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Portal, D&D, Merlin’s Arcade, Body Horror | TPF Part 2

Bash Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·40m 10s·analyzed·Jul 11, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

TPF coverage: D&D mixed, Portal impressive, Merlin's Arcade praised for innovation and original theme.

Summary

Bash Pinball Podcast hosts discuss Texas Pinball Festival highlights including hands-on impressions of new releases: Stern's Dungeons & Dragons (mixed reception, easy multiball access), Multimorphic's Portal (impressive extended version with upper playfield), Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade (original theme, innovative tap-pass buttons, PCB-based wiring), and homebrew projects like Jack Danger's Jurassic Park Home Edition and Mad Max: Fury Road. Extended comedic tangent about tick removal incidents. Notable praise for original themes and design innovation over licensed IP.

Key Claims

  • Dungeons & Dragons dragon multiball is easy to trigger every game, potentially too accessible for how exciting it is

    high confidence · Direct gameplay observation from multiple games played at TPF; speaker notes it's easier to access than traditional 6-ball multiballs that require setup/stacking

  • Multimorphic Portal extended version features moving ramps and upper playfield diverter element, first of this kind for Multimorphic

    high confidence · Direct hands-on play and detailed mechanical description; confirmed as first extended version with forward-positioned ramps

  • Merlin's Arcade uses full PCB wiring backend with minimal hand-wiring, improving reliability and manufacturing efficiency

    high confidence · Visual inspection of playfield in service position; speaker confirmed 'almost no wires' and PCB-based wiring system

  • Portal standard module costs ~$5,000-$5,500; extended version costs $12,500 (comparable to Stern LE pricing)

    high confidence · Direct pricing discussion; speakers express concern about module pricing relative to used WPC games and Stern Pro availability

  • Jurassic Park Home Edition (Costco version) is priced at $1,600, seen as impulse-buy friendly

    high confidence · Explicit price discussion during Costco edition segment; compared to standard retail pricing

  • Merlin's Arcade has tap-pass buttons on both sides that allow ball cradle transfers between flippers

    high confidence · Detailed mechanical explanation of dual button system and verified functionality during play

  • Party Zone is an unfun game with poor playfield satisfaction and annoying music

    high confidence · Opinion based on direct play experience and comparison to other early WPC/System 11 era games

  • Mad Max: Fury Road homebrew is completely original, not a re-theme, developed since 2019

    high confidence · Speaker confirmed checking for re-theme and finding it was entirely original construction

Notable Quotes

  • “That's the kind of stuff. That's the stuff. Yes. That's what I want.”

    Bash Pinball host (responding to Portal's ramp design) @ ~18:00 — Emphatic approval of innovative mechanical design; expresses desire for this type of advancement in pinball

  • “I'm so tired of licensed themes. I kind of miss original stuff, man. Like, let's make... And honestly, he's been... This is what we need. This is innovation. This is what's going to get new people. This is what's going to keep pinball going.”

    Bash Pinball host (on Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade) @ ~33:00 — Strong endorsement of original IP and design innovation as industry necessity; positioned as solution to market saturation

  • “See, that's awesome because that's going to be way more reliable than a random wire, like a solder joint that just lets go because you dropped it too hard one day.”

    Co-host (on Merlin's Arcade PCB wiring) @ ~37:00 — Recognition of manufacturing/reliability advantage of PCB-based architecture vs traditional wiring

  • “I struggle to understand the economics of what multimorphic... if the modules were of cheaper than three grand... if it was like 15 to like 2000 yeah maybe it would make more sense to me”

    Bash Pinball host @ ~20:30 — Criticism of Multimorphic module pricing strategy; suggests $1,500-$2,000 would be more competitive

  • “It's negative fun. It's frustrating... The colors and stuff are cool and fun and they're kind of eye-catching, but the actual playability of it... It's just negative fun.”

    Co-host (on Party Zone) @ ~28:00 — Harsh assessment of classic WPC-era game design; describes game as anti-fun despite visual appeal

  • “I'm dying to play that game. I've seen a lot of random people online also bringing it up and talking about it”

    Co-host (on Jurassic Park Home Edition) @ ~50:00 — Indicates growing social media/online discussion of Costco edition; signals emerging interest in home pinball among casual players

  • “The entire thing is like two or three gigantic pcbs no way just flush against the plywood... the pcb is the wiring so you don't need to hand wire all that stuff”

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyTurner PinballcompanyDungeons and DragonsgamePortalgameMerlin's Arcadegame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Ninja Eclipse gaining online visibility and social media discussion; multiple commenters reporting recent playthroughs of rare Turner Pinball game, indicating growing interest and distribution

    medium · I've seen recently Ninja Eclipses getting a lot of attention online. Like, people are posting like, oh, I finally got to play Ninja Eclipse... There's something like multiple people I've seen... commenting that they're getting to play these games that are pretty rare

