Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast October 2020 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·2h 42m·analyzed·Nov 4, 2020
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Jean-Paul DeWin details Guns N' Roses pinball art direction, from meeting Slash to final release.

Summary

This October 2020 podcast episode features an extended interview with Jean-Paul DeWin, LCD animator and art director for Jersey Jack Pinball's Guns N' Roses machine. DeWin discusses his involvement from the project's inception (meeting Slash at a concert in his hometown) through final release, detailing the collaborative process with illustrator Dane Henry, the three distinct cabinet designs, the custom UI showing a concert stage metaphor, and the surprisingly straightforward approval process with Slash as licensor. The episode also covers Jersey Jack's successful mainstream media push for the game and manufacturing readiness at launch.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball had 100 limited edition games ready to ship at the time Guns N' Roses was announced

    high confidence · Martin Eyre discussing manufacturing readiness

  • The Guns N' Roses project had 18 different concert performances available as video assets from around the world

    high confidence · Jean-Paul DeWin discussing available licensing materials

  • Slash was initially reluctant about the use of bright colors in artist Dane Henry's work

    high confidence · DeWin describing artist selection and approval process

  • Jean-Paul DeWin has been the LCD animator/artist for all six Jersey Jack Pinball games

    high confidence · Hosts' introduction of DeWin's credentials

  • The collector's edition back glass features actual band member portraits composed from seven different photographs

    high confidence · DeWin describing intern Jesper Amels' work on back glass

  • Three different cabinet designs were created for different editions (limited/poster, standard, collector's)

    high confidence · Discussion of cabinet artwork variations by different artists

  • Slash's approval process was the 'easiest and clearest' licensing experience compared to film studios

    high confidence · DeWin's direct comparison of Slash vs. corporate film studio approval processes

Notable Quotes

  • “It took 10 years, but he finally managed. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. 10 years in a pandemic to slow everything down.”

    Hosts discussing Jack Wannieri's goal of having games ready at announcement @ early in episode — Reflects on Jersey Jack's 10-year development journey and pandemic manufacturing challenges

  • “When I told that to the company, they were like, oh, then we have to get you in contact with Slash because we're going to do a game for Guns N' Roses.”

    Jean-Paul DeWin @ interview section — Shows how DeWin serendipitously learned about the Guns N' Roses project through arranging concert equipment

  • “This is probably also why Jack put the game backstage back then.”

    Jean-Paul DeWin @ interview section — Indicates Jersey Jack's early strategic placement of machines for band exposure

  • “That was almost the closest and the clearest and the easiest licensor I've ever worked with.”

    Jean-Paul DeWin @ interview section — Distinguishes Slash's collaborative approach from typical corporate licensors

  • “We had many sessions and brainstorm sessions and live sessions where we sketched out ideas... I started composing, putting them into place and composing and adding the colors.”

    Jean-Paul DeWin @ interview section — Details the iterative collaborative process with artist Dane Henry

  • “I would project all these sketches on the play field and Photoshop so he could also get an idea of how this was going to look.”

    Jean-Paul DeWin @ interview section — Describes technical workflow for previewing playfield artwork before final composition

  • “Well, can we also try rendering of ourselves? And that's why this back glass ended up like that.”

    Jean-Paul DeWin (quoting Slash's request) @ interview section — Explains the unique inclusion of realistic band member portraits alongside stylized artwork

  • “I'm going to be surprised that they actually let us do this, mixing up the original logo like this, but they loved it, they approved it.”

Entities

Jean-Paul DeWinpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyGuns N' Roses PinballgameSlashpersonDane HenrypersonArjen BuehlerpersonMark MolitorpersonJesper Amelsperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Flippin' Out Pinball conducted extended 6-hour gameplay reveal stream, establishing standard for new game release coverage

    medium · Hosts mention the stream without extensive detail; appears to be notable release media event

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Slash maintained creative approval authority but was notably flexible and collaborative compared to typical film studio licensors; approved unconventional modifications like flipper-bat logo

    high · DeWin's direct comparison of approval processes; multiple examples of Slash's willingness to approve creative reinterpretations

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack achieved mainstream media coverage (Forbes, radio stations) through Slash's celebrity involvement and band buy-in on Guns N' Roses, distinguishing it from previous rock-themed games

    high · Hosts mention Forbes article and radio station pickup; Martin notes successful penetration into music industry media

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jean-Paul DeWin transitioned from pure LCD animation role to full art director role, requiring new skillset development and collaborative artist management

    high · DeWin explicitly states he declined to do both animation and illustration, pivoting to art direction; detailed discussion of managing artist relationships

  • ?

    announcement: Guns N' Roses officially released by Jersey Jack in October 2020 with three distinct cabinet design variants

    high · Extended interview about completed game with shipping having already begun

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.487

0:00
Interview with John Paul DeWin about Guns N' Roses Interview with Jack Guarneri of Jersey Jack Pinball Breaking News from Dutch Pinball Hi and welcome to the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast. My name is Johnston Yousson, I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined here today with... with. I'm Martin Eyre and I'm the editor of Pinball News and we're here to look back on the fascinating month in the world of pinball that was October 2020 and well this time last month we were just reporting on the launch of a new pinball machine. Yeah actually if you listened to our podcast last month you might remember that we actually delayed it a bit to cover the launch of Jersey Jack Pinball's new Guns N' Roses pinball machine. And very conveniently, they launched the game just as I was away on vacation. Yeah. So Jonathan was able to cover it all by himself. Yeah, sorry about that.
1:13
It worked for me. Yeah, so, well, of course we can ask how your freegation was, but we're not going to do that because we're talking pinball. That's absolutely right. We don't talk about non-Pinball stuff. So get on with the proper stuff. Right. So we're not going to focus on the reveal of Guns N' Roses, but of course there is news to report about Jersey Jack Pinball. Let's get to that first. Obviously, the company has been promoting their new Guns N' Roses game, emphasizing Slash's involvement in it to get a lot of mainstream and rock music media interested in reporting on the game as well. And apparently that worked out very well. Yeah, I think I've seen it being picked up by all kinds of different outlets including some of the music stations which I listen to, radio stations in this country They even appeared there and I can't imagine them ever covering anything to do with pinball. They certainly didn't pick up on Kiss Pinball or Aerosmith or ACDC. But Guns N' Roses and having Splash's involvement and buy-in from the whole band and making it such a themed and integrated package really seemed to do the trick for Jersey Jack Pinball and get that game noticed in markets that would otherwise be very difficult to get into. Yeah, there's actually a very good article that was part of Forbes.
2:55

Jean-Paul DeWin (on the flipper-bat logo modification) @ interview section — Shows Slash's willingness to creatively reinterpret iconic branding for pinball

Eric Meunier
person
Jack Wannieriperson
Johnston Youssonperson
Martin Eyreperson
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
  • ?

    product_strategy: Guns N' Roses features three completely distinct cabinet designs (poster/limited, standard, collector) with different artistic styles and themes, creating three distinct visual products

    high · Detailed discussion of three separate cabinet artists and design concepts; DeWin describes them as feeling like 'three different games'

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack achieved manufacturing readiness goal of having 100 limited edition units ready at game announcement, a 10-year objective finally realized

    high · Hosts discuss this as long-standing goal that was finally achieved with Guns N' Roses launch

  • ?

    technology_signal: DeWin employed Photoshop projection mapping and live composition sessions to visualize playfield artwork before final assembly, showing evolved design workflow

    medium · DeWin describes projecting sketches on whitewood playfield photos to preview artwork placement

