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Ep 98: A Scooby Doo Christmas with Bug

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 46s·analyzed·Dec 14, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Bug discusses Scooby-Doo pinball design, licensing, mechanics, and Spooky's code development improvements.

Summary

Bug from Spooky Pinball discusses the development and design philosophy behind Scooby-Doo Where Are You pinball, covering theme selection, licensing negotiations with Warner Brothers, voice actor recordings, unique mechanical features (upper bookcase flipper, apron ball locks), code development progress, and the three edition tiers (Standard, Bloodsucker, Collector's). The conversation emphasizes Spooky's commitment to differentiation from Stern through unconventional design choices and improved code launch readiness following Halloween's shortcomings.

Key Claims

  • Scooby-Doo original series has only 2-3 seasons (27 episodes total)

    medium confidence · Bug's explanation of original Scooby-Doo content; may conflate with later series classifications

  • All five voice actors (Shaggy, Scooby, Fred, Velma, Daphne) were successfully secured for new recordings

    high confidence · Bug stated all actors were first choices and worked out without concessions

  • The upper bookcase shelf flipper is believed to be a first in pinball

    medium confidence · Bug claimed it but acknowledged someone might find a 1979 precedent; joked about this possibility

  • Scooby-Doo is Spooky Pinball's first widebody game

    high confidence · Bug explicitly stated this and discussed transitioning from standard body concept

  • The widebody was designed by splitting the extra 3 inches equally on both sides rather than adding to one side

    high confidence · Bug described their unconventional widebody approach to maintain standard body shot entrances

  • Game will launch with seven main monster modes, three multiballs, and more code than Halloween at launch

    high confidence · Bug detailed specific features and stated code is 'significantly further along than Halloween was at launch'

  • Spooky has hired Eric Prepke and Ben Heck as additional coders to improve code depth and speed

    high confidence · Bug mentioned both by name and noted Ben Heck tweets about development progress

  • Christopher Franchi (artist) did all cabinet artwork for Scooby-Doo and previously did Alice Cooper

    high confidence · Bug confirmed Franchi's involvement on both games

Notable Quotes

  • “in my mind, Scooby-Doo is quite literally the most ideal theme for our company. Like it makes the most sense. It checks all the boxes because it hits a very wide audience”

    Bug @ early in interview — Explains strategic reasoning behind licensing choice and theme fit with Spooky's brand

  • “I can't emphasize enough how much the LCD screen has increased the workload of pinball. It is a whole different ballgame now than it was”

    Bug @ mid-interview — Key insight into modern pinball development complexity and licensing asset requirements

  • “we like to try and do things that are a bit weirder and more unorthodox to be the odd one out... There's no point in us trying to do that [what Stern does]”

    Bug @ design philosophy section — Core competitive positioning: Spooky differentiates through unconventional design vs. Stern's standardization

  • “go big or go home it's scooby-doo like we need to throw absolutely everything at this that we can”

    Bug @ voice actor discussion — Illustrates commitment to quality and completeness for major IP; explains all-in approach to casting

  • “The code's significantly further along than Halloween was at launch... Blackwater 100 absolutely is and i'm very very excited for people to see an actual live stream of it”

    Bug @ late interview — Addresses persistent community criticism of Spooky's code launch quality; sets expectation for improvement

  • “I do enjoy Alice Cooper and so I'm going on with that... it's definitely influence drawn from Alice Cooper visually because I think up until Scooby-Doo Alice Cooper is probably our most visually impressive game we've ever done”

    Host (Josh/Matt Scott) @ early-mid interview — Establishes Alice Cooper as Spooky's previous visual benchmark

  • “the most outstanding professional actors we've ever gotten to work with, I would say. And I've actually met Matthew Lillard in person before, and he's a great guy.”

    Bug @ voice actor section — Genuine appreciation for talent and professional experience; personal connection adds credibility

Entities

BugpersonMatt ScottpersonJoshpersonZach MinneypersonChristopher FranchipersonSpooky Pinball LukepersonMatthew LillardpersonFrank WelkerpersonKate McKinnonpersonEric Prepkeperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Scooby-Doo Where Are You launching with significantly more complete code than Halloween; seven main modes, three multiballs, and additional features ready at shipment

    high · Bug: 'by the time this is hitting people's homes, they will have the seven main modes... The code's significantly further along than Halloween was at launch'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Upper bookcase shelf flipper on upper playfield believed to be first in pinball; enables new gameplay strategies and ball catapult mechanics

    medium · Bug: 'the bookcase flipper does some really wild things in gameplay. And I don't think it's been done anywhere before either. So we'll claim it.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Unconventional widebody approach: added 3 inches split equally on both sides rather than one side, preserving standard body shot entrances while expanding playfield depth

    high · Bug: 'we added it to either side we just split the difference and and used that extra real estate just to widen up some shots'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: All five original Scooby-Doo voice actors secured for new recordings; all were first-choice selections without concessions required

    high · Bug: 'the fact that we actually got these specific ones that I wanted from the beginning. Like we never had to make any concessions'

  • ?

    technology_signal: LCD screens have significantly increased pinball development workload; RGB lighting, video assets, and code depth now critical bottleneck

    high · Bug: 'I can't emphasize enough how much the LCD screen has increased the workload of pinball. It is a whole different ballgame now'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.173