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Party Zone and Dennis Nordman era games (Party Zone, Dr. Dude, Elvira and the Party Monsters) characterized as inherently problematic: poor playfield satisfaction, stop-and-go mechanics, predatory tone in call-outs

    high · There's something wrong with that whole club... I get weird rape vibes like get it away from me... some of the call outs and like little animations and stuff is like get your hands off me... those games are pretty rapey

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dungeons & Dragons criticized for design philosophy shift: dragon multiball made too accessible, reducing challenge progression and excitement value typical of 6-ball endgame multiballs

    high · Maybe this is an attempt to attract or retain some of the newer players... feels like every new Stern game, they're making it easier and easier just to get a quick multi-ball... that's why it feels a little gimmicky

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Speaker explicitly advocates for original IP and design innovation as necessity to attract new players and sustain industry; rejects licensed IP saturation narrative

    high · I'm so tired of licensed themes. I kind of miss original stuff, man... This is what we need. This is innovation. This is what's going to get new people.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.120

0:00
All right, people, this is the last full episode before the official start of season two, which will be in a few weeks for real this time. So this seems like an appropriate time to start hyping up season two. it's gonna be bigger and better more podcasty fun than ever more music more nostalgia more comedy more all the things and a lot of new things if you're a regular listener you know that we almost never ask you to follow or rate us or any of that crap it makes me physically ill but if ever there was a time, it would be now. So push some buttons, click some stars, do the things, tell a friend about the show, help us get season two off to a smashing good start. Okay, so back to the matter at hand. This is part two of the Texas Pinball Festival episode. We cover a whole bunch of topics and new games, and if you listen to the end, you'll understand why it took so long to get this episode posted.
1:21
Anyways. Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, so Stern had probably a dozen of them there or something like that. They had a mix of the pros and the premiums. What was your first impression? So my first thought was that Dragon Shot is really dangerous and scary, which I guess makes sense. but to get the multi-ball you have to just keep hitting that shot and it tends to just rocket it into the drains i don't know i'm not sure how to hit it to keep it safe yet i haven't figured that out how many times did you play you think i think i've played it eight or nine times okay cool cool yeah i gotta i gotta play it man i haven't really had a chance to really get my get a feel for it you know i mean like at all i think we played one game and it didn't necessarily stand out for me but i can't also judge so quickly i would say it's a fairly standard layout like as far as the shots go it's got like a fan layout of sorts but it does have an extra ramp with the upper flipper which adds a little and you can hit a couple different things from the upper flippers it's not like a keith elwynn or a jack danger rewriting the rules kind of thing sure but it is modernized I think compared to like Venom or Mando, some of the more basic Stern layouts. It has some little enhancements that I appreciated. It actually flows pretty well. Did you get a good sense of the overall reception or vibe of the game while you were there? Amongst the general people that were playing it or like were there lines? So not unlike the other festivals, there's almost always a line on every game. Right. But yeah, there were significant lines for D&D. Did it seem like people were actually enjoying it and really loving it? I think people were enjoying it. People generally seem to be enjoying it. And to me, the dragon multiball is maybe a little bit of a gimmick. Once you spell dragon, you keep hitting the stand-up targets under the dragon. You spell dragon, and then you shoot the right orbit. It starts dragon multiball. And it's like at least six balls, if not... I heard somebody say it was eight, but I'm not sure. That's kind of fun. Just like by default, it's more than three balls. I guess it's kind of cool. It's a little different to have by default more than three balls. It's kind of like something interesting and new, kind of exciting, especially for a new player. It's exciting. The action button triggers the shield, which pops up in between the two flippers.

Co-host (on Merlin's Arcade architecture) @ ~36:30 — Technical explanation of radical manufacturing simplification; highlights efficiency improvement

Chris Turner
person
Jack Dangerperson
Jurassic Park Home Editiongame
Party Zonegame
Mad Max: Fury Roadgame
Tony Hawk's Pro Skatergame
Ninja Eclipsegame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Insider Connectedproduct
$

market_signal: Jurassic Park Home Edition Costco pricing ($1,600) positioned as impulse-buy friendly gateway for casual collectors; speakers note much higher price would reduce mass-market appeal

high · $1,600? How much do these usually cost? And it's like $2,500. Go ahead and put it in the cart... You've got to upgrade your cart... if some rando goes to Costco and is like oh I remember pinball... they going to get into pinball

  • $

    market_signal: Multimorphic module pricing ($5,000+) questioned as poor value relative to used WPC games ($4,000-$5,000) and new Stern Pro machines; structural concern about economics

    high · if i can buy a wpc game for like four grand or I can buy a $5,000 module for something. It's hard to see the value in it... I would almost rather buy just like a full-on 90s game or something for like $5,000

