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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 28: Let's Unmask The Scooby Doo Reveal

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 41m·analyzed·Dec 21, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Triple Drain analyzes Spooky's Scooby-Doo reveal: unique mechs, layout questions, code uncertainty remain.

Summary

Triple Drain hosts discuss the newly revealed Scooby-Doo pinball machine by Spooky Pinball, analyzing its layout, mechanics, and design philosophy. They examine playfield geometry including the hybrid wide-body/standard-body construction, unique features like apron locks and multiple horseshoes, and express cautious optimism tempered by concerns about code quality, mechanical reliability, and shot satisfaction based on lessons from Halloween. The hosts debate production numbers and scarcity claims while noting strong artwork and theme execution.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball is making 100 Scooby-Doo games total (50 direct, 50 to distributors)

    medium confidence · Joel states unclear numbering system; guests speculate on exact production numbers based on collector edition serial numbers seen on Pinside (highest ~500s range observed)

  • Scooby-Doo has sold more units than any previous Spooky game, including Halloween (1,200 units)

    low confidence · Rumor mentioned by Joel that 'somebody said' Spooky claimed this, but he admits he hasn't seen confirmation online or posted serial numbers supporting the claim

  • Spooky deliberately designed Scooby-Doo with a standard-body lower playfield inside a wide-body cabinet to avoid the slow play typical of full wide-body games

    high confidence · Hosts state Spooky 'did admit on a podcast' this was their design strategy; Travis agrees it 'looks like it was meant to be a standard playfield'

  • The game contains four distinct horseshoe shots (eight individual horseshoe-feeding shots total)

    high confidence · Joel provides detailed playfield breakdown: left horseshoe with magnet subway feature, middle/right horseshoes, upper playfield bash horseshoe

  • Spooky learned from Halloween and Ultraman center ramp issues and redesigned Scooby's middle ramp for quicker response, including a flipper directly above it

    high confidence · Joel states Spooky 'focused a lot on this middle ramp' and added a plastic to prevent coil hits; hosts reference previous design problems

  • The apron locks are designed to eject balls back into the center playfield and can hold two balls simultaneously

    high confidence · Joel describes mechanics; Travis notes this design could enable combo shots and hurry-up modes

  • The game features 7 villain modes and 5 character modes, with each character having unique shots

    medium confidence · Joel references information 'they've talked' about; hosts deduce rule structure from visible insert patterns on playfield

  • Scooby-Doo uses a new/revised board set different from Halloween and Ultraman, with separated light boards to address previous wiring issues

Notable Quotes

  • “I think it's so they're doing like their first 50 will go here and then the next 50 will go there... every Bloodsuckers edition number is in the 1,800 range. I think they just decided like, hey, we're going to start there.”

    Joel @ ~5:00 — Explains Spooky's production numbering strategy and clarifies confusion about total production vs. edition-specific serial numbers

  • “It's so they did admit on a podcast that they wanted to do a wide body because they wanted to put more in the game. They wanted to put more in the game, but they know one of the biggest complaints with a wide body is that it can be slow.”

    Joel @ ~10:00 — Reveals Spooky's deliberate design choice to mix wide-body cabinet with standard-body lower playfield

  • “To the right of the shooter lane is just, there's nothing there. There's nothing there from a play field. What it is is it's lights.”

    Joel @ ~12:00 — Identifies a potential design concern: dead space on the right side of lower playfield

  • “So if you get a ball there, it'll just roll behind them... If you hit the horseshoe, but it won't come out. It'll take the ball, and it puts it into a subway, which you can't see, but it does that. That's kind of cool.”

    Joel @ ~18:00 — Describes the unique magnet-subway feature for the left horseshoe that enables invisible ball states

  • “They're like, that's unique. And Bug's response was basically... we want to be unique. We want to do something different. So, you know, we've never seen a ball lock on an apron. Let's do it.”

    Joel @ ~28:00 — Attributes Spooky's design philosophy to deliberately avoid tested/safe Stern design patterns in favor of novelty

  • “I was super excited to play the butt pretzel on Halloween, and the center ramp rejected me every time, and I could never experience it.”

    Tom @ ~42:00 — Expresses concrete mechanical reliability concern from previous Spooky title affecting purchasing confidence

  • “What's the code going to be like? And this game looks incredible from all the mechs but are these reliable? Are they going to be fun or satisfying shots to hit?”

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyScooby-DoogameHalloweengameUltramangameJoelpersonTravispersonTom

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts reference multiple podcast sources (Loser Kid, Eclectic Gamers, TPN After Hours) indicating Scooby-Doo reveal generating significant multi-platform discussion; community-driven content aggregation across shows

    high · Joel: 'on the TPN After Hours show... they had done one of the initial kind of teaser trailers... They reference Dennis from Eclectic Gamers and Bug from Loser Kid'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Scooby-Doo represents Spooky's continued emphasis on unique mechanical design and theming as differentiator from Stern's cookie-cutter approach; positions brand as innovation-focused boutique manufacturer

    medium · Tom: 'I like how spookies they try different stuff... that's the cool thing about spooky it's not just the same old cookie cutter design'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Apron lock design shape resembles phallic imagery; community has noted the visual resemblance; hosts debate whether this is intentional easter egg or unintended design consequence

    medium · Travis/Joel discussion of 'purple fingers' on apron looking phallic; comparison to Hot Wheels Mickey Mouse easter egg; hosts unsure if intentional

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Multiple horseshoe shots lack visibility/kinetic feedback when balls disappear behind ramps; hosts question satisfaction of non-visible shots despite mechanical cleverness

    high · Joel: 'the ball goes out of sight... the only one that you can see the entire time is on the upper playfield'; Travis: 'how satisfying are they? I don't know'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky deliberately prioritizes mechanical/design novelty over tested Stern-style patterns; Bug emphasized wanting to do 'something different' with apron locks, pop bumper placement, and unique mechanical features

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.305

0:00
the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right tom you ready i think so good middle of the day you're wide awake i saw you uh you had a can of mountain dew with you too oh this is this is gonna be good good we gotta get you some whipped cream yeah travis travis you ready i think so oh wow so much so much questioning yeah i'm ready i'm excited so here we go we're three guys who like the talking ball so we came up with a clever name we're joel and travis down the talking ball and we call ourselves triple drink triple drink Triple Drain. We're Triple.
0:58
Triple Drain. All right. Triple Drain. Well, yeah, here we are. We wanted to fit in a recording. We're, I don't know, I don't know if we're a little late with the Scooby-Doo reveal.
1:12
We're just waiting until everybody else talks about it, and then we're going to talk about it. There we go. That's the plan. Yeah. So definitely we have a lot. I know on the TPN After Hours show, what was it, two weeks ago, we kind of – they had done one of the initial kind of teaser trailers where it showed a little bit of gameplay. And then like two days later, they actually had – it was like a two- or three-minute video of gameplay. But we can talk about the shots. I mean that's something – we'll just dive right in. There's any catch-up now? Everybody's good? Tom looks great? Let's just dive into it. Talking about what we're going to talk about. We're just diving in. Scooby-Doo. So first off, did either of you buy one? Nope.
1:54
I didn't, but we're getting one. Oh, the pinball company is? Yeah, yeah. I know that we're getting one, so I'll have a chance to play it. I didn't buy one, but I'm interested. Okay. You're interested. So as of right now, it is the 16th. So December 16th. They are not sold out, as far as I can tell. um they're i am confused so numbering they've already uh i know they said something about like they're they're gonna make they're gonna give 50 games direct and then 50 games to distributors and they're kind of going back and forth back and forth and so a lot of the distributors have already gotten their numbers for their allotments or at least their orders and then this is for collectors editions or this is for everything oh for everything they're only making 100 games you said 50 and 50 well i don't know it's like they're doing like their their first 50 will go here and then the next 50 will go there and then i think they always do that though okay but that's what's interesting though is they do the collector's editions first and then they do the bloodsuckers editions and then they do the standard edition so i do know like i have a friend who ordered a bloodsuckers edition so that technically isn't going to be built till after all the collector's editions have been built, his number is in the 1,800 range. So what I'm seeing is every Bloodsuckers edition number is in the 1,800 range. I don't think that means they've sold 1,800 games. I think they just decided like, hey, we're going to start there and put that for, you know, they're at the end of the line, but that's where they're kind of starting is 1,800. So the question is how many games have they sold collector's editions between zero and 1800 there are people on pin side that have already posted their the number they've been told and i think the highest number i've seen is in the high like 500s oh wow so that's the question is have they sold more than 600 collector's editions i don't know i don't know that answer my guess would be yeah because of the pricing.

high confidence · Joel confirms new board set exists; expresses uncertainty about reliability in commercial deployment

  • Spooky has new software/rules designers working on Scooby-Doo

    medium confidence · Travis mentions 'new people on software and rules' as a concern factor, but hosts don't specify names or detailed attribution

  • The game will have access to video from both original Scooby-Doo seasons for digital assets

    high confidence · Joel states Spooky 'said they have access to both of the original seasons'

    • Joel @ ~45:00 — Articulates primary hesitation: mechanical uniqueness doesn't guarantee satisfying gameplay or code quality

  • “It looks like a finger. A finger. Yes. Sure. Sure. Finger. Yes. Some people would say it looks phallic.”

    Travis and Joel @ ~30:00 — Discusses community reaction to apron lock design aesthetics; confirms easter egg/unintended resemblance awareness

  • “To be honest, if I was spooky, I don't think you need to stream it. I don't think you need to stream it for a while.”

    Joel @ ~54:00 — Strategic advice suggesting Spooky should limit gameplay exposure until production quality/code are proven stable

  • “It's just a gamble. It's a gamble for sure, just like any new machine is. But I think they're doing a lot right.”

    Joel @ ~38:00 — Summarizes mixed sentiment: acknowledges Spooky's effort and innovation while highlighting fundamental uncertainty

    • person
    Bugperson
    Dennis Creaselperson
    Triple Drain Pinball Podcastorganization
    Loser Kid Podcastorganization
    Eclectic Gamersorganization
    Pinsideorganization
    TPN After Hoursorganization
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Aliengame
    Wizard of Ozgame
    Black Watergame
    Guns N' Roses (GNR)game
    James Bond (Dr. No)game
    Carrie Hardyperson
    Vectorgame
    District 82game
    Godzillagame
    Cartoon Networkcompany

    high · Joel quotes Bug from Loser Kid: 'we want to be unique... we've never seen a ball lock on an apron. Let's do it.'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Eight-to-ten minute gameplay video exists on Spooky's Facebook page showing shots but not code/modes; 'went under the radar' with limited community discussion compared to other marketing materials

    high · Joel: 'there's like a eight or ten minute video on youtube they put out... it just kind of went under the radar not many people are talking about it'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: New board set and separated light boards represent untested production changes that may affect reliability in commercial deployment; hosts express uncertainty about how new design will survive high-play-count location use

    medium · Joel: 'is this a tested board setter? Are these going to survive on location with hundreds of plays? I have no idea. It's a gamble.'

