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BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·42m 56s·analyzed·Jan 25, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Chris details 10-hour Museum of Pinball playtest comparing 78 machines, evaluates Zen digital Williams recreations, and reports Arcuda production timeline.

Summary

Chris Frebus recounts his experience at It Never Drains tournament in Banning, California (hosted at the Museum of Pinball), where he played 78+ different machines across 10 hours. He discusses experiences with modern Stern machines (Star Wars Premium/LE, Deadpool), boutique titles (Spooky's Total Nuclear Annihilation, Home Pin's Thunderbirds), and rare machines (Heighway Pinball's Alien, Houdini). He also provides updates on Arcuda's low-profile approach to cabinet production and their new Touch Wizard arcade bartop, and compares Zen Studios' digital Williams 7 recreations against physical machines.

Key Claims

  • Arcuda is taking a low profile on cabinet announcements until production is really close, having already secured pre-orders and planning to announce when products are ready to ship

    high confidence · Chris contacted Arcuda directly and reported their strategy: 'they're kind of taking a low profile regarding the cabinets until they are actually in production, which they're saying is really, really close to happening'

  • Arcuda's new Touch Wizard is a 19-inch Android touchscreen bar-top device that can play Pinball Arcade and other Android games, with pre-purchased access to 76 TPA tables in limited numbers

    high confidence · Chris reports: 'It's got a joystick, it's got the buttons. And then it also has flipper buttons on the side because you can also play Pinball Arcade. And as is the case with what they were doing with the Arcuda cabinets, they made some pre-purchases of that block of 76 tables'

  • Star Wars Premium/LE plays noticeably differently than the Pro version, with longer game times and more engaging shot selection due to long wireforms

    medium confidence · Chris: 'when I've played the Pro version my games have been just super short and I haven't really liked the shot selection. This one, my game was much longer and the shots were kind of fun. And I'm like, is it really just the difference of having long wireforms?'

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation has unusually shallow flippers and modified slingshot geometry that makes the simple playfield deceptively difficult

    medium confidence · Chris and Jared discuss geometry: 'I think that's the reason why it's so weird... The flippers feel shallower as well. Even though they're using Bally Williams parts underneath there, they just feel shallower'

  • Heighway Pinball's Alien is designed around darkness mechanics (Hudson callouts: 'they turned off the lights') but lacks narrative progression compared to Zen Studios' Aliens digital table

    high confidence · Chris: 'This thing just goes for the highlight reel of action action action so there's no story at all I didn't feel a progression I just felt like I was just thrown into the middle of a firefight right off the bat'

  • Home Pin's Thunderbirds uses non-standard flipper buttons with steeper concave depth that don't feel right compared to industry standard buttons, same issue observed on Arcuda cabinets

Notable Quotes

  • “It Never Drains in Southern California... hosted at the Museum of Pinball in Banning. This is that facility where they have over 500 machines and, unfortunately, are only able to be open about three times a year due to zoning regulations, which is just… which is stupid. Mind-bogglingly just dumb on the part of Banning.”

    Chris Frebus @ early in episode — Establishes venue context and regulatory constraint on Museum of Pinball operations

  • “So I think it's something about the geometry geometry around the slingshots yeah that just makes the thing bizarrely hungry... I think that's the reason why it's so weird. And it's just like they've just they've moved a post somewhere and they've moved the position of the slingshots back just a little bit”

    Chris Frebus / Jared Morgan (collaborative analysis) @ mid-episode — Technical analysis of why Total Nuclear Annihilation feels more difficult despite simple layout

  • “I saw a funny thing I think it was on Instagram where they said they had a picture of Simon Says, the electronic version of Simon Says, and then Star Wars. Okay. If you could play Simon Says, you can work out the bonus modes in Star Wars. I went, no.”

    Chris Frebus @ mid-episode — Community criticism of Star Wars rule complexity and shot selection difficulty

  • “This table is made for the dark. You would hate it, Jared... the callouts are purposely there with the intention of you're not supposed to be able to see the ball... it puts you in that mode for maybe two or three seconds, just long enough for you to probably fumble and lose a ball”

    Chris Frebus @ mid-episode — Design philosophy insight: Heighway Alien intentionally uses darkness as mechanical difficulty

  • “so me coming from having played Zen Studios' Aliens table, which in my book is fantastic for storytelling... they go through every beat of the movie. They really give you that sense of atmosphere and dread... this thing just goes for the highlight reel of action action action so there's no story at all”

    Chris Frebus @ late mid-episode — Comparative critique of Heighway Alien vs Zen digital Aliens; narrative design philosophy comparison

  • “I spent 10 hours playing pinball, guys. My forearms were throbbing... I think I wound up playing 78 different machines. You counted them? Every single time I played a machine, I entered it in.”

