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Episode 68 – Working For The Weekend

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Nov 9, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Slam Tilt covers the 24-hour Final Battle tournament with Tim Saxton's third-place finish and game-by-game analysis.

Summary

In Episode 68 of the Slam Tilt Podcast, hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale are joined by guest Tim Saxton to discuss the 24-hour Final Battle tournament at the Sanctum in upstate New York. The episode covers the tournament's growth (100 players, sold out in 2 minutes), detailed gameplay recaps from multiple rounds, analysis of specific games like Algar and Viper, and Tim's third-place finish with a dramatic final-round performance on Congo where he scored 1.9 billion to challenge the game's previous champion. Ron discusses the impact of strong tournament results on his Papa Circuit standing and the challenge of managing rankings.

Key Claims

  • The 24-hour Final Battle tournament at the Sanctum sold out in 2 minutes during May registration

    high confidence · Tim Saxton describing the tournament registration

  • 100 players completed all 24 hours of the tournament with 16 rounds of 3-game matches

    high confidence · Tim Saxton: 'all 100 players finished. 100 players started. One player did not make it.'

  • Trent Augustine won the tournament with 762 Papa Circuit points, the highest of any current circuit competitor

    high confidence · Discussion of Bob Matthews' unofficial circuit standings showing Trent with 762 points and Alexander Kazmarsk second with 409

  • Ed Zeltman entered the tournament in round 2 after another player dropped out and finished in 6th place

    high confidence · Tim's story about Ed playing frisbee in the parking lot, getting in for round two, and making it to the final group

  • Algar is considered by Bruce to be an exceptionally poor-quality game to play

    high confidence · Bruce: 'Algar may be the worst game I've ever played' and extended negative commentary

  • Viper's spinner scoring is linear (20, 40, 60, 80 points) rather than exponential, limiting high scores

    high confidence · Tim discussing Viper mechanics and requesting spinner value improvements

  • Ron finished 7th place in the 24-hour tournament, which earns Papa Circuit points that may push him into the 'A' division category

    high confidence · Discussion of Ron's concern about reaching circuit final cutline and having to play 'A' division

  • This was the fourth year of the 24-hour Final Battle tournament, with attendance growing from 40 (year 1) to 64 (year 2) to 100 (years 3-4)

    high confidence · Tim: 'First year it was 40. Second year it was 64, sold out. Went to a new space, 100 players, sold out.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes.”

    Tim Saxton @ Registration discussion — Emphasizing how quickly the 100-player tournament registration sold out

  • “Algar may be the worst game I've ever played.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Game discussion section — Strong negative opinion about Algar, followed by extended critique

  • “I love that game and I'll tell ya I'm a loss for words.”

    Tim Saxton @ Algar discussion — Defending Algar against Bruce's criticism, showing divided opinion within the group

  • “Stern could have went cost-cutting better with the six digits, and they would have made more money on it. They cost-cutted that game enough. Look at the cabinet. Stern. That's all it says on it.”

    Tim Saxton @ Viper discussion — Critique of Stern's cost-cutting approach to Viper's design and manufacturing

  • “I have to say, just playing that game, it's so bad. It's wide. It's like they put the little space there because they wanted it to be future spa, but it's not future spa.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Algar criticism — Describing Algar's layout and design flaws in detail

  • “Stars plays you. You don't play stars. You do what it wants.”

    Ron Hallett @ Final games discussion — Commentary on the unpredictability and player-unfriendliness of Stars pinball

  • “Trent now has 762 circuit points. And the next person has how many? Alexander Kazmarsk has 409.”

    Ron Hallett @ Circuit standings discussion — Demonstrating Trent's dominant lead in Papa Circuit standings after his tournament win

  • “I'm wondering how you quit after one round. I think he felt the burn. He played Phil Birnbaum round one, and that was scary enough to send him packing.”

    Tim Saxton @ Tournament dropout discussion — Explaining why one player quit after a poor round, with reference to playing strong competitor Phil Birnbaum

Entities

Tim SaxtonpersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonTrent AugustinepersonEd ZeltmanpersonJohn DelZappopersonPhil BirnbaumpersonAlexander KazmarskpersonBob Matthewsperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: 24-hour Final Battle tournament at the Sanctum has grown substantially: 40 players (year 1) → 64 (year 2) → 100 (years 3-4), with registration selling out in 2 minutes and waitlist players still trying to enter from parking lot

    high · Tim: 'First year it was 40. Second year it was 64, sold out. Went to a new space, 100 players, sold out... registration, I believe, was in May and sold out in two minutes'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Trent Augustine has significantly increased Papa Circuit lead with 762 points after tournament win, more than double the second-place competitor Alexander Kazmarsk with 409 points

    high · Trent now has 762 circuit points. And the next person has how many? Alexander Kazmarsk has 409... And the next person has how many? Alexander Kazmarsk has 409

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Viper has unfinished rule set with unexplained 'four light' feature that developers cannot identify function for; spinner scoring is linear rather than exponential, resulting in low point values compared to other Stern games

    high · Tim: 'There's also a four light, which I can't figure out for the life of me what that does... It's the only four light on the game... It wasn't put in. It's incomplete code.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Algar receives harsh criticism from Bruce for poor playfield design, confusing shot layout, and overall quality; game deemed unenjoyable despite Tim's defense of it

    high · Bruce: 'Algar may be the worst game I've ever played... It's so bad. It's wide... the shots suck it's terrible'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Rack'em Up demonstrates over-designed 1980s game mechanics where intended cleverness creates confusion rather than engagement; pool ball configuration system and scoring structure alienate modern players

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.345

0:00
Check it out, Spiva. A wedding. Whoa! For what? So we gotta go, dumbass. In every wedding there's like this bride chick, and then right after it's over, everyone gets to make out with her.
0:18
Really? Yeah. Plus I heard that like chicks put out on their wedding night. It's like a law or something. We're there, dude. Maybe.
0:53
Hello. So, he goes to one tournament, 24 hours, and can't even do his simple job again. I am so ready for a new host. What? Are we on? Oh, sorry. Yeah, we're on, Ness. Oh, sorry. Oh, my head.
1:15
My head. New host time. I'm really tired. You need to suck it up, buddy. It's only Monday. You should have already called from the freaking sleep I missed this stupid thing from work Even though I would have been in it This sucks And now we gotta talk about you guys winning And playing good Guys What? We have a guest?
1:39
Yeah, yeah, we have a guest Alright, hold on, hold on Let me compose myself I'll do the intro Ready?
1:46
Okay Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York This is the Slam Tilt Podcast a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. I'm done. We have a new co-host. We have a new co-host, and who is it? Hi, I'm new Spightingale.

  • “So that's how I got third place. I went 2-1-2 in my final group. I got five points, giving me 88 points on the tournament. And I had 19 first places.”

    Tim Saxton @ Tournament conclusion — Tim's final placement and scoring summary

  • “I don't know what the secret is there. There was a lot of people playing Viper, though.”

    Tim Saxton @ Viper discussion — Acknowledging the confusing scoring and widespread player interest in understanding Viper

    • Steve Bowden
    person
    Gene Xperson
    Ryan C.person
    Mike Pantinoperson
    Scottperson
    The Sanctumvenue
    24-hour Final Battleevent
    Papa Circuitorganization
    Algargame
    Vipergame
    Congogame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Cameron Silver Ball Saloonvenue

    high · Tim: 'A software designer designed the game and said, this is so clever, everyone will love it. And it's so clever that it's so clever for the 80s when it's just too confusing to understand'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Stern's cost-cutting approach to Viper affected cabinet design (bare label), scoring values, and overall manufacturing quality; represented poor business decision

    high · Tim: 'Stern could have went cost-cutting better with the six digits... They cost-cutted that game enough. Look at the cabinet. Stern. That's all it says on it.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Tim recants initial negative assessment of Viper after understanding rule mechanics; moves from dismissal to acknowledgment of playable depth despite design flaws

    high · Tim: 'I would like to make an official retraction... I got to play a lot of Viper. And you know what? It's not terrible. Yeah. It only so-so sucks. It's okay.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Bob Matthews recognized in community as authoritative circuit standings tracker; named in Gene X's Halloween costume joke, indicating respect and affection in community

    high · Gene X went as Bob Matthews for Halloween... I'm upset I didn't think of it first. That was ingenious... Shout out to Bob Matthews for being the best on top of this'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Tournament waitlist system created access issues; high demand (100 players + waitlist) exceeded single-entry capacity; mid-tournament drop-out allowed Ed Zeltman to enter and reach final group

    high · Ed was first and Mike was third on the wait list... one player walk[ed] across the parking lot, get in his car, and drive away. So Ed goes... can I get in for round two? They say, yes.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Final round games on Congo, Medusa, and Blackjack created varied outcomes; Congo and Blackjack required strong ball control and decision-making, while Medusa was less exciting for spectators

    high · Final round included Congo with 1.9 billion GC, Medusa described as 'pretty boring', and Blackjack as game of luck and risk management

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ron Hallett missed 24-hour Final Battle tournament due to work obligation called in Thursday morning; demonstrates ongoing tension between professional/personal commitments and tournament participation

    high · Ron: 'Thursday morning, I got a call from the boss saying... I'm like, I wanted this weekend off. I was going to a tournament... Asked everyone on the team, and guess what? No.'