  • ?

    announcement: Mad Max: Fury Road homebrew first public demonstration at TPF; completely original design in development since 2019

    high · Mad Max? Fury Road. I didn't even know that was a homebrew. It's new, sort of. They've been working on it since 2019. this is the first public demonstration of that game

  • ?

    announcement: Merlin's Arcade officially revealed with code 0.58 (early but functional); summer 2025 availability confirmed; prototype demonstration at TPF

    high · the game is not available until the summer i think the code was like 0.58 or something it was pretty early code... some of the stuff on the playfield it might potentially change

  • ?

    product_strategy: Multimorphic Portal extended version introduces forward-positioned ramps and upper playfield element to address core complaint about standard modules (excessive reaction time due to distant shots)

    high · multi-morphic games tend to be kind of easy because all the shots are so far back... in this game two of the ramps are much closer... speeds it up... more hazards which just makes it a little more exciting

  • ?

    product_concern: Jurassic Park Home Edition T-Rex mechanism simplified compared to premium Stern version but still functional; smaller display size acceptable to players; full-size playfield and standard Stern flipper feel maintained

    high · he spits the ball out of his mouth. So it's a cheaper way to achieve ball going in or out of his mouth. It's fine... The display was fine. It's a little bit smaller... full-size cabinet

  • ?

    technology_signal: Merlin's Arcade implements full PCB-based wiring architecture with minimal hand-wiring; represents manufacturing innovation for reliability and cost efficiency

    high · the whole back of the playfield is circuit board... basically if you're looking at it from like if you have it standing up in service position you're looking at just full-on pcbs just pcbs no wiring... the pcb is the wiring so you don't need to hand wire all that stuff

