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Blab is Dead. Long Live Blab.

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·56m 1s·analyzed·Aug 16, 2016
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Tournament recap: new JJP games too complex for operators, Color DMD looks great, TPA EM physics broken.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss their recent pinball tournament experiences at Orange County Pinball League, featuring hands-on impressions of new games (Wizard of Oz, Game of Thrones), classic machines (Genie, Circus Voltaire with Color DMD upgrade), and broader observations about game design complexity, operator vs. home market tensions, and emulation accuracy issues in Pinball Arcade. They critique modern Stern games for being too complex for casual/location play while praising classic simplicity, and discuss Jersey Jack's hardware reliability challenges for location operators.

Key Claims

  • Color DMD now offers true multicolor LED dot displays (not LCD) with brightness matching the rest of the machine

    high confidence · Chris describes seeing Circus Voltaire with Color DMD upgrade at tournament; confirms it's multicolor LEDs, not blended video, and matches playfield brightness

  • Jersey Jack Pinball boards are not arcade-hardened and fail when run 24/7 for location operators; designed as appliances (turn on/off) not continuous arcade cabinets

    high confidence · Jared explains JJP Linux-based system reliability issues, states boards not 'technically arcade hardened' based on operator reports; contrasts with appliance design intent

  • Pinball Arcade emulates early EM games with unrealistic flipper power and ball speed; balls move too fast compared to real machines

    high confidence · Chris describes playing real Genie vs. TPA version; confirms real Genie is slow/floaty while TPA version shoots up ramps too fast; attributes to unrealistic flipper coil simulation

  • Wizard of Oz is designed for home/familiar play, not location operators; rules are too complex and opaque for casual/first-time players

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discuss tournament scores on Wizard of Oz; Jared notes better players couldn't explain their own scores; Chris criticizes lack of shot guidance and need for 30-40 plays to learn rules

  • Game of Thrones lacks front-mounted headphone jack (requires backbox access); Wizard of Oz has front jack

    high confidence · Chris describes tournament setup differences; Game of Thrones headphone cable runs from backbox, Wizard of Oz has front jack

  • Bob Matthews is ranked 33rd in the world; Johnny Monica is ranked 55th

    medium confidence · Chris cites rankings while describing tournament match pairing; no independent verification provided

  • Stern still designs games primarily for operators, not home market complexity levels

    medium confidence · Jared observes Stern couldn't sell something as complex as Wizard of Oz as an arcade title; implies deliberate operator-first design philosophy

Notable Quotes

  • “The one I wish that I had gotten was the cannon going off. Holy crap, does that look amazing... It's just a beautifully animated piece. Plus the cannon has all sorts of colors on it. That one was by and far one of the best colorizations for the animations of any of the color DMD that I've seen.”

    Chris @ ~5:30 — Enthusiastic endorsement of Color DMD quality on Circus Voltaire; demonstrates aftermarket upgrade viability

  • “I don't know if it was LE or Premium, but it was not Pro. It was the one with the upper playfield... Those two, the two tables that I have no clue what the heck is going on on. And hope for the best... I wanted to play 9th in the tournament which is just like shocking to me, absolutely shocking.”

    Chris @ ~22:00 — Highlights paradox of modern game complexity: best scores on games he doesn't understand rules for

  • “Wizard of Oz is designed to be in your game room. Absolutely. You are familiar enough with it because you play it for 30 or 40 times... But, you know, it's certainly not [designed for location operators].”

    Chris @ ~43:00 — Explicit critique of JJP market positioning: home vs. operator design philosophy mismatch

  • “Because Stern still markets their games for the operator. And there's no way that they could put something as complex as Wizard of Oz out there and have people buy into it as like an arcade title.”

    Jared @ ~43:30 — Contrasts Stern's operator-first philosophy with Jersey Jack's home-first design; implies market segmentation strategy

  • “They're not technically arcade hardened. So they're designed to be more like an appliance, like a console. You turn it on, you play it, you turn it off, and you come back here again. But running them 24 hours a day, things go wrong with them.”

    Jared @ ~45:30 — Technical explanation of JJP hardware limitations for location operators; cites operator reports of failures

  • “And it's like, when you're playing one of these games, even if it's in reasonable condition, like you shoot the ball up one of those loops and it dribbles up the loop and just makes it to the top lanes. That's how it's designed to play. Right. It's not like Medieval Madness... it just shoots up there at this rapid rate.”

Entities

Blockade PodcastorganizationChris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonOrange County Pinball LeagueorganizationColor DMDproductCircus VoltairegameWizard of OzgameGame of Thronesgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball implemented hardware reliability improvements on The Hobbit after discovering location operators were running machines 24/7 despite original appliance-mode design

    medium · Jared explained JJP boards not arcade-hardened initially; stated they 'done a lot of work on reliability and hardening it for The Hobbit' in response to operator use patterns

  • ?

    event_signal: Orange County Pinball League tournament featured new releases (Wizard of Oz, Game of Thrones) and significant private collection machines; mixed skill level participation (~40-44 players)

    high · Chris detailed tournament structure, noted 40-44 player count, 9th place finish; described machines and player experiences

  • ?

    competitive_signal: 4-player tournament format negatively impacts individual performance; players prefer 3-player matches due to longer wait times affecting 'mojo' and play consistency

    medium · Jared expressed strong preference for 3-player format; described how 20-minute waits between balls disrupts focus; acknowledged other elite players adapt to 4-player format better

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Wizard of Oz design opaque to new/casual players; rules unclear, shot targets unlabeled, strategy requires prior familiarity; video screen design confusing with 3 simultaneous objectives

    high · Chris described tournament confusion; cited player (ranked player) unable to explain their own high score; observed light show provides no shot guidance; noted unlabeled shot targets

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern manufactures games for operator/location play with inherent complexity limits; Jersey Jack targets home collectors with complex rules unsuitable for location operators