    • It's rather in-depth with quotes from Eric Meunier and Slash and Jack Wannieri and quite a lengthy article as well, which is highly recommended. If you read the Pinball Magazine newsletter, there will be a link in there if you haven't found the article yet.
    3:15
    The only downside to Forbes articles I've always found is that they insist on you not having an ad blocker on, or they won't show you the article. But if you don't mind that, then head over to Forbes.com and have a look. I'm sure Jonathan will give you a clickable link in his monthly newsletter. Yeah, I'm not responsible for any advertisements shown on the page, but okay. So, but manufacturing-wise, Jersey Jack Pimble started out with the limited edition. I think they had 100 games ready to ship out when the game was announced.
    4:01
    Which is something I've always wanted to, that was the definition of being ready to launch a game, that Jack's always been working towards, which is to have new in-box games ready to sell at the time it was revealed. Well, it took 10 years, but he finally managed. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. 10 years in a pandemic to slow everything down.
    4:22
    So that's why we are in a pandemic. Ah, right. Okay, so we'll be coming clear now. Right, yeah. So the limited edition was the first model that was being shipped, followed by the standard edition.
    4:44
    And Flip and Out Pinball had a gameplay reveal stream on their channel, which lasted almost six hours of the standard model. The standard, yeah. Yeah. So, well, there will be a link.
    5:04
    If you Google Flippin' Out Pinball, you'll find their stream, and it's not a problem. And what's also interesting, and, well, I don't want to lead into our second interview. So I was about to say something that I'm not going to spoil yet. But, okay, since we're on the topic of Guns N' Roses pinball, why not dive into our first interview of today, which is with Jean-Paul De Wijn, who you may know as the LCD artist for Jersey Jack Pinball, meaning that he's responsible for creating basically everything you see on the display of the game. or displays. Yes, user interface and all the wonderful 3D rendered animations.
    6:02
    Well that's how it started out of course, we ended up doing art direction as well on other games from Kersey Jacks. Yeah, well he was involved with doing playfield art as well on the Hobbits if I'm not mistaken. So, and remarkably I'd probably say is that Jean-Paul De Win is from the Netherlands and he's working basically from his office in the Netherlands remotely with everybody in America Skyping, FaceTiming and what have you.
    6:42
    Yeah. He's been doing that for a good few years long before it became popular with the pandemic for people to be working from home and Zooming their meetings and doing everything online. He's been doing this for a long time. Right, yeah, he's probably the one person that was not affected by the pandemic whatsoever.
    7:04
    No, although we do touch on that in the interview, which you'll hear in a moment. Right, so, well, without further ado, let's just dive in and let's see how our interview with Jean-Paul went. and we'll be telling us all about his involvement in the Guns and Roses from the very very start when he first became involved right up to actually getting to play and see the game for the first time in person just very recently so let's go and listen to JB and here he is talking about Guns and Roses, pinball from Jersey Jack pinball we're currently joined by Jean-Paul Levin the LCD animator artist, if you want to call this, for Jersey Jack Pinball. He's been involved with all six of their games, and for the most recent title, Guns N' Roses, he's actually been the art director, as well as doing some of the art for the game himself, and of course the LCD animations and supervising people and everything. And he's here to talk about his role in Guns N' Roses. Welcome, Jean-Paul De Wynne. Yeah, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Is my summary anything close to what you did, or is it like, no, I did so much more? No, no.
    8:26
    That's about the summary you can give, yeah. Right. Well, thank you very much then, Jean-Paul. And we're going to find out some more stuff about Guns N' Roses. And I suppose to start off by telling us how you first got involved with the whole Guns and Roses project. When did you know that it was an upcoming title and when were you brought on board to do all the work that you eventually ended up doing?
    8:52
    So the project sort of started before I even knew we were going to do Guns and Roses. I told a friend about Jack bringing a game to the New York concert, which people might have seeing pictures of dialed in backstage. And this friend told me, like, hey, maybe you can do something like that similarly in Nijmegen, the hometown where I live.
    9:24
    Apparently Guns N' Roses was going to perform there in the summer. And that's how I got in contact with a friend of mine from the concert organizers. and I arranged to put a game backstage as well. So when I told that to the company, they were like, oh, then we have to get you in contact with Slash because we're going to do a game for Guns N' Roses. And so that's when I heard we were actually going to do Guns N' Roses. And that obviously was in the works and that's probably also why Jack put the game backstage back then. So that's when it sort of started, yeah. Were you a fan of the band at that point?
    10:18
    Of all the bands from that era, like Metallica and ACDs, you know, the rock bands from the start of the end of the 80s, I think Guns N' Roses was my favorite, yes. I listen to it often, yeah. Yeah, that's good. And did you ever go to, were you going to go to the concert?
    10:45
    Or did you go to the tour, the Not In This Lifetime tour? Were you familiar with it before you started? I had not seen Guns N' Roses live before. I did see Slash with the Velvet Revolver in the 90s.
    11:06
    But no, I haven't seen the... Because they actually visited Nijmegen twice in a row. First in 2017 and then 2018 again. and I was actually a bit surprised that they did the same location. Because here in Nijmegen, they always have a big concert each year in the summer, but it's always a different artist. But apparently it sold out well, so that's why you're looking. Right, headlines are like that. Yeah, so when you were bringing this game backstage at the show, you met Slash, but at that point you were not yet working on the game, I suppose. No, no. But the fact that you met Slash that early on in the development process of the game, did that benefit you later on when you were working on animations and maybe had personal contact with Slash to get some things going? or was there any contact after that with Slash during the development of the game for you, in a sense, like what can you use of the artwork or video assets and all that kind of stuff? Yes. Well, the meeting itself was pretty brief. It was around 15, 20 minutes because, of course, he has to prepare for the concert and we talked briefly, and I was under, well, it was pretty clear that he wasn't aware that I was from Jersey Jack when I met him, and he was, like, thanking me for bringing the game, and he was enjoying it, and then he wanted to actually take off, and I said, well, are you, do you know that I'm going to work on your game, on the Guns N' Roses game as the screen animator. And then I caught his attention. And he was surprised, like, oh. And so then we talked on a bit more about the upcoming game, but it wasn't really much in the works at that moment. So the very initial ideas were there, and we discussed that a bit. But then the more the conversations came later on, when I was asked to do the art direction on the game, I think I had two or three Skype calls with Eric together with him. and then later on, Eric got to be the main person to have conversations with him, just to have one channel to do all the communications with. Yeah. We probably shouldn't jump too far ahead, I was afraid, into the actual process of the game. But was that the Not In This Lifetime tour that you were at? Yeah. It was, right. So did you go in front of the stage and see the actual show itself? Yeah. Or were you at the back, hunched over a hot pinball for the entire duration? Yeah, so you said, like, yeah, make yourself at home, and I was free to play the pinball, but he was going to retreat, and I was like, oh, I'm not going to play my own pinball here backstage, so I just went to the field. That's great. So we got the VIP passes, and originally we got free tickets from the concert operator, but then because we got the VIP passes, we were able to go into the Golden Circle to go in front of the stage.
    15:26
    Which was... All that access to all the areas, pretty much. Yes, yes. and it's very easy to get some beer and go back in front of the stage, so that was really nice. It was like a three or three and a half hour show, so it's a pretty long show.
    15:47
    Was two hours of that waiting for Axel to turn up? Dick can throw a lot of beer to the stage. No, I don't throw beer. I bring beer. Okay. Okay, so that must have been a very cool experience, of course. And while Martin doesn't want to jump ahead that often, what I'm actually curious about,
    16:16
    you have now been art directing what will probably go down into history as the game which has the most licensing assets ever available. Did that complicate your work? Because obviously there were a ton of shows from you to pull video from, and you worked with several artists on art packages and so on.
    16:48
    Was that sort of a luxury problem? or of course it's a luxury problem I'm not sure if like the art package itself isn't okay so we have the poster cabinet which is mostly like assets but the rest is all custom made and of course we have all the footage for the screens which was yeah, that was of course great to have that much available as assets absolutely right I mean, you said earlier that you were the art director for this, you've been effectively art directing all the games haven't you really? no, no I think The Hobbit was my first project where I also did the artwork for then we got dialed in and then that was John Yausey was directed by Pat himself and then we got the Pirates and Pirates was done by Jay Z who has left but yeah you could say I didn't really direct Jay Z and yeah you give your opinions, but this was more, um, then we got, uh, Wonka, which was, uh, Yowsey again, and now here I was asked by, uh, by Jersey Jack if I actually wanted to do the art also on Guns N' Roses, and I, and it was pretty early on that I said, well, I'm not sure if I can, you know, time-wise, I cannot do any animations and all the artwork. And besides that, I'm not a great, like, illustrator or artist myself.
    18:57
    Or, let's see, let's say illustrator. And I could totally see that this game needed hand-drawn artwork and original artwork. and that's when I said, well, you know, I have to pass on it, but I would love to do art direction on it. So that's how that came to be, yeah. So who were you working with on this game, and what was the sort of sharing of responsibilities? Who did what?
    19:32
    You said you wanted some illustrators, so obviously somebody has done some fantastic illustration on the play field and on the cabinet. So we had to look for a new artist to do this. So I went online and Eric went online to look for an artist and we all came up with different people who we approached. And eventually I found Dane Henry on Behance, which is an artist website. and you can look you can really nicely look for illustration work and you can search also in areas so first I looked into the Chicago area but I broadened the searches and I eventually came up to Dane, he's in California and he was his work is mainly was a lot of concert posters for Foo Fighters and Metallica. And it really caught my eye, and I thought, this is awesome. I can see this totally working in the game. And I shared it with Eric, and he was enthusiastic, so we shared it with Slash, and he was a bit reluctant in the start because he wasn't really fond of the use of color in his work. He doesn't use that much bright colors, but we had to convince him about to tell him like with my direction we can get him I'm pretty sure we can get him to do what we think is good for this game and pinball and luckily eventually he agreed to it and yeah as you can see the result is amazing. So he did the playfields, he started on the playfields and the back glasses and it was in the beginning he was a bit struggling with, he had never done this before and it was clear that he is used to like a square or a rectangle or a canvas where you can do whatever you want. But here you have all the lanes and the inserts and all the rules and it was a bit hard for him to get into it, but eventually so we had many sessions and brainstorm sessions and live sessions where we sketched out ideas and so he started delivering parts and pieces and I started composing,
    22:40
    putting them into place and composing and adding the colors and the colors he had added, I brighted them up or changed some colors so it was more in a pinball feel. So that's how that was sort of constructed. Right. So just to understand this correctly, so he was basically sketching up separate items that you then could position on the playfield and size them any size that you needed them to be,
    23:17
    to position them where they would fit best on the playfield, so to speak. Right, yeah, okay. And in the meanwhile, I also had pictures of the game, like players' perspective of the whitewood, and I would project all these sketches on the play field and Photoshop so he could also get an idea of how this was going to look. And we sent it back and forth, and it was quite a process. but yeah but the game was it's in development for quite some time or at least it appears to be, we don't know exactly when the game was really finished and signed off but there was certainly quite a long gap between Wonka coming out and Guns N' Roses so when you were compositing the playfield artwork was the playfield pretty much signed off and nailed down at that point did you know where all the playbook features were going to be or was there still a certain amount of modification and tweaking and changes taking place to go with the mechanisms and also with the rules yeah there's always there is always changes and that's also that's always tricky you want to get the art finished as soon as possible but there's one change in the play field and mechanics. You have to redraw our lines or go back into your composition and shift things. But, yeah, there were deadlines we had to achieve, and those were hit. So it was, yeah, finished. And I'll dive in on another quick question as well. Was there a kind of a concept, an overall concept for what you wanted to do with the game? You know, was it all about it being a tour? Was it about it being a concert? Was it about, you know, because the cabinets are very different from the limited edition compared to the standard and the collector edition because they're more the cartoon style, the illustrated, whereas the limited edition is very much about the posters from the tour. So what was the concept going into this as to what you wanted to do with the artwork?
    25:47
    So the artist who did the cabinets, we had the tour poster idea a long while. When we saw all those assets, Eric really wanted those to be on a cabinet. So that was one concept that was pretty clear from the start. Then we had Arjen Buehler, who is one of the original poster artists, who was proposed by Slash to approach for the other cabinets. And that's what we did, and he was into it. And so he started with that poster cabinet. And which was nice because he also knew the community in which posters were most well-known and most appreciated by the Guns N' Roses fans. Sure. So that was nice. And the cabinet turned out really well. You see also in your reactions, it's good to see that people really like that cabinet. I think it's also very nice, especially in person. And then it was for us clear that we wanted to do an Apothecary's Restruction, a collective edition cabinet, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the Not In This Lifetime tour, but that's their, like, classic album. Yeah. So that's the design around that is the original, like, the original album art of the rat baron, the monster jumping over the fence, attacking the robot. that's originally, and not known by that many people actually, but I knew it, and I'm not sure if Arian came up with using those monsters, and obviously you also see them in a lot of tour posters as well, but during one of the sessions we came up with the idea of the robot throwing a pinball at the R1, and making it like some sort of a battle between the two. And that's how that cabinet design was formed.
