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Star Race Declared Brain Dead

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 13s·analyzed·Aug 23, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Data Race MPU failure, operator struggles, licensing strategy, mobile pinball critique.

Summary

Jared describes an MPU failure on his Data Race pinball machine during a tournament week exhibition that cost him significant earnings. The hosts discuss arcade operator challenges, restoration costs, and licensing strategies, using Disney's Star Wars land missteps as a parallel to understand why pinball companies like Zen carefully control release schedules. They conclude by reviewing several poorly-designed mobile pinball games to highlight what makes real pinball compelling.

Key Claims

  • Data Race System 80 MPU failed after 12-hour daily tournament operation, likely due to heat stress from extended burn-in

    high confidence · Jared directly experienced and diagnosed the failure; confirmed by Dave the tech reviewing symptoms

  • Rotten Dog makes a ~$190 drop-in replacement MPU for System 80 machines that contains ROM for ~30 games on a single chip with DIP switch selection

    high confidence · Jared ordered and described the board specifications; John Grist at JWG uses one in his test rig

  • The exhibition had 50 pinball machines total, with about 5-6 down during the period; machines were donated by collectors and Netherworld

    high confidence · Jared confirmed directly; chat clarification from J William

  • Disney's Star Wars Galaxy's Edge raised tickets to $150-$200 from ~$110 the previous year; only one of two planned rides opened; crowds are lower than expected despite 45-minute wait times

    high confidence · Chris Frebus discussed based on recent news articles and contacts; confirmed Disney business strategy

  • Disney has had four-five movies cross a billion dollars this year, the first time one studio achieved this

    medium confidence · Chris Frebus stated as context for Disney's market dominance; verifiable but specific numbers not confirmed in conversation

  • There are rumors Disney might shutter Star Wars land by February if attendance doesn't improve, retheme to Aladdin

    low confidence · Chris Frebus claims two people contacted him with this information; highly speculative rumor

  • Zen Pinball has maintained radio silence for a significant period, breaking their normal 6-8 to 10-week release cycle

    high confidence · Both hosts confirmed this observed pattern from community perspective

  • Zen Pinball is releasing FX2 VR for Oculus Quest; this is the second VR attempt after evaluating market viability

    high confidence · Chris Frebus mentioned as recently announced; FX2 is continuation of existing title, not FX3

Notable Quotes

  • “The MPU is the thing that controls the lights, the sounds and the game logic it's the CPU but they call it an MPU, microprocessor unit.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~2:30 — Educational explanation of core pinball component for audience unfamiliar with terminology

  • “I was forlornly going around opening up the cash opening up the doors for all the other machines and seeing a nice pile of dollar coins in there and then just looking at mine and seeing at just like barren wasteland”

    Jared Morgan @ ~5:00 — Illustrates operator frustration and financial impact of machine downtime during peak exhibition hours

  • “Dave had to... go around to all the machines just give them a rub over, just give them a clean... 50 games... 50 pinball machines... he's got 50 machines to clean each morning.”

    Jared Morgan / Chris Frebus @ ~10:00 — Highlights operational burden on venue tech staff managing large collections

  • “If you've got a large collection of machines that are getting daily play, all you really need to do each morning is just clean the area where the flippers are... dirt is the enemy”

    Jared Morgan @ ~11:30 — Practical maintenance tip for operator efficiency

  • “They raised their prices to 150 bucks per ticket... well i think last year is about 110... they started playing with what they called flex pricing”

    Chris Frebus @ ~18:00 — Demonstrates Disney's dynamic pricing strategy to manage demand and crowd control

  • “You have a business. You're trying to make money. They will do things the way they want... they could not give two flying Fs about your feelings... they have a game plan and you stick to it.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~28:00 — Explains corporate licensing strategy rationale; directly addresses community frustration about Zen silence

  • “The kind of semi-predictable six to eight to ten week cycle that Zen operate on... it's been like radio silence... this is where people start to overthink things a lot.”

    Jared Morgan — Contextualizes community anxiety about Zen's release schedule deviation

Entities

Jared MorganpersonChris FrebuspersonDavepersonData RacegameRotten DogcompanyJohn GristpersonK's ArcadecompanyDisneylandcompany/venueDisney Worldcompany/venueZen Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Operator financial impact: machine downtime during peak exhibition hours directly costs revenue; Data Race earned ~$20 on failure day vs. expected higher earnings

    high · Jared's direct experience; noted contrast with other machines' cash boxes; missed Wednesday as 'busiest day'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: VR pinball described as extremely niche market (~2% audience); significantly smaller than existing virtual cabinet audience; viability questionable

    medium · Chris Frebus characterized audience as 2% (acknowledged as 'arbitrary number'); noted VR audience smaller than virtual cabinet audience

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Corporate licensing strategy prioritizes long-term planning and market timing over community transparency; Disney Star Wars land example illustrates cost of poor execution timing

    high · Chris Frebus framing via Disney example; explicit statement about licensing and marketing strategy requiring commitment to game plan

  • $

    market_signal: Star Wars merchandise selling out ($150-$200 lightsabers, $100 build-a-droids) despite lower-than-expected park attendance; consumer spending unaffected

    high · Chris Frebus citing reported merchandise sellouts; indicates demand for premium Star Wars collectibles remains strong

  • ?

