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Multimorphic’s NEXT BIG REVEALS! Dungeon Crawler Carl & Ender’s Game with Kevin Manne | The JBS Show

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 19m·analyzed·Jul 28, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.020

TL;DR

Multimorphic reveals Dungeon Crawler Carl & Ender's Game P3 games; discusses leak dynamics and pinball content creation.

Summary

Kevin Manne, Multimorphic's corporate communications lead and co-founder of Buffalo Pinball podcast, reveals two upcoming P3 games: Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game. The hosts discuss how early reveals leaked despite secrecy efforts, the passion economy of pinball content creation, and Kevin's journey from Buffalo Pinball streamer to Multimorphic employee.

Key Claims

  • Two new Multimorphic P3 games have been officially revealed: Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game

    high confidence · Kevin Manne and host discussing the games directly, mentioning they can now speak about them because 'this is after the case' (after official reveal)

  • The early leak of these games was frustrating for Multimorphic and may discourage future reveal events

    high confidence · Host: 'And it sucks, though... now Jerry probably won't ever do that again' — discussing how information leaks despite confidentiality promises

  • Kevin Manne has worked with Multimorphic since approximately 2017, when Jerry visited for a Cosmic Cart Racing reveal

    high confidence · Kevin: 'I personally have been working with Multimorphic since like, I guess, 2017 or so doing when Jerry came to my place... about the upcoming... Cosmic Cart Racing'

  • Buffalo Pinball podcast ran for approximately 10 years before Kevin transitioned to Multimorphic full-time

    high confidence · Kevin: 'we did it for 10 years. It's like, what else is there to say?'

  • Kevin Manne co-founded Buffalo Pinball in 2013 with Nick Lane, starting as a streaming channel in late 2014/early 2015

    high confidence · Host introduction: 'In 2013, he and Nick Lane founded Buffalo Pinball, started the Bro, do you even talk pinball? podcast and stream'

  • Pinball streaming generates minimal financial return relative to effort and equipment investment

    high confidence · Kevin: 'Ralph talking about how much money he's made on YouTube over the past 12 years or whatever it's been... it seems like a lot, but it's like three pinball machines'

  • Multimorphic loaned Kevin a P3 containing Cosmic Cart Racing and Lexy Lightspeed Escape From Earth modules during the second year of P3 production

    high confidence · Kevin: 'He had loaned me a P3. I think that was like the second year they were making machines. So I had Cosmic Cart Racing and Lexy Lightspeed Escape From Earth at that point'

Notable Quotes

  • “And it sucks, though. So it's like what sucks about it is now Jerry probably won't ever do that again.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ Early in conversation about machine reveals — Indicates frustration with early leaks of Multimorphic reveals, suggesting the company may not organize similar reveal events in future

  • “the currency we deal in is information... everybody wants to be the person that has the scoop, right? And nobody can help themselves, even though we're all like, oh, yeah, we promise. We won't say anything. Somebody told somebody.”

    Kevin Manne @ Mid-conversation about leak culture — Articulates the structural problem of information leaks in the pinball community — even content creators who value exclusivity cannot resist sharing news

  • “you spend so much money to stream with so low return, you have to do it for the love of it. You just do it because you love it, right?”

    Kevin Manne @ Discussion of streaming economics — Highlights the non-commercial motivation driving pinball content creation — passion economy, not profit

  • “The amount of talent, time, effort, determination it takes to bring one of these machines to market is crazy. So reach out to everybody doing it.”

    Kevin Manne @ Opening remarks about industry respect — Reflects Kevin's perspective shift after joining Multimorphic, gaining behind-the-scenes visibility into manufacturing complexity

  • “It felt really cool and special... the kind of stream team we built and the community we built.”

    Kevin Manne @ Reflecting on Buffalo Pinball era — Expresses nostalgia for the early streaming community-building phase, contrasting with more competitive/commercialized modern streaming landscape

  • “I feel like it had at that point, like streaming and podcasting... satisfied that creative need that I had? And I feel like it had... what else is out there where I can contribute?”

    Kevin Manne @ Explaining transition from Buffalo Pinball to Multimorphic — Reveals creative burnout as motivation for career transition, seeking new outlets within pinball industry

Entities

Kevin MannepersonNick LanepersonDavid FixpersonMultimorphiccompanyDungeon Crawler CarlgameEnder's GamegameBuffalo Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Official reveal of two new Multimorphic P3 games: Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game; announced during JBS Show podcast episode

    high · Host: 'we're going to talk about Dungeon Crawler, Carl, and Ender's Game, and we're going to talk about that a lot because I got to play the hell out of him' and Kevin: 'it's weird to say it out loud... I haven't said it'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Early leaks of both Multimorphic games occurred before official reveal; frustration expressed about impact on future reveal strategy

    high · Host: 'And it sucks, though. So it's like what sucks about it is now Jerry probably won't ever do that again' and Kevin discussing how 'somebody told somebody' despite confidentiality

  • ?

    community_signal: Structural problem identified in pinball community: information inevitably leaks despite confidentiality agreements because content creators value information currency and scoops

    high · Kevin: 'the currency we deal in is information... everybody wants to be the person that has the scoop... As soon as you start showing people something, the floodgates are open. It's like impossible.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Kevin Manning transitioned from Buffalo Pinball podcast/streaming to full-time role at Multimorphic in corporate communications and community engagement

    high · Kevin: 'when I took this new role, Multimorphic... you couldn't stream and do that as well' and host acknowledges he 'took this new role, Multimorphic'

  • ?

    content_signal: Buffalo Pinball podcast ran for ~10 years and concluded; Kevin sought new creative outlets within pinball industry rather than continuing content creation

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.053

0:00
This week on the podcast, Jamey sits down with multimorphic employee Kevin Manning. In 2013, he and Nick Lane founded Buffalo Pinball, started the Brody Even Talk Pinball podcast and stream. As a fan of all things pinball, Kevin's interest for the P3 had him streaming all the modules. That passion led to his eventual hire where he's now leading corporate communication and community engagements. Please welcome Kevin Manning on this episode of the JBS Podcast.
0:30
Hello and welcome to another edition of the JBS show. Haven't recorded in a while, but here I am with Kevin Manny. How are you, sir? Buffalo pinball fame. J.B., what's going on? Bro, do you even talk pinball fame and now multimorphic fame? It's incredible, Kevin. Man, when you get into pinball, you go all in. Yeah. You know what I mean?
0:54
There's no just doing it half-assed. You go all in or nothing. Absolutely. Push your chips in and let's go. I mean, Ralph and I were going to start a distributorship. That's a true story. Dude, I heard that. That was a crazy, like, hearing what they require of distributors. That's insane.
1:10
I had no idea. There's so many things I had no idea about, especially now that I'm working with Multimorphic and seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Like, new level of respect for everybody who does anything in this industry. The amount of talent, time, effort, determination it takes to bring one of these machines to market is crazy. So reach out to everybody doing it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you to everybody doing it. And, you know, we're going to start off with a thank you to you, and then we'll get to Multimorphic, and we'll get to all of it today, because I just saw both machines that we'll talk about in a little while. And we can say machines now because, you know, this is after the case. So, you know, we're going to talk about Dungeon Crawler, Carl, and Ender's Game, and we're going to talk about that a lot because I got to play the hell out of him. Yeah, it's weird to say it out loud. It is weird. I haven't said it. You know, I'm not the guy that broke that, okay?

Information leaks in the pinball community are nearly inevitable once machines are shown to people despite confidentiality agreements

high confidence · Kevin: 'the currency we deal in is information... everybody wants to be the person that has the scoop... As soon as you start showing people something, the floodgates are open. It's like impossible.'

[name withheld pending review]
person
Retro Ralphperson
Jameyperson
Cale Hernandezperson
P3product
Cosmic Cart Racinggame
Lexy Lightspeed Escape From Earthgame
JBS Showevent
Buffalo Pinballorganization
IFPAorganization
Deep Root Pinballcompany
Straight Down The Middleevent

high · Kevin: 'we did it for 10 years. It's like, what else is there to say?... it had... satisfied that creative need... what else is out there where I can contribute?'

