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623- 5 FAST Thoughts: Potter Gameplay+ Is JJP's Gamechanger ACTUALLY A Gamechanger!?

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·29m 59s·analyzed·Jun 10, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Potter gameplay praised as JJP's best; Game Changer feature defended as genuinely innovative for casual play.

Summary

Orbital Albert hosts a positive episode on Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter game and its new 'Game Changer' difficulty feature. He praises the gameplay as potentially JJP's best ever, highlights Carrie Hardy's unprecedented decision to buy Harry Potter immediately after playing it, and argues the Game Changer system enables mixed-skill group play despite tournament concerns. Albert also critiques the Collector's Edition topper design and raises concerns about J.K. Rowling's controversial past, while predicting Pinball Brothers' Predator will struggle due to missing Arnold Schwarzenegger and weak artwork.

Key Claims

  • Carrie Hardy, despite recently buying King Kong and being disappointed with it, immediately decided to purchase Harry Potter after one playing session—unprecedented behavior for Hardy in Albert's decade of observation

    high confidence · Albert witnessed Hardy's live stream announcement and directly commented on the rarity of this immediate purchase decision, contrasting it with Hardy's typical deliberative buying process

  • Harry Potter features significantly more unmuted audio clips than previous Jersey Jack games, with unmuted moments strategically placed during stop-and-go sequences when players can look up

    high confidence · Albert stated 'more unmuted stuff than I thought there would be' after watching gameplay features and live streams, noting strategic placement relative to game flow

  • The Game Changer difficulty system allows players of different skill levels to play together on the same machine with adjusted settings, enabling family gameplay scenarios

    high confidence · Jersey Jack officially announced the feature; Albert described 'mother-in-law code' as precedent for skill-adjusted play and proposed tournament-style progression mechanics

  • Harry Potter's playfield has excellent shot flow with minimal stop-and-go moments, contrasting favorably with Jurassic Park's excess stop-and-go sequences

    medium confidence · Albert's observation from watching gameplay videos and hearing from Carrie Hardy agreement; admits he could be wrong about games until played in person

  • Jersey Jack has not disclosed the production ceiling or duration for Harry Potter Collector's Edition, creating marketing opacity around rarity and scarcity value

    high confidence · Albert explicitly called this 'a hashtag marketing fail' and directly implored Jersey Jack to specify maximum CE production numbers and cutoff dates

  • The hot rails on Harry Potter are overly bright and distracting in live streams and gameplay videos, potentially drowning out playfield artwork and inserts

    medium confidence · Albert listed this as his first 'fast thought,' noting they didn't bother him in official featurettes but 'really, really bugged me' in gameplay livestreams and over-the-shoulder perspectives

Notable Quotes

  • “If you're going to come out there and say, yeah, that's the one, I really wanted to buy that pin... probably Jersey Jack's best game ever... don't worry about it.”

    Orbital Albert @ early segment — Defends Harry Potter against minor manufacturing issues (key left in cabinet), positioning it as JJP's peak achievement

  • “Carrie Hardy just recently purchased a King Kong and is kind of feeling like a little bit of sticker shock... but Harry Potter must be one freaking hell of a game if he's willing to... go I'm buying Harry Potter right now.”

    Orbital Albert @ mid-segment — Key evidence of Harry Potter's exceptional gameplay quality based on unprecedented buyer behavior from a known critical voice

  • “I would not lie to her I'd just be open and honest and say yeah we have three different modes here... I'm just going to go in a bit harder mode and that way you can see more of the game.”

    Orbital Albert @ middle segment — Explains the 'mother-in-law code' philosophy supporting the Game Changer feature for inclusive casual play

  • “Please, for the love of the pinball gods, for the sake of Steve Ritchie and Pat Lawler, could you just tell us? Just be open and honest.”

    Orbital Albert @ late segment — Direct plea to Jersey Jack for transparency on Collector's Edition production limits and cutoff dates, calling lack of disclosure a marketing failure

  • “The Game Changer feature, I think, is cool, and it should have and could have been talked about more.”

    Orbital Albert @ conclusion segment — Positions Game Changer as genuinely innovative despite skepticism from JBS roundtable co-hosts

  • “I have ever been this excited to play a pin? And I just don't think I ever have been.”

