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Episode 41 – Keith Johnson speaks his mind & Heighway Pinball Bankruptcy

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 58m·analyzed·Apr 30, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Keith Johnson on his 20-year career, deep rulesets, and The Hobbit planned final wizard mode.

Summary

Keith P. Johnson, a legendary pinball programmer with 20 years in the industry, discusses his career trajectory from Williams to Jersey Jack Pinball, his philosophy on deep ruleset design, and upcoming updates to The Hobbit including a final wizard mode called "There and Back Again." He addresses design decisions around complexity vs. casual appeal, ball save mechanics, and how player behavior influences ruleset iterations.

Key Claims

  • Keith Johnson has worked on software for two best-selling games of an entire decade at Williams

    high confidence · Host introduction at episode start

  • Keith Johnson was ranked fourth in the world at competitive pinball in 1999 while working on Revenge from Mars

    high confidence · Keith Johnson discussing his IFPA profile and competitive history

  • Keith Johnson has qualified in A division at Pinburgh every single year until last year, alongside only Elwin and Jorian

    high confidence · Keith Johnson discussing recent tournament participation

  • The Hobbit has over 40 modes when counting multiball stages as individual modes

    high confidence · Keith Johnson explaining the depth of The Hobbit mode structure

  • A final wizard mode for The Hobbit called 'There and Back Again' is planned and in development

    high confidence · Keith Johnson discussing roadmap for The Hobbit updates

  • Beast Multiball in The Hobbit is being rewritten by Joe Katz as of the date of this podcast

    high confidence · Keith Johnson stating 'Joe Katz is already, as of today, rewriting Beast Multiball'

  • Wheel of Fortune was incomplete when released and Keith Johnson wishes it were better

    high confidence · Keith Johnson discussing games he would tweak: 'Wheel of Fortune is the obvious example. I wish that were good.'

  • Star Wars project at Williams was limited to fewer than 20 people due to secrecy

    high confidence · Keith Johnson describing access restrictions to the Star Wars area

Notable Quotes

  • “You know, it's funny. Ever since I've been up here, I've never really been able to travel to as much stuff as I'd want to. You know, I like to compete more than I do, but I can't due to, you know, mostly family reasons and stuff like that, job reasons, that kind of thing.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~20:00 — Reveals tension between competitive play ambitions and work/family obligations, a common theme in the pinball community

  • “I don't want to do the exact same game every time. If you want Lord of the Rings 2, you should be playing Wizard of Oz because that's pretty much Lord of the Rings 2.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~50:00 — Explains design philosophy behind diverging from expected sequel gameplay, showing intentional creative choices

  • “There and Back Again is mostly going to concentrate on being the end of the 31 modes, I think. I don't know that it's going to tie all the things together, but there will be an end if you get through all 31 modes.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~70:00 — Confirms the planned final wizard mode and addresses community expectations for The Hobbit endgame

  • “Ball save is confusing to casuals... you can go, if you ever went, you know, in the 90s and watched people play games at a location, you know, people would lose the ball and they'd walk away.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~95:00 — Articulates design philosophy behind removing ball saves by default, citing casual player confusion and fairness concerns

  • “The reason fan playfields can work more than other fan playfields can work is if the shots do more interesting things.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~110:00 — Reveals technical design principle for making unconventional layouts work, showing sophisticated ruleset-to-layout mapping

  • “I mean, casuals shoot each shot once a game. And it's even less, you know, the more to the outside you get. Like on Hobbit, for example, a casual will shoot an Orbit on Hobbit once every two games.”

    Keith Johnson @ ~115:00 — Explains design challenges for casual players on complex layouts, informing decisions about what needs immediate visual feedback

Entities

Keith P. JohnsonpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyWilliamscompanyStern PinballcompanyRevenge From MarsgameThe HobbitgameWheel of FortunegameLord of the Ringsgame

Signals

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Keith Johnson celebrated 20 years in the pinball industry at the end of March (timing of podcast recording indicates this milestone recently passed)

    high · Keith Johnson states: 'I just celebrated 20 years in the industry. Wow. At the end of March.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Johnson articulates a design principle that casual players need immediate visible feedback from every shot, not requiring repeated shot combos, which influences how he designs playfields

    high · Keith Johnson explaining that casuals shoot each shot once per game and need entertainment 'right away, or they're not going to keep playing'

  • ?

    code_update: The Hobbit is receiving significant ruleset updates including a new star-rating system that affects scoring multipliers in wizard modes, and Beast Multiball is being rewritten

    high · Keith Johnson states Beast Multiball is being rewritten 'as of today' and describes new star-rating scoring mechanics being implemented

  • ?

    machine_intel: Final wizard mode for The Hobbit called 'There and Back Again' is in active development and will conclude the 31-mode progression

    high · Keith Johnson discusses 'There and Back Again' as a planned update and mentions it exists in encrypted code folders at Jersey Jack

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Players criticize The Hobbit for being too complex with 31 modes, preferring to skip directly to wizard modes rather than exploring the intended breadth of gameplay

    high · Keith Johnson states: 'people didn't like the variety like I thought they would. They just wanted to get to the end' and notes 'I get the Battle of Five Armies, and that's it'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.536

0:00
Music Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 41 and my name's Martin and with me, it's Ryan C. Another special guest, Marty, today? Oh, why not? Let's do it.
0:44
This guy has worked for Bally Williams. He has software programs to two best-selling games of an entire decade and now he works at Jersey Jack as a programming lead. Ladies and gentlemen, Keith Johnson. How are you going, Keith? Good. How are you guys doing? We are very good, mate. Really good to have you on. Yeah, just celebrated 20 years in the industry. Wow. At the end of March. That's all. Hard to believe. How did you get into the industry? How did I get into the industry? Well, back in the 90s, there was a lot of people hung out on IRC and Pound Pinball, including some industry people like Louis Coziars, Larry DeMar. And one day, this probably would have been late 97, Larry DeMar mentions that they're looking for programmers for slot machines. And I'm like, well, I'll be at Williams. You know, that's like getting closer, you know. So I was like, yeah, I might be interested.
1:44
So Expo that year, I came up there and sort of interviewed. I guess it was an interview, but it wasn't a real interview. I don't know exactly how to describe it. I was just going up there talking and seeing what it was like up there. I talked to Dwight Sullivan a long time, who was working on Champion Pub at the time.
2:07
Quite a few other people went out to lunch with him and then went to Expo. I was like, yeah, let me see how my job's going. I'm calling someone to start the year, get my reviews, see if they piss me off or not or whatever.

“I will admit that Pirates is a little bit of a risk with the character thing, but people don't have to pay attention to it if they don't want to.”

Keith Johnson @ ~125:00 — Acknowledges complexity criticism of Pirates of the Caribbean while defending optional complexity layers

The Wizard of Oz
game
The Simpsons Pinball Partygame
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
Star Warsgame
High Roller Casinogame
Joe Balcerperson
Joe Katzperson
JT Harkeyperson
Steve Ritchieperson
Keith Elwinperson
Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
Play Mechanicscompany
Martinperson
Ryan Cperson
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Johnson believes complex ruleset features should be optional or layered so casual players don't need to engage with them; character selection in Pirates of the Caribbean is described as optional engagement

    high · Keith Johnson states about Pirates: 'people don't have to pay attention to it if they don't want to'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Keith Johnson was ranked 4th in the world at competitive pinball in 1999 while simultaneously working as lead programmer on Revenge from Mars

    high · Keith Johnson discussing his IFPA profile and acknowledgment of top qualifier status at PAPA 3 in 1993

  • ?

    industry_signal: Designers at Williams worked in security-restricted areas for major IP projects; Star Wars had fewer than 20 people with access and included the CEO being denied entry

    high · Keith Johnson describing Star Wars area restrictions: 'there's probably like not even 20 people that were allowed in the Star Wars area due to secrecy'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Keith Johnson articulates that fan-shaped playfields can be made interesting through multi-functional shots with diverters, where most shots perform at least two different functions

    high · Keith Johnson explaining Lord of the Rings design principle: 'almost every shot can do at least two different things' with diverters creating varied ball paths

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: The Hobbit's initial reception among players was mixed; players found the 31-mode breadth overwhelming and preferred a more linear progression to wizard modes

    high · Keith Johnson stating 'people didn't like the variety like I thought they would' and noting that complaints focus on single-path strategies to final modes

  • ?

    product_concern: Wheel of Fortune was released in an incomplete state without planned features like jackpot rounds, question-mark wedges, and speed-up round, which Keith Johnson regrets

    high · Keith Johnson describing unimplemented features: 'There would have been some wizard modes... jackpot round... question mark spots... Round four was going to be the speed up round'