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.168

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frebus, aka Shut Your Trap. He is the birthday boy, Jared Morgan. Hello. Yes, I'm here, and it's my birthday. I'm 37 today. I wouldn't say you're old, but I'm older, so. Yeah.
0:50
I don't want to incriminate myself there. I'm bald for a reason. They're 39. Yeah. Yeah, let's call it that.
1:03
For those playing at home, I'm a leafier baby and I'm 11. You do the math. So we had to skip out last week because I understand you were on death's door. Yeah, it wasn't a good time here in this house. There's a bit of a nasty viral gastro bug floating around here at the moment. And we got us, the whole family, of course. A family that shares cares.
1:31
So, yes, we all got stricken with this deadly, with this disgusting thing. And there was the firing out of both ends that we all love with the whole family. But luckily, we didn't get it all at once. So it sort of went through the family. So at least everyone wasn't, like, you know, queuing up for the toilet, which is kind of good. That is kind of good, I guess. Yes. Yeah, it's very, very positive you can get out of it because the rest of it was pretty shit. Yeah.
2:00
And then, so normally we record on Saturday for myself. It's Sunday in the future for Jared. So we weren't going to be able to record Saturdays. And then we were thinking, oh, well, why don't we record Friday? But then because Jared was sick, he didn't bring a chance to bring home any of his stuff, so we couldn't record Friday. And then it was our old fallback of, well, we always record on Sunday in the past. But I had my Orange County Pinball League to go to. And so, yeah, we decided, you know what? Let's take a week off because there's not a lot of pinball to talk about anyway last week. Truth be told, there's not a lot to talk about this week either. The universe is conspiring against us, so let's just not bother. Yeah, exactly.

  • Jersey Jack has implemented hardware reliability improvements on The Hobbit for 24/7 operator use

    medium confidence · Jared notes JJP 'done a lot of work on reliability and hardening it for The Hobbit' after realizing operators were running it on-site

    • Chris @ ~16:00 — Detailed critique of Pinball Arcade physics inaccuracy for classic games; demonstrates knowledge gap between emulation and real hardware

  • “Everything's flashing. That why you shoot everything. That what you do. Like the key strategy for that game is just you get your multiball up the center ramp first.”

    Jared @ ~41:00 — Distills Wizard of Oz strategy to randomness + shooting everything; implies poor rule clarity for players

  • “I hate it. I refuse to do it. I go, no, I'll do my three balls and then you can have a go... it throws me so bad if we have to take a break between balls. It just screws me up.”

    Jared @ ~30:00 — Personal competitive preference reveals: 3-player vs 4-player format impact; reflects broader player psychology in tournament context

    • Jersey Jack Pinball
    company
    The Hobbitgame
    Geniegame
    Pinball Arcadeproduct
    Eight Ball Deluxegame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Bob Matthewsperson
    Johnny Monicaperson
    Wizard Amusementscompany
    Mike Levittperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Rob Zombiegame
    Indy 500game
    Hurricanegame
    FarSight Studioscompany
    Chicago Pinball Mafiaorganization

    high · Jared stated Stern 'markets their games for the operator' and couldn't sell something as complex as Wizard of Oz as arcade title; Chris noted WoO requires 30-40 plays to learn

  • $

    market_signal: Game of Thrones and Wizard of Oz (Premium/LE tiers) at Orange County league tournament; JJP pursuing location placement despite home-market optimization

    high · Chris noted Game of Thrones and Wizard of Oz at tournament; both upper-playfield versions; tournament operator attempting location play despite design philosophy mismatch

  • ?

    product_strategy: Color DMD multicolor LED display successfully upgraded Circus Voltaire with minimal visual incongruity; brightness and color palette well-integrated with original 1995 machine aesthetics

    high · Chris detailed observation of Color DMD installation at tournament; praised animation quality (cannon effect), color matching, and integration with playfield design

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball Arcade emulation physics significantly inaccurate for classic EM games; flipper power and ball speed unrealistic compared to real hardware, destroying original game design intent

    high · Chris and Jared compared Genie and Eight Ball Deluxe real vs. emulated versions; detailed physics mismatches in ball dribbling and flipper response; noted TPA lacks proper coil simulation

  • ?

    product_strategy: Wizard Amusements developing custom character-themed plunger/shooter rods; Rob Zombie design completed with artist feedback cycle (expression refinement requested)

    medium · Chris observed Rob Zombie custom plunger at Orange County league; artist feedback received ('too happy,' needs 'more evil') indicates ongoing iteration

  • ?

    technology_signal: Jersey Jack Linux-based control system not arcade-hardened; boards fail under 24/7 continuous operation required for location venues despite coin door integration

    high · Jared described JJP boards as 'appliances' (turn on/off design) not arcade-hardened; cited operator reports of failures; noted irony of coin doors suggesting location viability

