All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of A Pinball Podcast. I appreciate you guys being here today, and we actually have a ton of different news to go over today, lots of speculation. Things are definitely starting to heat up a little bit, so let's go ahead and just get right into it. As of today, I am taping this August 26th, and hopefully this will be out August 27th. As of right now, we have what's coming up, the Deep Root special event that's coming up in September, actually. So I don't even know what time exactly or what day exactly, but supposedly that's when they're going to be releasing Raza. If it's already been confirmed, I guess I haven't read that yet, but they are having an event that is apparently a tour and something else. I don't know if it's video coming out or what it was. Somebody had mentioned something to me earlier that is actually attending it. So it looks like things are going to be starting up here pretty quick. So those that saw my Raza video from a couple of weeks ago when I was talking about it on the podcast, that's exactly why. We had a little bit of notion that things were going to start moving along here pretty quick, and it looks like they are, and I'm happy for them. I hope that whatever issues there were with Raza, I really hope they got it figured out. I hope Bowden knocked it out of the park, and I kind of hope that they have a surprise pin. That would be totally awesome. if they went ahead and that wasn't the only pin that they had. Now, do I think that's going to happen? You know, probably not. Probably not. But anyhow, so other speculation, just moving right on ahead. Ex-podcaster Mr. Kaneda himself stated on his Facebook page a little bit earlier today, or it might have even been yesterday, I think it was earlier today, stated that he is hearing that the next pin for Stern is looking at being announced this Friday. Now, that being said, I haven't heard anything, and even if I did hear anything, I probably wouldn't say anything. That's just my MO, but I am free to speculate on what other people are saying, because speculation is fun. But anyways, that's what he's saying. Now, what is this next pin going to be? Even if it's not announced on Friday, what could it possibly be? And who's it going to be by? Is it going to be a Steve Ritchie pin, or is it going to be a Keith Elwin pin? You know, I've been hearing it back and forth that either Elwin's up next or Steve Ritchie is up next. You know, obviously we can kind of tell by the release schedule of Iron Maiden and Jurassic Park the past couple of years that typically right around pinberg time is when Elwin's going to drop his pin. now that being said it's the end of august we've sold past that time and everything for stern seems to kind of be back a couple of weeks but not too far ninja turtles wasn't really delayed that bad if delayed at all who knows maybe it wasn't but either way it's i mean this is kind of matched up with the timeline close to right around when elwyn would usually release a pin so who knows maybe it's him maybe it's Richie we'll see now there's been lots of speculation in terms of what is the theme of this pin and of course we've been hearing Jaws for the longest time and to be honest with you if it is Jaws that's not a theme I'm really interested in it was cool when I was a kid yeah it freaked me out I didn't want to swim in a pool I didn't want to get into a bathtub but you know other than that that's that's about where my love affair for Jaws ends now I did read the novel. The novel's badass. But, you know, the movies, even as an adult, it's just not as cool. I guess when you go to SeaWorld and you start attacking Shamu or whatever the hell happened in Jaws 3, I just kind of lost interest from there. But, you know, I'm hearing all kinds of other things as well. And, you know, there's some things I think have credibility to them. Other, you know, it's totally take with a grain of salt. You know, if it were me, of course, we've been hearing about Marvel for the longest time. It could possibly be Marvel, this and that. If it were me, I hope that Elwynn is doing Infinity War. I've been hoping that for basically nearly a year now, at least a year. And, you know, either Infinity War or Matrix, if he does those two themes, I will die a happy man. Like, nothing else in my life with pinball would matter, just those two themes. Those are utterly my two dream themes. Like, Ninja Turtles, high end up there for me, but I wouldn't mind letting go of the pen. It wouldn't bother me. Star Wars, same way. You know, if you can see this on YouTube and you're not listening to it on audio, you'll see that I have a bunch of Star Wars artwork in the background. Big Star Wars fan, but I'm okay with releasing the pen. Now, in terms of Marvel, that's a little bit different. When you start talking about Avengers, I start, you know, I start remember reading all the comic books and everything. So, In my heart of hearts, I hope it's Infinity War. If it's not and it's still Marvel, anything Black Panther, anything Thor, those are comics that I read as a kid and read them for years, and I would love something like that. Now, on the other hand, what I would really find interesting is the possibility, and there's been rumblings of this, and again, they're probably just rumblings, but I think it would actually be pretty cool that if they would take some of their top end playfields or their, their top end designs, like say Iron Maiden or something like that to where you re-theme that pin. Me personally, I would like that because even Iron Maiden, I love the layout, absolutely love the layout, but the theme I'm just kind of on, you know, so something like that I'd be very interested in. Now, if