Spooky Pinball and Ben Heck to make new game for Chicago Gaming. Pinball companies on the move. Management changes at American Pinball. Extra special for Headline. New game coming from Multimorphic. Hi, my name is Jonathan Euston. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine, and I'm joined here with... Martin Ayobe. I'm the editor of Pinball News, and welcome to this recap of the pinball industry and all the events which happened in February 2020. And I know we often say it's an incredibly busy month, but I think this month we can definitely say that, can't we, Jonathan? Yes, it's been a very busy month. We see, well, there's so much to cover. It's a good thing we have headlines so that we know where to start. But, yeah, no, there was all sorts of news. Multiple companies moving and quite surprising moves as well. Yeah, and it's worth mentioning that we are recording this on, well, I guess strictly speaking where you are, it's now the 3rd of March 2020, and where I am, here in London, it's the 2nd of March 2020. So we are looking at a little bit of news which has crept into this month as well. It's not all February, because there was some interesting news today, and I think yesterday as well, which we'll be covering in this look back at what is mostly February. Right. And just as a teaser, part of this podcast will contain or will be an interview with famed pinball designer Jim Petla. so if you want to stick around obviously there's a lot of news to discuss but there's also an interview with Jim Platt so I'll stick around for that yeah, very interesting and enlightening it is too so we'll come to that a little bit later but we'll start off I think with news from today actually which came from the 10th anniversary Spooky Pinball Podcast so first of all congratulations I was going to say. Spooky Pinball. And Charlie and Buck for the podcast they've been doing for the past ten years. That's an amazing achievement. We've only been doing this for, well, I don't know how long we've been doing this for now. I know exactly. Do you? Oh, good. I think we're about to enter our second year. Because I think our first one was after the Texas Pinball Festival two years ago. Wow, okay. I remember I got certain ideas for the podcast. I think we might have started with it, but it's around March or something like that that we started with it. So, yeah. Well, that's just two years for us, but an amazing ten years for the Spooky Crew, so congratulations to them. And on this particular one, they had a bombshell to drop, but they had some very exciting news. to give to everybody who was listening as part of their interview with Doug Duber from Chicago Gaming. Right. That news was that Spooky Pinball have sort of reunited with Ben Heck, who was one of their collaborators on earlier games, but they had a kind of falling out after a while, but they've reconciled their differences. They're back working together, and they are designing a licensed game for Chicago Gaming to actually manufacture. Oh, that is very interesting indeed. It is. It's, well, if you think about it, it's almost a unique, well, probably a unique circumstance where one company is designing a game for another company to actually build. It would be like if Jersey Jack was designing a game for Stern Pinball. Yes, or Williams were designing a game that Stern Pinball could make for Chicago. Oh, that has happened, hasn't it? Yes, sorry. So not that, but Chicago Gaming are going to be building this game, which is a Ben Heck design with the development done by Spooky Pinball. And it's not going to be a limited edition. like most spooky pinball games are, because they tend to have a, they build 500 games a year, and they don't want to... They tend to have a... Yeah, they don't want to... They do 750, obviously, for Rick and Morty, but they don't want to tie their... They are basically already tied up for the next 18 months building Rick and Morty games, so they're not... Because they build 500 games a year, and they're fine with doing that. Absolutely, yeah. They don't want to expand their own facilities there, but one way to explain it, they can expand, is by working with another manufacturer, effectively building a second line. So Chicago Gaming are going to build this game. There are no details of what the license is or what the theme is or anything much about it, other than they do seem to be very excited about the game that Ben's come up with. And they say it's introduced a whole bunch of new ideas and it's far from a sort of mundane dull license. It's actually very innovative and I think this is the most excitement they've had in any new game and given the exciting games they've produced, that's saying something. Are we talking about Chicago Gaming or Spooky? Well, Spooky have been saying it. Well, they've both been saying it actually about in the interview with Doug Duber that they did in the podcast. It's clear that both parties are very excited about this. Okay. I had difficulty downloading the podcast, so my question at this point would be, is this game going to be the next title that Chicago Gaming is going to put out, or are we seeing a Bally Williams remake first, and that game would be after that? I don't think that was actually addressed directly, but my impression is that at the Texas show, I imagine, they will be, Chicago Gaming, will be announcing their next remake, and I think it was made clear that they will not be presenting anything to do with this spooky, anech, aberration at Texas. That will be coming later in the year, if not next year. There's no time frame actually put on when that game would be released. But it's fair to say Chicago Gaming's next title will be a remake and it will be announced at Texas in a few weeks' time. Okay. Right. And let's not forget that the Texas Pinball Festival and the Midwest Gaming Classic show are in a few weeks' time. Ah, yeah. One towards the end of March and the other right at the beginning of April. Right. But E.T. Pinball haven't been busy on just that. They've also been releasing some new software for their games as well. Rick and Morty, in production now, have been delivered to early buyers. They have a new version of the code. They seem to, on that one for some reason, I don't know whether this is a thing that they do with the Scott and E.T. games, but the version of the code is actually the date on which it was released. so that is version 2020.02.22 right so that'll be 22nd of February that came out and that has, well it's not a sort of giant leap forward in terms of what game features are in there, there's mainly sort of bug fixes there really so it's not too exciting but if you've got a Rick and Morty or if you're expecting a Rick and Morty to be delivered fairly soon then you will want to get the latest version of the code and that is the 22nd of February version and in addition they've also been working on the Azkooper's Nightmare Castle there's been another version of that just beyond version 1, it's version 1.1 which again is more a sort of bug fix and balancing release it doesn't have, it doesn't introduce any new features into the rules but certainly something which you would want to have if you've got an Azkooper game Right. Speaking of the Rick and Morty game, Jack Danger had a livestream of Rick and Morty from an arcade somewhere in, I don't even remember where it was, which I killed was a very interesting livestream, especially with Eric Priepke, the programmer of the game, most of the time doing commentary on gameplay and commenting on the chat. People were asking questions and so on. And from the top of my head, I remember him saying that there's going to be a lot more dimensions where you can travel to. about 50% of the speech is currently implemented in the game so there's a lot more speech coming and he also addressed some of the modes, how to play them and so on it was a very informative live stream I would have to say very fun to watch as well and from what I could see, I really liked what they did with Rick and Morty. I think team integration, they really knocked it out of the park. So congratulations to Spooky Pinball. It's a pity they are not building more of those. Yes, I didn't get a chance to actually watch the live stream myself or even the replay of it, but I did see comments saying that it really helped people understand the direction the game is going and how all the various modes and features in it work. So the fact they're able to ask their programmer directly about that is obviously a huge help. And I think it's something that other pinball companies would really want to do. I think everybody likes doing live streams now, and I think Jack's pretty busy doing them. So let's hope we get to see some more of those. And the mystery of the game and how it works is, when we've got such complicated games, that mystery needs to be partially cleared up so people can get more into the game straight away. So it was a good idea. So, yeah, good work at Spooky and with Jack. Right. So, then, Pinball Company's on the move. And as you can... Yes, you read that right. I said Pinball Company's, plural. Multiple pinball companies are moving their facilities right now as we speak. I think the most shocking one is Jersey Jack Pinball moving to Elk Grove Village in Illinois. Yes, Elk Grove Village, a name you may well remember from being the home of Stern Pinball. Right, the current home of Stern Pinball. There is a suggestion, shall we say, that the company that owns Stern's factory, that they lease it, would like to basically demolish it and build a much more modern facility there. But I think Stern have quite a few years left on the lease there, so I don't think they're going to be moving unless there's a very attractive offer. but that whole area around I think that whole street is owned by Pro Lodges and they have developed quite a few of the factories around Stern and the other side of the street I think was completely demolished and rebuilt with a lot of high tech factories and server farms there so I think they'd like to do that at Stern's factory as well but in the meantime yes as Jonathan said Jersey Jack Pimble have decided to move their manufacturing base away from Lakewood, New Jersey and move to the very, very same city of Elk Grove Village in Illinois. The same industry part? Yeah. Stern and Jersey Jack will be a mile apart from each other. Do we actually have an address for where Jersey Jack are moving to? I don't have it in front of me. I've seen an address suggested, but I haven't seen it confirmed yet. It was, earlier today I was talking to Gary. Yes, it does happen that I actually get to talk to him on the phone. And... Sir? No, Gary Flower. Oh. Oh, right. I can understand the confusion. Yes, yes, I know. Which happened a few times. Right. So, but no, occasionally it happens that I happen to talk to Gary Flower. And in this case, he was the source telling me that Jersey Jack would be within a miles radius of Stern Pinball. Wow, so there's actually the possibility, I don't know the geography exactly of where Jersey Jack are going to, but it could be that, you know, they and Stern Pinball will end up going to the same restaurants for lunch and after work. I think that's already the case for the design and development team that's currently in Bentonville, where it happened on multiple occasions that the people working for Jersey Jack were walking in or out and running into stern employees. Well, Bentonville's not that far away from Elkroy Village, but I guess they're probably even nearer now. So, yeah, it would be interesting to see if there's any, you know, any cross-contamination, if I want to put it that