    • 2:19
    And so, of course, you know, the short story is that I got my review of my old job. I wasn't really satisfied, so I called Larry up and I was like, yeah, you know what, I think I'd like to come over there. So he made me an offer and, you know, a few weeks later I'm packing up all my bags and going to Williams. So what were you at the time? Were you a programmer? Yeah, I was a programmer. I worked at a company called, well then it was called Datatel. It's called Alucia now or something. They made software for higher education systems, basically systems that would run like student systems and financial systems, all kinds of stuff for like colleges and whatnot. So I worked on a tools team there which basically made the software that everyone else used to make the software that they sold, if that makes sense. What year was this? Was this in like 98, 99?
    3:18
    I started Williams in March of 98. So yeah, I was at Datatel for the end of 96 to the start of 98. So how does that transition into you working on, is it Revenge of the Mards? Is that the first game or first and last game that you ever worked on? Yeah, so I go over there to start on slots, obviously.
    3:40
    The slots are in the same hall as all the pinball stuff, so I'm definitely around all the pinball stuff and all the pinball people and going to lunch with them and whatnot.
    3:49
    And it was a really easy transition because I'd gone to enough shows and tournaments and stuff like that And hung out on RGP for however long I've been on there.
    3:59
    You know, it was really easy to go up there and, you know, because I knew a bunch of people already. You know, I rented a house with a couple other guys that, you know, I'd known for a while. And it was just, it was probably about the easiest possible transition I could have had getting up there and, or coming up here, I should say, and, you know, starting a new life and a new job. So I started in slots and was working on a couple of spinning reel slot machines. And about six months later, there was a massive reorganization. Basically, they told Larry to concentrate on pinball and not do spinning reel slots anymore. And that caused a big cataclysm in the company where, you know, some people were let go, some people were moved around. And Lyman asked Larry to have me come over and work on Revenge from Mars, which I happily did.
    4:59
    And so six months later, I'm working on Pitball. So were you one of the people that was sort of locked away in the secret room working on, not even Star Wars, but before it actually got released? I mean, what I'm trying to know is how publicly available was what you were working on at the time? Well, engineering is locked away in its own separate thing. And then the Star Wars project was a subset of engineering. So very few people like, you know, there's not that many people have access to engineering, you know, a couple dozen or whatever, you know, maybe more than that. But the Star Wars area was limited to like artists and, you know, Cameron and Duncan and J-Pop and mechanical guys. And so it was, you know, there's probably like not even 20 people that were allowed in the Star Wars area due to secrecy and all that stuff, including the CEO of the company, which is a very funny moment when he tried to get in there. It was very frustrated when he wouldn't be like that.
    6:07
    Now you were, like, I'm looking at your IFDA profile. Back in 1999 when you were working on Revenge from Mars, you were ranked fourth in the world at competitive pinball. Is that a product of the IFDA rankings being kind of quite new back then? Or were you like a kick-ass player and do you feel like it deserved that you were in the top five pinball players in the world at that time? Well, you know, I don't know. You know, it's funny. Ever since I've been up here, I've never really been able to travel to as much stuff as I'd want to. You know, I like to compete more than I do, but I can't due to, you know, mostly family reasons and stuff like that, job reasons, that kind of thing. So, I don't know. I feel like I was okay. I mean, if Bone and I won a doubles tournament, pop of five.
    7:00
    I was a top qualifier. The first tournament I went to, Papa 3 in 1993 in New York City, I was top qualifier in B division.
    7:11
    So, you know, I wasn't a slouch. I was all right. I still feel like all right. You know, up until this last year, I qualified in A division at Pimberg every single year. So what's the only other people who have done that were Elwin and Jorian. So I'll take that company.
    7:33
    And so how do you balance now playing in tournaments and coding? And we'll sort of obviously get to Pirates and sort of how much effort you need to put into that at the moment. So do you feel that you get to play enough?
    7:49
    Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm in the Chicago Area League, you know, so I play monthly there. There's other local tournaments around that it's hard to justify spending the time away from your family for pinball several nights a month or whatever. So I don't get out and do it because I've got to see my kids and stuff like that.
    8:16
    Yeah, once she gets older and more jaded, I'm sure I'll be getting out of that. I'm sorry. Right after you're five and a half and adorable, so, you know, it's all good. Do you have Pinball machines at home? Yeah, I have about 13 machines. Every game I was lead on, which would have been High Roller, Simpsons, Lorde, Poker, Wheel Fortune, Um, what else? Well, Pinsize says you have Blackwater 100.
    8:54
    Oh yeah, I actually sold that to Terry at Pimball Life maybe about a year ago and picked up a Comet.
    9:02
    Twilight Zone, Caveman, Cyclone. Yeah, I sold the Caveman too. You gotta update your profile, Keeb. I know, sorry. Wheel of Fortune, are you the only person in the world that has the complete Wheel of Fortune with all the code done? My Wheel of Fortune is just as complete as everyone else's.
    9:22
    So, ah, geez, where did we go? I mean, let's learn a little bit more about it. Actually, that's not even entirely true because there's some version. I started working on a version after I, you know, after Wheel of Fortune was done. And, like, I had given it to Bowen to test because he had a Wheel of Fortune at the time. And as far as I know, he was the only one that had it. And then years later after, it was when I was at Play Mechanics in between Stern and JJP, someone asked me, you know, for the IFPA code or something like that, you know. And it was like, you know, it's on my computer somewhere, you know, go find it. I don't know where it is. And someone got, instead of using the specific version that I had burned for IFPA, for IFPA, you know, 6 or whatever it was back then, they got the latest. And so some of the new features are in there to varying degrees of success. So there's a version out there that some people have that I don't even have. And so, you know, but it's not complete, but it's better. And so you're known, again, I'm going to talk about it at some stage, but you're known for having very deep rule sets. And I know, I think I've heard you say before that Wheel of Fortune you were probably a little bit dissatisfied with because you didn't really get to complete it. How much deeper was it going to get? Well, obviously there would have been some wizard modes in there for doing that. There are a couple more things that are supposed to be implemented from the game show. Like the game show has a jackpot round, so there's that wedge on the wheel that's a jackpot. So that would have come into play. It basically would have, if you'd gotten it, you could have saw the puzzle right away and gotten more points. And, yeah, it just would have gotten you through the round faster.
    11:24
    There was also the two question mark spots where you could pick either, you know, get $10,000 or bankrupt. You know, that was going to get implemented. And round four was going to be the speed up round where you don't spin the wheel every time. You just, you know, hit characters and you spin the wheel once and hit characters and get letters. So the game was going to go a lot faster in terms of solving all the puzzles, I feel like. Right now, it's a real slot. Almost no one ever gets through all four puzzles.
    11:55
    You could have also had Plunder Two Balls on there or something, right? Plunder opponents score. So, I mean, talking about deep rules, you've been quoted saying that you want people to have a good time playing your games, But if you have that one in a million kind of game, you can get to the super extreme mode that, you know, wizard mode that. Yeah, that was always the point of it, yeah. Yeah. It wasn't to have a two-hour grind, you know, with your outlands all the way closed and, you know, just, you know, play until your arms fell off to get to the end. Yeah. As I've said before, I played my Simpsons at a New Year's party that I was hosting and got to the final mode in under half an hour.
    12:47
    So that's really, you know, I played everything perfectly and the last thing I had to do was get my fifth Super Jackpot. And that was how I was meant to be done. Yeah. So have you been to all of them? Have you been to the Kiefer Invitational? Is that what you consider the hardest one?
    13:10
    Yes and no. The requirements on it can be kind of brutal, but you can also brute force your way to the end. I mean, in a lot of ways, Simpsons of the Hearts, because to get to it, you have to win the modes that you're playing. So you have to get to Alien Invasion, but that's not good enough. You've got to win it. That's not an easy task. You've got to win Springfield Mystery Spot, which is not easy either. If you miss out on it, you have to go around the bend again, which is a bit of a... Right, that's the answer to the problem everyone keeps talking about. It's like, oh, I got everything but Alien Invasion, and now I have to play all seven modes again and start again. I get it, but that's not what was meant to happen. You're meant to be done at that point.
    13:54
    You're meant to play better. Exactly. Maybe next time you'll get the game of a lifetime. So you've got that in your collection. Did you say no? You haven't been to the Final Wizard mode on that one?
    14:08
    I did all the requirements before I wrote the mode in my office, you know, when I was working on it. So I consider that I have done enough to get there, but I have not officially got it on my machine since I've owned it. That's a technicality, right? You got into it when it wasn't included. I think so, yeah.
    14:29
    But it's definitely possible. I mean, you know, people say, oh, just play the game, play for changed gears and you'll get off. I mean, okay, you can do that, but there's a lot of ways to get a lot of points in that game that people just either haven't figured out yet or don't care about or, you know, whatever. I mean, anytime I see someone play and start no limit multiball and shoot the jackpot and just hit the center bank drop targets again, it's like, that's not how you play that multiball. You know, you're not going to get the 25 million points you need by shooting the center drop targets, that's for sure. Well, so with Code Today where you obviously do revisions, how is it that you can then, through your change of rules, condition people's behavior to play the game that you want them to?
    15:21
    Hmm. That's a good question. I've never thought about it in terms of... Because that's ultimately what you're doing. When you're constructing the framework around a rule set, in your mind you're thinking, well, this is how a player should play. But as you know, you're a competitive player and there's others as well. They will find a way that is most lucrative.
    15:43
    Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, you want to make it so that your features form more the deeper you get, but not so much more that that's the only way to play the game. And, you know, for, to go back to poker for a minute, it's like you can, yeah, you can do pretty well, you know, maybe 50 million, maybe more and change gears. But if you play Nolan and multiball right, I mean, you can be shooting a 9x jackpot worth almost 3 million points, which is 27 million right there for one shot. So, I don't know. I mean, it's, you know, there are ways to do it. If people choose to figure it out, then go for it.
    16:27
    Get to Super Jackpots and Aces and the Hull Multiball, which no one ever does. Then you're hitting the captive ball up there, Fishtail style, for a million points of pop, which is pretty good too.
    16:40
    There's always ways. I guess people haven't put in the time necessarily to explore all the ways in all my games, Which, you know, maybe that's on me for not saying, oh, hey, you should try that. I guess I figured people would experiment more, you know, than just playing the game. But part of it is, you know, poker has such a horrible stigma attached to it when it came out, too, because of, you know, Mr. Gynecologist's hands and the, you know, horrible art direction on the game and stuff like that. So, you know, it definitely got shunned as a result of all that when it first came out. Yeah. And I know this is a question that you're probably, I'm not sure if you'll like it, but, you know, what machine would you go back on if you had the chance to kind of tweak the rules because, you know, you're no longer at the company or, you know, you can't because you're busy doing other things? Is there a game that you've been involved with that you would like to change to something specific to make it easier or harder?
    17:52
    I was the most of it. I mean, Wheel of Fortune is the obvious example. I wish that were good. But, you know, here, obviously, you know, the hunt is kind of a sore point because it's like, you know, we put a lot of crap into that game. And it wasn't what people were expecting. People were expecting Lord of the Rings 2, you know, or whatever.
    18:21
    But I don't want to do the exact same game every time. If you want Lord of the Rings 2, you should be playing Wizard of Oz because that's pretty much Lord of the Rings 2. So in terms of how the Wicked Melt the Witch was laid out, how Somewhere Over the Rainbow is basically the equivalent of Valinor.
    18:40
    Wizard of Oz is Lord of the Rings 2, so Hobbit was definitely not going to be anything like Lord of the Rings. Did you do that on purpose because you didn't have the Hobbit license at the time, and you thought, okay, this is my kind of sequel to one of my best games? Soply-wise.
    19:00
    Oh, Oz? Yeah. Oz, I don't know, just everything in the... I was trying to figure out how I was going to make a game out of it at first, and then, you know, I was like, well, if we do this and this, and, you know, maybe we can do something. You know, it all came together pretty well in the end, really.
    19:17
    It definitely... I was definitely not enthused about it at the start, but, you know, I definitely came around, and I'm pretty happy with where it turned out. But, yeah, with Hobbit, it was just I didn't want to do the same game, but I did, you know, Joe put in the drop targets in the game, so I knew we were going to be using those a lot and trying to showcase a lot of different ways to use the drop targets. So that's kind of how we went over the top and came up with the 31 mode idea and stuff like that. So, like, the whole point of the game is to give you a, you know, an unprecedented breadth of playability, you know, to just, you know, some modes are shoot the shot, some modes are hit the drop target, some modes are hit the beast, you know, some are all three. It's like, there's so much different stuff to do in that game, and you get complaints that, you know, oh, I get the Battle of Five Armies, and that's it. That's me. And I always play the one ring to get there. I don't play any of the other modes to get to the end. Well, I mean, what do you think about that? Because that's something that I would say because for me, I want everything in my game to mean something. Especially, like, as I said, your Simpsons, your Lord of the Rings, and your Wizard of Oz. Because everything that you're doing is building up to that ultimate thing that you might get to one day. But with the Hobbit, you're doing it to go around in a circle.
    20:52
    So in a lot of ways, Hobbit, I consider to be Wheel of Fortune 2.0. Because the whole setup of the Wizard Mode thing is pretty much exactly what was in Wheel of Fortune. So Wheel of Fortune was, I think it had win four puzzles, get a super jackpot, and I don't remember what the third one was off the top of my head. Oh, win a mode or something like that.
    21:21
    So if you did those three things, then one of the wizard modes is light. So we took that concept of the multiple things to get to a wizard mode.
    21:30
    In Hobbit's case, it was five instead of three. And, you know, we're just like, you know, here's what you do to get through the game. You know, do these five things, you'll play wizard mode, and it'll be a different one each time the further you get in the game and all that stuff. So that was always the intention of the games, to play it, to get to Battle of the Five Armies and, you know, get through that multiball, Which, by the way, has seven stages, you know. Those multiballs are no slouches because the first one, you know, Into the Fire, that has like five stages to it. And each of those stages is, you know, at least if not more complicated than most of the modes in the game. Then Barrel Escape has three or four, I think it is, similar. And then Battle of the Five Armies has seven. And again, you know, those are like, I mean, you could say that the game has like, if you count each of those stages as a mode, which I would consider them in terms of writing it to be at that level, you could say it has over 40 modes in the game. Which is pretty insane, but, you know, people didn't like the variety like I thought they would. They just wanted to get to the end, and, you know, maybe that was on me for not, you know. I guess you set like a precedent, you know, like the Keith Johnson games, you know, the Journey games. Let's have these really deep games that, like I've bought a lot of your games that you've been involved with and, you know, I haven't sold any of them because I feel like I have unfinished business with it. And the Hopper's the only one that's kind of like left my house and that's on site, you know, waiting for that kind of Final Wizard mode. So you have mentioned before, and I'm pretty sure it's being public, that you do plan on making the ends, and I believe it's called there and back again, because it's sitting there in the code folder. No one can kind of access the files you guys have encrypted it. So can you talk a little bit about what the roadmap is to get there and what there and back will possibly include? I don't want to give away too much. There and Back Again is mostly going to concentrate on being the end of the 31 modes, I think.
    24:01
    I don't know that it's going to tie all the things together, but there will be an end if you get through all 31 modes. So that will happen. Because that was always intended to be the end of the modes, but I don't know.
    24:20
    Like, what do you do after you do there and back again and you do the Battle of the Five Armies? I mean, you know, Bilbo's auction? You know, what kind of fun is that going to be? The opening credits said Lord of the Rings, maybe.
    24:34
    Oh, yeah, right, right. Yeah. I don't think people are that nitpicky that they'll say, this mode has nothing to do with the finality of the movie compared to Valinor. I guess people just want to play for a purpose. If they're going to invest half an hour of their time or however long it takes, each time they try and get to it, they want it to be that kind of thing. I can respect that. There'll be a purpose to that after the next release. And we'll make scoring tweaks to a lot of the stuff too.
    25:11
    Joe Katz is already, as of today, rewriting Beast Multiball because it could be a lot better than it is. And we'll make the Super Jackpot easier to get to so you can get rid of it if you can't kill Smaug because Beast Multiball is running.
    25:28
    There really is that, right? If you get a Super Jackpot, you press a button. Yeah, that's in there, but admittedly it is really, really hard to get the Super Jackpot and Beast Multiball right now. What is it, like 20 jackpots or something, or what is it?
    25:46
    There's like 16 waves, you know. It was written by a guy, it was basically the first thing he wrote when he came on board, J.T. Harkey. And so I did something for Expo. I was like, yeah, kind of take the idea from here, but, you know, do your own thing with it. And he did, and he did a good job, you know, with what he was told to do. Didn't fully understand the intricacies of things like pinball scoring at the time and stuff like that. I mean, he was a game player, but he wasn't necessarily a pinball player. You know, he gets it way more now than he's been here for two and a half years, I guess. And so, you know, it's been rewritten. It'll be a lot better now. So that's what I was talking about before, Keith, is that, you know, when you're looking at rules, are you thinking about, you know, how people are going to play the game? Or are you just, in your mind, setting out, you know, the framework of the rules? And part two to that is thinking about now how Hobbit has actually been played versus what you thought people would play. Will that be considered how you're actually now going to change people's behavior? Or is it now just tying it up, cleaning up some of the modes, obviously, like Beast Multiple and putting a wizard mode on the end?
    27:10
    We'll change your behavior somewhat. So one of the things we're doing is basically assigning a number of stars to each mode, you know, one to five stars. So the number of stars that you complete before starting a final mode will work into some kind of bonus. And then the highest star mode that you beat will affect the scoring of the next wizard mode that you play. So, if you beat a 3-star average mode, then the next mode you start into the fire or whatever will score the same as it does now. If you play it as, if you played a 4-star mode to win it, then the scoring will be doubled. If you played a 5-star mode, then the scoring will be quadrupled. So, the points will go way up potentially in the wizard mode. But if you play a two-star mode and the score is cut in half, if you play a one-star mode, hello the one ring, then the score will be cut in one-fourth. No, my strategy's gone.
    28:22