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonMuseum of PinballorganizationIt Never DrainseventArcudacompanyStar WarsgameTotal Nuclear AnnihilationgameDeadpoolgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Arcuda strategically transitioning from pre-announcement marketing to production-ready communication; already secured pre-order base; shifting to announce-when-shipping model

    high · Chris's direct contact report: 'they're kind of taking a low profile regarding the cabinets until they are actually in production... they basically got everybody that was going to buy pre-ordered'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Head to Head Pinball's Twerpies Awards rated Home Pin Thunderbirds poorly across worst theme integration, worst sound, and worst layout categories

    high · Chris: 'they do the Twerpy Awards... Thunderbirds kind of scooped the lot... worst theme integration, worst sound, worst layouts... everything was just like, no, this is a terrible game'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Total Nuclear Annihilation's deceptive difficulty caused by modified flipper depth and slingshot geometry despite simple playfield layout

    high · Chris and Jared analysis: 'The flippers feel shallower... they've moved the position of the slingshots back just a little bit... elongated the exit from the return lanes'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Heighway Alien intentionally uses darkness mechanics (Hudson callouts 'they turned off the lights') as design/difficulty element rather than aesthetic choice

    high · Chris: 'The lighting on it is really cool. I mean, it plays with the atmosphere of what an Alien game should be... callouts are purposely there with the intention of you're not supposed to be able to see the ball'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Heighway Alien called 'Alien' despite being entirely Aliens-focused game; Heighway unable to secure Ripley voice/likeness or first-film content; possible licensing limitations

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.129

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Pinball Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frevis, aka Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, halfway across the world, Jared Morgan. Hello. Howdy, howdy, howdy. Howdy, howdy. Hello.
0:30
Yeah. It's Monday, not Sunday today. Well, it's your Monday. It's my Sunday. But it doesn't matter because we have tomorrow off anyway for Martin Luther King Day. Oh, right.
0:41
Not that you'll be able to enjoy it because everything's still closed. No, everything's always open.
0:46
No, well, I'm talking about all the natural places and government places. Oh, those things. Oh, well, yeah.
0:54
That's what happens when you have a government shutdown. Yeah. yeah we're not going to talk about that that's all boring stuff we don't want to deal with that incredibly boring especially for somebody that's not American I do want to say I am fascinated by the fact that because these conversations happen over on Digital Pinball Fans a lot in the kind of our random thread stuff where other countries seem to know more about what's going on than we do it's quite fascinating i don't know squat about what's going on in any other country i barely you know it's hard enough keeping track of what's going on on my own and yet there's people that just know like they're pulling stuff like deep pulls i'm like what the heck are you just like utterly fascinated with us i don't get it so that's weird no i wouldn't i wouldn't go to that extent i just see what i see on my google news feed and that's all yeah yeah um you what to know. So we're going to jump right into the action here. So here's the question, Jared. Do you want to start with, actually, I know what we're going to start with, but you can think about this. You get to think about, do you want to start with digital pinball or real pinball? Those are your choices. But what we're going to first start with, we mentioned, I think last podcast, we were like, hey, what the hell's up with Arcuda? We haven't heard from them in a while. True. Well, if we had been on their pre-order list for a cabinet, we would be getting notifications.

high confidence · Chris: 'they're not the same buttons that Stern and Williams and Bally and Data East all used which are a shallow concave and it's a wide concave this is a much deeper steeper concave to it'

  • Zen Studios' Williams 7 digital table recreations closely match physical machines, including replicating authentic flipper angles and playfield quirks

    high confidence · Chris: 'I play the real thing, I'll be damned if the same flipper angles didn't plague me... Zen has nailed it. They've really nailed it.'

  • Heighway Pinball's Alien was originally planned to have selectable film choice (Alien or Aliens via flipper selection) but this feature was not implemented

    medium confidence · Jared: 'You can actually select both films. Okay. We're getting at the game. You can use your flippers to go, I'll have Aliens or Alien. That wasn't, that wasn't an option... Well, that was a plan. Maybe they haven't implemented it.'

    • Chris Frebus @ near end — Quantifies extent of Museum of Pinball experience; demonstrates dedication to thorough evaluation

  • “I did play both of them. I had to. You know, come on. Yeah. Yes. They also had a Primus pinball over there, so I played a game on that, which is like, you know, it's just, whoa, Nelly, but with Primus art and Primus music, which I'll grant you is an improvement.”

    Chris Frebus @ early-mid episode — Demonstrates comparative approach to themed reskins; acknowledges theme as differentiator

  • “when I've played the Pro version my games have been just super short and I haven't really liked the shot selection. This one, my game was much longer and the shots were kind of fun. And I'm like, is it really just the difference of having long wireforms?”

    Chris Frebus @ early-mid episode — Observes Premium/LE playability advantage over Pro model; suggests manufacturing tier differences affect gameplay

    • Heighway Pinball Alien
    game
    Home Pin Thunderbirdsgame
    Houdinigame
    Zen Studioscompany
    Williams 7product
    Pinball Arcade (TPA)product
    Black Rosegame
    NBA Fast Breakgame
    Head to Head Pinballorganization
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Attack from Marsgame
    Ghostbustersgame

    medium · Chris: 'You didn't get Ripley's voice or likeness for the table. Which is a problem... it's called Alien when it was clearly Aliens'

  • ?

    community_signal: Home Pin using non-standard flipper button concave geometry (deeper/steeper) vs industry standard across all legacy and modern manufacturers; consistency issue across Home Pin and Arcuda cabinets

    high · Chris: 'they're not the same buttons that Stern and Williams and Bally and Data East all used... this is a much deeper steeper concave to it... And I questioned... they had, I didn't care for the flipper buttons then either'