way, or any synergy between those two companies being so close to each other. We all know what happened with Belly and Williams. They had their big lunches at the Round Robin in Chicago, and eventually those two companies merged. So I'm telling you. You and I now. Well, it's certainly an interesting move, and the fact that not only has Jersey Jack Pimble just moved from New Jersey to Illinois, but to that precise location. So there must be some nice incentives for companies to set up in Elk Grove Village in order for them to pick that particular area. Yeah, and a lot of people were wondering why would they move. I tried to get Jack Guarnieri, the owner or founder of Jersey Jack Pinball, to come on the phone and do an interview with us. Sadly, he did not respond to that. But in the meantime it has become clear that obviously you get all the positive explanations why this move is necessary. And apparently the official wording is that both locations of Jersey Jack Pinball, the one in Lakewood and the one in Bensfield, both outgrew their facility. and so they were looking to find a new location where they could actually combine the game development and manufacturing under one roof, which they now have found in Elk Grove Village. I have to raise a certain element of doubt about both areas having Elk Grove and their space available, because having been to the Jersey Jack factory in Lakewood, I know how much space they have there. In fact, they have a couple of production lines, and I can't imagine they are actually pushing those to their limits at the moment. But it certainly makes a lot of sense to combine manufacturing and design under one roof, and I haven't actually seen it said anywhere, and I don't know whether you have either, Jonathan, that says that the Bensonville office is actually moving. I've heard they said that they're both going to Illinois, or both are going to be in Illinois, and they've talked about it being under one roof, but no one said that the Bensonville office is closing as such, and they're moving to Elk Grove Village. has merely said that the Lakewood facility is moving to Elk Grove Village. Right. Well, I tried to ask some questions. Interestingly, this was announced through an official press release through a PR company. Yeah, PR Newswire. Yes, I sent an email to the PR company and they never got back to me. Which is kind of odd because... You're not very good at communication, then. Apparently. And it's kind of odd, I'd say, for a PR company to have an email address listed, if you have any questions or interview requests, contact this person, and you try to contact that person, and they never get back to you. But that being said, okay, We all know we have short lines with Jersey Jack employees and so on. I did have a very brief chat with Jen Guarnieri. That's the daughter of Jack, and she's also working at the company. She also is a young mother of two. and she's currently working at the Lakewood office, of course, meaning that she's living in New Jersey and it made me wonder whether she either lost her job or whether she will be moving or what would happen. And she confirmed to me that she will be continuing her job and she will be working from home. And her job is in sales? Yes, she's in sales. She's still, she's media contacts, press inquiries, and she does a lot more. I'm trying to remember the Jersey Deck phone menu where everything is listed. But obviously she has an office job, which means that if she's able to do that from home, then I'm happy that we get to keep her in the company. Yeah. That office was also, or that factory, I should say, was also home to Jack's sales company as well, Pinball Sales. And I don't know whether that is, or basically what's happening about that sales side of the operation. I guess they are getting rid of the entire building because there's no point keeping that building for sales or for marketing or promotions so especially as you said Jen is going to be working from home so that office won't exist anymore so yeah interesting to see what's actually happening there I can't imagine I'm second guessing here but I can't imagine that moving away from New Jersey was something that Jack would have been would have been his first choice to read it that way probably not no I imagine that was more it made more sense for the company than it did for him personally but that's just my guess work I don't know he did give some quotes to Weplay magazine I believe in a short article about the move and it didn't sound wholeheartedly supportive. It was more like, we hope that this will lead to the cost savings and synergies between the groups all being under one roof. It didn't say, you know, it will. It was like, we hope it will. And that's a bit of a telltale, I thought. I've maybe written too much into it. But it didn't sound a wholehearted endorsement of it. Sorry, I'm not sure how to help with that yet. Oh, my God. Yeah, well, there you go. Google doesn't know how to help with it either. So what chance have the rest of us got? It's not just me being bothered with strange voices now, but you as well. Yeah, that's right. It's one of the dangers of having an automated household, I suppose. It's voice activated every now and again. Come in. Yeah, I know. It frightens me sometimes. Okay, so wrapping up the Jersey Jack pinball move, actually I want to continue to the move of another pinball company. Yes, the first move. Yeah, in fact, yes, another pinball company moving is actually moving countries. and that's Hongping that used to be in China, and they already moved to Taiwan. I've actually already known that for quite some time, but they wanted to keep it quiet until the news got out when Mike Kalinowski started posting pictures of their new facility in Taiwan. but apparently the well I think there's two two main reasons for the move one of which is the well probably the coronavirus which is a big threat in China the shutdown production all kinds of places but I think one of the the main reasons is that the Chinese government is applying so many rules to companies, and they're used to, like, if they decide, like, oh, well, this business park is now going to be a server park and we're not allowing any other businesses, then you basically have to pack up your stuff and go. And there's so many regulations that I... Well, that's happened in the past, hasn't it? He was already in at least his second home. I mean, he had been forced out of one city and now having to move to another one because they decided that they wanted to go more high-tech and have clean air and all that kind of stuff. And having a place which cups up wood and produces pimple machines was not exactly conducive to the kind of industries they wanted to have in that area. Right. And now with Mike's girlfriend being from Taiwan, that might have helped with choosing for Taiwan. But I guess it was obvious for Mike that he was pretty fed up with the way the Chinese government is interfering with any businesses. and especially with the coronavirus where regulations were applied to everybody, basically saying that your employees have to stay home until further notice, but you still have to keep on paying them. Well, certain businesses may not last long because of measures like that. It's all outgoing to no income. Yeah. Yeah. I can also imagine that all these sort of, you know, the trade disputes that China's been having with the United States, which the United States probably being its largest market for games, or at least when it came to Thunderbirds and maybe not so much with the China Zombies, but maybe with future games, to have a major customer in an area where they're likely to impose big tariffs on your products because they are engaged in a trade war with the company you're manufacturing in, that's going to put your prices up and give you a lot of uncertainty. You don't have any of that problem in Taiwan, I wouldn't have thought. Yeah, exactly. What's also interesting to note is that, as you may remember, There is actually a Taiwanese pinball company called Weche. That's spelled W-E-C-H-E. They designed a head-to-head pinball game, which sort of has like a ping-pong ball instead of a steel ball. and it's kind of like a joust game isn't it? Yeah, exactly, head to head and I've heard from pinball enthusiasts who have seen the game and played it and they weren't very impressed with it and the reason I bring it up is that apparently the location of the new facility of Homing is not that far from Wetchie and employees of Wetchy and Homepin are also familiar with each other so who knows what that may lead to so that could be interesting in the future as well yes because as we reported last time Homepin are producing non-Pimple games as well with their retake of Ice Cold Beer called Ride the Wave so they're into arcade games and redemption type games as well. Right. And which is also a big cabinet supplier for lots of companies. So there could be some collaborations possibly in the future. Who knows? So that's our second company moving location. And there are still more companies moving. Who could be the next one? Well, the next one is actually It's probably the smallest move From the three that we are Currently discussing And we're talking about American Pimble Who are currently in stream booth But they are moving to Palandine, I think it's called Yeah, Palandine, yes Which is still in Illinois And it's, well, you I think you've made the drive, actually so you know better than I how much the distance is. Yeah, it's not that close to their current location. And I think a number of people who work at the current Screamwood factory were not overly thrilled by having to drive all the way to Palantine, but equally there's a whole bunch of people who live on the other side who will now have a much shorter commute in order to get to the new factory. We covered the new factory before, showing pictures of it on Pinball News over a year ago. It would have been tested for Pinball Expo in 2018, I think, when American Pinball just got the factory. It later transpired that it's actually a joint facility with Ametron, who also have a very large facility already in Ballantyne. And I don't want to jump the gun a bit about some of the news we'll be doing about American Pinball a bit later, but I think now American Pinball have actually started moving in or about to move in this week. Is that right, Jonathan? Yes. And that will be more or less confirmed in the interview that I did with Jim Petla, who is currently the chief operations officer at American Pinball. And I don't see why we actually shouldn't go to that right now, since we're already on the topic of American Pinball. So it's probably best that we first do the interview with Jim Petla, and then we discuss the other news. Yeah, I think it's happening in America. Yes. Okay. So here's my interview of last Saturday with American Pinball COO Jim Petla. With me on the phone is Saints Pinball designer Jim Petla who is currently working for American Pinball. And those of you who read Pinball magazine number 3 might also be familiar with Jim's career at Valley Pinball, where he designed very well-known pinball tables like Kiss, just to name one of them. And, well, Jim was officially retired, but he's back into the pinball game. And since he's working at American Pinball, we're going to be talking about the recent changes and news development and so on at American Pinball So as this is recorded on Saturday morning I say good morning Jim Good morning. It's a pleasure to speak with you, as always. Yes. Interestingly, I know that you have been working at American Pinball for quite some time, but that news, all of a