0:00
thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 98 with me my co-captain as always scott larson and you know christmas time is right around the corner and we wanted to bring you a christmas episode and we didn't think we couldn't think of anything better than to have the guys that are bringing out a christmas pinball machine well for christmas right? Yes. I mean, it's not Christmas theme, but it's coming out right before Christmas. Well, it could be. I mean, did someone announce Nightmare Before Christmas? I don't know. That seems like it would be up their alley.
0:39
But if you want to buy the new Scooby-Doo Where Are You pinball machine, where can you get it from now, Scott? Well, you can get it from Flippin' Out Pinball, because Zach is now a distributor for Spooky. And so you can definitely contact him and see about all his product. It is Christmas time, so people are rushing to get those last-minute gifts, but he certainly has some things available and the pre-order for Scooby-Doo, if that's something that's scratching a niche for you. And speaking of Scooby-Doo,
1:13
who do we have on today, Josh? We have a man that has grown up in the industry that has done a fantastic job of taking something so small from a small town and creating it on a world scale. This is Bug from Spooky Pinball. How are you doing, Bug? I'm doing great, guys. Thank you for having me on.
1:34
Definitely. We've wanted to have you on for a bit now. I know that we ran into you at Expo, and it's like paths haven't crossed very often. And it was great timing now that you've got Scooby-Doo out to have you come on and give us a little chit-chat. Yeah, absolutely. I want to reference, by the way, if you want the in-depth interview on Spooky and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Zach actually did a great one on the Pinball Show. And so we'll ask some of the same questions, but I will also refer you to that episode for maybe some in-depth follow-up on that. So this will be a companion piece to that. So first off, you've always done, I guess, spooky type themes. I mean, that's the whole point of Spooky Pinball is trying to you guys are huge horror fans, huge, huge monster stuff. And so how did this fit into your wheelhouse? And at what point did you decide you wanted to do it?

  • “I'm hoping it goes down as our best upper playfield yet because it definitely has the most going on and the most features on an upper playfield that we've ever done”

    Bug @ upper playfield discussion — Indicates design ambition and iterative improvement trajectory for Spooky

    • Ben Heckperson
    Jeff Zornowperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Warner Brotherscompany
    Adult Swimcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
    Scooby-Doo Where Are Yougame
    Alice Coopergame
    Halloweengame
    Rick and Mortygame
    Jetsonsgame
    LoserKid Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pinball Showorganization
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Spooky Pinball hired Eric Prepke and Ben Heck as additional programmers to improve code depth, launch readiness, and future game development

    high · Bug: 'we hired Eric Prepke and Ben Heck to code the games as well... those games should be further along than Scooby-Doo is at launch'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky explicitly positions itself as unconventional/unorthodox alternative to Stern's standardized layouts; intentionally pursues weird design choices

    high · Bug: 'we like to try and do things that are a bit weirder and more unorthodox to be the odd one out... There's no point in us trying to do that [what Stern does]'

  • ?

    product_concern: Spooky acknowledges Halloween code launch shortcomings; explicitly positioned Scooby-Doo as major improvement with extended development time and additional programmer resources

    high · Bug: 'it's completely necessary... we recognize that it needed to be. We heard everybody loud and clear'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Spooky secured full access to original Scooby-Doo series clips and audio from Warner Brothers; cited as massive advantage for game feel and cohesion

    high · Bug: 'we knew with scooby-doo that we would be getting access to all of the original clips... full access to original series clips from the show like that's absolutely massive'

  • $

    market_signal: Zach Minney now distributor for Spooky Pinball through Flippin' Out Pinball; pre-orders open for Scooby-Doo with holiday season sales push

    high · Matt Scott: 'you can get it from Flippin' Out Pinball, because Zach Minney is now a distributor for Spooky Pinball'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Scooby-Doo offered in three editions: Standard, Bloodsucker, and Collector's; Collector's features custom armor, 16 playfield sculpts, custom art from Jeff Zornow, light-up topper, custom launch button, and interior graphics

    high · Bug detailed Collector's Edition features: 'custom cut creeper armor powder coated in that green color... you'll have 16 sculpts total... custom launch button'

