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Flip 'n' Bitch

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 45s·analyzed·Jun 13, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Hosts rant about TX Sector's poor wizard goal design and Gottlieb Premier soullessness.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss frustrations with Pinball Arcade's TX Sector wizard goals and broader issues with early Gottlieb Premier tables, contrasting them with EM-era games like Fireball. They also cover the Stern Pinball app VR release, Farsight's role as contractor, and speculation about potential Independence Day pinball from Zen Studios.

Key Claims

  • Stern made the Stern Pinball VR app announcement, not Farsight; Stern controls the product and customers should address complaints to Stern first

    high confidence · Chris and Jared directly observed Stern's active Facebook engagement vs Farsight's silence on the announcement

  • TX Sector has poorly designed wizard goals, including a 'non-value extra ball' goal that is vaguely explained and requires earning special without also collecting extra ball simultaneously

    high confidence · Chris spent extensive time on these goals and detailed the confusion; goal text/instructions inadequate

  • Gottlieb Premier games (post-1985 Gottlieb) are 'soulless' compared to EM Gottlieb or Data East equivalents like No Good Gophers

    medium confidence · Chris's subjective assessment based on gameplay experience with Teed Off, El Dorado, and comparison to EM titles

  • Fireball is a one-ball table where only locked balls carry over between rounds, yet it's more enjoyable than TX Sector despite this limitation

    high confidence · Chris observes the game design and explains why multiball/zipper flippers create engaging gameplay

  • Wire gates in Farsight's pinball tables have a known collision bug since Black Hole that causes unnatural ball acceleration and warping through gates

    high confidence · Beta tester confirms this is a documented issue affecting Centaur, Medieval Madness, Comet; Robert (developer) acknowledged it and wanted to fix it

  • Plunger mechanics in Farsight tables are inconsistent—pull speed affects ball speed differently than real physics would allow

    high confidence · Chris tested PS4 controller plunging on Steam; full back+fast release vs full back+hold release produce different results

  • Pinball Arcade has released Stern Pinball app on Gear VR but neither host has access to test it

    high confidence · Chris mentions waiting for Oculus embargo to lift; joked about expense request to Fast Pinball to buy Galaxy S7

Notable Quotes

  • “Stern is the one that made the announcement... Stern essentially, it is their app. It's not Farsight's app, and they kind of proved it to that point.”

    Chris Frebus @ Early in episode — Establishes that Stern owns and controls the VR app, not Farsight; directs customer complaints appropriately

  • “That's why it's a non-value extra ball. Way to go, guys. Thanks for clarifying that. Please earn a null extra ball, where null equals zero.”

    Chris Frebus @ Mid-episode — Sarcasm highlighting the absurdity of the poorly explained TX Sector wizard goal

  • “I love the EM. The EM is fun... Whereas City of Gold is like, oh, I can't get away from this fast enough.”

    Chris Frebus @ Mid-episode — Contrasts the charm of EM games with the soullessness of Gottlieb Premier titles

  • “Because it's hard. Those outlanes are mean, hungry outlanes... And that's what's cool about that game. It's just a mind frack, really.”

    Chris Frebus @ Late-episode — Explains why Fireball is engaging despite being a one-ball table; difficulty and unpredictability create enjoyment

  • “It's a known issue. It's been around since Black Hole, actually. That all the wire gates in Farsight have a collision issue.”

    Jared Morgan @ Late-episode — Confirms long-standing technical bug affecting multiple tables; shows beta tester awareness

  • “The spring strength should not be determined on how fast you pull and release. If you pull all the way back, it should have the exact same strength.”

    Jared Morgan @ Late-episode — Points out physics inconsistency in plunger implementation that breaks realism

  • “It looks like something's quite wrong with the game when it's playing like that.”

    Jared Morgan @ Late-episode — Notes that visible gate warping destroys immersion and breaks the illusion of authentic pinball physics

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonPinball ArcadeproductFarsight StudioscompanyStern PinballcompanyTX SectorgameFireballgameGottlieb Premierproduct_lineNo Good Gophersgame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball Arcade beta testing cycle proceeding with new UI on mobile platforms in early stages; Indy 500 announced as next table; gate/plunger issues being tracked for re-testing

    high · Jared mentioned early beta of new mobile UI; Indy 500 next table; beta testing still active; hosts plan to raise gate issue again in beta

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Gottlieb Premier pinball games (post-1985) lack soul and personality compared to EM-era Gottlieb and Data East titles; described as 'soulless' and 'going through the motions'

    high · Chris's extended critique comparing Teed Off vs No Good Gophers, El Dorado City of Gold vs EM titles; clear personality and engagement differences cited

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Farsight Studios positioned as technical contractor/developer for Stern's VR app, with Stern making all product and communication decisions; Farsight's visibility/involvement minimal

    high · Chris observed Stern highly active on Facebook announcement while Farsight posted minimally; no Farsight beta testers seen VR app build; hosts conclude 'it's Stern's boat, not Farsight's'

  • ?

    announcement: Zen Studios released Independence Day Resurgence mobile game featuring character/likeness of pinball community member Bobby Lorcher; speculation about Independence Day pinball table possibility

    medium · Jared mentioned Zen released new game; Bobby's likeness in game; Chris speculated Fox Digital might bring ID4 pinball to Zen; no official announcement yet

  • ?

    product_concern: TX Sector wizard goals are poorly designed and vaguely explained, particularly the 'non-value extra ball' goal which offers no meaningful gameplay value and contradicts normal play patterns