  • ?

    announcement: Arcuda Touch Wizard 19-inch Android touchscreen bar-top device announced via Twitter; includes limited pre-purchased TPA 76-table license block

    high · Chris: 'they did make an announcement on Twitter... Touch Wizard, which is a 19-inch screen, touchscreen... It's got a joystick... And then it also has flipper buttons on the side'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Heighway Alien originally planned to include selectable film choice (Alien vs Aliens via flipper selection) but feature appears not implemented; unclear if abandoned or still pending

    medium · Jared: 'You can actually select both films... You can use your flippers to go, I'll have Aliens or Alien. That wasn't an option... Well, that was a plan. Maybe they haven't implemented it'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Star Wars Premium/LE versions feature long wireforms that measurably extend game length and alter shot selection vs Pro model

    medium · Chris: 'when I've played the Pro version my games have been just super short... This one, my game was much longer... is it really just the difference of having long wireforms?'

  • ?

    product_concern: Multiple machines at Museum of Pinball exhibit maintenance/calibration issues (Black Rose cannon misalignment, Houdini weak flippers, visibility problems on dark-themed tables)

    high · Black Rose: 'cannon... was slightly off-level. So whenever you'd hit the flipper, it would make the ball do a hop.' Houdini: 'flippers seem to have no strength'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen Studios' digital Williams 7 recreations praised for superior accuracy and physics simulation vs original physical machines in some cases

    high · Chris: 'I play the real thing, I'll be damned if the same flipper angles didn't plague me... Zen has nailed it. They've really nailed it.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Museum of Pinball in Banning restricted to 3 annual operating days due to local zoning regulations

    high · Chris: 'This is that facility where they have over 500 machines and, unfortunately, are only able to be open about three times a year due to zoning regulations'