    The scores will plummet if you continue playing the wizard modes that way. Okay, wow. So lots of scoring opportunities there. Yeah. So just a bit quick, I mean, most of your games have no ball save by default. Where did that originate from? Obviously, that's something that you like.
    28:45
    Ball save is confusing to casuals. I mean, it's, you know, you can go, if you ever went, you know, in the 90s and watched people play games at a location, you know, people would lose the ball and they'd walk away at their front. If they managed to figure out how to start multiple people, then they would walk away and the next person would come up and say, Ball save, and then the other guy would be playing the ball. It always just didn't work out that well. And then if you bring the Josh Sharpe types into it, like, oh yeah, he said the ball save for five seconds and I drained a 4.9. I drained a 5.1 and he drained a 4.9. He definitely deserves the ball back more than I do. You know, so it's the fairness didn't weigh into it as much as the fact that Ball Saver is just confusing to people. So, you know, I'll happily put it in as an option and people can turn it on if they want. But, you know, I don't I don't get it personally. Well, it absolutely killed me last night in the tournament when I was on Simpsons. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thanks. Well, I mean, plunge better, I guess. Or have a better layout. That's all I'm saying. Oh. No, but we're just on that. That's not our meat to myself. No, we don't.
    30:08
    It was my really slingsy attempt at a segue. So, you know, you've obviously worked with Joe Bowser layouts. How's that been? Because they are, you know, unconventional is probably a way that I'll describe them. How's that been looking at an unconventional layout and then having to do a rule set to it? It's been fun. I like different play fields. I mean, you know, I think the only real, well, Hobbit was kind of one. Before Hobbit, the only fan I really worked on was Wheel of Fortune. And even people, you know, even though that was a fan, no one really thought of it as a fan because the bottom was so different. Yeah. People are so, you know, tranced or, you know, hypnotized by the bottom of the playfield like it never got called out for being a fan, which is exactly what that game is. You know, if it had a standard bond, people would be like, oh, God, it's another fan. You know what I mean? So, I mean, I like working on games that are different and offer different, you know, combos or different, you know, ways to do things and stuff like that. I mean, it turns out he's... Sorry, one of the biggest designers that kind of has repeated layouts, I guess, is Steve Ritchie. And the only time that you kind of work with him is when he went out and did something totally different than anything else he's ever done, right? I know, that was awesome, wasn't it? Yeah.
    31:34
    Well, I mean, do you think it'd be harder if you got something like a Stern Star Trek, for example, or a Spider-Man, which has almost like an identical kind of layout? Obviously they play different because of the rules.
    31:46
    Would you like an opportunity to work on something that simple? I really hate saying the words. Well, I guess I did have that opportunity, you know, now that I think about it, and that was Lorde.
    31:58
    I mean, Lorde is a fan through and through, you know, that's pretty much it. And Lorde was my, at the time, was my attempt at showing people what a fan game could be, you know, Despite the fact it was a fan. And I feel like it did a pretty good job at that.
    32:20
    It's, you know, mostly the ring combo system was written, you know, just to exploit the flow of the game.
    32:30
    But I'll give everyone a secret. The reason fan play fields can work more than other fan play fields can work is if the shots do more interesting things. So on Lorde, almost every shot can do at least two different things with the ball with the exception of the left ramp. That's just a ramp that comes back to you. That's it. But the left orbit as a diverter, you know, or it goes into a saucer. The center loop can be diverted to the tower or it can go around. You know, the right ramp can be locked or, you know, pass through or whatever. The right orbit can be diverted or, you know, so having diverters in games is a good thing and makes the gameplay way more interesting if the ball is not doing the same thing At the time the game was made, way before 8 billion other fans, Iain Playfields have come out since then.
    34:00
    I think it was, you know, I think it was a breath of fresh air fan-wise, in my opinion. It wasn't just shoot the same shot three times in a row and something happens. Because casuals can't do that, by the way. You know, casuals shoot each shot once a game. And it's even less, you know, the more to the outside you get. Like on Hobbit, for example, a casual will shoot an Orbit on Hobbit once every two games. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a little bit better on Lord Orbis, but, you know, people have to be entertained. Something's got to happen to them when they shoot a shot, like, right away, or they're not going to keep playing. So what do you think about kind of the current climate and public acceptance of, you know, more complex rules at the moment versus something simple? Like, we see TNA coming out at the moment, and let's ignore kind of the sales, because they're public, and JGP's sales aren't public, and certain sales aren't public. But kind of like the public acceptance of Total Naked Annihilation versus Pirates of the Caribbean that people kind of say, ah, you know, have they made it too complex? Are there too many options at the start of the game? How do you juggle that? Because obviously there's still a simple game, you know, there to be played by the casual. How do you manage not overwhelming the player with too many options?
    35:28
    Well, I will admit that Pirates is a little bit of a risk with the character thing, but people don't have to pay attention to it if they don't want to. I mean, if a casual comes up and hits start and plunges the ball, they'll get who they get and they'll play the game and they won't know any better. I feel like games have to have a lot to do and a lot to learn and stuff like that to justify their cost.
    35:55
    I mean, we're selling games at $8,500 minimum right now, so if you get a game and you're done with it in two weeks, you know, what, you know, it's like what, you're just sitting there and it's like, oh, huh, I just paid $8,500 for this and I am bored AF. I love it right now. So I don't think you can do that. That's always been my philosophy with driving rule design at JJP, certainly.
    36:31
    How do you juggle that, I guess, between, I mean, you're making a Pimball machine for everyone, which, just putting it out there, I think that you guys, the programming guys, have the hardest job. In the business, I'm sure other people that work around you might disagree, but without the software and the balancing and every little thing that you have to do, the game sucks. I mean, we can see that with some games that might have amazing art, great flow, great layout, but if the software sucks and the game isn't fun to play, how hard is it to juggle that? How hard is it to make a game for everyone? You know, the people that are paying $8,500 for the lowest model and the people that are putting a couple quarters in on site to get their three minutes of fun.
    37:25
    So this takes me back to when I listened to Bowen on your show and how Bowen said, you know, the game was made for him.
    37:36
    We're talking about Stern Pinball Party here, right? Yeah, Sibson Pinball Party. So, in a lot of ways, he's right. The game was made for him. Well, it was made for me, you know, which happens to be for him too, I guess. So, it was always pounded in my head that the casuals don't see lights. They don't know what they mean. They don't know what they're referring to. So, you know, the game's got to be, you know, mechanical action pinball and, you know, that kind of thing. So that game has some stuff in it, right? So you hit the garage door, it opens, you go in there, you go to the upper play field. You know, that's the center bashed out of the game.
    38:17
    And it's very obvious what happens when you do that. So you have that, you know, every time you shoot a shot on the game, something entertaining happens. You know, a funny quote by one of the actual people, you know, in the show gets said. Hopefully you get lucky enough and luck into itchy and scratchy before you're out of your game. And that should be pretty good for three minutes of fun for someone. They hit a shot, it says something funny.
    38:47
    They probably don't really do any of the rules, but I hate to say it, they weren't going to do any of the rules anyway, So it didn't matter whether, you know, if they started a mode where Otto was, then they'd be doing something else and they wouldn't get it, they wouldn't understand it. I think in a lot of ways it just confused them even more. So, you know, the game, that game in particular, would not have sold anywhere near as well as it sold if it wasn't entertaining to casuals because the vast majority of the market back then was to operators. So, you know, I don't know that operators necessarily kept buying all the reruns later in life, but, you know, that game has probably cleared 7,000 units, and it wasn't because, you know, it was an expert pinball set. It's because it was entertaining to the casual people who put money into it on location. It just so happened. I exploited that fact, you know, and made a really good pinball rule game out of it because it was like, well, if I could say screw the casual player, you know, as long as it flashes some lights every now and again, which by the way, I think it has a pretty good light show, then they'll be entertained. And I think that's why that game worked out as well as it did. So I was at a tournament last night and there was just about 30 people there and because I knew you were coming on today I thought I'd ask everybody that was playing what do they know about Sinclair Pinball Party rules and I think I probably spoke to about maybe 12 people and two people kind of understood it. The rest said I think I head into the garage and then I've got to hit the ball up on that upper ramp and maybe that starts multiball.
    40:44
    So these aren't, like I said, they're probably not you elite players. Sorry guys for calling it out. But they're people that have been playing in comps for, you know, two, three years. So I guess my question to that post comment is, I mean, how do you know that the GP, the general public coming up to it, really do understand what's going on beyond the rule card? So just before you answer, Keefe, if you're playing tournaments for two or three years and you don't know how to start multiball on Simpsons, then you're a fucking shit tournament player. What the hell? Well, don't forget though, I mean, that game's been out for 15 years now. I mean, if they started playing two years ago, that game's been out for a dozen years and it's like, you know, they may not have even seen it that much. Yeah, we don't actually, to be honest, we don't actually really have them that often in public in Australia.
    41:39
    Right, so I could totally expect that a lot of people at this point in its history would necessarily be very familiar with it. But, I mean, if you played it when it came out, you know, it was pretty well revered when it came out. A lot of people put a lot of time into it.
    41:58
    I mean, Bowen had his for a long time. I know he just sold it, but, you know, he had it for a pretty good number of years. And, you know, I'll take that longevity of the game. It means, you know, it had good value. And that's what, you know, we try to do when we sell games to people. So do you get frustrated, because I certainly do, when people, not refuse, but people kind of, they might put a stigma or something on your game saying, oh, it's too complex and I don't understand, whereas something that's kind of equally as complex, like, for example, maybe The Walking Dead, people don't say the same thing, whereas, you know, I still don't know how to play that game and a lot of my friends don't, you know, for the right strategies. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that some games are equally as complex as your games but people don't see them as complex?
    42:53
    That's an excellent question. I have to wonder if watching videos of games doesn't go a long way to helping that out. I mean, honestly, I feel Walking Dead is one of the least understandable games there is. I mean, sure, you get that you have to hit the prison doors and the well walker and start those things, but that's not going to help you understand the best way to play CDC. I mean, I know the best way to play CDC because I've played it a lot of times and, you know, I've watched a video on it and stuff like that. So, I mean, for an expert or for, you know, above average to expert level player, I mean, it's an amazing game. You know, it's got it does have great rules to it.
    43:46
    And the only I'm thinking that it doesn't. I'm thinking that since people get to watch it now and get tutorials from Bowen and stuff like that, you know, It makes it a lot more palatable to see games like that. I mean, there were certainly no tutorials for Lord of the Rings when it came out, but it was a great package, and I think that went a long way towards that game's longevity. It did the movies really well. It sounded like the movies. It had voice work for the movies and all that stuff. So do you think it better off like you kind of touched on it when you started answering the questions do you think it better off not explaining the rules when you present the game or do you think like how much information do you tell the general public before you stop talking to ensure that they not saying oh this is too much for me my brain can handle all of this
    44:49
    I don't know, you know, what we try to do is tell the people what they need to do next, right? So you do something and it's like, okay, now go over here or shoot this target or hit this beast or whatever.
    45:03
    I mean, doing that is good. It goes back to what I was saying earlier. It's like with poker. I thought people would experiment more and learn it better.
    45:13
    So for whatever reason, people have done that with The Walking Dead, which they didn't do with poker.
    45:21
    And part of that could just be the enjoyability of the game and the theme. Like The Walking Dead appeals to a lot of people. So it's going to get a lot of eyeballs just because it's a really good attraction factor and as long as it's entertaining enough people will play it and keep doing it. So Lord certainly had that going for it. It brought people to it like crazy and it sounded really good for the time and played pretty well. And so people spent a lot of time on that game figuring it out eventually. Well, let's touch a bit on your time at Stern. I guess we're not really going through things chronologically here, but the first question, I guess, is what is Gary Rogg? It's your Pinsight avatar, I believe. Do you want to explain that? So, Lord of the Rings, I mean, if everyone was around and, you know, omniscient and, you know, understood everything that was going on at the time, like, I was really close to walking out the door during that game because I was just pissed off so many times, you know, during its development. And, you know, obviously I stuck through and stayed there and stuff like that. But I was forced to do a lot of the thing, a lot of things in the game that I didn't agree with. Like, you know, the bash Balrog mode, you know, for casuals, you know, so that they could see the Balrog come out. You know, it's like, like back then Gary was on a, it may still be, I'm not sure, but he was in a state where, I don't know, I'm paying $25, $50 for a toy in this game. I don't get to see it all the time. I got to see the toy every game. So that's why Bash Balrog came about so that, you know, you just happen to fall on that saucer three times, which you're pretty much going to do. Then it'll come out and you'll get to hit the Balrog and you get to see him.
    47:30
    A lot of us did not agree with that philosophy in general. I mean, typically, like back in the 90s, you know, for when games had, you know, some modes and a main multiball, you know, the theory was that you want them to get multiball one in every three games. And that was enough of a carrot, you know, to keep people coming back playing the game.
    47:55
    And I'm assuming that was accurate because those games earned pretty well back in then. So, you know, I'm sure they were on to something. So having the game advance you towards Fellowship of the Ring and, you know, maybe getting that once every three games, I thought that was sufficient. But, you know, it wasn't sufficient for Gary. So there was that. There was, like, the tower in the upper right, Baron Durer, you know, I always thought it was just going to fall down during, you know, winning Destroy the Ring. You know, it's just out there, but, you know, it's quite above the average person. It was pretty doable.
    48:36
    So when you went in there, you know, you shake the tower a little bit. It's like, I need to see it fall, you know. I paid $25 for the tower, and I've got to see it fall.
    48:47
    So I put in the thing, you know, for the tower bonus, and, you know, it falls whenever you get the tower bonus. I was like, whatever, you know, did you get to see it fall? Don't you kind of agree with what Gary is saying? Because you can see people complaining non-stop about the new Star Wars where no one gets to see the Death Star blow up because no one can do it.
    49:11
    Can you kind of understand the whole casual players wanting to see some wow factor? I mean, the whole Balrog thing, I agree. I mean, I don't go for Balrog when he comes out. I don't think it's worth the half a million points every time you hit him. Fresh Outer doesn't come back, but when my wife's playing and Batarog comes out, she thinks she's done something special and her eyes kind of light up and I say, hit the Batarog, hit the Batarogs, you know, and she thinks she's getting jackpots or something, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a way to look at it. Another way to look at it is, oh, God, I really want to see what that thing does, you know, so I'll keep putting money into it until I get to see it come out and they'll be like, oh, man, that'll be awesome. If you give everything away to everybody up front, then it's like, you know, okay, I saw it. I don't need to play it again. Yeah. In fact, you're writing code for games to be played on location. So it's more necessary to keep the carrot out there, I feel like, than giving away the farm every time. How did you manage doing, I mean Simpsons and Lord of the Rings were I believe both released in the same year and I guess some people consider them as some of the best rule sets out there, you know, very tight, no real scoring exploits.
    50:35
    You know, why is it possible for that to happen but, you know, games now have a longer development cycle? Well Simpsons, yeah, Simpsons was worked on for a really long time. Like I had over a year to program that game. It was supposed to come out after Playboy, and instead Roller Coaster Tycoon was put in front of it in order to catch the summer season, which made a lot of sense. Plus, Joe had laughed and the project was in shambles a little bit from a mechanical perspective. So I had to get some people working on shoring up the mechanicals in the game so it was cheaper and buildable and more reliable and that kind of thing.
    51:23
    So I wound up with even more time to work on the game, just kind of as a fluke. So just more stuff kept going in the game. So when Simpsons was done, they had a lot of content, a lot of different stuff to do, and it was a victim of fortune, I guess you would say. So then along comes Lord of the Rings, and the goal is to get that game out there for the movie, which I think it did, barely. Um, so I knew that I wouldn't have anywhere near the time to work on it like Simpsons did, like I did with Simpsons. So I approached the rule set. I'd been pretty, around that time I'd been playing Jackpot a lot I think and you know probably some other stuff. And I really liked the idea in Jackpot where, you know, you had a multiball that had a, you know, a long-ass goal to it, a lot like World Cup Soccer did. And, you know, get 15 jackpots and then you get to go to Megavisor and then complete Megavisor and you get to go for Mega Jackpots.
    52:36
    I like that idea of a multiball that was long and you didn't necessarily have to do all at once. So that's why the multiballs in Lord of the Rings are kind of like adding artificial depth in a way. It's like each of them only really has one rule, but it's kind of, in a way I guess you'd call it work, but hopefully it's entertaining enough it doesn't feel like work. Well, it's the payoff, right? The payoff is a gift from the elves and a super jackpot. Stupid, Jack Pinball, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know, like people want to hear that. Right, so we have those that were always designed from the very beginning to be long and needing to be done a couple times, you know, just to push the game, just to make the game feel like it's deeper than maybe it necessarily is.
    53:31
    So they're obviously very high-profile games and high-profile themes. So I would say that that would be fun to work on, particularly Lord of the Rings. I think everyone loved that at the time. It was very fresh since it had been around for a while.
    53:47
    But let's just say you also didn't necessarily have some other great licences to work with. So how do you go from working with something great like that to arguably, I mean, Wheel of Fortune I'd say wasn't necessarily great. But CSI? Not so great. Well, yeah, that was definitely – so the way Wheel of Fortune came about is like – so some people at Stern hung out in bars and they saw that in the bars Wheel of Fortune was on muted. And, you know, people would be sitting there at the bar drinking, I guess, watching Wheel of Fortune. So because a couple of bars around Merrill's Park, Illinois were like that, it was like, oh, Wheel of Fortune is a great bar game. You know, we've got to do it. We'll sell them to everyone. So that was the genesis of Wheel of Fortune.
    54:46