it's Steve Ritchie, I wonder what he's working on Could he be the one that doing Jaws Could he be doing who knows Led Zeppelin That been talked about a lot You know there been themes thrown all around And you know either way I sure somebody has said the correct theme at some point But I'm actually happy that it doesn't seem like nobody knows for sure. And that's a good thing. Just because it keeps people talking, it keeps things going. And I'll be interested to see if they're going to try to put something out this week, next week, or maybe they're just going to wait until next month. Who knows? I, you know, I really don't see the point in announcing a pin right now. If they did just because Ninja Turtles premiums have just now started going out, maybe like a week, two weeks ago, there's still, I think there's still plenty of juice, you know, that's worth a squeeze for turtles. I think, you know, they're still going to keep selling some of those. And I just don't, I don't know if they try to release another pin here or they announce it this Friday, or next week even, that's, I don't know, that kind of makes it to where they still got to release another one at the end of this year or the beginning of January. So I'm not sure if those time frames are going to match up, or if they're just going to kind of push one off more towards next spring, towards like a TPF or something like that. That's my speculation anyways. Now, moving on, Hot Wheels. There is going to be a live challenge for Hot Wheels. If you guys have looked on the IFPA Pinball website, you'll notice that they have some information up there about it. This challenge is going to start September 1st and it runs through December 31st. It is going to be, basically you have to live stream it. That's the only downside to it. You have to live stream and I think it's got to be on Twitch. It's got to be on YouTube. I got it in front of me. Maybe I can just read it. Yeah, you got to be on Twitch. You got to be on YouTube and you have to basically send your stream with a timestamp of the challenge you got to submit it within 72 hours so you'll have to fill out an application and obviously you got to follow the rules there's not going to be any ball save timers uh no extra balls tournament mode I mean that part's cool I I do like that and they've got several challenges too ranging from basically the best battles from all their modes that they got most cars collected best track multiball best victory lap best uh best loop crash best car chaos largest epic red line first to red line in fifth gear that's actually really fun to do and uh first to reach legend multiball which is the whole wizard mode so they got a lot of awesome stuff and of course you know the fastest complete at race time the best score and you know i'm not gonna lie it's fun a lot of things with hot wheels i'm finding more and more the more i play it is fun and we'll we'll circle back to that real quick But just real quick, the prizes for that, you know, it's going to be a baseball cap, T-shirt, Translites, Houdini Translites, Hot Wheels Translites. But the grand prize is an unpopulated play field of Hot Wheels. Now, to me, that's cool. Again, I'm personally not a fan of the artwork. I will readily say that. But at the same time, to be able to get a play field, to me, that's pretty cool. If somebody's going to dig that, that's something you could easily just use for a future game. if you need to switch it up or just use it for artwork or you want to just be able to sell it obviously whatever it is you want to do with it but i think it's really cool now in terms of the actual gameplay of hot wheels if you have not got a chance to play this game yet please take the time to play if it is somewhere around you play it you'll be pleasantly surprised and you know the more and more i play it yes i do have some issue with my flippers in terms of them losing a little bit of their juice along the way it it happens here and there but you know overall i really i i am really enjoying the game i am pleasantly surprised by that the theme again not a fan of the theme but the gameplay in general i love it now my kids they're over the moon for that i i have both a ninja turtles le and i have a hot wheels and just to be perfectly honest with everybody, my kids are playing Hot Wheels at least five to one, at least five games for every one game on Ninja Turtles. I thought for sure they would be all about, you know, team ups and the co-op and all that on that game. And they just, you know, they, they know Ninja Turtles, they like Ninja Turtles, but Hot Wheels, I mean, it's it, it's, it's a theme that the kids are enjoying. So it went from a game in which I thought I was going to bring it in. I was going to check it out. I was planning on sending it to the local arcade. That way other people could be able to play it around here. But my kids are like, Dad, you can't do that. You can't do that to us. And I was thinking to myself, well, Daddy might. But, you know, rest assured, they're going to win out. And especially with this challenge now that's so awesome. For me, that's something that's pretty exciting to do. And my plan is, my personal plan for this, and to help out the American Pinball guys as well. And again, they did not ask me to do this. I have not even told them I'm going to do this. But I am personally going to basically make sure that I can get several other people to participate in this tournament. So basically, if I can play Hot Wheels for a few months, try to put up my scores I need to do, I'll try to get it to my local arcade and then set something up to where anybody else that wants to come play on that and wants to basically be filmed to where they can, you know, try to, I guess, put