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TPN: Just Another Pinball Stream - Pinball Expo Recap!

The Pinball Network·video·2h 39m·analyzed·Nov 4, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

TPN community recap of Pinball Expo 2024 focusing on free play quality concerns and in-depth Godzilla pinball analysis.

Summary

Joel hosts a Pinball Expo recap stream with community members Dennis Creasel, Brian Coz, Becca, and Jordan discussing their experiences at the show. The group critiques the free play area as poorly curated with many broken games, discusses overpriced seminar and tournament bundles, and focuses extensively on Stern's Godzilla pinball machine, comparing Pro vs. Premium versions and analyzing specific shot design and mechanics.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Expo's free play area was significantly worse than Texas Pinball Festival's, with roughly 75% of games from Rob Burke's collection and about 20% down at any given time

    high confidence · Dennis Creasel direct experience comparing TPF to Expo; stated 'felt like he was 75% of the show and 20% of those were down at any given time'

  • Expo offers less attractive incentives for game bringers compared to TPF, providing only free passes to the free play area rather than seminar access

    high confidence · Dennis and Joel discussing incentive packages; confirmed: 'At Texas, I mean, they go all out... At Expo, they got free passes to the free play area. Not even the seminars.'

  • Seminars at Expo were streamed live, undermining the value of paid seminar tickets

    high confidence · Joel: 'I found out they were streaming them live. I'm like, what the heck? This doesn't make any sense?'

  • Tournament registration pricing at Expo was confusing and non-optimized, with overlapping bundle options that didn't offer clear value

    high confidence · Joel detailed the pricing structure: pre-registration $140-180, tournament add-on $100, or $90 without seminars plus $50 tournament fee

  • Godzilla Premium has a rotating Mechagodzilla mech that makes target shots significantly easier compared to the Pro version

    high confidence · Dennis and Joel discussing Mechagodzilla mech: 'On the Premium or LE, the whole thing turns, and now those targets are, like, right in your face, and it's relatively easy to hit those targets. On the Pro, there's no movement.'

  • Stern made code changes to Godzilla because the Newton ball magnet was getting excessive use on Pro models

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'In fact, it's getting so much use on the Pro, they're making new rules and code changes because that magnet is getting too hot on the Pro models.'

  • Spooky Pinball did not attend Expo because their games sell out upon announcement, so the show attendance was deemed unnecessary

    medium confidence · Joel and others discussing Spooky's absence: 'They sold out. I know. Exactly... They don't need to be there. They sold out.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Expo's free play area is a pale imitation of what Texas puts on... it was a bad area.”

    Dennis Creasel @ Early in stream — Sets critical tone for Expo's free play infrastructure; key complaint from experienced convention attendee

  • “I would prioritize getting Godzilla over Jurassic Park at this point... And after playing the premium, I'd want the premium instead.”

    Dennis Creasel @ During Godzilla discussion — Strong endorsement of Godzilla Premium as value proposition despite price increases

  • “One game. That's all it took. We need this and we need it now.”

    Becca (Jordan and Becca/Power Duo) @ During Godzilla Premium discussion — Enthusiastic endorsement leading to immediate purchase of Godzilla Premium

  • “if you can have fun shooting a whitewood, you know you have a good game... if you're not going to rely on code, if you're not going to rely on music... you're going to have a good game.”

    Joel (quoting George Gomez) @ Godzilla shot analysis — Design philosophy principle validating Godzilla's fundamental shot quality

  • “At Texas, I mean, they go all out... At Expo, they got free passes to the free play area. Not even the seminars.”

    Dennis Creasel @ Incentives discussion — Direct evidence of Expo's inferior game-bringer incentive structure

  • “I was almost annoyed at how much I really enjoyed playing that game”

    Joel @ Final Godzilla Premium assessment — Emotional reaction indicating Godzilla Premium exceeded expectations

  • “The left ramp, on the other hand, you have to hit this left ramp clean... you really have to focus in on and get that”

    Joel @ Shot design deep-dive — Technical analysis of Godzilla's shot difficulty variance between ramps

  • “There were hardly any lines ever. No. So you could get on pretty much any game you wanted right when you wanted to.”

Entities

Dennis CreaselpersonJoelpersonBrian CozpersonBeccapersonJordanpersonTom GraffpersonRob BurkepersonWalter Dayperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball deliberately skipped Expo due to sell-out-on-announcement strategy, indicating confidence in direct-to-collector sales model

    medium · Discussion: 'They sold out... I don't see the point either... They don't need to be there'

  • ?

    event_signal: TPN provided streaming coverage of Expo with high production quality; Battle of the Bells women's tournament featured Orbiter 1 as competitive equalizer

    high · Joel: 'TPN was actually streaming... Jenna McMuffin did a great job at it as well... We were streaming a Willy Wonka almost the whole time'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong community endorsement of Godzilla Premium as value proposition despite higher price; immediate purchase decision based on single gameplay session

    high · Becca: 'One game. That's all it took. We need this and we need it now'; Dennis prioritizing Godzilla over previously preferred Jurassic Park

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo offers inferior game-bringer incentives compared to Texas Pinball Festival; only free play area passes vs. seminar access + special drawings

    high · Dennis: 'At Texas... they go all out... At Expo, they got free passes to the free play area. Not even the seminars.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2024 attendance reportedly down compared to previous in-person iteration; lower game participation and curation quality noted

    medium · Joel: 'I did hear someone report that who had been at Expo the last time it was in person that the numbers were down'; Dennis: 'it just didn't seem like a ton of people brought in games'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.479

0:00
Okay. Yep. Well, hello, everyone. This is to the zero viewers we have now, but to YouTube or anybody watching this after the fact. Thank you. Thank you for clicking on the video. This is Joel. I do just another Pinball stream. This was streamed. I typically stream every Wednesday at 10 to midnight Eastern Standard Time. And tonight, it's all about Pinball Expo, Pinball Expo Recap. Everybody here on screen was at Pinball Expo, so I thought it made sense to invite some people from TPN to just talk about what all they saw, what all they played, stuff like that. So real quick intros to right there is the one and the only Dennis Creasel. Dennis, thank you for being here tonight. Oh, sure. No problem. Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely. Brian Coz. Brian Coz is the first person in chat. Hello. Brian was at Pinball Expo. It was great meeting you in person.
0:54
Dennis Creasel, so you obviously do Watches with Dennis on YouTube. Feel free to look him up right now and subscribe. And then you and Tony do Eclectic Gamers Podcast. I know you've already released a podcast about your experience at Expo. I have not had a chance to listen to it yet, but feel free to. Whoa, Kaz, coming in with the bits. Oh, I was going to say, Fliptronics is in chat as well. But, Brian, thank you, man. Thank you for the support. But, Dennis, let's go with what was the last pinball machine you played, and how was it? You know, it's hard to remember what the last one I played was because I was at Expo playing a lot of stuff. I think it was Roller Disco, the old System 1 game from Gottlieb. And it was meh. It was meh. It was in good condition, but it's not one of the better System 1s. Gotcha. And that was at Expo itself? In the infamous free play area. Yeah, I was. We can talk about that. Yeah.
1:52

  • Godzilla code is at version 0.8, indicating ongoing development with more features to be added

    high confidence · Joel: 'the code so it's only going to get better they're only going to add more to the game'

    • Dennis Creasel @ Free play area discussion — Silver lining to poor curation: low attendance meant easy access

    George Gomez
    person
    Keith Elwinperson
    Matt Morrisonperson
    Zach Minneyperson
    Joe Hillsperson
    Pinball Expoevent
    Chicago Pinball Expoevent
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP)company
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Godzillagame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Willy Wonkagame
    TPN (The Pinball Network)organization
  • ?

    community_signal: Godzilla designed with intentional shot variety and combo potential (ramp routing varies by Premium/Pro with stage changes), indicating sophisticated playfield layout planning

    high · Detailed technical analysis showing ramp feeds change based on game stage and flipper selection, enabling intended combo sequences

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball Expo's pricing structure for seminars and tournaments was confusing, with overlapping bundles and unclear value differentiation

    high · Joel's detailed breakdown: '$140 with seminars, $90 without seminars plus $50 tournament fee' creating non-optimal bundle combinations

  • ?

    product_strategy: Godzilla Premium/LE feature rotating Mechagodzilla mech and multiple diverters not available on Pro, significantly altering shot difficulty and gameplay flow

    high · Extensive technical analysis: 'On the Premium or LE, the whole thing turns, and now those targets are... right in your face, and it's relatively easy to hit those targets. On the Pro, there's no movement.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern modified Godzilla code due to excessive magnet usage on Pro models, suggesting ongoing balance refinement

    medium · Dennis: 'it's getting so much use on the Pro, they're making new rules and code changes because that magnet is getting too hot on the Pro models'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Seminars at Pinball Expo were live-streamed, undercutting paid seminar ticket value and differing from Texas Pinball Festival's model

    high · Joel: 'I found out they were streaming them live. I'm like, what the heck? This doesn't make any sense? TPF doesn't charge you extra for seminars.'