    • 2:42
    So here's the reason why there was no way that I was going to podcast. I mean, come on. I get to go play pinball. Why would I want to podcast? But particularly wanted to go check out the tournament this time because at this particular tournament, they had the brand new Circus Voltaire color DMD screen. And this isn't the video screen version. This is actually a proper multi-color LED, right? And it looks damn good. I bet you it would. Yeah, because you had mentioned, oh, they're not doing the LED, and I didn't really think much about it because there's a mode. You can choose with color DMD to either have it replicate the dots or to have it blend everything. I personally am not a fan of the blending at all. It looks odd to me. It looked great on Indy Jones. I've seen it blended on Indiana Jones, and it looks really quite good. Yeah, I don't know. There's just something like when they did it with ACDC, I personally found the dots to look a lot better than the blended version. I mean, that's just me. so live sort of that live sort of digitized footage stuff that they often use in sterns yeah yeah that would tend to what i would agree with yeah i think that the less sort of live the more actual dot nation stuff that the that's like only unique to pinball machines i think that stuff will come across a lot better um when it's smooth because it's it's designed just you know just for the pinball machine, not trying to sort of, I don't know why they digitize stuff on pinball. It's so stupid. It's because they don't have animators.
    4:22
    Yeah, that's right. You know, you've got to cut the budget somewhere. Hey, let's just go to the animator. I mean, why don't we get video footage? It's kind of like when somebody goes, oh, it's really easy to take a color film and turn it into black and white. You just put it into black and white mode, and it's like you do realize that there's an actual art to how you, the color palette that you use in a black and white film. There's a classic picture of the Addams Family, the TV show, not the pinball machine, the TV show, which was a black and white TV show in the 60s, but there is a color photo of what the living room actually looked like on Addams Family. And it is this salmon pink walls, and everything is really kind of bright. Well, that's because they need the contrast of black and white. So they were using all these colors that you normally wouldn't have used for a color, filling, but you had to in black and white.
    5:15
    So the contrast would pop, essentially. Exactly. On the flip side, if you're doing fake blood, well, you didn't need red blood. You just needed something that would get that glistening going so that you have chocolate syrup because it really captured the light and reflected properly.
    5:34
    The DMD on this thing, it is true dot LEDs, and it is gorgeous looking. Oh, yeah? I mean, it's gorgeous, and also,
    5:49
    you forget that it wasn't initially part of the table. You know what I mean? It quickly ceases to be a mod and just becomes something that you're used to. It doesn't look out of the ordinary, I should say. If you're walking up to this pinball machine for the first time, you saw this installed, you were watching it and you go, oh yeah, that seems legit. They obviously had this technology back in 1995.
    6:16
    The color palette that they chose to put on this thing too matches again brilliantly with the machine itself. I mean, everybody knows Circus Volterra is a very colorful table to begin with. But in crown form in kind of an okay way. Yes. Not in their hurricane kind of way. It's awesome. But, yeah, and then also because Circus Voltaire has a ton of animation in it, they really got to show off the color aspect. Because also at our tournament was an Indy 500. And somebody was looking at it. They'd never seen an Indy 500 before. So they're watching for the first time. They kind of went, boy, I don't think they'll ever bother, you know, putting color DMD on this because there's, like, next to nothing going on on the DMD screen, you know. Yeah. There's not a lot of animation happening. No. No, no. And that that there is is a car. Ooh, you know. Maybe. It'd be an easy one to knock out.
    7:14
    Right? Yeah. So I tried capturing some video of the DMD in action and posted it to Twitter at the Blockade account. The one that I didn't, I was trying to capture the remaster coming up. I think I got the high wire multiball instead that I posted that. the one that I wish I had it captured, because here's the thing, people don't really like you videotaping over their shoulder while they're playing in the tournament.
    7:45
    I wouldn't have a problem with it. I actually like people talking to me when I'm playing a game, and it doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it makes you play better. It relaxes me.
    7:55
    So anyway, the one I wish that I had gotten was the cannon going off. Holy crap, does that look amazing. Oh, yeah? Oh, God. Isn't it fiery as it goes off? I mean, first it goes the flame out, and then it turns into the smoke, and it's just a beautifully animated piece. Plus the cannon has all sorts of colors on it. That one was by and far one of the best colorizations for the animations of any of the color DMD that I've seen. It really caught my eye. So I think anybody that plunks down the money for this is going to be very, very, very happy. It looks fantastic. It's possible you can put this display in any pinball machine, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be CV. It can be any machine. I couldn't tell you. That I don't know for sure. It would make sense that it could go into any machine. Yeah. I've got a feeling that Color DMD and Stern might have actually partnered.
    8:48
    I heard rumor of this. And that might actually have a thing going on. So I just wonder, because Ghostbusters is the last game to feature a gas plasma display. you know so like a standard dmd or sorry not gas plasma but you know led emulating a gas plasma display okay so um i just wonder if this new product that's being released has actually come about because of stern and what they're going to be doing with um their next table um yeah so it'll be interesting to see but i i was really impressed with the video you posted of it I bet you because it's actually not an LCD screen. It's LEDs, multicolor. They would just be so bright as well. It wasn't painful. I mean, it didn't – it wasn't – it was no brighter than the rest of the table. Let me put it to you that way. Okay, right. I bet you could probably adjust the brightness because they're LEDs. You could actually adjust the intensity of them as well. Yeah. Now, that being said, this table, I didn't even think to look, but this table probably was modded out with all LED lighting too.
    10:01
    Yeah. Because it was a very sick-looking Circus Voltaire. It was clean. This particular collector's house that we went to,
    10:12
    all of his tables are pretty dang immaculate. I mean, they are very gorgeous. So another table that was at the tournament was Genie. and this play field was flawless. Yeah. Did you see it? Had he cleared it? It was clear-coated. It was gorgeous. Everything looked brand new to it. Now, the flippers seemed underpowered, and that I'm not sure if it was error correct or not.
    10:46
    Getting a ball through the spinner was an effort. I mean, it really was like a push to get that ball all the way up there to the spinner.
    10:59
    That being said, though, the rest of the table played like it should play, which is that slow, very bouncy.
    11:08