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball streaming/YouTube content generates minimal financial returns relative to equipment and time investment; creators motivate by passion rather than revenue

    high · Kevin: 'Ralph talking about how much money he's made on YouTube over the past 12 years or whatever it's been... seems like a lot, but it's like three pinball machines... you have to do it for the love of it'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Multimorphic P3 platform has been in production for multiple years; second year units available for loaning to content creators for streaming by 2017-2018 timeframe

    medium · Kevin: 'I had loaned me a P3. I think that was like the second year they were making machines. So I had Cosmic Kart Racing and Lexi Lightspeed at that point'

  • $

    market_signal: Multimorphic securing IP licenses for major franchises; Ender's Game adaptation indicates continued focus on well-known literary/media properties for P3 platform

    medium · Two-game announcement includes Ender's Game, a major sci-fi IP, alongside original IP (Dungeon Crawler Carl)

  • ?

    community_signal: Running large pinball tournaments (Papa Circuit events) is labor-intensive and volunteer-dependent; hosts express gratitude for TDs while acknowledging operational burden

    high · Host: 'Another shout out to everybody who runs pinball events... It's a pain in the ass... another crazy level of insanity' and Kevin: 'It is a pain in the ass. It's so much. I'm not doing it again.'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball competitive landscape has evolved; Kevin reports rising to 1,500 WPPR ranking before system changes; now 4,000 range with relaxed competitive focus for mental health

    high · Kevin: 'I got to 1,500, but they changed the rankings... my seriousness with pinball tournaments has come way down... being 4,000 in the world. It feels good.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Multimorphic P3 platform enables modular game design, allowing diverse IP and gameplay experiences on shared hardware; strategic approach to game diversity vs. manufacturing efficiency

    medium · Kevin's lengthy history with P3 modules (Cosmic Kart Racing, Lexi Lightspeed, and now two new titles) demonstrates Multimorphic's ongoing module development strategy