    • 3:54
    It makes it harder for the balls to drain because it just physically blocks the space between the flippers, unless you let the ball go under the flipper. You're trying to hit the dragon more times than you drain your balls.
    4:10
    You get 15 hits and 15 drains, and whichever you get to first, that's who wins the battle. And then it gets harder each time you do it. I think the last stage, I don't know if you can drain any balls, which seems impossible. But yeah, it's fun. It's exciting, like those crazy multi-balls. I wonder if it's kind of like too much, because it's easy to get and you can pretty much get it every game. Really? And it's like a crazy multi-ball. It feels like a little too easy to get maybe for how crazy it is. Sure, sure. You know, I'm used to the six ball multi-ball being like the pinnacle of the hardest wizard mode or something like that. You gotta like stack it up and put the work in to get up to that level. Yeah, that's why it feels a little gimmicky, I guess. Maybe this is an attempt to attract or retain some of the newer players that are just now getting into pinball. It does feel like every new Stern game, they're making it easier and easier just to get a quick multi-ball. Yeah, something kind of exciting right away. And there's probably even science to back that up, how engaging the game is when you first start playing it and stuff. But other than that, I thought the game was fun. It shot well. I couldn't hear it that well, but you could hear the Worf callouts. Isn't that his name from Star Trek? Michael Dorn? No idea. Commander Worf. The Klingon guy, he does like the dragon. Oh, okay. He's great. They got good voice actors. Question. Does the dragon eat the ball? So the dragon does not eat the ball. He spits the balls out. And he moves up and down and left and right on the premium. He just moves up and down on the pro, and he doesn't spit the balls out on the pro. They just come from somewhere else. Did the dragon spit the balls out at you? Yes, on the premium. Was it scary?
    6:01
    No. When there's a six-ball multiball going, you don't even really notice. So he spit the balls out during multiball? He spits them out during the multiball, yeah. Is that how it starts? You know, the idea is the balls are his flames, I guess. Does he spit six flame balls out right away? I think so, more or less. And then I think he might keep spitting them out as the multiball. Then when your ball save eventually runs out, you can put the shield up. But it's an extremely long ball save, so he just keeps shooting balls out. Well, it seems like it may not have been that memorable. like i actually didn't know that i had switched to a pro at one point because which to their credit like well yeah sure like the mech i kind of appreciate it like the pro still has the dragon yeah he's up and down he doesn't spit the balls out who cares he doesn't move left and right who cares the other thing is it has like a dungeon thing that moves up out of the play field like right like a trapdoor like it's an added shot that doesn't exist but it's basically just in the middle of the play field and it's not that hard to hit so taking that away was like meh not that big a deal i actually thought the pro was probably good value with this one well i'm not that excited about it but maybe like jaws right maybe i just need to play it and give it a chance honestly like but kind of my take is based on just a little bit that i've seen and heard about it maybe best you know set for in-home use where you can actually build up your character and do all the role playing do the extra maybe that stuff is kind of the added bonus fun right that you would get out of it and it's hard for me jumping onto a game like that and kind of like having fun right away yeah i mean it didn't immediately grab me but i thought it was pretty fun cool we'll check back in the near future once I get a couple games in.
    8:00
    Oh, so the first day at Texas Pinball Festival, within three or four hours of being there, I had like an itchy spot on my chest and I looked in the mirror and it was a tick.
    8:16
    Oh, no. And it was like, I gotta freaking deal with this. So I went into the bathroom and I was just trying to pull it out. Because it didn't look like it had been on there for very long. It wasn't engorged. Yeah, such a gross word. Anyway, I tried to pull the thing out. And, you know, I just grabbed with my fingers because what else am I going to do?
    8:40
    And half of it came out really easily. So then I'm just like grabbing the whole body of it, trying to pull it out. but those remaining two or three legs or whatever were just completely hooked in as i was pulling on it my skin was coming out like an inch from my body yeah i was just not letting go yep and i just kept pulling on it like trying different angles eventually the legs broke off from the body and stayed in me and i was like oh great yep now i gotta get these legs out of me somehow yep at a pinball convention yep and so i walked up to the like front reception area and they're like oh yeah we don't have anything like a medical kit we probably should i guess i was like yeah yeah and they're like try the front desk of the hotel but anyway i was like okay before i do that i'm going to check the 7-eleven across the street and see if they have tweezers they did not so then back to the hotel and it's literally a half mile to walk from wait you walked yeah and to get from where the convention is to like the front desk felt like i was walking like half mile the place was so big anyway 20 minutes later i at the front desk of the embassy suites hotel and i asked if they had any kind of medical kit in this massive compound and she goes back and then a couple minutes later comes back out and she was like this is my personal pair and i told her i'd already told her i'm trying to pull a tick out of my body and she gave me her personal set of tweezers oh that's so sweet she was like you're gonna bring him back right i was like yes i promise what was her name i don't know we'll just call her texas tracy um she wasn't a texas tracy type but anyway tamra maybe sweet woman who helped me out of jam thank you tamra anyway yeah so i went to the bathroom i still couldn't it's like right it's like where you can't see it like right on my collarbone yeah yeah and so i had to call my brother in like can you get these legs out of me and so he's fighting with it like he's like this doesn't hurt and like my skin is just coming out like i just like couldn't feel anything at that point and eventually the other leg came loose but i'm still freaking a little itchy