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.152

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast, hosted by myself, Shut Your Trap, a.k.a. Chris Frebus, and the gentleman all the way across the world, Jared Morgan. It's me, the awesome Aussie with a slight cold still, but that's okay. Thank you all for allowing us to have a week off. I happen to have been working on a Saturday, so therefore I was not able to record the podcast, and hopefully you enjoyed my mild ranting about TX sector, of which we're going to continue a little bit more of it today. Yes, that's right, because today it's all about a little bit of ranting. That's right.
1:11
I haven't really done a little bit of a ranting, but it's been building up enough now that it's probably about time we did another one. Well, not to mention it's been a slow news cycle for the pinball because not much really happened while we were away. So when not much happens, then we don't get to go praise the new and shiny. We get to go pick apart the old and crusty. That's right.
1:32
Exactly. So, folks, it's going to be a whiny ride. And just as a caveat, there is no new VR or Stern News or Pimble IK News, so you can tune out now. Yes. There we are. So go about your business. Well, other than in case you weren't paying attention, yes, Pinball Arcade has released the Stern Pinball app on Gear VR. Yeah, that's out. That's your news.
2:03
Neither of us have Gear VR, so we can't comment on it. No. I'm thinking of actually just putting in an expense request to Fastlight, just going and buying a Galaxy S7. So I can beta test it effectively for them. Yeah. We'll see how that works out. I don't know if I'm going to get my money back refunded anytime soon. But now I think I might just hold off on that and just keep on waiting for it to release whenever the embargo finishes for Oculus, which I'm guessing is a couple of months. I don't know. I will say an interesting thing that I did notice about when they did the press announcement, or if you could call it a press announcement, but when the announcement came out, you mean when Stern did their announcement this is what I'm saying Stern is the one that made the announcement Farsight did not make an announcement Stern did that's okay because Stern essentially it is their app it's not Farsight's app and they kind of proved it to that point when if you went to Stern's Facebook page and read through their comments Stern was very active they were answering a lot of comments they were clarifying statements They were really nailing it.
Teed Off
game
El Dorado City of Goldgame
Zen Studioscompany
Bobby Lorcherperson
Robertperson
Fast Pinballcompany

high · Chris detailed confusion over goal mechanics; goal text/instructions inadequate to explain requirement; goal serves no purpose in normal gameplay

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts express appreciation for Fireball despite (or because of) its one-ball constraint; engaging difficulty and multiball/zipper flipper chaos create enjoyment contrasting with TX Sector frustration

    medium · Chris went from complaining about one-ball tables to enjoying Fireball; cites mean outlanes, unpredictable zipper flippers, and geometry changes as making it 'fun' and a 'mind frack'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Plunger mechanics in Farsight tables inconsistent with real physics; pull speed and release timing affect ball velocity in ways that don't match spring behavior, making skill shots unreliable

    high · Chris tested on PS4 controller: full back+fast release vs full back+hold produce different velocities; affects Comet, Taxi, Fireball skill shot consistency

  • ?

    technology_signal: Wire gates in Farsight's pinball emulation have a known collision/warping bug since Black Hole that causes unnatural ball acceleration and spoils physics illusion; affects Centaur, Medieval Madness, Comet, Fireball

    high · Jared confirmed this is a documented issue tracked by beta testers; Robert (developer) acknowledged and expressed desire to fix; gate warping visibly breaks immersion

