what's going on everybody it's Don Pinball Podcast coming back at you like Cleopatra it is episode number 78 we are back from Pinball Expo from Chicago man it was lit I'm gonna get into the whole thing this is the Chicago Expo recap episode let's start up go Wow, man, we are sliding back in. I just got home last night from Chicago's Pinball Expo. What an amazing time I've had. This is my second year in a row going. First year, first time at Expo, man. Going there as someone anonymous, just blown away by all the games I could play and all the accessories I could buy and everything. And now I went in full podcast media mode this time. We got the Stern Tour. I'll start with that. Let me just run through the companies, and I'll give you the highlights of the time, of which there were many. Started off with the Stern Tour Thursday morning, man. We all lined up at the Expo Center. We boarded the school buses, 14 of these things they had. And they took us out to the giant Costco-sized warehouse headquarters of Stern Pinball in Chicago. Big Daddy Stern. Who greeted us at the door but Gary Stern himself. And I was led around the factory in my small group with Brian Eddy, designer of Venom and the Stranger Things that's on the way. They took us through the entire factory. We got to take exactly zero photos except for with Gary Stern at the beginning and then the gift shop at the end. But, man, what a great time it was going through this factory. They aren't even at full capacity yet, and they are a machine, man. We started off going through the wire section, a quarter mile of wires in every machine. The wire harnesses are all made by hand. The cabinets come in. I believe they're assembled off-site, but then the cabinets are getting their decals. The playfields are being populated. On the line was Deadpool Pro, Venom Pro, and Premium running seamlessly start to finish. It was an amazing process to see. We get down to the end, and it's all the game testing. I mean, what we see with those Friday videos, the Friday Stern Factory videos where they're doing the play testing and everything, my goodness. And so they had this whole line going through section by section, a soldering station, you know, fixing mechanisms to the game board section, and then, you know, putting in finished cabinets, testing. And then right next to that was a parallel line all set up and completely empty. So they aren't even, you know, at their boosted capacity yet, and they were running three different machines, it looked like. So, oh my goodness, right? At the end of the tour, we walked by the area where there was staging for all of their ready-to-go equipment, and there was just pallets and pallets of toppers. Elvira toppers were there. They were screwing together the Rush toppers, and they had just a giant pile of Elvira toppers ready to go. So if you've been wanting one of those, which you are going to, you can order it right now, man, and get it. I'll tell you where to order here in just a bit. At the end of the tour, we go out to where they have the break room area and that famous wall of microwaves. And there it is sitting there, the black and white Blood Red Kiss edition of Elvira's House of Horrors. When I initially heard this rumor that they were doing Elvira House of Horrors, but in the black and white with red highlights, I was thinking, you know, I see how that works with monsters. It works great with Twilight Zone. But the art on Elvira is amazing, all the purples and greens and everything. Like, what's that going to look like, black and white? Well, the answer is fantastic. So another limited edition has come out, 500 of these things. Blood Red Kiss Edition is what they're calling it, of Elvira's House of Horrors. And it is a black and white play field, black and white cabinet and cabinet art with highlights of red. And the pictures do not do this justice of the rad cows that are on the side and how glossy their finish is. Exactly the same quality as Elvira 40th Anniversary Edition, which to date was like my favorite cabinet ever, right? Now it's black and white. Elvira's laying in that same recumbent position with a red dress. And this red dress, this drip that she has on is just covered with red glitter all throughout. It is so shiny. You cannot tell in pictures. I look back at the pictures that I shot and it doesn't look as striking in person, represented in the photos, than what this cabinet looked like. Like touching that gloss on the backbox, on the side of the cabinet. Like, you know, normally we don't give a whole lot of thought to, you know, cabinet graphics, but this thing needs to be displayed. It looks amazing. You know, just the quality and the different textures when you feel it. I'm very tactile with this thing, right? And then all through the play field, it's actually the color has been redone. It's not everywhere where there was red before is now shiny, sparkly. They've added red to highlights all throughout there, and it just works so well in person, right? there's a you know I kind of never really noticed it too much before but there's a gargoyle floating on an inflatable pool flamingo down near the flippers on the right side well they've colored that flamingo pink with all of the glitter in there it's just it just it works man black and white gargoyles and black and white graveyards with these red blood highlights it's it's it's amazing go check out the pictures they're all in app arcade I've posted them on the Facebook page Just give me a follow so you don't miss any content. But, man, this thing is great. Now, the other good thing about this, this machine is $12,999. The current MSRP for any other Stern limited edition. When the 40th anniversary edition came out, the big purple cabinet, it was called dealer for price. You know, anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000. They only made 199 of them. They've been commanding that rocket high price ever since. And now you can get one for way less than that. And it looks actually, honestly, it looks a little better. It does. It does. I never thought I would say that because the 40th anniversary of Elvira was like the most beautiful cabinet I'd ever seen. This one topped it. Well done, Stern. Golf clap. I've talked to my distributor, and they're already sold out. I didn't know why until now. I didn't think of maybe trading in mine towards the purchase of one of these. But I reached out to Jeff today, and like he's already, all of his are spoken for. He's going to try to get some more. If he does, maybe I can finagle a deal somewhere. Otherwise, you know, this thing looks great in person. What else have we got? We did get an update for the Stern production schedule just recently. And briefly, December is full of Godzilla premiums, Bond pros and premiums. Those are coming. Deadpools are coming. Stranger Things is getting run next month. The pros will be first. The premiums that I have on order and I just paid the invoice for will be coming towards the end of November. And then we're just going to keep rolling. rumor corner uh there's a rumor that we may still see something else from stern this year i i i mean a glut of riches man like i really wouldn't expect to see something like that but you know there's still that rumor tossed out there for a vault you know put in that what you will um there's even talk about releasing uh the next elwyn cornerstone uh and and revealing it before the end of the year what are you doing to us stern man you got my my wallet is on life support right now with these things. I've got Stranger Things coming. You're going to drop a big old Elwyn on us. So Stern is just doing fantastic. Now, at Expo, I think Stern, the biggest booth that was there was probably the station I spent the least amount of time at, mainly because I have all the games right behind me. Also because there was brand new things on the floor. The Elvira wasn't at the Expo floor. It was at the factory tour. It was unplayable. It was turned on, but I tried to scan in my Insider