    • 2:32
    Right. So, I mean, it's funny because, like, in my mind, Scooby Doo is quite literally the most ideal theme for our company. Like it makes the most sense. It checks all the boxes because it hits a very wide audience. it's still very spooky related obviously every episode's about catching monsters the score is very scary sounding and it also hits nostalgia everybody grew up with it and remembers it from when they were a kid so i mean it made perfect sense to go do and spooky pinball in general has kind of been in an interesting position where we try and hit very kid-friendly things and then super adult things so like we go from rob zombie where we can go as hardcore as possible and then we go to Alice Cooper where it's still scary but completely family friendly like there's no swearing no violence nothing in Alice Cooper and uh we like kind of bouncing back and forth between that and like coming off of Halloween which is obviously more in the hardcore area of horror uh going into a wide released family theme made a lot of sense as well and then yeah of course just with it being still spooky related fun family friendly game it just checked every single box that it needed to. You brought up Alice Cooper, and I've kind of heard this a couple times, and I bet you've heard this already, Bug. I'm hearing comparisons of the art scheme to Alice Cooper. Is that intentional, or is that just kind of a happy coincidence? I would say a bit of a happy coincidence. I mean, we're using one of the same artists that did all of Alice Cooper. So Jeff Zornow did the whole entire Alice Cooper game, and then he was, of course, involved on the Scooby-Doo game as well. He did all the cabinet artwork. Otherwise, I mean, I've heard comparisons about the layouts being similar. They're incredibly different layouts. They shoot very differently. There is castle walls in the center, which I could definitely see the similarities there, but it just made perfect sense for the game, and we definitely didn't reuse anything. It's all still brand new, custom-made sculpts everywhere in the game, but I mean, yeah, there's definitely influenced drawn from Alice Cooper visually because I think up until Scooby-Doo Alice Cooper is probably our most visually impressive game we've ever done yes it is a very beautiful game it's and fun too I do enjoy Alice Cooper and so I'm going on with that there are lots of different versions of Scooby-Doo that have been out there I mean really the stuff I grew up with is actually ultimately what you, uh, what you put in the game. Um, but there are new versions, there's new movies. Uh, I actually saw a terrible one with Elvira that, that, that was an interesting, uh, interesting movie, uh, to watch. But, um, so how did you choose which era of Scooby-Doo that you wanted to portray? It is interesting because you would think that every generation's favorite edition of Scooby-Doo would be the one that was being made when they were a kid, you would think that would be the case, but it just seemed like everybody unanimously, I'm sorry, unanimously in our entire team likes the originals the best. I mean, I'm the youngest member of the team, obviously, and I always watched the originals growing up. And then people like my dad, who is in his fifties, he also watched the originals when he was growing up. There's just something about those original two seasons that is just the ultimate Scooby-Doo experience. But that being said, we still drew lots of influence from other series because I think the writing in a lot of the later shows for specific characters is really, really great and much funnier. So we tried taking the funniest elements that we could from other series and putting them into just mostly that original series. Because, like I said, it's just unanimously the whole team agreed that it was everybody's favorite. it so wait did you just say there's only two seasons to the original series yeah so the original scooby-doo where are you there's there's technically three seasons but they called the third season something different but it's really just two seasons it's like i want to say a total of 27 episodes total but like every single episode is so classic and so iconic like we seriously you can't lose choosing what episodes to put into the game because everybody recognizes all of the monsters from those episodes definitely well it just throws me for a loop because i'm like you think of scooby-doo i mean i grew up on it and stuff and it's just like i felt like there was endless episodes of scooby-doo and then they had scooby-doo with celebrities and they had scooby it just there's scooby-doo everything so it kind of blows my mind there was only two-ish seasons. That's weird. Yeah, in that original run.
    7:16
    What I'm wondering is, at what point did they transition? Because I will say, I am of the camp that I'm really glad that Scrappy-Doo was never in this. Because every single episode that had Scrappy-Doo, I just wanted to turn off. Just because it seemed... It just wasn't my thing. So, it's... At what point do they... It does seem a little bit like in shows when they're trying to maintain their relevance is they'll bring in guest things. Like I remember the Harlem Globetrotters being on Scooby-Doo like a few times and just, just randomly, I think Cass Elliott was on there. I mean, just all these guests. And then you have, then you add like a scrap you do who wants to get in fights. He's like the only one who actually wants to get in fights. And so I don't know, I guess that's interesting how they kept doing that, but everybody still just wants to go back to the original. Yeah, no, it's very interesting. I mean, even if you watch the live-action movies where in the sequel they bring back a whole bunch of monsters that the gang has defeated in the past, a majority of them are literally the characters from those first couple seasons. It was actually, when we re-watched that movie, we felt very confident in the decision of what we chose. Because we're like, even when they're making the live-actions, they're going back and they're choosing Minor 49er and Captain Cutler and these other monsters. So it just makes all the sense in the world to go with the ones that we did. And I'm very happy we did. You spoke a little bit of going from adult theme to kid theme and back and forth, back and forth. But if I heard you correctly on your Q&A last week or the week before, did you mention there was an adult mode in the Scooby-Doo that you can turn on? So I don't want to spoil the joke because it's such a good joke. But in the menu, there's a setting for adult mode. You can go and try and turn it on and just watch what happens. Oh, okay. All right. And I'll let people just find out for themselves because it's funny. It's a good joke. But yeah. I was wondering, since you guys have the history of Adult Swim, obviously with Rick and Morty, you've seen the Venture Brothers, right? Are you familiar with the Venture Brothers?
    9:29
    Adventure Brothers. The Venture Brothers. I'm not familiar, no. Oh, okay. You need to go watch this. I'll send you a clip. There's actually the Venture Brothers. This is something that really would be up your alley because they're kind of a joke version of Johnny Quest.
    9:47
    And are you familiar with Johnny Quest? I mean, it's the same era as Scooby-Doo. Where are you? Yeah, I'm more familiar with Johnny Quest. Yeah. Okay. So this is like an inept – this is the son of an inept scientist with two kids and then like a pilot bodyguard thing. And they go through and it's certainly along the lines of Rick and Morty. Maybe not as blue but just that way. And there is a cameo episode where they have like characters that are very Scooby-Doo-esque on there and is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
    10:21
    So he was thinking the whole adult mode was just going to be Venture Brothers. Yeah, I thought it was going to be the Venture Brothers doing Scooby-Doo. We got a separate license. No, you turn on adult mode and Rick shows up from Rick and Morty and he starts solving mysteries with the dog.
    10:40
    That would be awesome. That's great. So is there a Pickle Rick mode in this one? Scooby turned himself into a pickle.
    10:56