    • 2:11
    You know, isn't it crazy? And it sucks, though. So it's like what sucks about it is now Jerry probably won't ever do that again. Yeah. Well, I can't speak to that, but I can say that like having come from the other side of like having a podcast. Yeah. Like the like currency we deal in is information. It is. You know, so it's like everybody wants to be the person that has the scoop, right? Yeah. And nobody can help themselves, even though we're all like, oh, yeah, we promise. We won't say anything. Somebody told somebody. Yeah. As soon as you start showing people something, the floodgates are open. It's like impossible. So it's a shame that it comes to that. But it's also like you got to kind of know what's going to happen. So in a way, it's good, though. In a way, it's good because it gets people pumped up. And the problem is people have expectations in their head. And whether the organization, the company meets those expectations or not, who the hell knows. But anyway, it's going to be great, and we'll talk about it in length. But I wanted to shout out a thank you to you, okay? This is a big thank you because when we first started out at the old joint, right, the only stream that would rate us, that even knew we existed, was Buffalo Pinball. And thank you so, so much, man. And I don't know how much you know how much that meant to us, you know, because we had just started and we were making some waves and you kind of were like the first to really thank us. And God bless you, dude. Well, I appreciate that. And, you know, we've been doing this a long time and we were kind of among the first to jump on Twitch and start doing all this crazy stuff. And we were lucky enough to get partnered way back in the day. So with that, we were able to build an audience and we had connected with manufacturers and we're doing reveal streams. So you know this, like Pinball, the audience is very small. To build anything of substance takes a lot of time and effort. And I feel like we put that time and effort in and I wanted to recognize other people who were putting the effort in. Because I know what it takes to build one of these crazy contraptions that streams pinball and all the things that can go wrong with it, your stream, your pinball machine. There's like so many things that can go wrong. So if you're putting the time and effort into it, I always tried to like look for other people who were doing it, new people who I hadn't rated or whatever that were doing pinball content after I wrapped up my stream. And it's like, here's somebody else doing this, check them out. And if you're like, I'm coming back to you. And I liked what you were doing over at your old setup. You know, it was great. Yeah. And it really put me on the map, man, and I appreciate it. It put us on the map. And really, without that, I wouldn't have been able to get TPF and all these big streams that we started getting. And then when I left the joint, you know, I've had this kind of resurgence, and it's been great. So it never would have happened without you guys. I appreciate you so, so much, man. No, it's awesome. Plus, you're a Yankees fan, so, like, you know, go Yankees. We lost today. Yeah, I will let everybody know that I'm foregoing watching tonight's Yankees game to do this podcast. So the sacrifices I'm making for the content, you guys, come on. I barely miss a game ever. And today I had meetings today, so I missed the loss and the doubleheader. But I heard Cole pitched good, so we'll see. I mean, you know, whatever. Exactly. It's like the season is long and there's all these ups and downs. I know. It's like a big soap opera throughout the whole spring, summer, fall season.
    6:01
    It's very similar to pinball in some ways. People lose their minds over the littlest things and there's drama every day.
    6:09
    Aaron Boone's got to go. I know. Anthony Fulpe, what's he doing out there? What's he doing? Get rid of him. Get rid of him. Dominguez sucks. You know, it's this whole – anyway, I find it fascinating how many pinballers don't like sports. Like, you know, when we were at the old joint, I put TVs everywhere because I wanted to watch sports. And I would be the only guy in there. Everyone else is playing pinball, and I'm watching NFL playoffs in there. And I was just like, you guys, none of them cared. None of them gave a rat. Yeah, we're in Buffalo. The Bills are like everything. Everything. You know, we have the club, the Nickel City Pinball Club. There's a TV there, and 99% of the time it's just got like the tournament standings on there and not, you know, whatever game is happening or whatever. Right. That's crazy. I get my buddy Jeff to like cast the Yankees game up there and people lose their minds. Like, oh, I got to look on my phone for the standings now.
    7:09
    That was the rule in the old joint. I don't know if you know this. If it was a Yankee game on, I wouldn't put match play on. And then we had to buy another TV just for the match play so that Jamie could put the Yankee game on because I just don't miss him. That's amazing. You're a man after my own heart. I would absolutely do the same thing. Same thing, right? I mean, what's $300? It's $300. Exactly. Throw a TV up there. Come on. You throw a TV up there. That's what I did. Jamie, I got a question for you. Go ahead. Is that a Ford gum pinball machine behind you? Yes, an original Ford. Do you want to see it real quick? I have one, too. Do you really? Yeah.
    7:50
    So show me yours, and then I'll tell you about my story with Ford gum. Don't drop it, Jamey. It's heavy. Oh, yeah. It's an original, and it has the original top. Yeah, mine's got a Kiwanis Club top. It does? Yeah. You've got to have a topper on your gum ball machine. Those are hard to find. Yeah, Ford gum machine. This one, you know, I got this years and years ago for Janine, my wife, for a Christmas present. I just thought that this is the coolest damn thing on the planet. And to find it with the topper.
    8:28
    I mean, if your pinball machine is going to have a topper, you got to have a topper on your gumball machine. I mean, you have to. Those gumballs haven't been eaten in like 15 years since I got that thing. The hardest part is finding pennies to put in the thing now. Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's awesome. So the Ford Gum factory is like five miles from my house in New York.
    8:51
    And I actually did a tour of it one time because my day job, I work for a university, and the guy who runs Ford Gum is an alum of the school there where I work, and I do communications and public relations for my day job. So I got to tour the factory and I did a profile story about this guy. And then I was at the Ohio Pinbrew show and they had one of its Ford gum machines there. I was like, I got to buy one. I was like, it's right by my house. I toured the thing. I used to see them everywhere when I was a kid. It was like, yeah, through the mall. It's like, mom, can I have a penny for a gumball? You know, it was like super, super nostalgic trip. And I ended up finding there's a stand you can so you can floor mount it to. I've seen those. I got it. Oh, that's money. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. So it was pretty cool. I learned how to take them all apart and clean it and stuff. Yeah, me and my son did it. And it was not working. And we got it to work. And it was a little bit of work, but it wasn't that bad. Yeah. It was fun. I mean, if you're into fixing pinball, you can dig into one of these. I can't fix shit on a pinball machine, but I can fix a gumball machine. Who the hell knows? There you go.
    10:01
    So when did you start streaming Buffalo Pinball? I think it was like December 2014 we did our first like test stream which is like 12 years ago.
    10:15
    So the technology if you think about it in 12 years has gotten ridiculous. Like I have a Yolo box. Have you seen this thing? No, like you guys are doing stuff that I like. I can't I don't know. I still I'm running my Logitech C920 camera right now. No, no, no. That's why you look so much better than I do. Well, I've got the YOLO Live camera that Kale got, and he hooked me up with this YOLO Live, and Ralph hooked me up with this YOLO Box. If you really want to get geeky, we are about to do a stream with me and my buddy versus Retro Ralph and his buddy, and we're going to have it simultaneous on his channel. And he'll be able to cut to us in Houston and then cut to himself in Phoenix and play against each other. We're going to do teams. That's crazy. The things we used to do to make that happen, we would have, like, two Twitch streams set up. Yeah. And we would capture the second Twitch stream onto the first Twitch stream. And then you'd have to, like, delay the timing so they would match up. And then you'd be talking and it'd be all out of sync. So, like, the fact that you can do that is crazy. We can do roadcaster to roadcasters how we'll talk to each other. Okay. And the roadcaster is just the best. I mean, I don't know. I don't understand why Stern or anyone that doesn't have, that has, does interviews, doesn't get a little roadcaster. It doesn't make any sense to me, but that's just me. And I'm dying on that ilk, Kevin. But you can go roadcaster to roadcaster over the Internet and it's seamless. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. And it's funny, too, when you think, you know, I watch Fox Cities and things like that. They're getting a decent number of subscribers and things like that. But I heard Ralph talking about how much money he's made on YouTube over the past 12 years or whatever it's been. And it seems like a lot, but it's like three pinball machines.
    12:15
    It's like you spend so much money to stream with so low return, you have to do it for the love of it. You just do it because you love it, right? And, you know, I've told the story. I wanted to be on the radio, and I was my kid's lacrosse announcer. That's how badly I wanted to be heard.
    12:35
    So for me to do streaming, it was just easy. Yeah, I did. So actually I was on the radio in high school. Awesome. Well, I grew up with it. My dad was a radio announcer, so I used to go with him when I was a kid on the weekends. I love this. to be in the radio station and I would help him pick out the carts like what do you want to play on the radio next and I'd go over to the wall and be like I don't know Nat King Cole I guess throw this on I don't even know what it is and he would play it and I would hear him doing the announcing and then when I was in high school he was like managing the local like little AM FM radio station and they had an opening and I was like can I do it and he's like sure audition and I auditioned and it was awful I actually still have some of my old air check tapes and they're hilarious I should digitize them at some point. You can absolutely digitize and throw that up on YouTube because that's awesome. You can do it like the AccuWeather forecast and stuff. It's so funny. That's fantastic. Yeah, it was a country radio station at that point, and I had like zero interest in country music.
    13:35
    Growing up, I was into heavy metal and I got into punk rock and all that, and I was like, I don't know anything about this, so I'll just fake my way through it. So I wasn't a great radio announcer, especially when I didn't understand what I was talking about. But when it's pinball and it's like a thing you're like so passionate about, it's super easy. It was the same thing when I went to college and I was able to play the music I liked. You could just like bring my rack of CDs and go to the radio station and be like, here's all the bands I love. I went and saw them this weekend, check these guys out. That's when it's natural and easy. Did you do college radio? Yeah, yeah.
    14:12
