# Ep 35: DeMullet **Source:** Final Round Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2021-06-04 **Duration:** 99m 58s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.finalroundpinball.com/final-round-pinball-podcast-ep-35-demullet/ --- ## Analysis Carl D'Angelo joins Final Round Pinball Podcast to discuss his tournament operations, streaming work, and community contributions. The conversation covers InDisc's relocation to Palm Springs, Pin Clash 2 preparation, wizard mode preferences, and Carl's work creating tutorial videos for Stern. Carl reflects on the growth of pinball streaming during the pandemic and his efforts to make tournaments and content accessible to new players. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] InDisc was cancelled in 2021 due to pandemic conditions, not laziness — _Carl D'Angelo confirms the pandemic as the reason InDisc didn't happen in 2021, with Jeff and Marty joking about laziness_ - [HIGH] Pin Clash requires significant personal financial investment from Carl despite entry fees — _Carl states: 'This time, there is an entry fee that everyone's paying. But it cost me so much of my time. I'm sure I'll have some gift for all the staff members, too. So that comes out of my pocket.'_ - [HIGH] Museum of Pinball is relocating from Banning to Palm Springs — _Carl confirms: 'Now you're going to be moving to a new location as the Museum of Pinball in Banning is no more. They're off to Palm Springs'_ - [HIGH] InDisc moving to Palm Springs will allow more regular museum operations — _Carl notes the original location was only allowed to open 'twice or three times a year' and the Palm Springs location will enable regular openings_ - [HIGH] Carl casually reached the wizard mode on Led Zeppelin while practicing — _Carl admits: 'I just want to call that out. I was just, you know, I was just flipping about, getting a feel for the tilt and the flipping, and I got to the Wizard Mode.'_ - [HIGH] Carl builds tutorial videos for Stern games in After Effects — _Carl explains: 'I build those for Stern... I build those all in After Effects and then send them off to Stern'_ - [HIGH] Pin Clash 2 features 24 competitors in a heads-up challenge format with Avengers Infinity Quest — _Jeff describes Pin Clash: 'There are 24 competitors that were playing Avengers Infinity Quest, and they were doing the Battle Royale'_ - [HIGH] InDisc now functions as the IFPA Open at InDisc with increasing attendance numbers — _Carl confirms the format shift and notes: 'The open at Indisc... now it's a lot more than that' regarding attendance growth from 200-300 people_ ### Notable Quotes > "You have done so much for this community. And I have to make shit up to insult you because there isn't." > — **Jeff Teolis**, ~7:20 > _Jeff's sincere acknowledgment of Carl's community contributions despite the joking tone of the interview_ > "I'm always thinking of that, but it's a matter of, I mean, a lot of the games I've played with the wizard modes are modern sterns and they can be used regardless." > — **Carl D'Angelo**, ~38:00 > _Carl discussing how his streaming wizard mode challenges inform potential tournament selections_ > "I just want to call that out. I was just, you know, I was just flipping about, getting a feel for the tilt and the flipping, and I got to the Wizard Mode." > — **Carl D'Angelo**, ~43:30 > _Carl's humorous admission of accidentally hitting a wizard mode on Led Zeppelin while casually practicing_ > "The format, I think, was pretty close. The only thing I'm going to do differently this time is, or more different, I should say, is to highlight the streamers more." > — **Carl D'Angelo**, ~72:00 > _Carl's plan to improve Pin Clash 2 by better promoting individual streamers_ > "It's called the Carl Standard. Yeah, it really is. Notice that I don't participate in it." > — **Marty Robbins**, ~68:30 > _Marty's humorous recognition of Carl's high skill expectations for tournament challenges_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Carl D'Angelo | person | Tournament organizer, streamer, and community organizer; host of IE Pinball; organizer of InDisc and Pin Clash tournaments | | Jeff Teolis | person | Co-host of Final Round Pinball Podcast | | Marty Robbins | person | Co-host of Final Round Pinball Podcast; tournament organizer for Melbourne Silverwall event | | Jim | person | Co-organizer of InDisc tournament, known for selecting and modifying games for tournament play | | Bob | person | Co-organizer of InDisc tournament; top-tier competitive player | | John Weeks | person | Museum of Pinball founder; moving operation from Banning to Palm Springs | | Ron Hallett | person | Discussed in podcast as having noted players staying in tournament area and missing museum experience | | Mark Schultz | person | Modified Stern 24 machine for Carl's use, adding exit from pop bumpers for tournament play | | Zach Sharpe | person | Stern contact who requested Carl create tutorial videos for games | | IE Pinball | organization | Streaming platform and content creation channel operated by Carl D'Angelo | | InDisc | event | Major pinball tournament held annually at Museum of Pinball in Banning, moving to Palm Springs; now functions as IFPA Open at InDisc | | Pin Clash | event | Online heads-up pinball tournament created by Carl D'Angelo featuring 24 competitors in bracket-style competition with themed challenges | | Pin Clash 2 | event | Upcoming Pin Clash tournament using Avengers Infinity Quest with Battle Royale wizard mode challenges; scheduled for June 12 on Twitch | | Museum of Pinball | organization | Pinball museum currently in Banning, California, relocating to Palm Springs to enable more regular operations | | Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer for which Carl creates tutorial videos for games; contracted work for game tutorials | | IFPA | organization | International Federation of Pinball Associations; endorsed tournament body; InDisc now operates as IFPA Open | | Pinberg | event | Major pinball tournament at ReplayFX that is no longer running; noted as largest tournament scale previously available | | Jurassic Park | game | Stern game used for previous Pin Clash tournament; Carl cites its wizard mode 'Escape Nublar' as favorite | | Led Zeppelin | game | Stern game with wizard mode Carl enjoyed; planning to stream wizard mode challenge; Carl reached it accidentally while practicing | | Avengers Infinity Quest | game | Game used for Pin Clash 2 tournament with Battle Royale wizard mode challenge for qualifying players | | Mandalorian | game | Stern game for which Carl is creating tutorial video content | | Teed Off | game | Game modified by Jim for InDisc tournament (bent habit trails to increase difficulty) | | RoboWar | game | Game used in InDisc with gate removed by Jim for tournament control | | Rescue 911 | game | Game used in InDisc noted as playing very long, skewing tournament scoring | ### Topics - **Primary:** InDisc tournament relocation and future, Pin Clash 2 tournament format and preparation, Carl D'Angelo's community contributions and streaming work - **Secondary:** Tournament machine selection and modification, Wizard mode design and execution across Stern games, Growth of pinball streaming during pandemic, Stern tutorial video creation for competitive context - **Mentioned:** Player experience design in tournament operations ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — The conversation is predominantly positive and celebratory of Carl's work. Hosts engage in good-natured teasing but quickly pivot to genuine praise. Carl's achievements in streaming and tournament organization are framed as significant community contributions. No critical tone or controversy present. ### Signals - **[event_signal]** Museum of Pinball relocating from Banning to Palm Springs, enabling regular operations vs. 2-3 times yearly (confidence: high) — Carl confirms relocation; notes original location restricted operations; Palm Springs location will enable more frequent opening - **[event_signal]** InDisc (now IFPA Open at InDisc) showing increasing attendance numbers; potential for significant growth (confidence: high) — Carl notes attendance grew from ~200-300 people to 'a lot more than that' and feels it could reach Pinberg scale - **[content_signal]** Significant growth in pinball streaming community during pandemic; multiple streamers adopting Carl's mobile setup (confidence: high) — Jeff notes: 'I cannot believe how many people are streaming pinball, and I think it's awesome' and references 'the Carl kit' being adopted widely - **[design_innovation]** Stern integrating Carl's tutorial videos directly into game attract mode and code (confidence: high) — Carl discovered tutorial on Iron Maiden screen at arcade; confirms Stern now requests these videos for multiple titles - **[gameplay_signal]** Modern Stern games showing improved wizard mode depth and accessibility; Carl highlights Jurassic Park and Led Zeppelin as exemplars (confidence: medium) — Carl praises depth of Escape Nublar and Led Zeppelin wizard modes; notes Stern challenge modes increasing wizard mode attention - **[tournament_format]** Pin Clash 2 using unified scoring system across tiers with difficulty calibration based on execution time (confidence: high) — Carl explains tier challenges designed for 30-second (Tier 1), 1-minute (Tier 2), escalating time windows - **[community_signal]** Strong emphasis on player experience and accessibility in tournament design; seen as Carl's core design philosophy (confidence: high) — Multiple references to InDisc accessibility (easy registration, social environment); Carl's streaming tutorials designed for new player understanding - **[venue_signal]** Loss of Pinberg and uncertainty about major tournament venues; InDisc positioned as primary overseas destination (confidence: high) — Jeff and Carl discuss Pinberg closure; Carl notes international players relied on Pinberg or Papa; InDisc now fills that role - **[manufacturing_signal]** Carl working directly with Stern on game content; contracted to create tutorial videos for multiple title releases (confidence: high) — Carl confirms ongoing work on Mandalorian tutorials; Stern providing game selection and content requests - **[market_signal]** International players consolidating tournament attendance at fewer major events due to venue closures (confidence: medium) — Discussion of how European/Australian players previously split attendance between Pinberg and Papa; now likely focusing on InDisc - **[business_signal]** Pin Clash operating at financial loss for organizer despite entry fees; sustainability dependent on Carl's personal investment (confidence: high) — Carl states entry fees don't cover costs; personal gifts for staff come from his pocket; previous Pin Clash lost $1000 - **[operational_signal]** Tournament machine selection requires significant modification work (lane bends, gate removal, feed changes) for competitive balance (confidence: high) — Jim's extensive modifications discussed (Teed Off habit trails, RoboWar gate removal); challenges in controlling game time and scoring equity --- ## Transcript The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round Hello once again, my name is Jeff Teolas My name is Martin Robbins Welcome everybody to the final round Pinball Podcast What episode are we on? I think 35 maybe 35, oh it'll be 35 again Wow We'll be speaking to somebody later who's 35 We will? Yeah. Is he 35? You already figured that out? No, he said 35 when we spoke to him, but it was also on his IFPA profile. Okay. Way to creep out our guests and check out their... What else do you know about our next guest? I know plenty of things about many people. None of it interesting. We do know this person. He's been on the program before. He has indeed. And he is world famous when it comes to streaming and other things. maybe putting on one of my favorite, actually my favorite tournament I've ever been to. Sure. Critical hit? In disc. In disc still for me is my favorite tournament I've ever been to. Well, there's a rumor that he himself decided not to hold it in 2021. Too lazy. And he used the pandemic as an excuse. Let's find out. Carl D'Python Anghelo joins us right now. Carl, is that true? You nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. Yep. Yep. Everything was fine in California. There was no pandemic. I've been reading a lot of the Fox News and things saying that there was no pandemic. So why didn't Indisc happen, Carl? I wanted to piss off everyone that watches Fox News. We all know why it didn't happen. Why do I need to say that? You know, we were all, we didn't want to get sick. No one wanted to contract anything. What other reason was there? It was basically an extension of 2020, right? January 2021. Might as well have been 2020. You could have flipped the calendar. or you could have changed things. The IFPA still doesn't happen right now, but if somehow, someway you said, you, Bob and Jim got together and said, we're going to make Indisc happen, they would have went, you know what? People are getting their vaccines. Things are getting a little better. Let's just do it. If Indisc can do it, so can we. So some might say that, you know, maybe it was because of you. I'm just putting that out there. Could have moved it to Australia. Would have been successful. That's right. I'm just saying there's options. You sort of just took the easy way out, I think is what we're saying. Yeah, yeah. Like Jeff said, we took the lazy way out. No question. Speaking of being lazy, maybe the reason you didn't do InDisk is so that you could make Pin Slash 2 even bigger and better because you love putting that on. You love the work involved in it. And maybe that's why you did it. Am I somewhere in the right ballpark? Well, Pin Slash is definitely taking a ton of time. There's no question about that. It's a massive involvement to schedule it, to get everyone up and running, to get the videos ready. I mean, I've been working on this thing, the videos, nonstop