    • 2:25
    Neither of us are on that, so we don't get the notifications. So I reached out to our contact at Arcuda, and I was like, hey, what's going on? Is there anything to announce or whatever? And basically, the word was, they're kind of taking a low profile regarding the cabinets until they are actually in production, which they're saying is really, really close to happening. But there was no point anymore of kind of announcing stuff for a product that you still wouldn't be able to buy, because they basically got everybody that was going to buy pre-ordered. Exactly. So now it's just a matter of, hey, we'll announce, we'll make the big show things when we actually have a product, and that people can then go, yes, I want to buy now, and then they'll be arriving.
    3:12
    But they did make an announcement on Twitter, is where I saw it, regarding their Touch Wizard, which is a 19-inch screen, touchscreen, basically your bar-top gaming device.
    3:27
    It's an Android touchscreen, isn't it? Exactly, yeah, it is Android. So basically, any game that you can play on Android, you'll be able to play on this. It's got a joystick, it's got the buttons.
    3:38
    And then it also has flipper buttons on the side because you can also play Pinball Arcade. And as is the case with what they were doing with the Arcuda cabinets, They made some pre-purchases of that block of 76 tables that you no longer can play in TVA.
    3:55
    And it's available on this, obviously, in limited numbers. Because once they sell out of that software package, it's gone.
    4:05
    There is no price announcement yet for it. But that is something to keep in mind for that bar top unit. And they had a YouTube video about it also. showing it.
    4:19
    And so basically about half the video was showing Bimble Arcade and the other half was showing that you can do Candy Crush on it. You can do arcade stick games with it. You can do all manner of stuff.
    4:30
    I just wanted to make sure that there has been an update. We did check up on it and obviously we'll give more info about the Arcuda cabinet when it gets closer to that time period, which again, they said they're really close.
    4:45
    We'll wait. We can wait a little bit longer. All right. So now that you've had time to decide, what do you want? I'll go with real pinball. Real pinball. So the reason why we did not talk last week in a podcast was I was at It Never Drains in Southern California, which was hosted at the Museum of Pinball in Manning. This is that facility where they have over 500 machines and, unfortunately, are only able to be open about three times a year due to zoning regulations, which is just… which is stupid. Mind-bogglingly just dumb on the part of banning.
    5:24
    So yeah, I was not playing in the tournament. I stepped foot into the tournament side of things. Basically, the warehouse where they normally had all the standard arcade cabinets got pushed to the side and curtained off, and they had a whole bunch of pin machines in there for the tournament. And it was packed. it was kind of a zoo in there I didn't even want to like get remotely close because I didn't want to get in the way of people that were waiting in line to you know play next and I really had no clue what to observe it just was one of those things where I was just like I'm much happier just going over into the other room and playing a whole bunch of pinball machines that sounds like the right approach that sounds nuts that being said on that side I'm glad I walked over to the tournament side because that was where they had NBA Fastbreak they had two of them they were side by side basically it was somebody advertising the difference between hey look at this with incandescent lights and look at this with LEDs and they were tastefully done LEDs not clown vomit LEDs it wasn't clown vomit and it wasn't that hyper bright too like they looked really good side by side So I was able to get my fix of playing some NBA Fast Break, and they were both playing really nicely. Yes, I did play both of them.
    6:52
    I had to. You know, come on. Yeah. Yes. They also had a Primus pinball over there, so I played a game on that, which is like, you know, it's just, whoa, Nelly, but with Primus art and Primus music, which I'll grant you is an improvement. but it's still the play field it's I mean you either like Wonelli or you don't it's the Eldorado of Stens modern lineup right and also speaking of reskins of a sort they had the Beatles pinball over there that was not on free play they were doing a charity tournament with that and I took a look at it and was watching somebody play it and just kind of went eh Yeah.
    7:39
    I think unless you're really into the Beatles and you've got a lot of spare money lying around, that's not going to really be an attractive pin for you. Right.
    7:49
    Unfortunately, two of the tables that I really wanted to play were also over only on the tournament side. They basically yanked them from the free play side. And that's what you'd be walking down the aisles. Also, there'd be a gap where a pinball machine should have been. You realize, oh, yeah, that's because it's over at the tournament. Yeah. But I really wanted to play Dialed In. It was part of the tournament. Now, I've played Dialed In before. That wasn't like, oh, I really want to. But those were two tables that I was really like, I want to get my hands on those because I haven't been able to.
    8:22
    Fortunately, the other tables that I wanted to get my hands on, Deadpool being the main one, I was able to get a whole bunch of games in on that. all the sterns that they had were the premium or LE versions it was none of the pro versions so I finally got to play Star Wars the way it should be played ah right with the Hyperloop yeah and it's so weird I really cannot say why but when I've played the pro version my games have been just super short and I haven't really liked the shot selection. This one, my game was much longer and the shots were kind of fun. And I'm like, is it really just the difference of having long habit trails? Or, I don't know. It was weird.
    9:13
    Still not the greatest table. I have things on the floor at New The World and I just never bother. I just don't like the game. It doesn't get my dollars. I can't wrap my head around what you're supposed to be doing. I saw a funny thing I think it was on Instagram where they said they had a picture of Simon Says, the electronic version of Simon Says, and then Star Wars. Okay. If you could play Simon Says, you can work out the bonus modes in Star Wars. I went, no. Well, yes, you can, but I don't really care. So I don't want to play either of those things. so other tables that I was really looking forward to and hoping that they had Total Nuclear Annihilation I'm not a fan of what Spooky has put out and there was a whole section where basically all the Spooky tables were so I also got to play Alice Cooper I got to play their Domino's Pizza table I got to play the Jetsons I wouldn't have been bothered with the Jetsons basically Yeah, you know, it's there. When I see it again, you got to try it.
    10:23