up points or participate. You know, I want to try to set something up to where that can actually happen. So look for that possibility. I think it would be something cool to do, and I really hope that there's other places around that would consider doing that around the country. I mean it a cool thing when you bring people together to play pinball But other than that I mean honestly too when I talk about Hot Wheels I still on this and I spending a little bit more time on it than what I anticipated But even then I finding more and more as a tournament pin I think it's got some sustainability. And there's something about it. I feel like maybe I'm missing something that somebody has had to consult about this pin because the more time I spend on the shots. Excuse me there. It means stipple. Let me do this real quick. And I got a cold and it is killing me right now. So anyhow, the more time I spend on these shots and the more time I dig into the actual rule set, I feel like somebody with a tournament mind for sure has had some say in this. I mean, that's how I honestly feel. I don't know if they have, I don't know who it'd be. It just feels that way. It feels very complete in that way. You know, and it's funny. I'm finding myself because I've played many games on Ninja Turtles 2, but I find myself that if I had a choice between Ninja Turtles or Hot Wheels in a tournament setting, I would probably pick Hot Wheels. I honestly would. I probably would pick Hot Wheels. You know, with Ninja Turtles, it's just as of right now, I know that they've upped the scoring a little bit more with the new code that just dropped yesterday, along with their DJ mix, which is very interesting on its own. I don't quite understand that still, but I feel like Ninja Turtles is much more unintentionally linear than what Hot Wheels is. Now, Hot Wheels, you have to do certain things in a certain order, of course, but I like that you can do multiple things. There's multiple pathways to get to where you want to be. Whereas turtles, there are multiple pathways, but as of right now, the way that the scoring was, and I know they've upped it a little bit, it still kind of feels like the balance isn't quite there or the incentive to do anything other than like one or two ways is really the way to go. In terms of getting into your multiball, making sure octopus topping is there, 2X play field and ripping spinner until your arms just fall off or you just pass out, one or the other. That's pretty much still the way that I like to play. Maybe the new code, maybe there's something we haven't discovered yet or I haven't discovered yet, and I'll have to look further into that. I don't know. I mentioned it just a second ago. Stern released a video about the DJ mix that they're doing. I actually did a reaction video. I know, you might be cringing, but, you know, what the hell, I did it anyways because I want to know what would happen. I want to see what would happen. And it happened. So if you haven't seen this yet, check out Stern Pinball on YouTube. Jack Danger slash Deadflip presented it. And it basically, from my understanding, it's a way that you can basically hit the flippers while you're in free play during a track mode, and you can be able to play the music that's within the pin. So if that's your jam, if that's something you like to do, is just stand there at a pinball machine and listen to all the music to it. Cool. You know, and like I said on this video, on my reaction video, that I could kind of understand it if it's, say, Iron Maiden or any type of music pin like Guardians, something like that. But other pins, I don't know. I'm not sold on it yet because just for me personally, I wouldn't want to stand in front of a pin just to listen to the music. If I'm standing in front of a pin, I'm either trying to figure out how to play it or I haven't coined up yet. One or the other. That's basically the only times I'm standing in front of a pin is that I'm either playing it, figuring out how to play it, or I'm coining up. I can't imagine a time frame in which I would just sit there just to listen to the music and stand there for minutes on end going through an entire playlist. But I don't know. Jack did say at the end of his video, though, that there's apparently other things coming down the line in terms of dealing with the DJ mix feature, but he could not talk about it yet. My theory was, was either, well, I actually didn't mention this on there, but I did mention that I was hoping that maybe the lights would dance the music. Maybe the LCD would change a little bit to show different scenes or the characters in different ways or anything like that. That would be interesting. Other things I guess they could do is have a little mini game on it to where, you know, it's almost like Guitar Hero where you're hitting the buttons to match up with certain things or whatever. I don't know. I honestly thought when I heard DJ Mix at first, I thought that that meant that we would be able to put on our own music a little bit easier. But that didn't seem to be the case. It just seemed to be a way that you could just change or just listen to the music. Now, I did notice on the 121, I think that's the code for Ninja Turtles, the new release, I did notice it mentioned something about streamers being able or people being able to prevent certain music from playing in the pen, which by doing that, that would basically guarantee that as a streamer, you would not have your video muted. which that in itself is, you know, that would be important, you know, for a lot of reasons, if you don't want your content muted. So that's a very good thing to put in. Now, obviously not, it's only going to affect a handful of everybody, but good on Stern for thinking about