so i woke up recently maybe like a few months ago and you know i can't see very well i have contacts slash glasses yeah so i took a shower and i'm like scrubbing and i feel a spot on my side and i'm like what is it it feels itchy and i look and it just looks like a like a i can't see because i'm blind right so it just feels like a weird like skin tag or something so i started messing with it i'm like wait that just looks like a piece of chocolate or something so i like pull it out i just like pull it off real quick right because it's like irritating me like maybe i slept on like a potato chip and it's embedded in my body or something i don't know anyways i get out man and this thing's itching really bad and i finally put my contacts in and i look yeah into my horror the same thing happened to me it was like the tick's head half like its face was still in my hip on my side yeah and i panicked because like had i known it was a tick i wouldn't have just ripped it off i would have tried to strategically carefully you know remove it but i panicked right it itched for like a month dude and i still don't know if i got all of it out because at that point it was like too late even with tweezers i couldn't see and i didn't know what yeah the day we left i looked at my collarbone eric's was still kind of red and there was like a little bit more leg that had just kind of pushed out to the surface and i just wiped it off i was like oh great dude mine swole up a little bit yeah like maybe like it was protruding from my body maybe like half an inch or something like a bulge you know and i squeezed it and like stuff started coming out it was disgusting you gotta watch for the bullseye you know that's so the lyme disease i i quickly researched and i realized there's no bullseye yeah to the bruise carry a lot of other diseases too unfortunately but i think usually if they're not engorged you're much less likely to have contracted something this one was definitely semi-engorged really yeah because it looked it felt like a raisin like it felt kind of like a raisin on my side oh no it's like a raisin carefully hang on to the edge of my side, my hip. I'm trying to remember if I've ever had one that was engorged. I tend to catch them. I get so itchy right away. Like, I respond to them immediately. I don't know how this one got me, man. It got me in my sleep. Yeah. Bastard.
    13:22
    Well, watch out. How long ago was that? This was like six months ago. I think I'm fine. You're fine by now. I think I'm fine. But yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say, Tix, fuck you. and now for a word from our sponsor coca-cola classic introduces magic cans you can't tell them apart from real cans but inside up to 500 cash trips of other great prizes instantly so take a good look if you see anything other than coca-cola classic in that can don't drink from it It's a winner, so take a good look because... There's magic in the real thing. Can't beat it. Can't beat the real thing.
    14:09
    And now, back to the show. So, one of the other big games there that just debuted was Portal. Oh! The new Multimorphic.
    14:25
    Multimorphic. Power Rangers. Multimorphic Power Rangers. So they actually had the biggest multimorphic display here that I've seen. And they had a bunch of different games on display. Like maybe all of them? I don't know. They had a pretty good sized booth and they had three portals. They had like two of the extended version and one of the standard version. The standard version is like a normal multimorphic game where everything that you swap out as the back third of the playfield. The module on the top portion of the playfield. Yeah. The extended version, I think, is the first time they've done anything quite like this. It's got ramps specific to the game that come way forward. Closer, okay, cool. And there's even an upper playfield element to it. So as one of the ramps returns, you can hit one of the extra buttons to activate a diverter thing that pushes the ball from the left side of the play field to the right side on a clear plexiglass upper part. Okay. Dude, see, that's the kind of stuff. That's the stuff. Yes. That's what I want. Exactly. And it also has another ramp that moves up and down that's only in the extended version. And they're just much closer. But the multi-morphic games tend to be kind of easy because all the shots are so far back, you have a huge amount of reaction time to just deal with it. and in this game two of the ramps are much closer you know johnny mnemonic style or whatever yeah and so it speeds it up there's more hazards which just makes a little more exciting and there was also some cool like it's like a jump shot in the back kind of like a ramp that pops up yeah and the other ramps move up and down i didn't get a handle on the rules or anything sure there was a probably the longest line consistently for that game wow man um well that's exciting i had no idea definitely the most impressive multimorphic game i've played and like if i had if i see that in an arcade or something i'm gonna play it but it is pricey like i'm i struggle to understand the economics of what multimorphic so the standard right you theoretically buy the module plug it into your existing multimorphic cabinet and it's like 5 000 or 5 500 or something for that module yeah so then the extended is that you have to already own the multimorphic you know platform um but yeah it's 12 500 for the extended like the full the full cabinet the whole yeah whole game playable ready to go yeah which is like the price basically of a stern le and that's that's a lot i wish they could make it cheaper honestly if the modules were a little bit cheaper to me it would make a lot more sense you know what i mean like if the modules were of cheaper than three grand you know what i mean if it was like and that's like the cheapest is like three grand if it was like 15 to like 2000 yeah maybe it would make more sense to me yeah i mean i i get it you know like we're both people who make expensive things and we know how much things cost to make yeah yeah for me it's just if i can buy a wpc game for like four grand or I can buy a $5,000 module for something. It's hard to see the value in it. I'm not knocking it either, but I agree. I think I would almost rather buy just like a full-on 90s game or something for like $5,000 or $6,000, you know, $4,000 or $5,000. Yeah, or a used Stern Pro. Sure, yeah, a newer Stern Pro, yeah, totally. Anyway, I thought the game was really cool. hope that they keep making like more fully evolved machines like this yeah so this was actually the first time i've gotten to play a party