Connected so I could get some recognition. that was disabled. It was probably a non-functional prototype, but man, that thing looks good. I don't know quite when they're getting run. I think they did release that in maybe December, maybe November, but look up at the production schedule. But man, Stern was absolutely in effect in conjunction with Marco Specialties at Expo. I didn't spend a lot of time there this year. I was there mad last year. This year, I was running crazy on everything else. Let's talk about the other big dog that had a release. Jersey Jack Pinball. Makers of Toy Story, and Godfathers. Now, we've heard that these games have been sitting in boxes available for some time with distributors, so we were all wondering, like, what's going to be the next killer app that's going to take J.J.P. back out of the doldrums? When are we going to see some of that magic from Wizard of Oz when we first saw that? And then the rumor has been Elton John. The rumor's confirmed. That is what it is. There's an Elton John pinball machine, and a collective, like, huh, kind of came over the pinball community when they're like, this isn't just a dad theme. This is like a granddad theme. You know, what are we doing, Jack, with Elton John? But God bless it, if they didn't drop a machine, that was just fantastic, man. Steve Ritchie was there, designer of this game, designer of Black Knight Sword of Rage, designer of Star Wars, Star Trek, you know, the classic, you know, awesome games. High speed, man. Like, the dude's a legend. He went to Jersey Jack on the stipulation that he needs to fix the flipper feel, and boy, did he. So I was, luckily enough, fortunate enough, humbled by this, but I was invited as media to come to a preview Friday morning, I believe it was, to play this game for about an hour with some other folks. And we had a blast playing the Platinum version, playing the Collector's Edition version. So here's the deal. The prices didn't change, $12,000 and $15,000, which seemed very outrageous and was for Toy Story 4, was for Godfather. It feels a little bit better now, looking at what's going in this. so Jersey Jack has elevated their game their basic model for the last release last two releases has been a limited edition what they called it, edition size of 5000 which isn't terribly limited in this space they didn't release the numbers it's an unlimited version but they called it Platinum, they didn't call it Limited which is great. What they did do is take the awesome Rad Cal effects that come with their collector's edition and they're adding it to the lower tier edition as well so So really, I think Jersey Jack is doing the right thing here. They're going for, you know, kind of a luxury model machine. Every machine at Elton John is going to look fantastic. They got Radcal glossy cabinets and about seven to eight pounds of glitter, it seems like, in each version. More so in the collector's edition. So we'll start with a quick breakdown and impression. I played it about five or six times. I had one decent game where I got two multi-balls, got up to 60 million points, which for me, I was very proud of myself for doing that. I played longer than five minutes. Go me. I got an extra ball even. So put your cares and worries to bed about the flipper strength, man. It is here. It is back. You're able to hit every ramp. The wire forms are nuts all over the place. You hit the drop target behind the right upper flipper, and the ball goes behind there underneath the shooter lane wire form into a rocket ramp that just launches the ball. Auto launches it up around the back of the cabinet, does a little 360 swirl and then kind of returns back to the play field and the whole thing this was great this is what elevates this game the shots are good but there are rope lights all along this big rocket man ramp towards the back of the play field and it tracks the ball as it goes around so this is something i've seen you know some roller coasters are doing this where there's lighting along the track that follows it and it's just it's magic when you see it so to see it like chase the ball around the field. It felt great every time I hit that. It wasn't bricking. A decent shot went right in there. I was able to hit it if I was intentionally going for it. The crocodile scoop works. The upper flipper shots, it looked like there was, I need to review this, but two ball paths on the left side of the field from that upper flipper. One of them goes up and feeds into the grand piano, like the centerpiece mechanism of this game. Elton John, as a mini animatronic, in full Dodger sequin regalia, just like playing his piano, turning his head, tiny dancing away, man, and then getting the balls to lock inside the piano for a multiball, all while the music is thumping. And this thing just works. It felt good to play. It was fun to play. I did not get bored with it. It wasn't a game where I want to walk away from the third ball. I was actively playing on my best behavior to keep from draining so I could explore all these different pathways. I think it's a right orbit shot that comes around to the left, and then there's a wire form that just ends abruptly about an inch above the play field, just letting the ball just careen straight down to the left flipper. It felt great every time I got that. This is a game that you can sit there and just flip balls around and watch ball pass go around, or you can play with intent and the shots are hittable. The code wasn't jumbled. It made sense to me. The call-outs worked. They told me what to do. I hate that I love this game as much as I do. really, I mean, this thing slaps. Christopher Franchi did the art on the premium. I forget the name of the team that did the other one up there. I think it might have been the guy that did the Halloween spooky art, but there's two different art packages, and one is definitely platinum. It's got a lot of grays and slate colors. The other one, man, it is gold laser-cut armor for the CE version. The platinum version, the lower-priced one, the $12,000 lower-priced one, comes with a dual-field acrylic topper, which is serviceable. The CE, though, looks like they took a stack of unused iPads from Toy Story 4, took them out of the play field where they do not belong, and put them up on top of the topper where they do belong. So there's like two giant LCD screens up there and like a little pseudo laser projector, something of the kind that you would pick up at Spencer's Gifts, which projects laser-ific projections up on the ceiling above the, I was going to say the ride, above the machine. So the whole thing is absolutely spectacle backbox lighting All these kind of luxury upgrades Come with this standard So it's $12,000 and $15,000 But I think you really can see Where at least the money's going Because the play field is packed It doesn't seem like there's any areas that are dead Unlike in Toy Story And to date with Godfather Where the middle is kind of empty And most everything's at the back of the play field This thing just has things to hit on the right Things to hit on the left interesting ramps and it does that thing in pinball that I love when you walk up and you go and you look at the play field and you see a mechanism or a shot or something and you wonder how do I get the ball up there where does it have to go You know not just a simple layout you know like a fishtails or a taxi where you can kind of see when you walk up what you getting You know, there's like, you know, convoluted little pathways and they all felt good to hit. You know, it felt like it had flow. I really liked this game and I hate that because like, you know, I don't have the room in my budget for everything. But this is a game that I'm going to watch. As soon as it's out of location, man, I'm there. I'm going to put some money through it. You've got to have a kick-butt speaker system for this because this game is a spectacle. This would be a game to put in your game room if you had just one game and you could highlight