Ryan is a multifaceted figure in the pinball community who has evolved from being a co-host of the Head2Head Pinball podcast (appearing prominently from 2018-2019) to becoming an operator of Pinball Map and a board member of the Austin Pinball Collective. He is known for his technical expertise in pinball mechanics and sound engineering, his participation in competitive tournaments and polls, and his involvement with custom pinball machines. Ryan maintains active involvement in the pinball community through podcast appearances, league play, and collective leadership.
No aliases
System 7 board issues on Black Knight are well-documented and supported by the community, but parts availability is becoming difficult.
Steve Ritchie is the only pinball designer to have created an entire trilogy of machines (Black Knight 1980, 1989, 2019) across a 40-year career.
Steve Ritchie voiced the Black Knight character in both the 1980 original and the 2019 Sword of Rage sequel, 40 years apart.
Pinball designer at American Pinball hired over a year ago; currently has whitewood in production phase; assisting with Barry Alford's final game
Friend of Scott Larson who owns Iron Maiden Pro; upgraded to Premium after playing comparison at Salt Lake Comic Festival
Head to Head podcast personality; first introduced Josh to Rick and Morty theme concept
Board member of Austin Pinball Collective; owner of Xenon machine that required troubleshooting with Chris
Co-host/creator of Stern Battle Royale poll; absent from this episode; advocated for Walking Dead in tournament; now running Ripley's secondary poll
Operator of Pinball Map; plays in same league as Dirtypool podcast host. Described as 'a little shy' about podcast appearance.
Expert: merged definition Expert: merged definition
No linked glossary terms
Black Knight still ranks in the top 150 games of all time on Pinside over 45 years after release.
A player-grade Black Knight will sell for $1,800 to $3,000 on the secondary market and holds or appreciates value.
Black Knight (1980) was the first solid-state pinball machine with a two-level playfield.
MagnaSave was patented by Williams Electronics in 1980 and all modern player-controlled magnets descend from this innovation.
More than 13,000 units of Black Knight were produced.
Jack Danger is equivalent to Keith Elwin in terms of designer reputation and collecting appeal
There are 1,000+ Pokémon total with 150+ new ones released annually
Pokémon Pinball layout looks similar to Junkyard and appears 'kind of boring' with safe design choices
Ryan emailed his Australian distributor two years ago requesting a Pokémon Pinball reservation before official announcement
Pokémon is a bigger IP than Star Wars and bigger than Disney
Turner Pinball has Merlin's Arcade game in development with more magic and fewer ninjas than Ninja Eclipse.
Barrels of Fun is releasing Winchester Mystery House pinball machine with custom playfield mechanism.
King of the Arcade uses copper wire for ramps and cardboard for ball protectors as material-compromise solutions for rapid prototyping
The Bash Locks mechanic was conceived by Ryan to solve modern ruleset incompatibility with classic saucer lock-stealing mechanics
Operators sometimes delete and re-add machines to clear negative condition comments
Lack of similar mapping platforms for arcade games is due to high initial setup work required
App and web traffic is roughly 50/50, contrary to expectations of 80% app dominance
The game has villain mode, henchman mode, and Q Branch mode
Ryan changed jobs approximately 2.5 years ago to a different urban planning consulting firm
American Pinball now implements overnight burn-in testing on every machine before shipment
The driving tank Galactic Tank Force cabinet was powered by a mobility scooter purchased on Craigslist from a construction worker
The five target mechanisms are consolidated onto a single metal bracket rather than being individual parts
Original game design between flippers included a drop-target mechanism that was later replaced with atomic shield
American Pinball's internal testing over months was insufficient to identify target bracket bending under aggressive play
All five target drops share a single reinforced metal bracket rather than being individual off-the-shelf components
Engineer Sophia designed a two-part bracket solution addressing both top and bottom playfield reinforcement
The drop target between the flippers was replaced with an atomic shield mechanism during development
Target durability issues were discovered at TPF when player testing caused targets to bend
Sophia Ryan engineered a reinforcement bracket that will be sent free to all registered game owners
American Pinball small team size prevented them from accumulating enough plays to discover the target issues internally
Ryan is a newcomer to pinball and this is his first appearance on Don't Panic Flip
Medieval Madness LE #1 is Doug Duba's personal machine that had been stored in a box at Chicago Gaming for years
Doug Duba updated Medieval Madness LE #1 to match the aesthetic of Monster Bash with RGB LEDs and powder coat trim
Pro pinball machine pricing in Australia has increased by approximately $1,000 AUD within the past 12 months
People are actively selling their original 2017 Star Wars machines to secondary market following the Vault Edition announcement
Brian Eddy designed exactly three legendary pinball machines: Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, and The Shadow
Stern operates only two production lines
George Gomez provided strategy details about Star Wars Home Edition and Stern's distributor relationships via Facebook Messenger
Bram Stoker's Dracula has one of the better Williams playfields after early revision issues were addressed
Star Wars Home Edition looks like it shoots better than the commercial Stern Star Wars machine
Eight machines were released in 2018: Thunderbirds, Pirates of the Caribbean, Deadpool, Beatles, Iron Maiden, Supreme, Alice Cooper, and Houdini
Prior Squippies (positive awards) voting attracted over 100 votes; hosts hope for 300-400+ votes in 2018 Twerpies
The new Pinball Map tile server will be completed within one to two weeks
React Native allows write-once, deploy-to-multiple-platforms development approach
Ghostbusters is the most-located pinball machine on the Pinball Map with 570 machines
The platform has experienced thousands of updates per month across all regions
Pinball Map started as a remade version of an existing Portland pinball map in 2007
Main gameplay commentator; provides detailed technical observations of machine mechanics and code issues
Australian owner/operator of defective Wonka unit with multiple issues: playfield chipping, defective pinballs, Gobstopper malfunction
Co-host of Head2Head Pinball podcast; features prominently on custom machine
Co-host of Head2Head Pinball Podcast; sound engineer perspective; participates in Batphone challenge