    You can see the ball where it's going a mile away. So, yeah, super, super slow, yet torturous, too, because when it's like that, You see the ball coming down towards the flippers and you go, there's nothing I can do about it. Not only that, but your reaction time is completely thrown off. But you're trying to nudge the ball and it's not doing anything because it's moving so slowly. Let's put it this way. If you're used to doing live catches at a certain speed, on Genie you're doing it, you know, half a second too early. Yeah. And the ball's just not there yet. Yeah. Or if you're trying to, you know, flipper pass a ball to the other flipper, timing is just totally messed up and it messes with your head this is the experience that I've had whenever I've played any of the Bally Y bodies, whenever I've played any of the EMs in real life that's the experience I'm used to not the experience that happens in Pinball Arcade no, it's just it's like the Pinball Arcade tables are pitched like a modern DMD yet it's they've got like, and to do that from to have the pitch that they've got and the speed that the the games play it they would have to in real life like modify the flip of coils and put right now the coils in for it to move that speed because it's the the speed is just totally unrealistic i played a probably a genie in not as good condition as the one that you would have played but it was still in pretty good condition and it's a slow, floaty, lovely game. Yeah. And in TPA, it's nothing like that. No. It's part of the reason why it wasn't one of our recommendations, eh? Right. And you can see, again, I posted video on Twitter of it on the other Lockhead account. And if you watch when the ball is at the upper flippers, you've never seen the ball move that slowly in Pinball Arcade. No way. Yeah, that is how it always flows on the real Genie. Because this is now the second time I've played Genie. I played it at his house, and I also got to play it when I was at Arcade Expo 2.0. Yeah. And both experiences were the same with the floaty. Like I said, I think his flippers were a little underpowered. Yeah. But not by much.
    13:24
    Again, every EM that I've ever played, the ball, you know, from a caught captured ball, you do that flip. you're lucky if you can get the ball three quarters of the way up the play field. It's usually right about the halfway mark that that ball starts coming right back down. Getting to the top of a play field is part of the challenge of an EM. That's why the bumpers are worth more points up there.
    13:51
    That's exactly right. Yeah because the upper play field is where all the money actually is Exactly So you basically trying to keep it alive when you do your flip I mean when you do your plunge for as long as possible up there And then once it comes down there well now it you know doing nickel and diming
    14:07
    Exactly. Yeah. No, it's true. I wish they could do something about that in Pinball Arcade for those older tables because it's just unrealistic. And, like, they've actually got a beta running at the moment of 8-Ball Deluxe. and it's funny because it's to me it's like that as well with that game, that's like the same era as Centaur and you can tell because when I looked at it I thought oh, immediately when I saw the light animations happening between balls that's totally that system the same system as Centaur because it pulses all the lights and kicks out the ball, resets the drop targets like the same functionally like the same sort of reset sequence so it has the same squawk and talk board that Central does, but without the reverb in it. Right. So, like, watching how that plays and knowing how big the solenoids are in those games, because I've actually had the hood up on them, they're tiny little solenoids for the flippers, yet this ball is rocketing around the play field like it would be in a, like, a 1990s DMD. Yeah. And it's like, when you're playing one of these games, Even if it's in reasonable condition, like you shoot the ball up one of those loops and it dribbles up the loop and just makes it to the top lanes. That's how it's designed to play. Right. It's not like medieval madness. Yeah. And that's exactly what it does at the moment. It just shoots up there at this rapid rate. And you go, look, there's no way. There's no chance. That's the thing. There's no chance for the ball to dribble back down and be at risk again. Like it's a sure shot up that ramp. up that loop, you know? And it just destroys what the game is all about. It's just, like, if realism is what they're shooting for, then they're doing it wrong with this aspect, really. It's not right.
    16:01
    Now, at our tournament, the highlight for what he had there, two brand-new games, he had Wizard of Oz and Game of Thrones.
    16:11
    I don't know if it was LE or Premium, but it was not Pro. It was the one with the upper playfield. Yes, the one with the upper playfield. And so accordingly, most of the players there, again, most of them have not had a chance to really mess around with either table.
    16:28
    Strangely enough for me, of the six tables I played, guess which two I took first place on in my grouping? Those two. Those two, the two tables that I have no clue what the heck is going on on. And hope for the best. Yeah, pretty much. so yeah I was rather stoked overall I wanted to play 9th in the tournament which is just like shocking to me absolutely shocking how many people were playing?
    17:02
    probably 40 44, 40 some around there 9th is pretty respectable very respectable so Game of Thrones he did have the headphones plugged in. He had some headphones there. The bad news is that you put them on and you get the sweat from somebody else that just had them on.
    17:25
    Kind of nasty. I'm supposed to bring your iron, man. That's the thing with Game of Thrones. There's no plug on the front of the machine. Oh. There is on Wizard of Oz. There is not on Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones, it comes out of the back box somewhere.
    17:41
    Behind the translate. That's the same way that I saw it at arcade expo the way they had it set up there so obviously stern has not uh gone the extra mile there for putting headphone jacks on the front because you know running an extra you know running an extra six meters of cable from the not even that like three or four meters of cable from the back box to the front cabinet is a lot of extra money right that being said i played two balls with the headphones one ball without the headphones the ball that i played without the headphones i sucked at. So I got it. It was amazing. I was using it to isolate out and really focus in and hear everything. And it's super amazing what it does to your game. Like when you, when I played it on, on Wizard of Oz, I did get a high score on it and I wasn't surprised.
    18:32
    So the, the funny thing about it all was most people's scores. Again, they were trying to figure it out and you know it's kind of slow going and I'm going to bring up the score sheet right now so I can really tell you what these scores are. Use a software program in your tournament like Match Play or something like that? Our tournament uses what is it, the Chicago Pinball Mafias. I forget what the group's thing is but it's their custom software as what they actually use. I'll give you an example. I won my four-people grouping with 136 million, and that was good for sixth place on the table itself. Okay.
    19:25
    Now, the match before me, I feel really sorry for two of the four people that were in this match because they were going against a gentleman by the name of Bob Matthews, who is, I believe, 33rd in the world, and Johnny Monica, who is 55th in the world.
    19:48