    • 3:18
    Then you go over to Farsight's Facebook page, and I think they posted one comment. And then just let everybody do what they normally do, which is groan and moan, complain, speculate, and just kept their lips shut. And it was that way. And ask for Simpson's pinball party.
    3:38
    That's what they always seem to do. Right. And so that's what really hit home. I was like, yeah, this is Farsight is making a program for Stern. Stern handles every other aspect about it. So I truly do think that in the case of the Stern Pinball app, any of your complaints should be first addressed to Stern. Yeah. Stern will then contact Farsight and say, hey, what's up with this? And then they can put the proper. Yeah. Yeah, they can put the proper pressure on Farsight to then do something. So that's my advice to everybody. As the CERN pinball app rolls out, talk to CERN. Address your concerns to CERN. They're the ones that are in command of this. They're the ones that are in control of this. And Farsight is merely the monkeys working on the grinding organ.
    4:34
    That's right. Now, you know that it doesn't have anything to do with Farsight when the beta testers have not even seen a build of this yet. Like, we have no exposure to this app at all. So that is a pretty obvious fact that the control is out of Farsight's hands as to who tests it. So, yeah, it's not Farsight's boat that they're steering. It's Stern's boat. Yep. So that is all there is about that. That is all there is about that. So let's talk about... I'm not going to rag too much more on TX Sector. I spent a lot of time trying to polish off the last two wizard goals, which I do want to bitch about, because... What are they? I haven't even got to them yet. Okay.
    5:24
    First off, let me just say, TX Sector has some of the stupidest wizard goals out. Like, one of them was... I want to say was that you had to collect, because there's different energy levels, right? And you have to collect nine energy levels in order to be able to get multiball.
    5:48
    Well, but they had one wizard goal for getting multiball, and one wizard goal, or these might be standard goals too, I'm getting mixed up as to which is which, but one was to get multiball, and one was to get to level nine. And I was like, but if you get one, you get the other. They're not separate.
    6:07
    So I thought that was really kind of silly. Well, that's an easy one. Right. No. So the two goals that I've been giving everybody fits.
    6:18
    One of them was called earn a non-value extra ball. A non-value extra ball. Non-value extra ball. Now, when you go into the instructions, they always link you to – when you look up a wizard goal and you click view instructions on how to get that wizard goal, it ultimately kicks you into the instructions about that section of the instructions that are relevant to getting that, right? Well, nowhere does it mention anything about non-value extra ball. And why would it? Why would you have a wizard goal about earning something that doesn't have any value?
    6:57
    Right? How is that proving that you're a wizard at something, to spend all this time going for something that earns you absolutely no points other than bragging rights? That's ridiculous. Is non-value, does that mean that you've earned so many bloody extra balls on this table that the fourth and fifth ones don't actually award you an extra ball? Is that a non-value extra ball? That's the mystery. That's the mystery because it was never clarified. So here's what I – again, I had no clue what it was meaning other than here's the deal that you get extra ball. is, again, once you have multi-ball activated, extra ball lights in either the right or left, I call them the dead ends. I don't know what they actually call them in the game. But anyway, it's on the right and left side of the table. It just is a dead end bumper that you can collect.
    7:43
    If you have knocked down all the drop targets three times, all eight of them, then you earn up to level three on both of those. that is what activates the special.
    7:59
    So what I was trying to, my initial thought of non-value extra ball was that once you have multi-ball activated, your energy level goes back down to zero. So I was thinking, oh, okay, you can't score any more energy levels, and then you can shoot the extra ball and that'll earn you your thing. Nope, that wasn't the case. then somebody mentioned oh well you have to first get the you first have to get the special and then you get the extra ball i went okay but once you collect special that eliminates the extra ball because like if they're if they're in the same lane lit if you are boom okay so that wasn't it so okay it became this big mystery what the heck are we supposed to do well it turns out what you're supposed to do is you do have to earn special. You do have to earn the extra ball. You need to make sure they're in opposite lanes.
    8:57
    You first need to hit the special. That earns the light of extra ball or shoot again down at the bottom of the table. Now when you hit the extra ball, it plain won't count. You don't earn another extra ball. That's why it's a non-value extra ball.
    9:17
    Way to go, guys. Thanks for clarifying that. Please earn a null extra ball, where null equals zero. I mean, it was literally the most vague wizard goal that they could possibly have written, especially, again, when you then go into the instructions and it mentioned nothing about how to earn that. And so I kind of fired up. The goal text they needed to put there was earn an extra ball after getting a special.
    9:50
    But even that's not going to clarify it. It's earn a special without also earning an extra ball at the same time, but then earn the extra ball that's not going to give you an extra ball. I don't know. That wouldn't have fit in the menu.
    10:05
    It wouldn't have been an issue. It wouldn't have been an issue if they had have had an actual description of the goal in the instructions. But because they always link it back to something in the instructions and because there is no reason whatsoever you as a player would normally do that in the game.
    10:23
    Hey, here's an idea. I've got a fix for this problem. You know what the problem is? What? Choose another effing goal.
    10:32
    But that's the thing. That shows you how little there is to do on this table when you've got to come up with BS wizard goals like that.
    10:43
    TX sector. Get multiple. Rinse repeat. That's pretty much it. Really. The other BS goal, this falls into my favorite, which is wizard goals that are only accomplished through sheer stupid dumb luck.
    11:01
    Like the secret passage? Right, like the speaker package on Scared Stiff. So on TX Sector, if your ball goes out the right out lane, there is a bumper that if you're lucky enough to bump and not cause a tilt, you can bump it back into the shooter lane.
    11:23