    So cool. I went to college to do it. And they canceled the comm program and closed the radio station my freshman year. Oh, that's awful. Of course, I fell in love with a girl, right, and this broad, and so now I've got to stay with this girl. And I should have transferred. But you know what? Then I would never have met Janine my senior year, so it all worked out. It all worked out, yeah. Actually, the college radio station I was on stayed on until like two years ago. They finally shut it down. Yeah. And I live in a pretty rural area, so having like that, it was like, oh man, I can call these college kids and they can play Metallica on the radio for me. In like the late 80s, early 90s, I was like, this is amazing. Yeah. I'm going to do that someday. I'm so envious of you. Yeah. I saw what radio announcers make and I was like, I need to find a different career. Exactly. Unless you're like Howard Stern or something, you're not making it anyway. I know. They made no money. You know, they make no money, but, you know, they love it. Right. And I just wanted to spin records, man. I wanted to be Howard Stern, really. Okay. I mean, just hearing him at WNBC when I was a kid. WNBC. And when I was a kid, he was everything. And he was afternoon. Most people don't remember that. I don't know if you do. Yeah, yeah. Growing up in New York, you know. Oh, growing up in New York, I've got to, being a Yankee fan, I'm going to say this, see if you remember this, okay? Okay. Yep. Picks. WPIX. Yeah. Do you remember the video game where they would call in and someone would play a video game and you would call the station and say, Picks, Picks, and they would play the video game? Do you remember this? No, so the way I knew, so I'm on like the other end of the state, so the only time I would be connected to WPIX was when they would like air the New York City games on our local station. So I wouldn't, we didn't actually get that channel. I would just get it over the air on like our local Fox affiliate or whatever, you know. This podcast is just for me and you, so no one, there are people listening. Okay, and I don't give a shit. You said it was going to go off the rails, so. I don't give a shit, okay. I'm not as bad as Oral Albert, but I just do go off. But it's just very funny to me to talk to New Yorkers, and I've been gone for so long that WPIX was such a big thing in our childhood, you know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's just fucking funny to me. I don't know. Anyway. Yeah. So you'll like this, too. I grew up, you know, I think I'm a little younger than you, but not much. So Don Mattingly was my man growing up. Yeah, Don Mattingly, 23. Yeah, yeah. It's the only Yankee jersey I've got. The only one I'll ever have. Oh, really? You never wore a Jeter jersey? Nope. Mattingly's my man. I mean, I love Donnie baseball, but, you know. I mean, dude, there's so many great Yankees, though. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know. I mean. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Every judge is insane, too. I know. I mean, come on. So I was like 12 years old, idolized Don Mattingly. We finally go to New York City. I'm going to my first Yankees game, old Yankee Stadium. It's going to be amazing. It's the game where he got suspended because his hair was too long.
    17:28
    Oh, my God. Do you remember that? Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I didn't get to see him play. That's so tragic. That sucks.
    17:36
    Because they played all the time. I mean, guys, if you're thinking when you went to the ballpark and you wanted to see Reggie when I was really young, right, you were going to see Reggie because they played. Yeah. You know, they played 162 games. I mean, these guys were iron horses, so you didn't miss your guys like you do today. It sucks. Yeah, yeah. It's insane. I did eventually get to see him play. We went to the first season where they opened Sky Dome in Toronto. Yeah. And we went there and we saw him play. We saw the Blue Jays throw a no-hitter into the ninth inning, and then we finally got a hit in the ninth inning. Sneak out of there. I almost saw history for a bad reason. It's funny because people ride you for being a Yankees fan. It's like, oh, you know, they win all the time. I was like, bro, when I was growing up, they were awful. No, not in the 80s. Not in the 80s. They were terrible. It's where people went to die. Exactly. And it's just surrounded Donnie Baseball with this shit. Yeah. You could see the stands and they would be like three quarters empty. Yeah. All right, no more baseball. No more baseball. We can do everything. No more baseball talk because we're getting in trouble. I'm going to get yelled at. I get yelled at more than anyone. This is your show. I know, but I get IMs, right? And they'll go, too much baseball. Everybody, if you're going in the comments, everybody, go in the comments right now on YouTube. Yeah. And you can yell at me. This is my fault. I keep bringing it back to baseball and for gumball machines and stuff. No, the gumball is cool. Yelling me. It's funny.
    19:09
    So when did you start, bro? Do you even talk pinball with Nick? So, yeah, we started the gameplay streaming in late 2014, early 2015.
    19:20
    And then we would – so Nick and I – I'll give you the Kevin and Nick origin story. Give me it. We go back to 2012-ish. We both work at the university. We didn't know it – actually, I didn't work at the university at the time. He was working there and I was not. But we were in this local Facebook group and he posted on the local Facebook group that he was getting a brand new ACDC pinball machine And if anybody in the local coin group wanted to come over and play you could play it I was like my mind was blown that you could buy a brand new pinball machine and just have it in your house Yeah. So I was like, I had a couple arcade machines at that time, but no pinball machines. So I was like, absolutely, I'm going over to play this brand new pinball machine. Yeah, with this random guy, I don't even know. Yeah, from Facebook, you know, like your parents always told you never to do, right? Right. So that's when I first met Nick. And guess who was also there? But David Fix. So that was the first time I met David Fix. Crazy. Buffalo's own David Fix. So, you know, he was there. It was just the three of us. And we were playing this ACDC. Nick and Dave, I forget how they met each other. But Dave was like, he had so many pinball machines, he was like putting them at Nick's place. And Nick was like cleaning them up and stuff in exchange for like having these pinball machines. So Nick had like five or six pinball machines at his house. I think two of them at that point were his. He had an Ironman and the ACDC and the rest were Dave's.
    20:48
    And yeah, that's where I met Nick. And then so we got to be friends. We ended up starting the Buffalo Pinball League a couple years later, which grew out of this. So we had a coin op collectors group where we would get together once a month to play each other's pinball machines and video games, just hang out. And it was a casual social thing. And then Nick had started going to Pittsburgh, I think, mostly and playing in Pinburg. Pittsburgh and seeing kind of how their tournament and league scene worked. And he was like, hey, we should start doing this in Buffalo. And, you know, got a bunch of the people who were hosting who had pinball machines. Would you be open to doing this once a month? And we put our league together. And that's everything kind of grew out of the Buffalo Pinball League. So then we started doing the streaming. And then streaming was a way because we were like, we're in the like, oh, my God, pinball is amazing. We have to tell everybody about it. You have to tell everyone. So streaming was a way to take this local crazy thing we had going on and bring it to a wider audience because we were like, if people here are crazy enough to do it, there's probably got to be people all over doing this who are into it. And yeah, so we started doing that, doing the tutorials and gameplay, just hanging out. And it's funny because I hear people say things about the roundtable that people used to say to us about the bro show, the gameplay streams, where it feels like I'm hanging out with my friends, playing pinball. It did, by the way. It really did. Yeah, and it was when you have something that's such a passion that is so niche that you want to, like, find people who are like-minded like you. Yeah. A lot of people don't have that in their mediated area, so if you're able to do it online, that's awesome. So then what happened was Nick and I would start getting together for lunch once we both started working at the same place together, like, once a week, And we would just sit there and talk about pinball and eat tacos. We're like, we should do this on the internet. We should do a podcast. At that time, I think there was like three pinball podcasts. It was Coast to Coast, Spooky Pinball had their podcast, and the pinball podcast with Don and Jeff. Pretty sure that's all there was back then.
    22:59
    There may have been the one with, oh, God, I can't even remember. I think there may have been one more. But we were like, why does the world need like five pinball podcasts? Why are we starting a fifth pinball podcast? There's already four pinball podcasts. And we're like, okay, like, okay, there's only, especially at that time, there were so few pinball machines getting released. It's like, what are we going to talk about? So we were doing like, you know, top, you know, Sterns of the modern era, top classic games and things like that. And, you know, as you've seen over the years, the number of manufacturers have gone up, the amount of releases have gone up, so the amount of content to talk about it has increased. So that helps for all these. There's way more podcasts now.
    23:50
    And, you know, that's another reason why we decided on the monthly release schedule, because it's like, what are you going to talk about more than once a month? And I think it worked out because if you do it more often than that, you kind of like run into the same content. It's like, what are we going to talk about? And it gets to be a bit of a stretch. And it also like helped us avoid burnout because we didn't want to like totally go overboard with it either. So that's when we started that. And, you know, we built up the stream team in a similar way because Nick and I were doing it. Well, we started with the bro show and then Nick and I added our own individual nights where we were streaming. And we were like, we don't want this to feel like a job, so let's see if there are other people who want to join us after we got partnered. Let's give people more value for their money, so we'll build a stream team and see if some of these other smaller streamers who we watch, like, you know, your stream back in the day. Yeah. See if there's other people that want to join up, and so they would stream on our channel once a week. And so there was a really fun time, especially when I think back about it, the kind of, like, stream team we built and the community we built. It felt really cool and special. So it was fun.
    24:59
    I love how you goad him. Nick? Yeah, my favorite thing on the planet. Well, you know, after we've been doing the podcast for like eight, ten years, I know what pushes his buttons, man. I know. It got even better and better and better. And it was just one of my favorite things to do was to watch you guys and to see when you would goad him. God, I loved it. Well, because I would do all the show notes and I'd be like, all right, this is the thing that's going to set Nick off. And Nick, as his involvement in pinball went on over time, his awareness of the intricate details of everything that was happening went down because he ended up getting a new job that was like, he's so involved in his job that he just doesn't have the time to pay attention to all the minutia. So I knew he wasn't following all the insanity that was happening. We're talking about Ballorama Pinball or Deep Root and all that stuff. It's like I know it's just going to set him off, and it totally did every time. Yeah, I wish the roundtable was around back then to rip on Deep Root. Could you imagine the crap we would say about them? Yeah, and Nick is like, none of this makes sense. How does he have all of these people working for him and zero product coming out? They're making no money for years. You're just paying all of these salaries and all of this R&D.
    26:27
    Lo and behold, it didn't make sense because you're stealing money from old people. Old people. Special place in hell, man. Yeah, that guy. Man.
    26:40
    So you had a long run on the show, and I totally understand when you took this new role, Multimorphic, That you couldn't stream and do that as well, right? Yeah, so that was like, so I was kind of like starting to feel like the podcast, like, you know, we did it for 10 years. It's like, what else is there to say? There's always new Pinball machines to talk about, and I know people really like the show, and I appreciate that. You know, I love that people like listening to us, but for me and for you, I'm sure as well, it's like a creative outlet, right? And it's like, let's see what we can do in here. What kind of like stuff can we make that people will like? And is it is it going to like, you know, satisfy that creative need that I had? And I feel like it had at that point, like streaming and podcasting. It's like and it's like, OK, but I still have this interest and energy for pinball. What else is out there where I can contribute? And, you know, we've been working. I personally have been working with Multimorphic since like, I guess, 2017 or so doing when Jerry came to my place. And we did an interview in this very spot. Jerry flew to my house and we did an interview, which was awesome, about the upcoming. At that point, it was Cosmic Kart Racing. And he brought the module and we got to do the reveal stream with Jerry here. That was really awesome. So we've had a relationship ever since then. He had loaned me a P3. I think that was like the second year they were making machines. So I had Cosmic Kart Racing and Lexi Lightspeed at that point.