    Okay, so the approach, you decide this is a license that fits with our themes that we like to do. And you said that you had a relationship with Hanna-Barbera because you have done work with them before. And they're under the big umbrella that has Adult Swim, correct? Well, work with Warner Brothers because – Okay, Warner Brothers. Okay, great. Yeah, we've done the Jetsons before with Warner Brothers, and then Warner Brothers also adopted Adult Swim while we were in the middle of building Rick and Morty. So, yeah, already a very established relationship with them. Now, it's always challenging when you're integrating assets now versus even in the 80s or 90s, where like the DMD, you had just some sort of grainy dots. A lot of times they didn't really have the voices of the actors. People nowadays, they expect to have basically video assets, including including visual representation of the character, audio representation of the character. And how challenging was that to make sure, hey, we can't like spend $5,000 on a license alone because all these people want their piece, but still want to be able to have enough that it feels like Scooby Doo. Right. Yeah. I can't emphasize enough how much the LCD screen has increased the workload of pinball. It is a whole different ballgame now than it was literally ballgame. That's funny. A whole different game now than it was, you know, however many years ago it was probably six, seven now. but um it's uh that's just something you kind of try to look at when you're working on licenses or obtaining them is what do you actually get when you sign with it and we knew with scooby-doo that we would be getting access to all of the original clips and uh we know how far that goes having full access to original series clips from the show like that's absolutely massive in making this game really feel tied together for us for for really showing that world that we want uh that being said we're we're learning to overcome when that is less available because there's a lot of really fantastic games out there like jurassic park and pirates of the caribbean that don't have a ton of video assets right like if you watch pirate the pirates of the caribbean game it's one of my favorite games of all time there there's really not much for film assets in it though So it's definitely a hurdle that we're working past on. How can you still make as good of a game as Jurassic Park and as Pirates of the Caribbean with less assets? But we also got super lucky on this one, and we have a ton of assets from the show. So I hope that answers your question. Yeah, no, that's exactly what I was going off. And you even to to dovetail on that, the voice actors, you went and got the people who have been with Scooby Doo for years to actually rerecord some of these voices and record the call out. So how was that? How did that come about? And how was that?
    14:09
    Literally, Warner Brothers sent us a list. They were like, hey, these are the approved actors that you can use for your product. So you can these are all our proof like Fred Shaggy Scooby Velma Daphne And we looked at the list and we at first we were like man it be really cool if we got Shaggy and Scooby Like that would be that be a lot like that would go a really long ways. And we just kind of kept reaching out and trying and we had a few contacts already, like our foot in the door with a few of the actors through various agents and whatnot that we've just befriended over the years and started asking around and seeing what could be made possible and we kind of were like well it looks like we might be able to go and just get all of the actors i mean why not like go big or go home it's it's scooby-doo like we need to throw absolutely everything at this that we can like we can't just have two members of the gang because then everybody's gonna be like well where's daphne where's velma it's like okay well then we'll get velma and then we'll be like we can't just get velma and not daphne so it kind of ended up being like wait no there's there's no option here we have to get them all and the fact that we actually got these specific ones that I wanted from the beginning. Like we never had to make any concessions. Those were our first choices for all of the actors. And I still can't believe it came together and worked because nothing ever works that well the first try. Like every time you have a plan like that, it doesn't just work that well the first time. Usually it takes a few revisions and you end up with something kind of different, but we got very lucky and working with them was fantastic. They were the most outstanding professional actors we've ever gotten to work with, I would say. And I've actually met Matthew Lillard in person before, and he's a great guy. I know that you said that you kind of snuck some scream lines in there. Did you happen to sneak any other lines in there from any of his other movies? No, I tried not to overdo it too much. I actually, I really tried with each character to sneak in lines from something else that they've done, just because I find things like that really fun. I like the opportunity to hear iconic voices say things from other stuff. Like having Frank Welker do some of his call-outs from other things that he's been in.
    16:30
    I'm kind of a dork for things like that. I think it's really fun. But with Matthew Lillard, no, it was just scream lines mostly. He's very famous in Utah amongst the punk scene because he did SLC Punk. So I was just curious if any of that made it into there. But that might not be very family-friendly either. So, yeah, I don't think it was hard because I'm a very big fan of Garfunkel and Oates, which is Kate McCoochie's. Oh, yeah. And finding dialogue to sneak from that. It's very hard because it is so opposite of kid friendly. It's very blue. Yes, it's it's taking flight of the concords and taking it down a notch, I guess, taking it more blue. yeah yeah so one thing i want to talk about is you you said this is your first wide body and you started out with the concept of kind of a standard because you wanted to uh not have the driftiness or the the slowness of a wide body and you expanded from that uh how did you overcome some of some of that i guess going from the standard to the wide body because i assume it still didn't line up perfectly once you dropped it in there um you know it really wasn't too much to overcome because we we had a different plan in mind with how we were going to approach the wide body because i believe uh whenever people do wide bodies they just add the three inches to like one side and then everything gets shifted over instead we added it to either side we just split the difference and and used that extra real estate just to widen up some shots and to put more items in the game so really the entrance of all the shots is still fits a standard body layout. It's just where they go to from there gets into that wide body range. So I can't say that it was honestly too hard. But that being said, we also have, I mean, the co-designer in this game, Spooky Luke, is an absolute machine when it comes to making Whitewoods. I don't know how he's so accurate on his attempts each time, but he just is. He's insanely talented. It's a part of the process I wish people could see is like his Whitewoods are just beyond this world good.
    18:46
    How many Whitewoods do you have to did you have to go through to come upon the layout that you you were in love with?
    18:55
    Oh, that's a good question. I would say what the players see now as far as all the shot entrances, that was probably set and agreed upon by the third revision of the game. Because, I mean, we do quite a few revisions on each layout, and we'll still change shots later. But we knew the core group of shots and roughly where they would be going hard-catted into the game. We knew that probably by Rev 3, I would say.
    19:25
    One concern that's been brought up is on the left side, there's a double out lane. Does any of those out lanes feed back into the in lane at all through like a gate or something? Or are they both, is it just a double out lane on the left side? So it's a double out lane on the left side that spells Rutt Rowe. And if you could spell, yeah, Rutt Rowe. And if you could spell out Rutt Rowe. So if you hit each of them, it gives you a ball save.
    19:47