    I just, I don't know. There's something about what the layouts, what the rule sets are. Spooky just doesn't grab me at all. Total Annihilation, I get why people love it. It a very simple layout and yet it is a butt kicker a game It feels rock Everything about it just You feel the flippers. You feel the motors. It just feels like it's made of steel.
    10:56
    It's the old argument that people used to make against when you'd play a Data East table versus playing a Williams table. Yes, it just felt more solid. Exactly, and this table just... Everything about it felt solid and just like i'm here you know so i'm here to kill you it was it was your money and yet it is such a simple layout but i kept on coming back to it so yeah that's exactly what it does to you like you guys oh i've just i've only had like a one minute game i need another one after that yeah it's a really open play field there's only a couple of areas to shoot you're like come on how different i should be able to just dominate on this and you don't nope you do not so i think it's something about the geometry geometry around the slingshots yeah that just makes the thing bizarrely hungry yeah it's like they've just they've moved a post somewhere and they've moved the position of the slingshots back just a little bit i think or elongated the exit from the return lanes. Yeah. And it's completely changed the way that game plays. I think that's the reason why it's so weird. And it's just like the flippers feel shallower as well. Even though they're using Belly Williams parts underneath there, they just feel shallower and it's much harder to trap the ball.
    12:24
    I also got to play... Let's see. I'm looking at my list here. Oh, I got to play Aerosmith, which I'd never played before. Oh, okay. I couldn't hear it because there's too much noise, so I couldn't hear the table. I really like the toy mech, though. How cool is it? Of a ball launching into the toy box or the attic. The toy box in the attic, right? Yeah.
    12:47
    I hit it once, and I went, wait, did I just see what I saw? And then I was like, I've got to get that again. And sure enough, I got the lock, and I think it launches, and I see a ball go ping! You fly over it and just make this perfect landing. And actually, you hit the shot? I was like, yeah, it's cool! it's a little bit like it's like a modern version of Fastbreak isn't it where you shoot the hoop and it just gets it perfectly every time and then I like also how it ejects the balls once you get all three it just basically pushes up and they just kind of dribble out it's a vomit of balls which is funny maybe that's a trend with Stern because also on if you get Groot multiball on Guardians of the Galaxy it vomits balls out yeah so anyway I couldn't tell you if I really enjoyed the table or not because like I said I couldn't hear it makes it hard with music tables it's the same with Iron Maiden if that table's not cranking loud it just doesn't really do very much for you some people have said that they're that annoyed with the music now with it that it's actually a blessing that they don't hear the music anymore because the thing is with the music it's not really integrated into the game it's just a soundtrack you play at this stage, unless they're going to code in modes or power-ups with the music that you select.
    14:04
    A little bit like ACDC, but they haven't done it. It's just the music. It's like a jukebox. Also got to play Thunderbirds. Now, this is my home pin. Home pin is the company that is sharing parts with Arcuda.
    14:23
    All right, yes. I hate the flipper buttons. I hate them. they're not the same buttons that Stern and Williams and Bally and Data East all used which are a shallow concave and it's a wide concave this is a much deeper steeper concave to it and it just doesn't feel right it feels like your fingertips are pointing in rather than using the pad of your finger yeah I was just like And I questioned when I did go to Farsight in June and play the Arcuda cabinet they had, I didn't care for the flipper buttons then either. And I mentioned something to our guy at Arcuda about that. And he kind of, oh, what? I don't know. Didn't seem to really recognize. And I was like, ah, maybe it was just a prototype or whatever. But here it is on this HomePen cabinet. And I went, oh, this is what they're using, isn't it? I was just like, oh, it doesn't feel right on my fingers.
    15:23
    Kind of an interesting pen, though. I mean, the game itself seemed interesting. I did maybe two games on it, and it's kind of like, okay, it was better than the Jetsons. Well, yes, that's not hard to do. But they were both intended to be entry-level pinball games, like games that are friendlier to those that are unfamiliar with pin. That's right. I think the home pin Thunderbirds was modeled off the System 11 style. Okay. When really all you had going for it was building up to the multiple and doing some modes. I have not played it myself yet. It was on tour in Australia at one point. They were going city to city, but I wasn't able to get to it. And that is literally the only chance I would have had to actually touch it.
    16:14
    The funny thing is that there's another podcast called Head to Head Pinball, and they do what they call the, you know how there's the twippies? Yeah. Well, they do the twerpies.
    16:26
    The twerpies are the worst games. Not the best games, but the worst games. And Thunderbirds kind of scooped the lot. Wow. Like, worst theme integration, worst sound, worst layouts. Like, everything was just like, no, this is a terrible game. Wow. So, yeah. So in that section of kind of, they're kind of calling it their rare, hard to find section of pins.
    16:58
    They had two that I was really looking forward and like had no clue that I would see them there. But as soon as I saw them, I was like, yes. So the first one was Houdini. Oh, right. I've seen the pictures and I'd read some of the things. I was like, that sounds really cool.
    17:16
    And then I got in front of the thing and started playing it, and I don't like it. Houdini is one that we've got in a place next to Netherworld, and I never ever go there. But I should go there so I can have a look at it too, to see what it's like. It has some of the most narrow thread-the-needle shots I've ever come across.
    17:40
    And the worst part of it is, those are hurry-up targets. Oh, really? And it's like, are you kidding me? It is, okay, you know in, I think you've played Tales from the Crypt before? Tales from the Crypt has a really narrow shot up on the, I want to say it's, yeah, it's a ramp shot, I believe. That's essentially what Houdini has two of. There are two of these sections. Now, one of them is a traditional lane to shoot the ball. I can't remember if it's an orbit or an over. But it's just barely wider than the ball itself. Yeah. And so all of a sudden, I get a hurry up, and it's to shoot that. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
    18:18
    I'm never going to hit it in that amount of time. And I tried and tried and tried, and I just kept ricocheting all over. And then I've got to wait for the ball to get to the proper flipper to be able to do it again. It just was like, no, you're high. And then the other one is the actual – is like an actual mode start. It's over on the left-hand side. And if you've got to thread through bumpers, three bumpers, to get to this spot to trigger it. I was just like, come on!