sudden, that was news this month. but you've been at this for half a year or so or even more, I think. Yeah, I started about six months ago part-time, and the intrigue of it was building a 52,000 square feet foot factory, which is less than two miles from my house. So when they contacted me and they kind of dangled that carrot, why don't you come by, you can come by and see what you can do to help us out. It's obviously going to be convenient for you. Well, that sounded like a great idea. The downside was that we'll be moving into the factory probably next week. So it took a little longer than they expected to get all the occupancy permits and so forth. So it was basically a lot of politics and inspections and so forth that delayed everything. The new facility is fantastic, and I can't wait to start there. And not only is it more convenient, it's going to be just a beautiful, beautiful location. So I can't wait, and I know everybody else within the organization can't wait. We'll probably be starting our production of our G3 game over there, which is, you know, calling it G3 is the third game that American Pinball will be producing. This one will... What does the G stand for? Because I can't see it. Well, just game. Just game. Just game three. Yeah, G3 is just game three. So it's just a simple... It's interesting, you know, because even within the company, people have a tendency to inadvertently leak things because if you start getting comfortable calling the game by whatever it happens to be, you know, it slips out. So right from the beginning, it was called G3, and every single document calls it G3. And when we talk, it's G3, and nobody ever refers to it by its name that it's going to be released in. Okay. There have been rumors that it might be a licensed theme with Hot Wheels as the theme for the game. I'm not sure whether you feel comfortable commenting on that. Well, I will say that the next game definitely is a licensed game. It's something that American Pinball was questioned about. You know, being a startup company, they entered the pinball market on their own merits and the merits of their designs, and a lot of people questioned why they didn't have a licensed product when they were entering a market that they had never been in before. So obviously trying to listen to the feedback from the field and so forth, they took that advice, and their third game will be a licensed game. Okay. Well, that's interesting. And for those going to the Texas Pinball Festival, which is later this month, if I'm not mistaken, the game will be revealed at that show. That is true. Okay, so that's less than a month before we get to know what Game 3 or G3 actually stands for. There you go. Okay. And, you know, there's been, you know, a lot of speculation and so forth. And the previous two games, there was a lot of comments and observations on the previous games, the type of shots, the type of rules, the artwork and so forth. and I think that this is a game that people will be happy with because I think that the design team listened and tried to address all the comments from the past. Okay, so that makes it even more interesting. Can't wait to see the game and play it at the Texas show. Now, American Pinball was in the news this month as well, as it appeared that AIMFRON is getting more involved with what American Pinball is doing. Apparently, there is also a new salesperson. Is there anything that you can discuss about that, clear up, because not everything is clear to everybody? What I can say about that is we do have a new salesperson starting. I wish the company would have made the official announcement before this call because I don't want to mention his name and so forth, but on Monday we will have a new salesperson starting for American Pinball. He is a pinball enthusiast, and I think he's going to be a great addition to the organization. Now, with that being said, as far as referring and discussing about Ametron, Ametron was always the parent company. AIMTRON is a very successful contract manufacturer for PCBs. They manufacture print circuit boards for a number of different industries, military, government, medical, so forth. If I'm not mistaken, at some point they even made printed circuit boards for Stern Pinball. Yes, they did. Yeah, after they went into the pinball business, obviously that kind of slipped away. Being a direct competitor to Stern, I don't think Stern felt comfortable in supporting the parent company. Right. But that would make sense. so Amtron was always the parent the founder and president of Amtron has been very busy with that organization obviously busy with the completion of the new facility the build out and so forth but in addition to that he had family obligations that he was very heavy into, especially over this last year. So those are out of the way now. And he is now back to, and there's a big smile on his face, not that there was anything wrong with supporting the family and watching your two kids get married. That was very joyful as well. But you can see that he likes building companies. and now he's focusing on, he's giving his full attention to American pinball and what he can do to support that and to make it more successful. Okay. So, and in the new facility, will it be AIMTRON and American pinball on the one roof? There is a, that is true. We share the four walls and the roof, but there's no common area or anything that we'll be sharing. So it's like two companies within one structure, but they're separated. Obviously, you know, it's just the way it's set up. It's a matter of convenience. Obviously, 52,000 square feet is a large building. We're going to have the majority of that, so that's going to be spectacular. So with you being a former pinball designer, any chances that we might see a new Jim Petlar game design at American Pinball in the future? You never know what's going to happen in the future, but the reason that I started with American Pinball was to help them with the operational aspects of their business. not only the operations, manufacturing, supply chain, but also design elements within their existing design. Game three had already been started, and for the most part there was a playable whitewood by the time I came on board. So I was there to just help with my experience from the past, as I had done at Valley and Williamson as being a member of the team because it really is a team development, and it was just really to just add my experience and knowledge to what they were currently doing. Right. So with the involvement of Ametron, does that mean that there are also changes in the management of American Pimble? there's no direct changes to management in American Pinball I mean one of the first changes will be a new salesperson but as far as the organization McKesh is the CEO and Davo is the president so in that respect that hasn't changed. I'm the interim COO. So I guess that would be a change because that was basically around the first year when I started working full-time instead of part-time like I originally committed to. So the changes are all positive and it's going to be exciting to see how this works out. To round this all up, earlier we mentioned that game number three will be revealed at the Texas Pinball Festival which is at the end of March invite everybody to come by and give it a play right not only that the question is will you be there as well yes I will well then I look forward to seeing you there and I'm quite sure that a lot of other pinball enthusiasts familiar with your previous games will be happy to see you there as well I look forward to seeing everybody. It's always a lot of fun. I mean, some of the questions that are asked bring back some very joyous memories. And a lot of times you take things for granted and you forget how much fun you had. I mean, obviously pinball in my career has been nothing but enjoyable and but there's still times when something comes up that you go oh I forgot about that and it can start off for a whole long-winded story right okay well I want to thank you for your time right now and like I said I look forward to seeing you at the Texas Primal Festival and I assume also at the Midwest Gaming Classic which is the weekend after Yes. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Correct. And we'll be there as well. Excellent. So then I wish you the best of luck with the upcoming move for American Pinball, and we'll see each other soon. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. And there you have it. Yeah, interesting stuff. Well done on that. I wasn't able to be part of that, although I was certainly interested to hear what Jim had to say and how American Pinball is now part of Ametron. Well, they were kind of like a sister company or arm's length division, but... I think Jim referred to it as the Ametron always being the parent company. Yeah, but basically Duval ran it as a completely separate company, Deval Vasani and it's clear now that Mukesh has sort of taken much more of a leading role in I'd say more of an interest yeah well yeah but I also said that made it clear that and I can understand why that they are moving into the new factory this week which is shared with Aintron but it is the majority of that building of the 52,000 square foot building is taken up by American Pimblewoods manufacturing area which would also be I guess also American Arcade if that grows as a business as well after their Flying Dutchman game whether that takes off and future titles also take off, they have plenty of production capability there but you have to remember that Aintron is a high-tech company and it does a lot of sort of defense work as well. Right. So I think they were at a pain's distress that there is, you know, it's not a virtual separation within the company. It is actually literally this part of the building, this side of the wall is aimed on and this side of the wall is American pinball and there's no leakage from one side to the other. They are separate companies and all the defense work that AIMTRON are doing is not anything that any American PIMWOL staff are going to have access to. Right. That's exactly how I understood it. Obviously, I talked outside the industry also with Jim Pesla, and he made it clear that because of the top security work that Amtron is doing for various projects, that part of the building will be completely secured and not accessible for American pinball employees. So it's basically two companies on the one roof but not sharing any space together. Right. I didn't know he told you that. That certainly gave the impression that I got from what he was saying. So that certainly makes a lot of sense. And, yeah, also interesting to hear him talking about American Pinball's third game, their G3, as they call it, being a licensed theme which will be revealed at the Texas Pinball Festival. Right, and American Pinball already started teasing that third game. I think they posted on their Facebook an image of a lot of flames with something, a line of texting, a line of, are you ready to get hot or something like that. I don't have it in front of me, but let me see if I can quickly look it up. Yes, so obviously playing towards the notion there will be a Hot Wheels game, as you said in the interview. Obviously, Jim wasn't going to comment on that. He's a seasoned veteran of the pinball industry and knows better than to drop any major clues or leaks about what the title is going to be. Right. And there's more news from American Film World Jim mentioned that they have a new Sales representative Who is actually starting today And I actually already know who it is Yes, indeed Do you want to reveal who that new sales manager is? No, no, no