    28:34
    And then during the design phase, Arjen announced that he was going to switch jobs or switch companies or something like that. and he couldn't finish the third cabinet. So that's where Mark Molitor came in as the artist for the standard edition cabinet. And he sketched up some ideas of the racing, the rat thing, race, which was also an idea which had come up earlier on a session with Slash and Arian, and one of the ideas was to do something like that. Also not necessarily has something to do with the tour, more about transportation, I guess,
    29:35
    and driving, but Slash really liked the idea of those monsters in his cars. And the result is three totally different cabinets, which is, when I, each time I see it, it's like three, three different games, and I was really looking forward to see how that was going to be, um, um, um, received by the, the, the people, like, uh, which, which one are you gonna, you know, which one are you gonna choose as a favorite, is, is it, uh, you know, it's, Yeah, I think it's cool that it's very clear that there's three different packages.
    30:23
    And with some games you don't really see the differences, or there is like a minor difference. It gets just a bit more added to it, and then a bit more added to the special edition. more than a glass. And of course the cabinet design is also, I would say, mirrored, as it were, on the back glass as well, all surround to the screen, because each one of those is different and matches the cabinet art, doesn't it? Sorry, again? The back glass? No, the back glass, the trans light that goes around the, or the back glass, goes around the monitors, they're all different and they have the same kind of artwork at the cabinet as well. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Mark did that entirely, the standard edition, also the back glance. In the case of the collector's edition, the back glance was illustrated by the intern who had just started in September of last year.
    31:28
    And I just, I proposed that, and asked him if he wanted to try and do the back glass for the collector's edition.
    31:43
    And it was sort of a gamble, but I was really, yeah, I would. So his name is Jesper Amels. Jesper Amels in Dutch. he actually helped on the Pirates of the Caribbean user interface two years ago or two years before because I found him on the web as well and I approached him and he could help me with all the curly stuff and the iron curly stuff you see in the user interface and that's his work and And I was very happy with his work, and I was doing study game design here in Holland. And I said, well, if you ever are looking for an internship, I'd be happy to offer you a place. And that's what happened. And so he started a year ago. and obviously he's, sorry.
    32:57
    He's a very talented guy, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So he told me one of the, I think the first week when he started, he told me about he won an international worldwide contest for creating a post over Spider-Man. And that's when I was really surprised. And there were like 5,000 artists who sent in stuff, and he won that. So that's when I thought, well, maybe he can do a backflash. And I think it turned out really well. He really looked at Dane's style. He wanted to fit to Dane's style. And he's just amazing. you know he took pictures from seven different pictures from the band members composed them in Photoshop and then we sent that in like this is our initial composition and then he just faints over it in Photoshop and it looks like a drawing so yeah I think that's one of the few places well in fact probably the only place I think isn't it in the game where you actually see the band members themselves not as caricatures or monsters but as themselves Yeah. That was also one of the wishes of Slash when we were doing all these skeletons and zombies and weird monsters. He said, well, can we also try rendering of ourselves? And that's why this back glass ended up like that. Right, excellent. Right, so the collector's edition also has a topper. Were you involved in that as well?
    34:44
    Yeah, yeah. I think I did the topper in this case. I think the topper itself, the logo, the logo was also an idea by Eric. from all the assets we saw that Guns N' Roses has these they mocked up different versions of their original logo with different guns and swords instead of the pistols and Eric one day came up let's change the guns with bats and flipper bats yeah with flipper bats Yeah, not the woman.
    35:30
    So I marked that up in 3D, and I said, I'm going to be surprised that they actually let us do this, mixing up the original logo like this, but they loved it, they approved it, and that's how it got into the game and it's been used for a lot of promotions so that's really cool. Yeah, it's a merchandise I see. Yeah. Yeah, really, really cool.
    36:09
    We haven't talked about the LCD animation part of this project. Obviously there's the footage from the concerts but there's also all sorts of animations that need to be created and so on. What can you tell about that?
    36:32
    Last. I'll leave it up to you to see where would you like to start. I mean, the logo is... Can I make a suggestion? Because having seen your presentations on how you created the user interface for various previous games, What was the concept for the user interface for this?
    36:54
    So in this case, we basically created two main user interfaces. Like we have an out-of-song mode and an in-song mode.
    37:05
    And the out-of-song mode is where you see the stage and nobody's on stage. And you have to collect all the band members. and once you have collected them you can start song and when the band is ready so the idea was to show this stage and all the instruments and have them in the state of collected or not collected and that's sort of the visual guide to show you where you are of course you can see all that also in the inserts in front of you, but it's my desk of course to make that pretty. And so I, you know, we have 3D models of all the instruments and I, it's, you want it to be as close as possible to the original instruments, because Dove has a specific bass guitar, which is his own design, And then I started looking at the stage, the stage specifically for this tour, with all the stairs and the monitors on the stairs. But, of course, it cannot fit on the monitor, or if I created, like, a real stage, it would be very small. Yes. So you scale it up so it fits the screen, and it's sort of your artistic impression of the stage, but it's pretty resembling of their Numbness Lifetime tour stage. Right. So we can show videos on there as well, on the stairs as well. Maybe not many people have noticed it yet, but on the stairs, on the stage, there's also animations going on. and even like when a song is lit and you hit a target next to the ramps, it switches to the next up song and it will show you the visuals of the next song in the stairs. So a lot of detail, I would say, went into this, I suppose. Oh, my dishwasher is ready. Maybe we can pick up that sound. We can wait a bit, maybe, until it will be finished in two or three beats. Do you hear that or not? Yeah, we hear that. This is our musical intermission. I was thinking for a minute Gary was calling in. No, actually, believe it or not, Gary called in during this interview, but I rudely turned him down.
    40:08
    I just didn't answer the call. I found it a little bit more, I needed to focus on this call, so. I'm sure he'll make it.
    40:18
    That's most likely. I think it's ready in here. Nice one. So we seen all the video footage from the tour and the stage videos and I guess you got the logos as well for the band Did you get any other assets actually as part of it like a style guide or a pack of asset material that you could work with or did you have to generate pretty much everything yourself? So we have the videos of the... we got like, I think, 18 different concerts from all over the world,
    41:07
    from their performances. That's a lot of material. Yes, and that was a lot of material. And we had to dig it through. So it was a full concert and, well, next to that we also got all the videos they show on their stage during the show. Yeah. And we got in contact with the company who created those, so they shared their videos. And that's it. The posters, but there is not really a style guide. I guess there is some sort of a style guide with the tour, some tour logos some prints they used like even on their tour plane they had some artwork for that and that's what you get shared but originally there isn't really that much Guns N' Roses album artwork like what really where you can really build upon except for maybe the appetite for destruction where you have the skull heads, but your illusion or Chinese democracy, the album covers, aren't really inspiring to create that much art from. So you weren't using any sort of licensed assets for those you were creating around. Did that make the sort of approval and the sign-off process easier, or was it harder because you weren't using pre-authorized assets? Well, most of what you see, the animations and the videos were just original, so that was all okay to use. The rest you do, you send over mainly directly to Slash, and if he was okay with it, then there was not many other people who had to say anything about it. I was going to ask how helpful it was having Slash in. Thank you. That was almost the closest and the clearest and the easiest licensor I've ever worked with. When you work with a company like a film studio, there's a lot of people who have to go over your work and you have to send in every clip. and here it's just you send it almost over WhatsApp messaging. All the band members didn't have to give their individual approval and say, you know, I think my nose should be a bit smaller.
    43:58
    In some cases, the manager of the band passed it on to the other band members and we got feedback back, but there weren't many real big issues. Excellent. Yeah, I really like how to see, if you look at the fonts used, especially on the game, but also on the flyers and so on, you really use the fonts from the Guns N' Roses logo, as we also know it from, I think, usually Illusion 1 and 2. so that to me makes it kind of a cohesive package even though Guns N' Roses had several different logos throughout the years because we also had the cross and well there's the circular logo which I understand is actually the back of a bullet yeah that's what I found out as well when I really we got like 3D files also from the robot, but also from the logo. And in a 3D program, I noticed that there is like an entire bullet behind the logo. And I didn't realize ever that it was the back of a bullet, like the gold, like copper shell of a bullet. And then the center, yeah. But the typography is so recognizable for this band and that had to be used, although it was a really difficult font to use on screen because of the thin... Oh yeah, it's a very thin font, isn't it? and so I had to thicken that up a bit here and there, especially on the screen. But, you know, the flyers were also created by Jesper.
    46:00
    Great job on that. Yeah, okay. So I understood, obviously, you're based in the Netherlands, and usually it takes a bit of time before games, after they've been launched, get to Europe. But I understand you recently were in the position to go over to Pimble Universe in Germany and basically to play the game for the first time. Yeah.
    46:29
    Can you... I know. What was your impression of the game? Yeah. It was really hard to judge the game while you worked so long on it. And obviously I haven't played it. but you have your own idea or vision on what it's going to feel like. And then it's really weird to see it in person, because it is an error body.
    47:07
    And for some reason it all felt really small, maybe also because I'm used to play pirates a lot here at home but which is a wide body but all the measurements and felt really weird and it was maybe also because you I looked at the play field so many times on my computer screen and there you scale in and you zoom in and you see all the elements really in detail but then in person it feels smaller. But, yeah, it was obviously great to see the live show and the game in person.
    48:00
    Obviously a printed artwork looks very different to how it would appear on a monitor. Right. How did that turn out? Were you happy with the way they used saturation and the colors and the balance of the game? Oh, absolutely.
    48:18
    I did get test prints from Merco to see the colors and to judge the colors, and from that you can still make your changes. So I did get also a version printed on the wood, but still it's hard to judge with inserts lit up in a dark environment and all the other artwork like cabinets is also I cannot judge it from a screen all the prints are being made in the US and we're not going to the proof prints are being sent to the company in Chicago and Mark was mainly doing the work for me there, like comparing the colors, and then I had to make changes going from their commands, which is a bit harder to do. Like the side blades, they sent me pictures and they're like, yeah, they're a bit too dark or a bit too, but, you know, the pictures are not going to do, you know, not going to tell you what exactly the color is because my screen is different than maybe the camera. Yeah, the camera is different. Yeah, so that was pretty tough to do, but yeah. Did you ever wish you could just jump on a plane, go over there and look at it and go, ah, yeah, I see what needs to be done. Yeah, that is obviously, that would be possible. I see it as a bit of a waste of time and money in that sense, and environment, you know, traveling back and forth with such a thing.
    50:17
    And, yeah, that's the way it is. And I learned to do it in this distance, working. Well, I don't think it could have gotten over due to the current pandemic that we're still suffering under.
    50:39
    Yeah, well, the plan was to visit Chicago, I think, in last April or May, and then the pandemic hit in March. So, yeah, I wasn't able to see the new factory, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll just have to wait until, I don't know, whenever. So the game was released as feature complete, but, of course, the software gets developed over time and more features get added. Are you still working on it, and are there more assets to go in the game that we haven't seen? No, no. The game is pretty much programmed in and assets are ready to go. I don't see myself creating much more for it. It's pretty much done from my point of view. That's pretty unusual, isn't it? From your experience of working on JJP games, you know we had been creating stuff long after the game was released.
    51:45
    Yeah, I guess we just have more time before we get the release. I didn't, we didn't, yeah, in some occasions we add some stuff, maybe, yeah, like The Hobbit, and, you know. Right. So we're trying to make more games, so we just have to move on to continue to the next game. Right. And we have more help, like Mark is also doing animations in Chicago, and Yesfor was also a great asset to do some pre-work on the animations.
    52:23
