The Pinball Network is online. Launching Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. Clients, right? Or no? Yeah. Yeah. Keep eating that candy. Yeah. Perfect. And Travis, did you dress up? Were you festive? Did you participate in Halloween in any capacity? Actually, I wore – did you not see the picture? I wore my triple drain stuff. I went as a podcaster. That's what I went as. Oh, got it. Yeah. I didn't mean to. I just happened to be wearing it. Yeah. I went with my kids. I took all their candy. I drank a lot of beer walking around in circles around the neighborhood, so I was happy. Perfect. Happy Halloween. Yeah. Did you use the golf cart? Nope. For years? Nope. We used our legs. We walked. We walked and silently judged the people that did use the golf cart. Because, you know, the kids got to burn off that energy. They got to run up and down. They got to, you know, that's what it's all about. But, no, it was great. I'll have to, maybe I'll put it in post. Maybe I won't. My kid went as, my son went as a washing machine, which was, I was so proud of him for doing it. You came up with that idea. Yeah. So my wife had these ideas of like family costumes, like, oh, we could all be cats. And I was, I was not, I was not into that. So we were in the. What were you like? We're going to be like the brave little coaster. We're driving down the road. We're in the van. And I was like, what's a ridiculous costume? And I knew all I had to do was convince one of my kids, you know, that. And the idea of a washing machine popped in my head. I said, Calvin, you should be a washing machine. He's like, what? And I was like, yeah, then we can make it where it opens up and they can put the candy inside. and he was like, yeah, let's do it. So he was pumped. My wife gave me a look, and that was like two months ago, but he remembered, and he kept at it. He's like, Dad, I'm going to be a washing machine. Dad, I'm going to be a washing machine. So we did it, paper mache, cardboard box, everything. I'll have to add a picture here in post, but it was awesome. It was awesome. It was an awesome little costume, and it got a lot of laughs, so it made me very happy. Nice. Good job. Yeah. You're a good dad. Good job. I'm hoping this is setting a precedence for ridiculously dumb costumes moving forward. My daughter was Wednesday. She dressed up as Wednesday, which was funny because my son could not remember it. It's like, Calvin, it's the day of the week. It's the day of the week. What just died in your house? It sounded like our entire refrigerator fell over. So my kids are on fall break also, and they're upstairs with the dog. Apologies to everybody ahead of time. You're living my life today. Tom, did you, anything for Halloween? Anything at all? I won this trophy. Oh, look at you. What? A little bobblehead. Look at that. Oh, that's a zombie Captain America. Yeah. Where'd you win that at? Player two in Appleton. Nice. Oh, does it say that on there? It does. It's still on my screen. Okay, cool. It's hard. I know. Well, it's pixelated, Joel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I think that's enough of an intro. After the intro, Tom, I'm going to ask you more about it. Oh, great. Everybody's good? We're all good? I'm hitting the button. We're three guys like a talking ball. We came up with the cloud fire name. We're a joy drive from the top of the wall. We call ourselves Triple Train. Triple Train. Triple Train. We're Triple, Triple Train. Triple Train. Triple Train. I have all these magnets. If anybody wants one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel gave me like 100 of these. I have 100 of these. If you saw any of us at Expo, first off, thank you. Thank you for saying hi. Thank you for everything. If you saw me, you were probably handed a piece of swag, some magnet, some koozie, something. Yeah, where's our magnet? I gave Tom and Travis magnets. You gave us 25 of them. Yeah, and Tom gave them all away. It was great. No joke. No joke. at our booth, I set out a bunch of these. It's still wrapped. Okay, not this exact one. You mean you got more than I did? Because I only got one pack. Well, Joel just keeps throwing stuff at me. This was from last May. This was from a little while ago. So he gave me another one. And I sat them all out. And they were gone within in like five minutes. So either people really liked the magnet or somebody really hated us and just trashed all of them. One or the other. I don't know. Either way, they were gone. Yeah. I found it's typically a lot easier to give stuff away when you open it out of the package first, you know, or have it with you because I'm assuming that bundle of 25 in your hand was sitting there all of X. Well, yeah. I'm just saving this for a special occasion. That's fine. Well, thank you, Tom, for giving away our swag. Thank you to all of our Patreon supporters who funded that swag. So thank you for the support. We will continue to do that, hopefully at shows or whatever, have stuff we can give away. So if you ever see us at a show, please come say hi. Tell us you like the show, even if you don't like the show. If you want a magnet to throw it away, I don't care. But thanks for saying that. If you don't like the show, make sure you come up to us and tell us. Yes, please, please. Especially Travis. Oh, yeah, I love that. I think I can speak for all three of us. But the nicest people that the three of us all had a chance to meet happened to be Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske's parents. So I don't know if they're listening right now. Madonna and Dan, they had cookies. They were so kind. They were hilarious. They were so nice to meet. I also think they embarrassed Elizabeth because of how excited they were to talk to us and meet us. So, huge shout-out to them. They were awesome. They were awesome. The cookies were the best. Oh, yeah. They tracked all three of us down. It saved part of my tournament life. So, like, since I didn't have any food. No, they were super nice, too. That's what was awesome. They were the true superstars of Expo. Oh, yeah. They pulled out the Tupperware, like, geese key on top, pulled the lid off. Those cookies were legit, too. They were so good. They were great. I told Monica, I said, this is how you make a cookie. She just looked at me. Hey, it's constructive feedback. Oh, yeah. If you guys ate that cardboard, you'd be saying the same thing. All right. All right. Wow. I mean, you could cook cookies, too, Travis. I can. Yeah, I actually can, believe it or not. They're not fresh baked. They're pre-rolled, but I can follow the instructions. She'll tell you straight up She burns the shit out of them every single time I think we need to have A streamed cookie Cook off Between you and Monica Unless Monica doesn't care I would run circles around her Go for it I would run circles around her I could probably I don't even watch cooking shows And she does And I could probably out bake her By like 2 or 3x Oh, boy. I'm 100% positive. All right. I'm very confident. That's a lot of confidence. All right. It's nothing about man versus woman or anything like that. It's being married to her for close to 20 years and reliving this Groundhog Day thing with the cookies monthly. I'm just telling you guys. You guys can say the same thing if you're in my shoes right now. Yeah. Love you, Monica. There's only one way we'll know. I'm not sleeping on the couch tonight. There's only one way we'll know. We either need to stream it or next show, you know, both of you bake something and we'll do a blind taste test. I will happily do whatever. If it involves cookies, I'm assuming, Tom, you're in the same way. I'll be at IHOP if they're both there. I am so confident. I could go across the country and bake these in a hotel room. Bake pre-roll. You're bragging about baking. Yeah, so you can cut them. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I have a little help along the way, but, you know, I'm being realistic about what my talent level is at this. but yet I'm still confident in it. So that's the key to life right there. You got to be very confident, you got to be very confident, but realistic. Yeah. Like it's just, it's the same way, Joel, when you were comparing your pinball talent level to Monica and kicking her ass at cleat a couple of years ago, this is what I'm comparing to. Yeah. Monica's going to do anything. Really? I mean, she can't bake cookies. She lost to me in a tournament. Man, I don't know. Or choice in men. I mean, what does she do well? I don't know. I'll say this. Yeah. This is why. No, I heard that, Joel. I'm just ignoring that. This is why I tell Tom all the time I'm a trophy husband. Yeah. Like, sit down. Participation. Yep. All right. So, you know, somehow it happens. Okay. So, Expo. All three of us were Expo. We all three had very different experiences at Expo. Yeah. Travis was locked down to a booth. Tom was locked down to a large tournament room and I was walking around with my brother all over just trying to do what we can do I don't know about you guys but I choose the fun route of pinball that's why I don't compete Travis and I don't work around all you tournament players did you guys just hear that? Joel just shit all over you that's not the fun route Yeah, no. No, it was a lot. I mean, Jared and I were only there two days, and two days is, I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. Pinball or Expo can be a lot, but it was awesome. It was so great. So let's go through that. Let's just start with Funhaus because I feel bad that I put it towards the end of when we did the talk before. I think Travis almost thought I forgot about it because I did. You probably did. Funhaus. I had a chance to play it. Tom, have you played the remake? Did you have a chance to play the remake? Oh, yeah, I did. At the UK Open. Tom hates the remake. I hated it. I hated it. I was right there with Carrie Wing, and I told her, like, this is terrible. No, I just thought they had an alley at the UK Open, and the new artwork just, like, totally, like, messed with my brain, and it just threw me way off. So I didn't like it. I refused to go back to it to play another entry. See, that's how much we like each other right there. See, this is the key part right here, Joel. No matter what people think, if they think all three of us are shills or get offended by stuff, like literally right here, one of my best friends is shitting on the project that I've been involved in over a year. Let me just put it this way. I would have rather played Jetsons. That's all I'm going to say. Was there a Jetsons there? Is there even one in Robert Englunds? I don't know. That's a great question, though. That is awesome. Can I use that for promotional material? Put that on the I'd rather play Jetsons. We might have another Jetsons somewhere. All right. So we'll just, here we are. I have played the, I have played the, I don't, maybe that wasn't a remake. Maybe that was an add-on kit. Never mind. Good night, everybody. No, what's that? The Funhouse 2.0 kit or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. So, Tom, we'll just, that's fine. That played great. We've been accused of killing manufacturer sales before. So, Tom, here he is, you know, without hesitation, killing all sales of Funhouse. So, congrats. If I was in the market for a fun house, I would get one. I just probably wouldn't get the LE. That's it. So, yes, I understand. And I know Travis has before talked about, like, he doesn't look at the upper third of a pinball machine. All of his shots, he lines them up with artwork or, like, that's how he kind of judges where the ramp is. So I can understand how a new art package could really throw you off. It really messed with my brain. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I'm sure if I got used to shooting it, it would be fine. But, like, first try, no. Yeah. I met Carrie for the first time in person. She was great. Clearly the best hire the pinball company has ever had. So good on her. But it was great. It was great being there, and I had a chance to play Funhaus. Travis gave me some coaching. I've only played Funhaus two or three times, but to actually get, you know, a little crash course on do X, Y, and Z. and I get it. I understand now. I understand why people like that game. I played the remake, but not the new one. You played the original code, yes. And you actually did very well on it. I was very impressed. We put up over $7 million, I think. Either $7, $8, or $9 million. He actually did some things on it. I'll take it. It was. That was better than my entry at the UK Open. That's why he turned around immediately. He's like, was this good? Did I do decent? I mean, he was being serious. I was like, it's a decent score, Joel. I had to begrudgingly give him props in front of everybody. It was fun, though. I mean, it shoots great. I don't know. I have no, you know, I felt like it was well built. Beautiful game. The flippers felt good. I mean, I have no complaints with how it played. Now, then again, I don't have countless hours on an original game to compare it to. But I understand the appeal to it. It's just kind of fun to play. It shoots really well, creative shots. Bopping the guy in the mouth is a great time. Like, I get it. So I know when it was revealed that that was the game that was being remade, I was like, Funhouse, really? And now I get it. I get it. Okay. I think people don't realize how much, even from a used game perspective, that that game sells. Like, it's for whatever reason. It's a very popular title. I actually have a patient who asks me about Funhaus like every time he comes in because he knows I play pinball, and that's like his favorite game. And you tell him don't buy one from the pinball company? No, I would. Don't buy the LE. I definitely said. Go buy a used one. But no, it's a popular game to people that have been around pinball for a while, but then at the same time, it's one of those things that people got to remember. And this is a big reason why Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, and all those, Monster Bash, even behind you, this is a big reason why they stayed popular even today. Because a lot of times if you go online, you'll see like top 100 rankings, right? Whether it's on Pinside or even on our website, we have top 50 rankings according to like different data points. But new people to pinball will go on there and they'll look at that. So it kind of guides them down that road. Like, what else is there besides just a brand new modern day pin? And that's kind of where that comes from. And that type of data being available, I mean, that's essentially what it is. But that was the other part I was kind of blown away by. I don't know if you guys noticed this. A lot of people I talked to this year at the booth were brand new to pinball within the past year. and I was floored how many people I talked to that just now either bought their first game, like since 2022 or had just discovered pinball just in 2023 and just decided to go to an expo. Like it was amazing. I, I didn't have that experience. And what I mean is, I mean, the majority of people that I talked to either watch the stream or, uh, do trip, you know, like this podcast. So, you know, for, for people who watch pinball streams or listen to pinball podcasts, you know, you've gone another level in to the hobby, but you know, for you to be manning a booth, Travis, you are, you're seeing everybody, everybody. And that's awesome. That's really exciting to see that the hobby is growing or that there's, you know, continued interest in this, even during a point where, you know, just with the economy, it's not like people have the money to blow on fun toys like they used to, you know, a few years ago. So that's, that's really exciting. But no, I, I felt bad for you for being in the booth so many days, but it is your job and I get it. I mean, it was fine. It was fine. I mean, it is what it is. You gotta, you gotta do certain things, but I try to get around and hang out with as many people. And if I didn't get a chance to hang out with you or I had to have a short conversation with you, I thoroughly apologize. But yeah, so, but TPF, TPF, I'll be there not manning a booth. So I'll just be able to do anything and everything. Yep. Just enjoy the show. So Tom, you streamed an excellent tournament. It was awesome. I had an opportunity to commentate again. I did some commentating with my brother and you, and then you subbed out and Neil stepped in. And I think it was like three hours. It's just flying by. And honestly, I walked away. I love it. I loved it. I love it. I don't know if anybody enjoyed my commentary or not. Probably not. But I loved it. It was – Jared had a blast doing it. And you got the best seat in the house. You know, you're watching the stream and just taking it in and seeing that high level of play and the way that they attack these games. It was I had a blast doing that. So thank you for letting me do that. And it was good. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. And Jared, too. That tournament was awesome. It was it was really cool. Did you when you did have an opportunity to step away? What will just so fun house check what other games did you have an opportunity to play at Expo? With your little time off. I guess we'll get into this a little later. So Travis and I went to Stern to play Metallica. True. So I got one game on Metallica. Well, we'll just do it now. That's fine. Okay. If you want. So I was not there. There was a Stern media invite. This was Thursday morning. Just media people were invited to it. Unfortunately, I was not going to get to Expo until Friday. But Travis and Tom, the two of you, had a chance to go. So, yeah, go ahead and tell me all about it. Yeah, once they found out Joel wasn't there, they're like, you guys got to leave. Yeah, right. See, I got to ask that the floodgates opened up. There was so many more people at this one than the one in May. There was a lot of people there, which was cool to see. And I heard there was a lot of, like, arcade one-up people, like not normal pinball. Yeah. Arcade one-up arcade people. Yeah. It was good. I thought that was good. Yeah. So it was a bigger crowd. Did they do the whole tour? Was there a lot of conversation? I think they did for some people, but we got ushered away, and we were like, what's going on? Because we were the only ones not in that room. And Josh and I were like, what the hell is going on? It was very informal. Yeah, we were like, you guys got to leave. We got to get more people in here. And I mean, we're like, okay. But then like all of a sudden, like everybody was in that room. Oh, the Arcadia? Travis and I. But then like Gomez came up and talked to us and Seth Davis. I mean, it was really cool. It was really cool. And some of the other employees too. Yeah, we got to talk to Mark who does the animations. Got to talk to Jack for a little while. yeah he's an awesome dude and plus two that's when we got to talk yes exactly that we got to talk about the Picard look on X-Men yeah I mean there's just a lot of cool stuff you don't realize especially if you haven't ever been to the Stern Factory before just how massive the operation truly is and how much goes into just producing these games from the ideation of it, the conceptualization of it to just actually getting it to market and then the continued life support afterwards. It's a large undertaking. It really is. Yeah. So you, side story with Mark, Jared and I talked to him for a while. So Mark, he's one of the animators and he did Pinball and then stepped away, came back and he's like all in, all in on his element. And I was asking him about X-Men animations because he went from Venom animations to John wick to now x-men so it's like to go from you know 2d you know kind of comic book art to then photorealistic you know background and and cars and action animations to now back to x-men uh huge comic book fan and and he's like you know we're doing these storyboards about this is the panel and this and somebody's like well the shot goes from left to right so you know uh we'll have nightcrawler like do this to move over here and he's like no that's not that's not how nightcrawler teleports. Like it's a poof, you know, it's a here and then a there, you know, there's no movement. And it's like, so to get these like people, you know, sharing their experiences from the comic books from these years of enjoying the product, um, and then get to draw it. And, and he said, the way the direction they have is zombie Eddie is essentially established the characters or the character drawings. And then as animators, they are trying to match what zombie Eddie has done. So, um, it was, it was awesome. It was really cool talking to them, um, talking to him when he was there. But anyway, so you guys are at Stern. Metallica, and just to reiterate, Tom, you've said before you're done with New Inbox. You're done with LE. I'm done. It's just don't do it. No more LEs. Yeah, so you bought an LE. And then Metallica came out. I'm like, shit. Yeah, yeah. So you saw it. What was it? Because we know Ray Day screwed up the code. We know he ruined it, right? I mean, that's what Ray does. The ones and zeros with Ray He just ruins it But what was it about the game You saw it and how quickly did you know Once you saw it you're like I gotta buy it Yeah it was It was the artwork and the whole Like Changes that were made They did such a good job with You know like new inserts And just New mechs I You know, it's still the same Metallica game, but it's also different because, you know, they added different features as far as code. I was just overall impressed. Yeah. You know, like just seeing the artwork, you know, like it was like, oh, wow, this is really cool. Yeah. It was more Metallica themed than like the original. Yeah. But you owned an original. You had owned an original for years. So, yeah, I had a premium Monsters, which I got rid of, I think, at the beginning of the year. Okay. And I actually wanted an LE originally, and I was originally told I was going to get one, and then the distributor kind of backed out on me. and said, oh, you know, we, yep, we, I had too many sales. You know, I didn't have enough allocation. So they ended up giving me a little deal on a premium, though. But still, you know, I really wanted an Ali. And so this was nice. I mean, it's nice to know I have an Ali coming of a Metallica. So you're talking about the original, when you were, this is years and years ago when Metallica originally came out, you were trying to get an LE. So you just had to wait. You had to wait 10 plus years, but now you got your LE. I got one. I think it is an interesting, on the pinball shows, Zach and Dennis had an argument about whether or not this is considered a new game. And when you actually go to list, like, it is all new animations, all new art. The spinners now are opto-spinners. Who said it wasn't a new game? Dennis doesn't think it's a new game. He treats it as like... I'm sorry, brother. You're wrong. That's right. I get it. I mean, I understand. It's the same layout. It's the same basic... I mean, it's... But it's not. They took everything the original had. It's not the same exact layout, though. They took away 10% of it and then added a bunch more. And the only thing they took away were the DMD animations and the art. And then... Well, there's a couple of other things, though. I mean, well, there's one major change to the actual, like, formation of the final layout, and that's the post on the left that prevents a lot of borging to happen, like a lot of drains out to that left. There's a post there. I didn't know they added a post. There's a post there. I could have swore there was, right? I'm not going crazy here, Tom. Am I? I didn't know of any physical changes, but, hey, you guys were there. Maybe you were talking. I know we were there. Like, I'm hoping I'm not going crazy. I mean, I ate a lot of candy yesterday night, so, you know. And I just want to say, Craig Bobby killed my enjoyment of the game. He kept talking to me while I was playing. I'm like, Craig, Craig, let me just play the game. Craig. Even with that, he still bought one. So I'm excited about it. Hopefully I'll have a chance to play it soon. from a distributor standpoint, Travis. Is this a, you know, how are sales? Are you excited about this game? Yeah, I mean, it did well. We had to make sure that we did not oversell our allocation of LEs on it. And, I mean, so one of the things about this is that's for a variety of reasons. I remember when the webinar was happening, I texted you guys immediately. I was just like, this is going to be enormous. Like, this will sell very quickly. Yeah. I mean, because you can just tell. You could tell the vibe of a pen. You could tell just the popularity of a certain theme. Obviously, Metallica has been popular for years. Yeah, it's only 500. That's the key, too. One of the things is you can drive a lot of desire for a certain product based off the number of units available. And when people feel like, wait, you know, there may not be enough for me, and you get multiple people filling like that, that's naturally what creates the FOMO. There's only one Tom Graft, and that's why he's in such high demand. Right. You know? But it was funny, though. Like, this game was unique because I've heard of some LEs still being available at the end of the week. And people, like, really, really search for it. And that was even at MSRP. And then I've heard of other LEs that are repopping for $15,000 to $18,000. Wow. Which is crazy. Yeah. I mean, and people just like Metallica. So you're going to see different dynamics of it and everything. But I just know seeing it at first on the webinar. and I think we were in Chicago when this came in. So I was already there. And I think it was the morning of the Stern Pro Circuit Championship Finals. So it's like I was doing two things at once. But, yeah, it's just as soon as you saw it, you were like, okay, this is going to be cool. It has enough added on to make it remastered, to make it feel like a completely new experience, yet familiar enough to where you're like, I remember that this felt great before, and now it's just feeling great on steroids. That's essentially what the gameplay felt like to me once Tom and I got to play it at the factory. And I think even before the factory, I got to go to a dealer event the night before at Topgolf. And they had it set up there. And, yeah, it was fantastic. Now, what I will say is, and this could be good or bad depending on how you look at it, the gameplay, it plays a lot longer, which for a lot of people, that could be great. And that's for a variety of reasons. I think, one, because that post that's there on the left side. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think it was there on the original Metallica, but I might be losing my mind. And then they have virtual ball saves on both sides that I think can be earned. I'm not sure how to earn them, but they're there. That wasn't in the original code? I don't recall that. Freaking out. I don't recall that. But admittedly, I play Metallica, like the original, like in competition. So I don't know if something's being turned off or not. It could just be turned off, yeah. But the mechs felt good, too. Like, the Snake never rejected on every copy that I played. Nice. Ramps, Orbits felt good. And I actually like the redesigned Sparky. I know that's like 50-50 because a lot of people love the original Sparky from, I guess, it was Dirty Donnie. And I don't know if there are certain reasons why they had to change it. I've heard there was. I don't know much about it. Yeah, I like the new Sparky, too. Plus, you get the UV ink on it. Yeah. That's really cool. The new magnet in there where you have the upgraded magnet is really cool. And I like how they did the five lights in front so you can see your progress towards it. It's a lot easier to tell progress now. Even on Crank It Up, because of the LCD, and this is the good thing with LCD, I like how they did this. You could tell where you're at on certain things immediately without having to, like, scroll through the info. Even with Snake Chat, it felt better to me. And not only that, like, it held the ball longer during, like, your multi-balls and stuff, which I like. So, yeah, it was everything. That's awesome, right? Yeah, very cool. Talking to Ray Day, and this is credit to him, but I was like, so what did you do? You just, you went to the original game, you know, copy, paste, boom, done, right? And no, no was the answer. I mean, porting this game over to Spike 2, he said, from a rules standpoint, you know, a lot of the base rules, that is something you can essentially copy paste, but it's a whole new system. So all the light choreography, all of that had to be redone. Not to mention they added inserts. So it's like all the inserts now, you know, with, with some of these, some of the light choreography, all of that has to be redone. Obviously the additional code, there's new modes. There's like a hurry mode, some other mode. Yeah. Like an ultimate wizard mode or something. Please understand, sorry. But on the scoop on the right, instead of just crank it up, there's additional things over there. So there was a lot more that needed added as well as, you know, the code in the background for what's going to be displayed on the LCD. Like you're saying, you know, additional UI things, progress, stuff that wasn't in the original game. So I'm excited. I'm very excited to play this game. I totally understand why it's sold well. I also think it's a cool opportunity for people to get the original Metallica at a cheaper rate than they were a month ago the original Metallica to me is like a top 10 game, that's a game that I've considered owning so I'm really excited to see as Travis said, that game on steroids to see it even better you can tell by everything behind me the expression lights and the speaker lights that was the biggest thing I can't wait. Well, I'm glad you pointed that out because I meant to say this too. The expression lights on it, I felt, was by far on any other machine that the expression lights had been on, it felt the best on Metallica. It made the most sense. Everything about it was just excellent. And I say this with LEs that are already sold out anyway, so it's not like we're Win Schilling it or whatever. It's just a fun game. It's Metallica. You get to play what's a classic Borg design. You get to play Lyman's code that's just in his rules and get into the mind of Lyman. It's just so much fun to play. And then you have the add-on additions that Raymond's done to where he is polishing up some stuff. He's adding on some stuff that doesn't take away from the legacy of the game. It just adds on to it. And then, you know, the artwork is subjective. Like, you know, whether you like it or not, it's totally up to you because I know a lot of people prefer the LE artwork over the premium. And I'm one of those, too. Like, I think the LE artwork looks fantastic. Incredible. Yeah, yeah, it just, everything about it, it's cliche, but everything about it just pops. It just catches your eye compared to anything else that's around it. So, yeah, I think the machine is going to stay popular for a while. I would like to think if