    Okay. Now, it's not the most precise or accurate thing in pinball arcade. sometimes it happens all on its own without you even bumping it sometimes you can maybe time it just right and bump it but don't bump it too hard otherwise you'll tilt other times it's absolutely impossible here's the wizard goal put two balls in the plunge lane at the same time so that means first detect the different shooters in there.
    12:03
    Okay. It detects it because no, when you have a ball in the shooter lane, what happens to the table? It zooms out so you can see the plunge. Obviously, it's whatever foresight uses to show there's a ball in the plunge lane. That's what the camera is doing. I believe that's what's activating the goal. There's a switch in the plunge lane that when a ball lands on it, it kills the game. That's one switch. for just one ball to sit on it. Right. Not two balls. No. So.
    12:36
    Oh boy Now in the standard goals it was get one ball in there And through the course of many playing of the games it does happen You fluke one Yeah you fluke one in there Flukeing two, though, so what you have to first do is get multi-ball activated.
    12:52
    Then you have to hope that one of... No, but here's the thing. How do you shoot to purposely get a ball in the out lane?
    13:02
    You don't. I've been trying to figure out a railroad for it. I thought I had one, and it's not accurate enough to count on. What my railroad was, was if you shoot the left dead end, and then as the ball rolls down, hold the flipper so that the ball rolls, sometimes it goes straight to the out lane, and the velocity of that would bounce into that bumper and then bump into your flipper or your lunge.
    13:31
    That seems plausible. Plausible? Good luck doing it twice. Without losing the ball. Right. Exactly. Because if you lose the ball, well, now you've got to reactivate multi-ball all over again to try and get it. It is just one of the most asinine goals. And again, why would you ever try and achieve that in actual gameplay? I'm sorry, wizard goals. No, wizard goals should show off your skill at scoring points in a table, not off of, hey, look, I can get this ball locked in a funny position. Look at me. I'm awesome. They're going to go, whatever, dude. I'm going to go and watch Bo and Karen's.
    14:11
    I mean, I understand why you would want to lock one ball in the plunge lane, because now your multiball is so much easier, right? Except for the fact that there is no advantage to having multiball in TX sector. It's not like all of a sudden point values go up.
    14:29
    The only advantage of having multiball going is so that you can earn the especially the extra ball. That's it.
    14:38
    That, oh, jeez. So. Yay, Gottlieb Premier. We love you guys. I mean, I'm telling you, this. The early ones suck. This is why, and I posted it in a thread.
    14:55
    Farsight, please. If it's a pre-85 Gottlieb, if it is Gottlieb when it was still Gottlieb, go ahead make the table yeah please i would love some em got lead machines if it's got lead premiere they suck and my point with why they suck is they are soulless they are pinball going through the motions that's it yeah and my examples were even even worse than daughter east early daughter for me my example was look at teed off which you know what it has some things going for it It does. But look at Teed Off and compare that to No Good Gophers. Which was actually Gottlieb's answer to NGG. No. No Good Gophers came out after Teed Off, which is surprising to me. That shocked me. I thought that it was the other way around. Interesting. I did too.
    15:53
    But No Good Gophers has great art, wonderful sound. It's fun to play. It feels. It's got personality. It's got a soul. whereas teed off you know is kind of what you struggle it really struggles it's a bit of a it's still got the annoying gopher but like no good gophers does but the thing with no good gophers is that the gophers are actually encouraging you along as well as ribbing you whereas the other the teed off one is just ribbing you all the time and giving you a tit and that's not what you do.
    16:33
    It's not how you make an enjoyable game. And weird sound effects, like having the jaws dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. As you're going through the dog leg? Why would you have that going through the dog leg? It's so random.
    16:48
    But then I was like, okay, fine. If that's apples to oranges, let's go apples to apples. I hated El Dorado City of Gold. That table annoyed me on so many levels. I hated the art. I hated the sound music, you know, sound package. I hated the rules that were going because I don't like it when I've cleared nine out of ten of the drop targets. Then I lose my ball. And then they all reset. Right. That just kills me. Kills me. And it's the epitome of and it's the exact same thing that I have a problem with TX sector, which is you're essentially playing a one ball game because very little carries over to the next ball. That's right. And so it's totally different, though, right? And that's just it. I love the EM. The EM is fun. It's like, how can something that has the exact same layout be so different? Totally different.
    17:40
    Have this different charm all about it that just makes you want to actually, you know what, I just want one more game, and I'm going to get those drop targets next time. Whereas City of Gold is like, oh, I can't get away from this fast enough. You know.
    17:56
    So it's very odd how that is. So what that got me thinking about is, so like I said, I was playing a lot of TX sector just trying to knock that off. Then somebody posted in the forums, they were like, hey, here's what wizard goals I have left. And you know, I was kind of looking through the list and going, oh yeah, I got to get that. Oh yeah, I got to get that. And I was like, I don't think I have too many other tables that I have to knock off. So I went through the entire list. Holy crap, what the hell is wrong with me? I've got so many I've got like 15 or 16 tables that I've and it's not just that I'm missing one it was like I was missing three I was missing four on a lot of the season fives I hadn't even touched it I was missing all 10 I was like so I had to remedy that okay so I threw in I was messing around with F14 I accomplished all but I think one on that one in relatively easy amount of time. I had fun doing it, and that's always my important thing with the wizard goals, is please let me at least have fun getting them.
    19:09
    Yeah. I would argue, some people like the whole Lyman's Lament, shoot the thing 40 times, but I just can't stand that. I can't stand doing... It's real grindy. Interestingly enough, I started using that as how I would get a good score on the table. Because it pretty much starts awarding you stuff that you need all the time. Safely.
    19:31