  • $

    market_signal: Hosts debate whether Spooky should limit public gameplay streams until code/QC proven stable; strategic recommendation against early reveal content

    medium · Joel: 'To be honest, if I was spooky, I don't think you need to stream it. I don't think you need to stream it for a while.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: New software/rules designers on Scooby-Doo project create uncertainty about code quality vs. Halloween's issues; hosts identify this as risk factor

    medium · Travis: 'you also have new people on software and rules... questions whether you know how the software going to be'

  • $

    market_signal: Production scarcity claim (100 units total) creates FOMO but actual sales numbers disputed; multiple serial number sightings suggest higher production or staggered release of editions

    medium · Joel speculates production vs. what has actually sold; notes highest seen serial in 500s range but acknowledges uncertainty about distributor inventory vs. sales

  • ?

    product_concern: Previous Spooky release (Halloween) experienced mechanical failures on center ramp and playfield elements that reduced satisfying gameplay; Tom reports inability to experience intended shots ('center ramp rejected me every time')

    high · Tom: 'I was super excited to play the butt pretzel on Halloween, and the center ramp rejected me every time'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky has access to both original Scooby-Doo cartoon seasons for video assets, enabling substantial licensed content integration

    high · Joel: 'They said they have access to both of the original seasons. So there's going to be a ton of video.'