    I actually watched it. I liked Wheel of Fortune. I actually watched it myself. Were you approaching these licenses to get them or were they coming just too soon at the time? Well, I was told to work on Wheel of Fortune and CSI and stuff like that. It wasn't the stuff that I wanted to work on. But even World Poker Tour, right? I mean, I'm pretty sure at the time, 2006, you know, it had gone through a bit of a renaissance, certainly with, you know, the TV rights to it as well. Right, well, poker was, you know, I really did want to work on poker because, you know, I liked poker, I played poker, you know, I actually watched WPT before we were thinking about it, and it was like we wanted to do like a classic poker game or whatever, and we were trying to come up with a theme that fit it, and so we came up with World Poker Tour. But I would say we probably missed the boat on it by a year. It definitely started losing popularity. I can't remember exactly when the day that the U.S. government shut down online poker, but I think it was around that time, and I think we missed the boat on poker popularity by about a year. Well, then Family Guy for us, I think, is a great license. But that didn't really do all that well. What's the story there? I think it did better than most people think. So, you know, it started off that, you know, they did, they released whatever they released, you know, I don't know, it was like, they probably released 1,500 games or something like that. And then they had built somewhere around 900 of them or something and it was petering out and everyone was like, oh God, what are we going to do with all these parts? Kind of like when they had Striker Extreme back in the day, they turned into NFL.
    56:41
    So that's when, you know, like, okay, we'll unload all these parts by making Shrek, which ironically may have been a Jersey Jack idea.
    56:52
    And so they started working on Shrek and, you know, turning the game into Shrek. And then a funny thing happened. And the game had been out there for a while, and everyone found out it was a good game and earned really well. And then they – so they made up the rest of the 1,500 games plus, you know, quite a few more. I don't know what the final number is on it off the top of my head, but, you know, they made a lot of Family Guys. And then they had to buy even more to actually make Shrek, which they'd already put the time and money into. So I can buy out the license. I was like, well, we still got to do Shrek. So, you know, it's kind of funny how it all worked out, but there are definitely, you know, Family Guy definitely did pretty well. I mean, it was well received in the end. Well, then to round out the, I guess, the Stern era, what would be the game that you've worked on that you'd be most proud of?
    57:47
    And the inverse of that, what do you think may be not so good? Of games that I had anything to do with, well, I always tell people Simpsons is my favorite because it's just the variety of stuff that you can do in it and, you know, the carrot at the end and all that kind of stuff. I think it's a really good game, a really good play field, and it's my favorite thing to do in terms of, it's my favorite thing to play in terms of variety of modes from the Stern era. So, obviously I'm most disappointed on my games, the Wheel of Fortune, but having been involved with the likes of CSI and Indiana Jones and stuff like that, I mean, you know, it's a real toss-up. I think Indiana Jones is a far, far, far worse game than pretty much anything else. So the fact that my name is technically listed on there is definitely a bummer. What was the, you know, because obviously you end up departing, I guess they were going through tough times and you were quoted. Yeah, they laid off half the company. Yeah, and you were quoted in saying that you kind of already started looking for jobs anyway because of kind of the general feeling there. So, I mean, what was it like working on Indiana Jones, for example, and, you know, was the error in the layout or was it in the toys that were on there to create the software? Because I've only played it a couple of times, but, you know, I guess the joke on everyone out there is that it's the one that, the Indiana Jones that isn't good. You know, which one are you talking about, the good one or the not good one? Yeah, I mean, the layout's probably okay. It wasn't anything special. I mean, I would mostly view it as, I think it's pretty much exactly Harley-Davidson, if I'm not mistaken. They're really extremely close to it. I mean, the arc was a cool toy, you know.
    59:58
    You know, there was so many really weird decisions that went into that game that elude me to this day that I don't know why they're like that. My first multiball is eight-ball. Yeah, your first multiball is eight-ball multiball. Then your next one's five. Then your next one's four. And the last one's two. And it's like, you know, you have to hit the freaking middle of the game. Like, you know, 8,000 times to spell Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know, how many ever freaking hits that is. And you get a two-ball multiball. It's like, what the hell is this? I mean, there's no, that's no fun. Like, I just, you know, worked my ass off to get to the end of this thing. And my payoff is a two-ball multiball and it's over in, like, 20 seconds. And I'm just like, you know. Well, that game in particular gets derided by a lot of people. But you, with your software hat on, do you think that that layout and what there is salvageable with the eyes that you've got on today's games? I guess. I mean, there's, you know, there's way more that could have been done with that game that would have been far more interesting, I'm sure. I mean, like the targets around the arc, you know, they don't do anything, you know, they're just there. Or the Indy Jones rule, you know, what is that? I mean, it's literally ripped from Spider-Man and all it does is score some points. It doesn't do anything for you.
    61:31
    You know, it's just the whole game is just a mishmash of bad ideas and, you know, just makes you feel bad when you play it because it's just unrewarding. But did you just have to implement what was there or did you get a say on what it would be? No, I was not the lead on the game, so I was just helping out, you know, writing code. I mean, you know, I wrote, like, the bumper rule, the bonus rule.
    61:59
    I did a lot of help work with, like, making it easier for the other guys who are programming the display effects to turn the game into a VCR. So you can watch all the bad movies. You can't tell what's going on. So I helped those guys out a lot with some intel code, but you could tell the soul was getting sucked out of them every day they were working on it.
    62:29
    As I said, Sermon was going through a lot of, that was when Pimball was possibly at its, well I'm not sure when it was at its lowest during the last decade, but I guess when they laid off everyone, including you, So, you know, that might have been the point.
    62:49
    So then you had a couple of years break, I guess, from Pinball, and then how did you end up working at Jersi Jack? Because you became, I guess, the programming lead there, so did Jack... I was the only programmer, yeah. Only programmer, yeah. That's what makes you the lead, technically.
    63:06
    Take it. So, Jack, when did Jack contact you? Let's see. So he would have done his thing on or released it on January 1, 2011, as I recall. And I remember based on how I thought everything was at the time, I remember posting to RGP that, you know, if anyone's going to make a go of this, it's going to be Jack. And, you know, he's probably the only person that could make this successful or whatever, you know, based on, you know, being at Eel Out and, you know, having sold so many games over the years and having some clues of what games are.
    63:52
    So, and when I was talking with him about possibly going there, the, where I was at the time, play mechanics, like, you know, as you know, 2008, It was a really bad time for the economy. And so I definitely took play mechanics, the job, out of, I wouldn't say desperation per se, but it was like, you know what, here's a job, you know, it's going to be what it is, and, you know, at least I'll have a freaking job. You know what I mean? So I was there and I probably actually talked to Stern the summer before, like summer of 2010. Went over there and interviewed, met Dave Peterson and all that stuff. And I was talking with him to go back there because Lyman had left to go work at Williams for however long.
    64:50
    And it wasn't that long, probably like six months or something, nine months. And so I was itching to get out of Play Mechanics because I didn't like the work and, you know, the pay wasn't that good. So when Jack came, the starting thing obviously fell through. And when Jack came knocking, the risk-reward for going to Jersey Jack versus staying at Play Mechanics was essentially infinite. So it made absolutely no sense not to go there. So basically he said what he wanted to do, who he had working for him and I was like well play mechanics sucks so yeah I'll go there no problem. So when you got there and we obviously know it today as Wizard of Oz, what sort of state was the project in at the time you started? We had a meeting probably some weekend. I think I'd already given my notice, so I think it was like the first week of my notice. We had a meeting in Rosemont and everyone gathered there. Joe hadn't designed what was the final play field. He had a couple of designs sitting around that he was thinking about. We talked about what we wanted the game to be and then he went and drew basically what the play field wound up being. I mean, there was basically nothing done, you know, at the time of that first meeting.
    66:21
    So what do you start coding then? Or is that really your still in conceptual stage of doing the rules framework? Or are you then trying to work with others? Well, yeah, I have to do the system framework. Wow, okay. So I have to do things like, you know, is it a one or four player game? You know, I have to have balls in play and they have to drain and they have to go to the next player. I mean, there's a lot of that kind of stuff. You have to write an audit system, an adjustment system. It's all kinds of work that has to be done to make a pinball system that is not glamorous and not fun. But, you know, it's pinballing and you're going to write it. It's going to be there for the rest of the company's life. So you've got to do it right and do a good job on it. And so how long did that take? I mean, I don't know, we finally released the game after two and a half years or something like that. Just to build the operating framework. Well, it's hard to say. So what happened along the way is that we started getting hardware. So instead of working on the game code framework, I had to spend some time getting the hardware to work, like writing device drivers for Linux and stuff like that. So that would come along, and I'd do that stuff, and I'd talk with the hardware guy and work out why the board's not operating like it should be. So all that was going on, and then when we did the E3 slash Seattle show weekend,
    68:09
    basically I put all the code to the side that was like the framework for the game and wrote a whole other thing that basically made the lights work and made the coils work and that kind of thing. And I don't know, for a good six months as the game was traveling from show to show, I was like maintaining two sets of code. One was the show code, the dog and pony code, and the other code is the code I was trying to make, you know, be the real game code. And so that was kind of a, you know, a hair puller for a long time.
    68:42
    Plus we were, my wife and I were in the process of adopting our child and, you know, there was all kinds of things going on. And it was just like, you know, I don't need all this going on right now, but here I am.
    68:56
    It's a hard work, right? Like running the entire framework and creating it for a Pimball machine that's kind of meant to be testing the limits of what Pimball was at that time. I'm guessing that was quite a challenge to get across. And, you know, I guess there was no other company to kind of rip it off as someone else has done in the industry recently and kind of thrown their hands up in the air. But, you know, Wizard of Oz, you know, Amazing Machine, and then you moved on to Pirates, and I guess we've already talked about that. But the next game, which I guess as the programming lead is dialed in, and I guess you weren't executing the rules, but you were part of writing the framework with Ted. Is that right?
    69:46
    I was really more of a manager slash advisor on that project. I mean, Ted's the lead of dialed in, so that game is credited mostly to him and Joe and JT in terms of what's happening. I mean, I helped them out with a couple technical things, and I wrote the skill shot for them because they were busy with some other stuff. So, you know, I'm involved in the game. Like, I would give them ideas and tell them what I would do in certain cases, and sometimes they'd listen to me and sometimes they wouldn't.
    70:21
    You know, which is fine. I mean, you know, one person can't be in charge of everything because then there's no variety. I try to make every game I work on different, but no matter what, if it's just one person, it's going to feel similar all the time, I feel like. And not just from copying and pasting the rules from game to game, just how games are thought of or how things work in a certain way or whatever. It's just going to feel the same. So, I guess the hot topic at the moment with Pirates of the Caribbean is the three spinning discs. Now, obviously the decision wasn't made last week about that because the disc never stopped, right? You guys have been streaming it for a while. Yeah, the citizen was pretty much made after the last stream, so that's why we didn't stream for a while. Yeah.
    71:24
    So you're in charge of the programming for that machine, so was it a programming issue that you couldn't make the software talk to the hardware and stop the disk property because they were skipping all optos weren't, you know? No, it was nothing like that. I mean, the software did a pretty close approximation.
    71:47
    Like, whatever the way it works, you know, in the games that are out there now, they usually come pretty close to stopping at the right thing, you know, every time.
    71:59
    Like, they always try to stop at the same place, and it's usually pretty close. I was probably going to revisit it and make it work better because, yeah, I did that, I did it and had several months to think about how I would make it a little bit better. I was kind of dreading having to go back there and work on it to make it perfect, but I was getting ready to do it. And then the mechanical issues with the disc started surfacing, and it's like, you know, we just got to take this out because we can't, We can ill afford another Waz Lightboard situation that constantly breaks and constantly needs to be replaced at our expense and that kind of thing. Now, I'm guessing similar things have kind of, regardless of what company you're working at, Bally Williams, Stern, or JGP, similar things in the design phase have been taken out. But I guess this is the first kind of public one that people, you know, people play the game and like that feature and then, you know. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Twilight Zone used to have three magnets in it. It doesn't now, you know. Most people don't miss them, but most people didn't even realize at first at the time the game was out that there was supposed to be a third magnet there. I mean, the third magnet, that was to do with throwing the ball from spiral to spiral and staging the balls for multiple, is that right? Like having all straight balls in a spiral? Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, in fact, during the spiral mode, the basic way that was supposed to work is that, you know, you're supposed to shoot the spiral three times and you catch the ball on each magnet. So that's, you know, that's why it was like three spiral shots. Yeah.
    73:47
    So, you know, they took it out because, you know, they didn't need it or whatever and, you know, made the rules work the way they were supposed to work anyway. And pretty much no one was any of the wiser. So in a perfect world, would you, if you had it your way, and obviously there's a lot of factors with cost and distributors and getting money flowing and stuff like that. In a perfect world, how would you release a game? Like if you had, would Pirates of the Caribbean have been shown yet? Like would you show it in its current state if it was up to you? Or would you wait until it's literally in a box ready to go?
    74:25
    I think giving people an appetite of what's coming. I mean, you know, we pretty much thought we were going to make that game pretty quickly after Expo, and things happened, like dialed in, went much longer than we thought it was going to, and things like that. So the game kept getting pushed back, you know, generally for good reasons. But then, you know, we kind of found out after the game started traveling around and stuff and, you know, being on locations that, yeah, maybe the disc thing wasn't going to work out too well. So, you know, they tried, you know, they tried. We knew the disc had certain issues after Expo and they were addressing them. And then, you know, that probably led to some other things. And so it's like at some point it was just time to cry uncle. So that's what I was going to say. You know, given that if you had more time, do you think that there could have been a solution for it? Or it just it was never going to work? And considering it's one mech of many in a much larger machine, it just probably wasn't worth the investment in time? Yeah, I mean, a lot of time and effort had already been put into it.
    75:51
    But do you think you could have ever got it to work? I think it probably could have worked eventually, but you don't know when to get to that point either. It's like, you do it, and then you've got to put it on a test picture and see if it holds up, and that may or may not, you hope that's applicable to real life when you design a test picture, But, you know, sometimes things happen in the game that don't happen in a test picture, too. You know, like, you know, someone does, you know, maybe a ball lands on it funny or something like that and causes something to pop off or, you know, whatever. Who knows? I mean, there were definite issues and it just had to be taken out based on where we were with needing to produce the game. So, and we know, I know that you're sort of on social media as well. The reaction to it was pretty negative.
    76:47
    Pretty? Yeah, I'm being nice about it. And look, it will simmer down, but I know of a person that cancelled their pre-order because of it. But it was obviously one of the major features that was promoted when the machine came out. And, you know, we had, you know, a prototype in Australia as well, and we got to play it, and it was a major feature as well.
    77:14
    And you obviously... I guess, you know, but, you know, spinning disks are like... I know it's a unique spinning disk, but it's still a spinning disk, is it? I was surprised that... Well, I didn't like it. I was on record saying I didn't enjoy them at all. I actually felt it quite random. And so the new arrangement for me is actually probably better because I think it's going to be less on because it doesn't have to be such a major feature anymore. But people really felt quite passionate about something that had been revealed and promoted and then taken away from them. I guess. Maybe it's just my Jersey Jack bubble of naivety. I'm not sure. But I never looked at them as the coolest thing in the game. It seems like a lot of people did. To me, the ship is way cooler than the spinning discs are. To me, that's the selling point of the game is the moving upper play field. Yeah, I guess your field of vision really is looking at the middle of the machine, so those disks are always there in your field of view.
    78:25
    Look, again, I think that people will sort of settle and come back, but you've also probably got, well, I guess the code that you put in there is pretty much salvaged anyway because the rewards are going to be on the back. So I think you answered the question in that in your mind you didn't necessarily see that it was that much of a major feature. So I had said at the time that I felt that when Eric put his message out I could sort of see that he really didn't want to make that call anyway. So it was probably a big decision to make. But were you really surprised by the backlash that came from it? I personally was, yes. Someone internally put the over-under at like 100 cancellations, and I easily took the under.
    79:13
    I don't know if we'll ever know what the number is, but I was way more worried about losing that bet than I thought I ever would be, based on the reaction. No, I'm not saying that's actually come to pass. I don't know what has actually happened with regards to cancellations. It seems like most people said, oh, I'm going to hold on to it and see how it turns out. I feel like we had a pretty good stream today. We showed off some new features and some new lighting and stuff like that. We probably got the star map in there so people could see what that was about. We showed the work we're doing with the camera.
    79:52
    I mean, like all those cameras. I haven't seen it. Could you explain what the star map is doing and the camera feature? Yeah, so with the camera, I mean, the game has a camera in it. We're trying to decide what to do with it. We're obviously not going to do selfie mode, you know, in the land of pirates.
    80:10
    So we're like, well, we'll take high scores and we can make them look old-timey, you know, and stuff like that. And, you know, maybe we can even add, you know, pirate hats to people, you know, be all Snapchat-y or whatever. So, you know, we played with it a fair amount. And if you watch the most, at the time you listen to this episode, the most recent Jersie Jack Pinball stream, which is, you know, already uploaded on YouTube, by the way,
    80:43
    you can, at the very beginning of the stream, we go through a track mode and we show a screen of actual generated, you know, wanted posters. characters using a camera and processing and stuff like that. So the things that are in there are not just artist mock-ups. They were legit made by GameCode, and we didn't have it hooked into the game yet, but GameCode is used to generate those posters, and so someone made a screen of several of us having our pictures taken and being edited. Like I have the pirate hat on that was put on there by the game. So it's all in there and working and just needs to be properly hooked up to pirates.