    Orbital Albert @ fast thoughts section — Demonstrates unprecedented enthusiasm for Harry Potter compared to entire pinball career as podcaster, streamer, and tournament player

  • “It's highly unlikely that Predator's going to do very well and in this type of market that it's going to be able to make any noise separate itself, have any energy okay.”

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyHarry Potter PinballgameOrbital AlbertpersonCarrie HardypersonRetro RalphpersonEric MinorpersonDirty Poolperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community podcasters and content creators are increasingly willing to engage in ethical discussions regarding IP licensors' controversial statements, with Slam Tilt episode opening space for productive conversations about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling

    medium · Albert praised Dennis from Eclectic Gamers for raising Rowling controversy and credited conversation as important for community dialogue; suggested LGBTQ+ friendly tournament donations as mitigation approach

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Carrie Hardy's unprecedented immediate purchase of Harry Potter after single play session signals exceptionally high perceived gameplay quality, overriding recent King Kong disappointment and established deliberative buying pattern

    high · Albert witnessed Hardy's live stream announcement and characterized behavior as unique in decade of observation; Hardy abandoned dinner plans to discuss Harry Potter purchase with wife

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Game Changer difficulty system raises potential tournament integrity concerns regarding accidental skill-level mismatches and eligibility verification, requiring rule clarification for competitive play

    medium · Albert acknowledged JBS roundtable's tournament concerns regarding cheating risk and accidental skill-level assignments but argued home play benefits outweigh competitive risks

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Harry Potter Collector's Edition topper design is aesthetically weak and disappointing relative to overall machine quality, representing largest single cosmetic disappointment despite potential for future mods and lighting improvements

    medium · Albert stated topper is 'ugliest part of the CE' and 'least favorite part of the whole thing' but acknowledged uncertainty about lighting implementation impact

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.090

0:00
All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, mixed with syrup and honey, he hopes to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's fun network, We're gonna get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast.
0:32
Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back Pinball Nerds to episode 623 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert and on today's show, I have no drama, I have no beef, I really don't even have any negativity. I'm sorry. I only have the positive Pete for you that I'm going to be today. So we're going to be talking about Jersey Jack's Game Changer. And is it a game changer? Now, I'm not going to lie when just listening to the Jamie Bertel show. okay JBS also knows JBS Retro Ralph was featured on there with the uh what do they call them the tri-wizard the tri-wizard podcasters no I didn't it's called like the uh I forget what it's called the round table pinball round table sorry but it has of course Kale Hernandez from the electric bat and uh Retro Ralph of course and like I said before but I'll say it again I think Ralph did just such an incredible job and actually hearing on their most recent podcast how much time energy and work it was to work with uh you know all the different layers and levels of working with Jersey Jack and then Warner Brothers it sounds like it was complex as hell and my dude I will tell you this don't let them give you shats over there if the worst mistake you made was simply leaving a key inside the cabinet, don't worry about it. And if you're someone who that really bugs you that much, like if you're someone who's going to be like, oh, that's it, that's it. I'm not going to buy the most beautiful, most fun, probably Jersey Jack's best game. I haven't played it yet, so I don't want to put the cart in front of the horse, but probably Jersey Jack's best game ever. If you're going to come out there and say, yeah, that's the one, I really wanted to buy that pin. I love Harry Potter. It's a dream theme for me. It's a hell of a shooter. I mean, even if it's not a dream theme, Cary Hardy just announced on his live stream last night that he's buying a Harry Potter. He loved the gameplay that much. He's buying it. And in the decade or so I've been watching Cary Hardy,

  • Pinball Brothers' Predator game is unlikely to succeed commercially due to: missing Arnold Schwarzenegger appearance, weak artwork style, unproven code quality, and tariff/tax cost pressures

    medium confidence · Albert gave detailed critical prediction based on pattern analysis of recent Pinball Brothers releases and market conditions, explicitly stating 'highly unlikely that Predator's going to do very well'

  • The Harry Potter Collector's Edition topper is visually the ugliest part of the machine and Albert's least favorite design element overall

    high confidence · Albert stated 'the ugliest part of the CE is the topper' and later reiterated it as his 'least favorite part of the whole thing'

    • Orbital Albert @ Predator segment — Blunt commercial prediction for Pinball Brothers' flagship release based on multiple design and production concerns

  • “I personally probably would still buy the game, although I'd prefer to buy it used so that she's not directly getting any of that money, of course I'm just super cheap.”