    operational_signal: Arcade venue staff fail to notify machine owner/operator of outages; lack of morning operator support for venue tech Dave managing 50 machines

    high · Jared learned of outage from sister's Instagram photo; described as industry problem; Dave noted lack of morning operator assistance

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.151

0:00
I'm your host Chris Frebus aka Shut Your Trap, joining me as always halfway around the world, Jared Morgan.
0:23
Oh, hi there, how you going? I'm doing fantastic things for you the viewers to note watch Jared's lips as he talks yes they NSYNC oh my gosh the things we figure out it's very experimental I tried watching back just on YouTube because I'd done a premiere of the episode at the beginning of the week and I was like, boy, his lips really are out of sync. That's kind of distracting. I've got to figure that out. So it's been figured out. Yeah, solved the problem.
1:02
Problemo solved. What has the week been like there for you, Jared? Oh, it's been interesting. So I did the tournament on Sunday, which I think we talked about last time. Yes. Yes, yes. and at around Wednesday Star Race had a MPU failure so I was expecting something to go wrong and it turns out the MPU died and the problem with the MPU there's the MPU is the thing that controls the lights, the sounds and the game logic it's the CPU but they call it an MPU, main processor unit. So it wasn't booting at all, and it was booting with some lights lit, so some of the controlled lamps lit, which apparently is like a telltale sign that the MPU is cooked.
2:04
Before you go for it, does this have anything to do with, you were talking a couple of weeks back about how you were having things kind of flash on and off, and you were just like, well, I powered it down, I powered it back on, and it was working again. Is this tied into that? I think that could have been an early warning that something was up on the board.
@ ~30:30

  • “That's a good like, you know, 87 degrees, right? Now, let's see if there's bounce on him... I'm going to do a dead pass... Oh! No bounce whatsoever. Oh, wow. That's terrible.”

    Chris Frebus (demonstrating mobile pinball) @ ~45:00 — Critique of poor physics simulation in mobile games; highlights flipper bounce mechanic failure

  • “Is it pinball? That's the first question you need to ask yourself... number one... the second one with the basketball it's a pinball mechanic but it's sort of pseudo pinball”

    Jared Morgan @ ~48:00 — Framework for evaluating mobile pinball authenticity

  • “See that bounce? No bounce. Again, I love this. There's no... Nothing on the rubber. No, no. It's just basically concrete.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~52:00 — Critiques unrealistic ball physics in mobile pinball simulation

    • Star Wars
    IP/franchise
    Oculus Questproduct
    Netherworldvenue/organization
    Farsight Studioscompany
    Bally Williamscompany
  • ?

    announcement: Zen Pinball announcing FX2 VR release for Oculus Quest; described as second VR attempt to gauge market viability for niche audience

    high · Chris Frebus stated as recent announcement; clarified FX2 is existing title continuation, not FX3

  • ?

    product_concern: Data Race System 80 MPU failure after extended tournament operation; heat stress from 12-hour daily burn-in likely contributed

    high · Jared directly diagnosed failure; confirmed by exhibition tech; professionally restored board by John Grist; failure occurred under abnormal operating conditions

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Unconfirmed rumor that Disney may shutter Star Wars Galaxy's Edge by February if attendance doesn't improve, retheme to Aladdin

    low · Chris Frebus cites two contacts claiming this; highly speculative; no official confirmation; example of community speculation patterns

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community frustration with Zen Pinball's extended radio silence breaking established 6-8-10 week release cycle; speculation and anxiety increasing

    high · Both hosts confirmed community observation; Jared noted people 'getting antsy' and 'overthinking'; forum speculation mentioned

  • ?

    technology_signal: Mobile pinball games consistently demonstrate poor physics (no flipper bounce, floaty ball, unpredictable behavior); industry-wide quality issue

    high · Demonstrated live with multiple examples; hosts noting 'no bounce whatsoever' on multiple games; concrete-like rubber behavior