Oh, okay It's Michael Grant Oh yeah, that's it, Michael Grant Yes, congratulations to Michael on his new role as a sales manager at American Pinball. Right. And many of you might be familiar with Michael as he is a pinball enthusiast. And I think he also played several of the Pinberg tournaments, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, he's a tournament player as well. So, yeah, congratulations on landing a new job. In the meantime, I did find the American Pinball teaser, and the copy on that reads, Are you ready to get hot? Coming soon with flames in the background. So it's very clear to me that the upcoming game must be a barbecue-themed pinball machine. Oh, at last. Oh, well, perhaps it's a hard-aid then. I was going to say, what better location or event to reveal a barbecue-themed pinball machine than the Texas Pinball Festival with hard-aid within five minutes of driving distance and everybody who's been there coming back for more. So, yeah. Well, I can tell you're ready to get hot. I'm ready for hard age. You are indeed, yes. So you'll set up your stall there, I imagine. Just get your copies of Pinball Magazine, which I understand is more like a book. Just get them shipped straight to hard age. That's another bad idea, Martin. Yeah. There you go. Thank you for that. Always willing to help. much appreciated so moving on with I think we're done with the speaking of moving we are we should probably just pop back to Jersey Jack Pinball who had one of the first companies that we mentioned about moving because we're kind of expecting them to have announced their next game really by now aren't we but they haven't and there's no indication exactly when they are going to and I'm not expecting them to reveal anything at Texas, are you? No. No. Especially not with this move coming up. Well, that might delay things further, but there's no indication that anything is about to be released, which is a bit disappointing, but we have to wonder when the long-awaited next title is going to be announced. Well, as Jack mentioned in previous interviews, they really would like to announce a game when it's really close to actually being taken into production or already into production so that they can ship them right away. So my guess is hopefully they will be announcing a game when it's ready to be taken into production. Yeah, we have to wonder whether they're going to start in a new facility in Elk Grove Village by producing the next title. Well, the interesting thing is, and then still we get back to the move, I have not seen any indication of a timeline of when they want to move. Well, I heard that they have already started moving. And they've already started setting things up in Elk Grove Village. Okay. Yeah, so I think it's going to be very short term. and I think, well, in the press release, they thanked all the workers at the Lakewood facility and as if it was kind of, well, that's it, we finished. Thank you. There's no mention about how long they'd be staying there for. So I do wonder whether in Elk Grove they're going to start off straight away building their next title. why not and then as you say every company likes to be in a position where they can announce a title and have it for sale straight away Stern managed it to a degree with Stranger Things so and as you said Jack long said that's where he wants to be as well so perhaps this is the opportunity to do that right so that's Jersey Jack Pimble, I think, and news from them. Now, we better probably mention about another company you might have heard of, Stern Pimble. Stern Pimble. Aren't those the ones that used to be in Melrose Park, and then they moved to Elk Grove Village? Yeah, it's all the trend, apparently, moving to Elk Grove Village. Right, that's where you should move, then. That's what you do on podcasts. Well, I've been there. I'm not sure whether it's such an exciting place to move to. But then again, maybe it is. Well, everyone seems to be going there. But in the meantime, Stern have been, well, they've announced some new games. Well, a new game, but with two different versions of it. They've officially not even announced, I think, although they have been teasing it. Well, they have and it's actually on their Facebook page just today. Yeah, just today. They have a picture of the play field. But let's give a few more details on it. This is a game called Heavy Metal. Right. It's a re-theme of the Star Wars in the home edition game and it's being made for in the same way that Supreme was a rebranded version of an existing game. Well, this is being made for a company called Incendium, who are a comic and monster and metal collectible store. Heavy Metal, in this particular case, is a fairly generic name, but it actually refers to a sort of fantasy horror comic book, which began a long time ago, I think. It was about 1977 or something. It was originally based on a French magazine or comic book of a similar genre. And when it was produced over in the US, one particular cover art image was picked up by artist, pinball artist, Doug Watson. and he used it as an inspiration for the back glass on the game that he was designing, or was doing the artwork for, called Quicksilver for Stern. Which is the green one, and then everyone knows which one you're talking about. Yeah, well, it's the green playfield, yes. It's the woman coming out of a liquid, sort of mercury-type pool with Quicksilver, basically. and he talked about that in a few of his presentations as well the last one he did in Pinball Expo actually last year he mentioned that and while we're talking about that let me give a blatant plug for the Pinball News YouTube channel where you can watch that very presentation of Doug talking about how the Heavy Metal magazine cover was his inspiration for the Quicksilver Backglass anyway the heavy metal magazine is was the inspiration then for a heavy metal movie which is a bit of a sort of cult stoner kind of film probably not, I haven't seen it but from what I've heard not necessarily that artistically merited but certainly a bit of a cult movie, let's put it that way and this new game features some characters and some scenarios from the horror comic book and also from the movie. And it's available in two different artwork packages. There's a sort of reddish green, say artwork for the cabinet. I think the playbook's the same for both. Right, and the translator as well. And the translator as well, absolutely right, yes. So there's a red-green sort of cabinet artwork package and a blue-purple one. And Well I don't really know A huge amount about it The game is based on As I said before the Star Wars Pin Home Edition Which was originally the Spider-Man Home Edition And it evolved into Supreme And then Star Wars And I might be missing out on one Other I think you've covered it I think the Star Wars Sorry, the Spider-Man, when it first came out, it had a colour LED display. Correct. A smaller display. It was almost like a 4x3 display. Yes. And then when it came to the Supreme, I think, and then onwards, it had a regular red dot matrix. Yes. Yeah, I think that's correct. And this game has a regular dot matrix display as well, so I'm guessing that means it's not a Spike 2 game. It's probably a sound system game. I'm not too sure about that. It could be a spike one. That's a speculation anyway. Right. What's interesting is, or what I've been interested in finding out is, with each iteration of that play field, if you want to call it that, it's not only the artwork change, but also some elements of the layout, and I think in Star Wars the left ramp entrance was realigned and guarded by drop targets, if I'm not mistaken. That's right, yeah. I was actually looking at various different previous, as you say, variants of that design, and yes, the thing which just seemed to keep changing on it is the way the ramps are laid out and exactly how they're fed. In some cases, there's an orbit shot just to the left of the ramp, and in some cases there isn't. So it's not a literal re-theme. It does actually involve some playful redesign as well. Right. So apparently what it appears like is Stern does have a program for companies that if they are interested in having their own pimple machine, you can either choose from two different designs, one being the Bonelli design and this being the other design where you get your art applied and you can add your own music and probably voice calls as well and what have you. but in essence you still get basically the same playful layout although with some changes so well for Stern that's a lucrative business model and interestingly with Supreme well we now know that there were 100 Supreme games made we have no idea how many home Spider-Mans were made although it's probably not that much We have no idea how many Star Wars home games were made, probably more than Spider-Man, but still no clue. And the interesting thing is that it appears that this heavy metal themed game is going to be made on demand. And basically the idea that I got is let's see how many people will order one and then they will place an order with Stern. Yeah, I'd imagine that Stern would have a sort of minimum order quantity, maybe 100 or whatever, which the company who's commissioned them to build them, in this case Incendium, would always order. So they would give me a minimum order of 100, but if demand is more than that, then I'm sure Stern will be very happy to make them. Right. Now, you also already have a pricing point for what this game is going to cost? Yeah. I don't think it's been announced officially anywhere. I've been looking around trying to find any definite prices, but it does seem that it's going to be an expensive game, although not as expensive as Supreme, but it's going to be priced at around $8,299. What? Yeah, it's going to be a short run. It's going to be a limited number. A highly collectible title, I guess. Well, that price point is all we need. Yes. yes so oh well well it does feature you know original hand drawn heavy metal based artwork and all the other things that we know are in the in the Spider-Man Star Wars Supreme design it is a it has come with you know full coin door and everything like that so it's not it can be operated commercially and I'm sure it will appear in a few designated locations who like to show the very small runs. I'm thinking of a certain laundry of the name Sunshine in San Francisco. But it might be other places. Oh, I thought it was in New York. Am I getting that wrong? Yes, Sunshine is in New York. You're right. My mistake A mistake from Martin from Pitbull News What is going on This is why I do the website so I can go back and delete that and pretend it never happened But this is a podcast so we never do anything as underhand as that So, yeah, it'll turn up in a few specific locations, I'm sure. and I guess if you're a real fan, a real, real fan of the heavy metal, either movie or the comic book, this will be for you. So you need to go. I should also mention that it does have quite a lot of music tracks from the movie, but we won't know exactly what they are until the official announcement of the game is made, which will be on March the 20th. Right. So that will be in just over two and a half weeks from the date of this podcast. And at that point, I'm sure there'll be a lot more details about how you can go ahead and order it if you've got until over $8,000 burning a hole in your pocket. Right, okay. So now while you eat the Snickers, let me address some of the other news regarding Stern Pinball. because there's obviously more than just the heavy metal game that we just discussed. There have been quite a few code updates, to start with that. I'm