    • George, I'm so sorry. don't panic flip hop in i know i thought you said it was going to be another half an hour before you're free and tweaking cameras is not do you need me to go so you can get them in no no you're you are all good sorry george yes you lose next week george next time for sure um yes i think well here we'll finish we'll finish introductions and then we'll get into the the free play area and how much how much everybody enjoyed that i probably only played pinball a total of one hour expo more fun hanging out. Absolutely. Oh, third in chat. That's what he meant. Third in chat. Got it. At Fox City, Tom is here. Of course Tom is here. Tom, great seeing you, buddy. The other group, so we do have four, even though three cameras. The other two that are in here, I didn't want to mess with my font and actually put their names, so I just went with their Twitch stream. Fliptronic, Power Duo, we have Becca and Jordan. Becca, Jordan, thank you a ton for being here. How? Yeah. So you guys drove from Texas to Chicago. and back. How long was your drive?
    2:52
    Too long. And bumpy. Let's see, 1,200 miles on the way there and almost 1,400 on the way back because we went through Nashville.
    3:03
    So, 2,600 miles total. What was that like? That's a lot of miles. 40, nearly 40 hours of driving total. Oh, man. Dennis, how long was your drive? You and Tony drove. Eight hours, one win. Okay. It's the same as me going to Frisco for TPF. It's the same drive. Nice. You're right in that sweet spot, that middle point. That's children's numbers right there. Eight hours drive. Yeah. I had three and a half. So, yeah. Kaz, you're right. She is wearing those medals. We'll definitely get to that. And then don't panic. Dennis smiles way more in person than it seems would be based on. It's all about your surroundings, right, Dennis? I'm the second nicest person in pinball for a reason.
    3:52
    All smiles, all smiles. It's the glee I bring to the heart. Dustin, Cheesy Buddha. I don't know if you guys had a chance to meet him, but Dustin was in person. Very nice guy, Dustin. Thanks for being here tonight. So, yeah, it was a lot of drives, but it was awesome. It was an exploit. I don't – not to speak for you guys, but to actually meet all you in person and other people in chat, what an awesome chance to come together and chat it up and all that. But, yeah, we'll just go ahead and knock out the negative, the free play area. Dennis, what were your thoughts on the free play area at Expo? Well, my only real large show experience is Texas Pinball Festival, which I have attended ever since 2016. And I guess the easiest way to describe it is Expo's free play area is a pale imitation of what Texas puts on. I had been warned, so I knew going in it wasn't as good. I did not realize just how bad it would be.
    4:48
    And that's how I would say it was a bad area. The only good thing was there were two good things. That space, there was plenty of room, so I feel very claustrophobic at TPF. I have to leave the room occasionally because the sound actually gets to me. It's just too loud. It's a cacophony. And then the other challenge I had is, or the other positive I had with Expo was in the free play area, there were hardly any lines ever. No. So you could get on pretty much any game you wanted right when you wanted to. But there are maybe six LCD games over on that side. And it's okay that it skews older. That's part of what I like about free play areas, especially EMs. But, oh, my God. I mean, half the stuff, not half, but a lot of it was broken. Almost all of it was labeled as being Rob Burke's games. And they were, I'd say, it felt like he was 75% of the show and 20% of those were down at any given point, and I didn't see a lot of text. So I was just – that was sad. Yeah.
    5:50
    So Deeds is asking, do you think this was due to the price of the game of late? I don't know. I just don't – I don't know. I have never been before, so I don't know if attendance was down, but it just didn't seem like a ton of people brought in games, and the games they brought really weren't in good condition.
    6:05
    Yeah, I think it was a mix of stuff. I did hear someone report that who had been at Expo the last time it was in person that the numbers were down. So COVID could be part of it. I will say that the incentive package for game bringers is not particularly impressive. My understanding, I mean, at Texas, I hate I'm going to constantly draw comparisons to Texas. It's only really the other one I know. At Texas, I mean, they go all out. It's like you have your free passes. They get their own special drawings to win money. You know, they have their own concept. But, I mean, it's a whole, like, they really try. With Expo, they got free passes to the free play area. Not even the seminars. Oh. So it's not a free ticket. It's literally just. It's a free. And that's all I bought was free play area. I decided I wasn't dropping $60 on seminars that are going to leak five minutes after they end. Or stream them live. Exactly. I found out they were streaming them live. I'm like, what the heck? This doesn't make any sense. TPF doesn't charge you extra for seminars. I was appalled. Not to mention 50% of them were how to maintain a game.
    7:18
    Yeah, I paid for seminars and I went to one. And, yeah, so it was a learning experience. I don't think I'll do that again next year. So, awkward question. Dennis, I didn't know you were an expert. Did we not cross paths? I was going to say, you know, for as open as it was, There were a lot of TPN people. No, I never saw you. I saw Becca playing in the tournament once because I went to talk to some KC people, but I couldn't talk to her. She was busy, and I didn't see you. Oh, I feel bad. Damn. No, don't feel too bad. You're talking to me now. We bonded through Discord. Yep.
    7:57
    No, I had a chance to meet Dennis in person. Joel and I only met one time and talked for like five minutes. Yeah, it was, we were busy. That was, yeah. Joel, you only went to the one seminar where you were awarded. Yeah, I went to the, what was it? What's the guy's name? The guy that always wears the striped, Walter Day. Walter Day had his pinball-like trading cards. Aren't you guys, Jordan and Becca, didn't you guys do a trading card? We did a card. I didn't do the thing where you filled in, like, a bio or whatever. Yeah, we were supposed to do that. For the presentation. I didn't do that. So I was there. I was like, picture. I sold the game that we got a picture with. I think we both sold our games because she did Farfalla. Or no, you didn't do Farfalla, did you? I did. You did? Yeah, I did. So I've heard Farfalla gone. Brian Codd was in there with me, and Brian did. Here we are. Like, I was in there with Matt Morrison. Matt Morrison with TPN, he did his Twilight Zone, you know, a very near and dear game to him. I did TNA, probably my favorite game. Brian Codd did Gilligan's Island because nobody had done it yet. We're there. Yeah, so Brian got his full printed. Like, Walter Day was talking it up. Like, this is a certificate of authenticity that your great-grandkids will want to hang on their wall. And Brian's rocking his Gilligan's Island. But that's fine. Yeah. There were more tournament players in 2021 to 2019. That's awesome. So, Fox City's Tom is in chat. Big shout-out to Tom. I don't know if anybody had a chance that they were watching the stream where Tom streamed the tournament the whole weekend. But the quality. I had a chance to commentate a little bit. it was awesome it was awesome um Saul Hudson's congratulating you back on that gold award we're gonna get to that that was well earned thank you well earned I uh no I was gonna say so some of the on the note of the bad stuff or the weird pricing so um one of the things was is that I like we paid for the pre-registration and then the on top if you wanted to play in Maine but you had already paid your like $180 $140 if you had already paid for your whole big thing the tournament on top of that was another $100 it was not included they did not like split the difference because the other thing that you could do was on the tournament registration you could pay $90 without the seminars and then you could do the extra money for the tournament. Yeah. 50 bucks, I think. So it was $140 anyway. So it basically could have been $140 for the passes in the tournament without the seminars. Yeah. But we got the $140 with the seminars and minus the tournament. Yeah. So the math wasn't right.
    10:47
    And so I ended up, at that point, I was just like, I'm not going to pay. Jordan, I can see your toes in the camera. But you guys, It's so gross. You guys, I've been watching Jordan for the past, like, 15 minutes. He's just like... Hey, look, I'm here to add the weirdness. He's like, I'm massaging my toes. I'm like, ah! Look, I've been driving for hours and hours and hours.
    11:08
    Demonetized. Demonetized for toes. Yeah, we're going to get Jordan... You're going to get, like, 50 new followers from that, so you're welcome. You're going to have so many new followers for Jordan's toe touching. Anyway, so that was weird. Not the foot tournament pricing. Yeah, that sounds odd. It was, yeah, I think, I mean, I learned. The truth is, Expo is just all about the people, seeing the people. And we're going to go through our experiences playing some of these games. But the reality is we barely, I know I personally did not play these, like, for the hours and hours and hours we were at Expo. It wasn't standing behind a pinball machine. That is for sure. Yeah.
    11:46
    Yeah. Sure. So we'll dive into that. So we're just, overall, I would say it was, there was plenty of room. There was plenty of room. It rained almost every day. So it's not like there was a ton to walk around or do anything. So we all basically just stayed inside. It was a mask mandate, technically, but that was hit or miss at best.
    12:10
    But it was, I mean, it was great. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun seeing each other. But really, if you wanted to play games, the best part of the free play area was JJP. JJP had all their games in one section, and they were all achievement enabled. So if you really wanted to mess around with their achievements, there was a spot to do that up until 2 a.m. in the morning.
    12:34
    But really, I barely played anything else in the free play area, and it sounds like you guys were in the same boat. um so i actually got to play so so um one of the things that um so there's the main tournament there's always a main tournament and then there are women's tournaments and usually women's tournaments you know we get to play the things that are a little sometimes they work sometimes they don't um and so we actually played a bunch in the free play hall because that's where we did Battle of the Bells this year which was really fun. I had so much fun doing it. Not sure if you've ever played Orbiter 1 in a tournament setting but I was like, this is going to be the great equalizer and I was really bad at it and there were some really good people on Orbiter 1 so we played a bunch of the games kind of sort of in that area. One of the EMs shorted out a coil and we couldn't figure out which one it was because it was near a whirlwind. So the whirlwind was blowing the smell everywhere and we couldn't figure out what smelled bad. So the moral of the story is put your whirlwind away from your stuff that normally catches on fire.
    13:54
    Or else you'll never... We walked around the free-to-play a little bit. We walked around with Brian O'Neill and Motherfutter. Yeah, we walked around. Played some EMs. It was okay. Nice. Fine.
    14:07
    Spent more time in the vendor hall, though. Yeah. No, the vendor hall is definitely where it's at. Did I play GNR? I did not actually play GNR at the show, but I have played GNR before.
    14:19
    So, Dennis, I know your initial thoughts of GNR. Those have not changed. Yeah. Not my favorite game. But Kaz is throwing bits in here. at you, Dennis, to smile.
    14:37
    Smile down. You're going to earn it. Well, Kaz, I guess that was better than telling a woman to smile, so I'll give you some kudos for that. Yeah, tell me to smile, Kaz. It won't go well. I mean, I smile kind of all the time, but do it, I dare you. A smile on the inside where the joy comes from. Kaz did see that. There was a few of us at about 2 a.m. that saw, I don't know if you guys listened to Slap Save when it was Jason Fowler and Matt McCarty. Is that right?
    15:04
    Yeah, Matt McCarty jumped into the fountain outside at 2 a.m. Pretty great. That was awesome to see. I have a new respect for Willy Wonka, though, after playing the updated code. Yes, we had TPN was actually streaming props to George. Jenna McMuffin did a great job at it as well. We were streaming a Willy Wonka almost the whole time. That was really well done. Did the friend theme song start playing when he jumped in the fountain? No. No, it looked more like Shawshank Redemption when he was like, arms out under the rain. Yeah, it was pretty good. So let's dive in. So Stern. Stern had quite a showing. They had almost every modern – well, they had every title that would be Insider Connect enabled, I think, there. But the main thing was they had a whole lot of Godzillas, both pros and premiums. And then they had Jack's Jurassic Park home pin game. They had one of those there that you could play. With a custom topper. With the custom topper, yep, which was basically just Jack's face. and then they had all the other games. So they had like Deadpool Pro and Premium, Turtles Pro and Premium. They had the new Elvira, the new Elvira 40th anniversary that was there.
    16:16
    And they were all Insider Connect enabled. So it was pretty cool to be able to play some of those. So I'm so disappointed in Pony Factory. Yes, there was no Pony. So there was no Pony Factory, no Haggis and no Spooky. Spooky, yeah. So they were not there. Spooky surprised me that they weren't there. Yeah. Because that's why. They didn't need to be there. They sold out. I know. Exactly. I don't see the point either. A bunch of sellouts. But there's no just support. Like, I don't know, just to be there, to like. But there's nothing to sell. Yeah, but you could still show, I don't know, maybe you're right. I don't understand. The brand. Joel, explain to me the brand doesn't need it. It sells out the moment they announce anything. So maybe that's the thing. I mean, they had Godzilla LEs there. They don't need to sell Godzilla LEs. Yeah. It was more just to bring the, just to show their stuff. I don't know. Like, to rep the brand. That's what I'm thinking. Oh, they went to Alley. Did Stern bring the LEs, or was that just, like, Zach? Was that, like, a distributor choosing to do that? I think Stern brought a few LEs, right? I don't think so. Stern brought a few premiums. In the Stern booth, there was a few premiums. There were a few premiums, yeah, not LEs. And Zach brought the LE to Flex. Yeah, of course. Yeah, so let's dive into that. So we'll just dive straight into Godzilla.
    17:38
    Let's start with Dennis. Dennis, perfect. That's a great intro. That's my Godzilla roar. Godzilla, had you played Godzilla before Expo? The Pro. You had played the Pro. Okay, so just initial thoughts of the Pro when you first played it, and then what were your thoughts of the Premium when you played it at Expo? I thought the Pro was a great game. I actually would prioritize getting Godzilla over Jurassic Park at this point, which was the most likely stern I would buy. And after playing the premium, I'd want the premium instead. That's too bad the price went up.
    18:12
    So, yeah, the premium's bad. I mean, just for the diverter in the building alone, it just gives you so many different returns. I just think it makes it a more enjoyable experience. I am 100% in agreement with you. Yep. The pro is a great game. The Pro shoots incredibly well, and it's fun to shoot. It is really fun to shoot. But, boy, the premium, though. Those premium toys and mechs are impressive.
    18:40
    Worth it. Go ahead, Dennis, explain, I don't know, overall the mechs. I mean, you've shot them now. Let's break down the actual Godzilla mechs and, I don't know, what you saw. Well, I mean, the nice thing is both models have the most important mech, which is the Newton ball magnet, and it does get a whole lot of use on the Pro. In fact, it's getting so much use on the Pro, they're making new rules and code changes because that magnet is getting too hot on the Pro models.
    19:06
    Obviously, the center building and its collapse to release the main multiball is interesting, but I think more impactful, as I noted, is actually the diverters, not the ball lock, the physical ball lock itself. So that's the part I really appreciate. I'd say my second favorite premium mech would be the Mechagodzilla. It's just fun to shoot that little ramp up and get him in his little tummy. He's got his little tummy. He's got his tummy rage. He's got tummy rage going on. And the most disappointing is not the right word, but the bridge mech, not used too much, the collapsing bridge. Yeah, I don't think they... I could take it or I could take or leave that. That caught my eye on the trailer, but it's just not used very much, and I don't think it ever will be. So, you know, that one, it's cool, but it's not... I would never buy the premium for the bridge mech. The bridge mech, I agree. When I saw the initial reveal stream, they had turned up, and somebody said that somewhere, like they turned up the difficulty to get to the bridge, multiball or whatever the bridge thing is. They turned it way up because I don't think it's coded. I don't think they've done – I don't think it's in the game yet.
    20:09
    And I could be wrong. Yeah, it is. You got the bridge ball. Did you see the bridge? Because the way they advertise the bridge, like I saw it where if you hit it, it like – It splits. It moves? Yeah, so when you damage it, it wiggles. and then when you start it, it comes out the building and when it would normally go across it then drops it. And then you start your multi-ball stuff. So yeah.
    20:30
    It's a cool visual, but the other ones, the other mechs I feel are more impactful. Well, it's all about those stage change, right? It's all about that stage change and that, what I will say is after playing the pro, you can backhand, I mean, hitting the spinner, the Mechagodzilla spinner, it's a fun shot. It's not a bad shot. It's not clunky. Like, it's a good, it feels good. The challenge is the way that that Mechagodzilla multiballs coded is after you hit that shot so much, it charges him up and it creates a force field, and then you have to break the force field. Well, on the Premium or LE, the whole thing turns, and now those targets are, like, right in your face, and it's relatively easy to hit those targets. On the Pro, there's no movement. There's no turning. So the three targets are the spinner, the shot you've already been hitting, but now there's two targets that are on the left side of that bank, and those targets are not easy to hit, not at all. And I think that's pretty consistent. Typically, I feel pros play more brutal than premiums and LEs. So I don't think that's deliberate. I just think it's a side effect of all features and mechanisms usually simplify and slow the game down. Makes sense. And the building mech definitely does slow the game down due to its movement, But you brought up a really good point, Dennis. The actual collapse in the dropping of the balls for the multi-ball is neat, but the fact that it goes from one to two, and now all of a sudden when you're hitting your ramp shots, but now they're going to different flippers based on what stage you're in, that's awesome. That is really, really cool. You just think a little more. I think it's healthy for these pinheads. They need to start doing a little bit of that. Yeah, and I don't know. I'm not used to it yet because in the, in, on the pro, and this would be the first level of the, of the building. If you hit the right ramp, you think it's going to return to your right flipper, but it doesn't actually know it does. It does it. You think it would like it hits the right ramp and then it comes down around, it goes through the building. So then you think it's going to the left, but then it does a U-turn. It hangs back, right. It goes to your right flipper. So it actually feeds you to combo into the left flipper. So you could like combo ramps. at least on a pro all day, but on a premium, depending on where you're at, it's going to feed the same flipper.
    22:50
    So let's go Fliptronic. Jordan and Becca, they bought a premium. They had bought a premium. Yeah, we just can't stop. And they were actually able to take one home from the show, so they drove it all the way home from Chicago. You said you had gone to Nashville. That's because you actually streamed with Joe Hills, who's quite a big Twitch streamer in the Minecraft world. But that's awesome that he guys invited you guys in. And, yeah, initial impressions now that you own the pen and shot the premium way more than most. What are your thoughts? Well, I'm passing Zillow's trying to get away. Oh, it's super fun.
    23:32
    It is, like, we got to play the pro. I liked the pro. Like, I think we played, like, two games on the pro, and I really enjoyed it. And it wasn't even a well-setup pro because it was at Interium.
    23:46
    Yeah, and it wasn't... Like the left flipper was droopy? Like by a hair. It was hard to make that rant. It wasn't too droopy compared to some of the droop flippers. It wasn't, the flippers weren't centered.
    24:01
    And then we played one game on Zach's LE. And I was like, Jordan. we need this. One game. That's all it took.
    24:18