    • 2:22
    Look, it could be the NPU. It could also be connectors. It's like really, it's a very common cause of failure on games. But the NPU, it was professionally restored. And I don't for a second question that it was anything to do with what John did to the boards because he went over that thing with a fine-tooth comb. And it was working for months leading up to this point. I was playing the thing happily.
    2:52
    Just not with the frequency that it might have been getting in a tournament setting. I think it was more to do with the fact that it was on for like 12 hours a day. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yeah. So it was on. It had a really long burn-in time. And I have a feeling that that would have contributed to the failure. Because, you know, I was doing it sporadically. like I would have had it on for one, two hours at a time playing it. And, you know, it's fine. It warmed up. It cooled down. It was fine. But, you know, this was on all day essentially. And, you know, that's when things are going to go wrong with old boards. So for me, you know, the machine is sold. So it's still my responsibility to, until it's delivered, make sure that it's going to work. So I'm going to go. I don't really have a lot of options with this particular board version, System 80. It's not 80A or 80B. It's just System 80. So Rotten Dog make a drop-in replacement for the Logic Board or the MPU, and that's about $190 US. So I've just gone and ordered one of them, and I'll pop that in, and it'll fix the problem for the buyer.
    4:07
    But, you know, it's just extra expense. Yeah, it's not what you were hoping for nor expecting. well the frustrating thing too is that it went down on what would have been the busiest day of the exhibition so its potential to earn the most money was on the day that decided to shit itself so like it was really frustrating from my perspective because like i was kind of hoping that wednesday would be the you know the bulk of its earning day and yeah it decided to to shit the bed then so um unfortunately could have then made up the cost for what you would now have to replace but instead you only get 20 bucks to do that with uh probably around that yeah unless it took a bit of money leading up to wednesday i don't know it may have actually done all right but um i was forlornly going around opening up the cash opening up the doors for all the other machines and seeing a nice pile of dollar coins in there and then just looking at mine and seeing at just like barren wasteland points and going it's very demoralizing not what an operator wants to see no it's definitely not and like you know i did like i tried to get the thing working on friday morning i got up at like 4 30 a.m to be into the exhibition at 6 a.m to try and get the like i figured i might just be connected because i've seen some some odd boot issues before but when i got in i was told that oh the displays aren't turning on oh okay well the displays aren't turning on means it could just be a connector that needs a bit of burnishing or when i got in it was like oh no the whole game is not turning on it's like well that's a bit different to the displays not turning on like displays are you know test the voltages see if the displays are actually operational like they're getting the right voltage which they were all the test points on the power supply were delivering correct voltage which is like the first thing you test and then you sort of you know go from there and go well it's voltage is correct so it's got to be something logic driven but yeah it was sort of like i was a bit annoyed because i got up so early to thinking that it might be a recoverable error when really there was no chance like if the game was even booting yeah not much i can do about that right you would at least have a fighting chance at that point but this is that's right another scenario the other thing was that was slightly annoying i only found out that my game was down because my sister went to the show wanting to play the game um and sent me a instagram pic with out of order sign on the game and it's like what how long has this been down for like and why why wasn't i called like i'm essentially the operator i i should be informed when my game goes down and this is what happens on most locations where a table is routed where the employees at the place or whatever just kind of go huh you know what was really weird though like i was talking to the tech like the tech i don't i don't envy this poor guy his name is dave he's an absolute legend well he's very good at what he does and he's actually the um the the tech that does all the work for netherworld as well okay and he's there he literally his days over the the show period of being finished at 11 started six and just oh yeah he's just been my my my hat tips to him i tell you what because it was just like wow mate you you deserve more whatever money you're getting you need to get a lot more because that's a lot of work so you know he was talking about the fact that uh outside in the the main arena there's like the inside part where all the the main bulk of machines are and then outside there's machines that are like in the main pub area and Dave was seeing these machines just off and with a out of order sign on and he's going what's wrong with him he's like turning back on they started working and he goes to the each book has like behind the bar there's like a little log book that they fill in with any faults so Dave can know where to start and he went to one log book and said oh yeah it had fallen off its its foot like its little rubber foot it fell off its foot game over oh my god out of water sign on a machine because it fell off its foot you can have you can imagine the words that dave had to the bar staff about that right right like it's terrible i really really feel for him but um yeah he's he's a hard-working dude and uh i think he was saying that I think I might have been the only person that came in before hours to try and fix the machine or have a go at fixing the machine. He goes, no one's ever here in the mornings. Maybe if one of the operators are in a tournament, obviously, if there's a problem with the machine, they'll try and fix it.
    9:08
    But yeah, no one's coming in early to try and help Dave spin these machines up and clean them. Like, he's got 50 machines to clean each morning. Jeez Louise. Oh, man. And when you say clean, he's running a rag over the play fields of every one of them, basically?
    9:26