not going to mention all the specifics, but basically most of their recent games got code updates, And Black Knight even got to 1.0 and even 1.1, I think, 1.01. And the topper for Black Knight has now also become officially available, which is the topper with the moving Black Knight head, which I thought I've seen that a demo of that at Pinball Expo and I thought it looked very interesting yeah and the flames the animating flames behind as well look very good really sort of mirrors what's on the back panel of the playfield as well even more so right now Stern also announced something that we can consider as innovative and I don't think we've seen it on pinball machines before and that has to do with their current game Stranger Things. Apparently on all games of all models there has been printed a special layer of UV ink which is only visible if you light the play field up with a special UV lighting kit and CERN made such a lighting kit available for a merely 280 dollars if I'm not and you have to install those LED strips under the ramps or under the sides of the ramps I believe that it is yeah, the other sides, yeah and it comes with a bunch of replacement plastics as well that have to, that probably light up in some way as well yeah Yeah, and so basically what happens at certain points in the game, the general illumination turns off and the UV illumination takes over, revealing the hidden layer of print on top of the regular playfield. And apparently that contains some writings and other, well, theme-related stuff, I would say. I tried to, obviously pictures were circulating on the internet, and I tried to look really close, but it might just be me, or maybe you have to see it in person to be really impressed with it. but I just thought like okay we have the same play field and it lights up with a blue glow and there might be something extra on there but if you're playing pinball and you're trying to keep your eye on a ball that's moving around I don't think you really have the time to sit down and look oh look this is different or that's different Yeah, I think one of the key uses of that UV lighting is during the upside down feature which previously I think it did some pretty dramatic lighting effects that made a lot of the playfield dark and sort of turned off a lot of the inserts as well as well as the GI circuits, but it did change the look of the playfield quite a lot and this UV lighting kit takes that to a whole other level. It is really just two scripts of UV LEDs, and it's not anything particularly impressive technically, but the fact that this has already been built in to the way the game is built, but wasn't revealed until now, is a nice surprise. and one of the latest code updates, versions 0.84 and 0.85, both allow you to set whether or not you have this lighting kit installed, in which case it changes the way that the lighting during upside down and then in other situations operates. It's not something which, I guess, is that advanced and smart in that you have to actually tell the game whether or not this is installed or not. So it doesn't auto-sense it. But I guess for the price of, what, $280, I think you said it was, it's probably not worth messing around and trying to develop an alternate kit, which could be maybe half the price, but it's just a couple of strips of LEDs. but it's all going to be supported properly by Stern and if anything happens to your game you've got no warranty on it so yeah, 280 is not too bad for the effect it gives you it's quite impressive I think an alternative kit has already been developed but you'll still be missing the plastics that come with the Stern kit that's true, yeah Yeah, but if you're spending $6,000 plus on a game, another $280 to get that feature is not really a big deal, I would have thought. Right. I guess it depends how you look at it. You might also think, like, if I'm already spending that much money, why isn't it part of it? Well, yes. Particularly if you're getting the LE, that's an argument. traditionally you set the early to all the bells and whistles but increasingly we're finding that's not the case aren't we right oh well I think that wraps it up for you remember that last month we did our podcast right at the end I think about the 28th or something of of January and we happened to miss out right at the very very end of the month Stern announced that they were going to be rerunning the Iron Man Vault Edition. Oh right, yes. Which is something you included in your Pinball Magazine monthly update newsletter thing. Yes. But it was something which we just narrowly missed, I think, by a day, I think. It will be a few hours last time. So it's worth mentioning that. Well, and the interesting thing was, Dave Peterson had mentioned at EAG that they were going to be rerunning the Vault Edition of Iron Man but he didn't tell me when so I knew it was coming but it didn't. Yeah, you mentioned it I think but it wasn't actually officially announced until the very end of January. Actually it wasn't officially announced at all. At all. In the sense that distributors announced that the game was available but I've never seen an official announcement from Stern that they were re-running the game. No, that's a good point. It's a bit strange that. I guess they want to focus on trying to sell Stranger Things at the moment rather than Vault Edition. Right. But it is available from your Stern distributor. I think it was a rather small run though, so I wouldn't be surprised if we're talking hundreds of games. I think we're probably talking dozens of games. Yeah, it always makes you wonder why it's been done, whether they had some spare parts left over and decided to do that, whether they had some production. I know they told me there was a demand for the game, and well, Stern does have the capacity to do small runs, so it could just be that they figured like, hey, there is a demand for so many Iron of old edition games. If there is a hole in on a production line to fill in with some game let's see if we can run those and take that money that's waiting for us. Right, you would hope there wouldn't be a hole in the production line but if there is then fair enough. Well we've got multiple production lines so you never know if one is sitting idle for some time, then you might just figure like, okay, what can we do to keep it busy or put something on it? Yeah, well, as you said, it wasn't officially announced, but it does seem like the recommended retail price is $5,900, but it seems to be generally available at distributors for $200 to $300 below that price, so $5,600 to $5,700. That's a problem. I don't know exactly what Stranger Things costs, but the price you just mentioned is more expensive than that Iron Man. So you have a Stern title competing directly with Stranger Things in that sense. If people want to go for the cheaper game, then, well, Iron Man would be either the game to go or Star Wars Home Edition. Yeah, so you do have the heavy metal at 83, and sort of the LE of Stranger Things further up the price bracket. So, yeah, they have a range of products at various prices, which is, I'm sure, where they would like to be. Right. So, Stern was also at a toy fair earlier this month. I didn't get into the details that much. I saw the announcement. They were there with a bunch of games, recent games. Any details on that, or shall we just skip that? It was at the New York Toy Fair, the 2020 Toy Fair in New York. They had four pinballs there. That's trying to think Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Comic Edition, and the Star Wars pin, as we mentioned earlier. I was going to ask whether they were, because that would make sense. Yeah, those were there. I guess it makes sense I think they've been to that toy fair before maybe the second year they've been there but doing things like that and Comic Con, obviously trying to expand the potential market for thimble into more expensive toys I suppose and obviously some of their themes are very much in tune with the kind of stuff that would be at Comic Con as well so yeah Good for them, getting pinball out there and building the player base, which it's all about, and hopefully the customer base as well. Right. Okay. So I mentioned the software updates. You want to briefly talk about those? Okay. Let's see. Elvira, House of Horrors, had a couple of upgrades, actually, or updates from 0.9 to 0.91 to 0.92, which has actually been, this has been a really big update sequence for that particular game. There's been a lot of new modes and lighting effects added. It really is getting to be, it's 0.9X, so therefore it's getting quite close to version 1.0, which should be feature complete. But this is now getting much more of a game, much more of a complete game than we've seen before. The only thing I think... They have added lots of new modes, lots of new features, but I'm not seeing, or not hearing maybe, I should say, an awful lot more in the way of speech calls. And I know that's something that you were quite picking up on, Jonathan. It wasn't a game that sort of made you laugh at the time, because it didn't have the same level of innuendo or funny voice calls from Elvira. as we maybe come to expect. I'm not seeing that that's been changed particularly. There's more intros for the new features, but whether that's... I should say straight away that I haven't played it, sorry. I'm not really in a position to say that there's no new Elvira calls in there, but it is not being promoted in the software updates and the release notes as having new Elvira speech. so that was Elvira's House of Horrors Black Knight, I think I mentioned that before version 1.01 adds support for the topper, but interestingly, there is actually custom speech in the game now, which is only available if you have the topper installed so some of that I think is during a track mode, if you press both clicker buttons then the topper will activate and the Black Knight up there will talk to you, or taunt you more likely, into playing the game. So that's some extra speech you'll only get if you buy the Topper Kit for that game. Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park, I mentioned that 1.0 being a feature complete. Well, that is now at 1.0, having gone from 0.98 last month. So that has changed quite a lot as well with the addition of the Escape Nublar Challenge minigame. which can be activated by holding both slipper buttons when the game's either got credits in or is on free play, and that allows you to basically play the game in a different way, just to play the wizard mode, if that's what you want to do. It's kind of, I suppose, like playing Lost in the Zone on Twilight Zone, which was a feature that was added later on. I think it was a hack, actually. It was not a feature, and somebody hacked it, and then it became... Oh, right. Oh, OK. I thought that was something that Ted did, but maybe I'm misremembering that. But that is available now as Escape Niv-La Challenge, which is quite in-depth, actually. It has multiple stages to complete. One of the interesting features about it, though, is if you do tilt while you're playing it, that ends the game completely. I like that. Hmm. Yes, I thought you would. You're the kind of sadistic person who would love that. The latest version, 1.0, also added an ultra-wizard mode called When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, which you get when you complete the visitor center, museum mayhem, secure control room, and the wizard mode we just mentioned, Escape Nibblar. Okay, that's sort of Keith Elwin's among us, so it's very nice. Not many people are going to get to see that. Absolutely right. But it is there, so that sort of adds to the fact that this is a feature complete game now Jurassic Park not to say there won't be more features added or new ideas brought along but it's a very detailed game so if you like a fully featured ruleset then Jurassic Park certainly delivers in that regard and I think you mentioned Stranger Things version 0.84 0.85 I've added a bunch of new rules, scoring tweaks, and added in the support for the ultraviolet lighting kit that we mentioned earlier. So that's Stern Pinball's software updates during February. Right. I do have one little bit of Stern-related news. I think it was the Loser Kid podcast that had an interview with Keith Elwin in which he revealed that his third game is done, and he already started working on his fourth. And that probably means that I'm expecting Stern to come out with a John Borg game next, which is heavily rumored to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And Keith Elwin could be right up after that. It depends how much time they have to develop all the software of course, but also the manual and all that sort of stuff that also needs to be developed for a new game. So... Well, don't forget we are doing a Steve Ritchie game as well. Well, that could either be later this year. obviously we don't know during planning for games, but we'll just have to see. And another rumor that I'm hearing, which was kind of surprising to me, and I don't remember where I heard it from, so I can't tell you where I heard it from, that Zeppelin has been rumored for quite some time as a potential theme, a future theme on a Stern Pimmel machine. And since you mentioned Steve Ritchie, apparently Steve Ritchie would be working on that game. Well, that's why I mentioned it, yes. Yes, but that's rather surprising to me because I think we all know, or at least you and I know, that Led Zeppelin was a dream theme for John Borg. It did, yeah. so it's interesting to see whether Stern will actually come out with a Led Zeppelin game there's also been a rumor that there would be a Led Zeppelin game which would be a re-theme of a of an older Stern Electronics game but if Steve Ritchie is involved then I highly doubt that because I think Steve Ritchie would like to do his own play field and not work with something that already exists yeah absolutely yeah, it wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it? It's not the kind of way he works normally. Right, the same goes for John Borg, by the way, as well. Yeah, so John tends to revisit his own if he's going to revisit any. Probably, yeah. So, oh, well, we'll just have to wait and see. But that's sort of what's in the works. So expect Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the third Keith Elwin game, and possibly a Led Zeppelin game. Yeah, either by Steve Ritchie or John Borg, but probably Steve Ritchie, I think, at the moment. Right, which sort of makes me feel a little bit sorry for John Borg, because he wanted to do that. Yeah, I'm sure he's been battling to try and get that license for a long time. Right, so it could be interesting to see whether John Borg would have any interference with Steve or collaboration on the game. Yeah, absolutely. Could be interesting. But we probably expect to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the Midwest Gaming Classic. Yeah. It'll probably be announced in typical fashion like one day after Texas show closes. That's normally the way that these things pan out, such that the game can be, it'll be in production already, and there will be a bunch of them at the Midwest Gaming Classic the following weekend. Right, which is where we will be hosting our So You Think You Know Pinball Quiz as well this year. Not only at Texas, but also at the Midwest Gaming Classic. So if you want to win prizes, take on some cool pinball swag, then make sure to participate in the So You Think You Know Pinball Quiz. Yeah, you've got two bites of the cherry If you're in the US and going to both shows Otherwise You've got one chance in Texas And one chance in In Wisconsin Right, so Oh well, moving on Dutch Pinball Yeah, well they've been busy Or Barry has anyway This past month It's all about time No, that's Doctor Who I'll let you lead the way on that as a compatriot of yours yeah sure isn't that racist no not really it's a countryist but right so what they showed recently very recently was a video on Facebook and Instagram I think of the new, of the game, of course, with the new early achiever edition apron and how that integrates with the effect mode lighting effects. And I really have to say, wow, what great lighting effect. It's just really good, I have to say. Yeah, I don't want to criticize Stern at this point, but when it comes to lighting shows, seriously, they are light years behind. Yes. If you look at what Scalp and Easy has done on Rick and Morty and also Total Nuclear Annihilation, Dutch Brimble using the same technique by the way as Scott is using on Rick and Morty mind-blowing light show basically but so in the new Achiever Edition apron there's cutouts for or several wall elements that you might recognize from the bowling alley in the movie. And these are backlit, and they completely integrate with the light show on the rest of the playfield. And it looks really, really good. There's no other way to say it, basically. and that particular apron is only available to those people who are early achievers who pre-ordered their games back in the day yes that's not, that particular version does say, you know, it's laser cut with achievers edition into it and that, you will not be able to buy that apron, it's only for those buyers Yes, and I believe there will be an apron made available for those that recently bought a game and would like to integrate that kit or that light show in there as well because the current apron doesn't have those cutouts. Now, that would be an aftermarket add-on if you want to buy that. I think Barry says it could be about five weeks away. But I don't know how accurate that timing is. It might be a bit of a guess. With Dutch pinball, I tend to take things a little loose in terms of timing and so on. And other than that, well, they showed games or photos on social media of games being built and shipped to both new buyers and early achievers. So, well, the good news is that Spring Ball is building games, and hopefully they can crank up the production so that more people get their games sooner. Yeah, some of those people who were owed games are starting to get them. It's a power time. Yeah, the more games they make and the more games they sell to new buyers, the more they're going to make for the original early achievers as well. So some good news there for everyone, I think. Right, okay. So I completely forgot about the fourth or fifth headline that we were supposed to be talking about, but let's get to that right now. Yeah. When we get to Multimorphic. Yeah, it's been a busy month for them as well, based down in Austin, as we know. And, you know, we may be calling in and visiting them in a few weeks' time. Yeah. I don't know. They're in Round Rock. Okay, we're just north of Austin. I'm just, you know, if I say Round Rock, who knows where that is? If I say Austin, then people get a good idea of roughly where I live. Okay, fine with me. Sure. Yeah. It's Texas anyway. It is, yeah. It's south of the Texas Pinball Festival show and about three hours' drive away. but fortunately it's kind of on the way to San Antonio where we'll be going for the Deep Root Pimple launch, more about that a bit later but yes, Multimorphic have announced that Patrick Patler has joined Multimorphic as their Director of Sales and Marketing and now you might wonder Patler, Patler, Patler, where do I know that name from? yes, rings a bell doesn't it? It's Jim Petla's baby brother. Ah, there you go. So, obviously, pinball runs in the family, or it does now, anyway. Yes, interestingly, I talked to Jim, we were at the interview, and I asked whether his brother had been working in pinball before. He said yes. When he was a teenager, he used to work at an arcade. That's about it. Okay, but he's experienced in sales and marketing, which is probably more important for Multimorphic, because that's an area that they need some help in. Right. So they got Patrick to take on that role as the director of sales and marketing. Right. It's a rather interesting note. As you may know, Jim Petla was retired, and then he got back into pinball, working for American Pinball. and his brother was basically asking, why are you doing that? And, well, his brother was retired as well, and guess what? So it ruins the family, I guess. It does, yeah. Getting back out of retirement, that is. Yeah, and going to work for a pinball company. Exactly. But there's more news. There is, there's quite a lot more news. As part of their sales, they have now appointed Stefan Reeder, from RS Pinball in Austria as their European distributor for the P3 Pinball platform. Wow. So they now have a sales outlet in Europe for that particular device. That could be interesting. Yeah. Well, it would have been pretty difficult to get one previously. You'd have to have got it shipped from America. But now we can get it directly from the European distributor, which is Stefan at RS Pinball. So that's some good news. Now, there's a Texas Bimble Festival. I was going to say show. Texas Bimble Festival. Multimorphic will be showing some new things. They will be showing their Cosmic Kart Racing 2.0, which has what they call a career mode, which actually makes it a lot more like a regular kind of like a three-ball pinball game. Right, a seven-time game. Yeah, that's right. And instead of being one where you're necessarily competing against other players, this is one where you have objectives, you have a rule set that is all about fast-paced play and keeping the ball flowing and doing combos and stacking things at the same time. so I was talking to Jerry from Multimorphic earlier and he was emphasising how you really do not want to be holding the ball on the flipper during that game because you need to keep the ball flowing so you can keep a playfield multiplier going to make all your scores really worthwhile and it does, if you remember it has the ability that game to lock balls on the ramps with magnets, well it uses that feature as well in the regular pinball version of career mode on Cosmic Kart Racing 2 and enables you to start a three ball meteor shower multiball using that so that's something that you definitely want to check out when you get to Texas Pinball Festival and I'm sure they'll also be at the Midwest Gaming Classic as well so that's Cosmic Kart Racing 2.0's career mode and they also something you and I saw before was an internet play of Cosmic Kart Racing and that something which they haven actually introduced yet but it's in test and they want to get it just right before they actually make it available as a feature and it's also worth mentioning that that as well as career mode on Cosmic Kart Racing is a free update for anybody who already owns the Cosmic Kart Racing sort of head to head battle at the moment. So if you bought the playfield and the game, the mini playfield, or the playfield module is probably the better description, and the game itself, because normally it'd be sold together, then you will get this upgrade with this extra feature and the head-to-head racing as well. It's all going to be available free as a sort of gift and a thank you and a reward for your purchase and your confidence in the company. Wow. Yeah, so pretty nice to get all that, no extra charge. So it's not like they put UV lights on or something and charging it. Now, the big story, I suppose, is... Now