    • 2:09
    Oh, my. New Spightingale. I like that. Tim, now to be a true co-host, you have to go by the oh, my. Oh, my. Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. and yawn a lot. Oh, my.
    2:25
    I could make a soundboard. I could turn Bruce into an app and probably co-host Just Giving Rodney up.
    2:32
    There you go. So, welcome. Tim Saxton is back with us on the podcast this week, and this is Episode 68, Rocky II.
    2:42
    Yo, I finally kicked that guy's ass. Yeah. Every last word. He wins the title, finally. et cetera. So what did you guys do this weekend?
    3:01
    I worked. Oh, sorry. And then I hit the bar. Bummer. Let's see what I did. I'm trying to remember. You were Captain Third.
    3:10
    Captain Third. That's who I was. I played in the 24-hour final battle, the fourth year of the final battle, which implies that none of them were the final battle, except maybe this one. The final countdown.
    3:25
    And I think one of you hosts were there, too. Yes, I was. But the other one wasn't. Yeah, I got called into work Thursday morning. Tell the whole story. Well, Thursday morning, I got a call from the boss saying, oh, well, one of the customers wants to pay for weekend service. I'm like, oh, no, here it comes. and you're the one on call. I'm like, you son of a bitch. I said I wanted this weekend off. I was going to a tournament. Well, if you get somebody else to take over, I don't mind. Asked everyone on the team, and guess what? No. So then two hours later, Jim from the Sanctum emails me, you're in.
    4:08
    Oh, no, I'm not in. Da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. And somebody else got the win in. And we can tell you exactly who that was, Bruce. Who was it? Oh, there's an interesting story here, Raj. Should we get right into it? Sure, let's get right into it. Well, first a little background for those who might be, what's the 24 hours at the Sanctum? Maybe you should give them a little background on that one, Tim. How many people are in this wonderful tournament? There are 100 players, capped at 100 players in the 24-hour tournament. This is the fourth year they've done it. First year it was 40. Second year it was 64, sold out. Went to a new space, 100 players, sold out. Except just at the end, we had 98 show up on that day. A couple had to leave at the last minute. And this year we had 100 players with extra players waiting in the parking lot, hoping to get in. And the registration, I believe, was in May and sold out in two minutes? Two minutes. but I would have made it. I was 30 down in the wait list, and I made it. Yes, you would have. But am I to believe, Tim, this is 24 hours of play? Who would do such a ridiculous thing?
    5:29
    Well, I can tell you the whole list of players who would do such a ridiculous thing. What's that? They all made it through, all 100 players. Well, 100 players finished. 100 players started. One player did not make it. But most people who entered this tournament made it the full 24 hours, played 16 rounds of pinball with three games in each round, all the way to the very end.
    5:55
    And that's, I don't know, 16 times 3 times 3.7 balls of pinball, probably? That's a lot of pinball in 24 hours with no breaks. Except for one half-hour day break. Yeah, whoopee. As you said, we had extra players in the parking lot. We had, I know we had Steve Bowden was there.
    6:20
    I saw Ed Zeltman, Ed Z. Yes. Mike Pantino. And there might have been, I know there were others. I know at least those three showed up. So, and they were there. So, who took my space?
    6:35
    Well, we'll get to that. So, when the tournament started, none of those players made it in. Unfortunately, Steve Bowden was too far down the wait list. Even if someone dropped out at the last minute, Mike and Ed were there. And I think Ed was first and Mike was third on the wait list out of players left. So after the first round, Ed's not in, Mike's not in. And I go out after the first round to my car, and I see Ed and Mike still playing frisbee in the parking lot, just hanging out, you know. and I see one player walk across the parking lot, get in his car, and drive away. So Ed goes, oh, boy, runs upstairs and goes, can I get in for round two? They say, yes. We had one player quit. So he gets in round two, and he made it to the final group, and I believe he came in sixth place in the tournament despite missing a round and getting a zero for round one out of nine points. What a great feel-good story. It's a great feel-good story. I'm wondering how you quit after one round. I think he felt the burn. He played Phil Birnbaum round one, and that was scary enough to send him packing. Wow. Felt the Birnbaum. He felt the Birnbaum. Well, what did he have in the first round? A two. Two out of nine. So four and a half would be average. It's kind of like a three-game Pinnberg round instead of four games. So instead of six and six being your even, it's, you know, there's four and five or five and four. or you're middle of the road, and then two would be, you know, not so great. But not the end of the world, because I got some twos, and I'm sure Ron got some bad rounds here and there. Oh, yes. So that's time to make up for it. There's 24 hours. But no one wants to talk about competition, guys. Okay, let's talk about mods. Did you see my new lighting I have in my game? Let's talk about Pinspy. Yay! We do all the time as much as we make fun of it. I hear they're inventing brighter LEDs to put in EFs. Great. I'll send it to Bruce for free. He'll love that. Yes.
    8:44
    So how was the tournament, boys? Excellent. Third year I've been there, and I love it. I'm going back next year if I can. It's my second time coming in third place. Yes. And my second time playing in the top group for the final round. Most of the time I wasn't in the top group, but at least in the finals I know how to somehow claw my way into that top group at the very end. Seems to be what I have going for me in this format. So what was the lowest you ever got to, Tim, in your ranking? The lowest I got, oh, in my ranking? Yeah, like 1 through 100, where were you the lowest?
    9:22
    I never left the top half. Okay. And there was only one round I was out of the top 20, probably. I can check this. I know you can. That's okay. I'll let Ryan talk about his while he does. Well, mine's easier because I don't know.
    9:42
    I don't look at the stand. The only thing I look at is after they post the results to make sure they got my score right. So I do look at that.
    9:53
    So if I got like a 7 and I see like a 6 posted, like, hey, wait a minute. Because they have sheets they give you, just like Pinberg. that you fill out with the points, and then you sign off on it saying, like, yep, this looks right. And the points for all players should total 18 when you're done. Yeah. So that's pretty much all I checked. I can tell you I played really good at the beginning. I had three or four rounds in a row that really sucked. I ended up, like, in the middle. You were in 47th. Yep. How about that stats page, too? So, yeah, so, okay, that makes sense. And then I did much better in the second half. I got stronger as the 24 hours went on. You did rocky.
    10:45
    Yeah, I did rocky. I didn't have a rocky there, thank God. Thank God. Yeah, Ron's graph looks like a roller coaster going over that first hill and then all the way down to first place. It's kind of a, you know, first place is on the bottom graph. So you can see right in round 7, 8, 9, he's not doing so hot. 10, hold steady, and then pulls it back out for round 16, coming in seventh place in the 24-hour battle. That'll be some good whopper points for you, Ron. Oh, that's a problem. I can't get that ranking up too high. A problem, Ron. You're going to be in 250 land, which means you're going to be at A. No, because that means I won't play. That'd be a waste of my money. You'll be counted in the power 100. Your results against other players will count both for and against you and against them.
    11:37
    Damn. You know, there are repercussions to playing well, unfortunately. Yeah. You come in seventh place in a Papa Major Circuit event. Yeah, you got Papa Circuit points. Damn. Most people would be happy with this, but all I can think of is Papa and you have to play in A. Oh, I guess I won't be playing. I guess it's classics only for me. Well, we'll have to ask Bob Matthews because he's been tracking the Bucs report. I don't know if you've heard of this, the Bob's unofficial circuit standings. He might be able to tell you how close you are to the circuit final cut line. If you're going to Indisc and MAGFest, you might have a real shot at getting in this year, Ron.
    12:19
    Do you need to go to Flippers, too? No, no, no. I did this to see how I would do if I would survive.
    12:31
    And did you? I'll be perfectly honest. I didn't really have that much of a problem. I don't know. Timmy, did I look tired?
    12:43
    No, not compared to other people. Yeah, that was the thing. Yeah, it was. When we got around, I'd say 3 in the morning. There's like a hallway that goes to the sanctum where people have all their chairs set up. And it was like zombie land. It was like, I mean, they were, some people looked in really bad shape. Like, damn.
    13:05
    And I'm doing like back stretches after every round. I'm doing like push-ups. I'm going up and down the stairs and stuff, keeping moving. That was pretty much what I did. I didn't sugar myself up. I just had granola bars and water.
    13:21
    And I had a couple of my Arnold Palmer iced teas for the end. So I had one, I don't know, 3 in the morning, and then the other one kind of before I left.
    13:31
    Yeah, and then when you got home, you were still awake talking to each other, although not very coherently. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was, yeah, I just, I got settled in. And I got home, I got home around 1230. then I put my plan into action I was up for like an hour I went to bed like 1.30 set the alarm for 5pm so I got like 3.5 hours sleep, woke up then forced myself to stay awake until like 10 and then went to bed I just tried to sleep as much as possible usually what happens is during the day as soon as it gets dark I can kind of go to bed but during the day I get awful sleep but at least I'm laying down and resting my body which I feel like is important enough to try to do that.
    14:18
    And then when it hit like 8 p.m., then I think I really fell asleep and didn't wake up until my alarm went off for work. And I went to work today. I don't know if you did too, Ron, but. Hell yeah. I was fine. I was fine when I woke up because I kind of adjusted everything and, you know, maybe I have some deep-seated body tiredness that probably will go away by tomorrow, I hope. But really, I'd do it again. Yeah, I would too. I'll do it this weekend.
    14:48
    It's the same caliber a player showed up, and the same, you know, points and circuit points were on the line, and money was on the line. Hell, yeah, I'd do it again.
    14:58
    Yeah, I didn't win any money. That's the only part that kind of sucked. Oh. I didn't really have it. In my group, we had the one guy in my group kind of kicked ass, and he deserved to win. Right, so the very last round, no matter when it is, there's no set number of rounds, but the last round, whoever wins that group gets money back. And you get more money if you're in a higher group. So, for instance, my group at the end was Trent, Augustine, John DelZappo, Ed Zeltman, and myself, and it was 7-5-5-2. 7-5-5-1.
    15:34
    Yeah, 7-5-5-1, because that has to be all the odd numbers. So Trent got seven points. He wound up winning the tournament for $1,000 and getting the $130 final round bounty. Now, had I got a point on him and it was 6651, then we would have split the $130.
    15:53
    But either way, we were both doing okay. So does Trent have like a million circuit points at this point? Trent has something like almost a thousand. He's in the 700s, I believe, with circuit points. That's his fourth circuit win?
    16:07
    Let me check the Bob's unofficial circuit standing. Shout out to Bob Matthews for being the best on top of this. He had it posted, like, as soon as it was done. Trent now has 762 circuit points. And the next person has how many? Alexander Kazmarsk has 409.
    16:31
    Wow. And Alexander won two circuit events as well. Did you see Gene X's Halloween costume? Yeah, that was amazing. That was amazing. Yeah, he went as Bob Matthews.
    16:47
    I'm upset I didn't think of it first. That was ingenious. Okay, Bruce. Yes? I have to get something off my chest here. Uh-oh. Okay. I have to say, Algar may be the worst game I've ever played. Nope. Not at all. So what did you get on your Algar? I think I played, I had to play that turd twice.
    17:12
    Because we repeated a lot of the same banks, because when you have 16 rounds, that tends to happen. So I have to say, just playing that game, it's so bad. It's wide. It's like they put the little space there because they wanted it to be future spa, but it's not future spa. You know, on the right in lane. it's just the shots suck it's terrible I just, god, it's awful playing that game I had to play that in my second to last round I had to play that turn and you thought of me I thought of you every time I played it, yes like how does he like this piece of shit game I love that game and I'll tell ya
    18:02
    I'm a loss for words. It's so bad. Seriously. So I had to play that in the second to last round, and I was in last place going into my third ball, which happened a lot. I think I counted four times where after the first ball I was not in last place.
    18:27
    So I did not have very many good ball ones there. But Algar, I'm in last place going into my last ball. And I had probably the most intense ball of Algar ever to end up pulling it out. I think I, I don't remember what I had. It might have been 300, 400K, something like that, on that piece of shit. So you love the game now? No. No, I hate the game. God, it's so bad. It's so bad. I hope I, you know what's going to happen. I'm going to get, like, Williams, 1980, whenever that came out, and I'm going to have to defend that turn. Yep.