zone that actually worked oh like a good party zone yeah dude oh i oh my god i hate party zones so much man party zone is like what it sounds like if you just inverted it that's how much fun i have playing that game what's the inverse of party zone like i don't know like living hell you know what i'm saying that's like the least fun torture chamber torture chamber yeah that's like the least fun game i've ever played yeah so yeah i love like the zany look of it but man there's no redeeming qualities to how it shoots or the play field or anything. It's not fun at all. It's negative fun. It's frustrating. It's like that weird time period, like early WPC, late System 11 games where there weren't really ramps. There were just vucks everywhere that just shoot the ball back to you. But it's just like stop and go and stop and go and stop and go. Yeah, I mean, the colors and stuff are cool and fun and they're kind of eye-catching, but the actual playability of it i feel is i've never had and you know what's funny man is like yeah there used to be one in raleigh yeah at this place called level up that has since closed down and i would always go there with friends or people just hanging out or whatever and like show them pinball yeah and that would be the first one they would walk up to you know what i mean because it just looks kind of like it kind of has a vibe yeah yeah like i wish it was more fun it's just not that fun and the music is also kind of like dread like it's annoying it's so annoying yeah the music is horrible but i i did play it like three times because i was just trying to hit that left ramp shot a few times It like that spaceship ramp all the way to the left Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah But it ruined Like it's unsatisfying because you hit the ramp and it goes up the hill a little bit. And then it just vucks it up to like a higher little return. And then through a little loop, which is, I guess, kind of cool. I guess that's the only cool part, yeah. But the fact that it stops in the middle of the ramp to shoot it higher just takes all the satisfaction out of it. You get the satisfaction only of it going to the top of the ramp, and then the machine is in control after that. It's just bleh. It seems like a cool idea in theory, but it's not fun. Everything about that game is like, well, that seemed like a good idea. It's like there's something wrong with that whole club. Like Dr. Dude, Party Zone, that whole thing. I don't know what that is. I don't know what the deal is. get it away from me right like i get weird rape vibes like get it away from me that's funny you know what i mean like frat party i'm gonna get roofied vibes playing these games well i mean some of the call some of the call outs and like little animations and stuff is like get your hands off me it's like a wolf character i'm telling you dr dude and he's like holding it it's weird man those games are pretty rapey i guess like dr dude parties at the party zone yeah which is probably like the rape dungeon that these weirdo elvira is also part of this club they're all dennis nordman games but elvira and the party monsters there you go another party yeah that was they're all together partying but i guess if elvira is there maybe it's cool i actually really like that game the elvira game is fun but the other ones please just go just please go yeah the elvira ones are probably the only actual good ones but i like the way they look so turner pinball you know they had ninja oh chris we met him at a pinball expo he was hanging out when we were playing diamond lady yeah yeah that's right so i talked to him a little bit about his new game merlin arcade yeah i had a couple of them there and there was a good line on it the whole time these are prototypes oh cool because the game is not available until the summer i think the code was like 0.58 or something it was pretty early code some of the stuff on the playfield it might potentially change a little bit from what was there but it's kind of an interesting theme it's like if merlin in the middle ages could conjure an arcade like a modern arcade so there's like okay there's like an arcade machine like an 80s style arcade machine sculpt on the playfield oh cool the coolest thing probably there's a foosball spinner in a lane. Like a little guy? Like foosball? But he looks to be about full size, like a full size foosball. A dude spinning? Yeah, but he's shaped like a knight. But yeah, you hit the ball and it spins like a foosball guy, which is really cool. It's very satisfying. So it's like a spinner, but it's in the shape of a foosball guy. Yeah. And it's like to scale. That's pretty fun. Yeah, and it spins like it should. It was a very satisfying shot. It had like a flipper on the upper left that was also a little bit lower than you would expect it to be which made it a little more interesting i think and you can shoot the loop with that there's a couple ramps it was generally fun like i only got to play like twice because i hate waiting in line sure but the other cool thing it has it has two extra buttons on either side or one extra button on each side and it's a tap pass button so basically it just barely hits the flipper so if you're cradling a ball, you hit the button and it passes it to the other side? Yes. No way. Yeah. You cradle the ball like you would with the regular full strength flipper. Amazing. And then you let go of that and as the ball rolls towards the tip of the flipper, you hit the other button and it just right over to the other flipper. Can we? And it works really well. Can we just take a moment and give a round of applause to Turner. This is what we need. This is innovation. This is what's going to get new people. This is what's going to keep pinball going. Also, dude, the original themes. Dude, mad props. Because I'm so tired of licensed themes. I kind of miss original stuff, man. Like, let's make... And honestly, he's been... Like, I've seen recently Ninja Eclipses getting a lot of attention online. Like, people are posting like, oh, I finally got to play Ninja Eclipse. Yeah. So he's getting some... There's something like multiple people I've seen over the course of the last few months commenting that they're getting to play these games that are pretty rare. So he's doing something right. I do think he's onto something. I did play Ninja Eclipse a little bit more and had fun with that game. It shoots like the shots are not too easy, not too hard. I think it'd be a fun game to get into. Yeah. With the new one, with Merlin's Arcade, he's definitely stepped up the amount of sculpts and just like custom stuff. Ninja Eclipse was a little more like things printed on plastic, kind of two-dimensional. And this has several different sculpts that are custom-made, custom-painted and stuff. He's definitely upping the game. I also saw they had a playfield flipped up in the service position all the way back. Cool. I didn't notice about them, but the whole back of the playfield is circuit board. the entire thing is like two or three gigantic pcbs no way just flush against the plywood like underneath like basically if you're looking at it from like if you have it standing up in service position you're looking at just full-on pcbs just pcbs no wiring that's the benefit is you whoa the pcb is the wiring so you don't need to hand wire all that stuff super clean yeah and like I would imagine if something breaks, you just got to buy a large replacement PCB.