for several weeks now, trying to get everything together and ready for the show. Now, hold on a second. You said, can I come on final round so I can get away from doing pin Slash work? That's why you're on the program right now. As you said, look, I want to just put that on the back burner, make it kind of last-minute thing happen. If it works, great. Oh, well, I got their money. It doesn't matter. And that's why you're on this program. I could be wrong. What do you mean, I got their money? I don't get any money out of this. I get nothing. That's right. In actual fact, you'd lose money on this, really. You're actually donating your own money for this. Last time I did, yes. This time, there is an entry fee that everyone's paying. But it cost me so much of my time. I'm sure I'll have some gift for all the staff members, too. So that comes out of my pocket. Carl, all kidding aside, you have done so much for this community. And I have to make shit up to insult you because there isn't. Marty and I have looked. We knew you were coming on a couple weeks ago. I'm like, what can we find out about Carl that we can really grill him on? And there was nothing. So we have to make stuff up, like the Indisc bullshit, like the pin Slash cash cow that it is for you. You have put so much time into this. I mean, I'm glad you were rewarded by the Pinball Industry Awards. Screw the trophy voters. You should have won that too. Seriously, I don't know anybody who has done more for the pinball community. And I'm saying that in all seriousness. There's no sarcasm. You have done so much for this community. I can't thank you enough. Thanks, thanks. That means a lot. It really, really does. It's definitely a lot of hard work. But I feel lazy because I've been taking the last month and a half off of streaming. But then I think I'm going back to my old streaming pattern of streaming when I have something to stream, not just doing it just to do it every week. Well, so I did say in the start of it that Indisc is my favorite tournament. And obviously, Pinberg is a fantastic tournament. Papa was fantastic as well. But here's why I put Indisc above them is because of the player experience, how you feel, how easy it is to sign up, register, guide. Indisc was the very first tournament I ever went to overseas. And, you know, I flew into LA, drove a car to Banning, turned up not knowing anybody. And it was just really easy. and I think that's what you do. You focus on how the player is feeling and that I think also translates to not just the streaming that you do, how you're talking to people, but also how pin Slash, because I said that I still think that that is the most accessible video I think we've had for pinball for people to understand what's going on. So is that a conscious decision for you when you're thinking about who your audience is? Absolutely. It's always a conscience decision. So, you know, for Pin Slash, I'm really trying to build these tutorials so that anybody that's new to pinball can quickly see, okay, this is the objective they're going for. This is exactly how you do it. Follow these steps so they can, when they see the match, they can follow along and know, you know, okay, the player on the right's ahead of the player on the left. And the left player just came ahead and won the match, you know, stuff like that. So they know exactly what's going on. And same with N-Disc. We always want everyone's experience to be wonderful. I mean, who doesn't? Who wants to run a tournament and have the players and everybody that comes? There's no purpose in that. Ryan, say. Okay, that being said, you have hundreds and hundreds of people. I would imagine when InDisc happens in 2022, and we'll get to the new location in a second, there are some people that have given you some feedback that have said, I wish it was this. How many of those concerns or complaints are valid or just not feasible because of time constraints, costs, whatever the case may be? I mean, we really listen to all the feedback we're given. There are some that unfortunately we just won't like. I know some people are not happy with the format switch that we went to the ticket or pop a card system. They say the format is too difficult. And I agree completely. That is a difficult format to qualify for. But considering we are now a world championship event, I really feel the format matches the event. We're always open minded and always open to suggestions. But the schedule is tight, as you know. So we did take a look at some feedback from between 2018 and 2019 with the division finals specifically and rearrange the schedule to make sure that no one was overlapping because that was one of our issues in 2018. and we're always looking to improve and what the feedback is from everybody. Card system aside, do you feel you've got it right enough? I think we do. I really do. I'm happy with where the tournament is, and I think Jim and Bob and Jay would all say the same thing. Now you're going to be moving to a new location as the Museum of Pinball in Banning is no more. They're off to Palm Springs, which I think is pretty exciting. It looks like it's going to be a bigger location, certainly more accessible for us out-of-towners with the airport right there, and I assume better lodging as well. I'm going to miss the bedbugs at the one-star motel I stayed at. I'm going to miss the outlet malls down the road. The outlet malls, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Desert Hills. It's awesome. Yeah, that's one of the world's largest or closer. It's one of the largest tourist destinations in Southern California from what I understand, that outlet mall right there. It gets an insane number of visitors. That's one of the talking points that John Weeks always had. with the museum being in banning, was that that was going to pull people in. But unfortunately, it seems like the city was never quite, they never wanted to let him open up more than what he did. And that's one of the reasons he's moving to Palm Springs, moving the Museum of Pinball, is so that he can open up the museum regularly. Yeah, because I think it was like twice or three times a year, maybe he's allowed to open up. Yeah, it was something like that. Well, what you did last in DISC, which was in 2020, before the pandemic, and for a lot of people, that was their last major tournament, You did something that we had never seen before, and I always say I love going to tournaments, especially out of town, where there's more than one thing to do. Well, that's definitely the case with Indisc, but you added yet another one. A few years ago, it was the high stakes and the women's and Classics 1 and 2, but this time there was the Classics match play. And what was so exciting about that is Ron Hallett was talking about this last episode that so many people that go to Indisc just stay in that tournament area and never see the incredible museum of pinball itself? Well, you got everyone over there that participated in the Classics Match Play and getting to play all kinds of other different machines, which brings challenges as well, too, because you don't know how long they're going to play, the timing of it. Is the machine going to work? How are you going to deal with malfunctions? All those kind of things add to the list of things to do for you, Bob and Jim and Jay. But it was exciting to get all those people over on the other side of the building. Right, and it wasn't really a It was on the other side of the building because We didn't have space where we hold the main tournament To put all those machines So that's why it was still over on the other side But yeah, it was nice that everyone Could actually see that half of the museum And go and play all those machines The incredible Variety and amount of machines there It's still staggering to me when I walk in that place And just look down the extremely long hallway At nothing but machines To the horizon Yeah, it's funny because the first time I went, the tournament area was in the pinball area, so you could wander around. The second year I went, I never actually once went into the other area with the 300 or so machines. Shame. Well, but this was what I was saying, what's the joy about Indisc is it's not just about getting your scores in and then getting into finals. it was a really social environment where you get to talk to a lot of different people. So there's no need for me to leave that area is what I'm saying, except to get away from Jeff. That's how I felt about Pinberg is I never, at ReplayFX, I never played all the other machines, which is such a shame. But I was always in the tournament area talking with people in between rounds. And the only time I'd walk by the other machines was to head out of the convention center. You mentioned Pinburgh and that's sad for so many people that it's not going to be around but especially someone like you Carl I know Marty runs a big event too with the Melbourne Silverwall event but Marty is kind of pulled away from participating he certainly likes to run the tournaments fair to say Marty? Yeah I do because I'm still relatively new to it so there's still a lot of logistics to make a tournament like that run very smoothly obviously I've mentioned so many times I'll say it again it is made so much easier with Carl's Never Drain software I've got to call that out because it's fact but now it's just become the fact that I do want a tournament to run so well that I would rather focus on that than competing and that's what Carl does with InDisc and so does Jim and so does Bob to some extent as well too, but we're talking about Jim and Carl and Bob as three world-class top 100, if not top 50, if not top 25 players and absolute champions that don't get to participate. So Pinberg gave them that kind of, okay, I'll do this for InDisc. I'll give up my time, my playing for InDisc for the benefit of everyone else, but I can then put on my player's hat at Pinberg. That's no more for someone like Carl. That's got to be difficult. Where are you going to go? Where is there to go? I do plan on going to Yagvin for Derek's tournament up there. In Edmonton. Edmonton, yes. Yes, that'll be my first time up there. I'm excited. In July, right? July 24th-ish, I think, 2022. Yep. Apart from that, I don't know. Travel overseas to go to the EPC and just try to travel more around the country at some of the larger events. I mean, nothing's going to hit the scale of Pimberg. Let's just be honest here. Nothing is going to be that big. The logistics to run that event were insane. You say that. I could see... Because it's now the pinball open, is that right? The ISPA open. Yes. Yeah, well, yeah, Indisc, the open at Indisc, yeah. So now the open at Indisc is getting larger numbers. So when I was there, I mean, we were, I think, 200, 300 people, and now it's a lot more than that. I feel it could get that big. You've certainly got the amount of machines and the space for it. That's the thing, Carl. Think about it, because a lot of people like Marty from Australia, or even if they're from the UK or anywhere in Europe, they pick one or two overseas tournaments to go to. And for many people, it was Pinberg. It used to be Papa. But now those aren't there. It's got to be Indisc. Right. I could see the attendance increasing for those reasons. But at the same time, the comparison I'm making is it's the number of machines you need to run a giant match play tournament. For Indisc, I don't know how we'll handle a large number increase, whether we'll increase the number of machines in the main bank. Because one of the things we really do like is that it's a single bank for everyone to play on without the division separations like Papa had. but if we get too big it may be that we have to separate out to in you know a main division you know the open and then b and c or whatever depending on how many people come you do have a b division though don't you we do have a b division but they all play the same machines they all play in the same bank gotcha one thing i love about indisc as well and i know you've probably got a hand in it but i think it's it really is jim's signature is to put some crazy wacky machines in your lineup absolutely jim's signature i mean i'll make a suggestion or two here there so we'll bob so we'll jay we'll just look at the machines but it is really all jim putting those games in and figuring out how to make this tournament worthy and that's the big challenge too because so many machines are not quote-unquote tournament worthy because maybe they play too long they're too easy and whatever jim does you clip a lane here change a ramp here that changes the whole game it does i mean i go look back to when we had teed off in the lineup and um teed off if you don't know the return ramps they're they're metal habit trails and they dump the ball right next to the flipper so you can just hold the flipper up and gently you know the ball comes to a trap jim actually took his game and bent the habit trails up so that the ball would come flying off of them without a chance that no hope of stopping the ball on the flipper it was coming to. But it's just these measures he goes to to get these games to be a tournament-ready machine. It's incredible. But also weird titles like Barbed Wire. Barbed Wire. Rescue 911. What else have we had? RoboWar. RoboWar. Well, Robo... Yeah, yeah. That's a little more rare. We had Excalibur. Excalibur was another one. Yeah, but RoboWar, you took out the... On the right-hand side, you took out the little gate there so that if you tried to catch it, if you tried to catch the ball by holding the flip-rop and let it kind of roll up the in lane, it would roll out. Right. And that was to control the game time, because otherwise we found that game was playing long, which would hold up the whole tournament, which we saw, unfortunately, with the Rescue 911 last time, that that game played very long, and it kind of skewed the scoring. You know, if you had that game in a card, it made it easier to