the original Metallica did not exist and this was like the first iteration that we ever saw about it like I think that the whole entire community would just be absolutely gushing about it you know, more than anything else. Yeah, yeah, that's... But, you know, there's just a lot of value in it. I mean, obviously, the code is near complete, which is awesome, out of box. The shots feel good. Shots don't reject. No. The peppers feel snappy. If this was the original Metallica, people would be like, Oh, Borg reused the Guardians layout. So, you know. Yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right. You're probably right. But, no, I'm excited. We'll have to wait and see on it and get more experience. But it's just, you know, you probably have the same thing. People reach out to you and they're like, should I get the new X-Men? Should I wait on Metallica? Should I do this? Should I do that? And I'm like, you know, like, Metallica is a known thing. Same thing. People are like, should I get X-Men or should I pull the trigger on Jaws? It's like, well, Jaws, I understand Jaws isn't done, but it's a known, like, that code is pretty much done. Like, it's a known thing. Same thing with Godzilla. I saw a comment. They're like, oh, I'm about to buy an X-Men, but maybe I should just pull the trigger on Godzilla. It's like, Godzilla is a known thing. So if you want to go with the safe bet on what this is an established, fully fleshed out, finished game, it's a known thing, do it. Right now, if you're buying a John Wick or an X-Men, you're going to be waiting for code updates. Yeah. There's a question mark. Yeah. Well, it's one of those things, too, like Tom's alluding to. It depends what journey you want to have as a pinball owner. Right. Do you want to join the live service thing to where you see the progression of it and you know it's going to change, or do you want to be with a game that's already gone through all that for close to a year or whatever? I guess it just depends on what experience the buyer wants. There's the Elwin effect. Yeah. Yeah, the buying games. Yeah, when the new games come out, people, yeah. So, well, the good news is people are going to be able to get X-Men's for cheap soon because Travis has killed all sales. He's killed all sales for the game. He did it single-handedly. He is because, you know, he hates Stern, and he just hates fun. So Travis put out a video, and I say all this with sarcasm, but I think it's actually a really good video, and it shows a lot about the challenges of designing pinball in code, in early code, and having to think through so many different situations. But Travis on the Pinball Company's YouTube channel put out a launch party tutorial strat video for X-Men. He recorded it on a pro, and you can summarize the video really easily. When in doubt, you shoot midtown. You shoot the shot to the left of the Sentinel head. When in doubt, ramp out. When in doubt, ramp out. Now, what is interesting, though, I watched the video. Tom's done it. Even Carl D'Python Anghelo, he's all made comments about trying to follow the strategy that Travis showed, which was on Travis's model, he could hit that shot, that middle shot. It's a middle ramp if he's the right flipper. He could hit that shot from either flipper, from a cradle, at speed. He could hit that shot all day. and the way that the code is currently established, you can progress through almost everything in the game, every mode, qualifying modes, every multiball. Most of it. Not everything, but a large percentage. A lot of it you can get away with just hitting that shot over and over and over again. And so as of right now, well, that was .85, I don't know, or .86. They just released .87. I don't know if you've seen any changes. But as of right now, if you're in a launch party this week, next week, when in doubt, ramp out right in the middle. Just keep hitting that shot, and you're going to progress through the game. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that, Travis? What are you – you felt – what was it, dirty? You felt that you just – yeah. Well, I mean, so, yeah, to back up, to kind of tie this in with Expo, too, because Expo was the first time I had finally gotten to play an X-Men. Like, both of you got to play it way before I did. Yeah. And so even then, you know, playing a few games on it, I was more or less trying to find shots. And the copies that I played on at both the dealer's thing, at the Stern factory, and I don't think I got to play at the show. I don't think I ever did. But even then, it was like, you know, sometimes some of the shots worked as you thought that they should. Other times the ball was flying off wire forms. It was just very setup dependent, just like we were talking about. And so even the game that I set up at our studio, we did nothing to it at all. We just set it up, and all I did was just find the pitch and say, okay, I think I'm just going to go with this. We'll see what happens. And for the most part, center ramp, midtown ramp works from both flippers. Now, if you get flipper fade, you have to hit the shot solid, or it's going to just fall right back. And that's typical. But I don't know. I mean, overall, it just I mean, the game, the code is what it is early on. I think really what happens is, is that I got lucky in figuring this out early on, because one of the ways that I tried to discover code is I tried to compare it to what the shots feel like. So what shot is repeatable and then what things in the code apply to that shot? So that's what I do. And then I just keep building out my model from there. And what happened with this is I discovered, okay, you can qualify your missions here. Like, all right, now how does the mission play? Well, okay, here's the missions that actually work with this shot. And it just happened to be two of the challenging missions that worked the best, that were worth more points at the time with the code. And then I discovered, okay, wait, I can actually get an extra ball also if I hit this shot. Just because you qualify the extra ball or you get it, you collect it at the right end lane. And then from there, I just realized, wait, I can keep leveling up the Beast Lab, which is the mystery awards and stuff like that. So, I mean, that's just part of it. That's part of discovery in pinball is that you get ideas and you think about what is possible. And then you test the ideas against like whatever whatever you have in front of you. And it just happened to be like, wait, I'm trying to hit all these other shots. I'm getting like maybe 50 to 80 million if I play really, really well. But then I'm realizing, wait, even if I do that, all the points are on the back, right? On the back end of it. So I'm like, okay, what can I do early on that's simple that anybody could pretty much do? At least they know how to do it. Anybody could do early on. And that's kind of the goal with those videos is to figure that out. And it just happens to be it just lined up. That's all it is. I think every new game, you know, you competitive players, you're at just a different level. And almost every new release, there's typically an exploit of some kind found relatively quick. And then, you know, that's the strategy. And then normally the game designer or the coder will code it out. Or they'll find, I mean, Elwin's even talked about it. He's more than happy, comfortable releasing games unfinished because he wants to see the way that, you know, the upper end players, even the average or the lower, like how are people playing these games so that he can make sure he can shift or redirect to make sure there isn't one blatantly obvious, the only way to win strat. And that's fine. It just happens that with this particular layout, and we talked about it with X-Men, the fact that if you hit a shot, every single shot returns to the flipper, you know, you can't, you have to address that in code. You have to make sure you design the modes and whatnot so that you can't exploit, you know, just whatever, one shot over and over and over again. Right. And so it's early. It's still very early in the code. It's one thing, I mean, Gomez said this game was pushed ahead, you know, six months in the schedule. So I have no doubt that they will hopefully adapt that in some way. You know, maybe you just once, you know, when you get to the future, it's like once you hit that shot, you can't hit that shot again until you hit another shot. You know, there's a lot of little things they can do. Yeah, and there's just there's so much more that you could do. I think it's it boils down and I always go back to this. It boils down to game theory. Right. And so with game theory, I always believe like and there's a saying that the behavior a game rewards is the behavior it encourages. So if I know I can hit a shot over and over and over again and it's safe and it's worth enough compared to anything else, I'll do that. Now, obviously, if there's something else that seems safer or worth more, even with the risk, then, yeah, we'll do that. And Tom and I talk about this all the time, and I'm sure other tournament players discuss this with each other. It all comes down to just game theory. What's safe? What's efficient? What can I be most accurate with and get the most points on? And that's kind of the way we view it. And when you're doing a launch party video, the very nature of a launch party, it's a tournament. The very nature of a tournament is scoring the most points to win. And that just happens to be what it is. Now, if we're just wanting to explore the game and see what's going on, yeah, there's probably other ideas in it now that can lead to points, especially with the Danger Room. I've noticed with the newest code update that just came out yesterday, I went and tested some things. And, yeah, there is some extra scoring in there now. It just depends if you want to take the risk or not. And that's the key to pinball is creating risk reward. And, yeah, I think it'll be there either way. I just I I've gotten to where I don't judge code super early. Like I just look at it. I'm like, OK, how is this? What is this thing? Yeah, it's the same way we talked about Avatar. Right. We were going through all of it and we're trying to figure out what it was when you're explaining to us. It's like, well, why not just do that? It's like, yeah, you come up with ideas and you just test and you just see. And that's the fun part of it. Every game plays different. So, Tom, you have played, I know I think it was Lumberjack Johnny's that had the LE, and then now you have a Pro in your house. What's your overall experience? You've played two completely different models. I mean, what's your initial thoughts on putting time on X-Men? I like the Pro better. I don't. And I said this the last podcast. I just don't like how the game screws with you and the premium and LE. you know you get on you hit a shot and then the the ramp breaks and then your ball goes out of control or like you hit a shot and like that finger stops the ball and then it launches it um i just maybe it's me being a tournament player i just i just don't feel like i should be penalized for hitting a shot um now i got a question for you tom just on that because i I don't know enough about the premium. Do you know what triggers that or when that happens? Is it during a mode or is it just? Once you qualify the sentinel head, then the sentinel is ready to attack. Okay. Is that the genetically that's what it is? I mean, Carl mentioned this in one of our chats, that he is avoiding the sentinel head as much as he can because once that raises up, you know that next shot that's going to go over the left hand, it's going to break the wire. Okay. So it's like once he shows up. But you can also see there's a flasher. There's a flasher on each hand. If it's right, that means it's going to attack. So does that switch back and forth then? It could be on. The right hand, I don't know what qualifies the right hand. But when it initially raises up, it's always the left hand. So it basically just nullifies the midtown shot, which is the center ramp, and the subway shot, which is kind of like the hidden right ramp that's behind the Sentinel heads. What's dumb is it's not. Well, not dumb. I mean, that's the game. but it's for a time. So it's like it's your fault for hitting a shot. It warns you, like, the hand's red. Don't hit the shot. But what's funny is you can hit the shot, the midtown shot, and it will break the wire form. It will come down to your right flipper, and you're, like, trying to, you know, thrive. And if you hit the midtown shot again, it's still broken. It will still do the extend, you know. How would you both feel if that was attached to a mode instead? like Sentinel Facility Raid or something like that or some type of because I feel like you can make use of that in very specific ways kind of like the original X-Men where you'd start the Iceman mode and then the ramp would move or a certain mode would that make you feel a little bit more better about it Tom? maybe yeah I think it brings up another question, though, that it's like you don't want your mech to be hidden behind code. And so that's something where, like, I know my wife, when she played X-Men and the finger stopped the ball and flicked it back, that was like a moment for her. She's like, oh, that's cool. Like, that stood out to her like, oh, wow. Like, that's neat. And so if all of a sudden you've hidden, you know, the hand functionality behind a mode, there'll be novice players that'll never get to that mode. I won't lie, Joel. When I was playing the premium, that damn hand on that wire form, like, broke away, and the ball went right down the middle, like, four times in the same game. That did not feel like a moment to me. That felt like a kick in the nut. The finger, that thing, you can see that. I feel you. But I think, I mean, I think an easy solution with the hand is you add a short ball save. You get one or something. Yeah, well, it's kind of like, so the finger on the game, that kind of makes sense to where I don't feel like that. It's giving you the finger. Well, I don't feel like it could penalize a player. Whereas if you're playing on a certain copy, like imagine if you coin drop in, right? And you're playing on location, you hit the shot, and then it just dumps it right out the alley or down the, and you're just kind of like. Yeah, exactly. So I see it both ways. Like, I get it. It's a design choice. And with that design choice, you've got to figure out the code. And, Joel, you're right. You don't want to hide the mechs behind code necessarily. Well, imagine if you were playing Godzilla, and every time you hit the ramp there, like the bridge opened and dropped the ball. I would not be friends with Keith. I would be like, we're done. The moment the building goes down, instead of it just goes down and it just, yeah. It's like, oh, you just destroyed the building. The building's gone. It's up to you. I'm talking about the bridge. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, every time. It's just that, yeah. You can't swim. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, within the game, how do you stop it from happening? That's what I'm insinuating, you know. What do you mean how you stop it? It's always, that's the thing. When that sentinel heads out, that will break. It's always, no matter what. It will stay lit until you break it. So you have to, you have to get a shot for that. So when it breaks, does it go back or does it stay broken? It'll stay down for just a second or two while it does an animation and then it goes back up. And then it won't break anymore? I think you have to hit it's all related to Sentinel so I think you have to hit Sentinel a certain number of times or once he goes down when he comes back up he'll be ready to go but it is yeah it's a thing I do feel like they could have a cool challenge mode with that though that's the interesting part I feel like you could do something with that to have a pretty cool challenge specific mode for it? yeah like battle the Sentinel or something like that I think there's something there to that but if that's one of the key main deciding purchasing factors between the pro and premium you don't want all of a sudden like let's actually use this mech way less i just think and at least on mine the one that i borrowed from zach the um when the hand broke you could save the ball you just had to pay attention and that's the that's the idea of like you go to hit a shot and you get that little mental break of like oh i just hit the shot like you relax for that split second because you know you have time for the ball to get to the flipper. If you relax when you hit that shot, you're screwed because it's like you got to know, okay, I'm going to hit the shot, but I got to be prepared. I got to be prepared because it's coming back at me. So I definitely think you could work with it. I'm not opposed to it. I just think when Tom said that he likes the pro better, Jared and I were very much we wanted to play a pro at Expo because we're like, okay, you take the hands out of the equation and then the head stays up. The Beast, Leap or Target, that's kind of a... I do agree with Tom. I felt better on the Pro. We liked the Pro. For that reason. I liked how the ball kept flowing. I think the Pro is a solid game. Yeah. I think this is easily going to be one of those Pros that, kind of like a Turtles Pro or a Deadpool Pro, where it's like the Premium is a great game, but the Pro still kicks butt. Like, that is a – I would not feel like you're missing, you know, a huge portion of the game. Like, I know people that love Jaws Pro, and Jaws Pro is a great game. But that upper play field adds so much, in my opinion, to the overall experience of Jaws. I don't necessarily think the hands are – at this point, like, you have to have the hands to experience what X-Men pinball is. What X-Men pinball to me is a crazy layout with some really awesome wire forms that whip back and forth and a cool danger room. Like, all that's still there. So if you're in on a pro, I think you're going to love it. If I was to buy an X-Men right now, I'd probably buy a pro. I really like it. The only thing I like better, I'm not an LE buyer, the only thing I like better about the premium, honestly, is the art. I just think the cabinet art on the premium is better than the pro. The LE art is fantastic. Really good. And the foil side art is just like. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. To me, Stern, if you want to force people to buy premiums, expression lighting. Put expression lighting in every game. Like that, to me, I'd be a sucker. If only X-Men Premium and LE had expression lighting but the pro didn't, I don't think I'd ever buy a pro. I'm that much of a sucker for lighting, but that's just me. So you're getting your John Wick? I'm still waiting for my John Wick Pro Expression lights Did you order them? I hope so I hope so Okay so X-Men I think Stern Stern in general, check Two amazing games, they had a huge booth I mean Expo The line to play Metallica, they only had two or three there I never had a chance to play it Because the line was so long Somebody told me they waited three and a half hours To play what? to play X-Men. No, to play Metallica. Sorry, Metallica. Yeah. They had so many X-Men there. You could play all the different models. But, I mean, a lot of people I talked to really were impressed by X-Men when they played it. So, I mean, Stern did what Stern does. They were great. I went over there a couple of times just to, like, I'm going to go, like, warm up on a game. There wasn't a free game. Everything was packed. Yep. I mean, it's crazy. There's a lot of people at Expo this year, a lot. Okay, Stern, check. We talked about Funhaus. Let's talk about, okay, so Avatar. Avatar. I've played the heck out of Avatar, streamed it, had a great time with it. Tom, you had played one before Expo, right? Or no? Yes, I streamed it. That's right. That's right. Yeah, Lumberjack Tony's had it. I beat your score. I don't doubt that at all. Travis, though, Travis had his first experience with Avatar. Initial thoughts. What did you think of Avatar? I sent you the video of me playing it. Yep. And you loved it. Yeah. I think to its credit, I think it was later in the day that you played it, and you had some mechanical issues. There were some. So I got to play it. Yeah, I got to play it three times. And I will say, after playing it, I still want to play it again because I want to give it its due. Like I'm trying to find shots and trying to figure out what is going on. One thing I really did like, I don't like the placement of the shot, but I like what happens when you hit the shot. And it's the one with the upper right flipper. It's super early when you just, I don't know what shot it is, what it's called. But you know what I'm talking about, Joel, where it wraps around like super quick and it comes back to the flipper. Like that shot, that's a pretty cool look. Like just seeing the ball path of that. So, yeah, there's some stuff on it that I enjoyed. I think it's just it was kind of weird because I ended up getting the game into a – I thought it was updated code to where they took out, like, the infinite add-a-ball thing. But I was on, like, ball three in a multiball, and there was, like – like, the balls just kept getting at it just over and over and over again. And I don't know what was happening exactly. So I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out what the rule set is in certain spots. But, you know, overall. If you have questions, let me know. You know, I made this awesome tutorial. I need to. I need to. I studied the chart. Overall, the very first one I played felt like it shot fine. I mean, with the flippers and everything. The flippers felt good. But, yeah, later on when we went to go play a CE, because we wanted to see, like, okay, how did the play field look first off? And then we just wanted to, like, experience that. But unfortunately, yeah, the flippers were just malfunctioning a lot. Like the left flipper would either chatter a lot or just not fire at all. So that was fun. But overall, so I noticed something. I sent this to you guys that it seemed like the play-filled art, like something was just off with it in terms of like what I was expecting whenever the lights went out and the UV and all that. But I couldn't place what it was. and then somebody else pointed out to me that I guess it had like a UV light. There was a black light on. Yeah, a black light. Up above, yeah. And then I still wasn't quite sure what was going on, so I went to like the pin side thread just to see like if anybody else knows it, and sure as shit, like apparently I guess something was changed from what – I don't know what it was. I still don't know what it was. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? No. I don't. I did not read the thread. Yeah. I don't know. it's like I was expecting like the red to look like a little bit more like more red, I guess, and just the way the UV was, but I'm still not quite sure. Like I don't know if it was something with the play field or just something with the lighting or what it was. I saw the one at JGP when they did the media day, but they were using UV flashlights, you know, to point directly at the areas. Right. I just think the biggest challenge that I see with that play field is the art's there, but the art is very small and detailed, and they just don't have that many UV lights above the play field. Yeah, that might be what it was. So if they had a UV light above it that was on all the time, then you're just seeing the art. The art's never going to change because you're just seeing it all the time. if you don't have that and then you're relying on the UV lights that are built into the game, you really have to have a dark room to see an impact. So if somebody, if there's some aftermarket mod maker at Penn Stadium or Penn Lights or somebody that makes a set that can trigger when the eclipse happens, I think they're going to sell a ton because I think it just needs more UV light. The inks there, it's printed. It's just it needs the light to see it. But, yeah, I did not play Avatar at all when I was there. Obviously, I had streamed it, so I was not going to wait in line for it. But I did hear positive. I mean, there were people that played it and I think are surprised. That's a layout that's a very unique layout, a unique shooter. So I still think the overall perception of the game was positive coming away from that. I talked to Mark Seiden when he was there, and he had a lot of people say the same thing, come up to him and congratulate him or say how excited they were about that. So, cool. So, JJP, check. Well, I definitely, I want to play it again. Like, I will say that. Like, I want to play it under a circumstance to where it hasn't been, like, just played. Yeah, obviously the games are played nonstop. Everything goes to that. So, it's like whenever you do play a game at a show, you tend to be a little bit more forgiving on, like, what your overall perception is of flippers and everything. because, yeah, they get played nonstop, and it's a physical machine. Have they updated the multiball rules yet? I think so. Somebody told me they did. But, yeah. I want to play it again. I want to see. It's tough because you want to go to a show to experience new games. But at the same time, please, everybody remember, these games are going to play different than if it was in your house. Everything's a little weaker. everything. They're getting hundreds of plays non-stop the whole time it's there. And then you can't hear the audio for any game. You can't hear the audio at all. And that, man, that makes an impact. If you really want to know what that sounds like, go up to any of our games that are in your house. I itched my nose, Tom. Thank you for calling me out, though. I appreciate it. My daughter calls me out. Why don't you get a vasectomy while we do this? Quick side note, thanks for everybody that said hey. I apologize to anybody that listened to it. I had multiple people, good and bad. Some people thought my little rant there at the end was hilarious. Other people, they're like, dude, you gave me PTSD. I had a vasectomy and you brought me right back to it. I had over five women come up to me at Expo. And the first thing they said was, I can't believe we sat there and listened to Joel talk about his balls. You know, that was a realization afterwards. I was dramatized. I don't know about you, Travis. I told my wife, and she listened to about two minutes of it, and she's like, why did you talk about this? And at least what I told people, I was like, when I record, and I hope it's apparent, I'm not thinking of a professional production here. I'm just thinking about let's Tom, Travis, and I, let the three of us have a fun conversation. We're three idiots with a microphone. And if I can make the two of you guys laugh, I'm going to do it because it's fun. And it's just I didn't think about, yeah, you know, when I had a shout out to El Rocco, Leslie, I met her in person. She told me that she started triple drain when the plane took off and then she fell asleep. And when she woke up, which is perfect. That's what I thought. She was in the middle. Yeah. Play a food cake so I don't fall asleep in a second. she woke up and she's like I woke up and you were in the middle of the whole vasectomy conversation and she's like I was so confused I had to go back I had to rewind to understand what you were talking about because that's where so anyways I apologize if you enjoyed it I'm glad you enjoyed it if you didn't if you didn't I don't know we might even have a new segment everybody how's Joe Falls doing this week? You know, I think we're good. The best was our picture outside of Stern. I know. With the check off. Oh, that was our most interactive post ever. I think we got the most. So, with all that said, what were we talking about? What's our next game? Well, okay, Stern check. I wanted to say, yes, just understand games that you play at a show are not going to be the truest form or the truest experience of the game. But Spooky. I went to Spooky. There was nothing new there, but this was my first opportunity. We played Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes at Texas Pinball Festival. I had a chance to play both of them here. The code has clearly progressed a lot. I felt that both of them shot better at this show than they did there, so I was impressed by that. Jared had never seen or played Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That game is disgusting. That game is so – it is like we walked away and Jared said – It's meant for kids, Joel. Oh, yeah. It's kids for sure. You should get one. And he walked away and he's like, I just feel gross. But at the same time, it's so good. Like it's really well done. That's what I'm saying. Like they really – if Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a theme that you're into, that game did it. That game did it. They did it justice. It's all in there. The sound effect, that was one game I could hear. The pig squeals and the screaming and the blood. I mean, it is so over the top in every way. Did you go out to eat afterwards? No, no, I did not. We did do that and then go – we went and played some barbecue challenge. We did do that. That was, you know, similar in a way. But American Pinball, all we did, I played Legends of Valhalla so Jared could experience that, and he came away like, all right. I mean, it was kind of just meh. And then we played Barbecue Challenge and we couldn't hit a ramp. It was the same thing. I played – the best Barbecue Challenge I've played was at Interium. Both of that – at that – like in that bar, I could hit the ramps. But I've played it at Texas Pinball Festival and now at Expo. When you introduce pinball, you know, Expo power to that game, you can't hit the ramps. And it's – you know, insult to injury, there's spinners on the ramps. So it's like I can't even hit the ramp, let alone get a spin. So it's just unfortunate. It's just unfortunate that that's how a lot of people are experiencing that game. Because when you play it at Interium, it shoots fine. And then it's like, yeah, the game's got to be able to shoot for you to experience the code. So, yeah, American Pinball. We're kind of at a wait-and-see situation. I mean, the rumor's cuphead. Hopefully that's coming out sometime soon. I also know Spooky, I would assume they're going to have some sort of reveal before the end of the year. So wait and see on that. Turner Pinball, did either of you guys have a chance to play Ninja Eclipse? I did. I actually got to play it at the very end of the show, and it was a lot of fun. And we actually bought one. Like, not me personally, but we bought one for our showroom to take a look at closer. I was very impressed with what they were able to put together. Yes. Jerry and I were in the same boat. I played that thing. I've seen the whole lifespan of it. We played the Whitewood. the Whitewood at Texas two years ago. Didn't you play that with us, though? With Raymond, me, and you, and then they had no idea. I think both him and I put up the top two scores from what they said at the day, and then Joel, little old Joel there. He had fun. He