it because you've got to show off the art on the sides. It's a showpiece. You have to show the glitter. You have to do, you know, they had external speakers flanking the machine, just feeding that music right at you with the laser projections and everything. It was a whole experience. It would be hard to just kind of stick this in a lineup and just have Elton John right there. This thing has to be at the corner of the living room or common room or somewhere in your house if you get one of these things. And I don't think there's a bad way to go, man. The playfields are the same between the two. There may be more glitter in the CE. The CE definitely does have more to it, especially with that integrated topper. But, man, the thing is awesome either way. I don't think you can go bad with this one. I'm going to watch this one. And if this thing does what Godfather and Toy Story 4 have done, where they've dropped in price, and Guns N' Roses as well, on the secondary market, I think I would scoop one of these up, man, for $9,500 for sure, dude. And it's Elton John. I never knew I would like it as much as I did. But this game, this game is awesome. Where can you get one of these games? Well, you can email Jeff at MadPinball.com. He's the sponsor of this podcast. Here's the jingle. Listen to these guys, man. This jingle slaps. Jeff is my homie. We were hanging out there with the Angeli brothers, having just a great time. If you need a game, email jeff at madpinball.com. He will hook you up. Canton, Ohio, shipping, he'll figure it out, man. Best shipping rates I've seen. Let's listen to the jingle. Top of spots in Gatimau. Gatimau, Gatimau. Call 1-800-MADPINBALL. 9-9-1-Please don't call. 8-4-1-Sideway-Thon. Gatimau, Gatimau. Give me them robots. It's that bass line that gets me. All right, bell of the ball for me. Even though Elton John won the little flipper award for Game of Show, deservedly, that thing looks great, I'm giving my Dondi award, I don't have a name to get, But two, Barrels of Fun's new game, Swinging Out of the Gate with Jim Henson's Labyrinth. You've seen this thing. It's on that parquet. It's on my Facebook page. It's all over the place. The Mystery Pinball Company, whose logo was that exclamation point with the power lightning bolts, that flipper right there. This thing slaps my cheeks. So they took a Muppet-filled, George Lucas-associated, Jim Henson production with the irreverent David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, and they ripped that world out and they crammed it inside of a pinball cabinet. I did a live stream of this game. They had a pizza party reveal. They had four games on the floor, six up at the pizza party that was open for everybody. I was lucky enough to be invited in early. I streamed the heck out of this thing. But as we were setting up, I'm just going to gush on this game. The glass was pulled off, and I just took my camera and went through the whole play field on one of my lives. It's on the Facebook page at Don's Pinball Podcast. Go check that out. I spent some time kind of going through and just really showing all the different shots, all the different areas, the moments, the regions, the themed areas of this game. This game looks like a Fantasyland dark ride from the Magic Kingdom or Disneyland. They got one of the guys from Weta Studios to do the sculpts and design, and they spared no expense in this. There's a whole goblin village that exists within this game. There's a wise man sculpt. There's another, the whole door layout, you know, the one that lies, the one that always tells the truth, like in scale right back there with like, you know, sculpted cobblestones, man. If you like details and miniatures, this thing is amazing. It's got one of the best ramps in pinball, one of the best wire forms that I've played. And again, like brand new company, right? You know, unproven as far as like being on their own. But this company and this game, obviously made by people that know how to make a pinball machine, it shot well it's engaging it's a different type of game than elton john completely elton john is a spectacle man like like you just you're at this show uh when the music is thumping and the sequins are everywhere this you're on an adventure so like you know uh it's like a theme park and an amusement park you know the amusement park has big flashy rides right and and like big thrill and like the tallest and the fastest and whatever um you know they don't give so much uh a thought to theming that environment. This is the opposite. This is like the big dedicated theme park where they're taking you into another world. People throw on us the phrase world under glass, and that's exactly what this is. This is a playground ripped from the world of Labyrinth that you can play in. Not only are you flipping balls around, and the flipper shots are strong. The ramps don't reject. If you play with intention, you can hit things. Shots are appropriately hard when they need to be. Shots are appropriately easy when they should be. There's kind of a mix of everything. And it's got that convoluted layout where you wonder, like, okay, what's actually going on up here? What's that diverter doing? And there's innovation in it as well that I want to get to about a specific area of the game which isn't a complicated mechanism. It's just simple brilliance. But playing this game, there's multiple modes that you can get through. There's inserts for the three main friends that you can collect. And as you do, you get bonuses. you can do modes like it's a mode based game you know play hit the shots start the mode and then you play through it whether you're doing you know the cleaners or whether you're doing you know the doors or you're doing the bog of eternal stench which has fart sounds with every stand-up target it's hilarious there's also music lifted from the scenes from the film like they're all in there and you don't want to drain a mode because you want to keep hearing the music and watch David going crazy on the dual screens that they have, right? The traditional between-the-speaker-back-box LCD screen is there, and there's also a lower back-of-the-playfield LCD screen. They're probably LED screens. But it's like a horizontal rectangle that just fits back there, and when you light up the letters of Labyrinth to start a mode, that's where they're displayed. There's probably more code coming, but you could put a sunset back there and change the whole feel of the game. You can put a sunrise up there. You can put a night scene. You can put terrible creatures up there. It's got so much potential for the utilization there. They're doing one trim level for this game, and everything is at a premium level. It comes powder-coated, including the speaker panel. Thank you very much. This mechanism I want to talk about is on the left side there. Now, you have little creatures that pop up all over the play field. The call-outs are synced in with the gameplay. They do it in a fun way. There's creatures that pop out of the apron. and this creature just pop up from the back near the LCD screen. But on the left side, there's a cool little mechanism. Essentially, you have a spinner, a set of forks, and a drop target. And what they've done with it is create an area that can be wide open as a left orbit, or during certain modes, your ball can go up there through the spinner. The forks will come up, and the drop target behind it will come up, trapping that ball, creating a Newton ball situation. So then you get fed another ball. Your ball can go up and hit that ball through the forks, knocking it backwards through the spinner. it'll hit the stand-up target which will just knock it back down back to the spinner again and you can just repeatedly hit that shot and carry on this ball back and forth across the spinner in its little trap dungeon area and it makes for a fun little mechanism. Now other games have captive balls which is what this functions as but this one is one that can be there one moment and not