    Orbital Albert @ final segment — Navigates J.K. Rowling controversy while supporting secondary market consumption to minimize royalty flow

    • Kale Hernandezperson
    David Thielperson
    Zyron Silversperson
    Pinball Roundtableorganization
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Predator Pinballgame
    Pinball Nerds Podcastorganization
    JBS Showorganization
    Jurassic Park Pinballgame
    King Kong Pinballgame
    Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
    Dennisperson
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Pat Lawlorperson
    J.K. Rowlingperson
    Coast to Coast Pinballorganization
    Electric Bat Arcadeorganization
    Game Changer Featureproduct
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack implemented strategic audio implementation with unmuted clips concentrated during stop-and-go sequences when players can attend to narrative moments, balancing audio immersion with gameplay continuity

    high · Albert detailed 'unmuted clips synced up with the video and the audio a lot of those times are during a stop and go moment' and acknowledged 100% unmuted clips would interrupt jackpot callouts destructively

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack's lack of transparency on Harry Potter Collector's Edition production ceiling and cutoff date creates marketing opacity undermining scarcity value perception and purchase decision confidence

    high · Albert directly called this 'hashtag marketing fail' and pleaded with Jersey Jack to specify maximum CE production and cutoff dates; noted uncertainty prevents informed purchase decisions

  • ?

    personnel_signal: David Thiel (audio designer) brought back by Jersey Jack specifically for Harry Potter suggests continued reliance on specialized audio expertise for licensed content with narrative depth

    medium · Albert noted 'they brought back David Thiel for the music' as part of Jersey Jack's comprehensive approach to Harry Potter production quality

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball Brothers' Predator pricing remains uncompetitive even after tariff absorption, combined with missing Arnold Schwarzenegger appearance and weak artwork, positioning game poorly for premium-tier market

    medium · Albert predicted commercial failure based on: tariff/tax costs, missing Arnold, weak artwork style, unproven code quality, and competitive disadvantage relative to Harry Potter and other recent releases

  • ?

    product_strategy: Harry Potter's shot flow design philosophy emphasizes smooth transitions between shots with minimal stop-and-go sequences, contrasting with recent JJP releases like Jurassic Park; Albert attributes this to design iteration

    medium · Albert praised 'perfect mix of flow' and identified Jurassic Park's excess stop-and-go as comparative weakness; acknowledged observation limited to video analysis

  • ?

    product_concern: Hot rails lighting on Harry Potter are overly bright in gameplay videos and live streams, creating visual distraction that drowns out playfield artwork and insert details despite not bothering Albert in official featurettes

    medium · Albert listed as first 'fast thought' noting escalating distraction from featurette to gameplay video to live streams; acknowledged in-person perspective may differ from video observation