    18:47
    So the mode starts in a similar position to what on Iron Maiden the lift ramp is. Like, you've got to thread the needle through the... Yeah, but isn't that a threading the needle kind of like what Whirlwind has? Yeah. Which isn't much of a need... I mean, it's... There's space.
    19:05
    Yeah. It's still a pretty tight shot. I mean, yeah. I'm talking, this is just unforgiving. It's just plain unforgiving. Also, I wouldn't be so hard on it if it wasn't for the fact that the flippers seem to have no strength.
    19:20
    And, I mean, I want that ball to be rocketing to these positions, and it felt more like it was just kind of dribbling, which also threw off my aim for trying to make these really insanely narrow shots. And then I couldn't get a grip at all on, like, I would start a mode, and I'm expecting to see, you know, shoot for the blinky light kind of thing. And I said, it was like, shoot for the milk canister. I'm like, oh great. So now I have to examine the table to figure out, okay, I see a milk canister toy, but why is this thing over here lit up?
    19:55
    And I mean, it was just one of those things where everything about it just, and I played it probably four different times, trying to give it another shot, give it another shot, give it another shot. And I just, every single time came away with it just going, I do not like this. Don't like it. the other table that I was just like jumped for joy when I saw it was they had a highway pinballs alien. Oh, right now talk about a rare one because not many of these got made before they went to put, um, and of course the aliens is my favorite movie. So I was like, here we go. This'll be good. I've never touched a highway pinball machine and they had right next to it full throttle. So I got to, I got to play both of them. they seem grip wise, like a wide body.
    20:45
    Um, but I don't think the layout is, I think it's just wider because they can do that whole swap, the play field in and out. Yeah. I think they've got like extra sort of for one of a bit of words, side rail action going on. It felt like maybe an extra two inches, two or three inches to the table from what a standard machine was. Um,
    21:05
    that table is made for the dark. You would hate it. Jared. we had this discussion when we were talking about doing, um, uh, strobe multiball with attack from Mars. This table kills the lights a lot And the thing is is as it kills the lights you get uh Hudson sitting there going they turned off the lights how they do that man You know doing that kind of thing So I mean the call are purposely there with the intention of you're not supposed to be able to see the ball.
    21:38
    Ross. And it'll put you in that mode for maybe, you know, two or three seconds, just long enough for you to probably fumble and lose a ball. And then it'll kick on the lights and maybe it'll be all red lights. The lighting on it is really cool. I mean, it plays with the atmosphere of what an Alien game should be.
    22:02
    I mean, it really does a good job of that. My complaint is the table is called Alien, it's clearly all based on Aliens, and really should have just been called Colonial Marines.
    22:16
    Oh, gosh. It essentially amounts to you setting up sentry guns, trying to get to the APC, and aliens coming and swarming. That's it. So me coming from having played Zen's aliens table, which in my book is fantastic for storytelling. I mean, they go through every beat of the movie. They really give you that sense of atmosphere and dread. I mean they just captured the movie to a T this thing just goes for the highlight reel of action action action so there's no story at all I didn't feel a progression I just felt like I was just thrown into the middle of a firefight right off the bat it has some kind of weird dead ends and there are some odd flipper placements and the thing is that the flippers are dark and not lit so on the upper side of the playfield. So half the time I'd forget as my ball was going by that there was even a flipper there.
    23:21
    That's a problem. That's a problem, but I did like the... So they do the full video board just like Jersey Jack does. But they also have that exact same set of information embedded into the playfield itself. So I liked that I didn't have to keep on looking up. I could just look at the center playfield where the action was and see exactly the information that was being given. The exact same thing. A heads-up display just for while you're playing, plus the black glasses there for the people who are watching. Yeah. Which is essentially what the black glasses are there for. They're designed to attract. Right. Yeah, so yeah. That's really good. So it was pretty cool.
    24:02
    And I played Full Throttle a little bit and kind of messed around with that. They seemed like well-built tables and everything. what's that? it's a shame that they didn't go any further yeah I just think that they could have like I said all props go to Zen because I think that he just now having played both of them I can say they're the hands down winner in terms of who captured the movie the best and I'm sure that if Zen was putting together a real table they could do a light show just like it I'll put it this way. If they wanted to emulate that aliens table, they could. And they could probably do what they need to do on it to bring it up to what they wanted. Yeah, it would be easy. Yeah. I also say Colonial Marines because you only ever hear the Marines talk. They didn't get Ripley's voice or likeness for the table. Which is a problem. And I don't, again, I'm confused as to why it's called Alien when it was clearly Aliens. unless there's a software mode that you can pick between the films, but that wasn't available.
    25:14
    You can actually select both films. Okay. We're getting at the game. You can use your flippers to go, I'll have aliens or alien. That wasn't, that wasn't an option.
    25:24
    Well, that was a plan. Maybe they haven't implemented it. And if they haven't now, they won't. That's right. So yes, that was the plan there. Okay. So maybe that's why the, there wasn't really, I mean, other than an alien queen who's, or not even a queen, it was an alien whose jaw jutted out. Yeah. Why we didn't see that.
    25:46
    But, okay. That's the reason why, yeah. I did want to highlight, I played every single one of the, and this is going to kind of shift us over to the digital side of things. Okay. So I've been, obviously Zen has their Williams 7 tables that they have currently available to play. Yep. And I've been playing the mobile beta a lot going through all those.
    26:11
    So it made me go, okay, I need to go touch all of these machines just to see how well Zen has done. Yes. I can safely say they've done a knockdown absolute bonkers great job. Right. I remember when I did the same thing with playing whatever was in TPA, that it was like, oh yeah, they did it pretty good. It was one of those things where it was like, I gave some latitude to foresight for what they did, but they captured a lot of stuff. No, Xen has nailed it. They've really nailed it. For instance, Junkyard. I was concerned that the flipper angles that were coming off on that were somehow too artificial. There was something wrong to me. I play the real thing, I'll be damned if the same flipper angles didn't plague me. It's a thing.