that and good on Stern for putting that in there. All right. And our final thing, I going to make sure I not missing anything else but the final thing to talk about is Jersey Jack Now a few weeks ago Jersey Jack released a teaser and then it was radio silence from there And I remember thinking as soon as they put that teaser out I thought it meant that something big was coming very soon, that the battle lines were drawn, and then it was just silence afterwards. So that quick teaser, it kind of lost its luster, because I think, I don't even know how many weeks ago that's been now it might have even been about six weeks from here it's it's been a while and i want to say it was right around the time that ninja turtles was first announced it was sometime right around in that area so i'm expecting them to come out with something here pretty soon everybody's been saying of course that it's guns and roses the other speculation for the longest time has been toy story now there is some speculation from certain people I saw this first on well I say I saw this first I heard this first about a week ago from somebody they mentioned it to me they were like hey do you think Jersey Jack would randomly come out with two pins at the same time or right around the same time and I said I mean I don't know would it be Toy Story and Guns and Roses like because those are the only two that people have been talking about would they really release them both right by each other And then earlier today You know I see on Facebook On Kaneda He had said that He wouldn't be surprised if September ends up releasing Toy Story instead So I don't I don't know it would be an interesting Move if Jersey Jack decided to release both At the same time Now there is minor speculation That there's a slight delay on Guns N' Roses. But that's just message board speculation. It could mean anything. That's a total grain of salt. The fact is, is I don't know. If it were me and I had access to both pens and I had to decide what to do with them, I would probably say, screw it. Let's just release both at the same time. If I have two lines going, then it's not going to be too much. And I want to compete with Stern. And that's what we're going for and we want to piss on Deep Roots Parade coming out, that's what I would do. You know what I mean? Because it's competition. That would be the way to go. Now, are they going to do it? Who knows? It's just full of speculation. Either way, I did end up enjoying Willy Wonka when I played it. There were some things that I wish were a little bit different, but it is a pen that I wouldn't mind having at my house for a solid month or two to really get to know it. I I had a chance to play it at pin masters and nationals a couple of months ago. And it was, it was, it was an enjoyable pin. It's again, it's a theme that I'm not huge on, but it was an enjoyable pin and Jersey Jack. They've, they do well with that. They, for whatever reason, it's, it's I, with me and Jersey Jack, I've never owned one before, but it's really unique to me that they tend to make themes in which I have zero interest in. the only one that even came up on my radar was Hobbit. And that's, for a lot of people that are Jersey Jack fans, that's the weakest one of all of them. That's what a lot of people believe. Now, obviously, there's people that are fans of everything. But, yeah, I'm not a big Wizard of Oz fan. Our local arcade, they have every Jersey Jack except for Pirates. Except for Pirates. and they're, I mean, they're fun to play, but it's not something that I play continuously. And you know, we were in on a pirates early on and we decided to drop out as soon as they removed the three disc. And I know everybody's going to be like, Oh, well you should have stayed in. It's worth a big chunk of change. Now it's like, no, you can see a pirates right over here. You can see Johnny Depp back there. I'm not the one that's a fan of Johnny Depp. That would be my wife. She's a huge Pirates fan, so I really wanted to get that pin for her, but as soon as she saw that they got rid of the disc, because that was one of her favorite things about it. We played at TPF a couple years ago, and she loved that. As soon as they got rid of that, she was like, I'm done. We've got to move on. That's what we ended up doing. Overall, though, a lot of these pins for Jersey Jack, they're very intricate. They're fun to play. I enjoyed playing Dialed In a lot. I enjoyed my time when I did get to play Pirates. Uh, Wizard of Oz, it's fun to play. So I'm interested to see what they're going to do with Guns and Roses. I'm interested to see what they're going to do with Toy Story. Personally, I'm more, I'm more of a Toy Story guy. I know Guns and Roses. I know the songs, but if I had to listen to Guns and Roses over and over and over again, I probably wouldn't be able to handle it. I'd probably have to mute it to be honest with you. And that's just, that's just the way I am. I'm just not a huge Guns and Roses fan. There's only so many times you can hear Welcome to the Jungle at a sporting event. Now, that being said, because of that, they are still relevant, so I think it's a good theme to do. It's probably the best theme that Jersey Jack can do if they're doing an old school rock and roll band, as of right now. Now, unless it's Pink Floyd, I think Pink Floyd would be an excellent theme as well. But other than that, guys, I think that's all Or that's all about What am I trying to say right now That's about all we have My allergies are nuts I either got a cold or allergies I'm going to go take some medicine Hopefully you guys Are staying healthy and everything Other than that you guys take care And hopefully this week We will find out If any of this is true Let's see