    And so, like I said, my score, 136 million. Their scores were 2 billion and 3.5 billion. Oh, man. Johnny almost ran the table. I mean, he was one dragon away, I think, from running the table for all the wizards. Sweet. Yeah, no, it was just insane. And the poor, the one guy, he scored 1.5 million on the table. The poor guy, he was just like not having any fun because there was literally probably 20 minutes between his balls. Oh, this is why I never, ever play four-player games in a tournament because it drives me insane. If you get paired up with a really good player, you're sitting there, you lose your mojo. Oh, you totally lose your mojo. I hate it. I refuse to do it. I go, no, I'll do my three balls and then you can have a go. Yeah. Because, man, it throws me so bad if we have to take a break between balls. It just screws me up. Yeah. Maybe that refutes my ability as a pinball player because the other guys who do play full play games and still dominate with that. But I think it's just my play style. It's a different skill set, obviously, too. Yeah, it is. You have to learn how to adapt to that, how to play one ball and play one ball good and not count on having that muscle memory for the very next ball. That's right. Each ball is a new ball, and I guess if you play pinball enough, you don't need that warm-up or that consistency of play to carry you through the game. It's all there ready for you to go. You just approach each ball as a new thing. Now, three of the tables that were there were brought by another collector, and he brought with him Hurricane, which looked really good. I mean, it was a fantastic-looking play field and everything, and the thing that was killing me was I only recently finished all the Wizard Goals on Hurricane. I've already completely forgotten how to play that table. That's how much it just slips out of my mind. It didn't stick with me. So I was really bummed that I couldn't remember, what was the strategy again? What do I hit over and over and over again to get a good score? Yeah, because I know this winds up being just a one-shot table. And I realized that it was all about collecting all the clown face lights, and I couldn't remember how to get one particular light. It was killing me. I was like, where's that shot? I don't know. Fortunately, I didn't play that in the tournament, so I was only playing that in practice. He also had a Surf and Safari, Gottlieb Surf and Safari. yeah again screw you people that want to bring more got lead premieres in it's an ugly table and it has a similar sort of um from memory seven safari has a similar way of building things up as going nuts it has like a little light matrix in the middle of the table that yeah you like you shoot things it builds up the light matrix and then you get like an award at the top sort of thing yeah it just uh i spent about two games on it which is like hate it don't please don't bring it to tpa please don't it's just yes the other table that they had was a uh bally atlantis i believe oh okay um which it didn't really grab my attention that much but it was interesting for playing that era of table because you can it's so obvious how much farther advanced William was in that same years of tables more than Bally was because obviously this is before they merged and became one.
    23:26
    But it's the same era of table as Elvira and the Party Monsters. I'm just having a look at the play field now.
    23:34
    It had some tough shots, there's a four bank of drop targets or four drop targets that as soon as you hit one, it starts giving you this countdown timer or countdown beep and you've got to knock down the other three in order to collect or even set up, I should say, what your time to shot after that is.
    23:56
    So it was kind of interesting to play. I'm always happy to play pinballs that I've never touched before, so that was one of those that I never had a chance to grab. I thought this It looks like it has some sort of strange lock system or lock mechanism on the top left. Yeah.
    24:13
    Which I never figured out for myself because I never could hit that shot. It certainly looks interesting. Yeah.
    24:22
    So like I said, I'm very, I would very much like it if Farsight brought in some of these valleys from the mid-80s just because they're different. They're odd. You look at a lot of their play fields, and there's always something quirky about them, something just different that you are not in the least bit used to. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, the jury's out on that for me. But it certainly makes for interesting play. Yeah. I think the mechanics of the games back then were pretty formulaic. you're building up sort of collecting the three or four different things and then going for like the sort of mini wizard mode it was very much about instant gratification with that era of tables and that's the thing that's really quite nice you look at Dino for example right like you know basically it's so simple you walk up to the table you shoot the drop targets until you build up enough people and then you go and shoot for the points up in the sturdy cup it's so easy it's just so easy to grok that as a new player so you go from playing that to then playing Wizard of Oz which I honestly have not a clue what the hell is going on that table and that was me watching, I'm trying to watch other players, trying to go oh maybe I can figure something out and yet they've got the video screen up there, it's divided up into four quadrants, there's like three things going on at the same time that you're supposedly maybe collecting, there's no way that you You can read all three at the same time before something else happens and the screen changes.
    26:04
    I'm just like – and you look at the light show, and you have no – the lights don't guide you. They just make pretty colors. I mean, it's gorgeous to look at, but I don't find it at all fun to play because I'm just constantly scratching my head. You have to approach that table already knowing exactly what you need to do. And how to build up. There's no – because I understand that it's one of those that you can build – really build up the, you know, stack things. It's a hell. Like, it's just you can stack all the things in it. Like, I think when I was playing it over at Free Gold Watch a couple years ago, I remember accidentally stacking two or three multiballs together and just getting a colossal score on it, like 250,000 or something like that, which for that game is massive. But it almost seems like you do it more by accident because you don't – I mean, again, unless you know the rules and exactly what you need to do to stack things, it just randomly happens. And I was watching somebody play. They had a score of 50,000 points. And if you're not familiar with Wizard of Oz, this is a table that scores in 10s and 50s. I mean, it is a slow, slow scoring table. It's low. It's even lower than some of the early 80s pins. Yeah, yeah. It's like a PM scoring, really. he's got 50,000 points. Suddenly he has multi-ball. I'm like, okay, it gets up to 55,000 and all of a sudden jumps to a hundred and some. I'm like, what the heck did you just hit that you doubled your score on this machine? And I asked him after his ball and I said, what happened? He goes, I have no clue.
    27:45
    This is one of our better players too. And he was like, I don't know. Things that are flashing. That's what I did. That game is all about just. But everything's flashing. That why you shoot everything That what you do Like the key strategy for that game is just you get your multi up the center ramp first Yeah And then everything sort of unfolds If you can keep it going for long enough, you'll start getting your points up. Really, it's the safest strategy I've found on that game the limited amount of times I've played it. It's just, yeah, multi-ball is a sure thing. You'll get some points from that. And then if something else, if you trigger other things, because I think you can actually trigger other modes and stuff while you're playing multi-ball. depending on what you're shooting for. Don't quote me on that because I am not familiar at all with the rules in this, but that's my assumption because that's how I got a big score.
    28:35
    So you just keep on shooting all the things. And I don't know, there's some modes in it that, like, will the design to trip you out. There's this one mode that you may or may not have got to where it basically starts to strobe all the LEDs. it basically cycles through the colors and strobes them in such a way that it almost makes you physically ill as you're playing the game and it's designed to do that the designers thought you know what we're going to screw with your head and we're going to basically pulse these lights to make you uncomfortable when you're playing it so it makes it really hard for you to play in this particular mode and then there's another mode that reverses the flippers on you as well So it actually does exactly what Zen Pinball does in a lot of time, but it actually does it for real. It reverses the flippers.