put the third highest. He put the third highest. He did. It was a Whitewood. There was nothing in that game when we played it, and at the time I was like, you know, I, not to be rude, but it's like, oh, it's cute. It's cute that you guys are trying, you know, it was kind of like a props to somebody new in pinball thinking they can make pinball, like just kind of a humble pie, like good on you. And, but then fast forward to Expo later that year. And it's like, they got an art package, but it was in the sizzle cabinet at the time, you know, this then it's like, why are you guys trying to revolutionize and change everything? You know, you don't need to, but it actually looked like a product. Like it's not going to sell because it looks like or feels like a toy and you're selling it at whatever. I think it was like pro price. Like this, you know, it's good step in the right direction, but still a long ways to go. Then I played it at Texas this year and it's actually in a real cabinet. They got, um, the art is incredible. Um, they did a really good job on that. It's, it's actually a fleshed out game, but it still had some geometry issues. Like I, there was, you know, that side ramp, I could not hit it. Um, but it was like, wow, okay. They're still chugging away on it. They haven't given up on this project. They're still cruising right along. And then I played it here, and it's like, this actually shoots well. The art's there. They've added more to the code. There's good light effects. Like, they are really – these are customer – the four games were there, customers took home. Like, they're building these games. And I talked to Chris Turner, the head guy there, and I was like, do you mind taking off the glass? I want to show Jared what that looks like. The way that that glass is in the frame built into, you know, they have like essentially light, LED lights built into that, which are now coded into the game. You know, cool lighting. One of the modes was like a stormy ship kind of mode. And like the lights are like flickering, like lightning. I mean, it was really impressive what's in this game. And then they take the frame off and then he lift up the play field and showed what they did there. And, you know, they're huge PCBs. It like our assembly process is super easy You know this is this this is this huge And I like well you know some people complaints with the PCB is like if that one LED dies then the whole board is garbage right And he goes nope none of that And he's like, the way that these LEDs are added, you could leave the PCB attached to the game, and you can desolder the LED from this side and resolder on a new one because of the way the tabs, like. And I don't know if you guys knew, but the Turner Pinball, the games have acrylic playfields, or they have a plastic, the top layer is not wood, it's plastic. So all of a sudden, all the negative stuff about haggis that I've heard, I'm like, well, how did you address this? You know, if you over-tighten, won't they crack? He goes, nope. You know, the haggis, they used acrylic while we used polycarbonate. I could be wrong. Maybe those are swapped. But he's like, ours will never, it won't crack. It will only bend. I'm like, okay, well, what about delamination? He's like, well, we tested a whole bunch of this, and even with hot and cold, You know, the way that we've designed it, it won't delaminate like they did. I'm like, well, okay, are you using standardized mechs? Because I know Haggis had to use specialized mechs. He goes, every mech in this game was bought by Pinball Life. He's like, you just have to use the right. So it's like every question I had of potentially, it's like they're actually learning. They're learning from the failures of others. They're taking criticism. They're listening to the community. So if people bought one, I don't blame you. I mean, to me, it's still a question mark. It's an unknown thing. If I had that money, I'd rather buy a Stern Pro. Chill, right? But it's just confidence in that. But to see what they're doing, yeah, it's like I'm proud of them. I'm proud of them for toughing it out and really putting in all this energy and effort to really make an awesome product. I'm curious to see, Travis, what you guys at the pinball company see out of this machine. But some of the technological advancements they've built in this game are like, wow, that's impressive. Well, that was one of the things, too, getting to play it. And, Tom, you said you didn't get a chance to play it at all when you were there? I didn't get a chance to play a lot of games because I was stuck streaming the tournament. Darn. But, yeah, so I got my chance to play it at the very, very end of the show. Like games are turned off. Okay. I'm over there. And Dom and Carrie, who are part of the group that I'm with, they, they had already played it and they were just gushing about it. Right. So I was like, well, I played the whitewood. I haven't seen it in a long time and played in two years. And so I wanted to come over and check it out. And I remember when we saw it, I guess I forgot what show it was, Joel, that we saw it last time that it, some things had changed on it. And I remember that the feedback on that wasn't great. So I know that they changed some additional things on it, but I didn't get a chance to play it then. I just got a chance to look at it. But, yeah, here they fired the game back up, and I got to play one ball, and it was just, yeah. I mean, the shots felt good. The flippers felt good. That was the biggest thing. The flippers felt good, and, you know, I knew what to shoot, too. Like, the play field did a very good job at letting me know, okay, here's the shot that you hit now. And I thought it was really cool. the scoops firing the ball back and forth. And now they've added a target up top to where you have to lift up your flipper. If I remember this correctly, I think you have to lift up your flipper and it could hit that target too. And that's after the ball goes from like an outlaying to a scoop to another scoop and then firing back. So yeah, there was some cool stuff to it. And I'm, I'm interested to look at that machine closer. And I think that's one of the reasons why we got it. Because there's some ideas there that I think could take hold. And, yeah, I'm curious to see where they go with the ideas that they have and with what they have at their disposal for the next project as well. Yeah, I definitely think, so talking to that, there's some technology that they have built into their machine that I think they would love to license out. I think that's the idea that, you know, we're showing the, you know, how this works. So if we can license this to a manufacturer, that would be awesome, which is good on them. You know, good on them if they think that they've designed something that others could use or grow or learn from. But honestly, nothing against whoever designed the layout of this game. But I think if they brought in, you know, an established pinball designer of somebody to help design their next game. And I know they're artists, and I feel so bad because I think it's – I can't remember the guy's name, and I don't want to say the wrong one. But the artist that is currently there – I apologize once again. I think they've hired him full-time, or, like, he's exclusive to them now. And so they got a great artist. But if you can get somebody, you know, an established pinball designer that's available, like, and bring them in so that the buyer base has that confidence of, like, this is the guy. I don't know. I see good potential there. But I think I saw on NAP Arcade that all their – I think they have to build 100 games, and they're all sold. So they've technically sold them out. So this is the hard part of pinball, right, actually making them. So we'll have to see how well or how successful they are at making those. And, yeah, I definitely think six months from now, a year from now, I'll be curious to see what's coming out next for them or where they're at. Barrels of Fun was not there. There were labyrinths there. they were being played. I know they're still chugging along on their games. CGC. CGC was there kind of. The only thing they really revealed kind of was on Pinside and some leaked photos from the CGC tour. They showed the Cactus Canyon add-ons, what the mechanical add-ons are going to be in that game. So at this point, it is going to be a motorized saloon door in front of Bart, and then there's an opto-spinner. Not an opto-spinner. It's another type of spinner. but it spins well. It's the same spinner that's used in pulp. A holofax spinner or something? But anyways, it goes to the marksman shot. So it's the shot directly to the right of Bart. So they're adding a spinner, and they're adding a new light to indicate how many locks you have for the mine. So, you know, some simple mechs there, but then, not simple, but some smaller mechs that I think will add a lot to the game. Was that at Expo or just online? Okay. So what about what was at Expo? Well, it was in the CGC tour. So there were people that saw it and had a chance to, I think even Neil McRae, like, played it with the mechs in the game. Right. And then there's pictures on Pinside where they've shared some of the new modes and stuff that are going to be in the game. But what was actually at Expo? Pulp was there, and I think Cactus Canyon and a few, I mean, it was just, yeah, nothing crazy. Pulp Fiction LEs are being made. That's new news. They are being made. November 1st. first. They are being made. I think they're still... I think everything's there but the topper, so they may be shipping the topper separately. I don't know, but they are being made. They are being made. They're moving ahead. So it's just a matter of time, Tom. Just a matter of time. Alright, so what about... Okay, so there's one other game that I can think... Space Sun? Well, there's a lot of other games. Well, to be real quick about Space Sun, did you play Space Sun? There's too many games. I don't even know what Space Hunt is. I heard about it, but I didn't get to play that or the Tony Hawk game. I didn't get to play that one either. Those are the two I heard about, but I never got to play them. My real quick review of Space Hunt is the art actually looks funny. I mean, it's non-themed. It's a pinball. It's a weird theme, but it looks good. He likes that the art is funny. Got it. It looked good. I mean, the colors are good. Is there better than Pinball Adventures' Puny Factory? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Way better. Oh, is that there? No. No. My only real complaint with Faceland is the unique mech to the game is this weird upper play field with this dangly, almost like a tilt bob kind of thing. So, you know, I walked up to the game. I'm like, well, how do I get up there? Well, there's one ramp to get up there. It's a super tight shot, and they put a drop target in front of it. So you have to hit the drop. It drops down. And then you have to hit the super tight shot clean because it needs a lot of power to get all the way up to that mech. and the best part is the drop timer is timed, so you can hit the drop, you get, I don't know, 30 seconds to hit it, and then if you don't, it comes back up, so you've got to hit it again. So I only got up to that upper play field twice, and there's nothing fun up there. I thought you'd want to hit the little dangly till bob. No, you're trying to, like, loop the ball around it. Oh, okay, yeah. I saw the game. I didn't play it, but I know what you're talking about now. You know, I finally got up there and did it, and it was just I walked away. I was like, that's a shame. And what I mean is, you know, don't put the coolest mech in the game hidden behind code or, like, behind a really tough shot. Like, so many people will never experience that up a play field because of how hard that shot is. So, Space Hunt. But I think the game you're alluding to is Alice. Alice. Is that the game that you're alluding to? No. Yeah. Of course. Oh, Abba. Well, no. I forgot that game. I played one game on Abba. How'd that go for you, Tom? Not well. Not well? Did you enjoy it? Clippers seemed weak. No, you didn't like Clippers? No. Yeah. No. And then the rubbers on it were like, I didn't like the rubbers. I personally think that might be the game, too. Because Queen and Alien were kind of the same way. It was the only one that was available, so I was like, oh, go play that. And then, like, system shut down. Did you at least get to hear the music? Did you hear the music at all? Yeah, I heard one song that I never heard of before. Did you enjoy that? No. I didn't. You didn't add it to your mix? No. Was there anything redeemable about your ABBA experience? Is it all their ABBA? Yeah, whatever. I mean, yeah, it was okay. I mean, but. It's a pinball machine. It's a pinball machine. I'd want to play it again, I guess, to see. Okay. Well, there you go. At least you want to play it again. So that's good. Apparently, I will be streaming it at some point. So once I stream it, I will have an opinion. But, uh, fantastic. Can't wait for that. I did get to play two games of that. And one of it, I will forever be pissed off now too, because I bought, I bought a book that Roger Sharp had wrote a long time ago. Very difficult to find book. And I wanted to get him to sign it. And so the moment I leave the booth to go do something else, he comes by the booth to play fun house. And by the time I get back over there, all of a sudden everybody's like, yeah, he was over here like about 20 minutes ago. I'm like, oh my god. Nice. So yeah, I totally missed it. But yeah, I think the pinball machine is fine though. I mean if you enjoy it, it's fine. It's a good thing. I will let you know once I have a chance to play it. Okay, games that I didn't actually play though. Alice. Did both of you have a chance to play Alice? I did. I played it. The line was too long. The line was freaking long. Yes. I played it. The line wasn't long when I went over there, which is, I think, because it was towards the end. Like, everybody was already. Because everybody was watching the tournament. Well, I think that it was that and also when Stern brought Metallica out, that spread other people out elsewhere. So that kind of, that's what I was waiting on. So, yeah. Go ahead, Travis. Tell me about your Alice experience. Let's see here. Okay, I'll start with the good. The good on it is that I knew what shot I was supposed to hit every single time. Like the inserts clearly guided you through it. There was no guessing of should I hit this shot or should I not. So it was pretty crystal clear on what you needed to do to progress through everything. So that's good. The layout is what it is. I personally, I didn't find it hard to play at all. And I don't know if that was just the setup or just the layout in general. I think I was able to get through every single mode. So the game was set to two balls. And I remember by ball two, I just ended up just letting it drain on its own because I think I got through all the modes that there was to do and a multiball. But the weird part was I never got up to the upper play field. I don't know how you didn't because one entire mode is focused on the upper play field. See, that's what I thought, too. So I don't know what happened with that because I did watch Monica, my wife, play, too. And I did see her get up to the upper play field. So, yeah, and I don't know why I didn't. So that is something she's good at. She got to the upper play field. There we go. But after watching that, her reaction to it was hilarious. She was, she's flipping around and she's just like, is there anything else