    Safely. Well, on TPA, yes, safely. Yes. Oh, it doesn't work in real life. I've tried. This is not a strategy. I've tried it in real life. I lost bad. Oh, yes. Because the kickouts are way too random on a real table for you to have any consistency at all. Well, yeah, it's a bad time on a real table. Yeah. So then I started playing Fireball. now here's the interesting thing fireball is also more or less one ball table they're the only thing that carries over on that table is if you've already locked a ball that's right nothing else there's no bonus there is no uh uh well main thing is there's no bonus It's whatever you score during that ball is what you earn, and then you start all over again the very next ball. So as much as I was complaining about TX Hector and as much as I was complaining about Gottliebs, I was like, so why am I having a good time with this?
    20:34
    Because it's hard. Those outlanes are mean, hungry outlanes. Oh, boy. And it's not like you can nudge it away from it. Like some of the tables, I still argue the slingshots are way too strong for an EM on fireballs. Yes. Because it shouldn't just immediately fire you into an out lane. It's just – and I've been trying to pinpoint – I've started noticing a certain railroad about it go bing, bing, bing. And I'm like, oh, here it comes. Here it goes, bing. Yep, sure enough, there it goes out the out lane. Straight down the cusp. So I've been trying to – I haven't recognized it early enough to know so that I can go ahead and nudge well beforehand to break the cycle. Because what you cannot do is when it's coming down for that final hit on the slingshot, go, oh, if I nudge on this, that will protect it. No, it's going in the outline. It's just happening. It's going in. It's going to be sucked down, and you're going to have a bad time. Yeah. So as mean as those outlings are, having it being a single table or a single ball game for five balls, why am I having such a damn good time on it? Because you keep on locking the multi-balls and your zipper flippers are going nuts. And the conditions of the table are changing every two seconds during multi-ball pretty much because your zipper flippers are zippering. And you don't know how much flipper length you're going to have at any one given time. And then all the geometry changes. with the flippers because they zip in together and it changes the resting position. Yeah. It just completely messes your mind. Yeah. And that's what's cool about that game. It's just a mind frack, really. Yeah. I think. That's what it is. I keep on getting screwed up by the shorter flippers because my brain is telling me, oh, yeah, you can hit that ball. No, you cannot hit that ball. You missed the flipper entirely. Really?
    22:29
    Straight down the middle. Yeah. You don't have any chance of getting it. I'm currently trying to get my last wizard goal on that, which is score 100,000 points.
    22:40
    That's a long grind on that table. It's a low scoring table. My highest score is 92,000. Wow. That's big on that table. Well, that's the thing. You're like, oh, I only need 8,000 more points. Yeah. Ah, when you're only scoring 10 points a hit on bumpers.
    23:01
    A lot of contacts with items on the play field. And it's not a lot to shoot for. Really, it's your pop-up is the way you can get most of your points on that thing. So long as you have them with it. Otherwise, they're only worth 10.
    23:13
    The main, the thing that you really score well on is if you can hit the, I believe they call it the, it's not fireball of the gods, is it? Anyway, it's the captured ball. if you can hit that all the way up you get 3000 points oh yes the other way to get 3000 points is if you shoot the right saucer, miss the saucer and it goes down the lane and you've already hit the three mushrooms therefore lighting the three lanes then you get 3000 points also do that those are your two big giant score bones they're your big jackpots they're basically your jackpots in the game and then if you can because the saucer on the right, that's called the Wotan or Wotan. Anyway, if you have that locked and you release, a lot of times it will release back into the plunger lane. Well, now you get another shot at your skill shot, and if you can get that, there's another 3,000 points. Here's the thing. I am so wildly inconsistent on this table.
    24:16
    You'll have an awesome game? No, it's not an awesome game. No, I'll have an awesome ball. I will have one awesome ball followed by four house balls where I got one touch on the flipper if I was lucky. I mean, it's – or you finally think you've figured out the trick of how to shoot the skill shot, and you think that you've pulled the plunger exactly the same way the next time. Nope. Completely off. Yeah, I have a lot of trouble with getting the skill shot on mobile. like it's it's they they retuned it uh after this i think in the third version of the beta for that table and it went from you could pretty much the plunger was about a middle strength plunger so if you plunge it back to the middle and there was a bit of a plus minus you know one or two notches either side you'll get the the skill shot pretty consistently but then they changed it so you have to almost pull the plunger all the way back and then just let it go a little bit and then let it It's really weird. Well, here's what I've been noticing on mine using a Using a PlayStation controller PS4 controller for playing on Steam Yeah if you pull back fast and release so pull back all the way and release fast boom hard shot If you pull back all the way and hold and then release, it may not even make it out of the plunge lane. Yeah. That's weirdly inconsistent. That doesn't make any sense to me. The spring strength should not be determined on how fast you pull and release. If you pull all the way back, it should have the exact same strength. Correct, yeah. It's the same problem with Taxi, trying to get the plunge skill shot. Because on Taxi, when I'm playing that game, I will ignore the big points and go for spot passenger and something else, that award. And that's really valuable when you're playing that game.
    26:07
    But I can't get it anymore reliably because the plunger, the tuning at the point where you would, the sweet spot for that award is wildly inaccurate now. Like, you would plunge it, and it would just go to 100,000 or maybe 50,000. Well, I even tried experimenting with if I pull it all the way back, release just a tiny bit, and then do a quick flip back. Sometimes that was making me nail a skill shot, other times it was doing a full-strength plunge. It's really weird. But you see, that in itself is dodgy, right? It is. It's very dodgy. Because it reminds me on the same thing with getting the skill shot on Comet. the degree of which the accuracy is that you have to get in order to get that hundred thousand notch is insane because it's millimeters. Just a slight bit more. You're going over slight bit less. You're going under. And what I noticed the ball do when I did get it finally was you ever notice sometimes when you're playing how the ball looks like it suddenly gets like warped through something. Cause like you did a slow roll. it goes towards a gate and also imagine it gets pulled through the gate. Same thing happened here where it went just past the hundred thousand and they got sucked back down. And I was like, it looked odd. I was like, wait a second. That wasn't a natural it rolling back. That was it. No, you hit the thing. Let's railroad you in. It was very odd. So yeah, I'm not pleased with the, the plunger that Farsight has on most of these. Um, it's still, with that gate issue. Yeah. you're talking about. It's a known issue. It's been around since Black Hole, actually. That all the wire gates in Farsight have a collision issue. And we brought it up a couple of pages ago. I think Pinwiz and a couple of other people were talking about it in the Android, but it's saying, well, this has been like this since Black Hole. I noticed it in Centaur. Medieval Madness. That was when I noticed it most. Oh, Centaur is horrible with it. Centaur with the safe gates. It is actually a gameplay hack on that, that if you can get the ball anywhere near that gate, it will just suck it through like it's got a magnet attached to the slingshot, basically.