    We need this and we need it now. And so, well, it shoots really well. It's fun to shoot. And I like games. I mean, I like a game that's fun to shoot. And I mean, you can shoot things backwards and forwards and things. Like, everything goes every certain way. It has a lot of unique shots. Yeah, it's super different.
    24:42
    Which is nice. So, yeah, we just set it up. Just got it at home, and I set it up like an hour before this.
    24:50
    Yeah, it's – we'll take a look here. I don't know. I don't know what to say. So here's obviously the premium. But this game, I know I heard it on a podcast before, and I think it was George Gomez. Somebody said, you know, if you can have fun shooting a whitewood, you know you have a good game. Like if you're not going to rely on team, if you're not going to rely on code, if you're not going to rely on music. If you can have fun just shooting the pin, you're going to have a good game. And absolutely, this game, the shots that it has in here are great. And I looked at this and I was like, wow, so Keith Elwin, who's a high-end competitive player, probably the best competitive player of all time, stuck a very critical mech dead center of his game, and that's a multi-ball. I was surprised. I thought that would be a layup. But if you actually really look here, this shot is a lot tighter than you realize. I don't know if you guys experienced that, but there are some blue rubbers right here. That actual opening is not near – it's not a gimme. It is not a gimme shot at all.
    25:56
    Dennis, do you agree with that, or you're just drilling it? I didn't seem to have too much trouble getting that shot.
    26:05
    I had an easy time forehanding it. Backhanding it was a little different. Yeah, and it was mostly forehands for me as well. But, yeah, I mean, I don't view it as, like, right ramp Led Zeppelin tight, but it's not a wide shot. True. You do have to make it relatively clean, but it's not. I mean, I'm still thinking back to, like. It's not banana ramp AIQ where you can hit it from all three flippers. Right, right, right. But I'm pretty sure also if you nail any of the stuff on the inside, it also impacts the integrity of the building. Yeah, the bounce of the bash, yeah. Turin just said that. But it is harder than I was initially expecting, but it's good. I mean, I think it's a good shot. It's got plenty of – I mean, it's far enough back that if you do hit one of these stand-ups or hit some of them, the ball comes back at you. It's got plenty of time to react. But what is neat is when you hit that shot, it zips around here so fast, and that magna grab grabs it. So it's just a really visually such an enjoyable shot to go back, comes up, and then the magna grabs it and it goes, whoop, back here in this and then drops down to this flipper. And just like every other third flipper, I mean, just nailing this loop over and over again. It's pretty satisfying, right? I think my best is three in a row. Dennis, have you beat that?
    27:22
    Three or four. Let's say three. I don't think I beat it. Apparently, if you do six in a row, you get something. It's like an extra ball or something. Like that's built into the game. but it's a fun shot. I will say this shot to the right, and I know it's hard to see with all these, this is a pretty open shot. This is a shot that I was able to see from right hand. You can backhand this shot, and you can hit it with the left flipper. So this shot, and it loops back around here. So the center's thinner. Yeah, it feeds really well. It's not Houdini kind of hard shot. No, it's not.
    27:59
    Joel, how did I miss Din Din at Expo? Jobber, I don't know. That's a question for Dennis. He was there. Blame Expo for not giving everyone lanyards. Another fatal flaw versus TPS.
    28:12
    There we go. But the loops are fun. But this shot, this right ramp, you cannot backhand it. I mean, you definitely have to hit it from the left ramp. You don't have to have crazy speed. This is a shot that I was surprised you can rattle it up in there, and it'll work its way around.
    28:29
    The left ramp, on the other hand, you have to hit this left ramp clean. um you cannot back you somebody said aiq ramp the right orbit ramp oh yeah because this is a record this time vertical 180 and you have to hit it from the right ramp and it has to be clean and so to feed your mode you have to hit both ramps and uh at least what i've experienced so far the left ramp is the one that you got to work at you really have to focus in on and get that but what i was saying earlier if you hit this left ramp with your right flipper here it's going to go up, come through, it's going to go across the playfield, whip around, so it's going to the right, you think it's coming to your right flipper, nope it goes back to the left which allows you then to kind of combo into the right ramp so you can actually combo ramps back and forth, back and forth back and forth, which is pretty great I don't know, I mean this game has nothing but love, right from a lot of people, I will say the art this I don't really have I thought it looked way better in person Like, it was not, I don't know. You could just use a repaint. It's a little bright. You don't notice it when you're playing. Yeah, you don't really notice it when you're playing. I know you had feelings towards the art. Did that opinion change at all when you saw it in person or not so much? No. Nope. But I don't buy games off of art. I think it'll look great in your Marvel lineup. Yeah, that would work.
    29:55
    So that's the premium. What I was talking about with the pro, this is what I was saying here. if you look, so you hit this right spinner here, and then when it, you actually have a target, if you can see my mouse, right there. I mean, it is directly on the left side of that, and there's really no way to back, you can't backhand it. Even backhanding this kind of front target is difficult, and you don't have that problem on the premium, because the premium, the whole thing rotates, and it rotates towards you. So we talked, but that makes sense, because this whole mech right hear rotates and then the targets are right in your face um but i don't know i the code is what 0.8 and the code so it's only going to get better they're only going to add more to the game but man i had a ton of fun just shooting the game experiencing the shots um yeah like dennis said the mecha godzilla was way more enjoyable than i was expecting and i was almost annoyed at how much I really enjoyed playing that game because because now you're gonna have to sell your titles I know but it's it sucks because it's everything so I mean everything's so much more expensive um but the reality is I just like you said Dennis uh if I'm gonna buy one I think I think you gotta go premium you gotta go premium oh it would be if I would be hard pressed after playing the I mean the pros of fun games so I guess but I'd always feel that I settled but many of my pinball decisions have been settling too, so I can't say I'm above it. Okay, yeah. Did you see some of the music settings for Godzilla?
    31:35
    Well, obviously the Blue Oyster Cult song could become, you could have issues, right, with DMCA? Well, at least in the main theme of it, you can change it between orchestral or rock or like a mix, a hybrid. So there's basically a music theme running throughout the game, and you can go mix, or if you just want rock music, you can do just rock music, which I thought was pretty cool. You can actually set the tone for the whole machine.
    32:04
    I do know competitively there are some bugs in the game right now, so I'm pretty sure it's, Dennis, you may know better than me, but it's pretty much multiball all day. And then as of right now, it's multiball all day. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a big-time competitive player. My basic understanding is you want to have a mode and go into multiball, ideally. And so, you know, you might want to do, like, Gigan first or something, and then maybe do a multiball with one of the harder modes. And we still need to see what cities are going to do. I did encounter a bug at Expo. My game reset on me on ball three, and I heard that happen to some other folks, too. You were just blowing it up, huh? I was winning. And the other players said, well, I guess, well, no, I guess I was losing. But I had a plan. I was ready to start my multi-ball. Perfect. And they said, well, we just have to remember what the last scores were and just leave it at that. Well, were you, this was a decent transition. Were you connected? Did you use your phone? I did on that one. I think I got a bloop. I call them bloops. I think I got a bloop. Oh, the bloop where it comes up because you did something? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I got one for, I thought for loops or something, but I don't remember. I just, I saw it pop up, and I remembered to set my cell phone down on the thingy and let it get scanned. Well, there you go. That's the only time I did it. I didn't do any other achievements at the, I didn't do any score bed. I did a ton of achievements. That's all Jordan did. You want to talk to Insider Kid? When Becca abandoned me for the women's team tournament. I did not abandon you. I went to the, I went to the steering floor, and I played a bunch of stuff, and got like Elvira achievements, Black Knight achievements, even some on Turtles. Yeah. Like I was actually on the leaderboard for a short time on Turtles. I thought that was pretty neat, to be honest, just going game to game and just, yeah. Yep. Even though I wasn't focusing too much, it was just like, well, I might as well show that I played this game and played this game. And they did have kind of an internal tournament going. They had a TV set up to show the high scores of every game that was connected there in the CERN booth, which was pretty cool.
    34:20
    I got the achievement, okay, the dumpster fire. I wonder what game that's in. How do you feel about layout rules difficulty on Godzilla? I get frustrated sometimes playing Jurassic Park. I don't – what I will say is when I stepped up to the game, there was no shot that it's like, oh, this is a fan layout. I should just be able to drill this shot. every shot felt unique to this game to me personally but after playing a few games I I'm not really having issues finding them I don't know we're playing last night we were just playing for the heck of it we didn't even try progressing really yeah we weren't like trying on progression and like honestly like y'all know Jordan's opinion about Jurassic Park yeah like that was out of but I mean I think it's probably going to be similar with this because it is pretty linear in the fact of like well it's less like Jurassic Park and more like Deadpool because you have like your first four monsters you have to battle then you get a second tier of monsters you have to battle to get like a wizard mode so it's just reminiscent of Deadpool battles hmm that makes sense now that you're saying it Dennis which do you find more difficult this or Jurassic Park layout wise well I mean I have a lot more time on Jurassic Park than this. I think they were about on par.
    35:42
    Godzilla might be a little easier. You know, I... It's like, Elwynn's layouts I don't think are overly difficult. I think he actually leans more the other way. Kind of long players.
    35:54
    It's a lot less cramped up front than it is... Right, well, I'm just, like, thinking, like, Turtles, which I think is an incredibly brutal layout, and, like, Elwynn seems to avoid that to that degree. I thought Jurassic Park was a shorter player than Iron Maiden was, so I thought he started to – because there were a lot of – that was the biggest complaint I remember with tournament players who loved the rules for Iron Maiden was just, oh, my God, it was such a long player. And, you know, in the tourney scene, it gets – I mean, I get very annoyed with long players in tournaments. It's just – because tournament organizers can't ever coordinate their times properly anyway, and everything runs long. Yeah. So the last thing you need is Baby's first pinball machine in the tournament. I was mainly thinking about Frustration trying to reach Visitor Center. I mean, I will tell you, I do not know yet what all you have to do to reach whatever. But, I mean, there's a lot. When you go to pick your battle, right, I mean, they're showing four monsters right now, but then there's, like, three grayed-out boxes next to it. That's the tier two monsters after you defeat the four? Yeah. You only have to complete a certain percentage of each monster to be able to unlock Tier 2. Yeah. So you don't have to, like, fully complete all the Tier 1s. You just have to, like, get a couple shots on each. Gotcha. And you'll start to unlock the Tier 2 guys. I think there's going to be a lot of depth here. I think there's going to be, there's a lot that's not coded in yet. And the game, I don't know of any, I don't know of anybody that's beaten it or been anywhere close right now. Well, I know, what is it, during the tournament, Escher got like 1.8 billion on it. Yeah, well, I saw that in another chat. I like balling. There's an actual bug with this destruction jackpot. There's this destruction jackpot shot that there can be a multiplier on it that's not supposed to be on it. And so there's a way to exploit that and get stupid points. Yeah, because the destruction has a multiplier of how many other destructions you've done. And you get a destruction by completing a multi-ball.
    37:55
    So that probably maybe goes crazy after you do a certain amount of multiballs. Have you talked about how pretty the game is in person? No. I mean, it is. I think it looks great. I'm not complaining about it at all. Eric Stone got $2 billion on his first game. Well, that makes sense. That guy's, like, really good.
    38:11
    How would one do that so they could avoid it? Terrible. Oh, you're saying how would one do the destruction jackpot? I don't remember what you hit.
    38:22
    There's something on the play field. There's something that you hit enough times to light Destruction Jackpot, and then you end up hitting the building here. It spits it out. It holds the ball, kind of like in Avengers where it holds it in that tower. But instead of counting down, beep, beep, beep, beep, you know, it just drops it. I don't know the timing yet. So it drops it, and you have your Destruction Jackpot. Like it tells you. It's like Destruction Jackpot point. After a multi-ball is done, the building is lit. The center shot on the building is lit. spread. You hit that, it'll do a two-turn, and the magnet will grab it, and then it'll say, you know, destruction jackpot's ready. And it's basically, the scoring is based off of your multi-ball total times how many other destruction jackpots you've done. Ah, and that's where you get that. And that is how that feature works. Those crazy points. Okay. Yep. Alright.
    39:15
    I read through all the rules last night, and I'm still at the forums. Yeah, I have not, I haven't dove into them at all. Dives? Dove? I don't know. I need to look a lot more into it, but it's, there's, I think this is a game that's going to be talked about a lot because it is, it's really good. And I did not meet a single person at Expo that tried it for the first time and wasn't impressed.
    39:38
    What did Tony think, Dennis? I think he's kind of hard to please. Did he like it? Yeah. Greatly preferred the premium. Yeah. I don't think he'd settle for a pro if he was in the market. Yeah. It is it really good It very very good I mean this is our first premium It was the only one that convinced us to get a premium for anything It is well done So Insider Connect you saying Dennis that was the only one you did while doing all about it.
    40:07
    I'm still in. I'm still in on it. I'm excited about it. I'm excited to have it in the home use. Apparently, Stern.com is not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    40:17
    Are you finding, Jordan, that you and Becca are still doing it at home? Like, logging in every time? I mean, it's been an hour, so... Yeah, we haven't logged into it yet. We haven't logged into it yet. But we were logged in when we played at Joe Hill's house. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, let's transition here to the affordable home games. You know, the affordable ones. I like affordable. Being that the other ones are not affordable. Oh, yeah. Of course it is affordable. Yeah. I think it's... Well... For pinball. For pinball, I guess. So, Jurassic Park Home Pin. Dennis, did you touch it? Did you have a chance to play it? You did not play it. Nope, didn't even see it. They had one. I was surprised. I heard it was the prototype.
    40:59
    Yeah. Okay. So what was, have we heard anything? Why, what the differences would be between the prototype and the real thing? I didn't read up enough to know the difference, besides the topper. I don't know. There's not going to be much differences, I think. It was just they don't have any produced ones to put on the floor yet. Yeah. So they just had Jack's personal, like, final run prototype. The one that he's been messing with and tweaking. Yep. All right.
    41:26
    Jordan, how about you go? Dennis hasn't played it. What were your thoughts? You had already ordered one before you even got it. We had already ordered one, yes.
    41:35
    Which, in retrospect, maybe we shouldn't have because we got the cut still up. But whatever. We're fans of the mirror. Who needs downsizing anyway? Yeah, we actually, so we got into the vendor hall before it opened. And so, like, nobody was in there. We were helping P3's multimorphic setup and Zach's setup a little bit. And then I wandered over there, found Jack Danger, and I was like, hey, can we, like, play your pin? Is it here? And so, you know, he walked over with us and showed us. And we got to play with him for, like, 30 minutes or so. Yeah. Something like that. And he was describing everything and the processes and what he was trying to do originally and what kind of changed and what happened and beat him at his own game. So there was that. Nice. I don't think he was trying. I don't know. He wasn't. We were just kind of like farting around. But it was fun. It's actually a really, really fun shooter.
    42:26
    That right ramp is way faster than you think it is. Yep. That thing is like blazing speed. But you can get some sweet combos set up.
    42:35
    Even when the ball drops, doesn't make that jump, it's still pretty neat, pretty satisfying. The rules are obviously pretty simple, but also doing the whole, like, right orbit to left and dead flipping into the... Raptor pin. Raptor pin is really cool. Well, they didn't have that set up right when we were doing it. Yeah, it was a little... I was able to experience that. So what we're talking about is when you plunge, if you hold down the left flipper, instead of it catching and dropping down these drop targets, it'll keep going. Well, after it gets past this, drop the left flipper so that it's pointed down, and that ball will have enough momentum to come down, bounce off of this left flipper, hit this right flipper, and then it actually bounces up and rolls right into this rafter pin. It does it all on its own, and it will go back there and hit that target. I don't know. I tried it probably three or four times, and it worked maybe 50% of the time. It felt like a cornerstone pin. Yeah, it was really well done. I think it fits the need of having a game with a simpler rule set, like with our ongoing collection.
    43:41
    Also, Dakota, Mike, just get another cabinet and just put it in a spike, too, and you'll be fine. That's what we're trying to do. That's what we're going to try to do. I mean, you can't. There's no way to add credits, right?
    43:53
    There's no. I don't think there's any way to add credits, but I just want it to be a full size. I mean, even the cabinet as it was wasn't too bad. Yeah. Like, you can tell the head's a little bit shorter and whatnot, but it overall felt like a real cabinet. It surprises me. It's not that much smaller. That's the thing. That it's, like, I don't know. In my mind, it's like, why didn't you just put it in a real cabinet? It's not that much different, but obviously the serial. Reliver a bit helps. And they're doing MDF, so that's probably saving them quite a bit of money. I would say that, yes. My overall view on it is it shot great. I really enjoyed the shots. I had a lot of fun shooting it. Didn't try to dive too much into the code, but hitting this triple drop-down bank, and then it goes up in a 180 ramp. The ball holds in its mouth, and then he spits it out. I mean, it's all cool. It looks great.
    44:43