you're getting to the big story. How? Yeah, well, I told you it was a busy month for Antibiotic, because also at Texas they're going to be revealing an entirely new game. Right. I don't think anything's been revealed about it yet. I have had a sleek peek at it. What? Yeah. I know that we've seen a box last year when we visited Multimorphic. There was a box with what Jerry mentioned to us. He said that would be the fourth Playfield module, and apparently one year later now it's ready to be revealed. It's not just the Playfield module, but the software and everything to go with it. I'm not at liberty to give any details about the game itself Oh come on Because it will be revealed Don't say that We might as well not bother It will be revealed at the Texas show And I think there will be an announcement Probably a few days before as well So people will know what they're coming to see Do you know what team it will be? I do know what theme it is but again I'm not it's a delightful theme I don't want to say anything more about it at the moment but what I will say is that the upper has its own upper playfield module and it really sort of extends a lot more down onto the main playfield than anything we've seen before and adds some features as well that we haven't seen before in any of the P3 games so I think it's something going to be very interesting to see and play and I think it's there are big hopes for this game it's kind of up there on the level of Lexi Lightspeed as being another full featured fully immersive game with its own playfield module and it may be I guess reutilised in future titles but it's very much designed around this new game so it's going to be exciting. So needless to say Pinball News will have an exclusive reveal of all about the game nearer the time and obviously there isn't a lot of time to go before Texas. So over the next few weeks we'll be able to tell you all about it and then you'll be able to go to Texas and then the Midwest Gaming Classic and other shows I'm sure after that and try it for yourself. Well I definitely will Now you get me all excited Because last year I remember Jerry was very excited about The playfield module For the fourth game And what the Plans he had for it So I'm very interested In trying all of them Yeah Well I will let you know All that I know Yes Well I'm sure we'll have a behind-the-scenes chat, but yes. The official announcement will be on Pimple News nearer the time. Right. But before we get to Texas, you know, you and I, we have another job to do and another event to report on, don't we? Before we get to Texas? Yeah. Oh, my God, what's that? Before we get to the Texas Pimple Festival. Oh, I thought you meant the state, The state of Texas, I was like, I don't have anything in my agenda. Okay. No, before we get to TPS, and before we even get to multimorphic, if we manage to call in on the way, we will be getting in San Antonio. If we manage to fly out there with this coronavirus, we still don't know, and things are up in the air. Well, literally, yes. Well, I will be up in the air one way or the other. I'm determined to go down to San Antonio and visit Deep Root Pimple along with you. Hold on. Hold on. I have... Oh, not now. Yeah. I'm sorry. As you can hear, I have a cell phone ringing, which happens to me all the time during the recording of this podcast. Sound quite right. Yeah. Well, the thing is, I'm sort of on a low battery, and... It sounds like it's kind of a bit ill. That's what I mean. Okay, for those unaware of what's happening, I have a call coming in from Gary. Oh, Gary Stern calling you back. Oh, right. Oh, but you didn't speak to him earlier, did you? No. Oh, but I'm speaking to him now. Actually, I don't want to disappoint you, but I'm referring to Gary's flower. Well, it's never a disappointment. Do we have time to get Gary on the show? Oh, I think so. We should do, because he's going to be starring in our March recap, isn't he, when we're at the Texas show. I'm afraid that's inevitable, yes. So, yeah, put him on. Okay. Yeah, that doesn't sound good. Well, I have bad news for you My phone just died You would think If you're doing a podcast A. You wouldn't have somebody calling in And B. They do call in The phone would be charged Yeah, I left my charger in the other room I can't help it Anyway Next time, eh? We'll have Gary with us in Texas, so We will Yeah, we'll make up for all those times he hasn't Quite made it by making sure he does. And don't mind me, just let him host it. You know? We'll go to hard 8 and just let him record it. Right, so anyway, we were discussing Deep Root Pinball, and yes, there is a press event coming up on the 25th of March. Actually, I got some details in the email earlier today. To my surprise, there was a note saying that, well, they can't give out any information up front, although several media have asked for such info. But what I found interesting is not only does it have to do with avoiding leaks to happen, but also they will be getting stuff done and ready for launch at Texas Pinball Festival to the very last second. Ooh. Which sort of makes me wonder how ready are they. On the other hand, I know what it's like if you're at a company and you're exhibiting at a pimple show, you're organizing a press event, it's not like three days in advance you can sit down and, like, we got it all covered, there's nothing we need to do. No, there's always stuff to do. So it's not that odd to mention that. On the other hand, it sort of gave me the idea, like, okay, are they on schedule? That's sort of what it made me wonder. Well they are launching new companies As there will be things That they can show and things they can't show And things which they'd like to show But probably aren't ready to At this stage So they'll have to make that catchment call Right after the last minute Right and so The program For the press event Currently still only talks about Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland as being shown then again if they don't want to leak anything they wouldn't announce any other titles at this point either so yeah I get the impression that's probably what we're going to be focusing on at the launch event I'm not convinced there will be any other mention of other titles out there just yet and they'll be showing us some of their maybe focusing more on how they're going to be innovative in various areas and the new ideas they're bringing to the table which obviously they've been quite vocal about how much people need to reform and to innovate and they will be in a position to show us how they're going to be doing that even if they can't show us everything right, ok but ok, we'll be there and we're very grateful to be there and we'll be recording as well Indeed So make sure that on the 25th of March That you're checking Pinball News and also Pinball Magazine pinball-magazine.com For our Respective reports On the press event of Deep Roots Pinball Yeah I'm sure we'll have our own Takes and our own opinions as to Exactly what we've been seeing and what we've Been shown and what we think it means for the future of both Deep Root Pinball and the pinball industry on a wider scale? Right. This could be a question that I should ask you afterwards of the record. There's no off the record. I know that Deep Root is allowing podcasts to be recorded at the Deep Root facility, and have interviews with employees of Deepwood. So I'm just going to throw that out there. Is there any chance that we might be recording a podcast at the Deepwood facility? A bonus podcast? I would think that would be a very likely possibility, yes. I'm sure there will be lots of people that we'd want to speak to, whether we'll actually get a chance to speak to everyone we want to because it's going to be crowded, but we can certainly put in our big four interviews with certain key personnel and put together a Deep Roots special, I'm sure. Okay, excellent. So you heard it here first on the Pinball Magazine and Pinball News Podcast. There will be a special bonus episode on probably March 25th, 26th, something like that. We certainly plan to do it, yes. we'll give it our best shot. Right. So can't say more than that, because we never quite know how these things are going to go. Well, obviously, we're in Texas. It's hectic. We're traveling. So we'd have to see. Yeah. On the other hand, it wasn't a joke to me that you can record podcast episodes when you're driving a car. Well, I was going to wonder about that, yes. I can imagine me driving, you sitting there with your laptop, editing the audio, telling Gary in the back to shut up because you can't hear what's going on. And, yeah, and pulling over every now and again so we can upload stuff to our podcast host. So, yeah, it's going to be ad hoc. We'll make it up as we go along, as we always do. Right. Okay. So, in case you thought this was a carefully crafted production. Right. So we still have a few topics to discuss Because there was a lot going on And yes I know It's already a long show So let's try to Really wrap this up A bit quicker Let's move along Yeah Okay So let's Well we mentioned about Chicago Gaming And their collaboration with Ben Heck and Spooky Pinball So no need to re-address that Yes Fourth game The remake title Is likely to be At the Texas Pinball Festival Next Yeah, nothing about that collaboration there from Chicago Gaming. Okay, Haggis Pimpleworm. Remember the last one, we were a bit concerned about exactly what was going on with Damien there because he had been doing daily blogs. And then he spelled out some of his stuff. Yeah, out of the blue, there's a complete great, I'm sorry, radio, but web blog silence. Well, fortunately, everything's all right. He's just been busy dealing with things about the game and real life. But he has, so he's kind of said he's not going to be doing the daily blogs or blogs anymore. He's going to do more occasional ones, which he did. And so there's a few out there now, mainly around the construction of the playfields that are being used for the first game, Celts. And the fact that they are an unusual construction, shall we say, uses a scratch-resistant bottom-printed acrylic sheet which goes over a white playfield, white-painted plywood base. So if you can imagine, I don't want to sort of demean and say it's like an overlay, but if you can imagine a really thick, solid sheet like an overlay that's got the printing on it and the cutouts. Four and a half millimeters thick. Yeah, say, really thick. So this is not something that you're going to flex or bend or move around very much. But it's got this special coating on it which is made to make it incredibly scratch resistant. You can hear a bit of scratching going on in the background. And, well, as Jonathan tries to prove that point. but it's it was demonstrated as being immune to dimples and by being hit by various different types of hammers including a sledgehammer on one of the not full force though but still gently hit but it's supposed to be an ultra tough coating which will withstand it's a four and a half millimetre thick plastic layer That's the heart of dim ball You need a very True And But also it's about damage And wear You know Just by By rolling a ball over it Millions of times It doesn't end up With ball tracks in it Or it doesn't end up with I'm not sure how it's been tried As long as you don't use a rusty ball That would be true I'd say Yeah Well we haven't seen Exactly what's going to happen If you do use a rusty ball But Probably wouldn't be a good idea But One of the One of the advantages of doing that is that that acrylic layer is not adhered, it's not glued to the wood underneath. So if it does get damaged in