    29:26
    And the other one, it just turns off all the lights completely, and you just play in the dark. So you don't know what you're shooting for. It's not even shot lights lit. You just have to, like, listen and shoot, which is why it's important to have headphones on or be able to hear it. Because it gives you audio cues. So you have to go, oh, okay, and you've got to know where that is. You've got to know where the shot is and then shoot. Well, that's the other problem because there are times where there would be calls where it would be like, shoot to this. And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what that is. It's not labeled on the table. It's not like it's got a sign hanging from it or anything. And you look at the play field itself, and it's not like it's clearly labeled underneath the thing. You just have to know what it is. That's right. Yeah.
    30:07
    Clearly, Wizard of Oz is designed to be in your game room. Absolutely. You are familiar enough with it because you play it for 30 or 40 times. Yeah. and you start to learn what it's about. But, you know, it's certainly not. Look at the complexity of that game compared to some of the Sterns that are out there now. And there's a reason, right? Because Stern still market their games for the operator. And there's no way that they could put something as complex as Wizard of Oz out there and have people buy into it as like an arcade title.
    30:41
    So it's interesting that the home market is making these tables on location almost inaccessible to do it. And I think people are fairly aware now that all the GC Jack pinball games, the system that they're using, the Linux-based system, and the board architecture has had a lot of troubles with operators actually running these on site. Like the boards fail because they're not really designed to be left on all the time. Oh, okay. They're not technically, at least for all the reports I've seen, They're not technically arcade hardened. So they're designed to be more like an appliance, like a console. You turn it on, you play it, you turn it off, and you come back here again. But running them 24 hours a day, things go wrong with them.
    31:29
    So I think they've done a lot of work on reliability and hardening it for The Hobbit, because they've realised that, hey, people are actually running these on site. And, I mean, they've got coin doors on them and coin validators. So, you know, they sort of suggested that you can run on site. So they have to make sure the hardware can handle it. The last thing I saw at our pinball league was a sponsor of our show from Wizard Amusements, Mike Levitt. He showed me what his most recent plunger lane shooter rod is, and that is it's Rob Zombie's head for Spooky Pinball's pinball for the Rob Zombie. And it was a really good-looking Rob Zombie. The note that he had gotten back on it, though, was Rob looks a little too happy. And it wasn't that he looks happy. It's more that he just wasn't mean and evil enough. So the feedback was he's too happy, which was kind of odd and funny. But anyway, I thought it looked fantastic. So those of you that want to take a look, go to his website and hunt him out. See if he's posted pictures of it yet, because I'm sure pictures will be popping up very soon for that. It was definitely worth it. Yeah, it was definitely cool looking. So I'm always happy to see what he's working on next and getting ready to put out there.
    32:57
    There was one other tournament that was going on this past week, and that was the one that Farsight runs. Oh, yeah. I decided to sort of have a bit of a shot. And for me, the only table I did well on, comparatively speaking, because everyone else that plays in that tournament is much better than I am, I had my best game ever on Cactus Canyon. I got to the wizard mode on it, of course, and I didn't unlock any goals because, you know, the goals don't count in tournament tables.
    33:28
    But, yeah, I got to see the wizard mode. I got like 300 million or something like that. Okay. And it was up on the leaderboard first for a while, and then people got $800 or $900 million. I just went, screw you all. I'm going home. That is insane. On that game, it's nuts.
    33:45
    I mean, what level are you at, I should say? Are you gold, silver, bronze? I think I'm gold. I've never been off gold, even though I haven't played in some tournaments. I've never left gold. I'm magic. so this was my first tournament being in gold and so now my my strategy is just to maintain that so i came in at 36th place and i was very happy uh that's good because you know i'm not going to do all that well um i'm looking at on steam on cactus canyon top score by tarik 365 million. There you go. Silver level, 328 million. Bronze tier, 335 million. So I'm going to look into the mobile and see what top score was because top score. No, Jared, you came in second. Gold tier. Top score is 564. You came in at 307. Oh, there you go. So I managed to hold on. I was going to say anything beyond 300 million is very tough in that 20 minutes. Because that's one of those tables that all the scoring is done entirely in your bonus collection. Oh, yeah. Boy, did I have some big bonuses. I had some big bonuses more than my score of like 60 or 70 million. It was incredible. I just kept it hanging around off in the pop bumpers. Yeah. And then unlocking some stuff and, you know, and then just playing it. But most of the time it was like, yeah, shoot the mine, get it up into the pops or like shoot the left loop, just pop it all day, basically. That's right. How you do it on that table, it's ridiculous. That's why it's not a tournament game in real life, because it's just so overblown. I was excited because this tournament had Ripley's in it, and Ripley's is the one table that I know that I can just have my way with. And I was very disappointed to find out that, apparently, Farsight has tweaked some of the railroading on that. Oh, really? So it used to be that from a captured ball on your left flipper, if you flip that up the center ramp to the three in lanes of the slot machine, it would 95% of the time drop into the far right lane, and therefore you could get your jewels that would make you have two times scoring on the table really easily. Right. And consistently. This time around, it was probably a 60-40 split of it, more often than not, going into the center lane.
    36:28
    Center lane jewels give you the god-awful road trip mode that you do not want in a 20-minute tournament. You absolutely don't want, because you don't score many points on it, and it takes forever for it to end. And that's critical to your 20 minutes of scoring on Ripley's. because Ripley's, it's all about how many times can you run the continents. You want to collect the continent bonus, and you want to be having two times on the continent bonus. And if you can collect it three times, you're doing very well. You'll get a very good score, probably 190 to 200 and some plus million.
    37:08
    Now, that's for players like me. if you're a player like Tarek. His strategy is to get into North America and abuse it. Right. Because you're going to really get the jackpot high. My problem is I cannot hit the shrunken head to save my life. Yeah.
    37:30
    That's the one shot on that table that I do not have at all in my wheelhouse. Right. So like it's sort of all the way up the back there. For me, it always just floats in there accidentally. Well, and you can't you cannot hit it with the left flipper. It has to be a right flipper shot. And I cannot figure out.
    37:51
    It's a very narrow window on your flipper for being able to get it up there. You know, you got to hit it just perfectly, it seems. And I've never been able to figure it out.
    38:00
    So North America to me is, OK, let me just drain my balls and get on to the next continent. I, again, it's not for me, but I know that that's Tarek's.