    • 2:55
    they, okay, over there on the Jamie Burchill show, they did bring up the whole thing with the guns and he hadn't had Chipotle yet. I try to make a joke of that at this point, But obviously, most likely, pulling out and swinging around a gun, safety on or not, the most unhinged thing we've ever seen in pinball. Not just in like the last month or the last year, but probably perhaps ever in any pinball content creation. But he had at least a good excuse for it. Unlike my excuse for being a dick twice in the last year, where I fell on the ice and I got concussed and was being a moron. and then another time after I'd got a double root canal, I probably was, I was joking about people I thought were kind of at least in the same sphere of friends of mine and probably took it a bit too far. But I have apologized for that. We've squashed the beef. We're going to move on. Thank you to everybody who's enjoyed that last episode. I've got some shout outs from that from multiple people. That was just me having fun, taking the piss out. I was just trying to lower the temperature. I know when I'm having a nice hot bath, That's about the most relaxing, calm, chill, reasonable thing about my life, or on any given day, typically. And that's usually when I'm listening to a pinball podcast or watching a Twitch channel. I did go back and listen to my last podcast. I was just going to listen to part of it. But then I found it so enthralling. I won't say enthralling, but I found it remotely entertaining for once, with no drama talk. And I also had to piece together the two pieces that broke. And the one thing I was talking about that I did want to finish was Dirty Pool. Dirty Pool had mentioned on Twitch Dirty Pool Pinball had mentioned during an interview or during his live reaction to Harry Potter that he, part of Retro Ralph's featurette that he really didn't like and he is, I believe, a content creator like himself as far as video production and stuff like that I think outside of even Pinball or Twitch or anything like that and he's doing great, so don't get me wrong overall, I'm not trying to start any drama today I'm just saying that the one thing he mentioned that I disagreed with, and I agree with like 95% of his takes, so it's fine that we calmly, reasonably disagree on takes from time to time. The one take I really disagreed with was he said he didn't, he found it cringe when Eric was talking about, you know, and Retro Ralph even explained it further that Eric, you know, had given a much more long drawn out story. We just got the much shorter version of it when we were hearing about it in the featurette. and he said, you know, my wife and I went to the bookstore and we waited in line. And I think that just shows how much of an authentic, legit, serious Harry Potter fan that is. And I think that, you know, also Eric was told to say something along those lines. Eric just didn't spew into that. Like Retro Ralph actually said to him, can you tell me some type of emotional connection you have to the theme before even the pinball machine, you know, you got the contract to do Harry Potter. so uh anyways going back to carrie hardy where we started with this carrie hardy came out and said i don't even like the theme i don't know nothing about hermione's or anything or or you know broomsticks or i made i made a nimbus 2000 joke in there and it fell flat as a doorknob i mean nimbus 2000 is even featured in the movies not as much as it is in the books dear god but they make the nimbus 2000 sound like a ferrari or like the uh what what color is your bugatti or whatever You know what I mean? Like they make it sound like the chef's kiss creme de la creme broomsticks. If you were going to get you and your friend to wrap your legs around a broomstick and just clutch it with your thighs like that, with your thunder quads, right? What would you want between your legs? And the answer is a Nimbus 2000 because it's the fastest, it's the sleekest, and it's the same thing that all the top Quidditch players play at the World Cup, right? So anyways, made that joke. Don't think most of the people in the chat were quite enough Harry Potter nerds to get it, but I like to think at least one person chuckled besides myself because I definitely did. I'm the first person to laugh at myself and I think it's important in life that we have to be easy to laugh and the people that I like to surround myself with are people that are often, well, you know, from time to time they may laugh at my jokes, but I'm always laughing at theirs because I love laughing. I love comedy. That's what this show's about. If Cary Hardy, who's not a big fan of Harry Potter, is rushing out to buy this thing, he literally said, guys, I can't stay on the live stream anymore. I've got to get, I cannot be late for this dinner with my wife I got to take her out whiner and diner to talk about selling one of my pins and buying Harry Potter Now I know what you thinking Why couldn you sell a pin and buy Harry Potter Well even the cheapest Harry Potter is 10k. And most of Cary Hardy's pins are, you know, a lot of them, I know, I'm sure some of them are maybe worth that or very, very, very close to that, if not more. But most of his old solid states and such are not going to be worth anywhere near that. So he's going to be forking out another couple grand. Well, it's getting serious when you hear Kerry Hardy, who was very, very tough on King Kong, shockingly last night, he was saying he's already bored of playing it. Now, it is early days with the code, but I would have thought that the shots are so fun that he'd still be playing it a lot. So for him to say, you know, usually once