be there another and it's pretty simple how it works. It's a set of forks and a drop target and a spinner and you can have like a full open spinner that goes around. You can use a stand-up target that works as a ball diverter or you can get a captive ball in there with a set of forks. Like it's just, it's fun and it fits those modes. There's a wise man up there in the back of the play field who has a drop target in front of him. It's a tight little shot, but if you drop that and get in there, you get a side quest, right? So in addition to just playing the game, flipping the ball around, playing the modes, listening to the music, you can also gain these side quests where, you know, longitudinally throughout your gameplay of three balls, you have to get, you know, five scoop shots or five orbits or something. And if you do, you're awarded with points. So it's like, it's got that Godzilla feel where there's like a secondary goal that you can accomplish, you know, while you're playing with everything else. Um, and it's all in this world of Jim Henson's Muppet characters, man. Um, so like, well done balls of fun. This game's $10,600. The topper is amazing. I, you know, the three sculpted, like full scale goblin creatures up there, the two on the sides, turn their heads back and forth. there's call outs that are coordinated with them the eyes light up and blink the thing just works man it had the longest line of the show at least a half hour consistently and that's across four machines on the floor there was about 1500 people playing at the pizza party I had just let my live streaming rig go that's up on YouTube you can go through and scan through there if you want to check out the gameplay of that and the banter that we were having but what a great night with a great game from a company that we just didn't have the highest expectations because it just came out of nowhere. But they absolutely slayed it. So thanks, everybody, and thanks for letting me be part of that. All right, let's keep going with this, man. Spooky Pinball was there. They didn't have a new game reveal yet. They're in the latter half of their build for Scooby-Doo. What they did have was a Halloween and Ultraman and a Total Nuclear Annihilation for sale, and then about five Scooby-Doos. And last I checked, they had sold three of those Scooby-Doos, and they sold all of the other ones for what looked to be nearly full price. So well done, Spooky. You're still moving units. Your games are still fun, and your people are still fun to talk to, man. I hung out there with Bug. We had a raffle that we gave away from Don's Pinball Podcast and Mad Pinball. My wife took a little gift basket, and she filled it up with T-shirts, pins, books, accoutrements, just all kinds of things we could stuff in there. We absolutely packed these things, and all you had to do was come by on Friday, fill out a free raffle ticket, drop it in there. We drew a winner, and congratulations to you, sir. You should be getting your gift basket here very soon. But thanks for orchestrating that, Spooky. Thanks for being cool, guys. They were selling playfields. They were selling merchandise. And people were coming up steadily and purchasing it. Talking to Bugs, he still hasn't told me what their next game is, which is appropriate. I don't want to know. I want to be surprised just like everybody else. I love that surprise in pinball. I would still speculate that their next game, which may or may not be a dual theme again, like Halloween and Ultraman was, I think we're going to see something at TPF, at TPF, the Texas Pinball Festival, in March. That's the next huge pinball event that we're going to have. And it wouldn't surprise me to see a reveal then. So, you know, Spooky was kind of coasting on the success of Scooby-Doo. All five machines had people playing it the whole time. And just nothing but good feedback, no problems with the games at all that I could see. Everybody's just having a great time at the Spooky booth, as one does. I'm going to transition over to Pinball Brothers, who were there. I spent a lot of time at this booth. Rudy, what's up? The social media manager. Nice German fellow. Me and him hung out for a while. We had some refreshments together, and I interviewed him. He's on the podcast I uploaded from Expo. Go check that out. But basically, they were there still with Alien and Queen. They have another game coming, and it's coming soon, and it's probably going to be a TPF. But they are re-releasing an edition of Alien, their wide-body atmospheric game set in the world of Alien and Aliens. It's like two different gameplay codes right in that game. Well, now they got the rights and likenesses to Ellen Ripley character, Sigourney Weaver's character from Alien and Aliens, and so those call-outs and those scenes from the movie are now in the game. I was able to play it. There's new graphics coming. They weren't finalized yet from what they had, so I don't think we've seen exactly what they're going to look like, because they're still waiting for licensure approval, but they're having another version of the game. They have a limited version. They're LV, they call it, and it sells for $10,000, which seems like a bargain for a top-end machine. It's got some beacons on top. It's got some lighting upgrades inside the machine. The Ellen Ripley version is very similar. It doesn't have those lighting upgrades, but it does have a sculpt around the LCD screen that's in on the playfield, and the Xenomorph sculpt is now hand-painted by Lior from The Art of Pinball, right? Who's now working with Pinball Brothers as well as Dutch Pinball. There's also a topper that's released, but this game I'll come back to it here for a second the Ellen Ripley edition from what they're calling it new art on the cabinet and the back glass new assets in the code this code will be released for every version of Alien as well which is a win and then there's a new design for the lower apron too which looks pretty sweet and then I had to spend some more time on the game revisiting it now that I've been playing pinball a little bit more, playing more competitively, I've gotten better with my skills, I've got a better appreciation for Alien and the game that it is. For this wide-body game, it's fairly packed. So if you're a fan of the theme at all, you're going to be a fan of the new price. So this Alan Ripley Edition is actually being sold brand new in box, new build, being made soon, under $8,000 for a wide-body machine. That gets an air horn. Eight grand, right, for a wide-body machine, just brand new out of the box with atmosphere to the nth degree. there's an optional topper also sculpted from Art of Pinball Lior it features the xenomorph some alien pods and a moving tail mechanism and then for an extra $100 or something you can get some beacons added just like the LV edition I think you gotta go for that if you do this topper looks sweet it looks like this sort of diorama that would look great just on your shelf if you're a fan of the movie you can function without the game if you want so they cranking these aliens out This is a great way to renew interest in your game and you not going to alienate the people that have bought your prior game because you making the code available to everybody I forgot to mention earlier, but Stern Pinball with the new Elvira House of Horrors will also come with a new code drop for everybody. So thank you for addressing this and providing content for your games post-launch. Spooky does this as well. I like to see Stern do it, and I like to see Pinball Brothers do it, Jersey Jack Brothers. Come on, man, get out there and update these games. so yeah, so Pinball Brothers was firing on Saturday we did the second raffle from Don's Pinball Podcast, an identical brother gift basket was given out a couple of 12 year old kids won that drawing and they were just happy as can be check out the Facebook page to check it out but we love to give things away man longitudinally throughout I had the gift bags