    19:05
    No, you won't. You'll just give up on that one. Yeah, I won't even, yeah. You'll just tap out. I'll just tap out. You can have any game against it, and I'll say it's better.
    19:15
    Any other interesting memories from the tournament, Tim? Yeah, I remember giving you a two and you being pretty upset with it.
    19:24
    Which round was that? What did we play? Let me see. It's all here in match play, which is nice, but it's a little hard to find sometimes. It's all a blur to me. I remember the last two rounds vividly because I knew I was getting up higher in the standings, and I really did not want to tank and drop way down. So I had a good last two rounds. Slim comfort behind points, especially on Tron. I was in a group. this was the last group yeah this is the last round the guy had 59 million on Tron and I'm player 4 I have like I don't know 5 million I have nothing I'm in last again as usual I ended up getting 58 million and losing the first place spot by a million points I have two good memories one I'll start round 7 group 4 so you're seated so we're in the top 16 now at this point. We play Junkyard, mousing around and rack him up, and I get a six, and Ron gets a two.
    20:33
    Oh, Junkyard. Yeah, I remember Junkyard being just so bad. He just hit the stupid crane 30 zillion times, and that's what everyone's doing. It's like, is that it? Is this the whole damn game? He's hit the center 30 zillion times. I remember. I think I was one of the first players, and I finished, and I was already in last, so I just walked over to mousing around. waiting for the next game.
    20:56
    That's funny. Yeah. Then Mousing Around. I love Mousing Around. I just, I don't remember what I did. Did you suck at it? I guess I did that time. I was not doing well at Mousing Around this tournament. I usually really like that game there at the Sanctum. And Rack'em Up, I just couldn't really figure it out. Other than eventually it looks like if you complete a bank, you got a bonus multiplier.
    21:20
    Yeah, but that wasn't worth much. Yeah, and the balls, you hit the flipper and sometimes they're flashing, sometimes they're not. And it was very confusing. Typical college stuff. I'll explain Rackham up to you. A software designer designed the game and said, this is so clever, everyone will love it. And it's so clever that it's so clever for the 80s when it's just too confusing to understand and no one loves it. Yeah, pretty much. The rule is, like, there's pool balls you want to collect, and up to four pool balls can be flashing at a time. What pool balls are lit? Well, you have to either change the lit ones before you plunge, change them in between the time you shoot the eight-ball shot, and hit a lane in the top lanes by moving your flipper very fast to try to land on a good one, and you can't go back and forth. or you just hit the spinner and get a random configuration. So there's these different configurations of lit pool balls, and then once you hit those, you get points. But then once you get to kind of the end of your rack and everything's already lit, you just need a few more. The points are hard to come by because everything's already lit. Like, it's just worth the base value of points. So if people keep the ball alive for a while, they'll start to get a lot of points real quick, and then it will slow down and slow down. then you're kind of just grinding points out of the spinner. And then if you get to that level where you finally complete that whole rack, then your points explode again.
    22:50
    So I think most of the players in our group got close to collecting all the pool balls, and I think Matt actually did collect them all, and then his score went way up. And this is fun how?
    23:03
    It's not. Exactly. I would like to make an official retraction. On the podcast. I got to play a lot of Viper.
    23:18
    And you know what? It's not terrible. Yeah. It only so-so sucks. It's okay. It's definitely not on the level of Stern's great games, but once you kind of get the turret rules down and you realize what the X's mean with the multiplier and you realize when you start getting X's, your score actually goes up. Because when you play the thing and you don't get any X's, you have the most ridiculously low scores where you're like, how is this a seven-digit game? I mean, no one's ever going to get close to it. And then when you start hitting the X's and you get up to like eight, nine X, play field multiplier, and you hit things, and now they're actually worth something, you realize, oh, that's what I'm supposed to do. Okay.
    24:05
    Yeah, I heard a lot of times people came up to me and said, Tim, how do I play Viper? I know you've played it. and my advice to them was when it goes into the spinny thing, shoot for the red X's on the right side. Don't try to shove it up the top again, which a lot of people try to do. Don't just fire it into drop targets. Shoot the red X's, and then your score will start to go up. Plus, I didn't realize if you lock three balls, it just starts multi-ball. Yeah. Like there is no, like, lock three balls, do anything else. Or if there's three balls, if there's two balls already in there and you lock the third one, you know, release one and give it back to you. No, it just starts multi-ball every time. But you have to light one, two, three first. But usually that just happens. Oh, okay. So is that what the light of the turn is for, one, two, three? Yeah, there's also a four light, which I can't figure out for the life of me what that does. There you go.
    24:59
    It's the only four light on the game. Yeah, it wasn't put in. It's incomplete code. I think we should complain. There's only three in lanes, so there's only one, two, three in the in lanes. Yeah. All you need is one, two, three to start a multi-ball.
    25:12
    I mean, and it's a sweet spinner to hit. So I retract my statement. If the scoring on the spinner was exponential instead of linear, it's like 20, 40, 60, 80. If it was like 20, 50, 100, 200, 400, then it would be a great game. But it's not. It's pretty much any time you hit the spinner, it's eh. At best, 120 a spin times your multiplier. And I'm playing Stargazer at Rod's, and it's 4,000 a spin. And it's like, come on, give me those points. Why can't I get bigger points? You hear that, Scott? We have a task for you. We have a Viper upgrade, and we have a Viper we can actually put it in. Make this Anthem Viper great.
    25:58
    The only Viper with a working turret. Yep. It'll be the only Viper with the improved rule set. You can make it happen, Scott. So what's your request, Kim? What would you like the spinner to do? I'd like it to score higher values than it does for most of them. I just want it. Right now the spinner is 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, or something like that. Just juice all those points up. But is that multiplied, though? Let the play field multiply or no? It's multiplied, but, you know, at best it's times nine, which is really hard to get. and it's, what, 140 times 9, which, like, that's not near the 4,000 I can get on Stargazer.
    26:46
    Even a bad value on Stargazer is 500 a spin. On Viper, good luck if you score 10,000 by hitting anything. Yeah, I agree.
    26:55
    It's seven digits, like Rod said. You can make it so much more. Yeah, I had a game where I had 9x. I got it all. and crushing the spinner, hitting everything on the play field, I just got barely over a million.
    27:07
    Yeah. So I don't know what the secret is there. There was a lot of people playing Viper, though. I think they were all playing it for the same reason, because they probably played it around and didn't understand the rules and kept playing it like, I've got to figure out how the hell this game works. Yeah. I think there was a lot of that going on. They heard about us talking about the greatness of it. I think they just saw the little shitty scores and it's like seven digits. There's got to be more points in this game. That's what I say. Stern could have went cost-cutting better with the six digits, and they would have made more money on it. They cost-cutted that game enough. Look at the cabinet. Stern. That's all it says on it. Good job. I do have another great moment of the tournament I want to share. Okay. Share away. All right. Final round.
    27:52
    Final round. John DelZalpo, Trent Augustine, Ed Zeltman, who missed round one and has made it all the way up to the final group, and we're playing Congo. This Congo's been modified for when I usually play it at the sanctum because it no longer has that big in-lane post on the left. Totally removed, so it's just a rail. And it has no ball save at all. If you guys know Congo, you know you can probably plunge four or five times before that ball saver expires normally. So it's one switch playfield validation now on Congo, and that gate thing's removed. Hold on. I hate to stop your story, but that's not true. It still had the play field validation. I know because... It's one switch. I was going for the super skill shot, and I plunged wrong, and it hit a slingshot, bounced up, didn hit anything else and drained and I still had my shoot ball Shoot ball A real switch The slingshot doesn count towards validation You know this Rock Come on But our listeners might not know what you talking about If I hear one switch, I'm thinking you hit one slingshot, and it's gone. It's the same rules as Jackbot, where a slingshot doesn't count as a switch, but a lane does.
    29:04
    Please continue. Kaylee knows this, so I'm just going to assume everyone else does. Okay. so it's tougher than usual, and it's three balls, no extra balls, of course. The GC on the game is 1.9 billion, and that stays all night until ball one, John DelZaffo blows it up as player four with 1.3 billion. So I go in, I'm player one, and ball two, I go, huh, that's funny. Why don't I just get 1.4 billion? So I do, and then he goes, you know, he tries to get a few more points. Doesn't really do much with his ball, too. Ball three, I get super multiball for getting a hundred diamonds. And actually, it didn't make sense because I had six diamonds left and I shot for my fourth gray award and it gives me 50 million, but that also gave me enough diamonds for super multiball. So either completing gray is like five diamonds or, you know, hidden diamonds. There's some hidden diamonds I was earning there. Maybe Steve Bowden knows because he owns the game. But I had six diamonds left. I get the one diamond by shooting gray, so I have five left, and then I just get five diamonds as well as $50 million. So I'm in super multiball, blah, blah, blah. Super multiball often doesn't last too long for me because I'm so busy just flailing my flippers on the lower play field to get the points from the under play field game that I don't really keep my balls in play for too long. And it ends, and I have $1.9 billion. Good enough for Grand Champion on the game.
    30:40
    Now, John DelZacco, he's only sitting at 1.4 billion. He needs a lot of points. So what does he go for? He goes for Skillfire. And he gets 690 million in Skillfire and walks off with 2.1 billion points.
    30:55
    That's after 24 hours. This has been a full 24 hours have passed since we woke up. And this is the first game of the last group. So that was cool. I was happy to lose in that way. And we both put our initials in, and we moved on to Medusa. Oh, God. Another short game, right?
    31:15
    No? Yeah. No. That's the only game that's on camera from the finals, and it's kind of unfortunate because a lot of people asked me if I was streaming it. I said, no, I'm not spending that energy on streaming it. Are you kidding me? I'm trying to play. And they have a little, like, a rig that's above the back wall of the room, and the cameras can slide across any games on that back wall. But two of our games weren't on that back wall, so you couldn't see them being played. But they did show our Medusa game on camera, so you can at least see that one where I think it's Trent, then John, and then me, and then Ed. That wasn't a very exciting Medusa game. Not that many Medusa games are exciting. I was going to say that. Yeah, they're pretty boring. And the final game was on Blackjack. And this is a fun one because Blackjack is a game of who gets screwed and who gets lucky and then who screws themselves and who unscrews themselves. Because it's like Blackjack rules. If you don't have a hand that beats the dealer, you lose. If you have a hand that beats the dealer, you get everything in the right scoop.
    32:23
    So John is player one, or John's like player two, Trent's player one. and pretty much everyone doesn't have much on ball one. On ball two, John and Trent don't get much. I get $175,000. I got a 5X collect plus a little extra ball to plunge off. We weren't allowed to play extra balls.
    32:44
    And Ed gets $125,000. So ball three going in, Trent has like $44,000. I think John has about $53,000. Pretty low scores. Trent comes all the way back to end with 218,000 points. And then John plays for a really long time, and he just never gets that saucer lit, never gets that X up. So this puts him in a position where if the results hold, Trent actually wins the tournament by one point. And even if I or Ed came back to pass him, I think Trent still would have won on the tiebreakers because he had more first places than John. So John had to just, after he lost the ball, he just had to pray that both me and Ed came back to pet Trent. Neither of us did, but I held on with two points to at least tie Bowen and beat him on the tiebreaker. So that's how I got third place.
    33:38