    27:01
    Weird side note, I think somebody installed a really good sound system into Junkyard, the one that they had there, because I don't think Junkyard ever had a rumble motor, but man that thing was rumbling like crazy. Do you reckon it was like pin sound speakers or something? That's what I reckon, because it was anytime there was any kind of a bass note it was constantly hitting itself for sure. Yeah, it was kind of cool. I was like hey, that's pretty neat. Makes me go, maybe I should install a speaker into my microcab there. yeah like a transducer or something like that in there I played Black Rose okay so at this museum they have overhead lighting but they basically block the lighting so it only shoots out the side so it's kind of a very ambient yeah it's very diffused and that's only down the center of the aisle the lights that are directly over the pinball are virtually dark. So when you're looking at the table, the only illumination is coming from the pinball machine itself, for the most part.
    28:14
    So I'm saying... The lighting in the building is more like general illumination only. Exactly. So you can walk around and not bump into people, but it's dark.
    28:24
    Black Rose, not only does it have black flippers, they have black rubber on it. Oh, geez. It was so hard to see the flippers.
    28:35
    And when the ball was coming down, it was just like, wow, that's brutal. Where is it? You know, if they had have done the original intent with Black Rose using the black pinballs, game over. That would have been that. Game over. The other thing was hitting the broadside was so difficult because the cannon, you know, it's a little piece of plastic that's on a disc that basically moves, was slightly off-level. So whenever you'd hit the flipper, it would make the ball do a hop. Oh, no. It had the lip. It had a lip. And that, oh, my gosh, talk about just ruining a game. Yeah. So on that, I was like, hey, I prefer playing this in Zen then because it actually works. You don't have to worry about that particular thing. It's so easy to fix too, eh? It's just got a little screw adjuster underneath that allows you to level that whole thing off.
    29:28
    Yeah, I don't know, but if you get any part of that plastic warped ever so slightly, it's a big piece of plastic. A big piece of plastic, yeah. Because it's right in the playfield there. And I found that, I found Medieval Madness to actually be the one that they had on site there to be easier than what Zen has modeled. So there you go.
    29:51
    But it was fun playing all those. I did play Attack from Mars, and I did get Strobe Multiball, and it was glorious in all of its darkness. All of its darkness, and epilepsy-inducing joy. Yes. I did find, and I'm just kind of curious, there's a bunch of tables that look hideous in the dark. Yeah. When they're that, they need full light, and they're typically stern tables, and it's not the newest of the Sterns, it's that, well like for instance, Avengers and that era where they were basically running out of money yeah and all those CSI and those yeah, speaking of, I played CSI never played it, I don't know why that was a fun game to play, I played a bunch of that I was having a good time, I think it was again, the rules were simple enough The shots were interesting enough. I don't care for the theming, but I was having a good time on that.
    30:50
    And then my two crowning moments. So the first one, I was coming to the end of the day. I spent 10 hours playing pinball, guys. My forearms were throbbing.
    31:01
    So I went back over to the stern aisle, and I was like, all right, what the heck, I'll play Ghostbusters. I started up my game of Ghostbusters just as two guys next to me had also just started up theirs, and they were doing two-player.
    31:16
    And so I kind of made it a competition that they didn't know they were in. And I started just walloping on the table, just doing a bang-up job, hitting super jackpots, everything. And in the end, they were all happy with their 30-some million score, and I'd scored 100 and, I don't know, 150 plus million or whatever, enough that I was able to enter in my name as they were getting ready to walk away from there. It's all like, I win.
    31:48
    And I didn't get to enter my name in a lot of tables. I think I only had four tables that I got to enter my name in. And most of those were for high score of the day. Yeah, daily high scores. Daily high score. so then I was getting I was debating you know how much more I was gonna play or whatever and I was like well before you walk away let go play and I did this couple of times let go play some more roller games so I went and I played roller games and I had the match that was just perfect hitting everything doing just a bang up everything that I wanted. I was able to hit, um,
    32:23
    walk away from that with grain champion of the, on the machine of only really 12 million, a little bit over 12 million, but it wasn't no daily high score. That was great. Thank you for coming. Yeah. at that I just went that's the show folks I'm walking away I gotta leave on a high note absolutely that is a good way to end this show 10 hours worth of pinball you just imagine like if you like you go to the death by pinball at netherworld which runs for 24 hours yeah just imagine your body after that it would be broken so badly yeah so I I think I wound up playing 78 different machines.
    33:05
    You counted them? Every single time I played a machine, I entered it in. That being said, I got home, I started thinking about it. There was about 10 machines that I hadn't counted, so there might be a few more that I'm still unsure of that I played, but at minimum I played 78 different machines.
    33:21
    Many of them I played multiple times. Wow. One game wasn't enough. And even that being said, I think I only played two EMs. Oh, you did? I mean, there's so much I was walking away from. You would just see it and you're like, oh, but no. Yeah, no, I got to go play this instead. You just leave a ball hanging, basically. No, I didn't want to do that. I did that the very first time I went there. I would leave balls hanging all the time. And I was like, no, just play because I'm trying to see how many I could hit. and this time I was just like, no, you're there for enjoyment. Play it like you want to win it and see what you can do. Yeah, fair enough.
    34:06
    Yeah, it was and I tried to touch a couple of things that I've never touched before. I played Popeye. It's horrible.
    34:13
    For some unknown reason, I played once again Bugs Bunny's Birthday Bash. I think I was waiting for the table next to me to open up. I was like, I don't want to sit here. God, that's such a hideous table. you know I played Stern's version of Indiana Jones why?
    34:28