    • 4:04
    You think they have sold more? I think, well, I don't know if they have, but I think so. Well, that's the thing is somebody said, and I haven't seen it, but somebody said they read online or they heard somewhere that Spooky has already said they've sold more of these games than they have anything else, which Halloween was 1,200 games. So they're making it sound like they've already sold more than 1,200. but at least what I've seen online, I just haven't seen, I haven't seen anybody post that number. So that's the question. Do distributors like distribute, do have they sold more than 1200, but it's all distributors that still have them. But there are certain distributors that have been saying they're sold out as in the distributor is sold out of their allotment. So I don't know. I it's just based on the numbers. Spooky has either sold like six or 700 games or they've actually sold over the 1200 plus that they're talking about and they may be only you know 100 or more off from selling out i really don't know but there is definitely still this kind of weird energy right now of this fomo you know am i going to miss out from being able to get one of these games but yet there are people really waiting to see gameplay and i think it's going to be sometime in january before we see gameplay at all i i don't know is that am i reading into too many things here or i mean they've kind of already shown gameplay though i think there's like a eight or ten minute video on youtube they put out it just kind of went under the radar not many people are talking about it you're telling us this now i'm pretty sure it exists there is no there is right there is i think it's on their facebook page it really just shows the shots it's not it's not like an overhead view. Um, it's, there's no, there's nothing in the video that really shows code. So it's not like, Hey, this is working through the mode. It's just shots. And maybe we'll just dive into shots. But if you look at the layout, it's so they did admit on a podcast that they wanted to do a wide body because they wanted to put more in the game. They wanted to put more in the game, but they know one of the biggest complaints with a wide body is that it can be slow. And so what they did was they took a standard body play field and they put a standard body play field in a wide body cabinet. So really the upper play field is wide body, but the lower play field is a standard body play field. Travis has his hand up. I would like to enter this into the court of Joel that as soon as we saw it, one of the first things I said, this looks like it was meant to be a standard play field. Yes. It's in a wide body that just has an upper play field kind of slapped on the top. Like it Just to the trained eye or untrained eye. I don't know. I don't know how to word this. It just looks like just looking at it and seeing a bunch of other designs over all the years. Yes, I'm aware. Elgato default. Six minutes in. Travis, camera's out. So for Christmas, I want a new camera, please. You just need a battery. Jeez.
    7:11
    Six minutes. Standard body designs. Yep. And stuff. Okay. Go ahead. To the next thing. The standard body, when you look at the game, it's very clear to the right of the shooter lane, there's a full shooter lane on the game. To the right of the shooter lane is just, there's nothing there. There's nothing there from a play field. What it is is it's lights. And apparently on the podcast, that's the fear or the, what's the? Are you talking about to the very right of the shooter lane? Correct. Yeah. And so that's, I didn't necessarily zero in on that when looking at the play field, but what I zeroed in on was just, it looks like a big sling just on the right side of the middle. It is a big sling. Right. And so if you look at where the post is, it's almost like that post is nearly directly above the in lane itself. If you really look at a picture of the play field. And so that's what kind of threw me off right there is that that type of geometry, not saying it hasn't happened before, but that's what stuck out most of me in comparison to the left side that has the six drop targets that are kind of offset behind each other. So are you guys seeing what I mean by looking at the play field? Yeah. And we did a – I think we did a pretty good deep dive on this, the layout on the TPN After Hours show. It's on YouTube. We did that two weeks ago and really tried to break down the shots. But I think it's – you know, this is like an audio podcast, so it's very hard. You know, we have to describe with words what you're seeing, Travis. Words are tough. So I'm going to describe with words. There's two on the left-hand side in the middle. There's two three-bank drop targets, and one of them looks like it's blocking the in-lane. Not only that, it looks like it's almost a ball trap behind the bottom set of drop targets. Yeah, it's like a buck, right? Well, what it is is there's two rows, and they are offset. So if both rows are up and the ball goes behind the first row, that ball actually feeds into the in-lane. The way the geometry, they did talk about that. So it's not going to feed the out lane. So if you get a ball there, it'll just roll behind them. Are you sure? Yes. They did talk about this on the pinball. So then if that's the case, why have a double out lane? The double out lane. Why do the double Borg opposite or like flip Borg? Apparently I'm the only one who listens to podcasts. Well, I'm just asking. There's other podcasts? Is that something just to do because Stern doesn't do it? Like, what other reason would there be? So Bug on the Loser Kid podcast mentioned that he likes, he doesn't like outlanes where the ball goes and the game's over. Like, you can't, unless you death save, that's the only way to save your ball. So he mentioned, like, Alien or Wizard of Oz, where you have an outlane where you can do something to potentially save your ball and get it back into play. So the double outlane on the left says Rutt Row. So I think they're going to make it set up where you can probably change that with a flipper. So if it rolls over a lit one, it'll just save your ball. So it'll be some way of an active outlane ball save. That's what he's saying. So their purpose of having a double outlane is so we can have an outlane ball save. I'm just repeating what Joel's telling you. Is that how Joel's describing it here? That's what I heard.
    10:33
    I got to listen to this. Somehow I don't know if that's factual, Joel. That is what he said. He said he likes outlanes that give you a chance to save your ball. That's what he likes. Well, why not just do that with a single out lane then? And then you have a double in lane. Then your ball stays in play a lot more. That's a great question, but I'm just repeating what I heard. I can't actually give you the reason. I'm going to guess they're trying something different. Yes. That's fair. Why do we have Joel do all this research for us if we can't verify it? I mean, my God. I hear it's like, oh, we're going to talk about Spooky today, so let me make sure I've listened to the other podcast directly out of the designer's mouth. So I can be prepared. I do not want to be influenced by other podcasts. Right. And we haven't even completed the trade for me to loser kids. So why am I going to listen to them? Why would you go to loser kid when you clearly you're not listening to their podcast? Cause that's the podcast I'm referencing. Well, I'm just waiting.
    11:31
    I'm just waiting. That's all. You know? So what, what else have I, let me fill you in. What else have I heard from these podcasts? Um, bug did mention, Well, okay, so if we just kind of do a quick scan of the layout. I was about to say, is our podcast literally just going to be a recap of Loser Kid? Is that how this is going to go down? I think I just need to spoon feed you guys. That's what it sounds like. I feel like the listeners are just going to be like, okay, let me just stop here, and I'll just go listen to Loser Kid now. No, no, no, okay. So let's, okay, left to right. Right, stay here, guys. Joel's going to talk about the play field. On the left side, and then I got a reference to the podcast, Dennis Creasel with Eclectic Gamers. Oh, great. now everybody's going to egp my god he's a great podcast all right are there any other podcasts out there that have i have talked no this is it these are i'm sure carrie hardy's talked about it just yeah everybody go to youtube now why not so one of the things that dennis said is he said the hardest issue with a wide body is when is what do you do with the lower third what do you do with the lower third of the game because when the game's that wide how do you hit any part of that with the flipper and to be honest i hadn't thought about that i that that makes sense to me why the games that he was referencing alien with the double outlanes or wizard of oz these are all wide-body games so they're trying to be cutesy they're trying to do something fun in that lower area of the game so in this particular not fun joel but they're not yeah those are like two games you're naming that people don't claim are good shooters at all so what is interesting though is still, even though it's a wide body game, it is a standard body lower play field. So on the left side, the double out lane, I agree. That's kind of, I would, I would prefer a double in lane, but that's, we'll see what they do. Maybe it's fun with code. Then you have the two banks of drops. I don't, I don't know why, but that's what that's, it'll be very interesting. You got to blow through one bank to then get to the other one. Once you get behind the other one, there's a Vuck there and it'll feed your left flipper. And then, then all, then you get to the main shots. So from left to right, it is a horseshoe. So it's a horseshoe shot that feeds immediately back to you. Then you have a ramp with a spinner, which I like, I like spinners, but that ramp to the spinner hits a habit trail that feeds the left flipper. Then you have the other side of the horseshoe, right? Um,
    13:47
    that, that was on the left side. Then you have a big old ramp right up the middle and the big old ramp right up the middle feeds immediately to the upper play field. And they talked about how they understand with Ultraman and Halloween, the middle ramp had a lot of issues. So apparently they focused a lot on this middle ramp to make sure it's quick. They focused so much they put a flipper right above it.
    14:11
    Yeah. So you're saying, yes, the actual mechanical aspect of the flipper is right there. Yeah. So if there's any sort of air ball, you're going to drill your coil stop pretty much. Yes. That is correct. Yep. So surely they got like, do they have something blocking that? They, since then, because it's so visible, they've added like a plastic. Oh, they didn't have that at the beginning? No, there's a picture of it. Oh, okay. Yeah, that they've added. So the middle ramp, then you go to the right. I see it now. Now we have another horseshoe. We have another horseshoe. Then we have the mystery machine van lock, which has a spinner on it. And then we have another horseshoe. So there's a. That's three horseshoes. There's four. four it's both sides of the horseshoe it's like two shots feeding into each other yes so that was what they're saying is there's no orbits so what they were basically saying is yes you have the left ramp which feeds the left flipper the right main shot is what feeds the mystery machine which could spit out into the right side of the horseshoe or you go up the middle if you go up the middle there's a kind of like a black knight upper play field horseshoe so the ball hits it and it comes back to the flipper and then the two other the two other areas for you to shoot up there one feeds the right flipper the other feeds the right apron lock and then you also have a bash target up there with a horseshoe so there's technically four horseshoes different horseshoes in this game, which means eight shots are just a horseshoe shot. And their logic behind that was they feel a lot of the main shots in the game just feed the flipper. So they wanted to add shots that, like, get the ball back at you. And their solution with that was horseshoes. So can you actually do any of these shots? Because I know the lower horseshoes I had issues with just because the ball goes out of sight. yes you can't see it so is there any shots on there with a horseshoe or a horseshoe shot that you can actually see like is there any is there any kinetic satisfaction there of actually a line of sight the only one that you can see the entire time is on the upper playfield that bash target the uh the underwater dude the horseshoe that could go behind him that's it's the smallest horse that's the only one but no the other horseshoes on the bottom of the playfield Yeah. It disappears and comes back. Now, apparently on the left side, though, the left horseshoe, there is a magnet. So they said there will be certain modes where the magnet will grab the ball. So you'll hit it into the horseshoe, but it won't come out. It'll take the ball, and it puts it into a subway, which you can't see, but it does that. That's kind of cool. So the ball puts it, and a magnet puts it into a subway, but we can't see it. No, we can't see the ball go away. Just what happens is you hit the horseshoe, and the ball never comes out. so they're they're saying from a code standpoint they're going to code that in like you um you know one of the one of the girls got captured or like taken um so maybe scrappy do is in there scrappy do is not in the game he's there oh no no i'm saying he just stays in that little like underside where you can't see him oh yeah at all he's not in the game at all so that's good that's that's a great move by spooky because f that little effort he's worse than he's worse than forky Let me tell you what I will say is I think the game is beautiful. I and and and I got to give them to, you know, in the upper play field, they have this ball case lock where if you hold up the upper flipper, when you hit the middle ramp and the ball comes down, it kind of has a diverter essentially attached to the flipper. And that's what brings the ball into the upper play field. If you don't, if you have the flippers down, when you hit the center ramp, the ball goes up the play field, immediately past the upper play field, and just feeds the left flipper. So it's an interesting thing, at least from a novice standpoint. They'll have to realize, oh, I need to hold this flipper up when I hit that shot because it looks pretty quick, and then you're flying around the upper play field. To get off the upper play field, it feeds one of the ramps, which feeds you back to your left flipper. So it seems like a pretty safe game shot-wise. A lot of the shots end up feeding a flipper or feeding a lock, except for these horseshoe shots. And I just don't know. I mean, I'll be very curious from a kinetic satisfaction like you're saying. If you can't see the shots, how satisfying are they? I don't know. I can't really tell. I mean, there's one thing you can absolutely see, though.
    18:54
    What's that? The eggplant locks. Of course, Joel. Okay. So the apron locks, the apron locks, I understand there are people that say the shape of the apron locks and the, the, the, when the ball locks, it kind of ejects or shoots the ball back into play. You know what it looks like. That's hilarious. I am aware.
    19:16
    It looks like a finger. A finger. Yes. Sure. Finger. Yes. Some people would say it looks phallic. That's what, that's what people are upset about. That your balls are being held. and then being shot right into the middle of the play field, which I just, to me, it's like, I get it. I don't know. If I really sat here and looked at every single pinball machine, could I find something that looks foul? I mean, I am looking straight at Dr. No right now, and there's something, tell me something phallic on James Bond. So I don't know. I just, I'm not going to hold it against him. I think it's awesome. I don't know. I just find that hilarious. Like, I'm not dogging on it. Yeah. Like if that's like an Easter egg and that was meant to happen, like good on you. I think that's freaking hilarious because it's kind of like the unintended Mickey mouse that's on Hot Wheels. Yeah. You remember that one? Yeah. Like I, I just like stuff like that. It cracks me up just seeing like just random stuff. There's another one that's actually on like an Easter egg that's on Godzilla. Actually. I want the plastics.