    28:26
    So I said, look, it would actually be better if you retune those gates to behave like normal. And he said, you do realize that that will actually change the behavior of those gates and probably make them harder. I said, yes, and that's exactly how they should be. Like they should be harder. It shouldn't be a gimme. No, it should not be a vacuum. Like it needs to actually, like the balls should actually, you should see the gate lift up slightly and lift back down too if you're going to be doing it right. And that's the exact same problem that you're having on Comet with those gates. Like they've got warp on all of them and the ball doesn't know what the hell to do. Yeah. So probably what's happening is when you're plunging the ball, it's actually getting a little speed increase every single time it goes through a gate. That's probably what's happening. And because they're so close together, normally it wouldn't be a problem because, you know, if you do a soft plunge on a black hole and you just get it up to the top rollover gate, and it goes full speed, basically, straight through that gate. But with all those gates being so close together, it's like a big accelerator magnet.
    29:23
    And that's why it's so inconsistent to get the school shot. Okay, that makes sense. So they need to fix that. It's something that's been bugged, and I don't think Robert has had a chance to retune it. He wants to because he feels the same way. If it's not real, then it needs to be retuned. So I just might bring it up again in the beta. And it's one of those things that it completely spoils the illusion.
    29:46
    Like the railroading, if you notice it and you start noticing it consistently, it becomes kind of funny. But it doesn't necessarily spoil the illusion. Whereas those gates, it's obvious. It's like, boy, something just reacted in a way that is not a physics-based issue. Something's glitching its way out there. Yeah, it looks like something's quite wrong with the game when it's playing like that. So we'll actually bring it up again in the beta. We are actually doing a, on subject of betas, there is a beta running at the moment. It's a bit out of sequence with the normal beta cycle. We haven't actually seen the new table yet, which is Indy 500, isn't it, I think, the next one? Yes, that's what got announced. I'm going to be looking forward to testing that. It's a great table, that one. A lot of fun. At the moment, they are doing early betas of the new UI on mobile. So we're having a look at that at the moment. So it's early days yet, but it's good to finally sort of see it rolling out to more platforms, I guess. We guess, yes.
    30:56
    We'll leave it at this. There's issues, but it is a beta. It is a beta. and I'm not going to start casting judgment on a beta.
    31:06
    Considering that we're still in beta on the Steam UI, even though it was supposed to have been released for public, like part of the regular game about six weeks ago.
    31:23
    Yeah. There's definitely some strange things going on in the beta, but it's a beta. So strange things are supposed to go on in betas. But I really hope they sort out the controller issues in it because one of the things I was really hoping with, I think we talked about this actually, back when they were doing the new UI for Steam and we were talking about good control support on Android. Yeah. I think they might, I'm hoping that they're still trying to wire that in to the beta release at the moment because at the moment there's no control support except for when you're actually in the table. And before with the old UI, it was pretty good. Like you could actually just transition your way all the way from after you get the splash screen at the front. They sort of hardwired it so it would always select the table carousel and then from the table carousel, the table you wanted and then you're inside the game. Then you just press start with your finger on the screen and then everything started working inside the game. It was pretty easy to select a table, use the shoulder buttons to scroll through the carousel. It worked really well.
    32:36
    I was expecting when I saw the beta that there would be some sort of grid matrix layout interaction like Xen has in their UI because Xen is completely controller-compatible. It's beautiful the way they've done the controller support in there. So I was going, oh, cool. Obviously, they've done this for Steam. They should just port the control of part of the code over to mobile and bada bing, it should work.
    33:01
    But we're not seeing that yet. So that's something I'm going to be pushing for really hard when I'm doing testing. Speaking of Zen. It's really important to me. So our friends over at Zen, they have a new mobile game. It's tied into Independence Day Resurgence, the new movie. and our friend Bobby Lorcher, who has come on and spoken with us, actually did a character with her face on it. Yes, her likeness is in the game. Way to go, way to go, Bobby.
    33:32
    She looks boss. I don't know whether she's an Axis or an ally in this, but she's looking pretty hardcore. Yeah. It's awesome. It looks really good. They've done a great job. Now, here's the big, you know, I don't know, what, $1.98 question. you think we're going to get a uh independence day pinball table out of zen oh it's a fox property is it yeah oh yeah i reckon fox digital might be coming on board there you think i wouldn't be surprised they haven't announced anything yet they haven't announced anything but the movie doesn't come out until mid july or beginning of july i think for us.
    34:12
    Let's put odds on. Let's put a bet on. At the beginning of July, we will see a press announcement about that. I'm saying the odds are probably 10 to 1.
    34:24
    I'd say they'd be a little bit tighter than that. I reckon they'd be about 5 to 1. I reckon it's going to happen. Absolutely.
    34:33
    I actually quite enjoyed Independence Day as a Sega table. It was kind of fun. The toys were terrible, as an operator's perspective. They always broke. And there were so many ramps. Oh, it was terrible. But there were so many ramps on that game. It was an amazing shooter. It flowed so beautifully.
    34:54