that's going to happen right now? And I'm like, nope, that's it. Yeah. What it does, it just kind of, kind of goes around. And it was, you know, that was what I expected though, with a larger upper play field like that. Sure. It's just, yeah. I mean, it didn't seem that exciting to me, but I mean, maybe other people had fun with it, but overall it's, it's an okay, it's an okay game. I just, I just don't like the layout. Are you going to stream that, Joel? I doubt it. I do not. I don't think we're going to get one. No, Alice. Well, here's what I don't. He's not a distributor for him, so I don't know. Trade him, maybe. I mean, sure. If somebody ever trades one in. But here's what I don't understand. And maybe, Joel, you got to play it so you can answer this. I don't understand how why on the gameplay reveal of Alice, right, to where I think it was Kerry Hardy and Chris, they both were on there together. and for whatever reason whoever was playing the game i don't know why they were having such a hard time getting the center ramp because that shot is wide open the copy i played on didn't have any rejects at all and you know you could shoot that all day long so i don't know i don't know what your experience was with that so my experience you know when you're in the moment so So, yeah, the way you qualify a mode in the game is the mode is qualified by default. You have to hit the center ramp, and then that will lock in the mode. I'll be right back. I think it's basically you have to hit the center ramp, and then you have to hit the scoop. Right. But you can change the mode. So you can, like, hit the center ramp, which means the scoop is lit for your mode, but then if you hit the pop bumpers, that will change the mode. So there was a time where I had the right pop bumper. So I had got to the right mode. It was like the knave of heart or something. I don't know. But whatever. That was the mode that puts you to the upper play field. So I was hitting the orbit trying to get my pops to finally get to the right mode. And then once it's there, then all of a sudden it's like, all I got to do is hit that middle ramp, and I couldn't hit it. And the guy watched me. He's like, well, now you know what it feels like when I'm trying to hit the shot at 2 a.m. So I get it. I mean, I stream. You're a competitive player sometimes. easy shots become very hard when there's pressure. No. No, they don't. Easy shots say easy shots. For some, they do. But, no, my initial impression. Here's what's concerning, though. Okay. Here's what's concerning. Yes. Maybe since you played it, if you have a difficult time with the center ramp, how are you going to handle any other shot in that game? Because every other shot is like, yes, and every other shot is clearly more difficult. Yep, I get it. Clearly. I would say my initial impression the first time I played the game, it was Jared and I and Zach Minney who was there, and we all, our initial impression was like, this game shoots fine. Like we were expecting it to be a brick fast or a tough shooter because that's what we saw on the stream, and then we were just hitting all the shots. We're like, this game shoots fine. Like what's the problem? There's no problem here. And it wasn't until, and I had everything lined up to start the upper play field mode when I drained thinking like, oh, no problem, ball three. No, they had it set on two ball game. So I was like, okay, I've got to play that game again because I've got to get to the upper play field. I want to experience that. I think it shoots fine. I think the game, everybody's heard it. The art is subjective, but the physical things in the game, beautiful. The sculpt's beautiful. The topper's awesome with the eyes. Yeah, the topper looks pretty cool. I mean, it's a beautiful-looking game. If you're a pinball enthusiast that likes having, like, that trophy, that collector piece, this game will look great just sitting. Like, it will look great. And it shoots fine. A weird shot, though, is you hit the right orbit, and the way the ball comes around, typically an orbit shot goes to the left flipper, right orbit, left flipper. No, this goes to the right flipper. So that kind of threw me for a loop. So you've got to get used to the layout, but it shoots fine. It kind of has that J-pop-like feel. But I didn't like what was underneath the upper play field, though. Which you can't see. Right, you can't see it, yet it has targets back there. And you're supposed to, like, nudge it around to hit stuff. And, yeah, I did not get that at all. This comes back to this thing I said earlier, which is don't make your cool mech. Don't hide it behind code. So anybody that walks up to Alice. Joel is all about that. Tom, do you know what shot we're talking about here, Tom? I have no idea. So underneath the upper play field, right, there's targets, like stand-up targets that kind of go around in like a half circle. On Alice? Yeah, exactly, on Alice, yeah. And they're blocked by a drop target. So you've got to drop the drop target down, and then you can hit it. But there's also a post. I can't remember if it's a star post or what, but something is there, too, that essentially you have to nudge the ball off of, like just hit back and forth kind of. So instead of like a pop bumper there, it's just that post. Yeah. But you can't see it at all. Unless you're like five foot or four and a half feet, you literally cannot see. You have to bend down. So, yeah, that part of it just put me for a little odd. I was not trying to do anything under there. It was really odd. I did not understand that shot. My entire goal when playing was just to experience the upper play field. And what I'm saying is that upper play field is huge. And if you have anybody that walks up to that game is going to be like, ooh, how do I get up there? And to me, that is a challenge. Yes, I finally did it. And I got up top. Everything you hoped it would be? No, it was fine. Out of your five stars, what would you give it? Kinetic satisfaction, I'd give it like a one or a two. Like it's not. Wow. Because there's no. Joel destroying our sales. Because there's no. I killed the sales. Yep. Well, there's no. Like the ball comes down and you got to look at the art and the way. I mean, the way that the magnet, if the ball goes past the magnet and you turn it, you like pulse it on. It kind of whips it around and throws it back. So if you really spend a lot of time, you could you could potentially get a little bit of control. but I would take soggy weak flippers over a magnet all day long because the magnet is such a wild card that if you're actively trying to accurately do something up there it's so hard to do it with magnets and maybe you would get better if it was yours and you played with more and more and more but the problem is when you mess up the ball is off the upper play field so then you need to quickly hit the left orbit again. That's how it uses a Vuck to get back up there. So the mode, I was able to do it. It happened really fast. The ball just flew off. Then they're like, that's fine. Hit the left orbit again. I hit it again. I had a second attempt. And that's when I was able to actually like, there's enough power to hit the shots. It's just very uncontrolled. Was it fun to actually hit the shot? On the version we played, the Monica, she did hit the captive ball or whatever that was at the top. She hit it solid, but it still didn't do anything. And then it kind of fell in that little soft hit. So it's just kind of like, man, that's a lot of work to experience the one mech in the game that I'm excited to experience, and my initial experience wasn't like, whoa. Well, and that's what I was talking about last episode. I mean, you look at Twilight Zone, and you're just trying to get a ball basically to go into that hole. Whereas this is like you're trying to hit targets, You're turning it into a captive ball. I mean, to me, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Well, it feels like you're supposed to do a lot up there. With magnets. Right, with you doing very little. Like that's, in my experience watching other people, that's kind of how it came off. I agree. And I think it's just because it's just so expansive too. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, if you have a magnet, I would think you would want to condense down the experience as much as possible just so that ball just is rushing all over the place. But it didn't really feel like that. The one – There's, like, frustration. You're going to love it. You're going to love it. There are good upper play – like, the Foo Fighter upper play feels great. Jaws is great. Simpsons Fimball Party upper play feels great. Right, but those aren't magnets, though. Like, this is very much different without a flipper up there. What I'm saying, though, is – so, Shadow. Shadow has the battlefield. It's not a magnet, but it's this weird little wedge thing that you bop. And it's hard to control, but it is controllable. But the battlefield has drop targets that are popping down. So it's very, you get that kinetic satisfaction of seeing this thing bop the ball and the drop targets. And you want to hit them, hit them, hit them, hit them. And then they drop down and boom, you get this like reward of the ball coming off the upper play field. It's like, that's fun. This, I don't know. You're basically saying it's a better design is what you're saying. And that's what it is. It's true. To me, it is what it is. If you're in on an Alice and you're excited about it for this world under glass, this experience, it's there. It's just, to me, yeah, I think I have to be sold on a play field. I've got to be sold on wanting to shoot this game. And the way that this game is laid out, there's one ramp. It's right up the middle. You've got a right orbit, left orbit. You've got a weird shot, turnaround shot in the left. and then the right orbit will divert to another ramp sometimes and a scoop. Like, it's just not a game that I want to shoot. Like, X-Men was a game I wanted to shoot over and over and over again. Did it play better than Thunderbirds? Yes. Yeah, the flippers felt fine. I mean, that was a good thing. It played better than Raza. I'll say that up front. It played way better than Raza. I played that in 2019 at Houston Expo. That was just a hot mess. You know, but this one played a lot better. But, I mean, at the same time, too, it still didn't capture. If you're a J-pop fan and you like Cirque du Voltaire, you like World Cup Soccer, like anything like that, I didn't feel like it captured that feeling of playing those games. There's a lot of kinetic satisfaction in those games. Shooting a goal on World Cup Soccer is awesome. All the Toys and Mechs interactions with Theater of Magic, Cirque du Voltaire, like none of that was, it just wasn't there. It wasn't there in my opinion. But if you like Alice in Wonderland and boobs, maybe this would be the game. That would be it? Maybe it would be. It could be. All right. Was that all the games? Is that all the games? Well, no. Now we have the – well, we're missing all the homebrews. There were some cool homebrews. I did not have – Did anybody go over there? Was I the only one? No. I went over there. I wish I had time. There were lines. I did play The Greatest Showman. That was cool. But you did go over there. Yeah. That was the only homebrew game I played. And it stopped. I mean, it's whirlwind, but I was super impressed. Jeffrey is the guy's name and his wife. They made the whole thing themselves. Like, she did all the code. It's super impressive to see. Like, she doesn't know that at all, but figured it out. And, you know, super bare bones, kind of very, very, very, very basic rule set. But it was a fully playable game and really impressed, you know, with the quality of it. It was really nice. But it's a reskin. It's a reskin of the game. I think it goes to show, though, there's something there. If you take some of the old Bally Williams stuff and you reskin something to where it's something that everybody can identify with, you might be cooking with gas there with like 500 to 1,000 units. Because I could see Greatest Showman appealing to that many people. I don't know if it would be on a whirlwind. But it was cool how it thematically made sense to where they had the ticket booth be the two scoops and you're collecting tickets. So, yeah, that was pretty cool. I enjoy it because I like the theme. So that was a fun game. And I know Jaws is also a reskin on Whirlwind, but they made that game. It's super theme appropriate and very well fleshed out. Jaws? Not Jaws. Well, Saw. Saw. There was a Jaws reskin, but it was on something else. Just put some letters there. Saw. Shout out, Glenn, for all the sound. in Saw. Saw. Okay, so what did you see? Was there a homebrew that stood out to you? There was, but I can't talk about it on the podcast. And if you know, you know. I'll have to tell you guys afterwards. I'll have to tell you guys afterwards. All right. Yep, I'll turn it up. Screw you, listeners. Yeah, well, yeah. The people that know, know. I'll put it that way. But I will say overall the homebrew area is really cool. I try to get over there as much as I can. I want to talk to some of the people over there more and meet them more. Like, just get into the minds of seeing, you know, how they're doing, what they're doing. And, yeah, it's just it's fascinating to see people, their interpretation of pinball, right? What shots are interesting to them? What rules are interesting to them? What themes are interesting to them? Because that's like a niche within a niche within a niche right there. I think it's really cool that it seems like it's expanding. Like every single show, it feels like it's expanding more and more and more. Like more people are wanting to get involved in that niche. And so, yeah, there's some really cool stuff over there. I honestly can't think of all the themes off the top of my head, but there's some cool ideas there for sure. Yeah. Well, Expo is awesome. If you've ever wondered, I mean, it's worth going to. The only two shows I go to are Chicago Pinball Expo and Texas Pinball Expo. They're awesome. They're both fantastic. Yeah, there's a ton of industry people there. There's just so many people that all love pinball, create pinball, create content. It's awesome. It's awesome. Tom, do you want to talk about your tournament, the Expo tournament? I know you did it the whole time. Was there anything that stood out to you? Good, bad? We won. The damn kids on those default sterns taking forever. and some of the old people too. Andy Baghead, he's older. He plays well. Raymond, we claim him now since he's above 30. Who was... He kind of floats between Raymond. When I was commentating, there was an awesome game of Jaws and basically I don't remember the guy's name but he was from another country. Was it Roy? It was Roy Wills. was it him one of the guys uh basically like did the whole game he did like multiple bounties you know had fourth of july lit and it's just he's one of the best players in the world yeah and over in europe yep um to see him just like just work through that was just it's so cool it's so cool to see um just somebody you know that's how i play pinball is progression i want to see as much of the game as possible. And I think sometimes tournament pins are, they're not exploring the code of the game. They're just focused on one path and you see that path over and over again. But like to see him just do the whole game, it was just like, wow, that's super impressive, super impressive to see that skill. John, did you play in the tournament? I did. And how did you do? I did fairly good. Did