    28:15
    And I was like, hey, we'll stream it for a while. We'll show it off to everybody. We took it to our Buffalo Pinball Summer Open that we were running at that point, which was our Papa Circuit Tournament event, which is another crazy level of insanity and involvement that we were doing in pinball. Big tournament. Another shout out to everybody who runs pinball events and tournaments. I know we ran big ones too, man. It is a pain in the ass.
    28:41
    It's so much. I'm not doing it again. No. No way. Pinball tournament players, I love you, but you're also a huge pain in the butt. You're a pain in the ass.
    28:52
    You're a pain in the ass. No, they're great. God bless them. But it's just so much work, right, to put on these events. And God bless those TDs that get – and I've given TDs shit, too. So I know this is a tough gig. They're all volunteers. They're volunteers. Exactly. They're volunteers. Stop yelling at them. They're making a ruling.
    29:18
    I understand, too, because I get passionate when I play. I'm a competitive player still. I know you're not as much anymore, but I still play in tournaments. I still play in tournaments, and I have a joke, can Jame play pinball? Sometimes I can, sometimes I fucking can't. So I just document it, but I still get red ass a little, but I'm not going to take it out on a volunteer. Yeah, I still get passionate about it, but my seriousness with pinball tournaments has come way down. I care way less, which I feel like that's good.
    29:51
    It's much better for my mental health being 4,000 in the world. It feels good. It feels great. And I'll still do some streams and I'll still talk pinball, but I'll never beat Kyle McAlpine. I mean, I can beat him, what, he's going to beat me 9 out of 10 times, and his 10th is just terrible. Yeah. It was fun to see, like, when I was really pushing, I was like, how good can I get at this? Right. And I got up to, like, 750-ish in the IFPA, which was pretty good.
    30:24
    I got to 1,500, but they changed the rankings. And ever since they changed the system, I've given I don't even go to IPA and check my ranking anymore. Remember when you used to check it and see how you were doing? Right. Were you crazy like that? Oh, yeah. OK. I get it once in a while. If I have a good tournament in the rankings come through, I'll be like, let's see where I'm at. I'm in like the 2000s now, I think. OK, that's pretty damn good. It's pretty damn good. What would you say in golf that is like a five handicapper is seven handicapper? I know nothing about golf. Oh, that's too bad. I could talk baseball with you all day, but not zero about golf. We can go down that damn hole forever. Yep. So what were we talking about? We're talking about multimorphic. And, yeah, so it was like, you know, I've got these skills. I know pinball. Yeah. I've been working with multimorphic for all these years. And the opportunity came up, and I was like, I have all these ideas of how they can do their communications. These are the things they should be doing. And I was like, can I just do this? And Jerry's like, yeah. And it's been incredible. I've you know, because I was like, oh, here's the thing. So, you know, I'm sure you've run into this, too. Like when you work with a manufacturer and you're a podcaster, there's a relationship there. And then you start getting called a shill. Right. It's like, oh, you're just shilling for them. And we were always very transparent. We had a screen up that said they're a partner of the show. And, you know, we work together. Here's the news and updates about them. We're not going to review their games because we have a partnership with them. It's not fair to you. It's not fair to them. I love that. As the listeners. I've always respected that, right? Because I thought that was a pro move. You're like, look, hey, we're shills. Okay.
    32:15
    They sponsored the show. We're not going to talk to the show. We're not going to talk crap about heists, okay? Shut up. But on the flip side of that, through playing all these games and being a hardcore pinball player, I was like, I could see how awesome these games are. And I just wanted the opportunity to just go all out and say how awesome these games are. And I was like, here's the videos we should be shooting, reels that show off all these mechanical features. And people say the flippers are weird, so I'm going to do a reel that shows all the cool flipper maneuvers you can do on a P3, just like the ones you can do on a traditional pinball machine, you know what I mean? And it's like, oh, it's a virtual machine. No, check it, they're doing some of the craziest mechs, interactive ball, interactive mechs in pinball, like the Cranian Heist, the Cannon and Final Resistance. The disc on Dungeon Caller Carl and Andrew's Game, I was called by the codename. I'm so not used to saying it. So it's fluorine and sodium are the codenames. Okay. It's so licking green in me. And we put them on social media this week, so people are kind of like speculating, whoa, what does fluorine mean and what does sodium mean? And it's been hilarious to watch.
    33:28
    Yeah, so it's like, you know, and then Portal came out. And there was people, mostly this one guy on Facebook saying like, oh, I wish some other company had got it because, you know, they would have done a better job with the theme integration. And it should have portals on it where the ball portals from one side to the other. I'm like, this is literally all this machine does. So I'm like, I'm going to make a reel that shows the 18 portals in this game. And I'm going to count them one by one and I'm going to put it up. And this is like, everybody always has to have this narrative when a pinball machine comes out, right? There has to be a thing. It's the three spinning discs. It's the non-transforming thing. There's no guns. It doesn't eat the ball. There's always something. This is my chance to be like, here's the reality of the situation. Here's how awesome these games are.
    34:20
    With as much time as it takes to create content, it really doesn't leave me enough time. I still have a day job to do content creation. And also, exactly. This does not pay the bills. If it did, this is all we would do. Absolutely. So I have my day job and in the nighttime, you know, I've had people on Discord being like, oh, when are you going to stream? Because I got a Harry Potter machine. They're like, oh, you should stream Harry Potter. I was like, bro, if I'm working now or if I'm making content, it's going to be for multimorphing now. Yeah. That's where I, you know, I still have a day job. I have a family, a wife. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's all about the balance. And I appreciate that people want to see me stream, but, you know, it's like you got to I try to, like, keep a good, you know, work life balance kind of thing going. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think what you guys are doing is fantastic. We're going to clear something up, though. OK, because everybody gets this wrong.
    35:15
    It is I'm going to say it and you tell me if I'm saying this correctly. The multimorphic multimorphic is the name of the company and the module is P3.
    35:26
    So not the module. Okay. I'm going to put it in. I was thinking about this earlier. Explain this to us because I screwed this up on a reel the other day and Joe Chervino called me up. I said, Jamie, you screwed this up. My man Joe, he's coming to town. Well, this will be this past weekend. He told me. We're going to ride roller coasters, so it's going to be a good time. He's very excited that I was coming on this show. He messaged me as soon as he saw your reel last night. Okay.
    35:53
    So Multimorphic is the company. So, multimorphic, in pinball terms, multimorphic equals Stern, right? Okay. P3 is the platform, so P3 equals Spike 2, right? So, it's like the system that it all runs on. And then the game are the modules, so it's like, I don't know, Tron equals Portal, right? So, there's three layers to each company. I don't know why it's so confusing. I think it's just the modularity of the P3 that throws people off, but company, system, game. It's the equivalent. It's confusing when Stern does Pro Premium LE and then JGP does Standard Collectors and Wizard or whatever. You know what I mean?
    36:41
    Everybody's got slightly different terminology for everything that's basically the same thing. So it's Multimorphic P3. So thank you for clearing that up. Hopefully that clarifies things. It does. I don't know if it will. It does. And Joe gave me a lot of shit about it and definitely warranted it because I got to get it correct. Good looking out, Joe. We appreciate you. I love Joe. I love him. He's the best.
    37:06
    And you're going to ride roller coasters. Yeah, that's his new passion, right? He's losing his mind over it. Yeah, it's funny. I've got a couple other friends who are roller coaster and pinball enthusiasts. And they like very much like pinball. They know who designs the machine, the roller coasters and the companies that make them. And, you know, what are the different features of the inversions and the airtime and all this stuff. And it's it's great. And they have like checklists. They try to fly all over the world and ride roller coasters. And I've I've ridden roller coasters since I was a kid, so I appreciate it. But I never got into it with that level of fascination. But it's been very cool because my roller coaster friends have pointed me in the direction of the really good ones. And now I can really appreciate the good ones. My favorite is Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point. That's my favorite. I would totally make fun of you and all of you, but we're on a pinball podcast, so I'm going to – You can't. You can't say anything. I can't. I mean, basket weavers get more views than we get, so you've got to humble yourself, Matt. Cornhole and hot dog eating contest, everything. I picked the absolute worst hobby to be popular at. It's okay. You can be a big fish in a small pond. It's all good. Whatever. I don't know what kind of fish I am, but on some kind, it's just absurd that we do this. It's funny. Is it weird for you, like, going to T- You and I met for the first time in person at TPF. Yes. And do people come up to you and they're like, Yes. Like, you'll just be doing something and be like, oh, you're whoever. And it's like, I'm so not ready for that. At TPF, I am ready for it because that's kind of my hometown, that and Houston Arcade Expo. But I wasn't ready for it in Chicago.
    38:51
    And then there will be times where I'm not ready for it at Eureka Heights. Like someone will just walk up to me and say, hey, I love your stream. I love the roundtable. They love the roundtable more than they love me, but that's okay. I know that. I get that. Right? That makes sense. You know, too much Jamey. I get that shit, Kevin. But it happened the other day. A guy comes up and he goes, I've been watching you since the old joint, and you're really – he goes, I'm nervous to talk to you, and I started laughing. I just started laughing.
    39:23
    It's funny. I've had people say, like, oh, I saw you, but I didn't want to say something. I'm like, dude, I'm just like a guy who plays Pinball. I'm just a geek, man. I happen to like turn the camera on and talk about it sometimes Yeah I a toolbox that loves this shit so so much that I love talking pinball with other people It the best It really is It fantastic And we miss you. My opening invite to anybody at a show who sees me and they're feeling weird, just let's play a game of pinball together. Yeah, let's play. You're going to whip my ass probably, but we'll still play. Pinball's great because you don't really have to interact with people, but you can still interact with people if you want. You know what I mean? So if you don't have like the whatever, you're not feeling comfortable, but you want to just hang out a little bit, we can play a game at Pinball. Yeah, without question. Let me ask you this. Right when you joined, did you find out about Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's game at the same time? Or did they, how did this happen? How did this morph? Yeah, so I jumped on, I think it was like October of last year, and both games were in full development. Okay.