qualify with that card. But those are the reasons we do things like that. I wonder now, because on IE Pinball, you've been tackling a lot of wizard modes, and you certainly have a good grasp, as does Jim and Bob, of what games may or may not play long. But I wonder in any of your wizard mode challenges that you did last year, and you're still doing some, have you been kind of thinking in the back of your mind, boy, if we change this, this would be a great Indus game? I'm always thinking of that, but it's a matter of, I mean, a lot of the games I've played with the wizard modes are modern sterns and they can be used regardless, I think. I can't think of any of the games. Well, let's go back. I did do 24, and 24 would normally not be a game that I would put in a tournament because it plays very long. But the game I had from Mark Schultz, he modified that. It felt like something that Jim would do. He added an exit from the pop bumpers to go out to the left instead of just a single right-hand feed. And the game was ultra-bouncy and super difficult and drove me nuts. But because of those changes, it would be tournament-worthy. So, yes. Let me see. What other games have I, what I think of? Big Buck Hunter. Well, Big Buck Hunter is a, we've used Big Buck Hunter before, and that game doesn't need a lot of modifications or anything for a tournament. It's nasty as it is. Yep. And we used, I forget what year we used it in, but we did use it once. So you also use newer games. I know with your Wizard Boat challenges on IE Pinball, there have been a lot of the new modern games or newer titles, with the exception of Big Buck Hunter and 24, but we've certainly seen you tackle some of these more modern and recent games. But what the Indisc main bank does, the IFPA Open, is you have a mix of newer games and solid states. There aren't any EMs by any means, but you do have a nice variety of older games in there as well. And you always have that one thing that I think is very unique, that the top seed can throw at a game in a bank and bring in one from the classics. Right, and one of the things with that is they are forced to choose that machine at some point during the finals. So if they pull a machine from Classics, as long as they last, if they don't pick the game and they last all the way through the finals, and they haven't picked it by the very final game, that is the last game they'll be playing. We wanted to make sure that people weren't pulling it in just to mess with someone else in the tournament. Evil. Speaking of wizard modes, we've sort of reached out to everybody to write in to us, and we've had some responses to people saying what their favorite wizard modes are. You're somebody that's more likely to get to a wizard mode than most. What are some of your favorite wizard modes? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I really like Jurassic Park. I love Escape Nublar. The thought and the execution that went into that, just because it's such a long and deep wizard mode, it's fantastic. I haven't played it on stream yet, but I actually really like Led Zeppelin's, and I'm supposed to be doing that on stream on a wizard mode challenge coming up. But I was practicing the game just to get used to it, and I hit it already. But I love that it's, I'm giving spoilers here, but how it's build, build, build, build, build while you're multiball. And then once you're out of multiball, you're shooting shots for the value that you built in single ball play. It makes it much more exciting. I was concerned at the beginning when it was just flailing away with multiball. But when I got down to one ball and found out that, oh my gosh, it's the value I built, it's crazy. And it makes me want to make sure I have a playfield multiplier next time I run through that. Hopefully that will be on stream. Let me just pull you up on something. You said just practicing getting a feel for the game and you got to the Wizard Mode? Yeah, I did. I just want to call that out. I was just, you know, I was just flipping about, getting a feel for the tilt and the flipping, and I got to the Wizard Mode. Right, Sean? One-handed. Yes! One-handed blindfolded. Had the cone on. You just casually just dropped in there. Oh, you know, I was practicing and I got it. Quite a flex. I honestly didn't know what the rules were for the game And I got there and I went Oh This was supposed to be on stream Was it early code? No, it's the most recent code Wow What else do I like? Because a lot of the wizard modes They end up not being programmed very deep Because it's the end of the game Not many people are going to see them And that's where I think Stern is really doing well Since they're able to have these challenge modes now it seems like the wizard modes are getting more attention. I know you said that you were doing this for Pin Slash, and we're going to talk some more about that upcoming event next weekend, but you were doing some tutorials to show how to execute some of these tiers in the Pin Slash Heads Up Challenge. Correct me if I'm wrong. When I look at a game, and I thought it was Iron Maiden the first time I saw it, I believe it was in the attract mode that this video came up and explained all the different shots and how to do this and that. That was you who put that together, wasn't it? Right, right. I build those for Stern. Not I built. I built. You do those. So you do those for Zeppelin. You'll do it for Mandalorian and all these other games? Right. I will. I'm working on Mandalorian this weekend. It has to be done soon. But yeah. So I build those all in After Effects and then send them off to Stern. Those got born from the very first Stern Heads Up Challenge, the tournament that was in Vegas that was run with the IFPA and Stern. they asked me to stream it in Vegas and I thought we oh we should have these tutorials so everyone can know what's going on because if someone jumps on the stream and they see two people just flailing around on pinball they're not going to know what's going on so the tutorials were built so people would know what they're doing so after that after I uh after that stream Jody really liked them and then Stern contact Zach contacted me later from uh from Stern and asked me if I would start uh building these and I never knew these these were going to go on the game I just thought these were going to be promotional materials for them at some point and i walked into ace gogi one day they had near iron maiden had just updated the code and i see the tutorial on the screen and i was shocked completely stunned and sued their ass exactly no that's great now hey little foreshadowing to something we might be talking about a little bit later can you add maybe for us noobs and some other people how to get at a ball when you're in multiball how to get at a ball yeah in in just games in general. I mean, for those, Stern sends me a list of what they want, and then I make those. So they don't request that. They don't request an Adaball specific turnout. Well, they will after this episode. They will after the thing. You have no idea. Gave me more work. That's what we do. You've got no tournament to put on, Carl. We've got to give you some work somehow. I've got ping class pretty soon. But wait a minute. All the players are doing all the work. I mean, You've got Steve and Snow doing great commentating. You've got judges behind the scene. What really do you do, Carl? What do I do? Oh, my gosh. I just put together a timer guide because that's one of the things needed so that the judges and players know exactly when the timer is going to be stopped. So I went through the list of how many goals there are. I mean, it's over 30 for this tournament. For those who don't know, Pin Slash is a heads-up challenge. There are 24 competitors that were playing Avengers Infinity Quest, and they were doing the Battle Royale, which is the wizard mode in which they were trying to see how few flips they could do. The fewest amount of flips, if you were in the top 24, you get to play in pin Slash, and then there are all kinds of different challenges, many. And that had to be difficult for you, Carl, to come up with, okay, what's a Tier 1, what's a Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, Tier 5 challenge that you can do as Pinclash advances and as that group of 24 whittles down to the final two? It is difficult coming up with those because you want to make sure that the early tiers are accessible and the difficulty ramps up so i changed it a little this time from from the jurassic parkman Slash in that the scoring system there i had different scoring for different tiers this is a unified scoring system across the entire tournament but what i tried to make sure of is that the tier one challenges those can all be done in 30 seconds the tier two they should be a minute minimum and so on as you went down the line so that it wasn't it wouldn't be um lopsided if you have a top-tier player versus a medium-tier player, so to speak. Marty, notice how he says, you should be able to do it in 30 seconds. You should be able to do it in one minute. This is a guy who casually played Led Zeppelin. Oops, I got to the wizard mode. I guess I should have streamed that. Oh, I knew that was going to bite me. When you say casually, 30 seconds, who are you talking about? Are you talking to Esha? I really do feel, with how much these players have practiced that game, especially playing that mode over and over and over, the Battle Royale, over and over again. I mean, we can go back to that. I just cannot believe how many hours people stream that thing. But I feel like they should be comfortable enough on the machine that they, one, understand the goals and how to quickly get them. So, yes, I do feel that anyone that's in the tournament can finish these goals in the time that I believe they should be able to. It's called the Carl Standard. Yeah, it really is. Notice that I don't participate in it. There's no way. I mean, the shame I would feel. Oh, I couldn't do tier one in 30 seconds. Carl will hate me. Oh, no. Yeah. Now, not everyone's going to get it done then, of course, because you've got nerves. You'll miss shots. I'm just saying it's possible. It's possible for anyone to get those tier one challenges done in under 30 seconds. Not convinced. so thinking back about the first pin Slash and now this what are the major things that you learned and and therefore have changed for this round don't give up a thousand dollars of your own money yeah that's number one you got it really not much has changed except for the scoring system and the uh i made the challenges harder but i don't know if that's was on purpose or if that's the nature of the game compared to Jurassic Park, the higher tiers. I mean, I learned in the last one that the help is essential. You know, this tournament would not run with all the people helping behind the scenes. But as far as the format of how you're presenting it to people, you think you got that right first time around? The format, I think, was pretty close. The only thing I'm going to do differently this time is, or more different, I should say, is to highlight the streamers more. The last time I only put their names on the stream layout. This time I really want to make sure their channel is highlighted and promote their channel more. So hopefully people will go watch LazerLos. Go follow LazerLos right now. He's up next, that kind of stuff. I think the question everyone wants to know when they're going to be watching Pin Slash on June 12th on Twitch on IE Pinball, will there be a hot tub? Are you supplying it? Are you supplying the hot tub? There better be. I'm already on Pin Slash in some way but those are already pre-recorded I should have been writing subs and stuff on my name but you could pop in there seriously, so when you're watching Pin Slash and you sub up to IE Pinball can you do a little pop-up window, Carl where you show up in you don't have to wear a bikini or anything like that but just write their names on your arms or something like that and just give them a little wink to the camera I want viewers don't we want viewers? this sounds kind of productive, Jeff Carl, write the names down I'm telling you, big money cha-Bradlee Ching All right, so you're not going to do that. That's fine. I guess we're just going to have to watch pinball competitions. But it is a lot of fun, and it's very exciting. What's amazing about all of this is you're doing this because of the pandemic. There aren't that many competitions going on. There are some here and there, but still no IFPA endorsement. What blows my mind in the last 16 months is the number of people that are now streaming and that have put together your Carl kit. Phil Grimaldi might have something to say about that, but the point is the mobile kit. I cannot believe how many people are streaming pinball, and I think it's awesome. Yeah, the number is absolutely incredible. I can't believe how many people are either. It's stunning. I do wonder if post-pandemic, if we'll still see the same number of streamers or if the number will drop. I assume it'll drop a bit, but who knows? But it is great to see so many people. And the rig, I'm just glad that it's helping out a lot of people and that they'll be able to use it in the future to take to locations and stream on location or stream tournaments. Because that's what that thing was built for, is to wheel around during a tournament and be flexible. Sneak peek from coming up in a couple of weeks from maybe some of the interviews done. Carl, some of the people put this together or started streaming because of Pin Slash. Yeah, that was crazy to hear. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect them to build the rig for Pin Slash or even buy the game for Pin Slash. That one, that got me. Stern's got you doing these videos. They're going to be getting you to do Pin Slash every month. It sells games. Well, Stern can send me a game, and I'll be happy to set a Pin Slash with it. The only thing you haven't added for Pin Slash is the loser should be wearing the Cone of Shame because that is my favorite thing. That's the best thing you can buy on IE Pinball. I highly recommend go to it, get your Twitch points, and purchase that cone of shame. What made you come up with that? So for people who don't know, when your dog has surgery and you put a cone on them so that they don't pick at the scar or the scab or whatever, the stitches, Carl wears one of these big cones when he's playing pinball, which totally screws him up. That's the only way. I think you should wear that in actual real competitions, by the way. I originally wanted a dunce cap, and I couldn't find one. And I thought, okay, I can make one out of foam, and I just got lazy. And I found the – I have a game called Exploding Kittens. I'm sure a lot of people know it. It's a card game. There was an expansion which came with a cardboard cone of shame. So I grabbed that and used it in place of the dunce cap. For whenever I did a major flub, that was the idea. And then it got overused, and I hate the thing, but it's still a channel point reward. I think I did say the last time somebody had redeemed it. You could just see the disdain on your face. You're like, I have created this problem. I was going to say, there was one time that I was getting new with Channel Point Redemptions, and I didn't put a limit on it. And Zach McCarthy ends up spending all of his points on like 12 redemptions of this thing. And I was playing 24, which is a long game. So I stuck to my word, and I wore that thing for over an hour. Well done, Z-Mac. Yeah. Only yourself to blame is what I'm really saying. Yeah. Yeah. You were recently at Ace Goge and you did mention, and I think we're all excited to see, you're going to be playing and doing a tutorial or a little track mode screen for The Mandalorian. Can you give us any kind of thoughts on that game so far? We haven't flipped it. Yeah, I mean, few have flipped it, right? I think the game looks like a lot of fun, really. The ruleset seems solid. The integration of the assets is good. The layout looks nice. I mean, I'm hopeful for it. Since we last spoke, games have come out. What's been your overall feeling towards the new games, like Guns N' Roses, Avengers, even Turtles, I think, might have even come out since we last spoke? Turtles is the one game I haven't gotten any time on yet, for whatever reason. I just, I don't go out that much. My recent Ace Gogey trip was the first thing I had done in a long time. Guns N' Roses, Avengers, I'm thrilled with the new games. Everyone seems to be upping the bar, I feel. There's no stinker games coming out, I don't think. When I saw Guns N' Roses come out, I thought, boy, that is going to make so many new pinball fans extremely excited, and people like me, too. I love the theme. I like the way it flips. I'm a real fan of Eric and Keith P. Johnson games. I mean, Jersey Jack to me, much like Stern and the other companies, just make great, great products. But I thought, okay, there's a lot of multiballs on Guns N' Roses. Someone like Carl. I wonder what he thinks of that. And I've watched you stream it several times, and you really get into how deep that game is and how important different badges are and doing things in proper order. You've made me actually like it even more by watching your streams. Oh, good. I mean, I thoroughly enjoy the game. I really do. Honestly, it's the game that gets played most in my collection right now, even however long I've had it. I mean, I got it a month after release, basically. what is that, five months, six months now? A lot of people are concerned with the number of multiballs in the game, but the game is designed to have that many multiballs. You will not go deep in those songs without those multiballs, without the add-on balls that keep coming from finishing the song levels. And just the package overall, the integration, and for me, it's the risk-reward, the gambling of I'm gonna keep going, keep pushing, build my song value. I want that big, gigantic, massive jackpot at the end of the song. I don't want to cash out. I want to get that massive applause jackpot. Risk-reward. It is one of the best features in all of pinball. No question about it. Yeah, and what I like about Guns N' Roses is it's almost like you've now got this currency that everybody understands. and it is that single jackpot value and how much you can get it up to to cash in. And I think that kind of started with you, Carl. I'm blaming you for that. Well, that's one of your earliest streams of it was you getting these, just pushing and pushing and pushing to get a massive song jackpot. And people that I know that have got the machines were all referencing that stream. So, you know, I think you started that. That's the never cash out. Opposite of Steve. Steve says always be cash and I say never cash out. So then what's the criteria for you then to decide that you want to buy a machine for home? It comes down a lot to the designer and the programmer for me recently. On the Stern side, I bought Elwynn's games lately. Those are my last three Stern purchases. Iron Maiden, Jurassic Park and then now Avengers and my Jurassic I just upgraded to a premium because I figured that's going to be in my collection for a while now and same thing on the JJP side I love Pirates I absolutely love Pirates and so I thought I'd give Eric another chance you know with Guns N' Roses just bought it day one I told my distributor that I was going to be in the day before because we all knew it was coming I remember when I saw it I was on the fence a little I was like this doesn't It doesn't have the shots I was expecting, but I still stayed in, and I'm absolutely thrilled I did. But yeah, so designer, programmer, the layout. I think layouts can be salvaged with good programming. What about rookie game designers and rookie game programmers? I mean, I would stay away big time. I'd be scared shitless of these people that are just starting out in pinball companies and think they know everything. You must be scared of that, eh, Carl? I wouldn't touch those. No way. I've done more than talk about pinball. We can make fun of you now. You're sold out of the Haggis Fathom Revisited, so we can make fun now. Yeah. Can I, please? It's fun. Well, I felt if you bought one, you could take the piss, but, you know, you didn't, so, you know. Listen, you've got five Bally titles coming out. You know I'm probably going to buy one of them. once I get the discount. We're putting up with Greg Silby's bullshit. Oh, by the way, Marty, there's a Haggis employee that sends me videos that you don't even know about. And the videos, are you learning how to use that, what is it, bend press or whatever? It's the big break press. The break press. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, look, I probably will at some stage use it to bend metal when it's all hands on deck. all I'm thinking now of who would be it would actually have to be Greg. Greg would be the only one. I'm not saying anything. I just want you to know I got a spy there at Haggis so I'm keeping up on what you're doing. So rest assured everyone, if something goes wrong if he's screwing the pooch at work if he's got his feet up doing fuck all I'll be there to tell you. So don't you worry. Your Haggis purchase is safe with eyes on the prize right here. Yeah, fair enough. So Carl, we're going to see you next on Pin Slash and that's going to be very exciting. June 12th and we'll be watching it on IE Pinball. What time do you think it'll start and finish? At 12pm Pacific it'll start. Finish should be 9-10 hours, I'm thinking. A little longer than Jurassic was. So it starts at 12 Pacific 3 Eastern or, if you're one of the two players in Australia, 5 in the morning you have to start. I remember it was really early for the last one and that's why I just felt so bad having to send Carl a message. And honestly, Carl, you need to know, I was like, for a couple of hours going, do I reach out to Carl? He's going to be really disappointed. And in the end, I went, you know what, I'll just have to reach out and say, I'm sorry, I can't continue in the first ping Slash because of timing. And you were just like, yeah, what? Yeah, it made sense, right? I mean, I understood. Yeah, but I wanted you to feel devastated or at least pretend to be devastated that I wasn't going to be in your tournament. You're just like, yeah, I understand. Whatever. Cold-hearted. Yeah, you got me in the rush, you know. It was the last week or whatever, two weeks before. I had tons of work to do still. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Carl's been pulling that shit for years. I told him I couldn't come to Indisc a couple years ago. I had a friend's 50th in Cuba, and he was like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Who cares? I'm like, dude, I do so much for you behind the scenes at Indisc. I mean, how are you going to function without me? You don't see me crying every night in my bed. Curled up. To me not coming to Indisc or Marty not playing in the first pain class? Which one? Where were the tears heavier? Come on, Carl. I got to choose, don't I? I have to choose. Both? Both. You better choose or I'll ask you about Alien. Oh, that's cold. That's cold, Jeff. That's just cold. I got to go with Marty now. Yay! Thank you. yes all right carl i'm glad i'm glad to hear you say you're going to be able to travel more i hope that's the case or at least that's the intent you know with the egg pin and maybe the epc or whatever uh i guess the ifpa 17 has now been moved again so two years from the original date again because of the pandemic uh so that'll be may in fort myers at the pinball asylum but uh hopefully we get some pinball competitions in this year. If that's the case, if the IFPA opens up, let's say, pretend, September 1st, are there any events you have in your calendar? You go, okay, I could go do that one. Honestly, I probably won't this year. And it's not because of the pandemic. It's just time-wise. It's your way of saying, fuck you to Josh Sharma. I get it. I get it. See, I normally go to, in November, it's normally Replay Florida, but I don't think I'm hitting that this year. And I had hoped with IFPA being in November that that was going to be a two-week trip. Yeah, me too. So that's probably because I can see 2022 being heavy on tournaments, heavy on travel. So I'll need to save my vacation days for that year more so between Yagpin, between IFPA, and who knows what else. Those are the only two I have firm on my calendar at the moment. That is the one good thing about the pandemic. And there is nothing that's good about the pandemic. But the fact we've been able to save and hopefully stockpile our vacation days when pinball opens up, I will not work a day in 2022. Exactly. I'm going to be by the end of the year, I'll be maxed out in my work. So that's nice for the first time ever. Normally, I am I'm running on fumes with vacation because of all the pinball trips. And then my wife gets mad at me because we can't take massive family vacation. So then I take a family vacation one year and I've got to cancel out the IFPA World Championship. So it's that kind of stuff. but the great thing again, maybe a second good thing about the pandemic is in the past where your wife may have been pissed off that you were going to all these pinball conventions. She's been spending 18 months with you, never leaving the house. She's like, yeah, go, just go. Just where are you going? Europe? Yeah. Have fun. See you later. Absolutely sick of me. Of course. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. Marty can attest to. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, you know, it must've been so terrible having a job during COVID. Oh, Oh, poor Marty. Oh, no. What am I going to do with all my leave that I've got accrued? Oh, you poor people. Fuck off. Marty, did you choose to leave your other job before the pandemic? Well, some say choose. Some say would have necked myself had I stayed. Okay. All right. Fair enough. That's probably a bit harsh. It all worked out in the wash, didn't it? You got a beautiful home out of this. You've got a great job at Haggis where you don't have to do any work at all, according to your staff. It's going to be great. Yeah. All right. We're going to watch Pin Slash 2 June 12th. We're going to watch IE Pinball Twitch, and Carl is going to write your name if you sub up during Pin Slash. I expect nothing less. Disappointment in the chat line if it doesn't happen, Carl. I'll be banging that drum the whole time. Keep banging it, Jeff. Keep banging it. Thanks for everything you do, Carl. well, you know, we're just having fun, and Pin Slash 2 is going to be spectacular. By the way, you took a vote on the first Pin Slash of what machine is the most common, and it was Jurassic Park. The second most was actually Iron Maiden, but you wanted to do a newer game, and certainly there were a lot out there of Avengers Infinity Quest. Has Keith done okay? Do you think it's turned? You think? I think he might be doing all right. Three for three? Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. I'm a big fan of Keith. He sent me a copy of the book called The Mullet. It's not a mullet, for crying out loud. Oh, it's not far off. It's long all the way around because I wear a ball cap. It's not a mullet. It just flows out of the sides. So everyone, during pen Slash, be sure to spam the mullet emotes that we're putting in. Oh, no. On behalf of Jeff. Do the cones. Do the cones. Whether it's long hair or it's a mullet, it needs to be attended to. I agree. Do you know that in Canada right now, the barbers aren't open? My hairstylist, yes, I have a hairstylist. She hasn't been open for a while. I think everyone's surprised by that. Okay, you want to know the truth? Do you know why I have a hairstylist? Because my wife, who I love, said to me, quit going to that shitty $10 barber that you go to that does the crappy buzz cuts. Get it properly styled. I'm like, all right, so I go. And I want to support her. She's in a young family, and I want to support her, but they're closed, so I can't do anything. So this flowing mane has been going on for 16 months. And now my wife, who loves 80s hair bands, likes the long hair. So I told her I'm cutting it. She's like, well, then I'm cutting mine. That's a whole other – Yep. I've always told my wife, you know, whenever a woman asks you, hey, should I cut my hair? The answer is always no. The answer is always, always no. It's really do what you want, but internally it's never cut it. So I've got that. In fact, I joke. I'm like, when people have had long hair for so long and they just decide to throw in the towel, it's the give up. It's really, really short at the back and spiky at the front. Look, it's fun. It's nice. And you look like Kate plus eight. And I'm like, what the hell? So you better get used to these flowing manes and no mullet icon. How dare you, Carl? Yeah. Do it, Carl. It'll be there. It's got to be there. Thank you. Have a good one, Carl. All right. Thank you, Jeff. Thanks, Marty. So there we go, Jeff. That was Carl D'Python Anghelo. What did we learn? That Carl, you, and pretty much everybody I know has no freaking idea what a mullet is. I've seen your hair recently. Yes, and it's not a mullet. Well, it's not. No, it's mullet-ish. Let me grab my dictionary. Mulletish? Mullet-ish. It does resemble a mullet in certain angles. When you wear a hat. Yes. When you're wearing a hat, it looks like a mullet because you can't see what's going on under the hat. And, I don't know, I don't want to know what's under your hat because if it's anything like what's happening at the back, keep the hat on, man. Like, don't you actually have, like, a set of home clippers? I'm not letting my wife, a non-trained barber or hairdresser, cut my hair. Are you kidding me? Two things. First of all, I wasn't suggesting that Anne do your hair. I was suggesting that you do it yourself. Yeah, I did that when I was five years old and my bangs were like super crooked and... Well, obviously what I'm saying is you doing a hack job on your hair right now is better than what you've got. Oh, fuck yourself. Oh, I've seen it. It's atrocious and atrocious. No, for the listeners out there, how long ago was it I started bagging you out about your hair? Just think about how long ago it was. I assume that was based on the color. No, that was, I'm going to say, over a year, probably 18 months ago, I was having a go at you about your hair. It was short then. It's been 18 months. It was bad then. Imagine what I think of it now. I know. Hold on. Okay. All right. The gloves are off, brother. Listener, you are just very glad. You should be thankful that you are just a listener. It's going to be in full display on Pin Slash, all right? The flowing mane. You've heard of gingivitis? This is gingeritis. It's not the only thing flowing. Did I make fun of you when you decided to go mustache only? I kept it to myself. I thought, Marty, you are a moustache and beard guy. Like, you've got the look. No, Jeff, I did the moustache to cause ridicule. That was the point of it. Were you trying to become a cop? I was trying to look like a douchebag. Oh, I shouldn't say that because there's lots of people that have got moustaches. I love you, people that wear moustaches. I told you, I did it because... A lot of people have moults too, by the way. At Christmas, my mother told me how awful she thinks I look because I've got a beard. Her exact words were, you look really old. My exact words, my mum's a c***. But, I then, I then, I then, put it into a moustache, just to piss her off. It pissed her off. Job well done. Listen, you don't have to, if your mum calls you old, you just say, you know what, you're right. What does that make you? Yeah. Or when they call you a son of a b***h, you go, I guess I'm your son, that would make you the... He's like, yes, I am. So you said I'm going to go mustache only. Yep. Holy cow. Yep. Here's the thing about Beard Chef. They grow back. Yeah. I haven't seen anybody. And here's the thing about mullets. They grow back. Can I get a high five? No? Nothing? I will not have you make fun of me and my Kentucky waterfall. What's that? That's a nickname for a mullet. Oh, okay. Is that like, oh, what's his name? Tiger King thingy? Yes, yes. All right, maybe something you might handle. My soccer rocker. Is that what they call mullets over there? Soccer. Are you actually making up stuff just because these two words rhyme with each other? Like, do you know what a flavor saver is? Yes, and that has nothing to do with a mullet, by the way. But were we talking about beards again? Well, it's hair and it's two words that rhyme. I'm just wondering whether... What was it? Socker Rocker? Save the flavor saver for when Ryan sees on the next episode all right Squirrel Pelt You never heard that Or anything like a beaver paddle an ape drape none of these things No The Tennessee top hat No These are nicknames for mullets. Okay. I'll tell you. I got none of them. I'll give you a list of all the names that we have for mullet. First, we have mullet. Is that it? I'm not sure we learned anything from Carl. Anyway, Carl, you and your beautiful hair, That short haircut that you've obviously been grooming every single month in California. We look forward to pin Slash. So I'm worried about that icon and everything else. Anyway, it's long all over. Do I have to do some more pinball profile videos and just flowing? The problem is if I don't wear a hat, I look like Cousin It. So can I also then, I'm glad you brought that up. Were you wearing a cap? It was a backwards cap, wasn't it? Yes. It was a backwards ball cap. Oh, my God. Bad luck? Do you know how old you are? So I'm not allowed to wear a hat backwards because I'm over 50 years old? I'm just saying wear age-appropriate clothing and appropriate hair. It's all I'm asking. Got it. All right. Okay. Suspenders, next episode. Top hat and a monocle? Yep. I'll make sure I have my cane Socks and sandals What else do you want me to do? High shorts Yeah, yep Sorry, wow Who knew Final Round would become the fashion show of all pinball podcasts I think we knew it was coming It started with this freaking mullet Fuck off At least tie it in a ponytail or something No, sorry Now that's where I draw the line You know what? I'm telling you now I reckon even a top knot would look better than what you've got. Now, I may have gone too far there, but I'm still saying a top knot would look better. I will not have you make fun of my hair comparing it to some sort of Missouri Compromise. I'm looking up Urban Dictionary for names for mullets. Mullets. Mud flaps, neck warmers, the achy, breaky, bad mistakey. This is my favorite one. This is my favorite one. This is what they call the mullet. The yup, nope. Yup, nope. Oh, we were so close. That cakey, breaky, bad mistakey is the best thing ever. Oh, my God. Schlong, you know, short and long. Yeah, okay. I got it. Oh, my God. Now, somebody put on here Canadian passport. That's bullshit. The Canadian passport is like all jeans, like the jean jacket, jean shirt. That's the Canadian passport. Okay. I've never heard of any of these terms. Let's move on, shall we? Or let's spend another 40 minutes on what? We gotta get paid, alright? This isn't just for our entertainment This is for our income This is how we make a living On the side This is our sponsor of the week Do you think you know what is best for pinball? Do you have all the answers for the manufacturers? We want to hear from you We do? Not us I'm talking about our sponsor Pinside Yes, yes, yes, Pinside Go to their forums and air out all your grievances. It's like Festivus every day. Why is there a price increase? Why doesn't Baby Yoda move? Why can't there be men-only leagues? Hide behind a keyboard and say what you want to say. Give a fake ID name. No guts required to stand behind your criticisms. Like these. Here's one from FNO Indiana. Why can't I have more toppers? Or read what Kansas Eclectic has to say. Why do assholes think they can sing on a podcast? Good point on this forum from Kangaroo Humper. Why are rule cards on aprons always yellow? Or this regular Pinside contributor, StudMuffin69. Quit wasting time with multiplayer co-op modes. I only play with myself. Pinside, always there for you and your bitching. Marty, as you know, it's probably near impossible for us to be able to reach out and talk to every single one of our fans. It's just there's not enough time in the day. I mean, if we did one every hour, one every day, I mean, you still couldn't get through it all, could you? No. So luckily, we arranged people to purchase their way to come on to the show and chat to us. Kind of move front of the line, really, is what we're saying. Yeah, yeah. That is what we're saying. So one of these people that I guess is desperate for attention, is that the best way to describe it? Yeah, you could say that, sure. Oh, there he is. Rob Frost from Upstate New York. Hey, Rob. How are you? Thanks very much for being such a loyal fan and for bucking up at the reach-arounds. Nice to talk to you once again. Yeah, thanks for having me. Even though I paid for it, but yeah, either way. It's still nice. The experience is still nice. It's probably soured somewhat, the fact that you had to pay to play, but still, the result's the same. I was looking at the list of reach-arounds and I was like, well, you know, I waited a little bit too long and it was one of the only ones left, so here I am. It's probably one of the most expensive ones too, so there you go. You have, I'm assuming you've received your illustrious trophy, and I'm curious to know where you've placed it. It actually sits behind me in all of my work meetings. It's on my record player behind me. So you have like Zoom meetings and someone will Zoom in and go, why is there a hand holding two balls behind you? Nobody has asked me yet, but I do get questions about like, I'll have a record up right next to it. They just must not see the reach around itself. I think if people aren't questioning why you've got a hand with two balls on it, maybe they don't feel they need to ask a question about it. What the hell else is in your room is probably the other question. Yeah, I'm curious to get in one of these meetings now. Now, I'm poking fun at Rob, but Rob likes to poke fun back. and apparently, some way, somehow, I don't know if it's doctored or not, but you once asked the question, Marty, or made the point that I perhaps speak a little Canadian at times, which I think is bullshit. But Rob went and got some audio of apparently, again, we don't know if this has been altered or not, but let's play a clip of what Rob put together. After last episode, I've been dealing with a lot of bullshit, and I think you're to blame for it, Marty. which part in particular the editing forget the editing it's your absolute nonsensical stereotypical canadian crap that you said oh i say about a boot or you know sorry sorry all that kind of garbage but i'm just personally i'm sick of the canadian stereotypes i'm putting my foot down no more of that bummed out 30 i was bummed out talks about the saint louis call outs talk about about the game things i like about that game so hey yeah about the family guy but let's just talk about this game. Marty was 33 when that came out. About the making of Guns and Roses. Him talking about the different timelines, too, about figure out the time of this interview. We're starting to learn a little bit about you, Jeff, coming out of his summer, but I've been told look out. What about you, Marty? I'm about to find out. That's why I said, are you teeing me up? Do you know what I'm about to talk about, or no? To talk about. So, Led Zeppelin's my new thing. As you pull out, as you pull out, talk about something that we haven't heard a lot about on podcasts, but talk about quality control. And I about Zach was talking about sending it back to really open up about, mine's already out. I can't say the word out because it sounds Canadian. You've heard a lot about it, haven't you? You talk about great production. It's about competitive pinball. More about this. Well, then Avengers came out. And then Guns N' Roses came out. You talk about that. We'll find out. We are more likely to kill somebody in a car than we are to have masturbation videos out there. All right? So talk about that being overrated. So you can say what you want about Lord of the Rings. It's like a rock concert. He shows his boobs. You heard us talk about Rob Frost. Without a doubt, if there was a mic, you'd drop it. Fuck, boom! Yeah, so I actually spent two evenings cutting down one episode, and I was going to do the next episode, too, because that was when I think, it might have been the episode before even that came up. I can't listen to the show the same anymore because of how much time I put into that. It's all I hear now. Well, it's all we all hear. And, you know, just going back to what you were saying before, Jeff, about, you know, that's bullshit that I don't speak Canadian. You are Canadian. Why would you not want to sound Canadian? Like, are you ashamed of Canadians? Is that the problem? Absolutely not, by the way. Proud of my country, but I don't know what the words are that are different. So I guess Rob has pointed them out, words like sorry, dollar, hour, things like that. If I say really quickly without thinking, I guess I have that Canadian slur. But I have to do, I do a lot of voice work for actually American companies. And the reason I say bullshit is no one's ever come back to me today. Can you tone it down there, Canuck? You know, take out the maple syrup in your mouth? I've never had that happen yet. In your mouth? Mouth. I mean, even that's one. Really? Anytime the letter U. I'm pretty sure it's not maple syrup they're asking to get out of your mouth. All right. We just had a sponsor of the week for Pinside. Are you a frequent Pinsider, Rob? You