any way, if you accidentally leave your soldering iron a bit too close to the playfield while you're re-soldering a wire and you melt the playfield, you can just get a new acrylic layer and unbolt everything that's on the surface, because it all goes through the acrylic layer into the wood and probably through into t-nuts on the other side of the wood you can almost wonder what's the point of having the wood layer really except yeah of course it's making this a much better surface for screwing things into and yeah it did seem a bit strange that it's white painted on the wood and you think well why don't you just white paint the bottom of the acrylic layer yeah and that would do the the same thing but um anyway well the wood i mean the wood wood is going to be lighter as well i expect it's plywood you won't get any of the sort of um ball um wood um interface properties you know you won't get the ball spin type of things you would get from rolling a ball on a wooden surface because it's rolling on acrylic so that'll have a different characteristic might be better might be worse don't know you ever try it yet well there's still ways to treat acrylic i know that Pimmel Universe in Germany, they make these playfield protectors, which are basically a layer of plastic which is designed for particular playfields. But they are very knowledgeable on plastics, basically, And they claim that they, or at least the technician that I talked to, claimed that they have found a type of plastic that plays like wood, basically. So you don't, so it doesn't play like, it's not like a ball is gliding on a plastic playfield, but it really plays like wood. So there's probably ways to... Oh, there absolutely are. I've got some clear plastic playfield protectors on a couple of my games from quite a few years ago. And yeah, I don't think you'd know that it wasn't wood from the way the ball behaves. Yeah, if you use the right material. And this is probably really down to the scratch-resistant coating that they put on, certainly that Haggis Pimple are putting on, their acrylic layer as well. So that seems to be a big advantage, and I don't know whether that's something which we might see turning up when we get to Deep Root as well. They might have a similar kind of concept, because they were certainly talking about how their playfields wouldn't have a dimple or scratch or would last for a long time. Right. So, yeah, so that's Haggis Pimple. They're back telling us all about playfield construction and printing methods. still some way to go before they're ready to actually start production of their titles by the looks of it but I'm sure you will see them at Texas as well yes and Big West Gaming Classic as well yes they'll be making the same road trip as we are yep good stop off and share some breakfast somewhere so yes moving on well you listed Sunkar's pinball but there's no news no I listed them in my notes and just said they're still a dead company and I don't think they're going to be coming back so this is kind of like laying them to rest because having mentioned you want to give them a proper funeral as well while we're in Texas well Flaming a pinball cabinet floated out onto a lake or something like that in the Viking way but because I mentioned them in the roundup of 2019 they were still on my radar so I thought I'd just check to make sure they're not about to come back and no, I think that's definitely one we won't be hearing from again but one we will be hearing from again and hopefully fairly soon, although progress has been a bit slow is the Circus Maximus team. Mainly sort of James Lothling, Paul Kiefert and Jimmy Lippum. Yes. That's it. Thank you for that. I feel terrible if I couldn't remember Jimmy's name. You saved my embarrassment and blushes. Yeah, so they're obviously working on bringing the Kingpin game, the Capcom Kingpin game, to production, ahead of doing the Pitbull Circus game. Progress has been slow. One of the key things they have had trouble with is getting a scan of the playfield art, because unlike Pitbull Circus, where they actually have the original artwork files from the Williams archives, for Kingpin they don't have the artwork files, so they are having to get scans of an existing playfield. But I thought they did, because I remember they took Steve Sabota's game completely apart. Well, apparently the scans that they got, and maybe they put it all back together, didn't they? Steve's one, I think. Yeah. But the scans that they got weren't good enough quality. They weren't happy with the way that the artwork came out. So I think right now they're in the process of scanning a play field for the fourth time. It might even be the same one. I don't know. in order to get a much better quality for a better scanner. And I think they're very hopeful this time. This will be the last time they'll need to do a scan of the Kingpin playfield. From that point onwards, they'd better move on a bit further once they've got a proper playfield, a proper artwork, that they can print reliably and will look sharp and good quality. Well, I hope that they realize that this, I think the Kingpin playfield was a silkscreened playfield, and it's not a four-color printed playfield like Stern is doing. But it's reprinted now, of course. Yeah, so what that would mean is that they would need to, once they scanned the playfields, they basically need to separate the colors and create a, for every color used, a separate sheet of how that would be applied in a Marc Silk screen process. So basically in a Marc Silk screen process they would need a, not sure what the, a film for every color And then the last one that you apply is the black one. Yeah. With the outlines and everything on it. I'm not sure whether they're going with Marc Silk screening on the playfields or they're going to digitally print them. If you want to get them as sparkling or as fresh looking as the originals, I'd say you have to go with Marc Silk screened playfields because I don't think with digital printing you get the same vibrant look. That's true, but I'm not sure how vibrantly the Kingpin Playfield actually is. I seem to remember having a lot of greys. Yeah, greys are great. Quite muted. Yeah. So maybe it lends itself to being digitally printed more. But obviously you need to get the black line. If you're not applying a black line separately, and maybe that's a way of doing it is to increase the sharpness is to Marc Silk screen just the black the outline that might already do the trick I'm sure they know what they're doing we look forward to seeing them in Texas as well yeah I think they'll have the same game that they had there last year and probably the year before I don't think they'll have it yet right so there you go another chance to do that I'm sure they'll be at the Midwest Game Classic too. Right, okay. So, well, we briefly touched on the coronavirus, and some of you might wonder how serious is it. Well, there have already been several tournaments cancelled in Germany due to the coronavirus, so it is getting serious. It is, yeah. I think PU Battle the Pinball Universe Battle was the first one that I heard of there may have been others and that was followed by Freddy's Pinball Paradise their Spring Open which was in April and it does say on their website I was looking at their bill earlier today it says they cannot guarantee that basically any future tournaments on their schedule will necessarily be held in the current situation with the coronavirus Right, so I think the key thing there, the key message to take away from this is if you're going to book anything, travel, accommodation, anything like that, make sure it's refundable in case the event itself is cancelled. Or, if you don't mind, you know, if you don't mind going to the city where the event is and not taking part in the tournament and just use it as a holiday or a sightseeing trip, then great. But bear in mind there is a chance that future events, any future event, could be cancelled due to this coronavirus. Right, and yeah, I'm still hoping, hopeful that the virus will not affect the upcoming pinball shows in America, like Texas and Midwest Gaming Classic, because it's a lot of people getting together and all you need is one person that's not feeling that well and before you know it true yeah yeah so fingers crossed then hope that everything goes ahead and everyone is safe and secure yeah so keep washing your hands and yeah lots of hand sanitizer around everywhere and yeah keep the hygiene levels high well that's always pleasant at pinball shows oh yes yeah definitely right okay so I guess this wraps it up for our summary of pinball industry news for February 2020 and the first couple of days of March. Yes, it's been a very long episode. I realize that, but we're happy that you stuck around, and as we mentioned, we'll be back later this month already, trying to do a podcast from the Deepwood Facilities, and right after the Texas Pinball Festival we'll be back with our regular monthly summary. Yeah, so it's going to be a busy time for us. Hope it's a busy time and enjoyable time for you. And hope you get a chance to listen to some of our recordings and interviews that we're able to do while we're in America. As a teaser, but with no guarantees, I will also announce that we do plan to visit Wayne Nyans in between the Texas Pinball show and the Midwest Gaming Classic show. If we do, we might record some extra bonus material to feature in our monthly episode at the beginning of March, April, that would be. So, if you're into old Godleap games and Wayne Nyan's games, make sure to tune in for that next month. Yeah, you might also and we don't know exactly what's going to happen. There might be some video as well taken of that particular visit from our good friend Will White who's a good friend of Wayne Niles as well and has documented and done interviews with him as well in the past so we'll see how that goes. Again, we don't know exactly what's going to happen. It may be that it's all just an off the record chat, but there might be some video as well. When you said you were going to reveal something, I thought you were going to mention we might be giving... presenting an award or something, but... Well... Would it be a spoiler if we would announce that we would be handing out a certain Twippy award? Well, I don't know. Which one are you thinking? Because, you know, we're... Well, we have very high standards as to the kind of awards we hand out. I think we will be interested in handing out Game of the Year. Yeah, I think that's our long-standing position. So, you know, who knows what will happen. We might be up there on the stage presenting that particular award at the Texas Pinball Festival on a Saturday night. Either way, we'll be there at the Texas Pinball Festival just before doing our So You Think You Know People quiz. Yes, we'll be warming up for the Twippies. Well, not so much ourselves, but also the crowd. So, hopefully we don't warm them up too much, because then they might be disappointed with... They might think that the quiz was more fun than the award show. So we'll try to balance it a little bit, Fair in mind that the quiz will be during happy hour At the hotel So I think However it goes Everyone will have a good time Oh definitely Especially since we'll be Well In previous years we both were drinking So It became more fun along the way Well Yes I think I managed to have An entire wandering class last year that's something we need to take care of I agree top priority so anyway thanks for listening and like I said we'll be back at the end of the month and hopefully you will be as well thank you very much and bye bye for now goodbye