    40:33
    For whatever reason, Jerry decided to have me follow the Ender's Game development, and not really the Dungeon Crawler Carl development, which was cool because I got to have the reveal for when I finally got to see Dungeon Crawler Carl. I knew it was being worked on, but I didn't get to see the play field or any of the art or anything like that. I think the first thing I saw was the sculpts that Stumbler did.
    40:59
    Unbelievable. How insane are those? They're unbelievable. You know, I'm just finishing the first book. Okay. Okay? I started it when I got the invite to the VIP event thinking that this might happen. So I'm like, well, someone's got Dungeon Crawler Carl. The damn author is like, we're getting a pinball machine made. He released it way before any of us. Oh, yeah. Anyway, everyone has been talking about it. It's really making waves to the pinball world. So I listen and I'll tell you, it's fantastic. I am five chapters away from finishing it. It's so incredible. It's incredible. And the fact that they're, I think Multimorphic just like nailed the timing of this because it's the TV series is getting greenlit. There was like a Flash game I saw on the internet. It said it like IGN posted like there's a Dungeon Crawler Carl video game you can play on your browser now. So I was playing that. So you can really feel the hype building on this and seeing people get excited for it by word of mouth on Pinside and stuff has been awesome. And picking it up and people being like, this is amazing. I've read all eight books now. I haven't read eight books, but I could see myself going down a hole reading these damn things. I like this guy who does the audible.
    42:26
    Jeff Hayes, he's doing the voices in the game too. I know. It's incredible. He's so good. It's so incredible. I couldn't believe it was the same guy doing all those different voices. I couldn't believe it either. And so I was the only one allowed to film. And it was me and Brad Albright were the only people allowed to film. So we're filming. And what was so cool, and we'll talk about both games in detail now, is Wesley, once he revealed both games, Wesley Johnson, who's one of the coders for Dungeon Crawler Carl, kind of like posted up on Dungeon Crawler Carl. And then Kyle McAlpine, who's the coder for and did the rules for Ender's Game, kind of posted on there. And they just helped everyone through the machines, right? Because, yes, are they the same just like Spooky did, okay? I would say, right? Just like – Yeah, I mean, if you even think back to Shrek and Family Guy, you know what I mean? Yeah, Shrek and Family Guy. Exactly. That's a great analogy. But it's a totally different game. Totally different code.
    43:41
    You know what? Jerry showed me the video of you guys seeing. So they showed you Dungeon Crawler Carl first, and then he pulled back the curtain and there was Ender's Game. Yes.
    43:54
    Watching people try to figure out, like, I could see them processing, and little by little they're like, oh, I think this is, yeah, look at this, this is kind of similar to that. So it wasn't like you look at them both and it's like immediately these are obviously the very same playfield. They just re-skinned it. There's like all these different sculpts on DCC and everything. It's totally different. And this game has a totally different art package, totally different vibe. It's sci-fi and futuristic.
    44:21
    So I was following along with the Ender's Game development when I saw Dungeon Crawler Carl. I was like, wait, this is not how this playfield is supposed to look. It's supposed to look like this. You know what I mean? Right. So they've done such a good job of differentiating the two. And they also had the two teams were developing the games in parallel, not talking to each other. So I heard Wesley talking about this where it's like if something exists in both games, it's because both teams thought it was a good idea. But otherwise they totally approach it with their own rules and concepts and ideas. I thought that was fascinating. I found that fascinating having Wesley playing Ender's Game and looking at, wow, you guys did this. It was a really cool event to get to see that. And the art is amazing. The sculpts are amazing. The code really is fantastic.
    45:19
    They've done a really great job. And call me a show. I don't give a shit. I don't get paid. I lost money going over there, getting a hotel. Okay. I didn't get paid. All right. I just the machine that I miss the most from the old joint out of all those machines is the P3. I just do. Yeah. Yeah. I think about it like like Sterns are awesome. Right. And, you know, J.J.P.'s are awesome. I love I'm just a pinball fan, but I like I can play Sterns everywhere. Right. I can't play. I'm always looking to like what else is out there. Right. That's what's so cool about these boutique manufacturers. It's like they're taking chances, doing crazy, cool, innovative things like that disc on ThunderColor Carl. And both discs are different, by the way. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're the same disc but different stuff underneath and different modes and the way they use them. Yeah, they can set up shots on either side of the playfield. I like that on one game the skill shot goes one way and on the other game it goes the other way because they point the disc in different ways. So it's crazy. So, yeah, that's what's cool about the P3 to me is like let's take some chances. Let's do some things nobody else is doing, right? And they're able to do that, and they do it in such a cool way because they've got this awesome platform.
    46:41
    When you first saw the game, what was like the standout thing? What was the first thing you noticed? On Dungeon Crawler first? Yeah, yeah. The first thing I noticed was when I was playing in the boss battle. I thought that was totally epic to hear the sound. But, you know, I don't know. It's just the art really was like I was just blown away at the art of the machine and the sculpts. I couldn't believe because we'd heard the rumor that, well, they had announced it, right? Yeah. So we announced Tumblr ahead of time. Okay. But we didn't say, you know, he was like, he's going to be working with us on future games, right? Yeah. So we were all like, oh, okay, cool. That's great. We didn't think that the designs, I never thought that the Stumbler mods would be in there. Yeah, people were speculating, oh, he's going to be doing add-on mods for existing modules and things like that. Yeah, that's what people were saying, but they were wrong. Yeah, it's so funny. Dude, it's so funny seeing the rumors and speculation when you know what's happening. I love it. So it's like, having been on the other side of it, it's like, oh, yeah, I can see how you would think this or why you might draw that conclusion. Yeah. It's been pretty wild, I've got to say. It's been awesome. And the multimorphic team is great. I knew that going into it. That was the other thing that made it an easy decision to partner up with them in a more official capacity. I knew Jerry and TJ and Steven and all the guys and gals over there are awesome. Let's talk about TJ and Steven real quick. How good is TJ at his job?
    48:14
    The mechanical integration, the mechanical engineering, the things he's able to do and things up is insane. You know, that disc. So it's funny because, like, I feel like everybody's putting a cannon in their games this year. Yeah. There's, like, cannons in all these games. This year, the cannon. Yeah. And this game's got, like, two legit cannons and then two other things that, like, fire balls at you. So it's got the big cannon on the disc that fires, like, the magic missile in Dungeon Caller Carl. Or it does the pistol training in Ender's Game where you can, like, move it around and try to hit a specific target. And then it's got the one in the upper right that fires the ball back at you. And then it's got the ball release on the left, the other side of the balance smack. And then there's a kickback down on the bottom side of the disc. I don't love the kickback, by the way. That's scary. You know what's funny?
    49:04
    I love... You asked me when I first saw the game. When I first saw the game, I was like, people are going to say there's stuff that's too close to the flippers now. Because everybody's always like, everything's in the back third of the game. There's nothing close to the flippers. No, it's like in the gameplay video that we do a vendors game, Josh Coogler narrates it and he's like, we heard you wanted shots closer to the flippers. Well, here you go. And then the disc ring turns and there's like a bank of targets right in front of your flippers. I know. It's like, come at me, bro. Here, you get what you asked for. Yeah. Well, again, if you give people in this hobby a bar of gold, they're going to complain it's too heavy. So don't even worry about that. But TJ, I got to meet him and his wife, and they're lovely.
    49:51
    And what a great job he does. Yeah, incredible. He just cranks it out, and he's super, super chill, super smart, amazing work, doing things nobody else is doing in the hobby, which I appreciate.
    50:05
    And Stephen Silver, you can see, so Stephen Silver came on as creative director with Heist, and I feel like that's when, like, Multimovie just got turned up to 11, right? It's like, oh, okay, let's see. He started bringing together all these creative, innovative ideas, and the video production value went way up. He's a video production guy.
    50:25
    And, you know, Multimorphic kind of structures their teams a little different. They don't have, like, a designer and a programmer. They have creative directors, and Stephen has served as creative director or co-creative director on a number of games now. And you can really see that coming through in the skills that he's able to provide. And then you bring on people like Colin and Ian and Wesley and Brad. And it's like, yeah, I'm going to hook my wagon to this train because I like what they're doing. Yeah. God bless them, right? I mean, good, good group of people. And that's the hardest thing as a content creator is that you fall in love with the people, too, right? Yeah. And what if it was a stinker? Right. What do I say? Right. But what I would – Yeah, I mean, not every game is going to be a hit, right? Right. So it's like that's the reality of any creative endeavor, right? Not every album that comes out from your favorite band is their best, and not every movie you see is amazing. That's right. Still Pinball. Just like having seen the other side of it, like just try to respect the amount of work and effort that goes into these. You know, people are pouring their hearts and souls into these machines. So just try to – it's easier when, I don't know, it's a billionaire or whatever. It's like they're not going to listen to you. But, like, people in the pinball industry hear what you're saying, and it matters. It does. Yeah. It does. You know, I got into a thing with a P3 person the other day. They were not a P3 fan. And I said, all right, how many times have you played it? Three to five. He just doesn't talk to me. And I said, well, you're just a potato head. You've got to put games in on this thing. And you will learn that, yeah, is the flipper feel a little different than a Stern? Sure, it's different. Okay, so what? All manufacturers' flippers feel a little different. They all feel different, all right? Yeah. Okay, because they're a very good player and they're whining about it. And I said, look, we had heists in our tournaments at the old joint, and people didn't complain because they loved heists. It was incredible. It's a great module. I love Dungeon Door Defender. I told Jerry if he doesn't have Dungeon Door Defender on Dungeon Crawler, Carl, that's a crime shame.
    52:42