you're bitten by the shock, no, I'm not going to say shark, but like once bitten twice, something afraid, you know what I mean? Basically, Kerry Hardy just recently purchased a King Kong and is kind of feeling like a little bit of sticker shock because of that and it sounds like he's for right now a little bit resentful of that so what I'm getting at is that Harry Potter must be one freaking hell of a game if he's willing to so closely after you know spending a lot of money on a game and not necessarily loving it as much as he would have hoped to going I'm buying Harry Potter right now I played it one I played it once on one day or you know not one game but I played it one time of my life and I have to buy this. I've never seen him in the years I've covered pinball, seen him do that. I've seen him say, yeah, it looks cool. I can't wait to play it. That kind of thing. You know, he's played it three or four times, hummed and hawed and finally got it or found it at a good price, that sort of thing. And I'm sure he has, and I've just missed it. But that right there is telling you how spectacular the gameplay is. He was saying the same thing that I truly believe, and even though there is some sounds that are reminiscent of their previous, you know, slot machine-y type days, there's far less and they don't bug me. In all the live streams, they don't bug me at all. What is bugging me more than I thought, and something I did ask in chat that he did not answer, and I would like anyone who's actually played it in real life to answer either on a podcast, shoot me a DM, you know, talk about it on your Twitch channel, are the hot rails and harry potter as distracting while you're playing as they appear to be so far in the live streams i've seen so that was kind of my thing like this is a dark topic you know the dark arts harry you know we're talking about like his parents being murdered in cold blood and we're talking about him being so freaking stunted from watching them being murdered in cold blood that like parts of his memory don't even work and that has to do with the horror crux and everything else and I don't want to give it away in case you haven't seen all eight movies. So fast forward now or forever hold your peace, my friends. I don't want to become hashtag dead to you, okay? But there's a part of Voldemort inside Harry Potter, part of his soul, which is known as the Horcrux.
    10:25
    So I think that we all can agree this is by far, so far, even many of us who have not played it yet, that this appears to be Jersey Jack's best pinball machine. And if that is true that Jersey Jack is firing in all cylinders, they've done their best. You know, they brought back David Thiel for the music. They've got the most amount. They're not all 100% unmuted, nor is in any game, I think, any clips 100% unmuted. But they're more unmuted than they've been for the last two or three games. And every time it's a magical moment or something important in the game, I guess I'm not supposed to say magical. I think I can. anytime something really rad happens in the game you usually get to hear an unmuted clip synced up with the the video and the audio a lot of those times are during a stop and go moment and that makes sense because that's when the player could look up and that's when tons of other things aren't switches aren't being hit and it's impossible believe me if someone let out a game with 100% unmuted clips and those unmuted clips were never interrupted by the sound of a double super jackpot If they were never interrupted, it would be horrible. It would not be a fun game to play. Because you'd always be waiting for this long scene to finish for it to say, by the way, lock is lit. Or congratulations on your thing.
    11:48
    But, I will say this. This game is going to go down in history as being their best game, I think. And they're also going to be making it for the longest time possible. but today they uh well just recently on a couple podcasts they have announced that they have something called the game changer and the game changer is supposed to be so that people of all different levels could play together what i really really really like about it which they seemed on the jbs show to primarily not like and didn't see where it would come into to value i could see in a tournament setting this would be a challenge or a problem because it could it might not work properly or someone might cheat and accidentally sign in and all of a sudden they're playing easy set settings and all of a sudden they beat elwynn or they beat eric banger on his own game on harry potter magically right so i could see if something like that happened i could see there's some issues with that but i guess my point for that whole thing is that the advantages of the game changer system seemed to far outweigh now would i much prefer live connectivity from jersey jack than this, of course, of course. But like, I'll just call it, I'll call it the mother-in-law code, okay? When my mother-in-law came all the way out here to Nova Scotia and hung out in Orby's Arcade back when I still had four or five pins in there, every time she was playing on a game, I made sure I had a short ball. I either didn't nudge it much, or I misflipped, or if it was going for too long when she wasn't, she was taking a sip of her wine or something, I just let it go down, okay? You never want to let someone feel like you're not trying though and you do want to show them how good your skills are well you can still show off how good your flipper skills are you can still show off how well you're you can make the shots but you can be open and honest with them i would not lie to her