    81:31
    So we have Ted to thank for working all that photo processing stuff. And then there's a star map. The star map basically, it shows you a constellation. And from that constellation, you're supposed to discern the shot or target that it is telling you to shoot. And then when you shoot it, you get some points and the book pops up, you know, Galileo's Journal or whatever, pops up with a constellation that you shot and, you know, shows you a score. And if you get enough of those, you'll like the extra ball and, you know, stuff like that. So it's a rule that you don't necessarily need to know what's in there or shoot for, but it is a path to an extra ball, a path to extra points. So I think it'll be pretty fun.
    82:23
    I'm looking at the wanted screens now. I just opened up that YouTube video, and Eric is very much into the whole yarg thing, and so are you. But you've got to tell Peg Lurieger Joe that he's going to put on his best pirate face. That's, his face is very normal in that picture. Yeah, he's all crazyed out, I think.
    82:45
    Now, Keith, I've got a two-part question for you. Leading on from that, so, you know, when I met Jack last year and I talked about it on the podcast, I sort of said, you've got your front-facing camera and you've also got your back screen. All it needs now is a Playfield Cam and you've got a ready-made streaming machine, right? Now, I said that to Jack and he was very polite saying, great idea, he wouldn't have thought about it again. So, there's an idea for your camera. But the point I was actually going to ask is... We actually use the in-game camera in our stream. Like, that's the camera for the player view. Well, there you go. See, I think that's already right there. So, that was my idea, just so everybody knows. Once we need to use it for the high score pictures and stuff, then we won't be able to use it anymore. We'll use one of the other ones for the player view or something. But right now, yeah, we do have a camera in there and we do use it for the stream instead of hooking it up to the rig. And so what I sort of remember saying at the time when I mentioned on the podcast is that it's so easy for me to come up with no idea and go, yeah, Jack, do it, it's a great idea. And then implementing that kind of stuff isn't so easy. And I also know that there's a, you know, with TNA, a lot of people I know keep feeding Scott D'Anisi a lot of information about rules and what they could do.
    84:11
    Is that what happens with you as well, where as soon as you're at a pinball tournament or a get-together, people come up to you and go, Keefe, I've got these great rules and you've got to implement them. Is that what happens as well with you? Not really, honestly. I mean, I think people maybe respect me enough that they know they don't have to give me rule suggestion possibly. I mean, maybe, you know, maybe that's egotistical or something, but I have rarely been given, like, legit ideas that were actually fun. You know what I mean? Like, I have an idea what people say.
    84:45
    You caught it back in the middle. Like, a classic one I'd roll poker to, or someone wanted me to, hey, if you shoot 50 ramps, then you should light special. I'm like, okay, great. Why would I do that? I mean, there's putting work into a game for the sake of work is just stupid. That's why I hate, you know, do or die multiball so much. It's like, why on God's earth do I have to shoot, you know, three sets of drone targets or four sets or whatever the hell it is to get to the end of the game? I mean, that's just, it's stupid. I'm sorry, but do or die multiball is a stupid requirement. There had to be a better solution to that.
    85:28
    So, I mean, you know, the game's got to flow. I mean, the game, not just from a play field perspective, but the rules of the game, what the game's presenting to you and how it feels and all that stuff, it's got to have some flow. It's got to make sense going from one thing to another. Don't just say, you know, to go back to Indiana Jones, right? Oh, okay, first time you hit the arc six times, and then you hit it ten times, and then you hit it 14 times, and then you hit it 32 times or whatever. I mean, that's stupid. There's got to be a better way than just making it a ridiculous number of times you have to hit something.
    86:09
    Right? Yeah. It's the one thing I've always tried to do is have difficulty levels that kind of make sense. It's not just hitting the thing over and over and over again. Maybe you have to hit him in order. Maybe you have to hit him twice. You know, whatever. But there are different ways to do things than just making you do it, you know. I guess you're just saying you're trying to eliminate the whole chopping wood thing, right? Exactly. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I really like a lot of TNA, but if you want to get to the end of it, it's seriously chopping wood. I hate to say it, you know.
    86:45
    Cue unpopular response. Oh, you're going to get a lot of hate mail. You are. Maybe I should have said that so I can get the hate mail. I mean, look, I really appreciate everything that Scott did in that game. It's amazing that he did, you know, the layout and the coding and the rules and the sounds, especially the music. I mean, you know, I'm probably one of the few people that really enjoy the music to that game based on what my circle of friends likes, I guess. But, you know, there's a lot to like in that game. But Saga for those nine reactives, man, ugh. Don't you think that it's, I guess, the reason why people are kind of publicly accepting it? And obviously games go through waves. There's hype waves and then things die down. They might come back later. You know, like no one cared about Congo back in the day and then it's the best game ever and then it dies down a bit.
    87:37
    Don't you think that part of, I guess, the success of that game has got to do with the fact that you can explain the game in, say, 30 seconds to someone? But it's still not easy. Versus, you know, a one-hour explanation of what to do here and there with multipliers and things like that?
    87:59
    That's a great question. I mean, clearly enough people like what it is and what it offers to be buying it, you know, in the hundreds. I mean, I, you know, people aren't going to believe it, but I have many, many times pushed the idea of making, you know, a really simple game just to see how it would go.
    88:24
    Is that with your time at Stern or Jersie Jack, or what are you talking about? A little of both, yeah. I mean, I definitely pushed for it a couple times at Stern and at least one time at Jersey Jack probably. Just, you know, throw it on the wall and see if it sticks, basically. How simple, are we talking about like mechanically simple as in a single level play field or just rules simple with whatever layout you guys have? A little bit of both. Yeah. I mean um like you know a lot of people don like these games very much but I actually have a lot of respect for the Gottlieb Street level games because those games have a lot of very interesting shots like you know uh Loaded Weapon or whatever that whatever that game I think it was Loaded Weapon is not a very it definitely not sought after or anything like that but the shots in that game are really unique and interesting and do different things I mean it Well that's what we thought of Silver Slugger if you remember Ryan when we played that. We kind of thought that it was actually quite an interesting game considering its simplicity. I think get past the Gottlieb slippers. If you're able to trap every single ball that comes to you then I don't know it doesn't matter what's on the game I just can't get past that. Yeah, that's definitely a Gottlieb thing for sure. But, you know, a lot of weapon, even title fight has a fairly interesting play field. I mean, you know, sure there are exploits in it or, you know, it's not the best tournament game or something, but from what was done from a geometry perspective, you know, a lot of those games are very interesting and, you know, things can be learned from them. And, you know, to some extent, you know, some of those rule sets are probably way more complex than the play field actually calls for. But, you know, I feel like it works. I mean, they're not good games in terms of packages, but, you know, they're actually not bad rules and shooting games. So when it comes to the design and development of a game, do you have much of a say in layout and presentation? It definitely varies. I mean, like back on Simpsons, you know, I said we've got to have an upper play field and it's got to be the family room and he's a TV and a couch. You know, so Joe came up with what he came up with. And, you know, there are a couple other things that, like the Quickie Mart area, which is a loop now, was my suggestion. At first, he just added a dead-end target that wasn't very interesting, and he had those stand-ups, the bully stand-ups now. And, you know, you could never shoot those. But, you know, so he had the loop with the target, then you could bounce off the target and hit the bullies and, you know, hit the bullies off the loop. So, you know, I definitely make suggestions here and there that I think enhance the game. I mean, a lot of the diverters in Hobbit were probably my idea, like the one that turns the ramp into a loop and the idea of feeding the kickback and staging the ball at the kickback and diverting the ball into the lane that feeds the outlane and stuff like that.
    92:00
    A lot of those are my idea. And also after – sorry, one more thing. Oh, the action button? It was probably – that was probably my idea. I don't remember – I'm sure – Stern used it on ACDC, I think, right? So we'd seen that, and it just got us thinking what we could do with it. And so we took the idea of the action button and, you know, gave it a lot of different things it could do at different times. It's like if you're paying attention, then it'll probably help you do something, kind of like the ring does in the movie, I guess, right? Bill will put it on and it helps them somehow. So you charge up the ring and you can use it and it does something hopefully useful for you.
    92:49
    So we just tried to make it more interesting than what we had seen at the time. And I feel like we went further with that on Pirates in terms of using it to set up your lane of war and especially collecting the gold.
    93:08
    So with Pirates of the Caribbean and the stuff we're in the progression, I guess there's five wizard modes that tie into completing all five chapters for that movie and also playing the multiple, right? So I believe it doesn't matter how horrible or well you go in the modes or the multiball, once you complete those requirements, the major wizard mode for that movie is lit. I haven't been watching too many of the streams, but I remember you coded one in there, I believe, which was the shooting in different areas of the playfield to return the gold thingy-jiggies. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, so I believe two other multiples are in there, wizard modes. Is that right? Is that where the code is at the moment? Let's see. The one for two is done and the one for four is done. Actually, Eric got to the movie for it tonight. Okay. Can you elaborate on that and let people know what is involved with those modes? Yeah, so the first one, you know, it's like, we're trying to, in a way, we're kind of walking on eggshells, like trying to figure out what can we do that sort of ties to the movies that we can sort of create some assets that we're actually allowed to use and present to people. You know, so, I mean, obviously there's nothing directly from the movie, but, you know, we know the pirates had to go and after they spent all their money on booze and wenches or whatever, they had to go get it all back and repay the blood or whatever. So we took that idea and that became the idea for the first because we could tie it to pinball rules like that concept.
    95:06
    So that one, it's basically a frenzy. So every time you shoot a shot or a target or whatever, you're getting some gold. But you can only get so much gold from a certain place. So once you've gotten all the gold from a place, you have to shoot a shot that represents some other place on the map and go to that city instead. Now all the gold you're getting is from that shot slash city. And so you have to keep shooting different shots to move yourself around so you don't run out of gold at a certain location.
    95:38
    So like you shoot a shot, you know, hopefully you hit a spinner, you know, collect a bunch of gold, then hit another shot to go somewhere else, hit another spinner. You know, there's any number of ways to do it. Just keep shooting shots or... But it's time, so you have to do it in a certain amount of time. And so where it doesn't matter how well you play the modes to get there, it does matter how well you play them for your scoring.
    96:04
    So the scoring is based correctly on the number of characters you've collected for the movie, basically times the number of super jackpots you've collected for that multiball.
    96:16
    So scoring, if you just held the ball and timed out all the modes, so you'd be making like 10 points a shot. Which is, okay, you're playing the wizard mode, great, but you're not going to score anything for it. I guess this is what you were talking about as well with the new code coming for the Hobbit.
    96:37
    The risks that you take before you get into that mode are now going to be tied to your scoring in the modes, whereas now it doesn't matter what you play. Right, it'll be the quality of the mode that you play, yes. Yeah, the quality, yeah.
    96:50
    So, how about one of the other modes? We've seen that one where you're collecting the goals. Right, so number two is Battling the Kraken. So, on that one, in the movie, the scene is raising the net, you know, of gunpowder and rum, And at some point they're going to shoot the gun and blow it up and hopefully make the Kraken go away.
    97:17
    So that one, you're shooting loops over and over and over again, the inner loop, to simulate raising the thing. But all that time, the Kraken is advancing on the ship, so you need to hit the other shots to keep the Kraken from maxing out a shot. And if he does, then you can't get him away after that. So you keep shooting shots, you keep making loops, and at some point you've gotten the net as high as he'll go, and then you make the Mapple shot in order to shoot the gun and win the mode.
    97:55
    That's what I love about your rules, I guess, Keith, is no matter how you look at them, and I guess, you know, like what people are saying about the Hobbit, and I was saying before, You want that end mode and you're like, well, we'll do something, but the end mode on the Hobbit movies doesn't really exist like it does on Lord of the Rings. And when I'm playing Pirates of the Caribbean, the Stern version, every time you destroy the ship, you're battling the Kraken. And I guess that kind of goes back to what you said about Gary Stern or upper management saying, well, yeah, you have to give people what they want with their toys. And there's a balance there with the code of kind of doing something over and over again where, hey, every time you destroy the ship, you're battling the Kraken, which doesn't kind of really make sense. Versus what you're doing here with Pirates, where you're trying to kind of be as true as you can to the movie franchise.
    98:47
    We could talk to you for like five more hours. I want to ask a couple more quick questions. Marnie's work, but Shaker usage in J.J.P. games.
    99:01
    Some games, like some of the Stern games, the whole machine's vibrating. Jizzy Jack probably is very, very subtle. Obviously, you're the guy who's implementing that. Do you have a bit of a hate for Shakers?
    99:15
    Yes, absolutely. Yes, okay. I don't get it. I don't get the whole Shaker thing. Okay, let me explain it from my point of view, I guess, is your implementation of sounds, I think, is amazing. The feeling I get when I'm playing Law of the Rings and Simpsons Thinball Party, I'll use those two, but there's also The Hobbit and Wizard of Oz, right? When I hit a super jackpot in Simpsons and you have that insane payoff and then the music ramps up again. The Lord of the Rings, two towers, multiball, it just gets more and more and more intense until you get the 7x and the Super Jackpite.
    100:00
    The use of the Shaker, I guess, is just that extra feedback, that sensory feedback that you made the shot and you've done something well. Just like a call-out, right? So, you know, would you ever consider, you know, for, I guess, you know, the Hobbit or Wizard of Oz. I mean, Wizard of Oz is pretty much done anyway. Would you ever consider just like that slight little shaker vibration just to reward the player for making the shot of what they were going for? What's the argument against that, I guess?
    100:33
    I mean, shaking for shaker's sake is like, I mean, it's the Gary Stern thing, right? It's like, I paid $50 for the shaker motor and I got to have the second thing shake. Sorry, maybe, whatever. You can please that out if you want. You could say that for anything. You could say, well, you're saying jackpot for jackpot's sake. The old games, the sold states, they didn't have any jackpot callouts.
    101:00
    I guess I'm so, you know, the shaker thing is so hackneyed and so, you know, it's like a revenue source now as opposed to something that's actually useful in a game. I mean, it made absolute perfect sense on Earthshaker for sure. You know, I don't know what sense it makes on Guns N' Roses.
    101:23
    You know, Wizard of Oz, I feel like we used it in appropriate spots, you know, the Wizards go in or, you know, certainly during key points in the multiball animations and stuff like that. I mean, you know, I think it's good where it's used. I don't think it's overused. I think it feels appropriate.
    101:44
    I know we added some to it at some point, and maybe Ted or someone made a point in adding more to Havid. I don't remember when that happened, but just going to add Jack that. Yeah, another one which I already know your answer to because you've already addressed it publicly, but this is the conversation I have with my friends. I don't like playing Wizard of Oz because my scores are always so shit. I'm like, no, your score's actually pretty good. Ah, but, you know, I go on Attack from Mars and I get billions and I have a good game of Wizard of Oz and it's 200,000. I'm like, well, if you want to stick a post-it note on the back and write comma zero, zero, zero to make yourself feel better than you can. He's like, yeah, I understand, but it doesn't change the fact that I still feel like I haven't had a good game because of the score. So people suggested it before. I already know your answer, but I guess I just want you to say it out loud. Would you consider putting a menu adjustment where you can say add three zeros to make yourself feel good at the end of it? No.
    102:47
    I mean, so what am I going to do? Now I've got to put three zeros, six zeros, so I let you decide. Now I've got to make space in the display for all those freaking zeros? I mean, you know, right now scores are low and you can make the numbers bigger because they're, you know, they're small numbers. I mean, if you make scores gigantic, then it's just silly. I mean, actually, you know, I'll have to go back and find it. Maybe I'll forward it to you guys. But I tweeted a picture of it. I had a bug during Hobbit where a score went negative on one of the modes. And since we used 64-bit scoring, basically it said, oh, now your next shot is worth, you know, 18 quintillion points or whatever it is. And it showed on the display and it worked just fine. I mean, but, you know, it looked really silly. I mean, you know, is that, do we really need to have all those digits? I mean, at some point it's just silly. Why do I care about getting $25,000 for hitting up the middle when I'm eventually going to get to a mode and score $2 billion on the game? Do you think sometimes that you have to, like I know your involvement at Pinball has been for two decades and there's all these new people entering the market. Do you feel like sometimes you have to dumb it down? I know you do it anyway with like a lot of you have to balance everything out, but do you feel like, you know, you have to think about that person and kind of go back to, you know, two decades ago and say, hey, when I was first playing pinball, you know, people like this and people, you know. Yeah, I mean, so people don't get, you know, when you start getting the millions, people like casuals don't really get that, you know. I mean, okay, above average players understand a billion is like nine zeros after it, but a casual is like, oh, that's a lot of digits. I have no idea what the hell that number is.
    104:45
    My father was playing World Poker Tour once, and he's like, oh, yeah, I got $30,000 on the game. I did pretty well. In my head, clearly he meant $30 million, but it's like my father was actually a pretty smart guy or was a pretty smart guy.
    105:02
    You know, gets confused between thousands and millions. Like, what is a normal person doing? So that played no small part in my decision to ratchet things back. And, you know, it doesn't matter. It's all relative. I mean, high scores of 500,000. So, you know, I don't know. I don't get the complaints about the score.
    105:25
    I mean... Well, I mean, all the other newer companies that enter the market are kind of going for that lower scoring thing as well. So I think you've started a trend, which is for the better in my opinion. Yeah, right. Certainly TNA did that. I mean, you know, that game, you know, you get a million, you're having a decent-ish game on that thing. Yeah.
    105:43
    All right, Keefe. Well, I think we'll, unless there's anything else that you want to chat about. I mean, as I said, we can continue talking forever because, as I said, I think you've got the hardest job in Pinball because you have to satisfy everyone and it's no easy feat. Yeah, well, you know, at some point you just get over it and it's like, I know I can't satisfy everyone, so I satisfy myself and hopefully that coincides with, you know, a majority of people. I mean, that's why Simpsons is the way it is. It satisfies me. So, that's pretty much why most of the games will be like that. All right, Keith. Well, we look forward to seeing Pirates in its complete state, and I'm sitting there on the JDP software downloads page, pressing F5 for that final hobbit. Hopefully we'll see that.