    She spits it out? Oh, that's right. The girl. Yep, the girl. Is it a raptor or is it a T-Rex? It doesn't matter. They're all female. She spit it out. Yep. My only complaint was that screen is small. The screen is – there's no denying that. The screen on the – Yeah, but how often were you looking at the screen, man? True. But this game is just like hit the same shots over and over and over. You don't need direction in this game. You just got to know how many you need. Speaking of money, I wish the screen was bigger. It's funny because I don't think a smaller LCD is actually even cheaper than a larger one. Dakota, Mike, good point. I don't know. I don't know why they went with that. My only true complaint, like true annoyance with the game is the lockdown bar. The lockdown bar here is metal until you get to the ends. Right here on the left and right, those are plastic caps. And your palm of your hand goes right there on that seam. And so to feel plastic transition to metal, I don't know. That's my only complaint. So the fact that you guys are getting one and considering moving it to a real cabinet, all for it. I think that would make complete sense. But the reality is if somebody made this lockdown bar all metal, I think people would buy them. Um, it just, to me, it's like the things that are most important in your game is where your body is physically touching the game. I mean, everybody tore into Thunderbirds cause the buttons hurt you, right? I mean, it's just, um, those buttons are hazardous. Yeah. They are straight hazardous. Yep. That was my biggest, that was my biggest complaint, but maybe that's nitpicking. I mean, maybe that's the reality is the game itself and the way it shoots. No, I pinched my finger on one of the edges. Oh, I don't even remember. to be honest. I guess it wasn't that big of a deal to me that I didn't even notice. No, I think you were too excited about how it shot, but like I pinched my finger on the edge, which I'm not surprised about at all. Yeah, on that. Which is just, I don't know. It's also, again, a prototype. We'll see. That would be awesome if it's actually metal, but, or if they, the way that those caps are on is different, but to me it's just one of those I understand this is supposed to be an affordable home game and they're supposed to be saving every penny possible, but that to me is one of those I wish they would pay that. A little bit extra to make it feel, you know, real or better. But, yeah, so Dennis, you missed out on that. You missed out on the feel of a plastic. I probably missed out on a lot of things, but that's okay. Yeah, well, that's all right. But I don't know, any other thoughts on his pin here?
    47:15
    Goran, how you doing, buddy? Goran, you would have been very disappointed with the toppers. None of them were real. They were all plastic displays that talked about Insider Connect. Yeah.
    47:27
    Any other thoughts? Any other thoughts on... I know the Home Pin's going to have the integration with the original Jurassic Park topper. Which is neat. I'll be interested to see what they build out for that. Yeah. No. No? No. I don't know. No more buying things. But Cactus Canyon Remake... I don't know. Yeah. This isn't about, like, what we need to buy. I'm just talking about in general. Oh, okay. We're reviewing here, Becca, not what we're deciding to get. Not shopping? Yeah, we're not shopping. You guys, it's been a really long week of shopping. It has. There was plenty of stuff to buy, that's for sure. I bought a name tag. There we go. Did you get one of those that's cool? Oh, the little digital name tags. Because I didn't have a lanyard. I felt like I needed something that had my – unfortunately, I didn't do it until the last day. So I spent a whole $25 on what I could have bought online for $10.
    48:17
    It was worth it. they were really cool I've already reprogrammed it to do my own fonts and stuff nice, Dennis got an overpriced Harbor Freight tape measure what?
    48:31
    no, those were cool, the little DMD things were really cool overall, Stern I think they put on a, they represented themselves well, they had plenty of different seminars I didn't go to any of the seminars but they did a lot of different how we did this they gave away a whole bunch of stuff I know Nick the Pensomniac, he won a banner because he went to one.
    48:53
    Insider Connected, every time I tried it, it worked. Like, it just, boop. I mean, it worked perfectly. So, really no complaints there. They were also giving out shirts for logging into one of the games at Expo and logging into one of the games at Logan Arcade during their, like, Logan Arcade, like, meet-up night thing. So, if you had both badges, you got a free shirt. Did you get your shirt? We ran out of shirts. We might have sent our QR codes to somebody who was there. Gotcha. Yeah, I definitely got my little badge.
    49:26
    And, yeah, I know. Well, never mind. Dennis, you said you logged in once, so you should have your inside badge. That was the one that crashed, so I don't know if I lost my achievement. Yeah, good point.
    49:40
    All right, well, Stern, check. to be 100% honest what I was very excited about or one thing that I was really looking forward to trying was the P3 and I officially had a chance to try one Jordan and Becca I know you guys own one Dennis did you have a chance to play one or did you attempt to play one when you were there yeah I played the two games they had Heist and they had Sorcerer's Apprentice what were your thoughts or takeaways on your experience with the P3?
    50:17
    Mine or Jordan and Becca's? Well, I know theirs is not unique to Expo. We have one. It's in there. Well, it's the first time for both of those games for me. I'll start with Heist, which is the second one I played. And I would say Heist is the best P3 game that the entire system has. I think that easily is the best. It has a very 90s sort of Williams feel to the rules. I think the way they incorporated the imagery over the screen makes it feel busy enough without letting you notice that there's a whole big screen and they're not really animating it. So the way they'd have little pop-ups of the characters, I thought it was really clear rules. The only gripe I have with Heist would be the decision to use a separate flipper button rather than stage flipping for that upper third flipper. this is not unprecedented though Starship Troopers was the same way so it's something you can learn but I think for a lot of hardcore pinheads it's going to feel alien to have to do that I believe they said they can code that in though it is a dual switch a dual league switch for one of them so you should be able to do stage and do it all in one flipper you just gotta code it in I think it's up to them if they're really going to do it to be fair the answer whenever anyone complains about anything with P3 is oh, well, we could always change that with code, and then they don't. So, you know, if they want to, they can. I don't think it's going to affect their sales if they do that or not.
    51:48
    You've got bigger problems if the reason why people aren't buying Heist is because they don't want to use a second flipper button. I mean, Sorcerer's Apprentice did not like it. Thought the concept was good. Animation, use of the screen made it look, it felt like a Commander Keen shareware game from the 90s or a phone game. I was pretty disappointed. Sound package was pretty disappointing. The concept is okay, like the RPG of going to a place, getting your spell, but it feels like you really notice when you're getting nothing if you're not making the shots, and that's what that game's all about. It's like, hey, you didn't hit your spell shot. You suck. You get nothing.
    52:28
    And it's quite a bit of a, I mean, you need a lot of accuracy to kind of go and get to that, get into that dungeon with your spell and then to use it. And don't forget those buttons. Got to remember to use the right buttons at the right time. So that one's just a little too video gamey for me. You know, if I had the Cosmic Kart Racing module, I might buy it only out of sheer desperation to feel like I'm getting my money's worth out of the system. But that game can't possibly move units.
    52:56
    Yeah, okay. Yeah, I don't think anybody... Maybe I'm totally wrong, but I don't think anybody played Sorcerer's Apprentice at Expo, and that was the tipping point. that was like, I need this game in my life. I could be wrong, but it's... It's definitely a supplemental game. Yeah, and it's $300, you know, compared to whatever, $2,500 or $3,000 for a whole module, you know, for heist or something like that. But it's, yeah, my initial impression. One, the game does not move. Like, you try to nudge the game and you are moving, not the game. So the game is heavy. The game is heavy and there's no... And the game's challenging. I mean, every game that I played, I actually had a chance to play some games at Scott Denise's house, so we plopped out some modules. And every game I played was a challenge. They were not easy by any means. But I was very impressed with how the flippers felt. I know that was a big concern, that the flippers, I mean, you look how the mechs are with linkages and whatnot. Flippers felt fine. I had no complaints at all with how the flippers felt. I have definitely felt worse flippers in, you know, like other modern games. I did not have any issues with how the flippers felt, how the slings felt.
    54:09
    I mean, I enjoyed the way it shot, and when you started finding the shots, linking things up, I really mechanically had no issues with the game. I totally agree with you, Dennis. Heist is absolutely the best game they have. That crane mech is very impressive. The crane mech. You didn't like Barnyard, Joel? Barnyard is neat, but it's not, yeah. I've seen people have a lot of fun with Boneyard, but they were all very, very intoxicated.
    54:37
    All the P3 mechs are solid. Jerry's engineering skills are not, in my mind, cannot be questioned. He might be the best engineer in pinball. But there's something about the games, broadly speaking, that just cannot motivate me. Heist, though, would come close, but not at $10,000. It's not a $10,000 game. And that's how I have to look at it. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. If you have $10,000 right now, I mean, I think all of us thoroughly enjoyed Godzilla. Right, right, right. Exactly. And that would be the thing. You would be asking, Dennis, do you want to buy Heist or do you want to buy Godzilla Premium and have some money in your pocket still? Yeah. Based off our discussion, you don't need me to answer that. You know my answer. That's kind of how I looked at it before. And then I started looking at it in a couple of different ways as far as playing all the different little mini games and like supplemental games with it. it became more of a payoff, but then also as a boilerplate homebrew machine, I think it has a lot of capabilities. And so that's really what sold me was like, I want to create games, and all I need to do is pick up Unity, and I can create games with an existing module. And the homebrewers sing its praises. I mean, I correspond with Nick Baldrige all the time. And he has done homebrew, like building his own electromechanicals and stuff. And he loves doing it on the P3. Loves it. It seems, I mean, it makes total sense that that platform is built for that, for people to create and add to that way more so than buying any other pin and trying to re-theme it, you know, tear down the play field, re-whatever.
    56:16
    But for me, someone so lazy who's probably not going to develop their own game because I'm far too busy doing other stuff, that's my excuse. It's really just laziness. Yeah. I mean, my issue is, and I think I've talked about this privately with Joel before. I know Tony and I have discussed it on Eclectic Gamers before. It's just, you know, it's kind of, you have to, in my mind, you have to be sure that you want to adopt the system. Because, as Jordan pointed out, you know, you're getting these other pieces. The add-ons are a lot more affordable. You can really get a lot of economy of scale going once you've decided to commit on the initial $10,000. However, it's not like there's a huge market out there for, let's say you hate the Cosmic Cart Racing module. There's not like hundreds of people waiting to buy it off of you. You basically have to unload the entire system if you want out of it. And if you put in a ton of money adding a bunch of modules and you got sick of it, I just think it's going to be hard to move. Potentially, yes. And literally because of the weight.
    57:15
    Sorry, no more weight jokes on pinball machines. That thing is ridiculous. So whereas, you know, if I got sick of a Godzilla or a Deadpool or whatever, it's going to be so easy to offload that game to someone, and it's not going to be like, well, I'm giving up all, you know, I'm giving up 20 games at once if I do it, and I can't piece it out. So not practically speaking. So what you do is you get a couple of friends to also buy P3s, and you all buy one module each, and then you just kind of switch them around with each other, and you're good.
    57:44
    That could work. uh by the way we have Goran who is I to be honest like when I think of toppers Goran's love of toppers is is is ridiculous and then we have flipping out Zach so we have two topper kings really battling out but I thought we decided a few weeks back that Dennis I thought you were the top they are they are more topper princelings really yeah um so really P3 I agree heist was a ton of fun but my main takeaway from this weekend was there was no there was nothing there was no red flag there was nothing like nope can't do this can't like i hated this or you know this rubbed me the wrong way nothing it was it was all great like i thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the p3 was it enough for me i'm financially i'm in a position where i would have to sell stuff to buy that and and currently there's nothing i've played on the p3 that as a game standpoint is more enjoyable than what I currently own. With that said, though, when this next module comes out, which is supposed to be themed, which is going to have music by Scott Denisey, I, you know, if that was, if that, like, if that really was an amazing theme and a great game, and that was enough to push me in the system, then yeah, if that would, I could absolutely see myself also buying Heist. At that point, Heist is a steal, right, at $2,500. It is a good game, but it's not a $10,000 game, in my mind, right now.
    59:15
    Those are my thoughts. Yeah, it's hard to disassociate it as a $10,000 game, because it's technically not... It's really hard to separate it out as the system and the modules. Well, you, Jordan, are planning on using the system. Lazy Dennis over here is not going to. To me, this system is just another game. Sure. There's an initial upfront investment that is necessary, and there's no way around it, and it's high. Now, to P3's advantage, all these other games keep going up in price. P3 keeps looking like a better and better deal, so long as they can continue to hold the line and not raise their prices as well. Yeah, 100%. It's also, since it's so modular, There's probably things that we haven't thought about or seen that could be done with it, that would be worth it. But, again, until those exist, it's going to be probably pretty niche for most people, I guess, which is fine. I mean, it's just another option. It doesn't have to be the, you know, everyone has to have it kind of pinball game. Yeah. Yeah, I will say there were a few other TPN people that bought them this weekend. They were very impressed with the overall thing. And one of the guys, I just, I don't want to say their names because I don't want to spoil. I know some people like, you know, like, oh, a new pin's coming. What is it? But one of the guys basically was saying, I only have room for one pin. And the current pin that he has is worth a lot of money. So he knows he could sell it in probably a day.
    60:52
    Well, he's not a streamer. He isn't, but he's a fan. He doesn't have fans. Yeah, but that was his rationale. I only have room for one pen. My current pen I'm done with. I can sell it tomorrow, and it will easily cover it, and this is going to give me a lot of options for my one space, which makes total sense. And then we have other people that are smart and motivated like Jordan that want to make things for the P3. So it's hard to do that. When's the P4 coming? Right ahead. How are you doing, buddy? Raymond, another person I had a chance to meet in public. in person. So Raymond, it was great meeting you. I saw him twice. He was the only person at the whole show who dared to call me Din Din.
    61:34
    I only got to meet him for one minute while I was dressed as Jon Snow on an inflatable dragon. Perfect. Raymond was wearing his Conker's Bad Fur Day shirt, so of course. Joel is tall. Yes, I heard that plenty, plenty while I was there.
    61:50
    Yeah, but it was great. So P3, I mean, overall, I still would say my overall experience at the show was positive. Talking to Jerry, very nice guy. Alex was the other guy that was there, very nice guy.
    62:07
    Yeah. Sorcerer's Apprentice, freaking hard, hard game. And you're right, Dennis. You're missing your shots and you're in trouble.
    62:16
    Yeah, I think Alex came up and started telling me, like, what I should be shooting for because apparently I was failing a little too much for his liking. No.
    62:25
    Bill from Memphis, who is taller, Joel or Jack Danger? Jack. Jack is taller. He's 6'7". He definitely hunches, but he is, I mean, he's a tall dude, especially when he's standing next to a moto. I'm 6'4", but, yeah, he's definitely taller. We probably weigh the same, though. Jack is thin. He is just stretched. He is stretched. Kirk Hobbs, just don't stay next to George for too long. Yeah, there's a few of the other streamers that are not the biggest people, but that's fine. I will say Cheesy Buddha. Cheesy Buddha in chat. He's a big dude. I'm sitting next to him. He's not small.
    63:01
    Yeah, Jobber. Jobber's a big guy as well. Jobber was there here in chat. He was on the TPN stream that last Wednesday running the mic. He did a good job. And then he had one of his homebrews, which we'll get to the homebrews. That was a good time. Any other closing thoughts for P3? I mean, Dennis, had you played one before Expo or no? Yeah, I played every TPF. Okay, all right. I always give it a chance. Joel introduced me to combos. Yes. Let's all take a moment real quick. Ray Day loves the combos. It's very clear because he coded Led Zeppelin. Yeah, he did the airport modes, didn't he? The airport modes. Very critical modes to that game. But combos, snacks. Ray Day had never tried a combos snack. Really? He had never tried one. And there was a guy who was actually very generous. he dropped off a box of like snacks for the TPN crew. He even wrote a little letter like, thank you for your entertainment. Here's your stuff. There was Oreos in there. There were Nutter Butters in there. Jabber and I, you know, we shared some Nutter Butters. But there was these little packs of combos and pizza kind here. Ray Day had never tried one. Didn't someone else have never tried Pop-Tarts?
    64:12
    Yes. Who's that? I know Jedi McMuffin has never had a Pop-Tart. Yeah, we forgot the fourth one to eat Pop-Tart. I could have done that. But combos, to anybody that's listening to chat, if you've never had a combo, go try yourself a combo. Dennis, you're a combo fan.
    64:30
    I'm not sure what you're talking about. These combos. Oh, I am showing. Here I am clicking around right here. I'm clicking around on my screen. These combos, fake snacks. Have you ever had these? They sell them at like every gas station.
    64:44
    I've seen the bags, but no, I have not. Oh. Yeah, those pizza ones are good. I usually don't get gummy bears or pretzels. Treat yourself.
    64:53
    Thank you for the follow, by the way. Millenniax? Yes. This is a pretzel with a gooey, not gooey. I mean, it's like a powdery flavored center.
    65:03
    Yeah, somewhat harder. Yeah. It's like the cheese that's inside like rich cheese cracker sandwiches. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are great. It's like real questionable cheese. It's probably not real. I think you start with the pizza. I think you've got to go pizza for your first. Yeah, pizza's the way to go. I would probably avoid the, like, buffalo wing one. Yeah, you didn't like that one. Yeah.
    65:26
    There's, like, a seven-dip salsa or whatever that's really good. Rayday, you said I introduced him to you. What was your – I introduced him to you, but was it a good introduction or bad?
    65:37
    That's the goal. That's the question here. But while we wait on that answer, new stuff. I hope he hung up. Yeah, now for Ophelia, yeah.
    65:49
    New pins, new pins. So Legends of Valhalla. First off, I find this very entertaining. You go to AmericanPinball.com and you click on games.
    66:02
    There is no Legends of Valhalla. The only thing is Hot Wheels. I know, but there's nothing, like, they don't even show it. Until you get to this, which is a little blurb that then says go to the Twitch stream. So it surprised me that it's not here in the game drop-down yet. Hot Wheels. Pizza One was great, right, A? I'm glad that I've introduced them into your life. So we'll go around. Initial thoughts on Legends of Valhalla.
    66:34
    Jordan, you want to go first? What was your experience with it? It's fine. All right. I try to forget everybody. I only really got to play it at Interium, and I think that was another situation where they didn't have it set up quite correctly.
    66:53
    I think from what I heard from other people that I also have the same experience with, that center ramp is harder to hit than it looks.
    67:00
    It's, like, super early on either flipper. The artwork's okay, not super my taste. The ship mech seems pretty cool. It'd be nice to not have a clear plastic over it. have something like maybe more wood looking or something just looks too toyish I guess.
    67:19