    And, like, the coma multiball was totally created by our own assets. Like, I'm not sure if that has been presented yet on videos, which had this skeleton in a hospital bed, riding down the hospital. and oh yeah I've seen that yeah and that's all created by your own right so you're no longer working on Guns and Roses which must hopefully mean that you're already working on your next game for Jersey Jack Pinball are you acting as an art director again or is that something you can't talk about or are you back to just doing the LCD animations?
    53:17
    I'm right now mainly doing animations, but I do get involved in talking about the artwork. I wouldn't say I'm this much involved, that much involved as in Guns N' Roses. Right. So which title did you say that was?
    53:39
    My Little Pony. alright wasn't that with Jack so are you working with any of the same team members as you were on Guns and Roses or is it a different team no it's mostly the same team yeah except the next will be Pat's game and it's not Eric's game but yeah as far as the art the outside of it goes and display and the whole package that is still part of the same team of designers and you're right good we've seen more from them Eric already mentioned that he's already working on his next game and apparently Guns N' Roses at least it's his playfield work has already been done for quite some time as we were just discussing your role as an art director.
    54:49
    Is there any chance that you'll be art directing Eric's next game as well? Or is that too early to say? It's too early to say.
    54:58
    Let's hope so. It's always a pleasure working with Eric. He's a great team player. He knows how to utilize the people in their profession. But he is also very creative in a lot of things. He also has opinions about art and the ideas of the drumsticks and the guitar. And he's very passionate about everything. So he's a great director in bringing every aspect together and keeping, you know, using people in their best ability. So that's great to work with him. And I saw that with Pirates, and I saw it now,
    55:54
    and I guess he's only getting better at it. So it's good for the future of Pimot. Okay, excellent. Well, luckily, you already had the chance to play the game. We haven't yet, although I can't wait to play it. So hopefully games will be out on location in the Netherlands and Europe as well. Obviously, Martin is also dying to play the game. Are you getting a machine yourself?
    56:25
    Yes, yes, eventually. Eventually, yeah. Well, soon as the snow arrives, we'll be around. Yeah, absolutely. The best chance of playing it, to be honest, is at your place. Yeah, absolutely. So when you're in the neighborhood, just let me know. Thank you very much. Look forward to it. Okay.
    56:48
    Thank you, Jean-Paul, for this invitation, but also for talking to us and walking us through the creative process of the cabinet artwork and the LCD animations of Jersey Jack's Guns N' Roses. Obviously, this is definitely, probably, I'd say, Jersey Jack's biggest hit so far.
    57:16
    Yeah, I get that feeling as well. I think pre-sales are amazing and I'm sure it will carry on selling well. I suppose like pretty much all the Jack games, it's timeless.
    57:29
    But it's not always the case with bands. Bands seem to peak and lose their popularity, but Guns N' Roses seem to be up there and they are literally the timeless bands. And I think this will be a timeless game. So you kept that very well. Yeah, so congrats on the success of this game, in which you had a very large contribution.
    57:55
    And, well, hopefully we get to see a lot more games with your hand in it, so to speak. My hand, yeah. Cool. Yeah, well, thanks for all the compliments. It's really good to also see all the reactions online. It's amazing to read all the good comments. So let's thank you all for that. That's great. And there you have it, Jean-Paul de Wynne. Thanks very much. Yeah. Excellent.
    58:26
    He was very kind to stay up a little longer than he usually would do to talk to us. We're very appreciative that he is willing to talk to us, and I'm actually glad that I think he's one of the few people that hasn't been on any other podcast so far yet which helps us to bring you fresh content instead of the same story that you already heard like a dozen times.
    59:00
    But we try and do. Right. So thank you again, Jean-Paul De Wynne and well, of course, part due to his art direction the game looks as stellar as it does so hands off to Jean-Paul De Wynne for his contribution to the game three unique and thoroughly theme encompassing designs as well as all the on screen graphics as well So, yeah, they've got a good team there working at JJP, producing a whole package of art and visuals for the game. Right. Very impressive. Right. So, you want to head over to our second interview right away?
    59:57
    Yes. Well, of course, we always like to, wherever we can, speak to the head honcho. And that is of course Jack Guarneri Who founded Jersey Jack Pimple And has been Been holed up at home In New Jersey But did go up to the new factory For the manufacture Or for the release and reveal of the new game And to tip his hat to To Slash And hang out together And help promote the game And he It's very easy to not To underappreciate all the work That goes into making a game happen Not just in the Later manufacturing And coding and graphics That we've been talking about with JP But also about how the whole Concept came into being Why is there a Guns N' Roses game How did that idea come up Because it's not the first one And What were the aims of the team Who wanted to produce the game So Only one way to find out And that's to ask Jack himself So Jonathan and I Have just been speaking to him And he can tell us exactly how Guns N' Roses came about And how the conversation plays At Jersey Jack Pinball So over to Jack So with us Joining us on the phone Is one of this year's inductees of the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame, which is none other than Jersey Jack Pinball founder Jack Guarnieri. Welcome, Jack, and congratulations. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.
    61:49
    Well, that was a nice moment to be inducted into the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame. Was it unexpected, or had you been pre-warned? No, no, no, I was not pre-warned. It was very unexpected, very humbling, very surprising. And actually, you know, to have Gary Flower do that, I thought we were starting off with some kind of jokes or something. A joke with Gary Flower? Who would do that? Gary never jokes. Yeah, no, you know, I was sitting in the spot in my office with my Guns N' Roses game behind me, and I reached down and I got one of Gary's books, and then I reached down and got a second copy of his book. So he's got to know that I love him. But neither one is autographed, so I'm going to have to get one. One of the rare ones.
    62:40
    Wow. No, they're more valuable unsigned. They're more valuable. I think every one of them has been signed except for two. Yeah, that's right. I think so. Yeah. He's got the rare, rare, rare unsigned copy. Yeah. It must be like a limited collector's edition or something of some sort.
    62:58
    It was very surprising. And then, you know, I started getting texts from all kinds of people listening, and that was very cool. And then, you know, my wife came into my office to, you know, record me. I guess Jen told her for some reason, so she was lurking around. And then after everything was all over and the dust settled, Joanne said to me, so where is this pinball hole game?
    63:30
    Where is it? I think it's in Rob Burke's mind somewhere in Ohio. She said, does it come with any kind of financial stipend, like Nobel Prize or something like that?
    63:45
    I don't think so. I think in the long run it will cost me money somehow. We'll figure it out. Well, congratulations anyway. It's long overdue. and it's surprising that I think a lot of people were surprised you hadn't already been inducted into the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame. But I'm glad, well, we're all glad to see that put right after a long, long last. Well, that was very nice. It was very nice. Yeah, it was a shame it was a virtual event and couldn't be celebrated in person.
    64:18
    But I've got the opportunity. Hopefully it's not too much longer that we all are able to get together in person and have fun. Right there. With all the things that we've done. With all the red text. I'm not holding my breath.
    64:33
    Well, we can keep our fingers crossed and hope. That's what keeps us going. So, anyway, the reason, the main reason we're here, of course, is to talk about the latest game from Jersey Jack Pinball and the whole process of launching it, well, developing it and launching it, in a very different way this time. and you must be, well, I don't put words in your mouth, you must be pleased with the reception that the game got and the way that the launch went.
    65:03
    Yeah, I mean, you know, to say the least, you know, the funny thing with our games, for me personally, is that I'm probably the person working on them the longest before they become reality because it's the idea, the license, the negotiation for different parts of the license, the time, the energy, the effort that takes, and then the team starts getting involved and then they start hammering everything out and making everything be what it is and reveal it. So there's always this feeling for me of joy to see it finally become reality, but also, you know, I feel, wow, that was, you know, it was a long time, but it went by very fast. It was really great. You know, we knew we wanted to do something different with the lack of shows and the lack of being able to have a lot of people put their hands on the game. So, you know, we had a little different strategy this time. Well, and congratulations on that because on numerous occasions on this podcast, you stated that the next game that Jersey Jack would be launching would be announced with games ready and boxed to ship. And that's exactly what you did.
    66:32
    Yeah, thank you. That was very important to me and to a lot of other people in the company, to our distributors as well, and to our customers. and, you know, it took a lot of effort, like everything else, but it's well worth it. You could see the reaction. Everybody was thrilled to see the game, to play the game. Do you want to take us back several years now to when the whole concept, the whole idea of doing a Guns N' Roses game began?
    67:07
    Wow. So, you know, Slash has been a customer, Slash friend, for about 15 or 16 years. He bought games back in pinball sales.com days. And then around 2012, you know, I know he called Jen and he bought his first Wizard of Oz Emerald City Limited Edition game.
    67:30
    And when we were in L.A., I think it was in 13 of September for the 75th anniversary celebration of Wizard of Oz, slash got wind of that, and he called me up, and he was talking about doing a game that had snakes on it. He had this idea to do a pinball machine with snakes, and I remember him saying, why don't you guys come over? I know you're in L.A. for a few days.
    68:03
    I said, well, I don't know. The kids want to go to Malibu. They want to go to the beach, and, you know, I think maybe we can come over. or, you know, we'll get back to you kind of thing. And, you know, when he told me about the snake game, I said, who's going to buy this game? After I give you a free game, who's going to buy the rest of them kind of thing?
    68:28
    And we didn't get together that day. We got busy. He got busy. But we did always keep in touch. Holidays and things like that, We exchanged texts, phone calls, different events. And then as they got back on the road with the Not In This Lifetime tour, I finally got out to see a show and got to see what it was in the Meadowlands in Giant Stadium in New Jersey. And I was just blown away. And I agreed with him. I was giving him a hard time slash. he wanted to do a game I said there already was a game it was a pretty good game we're going to have to make something really spectacular which I knew we could do so I was hooked after I saw the show I went backstage and we talked about so many things about the game for a long time and then I had another hurdle So the next hurdle was, what was the next hurdle, Jack? Well, so the next hurdle was going to Eric because he was next in line. Pat was working on something. And I went to Eric and I said, you know, I'm thinking about doing Guns N' Roses. and Eric said to me, you know, I did Pirates and that was a remake and Guns N' Roses is a remake of My Little Become the Designer, those remake games.
    70:15
    And, you know, it's a good point, but, you know, I said to Eric the truth how I felt. If you got in the theme the first time and you made what you made, okay, it's good or it's not so good. If you got another theme that had to compete with something else, you really were challenged to make something great. And I knew Eric could make something great with the team. And they did. So I will tell you Eric is working on another game, and it's not a remake. So I'll give you that. Did he get to pick it?
    71:02
    Did he get to pick it? Yeah. His own title. He got to say, I like to do that. Okay. He gets to choose it. Okay. He got to say, I like to do that. So, you know, it's been said often. We've talked about it. You know, the thing is that you need to have people that work on things need to have a passion and a love for it. You can't just shove the square peg in the round hole kind of thing. You have to have people that love what they're doing. They come out a lot better, especially with our games. You can see it right away.
    71:41
    Right. How was it about getting Splash involved in the creation of the game, working with Eric? Was that something which is pretty unusual, I think, to have the talent actually that closely involved in not just the creation, but the ideas and the assets and, well, basically every aspect of the game, signing off the art and coming up with ideas, because we've just been talking to JP about how that whole process went and Sasha's involvement with that and the band as well.
    72:19
    It's got to be a very different process with the kind of involvement that you haven't had when you have a license, particularly if it's an older movie like Wizard of Oz where getting involvement from any of the cast members is pretty much out of the question.
    72:36
    Or a game like The Hobbit where they're all multi-million Hollywood stars who don't have much interest in a pinball machine unless you pay them more millions. So having such close involvement It must be a dream, really. It was a dream. That's the right word. It was a dream, and it was a lot of fun for me, Eric, the team. I think that in the very beginning when I told Splash that he was going to be involved,
    73:11
    you know, I didn't tell him. I asked him. I said, well, I'm sure you want to be involved with this. And he said, yeah, absolutely. But that wasn't his exact words. There were a few expletives in there, as far as I recall, with his enthusiasm and his excitement about being involved.
    73:29
    I tell you what, in the beginning, as it rolled along, I don't know that he realized that he would be involved as he became, quite to his happy surprise. I think with other projects and other things people just come to you and they say how do you like this? I like it, I don't like it change this or change that he was involved with really everything and anytime there was a little bit of a fence or a wall or a pothole that popped up along the roadway he was there to make it smooth and to fill it in and help with everything. So really it was a true collaboration. He's truly the co-designer of the game.
    74:28
    You know, he came up with ideas for so many things. And he's really proud of it. The whole band is proud of it. Everybody was involved, which is very unusual.
    74:43
    And I know when they get back on the road, these games, they'll be out on tour with them, too. And the game will be seen by millions of people who might not have ever seen a pinball machine. Certainly Guns N' Roses fans, but other fans. So I think he had a blast. And it was something where I said, is it going to happen again? Maybe not in this lifetime. The way, you know, we were able to gather all the assets. I wanted the animation from the show. I wanted all the concert footage. I wanted all the songs.