    38:10
    That's it. Yeah, he sits there and he will abuse that thing to the point almost, I think he was saying something about he gets that one up to 15 or 20 million. And then he plays it really safe on all the other continents. Right. Because continents that I think are totally 100% safe, like South America or Australia, even Asia, I have no problem collecting. He's pointed out that if you're playing a marathon session, a marathon game,
    38:44
    those suddenly become that's where you lose your ball on. You play them enough times, you're going to lose your ball eventually on them. Whereas North America, it's a multi-ball. You're not going to lose your balls. He has a safe way of capturing them, and he can hit that shrunken head all day long, build up that jackpot. so yeah so his method is not running the continents three times it's building the crap up out of north america and then maybe running the continents twice right he has two times scoring on that suddenly you're collecting 40 million the first time on north america because it's double and then the next time you go through you're at 80 million on i mean just like you know grows huge yeah for sure so uh so yeah but i thought i was gonna be really good but that that stupid railroad that got eliminated. I was never able to get my two-time up. There you go. Well, it's good they tuned it a bit, because the railways were pretty bad. Yeah, I know, but it's disappointing.
    39:42
    I'm looking up the app then, because I wanted to check where I actually finished up, and out of 378 mobile players with very little effort on my part, I finished 98th. So, I was in the top 100.
    39:57
    Wow! You guys got that many players in... Oh my gosh, yeah, 378 people are in Gold tier. Wow. Because on Steam, we only have 71.
    40:08
    Wow, okay. Well, you know why? It's because Steam has only just started having tournaments. We're only six months in, I think, something like that. Yep. So, whereas Mobile's had it for, well, since the inception of tournaments, I believe.
    40:25
    Yeah. yes that's right we've had that a long time so it gets the player bases I think it's spread across iOS and Android too it's not just Android it's just mobile as a conglomerate or any mobile so yeah it's hard to actually get a decent placing in there because it's always the top people who will get it which is why I just don't play I'd love to see 5 minute tournaments that's entirely why I'm just like you know what, so long as I'm not getting bumped down to silver I'm not going to try and chase the top 10. It's ridiculous to try and chase it.
    41:00
    I don't know, it's a fool's folly. Unobtainium. Especially when some of these guys are sitting there saying, I only played five times and this is what I got. And I'm like, I played 20 and I still was 15, 16 places behind you on that one table. I thought my effort was pretty staggering for what I was able to do. But now that the tournament is over, please, all of you players that are on Steam, go back to baiting the head-to-head mode. Because I couldn't get a single matchup in head-to-head because everybody was too busy playing on the tournament. And the beta is in desperate need of attention. They have taken head-to-head off the mobile. They had to get some extra fixes out to the UI. They wanted to get a group sorting in. Okay. So we actually now have the ability to see tables from the manufacturers grouped with labels now We can yet sort them like ascending or descending or do any sort of logic but at least they've got like the headers in there now so we can sort of group that way.
    42:12
    And so that was good, but they had to disable head-to-head, which honestly didn't bother me because I could never initiate a head-to-head session with anyone that's in the beta testing group. Well, I've been having troubles with that too, and that's why I really want people to come in because I can't troubleshoot it with maybe only one person in there. Then I don't know, is it just a problem of us not being able to connect together or is it a problem with something with how Farsight has it set up? So the more people, the better. It's much better on Steam because on the Android, it's like a closed beta group that is a private group. Oh, yeah, we're in public beta. they pick the people they want in there based on their reliability and how they contribute to the betas and all that. So the Steam beta is great because anyone can just activate the beta channel and get on it. You don't need any membership or anything like that. All you have to do is you have to right-click on the game in your Steam library, right-click on TPA, a series of options. The very last option is Properties. Click on Properties. You'll see the tabs. One of them says Beta. click on beta and from there you'll be able to see the selection box you'll be able to select currently it says public UI beta that's the one you're going to select it's good for the head to head so anybody that is on Steam is available to play it it's open to the public to get on it now I thought of one other mode that I would love to see in head to head but I'll tell you about that after I tell you about Loot Crate hey have you guys hopped on the Loot Crate yet? Why not? Because it benefits us, the Blockade. So why not try it out, right? Just go to trylootcrate.com forward slash blockade. Enter in the promo code BRIDGETEN and you'll get 10% off your first order. Doing that, you have a selection of different crates you can choose, starting down as low as $8.99 going all the way up to, I believe, $150.
    44:16
    The items that you get are usually double the value of what you paid. And as we've mentioned before, it's usually something of the nature of a t-shirt, some kind of a figurine, collectible.
    44:28
    It's all geek. Yeah, it's all geek related. Stuff you're going to love. Stuff you're going to want to display on your desk top. So get on it. Go to trylootcrate.com forward slash blockade. Enter in that promo code of Bridge10 and everybody will be happy. That's right. So the mode I would love to see dropped in is King of the Hill.
    44:52
    Oh, okay. So King of the Hill, the way I imagine it is you enter in. You get entered into a match on a particular table. Whoever wins that table is now king of that table. And all of a sudden they're paired up with another person coming in to try and bump whoever the king is off of that table. Uh, and then maybe it would, uh, show, you know, how many wins that person has had on said table in a row. Uh, you know, so you could really get an aspect of that. Now it could be, there can be many variations of that too, whether it's, uh, a permanent record of who has the most wins on that table and you're just trying to get more wins than them. Or maybe it's, you get to see who has the most wins and then you can issue a challenge to that person and try and bump them off. And if you're able to bump them off, then you're the new king of the hill and anybody can issue you a challenge to try and pair up with you. I just think it would be a fun way of... it'd give you a reason to hang out in the lobby. Because right now, that's the other problem that I'm having is I go to the head-to-head lobby, I select my table, and then I just sit there and I'm waiting. And I'm hoping for a match. And if I get the match, great, I'm happy, but as soon as that match ends, or that person leaves, then I'm back to, well, what am I sitting around here for anyway? Why don't I just, maybe I want to go play another table. But if it was a situation where I want to hang around because I'm king of the table right now, that would be kind of fun. I think there's all sorts of ways that different parameters that can be set up for king of the hill to make it work with however Farsight needs to make it work. I certainly like the idea of trying to bump somebody off. Yeah, I think that'd be cool. That's another easy mode to do too, like with the lobby and that sort of system. So I think it's great. The more of