. They're decorated Oktoberfest and people collect them and stuff. So, you know, it was like, cool, we're going to have a lot of fun with ducks in the game. So just quickly, what's the maximum number of balls in any sort of multi-baller mode? Is it four, five, or six, or 20? Other than the wizard or mini-wizard modes, I think it is four right now. Right now you cannot stack multi-balls together. It's something that Ferid and I have been debating, and we haven't come to a final conclusion on that. if there's any set we would allow to be stacked. So we have to take a closer look to see if there's a good fit. But other than the multiball tent modes, any tent mode, you can then start a multiball on top of it. And can you continue to play through modes while you're in multiball, or is it just kind of like one mode per multiball, and then you have to get out to get back in? I'm not sure I followed the question. Repeat that. So, okay, can you start a mode during multiball? no once you can't you have to start the modes before oh okay so if a mode ends during multiball then you have to then finish multiball to get back into a mode correct okay um but typically with the various ways that can extend the clock if you're in a multiball probably a good chance that timer is going to get extended a little bit through the tent lanes and uh so um yeah but yeah you can't start another one you have to then finish up for sure um i mean that 10th shot to start a mode is right there. I'm guessing it's pretty easy to hit on both flippers with a backhand and a forehand shot. Not sure I would say easy because the flippers are pretty strong on the game because of the long shots and that scoops a little close, but it's certainly makeable from both. I prefer the backhand off the left. You have to hit it right. If you hit it square on, it'll go down. And this is not like Roadshow where you're locked into choosing ladders of modes. You can choose your modes in any order. Is that right? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. You know, the Roadshow thing makes sense from an operator standpoint in that, you know, you keep putting your money in. Or remember, that's when you had that you could extend your game because you wanted to get to that next city. but you know other than for an operator making money nobody really that's the the single biggest drawback to roadshow and then i had one that i would deliberately miss the skill shot on the first ball in hopes of not doing new york which is such a terrible mode because your shot is basically the you know the kill shot up the middle that's going to send it straight down where Miami is a much better mode. So invariably it's miss the skill shot, try and get Miami instead. And so, no, you can choose the modes in any order you want. And that's obviously critical when figuring out the right strategy, you want to go with multi-balls or other things that you might have going on in gameplay having to do with the food tent and some other features that are out there. Right now at Expo, you don't have all, I mean, there's a lot of modes there, Sorry, 14. I got there. How many of them are programmed in? I think we enabled only five or six for Expo, partially sort of a combination of ones that we thought people would enjoy most and we wanted to show off. So we made sure that Looper is a mode that uses the roller coaster was in there, Juggler, which is a multiball. So we wanted to ensure that, you know, that somebody got to two or three modes that almost guaranteed they would get to what I call one of the more interesting ones. You know, we all know some modes are more interesting than others. What Ferret tried to do is he was laying out a lot of the rules. He laid out the rules on the majority of the modes. I think I did most of the beer modes. He did a lot of the others and we fought over a few. And depending on who was coding it, the rules would change and we'd argue about it or not. So, God, I lost my train of thought. I hate when that happens. Too much beer, too much Stein. Exactly. Like I said, not enough sleep. I would have thought on this one we would be getting more sleep leading up to the show, but that was ridiculously silly. So we sort of picked up the modes a little bit that way for the show. So there are a few others that we have done. There are a lot that are coded. The animations, even on the game at Expo, are not where we want them to be or need to be. We're kind of behind on that. So we actually have a second animator on board doing some work now so we can try and catch up and get more of that done. So, like I said, I think there's five or six that are enabled for Expo as well as both multiballs and quite a few of the other features are all enabled. So then what is the final big wizard mode, and what are all the objectives that you need to complete to get that? You know, I wish I could answer that question. It's a mystery. It's a mystery. There's a part of it. One of the objectives is collecting ducks. You talked about that. So there are four duck targets on the game. When you get all four, that's what lights the mystery award. but in general collecting ducks acts as a multiplier on your scores uh so it's good to collect the ducks and then there's something called the duck derby uh actually hasn't been coded yet i don't think um i know ferret just uh i guess a couple weeks ago he finally had the brainstorm of how he want what he wants to do with that mode actually came up with some pretty good ideas so that's one of the mini wizard modes there the um there's a mini wizard mode where You've completed all the tents. There's another one tied to the food stand. Food's a really important part of Oktoberfest. So you're able to open the food stand, and it sort of does some uber scoring on various game components. But you're consuming food. Is that food frenzy? No, food frenzy is different. That's a game mode, a tent mode, rather. So that's a little different than the food stand. but with the food stand you accumulate points in a variety of places different foods are assigned to different parts of the play field and as you're consuming food you're consuming calories and calories also act as an accelerator on your scoring but if you consume too many calories you go into a calorie coma and that's a mode that kicks in that pauses everything