    I went 2-1-2 in my final group. I got five points, giving me 88 points on the tournament. And I had 19 first places, and Bowen had 16 first places in the tournament. And so I won that tiebreaker, which was split by how many first places you got followed by how many second places you got.
    33:58
    And congratulations, Tim Balls. Thanks. That's the story of the 24-hour battle. It's the only round I remember. I remember my last round because I had the Tron game, and I almost came back. Then we played RoboCop, which became very obvious that the ramp was probably not the way to go because it just, even on cleaner shots, it wasn't making the ramp. So I decided to just spin her all day. And I had a good second ball. And then the third ball, I just lost the spinner. I just lost it. Couldn't hit it. And I ended up taking third. I should have had at least a second in that game. And then the third game was Stars.
    34:38
    And, well, Stars is Stars. I think on the first ball, I had a big ball. I actually had the special lit. And they have it set up there with the unlimited specials, the unlimited 100,000. and you think I could hit it? No. I never even got a chance to hit it because it's stars. You don't always get a trap. Stars plays you. You don't play stars. You do what it wants. If it doesn't want you to trap up, you just hit it. You don't try to get cute with the ball. So I never really had any good aim or good shot at trying to hit the damn thing, and it moves around as you hit stuff. Yeah. But I ended up winning. I think I was the only one in six figures. Nice. That six figures is good. Three ball stars. So I won that. That was nice. I felt sorry. Poor Chuck. Chuck Webster. Triple goose eggs. Of the trash talker invitational. I think he was feeling it at the end. In the final group, he took a zero. His only zero of the tournament.
    35:36
    How did Jeff Parsons end up? I know he won some money. Jeff Parsons' project. He must have won his group then in the last round. He did. I don't know. I think he was 40th something. 30th or 40th something?
    35:48
    Jeff Parsons of the Pinball Players Podcast. 44th. There you go. Congratulations. Congratulations, Jeff. The other Jeff didn't make it. Where's Jeff Teolis?
    36:01
    I'm Jeff Teolis. I am not going to play in that because I am intelligent. He's sleeping in bed. Yep, he had a picture of himself sleeping. This is where I'll be while you guys are playing. Enjoy yourself.
    36:13
    But I get to see him this weekend. Oh, really? It's his loss. We had fun. I'm playing him at the Fall Brawl. The Fall Brawl? This sounds like a segue. Leaving the 24 hours at the Sanctum, let's talk about the Fall Brawl. What's the Fall Brawl, Bruce? It's a four-hour match play tournament in Buffalo. Four hours, that's it? Four hours? Come on. Well, I have the idea for the tournament at the bar.
    36:39
    The 12 hours of pain. 12 hours? That's it? Come on. Yeah, but there's food and drink and everything. at my place, so that would be good. Oh, that might make it harder, actually.
    36:50
    Or easier. I'll eat too much crap and probably get tired. I'll make a plain hamburger with just ketchup for you. Oh, perfect. There you go.
    37:00
    When I arrived in Connecticut, I arrived Friday night with the idea I was going to have a hotel, I'll get a good night's sleep.
    37:10
    Who do I see walking in the hotel at the same time as me? But our own Tim Sexton. Yay! And then as I'm walking through the entrance to the lobby,
    37:21
    a very noticeable pot smell. No, sorry. That wasn't my fault. No, it wasn't. Yeah, but it was like, that's my rock fantasy training there. It's like, I know that smell. These pinball players are around. Yeah, there's pinball players around.
    37:38
    So, Ron, you going to do it again? Yeah, I'll probably do it again. Yeah, I want to do it next year with you guys, definitely. I'm definitely in. We just got to make sure we crash their internet so we are the first three, and then we're good. Four. We get Steve in there, too. And Zach was actually jealous of you guys this weekend, so maybe five. Ooh, Zach. Ooh, Zach wants to try it. Okay. Yep, he wants to try, so. They might have to expand that at 100. Was it tight in there?
    38:07
    It can get tight. I don't know how many more people the room wants to hold. I think it's fine with 100. I think when it was 64 in the old space, it was bad. It was too bad. Yeah, it was tight. I remember that. Yeah. So I don't think they want to risk a situation like that again. I mean, you were just bumping into people all over the place, and I think you still were kind of in the corner by Creature of the Black Lagoon in Congo. That area got really tight.
    38:37
    Now, one thing I like about the top groups at the end is usually they're the ones that take the longest, so it kind of clears out by the time you're still playing. And if it goes into the hallways, and then you don't have to slow down on the breaks. So I feel like you get a good bit of momentum if you can get up top at some point in the middle of the tournament and then hang on to that. But for me, once I start having to wait a half hour, 45 minutes, an hour between groups, then it takes too long. Then I start to lose it. I start to forget how to play pinball in between. Yeah, I heard a few F-bombs from Tim this weekend.
    39:14
    Wow. Yeah, yeah. I have some exclusive news, though. Some information I've learned. I learned this from Zach Sharp himself.
    39:23
    He was there. Exclusive news. Betty White will be doing custom speech work for Keith Elwin's Golden Girls game. It's confirmed. You've heard it here. Woo! Yeah. On the podcast. Yeah. Pete, I want a special autographed version of Golden Girls. I really do.
    39:45
    Zach told me his story about fake IDs. I said, we should bring that up when Josh is on next time. He said, yeah, you should. Okay.
    39:55
    Fake IDs. We were called bastards or you fuckers by somebody we know so well. Yeah, then he screwed up and said the wrong thing. I know he did. Yeah, last week when we talked about the graphic that was used for Stern, where they did Guardians of the Galaxy that looked like the 80s, and then Jersey Jack basically is the same graphic for their dialed-in new software release. And everyone's like, ooh. And then they're like, oh, they stole it from Total Nuclear Annihilation. They stole it from TNA. It was all stolen from TNA. And I was like, I've seen that exact same little checkerboard pattern thing somewhere else. and I was convinced it was one of the IFPA videos.
    40:37
    So Josh sent us an email, like, here you go, fuckers, and it's a clip of an IFPA clip that kind of looked like the 80s. They made it look like it's a VCR with problems with the tracking and all that stuff, but it wasn't the video I remembered, and it didn't have the checkerboard pattern. So I went to the IFPA YouTube page, and I found the video, and I sent it to Josh. Like, no, this is the one I was talking about. Why would he call us fuckers? I don't know. Well, maybe because we made fun of him. I don't know. Well, he definitely still swears more than me when I play. Apparently, I drop a lot of F-bombs now, but... All right. Keep up the good work.
    41:17
    So that was the sanctum. Congratulations to Jim and Mark. Ran a great tournament. Yeah, great event. Woo-hoo!
    41:25
    Eventually, we're going to have the owner of the Viper on our show soon. Okay Yes So when do you get bored of Tim Sexton on the podcast? Well, I heard Well, the problem is, you know, we told Raymond that he was now our second highest and you had to come back and try to bump your pad, your lead more That's what the whole thing was about Well, I didn't see him in Connecticut I know It's been a whole week since I saw him I don't know what his deal is I don't know, he's not flying across the country every week Yeah, he didn't want to be first You want to be king of the firsts. Yeah. And Zach's going to pick up a little bit of walkers maybe from this. So, you know, that gap between first place and third place where he's sitting isn't too big, but it might get a little bit wider.
    42:16
    So I think Stern did something else this week. What did Stern do? Something. Oh, they released information about a game. Come and get your love. Have they announced what songs they're going to put on this? Supposedly there's two 80s or two whatever songs from the movie that will actually be put on there. I haven't heard what they are. I haven't heard it either. Have you, Tim?
    42:44
    No, I haven't. I don't know. I don't know anything. There's going to be three versions, of course, the Pro, Premium, and LE.
    42:53
    You get the Bash Group. Yeah. What's some of the names? The Iron Tallica. or Metallica Man. That's another John Borg. And we got the thing I'll say, though, from what I saw, the Groot toy, it actually has like a motorized mouth mech. Yes. Like Rudy from Funhaus. So that was a little interesting.
    43:17
    And four balls came out of his mouth. Yeah. And if you have the premium or LE, he has arms. Yes. And three magnets instead of one. Mm-hmm. Ooh. Yes. or magnets better on pin side.
    43:32
    More magnet, more fun, more fun. What did you guys think? I'm waiting. I'm going to wait and see. I'm not even going to guess anymore. Yep, wait and see. This is what I think is going to happen since this was kind of made on a limited time frame that it's going to come out with bare bones code and we're going to have to wait even longer than this to figure out if it's a fun game or not.
    43:55
    Well, maybe ROM will be playing in a couple weeks and we'll get a behind-the-scenes report. Well, he will know how the layout plays. I don't know if he'll know how the code plays much because it may be early. Because Aerosmith was John's last game, right? Correct. And that came out this year in 2017? Yes. But it was way done earlier. It was actually done at Expo. Right. So maybe Lonnie's been working hard since then and he's got to go. I'll start. I'm sorry.
    44:28
    Sorry. It all completed. Wait a second. He copied Kiss to make Aerosmith, so he'll copy Lyman's software from Metallica to make... Oh, okay, gotcha. It's all good now.
    44:45
    I have no idea. We'll see when we play it. Did they announce any streaming dates or anything with Jack? No, not yet. He said it was going to be in a couple weeks. So, yeah, so hopefully we'll see that. I assume he'll get the debut stream, as usual. Of course he will, yes. I like watching those. You get much more of a sense of what the game is through watching that than you do seeing some play field pictures and whatever they do for that IGN video, that little 30-second thing where it just kind of shows features. Well, I do like it because you also see, you know, you see Josh there, you see Keith, you see that, you know, John will be probably there. Yeah, you see what it's like to exploit the rules early. when Keith plays it.
    45:29
    Hi, Keith. I have a question. I keep reading that it said something about the Guardians of the Galaxy also uses the Denise-y lock. Oh, it has a ball that hides behind the drop target? Yeah. If it's the clip I saw, that's the same thing they did in Star Trek. Yeah, it's Star Trek. It just breaks it up so when the drop target comes up. So that's not the Denise-y lock, unless there's some clip that shows something else that I missed. No, there was a simplified way of saying it. It's really not the Denise-y lock because Denise-y has three drop targets, and multiple walls can be locked in there. Yeah. I mean, that's what I call the Denise-y lock. This is a Star Trek. I mean, balls getting stuck behind drop targets, that happens on, like, every Star End game from the 80s. So, you know. Centaur.
    46:16
    Centaur. So no one invented that, really. That was just a happy accident. Happy accident. Oh, yeah. So let's see, what else do we have on the docket here? Okay, so... I got a mini Tim rant at some point. Okay, I got to write that on the notes, Tim. Oh, write that on the notes. Rant. We might save it positive. A coming. No, we don't. Well, yeah, we'll save the negativity for later. We'll keep it positive now.
    46:42
    You're in the end! That wrong game. So, we haven't talked to Tim since our stream together when I came out to Ron's to level zero.
    47:00
    And Tim got upset at us. I know. He was trying to do a tutorial and we were screwing up. No, we were screwing up. We were laughing at him. Well, that too. Yeah. But afterwards, he had a great game. It took me a long time to show what I wanted to show and dialed it. There's the whole always be canceling philosophy I've dialed in. You can only be canceling if you do things exactly right at the beginning, but if you do that, then you have to always be canceling. If you want to know more, check out the final version of the tutorial I put on my TibBalls YouTube page. One thing I forgot to mention was that you light SibCards by beating a mode, not just an ending. You have to beat it. Speaking of streaming, Ron. Yeah. What are you streaming this Thursday? Today, when the video comes, our podcast comes out. I don't know if I'm streaming anything. What? I might start moving the date. I'd rather do it like on a Saturday or something. Trying to do it during the week is a pain in the ass. I spent so much time editing this podcast and all that. I have to get home from work. I have to set up all the cameras, make sure everything works. before we go on. And then invariably the game breaks down while I'm playing it. I did dialed in this past Thursday. Yes, you did. Kind of a spur of the moment thing because the new code came out on like Wednesday. So I played the new code and sucked for like the first 54 minutes. But then after that, the last game I played, I got to the Chaos in Quantum City, which I had never seen.
    48:40