    Well, pretty much. Actually, there's a bit of a tip here. If you've got a large collection of machines that are getting daily play, all you really need to do each morning is just clean the area where the flippers are. so there's key contact points that will usually affect a game's play style and that is having dust chrome dust on the flipper bats and in the return lanes and just in that area where the slingshots are if you just give that area a good rub over and just clean all the contact surfaces so all the rubber surfaces there that's actually enough to keep the game running pretty well yeah i mean basically dirt is the enemy so exactly right yeah um so to answer your question um in the uh the chat there j william it was uh 50 games 50 pinball machines on on site not all of those are operational anymore there's about probably five or six that are down but yeah 50 pins all donated from um private collectors or netherworld and a few other like sighted location locations around the place so it was like a massive massive uh gathering of these pinball machines um so yeah like this yeah i really feel for this guy he's done such a top job keeping machines in check um but yeah unfortunately star race no no bueno it's uh but it's okay because in in a way i can i've actually ordered some stuff from k's arcade online and uh so the the rotten dog board was from k's arcade and i've also ordered a um a 35 dollar um interconnect rebuild kit as well so this is a thing that connects the the logic board to the driver board and is like really one of the most important connectors in the game and the reason why i ordered one of them is that dave operates a few system adbs and they use the same connector and he showed me his brand new connector that he got and i had a look at and compared to mine and it's like wow okay mine is really stuffed right right it's like all the contacts are like dull and and not shiny and the the wires are super stiff and like there's no flexibility in the wires and like here's one is like the contacts are like brilliantly shiny and chromed and like the you can move the whole harness freely around it's like okay i i think it might be time just to invest the 35 bucks us and that and just you know replace the wires and and contact points they basically send you these bundle of wires that have all the um terminals on in a pin removal tool and you just systematically go through each one and pop the pins out and put the new ones in and that's all you do it saves you you do the labor which saves you 45 an hour and in technician cost. So it's good money to save. Yeah.
    12:27
    I saw a post in a pinball thread that I subscribed to on Facebook and the person was asking they said so is it a good idea to buy an old machine that might need a lot of work may not even be working, if you're not all that familiar with pinball machines?
    12:50
    And everybody was just like, two things. one it's a hobby you're going to put a lot more money in than you'll ever get out and two if you have no clue you might want to avoid that yeah you might just want to go and buy a stone ewan box and then start from there learn a few things when things break on that that'd be a good idea yeah i mean that's that's a lesson even i've learned so oh yeah yeah i mean so this to certain people you know that that like tinkering and like getting in there and and like figuring out how things work then my god a pinball machine is a wonderful wonderful thing because it's the gift that keeps on giving it's got so many things you can tinker with so many things that are going to go wrong oh yes yes yeah so it's like yeah you might want to you might want to um invest in something a little more reliable than than going that route interesting though like when i was going around doing the cleaning like i got to the point where i went i'm not going to win with star race it's well and truly kaput. So I thought, well, look, it was about 7.40 in the morning at that point when I'd been there since 6-ish. And I went, oh, you know what? Like, I've got probably another 20 or 30 minutes that I could spare. Do you need a hand with anything? And he goes, oh, yeah, it'd be great if you could go around to all the machines and just give them a rub over, just give them a clean. It's like the thing that takes the most time. I'm taking my free play as well and putting it back onto regular play. I went, oh, yeah. Well, I did. I managed to get through about four machines. Four and a half an hour?
    14:24
    Yeah, or no, half an hour. So like about 20 minutes actually. I got through. It was about five minutes a machine, which is about right.
    14:33
    And realized that I hadn't used a Belly Williams menu system for a very long time. And I went, wow, where is the adjustments for pricing? Because it's like I'm used to like going on the Stern system. everything is under just the adjustments menu and belly have belly williams have a third menu which is called pricing that's where you find the free play setting and it's like oh wow yeah i used to i used to have that you know be familiar with this menu all the time when i was working in the arcade but i haven't touched a belly williams machine for years so it was fun it was funny to go oh yeah that's right i remember now it's kind of like handling i'm so used to handling GoPros, the current ones, where everything is clearly delineated in the menu and you can read everything and you can set the settings however you need to set them. But then now and then somebody will be like, here, use this GoPro One. And you're like, it's all in code. I don't even know what the codes mean. You didn't give me anything to figure any of this out. It's these weird codes that mean who knows what. I can imagine it would be the same thing with you know hopping onto a machine that's all dip switches you'd be like i don't know what the dip switches do just be thankful that most of the machines will have like a little chart in the back that tell you what the dips are otherwise you need to go and scrounge with manual hopefully it's in the bottom of the machine or online somewhere and try and find out what each dip means yeah it's nuts yeah yeah the rotten dog ball that i'm putting in is is cool because it's It's all in one as far as you don't need to put ROMs in it. It's all just on one chip, and you use DIP switches to select which game it's being used in. So I think it's got support for about 30 games that it got to leave System 80s, and you just go, all right, well, I want Star Race. So I flip the switches, and off it goes. It's Star Race. So you can essentially take this board and drop it into any System 80, and it will just work, which is why John Grist at JWG, Enterprise The Go, does the servicing for me he actually has a rotten dog in his test rig because it means that he can just like take any driver board from any game and drop it in and he'll know that he can test it on his rig so i'm going to shift gears here a little bit uh it's it's away from pinball that's kind of related to uh one of our favorite topics which is what to do with licensing um ah yes so and i've the reason why this is in my head is i literally had somebody message me about it today and i was just having a conversation about it um two days ago here in southern california we got the old disneyland and they at the beginning of the summer they opened up their new star wars land i think it's called galaxy edge or something like that um it's about to open up at the disney world location in florida also so they've two locations they've done this well there's been a flurry of articles that have popped up online about how it's failing and it's doing terrible and then they're really scrambling to figure out why and it's one of those things where it's like wow people just don't use logic at all you know when when when applied to what's what's going on so two factors kind of played in first they raised their prices to 150 bucks per ticket which is wow that's a lot it's absurd it's exceedingly what did it go from and what was it was at a well i think last year is about 110 oh okay uh per ticket which is also pretty absurd but they start last year they started playing with what they called flex pricing so basically if demand went up so the ticket prices um and then they'd cap out a certain certain amount Because the problem is so many people in Southern California have season passes that it will make the park crowded for all the people that are just tourists coming through the yard. Visitors. Like, say, if I went along there and just went along to the park going, oh, I want to go to Disneyland, everyone, basically half of California is there at any given day. Right. Right, which will ruin your fun. It won't be so much fun. so so they've been trying to play with pricing just basically because they figure well demand so high rather than turn away people uh and say note park is full they'll just price it so that people will be like well i'm not paying that price and they won't go so that was that's kind of step one of what they kind of did a bonehead maneuver of um step two that they did a bonehead maneuver of they of there's supposed to be two rides in this land and they only have one of them ready to go the other one's not opening up until like december so you have a combination of people going well a i don't want to be there because the crowds b is going to cost this much and i'm only going to get half the experience well why don't i just wait well yeah so what has been found to be happening is there's significantly fewer crowds than they expected what cracks me up is the ride time like the the line to get on the one main ride is still 45 minutes long yeah of course people wouldn't people are complaining because it's not two hours long so therefore it's obviously a failure and i'm like shoot 45 minutes is still a long time to wait for a ride but that's about the queue time for most rides in Australian theme parks. If we had to wait for two hours for a ride, there's no way I'd do it. I'd just bypass the ride. Right, you wait until later. Yeah, or yeah, like wait until people are having a lunch then go and ride the rides. Right, right. There are so many different algorithms out there that you can use to like navigate around Disneyland, you know, where peak times are and all that sort of stuff. I've seen them. Like, you know, you can plan out your day using this thing. Yeah, they normally have apps and stuff that, yeah, that will guide you to doing better. So where this comes into the licensing aspect,
    20:35
    and something also to consider. So there is a significant backlash against Star Wars right now. And it's basically from all the butthurt nerds that didn't like Last Jedi and then boycotted the Solo movie because they felt that it was also somehow damaging their childhood. And Disney is the source of all the evils because they now own the Star Wars property. okay sure and i and i say this like legitimately because my friend hated last jedi and felt that it ruined the whole franchise and so he's basically boycotting seeing anything and doesn't have any interest in it okay yeah you know yay him um that being said the park every day is selling out of their 150 to $200 lightsabers and their a hundred dollar build a droids. So clearly selling out. Yes. Okay. Not having enough of them in stock by the end of the day.
    21:36
    So clearly money is still being spent in here. It's just a matter of they, they botched the crowd control aspect of, Oh, they also blacked out all the season pass holders from being able to go. Oh, what? Yeah. So, so they blacked out all the season pass holders in an effort to make sure that they gave them like a two week or three week window to be able to show up and see it and then blacked them out for the rest of the summer what that's not cool well no well okay no so here's the thing you got to understand what the season passes there's like three grades of them the first one is like you know i mean again absurd pricing is like 650 bucks but there are blackout dates if you want the unlimited one it's like 1200 or something like that i mean it's Wow. Okay. So the blackout dates are peak periods, essentially. So you should pass in winter, essentially.
    22:29
    Correct. Something of that nature. Yeah, right. So you've got all these people that are, I think, purposely making a story bigger than it is just to prove how much they hate what's being done in Star Wars. but you've also got the fact that Disney just bought Fox, has put out four or five movies so far this year that have crossed a billion dollars. It's the first time that's ever happened by one studio. They're about to drop their streaming service on everybody. So basically everybody is sick and tired of hearing how much success they're having and is looking for anything to knock them down a peg, and I think they're using this to really knock them down a peg.
    23:08
    But will it really knock them down a peg? It's an attraction at a theme park. Right. So what both of the people that contacted me were asking about, trying to get my opinion, was apparently if things don't turn around by February, which means the other ride will be open, they're going to shutter the whole land and retheme it to Aladdin.
    23:28
    What? You have the exact same response that I did. Because, yes, this is what you do after you've spent a billion dollars building this giant new land in two different parts of a property that is multi-generational and fans. Yeah, let's just ditch it so that we can have Will Smith's genie bouncing around because you can't use Robin Williams' anymore. No. What? Yeah, that... Okay.
    23:54
    I don't really have anything to say about that. And this is where I bring it around to pinball again. is people still don't understand why we haven't heard anything from Zen regarding Volume 5 and all we've heard about is Star Wars. It's licensing. It's marketing. You don't just toss things around willy-nilly. You have a game plan and you stick to it. And if at a certain point the game plan is failing, fine, but you give it time to fail.
    24:29
    I've seen on the forum, I've read some of these threads and some people are saying, look, you know, I just want something to look forward to. Well, like they don't care about your feelings. Sorry. Like, sure. Look, I understand that everyone likes to know what's going on, but they could not give two flying Fs about your feelings. Right. They have a business. They're trying to make money. They will do things the way they want. and let just leave it at that shall we Like I don really see any reason to keep debating this Yeah It ridiculous And it that whole thing of it just like just let apply a little bit of logic just a smidgen, please, you know, to this whole thing, because what really would make more sense, you know? I don't know.
    25:25
    I don't know either. I don't know. I just don't know. Yeah. So as we're in this lull, though, between releases and things. And it's been a rather large lull. Yeah. Because, I mean, this is the thing. This is what people are getting antsy about. Because, you know, they used to, like, you know, the kind of semi-predictable six to eight to ten week cycle that Zen operate on. And it's been like radio silence, really, from Zen for a long time now. And they're going, this is where people start to, you know, overthink things a lot. Well, and it's no fun to complain about Farsight not having had anything to produce in over a year. Yeah, you can't really dig at someone that has zero, even zero release plans. Like, there's nothing to speculate on.
    26:19
    Right. I mean, Zen did announce that they're releasing the FX2 VR for the new Oculus Quest, so that's something. That's something, yeah.
    26:32
    And then, of course, everyone's reading, well, how come it's not FX3? Because it never was FX3. It's always FX2. Right, but then they're going, well, how come they're not doing FX3? And it's like, and again, VR, it's very, very niche. Yeah, very niche. probably their second attempt then of going, well, okay, let's dip our toes in the water again. Let's see if we get even more downloads, if this Oculus Quest is more popular, if we see a large enough user base. Because the user base is certainly hungry for content, but there's got to be enough of them to make sense, to put the money forth into the development of these things. And these aren't straight ports. They have to build the VR environment. The violence and everything. Yeah. You know, how to contain some of these into an actual cabinet.
    27:21
    You know, they're a very, very hungry audience for VR, but the audience is 2%. So, or let's insert, that's an arbitrary number, but that gives you an idea of the type of audience level. And the audience is even smaller than what the virtual cabinet audience is. Yeah, that's right. So. So, you know. with that in mind and i did this on friday so i apologize to those of you watching us live on twitch but we're going to do it again because jared didn't get to see any of these jared i downloaded a whole bunch of craptacular mobile pinball games ah excellent and so i'm going to show them to you and uh see if you have the exact same response that i had and our viewers did who were threatening to log off until i started playing real pinball real pinball all right so a caveat m2 this will be like my responses will be slightly delayed because i'm watching the broadcast through twitch i won't be able to see these um things that you're playing until it displays on twitch right it's only gonna be i don't know five second delay at most i imagine. Oh, well, we'll find out, won't we? We will find out. So let me just get over, say bye-bye, Jared, because it's going to go to this other screen. Okay, bye-bye. Okay, here we go. We're going over into my folder that says pinball?
    28:50
    Pinball? Pinball. So let's get your reaction to this one, Jared. Hey, what's Sakurai Pinball doing in there? Well, because it's the old app, and the old app is very questionable.
    29:03
    that's a bad sign to start with why did nothing happen wow it just went to a black screen okay let's try that again well that one's terrible there we go there it is okay so Jared this is your typical 2D right okay look at the angle of the flippers That's a good like, you know, 87 degrees, right? Now, let's see if there's bounce on him. I'm going to do a dead pass if it gives me the ball.
    29:42
    Because this is where you know things are bad. If it will... I've got to get it. Oh! No bounce whatsoever.
    29:53
    Oh, wow. That's terrible. Oh, so much bounce. Wee! Aren't we having fun? Okay, so that's that one, right?
    30:07
    So people avoid pinball flipper. Now let's look at this one, pinball baskets. Oh, no, see, all these are going to... Pin baskets. Okay. This one was rather amusing, too. So it has a whole bunch of fake basketball teams. So you've got the Steppers that should be the Lakers, and the... I'm not sure what the Monsoon Rhiners are, but the Tundra Volunteers, actually be the Minnesota Timberwolves. I know that much. The Tundervonters, not volunteers. Oh, Tundervonters. Okay, what the heck is a vonter? So anyway, I had to go with the Steppers.
    30:43
    So this one is great because it's hard to flip. Okay, so the game is about flipping and it's hard. And it's really like floaty and slow. Oh, jeez. I see that there's like a slot machine effect and I think that's who are they passing it to don't know and like sometimes the flipper has power and sometimes it doesn't
    31:25
    oh geez that All I can see is these apes on the screen Like doing Oh he takes a shot Yay Oh wow okay How do you make him do that? How do you make him do a shot? I don't do anything It has something to do with that slot machine at the bottom I believe Oh okay so when you get slippers he takes a shot Why he took two shots in a row? Don't know He's taking another shot Oh he dunked I don't understand what the heck is going on. I'm not doing anything. I've literally got my fingers off the flippers.
    32:05
    I like the fact that what look like stand-up targets actually act like slingshots as well. That's a very nice feature.
    32:13
    You know. And, well, look. Oh, did you see the bounce on that? Did you see that? It went straight to the flipper. It didn't even bounce whatsoever. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just saw it then.
    32:24
    It's inspirational. Okay. so what do you think of that one Jared? did you like that one? was that a good one? so when I was doing pinball on Google Play because I did a similar sort of thing on Google Play I always did the pros and cons so I said number one is it pinball? that's the first question you need to ask yourself of these games and that last one yeah and the first one yeah pinball it is pinball the second one with the basketball it's a pinball mechanic but it's sort of pseudo pinball yeah pseudo pinball okay we got more though we're just getting started Jared see look at everybody in the comments no not more yes more sorry because you know our podcast viewers didn't see the twitch stream so that's the our podcast viewers still won't see the twitch stream because it's a podcast right okay this one what to note is how boring it is. Okay. Because of how much time is spent in the pop bumpers that are laid out like nobody would ever lay out normal pop bumpers. Oh.
    33:44
    Right. Oh look it actually went out pretty good. Yeah. I love the lustre in the ball. It's incredible. Looks like you're playing with the ceramic ball, right?
    33:55
    Yeah. Jeez, you're not kidding me. It's worse than Adam's Fence. I mean, Adam's Fence is great. Yeah, here we go again for more.
    34:09
    Oh, jeez. Uh-oh. And now look at this upper flipper, too. What exactly is it aiming for? That you couldn't aim for with the bottom flipper. I have no idea what it's supposed to be there for. It's because it... See that bounce? No bounce. Again, I love this. There's no... Nothing on the rubber.
    34:35
    No, no. It's just basically concrete. Yes. Okay, so enough of that. Oh, well, yeah, that's... Well, look, is it pinball? Yes.
    34:45
    Is it well-done pinball? Is it something you want to play more than 30 seconds? No. yeah okay more um let's go to this one this one is this one is really terrible you may have even played it at one time oh yes i've played this yeah which this one i doesn't even do second screen for me i have to look up on the uh on the main screen or see what the heck is going on But, again, what is with the flippers?
    35:23
    Oh, yeah. And then, look at the... Basically, they've modeled this game on Gottlieb. Super catch for this. Right. But look at how there's... Okay, so there was a slight bounce, at least, there. Yeah, I can see the bounce. But you can at least drop, like, you know, a shoulder pass. But who puts right angles in an in-lane? There's like no curve whatsoever. Ugh.
    35:51
    And then it goes, well, that's such a lovely clean drop into that hole, isn't it? Right. It hits the hole and then just disappears. Yeah. Okay, so enough of that one. I'm not going to show that one anymore. This is the one that I'm really curious to see what you're going to think about, Jared, because it is pure commercial. So do you know the Pepperidge Farm goldfish? Yeah, I do. I've seen those in Costco. I've even tasted them. They're disgusting.
    36:16
    Well, congratulations. They have a pinball machine. No sponsorship. No sponsorship deals from them for us.
    36:25
    Now, what's frightening is this is probably the best of the batch. So what it is very reminiscent of is in February at pinball, you have the Lamp Hunter mode. Oh, yes. That's what this reminds me of. Yeah, right. You know, you should also try out if it's on iOS, Trolley Pinball.
    36:51
    Trolley. It's like Trolley Gummy Ollie's Pinball. Oh, okay. It's, I presume it's on iOS. It's certainly on Android. And it's not terrible either, but it's another heavily commercial game. I love the fact they've got pegs all over this. It's like literally someone's designed this. It's all cardboard cut out. Yeah. So it's like someone's designed it with a playfield. Oh, now it goes to the other playfield. Yeah, this is very much like a trolley pinball. In fact, I would suggest it's probably using the same engine and the same sort of mechanics.
    37:25
    So what did you call this pinball, Jared? I've seen pinball games in the past that look like this. It pinball enough that you got flippers and it got a whole bit of a commuter hit And yeah it simple to me I would pass those games Yeah It looks like they actually behaving correctly You finished the game. Hooray! I finished the level.
    37:50
    So, yeah, oh, my gosh. That's very simple. Stop, stop, stop already. Yeah, so those are the terrible pinball games. Now, here's what we didn't do in the Twitch stream. I'll show you some good alternatives.
    38:07
    Some good alternatives? Some good alternatives. And we're going to start with... Atomic Pinball. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So let's try this.
    38:22
    Let's get ready to rumble! So, the physics feel good. There's actual bounce off your flipper. there's a problem right now it's a super yeah this is fine good and it's the only thing I'd say about this is that the weight was unusual on it in the fact that it's speed down yeah But apart from that, you can have a lot of fun with it. I know there are members of Pimble Arcade fans that have had a lot of fun with this. Now, here's the only other thing, too. Look at the size of the flipper compared to the ball. That's where they got it wrong. The ball's too small. Yeah, it is a little bit too small, isn't it? The ball was rattled around in the return lane when it came back down. Yeah. But that's the only problem. And we saw ball scale issues in Pimble Arcade all the time as well. Yes. So, yeah. Okay, Jared, you hear it. Can you guess what this is? I can't hear any of the audio coming through. Oh, the audio's not coming through for you. No. Well, that's a bummer. Well, I'm just going to have to spoil it for you. Pin out!
    39:44
    Oh, yes. I never did pay for premium on this. I'm going to. I'm just turned on. Yes, I've turned on the audio. Yes, I'm getting double audio now. That's okay. so this one is again a question of is it pinball because you're using the pinball mechanics but you're also very much in a leveling up kind of thing oh yeah i well i'm sure but i've got a very big soft spot for this i think it's uh it uses the pinball mechanic and there are elements in there of you know, the pop bumpers, and you've got things like lanes and stuff like that, and things that push the ball around. I call this a good ball to me. And the physics are pretty good. I mean, even aiming off the flippers is, it feels good. It feels right. You can actually do it. Number one. You can actually, yes. And that's the thing with this game. Like, it actually you can't you're not just like shooting blindly the thing that's interesting about this is the this game because i played extensively it's all about backhanding everything so you can pretty much backhand all the shots in this game and that's how you um you get like through the extra time mode in this game it's a fun game and it's got a really good soundtrack to it too if you like um i sort of like to make soundtracks there we go there's a level yep that's right there you go yeah and then it goes and it goes and I don't know how long does it go for Jared? It's got six levels and it's I'd probably say it's got six levels and then you've got the thing where you're going to basically unlimited time at the end so the whole idea with the game is you build up your score as you go through the game you pick up as many bonus points or bonus seconds as you can because then when you get to the end of the six levels you then play through all the levels again but your time counts down and you're trying to beat the clock to get to the end of the six levels again so it's a cool mechanic um and it's it's a very really fun casual pinball game to play for that reason and all of these as i play them these are these are all free to play obviously you can pay for upgrades so with Pinout if I lose the ball I can't save I'm basically starting at the very beginning every single time if you pay for it though then that's not the case that's exactly right yeah and I've paid for that game happily like it was a good purchase yeah and the same thing with I don't know what to deal with the Rob the Robot and I forget what the Mexican wrestling one is called. Lucha Libre. Do you know what the deal is with those if you actually pay?