    I wasn't super hot on the 3D printed parts but like the magnet was cool. The magnet is back here. The drop target that has really nothing behind it is kind of odd. This guy. It was just like a drop target to be a drop target. There was no other target behind it. There was no path behind it. It was just a post. So it was kind of weird to me. Nick, thank you for the sub, buddy. Thanks a ton, man. This, yeah, I'll get into that. This does not make sense to me at all. It's a drop target, right? And now I don't know enough older games. Maybe, Dennis, you can think of a game that had a drop target with nothing behind it. But, I mean, I mean. The Larry Brothers on Ghostbusters. Yeah, but that's like in the middle and it gets in your way, right? But, like, when this drop target drops, there's no rubber. You're literally just drilling a post. Like, it's just two post balls. Goran mentions Cactus Canyon. That's a good point. They had those little dumb drops scattered throughout that game, too. But that was a purpose. That's like a bad guy. Yeah, that was a purpose. But just in terms of, like, randomly placed drops with nothing behind them, I mean, that's what it was. Sure. I guess if you have, like, a single drop out of the way in front of something that's not like a mid-playfield like for Scolari Brothers or Cactus Canyon. You would think there would be at least some other target to hit behind it. Something, right? Maybe it has a good use. It's an interesting... A single drop's an interesting bomb investment for the coil and mech that you need for it. But, yeah. Why they didn't just put a stand-up target there? I don't... Oh, people hate stand-ups. They're so cheap. I know they do, but once the thing drops, it almost immediately kicked back up. Like it wasn't a you hit the drop to clear your path to hit something else behind it, right? You got to earn your Zerker, man. It's like a little vengeance drop on Star Trek. It's constantly popping back up before you can get all in there into the ship and sabotage things. But that's the thing. Eventually. But what's behind it? Joel, you got to hit a post. What else do you want? Yeah, what do you want, Joel? I don't understand what you want. I think it's there for the pinball moment. Yeah. I feel like they should just have that drop always come back up. So it's like a stand-up target but more satisfying to hit. I think that's right. I think it's literally what it is because there's nothing else behind it.
    69:48
    There's a post. There's two posts. There's two. There's one here and there. One thing to keep in mind also is this isn't an American game technically. It's just American produced. Correct. This is Riot pinball, right? As much as I love American, and this is cool for them to produce that, I can't just automatically say, oh, this is American, so it's great.
    70:11
    I think I would maybe put this above Oktoberfest, but below Houdini and Hot Wheels is obviously... Jordan, how much time did you play Houdini?
    70:21
    Probably about two, three games. I was trying to... I still like the theme and the layout is hard, of course.
    70:30
    The theme and everything else is still better. Because I would say that this was probably more fun for me to shoot than Houdini was. I'll agree with that. Houdini made me actively angry. If I found the shots, Houdini would probably be less aggravating. Well, I, it's the super, I think that what frustrated me was that it was extremely narrow, the extremely narrow shot that you have to hit in order to lock your balls. Like, locking a ball for a multi-ball, especially if you have to hit another shot before you lock a ball and it's like a toggling situation, shouldn't be that hard.
    71:14
    I mean, doesn't mean that it has to be that way for every game. This is the shot right here. This is what we're talking about on Houdini. This is the shot you have to hit to lock a ball, and it is not easy to hit. That goes back to the fact that you have to have accuracy. It's not even that.
    71:33
    That's just the coolest mech in the game. The Caterpillar, right? Yeah, and it's such a cool thing, and it was just a struggle to get there. But Valhalla was not. I played the one in Interium, and then I played the one in the Expo Hall, and the one in the expo hall was definitely tuned differently.
    71:58
    At Interium, I struggled to hit the scimitar-shaped ramp to the boat. Yeah, this shot right here. Whereas the one on the floor, I hit it no problem. And I was just looping it over and over and over and over again.
    72:16
    But I like the shots. The theme isn't probably for me. Um, and I wouldn't say, like, there's the cabinet, the cabinet, the cabinet heard around the world. Um, but, uh, I don't think that it shoots well enough for me to buy it, if that makes sense. Like, I had a lot of fun playing it with Manu. So Manu and I had a really good fun playing it together.
    72:55
    Cool. Yeah, I definitely see what you mean. And I know we were talking about this earlier that if you could have fun shooting a whitewood, you know you have a good game. And the shots are fine. It's just there's nothing in these shots that, like, blew me away. I'm like, oh, that felt amazing. I want to shoot that shot again. I will say there's a scoop right here that is very close and that's how you start your mode what is kind of neat is if you lift this flipper up you can shoot the ball behind the flipper and that's another way to get the ball into the scoop I thought that was kind of cool and then also there's this little loop right here to go back into yeah the walking dead shot you can do it I like the walking dead shot and I like the under the flipper I struggle a lot with this middle ramp George pointed out it's a very unsatisfying shot because it is very high up on the flipper like way earlier than you think it is Jordan had said that if you hit this where you think it is I know I stepped up to the game with Manu before he had played it and I said he cradled up on this right flipper I said try to hit this in a ramp and he shot like he would expect to shoot and he hit the left ramp. I mean, that's how off it was. And by the time that you hit that shot, it has almost no energy. It has enough to make it around. And so for it to come back down this right ramp, it's very slow.
    74:25
    I do want to say this before I forget. Jobber made this comment, and I was questioning what he was talking about. This is one of those things you're not going to not see after you see it. But Jobber pointed to this, the insert boner that this lady has. and I thought that was I don't know. You can't not see it now.
    74:45
    I tried not to laugh at you when I stopped. I'm sorry, but this art package and that derpy face, I just can't help it. As bad as the Hedge Multiball lightning rod. Yeah.
    75:01
    On Halloween. Dakota might think it's done for the best. The insert boner though, well done Jobbers for pointing that out. and Fliptronic is giving, or sorry, Flip it out. So here's Zach with the bits for Dennis laughing. So hype train, Goran, no, man. The inter-boner can't start a hype train.
    75:27
    That was not the deal. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Who isn't hyped for an inter-boner?
    75:34
    Oh, boy. Oh, I'm going to, nope. The arcade. Hey, it was great meeting you, by the way. Oh, God, I didn't notice that. Yeah, I didn't notice it either. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. You can't unsee that bad boy. Yeah. So, Joel, what were your thoughts?
    75:55
    It's the first thing I noted. She's hung. She's pointing right to where that flipper is, yeah. My initial thoughts, I would say the cabinet was pretty. I was impressed, you know, from a distance when you see the thing, the gold powder coat, the printing is really well done, the back glass, a nice mirrored back glass. I don't love the art. I mean, I think you have artists in this, what, Randy Martinez and Zombie Eddie that have set the bar incredibly high. Even GNR's artists, I mean, they're professional artists. It's what they do. They have set the bar incredibly high for how great art can look.
    76:29
    I don't hate the art, but it's not to that level. it's not a selling point for the game, in my opinion. The guy who designed the game is also the guy that drew the art.
    76:42
    So, I don't know. It just didn't do it. The sound package, it's cool to hear Jeff Teolis, that he's the voice actor in this. I would not have known that. By hearing the sound, they've done enough stuff to his voice that it's not obvious that it's Jeff Teolis. Or maybe Jeff Chalice is a really, really, really talented voice actor, Joel. True. I like the purple on the Kraken. The Kraken is great. I do like that purple. But I just couldn't tell. Like, you couldn't tell. But he said they purposely avoided saying sorry. Sorry? About? A boot? Right? So he was able to, yeah, avoid some of the Canadian isms. But I would say, I mean, really, the thing that sticks with me anytime I step up to a brand new pinball machine is how it feels and unfortunately i wasn't there wasn't a single shot that wowed me um this looping shot you know we're talking about looping earlier with godzilla that is a fun shot to loop over and over and over again this one was hard to find and when you do find it it doesn't loop around it locks a ball so it's just you hit it and it goes up there and stops so um i don't know it was jordan i asked you first what were your thoughts and you said it was fine I'm kind of in the same boat now I will say there were people like Manu played this some more Pinsomniac played this some more and they once they actually started diving into the code were really impressed by it they said code wise the code is pretty good I will say that the animations aren't I don't know if you can even really call them animations I mean they're just still images so the cheapest LE it is but I just it's one of those things where if you're going to play double standards right like Stern got ripped apart for their Avengers animations and Halloween is getting ripped apart for their animations they're animated to a point but like these are just straight up still images and I don't know people are like okay that's what it is okay that's fine yeah it's fine It just sucks because Compared to what else is coming out Around it It's Not worth the High trim price I think I'll be curious to see what the regular edition Sells for If it's at the same price point as Hot Wheels was To where it'll be less than a Stern Pro Because then it'll be Maybe a good decision for somebody But I think Between this and a Godzilla or a Cactus Canyon and I think this comes in at the bottom.
    79:27
    Dalton, how you doing, buddy? Great seeing you. Thumbs up for you, man. Speaking of people who are tall, Dalton. Yeah. Holy crap. Dalton's a big boy. Yeah. I would say maybe in a tournament environment, maybe if that code is really as good as it is, maybe this game will be really liked by those types of players. But the truth is I think if you stuck this right next to Godzilla right next to whoa Wild Dog Thank you for the sub man Appreciate that.
    80:00
    Yeah, really. It was great meeting you, by the way. You guys in person. So thanks a bunch. What else? Brand new pins. Cactus Canyon remake. I don't know who would pick this over some of the other options right now. But there are plenty of people that are picking all the options. So, good on them. It did surprise me to hear that, like, I was surprised when they said they sold all 300 in a day. And so now they bumped it up to 500. I'm not a distributor, but I didn't realize that these were just flying off the shelf kind of thing.
    80:40
    That there was a lot of hype behind the homebrew. and I think some of it was is that they did their release and for example because they released it officially I think back in what 2020 during COVID um and it was something where I didn't know and I think some of the other people who were like craving pinball didn't know back then that like Riot Pinball isn't a manufacturer just because it's like it's made by Riot Pinball like but it's two dudes.
    81:14
    And, like, I thought that they were a manufacturer, so it was like, oh, hey, here are these machines. And I was like, okay, well, when do we see these? And it's like, no, there's seven. And it's like, oh, okay. But the Internet saw it. The Internet was like, that's cool. I want it. So if you can ride that, if you can ride the hype train of the Internet and be like, we got this thing, the thing you all wanted a year ago, we made it, I could say that they could sell 300 of them. Maybe. Especially right now when people just really want machines. They just want pins all the time. Yeah. Dalton points out that this has the potential to be American Pinball's best three-flipper game. I think that's an accurate statement. Not two-flipper because that's Hot Wheels. Well, I think all their other games are two-flipper. No, Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is a three-flipper. Yeah. Well, that actually leads to a good point. This was made by two guys, and I do know that Dave Fix in their presentation said that they are planning American Pinball is doing this, I think they're calling it like the American Dream thing. I don't know. But there was this call to action that they want, they've given everybody a year, that they want all homebrew people to make a game. And in a year, like America's, American Pinball is going to look for the next homebrew that they feel that could be a commercial success and have intentions of making said game. so um they just missed an opportunity to call it america's got pinball i've never heard of that yeah so i know like no the america's got pinball i didn't no i came up with that right now that's amazing um i was gonna say america's got homebrew but that could also be like beer so i switched it to america's got pinball in talking to some of the homebrew guys it sounds like it's kind of a detractor in some ways i think it's a bad idea Yeah, well, so they think, you know, their community is apparently really open and they converse with each other a lot and bounce ideas off. And like if they have problems, they work with each other. And they do that because they're not necessarily having this goal of getting their machine produced. They just want to build it and have it work and show it off at the very least. and so this competition, they're thinking it's going to put some people underground and be very hush-hush and not want to work with other people and be as open-sourced, which I can definitely see if you're getting into this competition of getting machine-produced, you'd want to do that. And then they're also like, these things take years to get made. Well, look at the arcade. Think about how long you've been working on that Metroid. Yeah. and there's also that Sonic that's available, that game is Sonic was impressive, we'll get to that when we get into homebrews I don't know if they know how long it takes to make a homebrew my problem with it is it reminds me of when you see groups or companies say hey we want to feature your art in this game or something everyone do all the work we're not going to pay you We're outsourcing our designing. We're going to have you do it all for free and send it to us, and we're going to pick the best one, and we'll produce that to make us money. But we didn't have to support anything. We didn't pay for anything. You're basically cultivating this possibly, potentially cutthroat, but even saying that aside, competition of exposure to get the homebrewers to do the work that the whole point of hiring designers was to handle for you. So that's what I don't like about it. If it were like a VPX competition, that might be a little bit better. But having a physical representation in a year of a title that you can't already have been working on? Because of how it was, like if they were to go in, like if it was such as what Spooky did with TNA, and just say, hey, look, we saw this homebrew, we want to approach you, that's one thing. Gauging it like this, you're basically asking people to deliberately get into homebrews in the hopes that their game will be built. And now, in theory, if you're American Pinball, you don't need designers anymore. You're just going to rely on this little thing, and you're going to suspect whichever one's the best, and you just saved yourself thousands of dollars because you're not going to hire any staff. Yeah. Yeah, Zach's asking, was Legends of Valhalla a contract piece? No, I mean, I think they just picked it up. I don't think the designer runs the gallery, right? Yeah, and I guess in terms of Valhalla, I guess because I didn't actually. I played it one time. So my thoughts were... Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, the geometry I thought was solid. I didn't get deep enough in to know the rules. The art's a huge miss. I mean, if you're alienating people because it's too violent on the sides of the cab, that's a commercial problem anyway. They probably should have changed that anyway. But even the play field itself I don't think is pretty inspirational. In fact, I keep thinking that boat is some sort of stylized V6 engine every time I look at it with those little shields. and holy cow were they going down left and right American Pinball is known for their build quality but Valhalla did not give that impression at Expo I kept seeing more and more of them turned off well I think that's probably because the coding system so it's not their code that's the thing right so it's not American's code it's Riot's code and from what I heard most of the code was not from these two guys it was from the homebrew community they heavily relied on other people to basically write their code for them from some people that I talked to and kind of confirmed this was, uh, basically it's spaghetti. It's one giant code piece. They haven't broken up anything. Well, um, it's basically a monolithic like code structure. That's a nightmare to work on and people don't want to touch it. Well, apparently like, so it sounds scary in the background. Pinball profile, which I feel is actually interviewed the two guys that as soon as this came out, he interviewed the two guys. And what I thought I heard them say was the code or the OS or whatever, whatever the code that the Riot Pinball 7 prototypes was written under is different. It's a different framework. It's a different framework than what American Pinball uses. So the main code designer for the game, every time that he was developing more, he had to write everything twice. He had to write it for the AP structure, but he's holding firm that he still wants the seven prototypes that are out there to be able to do everything that the new AP games are doing. And the guy, what he had in his possession to test was his framework. So the guy's writing code on his framework, testing it, and then having to rewrite it in a different framework to then send to America to test. so it's this if American wants to do this thing what they need to then do is basically hand out their framework to people because an open API or something I know nothing about technology but if they wanted to do that homebrew thing apparently it's not hard if you program it on like skeleton game they can adapt it pretty easy but the problem was that this code base was a monolith they didn't break it like different modes out into separate files or anything it was basically just one giant code base and that's not how you do it so yeah i i don't know i mean there's who here in chat i know jobber has his his homebrew he was there and then the arcade mark he he was there now obviously congrats mark you know jp picking you up that's awesome but i i i know um sonic like sonic spinball was there uh ryan right i mean his game it was fantastic and there was a line all the time for people playing his game. So it's interesting that American Pinball's basically saying, hey, bring us that next homebrew. We want to produce it in a year. And I know Ryan's like, I'm here right now. Come take my game kind of thing. Yeah, and I'll note, because I did see it in the chat, Kirk Hobbs felt that my view was very close-minded to the concept. And it may be. I may be overly close-minded towards it. I'm not doubting that the person who wins will be compensated. And he mentioned getting money for the design. My concern is the people who lose. And again, I just remember seeing artists, that's the one that always sticks with me, artists in particular complaining about these sort of gimmicks. And surely I'm not the only one who remembers these things where they'll say it's about exposure or we'll pay the ones we select. But then you basically have outsourced at zero cost to you all of the work that normally in pinball would be done by bringing on like you'd see the arcades work and you go like i want you as a designer and now i'm going to pay and that's the gamble is now you're a professional and i'm paying you to come up with designs um so i'm just i'm skeptical of it but the it may work and the homebrewers may like it and i i may be in the minority on it yeah and that's fine the i don't know i don't know if him saying that like you got a year i don't know how many people like that was enough to get them going right that was enough to to like okay here's our chance uh i i mean there are people like uh mark here in chat with the arcade that i mean it's clear he built metroid because that was a passion project and in tna when scott built tna like scott built tna with no intention of it ever being commercially built right um so i i don't know what we'll we'll this will be a great conversation to have in a year to see what people do i do like four i'm guessing four submissions i was about to be like google remind me in a year but we don't have google i do like the idea of using the homebrew scene as like a farm as a farm system to identify potential new professional developers i think that's perfectly fine yeah i'm just a little concerned about the making it a game uh instead of looking that someone did this without any promise of anything. You want to run with their homebrew and pay them for it? No problem. And then ideally, they become a new hire. I mean, this happened in the past. Dennis Nordman did this. Yeah. Yeah, and even just with what we saw right here with Riot, which is they made a thing, and here it is. You can make a thing and then say, oh, that's cool. I will buy it and make it for you and figure out all the things of like, how much am I going to pay you? How much can I change? I think we're in agreement. It's just a bad idea to do all this.
    91:42
