Of course. Why not? The bookcase flippers, interesting. Yeah. Actually, I thought that worked pretty well, considering it's it's very different that that left flipper on upper flipper on the play field. But I didn't watch like a ton of it, so I haven't really like studied up on it or anything like that. So I'd like to hear your guys thoughts. Oh, well, Tom, would you say the upper flipper would be innovative? Do you think that would qualify next year as an innovative mech? Yeah. Yeah, I think that would qualify for sure. Yeah. So what he's describing on the upper playfield on Spooky, it actually, it's almost like a big L. You have, instead of your flipper, it's like an extension on that. And so what is unique is when you hit the center ramp, which actually goes up to the upper playfield, you have to hold the upper left flipper like you would normally. And that actually moves that back part so that it stops the ball from just rolling right past the upper play field onto a ramp. So you have to kind of get used to that. And then the way that you're doing it, when you let go of the upper flipper, if you time it right, it almost like slingshots the ball over to the right. So you kind of have to use it to aim as well. It's, it's a very unique way to control the ball movement up there. Almost like a teeter totter or something. Yeah. Well, I think that that's probably the most interesting thing in the game because the upper flipper set to look like a bookcase, which fits into the theme. The fact that you could not engage it, let it still come down right to the left flipper again. Or you could engage it, like Joel said, hold it up and then use that top part of it to slingshot it into I guess it's a Scooby Doo lane or something like that. or you could even let it roll down a little bit and use the bottom part of it to hit wherever you need to hit. Yeah. So, I mean, that is pretty cool. Two separate areas to use as a flipper with this mech. I agree. I will say the upper flipper, though, because of that, and I don't know if it's just the extra weight on the mech itself, but it doesn't seem like the ball that comes off that left flipper is super fast. Like, it seems kind of slow, and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. I mean, we'll have to figure that out when we actually play it, but there are a bunch of shots in that upper play field. I held the upper play field. We had one to give away at the pinball awards. It's huge. It is a huge play field. There's like five or six shots up there. There's a horseshoe up there, so you have two shots there, a bash toy, and then there's like three shots over to the right. And I don't think you can backhand some of those shots on the right, so you're going to have to be able to hit that with the upper flipper. And whether or not you do it normally from the flipper or slingshot it, I don't know. This game is full of horseshoes. A lot of horseshoes. yeah i think there's a lot if you like horseshoes this is your game yeah if you like hitting a shot and immediately coming back at you or your game this is your game um no i will say at least well you go first travis what what are your thoughts your takeaways from scooby-doo i mean it's so like i said i'm not gonna really how do i wear this so i i do agree with tom i i wish that the presentation of the actual stream would have been a little bit better but at the same time it's like you know at least that there's a stream out it's something you know yeah i don't think they know anybody in wisconsin that that could stream they are going to do an actual jack danger stream the problem which is kind of strange to me as well since jack is a stern employee yeah yeah he's actual pinball designer so i mean it's just yeah but it is what it is at least they're getting it out either way. So with that being said, it's so for me, it was kind of difficult to listen in to what was going on because sometimes the game audio was clipping out of what they were they were trying to convey. And so that that part was a little chaotic for me. But, you know, at least just putting on mute and just following shots and following what the LCD screen was saying, it a lot of stuff made sense to me with what was going on. The the main takeaway that I took from it is the gameplay will take forever on this game like the ball times are forever and one of the things that i was concerned about that we talked about before this even got like the gameplay reveal is the far right hand side leading up from basically the right end lane all the way up to i guess it would be like a right orbit shot or the other horseshoe shots and all that there's really nothing but that one slingshot that's going to toss the ball out so when you look at this design I mean, nothing about it is really designed to be dangerous in general, to go to the outlet. And we even looked at some measurements and it's like even the gap from the post on the left hand side to, I guess, that big plastic part. The gaps. Yeah, really not there for a ball to go to the left out lane. And it's a double left out lane there. So it's just kind of like unused parts of the play field. And I noticed I think I might have saw it took about 20 to 25 minutes into this video until like a 40 minute gameplay video. Even see a ball go to an out lane. I think if I remember everything seemed to be draining right down the middle. And then they also have a target that will come up and actually save the ball down the middle. So all of that combined is a little bit concerning for me. But at the same time, it's I think that this game is not necessarily for people that are on location. I think it's more for people that are in a home environment, because if this is on location, you almost have to pull those posts out completely. But even then, it's like that could be dangerous because I think that that makes the plastic to those to the in lane and out lane. I think that makes it too exposed where then you'd have chip plastics, too. So I'm curious to see how that works, because none of the shots are seen dangerous going to out lanes. And then even on that left side, you even have the lowest drop target. Right. It it seems to block shots go in that direction as well. And everything just seems to just easily feed left in lane