    42:47
    Well, I'd imagine you'd probably get full unlimited access to it without ads. I think it had ads in it if you don't pay for it. Or limited ball time or something like that. And all of these are under five bucks or yeah they're well under five bucks i think they're only two bucks for the most part if you were interested in other while we're in this lull and you're you're wanting pinball you know there's things that you can at least play on your phone um that's right and that look they're fun games i wholeheartedly recommend pin out um and i noticed that you i deliberately didn't cover Snowball.
    43:28
    No, I didn't. Look, it's not... I know you don't... I know you dislike it, but it is, again, definitely pinball. It's got pinball elements to it, and it's good for the price. It'll keep you busy. Okay. Yeah, I didn't... I didn't bother...
    43:47
    Well, you know what? It didn't even pop up when I typed in pinball. Oh, really? So that's kind of interesting, too. These were all just... I typed in pinball, and I was just kind of selecting what... Because a lot of these I downloaded at one time or another and then I deleted them and then I'd forgotten why I deleted them and so then I downloaded them again and I went, oh, that's why.
    44:08
    I still reckon out of all the ones that I reviewed on Android, by far... The Jiggle Pinball? The Jiggle Pinball. That's right, Jiggler.
    44:20
    Oh my God. It's terrible. Boobs for pop-upers. so if you guys find any other pinball of this nature that you want us to take a look at please let us know drop us a note there down at the Twitter handles and so right now I've got the old shut your trap going on right there or you can do it at Blockade ooh look at that magic that just happened nice so yeah drop us a line let us know if there's another app that we should be checking out and throwing up here to have a good laugh at.
    45:00
    And good point. You're right, Jay Lillian. There is still Pinball Wicked and Pro Pinball, but they're not five bucks. No. And actually, I have Pro Pinball as a mobile app, just the one table. Yeah, the Ultra. Yeah. The only one they ever produced because they realized, gee, well, you know, using the old style, rendering all the frames on the pinball machine, that's really expensive compared to just making it in Unity.
    45:28
    Yeah. So yeah, very expensive way of producing a pinball machine these days. But back then in the 90s that was the only way you could get photorealism. No, but I'm talking about the mobile app. There's a free version of Pro Pinball that you can download.
    45:42
    Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. But I don't think it's Pinball Ultra. Well no, Pro Pinball Ultra is on Android. Yeah, this is just regular pro pinball. No, it does say Ultra Edition, and it's Time Shock. Yeah, that's it. That's all you get. Yeah. It's one table. One whopping table. Yeah, that took them three years to actually release. Yeah.
    46:09
    So those are some things to have fun with. And I'll just remind everybody. So schedule for Twitch this coming week, Monday, 3 p.m. No, actually, it's going to be closer to 3.30 p.m. because I've got an appointment to deal with. But it's Mobile Monday, and therefore we'll be doing daily challenges. And once I'm done with the daily challenges, maybe we'll also go back into playing some Zachariah pinball on Steam. Just kind of take it by ear, see what's going on. Wednesday, 3.30, that'll be truly doing PC play. And I think I'm going to try and go for a wizard goal on one of the tables. That's going to be the goal. So it's either going to be Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Whitewater.
    46:58
    I'm trying to think what other one I can actually get to the wizard goal on. Yeah, Ross. In the time that it's there, we'll see what happens. And then, of course, by Friday we only need one more follower to hit that magic 50 and then it means that I have to skills to pay the bills Friday we'll have to play one of the $5 matches so we're looking for one more that's not hard to get to shouldn't be that's right alright I think it's achievable it is I think so I think well today I just found out Jared hadn't followed so yeah so I did like I was saying in the comments it still feels like cheating but But I've done it because I love the show, and I love to subscribe to the show that I'm also in. Even if you're not awake for it, that's okay. Although you technically would be. You could watch while you're on your way to work. I technically could, yeah. But why would you? I'm usually doing other things, yeah. Yeah.
    48:00
    Okay, beyond that, I feel like we need to put the brakes on the show today. but make sure you go over to our website which is blockadepinball.com slash episodes because there's where you can find all the past episodes as well as whatever notes Jared feels like putting in. And last month's notes were long. I had links to all the games that were in the tournament so you could look through them. Yeah, heaps of stuff in there. So check it out. Yeah, so lots of good stuff there. if you ever feel like dropping us an email it's blahblahblockade at gmail.com but for sure the better way of getting in contact is via the old Twitter even if you don't like it, too bad it's what we do it's the easiest way for us to see things and it's how we tend to send things that we see that Zen is doing or whoever Zachary is not even on Twitter so I don't get to forward much on them yeah they don't really do a lot on Twitter They do have an account, but it's rarely used. They're Facebook. That's what they're... They really are, yeah. Yeah. They do love it. Yeah. All right, gang. So that being said, we will be back again next week talking about... Hmm... Don't know. Something. Or if we're not back next week, you know it's because there was nothing to talk about, because we really are in the doldrums of Pinball right now. So we'll see what we can come up with. But we always appreciate you guys tuning in and downloading and checking out what we're doing. because it makes it more fun for us. And also appreciate everybody that hangs out with us live and puts stuff into the comments, because, again, it's like taking collars without actually taking collars. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, we really actually do enjoy seeing you guys in there and chatting with you with our fingers.
    49:53
    Not with our mouths. With our fingers only. All right, and yes, as put into the comments, Jared, what will we talk about next week? where we'll talk about stuff and things. Until next time, folks. Bye-bye. Thank you. See ya.