    Because I like out lane games, like an alien. like that second chance to oh if i can just nudge this the right way or change my inserts to where i want them to be i can get a quick ball save i love little things like that i think they add a lot to compared when in normal games if it just as soon as it hits that outlay unless you death save you know you're toast it's like i like the the second chance when it comes to things like that kind of similar to maybe like toto on wizard of oz or or the oxygen destroyer on godzilla yes kind of same concepts yep exactly okay cool now you also put in some physical ball locks on the apron yes which has hasn't been done in a while so why why did you choose to go down there and have them feed up that way um it's we just we have a uh obsession with putting locks and features in weird places i we really love unorthodox things in pinball because we stern puts out stern layouts all year, every year. There's no point in us trying to do that. So we like to try and do things that are a bit weirder and more unorthodox to be the odd one out. And we just like looking at things and going, well, nobody puts flippers here or nobody puts locks here or pop bumpers here. What if we did? Like, does that just ruin everything? Does it make it way cooler? What can we build upon from here? Because it changes how you think about the rest of the game and yeah when you can especially with ball locks where it would take up a lot of real estate and a lot of visibility elsewhere putting it somewhere where nothing's going on anyway just makes a lot of sense because you know if it was somewhere out on the play field like where the mystery machine is if we had another ball lock out there like the mystery machine ball lock then you know we would be losing so much more real estate and visibility and it's like well let's just put it somewhere where it's not in the way to begin with and builds upon what's there. Like make something cooler out of something that's just okay. Well, I like that you said that you're trying to do something unique and different. I know when we hadn't seen any reveal information yet on Scooby-Doo, but we knew it was for sure Scooby-Doo. People are starting to say, well, it's probably going to have a van like Teenage Mutant Turtles where the balls come out of the van. And I was like, well, we just saw that like nine and a year and a half ago or two years ago. So I like that you guys are trying to be unique outside the box because one of the unique things that really catch my eye in this game is the upper bookcase shelf flipper. I don't think something like that has been done on pinball before. It looks like it creates new gameplay strategies because of it. Yeah, that bookcase flipper does some really wild things in gameplay. And I don't think it's been done anywhere before either. So we'll claim it. We'll say we did it first, but somebody will definitely send me a photo of some random game from 1979 that had it upside down an old upper playfield somewhere. But, yeah, it definitely changes gameplay on that upper playfield quite a bit because you can literally use the back end of it to catapult the ball around. And when you're cradling the ball up there, when you let go, it's going to throw it. You can't just let go of your cradle and shoot like normal. So it introduces a lot of chaos under that upper playfield. But I also like giving players the ability to control when they're getting to the upper playfield or not.
    23:12
    That was something we learned with Halloween with the topmost playfield is people are like, how do I get up there? I want to get up there right away. And it's like, well, in Scooby, you can. You can shoot right up the center ramp, and if you just hold your bookcase flipper open, now you're on there. If you don't want to be up there, you just don't open the bookcase flipper. It's entirely in the player's control as to how much they're getting on that upper playfield. Well, I like the idea that you guys have introduced magnets and stuff up there as well as part of your ghost and whatnot. I mean, that seems like a very packed upper playfield with the bookcase and the magnets and even your mechs. Even your sculpts are moving when they're getting hit and stuff. Yes. There's a lot going on up there. I'm hoping it goes down as our best upper playfield yet because it definitely has the most going on and the most features on an upper playfield that we've ever done. I see I'm counting up there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and are those all the villains that you have to collect? 12 well I see the inserts well I guess the in the middle of the play field there's all the bad guys that are there so is the plan of the game to go through and like collect them all and then you know kind of like I'm thinking of Monster Bash where you get the band together and then you do stuff. It's funny you made that comparison because originally we were going to light up the monsters on the play field like in Monster Bash, but we ended up going with the silhouette inserts because it works a lot nicer for RGB lighting. But yeah, it's pretty close to what it is. You're solving the cases like it's each episode. So you'll start a case, you'll start your minor 49er case, and then you'll solve that and unmask him, and you're unmasking all of these villains to try and get to the wizard mode. So there's seven main villains that are across that center row of inserts, and then the five gang members beneath them, because each of them in the future will have their own modes as well. And then we're also introducing a lot of supplemental monsters that will be added later as kind of secondary modes and side modes. fun extra things, including like Ghost Clown and the Mummy and Snow Ghost, things like that. But the primary group of seven down there, those are the main modes and villains of the game that you have to go and unmask to progress through. And I did hear you on Pinball Show saying that the code was going to be a lot further along on Scooby-Doo than it was on Halloween. I guess, how far along are you hoping to have it once this starts getting to people's homes? Right. So by the time this is hitting people's homes, they will have the seven main modes in the game, the seven main monster modes. They will have Scooby Snack multiball, Mystery Machine multiball, and Captain Cutler multiball, because Captain Cutler is a main mode. He's also a secondary multiball that you can just go up, bash him, start that.
    26:11
    There's other features involving, like, the bravery meter and things like that. The code's significantly further along than Halloween was at launch. obviously that was one of our main focuses for when the game gets to people's homes is it can't it's got to be better than halloween and ultraman was like just simply put needs to be further along needs to be more fun presented better on screen everything needed to be better and 100 absolutely is and i'm very very excited for people to see an actual live stream of it because i know there's quite a few people out there who that's what they're waiting for. They want to see where the code is. They want to see more gameplay. They want to see a live stream or they want to play it in person themselves. And those are all perfectly fine things. Those are all, you should do that before buying a game. That makes perfect sense to go do. And I encourage people to do so. So I'm very excited for them to see that. It's just taking a little bit of time to get to because of a lot of licensing and negotiation reasons that we can't really talk about, but it's absolutely coming. And I think people are going to be more than satisfied with what we get to them. Well, in a follow-up question, I assume this is going to be kind of spooky practice going forward, right? On your future games, you're going to try to be this far along with code on every release that you have after this as well. Further. Yeah. I mean, we hired Eric Prepke and Ben Heck to code games as well, and they're both coding games. Like those games should be further along than Scooby is at launch. Every year it's going to keep getting better. That's the primary goal. Since Halloween, one of our main goals has been how can we make sure we're further ahead than we have been because we've always been notoriously behind on quite a few of those things. And that's something that I think we've done really well in just a year is catching up and getting years ahead because it's completely necessary. You have to get further ahead, especially, like I said earlier, with how LCDs have completely changed the game. The workload is so much higher on programmers now to get the LCD functioning and looking good and working right. And that's not even to mention how deep code needs to be now compared to how it used to be as well. And, yeah, they're absolutely killing it. I mean, I'm sure Ben Heck is tweeting about it, which he probably shouldn't be. But I'm sure he's tweeting every day about how far along on his game he is right now. And he's absolutely knocking out of the park. He's doing great. So yeah, going forward, that's going to keep getting better for sure. Because we recognize that it needed to be. We heard everybody loud and clear.