i'd just be open and honest and say yeah we have three different modes here and so that you know i'm not playing it for a 45 minute game i'm just going to go in a bit harder mode and that way you can see more of the game you can get more of the multi balls you can explore more of the game without me making you take 45 minutes in between because let's be honest for nine out of 10 of us when we're playing with I'll say newer players on a you know newbies friends family neighbors whomever sales people who come to your house I think I tried to get Jehovah's Witnesses that came to my house to play that didn't work they did look at the games though they did look at the games after I kept asking them to play they're like um we're gonna leave now it's like wow you're not gonna talk to me about Christ okay cool like we're either playing pinball or we're not we're not talking about Jesus here anyways well let's not this is going to be my uh I'm going to have no hot takes on this episode that's that's kind of like my main goal and to be a little bit entertaining and to give a big massive shout out to Zyron Silvers my dude my pin turn for Yagpin my favorite rapper in all pinball okay and the dude that the very I can't I couldn't tell you the very first time I saw him flip, I think it was on Twitch. I know it was on Twitch or YouTube, but I'm pretty sure it was Twitch during a live stream. And I thought, this guy has got flipper skills. For a kid his age, because he still has that quick reaction time and then over and above that he knows rule sets on a lot of them As he gets older and he gets more experience if this man chooses to keep playing pinball he going to be a top 100 easily And in the time that I thought that he went from like 2400th to like 1800th to like 800th, and all of a sudden 180, or maybe I didn't start that early. I probably went back too far there. Probably being a little bit of a Canadian fairy tale there, sorry. But if this man keeps playing pinball as well as he is he will clearly be a top 50 a top 25 or even maybe a top 10 or better I don't know but he got fourth place of 100 and however many people at the northeast pinball championships in the classics match play so it's his first top four I believe I don't have the posting in front of me but I believe he posted his it's his very first top four in like a big major tournament like that so congratulations and congratulations to all the winners of course but I especially had to shout out Zyron Silver so shout out my dude I hope you enjoyed it now to put a bow on the game changer thing I will disagree with the only commentators I've heard talk about it so far I do think it is a game changer I think that when I'm playing with my wife if she knew that there was a good chance that neither my son or especially my oldest son Hey Dude who's really good at Modern Sterns if she knew that they were set on different levels and I think you can make it really fun too where you could say, hey, we'll all start on medium and whoever gets first place, you have to go up to hard. Whoever gets last place, you go down to easy and the two people, like say in a family of four, any game of four, so you can make a really fun, interesting game out of it where you either move up to the hard and then if the person in hard mode gets last, they move down. If they get in either of the middle spots, they stay there and so on and such forth. You could actually make a really fun, enjoyable game out of it. It'd be probably a little bit annoying to switch shows between each game, but once you got used to it, under a home setting, I think that the Game Changer is a little bit of a game changer. I don't want to over-pander. I don't want to be a super shell, but can I just be a little tiny baby shell? Can I have a little micro shell? And maybe you'll give a micro shats about what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the Game Changer feature, I think, is cool, and it should have and could have been talked about more. Now, before I end this flippin' podcast, let me just do five fast thoughts. I have watched all of the gameplay feature. I've watched some live streams. I will say this. The five fast thoughts, I've already mentioned the first one. For some reason or another, the Hot Rails, in all of the, like, they didn't bug me in the featurette, they didn't bug me in the trailer, but they kind of bugged me in the gameplay video. And they really, really bugged me and a lot of the over-the-shoulder live streams we're getting from people just at places, it was drowning out that beautiful art. It was drowning out the inserts. Now, I think in person, those Hot Reels from where the player is standing may not be as annoying. So that was my first... Okay.
    18:04
    Shout out to Coast to Coast Pinball. That was my first fast thought. My second fast thought, what I watched the live stream was, oh my god, this is the perfect mix of flow. So a lot of the shots do flow into each other.
    18:20