the people that came up and gave me the whirlwind I had more people telling me the whirlwind passcode to win yourself a free prize package than I had prize packages to give away I was going to do three per day, but I had to exceed that and, like, regionally my bag and give out even more shirts because I felt so bad. The people were just, like, so happy and wanting shirts. So everybody got T-shirts that wanted one. I made sure of that. It was so cool seeing people come to Expo already wearing, like, a Don's Pinball Podcast T-shirt. Like, that was great. Spending time with the people was, like, the best part of this for sure. I mean, I was running nonstop for four days, it seemed like. But it was just, you know, having time to stop and talk to people. Put faces with names. names with faces, you know, kissing hands shaking babies it was just a great time all around so I want to thank everybody that did come out to me I hope you love your stickers and everything else I gave you um dude, duck pinball was there, duck pinball, dutch pinball I got to meet Barry the guy that gave me the skull from the Big Lebowski what a swell dude, I got the game the game is amazing, you know that they had two there, and I didn't see any problems with either machine, and I didn't see anybody having any bad times playing that Jeff and his wife came by, lovely people from the Vancouver area, and I got to introduce somebody to the Big Lebowski for the very first time. I kind of walked them through it and showed them what the shots are, showed them the hit and right flipper shot where you hold the button, hit launch, and it goes to the upper play field. We bowled 10 frames of bowling and just had the best time. So get a Big Lebowski. They've got to be coming to the end of their run soon. Get one ordered. Cointaker is selling them. Email Melissa. but play this game any way you can find it on location, find a friend, come by District Don Arcade and play it, but the game is just great, the people are great and I think we've got something just nuclear coming from them like next year soon, like the Back to the Future rumor from these guys and the quality of games they make man, like fantastic Pinball Adventures was there I was able to meet Andrew in person, been conversing with this guy for a while, buying his crazy inventions, like the pin boost, like the pinball pause, like the pinball wedge, all products that I love, man. I love these things. I was able to get some more time on Punny Factory, this time the non-engraved version. I played two Punny Factories now. Punny Factory was shooting okay. You know, still a couple little issues around here and there. The very target would get stuck every now and then. Elements was there, and I think it's a little preliminary. I was kind of thinking that this game was going to be ready for launch, for deposits. I believe they are taking $150 non-refundable but transferable deposits for them if you want to lock it in. Still some issues coming with it. I think it was just an early build of the game. The layout was much more interesting than what is in Punny Factory, although Punny Factory I think still shoots a little bit better. If I'm playing with intention, I was able to hit shots a little more consistently with Punny Factory than it was with Elements. The code still seems like it's a little rough. Um, you know, I was able to start modes. Some of the modes were easier to complete, you know, the, the fire element in particular, um, the wood elements, uh, the water element, I had trouble hitting the captive ball system that they've got designed. They have a horseshoe with two Newton balls. And so, um, you know, I get the idea of what they're doing. The problem with that is, um, if there's a Newton ball on one side without the captive ball behind it and you hit it, there's really no way to capture any kind of award for that. Um, you know, uh, but there is a little upper play field. It played fun. There's three drop targets on the upper play field and another stand-up target, which you can lie to earn in-game currency. So the code of the ambition for elements is like twofold from what we saw in Punny Factory. So I'd like to see them flesh it out a little bit more, dial in the shots a little bit better and see what the final version is going to be like. It's still a little bit dark in the play field. So I've been talking to Andrew and they're already working on getting some more lighting that's back there. So we'll wait and see. But it was able to show some gameplay there. Still little hookups. I think this is still a preliminary machine that they have. So it's still a little rough. But it was nice to see it and play it. Kind of like their work in progress. We'll see what has to come from Andrew and the lovely folks at Pinball Adventures. I met two of his techs. And they're screwing these things together. Nice gentlemen. You know, I got to talk to them. They're having fun putting pinball machines together. And, you know, having fun in pinball is something that we like. So we'll wait and see what's coming next from them. Turner Pinball was there. So this is the guy, Chris Turner from Turner Logic is his company. And he was involved in making, you know, logic boards with the Deep Root Company, which, you know, we understand what happened with that. And the whole thing went deep root, belly up, the root rots from the top down. But from the ashes of the burned roots, he was able to get some assets from them at auction. And then this guy took it upon himself to launch his own company. So Turner Logic, Turner Logic, I think it's his name, is now Turner Pinball. So they have created a pinball machine with some innovations, let me tell you. So walking up to this machine, the first thing you are going to see is that this cabinet is about half the size of a traditional cabinet, which is off-putting. You know, I've got a lot of constructive feedback for them because there's a lot of good that's here. You know, the arcade one-up games are like, you know, quarter scale size. AtGames was there with an Addams Family with the worst flipper lag I've ever seen it's not finalized but it wasn't a good look for that and this thing at first glance looks like a home version consumer toy level machine it doesn't strike you as a commercial machine because it's not the same dimensions that every other pinball machine seems to have and there's no coin door and so that was the big mystery that was revealed when they revealed Ninja Eclipse and put the picture of it up there You know, they had a censored square around the front of it, you know, coming soon, big reveal coming. We all thought it would be the return of the pin bar, right? That touchscreen control panel instead of the lockdown bar that DeepRoot was pioneering. Well, that's not the case, but the functionality of the pin bar did come through. Maybe this was some of the assets that he got with the DeepRoot auction. But basically, this is going to be an app-based control mechanism system for this. So a huge departure from open the coin door and use the buttons right there to select price per game and all that. So the idea is to play Ninja Eclipse, you will have an app that you will download and install, create an account, load it with cash, and then your money credits can then transfer wirelessly to the game. Assuming everything's working okay, assuming the Wi-Fi is working in the place that you're playing it, there's a lot of variables that are hard to control for in a commercial environment that wouldn't necessarily be a problem at home if it was on home play. So let's cover this first. How does the game play? Game play is actually really good. The shots feel good. This is the designer's first pinball machine, and you wouldn't know that going up to it and playing it because the shots do feel interesting and compelling. It had one of the coolest scoop mechanisms that I have seen in pinball. There are two scoops on either side of the field, two scoops just like a Raisin Bran. One of them