    Some people, at least listening, seem to think it has potential. So we'll see how it shifts out. Maybe it won't be a mess. I may be overly pessimistic. But you look at the latest, I mean, Keith Elwin. I don't know if he would have ever been hired by Stern unless he would have made Archer first, right? So Homebrew got hired. And Jack, technically, Jack Danger, he had a homebrew that he was building, got hired. Mark, right here in chat, the arcade, like, he had a homebrew, got hired. So this walking resume, this physical resume, sure doesn't hurt. Sure doesn't hurt. So if this is enough push of, like, I enjoy pinball, I want to do pinball, you know, I enjoy creating, I've thought about making a game, well, here's just extra incentive that, you know, what if I actually do that now, there's a chance, or my chances of it getting made commercially are better than ever.
    92:35
    I mean, maybe it is motivating, but I agree that I would also hate it to be a, like a, what's the word, not negative, but like a toxic, you know, thing that now homebrewers want to keep everything hidden and not help each other out. Because, I mean, just seeing Arcade Mark standing right next to Ryan all weekend, it's clear, and he was saying that in chat, like they were cut literally out of the same plywood. This is a team effort here, and helping each other out in that is what it's all about, which is pretty cool. If I were American, the way I would do this is I would say, hey, homebrewers, we'll sell you a cabinet, an assembled blank cabinet, with a blank playfield that flips, and an open kit, and here is basically your boilerplate to make a game. and then every expo will have a panel that'll assess your game and if we feel it's worthy enough to make it, we'll make a deal with you. But basically, here's your kit and here's your ability every year to check in with us and try to get it made. It doesn't necessarily have to be just this next year or it could be something like going forward every year. There'll be an assessment and you get to use this. I'm surprised no manufacturer is making a homebrew starter kit, basically. Starter kit, yeah. Yeah, like three or four grand for an empty cabinet. Well, basically an empty cabinet that can flip at least. I know Zach flipping out, the first thing he'd do is change the head.
    94:04
    He'd focus on the head and get a good look at it. They changed the head this year. They did. I don't know if you noticed. The head is not as curvy. No, no, it still is curvy. The only thing they changed was the bottom tube. The bottom tube is no longer perforated. Yeah.
    94:21
    Yeah. Yeah, Goran's just now figuring out the arcade and Mark are the same person. So well done, Goran. Yeah, you only said it four times, Joel. Glad you figured it out. He's coming. He figured it out. But no, they didn't. I thought they – so Zach is still out on American just because he can't – he doesn't have enough walls in his room to have an American lineup. He cannot put the American in the same lineup as anything else. And I agree. It was Jordan earlier. Yeah, the move from 300 to 500. I remember the blowback when Munsters added 100 LEs.
    94:55
    Yeah. And actually, I saw multiple people confirm they dropped their Valhalla orders once that number went up to 500. Yeah, you're just diluting a market that people were expecting a certain number of. Keep your word. I think it's a pretty simple thing to live by. Keep your – if you decide 300 – and the reasoning they gave online, it didn't make any sense to me. Like, we didn't expect it to do so well. Internationally. Well, great. I'm glad it exceeds your expectations. They said it sold out before half the world even had an opportunity to get it. Yeah, Dakota, Mike posted, we never intended to limit our limited edition. But it had a limit. And you didn't get rid of the limit. You just made a higher limit. So it's still limited. It didn't make any sense. Well, I mean, let us not forget, though, Stern did it with Munsters not that long ago. And they got criticized as they deserved. It was a, hey, look, everyone wants this Franchi art package, and then, you know, they caved, and they shouldn't have. Yep. I'm with you. Last American thing to talk about, though, I did not attend, but Jordan and Becca, you actually had a chance to tour their facility. Do you want to feel a sense on what you saw there or overall thoughts? Well, they would not let me get inside of the Hot Wheels cabinet on casters to race it down the hallway. Their insurance did not cover that. but it did inspire the question I asked everybody all weekend but it was really cool I didn't even think I got to ask Dennis this question my hair is a shit show Dennis if you were in a soapbox derby race but you had to use a pinball cabinet this also includes the head we'll take the glass out so nobody dies.
    96:44
    What pinball cabinet would you use? I would use a Gottlieb street level, like a silver slugger or a deadly weapon.
    96:56
    I haven't gotten those answers yet. Yeah. Do you wear weight in like wide bodies and pinball? Yeah, I got some wide bodies. I got some pinball. Hercules.
    97:05
    Well, also just style. Like what would you go down with in styling? Yeah, like are you going for looks and aesthetic or are you going to make sure that, like, when you hit a thing, you don't crumble into, you know? Oh, yeah. No, I chose that because it's smaller. It would have less wind resistance. There we go. That's the right answer. Yeah, Gordon actually drew me a picture of, like, a little human in a pinball 2000 cabinet with his, like, head poking. It was art. It was a masterpiece. The tour was cool. We got to see Steve Bowden in his new environment and say hi to him. And, you know, we're sad he's leaving Texas, but he was so happy when I spoke with him briefly. He was super excited, which I'm glad. Yeah, none of us can blame him. Yeah. But you get to see, like, all the assembly stuff, all their, like, parts walls. They pulled off a couple rotisseries of, you know, play fields in various states of being dressed up. and then, yeah, like all their cabinet building area. And then we saw their stack of mess-ups, their oops stack. Oh. So we asked for one. And so we asked for one because we're like, hey, you know, we did that whole thing last summer where we played for like four months straight and like killed ourselves doing these challenges, but we never got prizes from them.
    98:24
    Can we get our prize since we're here? And they said, sure, what do you want? And I was like, I'll pick one of those play fields. So what's oops on it? Like, do you know? So there is right here. It's hard to see, but there's this big invention. They tried to screw in a post. Yeah, so there's this, like, yeah, it's just a big invention, basically. Which would have been under the ramp, but it's enough for them to say, oops.
    98:48
    It's pretty definitive. It's, like, physically definitive. It's like a thumbprint. Like, if you were to, like, squish a thumbprint into a playfield. If you had a really skinny thumb. It's pretty bad, so. But other than that, it's a nice playfield, so. Joe, you've lived in the world of chipped clear for too long. American Pinball does have standards on their play fields. They're consistent with them. What do you mean? It's not flaking to crap. I mean, come on, y'all. I'm trying not to be too mean to the other manufacturers. True. That counts as an oops. It counts as an oops. I had a very good conversation with Ryan, the guy at CGC, and talking about their printing process and the fact that they're still screen printing their play fields and the standards that they held to. And we got quite technical because printing is my background. And, yeah, it's great to hear that there are certain manufacturers that have extremely high standards. Others not so much, but that's, you know, it is what it is.
    99:42
    What are the printing lines? I need my art shipping. Yeah. I will say, random comment on this, Godzilla-wise, when you look at a Godzilla play field, they have that art pulled back from everything that touches the cabinet. So they're figuring out the secret sauce, right?
    100:02
    Good. So American Pitbull, all good stuff. I would encourage people, if they see a Legend of Valhalla, play it. I mean, play it. But I don't know. It almost seems like they're going to blow through these, and they're going to be on to the next title sooner than later, hopefully. I don't know. It's not – I mean, it's still just – Yeah. I think they might sell all the LEs. I don't think you'll see a lot of demand for whatever the standard run is. I think you'll see more L.E. sold, and then this might be a line filler while David gets his plans together and what Nordman's working on and such. Because isn't it, if I remember correctly, it's two unlicensed and then something possibly licensed. Something definitely licensed. So we have another unlicensed to go is what you're saying. We have another unlicensed to go. Which, again, we talked about and could totally be something that is like a license but is unlicensed. You mean public domain? Public domain, yes. Oh, okay.
    101:03
    Like this. This is public domain right here. Like there's no, yeah. Right. It's unlicensed, but it's an existing theme. Okay. Yeah. So it's not original, but public domain. You don't have to pay a licensor. There's no rules. Makes sense. So that's always a possibility, at least. Something old, something new, something blue. Yeah.
    101:22
    Sears Snarf. Thank you for the random. Pudding pinball, 3,000. Yeah, good idea, Alan. Yep. I hope it's the Nordman sequel to Whitewater. I hope it's just Nordman in general.
    101:36
    You know Snarf is Alex, right? That you met at P3? Oh, got it now. I know now. That's a fantastic name. I just like to say Snarf. Yeah. Well, Alex, you missed our P3 discussion, but it was good.
    101:50
    There's a vibe. You'll be fine. Yeah. Everybody can check this later. So moving on to another thing, another new, new? New. It's new because it's a remake, but not new in general. Cactus Canyon remake. So that unveiled. There was a lot of, Goran, you're here for the right time because Cactus Canyon remake does have a topper.
    102:12
    So let's review real quick. We talked about Godzilla. Jordan, you bought one. We talked about P3. You own one. Legends of Valhalla, it's fine. Cactus Canyon, you are buying this as well. We have an LE on order. Yes. LE. Thanks, Zach. So you're all in. You get topper and all. Yep. Topper and all. Nice. Thanks, Zach. Yeah, thanks, Zach. Thanks, Zach. Let's give Zach some credit here. Although Jordan hasn't shut up about a Cactus Canyon since, I don't know, Poland last year. True. Yeah. I'm not going to play the audio. I'm sorry. But this video, by the way, was made by Zach Minney in two days. Two days. He was called on a Saturday to make it.
    102:57
    He drove up with Nicole on Sunday, picked up the machine, turned around and drove back. Monday morning, Greg Bone showed up, and they took all this beautiful footage. And then Zach said he sat in the chair for 26 hours straight. And canceled the pinball show. Yeah. Which, how do you cancel? that how do you there you go gordon i'll stop right there for you um so wait so it's this is why jordan and i didn't have as many podcasts for our 18 hour drive yeah okay it's fine it's worth it i felt like a i felt like a dick to be honest we we recorded triple drain sunday night and the whole point of triple drain was to talk about expo and normally zach posts things you know tuesday and tuesday like it was on the tp and discord it was a where is zach what is that you We saw TPS show was canceled, but it was just this like, where is he? What's going on? And at first you're like, oh, he's just packing. But then it was just like he was a ghost. And it wasn't until we saw Greg's post on Facebook saying, just filmed something with Zach, and he bought me shoes. It's like, oh, so there was a lot of, what's he doing? What's going on? We listened to the triple drain on the way back, and it was interesting to hear your predictions and already know the answers to all of them. Well, there you go. Yeah, well, I'm glad you listened. Thank you for the support. But here we go. I mean, we can pre-screen this. This game looks great. No, no, just let it play. Let me just keep watching it. Yeah, just, ugh. Yeah. The art, I mean, I am a fan of the dots.
    104:32
    Just that type of art, the dot matrix, but it's colored. I mean, that looks great. The Bart mech is improved. It looks awesome. I don't know all the bells and whistles they made even whistle-ier I don't know Joel it is a god damn work of art it's bright that's the best part Dennis you don't appreciate whistle-ier you don't like that it's interesting that you have Bruce-isms there are Joel-isms as well Bruce Nightingale reference wonderful it's uh the train is all metal right and they got the tracks but it i mean it is a vastly improved cactus canyon there's no yeah for sure it is absolutely the nicest version of it um now the topper i heard something about the topper where the topper is interactive like a video mode or it's going to be a video mode it's not a video mode it's a physical mode, kind of. So, if you had gone back to the topper where you paused it, you could see a bar of LEDs just at the base of it. So, I'm going to wait until you pause it here. But basically, I think you have to hit the beer mug ten times when it pops up to qualify the mode. And then I forgot how you start the mode, but you'll have a lit dot, and you can move it left to right with your flippers. so you can see all those dots at the bottom. Yeah, all of these individual... So you can... Well, Becca's Cactus Canyon cross-stitch. Oh, nice. To say how excited we were about Cactus Canyon, I started this, what, two years ago, three years ago? Hold it. Yeah, get it up there. Get it up there. It's not going to be zoomed in right, but, yeah. Here. Yeah, that's amazing. But anyway, so in those buildings, there's lit up people in the windows. There's bad guys and good guys. Oh, okay. And so a person will light up, and you basically have to move the dot left or right to aim and shoot. And I think it's pretty quick moving. I didn't get to the topper mode myself, but I do know essentially how it works. Zach, there's no video that shows this, right? I'm not missing anything. I don't think it's in the video now. I don't know if they had it programmed in or not, but they were talking about it in the live stream. I just like how his arms go backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. Yeah, his arms go 360. It's like a Linda Blair head spin but with arms. Yeah, but how would, I mean, would that mode not be in the, I mean, only the LE has the topper, right? Only the LE has the topper, but they did say they're not sure yet if they're going to produce it for the SE. Got it, okay. So it is a possibility, they just haven't said yes or no either way. But yeah, basically that light bar is control of aiming, and you're shooting people in the windows as a shooting gallery. So it'll be interesting, I never got to try it out, but. Real quick, I mean, is this the best CGC topper?
    107:41
    Out of CGC toppers, I mean, it's interactive, so that's pretty damn good. So Black Knight is just molded with lights, right? But Attack of the Martyrs bounces off and down. Yeah, and it, like, talks to you.
    107:55
    Monster Bash, does it move? I don't think it moves, but it looks great. I mean, wait, we got the topper king sitting right here. Dennis, I mean. We have the Topper King and the Topper Apprentice. And we won't say who is the king and who is the apprentice. Because they'll have to duke that out. Yeah. So, really, Dennis is first, right? And his opinion is what matters. So, what are your thoughts currently on this? So, do you think this is the best CGC? And, yeah, we'll start with that. The what? Game or what? No, Topper. Just Topper. I guess it depends how value you are with interaction I would say no, I think the attack from Mars topper is their best topper because if the goal is to catch the eye from across the arcade it's so loud and noticeable that it usurps all other toppers they've done gotcha, okay uh, Goran this is your moment, man I choose you, Goran is this better than Attack from Mars.
    108:59
    And why? Do you agree or disagree with Dennis? I think the toppers need to be critical to the gameplay experience. Oh.
    109:09
    So. And this is freaking critical. Strong disagree. Okay. All right. Five little radio buttons on the left and right. Strong disagree. Okay. That's fine. Maybe we need a middle. Zach, flip it out. Here we go. I know you have another strong opinion. Where are you at, Team Dennis or Team Gorin here on this versus Attack from Mars?
    109:34
    We'll let Zach collect his thoughts. I know he's not nearly as fast. That was your present, Jordan. Yeah. That was great. Thank you. Team up. Yeah, I am really curious. I mean, when I think toppers, I know Zach did a whole bracket, but, you know, Dennis, to your argument, it's supposed to pull in people. Well, what about, you know, the Batman topper with the bat signal? I mean, that you can see completely across the room.
    109:58
    So, Zach, CGC Topper is only second to Black Knight Sword of Reign. So, Zach disagrees. Sorry, Dennis, you could duke it out on the pinball show. There's nothing to argue.
    110:12
    People that need to justify $1,000-plus are going to turn to things like integration to make them feel like they're not just buying a bunch of cheap molded plastic. So, whatever. Would I let some sleep at night? This is a good, I mean, it is a good topper. There's no denying. I mean, it looks really cool, and I think the mold is pretty cool. Look at how far it goes. Do it again. I want to see the arms go again.
    110:38
    Hey, guess what? You're right. I find that arm movement unrealistic. Wow, wow, wow, wow. It's only by six feet. His torso also flings back. You don't see it in the video. Joe Hills? When you hit like a bad guy, he like. Why is this video so bad? Why is it not showing us anything important? All right. Hide your home, yes. We made it a home sale. How many hours has Zach been doing that smoke transition instead of just filming us a moving torso topper? What I will tell you is he's missing the two key shots in all pinball reveal videos, which is the hands on the flippers. You never got the touching the flipper button, and we never got the awkward plunger pull that starts every single stern reveal video. So you have hands touching flippers and somebody pulling.
    111:22
    Yeah, the 360 arms, I don't know. It's whimsical, right? But also how nice is that apron? The apron stood out to me. The apron did stand out to me. You see that when you look down at the machine, like just walking by. The apron is wood. And then a lot of, yeah, we don't do hands. It's straight down the middle.
    111:44
    And also like the train track stuff. It's metal. Well, the train track looks like a train track. It has the cross wood beams. That's only on the LE. And then the little mine cart on top of the mine hill is also on the LE. Sure.
    112:00
    Now, I do know Cary Hardy. Cary Hardy just put out a video on YouTube. Spoilers. He said he bought a brand new game, and his thumbnail is of Godzilla and Cactus Canyon. He picked Cactus Canyon, but he went with the standard edition. He felt like the LE, there wasn't anything that he couldn't or a modder couldn't add. Didn't he see the topper with the torso with 360 arms? Yeah, it was. I don't know. Look, my arms don't do 360s very well. If I'm going to have arms that do 360s, they might as well be this.
    112:38
    Do you tell us? Yeah, my dude. His wife and daughter picked a Joel. Correct. Kirk Hopps. So he was between it, but his wife and daughter were all for it. Marv is here. Travis Loco. How you doing, buddy? Good shot. So nice, though. Holy crap. It was so nice to play. Yeah. I mean, I'm happy for them.
    112:59
    I am curious if this is because I know that they have full intentions of releasing their own licensed theme or their own game. So is this kind of a let's get this out the door and move on to the next? Do we know? I mean, are there any other remakes that are planned that people are, you know, Zach, do you have lists for other remakes that people are talking about? I don't know. I think Zach keeps potential lists. Everyone sort of makes up what they want. So there's all sorts of potential. Now, all my information indicates that there are no other remakes currently planned. So this is wood, and then these are metal. I mean, it is a very pretty machine. and to be honest the bells and whistles and everything in this it's relatively cheap compared to le yeah so they underpriced this game yeah so they are i mean they sold out they're done you know they're gonna you know i was looking and they have really done so normally i feel like for le's it's like they're always gone you never know where to find them and then you end up and then people flip them or like sometimes just like even distros will like flip them or price them higher and what I liked today was I saw um there was a like a guy who was trying to sell one for like I think two grand more than it was supposed to be and uh Chicago Gaming was like hey no if you see a distro flipping their le's they're not gonna get le's anymore oh wow like yeah and i was like holy crap i'm pretty strict about their allotment and being able like preventing selling slots yeah and like changing over names and stuff like if you pre-ordered under a name you're sticking to that name wow well they're they're locking in to keep flippers from flipping like in a bad way and that's just really nice, I think, after the whole Godzilla-LE onslaught and just the LE scramble to begin with. So it was just nice. It was just nice to see. Yeah, they're stepping up like that. Dakota, Mike, oh man, I hope they don't stop with completely with remakes. I did see that. I saw there were people that posted that in a few forums. I mean, they're in for every single remake. They're all in. And I mean, we'll see. I mean, it's... Yeah, and I'm not. I don't mean to convey that they would never do remakes. I guess to clarify, to my knowledge, CGC has two more games in the pipe. One is a brand-new original theme, and then the other is the – and by original theme, I'm sorry, it's a licensed theme, but it's not a remake. And then the other is the Ben Heck – oh, I'm assuming also a licensed theme. Oh, yeah.