    75:23
    It took me about a year to line up all the songs with all the same timelines. and terms and usages of the whole song and things like that. So, you know, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun for me. I think it was a lot of fun for everybody that worked on it.
    75:45
    And how has Slash's involvement in both the game design and also the promotion and marketing of the game, how has that helped the game get to a wider audience to be picked up by the mainstream rock press and get the kind of people noticing the game who wouldn't notice it otherwise if it was just being promoted in the coin-op and hobbyist markets. Well, I could see, you know, when he tweets something or when it's shared on social media, when he's involved, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people that see these things. and it's just amazing to have a title where the people are alive, and not only are they willing, you don't have to twist their arm, they love it, and they want to be part of it, and they want to promote it.
    76:47
    It's hard to say this, but it can only be better once we go live with everything, and there's real shows and things like that. Games could be at different venues traveling around the world.
    77:02
    It's only going to be better, and it's hard to believe based on the response that we have right now to the game.
    77:11
    Would you say it's your best-selling game yet, or is that not something you want to talk about? Well, I think it could be. You know, one of the things that I said to you guys in one of the most recent podcasts I was on, I said something like, our best products are ahead of us. And this one, here you go. So certainly all of our games are unique. They're different. They incorporate a lot of different design elements, mechanical, electronic, technology. First game that you can really update your software. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth interconnectivity, activity very easily.
    77:55
    So many things that the team have been working on for years will put into this game and will be put into future games.
    78:07
    I assume Jonathan's still there. Yeah, hello, Jonathan. Yeah. I don't want to hog the microphone too much.
    78:18
    Have you got any questions you wanted to ask, Jack? Well, I'm kind of curious. Obviously, this is a process that you've been in, or a project where you've been involved in for quite a few years.
    78:34
    And then at some point, you get to see the finished product. And I'm just curious, what was your first impression? if there is a first impression, because maybe you've seen all sorts of versions in between, all sorts, you know, in development, but is there still something like a first impression?
    78:59
    There is, there is, because I get to see different elements during the creation, approval, process. I have something, you know, an opinion once in a while. I may give it, especially if asked by different people about what we're doing. But to see it all come together, to play it, to see them become live, to see. The best part for me, honestly, is not just my reaction, but the reaction of others. I mean, if you could liken it to a chef going out and buying all the ingredients during the day and then coming back to the kitchen and creating his best dish and then serving it to his willing, eager, hungry audience and saying, how do you like it? or just looking at their faces. So the real joy for me happens by really seeing other people. And that was the truth even years ago when I did the Shuffle Alley game back in 2002. And I was able to go to a bar and just watch people play it and have fun with it and look at each other and all that. It's a real sense of satisfaction, I think, coming from that. And then certainly the demand, the sales, all the great things that go with it, it just blows me away. It really does. It just blows me away at what we're able to create. It's part of the dream of why I started the company was to create a game like Guns N' Roses. I'm curious this is the first game that's been developed in Chicago I guess or been built there in its entirety how is that different this time around what I sort of thinking of is how has your involvement in the development changed if the game not actually being built where you are? Well, when the games were built in Lakewood, pretty much I knew what was coming in, I knew what the playfield looked like, I knew what the graphics looked like, I knew what everything looked like, I just might not have been there on the first day when all the pieces were put together in Chicago. And the only reason is the pandemic. It's nothing to do with being separated from everything. I'm completely involved with everything going on. And I'm included and part of it. But, you know, I didn't hop a plane to go to Chicago several times. But guess what? Through Facebook and Zoom and Skype and FaceTime and so many other ways to communicate with everybody working on it,
    82:21
    you know, it's like you talk to JP. JP's in Holland. so he's definitely not there when everything happens. He has a different role. Certainly his creativity and his genius comes through in this game as it does in every game. But I was more concerned about how the team would work together, not being selfish that, okay, maybe I don't get to see it on this first day, let's call it, or the first time that the first XYZ part comes in and it's connected. This is connected to that. I don't, you know, I didn't feel any anxiety separation or anything like that. I was more happy that the team was connected because they need to be more connected than I need to be. So it was all good. You know, I was happy about it.
    83:21
    And the result certainly is the game. You know, if all that work and all that time, all that effort and energy and money came together and the game wasn't fun to play, that would be really terrible. That would be terrible. Are there any sort of lessons learned from the development of that game and the launch and the marketing of it, which you'll be carrying forward through to future titles? absolutely absolutely yeah absolutely i mean uh um so many different things that we did uh that worked well uh they that were different um and we'll continue to learn as uh as we all should uh do more of what works and less of what doesn't work and it's kind of that simple Right, so when it comes to the promotion of this game, obviously with this being a rock band theme and Slash being available actually to talk to the media and promote the game, is that reflecting in well I wouldn't immediately say sales but is there feedback coming in on the effect that is having on the launch of this game?
    84:52
    Yeah, I mean certainly people that were Guns N' Roses fans and didn't know about pinball know about the game and they've ordered the game many people from around the world that want to have a game made have reached out to me hey why don't you license this why don't you license that why don't you license the other thing I get that a lot but I got it a lot more now and some of it's interesting and some of it's not, and I get to sort all that out. But I think having somebody who loves pinball, that's very high profile and that his silhouette alone is iconic, one of the greatest guitar players ever,
    85:53
    and genuinely a really, really nice guy, a really good person, besides it's really cool that he's associated with us and that he really was such a big part of this game with us as well as the rest of the band and I can't wait till things get back to normal and they go back out on the road and we see our games out there with them and that's going to be a lot of fun too can't wait right now um you earlier mentioned the uh uh the pandemic and that being the reason that you not had been to the chicago facility the new jersey jack facility um in the meantime you have been there uh when the game was launched uh what was your impression of the factory i love it i think it's great i think it's a great building uh it's a great location you know it's kind of funny having set up a factory from nothing before with nothing I think this time around it was easier for the people there because they've been doing it a long time and there was already something to work from certainly so I think it was very exciting for everybody to see that come together where our design team before uh they were at a little bit of a disadvantage because the factory was far away and they're the ones that had to do the facetime or skype calls or get on a plane and go somewhere you know now if they want to see what's going on they walk a few feet they go to the assembly line they talk to the people that are putting the game together the people that are putting the game in box, the people that are doing the quality control, things like that. It's all within their reach. So it made it easier for them, and that's a good thing.
    88:06
    Right. So it makes it more difficult for you, I suppose, now, because you're still in New Jersey, and of course you can hop on a plane, I get that, but it's not like you want to hop on a plane three times a week, I suppose.
    88:24
    well I think when things get back to normal you know I'll be in at the factory a lot more than I am now but again it's you know somebody wants something or has a question whatever it's not that anybody has to bang a drum or do smoke signals or anything like that there are so many great ways to communicate I also would say this the pandemic has changed so many things that we could think about. How many people don't travel to their offices anymore? How many people are working from home or remotely? How many people are able to do all those things? So for me, there were days where, yeah, I went to the factory. That's where my office was. But there were days that I, some days I was so busy, all I heard was banging and clopping and hammering and different things in the back of the building in the factory, and I didn't even get back there to say hello to anybody because I was just busy. So I miss certain aspects of it, certainly, but I like change. I like to start things and have them be better, learn from them, grow from them. Hopefully it brings us games quicker, the team works better together, and I'm only one person. So if I'm not in the loop, it's easy to grab me in the loop, where maybe if it was 25 or 30 people not in the loop, it's a little harder to grab all of them. So I think it'll work out really well. I don't have any feeling that it's not working or I'm not happy with it. I'm very happy with it. In a selfish way, I really have to say I don't mind being home.
    90:25
    You know, I haven't traveled my 160,000 miles this year. I'm a little... Not many people have. Yeah, I'm a little bummed out about that. I miss seeing you guys and all the other friends along all around the world at all the shows that we have so much fun doing. And hopefully when this is over, we're able to do that again, and it comes back, and we build it back, and we do all those things. But this year has taught all of us a lot of different things, good things, hopefully, and some not-so-good things that we can put behind us. But everything is a lesson. Everything is a lesson. Be positive. That's just how you've got to be. And with the limitations of not being able to meet people physically so much, are you still doing basically what you've always been doing at the company as far as chasing down licenses, looking after people, making sure people get what they want and sourcing everything?
    91:25
    Yeah, it sounds like my day today, Moen. Yeah. That's my day. You know, I'm a few games ahead of everybody else. I'm working on things that are going to happen two years from now and three years from now and four years from now. I'm like the guy on the pony going out to scout things to see where the course is, where we're going, and come back and report back and get the rest of the group all together. It's a lot of fun. you know, how I feel about certain things. I love the excitement of setting things up. I love the excitement of creating new things. The entrepreneurial part of me loves to do all of that. The day-to-day things always, you know, in every business I've had, the day-to-day, for me, after a while, it just gets a little boring. I like the challenge. I like not having things be easy all the time I mean I guess if I think back and I say well I wanted things easy I've had things easy in my career many times and then all of a sudden I've gone and complicated them somehow and you know in this case I started a pinball company which was probably not an easy thing to do but it's been very satisfying and we have thousands of loyal customers all over the world, loyal players that love our games, vendors that we love, all of our employees and contractors, all the people that we have created livelihoods for as a team, all the people that make mods for games and all the shows and everything. So it's really nice to play a small part in that. and get pinball revived again and get pinball discovered by new generations and then rediscovered by the older generation. So it's been really good. This year, you would think I'd be able to get people on the phone or on Zoom or whatever because you say, well, these licensed people, they all must be home. Where are they? You know, but guess what? Some people got furloughed. Some people got laid off. Some people changed jobs. Some people are actually on vacation. So what you might think might take you a week or two weeks or a month or two months or three months to put together, there's still some challenges with doing some of that kind of stuff. I'm up for that challenge. I love it. Well, as someone who likes starting new ventures, you're not in any way tempted to start a new business? or would you say that each new title is like starting up a new business? It is. And Julian's got a big baseball bat, so in case I decide to do something like that, I think she's going to climb me with me a few times.
    94:39
    And Jen might do that, and my son might do that, and some of my friends might do that. I don't have, no, but the challenge for me is, putting the different things together and connecting all the dots and all the puzzle pieces and working on all that kind of stuff getting people excited still you know I talk to a lot of customers a day I talk to a lot of our distributors daily all around the world I've had a whole network of friends that are like codependent on the company and their efforts are to sell and see more Jersey Jack pinball games be developed. So it's a great place to be right now. You know, we're coming up on 10 years. January 1st will be the 10th anniversary of the company. It's going to be kind of amazing. It sounds like you're still loving what you do. I love it. And it doesn't seem like I'm doing it that long, really.
    95:53
    You know, I have a good way of kind of like forgetting a lot of the not so good things and a good way of remembering the good things and being fortunate, being grateful, being thankful, being humble. You know, I'm really thankful to Leonard and Brett and the family when they came into the company in 2015. you know it was a great opportunity for everybody it's been a lot of fun the collaboration's been great the cooperation's been great it's just been a dream come true you know sometimes you have an idea for something and things take life of its own in a way and when I see people sending me emails and pictures that they have every one of our games or operators that are still putting our games on locations that are still open and people doing all this kind of stuff. It's just... It's very, very cool and it's very humbling, like I said. It's just really great. I love it. Well, thank you, Jack Guarnieri, for this very kind and informative contribution on the making of Guns N' Roses and his current role in the company. And, well, he's a very... Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. A guy who's clearly still loving doing what he's doing.