    28:47
    So what is your favorite shot in the game Ooh my hands down favorite shot I think the reaction of the bash toy of Captain Cutler is the most satisfying Hitting the helmet and it rocking back and forth with the sound design that we have on it, with the magnets throwing it around after that, it altogether makes for the best, most rewarding shot in the game. Otherwise, just spamming the heck out of that center ramp is so satisfying, just one after another. I could sit there and hit it all day long. It's so smooth.
    29:24
    And how do the different – you have three different editions. So let's go over those different editions. So you have the standard edition, and then you have the bloodsuckers edition, and then you have the collectors edition. So tell me what people get when they level up to each edition. Right. So it'll be tough for me to remember this all off the top of my head, but I can definitely get most of it. I'll start with the collector's edition. So the collector's edition, you will have custom cut creeper armor powder coated in that green color. The whole cabinet is a custom art package from Jeff Zornow. The play field has, I think it's 16 sculpts total, I want to say. So you'll have the mine cart Scooby, the miner 49er in his mine cart as well coming down that habit trail. You'll have Charlie the Robot. You'll have, let me think, you'll have the Black Knight sculpt. You'll have the Mine Entrance sculpt. You'll have the Abandoned Airfield sign. All of those things. You'll have custom cut powder coated speaker grills with Scooby and Zombie. You'll have the light up topper, speaker kit, interior graphics. I'm trying to think what else. Custom launch button. A lot of stuff. And then basically all of our differences between the editions is purely cosmetic. We don't change mechs out between games. We don't want to change gameplay or anything like that. We like to keep that the same between models. We just like to make the collectors pretty. So in the Bloodsucker and Standard cabinet, you have the Mystery Machine cabinet as opposed to the custom art package. So the whole cabinet looks like the Mystery Machine, which was a long discussion in the shop as to what to do there, because there was a handful of guys that were like, well, that makes more sense as the CE. That's cooler. And then there was guys that wanted the art package instead, which I was in favor of art package on the CE because I just think it's custom and looks a lot nicer. But and then on the Bloodsucker, you'll have the I believe it's the Rainbow River powder coat. All the habit trails in the game are the Rainbow River powder coat as well. While in the CE, they're the multicolored for each of the members of the gang.
    31:37
    And in the Bloodsucker, we take out the sculpts like Charlie the Robot and the Black Knight and mine entrance and signs like that. There's no topper. There is speaker grills that are powder coated, but they are not the zombie chasing Scooby. No CE plaque. It's a Bloodsucker plaque instead. I think that covers it on that one. And then the standard is just pretty bare bones. It's a matte black finish on the powder coat for the armor, as well as all the habit trails in the game. No sculpts other than the Mystery Machine, the castle, Captain Cutler, and the Scooby Barrel. I'm trying to think what else is taken out of the standard. No interior graphics, no light-up kit, knocker shaker, all those things, no topper. um otherwise like i said gameplay all the same across the board because we don't like to change that up we want to make sure everybody has the same experience and uh otherwise there is a breakdown of all the differences between the games on our facebook page i'm not sure if it's on the website yet or not it should be but i don't see it on the website but i do see it on like i i've been looking a lot at the pinball news article so the yeah yeah they they have like a matrix breakdown on that too. Yep. And it's on our Instagram as well. So it's floating around out there everywhere. Uh, we definitely should get it onto our, our Facebook or our company or the website. Sorry. Uh, and I do believe in the descriptions of each machine. It says what the differences are on our website as well. Cause I definitely probably missed a few things there. Okay. And how many are you making of each? Uh, so we don't limit our additions to any numbers. It's all open. There's a total unit limit. There's 1,969 that are going to be made. We let the customers decide they can all buy CEs. They can all buy Bloodsuckers standards. Oh, that's nice. We leave it up to the customer because we just want everybody who wants the game to get the game. We don't want to exclude a whole bunch of people out from something because there was only 500, and then the rest are all a different version. So and can you is this something you can share? What has been the most popular edition so far?
    33:54
    Oh, I don't know if I'm supposed to or not, but why not? The CE is definitely the most popular. It's it's it's the prettiest one. The same thing happened in Halloween and Ultraman. Same thing happened in Rick and Morty. People, they just want the nicest looking version of the game. And that's that keeps being the trend so far. I would choose that I'm a sucker for the way a game looks and you really did make it look really cool with the collector's edition I appreciate that thank you well in addition to Scooby Doo there are other things available like you are doing a rerun of TNA right now too there are options that people if they want they couldn't get that original TNA that I'm assuming you still have some of those available too. Yeah. The funniest thing on the day that we started selling Scooby and we were watching the website and checking in with our distributors about how sales were going and whatnot, two people did buy a TNA that day. Yeah. It was just so funny for some reason. Like you're looking at the website and it's like another one gone, another one gone. Wow. Somebody just bought a TNA. Okay. That's weird. But it's just, they picked the oddest day. Like somebody the morning before sales started ordered like a beanie and some leggings. We were like, yeah, they're just sneaking in real quick before everything gets crazy. So and leggings, too. I am actually on your website. And so there I'm a sucker for strange merch. I do like the spooky pinball leggings. I'm going to get Josh a pair for his for his Christmas present. You know it. And there's half our next interview. absolutely uh the spooky uh plastic pint glasses with color changes led bottom i mean who doesn't need that so you guys haven't been to expo for a while i know we're kind of moving away from scooby-doo for a second you guys haven't been to expo for a while what made you decide to come back this year uh it's obviously a very important show i mean it's probably one of the biggest industry shows if not the biggest it's it's very close it's right in our neck of the woods and man, a lot of people yelled at us for not going last year so we wanted to make an effort to come out this year and see everybody and I've always loved shows, it's one of my favorite parts of the job, it's just traveling the country, you get to see a lot of people that you don't see that often and I love talking to people who buy our games and answering questions and helping them if something's wrong or anything like that, I absolutely love doing the shows and uh we'll definitely be back to expo next year we're hoping to do a few new shows this year i can't say which ones yet because it's not confirmed but we definitely want to make the rounds and get to some places we haven't had our faces at before a lot of other pinball manufacturers have seemed to even we saw jersey jack just move to the chicago area and they're all within like throwing distance of each other you're still i don't know chicago adjacent but You're not there, but you're still within a driving distance of that. Have you ever considered getting closer to the manufacturing hub? Not for a second. Nope. We have an absolutely sweet deal here in Benton. I mean, it's in the documentary that they sold us the land for our first shop for a dollar, and they continue to treat us that well. And we have more than enough employees in town here and who drive from all the neighboring towns as well to produce the numbers that we're doing. We all live here. We've all grown up here. I still live in Benton. It's where I grew up and we just there's no need to go to Chicago. No desire. We have a pretty sweet deal in Benton.