faces to the left. The other one faces up the play field. So what you can do is use the kickback from the left out lane. will shoot the ball up most of the time, get into the right scoop. That right scoop will then shoot out, eject across the play field into the left scoop. The left scoop will then eject up the play field to the upper right flipper, which you can then hit and then go up into the ramp that circles the back of the orbit of the machine. It goes around that big temple sculpt that's there in the back. So it's a fun, like, you know, caroming effect of the pinball, like working itself up the play field, which we don't really see. I've never seen a scoop feed to a scoop before. That was interesting. Almost like an old NES game, you know, where you're playing Zelda 2 and you go from, like, one dungeon straight across to another one and then pop out somewhere else. It felt like that. I would like to see that explored a little more. What if there was four scoops and it was all, like, a scoop system, you know, like with Donkey Kong Country or something, and barrels shooting from one barrel to another? That was fun. That was innovative. I did like that. It's a mode-based game. Essentially, I put about four or five games through this and then a lot of time talking with Chris Turner. but it seems like you're fighting some sort of magical boss of which you get to pick for the modes and then there's various shots and they all seem to work fairly good there's a good number of inserts there there's a spinning disc which I didn't take a ton of advantage of in the middle of the play field there's a big sculpt of a Japanese looking castle with a couple of guard houses with lighting effects inside of them that I liked the right ramp serves a wire form that returns to the flipper and it also has a diverter for a physical ball lock behind there which will then launch all the balls off of this cliff at you for a multiball mode. So it's a fun game. It felt fun to shoot. There's no plunger. It's got a launch button. Not the biggest fan of launch buttons. I do like that physical characteristics with the shooter rod. But that's not a game killer. So the game was fun to play. The game has some peculiarities to it. Number one, the cabinet is half the size of a normal cabinet as far as depth, width, and length, and backbox size. That was all standard size. There's no coin door because, again, the idea is that you're going to have this app, but that's probably going to be a pretty big barrier to entry there. I'm thinking if this thing's commercially available at a bar, am I going to stumble over and want to throw a dollar in the Ninja machine and I can't? And then I'm going to have to fumble for my phone and download another app and I'd probably just go over and play ACDC or something instead. So I think, I'll get to my comments, my summative comments here in just a moment. The other big innovation is that the back glass is not a back glass. It's polycarbonate, and it's also framed around the entirety, the circumferentiality of the game field with the aprons and the lock bar and then the back metal. You can reach underneath this thing like you're popping an old trunk lid. You pop it, and the whole lid comes off. Polycarbonate and armor and lock bar and all are one piece with LEDs running up and down the length of them that are fed with contact plates to the rest of the cabinet so there's no wiring or anything. So it was cool to pop it and then just pull the whole top off and have the entire game board, you know, exposed to you to get in and work around on. There's no glass to slide out or anything. The whole thing just kind of comes off. So some cool innovation. These guys have their own production facility, you know, located down in San Antonio. They're building these things themselves. They have a CNC machine. They cut the melamine cabinet out and everything. And the price they're asking is around $9,700, and they're looking to make around 100 of these units. If you want one, $150 will get you a reservation. No word yet on exactly when they're going to be made. I think they're going to build them to order to start with. But this is very much a family company starting out. So that's one of the most difficult things to do is launch a pinball company. We've seen it done successfully with Barrels of Fun, but you look at the pedigree of those people that have worked on games with Spooky and others. We've worked with artists. Johnny Crap did the art for Labyrinth. He just did the art for Jurassic Park 30th, and he does concert posters and other things. These are people with a pedigree, and these are people with a budget, and they're like an order of magnitude at a different level than Turner Pinball is, which is just very insular, just this core group of people that care about pinball and want to make machines. The thing that's hurting them, you know, the price. Like this machine, when you first see it, it looks like a home version, consumer version. It doesn't look like a commercial machine because it's missing those commercial things that we would see, like a full cabinet, like the full coin door. So you've got to get past that, and that's a hurdle. It's hard enough to launch a pinball company. Why put extra hurdles in front of yourselves? What I would like to see, and this would be my recommendation, if they were paying me as their consultant to come in and say, hey, Don, how can we launch this company in the best manner? I would do a couple of things, probably do about five things. First off, I would call this, I'd give another SKU for this machine. The one that they have is fine, but I would do a commercial edition is what I would call it. I would put it in a full-size cabinet. I would put it in a double-slot coin door for sure and have it bill acceptor ready. And then I would keep the popping of the glass because I think it's great. I would do a glass in there, though, or if you could, an Invisiglass. So there was actual glass in there and not polycarbonate. I know it's going to be heavier. It's going to be a little harder to manage, but I think that's what I would do. You probably have to build on a mechanism to replace that glass if need be. But I would do that. So this thing would look like a commercial machine. I would do a double set acrylic topper lit with an LED strip. It's simple. The build material is not huge on that. That's something you could accomplish yourself with a glow forge. I would do what Jersey Jack did for their platinum edition, where there's like a depth of field, a two panel acrylic topper just so this, this machine would look like a commercial machine, like just typical legs, full size cabinet coin door. So you walk up and you're like, okay, this is obviously a commercial machine, you know, add $500 or something to the cost of it for the commercial edition because it comes, you know, bill except for ready and all that. I think then you've got a machine that people are going to look at and say, like, okay, I recognize this as a commercial machine. So now I'm already kind of, like, set to know, you know, what we got. I'm hoping to work more with Turner. Chris was a great guy. I want to go down and get some tacos in San Antonio. I want to come see his setup. I want him to be successful, you know, but I want his games to sell themselves. The other thing is I want them to sell themselves, too. That's one of the other pinnacles I would put in my five-point plan for Turner Pinball's success. I'd also, you know, I spent 30, 40 minutes talking to this guy, learning about himself, his family, his group, you know, how he's creating these sculpts. These things are hand-painted by the team, you know, and I think that needs to lead. I think they need to lead with that. Like, we are the people making this. Here's who we are. I think a video expose you know a 20 30 documentary introducing the people of the company what they actually doing and having a more commercial facing product or at least a SKU would do a lot. That's what I