    97:25
    Yeah. So, and I'm just curious to see what he's coming... what he will be coming up with in two, three, four years. Yeah, all these titles he's been working on. Yeah, and I'm sure we'll... We'll see, and there'll be various rumours of course, and maybe leaks, but we won't know for sure, because there have been games rumoured to be coming out which haven't come out yet from Josie Jack. Well, the interesting thing is that I think we caught Jean-Paul De Wynne re-dreaming My Little Pony as a future title, and I did hear Jack make a pony reference as well. So there must be some truth to it.
    98:10
    Well, you heard it here first, and probably last. Anyway. We do have some more JJP news, though, because as well as releasing the new Guns N' Roses title, they've also been delving into their boxes of spares and their stockpile and come up with a couple more factory-fined sales, which involve some plastic sets for some of their games. I think they're factory-fined for Dialed In and The Hobbit, where you can get full playfield plastic sets for $49.99. What? Yeah, normally all the factory-fined things, which they had in the past, like playfields, sold out instantly. but I guess not many people want to put dialed in or hobbit plastics on their wall so those sets, at the time of writing this, which was earlier they were writing it, researching it I should say they still had these plastic sets for sale, so if you have either dialed in or a hobbit or like the idea of owning the plastics for them, you can go to the Jersey Jack Pimple website and order them while they're still available So, only £49.99. Not bad for a full set of plastics when you see how much these go for at pinball shows. If you have a good memory, you can remember what pinball shows were like. Right, yeah.
    99:44
    I have to dig very deep, but yeah, I do. And besides that, well, we mentioned Guns N' Roses. We always do sort of code updates.
    99:56
    And yeah, Guns N' Roses has had a code update this month as well as being launched. It's had several launches And several, I should say, updates It released with version 1.0 On the 11th of September But of course the game wasn't actually launched at that point And it's had seven updates Since then None of them major And as we heard from John Paul The game is pretty much Well, it is done, he said Everything that's going to be in it is pretty much in there So these are just Bug fixes and so on Yeah, bug fixes, but also one of the things that comes along a bit later on all the games is the game manual, which they have built into the software of the game, so you can refer to the manual on the screen. So that's been added in the latest update, 1.07. So the first draft of the game manual's in there.
    100:50
    And as you said, a few bug fixes which are inevitable with any software. But other than that I think what you're seeing now With the Guns N' Roses game Is pretty much how it's going to be In the long term I don't think we're expecting Any major additions or changes To the gameplay Yeah, I'm still curious to see Whether Well, that's just a personal preference But since the game is so multiple heavy I'm very curious Whether there will be a software update To possibly tame that down Or at least a Sort of a harder setting where it will be more difficult to get into multi-ball and extend your multi-ball all the time. I may be in there already if you change the standard setting to hard or extra hard. Maybe those multi-ball outcomes will be seen. I have not been able to check that yet, so you might be right. No, not me, but hopefully soon. I should also mention that if you are into GNR, then you can pick up some pinball-themed merchandise, pinball-themed Guns N' Roses merchandise, that is, fairly soon on the Jersey Jack store on the Jersey Jack pinball website. So head over to JerseyJackPinball.com and check out to see whether they've added it to their store yet. But it's coming. Right, okay. So, well, we have a third headline. and I think we should do that right away.
    102:22
    Yeah, breaking news. Breaking news, indeed. We should have a big banner across the bottom of the screen saying breaking news. Yeah, but the banner won't work, so that's not going to work.
    102:35
    Okay, well, let's take it from us, it's breaking news, and it's big. Well, considering what's been going on the rest of the month, this is sort of exciting news although if there would be four new games it would not have made the headlines to be honest but yes, Dutch Pinball the who have been building the Big Lebowski on their premises in the city of Roermond in the Netherlands and And I visited them a couple of months ago, and there was already talk of moving to a new location. And actually tonight it was confirmed to me by Barry Dreesen of Dutch Pinball, the owner of the company, that they indeed have the key to the new facility. Right. And that means that this week they will be taking care of all sorts of stuff that needs to be taken care of, like insurances and cleaning and layout of the factory and all that kind of stuff, what they want to do. If everything goes as planned, they will be moving to the new facility next week. And it's a larger facility. Yes. So I asked for more details. The new facility is two kilometers, approximately a mile from their current location. It is a 1,100 square meter building with a big hall and office space. it's a standalone building so it's not attached to any other buildings and this could be very interesting news Kuhn the software programmer for the Big Lebowski will be becoming a full time member of Dutch Pinball the 1st of December.
    105:06
    Oh, congratulations to him and to Barry and everyone there. It's good to have a full-time... He's doing coding for finishing off the Big Lebowski and working on future titles. Yes, and that means some people have been complaining that the software for the Big Lebowski wasn't finished yet.
    105:28
    But obviously Coom is... I think my guess is he's already working on it, because he's already working on a part-time basis for Dutch Pinball, so he must be working on something.
    105:41
    So, well, actually, there's two breaking news from Dutch Pinball. So, new facility, and they'll be moving next week. The expected downtime is also about a week. So, they're currently still building games in the old facility, and once they move, they expect to be down for a week, and then they can pick up production. and also get a bigger crew because they have more space and build games more and more. Yes, exactly. So, great news. And Coon coming back.
    106:12
    Especially if you're either an owner of the game or waiting for your game to be delivered. That's going to bring more software coming, presumably, and also a shorter wait if you're waiting for a game.
    106:27
    Right. So, good news all around. And obviously Barry's confident that the company's in a good position to expand and build more games and take on more people.
    106:40
    Right. Okay. So moving along. Well. Sturm Pinball. Oh, yeah, them. Yes. No, they've been very busy, actually.
    106:50
    We were expecting a new game to be announced, to be honest. Yeah. Almost straight after Pinball Expo. We thought a certain rock music pin might be announced, but that didn't happen. So, it's not a surprise. Well, one can wonder whether this announced, or, well, the game that has, everybody was expecting a game to be announced. That didn't happen. One can wonder whether the game was postponed, or whether there were no plans at all to reveal the game, but since this game is rumored to be a rock band themed game,
    107:34
    and I think it's no secret that everybody is rumoring it to be Led Zeppelin, designed most likely by Steve Ritchie.
    107:48
    Well, since Jersey Jack Pinball just dropped Guns N' Roses, which is basically a jaw-dropping gorgeous game with a light show that puts everybody else back to the drawing board, I say. In the shade. Yeah, it could be that the game, that basically you see Richard got the instructions like, maybe you should add a thing or two to your game because like this, we don't stand a chance. But that's pure speculation on my end. Don't take my word for it. We don't know the plans of Stern Pinball. and what's interesting to note is that during Pinball Expo, Gary Stern did an interview where he said that Stern Pinball has a backlog of 5,000 games.
    108:34
    That should indicate that they don't need to announce a new game because they'll be busy building 5,000 games and my guess is that's going to take them at least a couple of months.
    108:45
    Yeah, you'd think so. and although it's not like them to miss out on the holiday season, but I suppose they do kind of have a title available, don't they? Or a relatively recent reveal. Right, in the form of Heavy Metal, which is the contract game that they did with Heavy Metal magazine, Incendium.
    109:10
    The publishers, Incendium. which is available up until the end of the year. So that is kind of a holiday season pinball. Although the pricing of it and what you get for your money tends to suggest it's more for a heavy metal fan, a fan of the magazine, rather than the music per se. Right. I'll say we'd be buying a Guns N' Roses game. well yes but still need to have their their um their flag in their in the ground and uh and have an offer for home buyers and uh because let's face it with all these lockdowns that are going on around the around the world and your country and my country too um there's not an awful lot of location pinball out there so home sales seem to be booming so selling a home model which might have once struggled in this market might be a very shrewd move especially if you can get a premium price for it right anyway Jack Danger did a review stream of gameplay of the heavy metal yeah that's on his deadflip channel yes on YouTube I guess you'll see that now or maybe on Twitch as well yes and but he also was involved in the Pinball Expo presentation that Stone Pinball did with a tour of the factory.
    110:44
    Yes. Which I have to admit, I haven't seen it yet, because there was plenty of other things to be watching as well, and I need to catch up on that. And having seen the factory a few times, you know, it's all about priorities. Did you get to catch it, Jonathan? I saw a bit of it. I haven't seen it yet. I hear very good things about it though. It was a very professional and informative presentation. And I think he also had an interview with Gary Stern,
    111:15
    which is where that comment that I was referring to earlier was made. So that was a very good virtual factory tour, if you want to call it that. and I highly recommend it to check out, especially if you've never seen a pinball factory and how it's operating.
    111:41
    So, other stern news. George Germes has been very busy on social media, I've noticed, and in particular he's been talking about Deadpool, that game which he designed a couple of years ago, and there's been some new music from that game available to download for free. If you go to sternpinball.com slash deadpool dash album, you can download the soundtrack, the pinball soundtrack, which is music from the game. Now, that's got its own artwork as well, which you can download and print out if you want to make a cover for your CD. I think it's a cassette, I can't remember if it's a cassette or a CD. It might be a CD cover.
    112:33
    But that's by Zombie Yeti. So he's done some lovely artwork. And if you download it and burn yourself either a tape or a CD, depending on which one it was, assuming anybody has a tape deck that can record these things, go to Stone Pinball and download it. It's very nice. and George has also been showing some interesting design sketches he's done from the past for some of his earlier games, indicating ideas that either made it or didn't make it into production. Right. So have a look on the Stern Pinball Facebook page, and I don't know if it's on Instagram, but certainly on the Facebook side of things, you can get some interesting an interesting look into the design process from the mind of George Kermes the I'm trying to remember exactly what he is Head of Game Design doesn't sound grand enough Vice President of Game Design Vice President George has just got a promotion Congratulations Right so So, being busy on the software department, I would say, we got to... You love code updates, don't you? Code updates for four different games.
    113:58
    Yeah, Avengers... Actually, five. Five, eh? Yeah, actually five. I'll let you do the big one, then. I'll do the... Yeah, sure. That's fine. Okay. Well, the Avengers Infinity Quest, which is the current latest title still, although it hasn't been released that long, but it's on version 0.92 now, which has some bug fixes and tweaks and added a lot more display, sound, lighting effects, shaker motor effects and topper effects as well, for those who have added the topper to their game, and also helps to deal with problems with balls that get into the subway, you know, when the spinner lifts up on the premium LE and you can knock balls under the playfield, well, sometimes you can get a couple of balls in there and the game had got a bit confused in that situation because it wasn't expecting them. Well, now the code deals with that in a much more graceful way, so that's good. Jurassic Park, that's moved up to 1.03. which is there's been a bit of a gap on updates on Jurassic Park the last one taking place in July but it adds in this new feature which Stern have added to all their games now, all their new games which is called the DJ Mixer which allows you to, in a track mode, play music from the game and do a random mix or pick a playlist of different tracks it also adds a few bug fixes and implement another new thing which they're doing, which is lighting for the start button, or light effects for the start button, when it's in attract mode and in pre-train, where you can choose whether you want it bit solidly flashing or not exactly the most exciting thing in the world, but they're standardising that now across all their games, along with the DJ mixer, and this 1.03 Jurassic Park adds that. Right. Elvira's House of Horrors! Yeah, just in time for Halloween. Yeah, oh yeah, I missed that. Yes, so that's reached its 1.00 milestone, and it's a big update.
    116:16
    Nothing from Elvira is anything other than big, as I'm sure you appreciate. So there's too much of that to go into in all detail, but that's to say it's got lots more display, sound and lighting effects, changes a few of the score balance, I should say, on some of the things, add some more setting adjustments, and it too adds the DJ mixer into the software so you can play music from the game in a track mode, if that's what you like to do.
    116:44
    Stranger Things. That had a couple of updates. 0.991 is the current one at the time of recording this, which is, well, the 3rd of November.
    116:58
    0.991 is a minor update to 0.990, which had a little bug in it where some of the switches didn't register. So 0.990 was also a big update, very, very close to version 1.0. Lots of new rules and features and adjustments to existing ones.
    117:20
    It has an enhanced final showdown multiball and added the snowball dance feature if you complete that final showdown multiball. E2 added the DJ mixer to play the music tracks And fixed quite a few bugs In the earlier version So definitely worth doing All of those Want to get the DJ mixer into your game Update Jurassic Park Alvarez, House of Horrors And Stranger Things Avengers always had it I think Yeah and well the Fifth code update was actually Announced today That's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and let's go to version 1.23.
    118:02
    Breaking news. Sorry? All breaking news. Yeah. And I have really no clue what the updates really comprehend, so I'm going to say it fixes bugs and it does a lot more.
    118:18