else that's happening in the game until you work off some of those calories actually the flippers actually get a little bit weaker at first because you know you're weaker so you kind of have to really focus on hitting that spinner uh to work off some of the calories and they get a little stronger once you've worked off enough calories uh then the game resumes where you left off oh my gosh so that's sort of like a mini wizard mode on that that's what he did not like this idea very much and i like no i really like this idea uh first his concern was because calories were part of the food or the points accelerator he goes you can take the calories away that a point accelerator like it fine they can they have the calories you know we won take that away from an accelerator standpoint to be calories consumed and calories burned off okay don't worry about it we won't take points away but uh there was i think it was our animator uh ish ranicis who first suggested, you know, we should do something with a food coma. And I said, yeah, that's a great idea. We kind of ran with it from there. I think that's a great example of, you know, enthusiasts will love that. They'll think that's really fun and cool. And some of the tournament guys will be like, don't mess with the flippers. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So let's, I guess, let's talk about the extras and the options. So I can see the side art that you guys revealed. So can you talk to us a bit about the extras and the options on these models? I'm not sure if it's 100% finalized, but it'll be basically like Houdini. It's one model, like Houdini. There's nothing different in gameplay. And then the add-ons, I believe at this point, are the shaker, the knocker, the side art, magic glass. I know there's some work on a topper, so I'm not sure of the scoop on that yet. so we're trying to keep it very much in line with what we did on Houdini people certainly love the one price model with the one model and not having to decide to have one in LE or a pro and and from a software standpoint as we talked about the last time it was on the show I would never really want to have to do you know code that forks based on what features are on the game and the toys that are on the game um x well they're subject to change from just a exactly what they look like so the the little bumper cars that are on top of the pop bumpers and out of the bartender and the beer barrel all of that stuff is is standard on all the models uh we did not do flipper toppers on this game we went with decals uh and it looked really good and kind of gets the job done without being fragile, which is always an issue with the flipper toppers. Yeah. And I noticed that you've got kind of two posts next to the in-lane, so this game is kind of very adjustable in terms of how easy or hard you want to make it for the player. Yeah, you can adjust the out-lanes. There's also a center post between the flippers, something Joe likes to do, And I'm actually really good at using that now between Houdini and now Oktoberfest. One of the things that we have in the game is there are stand-up targets by the outlanes. You can see them sort of opposite, sort of off to the side of the center post between the lanes. And those actually can light ball save on the outlanes. so the first time through it takes just one hit off that target to give you an outlaying save on that side and then it requires three and then five and there is a Stein that makes it easier to acquire those. Then after you've gotten three, at least that's the current setting, the fourth time you light it, you don't get the ball save, you'll actually get a mode similar to what we did in Houdini where you're going to have to earn your way back to be able to continue. So no more ball saves for you. So you can't hit those shots off the flipper. That's like a nudge shot, basically, with the balls about to drain. It's a nudge shot or one that just through activity of the game, right, you're going to get. So we're still tweaking the color coding. I think the way we have it now is the target's red if the ball save is not available. It's yellow if you're one hit away So at least give it a really good shot Because you might get that last hit Right before it drains And if it's green it's currently available The stein makes it easier to get And I think Because we're always tweaking these things I think the stein will also Let you stack those So early in the game If you hit it a bunch of times You can acquire a few But again the first three gives you the save the fourth time, you have to earn it, and then that's all you get. And again, everything is always subject to change once we get to review the play at Expo and see. Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is an interview straight off the bat, so you guys are still kind of working through it. And do we have an idea about what stage the pinball machine is at in terms of full release and code structure? I would put the code right now, as far as if you include everything, the aspect of the code, the lights, the sound, the music, we're probably only at 30%. The game logic is much further along than that. So it's really the assets we're waiting on. We have at least another round of voice calls still to do. My hope is that over the next six weeks, we'll get it to a point where we think it's releasable, that the bulk of the content is in there. So that's sort of the goal we're looking at that we're cranking through. So hopefully in December, if production has things set up, we'll be able to start shipping games. At this point, the progress is going faster and faster every day. I was still doing some Houdini stuff until a couple of months ago, but between Farad and I, we're cranking through the code. So we brought on a second animator to help move things along. Our sound guy has been cranking, so I'm not too concerned about him. And then probably the phase after that is to get some more adult content into the game. Okay, so can you expand on that? Well, I just want to get some more adult humor into the game. We've tried to keep it family friendly. the plan has always been to be able to have a little bit more in there for adults if you don't have kids around and you want a little more sexual innuendo or a little more whatever it might be so it'll be mostly my guess