would do if I was being paid to market this company in the best way possible. The gameplay is good. There's good ideas here. There's good innovation. I don't hate the idea of the app, but there's got to be a way to play this without that too. The final thing I would do is take one of these machines, the commercial edition that I'm calling it, and I would put it on location or put it in three locations so that it could get play tested. And so you could come back with data and say, look, we put this game in here. Here's how many people it's attracting. Here's the audits. Here's what it's making per week. Here's what people are saying about it. And here's our plans for the code in the future. That's what I would do if I was paid and working for Turner Pinball. That's the game. I could sense the passion that's coming from them, so I want them to do well. But those are Those are my thoughts. What else do we have? American Pinball. I could forget them, man. They had the whole Galactic Tank Force team there. I got to meet Captain Dirk Streetwalker, or the dude that sat in the captain's chair. He's a super cool guy. His outfit looked great. I want that drip. You know what? Keep the thermos, American Pinball. For your signature edition, you can keep that thermos. I want that outfit. I want that jumpsuit. I want to dress up as Duke Kaboom when I play that game, or Duke Moonrocks, or Kick McScratchy, or whatever his name was. I want to wear that, and I want to play the tank. That's what I want to pay $16,000 for, for the top-end edition. The banners, fine, include the banners. Give me a thermos if you want. I want that outfit. I want the jumpsuit. I want to feel like Tank Commander. Everybody I was talking to that played the game, it's a cool game. The game's fun, and it is playing better now than some of the ones that I did play. It's been hit and miss. I think the launch has just been stumbling on moon rocks, but I think it's getting finally to where it needs to be. I didn't hate the game. I'm not in super love with the game. I'm not ordering one. I play it on location when I see it, but I'll tell you what I did do with American Pinball. I walked right by all the Galactic Tank Forces, and I walked up to Legends of Valhalla, of all things. Now, I played this game before and then kind of, you know, went off and played Oktoberfest and whatever. So this is the first time coming back to Legends of Ahala in like a year. And it's kind of a cool game. I kind of do really like the layouts of it. I didn't get, you know, deep into all the modes and everything, you know, but I'm playing it. And there's a lot of things that if I was creating a pinball machine, I wouldn't hate if my machine played like this. You know, the center ramp that goes up and feeds the wire form. You know, the left wire form is fine. I like the locking mechanism into the longboat, you know, through that ramp. So there's three ramps in there. There's three flippers. There's cross shots. There's some flow that's in there. You know, it's not the most engaging theme because it's not tied to an IP or anything. But it was actually pretty fun. I like the Thor hammer that's in the back. I like the Magnum, the play field with the Kraken. And as I was playing better, it was fun. I would like to get some more decent time on this game. This is a game, I think, of all the American pinball machines, Oktoberfest, Houdini, Hot Wheels, Galactic Tank Force, and the other one. What the hell am I missing? There's one more. This is a game, of all of those, I wouldn't mind actually having for a little bit. Like, I was shocked. I went back and played another one that was a couple boosts over. Somebody had one that had some mods in it. And I'm like, where's this game been? Like, it's pretty fun, I think. So I'll have to take a look at what the prices are on the used market. But I don't hate it. It shoots well. It's well made. The flippers feel good. The shots feel good. They don't brick. You know, there's interesting things here and there. Yeah, if I made a machine and it was that, I wouldn't be happy or I wouldn't be sad about it. I'd be fairly happy. So I had some fun at the booth. Ran into David Fix. I talked to him for a little bit without introducing myself or giving myself away, you know, so we're not, you know, best buddies or anything. But, yeah, they're a company, and I think they may have something for us. coming soon, as a follow-up to Galactic Tank Force, something with some He-Man in it. I think it's He-Man. I think they got the He-Man license. I think the Sonic guy is the guy that's doing it. If they make a game that's not full of cake toppers, but it's full of as many things in it, if it plays like Legends of Valhalla with the, you know, accessories and embellishments and lighting and ramps of Galactic Tank Force and the mechanism of Galactic Tank Force, but it's Masters of the Universe, I think this game could have legs. maybe not tank treads but legs so I'm happy to see what they're going to have so no big reveals from American Pinball at this time but I think they're going to be they're a little bit off cycle I think Spooky and American Pinball are on their own cycle everybody else was on this cycle where this was the big release I think we're going to see a big release with Texas Pinball Festival for American Pinball I'm feeling it what else do we have to talk about let's talk about Rocket City Pinball for a moment my boy Andy over there, maker of 3D printed start buttons of which I have one on every one of my machines I have a button for a machine I don't even have yet. Stranger Things. I got a waffle. It usually comes in purple. He was able to do me a blue waffle. Those you know you know. So I'm excited about that. And he's partnered with Flip Mods, maker of some of the cool stuff coming out for Venom, like my Taco Bell building that I got. And they have a new building for the Clintard building. No, the Daily Planet, Daily Bugle building. They've got a new 3D printed replacement for that that's more three-dimensional, not just that acrylic. so take a look for that. And he also came up with a fix for the right insert problem. Like when you're playing Venom, if you haven't played it already, particularly if you're playing the Premium or LE, Doppelganger when he's in his rest position, you can't see if that insert behind him is lit or not from a player's perspective. You get to crane your neck and kind of look underneath spider cheeks to be able to see it. So he designed a little mirror that goes back there so you can see over Doppelganger into the reflection of the mirror to see if the insert is lit. It's brilliant. It's not expensive. He gave me one. to go try. So I'm going to install it. We'll do a real, we'll do a short, and I'll show you all how about how it works. Um, you know, so check that out. If you think it would be fun for your machine, not, not a terribly high priced, uh, uh, mod there, uh, also comes with an extra acrylic. So the little swingy dongle doesn't flip over and get stuck in the launch lane. That's kind of cool. Um, you know, so, so some fun mods. Um, and if you like the, the, the coin inserts, he's got those, if you like to start buttons, like I do tactile, there's so much better than just the green button. He's got them for spooky machines too. He'll get them to you. So Rocket City Pinball. There's your shout-out, buddy, as a homie. You make cool stuff. I've got one of your buttons on everything here. I bought them or I traded in merchandise for them. He did hook me up with a waffle though, man. He's legit. He's legit. So there's your love, buddy. What else do we got? Oh, let's just talk about Expo stuff. There's a homebrew section. And I'm amazed by these homebrew machines that people have made. I played Beavis and Butthead. 