    So that was pretty cool. you see my reaction, literally I have no idea, like I know there was a thing called Chaos in Quantum City and I knew it was after completing a lesser number of disasters. I think it's six. Yeah, it's six. So when the phone was just ringing for no reason, when I wasn't ready for multi-ball and I hadn't hit the QED guy, I kind of figured like, oh this must be it. So, and that was pretty intense. It's basically just hit ramps, but we're going to flash the lights like crazy and we're going to attack your flippers and keep knocking them out as you're trying to hit ramps. Because it's chaos. It makes perfect sense. I enjoyed it. I didn't hit many ramps, but it was fun.
    49:22
    And that's on the Slam Tilt podcast YouTube page. So if you want to check that out, Slam Tilt stream. If you want to see comedy of the first 54 minutes of me sucking bad, you can watch that. And if you want to see an actual good game, go around the 53-54 minute mark and you'll see a good game at dial-down.
    49:42
    So look on Facebook. Watch for Ron's posts about when he's going to be doing his next stream. And I have to talk to you about one other thing about streaming. Uh-oh. You need to activate to notify people when you're streaming.
    49:57
    No, he doesn't need to do that. No, I don't. You do. You need to do that. No, I have it on there. Me and Zach both have it on our phone saying, tell us, and we don't get any notifications. That makes no sense. That's not his fault. I think it is. I think it's not. It's either Twitch themselves or it's you. Yeah, because me and Zach both looked at our settings. We're like, he goes, I'm on, I'm on, and we both don't see it. We got nothing. Nothing. When you click the follow button, it has a turn on notifications for that channel specifically. Yep. And if that's on, you should get it. I get them.
    50:34
    You got it for the last one on Thursday? Yeah. It comes up on my phone, and there's like 12 other channels streaming, so I don't really pay attention, but it's there.
    50:45
    So, Ron, while you started your first round on Saturday, something was posted on Facebook and went like that. Yeah, the CoinHop Warehouse, which I'm now following, because you never know when Fida might pop up. I know. he posts his games for sale out there. And Coin-Op Warehouse has been around forever. Years. At least 10, 15 years they've been around. And on Saturday, around 10.30, he posts Dragon Fist for way less than what I paid for mine. And a nicer shape. Oh, cabinet, way nicer shape. Back glass, perfect. No, the back glass wasn't perfect. Look at it. There was the major crackling on the top, like there always is. Better than yours. Yeah, better than mine, but it was still a typical Dragonfist back glass. And there was something weird with Bruce Lee's face.
    51:44
    Yeah. I think it had some kind of wear mark there. $1,850. It was gone in a couple hours. No, no, no, no, no, no. It was gone in 20 minutes. I would have grabbed it. Oh, I saw that afterwards. I was like, son of a freaking bitch. You would have grabbed it. Yeah, I would have grabbed it. Dragon Fist 2? I want to be cool like you.
    52:05
    We'd have the ultimate head-to-head. We have head-to-head Dragon Fists, head-to-head Stargazers. These are ridiculously rare games.
    52:15
    So we both need Cheetah. We have head-to-head Cheetahs. See, there's a heads-up challenge I can get behind. See? Well, you can't have a heads-up challenge on those games because you can't just cheese it. You can't just drain on purpose to complete your goals like you can in the new games. Right. No, this leads into my Tim rant, because this is the best time to do it possible. Because people were complaining that, oh, it stinks that it's faster to drain to get the super jackpot on Ghostbusters, or you've got to drain to get TIE Fighters. That's no fun. I say, no, that's what gets me on the plane and flies me out to the Heads Up Championship, because I studied all those things, and I looked through all sorts of different ways to play Ghostbusters and figured out when does the skill shot tree reset and when it doesn't and blah blah blah and yeah, that all came in handy. I mean, if Carl knew what I knew in Ghostbusters, he may not have lost the Ghostbusters match against Raymond. He could have won the tournament right there.
    53:18
    Doesn't he know that there's a glitch that if you drain out of a mode, you don't lose your mode progress and your skill shot tree, but if you tilt out, you do? Doesn't he know that? Those people know that, you know, draining's the fastest way to light your super jackpot at Ghostbusters? We'll have to ask them in two to three weeks. That's the good part. That's what I liked about the Heads Up Challenge. It finally gave me a chance to use all that stupid useless rules knowledge I have in my head about, like, what's the fastest way to do something on a game. And on a bad game, too. Yeah, and that's what speedrunning's all about. People act like there's no precedent for this either, but I would advise you to look at the world records for games you played growing up on consoles and see what kids half your age are doing now to get to the final boss in time you didn't think was possible. Like using warp zones and stuff like that? No, just speed running. That's what I mean. If you're doing a speed run of Super Mario Bros., I would assume you're going to go to the warps. Oh, yeah. You just completely bypass.
    54:29
    I mean, I would assume that's what you're going to do. Better than that, the one on, I think it's Ocarina of Time by Narcissa Wright, where she explains that the way that the game loads the next scene is it counts up, but if you move the camera in a way you can warp to past Ganondorf from one of the temples and just skip hours and hours of the game to get to the final battle. did he just geek Klingon his geek meter and it's just it's at full max it's at 11 right now it's at 11 it's at a full 11 geek level I thought he was talking English for a few seconds and we're in right to Klingon so I'm thinking at some point we could literally have I don't know how we'd work this with the semantics but me and you have a lot of the same games. Yes, yes we do. I mean, if Stern wants a head-to-head challenge... In Rochester? We can do ACDC head-to-head. Big Game, Stargazer, Stars... Spider-Man? Spider-Man. You could have... I mean, if they want the Stern heads-up, there's still Star Trek that's getting sold, so no.
    55:48
    I think that would be cool. I would love some of the older ones. Harlem Globetrotters. Harlem Globetrotters, yeah, but that's not a stern, so they might not like that.
    55:59
    Well, yes, could do that at the bar. But that would require moving games like a really long distance. Like I'm doing right now? Well, yeah, you're opening a bar. That's true, and I'm moving all the games. I've got six in the bar already. And what would they be? Right now it is Stars, Medieval Madness Remake, Harlem Globetrotters Stargazer Sword of Fury and I know I'm missing one so you're taking all your good games out of your home collection and bringing them to the bar is what you're saying for everyone's enjoyment and pleasure and I gotta bring more another seven are going there Jesus Christ okay and a ball bowler and some guys Galaga It still hasn't screwed up for me. Yeah, yeah. It has reset problems, but it won't break when Bruce uses it. Stop. I'm sorry. I apologize for it working. Yeah, I know. I misled you. But the coolest thing is I'm doing, we're getting a lot of stuff for the bar, like bar signage. But I made my own signage this week. One good thing about where I work. I've downloaded a lot of the new PDFs from Stern, and I'm making jumbo posters out of their PDFs.
    57:27
    33 by 44 inch posters of PDFs of the newest Stern games Are you sure you want to admit that on the podcast Is that allowed It PDF It a normal you know I only making it for not for resale True. For display in your private location. You got it. Exactly. It's fair use, I think. I'm not a liar. I'm not making any money off of it.
    57:53
    I'm not selling it. I never will. But I'm putting up, I'm advertising for Stern. I'm actually going to be probably the best supporter for Stern. Yeah, maybe you could become a Stern Army location. That is the plan. That is going to be the plan. Ooh, you could become a private. You can enlist your private in the Stern Army, or you could become a private of the Stern Army.
    58:16
    A private? What the hell? What are the different ranks of the Stern Army? Greg just got promoted to private first class, so there's at least those two. So we don't even know? They're just making shit up? Well, maybe once people get officer positions and stuff, we'll see this really evolve. Who knows what their plan is? It's all a mystery. I don't know.
    58:40
    Tim, did you repair any of your machines this week? No. I had to put the legs back on my World Poker Tour and set it back up right, so I've been slacking on that. But I brought it to work a couple weeks ago. That's cool. And I put it – I just reset all the scores on it, except for the Grand Champion score and let my coworkers battle it out and get on the leaderboard. That's cool. Yep. It's for our little, like, work picnic thing that we did. Very cool.
    59:10
    Ron, any repairs this week? Yes. Okay. What do you got? Thank you. Oh, oh, you want to know what they are? Right before we went on the air, if you remember from our Dragon Fist tutorial, Our Dragon Fist stream, how the sound was very tinny.
    59:28
    Like, no low end at all, no bass. We figured it was probably the speaker was bad. And? So, what I did is I got a new speaker. I put it in a Stargazer, because I'm not wasting that in Dragon Fist, sorry. And I took the Stargazer speaker that I know works and put it in the Dragon Fist, and now the sound is all better. Did you change the settings so the sound is not playing like annoying? You know, I tried it. I turned the background sound off, and it just, there's too much of a, like, no sound happening. It's like you can tell the other sounds they made, the regular sounds are designed to be over the background sound. It just doesn't sound right with added on. Sorry.
    60:11
    So I'll have to come back and experience the full Dragon Fist sound package. Well, once I get the thing shopped out. The other thing is, I can't turn extra balls off.
    60:21
    Like, I think I mentioned before that the manual is wrong, and it is. The manual tells you to turn the dip switch off, and then another page it tells you to turn on, to turn extra balls off.
    60:32
    Either setting doesn't make a difference. You still get extra balls. Interesting. I don't know what's going on. So either the dip switch itself is bad. Mm-hmm, that's a possibility. I've had one. Possible, but no matter what I do, it doesn't turn that off. So what we need to do now is actually get you one of those alt texts, and just test it and see if it actually does turn off and on. We could. Remember, I'm also running the Scott special code. Oh, that's right. It could be Scott's fuck up. So you're blaming Scott already. I like that. I didn't say that. I didn't say that at all. What did you take from that, Tim? He's implying that Scott may have been behind it, you know. No, I'm not. See? Don't listen to these clowns, Scott. Don't listen to them. But if you feel that might not work, you might want to check it on yours and just make sure you can turn extra balls off because it ain't working for me. Your skull fits the program.
    61:30
    Or maybe you can just code a flipper code that turns off extra balls or something. That was my only repair.
    61:39
    Well, Zach came over last week and re-rubbered IJ. Oh, my. And he helped me pack up all the games. So all the games that are moving are all vertical, except for the ball bowler.
    61:55
    Did you text Zach, come over, bring rubbers? Bring our rubbers? A whole lot of them. Oh, my. See? I got them now going forward. Oh, no, it's rubbing off on me. It is. It's rubbing off on you like that. Too many podcast appearances. Yes. Number nine for you. Yeah, wow. So you have the games vertical. So you're not shipping them assembled or anything. No, no, no, no, no. Just checking. Nope, I moved two this morning. I threw one in Kathy's car this morning and one in mine, and we went over to the bar this morning at 730, and I threw two inside. So there's six there now.
    62:36
    Oh, and Paragon's there. That was the last game that's at the bar. Everyone needs a little. Taking all the good games out. What am I going to play when I'm at your house? this is going to be a big game right now and Nineball and Quicksilver and there's a lot of games Centaur's there and Hotdoggin's there and Timeline's there, Black Spider-Man Timeline, Monopoly Lord of the Rings I've got to work on Demoman next because I've got that guy's Demoman. Here's the funny thing. Okay remember I was telling you about last week how I could not get into secret mode for Demoman. You were telling us that the Switch Matrix was fucked up and that the one trigger was actually saying it was the shooter lane. That is right. I remember this. That is right.
    63:26
    It's running P2 software. Is that Prototype 2? Yes. Ah. There's actually different sounds for the game. There is no secret mode in this game. There's no secret. You cannot squeeze the triggers. I was reading the readme file. The prototype did not allow that. Only P5 and up allowed the secret trigger jackpots. So it actually makes the game a lot harder.
    63:54