is more in voice calls than otherwise so there's some voice calls now on the list it's like yeah we can't use that one yet so that's the goal and hopefully we'll get there Hopefully we'll come up with enough funny and good content to justify it and have it be worthwhile. Because I think I commented to you guys before, I'm the funniest guy here, and I'm not that funny. So that's something we have to look at and see if we can get the right talent in here to help get the humor up. And, yeah, everybody else is so serious for pinball people. It's kind of scary. So, Ryan, can you just say something for me? Say, hey, mate, give us a beer. Hey, mate, give us a beer. Now do it in like a German accent. Hi, Mike. Give us a – I can't do it in German. There you go. There's your audition, right? Right. I was in Houdini. Give him in Oktoberfest. No, I don't. Before your listeners know that both of you guys did recordings for us to get into Houdini, and we picked Martin's boy who's over Ryan's. And primarily because Ryan said he had been traveling a lot. He wasn't there. So we'll see if we can give it another shot because, you know, not every party at Cobra Fest is German. You know, it attracts people from all over the world. And it's been a lot of fun. I'm not sure if you've noticed in the credits on Houdini, we've got Martin's name there. Then we have Ryan C. with a line crossed. We saw that. I can be the Aussie backpacker trying to be one of the adult modes trying to bang German. No, no. And, you know, you have to have, we need to get more voices in our audience, voice calls. You know, we have these ducks. You know, maybe there's a duck voice. Oh, Ryan, you can do a duck. An Australian duck. That would be pretty cool. Well, you know, after things settle down, we'll come up with some lines and see if you guys can do it. And I'm sure Matt would be happy to work with you guys again on that. I think it's really good to work with. All right. Yeah, I did some voice stuff on Houdini. and we were in this studio and it's kind of interesting because you give the line and he started talking and he says, well, now say it this way. Now say it this way. Now say it this way. It was a good experience and at least I appreciate more what the poor voice talent goes through in trying to create the voice calls for the game. And we did the first set of those and, of course, immediately you realize, you know, all the things you forgot to record. As you start coding up the modes, you're like, oh, we didn't get that voice call? Damn. So we'll be doing the next round pretty soon. And then I think we did three rounds of voice calls to get those last pickups and things we added and things that just weren't happy with. So it must be an absolute reveal to kind of be a relief, sorry, to be working on this for so long. And now it's finally revealed. But I guess this is where, you know, the real fun starts where you've got, you know, you're going to get all the feedback this weekend from Expo and, you know, hardware-wise, you know, little tweaks here and there to make everything more reliable and smooth and the shots flow perfectly. So you've got a lot of work ahead of you, don't you, Rush? We do. The last few weeks have been pretty crazy as we've been cramming big time. Again, it's been 12, 14-hour days, seven days a week. what works well with ferret and i is he actually likes to work in the middle of the night um so it will overlap a little bit he'll pop online part of the day for us to chat back and forth on slack things we're working on um so the other day i'll check in code and then he'll be working later at night so then he'll work on stuff and in the morning i can come in and see what did he work on last night and um so in a sense it's almost like we're working on it 24 hours a day between us. He's based on the east coast of the US. We've had him in a few times to work on it, but that's helped us move things along. There's a lot of work over the next six weeks, but we're actually in a really good rhythm right now. We've really been cranking. It's kind of nice when you're starting to put the polish on things and add the little things. It's kind of nice because the game starts to really come to life. Is there anything that you would like to tell us about the machine that we haven't already let me think we talked about the magnabs which i just thought was uh one of the things that we really uh we really liked and that we were able to convince joe to give us the extra flipper button and it didn't take too much i think uh you know jim said well you know he did that on another game at one time so it's like okay which game was i'm trying to remember think joe you did this before you can do this again um because i think that that's a fun thing um like i said i think there's a lot of depth to this game or strategy for the more advanced player but i don't know if it's quite as as wide and deep as houdini uh which might be was a little too deep uh there's more than enough to keep people challenged and if it's in your home you're gonna it's gonna keep you busy and challenged for a long time but it's not quite overwhelming but there is that a lot of extra strategy there for the people who really um enjoy that and really like to think about that uh we've tried to be really careful about not having anything that could be exploited we're still tweaking scoring um getting scoring balance right and depending on if i wrote the mode then sometimes the scoring would be way too high and because i told joe early on or i'm sorry fair early on let's keep the scoring low like we did on houdini then i won't put him like no not that low he'd go through the math he goes well but if you have 10 ducks you have the multiplier you have this then the number's there i'm like okay let's assume that most people don't have the multiplier and only had this many ducks and this so we could get the right scoring. And I was really happy with how the scoring worked out on Houdini, that if you break a million on Houdini, you really feel like you've reached a certain point in the game and a certain skill level and it feels really good. And if you get two or five million, then you know you really cranked it. And recently I've seen a few scores up in the A&M.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f65d1b9c-93ea-4b92-819f-562e1b1a3e6a*