    20:19
    Wow. I'll have to look for this. Yeah. I'm not going to tell anybody what it is. So then that way they can look around on all their plastics. Are you talking about the backside of one of the plastics? Wow, Joel, way to just give it away. Well, not now. Just look. Just look at plastic. Oh, my gosh. That's been all over YouTube. No, it's all over Pitside. Somebody's already said it? Oh, yeah. You're not the first one. All these people just giving it all away. Anyways, apron lock. So to mention the apron lock on Loser Kid, they did ask about it. They're like, that's unique. And Bug's response was basically he made a comment about how Stern makes multiple games a year. They have very consistent, they're very consistent at that. They make a lot of similar design choices. I think some of them are maybe are probably just very tested or a lot safer, but he basically was like, we, we kind of ask her, like, we want to be unique. We want to do something different. So, you know, we've never seen a ball lock on an apron. Let's do it. We've like, why do they, why hasn't anybody put a pop bumper here? Let's do that. You know, speaking of which there are no pop bumpers in this game. Is there a ball lock on like black water? 100 on the apron? Yes. I believe so. Yeah. It's not the first time there's been ball locks on an apron, but it is unique to today. The collector's edition of GNR, the coffin lock, is in the apron.
    21:38
    Okay. Never mind. It's not unique to today. But it's in it. It's not on top of it, right? Having purple fingers on the apron is unique to today. It is. I mean, it's still, it is a unique mech. It is. I have not seen anything exactly like that. I like, I'm a fan of physical ball locks. apparently the mystery machine van can lock i think like five balls in it and then they'll all come out at one time as in the gang is all coming out of the van ready to start something so from a mech standpoint i mean that they said the same thing with halloween and the three upper play fields like they are clearly trying to be unique from a mechanical standpoint which is a pro and con right your game is going to be once i mean i'm staring at bond right now i'm not i'm not seeing a ton in this bond pro that is mechanically unique you know that's like exciting like oh i want to what's that gonna do you know i want to experience that but this is definitely like i want to step up to the scooby-doo and i want to lock balls i want to see what that's like i want to you know i want to shoot that upper play field i want to how's that upper diverter work you know there's there's a lot there that i'm intrigued by and as long as the layout is designed as well as They say it is, and as long as the mechs hold up, great. But I was super excited to play the butt pretzel on Halloween, and the center ramp rejected me every time, and I could never experience it. So, I don't know. Thoughts on the mechs that you're seeing?
    23:05
    I mean, Tom, you said you haven't bought one, but yet you think you're intrigued? Well, now that you've said stuff, I don't know.
    23:17
    Way to go, Joel. yeah talked about it thanks joel for ruining it for me okay so before i opened my mouth tom why were you considering buying it um yeah i mean i i like how spookies they try different stuff i mean that's that's the cool thing about spooky it's not just the same old cookie cutter design i guess but um i mean the things i'll go over the things i like like i like the bash toy i like i do like bash toys i think that's good um some of the things like i don't get or like i just i don't really like mini play fields at all okay so you know some of that it's it's a turnoff for me personally and i'm not really a big fan of wide bodies either and some of them i enjoy but it's It's not my first go-to.
    24:14
    So, you know, but I'm interested to try the game and, you know, it might sway me towards one. That's for sure. I love the theme. I love the artwork. The artwork's killer. Yeah. You know, I just want to see how it shoots. Yeah. And I think that's something, I mean, I thought the same thing with Halloween, right? Halloween, I was like, they've got a killer theme. The artwork's insane. The layout looks unique. Like I want to shoot this. I want to experience what this is. You know, the three scoops on the left was kind of a head scratcher, but it was still like, let's see. Maybe maybe it's cool. I don't know. But all that, you know, they said they got movie assets. They said they got all that. And then the turnoff was when you finally play it. And all of a sudden, some of those shots were not nearly as satisfying as you wanted them to be or you can't experience the upper play field. And then the code of the game just wasn't great, at least at reveal. So those are the same concerns or worries that I have, at least towards Scooby-Doo. What's the code going to be like? And this game looks incredible from all the mechs but are these reliable Are they going to be fun or satisfying shots to hit And you also have new people on software and rules So you know there questions whether you know how the software going to be Yep. And another thing is it's a brand new board set. So Halloween and Ultraman had a unique board set. They have since changed this board set. And one of the things is they've moved, I think they said they moved all the light, Like they have separate light boards now because it was kind of a wiring mess. So there's another, you know, is this a tested board setter? Are these going to survive on location with hundreds of plays? I have no idea. It's a gamble. It's a gamble for sure, just like any new machine is. But I think they're doing a lot right. They've got some amazing voice actors. They've said they have access to both of the original seasons. So there's going to be a ton of video. So that's cool. I mean, the mechs, they've gone all out from a visual standpoint. It just comes down to QC. How are these games built? How are they going to shoot? And then the code. Is the code going to be fun?
    26:31
    I don't know. Travis is really deep in thought. He's really thinking. I'm just listening to you guys figuring it all out. I can say, looking at it, the things that I do like. I like the idea of having a spinner in front of the ramp. Like that's one of my favorite types of shots that I wish was in pinball a lot more. So I'm happy to see that.
    26:52
    I like the idea of having drop targets. I'm not so sure if I'm sold on the idea of having drop targets kind of in line like that, because I know that's kind of that's in vector and play that a lot. District 82. And it drives me freaking insane. So I don't know how how I'm going to respond to that. I like the idea that they're trying to do a wide body just because there's not enough wide bodies around nowadays. So I like the idea of a modern wide body. I like the idea of apron locks just to do something just a little bit different. But I'm curious to see what that will look like in person and how that will be implemented even more than just a ball lock. Like I could see something, for instance, that could be some type of hurry up shot, like a combo shot or something like that, to where you go into the buck, it immediately feeds to the right flipper, and then you can hit it up the ramp through the spinner, something like that. So hopefully they put a combination shot in there somewhere. Well, what feeds the right apron lock is the shot from the upper play field. And my initial thought was there would have to be some sort of diverter or drop target or something that would keep you from potentially feeding that apron lock when you weren't ready. And the answer is no, there is nothing. So that thing, if you're going to lock it when the ball is not ready to lock, it just puts it there and then immediately spits it out. So it'll be interesting how they use that from a code standpoint. And apparently it's designed in a way where you could actually lock two balls in that area. Right. Okay. Yeah, that'd be cool. So, I mean the artwork is really cool.
    28:28
    And then I think I like the idea of just based off where the inserts are kind of where this potentially could go from a code and rule standpoint, It's kind of where you're making progress on each individual shot to where obviously they've got several different multiballs that are available there with the Scooby Snack inserts and stuff like that. It's obvious that there's a bunch of villains that you got to go against. And it appears if they have characters on the inserts that I guess you could collect characters in a sense. So you could even have like team up power ups or something like that to bring into mode. So, I mean, there's there's a lot to play with here. they've talked i think it's if there's seven villains it's like each villain has its own mode and then each character all five of the main characters have their own mode and i think there's each each character has a unique shot so you can see there's like three different inserts of that character so i'm assuming hitting that shot three times that my guess would be you'd qualify and then you can get into that mode so it definitely like and i like that i think visually this may be easier to understand what to do or where you're going um i'm all for that i'm all for inserts that communicate well what's going on. But I don't know. It's just for people listening, it seems like they're still available, but there's still a lot of question.
    29:46
    To be honest, if I was spooky, I don't think you need to stream it. I don't think you need to stream it for a while. Yeah, I wouldn't at all. I wouldn't reveal it. I wouldn't do anything, like, gameplay-wise except for what they have in just because it's just, I mean, let people experience it at this point. I mean, the fandom that's there, they're in already. I don't know what good would come from doing something like that. I'm not sure. I don't. Yeah, well, it could. I mean, if they streamed it and it looks like, oh, man, that game shoots incredible and look how fast it is. And, you know, people's worried with the wide body. You keep saying wide body, and I understand it's in a wide body cabinet. But the main play field is a standard body game. Like, I think it's going to shoot like a standard body game.
    30:31
    I mean, look at the right side. I mean, there is a good inch and a half of just lights on the right side. And what that is, that's the bravery gauge or something. Like, as you're hitting more shots, that's the braver. It just lights up more and more on the right side. And then Scooby-Doo will pop up out of the barrel when he's brave. And I don't know, maybe he'll get two times more or something. Honestly, that's probably the biggest thing bothering me about this play field design, though. It seems like one of the things I told you guys at the very beginning when I saw it, it almost felt like they're sacrificing a lot of the first level design just to make sure that they get an upper play field on there. Yeah. It's because you see a lot of balls that are disappearing that you can't see. Like, it seems like every single major shot there, you're never going to see the ball actually come back to you. So you, you always lose that point of view right there. And just like we talked about earlier with the right side of the play field towards the middle, just being like one giant sling basically to where it sets over the end lane. So it's, It's almost like that right side is kind of closed off. Right, right. And then all of a sudden on the left, it's you have all these drop targets and you have wire forms basically blocking your line of sight to something like that. So I don't know. I'm not a fan of seeing that just offhand looking above, but I'm not sure how I'll react to that seeing it. I just in person. Yeah. I just know from from my standpoint, from my very amateur design mind that I'm big on line of sight that if and this is just a personal preference. I just know if I ever wanted to design a game, the big thing I would want is line of sight for the player just to be able to see the ball as much as possible. See the ball doing the magic, see the ball whipping around, see the ball going up a ramp, see it just flying around the play field. I think that's part of the unique experience being in pinball. But I can see how with this, you know, like you mentioned earlier that apparently they're trying to do things that are much different than what anybody else does. So, I mean, that kind of goes with it. If you're going to put a bunch of mechs in a game or you're going to try to maximize the amount of mechs you have, it's something's got to give from there. You know, it's like it's it's where you got to take something from one direction and go a different direction with it. It's very hard to find that balance in a game. So I'm curious to see if they're able to do that with this game. Do you think this is miles ahead of Halloween? Or is it too early to say?
    32:59
    Offhand, I would say easily. Easily, it's an upgrade. I mean, luckily, they just did one scoop at the bottom, it appears.
    33:07
    So, you know, I mean, it's like I said, one of the things, too, with it is, I think over time, the more that bug, is that right? Is that getting right more that he does designs and gets that experience? I think we'll see design start to get better more than more and more. Because, I mean, obviously, you only get better at something by doing it over and over and over again, getting feedback, applying said feedback, and you just keep turning away. I don't I look at this and I think it's better than Halloween. But I mean, I'm not going to go on a limb and say it's like an A tier design. But what I do see is improvement, which is a good thing. So maybe in three to five years, we could see Spooky bring out an A tier design. They might get to that. Now, obviously, they've got their style of doing something and people are responding to that. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to sell games. So they they're doing something right at the end of the day. Yeah, I definitely have a few comments. I mean, one, the one thing they're definitely doing really right is licensing. They are continuing to crush it with great licenses and investing in good art. I mean, the best way to get somebody turned on by a game is make that initial impression. When you see the game, the game looks beautiful or amazing. So they're crushing it there.
    34:23