this type of idea that people have, the better. And the only way that they're going to come up with these ideas is to test. Exactly. So get on there and open up your mind and ask, what if? Because I didn't think about it just during the day. I thought about it while sitting in the lobby. Oh, really? While I was trying to play head-to-head, it was like, you know what would be great? And that's when it's going to hit you. It's while you're sitting there waiting with your thoughts going, you know what would make this better? Why am I bored right now? Why am I not wanting to be here? You know, you start asking yourself those questions. Start then asking, well, what would keep me here? What would make me want to come back continually to this? What would keep my interest? Those are the things. Then you go into Pinball Arcade Fans Forum and look under PC, under Public UI Beta, I think it is, and enter your thoughts. Just right now, the person that's doing the programming on the head-to-head, Stephen, he's being very receptive. He's listening to what people are saying, and he's cataloging everybody's ideas because they're looking for ideas. They're looking to see what exactly they want to do and what they can do. so yeah get in there and get your ideas out do it so the last thing I'm going to talk about because I'm full of things to talk about on a session that I didn't think I had much to talk about last thing I'm going to talk about is I need to give a shout out to my boy so my son's been doing martial arts for three years now I believe and today was his test to see if he qualified to get into the black belt candidate program And so this particular day was a little brutal, though. So they wanted to make sure that the kids really, really wanted it. So he had to do 500 sit-ups, 450 squats, and 150 push-ups.
    48:53
    I couldn't do that. There's no way. Now, fortunately for all the kids, they weren't making them do, like, real. sit-ups. Oh, it's his little hoppies.
    49:09
    Let's just say eventually, as long as they can get their shoulders up off the ground, they're counting it.
    49:16
    I could do that. Yeah. The push-ups that were being done were not exactly chest-to-the-floor kind of push-ups. It was basically so long as you can get a crook in your elbow and straighten it out again, that was counting as a push-up. That being said, So, I mean, you're talking about kids that are ranging in age. My boy is 10 to I think the oldest was probably maybe 13 or 14.
    49:41
    They don't exactly have a lot of muscle mass on them. So, I mean, it was still very much a challenge. And my poor boy, oh, my gosh, they did the sit-ups first. And at 250, he was barely able to even sit. I mean, it was just like, oh, there's no way we're going to get to 500. and his form is, again, he's a little kid. He's never had to worry about proper form on sit-up or anything. Now is not the time to teach him either.
    50:09
    So with a little assisting of cupping the back of the head so he gets the idea of rolling his head forward and everything and letting him know exactly that, no, you don't have to go all the way up to your knees. You only have to come up a little bit. It's a crunch, not a full-blown sit-up. Anyway, he wound up being able to accomplish all these things after a two-hour session. yeah so I'm very very proud of him being able to to bust that out myself I've been doing and posting on Instagram and on Twitter a push-up challenge that somebody issued me which was doing 22 push-ups a day for 22 days it's to raise awareness for post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers. Apparently 22 soldiers commit suicide every single day due to PTSD.
    51:00
    That's pretty terrible. Yeah, it is pretty terrible. And so they're just trying to raise awareness. So the hashtags, the various hashtags that goes by is PTSD awareness. There's also a 22 kill and 22 push-ups. So if you go to my Twitter account at ShutYourTraps or if you follow me on Instagram at ShutYourTrap, you'll be able to see the videos that I've been posting I've been trying to make them amusing and different each day and yesterday unfortunately I royally screwed myself up so I had my son jump onto my back so I was pushing him up at the same time so an extra 60 pounds on me and yeah I wound up pulling a muscle or something in my neck to the point that this morning when I woke up I couldn't turn my head side to side even today turning it side by now. I've stretched down and everything.
    51:55
    I can turn my head slowly. But there's no whiplash movements going on. It hurts quite a bit. So anyway, but I encourage everybody to check those out. And if you feel like doing the challenge yourself, I mean, it's 22 push-ups. You can do girl push-ups if you want, on your knees, whatever. Jump on this.
    52:16
    Yeah, you know. post it to your Twitter feed and on top of throwing in those hashtags why don't you throw in a little hashtag of at blockade and that way we can keep track of it and encourage you to go along with it and we'll give you some love exactly Jared you got any other business or do you just need to get to your birthday party that everybody's screaming and shouting and running in and out of your room for no that's a little bit later the birthday will be going to a place that does slow-cooked food, and we're going to be having lots and lots of ribs. Nice. That's what I'm going to be doing anyhow. Are you doing pork ribs or beef ribs? Pork all the way. That's because you Australians hate the pig. Yeah, we love to eat the pig. You love to eat the pig because you hate the pig to be alive.
    53:04
    It must be eaten. That's why I have a shirt called Bacon. I have a bacon shirt for that very reason. the only other thing worth mentioning is that the Brisbane Pinball Club tournament the final qualifier for the year is running tomorrow so I'll be going to that and seeing if I can sneak my way into the final again this year considering that I actually missed one entire tournament so I might be able to get in there and see if the birthday luck follows me through who knows I might even be able to get a place and get some money back. I'll be happy to get my entry fee back of $15.
    53:44
    That'll be pretty good. So yeah, well, wish me luck for that tomorrow. Absolutely. And I'm sure that you'll post your results on your own Twitter feed, which is at JaredMorgz. Yes, I'll do selfies like I did last time. There you go.
    53:59
    Make sure to follow us on Twitter. All sorts of things are going on. At Blockade, for sure you want to follow because then you get to find out when this podcast gets recorded except for on Daylight Today where Blab was not working. So we're doing this on Google Hangouts on air. Blab was having a bad time today.
    54:17
    Yeah. Beyond that, folks, thank you ever so much for listening. We do really appreciate it. Even though we like to just hear ourselves talk, we like to know that other people are listening.
    54:30
    We will be back again next week, hopefully with some, maybe we'll get our hands on the beta of 8-Ball Deluxe. I know Jared has a little bit. It hasn't come to Steam yet, so I'm very curious to see what's going on with that. And we'll obviously get a report back from Jared on whether or not he screwed the pooch at getting into the finals or did he spring to action and bring it in. That's right. Bring it in like I always do.
    55:00
    All righty. So until next time, folks, thank you very much. See you. Bye. wizard amusement.com the west coast leader classic pinball makers of custom pinball shooter rods to buyer specifications swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools even if you don't own the table looks great as a pinball memento to admire prices start at 39 but mention blockade podcast receive 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that BlackPay is delivered to. We can't prove unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and place an end all.
    55:54
    Because that'll just make them come over and over and over again back into it.