    And the sounds are totally different in the game. I'd actually like to take a video of it, and people could see the difference. But it is funny. But you still get the... All right, so when are you putting the real software in there? Jack's got the EEPROMs on order. All right. That is a good thing. Because you probably need all the sound he prompts, too. Yes, we do, because everything changes with it all the time. Yeah. But there's some cool sounds, and an even different animation, too. Is it cooler? I think it's different. I actually like the sounds for Agmag, because, you know, Agmag is, like, on normal. It's like, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. This one's like, it's like a space, like, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da. It's just, that's a different tone and different cadence, and it's really different. And me and Zach were looking at each other like, I go, what do you think of the sound? He goes, I'm kind of digging it. I'm like, yeah, me too. So we were both enjoying it. And if you want to hear these sounds, there's a thing called Pin Mame. You can load the ROMs into there and see what they sound like. Yeah, if you want to navigate Sound Commander mode, which can be confusing. Oh, very bad. Or you just hack one of the actual visual pinball tables as Demoman to accept that ROM and then just play it. Yeah, there's ways to do it. Oh, yeah.
    65:10
    I got my seat... My first yawn. I got my seat waist back glass. It wasn't your first yawn, but yes. It is perfect. I just need to get a trim. I need to get some trim.
    65:20
    Oh, my. And I tried on my 3D glasses. Looked cool. I sold the glasses when I wanted to go see Thor this weekend.
    65:30
    And you're making that on the air? Yeah. What are you going to do? Track me now? Thief? Yeah. Stealing 3D glasses. I'm encouraging everyone to do it so they can see their games in 3D. So you're encouraging people to see Thor steal the 3D glasses. Yes. Okay.
    65:49
    Wouldn't you, Tim? No, I would never steal anything, and definitely not admit it on a podcast. What? Admit what? What? I'm not stealing podcasts. I don't know. Never mind.
    66:02
    Okay. Tim. Hey. I hear something's going to be coming up soon next year. Soon? Okay, that is a Bruce-ism if there ever was one. There is one. That is brilliant. Something coming up soon next year that may or may not be six months away.
    66:18
    I want people to know that they should mark off their calendars May 18th to 20th. I want them to do that first, and then I want them to go to YouTube and type in, like, Papa 2 and just watch and see the glory days of Papa in New York City.
    66:41
    And I can't say anything else at the advisement of my partners. Wow. Yes. Hopefully, you know, we get special VIP treatment.
    66:53
    Well, depends what it is. I know what I'm saying. I've been saying. I just hope, you know. Whatever it is, we get it for free, right? Yeah, I think so. I can't say anymore, so maybe you will. Maybe you won't. Partners. I wonder what's partners. Partners, wow. There's no mob influence, right? There's nothing like that? No, in New York City, no. Okay, not at all. I forgot about it. I'll break your kneecaps if you say otherwise. Okay. Okay, we'll move on. But again, mark your calendars. Yep. May 18th through the 20th. I bought another game, guys. Oh god Okay what Is this intervention time No no no no not me I just brought back another one You expensed it to the business right It's like you didn't buy it at all Exactly I'm bringing one back Okay what is it It's a bally So it's a bally I've owned Centaur I still have that Blackjack No, but that would be definitely the kick.
    68:01
    I couldn't pass up the deal. So what other ones have I sold? He still has Hot Dog in. Yep. Did you ever run a future spa? I have. Do you now run a future spa? I do. Oh, that didn't take too long. Nope. It's back. I got to pick it up in a couple weeks.
    68:24
    Well, congratulations, Bruce. That's probably my favorite Valleywide buddy. What? Yes, it's true. That's third on my list. Wow. Well, I haven't grown to appreciate hot-dogging yet. Paragon, number one. Hot-dogging, number two. Future Spa, number three.
    68:43
    Embryon, number four. And then Space Invaders, a far and distant fifth. Ron, what is your top five? I could go with that same order. I might interchange future spa and hot dogging Tim take Ron's and exchange embryon with hot dogging what you're putting embryon above hot dogging yes nah wow I don't think so come on that's too one dimensional you hit them on the upper right side and you hit the targets with the upper right flipper and that's all you do the whole effing game yep boring eventually the lights turn on Oh, God.
    69:26
    Just so boring. It is. All right. I think it's time for Face Off. Oh, no, no. We have our judge. Why do you always get, like, 22-year-old judges for this event? I've been wondering that. You just get guys who are so young.
    69:46
    Like, I wasn't there when these games came out. But I decided this time I'm going to put on a different hat. I'm going to put on a few different hats to judge these games. I'm not just going to go as Tim Sexton, the tournament player. I'm also going to pretend I'm an operator, looking at both of these games as they come out and deciding which one to buy. The moneymaker. And I'm also going to do one of Tim Sexton, the millennial out bar going, you know, hip young person who doesn't play much pinball, but wants to put their coins in some games and just is going by, what he feels like has aged well and looks cool now.
    70:26
    And I'm also going to go with regular subsection. So I'm going to use a few different hats to judge these this time. Hopefully it's more interesting.
    70:32
    I am fucking so lost it's not even funny. I think I... Lost, though. He's going to probably give us different answers depending on which Tim it is. Well, yeah, but it'll consolidate into one answer. And I think it'll be more... You'll see. It'll be better. Because, don't forget, the one is listening. Yeah, but that's all right. Get him on the podcast and have him do the bid if he wants to contest any of these answers.
    70:59
    He pulled out. I'm not scared to try to second guess what his judgment is on these games. I'm going to go all in on this new strategy I've invented. Wow. All right. So it is 1997, Sega versus Williams. For Ron, he got Williams. I got Sega.
    71:22
    Sega. So, Ron, Circus Voltaire, Medieval Madness. You're looking at the other. They are NBA Fastbreak, Medieval Madness, Circus Voltaire, and No Good Gophers. That is what I have to select from. Then I have Star Wars Trilogy. Starship Troopers, The Lost World Jurassic Park, and X-Files.
    71:53
    I got this so easily. It's nothing funny. I know Tim likes X-Files, so this is going to be a tough one. I got to go right for the jugular first. Okay. So I get the first one. Yep. All right. Medieval Madness. Ooh.
    72:09
    I mean, do I really need to say any more than Medieval Madness? the coolest, one of the coolest toys ever made, the Exploding Castle, made by the great designer Brian Eddy. One of his, what, three classic games he did in a row. He was three for three. And then he left. Why? He's just like Steve Kirk. He's three for three. Three great games. This is great humor and obvious takeoff on Monty Python. similar rule set in some ways to Attack from Mars you just destroy the castles instead of the ships but with extra added features it's like Attack from Mars on steroids it's just a great playing game of course it's just an all time Williams classic it is medieval madness really I don't need to see it anymore I yield the floor now I'm going for Tim's loyalty in one of the best tournament games that he knows about.
    73:12
    He doesn't want to play no stinking Medieval Madness because that's just chopping wood. You want to play some X-Files, Tim, don't you? Because that's not chopping wood. It is not chopping wood at all. Not as bad as Medieval Madness. You get the great Photoshop artwork. You know, this is when actually Sega really got into the good Photoshop artwork.
    73:41
    Boy, you sound so surprised. Like, you get a file cabinet in the middle of the play field. You get the spell FBI.
    73:51
    And their defense, it's painted Photoshop artwork. Come on. Be honest here. It is, yeah. You get two kick-ass ramps. You get an alien in the upper left-hand corner. You get Scully and Mulder's face plastered all over this game.
    74:08
    You get to know the rules inside out like the back of your hand, Tim. You enjoy this game so much, you know you want to own one one of these days.
    74:19
    I yield the floor. All right. FBI. One quick question to clarify the FBI. That alien in the back, does that light up? Does that, like, dance around? It's almost like a baby in the womb. It does the old little thingies. Yeah, that's about it. The little thingies. It swims a little bit.
    74:42
    That's about it. It's not a mech. It's just a visual. It's like looking at greatness. It's green dome flashers. Even better stuff. So it's just, oh, it's magnificent. And it's just, got it. It's done. It's designed by Rob Hootrode. Let's see what Rob's also designed. Let's see. He designed Apollo 13, Golden Q, Golden Eye, Independence Day, Pinball Magic he helped on, South Park, and Viper Night Drive. See, so you can see the classic games he's been making. And who did software on this? Oh, my favorite guy.
    75:36
    Luckily, he had help with Oren Day. He had luck with Oren Day. And music by Brian Schmidt of Black Knight 2000 fame. So, you know, we're not alone. We're not alone with this. I yield the floor.
    75:53
    All right, so we're going to go with hat number one. I'm an operator in 1997 and I only have as much money as a new pinball machine costs not enough for two machines so I'm looking at Medieval Madness and I'm looking at X-Files and I'm going seriously, is this a joke? this art package is terrible but wait a sec back then people going by games that you actually wanted that were on TV and everything what's Medieval Madness? it's not even a freaking you know for an op they're looking at what they can put on location and people are going to drop coins in and back in 97-98 X-Files was hot yes that's true I'm also looking you know maybe X-Files would earn more I mean this is an unlicensed game X-Files is hot I have a feeling that when they invent streaming internet people will get back into the show again so it might hold value for a long time And movies. Movies in the future that are coming out. Right. But then I just saw the X-Files movie. When did that come out? Oh, later. Okay. So I didn't see that turn yet. So, you know, I was still like, oh, okay. You know, this shows a lot of potential.
    77:09
    But, man, I don't know. I hear those, like, promotional videos. I hear the sounds on it. I look at an X-Files that's supposed to be all lit up, and it's not lit up. There's no lights on the game at all. and, you know, finally I decided, it's going to be a close one. I'm going to say, you know, it's... Go either way. Showcase cabinet.
    77:34
    Now, today, I'm a young millennial and I'm walking into a bar and I'm looking at the games and, you know, I probably have a little bit of knowledge and I know that Medieval Madness is like the number one game of all time. So, of course, I'm playing it, but I just watched all of X-Files on Netflix And, you know, I say, yeah, I'll put a quarter into it. So, you know, it's close there, too. So then we'll get into the third hat, which is Tim as, you know, myself with my fully formed pinball opinions. And, yeah, X-Files.
    78:08
    Are you kidding me? It doesn't even light up. It doesn't even tell you what mode you're in. It's just like it doesn't make sense. You love this game. You forgot one detail. When you're in that bar and you put that quarter in to play X-Files, the cabinet is going to be broken anyway.
    78:24
    Doesn't work. I can't make the ramps. Yep. File cabinet broken, can't make the ramps. That's X-Files. Yeah. No, I'd pick it over Medieval Madness in any tournament because I'd watch people shoot the cabinet all day and go, ha, ha, ha, I'm going to shoot the ramp because it has more flow this way and it's more fun, and I'll probably wind up with the same amount of points anyhow because the points don't really seem to be too important on the game. Just everything's 250,000. Every single shot's 100,000. Then you just add points to it or something. I don't know. It's a weird rule set. Medieval Madness knocks it out of the park. One of the greatest games of all time. It wins this competition. One point. Oh, yes.
    79:09
    Your pick, Bruce. Starship Troopers. Recon level one. Three flippers, including a first, a mini flipper next to a regular flipper.
    79:22
    Good movie. A cult movie, actually. This truly is a cult movie. You know, think about when you go back and think of Starship Troopers, you think of beautiful Denise Richards.
    79:34
    Hold on. I got to pause this for a few seconds. I got to go into the bathroom for a few seconds. Oh, I'm sorry.
    79:42
    Great flow. Good multi-balls. you get a thing that pops out almost like the trolls on medieval madness you get a big bug bug fun game good soundtrack good integration with a pinball machine with a good theme very popular plays great good dmd showcase cabinet again i yield the floor All right. So, to go against Starship Troopers, I will pick the Pat Lawler classic, No Good Gophers.
    80:22
    I'm sorry. Great, great golf theme that they kind of ripped off from. God, they've cheated off. But still, we have Gophers and golf, and probably ripped off from Caddyshack. But it has the jump, the slam ramp, one of the coolest features ever in a pinball game. Unless you're operating it. The ball will go airborne into a hole for a hole-in-one shot.
    80:50
    Great flow. You have the gophers that come up and taunt you. That you can hit with the ball and shut them up temporarily. It has just as much flow as a pileholder game ever had, really. Just a Williams classic. Great humor. Very funny game. Great playing game. Good artwork. Has a real back glass. One of the last games, well, until all these Ellies came out, that had a real back glass.
    81:22
    I yield the floor. All right. once again I'm an operator in 1997 and I'm looking at these games and I'm deciding which one to get now Sega's once again gone out and decided hey we're gonna get a real license we're gonna get a hot movie called Starship Troopers because you know why not we already did Star Wars we might as well do the movie that's ripping off Star Wars just to cover all our bases and they got it and what I guess it has good flow. I don't see it working a lot, but, you know, I didn't know that at the time. I saw it had multi-balls. I saw it had all this custom speech. So it was extremely colorful. It matches the carpet at my Chuck E. Cheese that I operate out of.