know, I really only use it very sparingly, and I never check the message boards anymore. I get to casually peek in, take a look at the map, see the rankings, get some information if I need it, and I'm out. How can you possibly stay abreast of all the news in the pinball community? You know, there's other platforms and outlets. So podcasts, I think, are generally more positive, even when they're not being positive. So I like that community a little bit more. I can send you a few podcasts that might not be so positive. Well, right. I mean, it's, yeah. We shit on Pinside, but the only thing I ever really complain about Pinside is just the forums. And I know there's a lot of good stuff on there. Like if you're an owner of a certain machine, if you want help on a machine, they can definitely find that information. I like that a lot. I like the unique things. It's just really the bitch fests I choose to ignore. I think we've talked to some people. They take a look at the forums. I think Chuck does from Spooky. I think Dwight Sullivan kind of takes it all in as well from Stern. I don't know. I couldn't handle it if I was – well, I guess – Marty, you're now with Haggis. I never even thought about this. Have you been taking a look at the forums and taking little thoughts? Oh, what are they saying about Fathom and this and that? Yeah, do you know what? We're in a – I hope by saying this, it doesn't change. But we do look at the forums every day, particularly myself and Damien do look at Pinsai and check those feds every day. We're in this really fortunate position in that there are a lot of advocates for haggis. So by the time we've read the comments and want to respond or update, people are really informed and they've already answered the question. So we catch up every morning and we do a review of what's happened on the socials, the socials, and we literally log in and go, our job is done. Like the fans or the advocates have all answered questions accurately. So maybe, I don't know, we're an outlier. And as I said, I hope that doesn't change. It's really refreshing to have people that are, I'm not talking about like they're blind fanboys, but I think there are people that want Haggis to be successful. So the spirit in which they answer these questions is very informed and with a positive slant. So I hope that answers that. But certainly we also do see other manufacturers that are having a harder time to win people over. and that's when you've got the mob mentality of, and we say Pinside, but just about all forums, gaming forums in particular, are very similar like this. Pinside is not alone. Do you engage the people? If it's a direct question and you can give a direct answer, I guess that's a little safer to get involved with some of the comments, but I would just ignore them. I mean, I would take note of things that might make some good sense, some constructive criticism, but I don't know, engaging some of these keyboard warriors. That's the thing that drives me nuts. There are no names to these monikers or pin side nicknames. It's just any random person. You have no idea who it is. No one has the guts to put their name forward. So in that sense, why even respond? But I guess, I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think if there's questions that are left unsaid, particularly in internet time, If there's some questions that are left unsaid, the more you leave it unsaid, the more people can make up their own mind. And sometimes that can go either way and you're not in control of that. But as I said, we just keep seeing people answer these questions accurately so we don't need to respond. But one thing that we do is if anybody reaches out directly, either via a direct message on Pinside or via email, they get answered immediately. as soon as we can because we're very busy at the moment. I can imagine. Now, Rob, do you use Pinside for maybe thinking, okay, what will be my first game if you choose to get one? I mean, there's certainly a lot of information out there. For me, when it was getting my first game, it was the right price. I'm just getting into the hobby. Okay, I'll give it a try. It's a decent game. I went on Pinside to find out where it was in the rankings and kind of read some of the comments. Do you do any of that? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that's what always gets me to get to the edge of the cliff where I'm like, okay, I'm going to do it. Or it's like, maybe just not yet because I mean, it's like, I'd love to own a world cup and there's one up for 3,400 and it's like, yeah, I, I, that, that price. Okay. It looks all right. And then I just don't know if I would play it as often as $3,400 is worth when I can go and play one on location an hour away. Well, there is that factor too, because if you have great locations nearby, you really don't even have to own a machine. and it's great to support those locations. We had Bruce and Ron on last week. We talked about the pinball collective that's going to be happening there in Rochester. So that I know you're going to be frequenting once in a while. Absolutely. I am so excited for that. I think that's another reason why I haven't bought a machine yet is because I realized really early on, because I've only been playing since May of 2019. So, you know, pinball has been shut down on location more than it was when I was playing. But that collective is going to be incredible. I took a tour of it, kind of a brief stopped in and talked with everybody, and it looks amazing, and it's going to be a ton of fun. But again, in Western New York, I've had so many great locations around me, and within, let's say, two hours, no, let's say an hour and a half, I've got maybe 150 games on location when Silver Ball Saloon was still open, and then even more once they open the Collective. Yeah, that Collective is going to be pretty sweet with all the games in there and a lot of different variety, too. So 150 machines in your area. I mean, Australia, we can't do a comparison because we just are so much smaller and we just don't get that many machines in here. But if I had 150 machines in the vicinity of me, that would be incredible. Yeah, and that's just at basically four locations that I'm counting. I'm not even saying like smaller bars and stuff. So there's way more than that. That's just Pocketeer, Swillberger, the Strong Museum of Play, and then Silver Ball. But especially with the collective, like I said, there's going to be even more. Yeah, it's huge. I'll tell you one thing about playing games on location. One of my all-time favorite games, and it's a game I've never owned, and I would love to own it, is Iron Maiden. I like the flow of that game. I like the rules. I like the theme. Everything about it ticks all the boxes. The reason I didn't buy this is because I can play it everywhere. If I couldn't play it everywhere, I'd buy it immediately. But I know so many people, friends, locations that have it, so I can get my fix. And I wanted games that I couldn't play anywhere else. when you have a limited collection. So I can kind of see your point too. But when it comes to buying that first game, if you have 150 games in your vicinity that you can play, do you think it will be one of those 150? Oh, I keep going back to that. Why am I keep throwing money into that when I could own the thing? I could have paid for it by now. You know what? The funniest thing is it would be teed off, which was on location at a burger place near me. And it was the first game where it finally clicked how to actually play pinball. but I have not seen one in quite a while because they moved it out of the burger place. But it also goes to, I got really addicted to tournaments and the community at large. So I don't really like playing pinball at home. I rented Metallica from Bruce when they shut down during COVID, the temporary shutdown of Silver Ball. And I played it quite a bit, loved the game, But I got bored with it, even though I enjoy it that much. So I don't know if it's so much owning a game or if it's being with the people, especially after this bizarre social experiment that we had to all go through this past year. Is it just having people there with you to enjoy the experience? Or is it the competition? Who's going to beat who? Is that what's appealing to you? You know what? It never really was the competition because my goal was to get up to the top 10,000 on the IFPA after a year of playing. So I was never really playing against anybody else. I was playing for myself. So it was really just like the camaraderie and getting along with everybody. Well, 9,882. Oh, go you. Well, see, that's the caveat is I got decayed into it because I think I was like 12,000, and my points just went up as everybody else decayed. Just knock it. Just take it. That's great. Why should you be penalized that you haven't been playing for three years? The fact that you played right up until the pandemic, good for you, and you played in incredible tournaments. I think there was one you played at Silver Ball Saloon. I can't remember that one. The Pinball Worldy something or other. I can't remember. I had a couple drinks that night. Get it right, you son of a gun. Pinball World Tour? I can't remember. You can talk about that one. You're allowed to talk about all the other ones in the world. Just nothing in Australia. Yeah, Jeff didn't win it. That's all I remember. I didn't win it either I was top four Andy Crushman won that if I recall that was the Pinball Profile World Tour and Phil Birnbaum I know he was in the top four as well yeah that was that's fun I mean it was fun putting those tournaments on I'd love to do it again fingers crossed we'll do it but that's neat for me to hear someone like you Rob who I mean you were only in pinball for six months at that time maybe six eight months at the max and you're having enjoyment in that type of format. Now, that was one of the ones we didn't do a flip frenzy. We did match play, and I do think match play is pretty incredible. The only thing that's difficult about match play is when you have a lot of people, it's getting the timing right because if you've got the best group on, say, Star Trek, Stern, they're going to play forever and ever, and everyone's going to be sitting there going, okay, we're waiting for the next round, let's go, let's go, let's go. But you still enjoyed it. Well, yeah, I think that was part of my mistake where I decided, okay, I'm going to have a couple beers, I'll Uber home, no big deal, I'll just drink one drink per round. Oh, boy. And then as the day went on, and I was there, you know, into the evening. I mean, I got knocked out pretty early. I think I came in, like, 40th of 42 or something, but still. Well done. It still went on for a long time. But that was actually the only time that I really, like, had drinks and played pinball. So, again, it didn't really matter about the tournament. It was just enjoying being around that many people. And that was really impressive to me because I'd only been playing against more or less the same pool of maybe 20, 25 people in the area. It's funny, these bigger tournaments, and that one was certainly a bigger one, it brings out some really good players. I know we had a bunch come down from Ottawa and Canada. And again, that was mainly because we enjoyed the location of Silver Ball Saloon with what Kat and Bruce did and the great quality of games. But these competitions, that's something, and I feel bad. I doubt you ever got a chance to go to something like Pinberg, but I certainly hope you get to go to bigger competitions and you'll really enjoy them even more. Yeah, that's the biggest bummer for me was because I finally – all of the events were kind of happening and I was hearing them from people who had just gone to them come back. And I'm like, oh, yeah, well, I'm definitely going to do that next year. And then that next year was 2020. Can I just go back a second? Because obviously you're just saying that that's probably now 18 months ago, two years ago that you got into pinball. Does that mean that you hadn't really played pinball before then, or had you played it but really not shown that much of an interest? I'm curious to know the difference. So I played it off and on growing up, but I was, you know, I'm 35, so video game arcade, that was really like the bigger thing when I was growing up. But then barcades came around, so I would play pinball sometimes, but it never clicked with me. So I didn't know how to actually play the game physically. So like I said before, there was that teed off. I'm waiting for my burger at this burger place. And then I got a multiball. I had no idea how I did it. And my little buzzer is going off for me to go pick up my burger. And I'm still playing the game for another like five minutes. When in the past, I'd only played games for two or three minutes. You know, just really terrible rookie stuff. But then I went home and Googled how to play pinball. And then it's like I'm opened up to the world of Bo and Karen's. And then my mind was just completely blown. So I went down that rabbit hole as far as you possibly could go, and it became pretty much my entire everything, like my entire life at that point. So with that in mind, what is your view of the pinball industry from somebody that's been in it a couple of years versus us that have been on it 40 plus years and can get a little bit tainted with all the information that I've had over the years? oh, that's not as good as this one that was back then. And, you know, Bally Williams games didn't have pooling and all that kind of stuff. But I'm just curious, for somebody that's been in it for a couple of years, what is your opinion of the pinball industry? I guess at large, I mean, all the information to take in from that point on was a little bit daunting. But I've seen, I guess, even just in this short amount of time, things change kind of a lot. I mean, I don't know. It's just I've taken in so much information from podcasts as well. So