    Well, that's a Michael Ocean thing. You're going to have to harass Michael Ocean on that. I've had Michael on before, and Michael, listen, you've got to get that coded up right now before these things go out. Let's go. Because that is perfect. Okay? Yeah. But, you know, I enjoyed the machine. Me and Donovan loved it, and we really enjoyed it. And the support that we got from Multimorphic and even the guys that worked at Barrels of Fun would come over and play a lot of the P3, and they would work on it. Because we had a little issue with Weird Al with the fly swatter. No, okay. These guys got it. Yeah. They got that down. No problem. We fixed the fly swatter, and it was fun. Yeah. The thing, you know, the person who's like, oh, I played, you know, five games on the P3 and it wasn't for me. It's like, do you play one game of, I don't know, Adam's Family? And you're like, all Bally Williams games are not for me because I didn't like that one game. Right. It's like, no, that's like each game is its own experience and own rule set and everything. It's like switching between two different pinball machines just because you didn't like, you know, Cosmic Kart Racing back in the day doesn't mean you're not going to like Dungeon Caller. To me, that is an obvious thing, but I think people just like to write it off and be like, oh, I played the P3 once at a show and I didn't like the game that was in there, so I'm never going to play it again. The other thing they've done is if you've played it years ago or even last year or the year before, they've made systemic improvements to the machine over the years that are now being built in from the factory that you may not have experienced. Or, you know, they provided a free kit for all the old. The one thing that's been great is like they think if you bought your P3 on day one, you can get all the new features that are in it now. And they provided a free kit quality up. They took the time. You know, they were hearing the feedback on Pinside and they were like, we hear you. We're going to take the time to assess where the problems are. They held back their production schedule to upgrade the quality of their machines. And then they rolled it out. So I really respected that, that they took the time to do that. But that's not to say everybody has installed those updates on their machine. So if you go to a show and it's down, it's probably because there's some easy fix that the showrunner is not familiar with the P3. It's a little bit different. It takes a little bit of time to know how to fix it. But a quick adjustment and it would probably be back up, but people would just shut it off. And then the person going to the show sees the P3 and sees it off. And it's like, I know it's snow, you know, what is it? Just barrels down and people just keep right. You know, it's just ridiculous. Yeah. We talked about narratives before. So that becomes the narrative. Right. When in reality, they've been making these improvements. My P3, when people would come on when I was streaming my P3, you know, back when I would do it all the time, I'd be like, look how many hours I've played this thing on the Internet. And it always works.
    55:49
    It's like, it's pinball things, you know, you need to make adjustments and things like that, just like any other pinball machine. But like, I would stream it for two hours at a time every Monday night for years, and it was fine. People, it's not what you think it is. So that's been part of my role is to kind of like tell the story of Multimorphic and the P3, highlight all the awesome things that they're doing, all the cool gameplay things. I'm like, like, I know communications is what I do. I'm a pinball person. I know what pinball people want. You guys are doing it. We just need to kind of tell the world about how you're doing it. And, you know, just because you look at it, I would always have people when I stream, they would come on and they would just like see the screen, the interactive play field screen and be like, oh, is this virtual pinball? And I remember one time, I must have got asked like three or four times, I like took the glass off and like put my hands and I was like poking the targets and everything on the machine. I was like, this is a real pinball machine. Yeah.
    56:50
    You know, I just enjoy it. I enjoyed the machine and I had a really fun time playing Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's game. And you could see the passion of everybody that was there. They were excited to show this off, and they should be, because I think that disc is a game changer. It changes the game so much. It's like Winchester and Batman 66 on steroids in front of you. Yeah, and the way the play field, like, so I would watch Jerry play it as the development progressed, and I would see him hitting the shots, and I was like, man, is this game really as flowy as it looks on stream? And when Jerry's playing it, because he would like record videos, I was like, is it really going to shoot that way? And I stepped up to it, man, I was hitting those shots, those upper flipper loop shots and stuff. Yeah. The like crossing play field and it sets it up and you can shoot either the ramp or the orbit. It was like, the layout is amazing. And the fact that they were able to get that, that disc, like the rotated shot. So it would be either the left orbit or that little like turnaround loop. I was like, this is crazy. And then there's like a diverter that can catch it and it can catch on that magnet and it's insane. And they have seven books, right? Yes.
    58:08
    Seven books. Content for at least seven books, yep. That's bananas. Yeah. So if you're a DCC fan, this has got it in there. And so you may have watched the launch trailer at this point, the official trailer. This is Wednesday of the week of launch. If you're listening to this, you watched it. If you heard the swear words bleeped out in the launch video, they are not bleeped out in the game. They are doing this theme just as you would want. That's some of the speculation leading up. It's like, oh, well, Multimorphic does family-friendly games, so they're not going to do Dungeon Crawler Carl.
    58:45
    And that's relatively true. Most of the games they've done have been good for everybody. But they knew if they were getting a license like Dungeon Crawler Carl, you've got to do it right. So it's like you got to go all in the humor, the vulgarity, the violence, everything you want from the books are in there. It says Goddammit Donut, doesn't it? It says Goddammit Donut. He drops F-bombs. I mean, Goddammit Donut. That's the phrase of book one. He says it a million times, so it's pretty hilarious. And then Ender's Game, I never watched or read it. Did you? Yeah so I saw the movie and then I went back Once I knew they were working on the game I read the book and I was like wow this is really really good Actually I listened to the audiobook version of it but that reading in my book I drive a lot, so I listen to audiobooks. It's reading. You know what's funny is like, spoiler alert, this is like a 30-year-old, 30 or 40-year-old book at this point. The big twist at the end, the reveal, you've read it, right? I have no idea. Okay. I won't spoil it for you. Go ahead. There's a big twist at the end. Go ahead.
    59:55
    You want me to? Yeah, go ahead. I feel like I shouldn't, even though it's old. Anyways, the twist at the end happened. It's 30 years old. I was listening to the audio book in my car. Okay. And I was like, kind of like zoned out because I was commuting home. Yeah. And I was like, wait, did that just do what I think it did? And I re-bought it and listened to it again. I was like, I can't believe that just happened. So it's like that's the thing that like when people read this book or listen to it, it's like that. Wow. I did not see that coming. So I would I would recommend giving that a read or listen if you haven't. Or if you want like the just that the movie is not great. It's OK. But it'll give you at least a kind of like a sense of what the concept is about, if you're not familiar with it, at least. But it's got Harrison Ford in it and it's got Haley Steinfeld, who is like the queen of Buffalo because she's married to Josh Allen now. Oh, yeah. When was this movie out? It's like mid-2010s, I think. No kidding. Yeah, it just went right by me. Never saw it. All right. Maybe I'll give it a watch. Yeah. At least you'll have an idea what the story is. I have no idea. When they unveiled it, I'm glad he didn't get on my face because I was like, I don't know. I've never heard of it, but I'm a dork. It's funny, I saw that, and I heard somebody in the crowd was like, oh my god, Ender's freaking game! So it's like that theme, like if you know that theme, you love that theme. She knew it. I know exactly who you're talking about. She went bananas for it. And I was like, alright, I'm getting hyped up, I'm getting excited. It's like Jerry's dream theme. So if you want a game that, if you want games that people are passionate about, they're the ones that bring it to life, that's Ender's game for the P3. Jerry loves it. He's like, this is the license I've always wanted to do. He's like, I'm glad we're making it happen. And I was like, I can see why. I was like, totally up my alley. Sci-fi, 80s, video game-y kind of feel. The gist of the story is like, it's like a kid growing up, they're training kids to fight in battle. And it's the story of this kid coming up through battle school and getting recruited into the Space Army, basically. So, and then, you know, the big reveal at the end. Okay. I will watch, I'm going to watch this movie so I know what the hell I'm talking about before this comes out. And there's other spinoff books that came out afterwards. Okay. There's another version of the book that tells the same story but from one of the other characters' perspective, which is kind of cool.
    62:27
    There's like prequels and sequels and so, yeah, it's a whole series. So if you know, you know it, guys. I don't know. If I can do it. But I'll try. I'll try my best. At least watch the one. Watch the one. I'll watch the one. No problem. I'll watch it before this comes out. There you go. So I go there, right? Jerry says, hey, can you film and do a thing like you did last time for Portal? I was like, yeah, no problem. Then I go, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like I'm a podcaster that did pinball streams. It's not hard to do a pinball stream. I mean, it is hard, but I don't have to like – I'm not Retro Ralph, okay? Yeah, yeah. I'm not Retro Ralph. So I can't even call Ralph for advice because I'm under – and I don't want to do this to Jerry. So I was like, all right, what am I supposed to do? And I remember Ralph telling me before I went to Barrels of Fun for Dune, he goes, you got to record everything, everything. I was like, okay. And did I record everything? No. So now this time I got this Osmo Pocket 3, really nice camera. Me and Brad Albright are geeking, recording each other on the Osmo Pocket 3s. And my footage is hot garbage. It's garbage.
    63:50
    It's hard, man. That's why I started streaming too because it's like I don't want to edit a video. I have been editing this thing.
    63:59
    And it's – it kind of – I just kind of make fun of myself. So if you – if I'm going to launch that the day it launches, and it's just my journey of going – It's not how bad the video is.
    64:11
    Please. It's pretty bad. I can't wait to see it, dude. It's pretty bad, dude. It's not – the editing is great, okay? It's the footage.
    64:22
    The raw materials is terrible. Oh, my God. It's so bad. I'm so not good at this. Like I don't like Ralph would go. I mean, he's done so many and he would stand here and he'd go, OK, I want the lighting to look like this and I want the lighting to look like that. I don't I don't know shit about lighting. I have a big light on me right now and a really nice camera and I'm just talking. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Well, that's why we started doing the podcast live on Twitch, too. It was like, let's just stream it and then when we're done, we'll chop it out and then we're done. Yeah, I know.
    64:56
    Zero editing. If anyone sees my video and you hate it, just cut me a break, okay? I'm a podcaster that has a YouTube channel. Not the opposite. Not Rike Retro Ralf. He is a YouTuber that has a podcast. That's why I like your content, Jamie. It's just like, chill, let's just talk, hang out. I don't know. I think so. I kind of went for that, like the vlog style of Jamie coming here and seeing the new P3 modules. But, you know, again, we walked there. We have no idea what it is. You sign this NDA. You walk in. He reveals Dungeon Crawler Carl. The place is going bananas, right? Everyone's so excited. And then he does the Steve Jobs one more thing thing, okay, and pulls Ender's Game, and people are like, what just happened? There's only 30 of us. It was a very small crowd. And I'm glad you got to see that footage. Yeah. It's moments like that that the team really appreciates seeing the excitement and the enthusiasm and the genuine reaction from everybody there was super awesome. It's funny because we were debating, do we show them Ender's Game first and then surprise them with Dungeon Crawler Carl or the other way around? And we decided to go with that way because Ender's Game wasn't on anybody's radar at that point. No.