or go right back to the flippers in the play. I totally agree. That was my first. You know, I realized I was what, 10 plus minutes. It felt like into the video and bug was still on his first ball. and and i know the designer said the reason they did so many horseshoe shots is they needed dangerous shots they needed shots that sent the ball back at the flippers quickly because every other shot that isn't a horseshoe is a safe feed into a habit trail there's like four or five habit trails that all feed your lower flipper like the problem is the problem is though a horseshoe shot even if it feeds back the flipper that's still a safe shot that's not dangerous for anybody that's That's above a casual. They're going to learn to dead bounce it. They're going to learn to catch it. So, I mean, unless that ball is like going to a slingshot or something like that, which, you know, I just think by looking at by design, it feels like to me that this is designed for the casual in mind to have long game times to have long ball times. I think they even said in their video, like something about tournament players. Well, yeah, they're obviously they want this to be in tournament. No, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't look at this game and think that it's designed with anything in mind other than the casual playing at home and getting to play for a long time. Well, so that brings up a whole other thing. But to wrap up, what I would say is the physical layout. I know when we watched the spooky, the Halloween stream, like immediately we were just like, what is going on? I mean, with the scoops and the rejections and all this stuff, like there were immediate issues that we saw. So I will say coming out of the Scooby-Doo stream, there wasn't immediate issues that I saw when it came to mechanical or layout. What I will say, though, is like, yeah, that lower left side, there's two rows of drop targets. I barely saw those used. The lower right side, they added an extra sling because there isn't anything there. I don't know if I ever even saw it go off. The outlanes are barely used. And then that middle diverter, you can like collect Scooby snacks and then that gives you up to three saves. So it's almost like you have this ball save that's constant. And yeah, well, the game plays to vertical, too. That's the thing. The game does not require you to go horizontal. Not at all. It's I mean, even then, because they have timers that time you out of stuff and the timers just that it seems lopsided with what the design is. Because I don't recall anybody even finishing a mode. really until like about 18 minutes into the video. And then I saw the unmask bonus. Isn't that how they finish the mode? Like it's kind of like collecting a gem. You can finish a mode, but then if you unmask them, you get like, that's where all the points are at. Finishing the mode starts that hurry up, right? Sure. Yeah. So that's, that's what I'm wondering. Did any other modes get completed? Well, easily because it felt like they were timing out of a lot of stuff. I don't, there was, so apparently there are actual character modes and I didn't see any of those. Those aren't in there yet. And then I didn't see any multi-ball associated with the apron locks. I didn't see anything with that there yet. But overall, just speaking of coat, so to wrap up, the overall physical layout, I want to shoot it. I think it looks unique. It didn't look floaty like a wide body because it is a standard body on the bottom. You would disagree? I thought the game looked really floaty. At one point, the ball got stuck on the upper play field because it lost momentum. Well, the upper play field, though, seems slow. The upper play field seemed slow to me. everything just looks slow to me like it just that's that's the main takeaway i know talking to a lot of other players that watch it as well the vast majority felt like the game looked floaty okay but but it's interesting you don't think it looked floating and that's fine everybody's entitled to their i don't know it doesn't make it easy i thought the layout you know there are plenty of reveal streams that we see and it's you put some in this this is kind of another conversation but it's you know like stern or dead flip will do a reveal stream and you'll get these people that step up to it or even buffalo when they did the some of the reveal streams like when they did the um i think it was wonka or pirates and you had just casual people walk up all of a sudden the game looks like a brick fest and yeah and when you compare that to the people that are actually designing the game who have played this game more than anybody else on the planet they you know is the game easy or did they just make the game look easy because they know the shots like here's the problem it's all their people stream it here's the problem though even Even you just said, and I agree, the game looked easy overall. There wasn't many outlaying drains, but then why were modes not getting completed on a regular basis? That's what I want to say. Yeah, the equilibrium is off right now. Well, so I would say the physical layout, that's kind of my takeaway. But it looks great. The light shows. I'm really happy with that. Now, talking about code, that's what I think is weird here, is I actually think the code is actually rather complex. They actually, some of these modes are pretty involved. And that's what it's like, well, why aren't we seeing these complete? Because they're long. Like they made these modes very unique. Like one of the modes, you have to find certain shots at the bottom side, but to do that, you have to collect air up in the upper play field. So you have to hit a bunch of shots up there. Captain Cutler. Yeah. You want to get enough air, then you can go down low and hit a bunch of shots. It's like, there are, there's steps here. One of the modes is a safe. You're literally trying to crack a code. So you're trying to see there's four shots and you have to hit them in a very particular order. So you got to remember what you hit and hit it in that order. So to me, I think as like an, I, you're going to laugh, but like as an above average player, I would say that's exciting. That's exciting to me that these are unique and creative code, but yet