    And when I first got into pinball, I found this confusing when someone said this, and it's a little bit contradictory, but some games are just way too much stop and go constantly. I will say possibly for me, of all the Elowens, Jurassic Park has three or four more stop and go moments than it kind of needs, and they're a bit too long and drawn out, and there's too many up posts holding too many balls, too many different places too often. But I still really love Jurassic Park. I'm just saying it's slightly too much stop and go. Of course, there's still lots of flow. On the flip side of that, Harry Potter, which Kerry Hardy did agree with me on, which I said just from watching the videos, you can get some of this just from videos, especially if you're a really, really, really good tournament player. Because I quite often will hear other podcasters say, until you've played it until you've played and it's like okay yeah i get it it's great it's better to have personal experience but me just sitting here on my couch i mean uh 100 feet underground in orbital alberts one million dollar underground studio me just sitting here in little old river hibberts nova scotia has been right up on like probably i don't know seven out of ten eight out of 10 pins my original thoughts. I was wrong on Toy Story. I haven't played Toy Story 4 yet, so I don't know. Maybe I was kind of right. It sounds to me like the more and more people play that, they go, wow, it's an incredible theme for kids. It's a bit easy for adults or really good players. But if the worst thing you can say about a pin is it's a little bit too easy, then it's probably a good pin. And the worst thing you could say right now about Potter is it probably plays a little bit too long. There might be a little bit too many multiballs in it. There is a lot of modes. When you have 96 modes, it's like, whoa.
    20:08
    But I, for one, am very excited to play Potter. More so than any game that came out for a long time. I'm trying to think, if ever in all my pinball years, being a podcaster, a content creator, a Twitch live streamer, a tournament player, have I ever been this excited to play a pin? And I just don't think I ever have been. So because of that, wait, we were doing the five fast thought. The hot rails are a bit too bright. The stop and go is incredible.
    20:38
    The play-filled artwork, I mean, it looks great, but it's like, you know, it doesn't maybe pop as good as you're seeing in the things. That's probably not even a hot take, but wow, okay. This is the fourth fast thought. They're starting to get going to mid-length thoughts, so I'm going to try to go quickly here. But the spinning bookcase looks cooler than I thought possible. It's used more than you think it would be used.
    21:03
    I don't really think it looks like there's too much that could go wrong on it, but obviously that would be the mech that would go wrong on it, if anything.
    21:11
    But it sounds like Eric's also got the mind of an engineer, and he's thinking of rigidity when they made the Whomping Willow and the car at the top of it. And although that's not my favorite toy, obviously the staircase is, that's still pretty rad. It's better than just a toy sitting near it that kind of moves its arms, but isn't actually touching the pop bumper you're hitting, right?
    21:33
    And I'm just personally really excited overall for JJP. What would the fifth fast thought be? I think the fifth fast thought, my fifth fast thought, I don't know why I've got Thuffer and Thuckatash right now, but my fifth thought would be there's actually more unmuted stuff than I thought there would be because it sounded like people were saying, oh, they're all 100% muted, it's all muted clips again. And when you're actually watching it, all of a sudden I started watching it with this curious eye of, well, how often are they unmuted? Now, maybe it's very close to the start button, like they say. And maybe just a lot of the modes at the start that have the unmuted clips or maybe the multi-ball starts or something like that. But more of it was unmuted than I thought even possible.
    22:17
    Now, my last thought that I didn't want to, I'm going to top off today's show with a little bit of topper talk, okay? I not a huge topper fan at for a JJP that has the exact same toys and mechs as the one I wouldn expect a free topper but I telling you right now the ugliest part of the CE is the topper and I'm not trying to be rude or mean to anybody maybe I'm sure there'll be more mods that come out and maybe I need to see the lighting part of it work better but yeah the topper is probably like visually my least favorite part of the whole thing then the middle lever topper it's like i don't think you're going to talk i think they're going to sell i think they're going to sell like 75 70 to 75 percent of the wizard edition the the arcade one the $9,999 one and the collector's edition i think they'll sell 25 to 30 percent of depending on how long they make that limited edition go now i did not check my email today and i'm not going to disclose who I've heard from about the perfect number of Jersey Jack CEs that should be made or when they should dial it back or when they should cut it off or how long. Is it 250 CEs and then they should cut it off? 500? 1,000? 1,500? 398? 420? 1111? When they get to 1,000, should they say, okay, only 30 days left? I don't know what that answer is, but I really, really, really implore Jersey Jack. Are you listening? Please, for the love of the pinball gods, for the sake of Steve Ritchie and Pat Lawler,
    23:57
    please, could you just tell us? Just be open and honest. I think before anyone should put down a deposit,
    24:06