    66:18
    No. What is this? Seeing everybody trying to figure out if it was a different module, different layout, what's going on here? I wasn't ready for this at all. So, yeah, it's been pretty fun to be a part of. It was a really cool Steve Jobs moment, Jerry, so congratulations on that one. Yeah. So what have you been doing for the launch here? What's been taking all your time? Yeah, so we've been hunkering down. I've been busy these past couple weeks.
    66:48
    Since I started in October, I was kind of like free to do what I wanted to do. So I was like shooting gameplay reels and the little feature reels showing off different aspects of the past P3 games. And then now it's like it's go time. When launch time comes around, you've got to hunker down. So it's been planning, connecting with influencers, talking to, setting up, drafting news releases and getting those out. We have the two-week plan for, okay, we're going to tease it this day, and I guess this will also be out by the time this is coming out Wednesday, right? Yeah, Wednesday. It's going to be at Gen Con. Oh, really? So we kind of had to plan around that. Okay. So that makes sense. And we had to ship the game out before, you know, I think it shipped out last week. Don't quote me on this, but there was a time frame involved where we have to get the game over to Gen Con. The Gen Con is like a huge book RPG kind of like Geek Fest. Where is it? I'm not sure. I'd have to look it up. Someone's got Google. But Matt Deniman is going to be there. Jeff Hayes is going to be there. Oh, wow. It's going to be part of this huge Dungeon Crawler Carl display.
    68:11
    And so that's why it's like. Alright, so that's our end zone, right? That's the goal line right there. So we had to work back from that. It's like, okay, when do we open up orders and when we start talking about it, it's all these considerations that go into it. It's funny too because I see people talking about, oh, you know, breadcrumb marketing, just announce it. Why are you doing it like this? Believe me, we've all thought about the pros and cons of all types of launches, and this is what we decided would be best for this launch based on having to get this game out to Gen Con.
    68:48
    I feel like it's not a breadcrumb launch because, yes, we gave you the date originally, the Multimorphic Monday, but then all along the time we've been announcing we've been bringing all these new distributors, all these new team members. Yeah. So it's been like this, it's like, oh, there's actual news to talk about. We're not just showing you like, here's the color of the armor. Here's the like bolts on the front of the cabinet or anything silly like that. Like we're making substantial announcements. We're not just like teasing this over and over again. And then like the week ahead. And so this past Monday, we're like, oh, here's the, we are actually doing two games. Yeah. So we did the like split apart cabinet. And then, you know, we're going to, so this Friday we're going to have like a schedule of Like, here's when orders open and all this stuff. So everybody's going to know you're going to have all the material. This is when the gameplay video is going to go on. These are when the teasers are going to go online. And so we have all this stuff in the bank. So I was actually out there about a month ago being part of the video shoot and the promo shoot. So when you see Dungeon Crawler Carl, the trailer, I'm actually the one in it playing it this year. Oh, there you go. So that's when a dream realized I got to be the guy in the promo video. Nice. So, yeah, seeing everything that just goes into, like, all these promotional materials and all the photos and flyers. Yeah. Yeah, so it's been a month of craziness. So doing social media posts, media relations, you know, influencer relations, all that stuff. So I've been helping out with all that stuff. So it's been crazy. I said the timing is good for me because, like, in academia, the things settle down a little bit during the summer. I still work full-time, but it's not as bonkers insane, so I'm not feeling totally stressed out when I get home from work and need to switch gears and start working on this stuff.
    70:39
    But it's like this year it's falling in the two good months of weather we get in Buffalo, so it's been kind of a bummer that I'm inside working. I need to get a laptop and just go out on my deck and work out there, I guess. Or go to the Rochester Pinball Collective. Exactly. I do that quite a bit, too. They got Wi-Fi, don't they? Exactly. Yeah, go work from there and just put a little thing around you to not look at my screen. Yeah, nobody would definitely peek over and keep an eye on what I was doing. What a great place, by the way. Congratulations. We never talked about that. But what a dream come true, Rochester Pinball Collective. Yeah, it's crazy. It's funny because I go out there. So when we started Buffalo Pinball, there was like no location pinball in Western New York, all of upstate New York. We used to have people coming from Syracuse to play in our Buffalo League, which is like two and a half hours away because there's literally no other place to play pinball. So seeing it go from that to like, oh, Syracuse started up their own league. Rochester started up their own league. Everybody starts opening up their own location. So now I could just go to RPC and play pinball in a tournament and I don't have to run the thing and just go and have fun because obviously people have stepped up to the plate. And so it's kind of that dream realized when you're like have that moment of this is awesome. More people need to do this. And having seen it played out over the past 12 years or so is pretty awesome. I'm going to be in Goshen next year, but that's still pretty far from Rochester, isn't it? That's pretty far. Well, if you end up at RPC, let me know. We'll meet up and hang out. Okay. Because I'm going to be in Goshen because my cousin's over there. Nice. He works for the Yankees, my cousin. What? He does. Amazing. He really does. I'm going to hit you up for some tickets the next time I'm in New York. I mean, he got me on the Jumbotron last time I was there. Dude, that's awesome. It was hilarious.
    72:32
    Hilarious. Real quick shout out. You know who we missed? Glenn Wechter. Oh, Glenn. Yes. How amazing is that? So how amazing is that dude? He does all my music for my intro, my outro. He does all my announcing. And when Jerry announced Glenn Wechter, I got so giggly that someone has given this dude finally a chance, and he killed it. You can't even tell. It's just the sound that he did on Ender's Game is so incredible. Not discounting the sound that was done on Dungeon Crawl Carl. Just different sounds. It's incredible. And he does the voice of the general, so like the announcer voice that kind of sounds like the Halo announcer guy. That's what it reminds me of a little bit. Yeah, it does. You sound like the dude in Halo. You know? It does. Betrayal. You know, that guy. Yeah. It was really – it's very well done. Congratulations, Glenn. I know you worked your butt off, too, like everybody else. Yeah. It's been great and super rewarding putting those posts up and seeing people just, like, lose their minds that their friends and people they know are working in pinball now. Yeah. So him and Wesley are the two new people to the industry and to Multimorphic. And we're announcing people are coming back from previous teams and things like that. But it happened when I joined Multimorphic 2 and they announced that I was doing communications for it. I was like, people are super excited for you. So it's been awesome to see that. I'm super excited for him and Wesley.
    73:59
    Wesley was an original guy that used to come to the old joint. And boy, did he play the hell out of that P3.
    74:09
    He knows a good thing when he sees it. I mean, I can tell you he did. Great dudes. That's so great. Yeah, I love it. All right. Well, that's enough for me. I don't think – oh, no, I had some Buffalo – I had some – Bro, do you even talk pinball? All right. I love this. Let's go. I had two questions. One of my favorite skits that you did – not really skits – was when you said unnecessary mods.
    74:36
    The mods you don't need. Mods you don't need. Thank you. Really funny, man. Did you get any shit for that? Did you get any crap for that? Dude, that was like the one segment that would get the most interaction from the audience. People were always sending me dumb shit to put in that segment. Yeah, I can see that, right? Yeah, because there was no end to the amount of dumb crap you can pay to – oh my god. It gets me fired up just thinking about it. Like the stickers that go on the inside of your apron, I'm looking at like the Batman 66 behind you. You would never see that. It's like in a spot you would never. Why would you spend money to do that? These stickers here, right? No, it goes out like on the wall that sends it to the drain. Oh, yeah. Why? Why do that? Why are you doing that? What are you doing? There's so many garbage. I know. I forget which one started it off, but it got to the point where people were like sending me stuff. I was like, no, we already featured this one. Oh, you did? Yeah. Yeah, I always wondered if that would give me cringy because I always wondered if the guy or girl who made this mod hears about this huge podcast. Yeah, probably. I had somebody thank me for doing it, which was pretty funny.
    75:54
    It was like the anime girl translate mod for Godzilla. Did you remember that one? I was like, this has nothing to do with Godzilla.
    76:04
    You know, people, they want to make a buck. The best mod that I saw was my friend Clint, and he made a mod for Insider Connect that can go into the coin door. Oh, yeah. It goes into the dollar sign, the dollar bill slot.
    76:26
    So it makes it easy if you've got an older game that doesn't have the spot for it on the apron or you don't want it staring at you while you're playing. That's cool. I'm not answering that mod. My Tron is loaded with mods. No, no, no. I'm not saying you're anti-mod. I'm just saying that was a good mod. For the audience, I'm not anti-mod. I'm anti-wasting your money. I saw it as a public service, really. Did you guys ever get – did any of you ever say anything in a manufacturer to reach out to you to correct you or to yell at you or any of that?
    76:58
    Once. I'm not going to say what it was. We did get one. Yeah. Have you gotten it? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot. A lot more recently. I think people are scared of Nick. That's probably why they didn't reach out to us very much.
    77:16
    Yeah, people are scared of Kale. Yeah. That's why I think Kale and Nick are the way to go. Don't you think? Yeah, yeah. They should team up and have the, like, totally unhished podcast. I don't want to lose them once a month, but those two together, if I can pitch something, I would love to be with Nick because I think I could go to him. Not as well as you, but I think I could get him. You can play the role of me. I could do it. But people have already seen that, right? Because I'm just another copy of you. But those two together, Kale and Nick, could be something serious.
    77:48
    Pimball unhinged. Let's go. Oh, boy. We'll see. All right. Thank you, Kevin, so much for joining. Congratulations on this launch. I hope it is going and will go as well as possible because people need to come and play this machine Because it really is two separate modules with two separate themes that are just really fun to shoot, man. I had a great time. Yeah, appreciate it so much. Love what you do. Appreciate you having me on. My call to action for everybody listening. Yeah. If you played the P3 and it wasn't for you or whatever, you played at a show, give it a fresh look at one of the upcoming shows. Try to, like, put any preconceptions out of your mind. And step up to it as if you were stepping up to a brand new game from any other manufacturer and see what you think. And I think you're going to like what you're seeing because, you know, it's a great time for Multimorphic. They're really firing on all cylinders. They've got these great themes that people are really connecting with, and I'm stoked to be a part of it.
    78:47
    Congratulations, brother. Congrats. Thank you for coming on. I really, really appreciate it. That was really nice. Thanks so much.
    79:00
    King Kong, Labyrinth, Dune, Jaws.