    Two, it's Spooky Luke. So Bug and Luke designed these games. So I want to make sure Luke is getting credit. Bug said that during the Loser Kid podcast that Luke is really good at just knocking out these white woods. So I think he has a big part in the layout. But three, you had mentioned, you know, you want to be able to see the ball. And the thing that popped in my head was if that left horseshoe is using a magnet, magnets are incredible, right? We all love magnets. If it's using a magnet to pull the ball basically out of its path and then drop it into a subway, that's absolutely something you would love to see. I mean, that's what people love. That would be awesome. Yeah. That's what people love about Adam's family, right? To see that hand come out and take the ball, you know? So it's just like, that's cool. That's cool if that's built in there. But it's definitely something you want to see. And it also makes me think of like Hobbit. Hobbit has at the very top of the orbit, there's a magnet. And there's certain times where if you hit the orbit, the magnet will turn on and it'll stop the ball right up there and then drop it down into a lock. And the way that they designed the ramps and everything, like you can see it. You can see it do that. So I agree. You actually bring up a really good point that if they're going to include some of these cool mechs, you don't want to hide it. You don't want to hide the fun here. The game just looks like it has competing ideas with itself. If you look at the first level and then you look at the second level. And so what I would personally like to see in the future, I would love it if Spooky would just stick with a one-level pin. Of course, with ramps and all that, but not worry about an upper play field and just see what happens with there. I mean, because it's just it's just one of those things. I think as a pinball player, you love to see mechs do its thing, but you've got to have the the sight line. You know, so that that in itself right there, I think that that's just a big deal. I mean, even the ramp. So I look at the ramp of the spinner. Badass shot. Right. But then after you hit it, all's gone. Right. You got it. You lose line of sight. It's a 180. Right. So you got to track it down real quick. Right. One of the main shots on Led Zeppelin that a lot of people enjoyed was that right ramp. That's also like a quick 180. Like you see the ball actually do it. So something like that, if I could see a ramp that has that 180 and I actually see the ball doing it with a spinner right there, to me, that would be a fantastic shot that would you would get a lot of mileage out of a shot like that, especially on location. where you have somebody just tracking a ball the entire time. So, I mean, this just kind of goes back to like Game of Thrones, right? Just to use this as an example. Obviously, this is kind of like Alice Cooper, like with the way that the upper play field is, but like Game of Thrones, most people tend to enjoy the pro better than the premium. In the pro, you see everything. You see where the ball's going. You get that sense of flow and everything. And I just, I feel like that this pen very much wants to be a flow-based pen. Right. And then it just kind of stops itself with the with the camera. Kind of like a like a camera, like a camera. Yes. You want it to stay on and consistent. I would I would just be very curious if if that play filled right. The upper play field, if it wasn't there, like how the game would just shoot. Oh, I mean, see in seeing the ball fly around, I'd be very curious. The problem is, so they asked on Loser Kid, they asked Bug, what's your favorite shot in the game? And he said the bash target. The way that the bash target on the upper play field reacts and moves is he finds that incredibly satisfying. Plus, there's two magnets. There's two magnets in front of that. But sure, if they would have ditched the whole upper play field and had one or two of their shots just feed, if that would have been in the back corner or something, kind of like Baby Yoda on Mando or something. Like they could have, but I think, I think they just look at it as maybe they're just taking feedback that they hear from like Stern where it's like, that game's barren. That game doesn't have any new max. That game doesn't this, that game doesn't that. And so they're just like, okay, what are we going to hold ourselves? We need, we need two or three unique max per game. We need to have sculpts and we're going to throw an upper play field in there with another flipper. Like, I don't know. It's definitely clear that the priority is it's sculpts and it's max. It's obvious that that's the priority. And the only way that you make a pin look like, you know, make it appear like it has more is by adding an upper play field element to it. I mean, because when you start changing levels like that, it definitely gives the appearance that there's more. Because obviously there is more. Because the ball has to do something different. I would just love to see a manufacturer take a chance. and if you're going to do an upper play field, try to figure out some way that we can still visually see that ball going to the upper play field. You mean like black night? I was just going to say that. Just like black night. No, but the problem is, no, but the problem is I'm talking about like it visually goes there and does something immediately and doesn't just like plop down. You know what I mean? So like, what about, um, uh, JJP pirates, you know, moving ship. You see that ball the whole time. And that's why it's very popular. That's why it makes $25,000, $30,000 on a sale now. I mean, people respond to that. Now, granted, something like that, it wasn't like, I mean, we'll go off in the weeds if we start talking about this. But granted, you know, that game, it wasn't as popular when it first came out, and then it grew in popularity. So the way that the consumer and the way that the average pinball player thinks about these games now and sees this, that's one of the biggest things of feedback that we get from brand new people in the industry or they're buying a game that they want to see the ball do something cool. And that doesn't necessarily mean a mech interacting with it. It could be simply just seeing the ball change levels and then see the ball do something. You know, so, I mean, that's pretty big. I take back what I said earlier, because when you brought up JJP Pirates, that is probably the best mini play field ever. Yeah. It's the only one I like. It has everything. And it doesn't take up much real estate either. No, not at all. At all. Like Eric figured it out. And that's the thing. It's like you see that, right? The writing's on the wall. The elements are there in which everybody can see, okay, here's what's here. Here's what people enjoy. How do we replicate that idea?
    40:59
    So I think that that's moving forward. That would be pretty big. So Spooky is going to keep on this train with upper play fields. Maybe figure that out. Maybe open it up a little bit that way. Yeah, good point. I mean, I think we can all agree, though. What we've seen so far is definitely an improvement. I think they're heading in the right direction. This game definitely looks more promising or exciting. I know I want to play it. I think it's definitely an improvement, definitely an improvement on what they've done before. I will say a side story real quick about Spooky and a big pat on the back to them. I went to Cincinnati. Shout out to Chuck Wuer in the show that he put on in Cincinnati. I went there and – perfect. Thank you, Tom. This is where Spooky actually revealed that they had the Scooby-Doo license, which was pretty neat. Well, I went there, played a bunch of games, including Bond, and right next to Spooky's booth, they had an Ultraman and they had a Halloween. So I was like, all right, these are Spooky's games. I'm going to walk up to them. I'm going to play them. And both of them immediately center ramp rejects, never got to the butt pretzel. I was like, this is game number four that I've played and still sucks. And I didn't talk to the guys at the time because I didn't really have anything good to say to them. And I was also worried maybe this is me being, I don't know. You thought you were on their hit list. Exactly. I'm like, I don't know if they know who I am. I don't know if they've ever heard me or seen me or what. But obviously I'm not singing their praises. And I just, I just, I felt bad. So I made a comment to Chuck Wirt and I was like, dude, I'm still struggling with Halloween. I went over there, played it, reject city. He goes, well, we have this hospitality room back here. There's a local collector. He's a competitive player that has a Halloween that he really loves. And he's fine tuned it. Like he's really tweaked it. The game plays great. Go play that one. I said, all right. So I went back to this room by myself, was able to play the game. It was great. It actually, the ball actually made it to the upper play field. I could actually combo shots. I actually experienced the butt pretzel. I could hear the game. I was playing modes. So I get it. I've received countless messages and emails of people like, you've just got to play one at somebody's house. You've got to play one that's dialed in. You've got to play one that's like really, like it's a totally different experience. Well, no duh. Of course it's a totally different experience where you can experience the game versus being rejected the whole time. When you can experience the butt pretzel. Yes. In your own privacy. If you're going to have three play fields, let me actually experience the play fields. Like that was what frustrated me so much. So I'm starting to get it. I'm starting to get the appeal of that game. With that said, it still didn't like I'm not rushing out to buy one. It just it was one of those like, OK, I get it. If people do have positive things to say about this game in their collection, I can understand why now. So fast forward, I actually went and talked to the spooky guys. And the reason I talked to them is because I saw they had playfields behind them and they had a TNA playfield behind them. And I said, hey, are you selling playfields? They said, yep, we are. And the deal is I have an original TNA and mine has pooling. It was one of the originals that has like pooling and chipping. So when I got it, I didn't buy it firsthand. I bought it from somebody else. I reached out to Spooky. This was years ago. And I said, what would it cost for a new playfield? They quoted me $400. I was like, I'm fine with the chipping. well now that they're doing the remake i reached out again hey what's it cost for just a blank playfield mine's one of the original runs three million dollars they said five hundred dollars plus shipping and tax so it was going to be like six hundred dollars so i'm like yeah no so when i actually saw the playfields there i was like you're selling playfields they go yep 250 bucks i was like that sounds great um they said now this one it does have these two little scratches in the upper corner but i'm like that's totally fine doesn't matter so as they're handing me the play field. I was like, yeah, I have an original run TNA. It has pooling on it. I reached out. I basically said, I got a quote, blah, blah, blah. Spooky Luke looks up at me. He goes, you have one of the original TNAs? I said, yep. He goes, and it has pooling. He goes, yep. He goes, take it. He gave me the play field for free. He gave it to me for free. And he's just like, I'm sorry that you had to ever ask for quotes. We should have fixed this years ago. Like, take it. Enjoy the play field. So props to Spooky. They bought his praise with free merch we figured it out why does joel get everything for free yeah i thought there's no shilling this week now this whole story came full circle now we know so what i i bought a shirt and everybody hates us travis yeah i bought a i bought a shirt from him because i was like i gotta buy something so i bought a shirt but i was just appreciative and that's one thing that i've heard i think everybody said that right like speak spooky will do they will make things right they do Yeah, that's badass of them to do something like that. Yeah, that was cool. So that is one thing. If you're considering buying this game, it is a company that does care. They will support their product. But, you know, we can't promise. I mean, they can't fix shots if the shots aren't fun. Maybe Code will never get to a state that maybe a Stern game will or JJP. But with that said, they still care. They're still working on it. It's just, is that a gamble you want to take? The bottom line is if anybody out there wants to take that gamble, just get Joel on the case because apparently he's like the fixer. Anything pinball, he'll get you done. So I ended up, I sparked a conversation and I was just like, thanks a bunch. And they're like, and I went to shake their hand and bug, he goes for the fist bump. So we had an awkward, he was a fist bump. I was a handshake. Neither of us were breaking. So what were we, you know, it was just kind of a, it was a thing. It was odd, but they asked, they asked who I was. So I'm like, okay, apparently they don't know who I am. So I introduced myself and then I told him, I said, to be honest, guys, we need that play filled back.
    46:52
    They I was like, to be honest, guys, every time I've played Halloween, I've struggled with this center ramp. And they were like, yeah, we've had some feedback. Our initial runs, we didn't have that issue. But as the thing went on, we started here this. So we're going to create adjustments with the diverter. So people can mess with that because normally it's the diverter that's slightly off. And they, you know, they said they're working on it. And then I mentioned that there was one that was dialed in in another room. I said, you should go try that one because that one shoots great. They're like, oh, that's a good idea. And I know we had a good conversation there. Like Luke and Bug are absolutely I mean, they're definitely nice guys. They clearly care. They're super excited about this pin and this license. And I think I mean, we are seeing improvements. Every game they're releasing is improving on the past. So I don't know. Well, we'll see. I mean, I hope people that bought them and are in are excited, and I know I'm looking forward to seeing gameplay, and Tom might pull the trigger eventually and get one. We don't know. You never know.
    47:47
    Joel. What? Joel, just to be clear, so you told the designers of Halloween, hey, here's a good shooting version of your game. You should go play it. I did. Yeah, sure did. Damn, the ball's on you. That's why I love you. Yeah, sure did. I dare you to say that to Elwin. Yeah, Elwin. Can you do that to Gomez? Well, yeah. Hey, George. I'm interviewing. Just do that to every designer. Hey, I know where there's finally a good version of your game that shoots well. Let me tell you where it's at. Yeah, it's over here. This other guy messed with what you made in our product. You might want to hire this guy. Joel's Pin Maps. Their games shoot like they're supposed to. Yeah. Well, anything else on Scooby-Doo or Spooky?
    48:37