    37:54
    Now, another question, though, is because you have decided to stay away. Like what are the advantages of – because you're close enough and you're – like how – who is your major like resource? Do you still have a big partnership with Pinball Life? Do you get a lot of your stuff shipping in from China like everybody else? Or how is your process?
    38:20
    So we are still very close with Pinball Life. We do a ton of business with them, like a ton. We pick up parts every other week still, every single week. We just drive down. It's only a two-hour drive to get there, to get all our parts there. We have some neighboring businesses just within 20 minutes of our factory that supply us with other things.
    38:44
    And then also we do a lot with – sorry. We also have a lot in-house. We try to keep as much of it in-house as possible because it just makes for a lot easier, especially with how supply chain has gone since COVID. That's a big thing that was really scary when it hit. We were fortunate enough to get ahead of it because we heard about how bad it might get. But there's no better way to make sure you have parts than to make them yourself. But, yeah, we still have a very close relationship with Pinball Life and plenty of other notable pinball brands and companies and whatnot. But yeah, just being where we are, it hasn't really affected business negatively at all for us. It's really been great. I was going to say, you guys have been expanding a lot over the years that you guys have been up and going. You don't feel like where you guys live has limited your resources for the workforce either? Not at all. Nope. We're sitting about 38, 39 employees. I mean, it's never been an issue of getting people in the door.
    39:55
    There's a lot of neighboring towns that just spooky pinball sounds like a cool place to work, you know? Yeah. So when you put a game on the line, okay, and, you know, it's like an assembly line, like everything else. Like you go from point A to point B and all the way to point Z. like how long does it take to get it when all things are greased and everything's going uh like how long does it take to get from the start of the line to the putting in a box right so uh when halloween was at peak production we were getting 40 games a week for about two months there so 10 a day we do four day work weeks so 10 games every day uh departments are kind of broken down by days. So like your play fields will get over to play field wiring, which gets over to cabinets, which gets over to final assembly, which gets over to inspection. So you just account that each department has to get those 10 a day. And then that each department feeds the next department's work for their next day. So everybody's kind of within a four to five day split of each other okay and then yeah when that's running at full speed like we had it in halloween ultraman 40 a week was was the max that we hit um and it was it was very sustainable for about two months there i would say something like that and uh yeah it's really shocking we never would have thought we would be doing 40 games a week you know five years ago that's awesome well you guys have been pretty good to pump these out pretty quick and your usual 18 month timeline has kind of shortened down because of it is 18 month always going just to be the goal or you guys as you grow and expand and you're you're knocking these out quicker you're going to try to shorten that 18 month to a different window right so 18 months is like the safest answer we can give where if anything goes wrong, we can still get it done in that time. I would like to brag a little bit that we've always beaten that timeline every single time. We've never, ever missed a production schedule in the history of the company. And that's definitely something we can keep doing. It should never be an issue. I hope, knock on wood. You never know, world's crazy. So when we say 18 months, we would like to shoot to get that done much quicker because I know I wouldn't want to wait 18 months either. It's way too long, but it's the safest time that we can get.
    42:33
    Well, that's smart too because you don't want to oversell and underperform. It's easier to give people to go above their expectations. And so that's a good business practice. Now, over Spooky's history, I've counted them up. This is technically your 10th game. You have America's Most Haunted, Rob Zombie. Then you have the Dominoes and the Jetsons. Then you have Total Nuclear Annihilation, Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle, Rick and Morty, Halloween, Ultraman, and now Scooby-Doo. What have you learned through each of the processes? And so this is the 10th time you're going through this.
    43:14
    How does one build change and like the lessons you learn man I mean I could if we really gotten to all the details this could be a 12 hour podcast I mean just the difference
    43:28
    One Scooby-Doo's are out there, set a Scooby-Doo next to an AMH and you can see all that we've learned and grown. I mean, every single new game we get to, we learn a hundred plus things from the old one about how everything can be done better. I don't know a better way to really say it. I mean, just down to like on Scooby-Doo now, we have light boards. That's something we've never done before. And we know it's going to help immensely well compared to like Rick and Morty, TNA, Halloween. Doing lights was always something that took a lot of time in the wiring department and is a lot of extra work. Light boards should hopefully streamline that and speed it up. Everything like that, just learning, hey, like what departments are slowed down by what and how can we fix those and make them better? And then you see how that affects them, and then you just keep looking at it. Okay, now that they're really good at what they're doing here again, what's still slowing them down that we could make even better? And just getting it down and down and down until everybody's really cruising.
    44:27
    But just everything is absolutely massive, what you learn between games. I mean, one of the biggest things we learned between Halloween and Ultraman to Scooby now is just where the expectations of code are. And that's just one of the main things we're going to focus on making better. And then when this one's out and people get it, we're going to judge the reaction and then still keep growing upon that. And that goes from the code side, the animations, speech, call outs, rules, production. It goes everywhere. And it's a never ending process, to say the least. Looking at Scooby Doo, it's pretty packed with mechs. You guys have done an awesome job to make this thing, you know, from top to bottom, have something almost every square inch of the game. Do you have any concerns of quality issues going forward, though? Because once you put more moving parts into a system, you have more liability of stuff breaking.
    45:22
    So that is something that we really emphasized on making sure was better. Because we've done some really packed games with mechs before that, you know, reliability and serviceability were pretty rough. and we don't want everything. We're going to make more of these than we've made any game, hopefully. We need them to work better. So when we design things, we design them in a way that is what is going to ensure that this doesn't break or if it does break, it's very serviceable and accessible. That was a huge thing for us on Halloween was, okay, well, there's three upper play fields. These are going to have to be accessible. You're going to have to be able to get to them. and there's servos and mechs and they they all need to be accessible and very simple to fix because there's a lot of mechs in pinball that look absolutely crazy but when you actually get to the meat and potatoes of it they're pretty simple to work on and fix and so that's something that when we're designing we really emphasize is that it's not hard to fix because we know how pinball is and we want our games to break less and we want them when they break that they're easy to fix. With the unknown of people doing collector's edition, people doing standard, people doing the Bloodsuckers, how do you account for that in the build? Because it seems that I love what you're doing because if you want the collector's edition, you can get the collector's edition, but that does throw a little more complications into your planning. Yeah. So are you talking like as far as supply chain goes? Yeah, supply chain. Yeah, having the parts. I mean, it's kind of hard