I guess my point would be, I don't know if I'm a big fan of any of the manufacturers that have released anything in the past maybe six years. I like older games, to be honest. What's turned you off the newer games? I guess it's just I still can't really wrap my mind, and I could spend so much time reading or looking at videos on YouTube. I can't wrap my mind around how to actually play some of the games outside of the information that I need to know to play them in tournaments. Well, hold on a second. Dwight Sullivan's here. He'll explain it in 30 seconds or less. It'll be a piece of cake. I appreciate what you just said there because I certainly like the new games. I like the older games, too. What I like about the older games is I can explain to you in probably three sentences what you need to do, and then you just have to execute. It doesn't make them simpler. It makes maybe easier to comprehend and you don't have to do as much math maybe in your head and you don't have to worry about action buttons and multipliers and this and that. But as we see the sales of new games go up and up and up and the demand is just increasing and suppliers and distributors are having trouble with keeping supply on hand, there's something to be said about the deeper games as you are spending that much more money and maybe bringing them into your home or operating them that, okay, there's more to it and I will not burn out of this game. But it's funny that you said you had Metallica and you got bored of it. I mean, to me, I think Marty and I both said a couple weeks ago. it's maybe the best Stern game ever made. Well, I guess like, I don't know if I've contradicted myself or it's more like this, where it's like the price point for any of these newer games absolutely makes sense to have them in your house if you're going to play them over and over and over again to try and advance through all the modes and stuff. Whereas like I guess my gameplay is what exactly do I need to do after somebody else has just played to try and best their score rather than try and beat the game That is two different things It when you play a game at home, especially during this pandemic, is you really change how you're playing the game. For me, it's, okay, can I complete this? Can I get to the wizard mode? Versus, well, if I was playing in match play, I would just do this to get a decent base score and not really try to blow it up. So I guess you're hooked on that kind of competitive aspect where what's the best attack to do well in this match. Yeah, I would say that too. And I just, you know, again, since I'm really not that well versed in every single game and I can play that many games, I'm just kind of trying to tool around and figure out what is the multiball and when do I need to start it, you know? Even something as simple as that seems really entertaining to me and worth the money, even just to get replays. So a lot of people have said that since the advent of the LCD screens in pinball, that reliance on the screen to tell people what to do versus inserts and text on playfields has actually made it harder for people to understand the game. Arguably, I'd say the confusion was coming before screens. I mean, Game of Thrones was very confusing when it first came out. Walking Dead is still confusing to a lot of people and it's a dot matrix display. I'm not even sure whether it's how complicated or how deep the rules are versus how are they telling you that information? How are they making that game accessible to you? And as the demand for deeper and longer code because we're now putting these games in machines is causing that further problem of being able to have a complex rule set but make you understand that rule set. A game that I feel recently got it right was Elvira, because lots of inserts, you can understand what to do just by looking at what insert or what arrow is lit. It's a relatively deep rule set, but it guides you, it holds your hand along the way. You know what? I was actually going to bring that one up is because a lot of the playfields have gotten very, very busy. So even if I have a baseline knowledge, even just looking at the play field, there's so much to look at. With Elvira, I feel like it's that plus I can make the shots so I can advance through that game. And I've only played it maybe 30, 40 times, but I like that for that reason. Jeff? Because Jeff and I had some interesting words about Elvira. He's making fun of me because he knows I wouldn't own Elvira. He's confusing that with, do I like Elvira or not? Well, you bagged the shit out of Elvira when it came out. I think it's an easy game, but I don't think it's a bad game. It's an easy, easy game. For somebody of my caliber, I'm not trying to be a real dickhead here. I know it comes across like that, but I can fucking make those shots. They're not hard to miss. Anyway, I think it is a fun, fun game. I would recommend that to anybody. I love hearing Rob's analogy of it because that is exactly what that game is. And the great thing about it is you can get deep on it too. So it has something for the beginner and it has something for the expert. That is a perfect mix. It's a good game. You can't hear me say it's a bad game. Yeah, but my point is even though if that had harder shots, it would still go back to the point we're talking about as it's accessible because the inserts tell you what you need to do and the way it lights certain arrows, you know exactly what you need to do as opposed to some of these newer games can become really confusing. So I think if for you, Jeff, if that had much harder shots, I reckon that would be the ultimate game for you. Probably. I think so. It's just the fact that you can hit a lot of those shots with both flippers is the only concern I have of me getting bored and playing it a long time. That's all. But I think it is a great game and the code is perfect and the layout is great. Like you say, the shots, The call-outs are spectacular. What's not to like about it? It's just not something I would see me owning. But that's interesting that you bring that up about how do you do these things. Rob, Martin, I'm going to say a bunch of games. Feel free to both jump in. Tell me on the games I'm about to name how to start the add-a-ball. Oh, okay. Now, Rob, before I even said anything, you went, oh. Why did you say, oh? Well, to keep the ball alive. Okay, but if you're in a multiball, there's a way to add a ball. This isn't a game by any means, but I just want to know how quickly you guys can figure out how to add a ball in multiball. I'll say a game. Blurt it out, boys. Metallica. Yeah, four picks and then the snake. You're not looking online, are you, Marty? No, no, no. I could show you. If you would look at me now, my elbows are on my knees. I'm looking to the ground. I'm deep in thought waiting for the question. Yeah, I know that Metallica one, but a lot of people do not know that addable. They know that when the snakes... So Rob had the game for a while. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's right. You go on the snake, but you have to do something to get that. And maybe you did know that. Maybe you didn't know that. How do you add a ball in Deadpool? I know it's the mystery shot in the scoop, but I don't know how to like the mystery. I do. I think it might be inlanes or something. I can't remember. Okay. I'm going to pick games that I know that the three of us have played. How do you add a ball in ACDC? Yeah, I know that one. I don't know. Yes, the five main shots. It's left orbit, right orbit, left ramp, right ramp, and bell. Once you're in multiball, yeah, you hit all the lit shots. Okay. And so what's good about that is if you've got a VIP, which spots one of those shots, if you're on four and you drain, hit the button, and that'll activate your ball safe. Oh. You're edible. Okay. How do you do it in Star Trek? So that is the black hole stand-up, and that is lit by hitting the six stand-up targets. I guess my point in all this... Who would know that, though? These are games we've played a lot or we have owned. There's no way of knowing any of that. It's my biggest complaint, and maybe I should put it on pin side, pinball companies, is they don't tell you how to add a ball. You're just supposed to figure it out. That's bullshit. Tell me how to do it. You tell me everything else. Tell me how to do that. And I'll tell you this right now. Led Zeppelin, Raymond Davidson heard me say this. You know how you add a ball in Led Zeppelin? You hit Icarus four times during multiball. One shot, not six, not five, not hit the black hole, hit the scoop, hit the mystery, all that. One shot, you do it four times. He told me, and I hope I don't get to shit, he told me he made it simple so that people can kind of understand it. And that's the shot that's straight up the middle, right? It's the one that starts the play field multiplier. Yeah, it's just to the right of the center ramp. I played a premium, and I shot around on that game the first time I played it for five minutes, and I didn't hit anything. so that's how terrible I am. How do you add a ball on dialed in? On dialed in? No idea. I can't tell you. I have no idea. I think it has something to do with the scoop. Yeah. It's three shots to the scoop. And the reason why I bring that one up is that I think that at least, because if you look at the phone above the scoop, it tells you that three balls will locked into that. It tells you. Good. So, Rob, when you're playing a competition, and I go up to a game, it sounds like you do what I do. If it's a game I don't know really well, how do I get into multiball? Okay, figure that out. And they'll usually tell you that on the apron card or somewhere. And especially the newer games have easy multiballs. Jurassic Park had the T-Rex. Zeppelin's got the Zeppelin multiball, three shots to that left ramp. Oh, okay. That's fine. Okay. So there are easy multiballs that they're putting out there now. I think there's probably one on Mandalorian too. The one on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is so goofy because if you accidentally get it, you can score almost nothing on it. Well, that's what kind of the first multiballs are, just kind of a you paid a dollar, you get to see what the multiball looks like. That's what it is, I think. I just don't know why they can't tell you how to do these things. I'm asking you, Marty. You're about to code a game. You're about to make 2.0. You better freaking tell us on Fathom how to make a multiball or add a ball. I'll shit all over if you don't. No, it's not about thread on pin side. Okay, what we've decided is we don't want to give too much away of the 2.0 code because they've sold out, everyone's getting them. I kind of want people to enjoy it for the first time when they get it. so answering your question about how we communicate that kind of stuff to people we'll give it away but if i've already said that it's a pet peeve then we're going to address it you did say it was a pet peeve didn't you yeah i mean i i agree with you in that i find that and that that's why i brought up elvira being able to just let you know visually and orally what you're meant to do that's what's really important to me because some people are visual and some people aren't some people like to hear call outs and hear sound effects that indicate what they're doing you just gave ryan a boner way to go i gotta tell you the amount of time spent on sound just to get it right it's really really important because for me i i like to feel what i'm playing you know i've always talked about how you get a connection to the game and it is it's gameplay it's feel it's the audio package it's all of that but it's also how the game is community communicating to you as a player what you need to do in terms of the game not telling you things my mind was blown i'd been playing it for forever iron maiden i got one of the super secret skill shots and i can't remember what it was but it was somehow i launched the ball and caught it on the left flipper without it touching anything and then hit whatever I needed to hit. And I just like turned around to everybody. I was like, what was this? My mind, it was kind of a fun experience in terms of that. Yeah, I think there needs to be some mystery in the game. But when the entire game is a mystery, that's... I'm okay with those secret skill shots and things like that. I'm not a huge, huge fan of them. Like at least they on videos kind of tell you, okay, there are these, these, these. Okay, that's fine. But think about when you're actually doing it. Think about this. You're playing the game. You plunge somehow, some way. It goes into, let's say, your left in lane. You shoot the flipper. You hit something. 