Episode 336: 2-22-22 Josh Sharpe Day

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·32m 54s·analyzed·Feb 23, 2022

Analysis

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TL;DR

Josh Sharpe on returning to competition, Lyman's legacy, and IFPA tournament evolution.

Summary

Josh Sharpe discusses his return to competitive pinball after a two-year hiatus, his work with Lyman Davis on Cactus Canyon Revisited before Lyman's recent passing, and updates on IFPA tournament structure changes including new certified event tiers and league reforms. The episode emphasizes the depth of modern Stern game design, Lyman's masterful approach to pinball entertainment, and the expanding competitive tournament landscape in 2022.

Key Claims

Cactus Canyon Revisited code is substantially complete with all concepts finished; Lyman was working on wizard mode storyboarding and art integration at the time of his passing
high confidence · Josh Sharpe discussing Lyman Davis's work process and current state of the Cactus Canyon Revisited project
IFPA introduced new 'certified' event designation to differentiate high-quality tournaments from standard 100% TGP events, with formula now reflecting event scale and quality
high confidence · Josh Sharpe explaining certification changes to Whoppers 5.7 and league structure modifications
IFPA league rules were changed to prevent exploitation of scoring systems where players could count only their best nights rather than participating consistently
high confidence · Josh Sharpe discussing league reforms and why two-league nights on a single night are no longer permitted
The IFPA World Championship is capped at 64 players due to volunteer capacity and event management limitations, not logistical impossibility
high confidence · Josh Sharpe explaining the reasoning behind the 64-player cap and comparison to Pinmasters' 72-player format
Modern Stern games have significantly deeper rules requiring longer learning curves compared to classic Williams games, which makes them harder for experienced players to pick up quickly
high confidence · Josh Sharpe reflecting on difficulty learning rules for newer games like Godzilla and Turtles at InDisc
Lyman Davis approached pinball game design like a film director/conductor, choreographing every element (rules, art, sound) to work together as a cohesive entertainment experience
high confidence · Josh Sharpe describing his experience working alongside Lyman on Cactus Canyon Revisited and learning his masterclass approach
A pinball movie about Josh Sharpe's father is in production with actors portraying Josh and Zach, and may feature promotional tie-ins to Stern Pinball
medium confidence · Josh and Jeff joking about potential Bankshot remake in conjunction with movie release; Josh noting actors filmed scenes in Stern shirts

Notable Quotes

“I got a one-on-one master class with Lyman on how to make pinball entertainment... He was like the conductor of a symphony or the director and producer of a movie.”
Josh Sharpe @ mid-episode — Key articulation of Lyman Davis's design philosophy and mentorship approach
“Everything that is going to be in the game, all of the concepts are done. When that code comes out, that's it. There won't be updates unless there's something like a bug issue. It'll be complete.”
Josh Sharpe @ discussing Cactus Canyon Revisited — Confirms Lyman's intent for Cactus Canyon Revisited to be released complete with no ongoing updates
“I'd say it's jumped to the shark a bit... newer games take me longer to learn not the shots but the rules and where the scoring is.”
Josh Sharpe @ early discussion — Critical perspective on depth vs. accessibility in modern Stern game design
“Nobody is insane enough to do the amount of work that we do every day. I'm bringing my laptop to District 82 because in between balls and games, I can take care of IFPA emails.”
Josh Sharpe @ discussing IFPA sustainability — Illustrates the ongoing personal commitment required to maintain IFPA operations
“If you can avoid any zeros in match play, you're probably going to do okay. If you finish in the top two of every game, it's sort of like you've advanced.”
Josh Sharpe @ discussing match play strategy — Core strategic insight about match play format in pinball tournaments
“For us to break those limits and do our best and ask for other people to try and help, like, that's just not our way. Our way is making sure that we can run the highest quality event we can.”
Josh Sharpe @ explaining World Championship cap — Reveals IFPA's philosophy prioritizing quality over scale
“If you don't make the World Championship, it's a bad year [for me].”
Josh Sharpe @ discussing qualification stakes — Shows personal competitive stakes and motivation

Entities

Josh SharpepersonLyman DavispersonJeff Teolisperson Zach SharpepersonBrian ShepardpersonPinball Profileorganization IFPAorganizationCactus Canyon Revisitedproduct

Signals

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business_signal: Concern about IFPA volunteer burnout and sustainability; World Championship cap of 64 driven by team capacity rather than logistical ceiling
high · Josh describes bringing laptop to tournaments to handle IFPA admin; describes volunteer exhaustion as reason for refusing to expand beyond capacity; compares unsustainability of Indisc model
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community_signal: IFPA actively reforming league structures to balance competitive integrity with social/casual player experience; Pittsburgh league serving as model for change management
high · Discussion of Pittsburgh Pinball League maintaining format while changing reporting structure; league experience prioritized over TGP inflation
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sentiment_shift: Positive sentiment toward Penny Davis's public disclosure of Lyman's passing and mental health crisis; belief that transparency may help others seek support
high · Josh credits Penny for going public; notes stories from others choosing to speak up; expresses hope for positive outcomes
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competitive_signal: Youth competitive advantage evident with younger players dominating major tournament rankings; experienced players adapting strategy to modern game design depth
medium · Josh and Jeff lament 'kids dominating' with no major winners from older generation; Josh discusses learning strategy for modern rules vs. shot execution
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design_philosophy: Tension between modern Stern game depth (praised for long-term engagement) and accessibility concerns for new/returning players; some designers see depth as 'jumped to the shark'

Transcript

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0:00

It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com, all the subscriptions, past episodes. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile. Yes, we are on Facebook, and you can email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. It is Tuesday. It is the second month. It is the 22nd of 2022. My goodness, what a time to celebrate Josh Sharp Day. And yeah, we're recording in advance. Listen to them in the background. It's not. It's not Tuesday. This isn't a live podcast. It's prerecorded. When you have your guest hosts, when they interviewed to do your guest hosts, do they have to send you a tape of them doing the intro just to see how good they did? No. No, not at all. You know what? Thank you for bringing that up. I mentioned it on the last show, but thanks again to everyone who kind of stepped in while I sorted some things out. and no, they did a great job. In fact, I'm sorry. I should be apologizing for being back on the show. More guest hosts. I was thinking the same thing. All right, take it easy. Take it easy, all right. Yes, we are recording this on Friday the 18th. Happy birthday to Carson, by the way, 20 years old. But it is 2 o'clock your time, so there is still some significance to the Josh Sharp Day. You remember when we first started all this number two thing and all the no major stuff? wouldn't you right now die to come second in a major or any tournament it would be a lot better than i've been doing holy moly i mean the data i don't have many data points but man i never had so much fun playing like absolute s words there so you don't have to be banana i swear you got your first taste at indisc you and your brother zach who's actually in the car right now say hi zach how's it going there he is you're on your way to district 82 you're getting these whoppers in it's been a long time you went almost two years i guess uh pin masters would have been your last one in the nationals but almost two years without playing and uh how was the bug for you at indus it was it was awesome it's like the thing i enjoy most in life is being at war with a game in front of me and it was great man so much fun was there some rust or did you feel like okay i'm still doing the same things or was the rust just learning new games well the rust i felt like i i'm fortunate that i think more fortunate than zach probably but my three-year-olds is addicted to going down to the basement and playing so i'm down there playing all the time it's not the same as playing competitively but it's an shit show whenever i'm playing normally and i felt like i fell right back into that like super not consistent dropping bombs and then dropping some bad bobs, you know, right after. But there was, like, of course in the finals round, like, I had to play Godzilla and I had to play Turtles, those, like, two games that I had only played ever at InDisc and never before, and it was frustrating to, like, not know what I wanted to do immediately and sort of be able to just focus on executing rather than, like, oh, God, what do I do now? Do I, like, starting a mode first? how do you even start a mode like no idea like terrible terrible but you know you can play a little more preparation as opposed to pardon the pun secondhand feelings of just you know knowing the games that you've played for years and years yeah it's uh i find the newer games and give your brother a punch in the arm there uh i guess also a pat on the back too for the new games especially stern you know i find they take me longer to learn not the shots but the rules and where the scoring is. And that's not a negative, because that's a compliment to how deep they are, but really just how much longer it takes us to learn these in-depth rules from, whether it's Dwight, whether it's Lonnie, whether it's Tim and Ray Day. It makes it difficult for us old-timers, I'd say. It's hard! I'd say it's jumped to the shark a bit, but that's just my two cents. Like, I also had not played Frankenstein in 25 years, but like, was able to learn what to do and execute, and it was fun and I killed it and it was fine. But yeah, today's games just, you know, there's a whole other level to execution that is required that, yeah man, it's fun long term, it's not fun up front. But that should be the goal, right? Long term? I mean, I guess as the home market has not dominated, but certainly been more prominent, especially in the last couple of years when arcades were not as easy to get to, the access just wasn't there but now that we're seeing so much in the home sales, the deeper is probably better. I don't know. We can disagree on that. Really? I think that, yeah. I think that my bread and butter for depth of games has been like 90 Williams plus, whereas I'd much rather focus on polish and charm of the entertainment of a game. and as long as you have some nuance for strategic play that gives the player an interesting choice, all you need is two interesting choices with a ball and a flipper and the game has done their job in making the player have to decide a path. I think we're at, like, choose your own adventure book with tree branches going all over the place that I personally think is too much. Which one of you two is driving right now? Take that. Because if Zach's listening to this, he's going to sideswipe you or something. Nah, Zach agrees with me. I'm writing an email to Gary.

8:02

That's going to be exciting when that comes out. It is, man. I've been playing it a long time and it's fun. It definitely I mean even Lyman jokes that he thinks it has better rules now than medieval or attack do But he also didn get around to maybe adding some nuance to those two games that we were hoping to get to But we're super proud of Cactus, and I at least am super excited to see it come out and see how the world takes our work. I don't know how close you were to it being finished. I know with Lyman, it was always kind of a work in progress. He was such a perfectionist that he could always see flaws that none of us could see in his code to make things better. I guess code is really never finished, but were the concepts done before Lyman passed? Yeah, so Lyman, it's amazing, man. There's people that call him the best coder ever, and I think that really sells his work short. like he is it's like the conductor of a symphony or the director and producer of a movie like besides coming up with the rules and that was something that i could help a lot with like he would storyboard everything and work with the artists and work with the sound people and it's like everything had to be perfect and working with uh the art guy that that uh chicago gaming use is actually someone that used to work at Raw Thrills and he was not a pinball person but a lot of art experience and just watching Lyman work with this kid Andrew in terms of like just how fast something had to go or how slow something had to go and the meaning of like this is why it has to transition at this speed and this is why this sound effect has to come in after this moment or whatever blah blah blah and dealing with priorities and dealing with why certain rules don't work because of how that choreography then messes up this other thing we have going. I mean, it was truly, for me, I told a couple of people this, but like, you see those on like Facebook, like those masterclass, whatever, little advertisements that you can sign up for to like learn how to act, learn how to do barbecue. I got a one-on-one master class with Lyman on how to make pinball entertainment. And sort of like what we touched on earlier, focusing on the entertainment and then having enough nuance for tournament players to have a choice, a meaningful choice between multiple paths to an end is where we were at. And we did our work from the start button backwards. so there's a lot of stuff that is fully done that I've been playing for months and months. There's, like, he was working on the wizard mode, and I think, like, he would have the rules in, but then he was working on the storyboarding with the artist to get the art stuff in. So he would do rules, art, and then tweak the rules to the art, and then do sound after the art, because it was easiest to match the sound up with how the art looked. So it's a little bit of a hot mess of where exactly, you know, what did he put in that the artist finished? And the flash drive he left for me, unfortunately, did not load into my game. So thanks, Lyman, wherever you are. That's great. So I'll have to get a new disc from the Chicago Gaming guys, and my next task is to actually make a list of what's left to be done. But everything that is going to be in the game, all of the concepts are done. I remember you said that when that code came out, this was while Lyman was alive. When the code comes out, that's it. There won't be updates unless there's something like a bug issue. It'll be complete. So that's exciting too. Sounds like it's going to be a real winner. And you're right about Lyman being that conductor, that storyteller, that person that gave you experiences and really emotions from games and choices and drama and all that kind of fun stuff. That is pinball. I talked about it with Martin Robbins on Final Round when we were talking about Lyman, and I really enjoyed their old head-to-head interview, and just Lyman talking about how he wanted to make each game different. And the thing I never really noticed before until he put it into words, and of course, in retrospect, looking at what he did, just exactly what you described, that everything kind of had to match. The game had to tell you. He hated lifting his head up, Even though we have all these LCDs and all this information up top, he wanted the information to be right there, kind of near the flippers or certainly on the play field, whether it's a light, whether it's a sound, whether it's some sort of signal that this is where you want to go and this is the path. It's brilliant. It is what makes pinball fun. And back to what you were saying earlier, it's complicated yet simple. It's not choose-your-own-adventure. Some games. Of linemen. Some games, Jeff. Some games, not linemen's. Yeah. No, it's, well, again, we look forward to it. 2028. It'll be out. Go ahead. I'm sure it'll be out before then. But, no, thanks for sharing some exciting news for the last lineman code. And, again, we look forward to that. So you're right now off to District 82. And the reason I bring that up, I'm going to be going there in a month's time, a little over a month, in April for their Super Series. Wow, what they're doing in Wisconsin. Holy cow. It's not just there. We see what they're doing in Sweden, Borussia Open. I've personally seen what they've been doing in Germany with Tobias and Fulda and Bulls and Balls and all that kind of good stuff. We are back into tournament modes with a vengeance. And then what do you go do? You change things. You've got certified. You've got the Whopper 5.7. You've changed the IFPA leagues a little bit. this is going to be insane as far as the opportunities in 2022 and moving forward. Yeah, no, it's exciting. We're like, you know, we changed the rules to plug some holes of some areas of exploitation that we noticed and some things that we wanted to, you know, with the league changes, some things we wanted to push. We wanted to push leagues to be leagues. And, you know, with the certified stuff, we wanted to highlight, you know, these events that are definitely going above and beyond, you know, 100% TGP as fast as you can style events. You know, I would expect us to continue to focus on updating that certification process going forward. I'm really excited about that change. And it's a way that we can continue to value the tournaments that should be the most valuable in determining who the world's best players are. Well, I saw that TPF, which is next month, they changed their Wizards tournament to make sure it was certified. It's already part of the Stern Pro Circuit. So you're seeing some big events do that. I know Yagpin, they've got some certified events as well. Yep, yep. Obviously, Indisc did. It really is interesting. I never thought about it before because the Whoppers were so huge with these big tournaments. But in your eyes, it wasn't fair that compared to just a normal tournament where there might be 20 people, when you're bringing in 100-plus and playing for days and days and days to qualify, there should be a little something more. Yeah, I think a lot of that is just the smell test, right? Like, I've been doing this a long time. I can feel the difference between, no offense to where Zach and I are going tonight, but there's a three-strike tonight that may hit 100% TGP. You know, should that be worth the same amount as high stakes at in-disc? And the answer is like, no effing way, you know, if you ask me, which is why the formula now differentiates that. At Indisc, I had a long talk with Brian Shepard, and he was talking about some of the changes with the 5.7 and leagues and this and that. And I started to wonder if leagues would... If Brian's the true president, you and I can fight about it, but Brian's really the dude. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure he is. You just the guy who takes the check let be honest I the face I the face man Brian the brains I the body You the comments box That's right. Leagues to me were more probably about social than anything else. Maybe not as much attention on competitiveness as it was for maybe just getting out as your only time to play pinball or hanging out with a few friends, maybe having a few drinks. There were certainly the competitive people in leagues, but I don't know if all leagues are necessarily all, let's go, go, go, let's get that mighty whopper. So I wonder if this change might hurt that. I don't know, but I'm curious. Yeah, I guess we're going to find out, right? And I agree with you, and I know Brian feels really strongly about leagues that way. Like our league in Chicago, you know, TGP-wise, it's like 900% per season because we don't focus on that, right? We focus on getting together once a month, having some food and drinks, league ends and people stay and play for hours after just to hang around. And that's really what it was about. And Brian has been talking to me. I mean, this league changed people. I know people like to think that, like, I wake up on a Monday morning and, like, here comes this change out of nowhere. Like, this is something Brian has talked to me about for years. And we've had, you know, leagues now where you're, air quotes, competing against other people that you're never seeing ever. And it got away from the core principles of what our pinball league is and was. And I was in a bowling league. What that bowling league meant. We used to meet every week. And you'd meet with the same guys and you'd hang out and do whatever. And yeah, sort of right-sizing that definition and still allowing a path for those leagues to become tournaments. Or for those leagues to continue how they are. We're just making them submit separately, like differently, right? So I know that like the Pittsburgh Pinball League is, to my knowledge, not changing anything about their format. They're simply changing how they have to report into us. So the player experience for those league members will be exactly the same, which, you know, is for most leagues should be the most important thing. For some leagues, you know, Whoppers were more important than the league experience. and for those leagues, sorry. Sorry, comma, not sorry. I think some leagues had two nights on one night, so to speak. Two league nights on one night and they would play their four or five games and then that would stop and then they would do another one and I think that's kind of now curbed a little bit so those aren't possible. You have to have separate nights and separation and all kinds of things. And two, really the number of times people participate in leagues, if it's six nights before you could have, oh, the best two nights count or the best. Right. Really, you only need to be at one night, and then everybody counted. So that kind of maybe took away from it a little bit and kind of inflated the numbers. It certainly made inflation of player counts much easier, right? If you're really just allowing yourself to count not the true league members that are here all the time, but the casual drop-ins, we also get to count. like yeah the value is inflated because those people have a zero percent chance of competing in the league and uh but their value that they're bringing to the league is just as important as everyone else or used to be well even though leagues we'll see what happens with them they may drop and turn more into tournaments certainly we will see more competitions i believe in 2022 definitely than obviously the last couple of years but even more than 2019 let's go back to the last full year. I think you'll see more. I don't. You mean for 22 or 23? Well, definitely 23. Yeah, you're right. There still may be some lingering COVID things in the first few months, but I'm just telling you, listen, you yourself want to play in the IFPA World Championship, and to do so, you need to be currently one of the top two best players in your country. You have to be maybe the European pinball champion, or you have to be the national champion, which I don't believe there is one this year, so I don't know where that's going to happen. So those are opportunities. Or be one of the remaining people to fill out the top 64. Josh. Or you left one out. The new organizer's exemption that hasn't come yet. That is crap. Huh? Huh? No. Who's winning? And let's look back to IFPA 16 too, because and your brother who's there right now, I feel sorry for Zach because once you bowed out, you got the hell out of Milan, and then they had that malfunction on Dracula, and Zach was like, I guess I've got to look after this. Canceled it like a pro. If you don't make the world championship for Germany, you're going to be there in Florida at the Pinball Asylum in May, but next year when it goes to Germany, if you don't qualify because all these players are stacking up at District 82, although you could be one of them, Boras Open and Germany or wherever. Would you even go if you weren't playing? Hell no. I knew it. So that leads me to my next question, and I've been bugging you about this for years. Why, if everything else is growing, why is the World Championship for the IPA only 64 players? You said there were some logistic problems, but shouldn't that expand too? No, no. Like, our team is super cognizant of what we can handle comfortably to still run a high-quality event. And, like, we couldn't do – I mean, Zach and I were joking with Carl. We couldn't run Indus with my team. And even Carl's like, you know, he needs more volunteers in order for what they're doing to be sustainable. Because it's insane, you know, what they have to do to pull all that off. between Zach and Becker and Woodard and Shepard and, you know, the women's board now on board. Like, we're super, super aware of where our limits are. And for us to break those limits and do our best and ask for other people to try and help, like, that's just not our way. Our way is making sure that, like, we can run the highest quality event we can. and for better or worse, that's kind of making sure we're not relying on anyone but ourselves to do it. And 64 is the number? It's close to the number. It's not much more than that. I mean, Pinmasters is 72, and when we expanded to 144, because of the way that the courses are set, you know, we did it 72 players at a time. We never had to deal with 144 at the same time. I'm just putting my vote in to increase the 64 some way, somehow. Well, maybe. Who knows? I mean, I think a lot of players would put up their hands and say, yeah, that'd be good. It still wouldn't take away from the – it doesn't water down the competition. I don't know. I mean, I'm driving to Wisconsin right now because I've always thought about qualifying for the world championship. Instead of at Indy, you're playing for three days qualifying. This entire year is the qualifying. I'm doing this right now for Germany, right? So there's a lot of people at Indy that didn't make the cut. Jeff for the A Division. And, like, sorry, that's it. Bad three days. And for me, if I don't make the cut, it's a bad year. Whoa, hold on. Let's slow down there. I know how you like to talk about. Did I misremember? Did you make the cut? Well, how many playoffs did you make at Indisc? The one that mattered. I made two. I was pretty happy with that. My goal was to make one. I made two. You played in the mall, too. So, I don't know. When you talk about success rates there, I'd say I did all right. You did well, yeah. I was happy. If you exceeded your expectations, can you ask for much more than that? No, but to make one playoff at Indisc was tough. Lookit, you only made one. No, that's not true. I bombed out of Classics 1 finals super fast. Interesting. I'm looking at our last one, two, three, four. Yes. Throw some data that says we are of equal skill level, Jeff. Bring it up Since October 20th 2019 Two and a half years Yes Head to head I have five wins against you Oh my gosh You have six Oh, my gosh. We're like the same. So if betting comes back in pinball and you see Josh in a tournament, don't be wasting money on number two. Even odds. Yeah, take the juice. Based on how I'm playing, I'd bet on you.