    No, I mean, I think overall it's all interesting. We could definitely go down a rabbit hole talking about the marketing of it, the pricing of it. I mean, to me, it's obvious that they definitely want to push their top-end model as much as possible. When you look at the artwork and you look at the pricing itself. Yeah, you look at the pricing, then you look at how they point out, well, this is the top-tier model that's under $10,000. So it's like definitely designed to get you get you emotionally involved to want to go after that. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, that's part of sales and marketing. So good on them. So, I mean, it's just it's an interesting thing overall. I think if anything, what Spooky proves more than anything is that if you have a good theme and you can manufacture games, you're going to find success at some level. You're going to find that success. And so I think if I'm with any other company outside of Stern, I'm looking at this and I'm like, OK, that's just all it is. It's just a cadence, you know, just saying here's what our theme is. We're getting it out. We're going to put X amount of games out. And then you're known to manufacture it in time. That'll get going. I mean, that's just that's just the way it is. I mean, and that's that's great for them because they continuously capture just a theme at its top like that. The hype stays there for it. And that's why they they're able to sell what they sell. And plus, I mean, obviously, they've done a great job over the past decade building up a fan base, too. I mean, I would probably say spooky fans are probably the most like rabid and ball fans of any other manufacturer around. They're loyal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very much. Which is a great thing. Football Europeans, which is a great thing, you know. So, I mean, I think that's where we've seen them be able to do what they've done with Scooby and then be able to still sell the game like they've sold it. I mean, a game doesn't have to sell out day one for it to be a success. No. Well and they also smart because I mean they lock people in They get the pre money so people are kind of committed They going to stay through that game So even though it may take them over a year to actually get a game they not worried about jumping to the next one or this or that They're just kind of like, okay, they're on for the ride. The big thing is that they have the credibility that they're going to get that game to the end user, and that's huge. That is huge in pinball, and they've been successful every step of the way doing something like that. For sure. Well, we'll pivot then. we'll pivot to the other new game essentially that i finally had a chance to play um uh we talked about it last time but i know i like afternoon tom afternoon tom is he is pumped he's ready to go let's go let's go yeah so bond i have one zach and nicole with flipping out or let me borrow one to stream and i streamed it last week uh for the first time had a chance to play the premium at, um, at Cincinnati. And I have a pro here. Uh, what I will say, I do like the ball lock. I do like the ball lock on the premium. I like it cause you can see it. It's visual. You know how many balls you have locked. I do like that. The diverter to lock the balls is different. It does get in the way a little bit, but it's fine. I like that. I still, I would still say the physical ball lock is a positive overall. The two pop bumpers firing at the same time is something i definitely definitely see that and it's weird um and then the bond on a wand was pretty lackluster now they may that may improve that they totally improve um but for what's in there right now is pretty blah and then on the left side with the underwater scene at least i'm kind of a taller guy from the angle that i see it i barely see the models like i barely see them and when the when the light isn't on that that that plexi that's over there just looks like a gray blob so it's almost like the artwork on a pro is more appealing so i don't overall i'm still i still think the pro i agree with you travis i think the pro is the way to go um now i've now this is unique travis turned off his camera on purpose i don't know why but you're you're so strange what why did you why did you just turn it off because that way you can't make fun of me for it going off i did it on my own so there you go to avoid it going off setting it yeah because it has a setting to where if i don't set a timer on it that's why yeah you don't have to let me like messing around with my camera on an audio podcast like interrupt your thought we had a shout out to dan costa he wants us to make a triple drain black shirt that says Elgato no signal. But anyway, so Bond, I streamed it the other night. I don't know. It's weird. Pinball to me, the first night I stream it, I always learn, you know, you have an initial response to it. And I'd say, you know, kinetically, the left orbit shot's my favorite. It comes back to what Travis is saying about seeing it. That's such a long shot. You see the ball, you're ripping a spinner. You see it all the way up the left orbit or up the ramp, down, squiggles around. like it's a fun shot I think that's pretty cool the scoop the the under the car scoop the cue scoop I like that scoop I don't know exactly how it's but it kind of gobbles the ball up I really like when you want to hit it it seems I'm not getting rejections from it I do like that scoop so I would say those two shots are pretty kinetically satisfying um the center ramp from the left flipper is hard it's a hard shot to hit I actually hit the kind of upper loop shot way more and then And the whole left eject thing with the underwater scene, it's weird. To hit that shot purposely, it just seems odd. It seems like kind of a clunky thing, and you just hope the ball falls in. But you had mentioned it before. The ball just kind of falls in. The ball just falls in all the time. Yeah. Well, and there's one thing that's frustrating about that side right now is that you have to get a ball in there in order to light your locks for the left orbit. Yep. So you have to hit that, which is interesting. So what he's saying is to qualify the jet pack multi-ball, which is three shots to the left orbit. The first thing you have to do is you have to get the ball in that underwater scoop. Then you can qualify lock. I wouldn't so much as call it interesting as I'd call it infuriating right now. Yep. It's like, because like you said, the shot itself, it's, I've, so legitimately, I have about 10 hours of gameplay on this, right? And legitimately. Which is one ball. I wish. That'd be awesome. So legitimately, I think maybe twice I've hit that shot on purpose. Oh, like hitting hitting the target and having it ricochet back in immediately for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just I don't know what it is. I need to figure it out. I don't know if I need to dial in my game more or what it is, because I'm at about like a seven degree pitch for it. It's a weird shot. The other thing is there's three drops on it, which is great. I like drop targets. You can't see them. You can't see the drops, or at least from my height, you can't see them. And then the problem is the Spectre targets, you have to hit, you have to spell Spectre, which are seven targets around the rocket, to get into one of the weapon modes. George Gomez has said on a podcast, they understand. They've already coded in like four weapon modes, but nobody's seeing them because it's so hard to hit those targets. It is such a grind to get there because you have to hit. So I dug into that and there's no options in the menu as of right now. I'm sure it'll show up, but there's no options to change what the difficulty is in order to light that mode. So you automatically have to hit seven stand up targets up there by the rocket. Specific targets. Right. Right. And it was a letter. Right. And you have to do that for every single one. And then you have to hit that goldfinger target that's between the ramps or right by the side ramp. So it definitely makes it to where it feels very grindy by doing something like that. And then it's not even a guarantee. This entirely depends how your game's set up, too. I've seen some bonds to where the ball does not have much action on the right-hand side of that rocket, to where it makes those last three targets very difficult to get to. Well, what I was getting at with the drops, though, is the way that George is trying to make it so that you can hit those targets easier is to leave the drops down. That way, once you've dropped all three of them, they just stay down. So essentially getting the ball back in the rocket is easier to do. What I don't like about it, though, is it kills the feed from the rocket. If you hit the rocket from the left side, like the open area, instead of it rolling behind drop targets and gently feeding out the left side of the game like it's supposed to and then feed the upper flipper, it doesn't. It just falls right out where the drops are. So it's a weird shot. Once those drops are down, that ball just kind of goes back there. You hope it hits what it needs to hit, and then it just dribbles back out the front. Yeah, because there's no way for you to skillfully hit any of those shots. It's just tossing it up and hoping that it does something. Now, if that space rocket would have been manual, if you had, like, a second button hit that would have moved it, that would have been pretty cool. But here we are. I would assume from a code standpoint, as of right now, there's seven specific targets and you have to hit the specific target for the letter that you need. I would hope they'd change the code where it's like first weapon mode. I don't know. Any target counts towards a letter. And then maybe the second weapon mode. It's like you have to I don't know. There has to be something in there where I think it gets more difficult. But right now it's too difficult to really experience the modes. Well, I think you just spot the first four letters. and then just have, or even three letters, and just have every single target spot a letter for your first one. That way you can at least play the first one. Yeah. Right? And then maybe just make it a little bit more difficult each time. Like right now it feels like this is on the hardest setting possible. This is Carl level. Yeah, it's insane. So I've only, like legitimately, I've only gotten through them once. And I had to hit that shot like probably easily 40 plus times in one game. just to get it to do what I wanted it to do. And you're saying you get through them. And what's great, they're just hurry-ups, right? Like it's a short, it's somewhat of a short mode too. Yeah, I think it starts like at 10, then 20, 30, 40, something like that. I mean, it's just a grind to get to overall right now. But obviously code, you know, software can adjust that. Are all the modes for that the same? Or like all the shots are lit and you just hit the shot? No, they're a little bit different. Okay. Each mode. Okay. yeah it's like if i remember i i think the first one's like one hurry up and then or maybe even two and then each one it gets a little bit more difficult but it gets it just gets super grindy i i don't think i can't remember any other pen from or any other stern at least that's that grindy to get to one thing that's there at the start button like there's just it's just not close to the start button i think that's the unfortunate part about it because it does play a big part of the game because the inserts are right in the middle of the play field it says specter on the back side to where those light up it has the targets around so the game wants you to do that it wants you to perform that action it's just okay you know let us perform that action like hold our hand through it a little bit early on they basically dedicated the upper left third of the game to that and Exactly. So I streamed it for two hours, and I think in those two hours, I think I saw... Did you fall asleep? No. I think I saw, like, two weapon modes. I mean, it just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen easily, and, yeah, you really have to commit to it to get it.
    60:37
    Other things, I mean, I think there's only two actual villain modes, maybe three, but it's played through those a bunch of times, And one of those modes is, I don't, it's just like what I don't like. I mean, they have video aspects or video in it, but like Bond's sneaking around. Right. So it's like the audio is real quiet and it's just very like, it's not an energetic mode of like, oh, I'm fighting this guy. You're like, you know, got to hurry up, got to run away. It's like, no, it's like very cautiously hit these shots. It's kind of like a mode that would have worked better if it was stop and go or there's something that stops the ball each shot and then you go, yeah. Yeah, and there's another mode. Maybe it was a henchman mode. I don't know. There's another mode where it's this roaming shot and you have to hit a lot of them. Oh, yeah. And the shot is roaming very fast, like very fast. I know exactly what you're talking about. That mode is brutal. And it's like by the time you trap up and you go to aim at the shot, it's already moved to the next one. So you almost have to preemptively aim at where the ball is going to go because it's roaming so fast. Imagine trapping up. Yeah. So it's just – On a Gomez. Yeah. That'd be tough. I would say, I mean, the layout is fine. I think the layout's really good. Yeah.
    62:00
    Yeah, I kind of question the whole scoop thing like Travis did. But other than that, I like the layout. I like how it shoots. It's unique. Like the left orbit, the best shot in the game is I'm struggling to find it like consistently. So it feels good when I hit it. But man, am I hitting I'm breaking plenty. Now, I know I'm not you guys. But once I dial that in, it just feels totally different. I mean, it's similar to like the shot on Stranger Things that feeds around or even the katana, the shot, not the katana, but the the the ramp on Deadpool where you hit the left orbit. If you have the katana ramp where it'll drop down like a premium rally, it's it's similar. but it's just trying to find, I don't know if it's further back than I'm used to or what, but trying to find that spot. But I would just, I mean, to be honest where I'm at, I streamed it for two hours. I saw everything that I could in the game besides like one or two weapon modes. And I could have streamed it again yesterday. And I didn't, I was just like, I'm, I'm going to give them another week. Hopefully they, they release something else because I don't, there's just nothing drawing me. Oh, in the last part was score was so travis you talked about how right now it seems like the go to the best route to go is just focus on pops right if you're if you're playing for score and trying to grind it out because you can get trapped up on the right side and just backhand just like lob up the ball into the pops the whole entire time which is interesting the fact that you can backhand that shot between the two ramps because it looks tight now on mine if you have hit it clean if you hit it if it rattles that ball is going to roll back down you better be ready to save it so it's not a safe shot at least on mine but if you just keep feeding the pops it'll get to these thresholds where you'll just start scoring points so especially you have super pops lit so what i was doing at the end of the stream i was just hitting the action button so it'd plunge up into the pops i'd let it bounce around i'd let the ball drain drain yep and then i'd plunge again into the pops just to get more pop hits and then i just keep feeding the pops the problem is in a multiball though you can't feed the pops because they he leaves the gate open in the back so all the shots previously yeah all the shots that previously fed the pops no longer feed the pops they they'll just whiz right by the pops and keep coming around so i don't know there's there's probably plenty of people listening i think they've already had a lot of um what's the word it's the party the parties that show off the new game uh i've gotten a little bit of feedback when I say a little bit, probably like a dozen people. Okay. Talking about their launch parties. Launch parties, yes. So as of right now, 0.7 code. I mean, what are you telling people to do? What do you encourage them to do? I would tell them multi-ball all day. Yeah. So legitimately, I had easily over 12 people contact me, and the vast majority of them said that they had success just doing multi-ball and pops the whole entire time. They ignored everything else. Ignore the modes, ignore everything. Yeah. I mean, you can still do them, you know, I mean, because the bottom line is what I would do as it is right now. I would probably still start like one of like a cue or start, you know, the villain or whatever, because you can still put it into pops. And then, you know, if you all of a sudden start silverback flipping out of nowhere because you're trying to get under control. Yeah. Then, yeah, you you're going to hit some other shots and get some other points in general. But, yeah, the big thing is that if you can play under control and you can grind out some points, it's just getting trapped up, get the ball over to the right flipper, backhand up into the pops. Okay. You guys know how to light the lane ball save, right?
    65:42