    106:35
    It'll be after Pirates, I can tell you that enough, sure. After Pirates is complete or after Pirates is shipping, or when can we, is there a... At least after, some point after it's shipping, yes. Okay.
    106:48
    I'm waiting for that cartwheel and that's when I'll start pressing F5, I guess. Well, just because you see the cartwheel doesn't mean a Havocos Magical can be done. I mean, you know, I haven't worked on it that much. I mean, Ted's done some stuff on it, but, you know, I haven't done some stuff that I want to deal with it yet. So, you know, it'll be there eventually. No worries. Good stuff. Thanks for coming on, mate. Enjoy the rest of your night.
    107:14
    All right. Thank you, guys. It was a pleasure. Thanks, man. Thank you, Keith. So there you go. That was Keith Johnson. Kiefer, what did you think, Ryan? That was amazing. There was a lot of awesome information there. He definitely doesn't hold back from sharing his opinion.
    107:31
    TNA, chopping wood. It's funny because at the core, it is chopping wood, but so is like Metallica, and playing it and getting near Reactor 9 is a different experience with everything amping up. The other thing I got from the interview is he's almost ruined Lord of the Rings for me. Why? Well, I played it for the first time in a while after the interview and Balrog came out and my brain automatically just hears Gary Stern going, Come on, we got the $20 toy, we're going to put Balrog in there. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
    108:09
    What have you done, Keith? You've ruined the game for me. I can't take it seriously anymore. I can't take it to Balrog. Seriously anymore, so, yeah. I mean, I always thought the Balrog toy was a bit of an odd one, but now I guess I understand why.
    108:25
    Well, I mean, what Keith is saying is that it coming out for no reason is odd. Using it during the Fellowship of the Ring multiball is fine. And I love that mode. You hit him, you hit a shot, you hit him, you hit a shot, you get everyone across. It's one of my favourite multiballs, so.
    108:43
    Shall we head to the news? Yeah, well, there's quite a lot of news this week. What shall we start with? Well, let's start with Jersi Jax since we kind of just did a two-hour interview with Keith on it.
    108:54
    Jack commented on Pirates of the Carybean during the interview with, I don't know what the podcast is called, it's called the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast, I think it's called. Yeah, that's the one, something like that. Yeah, and basically he said that the disc isn't reliable, so it's not going back in. And he accepts it as his mistake since he was kind of fleeting the company, even though I guess it's the engineers.
    109:21
    I mean, that sounds horrible. Sorry, Eric. Yeah. Well, no, it wasn't. Eric wasn't engineering it. He kind of gave it to somebody else. Anyway, and he said the days of revealing a game before it's ready is probably over. So that doesn't mean that they're not going to show a machine again in kind of the same state. But, I don't know, you feel a lot better kind of listening to that interview, but they're just words, I guess, you know, because Jack is very good at being a politician, and I don't know if it sounds horrible, but... No, he's a salesman, he knows the right things to say. Yeah, he knows the right things to say, he makes you feel nice, warm and fluffy, even though what in front of you isn't that way, but I did watch that stream that Keith was doing right before we interviewed, I did go back and watch that and it really is looking like a good game. I mean it was a good game all along I think, it's just that I guess you get bored of it, bored of talking about it without playing it.
    110:27
    Did you have a look at the star map and what it does? Yeah, I really only saw the tail end of it and I haven't had a chance to go back but I know that it was one of the features they did show off on the stream. Yeah, so I always thought the Star Map was just going to be this kind of twinkling thing just for show, but basically it only exists on the L.E. and the C.E. It's not in the Pro. And I guess it's the first feature that Jersi Jack are kind of having exclusively for possibly an LE and not in the pro. Because what it does is it's kind of like the stars in the sky and every once in a while, I'm not sure what triggers it, it'll show something to hit like a letter like A, which is in the in-lanes or a treasure chest. and it was really obvious on the stream but Kee said that's a bug. It's meant to look a lot less like what it's meant to be showing. So you're meant to be kind of like squinting at it trying to make out what it is like you would do when you look up at the stars and say, oh, that's the Big Dipper and that's this and that's that.
    111:34
    So you're kind of meant to kind of look at it, figure out what it is and then hit that shot and then it kind of gives you like an award and eventually it gives you an extra ball. So it's cool. I mean, there's a lot of new things in that game that have never been done before, and that's why the taking the discs out thing is quite ridiculous how everyone reacted. It's still, you know, it's still a valid reaction, but if you kind of take a step back now after two weeks, it's still a good game. If you watch the stream, there's still an insane amount of stuff in there that no other machine has. Look, I do like more and more of it. I'm sort of in the same boat as you. I now just want to play it. I actually want to see the final thing and I want to see how the code has evolved. I still agree. I think overall it's still a great game. The discs didn't bother me too much, so bring it on. Do we know when it's going to ship? Have we been given an update on that? Yeah, I think, I can't remember if Eric said June or July is going to go down there and help set up the line and that's I guess when it starts shipping. I think Jack mentioned it as well but not this month or next month so.
    112:48
    Eric also mentioned that there's a laser cut topper coming as well for the LE and I'm not sure if that was mentioned before. I'm not sure if that's on the feature matrix and maybe possibly that's what they're chucking in as compensation for taking the discs out. Or maybe that was meant to be in there all along. I can't remember it either. Yeah. So in honour of Keefe constantly coming on our show, we're going to do a little Pirates competition. Marty, explain it. All right. So what we want is people to send us through an audio clip in their best or worst, you decide, Pairate Voice and we want you to say something either about the podcast or about pinball or about pirates in pinball. You know, you make it up and what are we going to do to decide to win a Ryan? You choose one, I choose one and then we'll put it to a Facebook vote.
    113:48
    You are not allowed to send an audio clip that is over 10 seconds long. All right, and this is just to stop what happened last time of people writing insane long paragraphs and news pieces. I don't want a two-minute audio clip. Ten seconds. Whatever you have to do to be funny in ten seconds has to be done in ten seconds. So just record it on your phone and then click the email button and then email to head, the number to head at gmail.com, head to headpinball at gmail.com. And we'll post it up on Facebook. Oh, sorry, and the prize. The prize is a Pirates of the Caribbean Translight and as I mentioned a couple of episodes ago, I did get this from the Jersey Jack factory. Jack signed it for me. On the way back home, it got the tiniest little rip in the corner. It's a Translight, so it's not a piece of paper, so the rip doesn't look bad. It's literally about two centimeters long on the side. If you frame this thing, you won't see it, so that's why we're still giving it away. It doesn't ruin it, but just bring it out there. I think it's still worth entering the competition despite the little tiny rift. And it makes it more authentic. Pirates don't have, you know, clean stuff. It's, you know, yarr. Yeah, it's like a bit of parchment. Yeah. The authentic pirate experience is how we're going to recover from this.
    115:09
    Diversion, diversion. Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle, Marty. What have we got to say about that? Well, we know they are selling in numbers. People are starting to get numbers associated with their deposits and I did see someone getting a number as high as 399. So do you think that means they're possibly doing them out of order or do you think they've actually sold four-fifths of their total run?
    115:39
    I mean, with Spooky, can you choose which number you want your machine to be? In the past, no, but I'm not sure if it's newer this time. This is a question for Lucas. This is really good journalism here. We've been doing pretty good so far. Anyway, it's selling well. That's all they need to know. The big news of the week, Marty.
    116:00
    So let's talk about Highway Pinball. We did get some news and we got a lot of news that was fed to us very early on. Unfortunately, by the time we get to record this podcast, a lot of it is already out there. But what do we know, Ryan? Well, we know that Highway, the UK company, Highway, Pinball, has pretty much gone under. Yeah, they've hung up their boots and I guess the writing was on the wall last week when that guy kind of quit and Cointaker didn't want to pay for that container. And what did we say? We said, oh yeah, I think they've still got some life left in them if this is not the end of them. No, it was the end.
    116:48
    Well, but is it the end of Alien Pinball and is it the end of future Highway Pinball titles, Ryan? Well, I'm not the one who got said this information, so just tell me my name.
    117:00
    Alright, so everybody, here's our disclaimer. This is pure speculation. We do not know this for fact, so don't try to sue us. We've got no money. I don't have any money. Ryan's absolutely rolling in it. So here's what we know.
    117:18
    What we know is that, again, speculation, I don't think this is something that happened last week. I think this is something that they saw coming a long, long time ago. Yeah. And what's happened effectively is pretty much all the assets of Highway have now gone to another company, which I believe is in Sweden, even though they also have a registered office in the UK. And this company is called Pimball Brothers. Okay. And Pinball Brothers, which is made up of the same directors that were the directors that were the investors that took over Highway Pinball, I believe are going to, at some stage, try to get Alien Pinball out the door again, probably in about six months.
    118:12
    That's a bit longer than two weeks. Is that legal? I mean, if the license is with Highway, are they allowed to sell the license? Well, this is where, you know, you could read that there's a big bloody alien thread on Pinside and it's where everybody really is speculating about what it is. So I could probably read out the speculation because therefore it's not me, it's me reading out somebody else's thing. But, you know, there, yeah, you know, could be. I do not know. What I had heard is that this company had been set up a while ago and I believe that this company was providing the parts for Alien and selling those parts to Highway and then they could, you know, ship all those to Sweden because it was their assets anyway. I don't really know, but I'm just going to say, I'm just going to say, I'm going to say just fucking don't buy an alien. I would recommend don't buy a machine from this group. It reeks, Ryan. It reeks. It stinks.
    119:23
    What we did learn is Mr. Deeproot came online and said, We did open a dialogue to buy Barry's three games with them on Monday. They refused to sell Queen. Playboy we didn't want in the third unlicensed game we can recreate under US laws about a problem. We never asked them about Alien, but I have been shocked, blah, blah, blah, blah.
    119:50
    So, I mean, everyone kind of knew that Queen was going to be their second game, So I guess these Pinball brothers are also planning to somehow manufacture and produce Queen Pinball Machine. I don't know. Who's going to do work for them? I mean, yeah, Barry Asler did the layout, but, I mean, everyone knows that the layout isn't the Pinball Machine, it's the software and everything that goes into it. Is that already done? It reeks, Ryan. It reeks. I mean, they haven't paid anyone any, like, they haven't paid so many people, so I don't know who would still work for... Yeah, I'm going to read the Andrew Highway statement, surely. Yeah, you know what? Do you want me to do it in a funny voice, or do you want me to just do it normal? Do it in a funny voice, and I want to say something afterwards. I'll do it, I'll do it normally. So this, so Andrew Highway decided to go into Pinside Thread. Like, just let that sink in. After self-imposed exile, he came back and this is what he wrote.
    120:50
    Statement from Andrew Highway. I'm truly sorry to hear about the turn of events announced today. In June 2017, I sold my controlling stake in Highway Pinball Limited, including its commitments and liabilities, to a group of investors who claimed to want to put significant funds into the company, achieve mass production, and deliver part-paid and fully paid gains to customers. as well as new machine sales. Throughout the five years that I ran the company, we developed and sold games up until the time of my departure. This was never a Ponzi scheme as some have suggested. A mix of technical problems, supplier quality problems and unrealistic timeframes resulted in delays that financially crippled the company. We were all committed to delivering games to all paying customers. I personally apologise for the unrealistic timeframes. There have been suggestions that I stole or diverted company funds for my own ventures. These are very serious accusations and never once have I been interviewed by the police for any alleged wrongdoings. The company's accountants have never suggested any wrongdoings by me. It can be proven that the company owed me significant monies and not the other way round. I would therefore advise people to refrain from making any libelous or slanderous statements about me as I would defend myself and my integrity. I very much regret that the company's owners have closed the company without honouring its commitments to all paying customers and I wish everyone the best in pursuing their claims against the investors or via the insolvency practitioners. This situation has appalled me and I'm extremely sorry for the anguish that it will inevitably cause. Andrew Highway.
    122:29
    Can I say something? Right? Sure, why not? Hey Marty, there have been suggestions that I interviewed Keith Johnson. They are very serious accusations and never once have I been interviewed by the police for any of the alleged interviews.
    122:49
    That was a weird one to come out, wasn't it? Well, as in like, he's not actually saying that he stole or diverted the company funds. He didn't say, I didn't do it. He said, people have suggested it. It's very serious to suggest that and I've never been interviewed by the police about it. Yeah. Right? What he's saying is, I got away with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, suckers! Do you know what I mean? Like, he could say, you could put in, substitute any word there, and that would be true about anything, unless we're actually interviewed by the police. But, do you know what I mean? Like, he actually hasn't said anything in those three lines there. It's been suggested that I've done it. That's a serious thing to say. I've never been interviewed by the police. So, you know.
    123:32
    Who knows? I mean, it's just a complete and utter fuckery. And there's a lot of people that are obviously really upset that they've had their money, I guess, tied up in this and now it's probably going to be gone and I doubt they're going to get much back.
    123:52
    A lot of people had an opportunity to pool their funds. A lot of people, I guess, missed their credit card chargeback date, but that time has kind of expired. I don't think you can do a chargeback two years later or three years later. But a lot of people kind of believed in the second coming of the rebirth of Highway Pinball, and it turned out to be... I'm not sure, I haven't really thought, followed this thread, but I don't think many people or anyone that was kind of promised a game from the original fully paid crew Pinerom ended up getting an alien after the rebirth because they just kept on kind of taking new orders and new money. So those people, I mean, that I guess is a Ponzi scheme, but, you know, maybe not a deliberately set out Ponzi scheme. But that's what, I guess, what a Ponzi scheme is, right? Yeah. Keep on getting new money until the arse falls out. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I think you're absolutely right in saying that. It wasn't set up as a Ponzi scheme, but inevitably that's what it became to try and keep themselves afloat.
    124:56
    And didn't we see that with other companies as well? Yeah, we did, and then they got investors and it was okay. J-pop, wasn't it?
    125:07
    Social justice? Yes, it was. The other fun point was that people have sort of been speculating, and I kind of alluded to it before that, before the company was dissolved, all the assets were transferred to this new company, so then they could dissolve the old company. Is anyone suing these people? Oh man, I don't know. But I can imagine the liquidators when they got to the warehouse and said, right, what can we sell off? They've gone, oh shit, it's just an empty warehouse, there's a rotten apple core over there, a half-eatronic there, you know.
    125:45
    Plans for a hydrofoil. There's like a $10,000 machine to make, wasn't it Starposts, the Hexposts? I remember when Andrew bought a whole machine to make Hexposts and print T-shirts. Didn't you buy a T-shirt printing machine?
    126:03
    Oh my gosh. Anyway. So, you know. And the other thing I just wanted to know as well, because they've obviously talked about Playboy, right? Yes. And so there was a, I just wanted to read this out because I found this quite interesting because I actually didn't know that they had, they were thinking about doing Playboy. Do you remember, we got that email saying there was some company in Germany that got their Playboy license or something? Maybe that's what it is. They just got their wires crossed and it was, it was, it was. So this is actually from Dave Sanders. I don't know how to pronounce it, but is it Eala, Dub, Side, whatever it is? Anyway, I used to follow him back in virtual pin days.
    126:42
    So he said, the Playboy license was first pitched to the upstairs team in, I think, 2014, and opinions ranged from the ambivalent to the really, really outright hostile. This was before the brand itself was forced to sharply change direction and people really did end up having to read the magazine for the articles. But even back then, I knew that a British company taking on a brand that was synonymous with bygone America, particularly for the age range in an American-led market that would be expected to buy the machines, was a spectacularly bad idea that couldn't possibly be met with anything other than hostile response. But Alvira, on the other hand, can we segue into that?
    127:25
    Yeah. That's a good segue into Alvira. Like what we did there? Nice. So what about Elvira? There has been a bit of an update, hasn't there? Yeah, I'm not sure where this is posted. You could do this one, Miley, because you're the one who put it in the show next. I think this came from Pinside. So the poster said a couple of other Pinsiders, and I don't even know who this was, so apologies to whoever it was.
    127:52
    So apparently people chatted with Cassandra Peterson, who is the actress that plays Elvira. So I chatted with her a few weeks ago on April 14th at Monsterpalooza. We asked her about the game and here's what she told us. One, yes, the game is happening. Two, the artwork is gorgeous.
    128:11
    Three, the LCD screen will feature vintage clips from Elvira's movie Macabre. Four, she is doing all of the call-outs. In fact, she said that she was going to be recording them next week, so it's probably already done by now. Five, she said it's looking like the game will be out either late 2018 or early 2019.
    128:34
    I wonder how many blowjob jokes she'll chuck in there. Oh, three. There's only one. Three minimum. Three. That's the thing. There's only so many deadheads that they could do and it just became so repetitive. I hope there's at least 50 deadheads in this one. Yeah, for sure. I mean, she's the queen of the innuendo. So, I... I can't wait. I can't wait for the reaction. I just... I just think... I'm just going to say this, right? I think you either go boots in or not at all, right? Well, it's going to be boots in. If you're going to do this, you're going to piss people off. Piss them off completely.
    129:17
    You know what I mean? Like, because what you don't want... As in like don't put her fully clothed on the back glass, like butt naked. No, no, I mean like go as a self, but what I mean is if you're going to put in, let's say you're going to put in 30 jokes. Don't put in 29 safe jokes and then one really, you know, terrible sexist joke and everyone goes, oh, it's sexist. Like, fucking make them all sexist so everyone's got something. As we discussed, Alvira can get away with anything because she's Alvira. It's empowering, right? Well, it is. And I think it's because most people know that it's actually really taking the piss out of blokes that get into that stuff. So if you get the joke, you'll get it. If you don't, then whatever.
    130:08
    What else have you got this week? Marty, you got to see what you bought. The Iron Maiden Ali art. Well, not only the Iron Maiden L.A.R., but I also got to see the playfield and the toys.
    130:23
    And what did you think, Marty? So, what I, okay, and also it's got the red trim, right? So let's start with the red trim, because everyone, everyone after they came out, came up to me, oh, what do you think of the red trim? I'm like, yeah, it looks fine. It looks all right. Okay. Yeah. It's fine. What do you think?
    130:42