we just said, it seems like this layout is made for novice or casual people. These rules are not for novice cabbage, casual people. They're not going to have any idea what they're doing i would i was looking at joel and i was even thinking i would have a hard time completing some of these modes because it seems it seems to happen so quick and even at one point they actually i think this is like i'm looking at the screenshot right now this is about 18 minutes and 45 seconds into the video they even put up a disclaimer of text over it and says that a mode can be super complicated they play it again later stay tuned and that was when they got into like the mystery van multiball the multiball right and yeah they couldn't they couldn't explain it within 10 seconds it just seemed like and then it happened so fast like nobody knew what happened there's no way the viewer knew what happened i still don't know what happened i just know that that multiball was there so yeah that's that's the thing it just seems like that there's a lot of shots for certain things it seems to be obviously that they're creating a a wide mix of diversity in terms of like what type of shots you need to hit and how often you need to hit them. That's what it seems like that they're going for. And that's fine. It's just at the same time, you still want these modes to be accessible for people. So if it's accessible, that would be great. But even watching all them play it, and they played it plenty of times, that was the concerning part that I saw that there was modes not being completed on a regular basis. It just felt like the timers went much quicker than what they should have been compared to how many shots had to be completed. it. Okay. Well, that would be a great, we don't have to transition, but that, that actually makes me think about this game right here at cactus Canyon a lot. And we're going to, we're going to talk about that, but when it kind of brings up this bigger picture and maybe feel free to write in triple drain at gmail.com or Facebook message us. But the thought there's like, if you're designing a game for novice people and no, I don't think any manufacturer today is designing a game for novice people because that would completely turn off the rest of the pinball buyers that are like, oh, the game's too easy. But that's kind of a question is like, what do novice players actually want? Because they don't want deep code. They don't care. They need something quick, shallow, that's going to give them instant gratification. So to me, I mean, Cactus Canyon, we're going to dive into that. That game does that very well. But like the jump ramp in the Duke Caboom ramp in Toy Story, simple. It's already lit. It's one shot. And then they keep trying it until they hit it like that's a simple novice level thing for instant gratification um godzilla the thing right up in the middle is the building just keep hitting it and you're going to get your satisfaction so i'm thinking like scooby if the layout is supposed to be more friendly you know what are they putting into that game like i think the captain cutler thing up at the top is kind of a bash toy and there's magnets maybe that's the thing that that novice will want to do I don know I don know I look I look at it and I mean I went ahead I asked my kids I asked my wife I asked my friends and family like out of this layout what do you guys think What interests you the most And overwhelmingly everybody was saying the upper play field Nobody cared about the drop targets to the left. Nobody cared that it was a wide body. Nobody cared about the spinners. Everybody cared about the upper play field and that flipper mech that we talked about earlier as a bookcase. So that would be the part to go. So now it's just a matter of making that accessible to people that's close to the start button. That'd be the goal. Here's an interesting thought. And so think back to Simpsons pinball party. The first time you go to the upper play field, it holds the ball and then it snaps that upper flipper to like let you know, like, hey, it's right here. So there's nothing in there from a mechanical standpoint that would that would because the center ramp is what feeds the upper upper play field. But unless you have that flipper held, that ball is going to go whizzing by you. So that to me is like, as a novice player, they're not going to be prepared for that. So I'm almost curious, what if they coded in that the very first time you hit that upper play field, it automatically holds your left flipper up? You know, something to just show that. Like, oh. Like, I think there needs to be some hand-holding for these novice players. Otherwise, the ball's just going to whiz by every time. They're never going to be able to do anything on the upper play field. No, that's true. And I think a lot of this depends, too, are these players playing on location? And I think Scooby-Doo would be a good location theme, too. I think a lot of people would see it, unlike my camera, that you can't see. But, I mean, what do you think, Tom? Between this, because, you know, I mean, we've all seen what Bond's done on location. We've heard some people report that Bond's done fantastic on location. We've heard others say it's not doing as well. So when you look at it, this is just like two majorly different themes from a very similar era. But I'm curious to see how Scooby-Doo carries over on a location setting. Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to say because I think it will do well just based on theme. Oh, yeah. So I think people are going to gravitate towards it just because of the theme. Whether they keep putting money in it, that's another story. But if it's accessible, which it seems like it is, I think it'll do well. Yeah. You know, I think one of the big things is the bash toy on the mini play field, too, which we haven't really touched on. I think people really like bash toys. Oh, yeah. Especially something like that where it's not going to absolutely kill you because it's not in front of your flippers. so um i i it's hard to say now i've seen some spookies on location and they're usually down so is this one gonna survive the test and uh you know be be up and running you know kind of thing where it's not having issues.