    115:47
    That's the one after their first original. and I don't know if they have anything in the works after that given their pace of production that's going to be a few years so I wouldn't know and will they screen print the play field I would assume so what is it CGC they what is it they're grandfathered in from another what previous company but whatever it is it's just like they are going to keep doing things the way they're doing they make a great game I don't think anybody complains about the quality of the game they make It shoots the closest to a Stern than all other companies, in my opinion. From playing it, the flipper power was the better compared to, like, American, Spooky, or anyone else. So, I don't know. Dennis, does this excite you at all? Or what's your... I mean, it looks a lot better than the original. But that being said, I've played a lot of the original, and I have no interest in this layout. So, what about the other code? I mean, obviously, Jordan, you, Jordan, Becca, you guys are buying one of these. You know, it has come out that Lyman and Josh Sharp are coming together and writing a 2.0 version of this code. I've also heard they're not releasing the code until it's finished. So we all know Lyman's not exactly known for doing that quickly. Maybe Josh is faster. Maybe, maybe. So there's going to be, you know, when Medieval Madness came out, you could order a standard edition without color, and then if you wanted to upgrade to color, you had to buy a chip. And I'm assuming the code is going to have some sort of hardware. It'll be on a chip. It'll be something. They're going to try their best to keep this from being pirated.
    117:31
    So it makes sense why they would wait, because if it's a hardware component, I don't know how easy it'll be to update that. But what are your – do you care? I mean, if it's going to be a year before you see that 2.0 code, do you, I don't know, as an owner, do you care? And also, how much are you prepared to spend for this 2.0 code?
    117:56
    2.0 code, I think, will probably be between $500 and $1,000, and I think that's acceptable. Depending how deep the code is, how much of a new game it is, I think that's fair. that's pretty much on par probably with what Multimorphic's doing for a more in-depth game like how they did with Sorcerer's Apprentice. Okay. $500 to $1,000. Because I was assuming, well, I think the color, what? Like the color, just adding color was going to be $300 or something.
    118:25
    That was at least with Medieval Madness. I don't know. Dennis, what do you think is an acceptable price to pay for 2.0 code? I mean in today's market I guess they could price it whatever they want didn't they say there's going to be physical upgrades too with that I don't know I mean that's a lot of the speculation kind of and I've assumed much along the lines of what Joel was saying that that would be mostly for security like a DRM style to avoid just a physical upgrade solely for the purpose of trying to prevent piracy but I mean what if it's like a bride 2.0 situation where you replace that whole back panel with a more square LCD kind of animation style. I mean, obviously, functional hardware I think is going to help. It would help people rationalize the price to stay over the $500 mark. Because to me, I'm actually looking at the non-module, like, what's the most expensive non-module P3 thing? Is it Sorcerer's Apprentice at, what, $500? Yep. So anything over $500 to me is already too much. Because your competition's priced lower, and that was a full-fledged game. But it depends how much deeper is this really going to be.
    119:38
    I not sure yet whether Josh and Lyman are going to be modern deep 2 or just here like 90s level but proper competition balanced just badass sort of 90s though still in which case i'd be like i don't know it's worth a thousand dollars for some for some i think it'd be cool if there's like an upgrade kit where he replaces the back glass with a video screen i don't know i think it's gonna be i don't i don't know anything i just think it's gonna be I would assume it's just straight code. I could be wrong.
    120:15
    But Joe Windrater, which, once again, great meeting you in person. Why didn't they just price it $5,000 to $1,000 more from the get-go and include that? And I also, I mean, I've heard people say, like, it's ridiculous that LE buyers will have to buy this, right? I mean, they're already using it.
    120:34
    I'm not sure why they did it the way they did it. But what does confuse me is why they don't know the price yet. But you have to have an outline for what they must know internally where the code in an outline form is going to go. And you can't blame COVID and shipping containers and the price of wood for why you don't want to announce your price. Because this is all software. So I think the price at the very least should be known. I could see if they're thinking high, they're thinking $1,000. There may be some people that are happy with just the baseline code that still want this. because there's a lot of cool stuff in this game. I can see plenty of people that would say, I don't need the Lyman Josh experience. I'm a homeowner. I'm not going to be playing this in a tournament. And that's what those two are known for. How much is a Cactus Canyon Continued used?
    121:24
    I thought I saw on Facebook today somebody said it's like, I don't know, original game, still a $10,000 game. I don't know. It's just super. Cactus Canyon Continued. Oh, yeah. Are Lyman and Joe still negotiating? With that add-on. And it doesn't have a topper, and that's already going to be more than what this is as an LE with a topper. Plus, if you add on $1,000 of additional code, that's still probably going to come in under a cactus skinning continued. I'm watching chat scroll by in all of the pricing discussion, and $500 seems like a lot. $500 doesn't seem like enough. It's just an expensive nostalgia game, and the people who want it will pay for it. And I think if they want to play the expanded code, they'll pay for that, too. It just depends on the person. But, you know, if it was me, I can't help but say, hey, I know Sorcerer's Apprentice. I know what it's got going on in it. And even though it's not my type of game, that's set a value at $500, and there's a lot in it. And so that's what my proxy would be. I mean, because P3 was first out the gate with this, letting you just download a game and put it in. So I just, I'm, you know, I probably wouldn't buy it if I had this. my initial thought is I probably wouldn't get the expanded code. It'd just have to blow me away. But that's assuming it's like $1,000. I get it just because I think I'll get the return on investment if I ever sell the game with the expanded code. Yeah, and I could see that. I have limits on the amount of cash I'm willing to outweigh on a game. I gotcha. Good point. It really just depends on how, I mean, if it is a drastically different experience then sure, but if it's just like, I don't know, it adds a little more depth or it's more rule balance. Yeah, it really just, it's kind of a wait and see situation. I thought Hot Nudge made a funny comment, which is, you know, or Zach and Limey are still negotiating their salaries. Is that what we're waiting on? I don't know. But it's cool. It's, I was impressed. What I saw was I was impressed. It's a beautiful looking game. But then again, every remake has been that way. And I get it. If people enjoy the game, If people enjoy Cactus Canyon, I mean, it's been out for years and they've enjoyed it, then, yeah, jump on this and get a better version. Maybe it'll be a true Raw Thrills Big Buck Hunter and it'll just be $40 a month. And we get a subscription. A subscription. Yeah. Oh, boy. Oh, my gosh. All right. I like somebody who mentioned $500 in an Xbox Series X, and I'm just kind of like, do we need to talk about what $500 can buy you? Because we don't need to talk about how much we spend every year. $500 is half a topper. Half a topper.
    123:59
    $500 is two hair appointments for me. So I'm like, if $500 is, we don't get this. So I'm just like. $500 can buy Joel some Fliptronic brand bath water. Ew, gross.
    124:14
    Oh, boy. MPT through Cray, another amazing individual. It was great meeting you in person. The only reason I kept playing this video over and over again is I was just trying to get Zach as many views as possible. So I don't know if that is embedded or linked, but good luck, buddy.
    124:31
    Yeah. So that's, I don't know. Anybody want to put a bow on our Cactus Canyon discussion? Dennis, go for it. You're a good bowtire. What's your, what's. It looks nice. I think there's some substantive upgrades versus the original game that are going to appeal to a lot of people. Probably even more so than Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars. for no other reason than most people haven't ever even played an original Cactus Canyon. There just weren't very many. Yeah, good point. Good point.
    125:00
    Let's get into, oh, before I forget, there is a guy, his name is Bob, Outlaw Pinball. Outlaw Pinball is a new pinball apparel company. And he approached some of us and was just like, hey, do you like how this looks? I said, sure. He goes, here, take it. He didn't approach me. Well, you were hidden, right? You were just walking around. Yeah, I was in stealth mode. Like, what am I, the Red October? What is this? Yeah. But I don't know. I was just, I was flattered, I don't know, to be approached. So Outlaw Pinball, they're brand new. They had a booth.
    125:33
    Feel free to check it out. It's more pinball apparel. Yeah. So homebrew. Amanu is here? Amanu is here. Amanu, hilarious, dude. I owe you one, Amanu. They were scaring each other all throughout the expo, just running up behind each other and spooking each other. He's the man. Um, homebrews. So, uh, we were the way, the place where the flipping out booth was right next to it was the TPM booth and we were right next to the homebrew row. And it was, uh, it was pretty neat. It was really cool seeing, you know, these guys that have poured so much time and energy into that project. And then to see, you know, lines and people wanting to play it. It was also really cool seeing like industry professionals play their game and you, you know what that means for these people. Oh, this is Jordan's ice machine, by the way, if you guys were wondering what it sounds like. Does it not need yourself? It sounds like big cubes. It sounds like the mic is in the ice maker.
    126:31
    Am I not on mute? No, I'm muted. Jordan, no, you're not. You're not muted. No, you're not muted. Now you're muted. Now you're unmuted. There you go. Look, microphones are hard, all right? Poor man. Sorry, I thought I was muted. No, you're all good.
    126:54
    So, Homer, just initial thoughts. One of them I'd love to talk about was called, what was that called? It was called Gods of something.
    127:04
    Greek Gods. It was cool. It was a kooky game. But what was really unique about Greek Gods, I don't have anything pulled up, What was really unique about Greek Gods was in the middle of the play field, there was a lower play field. But in the middle of the play field, the guy had taken an LCD screen that had no backing to it. And so he put this LCD screen in the play field so you could see through it to see the play field underneath.
    127:33
    And the play field underneath represented essentially hell. So if you ever went to the underworld, you had the ability to bounce the ball around in there. But he was displaying stuff on screen, kind of like a P3, where you're hitting, when you hurt certain targets, like there was a bat mode and a bug mode where when you hurt certain things, all of a sudden you see the bugs explode and whatnot. And, boy, I mean, it had a ridiculous light show. It had some really kooky music. Another thing it had was this horseshoe ball that was kind of like a captive ball, but when you'd hit it, it would go all the way to the other side of the play field. But what was neat about that is there was a center ramp with a diverter. So depending on where that ball was, it would divert the ball to a different ramp. So just some really cool and unique ideas.
    128:21
    Nick, Pensomniac, the knee button, did we ever learn what that did? There was a big blue button on the coin door that nobody ever pushed. Yeah, it disables your – he was there. I talked to him about it. He was talking to us about it. and basically it diverts the power from your flippers up at the top near the pops to keep it up at the pops longer, which accomplishes... I don't remember what the goal was. Anyway, but you have to remember to unmute your button, or else when your ball comes back down, your flippers are dead. So I thought that was hilarious. Yeah. Let's use blings and flippers. Let's use flipper pops. Yeah, flipper pops. Let's use flipper pops at the top. like you can keep going, but like if you don't remember to unknee. You're in trouble. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. It was like a super crazy. You don't have knees, though. It was super kooky. You could hip it, you know. Have somebody hip and knee button for you. Random side tangent. One thing I did find unique, and I'm curious for you guys, back to Legends of Valhalla. Legends of Valhalla had two flipper buttons on the right side. And the question was, what does the other right button do?
    129:31
    The action button? Yeah, I came to learn later it's basically an action button. there was a point in the game where you could, like, drop a hammer and do stuff. Do you guys like that, having the action button near, like, near your finger instead of being dead center of a lockout? Yes. I think that was better.
    129:49
    I don't know. Dennis, do you have an opinion on the location of an action button? I mean, no. It's a bit more sore, though, because then you don't get any color indication. I mean, yeah. I like the action button the way CERN does it in the sense that you know when it's ready, which is very, very useful. Also, I think from a gameplay perspective, there are certain times where I think you want the player to have to decide, do I want to take the risk of moving my hand and using it? So I didn't like that for Black Knight Sword of Rage, but I don't think it makes sense to have a Magna Sable in that fashion, especially compared to the historic games. But if you're talking about, like, think about the Heat Ray with Godzilla. I mean, the whole point is, I mean, that wouldn't work nearly as well if it was off on the side. Because you have to charge it up. And same thing with, you know, like Turtles Pizza Party. Like, you got to bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. I mean, it wouldn't be the same thing to just, you know. And, yeah, I know some people get mad about having to smash TIE Fighters or whatever. But you know what? Pinball's just not for them.
    130:51
    Yeah. Do you like pushing glass doors or pulling? Similar concepts to Instinct. We expect it on the lockdown bar because of the starting. I agree. I did notice that with Legends of Valhalla, when you go to select your mode, I would, like, pick the character I want to battle, and I smack the center of the lockdown bar. There's no button there. But it's just you're so used to doing that, select your mode and confirm it.
    131:14
    I don't know. That was one of the – I see some people saying about using chins or heads. And, yeah, I remember seeing Josh Sharp years – or, excuse me, Zach Sharp years ago do that for Star Trek, and that's how I fire my photons is with my chin. Nice. Yeah, Becca was doing that with Heat Ray the other night. Yeah. With charging. It's just easy. It's right there. Yeah.
    131:32
    And it would, yeah, obviously it would be about, yeah. Back to homebrew. I can't do that for TIE Fighters, though. That really hurts your teeth. It's like, you can't, yeah, just long button presses only. Dennis, did you play some of the homebrew games? And if so. I played a couple, yes. What stood out to you or what were your experiences with them? Well, one of them I played was Ghost in the Shell. I did speak to the creator about that one. It's got an interesting, that one, it has, There's a lot that's still not in it, so it's hard for me to get a good feel. I think the main feature is that ramp that can be entered on either side. So it's kind of like a – it's a ramp, but it's two ramps, but it's a merged ramp. So I think it's an interesting idea. I didn't have enough time on it to know if it's well executed or not, but I know there's a lot that still needs to happen with the code. Now, I'm biased because I really like that theme, though, because it's based off the TV series Stand Alone Complex. which I watched. Did you enjoy the Scarlett Johansson version?
    132:33
    It's okay. Okay. It's okay. It's fine. It's not worth seeing, but it's not terrible. It's not like a Rozzy-worthy movie. A fun Whitewood to shoot that I thought was a lot of fun to just shoot as is was the Castlevania one. Yeah. And that was the other one I played. Lauren podcasted about it. And I really liked how the Castlevania one played. I like the double pop bumper thing they got going on, the way it integrated with video. It's a shot really interesting, too. So that one actually really stood out to me. This ramp that they're talking about, this ramp, you shoot it up here, and it actually loops down and then spits the ball back out at the bottom. Or you can shoot it from the bottom and it spits out at the top. So it's a unique shot, for sure. It's a really clever layout. I'd like to try it again when it's got more rules in it.
    133:31
    So, let's see. I was not prepared for this. You wrote the guide. You wrote the notes. Why are you not ready? I know. I'm just too lazy.
    133:43
    Justin's Castlevania has a nice layout. So, what were you saying about this that you really like? You said these double pops over here? Yeah, it's a neat thing because if you're trying to shoot the orbit. Yeah. And obviously it's very unusual positioning, but it's also got kind of a crowded back center with things to go for. Yeah, lots of shots back here. And the right flipper was pretty cool. There were some good tight shots to try to aim for with that that weren't like super difficult, but there's that little scoop there kind of like off to the right of that left orbit.
    134:18
    So you can loop that around or you can hit this hoop or this center ramp, which goes behind the back box, or this horse-to-ramp, or cap-to-ball. There's a lot. It was really smooth, and all the geometry felt pretty well laid out.
    134:31
    So I enjoyed it a lot. And also the left tuck-away area was a good challenge. Over here? The bottom there, yeah. It's a unique layout. But it's like a target. It just goes in there and comes back out. Oh, cool. Looks really clean.
    134:47
    I mean, I was just so impressed playing a lot of these homebrew things. at how, I mean, there's so much to it. There's the geometry mechanically needing to get the game to work, but then the fact that these guys are adding music and code and lighting, I don't know, it's just impressive. Can we get a Jobber shout-out for Dumpster Fire? Dumpster Fire was a hoot. It was off when I went to play it, so I didn't get to try that one. Yeah, I didn't get to try it either.
    135:15
    What else do we have? We did see, though, Jobber's really cool lift. did they review Sonic yet no so Sonic well he'll know what I'm referencing it's fine Sonic Spinball is impressive I did not play Sonic oh that's like a real game yeah don't get confused there's lots of Sonic Spinball machine yeah the pin jack oh the pin jack yeah yeah yeah that was cool I don't know how I'm going to pull up a picture of this my impressions of Sonic I mean, I was impressed. Ryan did a great job. I mean, do you have Ryan's Facebook? His stream is, yeah. What's his stream? It's like the Okta something. I mean, it's a unique name. Does anybody, yeah. Somebody smarter than me, if they want to. Isn't it like something McSquid? It's just Ryan. McSquid, it makes something. I don't know. I don't. It was beautiful. The light show was great. It shot really easily. That was something that, and I know McSquid, that's what it is. I know he said that, that he purposely made the game in a way that anybody could shoot it of any age.
    136:31
    And I experienced that. What was this? It's McSquid. I don't know. It's definitely not McSquid Squirt. Can viewers take bits away from you? Because at this point, they probably should take the bits away. What's great is anybody that's listening, thank you, Dennis, for your honest opinion, what really is great is anybody that's listening to this like a podcast you know I respect the heck out of you listening to that alright so this is dark but let's see if we can pause it when it's all Attack from Mars and AIQ had a baby yeah Light Show is impressive very impressive what all he's put into it now I've got to give the Arcade and Ryan credit both of them have coded in TNA to their games. So I don't know if you knew that. It's CFD. It's not TNA. It's CFD. And being able to play both of their games to experience TNA was pretty clever because the whole concept of completing a keypad and locking up all, I mean, it's all there, even though the layouts are totally different.