    you should just be a little more open and honest. Like, you know, we're considering having it open for a year, but if we get way too many orders, we want to make sure it's ultra limited, ultra rare. We'll close it down earlier. We're considering closing it at Christmas, but if we don't get enough orders, we might have to keep it open until whatever, a couple months later. You know, just some, we haven't got any idea how long it's going to be open for. And I would say that is a hashtag marketing fail. Because I think there's people out there, if they knew, what does ultra rare mean to them? If they said, hey, we promise you we will cut this off at 2,000 max, then you'd know how rare it is. But as it stands, we have no clue how rare it is. So I do think that the Game Changer is a Game Changer. I wanted to do today's episode just to make sure we got back to 100% positive. That's the way I like to have it. When I was on Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, the number one comment that got all the likes and all the replies and everyone agreed was that this fella has got rainbows shooting out his arse. That's how positive he is. He just likes everything. And I think after I saw that, I spent a couple years going, you know what, I'm going to become more critical. I don't want to be the guy that everyone just feels like I'm shilling all the time. But maybe in doing so, I swung too far to the other side and became too critical. And maybe that's what's wrong with attempting to be any type of critical reviewer. It's really easy to get negative and it's really hard to be positive. And that's why I've worked so hard on this Harry Potter release to be the voice of reason. multiple pinball podcasters said the CE art was horrible disgusting not good multiple other particular quotes I'm not going to say in today's show but I think most of us can agree it is beautiful now that we've had more time and energy to reflect on it and it's okay not everyone has to like every artwork I mean some people think the predator artwork looks good right and that's okay. They can think that.
    26:08
    I don't think very many art critics would agree with them. But, I mean, to each their own. If you love it, love it. I mean, I'd like it better if you had a chiseled Arnold on the side. I'd probably like it better. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, if he was there and he was wearing nothing but a G-string, I would definitely buy it. No, I want Predator to do well, but also I was very very hard on Alien when it didn't have Ripley it actually caused ripples in some of my friendships and to this day I still deeply regret that so I don't want to start any new enemies or frenemies as it were if you want to get Predator and you like that artwork style and you think they're going to make a good game and you watch the videos and the gameplay and it seems fun and you go play it before you pay and you're okay with no Arnold that's a dream theme for you I am legitimately happy for you and I want you to enjoy the Predator machine but critically it's going to be really hard for me not to be tough on this machine if A. they don't add Arnold B. they don't do something about the artwork C. they don't have better gameplay than their last multiple games pretty much and or ever and D. they haven't hired a real coder yet and I'm not trying to be rude maybe they have incredible coders there that we just don't know about yet that we haven't seen but it seems to me that between the tariffs taxes, duties how long you might have to wait to get the game the fact that Arnold's not on it the fact that the artwork doesn't look very good and the fact that they haven't had good gameplay in their last multiple few games I think it's highly unlikely that Predator's going to do very well and in this type of market that it's going to be able to make any noise separate itself, have any energy okay so that's my thoughts on Predator that's my thoughts on Jersey Jack's gameplay after seeing it and I just wanted to have a rad episode. Please make sure you go listen to the Slam Tilt.
    28:05
    Dennis over at Eclectic Gamers was talking about how much he enjoyed the Cluster Vuck and the fact that, I mean, this wasn't my idea. I wasn't asking the questions. I was glad they brought it up and I'm glad we can have an open and honest conversation about it. And you heard a whole bunch of varied views. I'm not going to get into it. But thank you so much, Dennis, for shouting that out and just admitting how important that conversation is about how everybody in the community needs to deal with, you know, Harry Potter coming in, and the person that is profiting a little bit from the Harry Potter machine, J.K. Rowling herself, has a tumultuous past, and I'm not the type of person who likes to cancel people for stuff quickly, but she's really, really, really getting on the edge of like, come on, dude, what are you doing? So it's like, I personally will still play the game, I personally probably would still buy the game, although I'd prefer to buy it used so that she's not directly getting any of that money, of course I'm just super cheap. I will play it if it's on location. I'm not going to go yell and scream at any of the bar owners, but at the same time, I do think it would be rad, especially if they were an LGBTQ adjacent or ally or specific bar, if they at least had one tournament where all the funds went to like a trans group or some type of LGBTQ group that includes trans, of course. You know, I just think that would be really rad if they did that, and that would be a way that if someone came up to the bar and said, hey, I see you have Harry Potter here, I really don't agree with you having that, they could say, I hear where you're coming from, but so many of our pinball fans wanted it. We wanted to get it, but to make sure we could give back to that community where we might be taking away a little, we did this. Or you could give 5% of your sales, 10% of your sales. Go listen to that slam tilt show. Joe Cherovino, the dote himself, I love that guy, but man, hashtag dead to me. He said he'd rather watch Predator eight times than watch Harry Potter once. That's it. The dote is dead. Until next time, Pinball Nerds, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Harry Potter Pinball.