    82:15
    Because it's basically just the green, blue, red, yellow, and extremely nauseating amounts. I don't like the color scheme on this game. And it's all about the color, too. I don't know if this really matches the movie or why they did this.
    82:32
    The more you know. I'm looking at Gophers, and I see, you know, a lot of colors, but at least this kind of has a consistent blue theme, and it's got that cool hole-in-one shot. I really want to see how that works. If I can get up there and what it does. I'm a little worried that that's going to break. You know, that's the sixth slam ramp. Except slamming into the playfield, I don't know. So, yeah, I don't know. I think it looks nice, though. I think Go Good Go-Friends is a nice-looking game. It's got that more tastefully done with the art and stuff. And I think that whole upper playfield looks cool, and I think people will want to play it and shoot for that hole-in-one shot. Now, today, if I went into the bar, I would see that Starship Troopers wasn't working.
    83:19
    What? Come on. Those were pretty reliable. Were they? Yes. I don't see them around a lot. Oh, no, they didn't make many of them. They didn't. Yeah. They're not really out there. But no good gophers. I feel like that style of, like, Caddyshack humor really feels like it's my dad's humor. You know, it doesn't feel cool anymore to have golf jokes. It's not really an activity young people do as much unless they're from rich families and they wear boat shoes everywhere.
    83:58
    First of all, it has that side riff and it has that hole-in-one shot. And it makes cool sounds and I think the spinner award's cool, so that part's alright.
    84:08
    And then playing it... God, I almost never get a chance to play Starship Troopers, unfortunately. But I've played a decent amount of No Good Gophers and there's stuff to like and there's stuff to hate about it. The bugs in it are stuff you can hate, especially if they screw you in a tournament. It really shouldn't be used in any tournaments because of all the bugs. But then again, Starship Troopers is also orbit all day, so it also shouldn't be used in a tournament. So I think, you know, no tournament-wise, I'm going to lean towards No Good Gophers.
    84:40
    And then with all the other stuff, I think Nogat Gophers will edge out Starship Troopers by a little bit, but I think Starship Troopers is definitely, you know, better than X-Files in the way that it's all been executed and more fun to play and communicates with the player a lot better.
    84:59
    So, Nogat Gophers wins. Another point for Williams. Woo-hoo! Yes! Got to go for the clean sweep. Ah, let's see. well, since I've won but to go for the I want to sell something here we go, ready? my game is going to be NBA Fast Break you have baskets that's right, our scoring is going to be actual basketball scoring easy to understand none of this ridiculous complex billions and billions of points crap we literally have baskets just like real basketball score two pointers two points three pointers three points you have an interactive back glass with a flipper where you can shoot baskets very cool feature you have cool artwork uh most importantly you have the guy from nba jam and world cup soccer doing the call outs so it's just It sounds awesome. You have really cool 90s basketball trivia that is completely outdated now, but still, it's another great feature.
    86:15
    Great modes. You have a defender who can move around and block your shots They trying new things exciting new things here at Williams Oh yeah and it has orange flippers you know because of basketball That's great, too. Just a great George Gomez design.
    86:35
    I give you NBA Fast Break. I yield the floor. Okay, we're going to a title that is the best theme ever. it's been done four times we're going with Star Wars trilogy you get an actual canon you get a canon because you have X-Wings you get all three Star Wars movies, you get a three ball and a four ball multi-ball you even get trivia based off and not stupid trivia like NBA you're not going to remember 20 years from now you're going to know your trivia from Star Wars you get hurry up time challenges you get a heroic specialty shot sequences you get drop targets you get bumpers you get the showcase cabinet and you can play I forgot all the good things about Sega you get to play a six player game on all of these Sega games not no four player games not no stupid idiotic basic scoring I yield the floor quick question I have never played Star Wars trilogy Really? Never have? No, I've never seen it anywhere. Papa doesn't have one, do they? Yes, they do. They play every year. It's in Pimberg. Oh, well, I've never had to play in Pimberg. But is that really what the play field looks like, like in the back there? Yes, the drop targets.
    88:01
    Past those, where there's like the vertical up kicker. Like, what's back there? I see a post exposed next to the pop bumpers.
    88:10
    Oh, I see in the middle, yeah. I mean, that just looks kind of odd. I don't know. There's, because what do you shoot up there except for that one pop-up around the right? You got to get the force, the letters force. Yeah, the letters and force. So you're just shooting targets? Yes. Oh, that's fun. I love shooting targets. Just kidding.
    88:31
    Yeah, so, Operator. Okay, what are we doing? We're doing NBA Fast Break and Star Wars Trilogy. Star Wars Trilogy, hot license, you know. So I'm thinking, you know, all the other Star Wars, or there's only the one other Star Wars game so far, right? Two.
    88:48
    There's the Data East one, and what's the other one? Anakin. Anakin? No, I don't think that's how you say it. Is that Anakin's brother, Anakin? Yes, it's his half-brother. What do you call that company in Australia? I'd have to look up the name again, but there was another one, too. I guess there was another one by some Spanish guy. Yeah, for some other Star Wars game. But I know Star Wars is hot. I know people are going to like having Vader in there and having, you know, Han Solo or Luke Skywalker. So I know, okay, if I buy this game,
    89:25
    people will play it just by, you know, character recognition alone. It's got TIE Fighters on it. That's all good stuff.
    89:34
    NBA, though, this is the only licensed game that they did this year, I guess. Yeah, pretty much. really good franchise. Probably growing up at this time, I knew most about like the NBA and the scars of the NBA than I did about football or baseball or anything. So yeah, I'll say that's cool. As a kid, I would love at basketball. I think slam dunks are awesome. I remember just thinking the word slam dunk was cool and I'd want to play it. So yeah, as an operator, I don't know which one I would get. I know NBA definitely looks better. Today, I'd say if I went to the bar and I looked at Star Wars and I looked at NBA, I'd go, oh, NBA looks way cooler. I can put my high score initials in. I get the two and three points and everything's kind of like, you know, basketball related. And I think the corny trivia from the 94 season or 95 season is funny and fun. So I'd be fine with playing NBA Fast Break. And then as a player who's never played Star Wars, I mean, it looks bad because of that whole middle playfield area and how wide open it is.
    91:13
    I would even say X-Files looks better than this because at least X-Files had some flow to the shots. And besides the one, like, orbit that I guess Sega always has to put on their games, there doesn't really seem to be, like, a good flow shot. I guess there's just one ramp, but it... I don't know, it doesn't look that fun, I guess. I guess it can divert both ways. Who knows?
    91:35
    Someone knows. Yeah, this one's pretty easy. NBA Fast Break. Play it linked because that's an awesome feature. We have that at the Sanctum, the linked NBA Fast Break, so this is just so much fun. If you have an arcade today and you put linked NBA Fast Break together, I think you'll see a good response from people. They can figure out how to play it. It's pretty clear on it to tell you. So NBA Fast Break wins. Wow, Williams wins already. 3-0. Clean sweep.
    92:03
    Yeah. Pound it into submission. Okay, Tim, now you get to pick the next state. Random.org. What are we doing? 74 to 98.
    92:16
    Wait, you don't want to review Circus versus Lost World? Nope. No. No, you don't even want to review Circus? 3-0. That's all we're doing, three games. Alright I'll tell you my first impression of both of those games Just because I wanted to talk about these Okay When I first saw Circus Voltaire I said Holy crap why didn't they make more games that are like this This is amazing this looks so good That neon light in there That's awesome And when I saw Lost World Jurassic Park Was at someone's apartment And they said try to get a high score on it I haven't been able to beat the factory high score I said God freaking dang it I hate this game so much. The only way to score is to get the timing right in multi-ball and you gotta just play slower than slow to just time it right and you gotta watch that stupid magnet come down and grab the balls.
    93:10
    That one's a turd. Just wanted to get that off my chest. Lost World is a turd. Someone on Silk Forums was like, no, Lost World's great on your thread. I'm sorry, I disagree.
    93:22
    Oh, they were talking about the other Lost World. Escape from the Lost World. No, no. Oh, no. We were talking about the old Bally Lost World. They were thinking we were talking about this Lost World. Okay, this one's a bigger turn. Bally Lost World's great. Okay, so we disagree on that one, but okay.
    93:41
    Well, I'm looking at the Star Wars trilogy. I mean, is that the artwork, all those TIE Fighters? Yes. That looks terrible. Yes, it does. I mean, that looks really, really bad. It looks like they just took a shitload of the characters and dumped them all over the play field. Yes, best Photoshop you can do. Oh, my God. I never actually looked at it this closely. This looks terrible. Wow, the artwork for the new Star Wars looks awesome in comparison.
    94:12
    So, random.org, boy. Me, random.org. Random.org, 74 through 97. We're 96 at this point since we already did 97. I'm generating a random number between 74 and 97. You can click 90. So I get the first pick of this year.
    94:36
    Let's see what we have. Well, remember, you've got to put the manufacturers in. Then you get to pass or take it. So it's going to be Williams, Dana East, or Premier. Yeah, they're all around. We got the big three. Williams, State of East, and Premier. And I'm putting these in random.org? Yep. I'm picking the first one that comes out? Well, you're telling me the first one. I'll either say pass or go. Okay.
    95:06
    Premier. I will pass. Why can't I get that at East? Even that would be better. Shit. And what do I have now? What's the next one?
    95:18
    Williams. Oh, come on. This sucks hard Oh god Okay so for Premiere Hold on I'm looking it up now I'm looking it up Deadly Weapon Nudget Silver Slugger What's Nudget? Nudget's a reduction game Yeah I know Title Fight Vegas I just played Title Fight and Tim knows title fight too oh man yeah and everyone kept asking me how do you get the jackpot in multiball I said I don't I drain on purpose if I get a ball trapped on the right flipper in that multiball I don't I drain on a multiball on purpose that's how good for me it is at writing a rule set and I only have a couple good ones don't worry about it it's not that bad for you it really isn't it's only going to be diner funhouse Pool Sharks Radical Riverboat Gambler Oh, turd. Okay. Polar Games The Valley Game Show and Whirlwind. Wow.
    96:37
    I'm getting roasted like a nut here. Yeah, now you know how I feel. I have to laugh at this. I mean, Premiere hardly made any games in 1990 compared to Williams. Yep. Because they suck. Yeah, they were busy updating the solid-state electronics. Oh, 1990. Very good.
    96:57
    I think this whole, like, solid-state thing is where it's at. You get to enjoy street-level games. Yeah. The Eclectic podcast. The what? You broke up there. I said the Eclectic game podcast actually talked about the street-level games, and now you get to actually try to defend them. Yeah, good luck. We're all counting on you.
    97:21
    Hey, I know that reference. Yes, and the judge next week probably will not know all of your games, Ron. Oh, one more game I have also. Dr. Dude. That is Excellent Ray. Yep, that's right. That's the full title. It is. Dr. Dude is Excellent Ray. Now, you would have wanted Data East. yeah yeah if I had got these what wonderful things would I have gotten back to the future back to the future Simpsons Family Opera King Kong actually do we count that no one's ever played that yeah I think I can too and Total Recall but they didn't make any of them no but the Total Recall oh that's that cool one that looks cool. Yeah, cool cabinet, yes. The Siamese twin pinball design. So I would have been screwed anyway.
    98:22
    Oh, that total recall back glass is awesome. It is. I wish they just printed this just to do it. I know. You can see the texture on Arnold's forehead.
    98:33
    Oh, yeah. Okay, I have to look at this now. It's totally... No, wrong movie. And this outfit that the woman in the front's wearing is intense. Even if she's something like this. Free boobs?
    98:46
    No, not free boobs. Yeah. She's wearing like a strapless swimsuit top and then a top over it. Yeah, that's the lead lady. That's one of the lead ladies. Sharon Stone, for God's sake. Come on. And then the other one, who's the other leading lady, who doesn't really look like her, actually.
    99:08