    26:11
    But I bet they're much more reliable. Amazing. Another innovative thing. See, that's awesome because that's going to be way more reliable than a random wire, like a solder joint that just lets go because you dropped it too hard one day. Or as you were folding from service back down, it got caught on this edge of this cabinet and then it pulled. That happens to me all the time when I'm working on games. It looked like almost no wires. There's wires between the solenoids and the circuit board. Cool, man. And that's about it. So it's got to be way cheaper to manufacture. Yeah. Especially... Those big circuit boards probably don't cost that much. If you have the pick and play systems too, that populate the components on the boards, that's even faster and cheaper. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it was impressive. Dude, shout out to Chris Turner.
    26:58
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    27:37
    Oh, real quick before the homebrew games. I got to play Jack Danger's Jurassic Park Home Edition. No, you did not. Yes. No, you did not. The Costco Jurassic Park Home Edition. Yes. There was a line for that game just like every other game. And I thought it was pretty good. Okay. Real quick. Jurassic Park Data East. yeah jurassic park costco yeah slash home edition right jurassic park keith elwyn edition delwin yeah 2019 stern edition give me the quick like opinions right there so they all have t-rexes in roughly the same place okay okay unlike the back left quadrant okay data east he eats the ball okay so he comes down clamps over the ball goes back up ball disappears his mouth kind of chomps up and down impressive and it has a rumble impressive yeah earth shaker had at first but okay so then stern jurassic park premium he's like sticking out the backboard right and he comes down and eats the ball as you shoot it up the ramp right and then he can also throw the ball flick the ball onto the play field randomly that's the best one but the home edition version is kind of the worst in that regard, but it still does something. So basically you shoot the ball, there's some drop targets in front of the T-Rex, you knock those down, and then you shoot it into like a hole that's right under the T-Rex and then he spits the ball out of his mouth. So it's a cheaper way to achieve ball going in or out of his mouth. It's fine. But it was fun. The game over Raw was fun. Yeah, I mean if it was a system 11 game then you'd be like this is a great system 11 game sure you know sure it's just got all the things that make pinball fun and it's even got a jump ramp like in the back you hit it up a ramp and there's a gap like if it's not going fast enough it just falls down it's a pretty big gap dude i'm i'm dying to play that game i've seen a lot of random people online also bringing it up and talking about it but it's funny because honestly it's not as cheap as i thought it would be. Right. And that's also where I'm like, five grand, I'm going to get a used pro. But that's not who they're trying to sell it to But 100 if some rando goes to Costco and is like oh I remember pinball from when I was a kid and then they buy that thing they going to get into pinball It's going to be fun. They're going to have fun. I totally get it, man. My dad included will go to Costco and impulse buy like a shed. You know what I mean? So I totally get it. You're like, $1,600? How much do these usually cost? And it's like $2,500. Go ahead and put it in the cart with your A5 Wagyu, three pounds, like an amazing deal. You've got to upgrade your cart at that point if you get one of those pallet carts. But yeah, I could definitely see. I mean, I think they would sell a lot more of them for like four grand. And the price difference between that and the Pro would make more sense to me. Right. But, you know, I don't know. It's fun. What about the display? Did it bother you? No, it was fine. It's a little bit smaller. It still had a bunch of animations and it didn't seem super phoned in or anything. It seemed fun. I had as much fun playing that game as most of the games that I played at the convention. It's a full-size cabinet, right? It's just a display that's a little bit smaller, right? Yeah. As far as I can tell, it's full-size. The play field is full-size. I think the cabinet is maybe slightly smaller dimensions. How'd the flippers feel? They felt fine. They just felt like stern flippers to me. I mean, I didn't notice anything weird about them. It all just felt like normal pinball, just scaled down and a little bit simplified. Okay, last thing, the homebrews. So they had Tony Hawk. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was there. There was a super long line for that game the whole time. And so I didn't play it. I love that game. I think he may have made some updates to it. Like it looked good. There were certain things I was like, was it like that before? Did he change that? So I did look at it, but there was a line for it the whole time.
    31:44