    And yeah, I mean, if they took like Zen often do, they do often pay homage to tables. If that's got ramps and habit rails and stuff going all over, like planes trying to take out the mothership, which looks from the movie like a bit of a beast, a little bit different to, hey, let's upload a virus and then take it out with a missile. I don't think they're going to be able to get away with that this time.
    35:21
    I just think considering the success that they had, and I don't know financial success, I mean... Press success and publicity success. Publicity success they had with Aliens, and this being another Fox property, another movie that's coming out, it is an existing pinball table, and we know that Zen's kind of been stealing some of the thunder with doing the Family Guy table. Yeah.
    35:47
    Doing little nods. Slight nods back to the original tables. Yeah. I highly suspect. I would be very shocked, actually, if we didn't get an intense day pinball table out of them. Oh, yeah. It's going to be good. Imagine what they can do with all the cool 3D aspects of that thing. Oh, yeah. Planes flying around everywhere like they do in... Well, and maybe they could do a little of appropriation of what Apollo 13 did. You know, based off the trailers where you got just that storm of fighters, you know, coming at each other. Just release a wall of pinball coming down the table. A kraken. Release a kraken of pinball. I just love from the top of the table, just like 20 pinballs just go. yeah and the thing is that even from a technical perspective like the problem with releasing i think the problem that fast side's given for apollo 13 in the past is they don't have the ability to track 13 balls in the play field and honor the physics but it doesn't matter on it like honestly it does not matter on apollo 13 because you lose about eight of them by the time right yeah yeah in the first five minutes in five seconds it's just a novelty so for zen with their engine the way it is it's really quite good um i reckon they could pull off at least 10 track balls on the play field and the rest are just white noise you know it will be amazing to see that well and i've never seen a pinball uh go through another pinball on a zen table nor have i seen a pinball go through my flipper on the zen table so their collision detection is much better so they would be able to uh to handle i would imagine that happening imagine if they did that i said bobby if you're listening to this, a 20 ball, multi ball, but make it happen. Just, just make them appear magically from somewhere. Like you guys always do. Oh, do you got to make it happen?
    37:44
    So cool. This has been another edition of Chris and Jared predict the future. Predicting the future. Welcome to the future. Back in June or wherever we're in.
    37:57
    So yeah that that what I I thinking is happening I should tell you before we kick off again I got a pinball machine the other day You got one
    38:09
    Yeah, I did. It's a little toy one. Zachary got it for his birthday. It's better than Victory. It's a racing-themed one.
    38:20
    It's better than Victory. Oh, that's sad. It's got a rolling counter, not solenoid-driven, just motor-driven. It's got reels, though. They're actually reels. And it's got five passive pop bumpers that light up when you hit them, and it's got, like, one of those sound modules from the 1980s that, you know, have the digital bombing noises and all the other terrible noises. And two flippers, five pop bumpers, and it's a three-ball game. So there you go. There you go. I feel like trolling the forum, actually. I was like, I've got a pinball machine the other day, and just take close-ups of all the little playfield games. And just go, wow, what is that game? I've never seen that layout before. And then zoom out to the big one, the big shot of it. I'd love to do it. That'd be funny. So what else has been piquing our interest in these two weeks that you weren't on the air and one week that I wasn't on the air? Well, I've actually got something that has come up in the last couple of weeks. These are non-pinball games that I've been having lots of fun with. Oh, okay. So on Android, they released a game called Air Attack 2, which is your traditional shoot-'em-up style, like Raiden shoot-'em-up style. And the difference is that they've actually got tail gunner mode on this. So at certain parts of the game, you have your view switches to tail gunner mode, and you're nailing all these aircraft that are flying through the sky, and all the environments are fully destructible. so you're just drilling buildings and they're collapsing and crumbling in front of you it looks so good and it's um it's free to play and um they've got like really really um economical unlocks just like remove the ads for like $1.99 or something and and you'll get some some in-game currency with that as well and we know how you feel about smurf berries so i don't like smurf berries at all right no really detest them but this one's really well balanced like you if you play the game enough, you earn enough money to upgrade your craft and all that sort of stuff. There's multiple aircraft you can unlock and within probably two days of play, maybe two hours a day of play overall, I unlocked all the aircraft.
    40:34
    It's very accessible from a, you don't have to spend any money to play it sort of perspective. And it's a lot of fun. It's a really long game too. There's about 20 missions you've got to fly. So 20 stages.
    40:46
    And it's a barrel of fun. And the other game that they've released recently is Skyforce Reloaded. Now Skyforce, Infinite Dreams had the license to Skyforce, which back in the 90s was one of the best of breed shoot-em-ups that was out at the time. The idea with this game is to shoot them up, but you have subtasks like you've actually got to rescue fallen soldiers, fallen pilots that are like just around the environment waiting for a pickup. So you hover over them and then there's a little sort of a circle timer that comes up, and when it gets to the top, it sucks the passenger up into your plane.
    41:24
    But that's actually a strategic element because everything's firing at you. So you've got to dodge the bullets while you're trying to, like, fly around this very small sort of target area where the person is and trying to suck them up.
    41:37
    And the great thing about this game is there's only one type of currency in it, which is stars. So, yeah, with the whole star system, you can actually just earn them by flying around the game. And they're usually pretty plentiful as well. Like as you start to unlock the more difficult stages, you get lots and lots of stars to upgrade your aircraft with.
    41:59
    So the unlocks are reasonable. The gameplay is really good. Like if you love a good shoot-em-up like Raiden or anything like that, you're going to love this game. And I'm loving it. I can't wait. They will add stages as the game goes along. They can actually update the game and add extra stages in and tournaments and stuff like that. It's going to be great. I've been looking for another Sky Force since I finished the game late 2015, and there's just been nothing around that's any good as that. And then the only way they could get something as good is to, well, release the same game again, but with different goals.