    If you own a Turtles game, then update your game and find out yourself. Okay, excellent. I think that's oh, I think it was mentioned that Gary Stern was also interviewed on Chicago Radio WGN Radio yes it's worth noting for non-American listeners that I can provide a link in my newsletter to the radio show where Gary Stern was a host, but it is being blocked for territories outside the US. Yeah, blocking. So if you want to listen to it, you have to get yourself a VPN and go through the US and listen to it that way. Right.
    119:06
    American Pinball. Yeah, they've been teasing a few things. Well, first of all, they had a... Part of Pinball Expo was a virtual tour. Yeah, which was actually a very, very nice video and they shared that on their social media as well, so you can watch that on their Facebook page and it's highly recommended because it's different than Stern, although some elements are the same, but go check it out. So it's a... Just to look at the new factory, is it? Yeah. I haven't seen it. Yes.
    119:50
    I thought they weren't going to show you that, but it's good that they were, or that they did. So if you look at that, we haven't been there to the competing factory, at least not yet, so this will be a good chance to have a look at how it turned out. I only went there when they just bought the place and it was still full of event furniture and tables and chairs. They were trying to fix the floor and turn it into a usable factory space. But then Ametron came along and took some of the other space and I think progressed very quickly after that. Right. So, yes, so that's talking of Ametron. that they have been teasing on social media about something new and exciting happening at Aintron. Right. Telling us to tune in this week to find out what it's all about. And I think Jonathan might have an inkling what it is about. Well, yes. There was some speculation going on from... Sorry.
    121:01
    I should probably mention that Aintron are the... I would say the parent company has become like a big sister company, shall we say, of American Pinball. A big mother company, I would say. Okay. Right, and American Pinball being a sister company, but Amtron has more companies. I think they have like seven sister companies, something like that. Amtron is a big holding, if you want to call it. Yeah. I reached out to Michael Granz, who is in charge of sales and I think also public relations for American Pinball. And I was happy to talk to him, but he informed me that the something new and exciting thing happening at Ametron is not pinball related And earlier today I received news from a certain Gary
    121:58
    who you might know, and he had received a press release that had to do with a new logo for Aimtron. So, not sure how exciting, and that is, but if it's just a new logo for Ametron then I think we're... That's not exactly something new and exciting, is it? Well, it could be a very exciting logo, I haven't seen it yet, but... The interesting thing was that it had Ametron and American Pinball logos on the announcement. But what I understood from my call is that the same announcement was made on all the social medias for all sister companies and apparently with the corresponding logos on it.
    122:50
    Okay, well, a bit of a temp script there. Yeah, well, there was also big news as American Pimble is hyping it themselves, although we should now be warned. I'm just going to read this from their Facebook America Pinball is extremely proud to announce the sponsorship of the Hot Wheels Legends Tour Virtual Car Show in which custom car builders compete to have their car immortalized as a Hot Wheels car and the Hot Wheels Pinball machine will be promoted on two separate live stream Facebook events in round 8 of the Legends Tour, which is on November 5th, and in the Grand Finale on November 14th. And I think George Kubler is also making an appearance on the November 5th livestream event, or what have you. So, well, at least American Pinball is trying to make people who are into Hot wheels aware that there is a hot wheels pinball machine. So I can only applaud them for them. And if you're trying to achieve that, then this is a big achievement. So congratulations.
    124:14
    And hopefully you will get more hot wheels collectors into playing the hot wheels pinball machine. Yeah. It's reaching into a different market, as we saw with Guns N' Roses. Right. So that's the way to grow both sales and expand the hobby. Right. Particularly at times when people might have trouble going out on location and spotting the game there. Right. So if you can get it inserted into their social media feeds and videos and live streams and help promote it that way, good luck to them. Right.
    124:51
    And there was also a new code update for Hot Wheels. I'll leave it to you to discuss what's in there. Well, it's not much. It's version, well, 2010-15, which is the date, pretty much, in reverse order of when the release of that code came out, so 15th of October. That added Treasure Hunt cards, which is a new feature, into the rules, but as I haven't actually played the old one, I don't know how that adds to the game, but more features are always good. changed some of the scoring balance of various features in the game and fixed a few bugs so not a huge update but nice to get those treasure hunt cards added so if you've got a Hot Wheels get it updated if you haven't already right, ok so moving on to Spooky Pinball yeah, they've been busy basically doing stuff around Halloween as you'd expect with a name like that they've released a couple of new code updates with the promise of more code coming as well. The existing code updates, well, Scott Denise has done an update for Total Nuclear Annihilation. Yes. So this new TNA code 1.4.2 adds Scorbit compatibility.
    126:13
    Pardon me. If you have a Scorbitron installed in your game and want to connect it to the internet so the scores are recorded, you can use that. My scores are too embarrassing to share so I'm not going to bother. I'm getting all choked up about it.
    126:30
    Anyway, I can say that the new code also allows you to put the scores on the LCD display which, previously, they were on the LED displays so you can get them on there as well. Some other feature requests, which I won't go into because they're a little bit niche but allow various things to be toggled on and off and longer ball savers and things like that. So they're all in there, and a couple of bug fixes, because it's the bane of every coder's life, the bugs. So I think squash those, that's always good. Yeah, I'll add a little note to that.
    127:06
    If you have a Total Nuclear Annihilation game and you want to download that code, you need to go to a special page on this Katanisi design website.
    127:22
    It might not be very new, but I just noticed it, so to me it was new. But there's actually now a sort of a troubleshooting area where there is a common mechanical issues on total nuclear annihilation that happen, such as the drop targets cycling after power up, which has to do with optos not getting enough power. there's a very small fix that you need to push or adjust a couple of the flat cables under the playfield I had that on my game so I was very happy to fix that a very simple fix but there's a couple of that on there as well so if you have such issues on your game then have a look there to make it play as it's supposed to be played It sounds like you've got the game at all, you should go and check out that FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions, section of Scott and Easy's website, so if any of these crop up in the future, you'll know that they've been covered and what the fixer will be. Right, and it's also worth noting that Scott and Izzy is keeping a close eye on the total nuclear annihilation threat on Pinside, where a lot of people report bugs or other things that they run into, problems, and it is very helpful trying to get their game working as it should be working. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where most of those feature requests I mentioned earlier that have been added into the Spookys version came from. They seem like good ideas.
    129:13
    And Scott agrees and has added them to the software. Right. So that's very proactive and customer-orientated. So thanks. Thanks, Scott.
    129:24
    Elsewhere from Spooky Pinball, Rob Zombie's Spookshow International. That's had a code update to go with Halloween, surprisingly. It's been a while But yeah It's got some more Voice calls Added to it Which is As I say Always nice to hear And a few bug fixes As well Not a huge update But I think there's also Maybe some Extra lighting Effects being added Like flashes going off And extra walls And things like that So that's version 26 On Rob Zombie's Bookshelf And they have promised That there's more code Coming for other games with a suggestion that Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle will be the next one to receive some code love. So if you've got that game, keep an eye on the Spooky Pinball website and social media feed to see when the new code drops. Right. And there's a little bit more to report on Spooky Pinball. Charlie Emery was a guest host on the Super Awesome Pinball show, which is a highly recommended podcast. that he would do a much better job than we do. So do check that out. It's not hard, is it?
    130:39
    So, yeah, but... So he addressed... One of the things he addressed was the production of total nuclear annihilation.
    130:50
    Turns out that they scaled up production at the factory after being forced to shut down for a couple of months. And it looks like Rick and Morty is going to be finished a little bit ahead of time, instead of what they originally expected, early 2021. And then, obviously, there's going to be another game coming out. We have no idea yet what, but... I wonder when that's going to be announced. Yeah, although they have been hinting on Total Nuclear Annihilation 2.0, which is basically the same game as the original one, but with a few tweaks to it, so to speak, minor changes.
    131:44
    And what's also interesting, we didn't cover it in the Jersey Jackpinball section. some people have been noticing clear code issues on recent Jersey Jack games interestingly it appears that Spooky Pinball have found a solution they had some issues with playfields and chipping and pooling earlier on and they found a solution which makes you wonder why other manufacturers either are not trying to find such a solution or haven't been in contact with Spooky Pinball to discuss what is the solution to the problem. Well, I think we heard that Spooky had found a solution many months ago. Right. But I haven't seen any problems with AFL fields. So I guess they have a solution. Yeah. It would seem to be the case that they do. But obviously, as you said, they're doing something different. But maybe there are other effects or side effects which other companies don't want to do. Or it's too radical a change to the production process. And that's not something that other companies are in a position to do. Yeah, do check out the Super Awesome Pinball podcast with special guest host Charlie Emery of Spooky Pinball.
    133:27
    Yeah, sounds very professional. We should get a guest host in. Maybe we can get... Oh, hang on. Is that your phone ringing? Oh. Can I make you mention it? Yeah, it is. Oh.
    133:40
    Great timing, I would say. Just in between subjects. So, okay. For those tuning in for the first time,
    133:50
    my phone is ringing because Gary Flower is calling, and Gary Flower has been calling in basically since the beginning of our podcast series, which is running for over two years. Don't hold him off for too long. He might ring off. Yeah, okay. So... I've got the phone. Okay. Hello, Gary. Hello. Oh, crap. What was that? I just dropped my phone in the glass of tea.
    134:19
    Oh, my God. Is it all right? No, it's not. Oh, my God. I can hear it. That doesn't sound good. That doesn't sound good, no. I'm afraid I'm... Oh, well, never mind.
    134:36
    Well, all the editing you do, I'm sure you can take that bit out, so nobody knows. that that happens. I think I'll be googling for a new phone. Yeah. Okay, well, I guess we won't get him on just yet, but maybe he'll ring me instead, now he knows he's landed in hot water again.
    134:57
    Okay, so, moving on. Multimorphic have been busy with some new code for their latest heist release, which is a Steven Silver design game. Yes. And the new code for that adds the chatbot integration into the Twitch integration, which is already in the game, which allows basically people to comment on screen on the game, which previously Twitch allowed you to, viewers of the screen, to interact with game and start certain features. By now you can chat as well and you can see the chat messages on the screen which is very impressive it's almost doing away with the need for a standalone machine, a standalone computer you can just use your P3 to do everything, which is kind of the idea I guess. And they also added the Bluetooth support I'd say Steam to it which Multimorphic announced earlier for the Cosmic Kart racing game, that's now added into Heist. Okay. So if you have Bluetooth headphones or want to listen to the game on headphones, then yeah, you can do that now. Cool. So that's multi-morphic code updates, I should say, that I've got. Okay. So moving on to Chicago Gaming, not much news there for a couple of months already, but we do know that they hired Christopher French as an artist for well he did some elements of the Medieval Magna Stopper I think he did the background for that and he's supposed to be working on artwork for an upcoming game and speaking of upcoming games it might not take too long before Chicago Gaming is announcing their next title about time we've been producing Medieval Madness remakes the royal version and Attack from Mars and Monster Bashers for a while now so yeah we're certainly due a new title be it homegrown or a remake right so two titles have been circulating in the rumor circuit if you want to call it that being Cactus Canyon remake and Theater of Magic remake.
    137:37
    Obviously, Christopher Frenchy has inside info, and on his super awesome pinball podcast show, he couldn't say much, but he did say that it will not be Theater of Magic remake. I have to admit I didn't think For a moment It would be So Not too surprised there No Captive Canyon With perfect sense Is the next remake And of course They're working On their own Title as well Right So Which one Will be the next one To be announced We don't know And hopefully Coming This year Right And they're also Working with Spooky On that Ben Heck game which is going to be manufactured by Chicago Gaming. So enough projects in the pipeline at Chicago Gaming, and we just have to wait and see when they are ready to announce their next title.
    138:46
    Yes, and like JGP, I suspect when they do announce it, they'll probably have some units available to buy fairly soon. Right. Or at launch time. Right. So, moving on to Haggis Pinball, of which we haven't heard much for a couple of months. No, quite a few months actually, almost half a year. They've been very quiet and Damien was able to sort of break cover and reveal during the virtual Pinball Expo That development on the Celts game is complete And they are actually in manufacturing And taking orders right now Which is a bit of a surprise Because the last time we saw the game There were still quite a few things to be done But I guess in the intervening months When they haven't been doing their vlogs Or he hasn't been doing a vlog About all the changes and developments That have been going on in the game He actually got to the stage where you can start building them, which is excellent news. So if you want to order a Kelts game, then you can head on over to haggispimble.com and check it out and see exactly what it is you're buying. We have videos there as well. Right, and if you're interested in gameplay of Kelts...
    140:14
    And who isn't? Melbourne Silver Bowl did a stream of a gameplay of Kel's, which is on their channel.
    140:26
    So there you can take a look what the gameplay is like, and maybe that will help you in your decision whether you want to order one.
    140:34