    Beside that was Mad Max. Mad Max? Fury Road. I didn't even know that was a homebrew. It's new, sort of. They've been working on it since 2019. this is the first public demonstration of that game amazing when i looked at it i was like this has got to be a re-theme of something but i was like what is it it's not a re-theme it's completely original they made a game completely made a game amazing like there's a pin side thread about it if you just google mad max fury road pinball it'll bring up a pin side thread so i didn't go through the whole thing but they've got pictures of the 3d drawings but it has full like animations and And like, wow, the play field art was all really well done and nice. What an endeavor. It had a key to start the game. I was like, how do you start this thing? The guy's like, turn the key. What an endeavor. And it has like big topper with exhaust pipes coming out of it. It's pretty epic. Do you know anything about the developers? So I know it's like a uncle nephew situation. I think the nephew is in like high school. and was studying, like, trying to figure out what field of engineering he wanted to do. And it's like, well, pinball has all of them. Cool, cool. So they just was like, let's make a pinball machine. It's kind of a cool story. But they don't really have much of a, it didn't look like they were, you know, doing a lot on social media or anything yet. Maybe they will, because it was definitely one of the coolest homebrews that I've played. And the play field has actually got some creativity to it and some, like, interesting shots and stuff like that. I'm going to check it out. I didn't even know that existed. So just last thing about Texas Pinball Convention. Texas Pinball Farm. It's kind of worth the trip for like family, even if they're not that into pinball. So Dallas kind of is like a very big corporate city. I don't think it's like a cultural haven. But there was a Meow Wolf. Have you heard of Meow Wolf? Yes, dude. I've been dying. Dude, listen, my whole life I wanted to create and be a part of and just like develop immersive experiences and things that take you out of this world. Yes. And I know all about it, but go ahead. So my brother, Hacker Jay, had been to Meow Wolf at DEF CON in Vegas like three times. Vegas, right. Vegas has one, yeah. And he had told me about it. So it was on my radar, but he looked it up and there's one in Grapevine, which is like near Dallas. And it's in like a shopping mall. and you go into this place and you're in this shopping mall and then you're like outside of a house and it's like a split level house and there's like crickets chirping and stuff in the background and you go in the house and there's like devices laying around and you're trying to piece together like what happened to this kid that lived there. You could spend a lot of time there just trying to like unravel this mystery that there's clues for everywhere but you don't have to do that. you can then like walk in their kitchen what you can you're encouraged to just touch everything right and so in the kitchen like you're going through the drawers looking in the cabinets and then like the refrigerator you open it up and it's like a pathway to a different area you go into that area and then it becomes very psychedelic yep and weird and like what is happening and it messes with your head and with perspective there's always audio stuff happening and then a lot of the rooms are interactive and you're trying to figure stuff out like what does this do and what does this switch do it was super cool go there if if you're looking for something else to do or if you bring family with you how much was it it's like 40 bucks that's that's not bad there's also just places to like chill within the whole thing so like there's places just to like hang out and sit down you could spend the whole day there if you really wanted to that's not bad and there is one room of it where i was like this is what i want my arcade to be it's like just led lights everywhere so it looked very neon and it was like rhythmically synced with music and like these patterns i was like this but with pinball right right right dude i've been dreaming about making my own place like that like buying like an old abandoned warehouse i had this idea for a room where you open the door and the whole floor is just a ball pit yeah and then you have to jump in and swim down to a secret door underneath and you come out of there and there's like another room with pinball machines yes so that's like been my dream for a while and i even looked up how much it would cost and how many like basically how many balls it would take well this is what we got to make our arcade at some point yeah like all that stuff you could diy like all of it yeah a giant ball pit room with a machine at the bottom they have to dive down and swim through yeah we could do all that stuff that's not going to be our first location but that'll be like our yeah ultimate location We'll call it the Bash Pinball Farm.
    36:37
    There is one little tip if you do go to Meow Wolf. Definitely climb into the washer and dryer, and they do go to different places.
    36:47
    Climb into them? Yes, climb into them. Don't be scared. No. I'm claustrophobic, man. Oh, yeah, that might get you a little bit. Gross. It's fun, though. Okay, then the other thing that makes it worth going to Frisco for is if you're into barbecue. Oh, yeah. Which they have some of the best Texas barbecue. Actually, in Frisco, called Hutchins Barbecue. Hutchins. Texas-style barbecue. It was very good. Was it good? It was some of the best food slash barbecue slash, yeah. Well, you're a North Carolina boy. Can't believe you're talking about Texas barbecue like that. They did have a North Carolina-ish barbecue, like a shredded pork kind of thing. Nah, man, nah. It wasn't as good. But the Texas-style stuff that they did was really good. Woo-wee. And you got free dessert. Banana pudding. Banana pudding, peach cobbler, and ice cream.
    37:48
    That place was almost worth the trip. Welcome to Frisco. Dude, I love... That's like one of my favorite things to do is when I go somewhere, have like the local barbecue. Yeah. In Charleston, man, that's like the best beef brisket I ever had. Oh, really? You should go. If you ever go to Charleston, go to Lewis Barbecue. Lewis. Okay. Yeah. I actually didn't get the pork or the beef. I got the chicken because I'm just doing. Matt, what are you doing? Matt, come on, dude. You're going to go to Whataburger and you get a chicken and you go to the barbecue and you get chicken. I know. What are you doing? I don't want to uncork the beast. It was the best barbecue chicken I've ever had. It was really good.
    38:31
    So about that tick that bit me in Texas, I ended up getting a pretty gnarly and mysterious illness that took me out of commission for a few weeks. My doctor ran a barrage of tests, and it turns out I had contracted ehrlichiosis, which, yes, I know, it sounds made up. So a little PSA for folks living in tick-infested parts of the world. If you get a tick, even if it's not on you for very long, you can still get some nasty infections. So stay vigilant, my friends. And that's a wrap on Season 1, folks. Look out for the start of Season 2 in the next few weeks. Enjoy your summer and your winter if you're in Australia. And always remember... We'll be loving you forever!
    39:21
    Leave this territory now. Return to your home. evacuate all personnel