    Yeah, so I'm not really the art critic. But it didn't look right. And I guess, and I don't know why, it's almost like the colours are clashing or something. And people started photoshopping a different trim on it. And the artwork is fine. The artwork is really good. But it looks better with every other colour. Right, okay. And it's hard to put a poll out there because people know what the colour is meant to be. So I showed my wife and I said, which one do you like the most? You know, it was like gold, you know, blue, black, and then the red. And Red was the least favourite. That looks terrible. I don't think it looks terrible or anything. And when you're playing at Pimball Machines, it doesn't matter anyway. And everyone that has an alley, not everyone, but most people have a collection of pins. These are the high-end people that are buying the machines. And they can't see the artwork and the site anyway. So it doesn't really matter.
    131:37
    And it's just, you know, I guess people have to complain about something with Iron Maiden, right? Yeah. There's the theme and now there's the red trim.
    131:46
    Missed the opportunity to get rid of the WWE armour on that one instead of... That's what I'm saying. Yeah, and so when it came to the side art, I mean, we'd already been tipped off on what it was going to look like. So I conditioned myself to what it was going to look like and I wasn't disappointed. Meaning, I thought it was going to be crap. I wasn't disappointed. Yeah. It was, it's just, I think it's okay. It doesn't bother me because I'm not going to see the side art on my machine. Again, it's probably a missed opportunity. It could have been something that was really fucking kick-ass, but, you know, what's there is okay. For me, it was all about what the play field was going to look like, and it looks awesome. Marty, what if the premium, which hasn't been revealed yet, comes out and it is just shit hot and everything blends in perfectly? Yeah. What will you do, Marty? So you mean Game of Thrones again?
    132:44
    Everyone talks like Game of Thrones premium is ten times better than the LA. It's not. It's a little bit better. I think it's much better. It's like you take a shit on the floor and you sprinkle some fairy dust on it. It's still a piece of shit. Yeah, with fairy dust. Hello. He doesn't like shit with fairy dust. No, look, I know what you mean. It's not like it completely transformed the machine, but it was the better of the packages, and what you would hope is that the limited edition has the better of the packages, wouldn't you? 100%, but when they're limited to... I guess they don't need to, do you know what I mean? Like, it's sold anyway, and it's almost in their best... You know, like, if the premium is better, then that's better for them financially, right? It's better for the brand. Like, that's what you're going to see, because they're going to sell a crap load of boats. Yeah, they can only sell if the alley was 10 times better, like the Star Trek, for example, right, with the shooting lasers and all that kind of stuff. People might say well I want that so I going to hold out on the secondary market But if the hourly is kind of is just good enough and the premium is the best then they just keep on selling a million premiums right Yeah I not bothered I not bothered whether the premium or the LA looks better As long as the playfield looks great, that's all I'm happy about because that's what I'm going to be playing. Yeah. But I also do understand, as you do, you know, you talked about you're not necessarily the art guy. I mean, people have, you know, different priorities. Some people really want the trim to look absolutely perfect and some people want the side to look great. That doesn't bother me. I saw that post on Aussie Arcade. I can't remember who it was from. I think it was that Andrew ago that we interviewed and he was kind of talking about, because he's like obsessed with Iron Maiden, and he was talking about how he was a bit disappointed that the Spitfire has this type of art and there's the gunner at the back, which is obviously impossible because you'd be shooting your tail so you can't have a gunner at the back. And, you know, as a non-Iron Maden fan, you can just sit there and be like, oh yeah, whatever. But that's how passionate people are about this stuff. So you can never please everyone. If Jeremy Packard is listening, don't worry. It's sold out.
    135:05
    You did good, buddy. I saw a hilarious post on Pinside where someone said, Pro owners will love the pro and trash everyone else's decisions. Premium owners will think they got the best art and all the playful toys at a lesser cost. The alley owners will swallow their true opinions and learn to love the alley art and the extras and have a truly limited game for better or worse. And that pretty much sums up Stern Pinball's pro-premium and alley offerings in a nutshell. Yeah, pretty much.
    135:34
    Everyone's happy, right? Yeah, everyone's happy. Yeah, absolutely. So speaking of Stern, moving on. So we've got new Guardians of the Galaxy Code. And what have they done, Ryan?
    135:45
    Well, they've attempted to make the game good, and I'm a little bit upset because when the game kind of, like, sucks, it's so easy to play the game, it's just like, yeah, just go for Groot. Okay, Trash Groot, let's go for Orb all day. But now Orb has been nerfed, and Groot is back up again, and Modes have been totally rewritten, and this is actually, like, what it's meant to be, like a fully functioning independent game. And there's a lot on the player field. There's the Hadroning Force, there's double scoring, there's the X shots, there's the crank it up scoop thingy-jiggy. It still is at its core a mostly copied layout to Metallica, so I still feel like it doesn't feel unique when I'm playing it because I've got Metallica. I can get that experience, but the software now is unique enough, I think, to make it an independent game. Yeah, I mean, I think you touched on it as well in that it's the, well we talked about it before that the playfield was, it was kind of like produced as a generic playfield for the thing to come later. And then the rules just sort of came together and they borrowed stuff from here and there. What I don't think about Guardians of the Galaxy, I just don't think it's going to go down as a memorable machine.
    137:14
    Yeah, I mean, Stern are releasing so many games, they can't make them all memorable. Like, you know, the game that comes out next, which is, you know, apparently Deadpool, that's going to be a victim of how good In Maiten is. People can't possibly get excited by two CERN games in a row. Happy to be proven wrong, but it's just hard. The people's money is now allocated and pushed. Tens of millions of dollars of Pimball owners' money is now locked away in Iron Maden. Maybe that's why we still haven't seen Monster Bash. There's no point in them, regardless of if it's ready or not. Maybe it is ready, maybe it's not. But can you imagine releasing directly after all the Iron Maiden reviews saying, oh my god, this is the best game in years by Stern.
    138:02
    Yeah, yeah. But I still, I still, I don't know, I still just, I still just wish that there was something in Guardians that was unique. Even if it was a unique rule or, you know, just a unique feature of the machine. It's good, like it's actually a good game and it actually shoots quite well. Really well, yeah. I love the way it shoots. It really does, but it shoots well, the rules are good, everything is just a good B. There's nothing that really sort of stands out that gives you that wow factor. Well, we get to play it in two weeks at a... Except for the play field out, Chris Fancy, we love you. Yeah, fucking got his feet guns up the wazoo. That's what makes it unique. No, it's good for owners. I was joking before when I said it, I'm kind of annoyed, but it's just because I, you know, it's annoying to have to learn the rules four times over, you know, like, I just want to learn the rules once. It's a roller coaster. Do you go for this? Do you go for that? Like, what's the strategy? You know, now I think it is actually worth going for, you know, Cherry Bomb, Maltiball and Immolation Initiative. It's the weirdest thing for a wizard mode. It's just like, you know, hey, do you get into Immolation Initiative?
    139:22
    Sounds weird. It does. So that's pretty much it for the news. That's the news. So what should we move to, Ryan? Slam the Top 100. Yeah. Hey, I love this competition thing that we got going on because you were kicking my ass and I looked at it one day in, Dirty Harry was destroying Big Bang Bar. It was like 10 to 1 or 3 or something and then Big Bang Bar made a comeback. Everyone's into the sex instructions. Yeah, I think that's a case of everyone going, if you're indifferent you'll just let it go, but if you see that Dirty Harry's winning you'll go, oh bullshit, I'm judging for Big Bang Bar. There's no way that one's going to win. Wave angry fist. What would you rather play, Marty? Tell the truth.
    140:10
    I'll say Big Bang Bar mainly because I think Dirty Harry is a shit-ass game. I don't like it. You know what? It's the Guardians of the Galaxy of its time. It's okay. It's just, it's got shots, it's got things. Without the good art. Without the good art. Yeah, it's just, it's just okay. It's a good, it's a terrible theme. I remember when that first came out thinking, what? This isn't, this isn't a current theme. This isn't things that people are interested in anymore. It felt really out of date. It felt really odd. Yeah. So the fact that I got 46% of the vote, considering it was, what, 93 or something. I don't think people are voting right. Remember, guys, because I got a message during the week saying, I can't believe you don't like Dirty Harry. I'm like, of course I don't like Dirty Harry. The object of the game is to tell everyone that Dirty Harry is crap and Big Bang Bar is good. What we say, guys, it's like, remember debating in high school? You've got to pick a line. You know lawyers, when lawyers try and get murderers off and stuff, okay? Yeah. It's like that. We're the lawyers. We're the debaters. We're crooks, effectively. We're just lying, okay? Whatever we say is a lie, but you just have to say which one had the best lie. Yeah, who was convinced by our lies, effectively. Exactly. Who of us is more like Andrew Highway? Oh, shit. You better watch out, Marty. He will defend his integrity, okay? He will defend it.
    141:48
    Edit that out, Marty. I don't want to fucking lose my millions again. Okay. Maybe we should rename it Andrew Hyde for the top 100.
    142:03
    Are you ready for this round? I am. Let's go. Alright. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. Coming right up.
    142:15
    64. Oh, he's Doctor Who. He's a do. Have we done this before? I don't know. We've really got to do a list because everything's like blurring into each other. Okay, I'll take it. I'll take Doctor Who. Okay.
    142:29
    By the way, did you notice that Ion Maiden is not number one anymore? No. It's number five. Yes. Yeah, the wrath. Let's read some reviews after this. It'll be funny. Sure. Please generate a number from zero to a hundred. Coming right up. 99.
    142:56
    Why do we never, like, once we got a low number, like, besides Medieval Madness, I don't think we've ever got anything below 20. It's hilarious. Okay, this is Catacomb by Stern. Catacomb or Catacomb? Catacomb. Is it? Yeah.
    143:15
    As in like a cave kind of thing? Isn't that like a catacomb? So explain to me what a catacomb is. I'm going to ask for cats. Repeat after me. Catacomb. It wrote cat space A space cone.
    143:34
    Okay, maybe it is catacomb. Alright. Good luck to you, Marty. Okay. Doctor Who, are you ready? Go. Doctor Who, absolute great value, Pimball machine, doesn't cost you too much. A unique layout by Barry Housler. Hulu, so you can do Hulu all day long, or you can go for multiball, you can go for the video multi-jacket app. It is ahead of its time with the character selection. You get to choose at the start which perk you want, and you can collect different Doctors as you go along. It shoots brilliantly, it increases the volume during multiball so you can hear those stupid data streaming all day long. It is an amazing game with an amazing toy in the middle. There is no toy that beats that except Medieval Madness. That's my 30 seconds. Done.
    144:19
    Katakoum, are you ready for it? No. You're nothing about it, do you? Go. So, Katakoum by Stern. What an amazing game this is. Came out in 1981, I believe. Now, I actually played this one back in the day. It's stern of time. You've got, bloody, I don't know, three banks of, four banks of targets, drop targets, and the stern targets are just great. Awesome sounds on this. It's one of the first games that I really remembered that signature stern sound. The art is fantastic. It's got a really nice green with, you know, categories. I don't want any votes this week.
    145:12
    Alright, my 30 seconds starts now. Catacomb, or Catacomb as I like to call it. No one likes this guy. I don't know why it's in the top 100. It's there by accident.
    145:23
    Are you looking at a picture of the place with money? There's a giant piece of toast in the middle, right? A piece of bread ready to put in the toaster. There's a little monster guy with multipliers on his back. Horrible. Doctor Who shits a load for this. I don't even use that. So fuck off. I want Jeff Jeltson's vote. So fuck off. I'm going to outvote you with that one. Okay. You ready? Yeah. Who doesn't love interactive backblowers? We all do. And this has got a cute little bagatelle thing for the ABC. D in the back. How it works, I don't know, I don't care. Toast? Who fucking doesn't love Toast? Toast is freaking awesome. Doctor Who on the other hand is just a boring machine. Once you understand, you just go repeat, repeat, repeat, crap, those shouty daleks. You need to give me a vote because Ryan called them daleks. There you go. How did you go? Did you play Doctor Who in my competition?
    146:30
    No, I didn't actually. Ah, okay. Everyone was struggling with it, regardless of how easy the game is. No, everyone struggles with that game because it's terrible.
    146:41
    Alright, so we'll put that up in about 24 hours on our Facebook page and you can vote who had the best argument, or in this case you can break the rules and just vote for the best game, which was Doctor Who. Yeah, or vote against Daleks. Okay. I'm really going to go with that angle. The only thing I've got. Like, most people are going to go, what's this catacomb? Never heard of it. Doctor Who? Oh, yeah, loves me a bit of Leela. People know Sea Witch, they know Stargazer. By the way, if you're selling a Stargazer, please let me know. I would like one. No one wants to sell it, but I'm looking at the Iron Maiden reviews, and there's no really bad ones. I think everyone, if there's a really bad review, people just flag it now and it disappears. People are like, I don't agree with this. And a lot of people messaged throughout the week on Facebook and on other means and said that you can, because I said the pin-side ratings are stupid because artwork doesn't mean that much to me versus this, this and that. You can apparently, there's a slider where you can adjust what means more to you and it weights things differently. So if you think that art sucks but it doesn't matter to you then it won't take points off that globally. So I guess it's the best system that it can be but I still think that people kind of bastardise their ratings depending on what they want to manipulate. So if you wanted to buy a game that you wanted, like you actually really wanted, you were going to buy this game, What sort of rating would you think you could give it as a minimum on Pinside? If I wanted to buy the game, what would I give it?
    148:24
    Like, would you buy a game? Would you say... Yeah, okay. Like, do I have any games that I think are like a 6 out of 10? Well, yeah. Or if you said, look, I'm going to rate this game a 5, but I'm going to buy it. Yeah, a 7 out of 10 for me. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, because someone's got rated this a 7 and it's on their wish list. Okay. So. Well, they're probably one of those people that really don't like Ion Maiden and they just, people love to tell other people they don't like Ion Maiden. Yeah, I know. I don't like Ion Maiden. No, well, that's why, it's because it's the anti-vote, right? Because people who like Ion Maiden freaking love Ion Maiden and are happy to tell you all about it. They're lucky, they're really lucky they didn't actually go with Archer. I know a lot of people were like, oh, they sure just made Archer. Archer's so funny. Newsflash, Archer isn't funny anymore. It was funny. It was really funny. The latest season sucks and the new season also sucks.
    149:31
    It's lost its charm. Anyway, shall we head to This Week in Pinball? Sponsored by Jeff. We should. What's happened this week? What did we do together? We went to Pixar. We didn't even tell each other. We were going, but you just rocked up because it was a public holiday the next day. So the Pixel Alley Two Strikes competition, which usually only has maybe 15 or so people there, double the amount of people rocked up, including you, Marty, which I don't think you've been there for a year or something, right? I haven't been there for a very long time, I must admit. And I kind of messed up because I was planning to go there and then go and see Ready Player One about two hours later, two and a half hours later around then. And the competition would usually be done by then. And when I walked up there, I gave Luke my money. He said, oh, it's actually more today because it's three strikes and not two strikes. I'm like, oh, shit, I'm not going to be able to... He's like, oh, and Jordan's coming as well. And I was like, oh, well, I should just leave now. Yeah, exactly. You're just delaying the inevitable. So we were messed up first on Simpsons, which is absolutely hilarious. It's the weirdest playing Simpsons ever. And, gee, some of the scores that night, I mean, our scores are bad, but I even took a few drops. Like, I just feel like you're glossing over that and you're going to move on to another topic without actually out saying that I beat you. Well, I mean, everyone has kind of pinball excuses. I think Steve Bowden has, like, even a library of pinball excuses at why he didn't win. My excuse was that I wanted to go see a movie, so it didn't matter how I performed. No, that's actually not true. Do you know why you lost that game? Because I tilted twice. No, well, you tilted twice because you practically had two house balls. It was just a terrible game.
    151:19
    So I got, I think my final score was like 2.4 million and yours was 2.2 million. And throughout the night, if you got over a million, that was a pretty decent score. It was just, and the garage wasn't working, that drives me nuts. Yeah, I think I explained it last time that I came there, it's like, it's so frustrating because it works sometimes. This didn't work at all. Yeah, okay. I don't even know if I got it up there, but, and even the target, you got it up there and you're trying to start multiple, and the left lock target, you can bash it five times and only register once. So it needs a little bit of work, but that's location pinball for me. So I ended up still having one strike left. One of the guys that I was going to watch the movie with, Jared Mendoza, I was playing him in the final round I was able to on Guardians of the Galaxy and we were both on two strikes. So it was quite funny because we knew we couldn't advance anyway so we were trash talking to each other and I ended up winning. So I still had a strike left but I ranked I guess 14th or something. It doesn't really matter. I didn't win. Marty, you went a bit better because you stayed around. Yeah, I did stay around, but look, I've got to say, the collection of machines, they're probably not my favourite in that. I like Game of Thrones, I think that's a premium.
    152:46
    Guardians was there, it was playing incredibly fast. But the other three, so you had Simpsons, which everybody knows I dislike, and this one in particular you know as well, it was just terrible. Yeah. Twilight Zone, and that one played as brutal as any Twilight Zone I've ever played. Mm-hmm. But it wasn't by far the worst game.
    153:11
    The worst game was made worse. So we have talked about this game before. We talked about this when we stumbled across it at PAX and we've talked about this game on a previous podcast because you've played this game at Pixel Alley. So we're talking about Star Wars. Now it's a premium, isn't it? Yep, the premium.
    153:36
    Everybody, this is the Star Wars that has the warped play field. What that means is, if it's anywhere near, and you know, this could be like the pinball excuses thing that Steve Allen's got, but people go, oh, you know, this playfield is actually warped. If you look at it, you know, face down on the playfield looking up, you can actually see the warping of the playfield to the left and the right. So anytime the ball goes anywhere near the left or right, you can't even bounce it out. It just goes down the left and right. And I was just ready to leave after I played that game.
    154:16
    It's unfair, and it's unfair that somebody's actually got that on location and people putting money into that game.
    154:23
    It's a rort. Well, I mean, fair enough on that comment, but in the competition everyone's playing the same game. It's not fun. Yeah. Well, is my competition fun? I mean, I took out the outlanes completely.
    154:37
    Yeah, but you've done that deliberately. You know, you could put those back to normal and still have a fun game. Yeah. This game is not meant to be like that, and it was actually produced that way. I just think they need to take it away, get a new play field, and put it back in. I remember at the last comp that I was there, I heard someone say, and this could be just total bullshit, that they did replace the play field, and the second one was warped as well. That's what I heard. I'm not sure if it's actually true. But I don't think there's really been reports of this being a widespread issue. So it could be just this one. It just happens to be on location at one of my favourite pinball competitions. So who won the tournament money? Did you hang around?
    155:21
    No, I didn't. But Jordan was there, so Jordan won. Of course he did. So, yeah. And I guess we went to a pinball meet, which we had a little Facebook Live video. You can jump on Facebook and watch that little five-minute walkthrough of the event. That was a fun night. Yeah. And I guess the highlight of the night was that pinball cake. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it was the pinball cake, but it was also just those, you know, cream of the green bloody Bally Williams all in fantastic condition. What did you say, Marnie? The best Attack from Mars you've ever played? I reckon it's the best Attack from Mars I've ever played and it was backed up by Richard Rhodes, who's a top player in Australia. So it was actually just, it was hilarious because we made, I made the big statement that said, you know, this is the best playing Attack from Mars I've ever played. And Richard said, I absolutely agree. So Ryan gets on and goes, what? This isn't the best. Look at this. This light doesn't work and these inserts are raised. I'm like, what? And oh, you know, it's like, we didn't say it was the best looking game. We just, oh, but it doesn't play, then you can't shoot that. It's like, oh my god. It did play amazing, but I did, I mean, when you say it's the best you've ever played, I picked two little hardware things that can be tweaked. And one is the lock diverter wasn't all the way in, so it thrusts momentum out of the ball when it's meant to go all the way around into the ramp. And the other one was the fire again insert was slightly raised so a slow ball will kind of divert and divot off that unlevel slash playfield. That's all. Yeah.
    157:04
    That's very minor but you can't say it's the best one you've ever played. Well, I mean, it might be the best one you've ever played. It was a big statement but I could say in recent years, since I've come back from playing pinball, so let's say the last six years, absolutely. The shots were really smooth. You could actually pick any shot and get your aim and it just went where it needed to go. Do you think, yes, you're right, it did play very smooth. I mean, a lot of Attack from Mars kind of play very smooth, but do you think that it's also something to do with the in-lanes being all the way in that kind of gives you that feeling? You probably have a 10 billion game or something, right?
    157:45
    Yeah, I think so, something like that, yeah. Yeah. So do you think if you come to my house and you, like it's impossible to get like over 5 billion on my one, do you think that's going to make you feel a little bit less like it plays good because the ball just gets fucked down the outlane? No, it's not about the outlanes on yours. The difficulty I had on yours is anything on the right side of the playthrough, the right ramp and the right orbit I found difficult to shoot on yours. Okay.
    158:10
    That's all. Cool. Don't get offended. I'm not offended. You're a great machine, like, you know, it's all right. Talking about getting offended, good segue, Marnie. Yes. I just want to apologize to Jeff Teolis because we joke around a lot on the podcast, especially between me and Jeff, just banter kind of back and forth. But I'm not a comedian, right? So we went on this land chill podcast this week. It was a funny episode where I think there was 11 guests or so. And I jumped on at the end of the call and called Jeff Teolis an arsehole and he wasn't a nice person. And it was a joke. It was clearly a joke. But obviously people that don't know the situation might not have thought it was a joke. It was an in-joke that people didn't know was an in-joke.
    159:03
    We love Jeff Teolis. We love Jeff Teolis, okay? I went to Canada. He was going to fly to Chicago. So he's going to drive to Chicago, but me coming over forced him to fly there, so me coming over cost him more money, and then he let me sleep at his house, and he drove me everywhere. He introduced me to everyone. He touched me when he was sleeping. He didn't let me... Yeah.
    159:27
    Okay, now this is the thing, Marty. Now you have to say that was a joke. People think that Jeff Chiolis is a pedophile.
    159:35
    Well, how old are you? I'm 19. Anyway, so that was a hilarious podcast. We'll link in the show notes. It was great fun, wasn't it, Marty? It was absolutely hilarious. And I listened to it back. It's a three-hour podcast. I mean, who does three-hour podcasts? Jesus, guys, come on. Get with the times. It was actually very, very funny, so have a listen, everybody.
    160:01
    Marty, what did you do by yourself this week? Well, you know, out of hibernation, not only did I go to one comp, I went to two comps this week. So I went to Bayside as well. I had some good games. The machines there were a lot better, I will say. And long story short, I was up against Jordan and I put up on some respectable scores. So I put up like a 93 million on Metallica, for example, and Jordan, I was first player. Jordan got like 87. I'm like, ooh, okay, I'm close. And then Lex, who's Daniel Lewis, then gets 99 million. And it's like, oh, okay, so you've taken a point off me. We played the Simpsons there, which was only marginally better than the one at Pixel. And, you know, on my first ball I put up a respectable 15 million. It was a respectable score. And then everybody just passed me because my next two balls were terrible. So it ended up coming to Iron Man on the last game. And again, I was out of the gates, had a really good first ball, had a fantastic second ball and was absolutely leading going into ball three.
    161:17
    But I made a mistake. So on that ball two, I was one shot away from getting do or die, but I just got caught up in getting bogeys. So I kept doing bogeys and then it drained and everyone came up to my office and said, oh, you know you had one more shot for do or die. And I'm like, oh, shit, no, I didn't. I was doing bogeys instead. So then Jordan got on and Jordan, of course, let do or die, got a 32 million jackpot and just won the game. It was up to me. Going into ball three, I had nothing lit.
    161:50
    So I managed to get whiplash multiball started and squandered that and it was over. So I think I got $29 million. So that meant I came third and Jordan won, of course, and Lex was a second.
    162:04
    Jordan won, what? Yeah, Jordan won. Whoa, what a thought. Yeah, but I will say he did win, but it wasn't like he was out of the gates and was always going to win. This was a bit of a competition. I think we gave him a bit of a run for his money. But that's what people always say, but he always ends up winning because he never chokes. He's like the anti-choker. His third balls are always like, it doesn't matter what he's on. Like that time that I played Doctor Who against him and I put up that massive score and I was just like, oh my God. Everyone's like, oh my God, you're going to get him, you're going to get him. No, he destroyed me. Yep. Anyway. He does. He plays the long game. You know, he knows what he needs to do. He's very calm, doesn't get anxious and just goes for it and just nails his shots. And, you know, you're watching and you go, come on, you've got to drain. It's like, how did that get in the in lane? It was going all the way out and that's just what happens.
    163:01
    He's very good at predicting where the ball's going to go and that's the key to becoming a phenomenal pinball player. Yeah.
    163:08
    What else did you do, Manny? Well, I streamed Hobbit. And I streamed, knowing that we were going to interview Keith this week, I thought I'd stream Hobbit before the interview and after the interview.
    163:22
    Thanks. I enjoyed it before the interview more than I did after. That doesn't make sense. I don't know why. I think it's because, it's like what you were saying about Balrog. It's like, do you know what, I'm actually just, I'm probably happier being blissfully unaware of what goes into creating rules and, you know, what it's brought to you or whatever. I just, you know, I just want it to be magical. So, but I've got to say, I mean, I haven't played it for about a month.
    163:53
    It's, the actual, the geometry on that game is actually a lot of fun. It actually shoots quite well. Can I give you a tip, man? Sure. Well, crank it up, okay? You like your Star Trek nice and fast. I was looking at your stream yesterday. Hobbit is so floaty, and it's not a floaty game if you just keep on cranking it up. I've jacked it up, though. Higher, higher. All right, all right. It's going to have to go on the block. Until the balls fly off the rails, that's when you put it down a little bit. Just keep on jacking it up.
    164:23
    All right. It's so much more fun. Okay. Trust me. I'll do that. My week. What about your week? Yeah. If anyone's still listening for three hours into the podcast, my competition is still three weeks away, but I decided to try and make Star Trek hard enough. So systematically, one by one, I started to do things to try and decrease the ball time, and I came to the conclusion that it is pretty much impossible to make Star Trek hard. And you know how everyone says, like, ah, Lord of the Rings is a terrible tournament game. I want everyone to replace Lord of the Rings with Star Trek because, like, every shot is so safe on that. And, I mean, the things I did, like, I decreased Klingon multiball to, you know, I put it extra hard, so you have to hit it so many times, and the multiball saved it down for that. Vengeance multiball, there is no menu option to increase the amount of hits in the middle for Vengeance multiball. So it always defaults to five, and that's what it is. And you can get three easily by hitting those side targets.
    165:33
    And five seconds is the easiest you can make, sorry, the hardest you can make that multiball. Put Rescue Kick back to extra hard, remove the outlanes, remove the post, took all the rubbers off there. No ball save, no extra balls. And I made the slings as sensitive as I could and increased the power to the slings to try and encourage side-by-side action. And this morning I kind of tested that out and I got $250 million and had like a 15 minute game. I also decreased the mode time to like 15 seconds so it forces you to kind of make the two hardest shots in the games. The last setting which was suggested to me by Steve Bowden because I kind of asked him and, well I asked Bruce first and Bruce just laughed at me. I said, how do you make start-trick hards? And he just laughed and said, you don't, like it's impossible. And Steve Bowden just kind of gave me a million suggestions. Like, yep, try that, try that, try that. And he said, put the mode start on extra hard. And I gave it one game, and it's so weird. You start the game, and nothing is lit. Like, the playfield is not lit up at all. And you hardly ever see a side track like that because you're always starting in a mode. And even when you're out of a mode, you have that one insert lit, because obviously you've already played one, and the two side shots are flashing. Literally, you plunge the ball and the only thing that's lit is the GI and the three lock side targets. So you have to kind of hit that shot once and then it lights the mission. So I don't even know if I want in the competition now because it is so far removed from what a default Star Trek is, it's almost like not fair to everyone playing it because you're playing this game you've never played before. Have you put a big, thick rubber on your post? Which post? The left orbit? Is that what you're talking about? Any of them. No, no, no. Because I don't want to make it because the nice... You don't want to toughen up your game. That's what you've got to do with that game is to make... Star Trek is flow though, right? Yeah, I understand. So making it not flow... I mean, it's not like AFM where you can block that one shot and that changes the whole strategy of the game. Every shot is equally as important, right? And they're all, none of the shots are that much easier than the others. I'm not saying close them off completely, but I'm just saying make them a little bit harder. It would just make the game miserable. And I've actually been playing it so well while making it tougher that I don't, that's why Star Trek is good. Because the shots feel good. Take away the shots and it's just the worst fucking game ever. Because it's like they made the first lot of missions with the away team and everything. And they're like, yeah, fuck it. Like, let's just do whatever we want for the second and third. It is. Like, you know, like, I got into the second level missions, and they're cool because they work well points, but I don't know. They still need some extra stuff for that. I don't know. And I found a weird bug where, because I've got locks on hards, I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, But if you have lock lit for Klingon multiball and then Kobayashi Maru happens, it kind of gets rid of that lock and you have to go for Kobayashi Maru. When you get out of Kobayashi Maru, that lock is no longer qualified if you're on hard settings. So you have to qualify that lock again.
    168:56
    Is that a bug? It should be still lit, right? Yeah, I guess so. You don't really care. The second thing I did this week, I was watching Ron Hallett playing Globetrotters on Twitch for the Path of Play. Yes, I was there too. Yeah, and he hit the spinner and he just kept on spinning forever. And I'm like, what the shit? Like, how do you do that? And he went and got this, like, Teflon Lube. And I was taking the kids out to a park and it was right next to Bunny was a warehouse, which is like the, it's like a monopolized hardware store in Australia. The biggest, like, hardware warehouse. So I went there and I said, Teflon Lube, please. One Teflon Lube. And they looked on their computer and like, we don't sell Teflon Lube. I'm like, fuck me. Like, if Bunnings doesn't have it, then who the hell has it? So I bought Silicon Lube, and I don't even know if it's fucking meant to be good or not, but I wasn't going all the way there to buy no lube. I lubed up all my spinners, Marty, and I did. I fucking lubed them up so good. You lubed them proper. Yeah. And I didn't follow the exact instructions that Ron gave me because I was using a different lube. Because he said you grab some sandpaper and sand it down, his maximum lubage. Is lubage actually a word? It is today.
    170:13
    I just sprayed the sides quickly and, man, it makes a big difference. It's like almost double the amount of spins in like a five second just spray, spray, and double the amount of spins. And on some of the games it doesn't make a difference at all. I purposely got into Crank It Up on Metallica and did Fate to Black. Yeah. Using Fate to Black, you hit it once and it goes to the pop bumpers. You can't get like one on average. Yep. Now it's doing two on average. So it kind of changes the game around, you know, especially the old games like Sea Witch.
    170:50
    I know this is like a fucking boring conversation because we're three hours into the podcast, But, Marnie, do you know why old spinners spin more than new spinners?
    171:00
    Um, I don't know, but is it because they're actually sort of weighted? I think the weighting is the same, right? But it's to do with the resistance, right? Like, there's resistance to everything, right? There's no perpetual motion thing. Like, it doesn't exist. Air, steel on steel, right? So your Hobbit spinners are actually, like, the best spinners on the market at the moment. Do you know why? Because there's no switch that's flowing, there's no micro switch that's slowing it down. It's an opto, and it's a very sensitive opto. So if I lube them up, like, it'll be, they'll just spin non-stop, right? Right, okay. I'll bring the lube over, Marty. Yes. The old machines like Sea Witch, it uses this kind of like this crank system, and the leaf switches that it uses are so light that that's why they just kind of keep on going. Yeah. Micro-switches that they use on current machines, they suck. And I guess it doesn't matter for most games because Spinner's just kind of there for the sake of it. But on some games it does. You know, Iron Maden is using Spinner's well. The Hobbit uses it well.
    172:03
    Loop up these Spinner's guys. And a couple of people on the weekend said it's cheating. It's not because everyone's playing the same game. Now look, just a bit of a side note, just now that you mentioned Iron Maden. So I was looking at the, you know how they released the rules... Yeah. Before it came out? I just want to know, I mean, I don't know of another machine and you're the rules guy so you'll tell me this, but one thing I knew about it is that you've got effectively a super, you've got a skill shot and then you can actually do a super skill shot. Yeah, and adds like ball saver time. That is so cool. Thanks, like what? How simple is that? Like is there any other machines where a super skill shot gives you extended ball save? Keith Elwin has been sitting there playing pinball his whole life and he's had all these rules and I don't think he's the type of guy that kind of like me that like hey Scrappinisi you should do this, hey you should do this. He's just saving it up in his head. He opens up his little locket diary and he writes you know Keith Elwin just in case I ever become a pinball designer and he's got his little book and he finally got to open the book and implement all of his good shit. The reason I was saying this is because, again, when I was playing Hobbit last night, the skill shots on that are, even though I think there's four different types, they're all pretty arbitrary when it comes to points, so therefore just go for the lock shots because you're going for lock. Well, did you know that if you don't change what it gives you, it's worth more? What's it worth? More. Oh!
    173:31
    Like, there's a multiplier attached to it. So, like, if it tells you hit that, like, roaming target up the top on the dwarf area and you don't change it, it'll be worth, like, say, double or something. Yeah, okay. But if it's on lock and you change it to the dwarf targets, it's worth half. Okay. So, if you, yeah. Not that it matters too much. No, but I understand. But imagine if it was. So, I'm not saying, Keith, I'm not saying, which Keith am I talking to? So Keefer, I'm not saying change it because of this, but if it was that you get to, if you do those drop targets, the dwarf targets, and they all go, the targets go from right to left, and it's the last one, which is the D target, is supposed to be the most difficult to get. If each of those targets increasingly gave you more of a ball save, or a ball save at all, then that's actually something to go for regardless of points. Because I think an extra 5 seconds or even an extra 10 seconds of ball save is far more than points that you would get in a skill shot these days anyway. All these Pimball coders, they can't just copy someone else. That's Keith's rule now, right? The next person that does it is going to be like, oh, you're copying Keith. No, but I understand it. But that's kind of where I was sort of saying that something as simple as that just really stands out. And you go, why hasn't that been done before? That's such a simple thing to do. Okay, have you ever plunged your hobbit, you know, the ball on your hobbit and it goes all the way into the kick out and then kicks back out? Yes. Yeah, so have I. And Keith Johnson said that he might implement the Congo rule, like that's this hooper-dooper skill shot thing. Right, okay. But then he never did it. I think he wrote, I think I remember him reading, and this might be misquoting, like, oh yeah, it's going to be done before in Congo. Yeah, like 25 years ago. I don't think anyone's going to be like, oh my god, Keith Johnson copied whoever. I don't even know who did the balls for that game.
    175:21
    Anyway, one more thing. You know, fuck it, this is a long podcast. When Keefer Elwood did that interview with Nate Shivers, right? Yep. I can't tell if he has such a dry sense of humour, right? I can't tell if he's, like, taking the piss out of the question or if he's answering truthfully, right? Like, I think Nate asked something like, oh, you know, do you have all these ideas backlogged, you know, for your future games? He's like, yeah, my next game's going to have a really unique ramp you've never seen before.
    175:51
    And Nate was like, oh, okay, cool. But I can't tell if he was like, he's like, he's done, like, he's never been seen before. No, but you know what? I can't tell. On Saturday night when we were at the Pimball meet, someone came back to me and said, oh, you know, I'm looking forward to what Keith Elwin does next. Apparently he's got this really unique ramp that's never been done before.
    176:10
    There's so much out there. So whether it's a joke or not, people now think it's real. So you better deliver on this ramp idea, Keefe. Oh my God. I mean, we could just message him and ask him, but I don't know what to believe. I think Keefe is almost like a professional level troll. Every time he mentions the Tim Sexton, he's like, Trippy, Trippy.
    176:34
    Oh gosh. Last but not least, me and Marty have started a Melbourne Pinball Tournaments Facebook page because basically we just kind of want to try and do our bit to grow the tournament community in Melbourne. So we'll link that in the show notes and basically we're trying to make it run kind of in conjunction with pinballscore.com, which is Luke's page, just to help people and alert people when tournaments in Melbourne are starting. Just a one-stop place for results and what I want. So you can put reminders in, right? If you say, we'll put up the events, you can say that you're going to the event and then Facebook will remind you. Exactly. And it's also a good place just for everyone to kind of talk socially about it because, like, I was messaging you saying, are you going to beat Jordan? Are you going to beat Jordan? When I wasn't there. And I said, like, get someone to Facebook Live. I want to see this. I don't want, like, your text updates every five minutes. If someone kind of goes live on that page, then I guess everyone on the Melbourne scene gets to watch, you know, the Grand Final. Yeah, as long as I'm not in the final, I'll do it. Yeah. So, there you go. Are we done?
    177:39
    Yeah, fuck the mailbag. We haven't got any mail this week anyway, so. Yes we do, what are you talking about? No, we'll save it all for next week, there will shit loads next week. You fucking lie, you Andrew Highway that.
    177:52
    That's what it is. There's no mail in there, there's like fucking eight emails. Is that the new meaning to take the highway? Oh, take the high road, the highway. Just fucking lie through your teeth. Correct. Protect your non-existent integrity.
    178:09
    Check us out on our website, headtoheadpinball.com. Over there you will find all of our links to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all that shit. I don't know what else we are. Just get in touch with us. We love hearing from you. We've 21 episodes in and we still can't say it properly.
    178:28
    Alright guys, we'll speak to you next week. See ya. Bye. Thank you.