    I don't know I never played it I'm not really desiring to yeah you know so we've got five minutes left we do got five minutes left before I have to go and like oh you have to skip battle and do work because it's Monday so what's left? what's the remainders? what is remainder? what I was going to talk about is and we don't need to go really hardcore into this because I can just kind of skirt over it. But with a Zen, I want to talk a little bit about their mobile pinball. So like I said, I've been testing out their Williams pinball, and they made an announcement regarding pre-ordering or pre-reserving. I don't know what it is for Google Arcade. Yes, they did. They've basically got you can register to, well, to pre-order the game. Not really pre-order it, because it's free to download, but you will get notified when it's released. So you can go and do that now on Google Play. I thought, oh, okay, this is going to be one of those classic, it's going to be you're able to whitelist or pre-list it in America and not Australia, but no, you can do it in Australia as well. So there you go. It's worldwide. So because I was playing that, and I downloaded the Aliens pack, which is free to play, but I never got around to really playing it because that was back when I had my old phone, which was too small to play pinball on. And I hadn't really Somebody mentioned that, oh, they have Bethesda pinball. And I was like, oh, really? So I downloaded that because that's also free to play. And I realized that basically Williams pinball, in terms of how you play it for free, is an amalgamation of both of those.
    36:06
    So with Aliens, you get one table that you get to start with, and you've got to open up. You've got to meet certain goals, open up three eggs. That opens up then the next table. You always have to watch an ad before being able to play a game, but you get to play the full game. That's good.
    36:25
    And the ads, honestly, as soon as it starts, you just close the app and you open the app back up and you now skip the commercial and you can go straight into playing. Classic, yeah. You can skip the ads really easily.
    36:38
    And then once you've earned all three tables, they're open up and you don't have to hit those little goals or whatever, but it's for free. You can just do whatever. and you still can purchase the tables outright if you don't want to deal with the ads. But anyway, that was that. Bethesda, you start with one table, and you have to play basically challenge mode or match-up mode, which I don't like because you're only a limited amount of time, and it takes forever to advance at all, and you're only allowed three match-ups per day, and you have to play, I think, 30 matchups in order to unlock the next table. So it's kind of a slog to get through. Yeah, it's a bit not nice. To get there.
    37:27
    And if you want to play single player, buy yourself a full game, then you've got to use your coins that you've earned to do that. So it feels a little more paywall-y.
    37:38
    But again, you can outright purchase these. It's not like you have to do this. I'm doing this from the perspective of hey, I want to play these games for free and not go for it. Also, Bethesda? Floaty. Weird. Oh, really? It's floating.
    37:52
    Like, in FX3? Like, the Aliens table plays like how the Ballytables, or the Bally Williams table is playing. Bethesda? It feels like it's how TPA plays. Very odd.
    38:05
    So, the Williams collection, you have what are called daily challenges. And the daily challenges are more, so it's not the matchup mode. It's what those the one ball, five minute and survival challenge. Which are fun.
    38:21
    And you get three tables to choose between. One table doesn't cost you anything to be able to play. Another table is watch a video in order to play. And the third table is you got to have these Z coins, which anybody that's played skills knows what those are. You play with those.
    38:38
    And once, when you play a game and if you meet your goal, they're broken down into five. First you've got to do five goals, then you've got to do 10 goals, then you've got to do 15 goals, which is the max. But each time you do one of those accomplishments, then you open up a box of five tickets. You select the ticket, it flips over, and you'll either get a table part for a specific machine or you'll get flipper or custom flippers, custom balls, custom ball trails.
    39:07
    You collect those. When you starts, you get to select one table that that becomes free-to-play table.
    39:14
    You want to unlock the other six, you've got to collect these table parts. You only have to collect enough to earn two stars worth to open up the tables, but if you want to use all the other advancements like the enhanced graphics and everything else like that, you've got to max out the table with a four star. That takes a long time because you only earn it by doing these daily challenges.
    39:35
    That's why I say it's an amalgamation between Bethesda and Aliens Pinball because the paywall doesn't seem so there, but you're still having to slowly unlock these things. It's more like an achievement wall rather than paywall. Yeah, kind of like that. So, I think they've done a rather good job of that, and I'm not a fan of match-up mode anyway, so I'm glad they went to the challenge mode instead, and then, obviously, they have, you can push a button and, boom, kicks you over into skills, and then you can play multiplayer that way. You know what I think? I think what SYN's been doing with these standalone releases is paving the way for FX3. They know that it's been in development for a while. So they've been experimenting with these standalone versions, different ways of monetizing them.
    40:27
    And not telling anyone that that's what they're doing, but that's kind of exactly what they were doing. They were running little experiments on their tables. yeah yeah so i i it's it's it's pretty interesting though how it's um coming around and like i said i think that they're kind of reaching their apex of of what they want to do with mobile with this so i'm excited for when everybody else gets to uh get their hands on it yeah bring it on i've got a nice pixel xl3 that's waiting for the build whenever it comes out so i'm happy um okay so yeah we're gonna let jared go to work time to go to work time to feed a child go to work and uh yeah and then i'll edit this thing sometime sometime uh hey folks why don't you support the show why don't you go ahead get yourself over to redbubble.com do a search for blockade and you can buy a t-shirt i did have one individual spot me at there and go blue team Blockade, hey, you're the Blockade guy. Hey, it worked. It worked. So I talked to him for a little bit, and so that was cool. I was lucky because I only just released the podcast the day before you were there. He literally listened to it on his way to the show. Aha. And so that's okay. Yeah. Very good. So, yeah, show your support. Get a T-shirt. They're not expensive. We made sure of that.
    41:51
    Why don't you head on over to blockadepinball.com slash episodes, and there you can read all about all the goodness. Jared likes to throw in all sorts of links and such pictures.
    42:06
    No doubt he'll have a field day again. Maybe. Depends on how much time he has. But, you know. And beyond that, search us out on the Twitter's blockade and we will talk to you again next week. Bye-bye. See you later.
    42:27
    easy to install totally unique mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order with Remusement.com sales restoration customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to we can't improve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball