It's 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 Sharpe 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 Sharpe 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. Take Josh off NDA immediately. He's a narc. Maybe it was just all the work with Lyman, too. We talked about this quite a bit. I do want to talk about Lyman, and we're going to not get around here for a second because there are a lot of people excited to see what you and Lyman came up with for Cactus Canyon Revisited. Let's get to that in a second, but really, it's been a month. It's still not easier. It took me forever to even say a word, and I'm not even half as close as the two of you and others in the pinball industry, but the outpouring of support and love for Lyman, his family, Penny, his friends. What's it been like for you the last four weeks? It's sucked. It sucked a lot. I think kudos to Penny for going public with what happened. I can't believe the stories that I'm reading from people that are now choosing to speak up on their own problems. and hopefully it's leading to people that possibly will now get help when they wouldn't have previously. So I'm hoping that there is some good to come from this. But no, man, it's been hard. It's been hard. I think you're right. I think there will be some good from this too. Not necessarily lessons learned, but just that there are other alternatives and talking is definitely one of the best things to do. but I know you certainly enjoyed working on Cactus Canyon Revisited with him and you've told me, I don't know if you've said this publicly or not, we're still going to see that code. That's going to come out and it's going to be definitely that Lyman touch. 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. 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. 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. Even odds. Yeah, take the juice. Based on how I'm playing, I'd bet on you. You're going to a three-strikes tournament, match play, and all that kind of stuff. We were at Indisc, and that was the pop-a-ticket. And then, of course, there was also the match play for the target match play. Different playing styles for me. And the one thing I forgot about match play is the thing you always have to remember at Pimberg. Just don't take a zero on a game. That should really be the goal. If you can avoid any zeros, you're probably going to do okay. You might not win the whole thing, but you're going to be in the upper echelon. Yeah. I mean, really, you want to, like, not, I know, like, Zach and I would always joke going through, like, old Pinberg rounds of, like, if you finish in the top two of every game, it's sort of like, did you advance from your Pinberg group for that round? And it's like, yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. If you have ten sessions of Pinberg where you're the top two in scoring for your group, session after session, you're probably doing okay. And that was not my Target Match Play experience. There were way too many lasts in that run. Holy moly. I played Dolly Parton, a game I love. You beat Zach's score. No, I didn't. Oh, yes, you did. I didn't flip once. Left out lane, all three balls. Three different plunges, too. Did your score have five digits? I don't know what the out lane gives you. Maybe I hit a scoop. Okay, maybe I had five digits. The same thing happened to Zach? One flip. You have 9,000. I have 9,000. 9,000. Wow. It was the last round. but that's the fun boy didn't those guys do a great job at indus too good too good unsustainable unsustainable well i say that because in the last few years we've lost pinberg and we think of the great thing that that papa staff and everybody in pittsburgh and everybody that volunteered from around the country did my goodness we we were happy about that and of course papa uh that tournament itself just didn't happen we have to be thankful for when indus happens because it's It's been 10 years they've been doing this. If they shut it down tomorrow, and I'm not saying they would, we would be sad and we would miss it, but we would also understand, like, wow, you gave up so much, the sacrifices that Jim, Carl, Bob, Jay, it's ridiculous. And they do it for everyone else but themselves. It's just we can't thank them enough. Insanity. Have you ever done anything for anybody else? No. No. Not at least that also isn't for myself. Exactly. All right. I get you. I'm guilty as well. This is why the IFPA has continued to exist for 16 years, man. You see everyone else burning out, and it's because you end up, it's like if you're not enjoying it for yourself, you're going to burn out. Was there any fear, any worries over the last couple of years that, uh-oh, IFPA might be forgotten because of things like the UFCP or the Vipers in Australia? Were there some sweaty moments for you, Josh? No, no. Nobody is insane enough to do the amount of work that we do every day. I mean, I'm bringing my laptop to District 82 because in between balls and games, I can take care of IFPA emails and make sure that events are getting approved and all that stuff. Yes, as Zach jokes, as Gary Stern used to say, come on in, the water's freezing. Anyone that wants to join us. IFA 17, it's going to be a blast, although there are some notables not in attendance, including the returning champ, Johannes Ostermeyer. That's going to be sad not to see Johannes. He's a fun player to watch. He's a great guy, but school is important for him right now in Germany. Yeah, he's got his priorities straight, for sure. I think I missed my first year of college. I missed an exam to go to Pinball Expo because my priorities were not as solid as Johannes's, for sure. That is going to be the next major we see. If we look at the current major holders, my goodness, the kids are dominating. Why are we even playing? Why are we living this lie? The dream is over for us, old farts. I agree, but I'm not going down without a fight, Jeff. I've got at least 30 years left in me. 30? Do you see yourself playing pinball in your 70s competitively? Yeah, sure. Wow. Why not? I don't know. I'm not in my 70s, but I'm in my 50s, and I can see that. The worst part is, like, L1 will be in his mid-80s and still be kicking ass. Well, that's true. That is true. Boy, the seniors field is going to be pretty good. Before you head off and enjoy yourself in Wisconsin, it's a great facility there. It looks good. I've watched a lot of streams on Fox City Pinball. Yeah. I did talk to your dad earlier today. He sent me a nice note about the Lyman show we did on Final Round and talking to him about the little pinball movie about your father. And I said, it is going to be a must-see for all of us pinballers. We're going to love it. We're going to love the story. You know, he's making sure the fine details are good so that, you know, the continuity is good and the pinball play and all that stuff. I love that kind of detail. Love it. but what I think that movie's going to do is for the non-pinball players, they're going to see this pinball and this love for the game and all the fun things about that and realize, wow, the nostalgia, and hopefully there's some narrative in the movie that they're still making pinball on, they're still going strong, because that might get people interested. I think of, you know, when you watch Toy Story for the first time, what a great movie, but, oh, look at the Slinky, oh, look at the Etch-A-Sketch and Battleship and all these toys that were retro, and the sales for those things went way up, So I would imagine with this pinball movie about your father, there would be even more interest in pinball by the people that, oh, I didn't know it was still around. That's amazing. I can speak for Zach, but we can't confirm nor deny that Stern is going to be releasing a Bankshot remake in conjunction with the movie coming out. That would be awesome. That would be awesome. Come on, do it. Do it. Zach will be in a Stern shirt, though, at the end of the movie. Tall shirt. It's all Zach. Did you guys film anything for the movie? No, the actors that play us. I think the one who plays Zach is in a Stern shirt. Nice. It can push people to, I think they'll flash on the screen, sternpinball.com, contact your dealer. Okay, you know who the actual actors are, but if you could have any actor portray you, Josh, and you, Zach, who would that be? Who do you think would do that best? I'd let Zach pick because he's really good at fighting people that look like people. I don't know. I got nothing. Brad Pitt, why not? Because everyone wants him to play. Take it easy. Fauci already has dibs. Okay, guys, have fun this weekend. Happy Josh Sharpe Day, a biggie. And, again, there's no shame in second place anymore. We made fun of it years ago. I'll take three seconds this weekend, man. I could use the haul. It'll be fun. Have a good time, guys. Thanks very much. Thanks, man. Let's hear the outro. All right, here we go. Do you want to do it or do you want me to do it? I don't want to do it. You just want to comment on it. I just want to interrupt you halfway through. Go ahead. Here we go. I'm Jeff Teolis. Oh! Good one. Ah, people know. You win this one. Take care, man. My wife won't let me play. I'll never win a major. Oh, my God. Flamenerias, Flamenerias, Flamenerias.