to predict, oh, well, we're going to have a thousand collector's edition and 500 bloodsuckers and then 169 to the standard or something like that. Right. That radically changes your inventory. yeah so and that's just something where you know it it might get you one day but um so far you just kind of have to really base it off of what your last game did so like you base it off of the split from Rick and Morty you base it off of the split of Halloween Ultraman and then you just don't over order you can't over order but you can't under order when you're doing those things so you just have to really find what you think is a safe number to get started and then after a little bit into the build, you start getting ready to order what the rest would be, and you'll typically have a pretty good idea of what that split's going to be. Worst case scenario, I get to have like 750 Charlie the Robots in my bedroom someday, and that'll make for a pretty cool decoration. That's worst case scenario. We are coming into the Christmas season. Now, you have had historically, because of your awesome place to work, you do shut down for a week between Christmas and New Year's. Yes, we do. And so like, what are your goals until whatever, the 23rd, when you're actually shutting down, shutting the doors, what is your, what is your, what would you consider a successful December? So the current plan is we're going to be wrapping up the TNAs that we have left to build. We're going to be absolutely going through the shop and cleaning and gutting it and making sure that it's as ready for Scooby production as possible. We're getting all of our parts in order for Scooby so that it's all sitting there ready to go. And we're kind of slowly working our way into getting that started. We've said multiple times online, we like to hold on to the first batch of 30 and really test them and make sure that they're built the way that we want it for production going through.
    49:00
    I can't ask for a better December than we've been having, honestly. I mean, the fact that we were able to get the game out when we did and the fact that we were able to take sales and get TNA close to finished up and then kind of go into that break. And then we all know that when we come back, it's absolutely it's go time. I think it's been an absolutely perfect December so far. I don't know if I have any more questions. Do you have any more questions, Scott? No, I guess. So the final question I want to do is, OK, so let's look into the future. Where do you see Spooky in two years?
    49:38
    Where do I see Spooky in two years? You know, that's a good question. Hopefully still making pinball. That would be the best case scenario. That would be number one, yes.
    49:50
    No, I mean, I know what we have planned over the next two years, and I can't really say what those things are. but I would like to see us of course still getting games done on time uh further code better designs I mean obviously I think each of our last two designs they keep getting better and are some of the best that we've ever had I would like to see them keep getting better uh we're in a really healthy spot right now I mean I I like where production is I like our schedule I like how everything is looking and we've been growing, growing, growing, and we aren't going to necessarily stop growing. But I can't say that we're going to plan on doing 10,000 units of something in the next year. You know, I was going to say, I really do have to congratulate Spooky and your whole team, because I feel like out of the small distributor or the small manufacturers, you guys are definitely doing it right. you are delivering on your demands of you know you said 18 months you're you're you're under that every window um you you come through on your product that you're making and because of the way that you guys run your business covid really didn't affect you guys like it it probably was scary but you guys were you were able to work through it and it doesn't seem like you had as much hiccups as as some of your fellow competitors yeah we got very fortunate with that and um i Really, the main thing that COVID affected was just the fact that we were shut down for that couple months that everybody was shut down. I mean, nobody went in. Nobody made any games in that time. But once we got back, like I said, we still beat the production deadline and got it done. And kind of how we talked about how we organize our parts and production and everything like that earlier. We were really set up in a good spot to get through COVID just fine. And we only hit a couple of hiccups along the way, really. And like I said, it still hasn't affected a production deadline yet. So it should stay the same. When do you anticipate us being able to see gameplay? So, yeah, gameplay. Obviously, we all want to get gameplay out as soon as possible and show everybody the code and show everybody how it plays. obviously. With how marketing goes and licensing and whatnot with the holidays right now, it's really hard to say exactly when it's going to be because a lot of those things just simply won't get looked at until the new year. But this January, you're definitely going to see gameplay. You're definitely going to see a dead flip live stream where we're going to go in details about everything in the game and play for a few hours. And everybody will be able to see everything that they're asking to see. It's our number one priority. We want to get it out to everybody as soon as possible because we know that's what everybody is begging to see. And it totally makes sense. 100% get why it is. So we're going to be working on getting that out as soon as possible.
    52:44
    Perfect. Well, I want to thank you, Bug, for coming on. This has been really awesome. I hope we didn't put you through the ringer too much. We really appreciate you coming on and answering all of our questions. And a personal thank you from me to you for you and Spooky stepping up and helping us with flipping the script on autism. And you guys even went above and beyond. I know that a lot of the stuff you guys had donated to the stream, when the people received it, you gave them even more. It was like a swag bag per person that received all their stuff. And they were all very happy with what you guys had done for our flipping the script on the autism. So thank you again for helping out in that capacity as well for our event. It's our pleasure. Hit us up anytime that you need anything for stuff like that. We're always – I would like to get more involved if we could with more things like that. I wish more people would reach out. Well, speaking of that, if they want to reach out and get in touch with you, what's the best way to do it?
    53:40
    So depending on what aspect you are reaching out for, primarily squirrel at spookypinball.com is the best place to send questions and things like that.
    53:49
    Otherwise, my email is bug, B-U-G, at spookypinball.com. You can reach out to that anytime you need to.
    53:57
    We're very active on Pinside. If you're on Pinside, you can private message any of us. We're all on there. What else? Those are the primary places that you can reach out, I would say. Okay. And I think we've got you the Loser Kid 1.0 hat, but we're going to get you some 2.0 hats so you can pass around at the office. Heck, yeah. I need new hats. I have a cycle where I just routinely run through pinball hats that have been gifted to me. I'm working on my Tilt Minneapolis hat right now, and it was white at one point. It's not so white anymore, so I'll be ready to move on to my next one soon. All right, well, I'm wearing the current version, and the current version is black, and so it stays looking nice for a while. Yeah.
    54:39
    Well, if you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. Also, you can get a hold of us on the socials at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Twitch. we are excited to have a couple more interviews over the next couple weeks and the 100th episode is coming up and so it's going to be awesome got anything else for us? got anything else for us Scott? I just hope everybody sincerely has a safe and happy holiday time and if you're lonely go and play some pinball with some friends really it can be hard for a lot of people and so just reach out to your friends who may not have the same sort of support system that you have. And if you don't want to wish someone a specific holiday, you can always say, Happy Christmas, Mahana Kwanzaa Cup. And Festivus. The Festivus for the rest of us.
    55:48
    Thank you. Outro Music