    They didn't get it quite right on some of them. And, of course, Arnold, there must be a thing in his contract where he says he has to be in the artwork more than once. Yes. Because even in his back glass, he's here like three times. Four times. He looks angry. I look angry. Ah.
    99:26
    I like the guy with his eyeballs popping out. That's cool. Oh, that's gory. So, yes. Tune in next week when you watch William Slaughter premiere again. I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? Shut up. Okay, on with the mail.
    99:44
    Mail, ball, bag. I love them saying the mail, ball, bag. I'm glad you do. So we got an email from Ryan C. from the Head to Head podcast. I've talked to them a lot this week. That's right. And you've got to walk on your accent there, mate. He says, good day, lads. It's been a while. Aerosmith layouts, very similar to KISS, but plays different. Guardians of the Galaxy layouts, similar to Metallica, but will probably play totally different as well. You hope. What do you guys think of these recycled designs by Borg? The left fuel shot probably has the same one-to-one geometry, so it's going to feel exactly the same when you make the shot. Is that a good or a bad thing? Also, with all these complicated rule sets and overuse of the action button, Hello, Jeff Teolis. Hi, Jeff. Is Lonnie's relatively simple code now more desired?
    100:41
    No. So you would take the action button over Lonnie's code? No, I go back to Metallica and enjoy my game with Lyman's code. But he's busy with Batman, so he can't be doing code. So what do you think, Tim? First of all, I disagree with Jeff Teolis, just out of principle. because he's been hammering home this action button point for so long. I just want to say, look, it's fine.
    101:13
    There's actually a limit on Star Wars of how many things you can mash. You don't have to crush your hand. You can pound it at a reasonable pace, and you won't lose out.
    101:25
    Fuck. I don't know. I mean, I don't see it as a trend of disaster. I see there's one game that has overusage of it. But, yeah, other than that, it's fine. I don't even know what the point of my answer here was. I just wanted to make that point. You didn't want to make fun of Jeff Giolis. He's been going on about this for so long. I agree with him. Got to move on to the next topic, like how, I don't know, rehash the whole play field designs, third batted it or something. I don't know. Nope. I'd rather make one with an action button. The button does a good thing. It gives people a really bright thing that they can smash. Instead of the start button, that actually puts the ball into play. I'd rather smash the button than play the game. Yeah, and it gives me an option to use the auto plunger if I want to.
    102:23
    But the question is, what do you guys think of the recycled designs on my board? They're not recycled. There's one new thing on it. There's a drop target with the target behind it that holds the ball. And then there's a Borg's never done a magnet in the middle of the play field that you can't see, right? A hidden magnet. Look, it's all brand spanking new. Well, the funny thing was Head to Head Podcast talked about this last week, how Borg only makes two flipper designs.
    102:52
    I was like, no. All of the Borg early designs were all three flipper games. Tron. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. But, I mean, you think about it. Tommy, Guns N' Roses, Tales from the Crypt, all three flipper designs. And good ones. I'll say this about Borg. If his designs look the same, they don't shoot the same. On Steve Ritchie's games or on Trudeau's games, if I want to shoot that left ramp, I know exactly where the ball is on the right flipper to shoot the left ramp before I even play it. On Trudeau's games, maybe Kiss and... I mean Borg. Borg's games, sorry. on his games, maybe that center ramp and the right ramp look like they're in the same place on Kiss and Aerosmith, but you shoot them in different places on both flippers. I agree. And you can backhand the right ramp easier, even though it looks harder on Aerosmith.
    103:46
    And you can't do that as easily on Metallica, even though it kind of looks the same. Like, they look the same, but you've got to learn them all differently. They're all a little different in how they feed and how they return. There's just subtle things on all of them that kind of change it and make put you on your toes.
    104:02
    I don't feel like when I'm playing a game, I know the shots I'm ready. Whereas, like, you know, Steve Richie game, I know where that, you know, sweet ram shot's going to be.
    104:12
    Sweet. Oh, and he says something at the end we can all agree on. PS dialed in is awesome. It is awesome. Yeah.
    104:20
    That is the best game in a long time. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see a designer who came out, Maybe Keith will be that person, or maybe the New Jersey Jacks is on there, who just made a totally different layout every time. Yeah. And let's see what their hit rate is on, like, fun shooting games. Golden Girls, baby. Can't wait. I cannot wait for that. All right. Last email.
    104:46
    This is Jason from New Jersey. It says, hello, Ron and Bruce. I recently tried putting up my Tron for trade locally and on Pinside. I'm very surprised at the lack of interest in any trades after two weeks. I did not put a price on it in either ad because I was just looking to trade it. All I said was I am looking for games close to the value of a non-rounded Tron. Is this strange or is Tron not as popular as I thought it would be to others? Just curious as to what you guys think about lack of trade offers in it. It has Clippy since new and it had decals on the cabinet from the later run. thought this would be a very easy machine to trade.
    105:27
    The problem is all the new games coming out that people want, they don't want to trade in. Some people do want to trade. And that's not a problem. Like I want to trade for a Cheetah. Wink, wink, intent. Trade Cheetah with Brucie. Most people want to sell their games so they can get either a dialed in TNA, maybe a Pirates, even maybe Guardians of the Galaxy. Nobody wants to buy Star Wars, so. But, you know, they want to buy new stuff. And, unfortunately, trading doesn't get them anywhere.
    105:59
    So you kind of get a little screwed. You've got to find the right partner. And you're in a good location in New Jersey for that partnership, but you've just got to find the right guy to make a matchup with. And sometimes it takes weeks.
    106:12
    Is Tron a hard game to trade? I don't think so. Do you guys think that? No, I feel like people like Tron. They like modding it. That's for sure. You can take the mods out if you put them in and try to do it again.
    106:27
    What do you feel, Ron? You would think someone would want to trade something. Someone would make an offer or something. I'll trade you cash for it. Maybe when you put your trade bait out there again, you redo the ad, what you want.
    106:42
    Don't go for blind anything. Say, I want to trade my Tron for this, this, this, or this. Give people options. Yeah, it's like crafting your dating profile. You've got to give someone something to talk about, you know, to start the conversation. Exactly. I want to sell Tron. I love long walks on the beach. Just put that in there and get the conversation started. I want a No Good Govers in cash for my Tron, you know, or I want, you know, this and this, you know. I want a TNA for my Tron, you know, that kind of stuff. You want to get people to think about it.
    107:18
    TNA for a Tron. That's interesting. That'll get people talking, yeah. It's close value, actually, so.
    107:25
    Yeah, I would definitely just put in titles that you're looking for. That would be the key to try to make your trade bait easier. Because typically when you see the for trade ads, they're usually, like, interested in, and they'll put, like, the games they're interested in. Let's see how that goes.
    107:39
    Like, I'm interested in the Cheetah, and I want to trade either two games, and nobody wants to fucking trade me a Cheetah. Jam me a damn Cheetah. See, Bruce has been doing it. Both of you guys have been doing this on the podcast for months. It's not used. I know. And we're telling people what we want. I got the Star Trek LE. I'll trade that for a cheetah, plus cash. Every time you guys mention it, the value goes up, and no one wants to trade it anymore. They're just waiting until you get one.
    108:03
    Then that's the moment they sell. That didn't work, though, because Ron said he paid a lot of money for his dragon fist, and look what happened. It's now cheaper. Yeah, exactly. So, like I said, Star Trek LE. Trade for your cheetah, plus cash. Hot dogging. or Centaur. It's like, let's make a deal here. I'll give you this and this for this. But wait. There's more. I also have a spare ramp.
    108:32
    All right. I'm coming to the end of my limit. I think the 24 hours is finally starting to get to me. We'll see. Yeah, okay. I think it's time to pay some bills.
    108:45
    www.pinballlifter.com. Come check out my site. Use your brain, not your back, for your pinball lifter, helper, tilter, mods, and wheel kits. Jim from DeSanctum, I did not forget about you. I will contact you in a couple days about your wheel kit for your lifter. Come check out Facebook for The Silver Ball Saloon. Also check out our website, thesilverballsaloon.com. Hopefully at the end of this month, we're waiting on a couple more repairs before we can call the health department in and get our CO and our health department so that we can get our liquor license. and then I'll have some games in there and come visit me. Come spend money at my place.
    109:25
    Say hi to all the favorite podcasts we know and love. Hi, guys. It's gotten too long. You were also mentioned on the Eclectic Podcast this week, so thanks to those guys. Don't forget Flipper Fidelity, Mike Pupo, selling the best found kits for your pinball machines. And don't forget a pinball star, Joe Newhart. They sell Jersey Jack, Spooky, Houdini with American Pinball, and they also sell Chicago Gaming. Check those guys out. Don't forget, we don't make any money off them. Just trying to get some good guys some good deals.
    110:03
    And what the hell, let's see if I can get them all here. We got this flipping podcast, the Pinball Players Podcast, the Coast to Coast Podcast, the Head to Head Podcast. we have the pinball profile Jeff Teolis we have fun with bonus Steve Bowden Isaac we have the pinball players podcast with Jeff Parsons we also have this week in pinball website check it out that's where we get all our news when we do the podcast because he does it on Monday so I can just go there and get all the news that's this week in pinball.com and we also have our famous Tim Balls. Mr. Tim Sexton, thank you again for coming on.
    110:48
    We're going to start naming episodes after you. This is episode 9 with Tim Balls. Anything you'd like to plug, Tim? I'd like to plug Tim Balls on YouTube, Tim Balls on Twitch. He wants to plug the girl downstairs in apartment 1B. True. I was doing a little Tinder swiping during this episode. made some plans to meet up at a coffee shop on Sunday. That'll be fun. Oh, nice. Very cool.
    111:17
    Yeah, that's my plug. Yeah, hi, Tim. I'm Snooki. I'll bring the lube. Nice to meet you, Tim, too. So, tell me, what do you know about pinball?
    111:32
    You just gotta go up to them and say, Medieval Madness, AFM, The Shadow, and they're gonna go, huh? Check, please.
    111:40
    I would not make it to any second date if I did it that way. Yeah, thanks for having me again, guys. Number nine. Can't wait for number ten. Episode ten will be coming up. Who knows when. You guys have a full schedule of guest books, so it won't be for a while. It will be extended out. So don't win anything. I'll have to get better than third to get your attention now at a certificate or something. Yeah, we only have the winners on now. Yeah, I got to start getting firsts again. That's going to be tough. You're exempt because you've been outsold many times, but eventually we're going to demand you win something. All right, that's fair. Okay. I would definitely agree with that. Ron, do you have anything you want to plug?
    112:24
    Star Trek LE. It'll be put up for sale at some point when I get around to it. Scott, sorry I haven't been getting back to your emails on the code you want me to test. I've been very busy. I will get to it eventually. We are the Slam Tilt Podcast. You can find us on Facebook. Just search for Slam Tilt Podcast. Check out our YouTube channel where we have all our podcasts and our streams uploaded, including my latest dialed in 1.50 stream. Watch 50 minutes or so of terrible play for your enjoyment, and then watch the last, I don't know, 10 minutes of excellent play. We are also on Stitcher. We're on iTunes. Again, just search for Slam Tilt Podcast.
    113:16
    Correspondence can be sent to us at our email address, slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. This has been Episode 68, Rocky II. No, Edwin!
    113:31
    Thanks again to Tim Balls. Thanks to everyone out there at Podcast Lands. Say goodbye, Bruce. Now, I actually forgot the name of the person who I have to say goodbye to this week because he emailed me and said I should, and I can't find his post. So I'm going to go say goodbye to Joel Reeves and the guy who I said I will get you next week, I promise, and text me so I remember again. Well, I can give you a minute to find his name. I can't even find it. I've been looking for the past ten minutes. This is what happens, Tim, when you get old. Yes, it does. I forget stuff all the time, don't I? See? It'll only get worse. I'm trying to fuck this Fucking just dropped me Patty Say goodbye Ron Goodbye everybody Oh my my Can you move me Can you fly Oh my my You can move me If you fly Oh my my Parasite to keep you alive Oh my