8 Ball revisited, amazing and just everything else Beer Fest was there, Ghost in the Shell was there Plays great, among others there was also this time a homebrew topper competition and I was so excited about it because I had been working on an Elvira House of Horrors a topper with two gargoyles and light up candlesticks for like a year it seems like well I finally finished it and I brought it down there and bless it I won, I won the topper homebrew competition I got my own little trophy the same kind that Jersey Jack got for best of show. I got one, too, for best homebrewed topper. Now, I was unopposed in this category, but we will not consider that a detriment. It was nice to be recognized. The topper's dope. I would have voted for it. So check it out. There's photos of that. I'm just so happy that I got that. You know, thank you so much, guys. You know, so, you know, dreams do come true for me and you, not just in Disney films, but also in the world of toppers. What else have we got? Pinball Olympics. I can do a whole episode on Pinball Olympics. This is just briefly a private event that occurs during Pinball Expo at this dude's house in a close-by suburb in Chicago. This guy's got 100 games in his house among two different buildings, multiple levels, living room, downstairs, whatever. So they do a tournament, which on its own is not surprising. But about, I don't know, 20 of these games all have a different crazy gimmick with them. I'm talking about they had fishtails, but it was the ice fishing version of fishtails. So they took that frosting spray that you do on your windows to make it look like there's snow in there, and they frosted the entire back glass so you could barely see through it. So it was like you were playing on a frozen lake, and that was a tournament game. So you would play that game, you would get your score, write down your number and stuff, and of course it's like near impossible to play the damn game. But everybody's facing that same challenge. So it's not just raw talent in pinball. It's raw talent in pinball and an insane gimmick that absolutely detracts from the gameplay. And it was bonkers. And I loved it. I loved what they did. They had no fear with, like, an air fan blowing and a big container of ping pong balls just flying around crazily. So you have to play through a field of ping pong balls bouncing all over the place and try to keep track of the game. They had games where you had to look through a kaleidoscope to play it. a game where you had those bee goggles where everything is just pixelated and crazy and you can't tell what's going on. There was an Iron Man you had to play like that. There was a hard body that they had the flippers rigged up to a shake weight. So you had to take the shake weight and go right with the right flipper and left with the left flipper. So you're playing a pinball machine with a shake weight. There was another game you had to play with boxing gloves. You had to play Black Rose with an eye patch. They had a giant air cash machine with a game inside there with balls and money flying around and you're trying to play it. Scott Danesi built a torture chamber out of plywood, like an isolation box with a total nuclear isolation in there with effects in the box like lasers and lights and strobe lights and fog machines tied into the game, thumping with music. What's the opposite of sensory deprivation? That's what it was. So teams of four would go in, get sealed in into a magical, mystery, crazy world of TNA and then try to play and compete. It's nuts. There was games you played on a sling with machines suspended with chains swinging all over the place. In this garage, there was a turntable with a homebrew subhumans game that was spinning around 360 degrees. And you jump on the turntable and you're spinning around slowly playing pinball with the ball going all kinds of crazy places. I competed in the treadmill tournament. Let me tell you this. I took a treadmill and attached it to an Indy 500 machine. And you have to play the machine while running at a full sprint. On a treadmill. So, like, jump on there, hit the start button, and run, run, run. You couldn't stop running because it would throw you right off the back. And then you try to play pinball like that. And after about 40 seconds or a minute, like, you're dying, especially if you're of the pinball brethren like us, dudes in their 40s that haven't run in three years. Holy garbage, man. I made it all three rounds. The third one I had to tap out early, though, because I was about to buckle. But just insane. Like, you would look at this and you would say, well, why? And then you would say, because it's there. There was so many more. I ended up playing in Indiana Jones with a balance board connected to the tilt bob for the game. So as you're standing on this balance board, you have to keep your balance, or else you'll upset the tilt and tilt the game. And then there was two PVC controllers with buttons that you would hold in your hands, you know, to operate the flippers. You know, almost like you're in just like a torture position, you know, trying to balance on this thing and play with buttons. And dang it, I don't know if it's my skateboarding background, but I was killing it with that game. I think I blew it up and got the GC because I got a gold medal at the end of it. So thank you, Pinball Olympics, for being amazing. Tickets were $100. There's a bus that's offered. Drinks and tacos are included. There was so much more. There was so much more. If you get a chance to go to Pinball Olympics, do it. Pinball Life sells the tickets. They sold out in a day and a half. You've got to do it once. You've got to do it at least once. It is insane. If you like pinball, if you like insanity, if you like treadmills, this is the event for you. So, gosh, man, just doing that, I was able to interview Pinball Brothers, the Electric Playground I interviewed, Pinball Adventures I interviewed, you know, on audio. And then I personally went and interviewed the folks with Turner Pinball with Barrels of Fun. I met Jersey Jack. He was dressed up in the Dodger outfit. He was dressed like Elton John. I met Steve Ritchie. He came up and grabbed my arm and we had a good conversation. And I met thousands of listeners out there too. Thousands. It felt like thousands. Y'all are great. Everybody I forgot to mention, dude. You guys are just amazing. It was such an awesome time at Expo. I'd heard before that if you spend more than one day at Expo, you're wasting your time. I was running nonstop, you guys, for four days between the events at Expo and the events that were going on just off the side of the field. I could have gone another two days and my body would have hung up and kept up with me. So just thanks to everybody that was involved in making that. Rob Burke, you're a gem of a person for getting this thing off the ground. David Fix is heavily involved in it. All the owners and the media people and the marketing people and the lady making the dang hot dogs at the food court. Thank you for everybody for making that event as cool as it was. Spooky Pinball, thank you so much for the media access ban. I'm going to pay that forward. The Poor Man's Tribe was in effect. they've got a bar masquerading as a yard sale just everybody from Rachel Risto to Andrew McBain to every listener to my buddy Geoff from Vancouver and his wife and Doug and everybody thank you guys thank you so much let's cut this now that's my recap we're going to have so much more coming up I don't think we're done with announcements I think we're going to see even more and stranger things is coming through email Jeff what's up Email me. Whoa, whoa. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Let's stop this. We'll try one more time. This is better. Email me, donspinballpodcast at gmail.com to connect. Like and subscribe on the YouTube. I did a video for this, man. Go check it out on the YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube channel. I do shorts. I do live streams. We interact, donspinballpodcast at gmail.com. It's the best way to get to me. Order a t-shirt, man. Look at this drift that we got. People on the video, man. Look, this thing is slaps, man. Cengiz, talk to me later.