    Yeah, you hit the tank, the dragon tank a bunch. Which, at least on mine, when you hit the scoop, the scuba scoop or whatever, it just goes right into the target every time. Yep. See, some of them go into the target. Some of them go back into the pops. If you have one that goes into the pops, oh, my. Yeah, you're it. Yep. So I feel bad. Shout out to Joe Hills. He's one of our Patreon supporters. He watched my stream, and that's what I was doing. I would feel bad for him, too. He did a tournament, and he tried the pops all day strategy, and apparently he lost to a guy. There is a skill shot, which if you hold the left flipper down and the ball goes around, you have like roughly five switch hits to hit the cue, the scoop under the car. And I think it's like 10 million, I think is what you said. But it's decent points. So if you do that every ball, that's a solid. I mean, it's just one shot. You can go for it while your ball is still on. It is on ball one because by ball two and ball three, you usually, there's like, I don't think that they meant for this to happen. But I think you have to get to the super pops or whatever it is first. but then the 20 million pops thing is available off the plunge and switches reset back to like 20 or 25. Like it's something insane, but yeah. So maybe that's the nugget. So if anybody's in a launch party coming up, do you suggest trying to go for that Q skill shot, or you just say, no, plunge it into the pops? I mean, I still just plunge into the pops, but I mean, if I'm playing to win, I'm playing as boring as possible. I'm getting the ball in a flipper. I'm just backhanding. you know, if I'm playing to have a journey and explore the game without any regard to getting that, uh, launch party plaque, then yeah, I'll do some skill shots. I'll do some cue. I'll do some multi ball with it. Yep. Play with your food and all that. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's not a, like a for sure strategy to where everybody's just going to crush every time. That's just the most efficient way. In my opinion, if you can play under control, you know, that's the caveat. Cause this game does play quick. Oh yeah. You have to, You do have to make sure that you get under control because if you do start flipping around, it's going to be lights out for you. That's just how it is. Plus that ball save that we talked about, it's not manually controlled. So I think it goes by – Yeah, with the slings. With the slings, right. So you may get lucky. You may get unlucky with that. Yeah.
    68:10
    So, Tom, you have this, but you're routing it. Is this the first game that you've routed? That is correct, Joe. So you don't have anything to compare it to. But from an earning standpoint, do you feel like it's earning well? I've earned no money yet, Joel.
    68:25
    Nobody's played it. No, I'm not too concerned about that. I loaned it to the location and, you know, whatever I get, I get. I'm not too worried about it. Got it. Yeah, I don't know. I'd be curious. I'd be curious how well it's doing. But I would say, I mean, if you're in on a premium, if you're in on an LE, I mean, if this is a dream theme of yours, I think the theme integration will be there.
    68:53
    It's just, it's hard to compare. Like, the last turn I played was Rush, and that game's changed so much since I had a chance to borrow it. But yet it was still incredibly fleshed out when I had it. So there was so much to do. The end wizard modes weren't there. But, I mean, to be honest, am I going to see them? No. Yeah, but like 95% of the code was there. Yeah. I've heard some people say that Bond is coded much better than Rush, and I'm just like – Which I don't understand at all. Yeah, I showed you guys that screenshot. That just goes way over my head. Yeah, they are just on another level with that opinion. I mean, everybody's entitled to their opinions, even if it's like just batshit crazy. But yeah, it's just – that just shocked me. You do two villains, and it's like, okay, well, let's go to the next villain. oh wait yes i can't let's go play doctor no on the doctor no propane no we're not but obviously like rush was incredibly well fleshed out and then before that was godzilla incredibly well fleshed out so i feel like here i am i have this opportunity to to borrow the game to stream the game early like let me really dive in and see what's in this game and that's i just unfortunately it's a very shallow pool that i'm swimming in right now um with with with uh 007 and we'll see i mean hopefully well i would i would just say the people that are getting this early right just diamond hands it just hold on to it yeah yeah you know because i mean the code's gonna get there right there's there's zero chance this gets the wwe thing where it just says yeah to where we're just like done with it so i mean what it better not yeah no it it'll i there's obviously there's a lot of inserts there's a lot they're going to put into this game i just i'm really curious to see where they're going to go with it um and if they can figure out some of these things from a mech standpoint like that to make the spectral specter stuff more entertaining or more accessible i mean or or like actually use the multipliers oh that's another yeah i had at At one point I had like three or four Bond women ready to go. Like I'm like, I'm like, everything's ready to go. Like, here we go. How do I do it? And they're like, oh, you're supposed to hit the action button, but it's not enabled yet. I was like, what? Like, wow. Yeah. Okay. All right. But just teasing Joel, just like in real life. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Cancel the deal with the women. Yeah. I have two kids. All right. So there's Bond. I mean, we're just going to. Yeah. We're just going to have to, uh, we'll wait and see, wait and see on that one. Um, what else? Uh, so you did say quick, uh, we did have a patron question, which was do modern games currently play too long for four players and what can, from a tournament standpoint, or what can manufacturers do to speed up gameplay? And I know, I mean, when I'm down here playing by myself, I don't want the game to be two minutes. I want it to be a long game. I want to see games, but how do you, how do you tweak that? I mean, you two are the tournament players. What are your – oh, Tom, here we go. We can take the Josh Sharp approach, turn off all the ball saves, and, you know, at the beginning of the game, all the multi-balls, open up the outlanes, take posts out or rubbers off. That'll certainly make things go. But, yeah, I mean, modern pinball, there are some long-playing games, And if you get players that are exceptionally good, like Asher Lefkoff, Carl D'Angelo, Jared August, etc., Zach McCarthy, you're going to see, even with those games set up the way they are, they're still going to play them long. Speaking of Carl D'Angelo and blowing it up, he streamed his Rush Premium the other day. And what was it? He had a mode that he scored 12 million. billion billion points 12 billion billion points he probably should have had 100 billion points on that game too it's carl man geez um all right no i mean that's the answer you gotta yeah that's the easiest way to do it i mean the thing is pinball's in a weird spot with that too it's because if you get these modern games and you have all these assets and everything you want the player to be able to experience it too especially if you're going on location you're dropping a dollar coin drop or something like that the last thing you want somebody to do is just play like a minute the game right right yeah and we know of some locations out there that do do that and you know i mean that's that's their right don't go to those locations yeah i mean it just it's not fun for a lot of people i mean even like i can even tell you personally i would not want to go to a location continuously unless it was like $20 all you could play. I wouldn't want to do coin drop on if a standard pin. There's just no way I would want to do that if it's set up so difficult that I just feel like I'm just throwing money away. Yeah, no. It makes sense.
    74:08
    Oh, and also increase the sling sensitivity. Oh, just make everything faster and more brutal. Yeah, I think that's the way But it's weird. I mean, I don't think you want a game by default to just be brutal because, yeah, then you just killed all, you know, the majority of people that play the game. But, yeah, tournament-ready pins is a different story. I get that if you're going to do that. I wish what people would do, and I've tested this out a little bit on my own. and I actually enjoy the games a lot more like this, that if the game is just thoroughly brutalized, that you actually make the modes be on easy or something easier to where you do have a chance to experience the game and get some progression through it, but the game's going to play tough. So it doesn't feel like you're just on pins and needles, chopping wood the entire time to do the same thing that you would have done on a default pin. So you're saying make it physically harder, but make the software easier. That way you can still see Terror of Mechagodzilla or something like that, but you have lightning flippers in the game. That's how I set up some of my pins here at home to practice on. I purposely do that so that way I could practice on a difficult setup, but I can still actually play the game. And I can still see stuff, and I can still have fun that way. So I've always wondered why people don't opt to do that. Because you always see if somebody makes a game extra hard, like something else is getting made very difficult on it. So then the whole game becomes just trying to set something up and hope you cash in.
    75:39
    Yeah, I've definitely, I mean, when I had Rush, I set it on easy. So, you know, I'm with you. That was how, you know, we set our games up the same way. Software. Yeah, of course. Yeah.
    75:52
    Well, cool. I another great way that I know of to make a game a lot harder is you just you take away all lighting right in the air. You turn the lights off or you put a big old light directly above the game and you you have that light on Right I mean there that So this is this a killer transition i can tell i mean why are we talking about lights on or off joel lights on a touchy subject this i i have been brought into this i was unaware of this but apparently a district 82 something recently at some point in time the tournament somebody turned the lights on or like all the lights on in the building or all the lights off and that made some people really happy and it really pissed other people off i'd be curious tom explain to me what's going on so the lights have always been off at district 82 the overhead lights the overhead lights okay um but typically like if you go to a tournament or big tournament usually the lights are on unless it's in like a bar setting okay or at district 82 with that or at district 82 So, yeah, so there was a lot of discussion even prior to this last weekend.
    77:07
    Basically, you know, some of the players were like, man, I really hate the lights being off. I'm not a big fan of it, to be honest. I like playing with the lights on. Okay. But, of course, you also have to deal with glare from lights and things like that. But now Eric, being the person that he is, wants to try to please everybody.
    77:33
    He actually went and if you've ever been in District A2, it's like two stories high. Yeah. So he went and turned all the lights like towards the ceiling. Okay. So and then basically during the first tournament, he had the at the Frosty Flips. he had the lights on for practice and said, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to do the first two rounds with the lights on, and we're going to turn off the lights for rounds three and four, and then we're going to kind of basically vote on it.
    78:15
    And, you know, so he did. And then, of course, the players that wanted the lights on were like, oh, my God, it was unanimous. Everybody wanted it. No, it was like 40 to 32. Like it was pretty close, you know, but the majority wanted the lights on. I will say most of the local players want the lights off because that's what they're used to.
    78:45
    So I think of, what is it, Andy Rosa? He wears a headlamp. I mean. So when it's really dark, he wears a headlamp. He throws a headlamp on. I know other people have moved around with like portable lights or they carry their own lights or something. I mean, it's I get it when I I do that, too. On occasions, I have a light either on the game or on my hat. Interesting. Yeah. There's mostly the locals that wanted to keep it. From like lights. From what I heard. Yes. Yeah. That makes sense. I'm not going to mention the person's name but there was a legitimate top 25 player who I asked, I said, well what do you think? He said, actually I play with the lights off and I... Can I say the name? It's up to you.
    79:43
    I won't say the name. We'll be able to get it. It cracks me up because I saw the same person using their phone though to measure a skill shot. Oh yes, that's the person.
    79:55
    I don't, I mean, at least here at home, I am proud of this. I finished my own basement and I have one wall where all my games are and I actually wired the lighting above those games as a separate line. So when I play pinball, I just turn them off. But those, I mean, the lights though are six feet above the game. So it's crazy clear. But you have to light your game for the stream, don't you? I do. So do you play with lights on, though, when you're off stream, Joel? No. When I play when I'm off stream, I turn my lights off. Because, I mean, the lights are directly above it, so the glare is insane. So would you vote at a – since you're a tournament pinball player, Joel, a very prolific one at that. When you go to District 82, are you going to vote lights on or off?
    80:40
    I'm surprised. It surprises me that a light that's two stories above a pin is really causing – Oh, my God. You just fin-fitted it. No. If I had to guess, I would say lights on. If I had to guess. Okay. That's what I'm saying is I'm surprised that a light that's two stories above a pin is adding that much glare. Like right here, it's six feet above it. I mean, it's massive glare. So I'm like trying to think of some of the tournaments we went to this year, like on the Stern Pro Circuit. I don't remember any of them having the lights off. I don't know. I know. No. The only time we ran into that was Freeplay Florida last year where somebody hit the lights and they went off. Yeah. While you were playing Dead. Yeah. Thank God I got a comp ball. But I did at Freeplay Florida. There was a light, a can light directly above roller games. And that was really throwing me off. Like it was literally in my eyes and it was it was bugging the crap out of me. now could i now could i have worn sunglasses i'm sure might have helped i don't know but the pin shades i do i mean from a streaming standpoint yeah i flood the games with light just to make it better for streaming but the way you set up the lights are off you know off axis and you're trying to avoid glare and then i have the in a reflective glass that i move between games in my stream so it's trying to trying to find that as that balance is a challenge and i know Carl on his rig, he has an umbrella essentially that he moves around. So if there's an overhead light, you can block it. But you're talking just like one single game. Yeah, that's one game. To get like 110 sheets of Invisiglass. 200 something dollars a sheet. I get it. There's no way that he could swap out every game. I mean, that's what I would vote for. I'd vote for the lights to stay on, personally. I mean, it's just To me, it's like I want to be able to see the ball. We talked about that already in this podcast, but especially during competition. I want to see the ball. And then if the GI is going nuts, it's like good luck seeing anything like that. Speaking of seeing anything. Yeah, camera's out. Camera's out. But I'll speak for Eric as the owner, and I totally get his stance. He's put up these play fields and back glasses that are backlit. He wants to show that off. that's kind of like the ambiance of the place. So, you know, it does look really cool with all the lights off and you see those back glasses all lit up. No, it does. As a facility, I think it's awesome whenever you do something like that. Like on a Friday night, Tuesday night, $5 volley, I think that's all good. And I think even like if there's a local tournament, something like that, I just feel like if you're dealing with a national or even on his in his case, a world level type event to where you have all these competitive players flying in, you have a lot of money on the line. I think making the conditions to where it provides the best competitive atmosphere at that pinball machine. I think that that's probably should take priority, at least in my mind. That's what I would think. But again, it's totally up to anybody. I mean, anybody can run their tournaments how they want to run it. And obviously, you know, the flip side of this is all of us knuckleheads have still shown up there even without the lights being on this whole time. So, you know. It just to me, it sounds like Eric needs to have some District 82 branded headlamps. You know, there you go. We talked about that. Eighty five dollars at the front desk. Turn it off. And if you really if you think it's too dark in here, then, yeah, figure out. I mean, I get it. It's it's weird, though. It's to see. I've seen some of the memes and stuff posted and to see your voting. I mean, for it to be so split 50-50, it is an interesting thing. I think it just means people care. I mean, that's the main thing. People are involved. People are actively thinking about this. And they're actively thinking about, okay, how can I have more fun doing this? How can I be more competitive? So, I mean, you know, it's not a bad thing. But lights need to stay on. That's my final point. And if you disagree, then… And if you disagree, we're going to keep voting yes. TripleDrain at gmail.com. I'll tell you right now, if you ever want to get a hold of Travis, don't reach out to any of our stuff because he doesn't read anything.