    137:36
    Yeah, this game was, there was a line for this the entire time we were there. And it won Best Homebrew. Yeah, this is a 360 ramp, like an actual loop-de-loop, and boy, it spits it out so fast. I mean, it's really impressive. And all I can hope is, I mean, I don't know how, even if it's possible to get the Sonic theme or the Sonic license to ever make this, but I mean, I hope Brian gets hired by somebody. I sent him for his seminar for the homebrew seminar. He was hilarious. Yeah, he was hilarious. But he had an interesting thing with Sega is that Sega will let you use their assets without hassling you. As long as you're not trying to make money on it. They're just like, yeah, here's all the assets. Use them however you want, and it's not a problem. So I thought that was really cool with Sega. Yeah. For their IPs. It's very impressive. There's a lot of unique ideas here. But to be honest, just the build quality of his game and the play field was beautifully done.
    138:43
    And he's put a lot – there's a lot of code in this game. I mean, I don't know. All around, just thoroughly impressed.
    138:51
    And, yeah, it felt finished. That's what Jabber said. We will see. That's not your alert, Joel. I see you looking. That's not yours. Oh, no. I didn't – yeah. Is there – that's a whole other thing. If anybody really wants to see a game being built, I mean, And both the arcade, 5Rs, and Ryan here, they've almost streamed the entire process from start to finish. So you can see all of it, which is pretty impressive.
    139:21
    So Dennis, you didn't have a chance to shoot it. I mean, you can see, like, this orbit, it's massive. I mean, it's a huge shot. So a lot of these things are definitely. Yeah, that looks like what you were hoping for with the building in Godzilla from our earlier discussion. Huge, yeah. Yeah, did he spend a lot of time with David Ficks over the weekend? I mean, I hope. I don't know. I don't know what type of conversation he had. I did know. I mean, I saw when I stepped in line, I realized the person I was standing behind was Eric Minier. So I, you know, just kind of let Ryan have his moment with Eric, showing him the game, and just watching Eric play for a little while. His flipper skills are impressive. So, yeah, I hope. That's all I can hope. I mean, this is a great resume. It's impressive what all he's done.
    140:09
    I drowned. You drowned on one of the water levels? Yeah, he told me I was like one of the three people who drowned. And I was like, yeah, yeah. I was like, cool. I think my best score on it was like 1.8 million. I don't know how good that was. I don't know. I just know I was impressed. Like, the more I played it, the more impressed I was with just the overall layout and how it shot and everything. So, and here we go. He's in chat. Mark, a recent hire at JJP. Hey, look, it's BAO. Yeah, this is impressive. This was also very impressive. Oh, who made this kind of obliteration?
    140:47
    What I do think is really one of the things I really enjoy. This game sucks. I'm serious. Ask me why. Yeah, Mark, go ahead and tell us all the things you hate about your game.
    140:57
    There is a kicker right here. There's a sling that kicks upwards. And I know that he was talking about how, you know, in Metroid, you're jumping platform to platform. So this idea of hitting a ball up, it ricocheting, and then needing instead of a flipper to kick you further up, this kicker kicks it up. I mean, it has that feel. It has that feel, which is really, really, really cool. And this upper flipper shot is tough, but it kicks this ball way up. And then there's like three lanes so it can go different paths. He's done a ton of different things. I mean, unique back box with this infinity mirror. it was another fun game to play did you Dennis did you have a chance to play the Metroid game when you were there? No I did not Jordan and Becca did you guys try it? Yeah I tried it I creeped I watched a lot of people play it I creeped I did a lot of creeping I watched a lot of people play and it looks really cool it's impressive I need more time on it I definitely wanted to shoot it more yeah arcade you gotta bring it to TPF right? Totally not far at all. I was confused playing Metroid need to spend more time on it. I mean any new game right? But they put a ton of code into these games and I don't know it's impressive for sure. Is that a Mastodon shirt he's wearing by the way?
    142:15
    I was good choice there. Great way to go. Come back. Yep Mastodon. Alright. Hopefully I've been taxing in a few weeks. Yeah. I don't know. There's I was just impressed and that's where overall, I mean, I think it's great what, you know, wow, Goran. Goran is a fan of, this is all Goran over here in his chat. Goran, Goran, Goran, Goran, Goran.
    142:40
    Yeah, holy cow, stalker much. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. Altogether, I had a lot of fun and was really thoroughly impressed with, if this game gets made, it will have four ramps and four flippers. Spoiler alert.
    142:53
    Yeah, one, two, three. Oh, so you would, we're adding another flipper. Shoot. It was fun having all the homebrew stuff right next to the flipper. It was. It was really nice. Super convenient. We had our own, and Multimorphic was close by us. It was like our own little arena. I will say, that was where the party was on Saturday night. Oh, on Saturday night. Oh, with your pogs. Wait, Saturday night? Yeah, Saturday night. We started a new expo tradition. Yeah, pogs, you guys. Pogs on the floor.
    143:27
    We are officially in the everything else category. One everything else I will say, and Becca is repping the medals, Pinball Olympics. Pinball Olympics is pinball life sells out. But holy crap, Pinball Olympics is at this dude's house, Banger J on Pinside. Absurd collection. He's built an entire other house next to his house to add more games. And all these games are tweaked in some fashion to make them more challenging to play um the the two games that i won medals on one of them you had to lay down in a harness and they literally raised you in the air in the game it was avengers is doesn't have legs it's suspended by cables and so you're just trying to play and uh i mean never played a game like pinball like that it was awesome i got i got the the the that's true my neck on that one it was i told you not to hurt yourself and then the other one i played was a quicksilver where the entire game, they put it in a wide-body cabinet, and so the entire play field was literally oscillating back and forth like this while you played. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's everything you played. Becca, you have medals. What all did you play? I do. I have several medals. Jordan, what medals did you get? I got a participation medal. That's right. But how many medals did I get? I got three medals.
    144:50
    Let's see. So we'll start with my bronze. I played Rob Zombie through like what they called I think the Periscope it's basically reverse binoculars it's reverse binoculars and you can't see the DMD so you're just like you can only see the upper playfield I couldn't see the upper playfield at all so I was third on that and then I was second at Champion Pub with Boxing Gloves which experience paid off because we played AIQ and stuff with, like, Hulk hands. Yeah, but those are much more squishy and way less sweaty. But, like, still having stuff on her hands. Because I can still get my fingers through the squish. We've done it before. I can get my fingers through the squish to get to the buttons. Okay. And then, but my gold medal is from TNA on the rotating platform, which, like, spins you around and around and around. It was in his bag. She stole my lock. The whole game. You know what, Jordan? The whole game is spinning. It was... She stole my lock, and that's how she got gold. You know what, Jordan? You shouldn't have lost it. Half that gold is mine. Right. No, no, no, no. But you shouldn't have lost it. That's a team goal. You shouldn't have lost it. Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh. Pinsomniac here in chat, he had two golds. One of his golds was in a, it was like one of the dollar bill blower machines, but instead it was throwing ping pong balls and other balls at you, and you had to wear a hard helmet. Well, the reality was, it was just a distracting environment, but he like zoned out, like straight zenned out in this game. He played Kiss for like 30 minutes and actually put a high score on the game. Like half a billion? Yeah, he like crushed it. Just apparently the best way for Nick to play from now on is to have people throwing ping pong balls at his head. Yeah, one of them made it into my jacket pocket and I brought it home. Oh, God, the Xenon. Are we even going to talk about the Xenon? Is that allowed? The Xenon, no. I think you had to experience that to really know. But, Dennis, I know you weren't there, but all I can say is, I mean, I would highly suggest next year you and Tony give that a shot. Pinball Olympics was a blast. It was a riot, for sure. So much fun. It was so much fun. So my personal favorite was the Metallicas, the linked Metallicas. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That really opened my mind. Because we didn't play against another team before. We just split our team into two and two. And so my first opponent was Becca. Yeah. And I learned that, oh, I just have to hit this little shot here on the left to tilt the other person? Yep. Awesome. They had the fuel shot, which is kind of a tough shot, but it's that shot on the left side. If you hit the fuel target, it tilts the person's game beside you. So you're racing to tilt the other person. So satisfying. Guess who tilted all three of Becca's balls?
    147:34
    In less than like five seconds. Each ball. It was so much fun. And then they had a Dark Knight, a Batman the Dark Knight, where the Gordon target, which is kind of right next to the orbit, which you need to hit. If you hit that target, boom, instantly your game was tilted. And, I don't know, it was just stupid little edits to make the games harder, but it was fun. Oh, yeah, I was talking about the Bronco. Oh, the Bronco, yes. The other gold medal that he got, the Bronco. There was a freaking, like, mechanical bull with a Bronco mounted on it. Yeah. And there was an operator there, like, operating this thing. That wasn't going crazy like a mechanical bull. It was mostly just spinning and, like, tilting a little bit. But you were having a walk around the game. Yeah, you had to, like, walk around it. Nick almost rolled the game, the score. I mean, he crushed it.
    148:21
    Their treadmill, Coz, actually, they did a treadmill where you were at a walking place, and at the end they actually turned it all the way up 10 miles per hour. So, Brian and Cozner, there was literally sprinting in front of this thing for a while. I was in, you know, good stamina. But, I don't know, it was great. I just, everything else, I would say anybody, Mechanical Bulls, Joe Hill's, I mean, all of it was amazing. It was $80, but totally worth it. I would encourage, because there was food, the tacos were some of the best tacos I've ever had. Yeah, tacos were good. There was free drinks. That's all. I would just say anybody that's planning on going to the Bowl Expo next year, set aside, make sure that Saturday afternoon. Ladies, there was a shirtless man wandering around, or just people who enjoy shirtless men. It was great. There was a shirtless guy wandering around. Tacos were amazing. Joe Windrater, you know. Those tacos were so good. How did you get tickets? It was sold. It was advertised. It's just everybody that's listening. Anybody that's hearing this later, remember next year, pinball life. They sell tickets. There was only a hundred. It was either 80 or a hundred. It was a hundred. Yeah. It was $80 for a hundred. There was a hundred. Mark it as a, uh, mark it as, as a to do. Um, someone named George and Manu slept too late to go. Yeah. They did miss out. They were up partying all night. I do wish that they would do it on a Sunday, though. I wish they would do it on a Sunday. So you have a reason to stay later.
    149:41
    Yeah. Sunday, everybody's torn down and you're ready to go. And so I think that it would be a lot of fun to do on Sunday. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're at the end here. Everything else. So, Dennis, do you have anything that we did not cover that you experienced at Expo that you'd like to bring out? No, I think we hit on everything that I remember. Great.
    150:01
    Jordan and Becca, do you guys have anything? I'm missing? Let's see. Scorbit had a little bit of presence there. That was cool. Scorbit was there. Was able to talk to Jay. That guy's really smart.
    150:15
    Yes. So, yeah. Becca got her way into a free sweater or hoodie and shirt out of Jay. That guy's bright, and they have a lot of goals and plans. And it was great meeting him and talking to him. Meet Jobber. Yep, did meet Jobber. That was a thing. We did do that. Tournament thoughts. I mean, the tournament stream was fantastic.
    150:40
    There were a lot of people picking Godzilla and whatnot, you know, trying to, I don't know. Some of those guys are just so good that they're trying whatever they can to, you know, even the playing field. But the tournament was really well done, and Tom did an incredible job streaming it.
    151:00
    Someone won a blue sheet. Yeah, I remember that. That was Extra Paul. He was carrying that around. It was great just to meet everybody and be able to, like, actually chat with both, like, other people that we know through the streaming stuff and, like, actual people in our chat. Yeah. It was wild.
    151:20
    Gerbon 2018, Godzilla Pro or Premium. We talked about that earlier. I think we're all on board that the Pro is a fantastic game, but the Premium is the way to go. you're kind of settling for a pro to be honest and that's not I'm a pro buyer but boy the mechs and the premium are very nice I guess I don't know if you wanted to talk about Scott's house we had a chance there were a few of us he had a very small gathering at Scott Denise's at his house him and his wife Sarah Rose could not have been more nice they were super nice and we stream or flip tronic stream from that you guys can go watch the VOD on that if you wanted to but he had a real unique collection and super nice people super nice that's all I can say my dad actually asked did you meet anybody that was like that was different than you expected and I remember thinking Scott was I knew he'd be nice but I wasn't expecting him to be just such an amazing genuine person so yeah nothing but respect for that but I met some great people you know Dennis, I met you in person. Obviously, everybody on here I met in person. It was awesome. Ate a lot of deep dish pizza. I had that two nights in a row.
    152:35
    It was really good. Yeah, anything else? Anything before we wrap this up? I realize we're already going to go to midnight and it's 1230.
    152:49
    I mean, it was, oh, my gosh. Let's see. I mean, I got to do Women's Tournament. I got to do Battle of the Bells. I talked about that for a little bit. It was super fun. Oh, oh, the... Costume contest. Crap, what was the guy who had all the EM mechs spread out across the table? Oh, that was cool. That showed, like, how all the different little things worked. I don't remember. It was, like, right near the stern area. Yeah, I don't know his name, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah. I forgot what that area was called. It was, like, Pinball something. I don't know. I don't know, but that was cool. That was really neat. I liked that a lot. That was unique. Yeah. Let's see.
    153:25
    Yeah, Pog Slammers. We got Pog Slammers. Yeah, Pogs. Bring your Pogs next year. Yeah, bring your Pogs next year.
    153:32
    Let's see. But no, it was just super fun. I had so much fun. The event center was cool, too. That was our first year doing it there, from what I understand. We just need to throw the hat around for donations so I can come to TPS this year. Oh, because you're in Australia, Kirk Hobbs. Yeah. I mean, just to wrap that up, I would say if you haven't had a chance to go to any sort pinball event. Obviously, COVID really sucked, but now that that's, I don't know, things are changing. If you have a chance to go, but just make sure you're going to meet people. Even the employees, to see like Zombie Eddie was there, and Jack was there, and I saw Dennis Norman. I saw him.
    154:14
    Dwight was there. Everybody's welcome. Did you get to talk to Dwight, Joel? Dwight was a ball of energy. It was awesome. But if you're going to go with that mentality of, like, I can't wait to meet people. And everybody I talked to was nice. It was just, yeah, it was all around a good event. Played a lot of pinball. Not a ton, but what I played I enjoyed. All the games coming out were a ton of fun. And, yeah, big thumbs up from me. We'll gladly go again next year for sure.
    154:47
    You should come to pinball. Pinball Festival. You should come to TTS. That's not quite the drive that I had before, but I would love to. Spice are super cheap, like right there. We'll pick you up from the airport, Joel. That, you know, I will. Look, if we can do 2,600 miles round trip to Chicago. Yeah, you guys are not normal, though. You can drive out to Texas. All right, well, let's wrap her up. Plugs. Dennis, plug away, man. Plug whatever you want.
    155:15
    You can always hear me over on the Pinball Show, which is on the Pinball Network with Zach, who is the other host of that. And I'm also on Eclectic Gamers Podcast, where Tony is the other host on that one. We're over on SoundCloud for that, if you're interested in easy podcasts.
    155:32
    Way easier than streaming. Way easier. Yeah, way easier. Yeah, not even the same level. But, Dennis, appreciate you, man. Appreciate your content. Appreciate you being here and throwing some smiles every once in a while. Even when bits were thrown at you, yeah, it was great. Not as easy as Pinvaldo. No, you're right. Fliptronic. I'll say that. Jordan and Becca, plug away.
    155:54
    Do we have any plugs? Yes. So we are going to, yes, we have plugs. We have plugs. No, there's nothing to talk about. What are you talking about? We have, so we are going to be down at Houston Expo, not this weekend, but the following weekend. Two weeks. So we will be there. We, I think, have an actual panel that we will be doing. um like so you want to stream now what um and i think that's i don't i we actually don't even have a working title but um who's on that panel besides you guys us oh okay whoever wants to join us who streams who's not who's in the opposite like group because there's two groups. There's the red group and the blue group for the tournament. And if your group is playing, then you obviously can't be on the panel. I think we're a blue group. I forget. Anyway, I don't remember. So we're doing that, which is cool. And then our normal stream, like, Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then, what? I just speak like Beaker from the Muppets. I'm like, hell yeah, that'd be hilarious. Yeah, we're going to stream the new Godzilla premium tomorrow. Yeah. Oh, and we also still have a Metallica. Oh yeah, we got a Metallica. We got a Metallica right before we left. We literally downsized, so now we have no more space again.
    157:18
    So there's that. And then other than that, you can also find me podcasting with Lauren over at Backbox Pinball Podcast. I think she just put out the episode with Rachel who did the commentary for the Super Series. And I need to probably, I don't know who we'll get for our guest for our expo wrap-up. And our Houston wrap-up. Oh, my gosh. There's so many things to do. Anyway, you can also find me with Lauren over there. Awesome.
    157:48
    Well, yeah. And I'm Joel. This is just another Pinball Stream. I will be streaming tomorrow night on the Flippin' Out channel. So feel free to check. That will be 10 to midnight Eastern Standard Time. And then I have my podcast, which I haven't done one in a while. I need to do that. And then Triple Drain, Triple Drain Podcast. Feel free to listen to that. Why would you be streaming in Eastern Standard Time when it's still daylight savings? Oh, Lord. You are, yep. What's the proper term, Dennis, that I should have used? Why don't you just say Eastern Time? Eastern Time. 10 to midnight Eastern Time.
    158:19
    Who are we going to race? I don't know. My phone's over there. Well, let's see who we got. Colorado Pinball has 33 people. We have 31, and then we got Cal Pinball, 6, Flipstream, 5, and then everything else. So anybody at all have a preference. I'm looking at Cal. O'Goran wants to go to Cal. So we're going, that's what I'm assuming, Colorado pinball? No, Cal pinball. Playing Lord of the Rings. Let's do it. Hey, Cal pinball. Joe Hill, thanks for streaming. This was fun. Dude, appreciate you, man.
    158:58
    It was really good to meet you, Joe Hill. Yeah, we got to meet Joe Hill. Yeah, the VOD is still up, by the way, for you guys. If you want to watch us and Joe Hill play Godzilla for three and a half hours. We pulled up in his backyard, like, unloaded the Godzilla, played it, packed it back up in the morning, and set it back. We're going to go ahead and raid, but I appreciate you. This will go up on YouTube, so if you're not here now or you want to check back to the beginning, yeah. Oliver, what is your problem? Becca and Jordan, thanks a bunch for being here. And have fun and say hi to Cal Pinball. Say bye, Oliver. say bye see ya it's like feed me alright let me go ahead and that's a wrap I think that let me go ahead and stop streaming