    42:39
    The other cool thing about the game is that you get upgrades in the form of collectible cards, and that completely changes the way you play a stage. Because you're flying through the stage, you'll shoot a box, and then out comes this little card. And you can only get the card if you finish the stage and don't get killed. So you completely change your gameplay from aggressive to conservative.
    43:04
    So it's a very different way of playing the game. They've really thought of some nice little tricks in there to mess up with your mind when you're playing the game. So check out those two, Air Attack 2 and Sky Force Reloaded, available on all mobile platforms, I think. I have been messing around with a game called Uncharted Fortune Hunter.
    43:25
    It's for the mobile market. And basically, it's a top-down look around a puzzle. you have a path that you're trying to get to the treasure, you might say. And you have X amount of moves that you can use to get to that treasure. And so it's about navigating the path without setting off tripwires and such to get your treasure. Here's the cool thing. is it ties its...
    43:57
    You can earn bonuses and cards in this, that then you connect the game to Uncharted 4 on the PS4, and those will unlock in the multiplayer. So you can earn costumes and weapon upgrades and stuff that you can apply towards that. So I don't yet have the game, but I've been going through this mobile thing and just earning stuff for the heck of it. It does offer in-game purchases. As of yet, I've not even remotely ever even come to a situation where I need to use any in-game currency. So as far as Smurfberries go, there's a box of them, but there's no need to open it.
    44:42
    And it's a challenging puzzle game. It's definitely interesting on that aspect. I guess they had done one with Tomb Raider called Tomb Raider Go, I believe. Yeah. And then there was one other that they tied into again with a kind of, it was kind of something to play before the game itself actually came out. So anyway, it's well worth checking out A Good Time Killer, if you will. I'll just have you look at my IFPA points for the Brisbane Pinball Club tournament. They've updated the standings officially. Yeah. and so annoyed because of all the sickness in the family we've had over the last two or three weeks. I had to dip out of the pinball tournament. And that's really frustrating because I was ranked second in the tournament. So I had a really, really good starting position. I had to forfeit. I was so pissed off. Anyhow, the results are in. And for the league event on June the 5th, even though I didn't play, I'm 17th out of 50. so if I reckon if I played I'd probably be about 5 out of 50 based on my last performance so well if it makes you feel any better I have not been to a single one of my league tournaments and our new season started in April I just it's one of those things where it's just like the timing keeps on you know something keeps on coming up on that Sunday or that I was like last week where I was working on saturday and then i would have been going to the tournament on sunday and then working again monday so it was just like well that's rude you know yeah to tell the wife oh by the way i'm home today but i'm not you know so uh one of these days i'm gonna hopefully next month i'll be able to go but um yeah so i'm well behind in points because i have officially zero Yeah, so I am currently 4,307th in the world. I am victorious.
    46:46
    Yeah, right. It means nothing. Well, hey, why don't we wrap up this shindig? I would love to know if anybody is currently playing with the Gear VR and the Spindle app. why don't you drop us a line at blahblahblockade at gmail.com or hit us up on Twitter at blockade or at shutyourtraps or at jaredmorgs. That way you can tell us what's the user interface on the Stern Pinball app because I believe that's completely different or supposedly different than what we are currently using. I would love to know what that looks like or how it functions especially since I know that you're able to use a controller with the Stern Pinball app. Some people have already been saying that. or because otherwise, yeah, tap in your head. That would be a weird way to play pinball. I know with Google Cardboard, a lot of the apps actually have a visual sight menu. So you actually turn your head and then press a button on the side of the gear, the headset. So you shake your head back and forth to hit the flippers left or right?
    47:56
    Yeah, it would be a bit tricky to play. I think, yeah. How would you hold one flipper and flip with the other? How would you tilt? It'd end up looking like Stevie Wonder. You'd have a seizure. You're having a seizure, yeah.
    48:10
    I'd love to see people playing it on the bus. Oh, that guy's playing people like Kate. So yeah, hit us up. Let us know what that's all about. Hey, today I am wearing my Blockade t-shirt on the Blab podcast. If you were watching, which nobody was, you would have seen that. But why don't you get one for yourself? All you have to do is go to represent.com forward slash blockade dash shirt. You can order one in many colors and fly the flag that way. It would be wonderful. We'd appreciate it. That's for sure. Then maybe Jarrett could afford to not bill Farsight for a new.
    48:47
    I think we'd have to sell a few shirts for that. Just a couple. That's all. Just a few. Or we can fund a website for the next 20 years with the same price. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
    49:02
    And we'd also love to know your comments just about what we've been ranting about today. You know, what do you think about the absolutely silly wizard goals of TX Sector? How do you feel about the playing of Fireball? Or is there any other game that you want us to highlight and maybe rip upon? Because I'm sure we could find many reasons to rip upon many other tables. Absolutely. Or act faux shock that you want us to rip on them. Either or, we're good. so yeah I think we appreciate you listening well I know we appreciate you listening but I think that you should tune in next week because I'm sure we'll have more more pinball to talk about yes absolutely until then I have been Chris Frebus aka Shet Your Trap he has been Jared Morgan this has been the Blockade Podcast we'll talk to you next time see you later wizardamusement.com the West Coast League of Classics Pinball. Makers of custom pinball shooter rods and buyer specifications. Swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table. Installs in less than 5 minutes with no custom tools. Even if you don't own a table, looks great as a pinball memento to admire. Prices start at $39, but mention Blockade Podcast and receive 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com Sales, Restoration, Customization. Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favourite podcast hosting service that LivePay is delivered to. We can't approve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and place it in board.