    85:16
    Patreon is me. We'll get it to him. We'll get it. Patreon is me. I read those and share with the guys. Gmail is Tom and I. Facebook is, I don't know what you do, Travis. He shows up. That's what he does. He shows up with a camera that turns off every 30 minutes, and he's present. He's got kids. Yeah. Well, I know we're running low on time. So like I said, we're recording this in the middle of the day on Friday. We're trying something new here. So we'll probably start wrapping this up. I know we had the Patreon questions. I wanted to go through those.
    85:48
    Here's a real quick question on Facebook. How do you get ready for a long tournament weekend? I'm guessing you rest up and wear comfy shoes. I mean, do you guys have any other advice for that? One train of thought. What's the question? How do you get ready for long tournament weekends?
    86:05
    Rest. Lots of rest. I mean, that's the bottom line. I mean, honestly, I've learned this the hard way, and I learned this at Expo and at Super Series last year, that you have to take care of your body or it's going to reject what you're doing because you're standing up all day. you're being physical with the machine hands are going to hurt forearms are going to hurt feet are going to hurt knees are going to hurt that's just the reality of it so i mean i i know i know it took me a solid three or four weeks to finally feel like i was back to normal after expo oh wow like that's yeah because i mean it's just the games are so long so intense moving the machine elbows hurt wrists hurt i mean arthritis the whole nine yards i mean that's just how it is i wish we could all be 18 21 years old and her body's not broken down yet so joel do you have a special guest i don't know i my daughter apparently that's what you get when you're recording the middle of the day she was yelling something down should we talk about the whopper changes real quick yeah go for it so uh basically the whopper system's changing a little bit um in the sense that So basically, you needed to play 25 games to get 100% TGP. Well, now they're going to make tournaments 200% so you could play 50 games and get a 200% value for your tournament. So essentially, I guess 50 games is the new high. That's a lot of Whopper points. That's a lot. It's going to be crazy how in-disc is.
    88:00
    Yeah, because isn't that going to be like a 300% since it's a major or something like that? It's like something ridiculous. Dang. If only Joel was playing there. uh sure i'm gonna say yes i have no idea what you're what you're saying i was my daughter just wanted to come down and hang out apparently so well why why is she not on the podcast right now uh i mean she said hi my dog's on the podcast right now yeah yeah she should have next time yeah she was they're making cookies upstairs and okay perfect i don't know i'm not yeah normally record at night when the children are fast asleep but um i'm sorry i don't Was there anything else about Whopper? I didn't hear any of that. We were just talking about the Whopper system and how they're changing it. I mean, it's... Our fans wanted it. Good. Way to think of them, yeah. Joel doesn't care, you guys. I don't know. I have nothing to contribute. Joel's retired from tournament football already. I would love to play another one. His third-to-last-place finish was just good enough. That was just a pantheon. I would love to play in another one, but it's obvious. It's just whoppers, the idea of I'm so far from. I wouldn't even worry about that, though. Just play for fun. Play for the friends. Hang out. This is an exciting time in the IFPA world, Joel. Joel, here's my challenge to you. Instead of playing a tournament, find a league. I know. Find a local league. You don't have to go every single time. Just go a couple times. Hang out. Not every time, but some other times. Well, you don't have to be there every day. Or every week. Okay. You can drop like your worst two, or in your case, like every week. I know. Why even submit a score, right? Well, there is that too. That's actually an ongoing thing in the Whopper system.
    89:50
    I mean, you could just drop out after two rounds if you wanted to. You wouldn't affect your 10,000 rank. I'm not too worried. I should, though. I would like to get more involved. So next year, I am planning on, as of right now, I stream every week, and then every other two days a week, every other week. I'm going down to just one day a week. So maybe that'll free me up. I know that'll free me up, you know, some more family time, but hopefully that'll free me up to squeeze in maybe a weekend tournament here or there or something, which could be a fun time, but we will see. He's got to host a private tournament at your house. There we go. I would do that. I would absolutely do that. Why is it an exciting time in the IFPA though?
    90:29
    Oh, that was it. You're prompting me with that. I needed to. Yeah. Okay. Tom, I'm so curious. Why is it so – what am I missing? What are you so excited about? This is when people decide which states they're going to play for. For the state championship. I was talking to – in Cincinnati, I was talking to Lazerloves, Carlos. And he said he's – He's got decisions to make, Joe. He's like, I got four different states that I can qualify in. So I'm trying to figure out which one. but he's like one of the quality like he's basically trying to figure it out based on almost like money so even if i don't qualify in this i'd make more money versus qualifying here and blah blah blah and it's like that's i don't i don't know i mean that sounds like a quite a problem to have like which state do i want to win at i don't know it's pretty crazy for wisconsin um there's a ten thousand dollar prize pool wow yeah where does that money come from? From the players. Us. From tournaments. Your dollar entry fee. So because you guys have had so many tournaments, it's just every... Wow. Okay. So I'm assuming Carl, Mr. California, could technically qualify in Wisconsin if you wanted to.
    91:48
    Let's take a look. You know, we should have just brought on people here so they could declare for a state on our podcast. I'm assuming if you heard... Carl is 32nd in wisconsin so here's the crazy thing like escher being the number one player in wisconsin and the world has a hundred or 1114 whopper points in wisconsin and only second to neil who has 950 wow so who's all qualified for wisconsin so you want me to read through the list hell yeah i want to hear these names thanks for listening guys i hope you enjoyed the podcast go ahead number one escher lefkoff number two neil graff number three david deluga number four carlos de la sarda number five jason werdrick number six raymond davidson number seven josh sharp number eight cassidy milanowski number nine steven bowden number 10 luke nahorniak number 11 yours truly Tom Graff. Number 12, Eric Thorne. Number 13, Alberto Santana. Number 14, Jason Zoller. Number 15, Andy Bagwell. Number 16, Jared August. Number 17, Eric Rentmeester. Number 18, Colin McAlpine. Number 19, Drew Geigle. Number 20, Brian Shepard. Number 21, Matt McCarty. Number 22, Andy Rosa. number 23 Trent Augustine number 24 Eric Strangeway so what's crazy about that I don't know like those are all incredibly good players but a lot of those I mean some of those are local but some of those are California or Colorado people Ohio people Texas people a lot of Chicago people which makes sense it's an easy commute for Chicago but so here's the crazy thing the cut line is like 24 i have a feeling like that'll move down to maybe like 30th or 31st because there will be other like some of the chicago people may just stick with illinois well i know for a fact because it's already so if you go you can go check all this stuff out if you go to ifpa and then click on champion championship series and go to north america and if you go all the way across to where it says registration um there's already people registered for wisconsin so like neil's attending dave deluca's attending josh sharp is attending so josh is coming from illinois and then myself eric thorn are attending uh andy bagwell is not because he's actually running the illinois tournament and then uh brian shepherd said he's not because he picked ohio That's crazy. So you're all picking states, and then based on where people – you can only pick one state, right? Like you can only – Yep. So you want to play wherever you think you can make the most money as well as whatever chance you think would actually give you the top one. Because if you win, what is it? What's the big prize you get to play?
    94:59
    At nationals. Yeah. Correct. Yep. So are you doing Oklahoma there, Travis? No, I'm actually not going to play in the state of Oklahoma. Yep. That is crazy. Nope. Okay. You haven't declared yet? Nope, I have not. But not Oklahoma. I can say I'm not going to play in Oklahoma. Okay, all right. Crazy. I'm not playing anywhere. I'm not playing this year. Really? Which just blows my mind. I'm still going to Oklahoma. I just don't plan on playing. Monica's going to play in the women's state. So, like, I could, in theory, play at Wisconsin if it fell down to me, because I think I'm, like, 26 or 27. I'm 26, and you would be the 24th seed right now. So then who would I have to play in Wisconsin? Hold on a second. Who would be my first victim? Move off the page. You'd have to play the ninth seed.
    95:53
    Oh, that's an easy match. Easy. No, it's Stephen Bowden. Yeah, I'm not going to play in Wisconsin. No. No, not playing Wisconsin. I'm good. Yeah, so it'll be interesting what people pick. Interesting. I'm pretty sure Jason's going to come here.
    96:12
    Raymond, I'm not sure. I think he'll pick Illinois. Steven might pick Illinois, might come here. And then Carlos, don't know. I'm almost like 98% sure Escher's coming here.
    96:27
    Wow. That's crazy. But, hey, good on all you guys. I'll be curious to see how that goes. I mean, that'll be a fun tournament. But here's the crazy thing, Joel. Like, if you just show up to the tournament and you lose your match, you get $100.
    96:44
    Okay. For just showing up. Nice. I mean, that's tempting me with a good time. Come hang out, spot a cow. I mean, that would pay for a spot a cow right there.
    96:55
    Never mind the gas. If you have a buy or you get knocked out in the second round, you get $200. If you make it to the semifinals, it's $400. and then it goes up from there for top four top four gets 600 third place alone gets a thousand dollars uh second place 1600 and first place 2800 dollars nice yeah nice it's crazy well uh i hope you win all the money yeah i hope you win all the money a lot of money yeah Well, cool. Well, Tom has the best chance because he's got two entries into state. Two entries? Oh, me and Neil? Yeah. Yeah, we're going to have to do some kind of split. You think Neil's going to share his prize pool with you? We already talked about it. We're going to split. Yeah, there you go. But the real question is – If we have to play each other, then it's all good. Yeah, the real question is are the lights on or off? Ah, that is a great question. I don't know the answer to that. Okay. all right so well like i said we're we are short on time but uh we have we have plans uh we'll probably hit it next episode because by that time twippy stuff will be out so basically we're gonna we'll end up recapping 2023 what we see game wise and whatnot and then there's a lot there's a lot coming out for 2024 that we're kind of like let's see let's see what happens i think they've already publicly announced that stern's only going to do two games or at least that's what they're leaning at so what does that mean and you know who i'm assuming brian eddie and jack danger so does that mean we're not seeing anything from keith elwyn for another year i don't know we have american pinball which i don't know galactic tank force hopefully we have chicago gaming which they have a licensed theme ready to go but they better not release it until more of these cactus canyons come out so what's going on with that i mean i just think it's gonna be i don't know i don't know i work for a distributor of a mic tell you i don't know i have no clue so no spooky's gonna be making scooby-doo so i will be excited for that and then we're just kind of waiting just a waiting game it's gonna be a weird year i think it's gonna be a weird year and um hopefully that goes well and i don't know so we'll talk more about that we'll talk more about that next episode. But was there anything else? Anything else you guys needed to go over? No, no, I think that's pretty much it. We actually hit all of our points that we talked about pre-production. Yeah, we didn't go off the rails too much. Perfect. All right, well, let's plug it up.
    99:39
    Travis, go for it. Yeah, you guys can find me right here on the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. Should I just stop asking you? No, no, because eventually next year, I'll start saying what else I'm doing. Oh, you'll have stuff to plug. Okay. Yeah, I'll have stuff to plug next year. I mean, you could plug. If you're just going to plug our podcast, you could say, check out our merch on Silverball Swag. Or, you know, thanks to Jackson Gee for making incredible art for our stuff. You can also find Travis on OnlyFans. Oh, yeah. Don't waste your money. There you go. All that stuff. His camera goes out even more on that. Let me tell you. Hey, it's okay. $20. It comes right back on, Joel. It's one of the good parts. Yep. uh tom go for it uh i stream on back city's pinball on switch and youtube so uh if you would please check it out i'm desperate there we go okay and then yeah i'm joel i do uh obviously this and then i stream on the pinball network every wednesday 10 to midnight uh check out the tp and after our shows those are a lot of fun discussions those are on youtube and then i Stream for Flippin' Out every other Thursday. Definitely making some changes next year. I'm going to continue to stream for Flippin' Out, but I think we're going to go just YouTube, only YouTube streaming. So we're going to try that, see what that's going to be like. So sorry, Twitch. We're going to try YouTube out. And then, fun fact, I'm actually interviewing George Gomez for Just Another Pinball podcast next week. Going to ask him a bunch of questions and it should be a fun interview. Can you ask him when the code's going to be done? Yeah, I'll just go right into that. Hey, George, how you doing? when's the code going to be done. Tom wanted to know. And he'll be like, oh yeah, no problem.
    101:16
    I'll be like, that son of a... I think that's it. So yeah, let's wrap it up here. Like always, Tom, you have the last words. Play more pinball.