    Yeah, it's a limited run. I think there's 200 machines, if I'm recording correctly from the announcement. so I think I asked people in the pinball business what they thought about Haggis Pinball entering the market now and they wished them all the best but didn't think with such a small run they'd necessarily have much of an impact on the global market for games and also that it's obviously not a license and it's an interesting choice for a title I think was the way it was put to me but yeah I think good luck to them first title I think they deserve all our support and it looks like a very well put together and well researched and developed game and hopefully none of those playfield issues that we were talking about earlier given all the videos we've seen of hammers being applied to playfields right so then there's a couple of other companies that we're just going to briefly mention, because there's no news to report.
    141:46
    Very briefly. Right. So, HomePin, no news. Circus Maximus, also no news to report for now. But there is some other news. Martin, take it away.
    141:57
    Yeah, well, as we had interviews recently with Rob Burke and David Fix about the upcoming, as it was then, virtual Pinball Expo which took place in the middle of the 14th to the 17th of October in fact four days of various events that were online hosted through the pinballexpo.com website and Jones and I have both previously taken part in a couple of things, we heard earlier from Jack about his induction into the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame from Gary which was very, very well deserved and welcome to hear. But Jonathan was, he's too modest to mention it himself, but Jonathan did a very nice Dutch treat video showing all, well not all, but some of the many ways in which pinball is being promoted and grown in the Netherlands. He was there in a show introduced by Nate Shivers, who of course lives in Amsterdam, and they're all down at the Rotterdam Pimple Museum or the Dutch Pimple Museum yes their new location which is a temporary location but it's a very old harbour warehouse I would say but very nice atmosphere inside or vibe if you want to call it and yeah we're very professional production, video production I would say, by Jasper van Eeden and the body of his.
    143:43
    And yeah, it had the title Dutch Street Pinball Stories from the Lowlands and it focused on various people that you might have seen at pinball shows internationally or at least some of their work you might have seen there. I mean, Dennis Van Der Post is the creator of the Kill Bill pinball machine, which is a re-scene to World Cup Soccer. But we've seen that game in Vancouver and at other shows as well. And there's only five of those around. So we talked about that. And Gerard did a small talk on his museum. Bertrand Posma did a small talk on Ministry of Pinball. the chairman of the Dutch Pinball Association did a small talk as well. And the idea was basically to do a presentation of like, I think in the end it was like 47 minutes, and give like, I think about 10 different people a platform to showcase what they have been contributing to the pinball community. Yeah, it's a very good example of how people in other countries outside the US are really pushing pinball into the mainstream. Yeah. They're doing it in a very successful way. Right. And of course, it was yourself, of course. Yeah, so, thank you. And I don't want to stab or be, how do you call it, be a dick about it, but if you... Oh, go on.
    145:29
    If you look at some of the other presentations during Pinball Expo, I'm very happy to see that Jaspers and Aiden really put some effort into turning it into a decent video production instead of just a... a phone recording or something similar. Yeah, a series of clips. Yes. Very well produced, right down to the introduction, well, from the introduction onwards, I should say, really,
    146:08
    all done in the sort of the Reservoir Dog style, which looked very nice. Yes. So congratulations to everyone involved in that. And, of course, going to the studio. that video is also available on YouTube now so if you're curious and you want to watch it it's highly recommended just look for the Dutch Pinball Museum video channel and you'll find it on there and it's also available on the virtual Pinball Expo stream that's available through the Pinball Expo site but it will be on YouTube very soon if it's not already but you can also through the Pinball Expo website see complete full day streams from all four days of the event but you need to skip through it to find the bit that you're interested in at the moment but that will change, everything will be made available very very shortly including the Pinball Insider Panel that Jonathan and myself were privileged to take part in to talk about the to pinball in various other countries around the world. And the time on that just flew by. It was given an hour-long, I think, an hour-long slot, I think it was. Yeah. And, yeah, we hardly got to cover any of the things we really wanted to talk about. Yeah.
    147:32
    But it was, I think it was interesting anyway, and I hope those who are watching did as well, although there was quite a lot more to cover. Right. And we may return to that format before too long. and revisit it. And I'll explain this to our listeners.
    147:52
    Before and after the seminar, basically everybody who joined in on that Zoom meeting was placed in a break room, I suppose it's called.
    148:05
    Yeah, a lobby. Yeah, a lobby or whatever, where we could still talk to each other. And it turns out, while the seminar was probably less than an hour, I think we ended up talking to each other for three hours in total, which was very, very interesting. And basically, the idea was born there to see if we can turn that into a monthly type of,
    148:31
    possibly a video podcast or something like that. So we haven't discussed it further with the people involved, but it's an interesting idea. so there might be a follow-up on that.
    148:44
    Yeah, it was certainly very worthwhile, I think, to get different countries' perspectives on how pinball is the state of the business and the state of the hobby, which is not the same in every country, and different countries have different takes on things, and it's very useful to hear that, I think.
    149:04
    Even for people like us, who do travel around quite a bit to different countries and shows, We heard things from Australia as well and other places, Brazil and Australia and the U.S. to see exactly how pinball is faring in these tough times. It's tough for operators and tough for location owners and tough for bar owners. Yeah.
    149:31
    But it seems to be thriving in other areas, as we mentioned earlier, particularly with home sales. Right. But anyway. So here we are. Go check it out. Yeah, so there was one other video that I recall from Pinball Expo, which is actually a video that didn't get to air correctly. I think I've seen at least two attempts to air it.
    149:57
    And that was a video from Pinball Adventures, who is currently involved in prototyping the game Bunny Factory. and they had a video and they were sort of doing a small workshop tour or whatever you want to call it. Too bad the video quality was very bad. It appeared that the rendering of the video hadn't been done correctly. But I was actually very much looking forward to seeing that again, so I'm keeping an eye open to see whether that video is available on the Internet, because it really looked like, well, it was interesting, I think. So, yeah, and obviously I haven't seen all seminars yet.
    150:50
    No. I still need to find the time to look them back. But they're currently still available on the Pinball Expo Twitch channel, so do check them out if you missed any of those.
    151:01
    And talking of Pinball Expo, we should probably mention that one of the announcements made during that show was something we knew about for a while and sort of intimated before, but couldn't announce it ourselves because it was up to Rob, the Birk Pinball Expo organiser, to make the announcement, which he did on the virtual Pinball Expo, is that that show is moving.
    151:25
    It won't be held at the West End in Wheeling anymore, or at least not for the foreseeable future, is moving to the conference centre in Schomburg, which is part of the Renaissance Hotel complex, and there was a video showing you around the hotel. It looked very nice, a very high-quality business-class hotel, and the dates have been set for that for 2021. So that's again in October, although it's a little bit later, I think, maybe a week or two later and at the moment sadly seems to be clashing with the grand old Game Room Expo show so I don't know whether those dates are going to stay for, well I'm not going to change for Pimwell Expo but I don't know whether the grand old Game Room Expo show Grand Ogre is going to change its dates or there's going to be a bit of a clash I mean there's a fair old distance between the two of them So maybe the audience is for the same for the two of them But it will be I will come up with more news diary page And you'll see the dates for that show And lots of other shows Going through 2021 And into 2022 As well Assuming that is of course That we can have shows again Fingers crossed That we can Because we need them But in the meantime If you can't get to a location such as the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda in California you can enjoy some of the exhibitions that they have held there because they put them online for you for free so if you go to pacificpinball.org slash exhibition you can enjoy some of the online exhibitions which include artwork about the pointy people which includes the drawings of Jerry Kelly and Christian Marsh, of course, on the EM games. You know, they have a very stylized style of artwork, which is instantly identifiable. And also very bespoke is Art Stenholm's work as well. And they have an exhibition of the art of art, Art of Art Stenholm. So you can look at that They're not hugely in depth But they're very good To spend 15 minutes browsing through And examining all the pictures And I also got one on pinball style As well which looks at The different styles Of clothing And pop art Basically Showing what pinball art was showing And how it reflected The style of the time so yeah all for free so uh pacificpinball.com.com because um i've been to the pacific pinball museum on uh several occasions and um yeah always uh nice people michael uh she's comes to mind um yeah
    154:38
    yeah exactly uh dorothy and uh yeah great people and um uh they were the museum was featured in Piml magazine number one as well so I'll definitely take a look because obviously I was not able to visit all these exhibitions so I hope the online presentation is done in a very well
    155:03
    respectful way. Yeah it's very easily accessible and it doesn't involve a huge equipment any time and you can come back and to pick up at any point so yeah nicely done well done to them. talking of presentations I suppose we should go back we were talking earlier about Slash well the guy's been busy not just with his role in promoting his Guns N' Roses game with Josie Jack Pimble but also going back to the Data East game of the same name and he's been signing copies of the 30 Years of Stern book which has been still being produced by Paperflock pulling a Kickstarter which began in October 2016 so what was that, four years?
    155:55
    four year anniversary although he's signing copies there's no actual release date set yet the publishers, Paperflock sent out a rather odd survey put online an odd survey to those people who backed the book through Kickstarter not asking them how they wanted it delivered or offering payment options but asking sort of like a customer survey asking what's your level of education what's your income would you buy more copies of the book which at least might be interesting because it could affect their print run there's a lot of personal questions in there which seemed odd and it's not the standard Kickstarter backer survey which you get when the project reaches fruition which is sort of asking how you want it delivered and how you're going to pay for it. But they said that they wanted to get that survey out of the way first before getting on to the other one which sort of delays things even longer for no obvious reason. So anyway, apparently the book is done but it's not actually been shipped yet. We've seen pictures of... There's something signed. Maybe it's a test run or a sample run. I've seen a photo in which at least, I'd say, a couple of dozen books are printed, and I'm assuming, based on the cover, that it is that book. Yeah.
    157:29
    Well, hopefully, we've been saying this for four years, but hopefully that book will be released and sent out to its backers, people who kept the faith for these four years. Well, the first thing is to pay for shipping, and I believe that's already causing some discussion online, as some people feel like, hey, I waited four years for this, why should I pay for shipping? You basically, well... Yeah, you are right. Well, you owe us, so you delayed it by four years, so you might as well do the shipping for free, obviously.
    158:10
    That might not make any sense. On the other hand, if it's shipped with MediaMill in the US, I don't think they sold more than 500 copies, so those costs, okay, you're looking at a couple of thousand bucks, but still.
    158:29
    Yeah, it'd be nice to just get the game out of the books. I mean, they raised like $55,000, so you think you might be able to include some free shipping at some point to compensate for the massive delay. It would be a nice gesture. It's not up to me. No, we don't know how the figures work out now, what costs have been involved in all the extra work that's obviously gone into the book to cover games up to Aerosmith, I think. I think that's about where the book ends. Okay. There's also talk about whether there'll be a version 2.0, which will bring it more up to date with all the games that have been released since Aerosmith. Right. Anyway, that's... Well, it's a great opportunity to... It's getting there, but it's not there. Yeah. So, well, speaking of shipping costs, this is a great way to segue into a sort of household announcement for Pinball Magazine. I've had the well actually Covid turns out to be sort of a blessing in disguise when it comes to shipping costs very good disguise well yeah so I've been having some issues with Deutsche Post who is my default shipping company turns out I was able to get some better postal rates on certain products with PostNL which is the national shipping company over here by splitting up packages and there's a rule over here if a package contains or a letter contains any goods then the higher postal rate is applicable, but the magazines are not considered goods because they are still paper, so it's a document, and documents qualify for a lower postal rate. Okay. And so that means that shipping costs to the US for a single issue drop significantly, I'd say almost like 50%, a magazine can be shipped to you for, I'd say it's probably $12 instead of the $24, $25 that used to be charged. So if you're looking to purchase Pinball Magazine,
    161:14
    now may be a good opportunity because shipping costs are reduced when shipped as single issues instead of being packaged up, because as soon as they are becoming a package, then pricing is through the roof. So there's a small loophole which I'm using, and use it to your benefit, I would say. Good to use. Excellent.
    161:38
    Okay, well, it's good to end on some good news. Yeah. I haven't got anything else I don't think that I want to raise other than to say if you've got any news that you think we should be covering, then please feel free to drop us a line, either to editor at pinballnews.com or editor at pinball-magazine.com, and we'll see if we can get it into next month's podcast. Right. Can't say fairer than that, can we? Yeah. So, well, we're out of news, I suppose, so let's just quickly run this up. hope you'll be joining us next month again thank you for listening and bye bye goodbye see you next time