20 million points or whatever the case may be. You just got a super skill shot. One of many, by the way. How did you know that you did it? Because you're not looking at the LCD screen. So think about that, too. Like, the difficulty of a lot of these games is they put the information up top where you're never looking. If the balls are down your flipper, there's no way your head is looking up top. Unless you tilt your head sideways, maybe that's how I need to play. If one eye is close to the flippers, the other eye... That's how I'm going to start playing. If only there were screens near the flippers that told you... On the apron. Oh my God, that would be a good thing, wouldn't it? Wow. That's the first hand job for Haggis. Many more to come. No, but... All kidding aside, trust me, that is a great, great feature that you've done there. so I look forward to it. Well, you know, Damien's going to hate me for saying this but we weren't really the first company to think about how can you put information to people on a playfield. I mean, Kelts obviously has a screen in the middle of the playfield as well. Total copy of Alien, I get it. But then there's also the pin bar as well. Like I get why you've got that information there because it's closer to the playfield where you should be looking. And an offline conversation that Jeff and I had When we were talking about somebody that is just getting better and better at pinball that we know, their Achilles heel at the moment right now is they keep looking up at the screen at the back to see what's happening, and that's when they lose their ball. That happens to me all the time. I was going to say that. It'll roll off the flipper. I think we all like to look up, especially when you hear something, when something happens on the screen. You can kind of see it in your peripheral vision. You want to look up. It's a natural reaction. Rob, are you somebody who likes to trap up to kind of maybe get some information, hold the flippers together or are you just kind of go go go yeah well no so once i finally finally started getting into that i would trap up and try and look up either at the screen or even just at where the shot i wanted to make and then it would just slowly roll off the flipper by the time i look back down it's the end of the ball so again that's that's where it's what i was saying before about how does the game communicate to you what's going on without distracting you i think jurassic park was really good with the post yeah yeah yeah it stops gives you just the right amount of time to see what you need to do yeah i definitely like that that's a i mean jurassic park is a pretty near perfect game let's be honest yep agreed and also just on that as well what keith's done with jurassic park is he's put a lot of the information that you need on the play field as well with the inserts them with the text. So there's not as much time needed to look at the screen. You can pretty much follow what you need to do just looking at the playfield. Rob, do you know why we're doing this on this podcast? Do you know why we're bringing this up? We already know all the answers. All right. Marty and I are like seasoned veterans. All right. Years and years of knowledge. We are doing this so that the actual people at the manufacturing companies can take this in because they listen to this podcast. I think they have a meeting scheduled like two days afterwards once everyone's heard it because they like to hear it probably two, three, four times. We get it. We understand. And they go, you know what? Marty and Jeff said this, this, this. We need to change things. So that's the only reason we're doing it. Marty and I already know all this kind of stuff. We're doing it for the benefit of the pinball manufacturers who are then going to make it great for players like you, Rob. So you're welcome. Oh, thank you very much. I mean, having a rookie perspective is really fun though too. One of the other things was like, I'm still making mistakes. Like one of the things I remember was like, I tilted trying to save a ball when I activated a multiball and I saved the ball, but I tilted. So yeah, so that's, that's where I'm at, you know, guys. I was asking you your opinion because you are effectively, I know this, that's so weird. You're the future of pinball, Rob. I say that because we've been into pinball for years. they've already got our dollar. They've already captured our interest. We're already sold. We're already on the roundabout. But if they are still wanting to grow pinball, it's how do they attract people like you and how do they keep people like you interested in pinball? That's why I was asking that question. It really was a message to the manufacturers that says, hey, here's a new customer. How are you going to treat them? You've got the drug. Now let's get on some new customers. All right, let's just give them a little sample. Get them hooked. So my question, we sort of asked it before, but do you think manufacturers are targeting or communicating enough to people like you? I don't think so at large, to be honest. And like I said, I consume a lot of podcasts, like pretty much every single pinball podcast. And I remember Stern had been talking about more transparency at one point. And, you know, as somebody who's not like a stern insider and I only get my information secondhand, I don't know. You know, it's like if you're going to buy every single LE, they've got a customer who's going to buy every single LE and rotate them out of their collection as they come along. I don't know. I'm in that weird area where they're going to sell. People probably didn't like Stranger Things when it came out. People still don't like Stranger Things. But when you put that on location, 12-year-old kids are going to put quarters in it and be like, this is amazing. For me, I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars on a Stranger Things even secondhand, even though I like the game, to be honest. So then it comes down to what are the new themes that they're releasing to attract new purchasers? Because we obviously had that discussion about Led Zeppelin. Is that getting a new audience or is that just catering to the existing audience? Mandalorian I think is aiming for a new audience whilst giving the fans what they want as well if you're going to sell that to a dad either of those pins you've got to market I'm a fan of the Mandalorian I'm a fan of Led Zeppelin I like the looks of Mandalorian I loved playing Led Zeppelin but I just don't know I just I don't know if I'm the right person to ask because I'm pretty positive there's going to be a Mandalorian on location weeks after it gets sent out so I don't have to worry about that. You know, at some point, there's a good chance to add to your collection of the Reach Around Award. You're probably going to have a pinball machine. All right. You can't have one without the other. I'm just saying there's a good chance, Rob, you're going to have that in the background of your Zoom meetings. Oh, there's a pinball machine. Look at Rob. He's cool. He's awesome. He's taken the crack. He's now hooked. And then it's going to turn into two, three, four. It just happens. It's very rare that somebody owns one machine and doesn't want to get another one. You know that's going to happen. Oh, absolutely. And that's another thing where if you're talking about taking the drug, I have a very serious problem with that because even just with video games, especially during COVID, I'll buy a video game, full price, $60, play it for a week or two and never finish it and then buy another one. I think I've got at least $1,000 worth of video games that I bought in the past six months alone that I never even beat. So we're talking a different price point on pinball machines, though. You could have bought a topper, I guess. You know what? I was joking about that at one point somewhere online that I was going to try and buy, I can't remember which topper it was, just to flip it. And I can't believe what this market has become over the past year. It's almost as bad as scalping tickets, or even worse, actually, I think. I totally agree with you when it comes to toppers. And you know what? Zach Manning likes to think he has control over the pinball network. And I know he's too lazy to listen to the show before he puts it up. So too bad, Zach. It's already on there. It's already up. People have heard it. You can take it down, but people have already downloaded it. The toppers thing is just, I joke about the crack and being hooked. That is the crack, the toppers, because they do fuck all to the game. They look nice, no question about it, but do they add anything to the game? No. Jurassic Park has a mode. I was about to say, except those that have got an extra mode. Really? Okay, ask Keith how he feels about it, because he had nothing to do with it. Keith's not everybody. He's one person. He made the game. Yeah, but he's only one person. He made the rules. He's only one person. Okay. He's not like he's like the head vampire and everybody underneath has to agree. A lot of people do like that mode. I'm not sure he was over the moon that it was linked to the same thing, but some people love that mode. So that is one topper that has some sort of aspect of gameplay to it. I'll give you the Black Knight topper. I'd love it. Yeah. Whatever it costs, I'll give you it because that is a great topper. You can't, I'll never say a bad word about that's fun. That looks cool. But what Rob was saying, people are buying them to flip them and sell them for ridiculous prices. That's it. That's all. Yeah. I mean, just even think about what those Mandalorian LEs are going to be going for. Even after they get flipped, they're going to get flipped again. It's going to be a weird market. Yep. So Rob, what's it like not to be in lockdown? Because Marty's now in lockdown. I've been in it for a while. You know, it's been really good. I've been fully vaxxed plus the 15 days for a week or two now. So it's interesting. I'm still wearing my mask when I'm out in public. I don't know which stores don't want it, which stores do want it, but I'm just doing it for everybody else. You know, I think pinball is going to be coming back, which is the most exciting thing for me. But I went to a minor league baseball game. I saw that. That was amazing because I at least go to a few games a year. And it was incredible to be back in the stadium, in the vaccinated section, which was the whole 100 ring. And most people were still wearing their masks when they were walking through the stadium, but it was just great to be able to do something like that. And I also want to thank you for recording this on your Memorial Day weekend, because it's not a holiday in Canada or in Australia. Are you a veteran? No, I've never done anything important with my life. Oh, but you were bitching about, oh, we got to record on Memorial Day weekend. Hey, it's a drinking holiday for everybody. Well, not drinking holiday. Let me rephrase. I was going to go see my family today, but instead I'm doing this. I'll see them on Monday. Yeah. Let's be honest. All right. You're counting your blessings, right? Lucky to be on this show. Come on. I mean, not just anybody can come on. The check cleared, right, Marty? Yes. I think it was PayPal. Like I said, Rob, it's a thrill to have you on. I mean, Carl, that was just a placeholder to get to this part of the interview. Well, at least you didn't let Bruce down because last time he thought there was going to be some giant guest. and I was like, oh, no, it's just me. But there you go. Everything's solid there. No, it's been fun to talk to you, and I'm sure I will see you at that collective because I definitely want to get there. We just have to have this little thing called the borders open up, but that's another thing. So thanks very much, Rob, and good to talk to you. I'm sure we'll chat again. Yeah, sounds good. I big-timed you at the pinball profile world, whatever you call it. I feel bad because you asked me if I wanted to play TX Sector with you, And I was like, no, I'm busy playing Jurassic Park with my actual friends. Oh, snap. So we'll have to try and do that sometime, you know? Well, at least you saved yourself a beat down. So let's be honest. Hey, Rob, thanks very much. Thank you, guys. Thanks, man. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Carl. Before that, we're wrapping things up on this show. But we do have a couple of, I don't know, things that we've got to kind of clean up. We had that most overrated pinball poll, and we found out that Adams Family won on the one side, and Big Bang Bar, one on the other side, well, they have to be pitted against each other, don't they? We need to know which one is the most overrated pinball machine of all time. Sounds like a poll, and then we'll get to our next poll. And we would like your feedback, too. So as soon as, you know, make sure you join our Facebook and our social media, because we put a lot of good stuff on there. But we're going to be going into favorite wizard modes. But first, we need you to give us your vote on Adam Samley, Big Bang Bar, which is the most overrated. How can people find us? They can email us at finalroundpinball at gmail.com. If you look at Final Round Pinball at Facebook, you will find us there. We are at Final Round Pin on Twitter and it's Final Round Pinball Podcast on Instagram. That's the only place you'll find us. You won't see us at a barber or a hairdresser because I'm afraid we can't go quite yet. You say we? Oh, you can? You're in a lockdown. Ah, I got a day before the lockdown. Yeah. So you didn't want to look shitty for those seven days of lockdown. Oh, my God. I can't let this grow and get out of hand. Well, no, this is the thing. It is lockdown. But there are five reasons that you can leave your house. Can't remember them all, but getting groceries. Going to work. Well, that's the last one. So there's groceries, exercising, visiting a partner. And getting a haircut. And something else. And work. And it's work that can't be work from home. I'm sorry. I cannot build a pinball machine from home. So I get to go to work is what I'm saying. Now, is there an exception if you don't want to see people like, oh, I don't know, Greg Silby? We can always make exceptions for that. Yeah, I would definitely stay home. All right, we're done. Another Fortnite. We'll be back. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We will speak to you then. Hey, we just completed editing the show. And I do want to apologize to our guest, Rob Frost, because he put so much time and effort into putting together those clips early on in the interview of myself. I thought I should do the same for him. And part of the interview, unfortunately, didn't air. So I thought, well, you know, Rob put in a lot of time. I should probably do the same. So, hey, Rob, here's part of our interview of some things that you said that we actually cut out. I thought you'd want to hear them. um you know um where i i thought like uh um you know i um you know i the uh uh uh but uh you know i i kind of like so you know um you know um uh um you know uh uh i i but um _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f91a9a0a-a583-404f-9bc9-ee8b6895c2df*