you qualify for finals? That's the question. No. You didn't qualify. No. Yeah, you did. You qualified. Okay, so how did that go? Well, everybody qualifies for fine. Well, you showed us the cutoff line for making money. And did you hit the cutoff line for making money? I was one game away from being in the money. I was top 40. Who stopped you from getting money? Logan Joshua Henderson. The Chicago player, right? Or somewhere in Illinois? Yeah. Did he drive himself to the tournament? He's a good kid. I'm pretty sure he did. Now, Tom did play one player, though, I thought. They could not drive themselves to the tournament. Yes, that was my first opponent, Miles Bradley. Sorry, Miles, I had to get revenge because Liam knocked me out last year. Yeah, you had to go to school the next day. Yeah, the Bradley brothers, they're a problem. Like he did, and we streamed that match. I think that was the only match I was on the stream. But he did a perfect scars. Which is difficult, yeah. So it jaws the scars. He hit every shot. He went up top on the premium, got the machete, and then hit his final shot. because I literally walked away as he was playing, and I went over by the – because there was a TV there with a bunch of – like a stadium view. And I went over, and I saw he was done. And I was like, wow, he only played for like a minute. And, like, I walked back over there thinking, like, all right, he's probably got like $20 million, $30 million, if even that. I look, and he's got like $300 million. And I look back at him and I'm like, the hell did this kid just do? But, like, yeah, he just started scars, hit, like, every shot perfect, and then walked away and was like, beat that, Tom Graff. And you did? Did Tom Graff beat you? I did not beat that score, no. No. But it's best two out of three, right? Right. I had to beat him on my picks, so. And what were your picks? Star Wars. I did the pro and the premium. Really? To do that expo. Yeah. So you're living proof that an old man can beat a kid on Star Wars. Yeah, but it'll probably never happen again. Like Carlos says, you just play old men on Star Wars. That's all you got to do. That's the entire strategy. Something like that. I watched one of the games we commentated was that. And so the listeners, there's typically two of every Stern game that Stern currently sells there. But then some games they have the pro and premium version of the game there. So during qualifying, the tournament players need to pay attention. You know, the left pro of a game may shoot great, while the right pro of the game, a foot away, may be dangerous. So remember which one. but because the way it is it's this knockout tournament basically where you win, you keep playing but it's best two out of three and you can pick the same game where you can't pick left pro right pro but you can say I want to play Star Wars Pro and so let's say Tom beats the kid in Star Wars Pro and then the kid picks Jaws well if it's Tom's pick again it's like you know what I'm picking Star Wars Premium because I already beat you in Star Wars and I saw that twice I saw once with Star Wars, a guy picked pro, then premium. And then later on, there was a guy, one of the kids, it was a kid that was battling, I think it was Roy, picked Venom. And he did Venom pro. And then when it was his pick for the third game, he picked Venom premium. So it's like if you think. I think that was Sterling versus him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sterling's really good. There's some, yeah, there's some really, there's some interesting strategy there of like if you've got a game, you can really lean into it. So it was really cool to watch. Who did you pick, Tom? That's what I want to know. Star Wars Oh Star Wars I picked Han Both times Both times It worked Joel who would you pick When I was commentating people were either picking Han or R2 That's what I noticed based off of the bows that were lit. Joel, who would you pick? I would probably pick, I think it was R2 is what I saw. I would probably pick R2. And why would you pick R2? Because wasn't he, they were like one, he's one shot away from both, what was it, Indor and Hoth? Not Hoth. No. It was the top Death Star, Death Star, the top one, and the bottom one. Correct. Whatever it was there. So that's all I saw. It was like one mode, boom, during that multiball, and then one mode, boom, during that multiball. So you would pick R2 for just his mode tree, his mode path. Yeah. Okay. What would you pick, Travis? That's fair. No, I do a little bit of everything. One of the reasons why I would pick R2 is because it helps your multipliers go up quicker. Oh, I don't like that. Your multipliers don't decay as fast, if I remember right, and you have more multipliers out there also, which helps as well. Because there's a certain decay process that it goes through. I think it's timed. It's been a while since I've done it. And you actually have to know which multiplier to have on what shot based off what it will decay to also, so that way you don't have to worry about moving it again. It'll stay on the prime shots that you need it to be at. So there's like a certain another level of thinking and planning out tactically. And R2-D2 actually helps with that as well. So there was one move that I was really impressed by. It didn't work, but it was the younger guy. He had something Grant, I think, that he had the Steelers hoodie on. He had the Steelers. That was the whole thing. Anyway, he was playing. You're talking about Nate. Shout out to Ken. I know Ken listens. He was playing Star Wars. and, you know, to get the TIE fighter multiball, you have to smash that button 50 times. You have to get 50 TIE fighters. He was close. Right, 35 on default, 50 in comp if it's set to that. Yep, TIE fighter destroys. He hit the TIE fighter target, it came whizzing back and went straight down the middle, but he's wailing on the button. You know, at this point, I'm thinking, like, the ball's gone. He's wailing on the button, then he shakes the whole game to try to get that extra little bit of time with a danger animation. Yep. Because if he could smash that button just a handful more times. It was just like, wow, that's a big brain move. I wish it would have worked for him. It didn't. He was too far away to keep the ball. But it was like, wow, I would never think to try to tilt the game, not tilt, but get a danger after the ball is drained to give you more time to complete something. I just thought that was a big brain strat. Well, not only that, there's other games you can do that on too, not with a danger or anything, like that, but you can put the game in such a state that the animations, they have to play out, but you're able to park the ball somewhere, or you're able to start something and keep a ball save going a little bit longer, multiply longer, stuff like that. But you won't realize these nuances unless you do a lot of testing, a lot of testing. And that goes back to what we talked about with X-Men. You come up with the idea, and then you see what's possible against the software. And what's hilarious is on a lot of these sterns, there's a ton of stuff that you can do that maybe it's like only a handful of people in the world realize you can even do that. And then once it's shown by Tom Graff in Fox Cities Pinball stream, then everybody knows you can do it. But you can do that even on older games, too. Everybody remembers now Kaylee George fan maneuver that he did on Johnny Mnemonic with the gloves. So, yeah, there's tons of stuff. There's all these little nuances. I think that's what makes tournament pinball to me a lot of fun, that you find these ideas and you just see what you can do with it, and sometimes you'll surprise yourself. You're like, huh. And you look up and you try to confirm with anybody else, and you realize nobody else really knows about it. So you're just like, oh, this is cool, because this game has probably been played thousands upon thousands of times by everybody across the world and nobody else really realizes. So that's cool, the discovery of it. I think that's what you were seeing right there, Joel, with the Star Wars, that there probably is a lot of people that realize that, but then there's a whole other lot of people that don't know about it. So I think that's what's cool about pinball. We're going to have a bunch of listeners with Star Wars now at their home, and they're going to be shoving the machine left and right now whenever they drain just to get the animation. What? What? Is that like a warning sound? Yeah. If you're close to a multiball on Star Wars and you're going to town on it, you can danger the machine, and that will save you from going to your bonus, and you could resurrect and get your multiball going. It's crazy. It's pretty cool. All right. Well, Expo in every way was awesome. So put it on your calendar for next year. It was great. I just want my Tom graph. I want Tom to have enough time to go on the floor. Maybe I won't stream next year. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I stopped playing tournaments at some of these places. I realized I didn't really have enough time. You can't experience the show yet. You know, even working a booth, I still got to see more of the show than what I would have playing in a tournament. I did get called out for not streaming the women's tournament. You did? You should have been awake at 5 in the morning to do that. You should have. I don't know. Dude, that women's tournament ran so long. I told you guys, I literally worked a full day. Then I went to the tournament room, talked to a few of the players, found out they were still in early rounds. I was like, huh, are you guys still going to keep going? And this is like 11 or 12 at night. And they're like, I guess we're going to keep going. So then I go to the after party. And I come back at 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning, just walking past to go to my hotel room. And they're still playing. Party animal, Joel. And they're still playing. But I knew I did not go in there at all. I looked from afar, and I saw them all in there, and I'm like, you know what? This isn't the time to go in and talk. This is not the time to go in and joke. It is way too late, and I'm not so sure that they're in the mood for that. So, yeah. Yeah, it's tough. That tournament ran forever, forever and ever and ever. I don't even know what time they got done with it. And I don't understand, like, I mean, it's basically like the main tournament. So, I mean, you have everybody making A and B division, and they start finals at, like, 5 p.m. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, how do you not know it's going to run super late? I just assume that they all did. Because when somebody told me, I think it was Elizabeth told me early on, right before the JAL seminar, that the tournament is supposed to start around 5 or 5.30, sometime around there. And I even looked at Monica because she was debating whether or not to try to qualify. And I even told her right then and there, I said, if you would have qualified for this, I might have told you, hey, here's what it's going to look like if you want to keep playing. Because, I mean, the games are set to default, right? And the players are excellent. Players are great. So they're going to play longer games. It's like that across the board, whether it's men's or women's. So, yeah, or open or women's or whatever. You know, they all play great. Like we talked about the different ages, the different genders and everything. So I think with the sharing of information and the fact that, like, Tom's streams exist, a lot of people are seeing this and seeing what's possible. So everybody knows the strategies, and they're getting better with their skills and everything. So, yeah, it's funny. That goes the exact opposite way of what we talked about before, Tom, whereas it's like games are set up so hard you don't get to experience anything. Games are set up so easy you experience everything. I just cannot stream all day long. I mean, I tried to do that with Andy's Silver Ball Super Social. Oh, yeah. First night went to like 2.33 a.m. Then the next night, same thing. I got up the next day. I'm on, you know, an average of three to four hours of sleep for two days straight. And it's like. Nope. Yeah. And then like. That's not worth it. Yeah, that's brutal. No, and I ended up bailing on the finals for that. I mean, it's just, like, you can't expect that stuff. I mean, maybe. Robo Tom. Yeah. Tom. You need, like, shifts. I cannot do that stuff anymore. I'm not. The fact is, if you get Tom on less than six hours of sleep, you get salty Tom. But if you get Tom on less than three hours of sleep, oh, buddy. You're in for it. And that's, I mean, yeah. I mean, we all find this out early. So, like, I'm sure you guys were like this back in college. Like, I was like, well, I don't need sleep. I'm fine. I can be fine. And even, like, in my 20s, I'm like, I don't need sleep. Early 30s, I don't need sleep. I hit 40, I'm like, I need sleep. Like, I have to. And, yeah, it's just, yeah, it's rough. Because it throws off, what, your whole entire week if you don't get a good night's rest or even a half decent sleep? Yeah. I mean, this is a – go ahead. Sorry. Joel how are you sleeping that's what we needed I mean I took off of work for you know basically three days and I mean I gotta go back to work so like Monday rolls by I gotta continue with my life I mean Tom I would not want you putting anything in my mouth unless you have a full night's rest let me tell you yeah maybe I gotta cut back on the streaming then or or pick events that aren't going to, you know, go so late. I think it's fair to stream whatever event you want. And I think it's completely fair to stream within the hours that are reasonable, you know, for health and everything. It's yeah. Well, and that's it. I mean, and, you know, maybe you guys don't know, but I, But I do have like I have AFib. And if I don't get enough sleep, if I'm stressed out, my heart goes out of whack. So, you know, I got to kind of control that by doing healthy things. Yeah. I feel like streaming super late at night is not that. No. Yeah. Not getting three hours of sleep is, you know, getting three hours of sleep a night is not healthy. At least for me. Maybe other people can do it, but, you know. So I don't know. We'll see how, we'll think about things and see if I want to do it next year. So to transition on that note. Yeah. I stayed up super late Wednesday night. At Expo or this past Wednesday? This past Wednesday. Oh, you want to talk about Monster Bash? Well, I look at the time and realize we do need to wrap up. We do? Yeah. I got to be done in 15 minutes. Oh, Joel, you're going to be happy with me. I got an appointment later today at work with a member of a pro sports team here in St. Louis that uses a ball and a bat. It's going to be really cool. but I'm not going to sell them Monster Bash hopefully X-Men that's a good transition why are they using you as a salesman there's got to be somebody better because I'm the baseball person Joel I connect I'm the one that knows alright Monster Bash what did you experience on Monster Bash here's my thing and I'll keep it short Monster Bash has always been on my short list of games that I'd like to have I think Universal Monsters is great it's a great team It's a theme I knew my kids would like, my wife would like. Zach, this is his personal one. He let me borrow it. I was super excited to get it here. I streamed it. I got it on a Tuesday, streamed it that Wednesday, just getting to Monsters of Rock. That's the mini Wizard Mode. That was, like, the goal of the night. Got to that. I was like, great. I was like, okay. But in my mind, everything that I've heard about this game, it's shallow, and I was thinking the only way you can get to the – no, Monsters of Rock is the final one. I got to the middle. The middle was Monster Bash. So to get to Monsters Rock, you have to collect all their instruments. To collect all their instruments, I assumed you had to get everybody lined up and then start Frankenstein. I didn't think you'd have a chance to do it if you were doing the modes individually. The very next day, I went to play the game. I beat the game. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like, that's not impossible. Like, it's right there. And it's like once you beat a game, the joy of wanting to play it goes down a little bit. So I was like, oh, this game's a lot easier than I thought. And I played the game later that day. I was playing it with my son, and I was one instrument away from beating it again. I'm like, okay, I get it now. I understand why this game isn't in a lot of people's collections or high-end players because you can just flow through it. So earlier in the week, I actually beat Cactus Canyon as well. I'm like, but Cactus Canyon, to me, there's more depth there, And it's like a perfect level of difficulty for me. It's achievable, but it's not every game. It's achievable. So Wednesday night, we didn't have a new game to stream. Zach put up a poll. They said, let's play Cactus Canyon. So I had set it up in a way I was like, I'll play Cactus Canyon, but if I beat it, then I can move to Monster Bash, thinking the depth of both of these games is enough that maybe I could beat them both on stream. Played Cactus Canyon on stream. Did well, but couldn't beat it. And then I was like, you know what, we're moving to Monster Bash, thinking, oh, yeah, I'll beat this on stream, no problem. No, I stayed up an extra 45 minutes, played for two hours, 45 minutes playing that game. I got one instrument away, I think twice, from beating that game. And so now my feelings of Monster Bash have changed. It's like here I am thinking, oh, yeah, it's an easy game. I can beat this whenever I want. No, I can't. I can't beat it whenever I want. It's just it dangles the carrot. It's right there. It's right there. and I just think... So you're saying it's like the perfect layout and rule set for like a player of your caliber to want like one more. The one more game is right there. That's the sweet spot, yeah. And I really like it, but I understand a lot of other games, a lot of modern sterns, you know, I understand the right there moment is not the final wizard mode. I'm never going to see the final wizard mode of Godzilla, but there's something else lower down that that's my right there moment. That's my goal. If I can get to that in that game, then I did something. Tom, you have a monster bash, don't you? I used to have one. Early on, when I first got into collecting, I bought one. Now, have you done what Joel's done on it? Yeah. Destroy it? Oh, yeah. You guys are a whole other level of play. Well, it doesn't always happen. I mean, you know, sometimes players, yeah. I don't know how long Tom's had it. I think the game I have is at default. I can turn off extra balls. Remove the outline post, see what happens. Put the outline post up. Oh, yeah, a lot of that. Oh, well, there was one. Remove the outline post. Oh, yeah, Joel, Joel, if you want to see a crazy Monster Bash, if you want to go down this rabbit hole, look up on, I think it's probably going to be on pinball videos, look up Monster Bash at InDisc. And I think this was 2018 maybe. Like this was played in finals. I think either final eight or final four, and the winning score is like 7 million. That thing played so mean, so incredibly mean. But, yeah, it's interesting. So my last remark is yesterday with Halloween, we had a whole bunch of family over. It was awesome. That game was played nonstop. Monster Bash, from everybody that was here, kids to adults, played nonstop. And it just really makes me, as a pinball enthusiast, a collector, it's like, why? Like, why is this game so loved? And I just think it's like all the toys are just right out there in front of you, and there's no confusion on what to hit. The only thing I had to explain was Dracula. Like, nobody knew. I'm like, dude, Dracula's in this coffin. What? Like, how do I get him out? I'm like, focus on this, and if you ever see that, hit the scoop. And the moment he shows up and is moving back and forth, it's like, and I'm thinking, I'm like, why is there no Dracula mech? And why is that uncommon? And then I think of Jaws, Jaws with the fin. You know, it's the same concept. If this thing pops up and it's moving and you want to see it, you want to hit it. And so, I don't know, it's just the more that I've played Cactus Canyon and Monster Bash, these games really speak to me, scream. I understand they're too easy for your level, but for other people that are listening, like. But that's okay, though. Yeah, it's okay. There's players at different levels. So, like, to give you an example of this, because you're talking, what you're talking about is just user experience, right? No matter what you're. So one of the things, that's what Monica, and we didn't mention this at Expo, but there was a Princess Bride there from Multimorphic. And Monica just loves that game because she loves the theme and everything. But then it's like all the shots feel accessible for what the layout's supposed to be for that. And plus, the rules make sense. It thematically makes sense, doesn't feel overwhelming. And that's kind of the same way Monster Bash is, right? Like the rules feel really accessible, yet you can go deeper and get into certain nuance with collecting instruments and stacking things together and everything like that. So, yeah. So that's the type of stuff that would appeal to a novice or to somebody that's never played pinball or somebody that's just an elite level player. Like there's still certain nuances in the game that's fun. And I think that's what Monster Bash hits. And even like Princess Bride, it hits the same thing. So I think there's a certain elegance to simplicity with that. Yeah. Well, it's easy to explain, too, just like you said. Oh, yeah. It looks hot to make this happen, and it's cool when you do it. My nephew, Marcus, I mean, his goal was, like, once he realized you're collecting these creatures, it's like, well, he's like, I've gotten everybody but creature. What do I have to do? I'm like, well, you have to hit it four times. Look at the thing. Or, like, how did I get wolfman? Well, you do this. And once you explain that little bit of thing, that was his goal. Just throughout the night, he played it nonstop. Like, can I at some point collect all six? And, yeah, just explain it. Like, so now, if you would have asked me three days ago, would you ever own Monster Bash? No. I'm bored of it. I beat it. It's easy. You know? But now it's like, I know I could get better at the game, but I see the appeal to it. And I think it really sparks this, I don't know, like why, like for modern pinball, I know designers focus really hard on people at your level all the way down to people at my level or lower. But just I don't I don't think it's necessarily the fan layout. I just maybe it's just a really good theme or the fact that there are so many toys, but they're interactive toys. Like I just I don't know the secret sauce. So it gets me excited about CGC is saying once again, their medieval madness is pushed back to like spring of next year. But if I can buy a Medieval Madness, I'm going to buy one just because I want to get it out of my system. So you want to know what the secret sauce really is? I think I know what he's going to say. Yeah, and Tom knows this because he's owned enough of these games. It's you want to create an emotion for the player as early as possible in their experience. Okay. And that's what a lot of these old school games do well. Okay. That the rule set is insanely accessible, just like you told them or you told somebody, you hit this shot four times to make this happen, right? Or you hit this shot this many times to make this happen. And then when you can physically see something happening that goes beyond a light show or goes beyond a sound, right, that adds to it. But you still need the light show and you still need the sound, right, to really, really make it all come together. And I think that's what those old school games do great. And there are some modern games that do that. And we talked about, you know, I mean, it's going to be cliche, but we talk about pinball moments. But the reality is, is that you want to get an emotion early on out of a player. And that's what like we talked about before. That's what pulp does excellent on. Like as soon as you plunge, you realize you're in the pulp fiction world. Like you hear the actual not just you don't hear pinball call outs, which I love it. you hear the movie quotes and they make sense in the places that they're put in. Right. And it makes sense. Like I have to get into the pawn shop by just knocking down these drop targets and hit into that scoop. And then when you do that, it does like a little light show or the same way with the inline targets. And it does the get down, get down. And, you know, you move the briefcase around. So stuff like that, I've noticed more than anything else working in the pinball industry that a lot of your people out there that want to experience pinball, geez, wow. Even him. CJ. CJ. CJ must be going, but that's the emotion they want, right? It's like it's just, yeah, it's bringing you into that world. And you can do that through a variety of ways. It's like it's just the hook. You've got to do that so quick in it. And I think that's what Monster Bash does great, and that's why it sticks around great because you could swell around and accidentally make a moment happen. So, yeah. I get it. I just, for people who are listening to this, you're probably one of two. You're either like, I got my own scratch that's never leaving, or you're like, I had it and I got bored of it. I mean, that's so many, like I've talked to multiple people. They've had it and they just got bored of it because they're that good. But I understand. I don't want to make a game harder physically. Yeah, you do. Screw them kids. Screw that family. That's what I do. all the time, Joel. But if I put the, if I open the lanes way up, yeah, then... Get better, Joel. Tell them to get better. Turn off the ball space. They flip better. Hit your shots. Yeah. All right. How do you think they all got so good? Yeah, exactly. Well, okay, when my son Calvin can act like, wait, yes, if I ever think Calvin's getting too good, then I'll make sure to, I'll make sure to, but right now, I'm just trying to get him to not to double flip, like just one at a time. Before we go on, Joel, you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about people like the game leading for various reasons. So, Tom, you said you had Monster Bash, but you don't have it any longer. So you have a ton of games. Why did you get rid of Monster Bash, and is there any games that were a reason why you got rid of it? Yeah, at the time, I owned Transformers and Lord of the Rings. They're all Gomez's. They're all similar design, and I was just like, eh, Monster Bash just isn't that deep. I can get far into her, whereas Lord of the Rings, I had to, like, really work at it to get deeper into the game. So, I mean, at the time, that was the rationale. Like, I'll keep Lord of the Rings and get rid of Monster Bash. Does Lord of the Rings have fun experiences in that first three minutes of playing? Sure. Like for a novice. You got to bash the Balrog. You got to start modes. Is it good to experience those or no? I think bashing the Balrog, yeah. I mean, that's not a hard thing to do. Okay. Yeah. There are certain things on games, though. So I got to experience this, too. I told you guys about this at a kid's birthday party just the other day. So they had pinball machines actually at this one place. I think it's called Kokomojo's or whatever. Three pinball machines with a Godzilla. None of the parents there have ever played pinball. So I took a couple of them over there. I'm like, hey, let's go play a game and everything. And this is like the first time I've ever met them. They just thought I was wearing a pinball shirt and that just sparked conversation. I'm like, oh yeah, it's really cool. Come see this. And they saw it all and they didn't understand what was happening. But then once I showed them, hey, here's the building on Godzilla. Here's what it could do. They were just like all just enamored with it, tickled to death because you could actually hear the sound to see the building moving up and down. So I literally spent the next 10 minutes starting multiball for everybody that was there and then letting them take over and just have fun with it. And that's the thing. It's like we forget a lot of the times because we played pinball so much and we've seen the same things happen over and over again. There's a certain magical element to experiencing those things for the first time and kind of seeing what's possible on something and kind of seeing everything come together so that's to me that's cool and i think monster bash can do that for a lot of people because everybody can identify with monsters right it's like everybody knows dracula wolfman and all that so yeah it's we've i just i've had a lot of i've had a lot of modern games in the last few years coming in out of this house and my nephew um they come over all the time and it's like it really tells me a lot when they step up to a game and put one or two games on it and then just move over to Cactus Canyon or they move over to Godzilla. It's like, wow, okay, there's nothing in that game that grabbed them. But then to see Marcus last night, non-stop, whole night, boom. It's like, okay, I get it. I get that there's... Toys are fun. That's what makes Metallica fun, too. Now that I think about it, it's like, yeah, you bring somebody in that's a huge Metallica fan and it's like, yeah, just hit it up the middle and you'll make Sparky do stuff. Like, that's simple. Or the moment it goes in the steak's mouth now, it's like, boom. Right. I think the hammer is the only thing. When people see that and the ball go under the play field, that's the one toy that's a little further away from the start button to experience how cool that is. Right. There's some cool stuff. Metallics is going to be great. But anyways, we need to wrap up. Joel's got to go, everybody. Joel's the one wrapping up early today. Unbelievable. For the record, everybody, Tom and I would go for like four hours if we could. I don't know if, you know, I feel like there's a chance to follow the conversation. Between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5. Well, hey, if you want to hear Tom and Travis talk more, I'll plug it for you. The Pinball Players Podcast on Fox. What? No, that's not what it is. Pinball Pulse. Pinball Pulse. Wasn't it Pinball Players at some point? Am I wrong? That's somebody else. There was. No, it's not. There's another podcast called the Pinball Pulse. I'm so sorry. Pinball Pulse. It's on. It's not even a podcast. He doesn't even know what it's on. Yeah. It's on Twitch. But didn't you call it podcast? No. He's giving me all this dope. At the beginning it was, but it's not a podcast. It had the word podcast in it, didn't it? It did. Yeah. Okay. It changed it. It did. It changed. It's a show now. It's a show. So it's what? Pinball Pulse show? We're calling it Flip N Out Pinball with Friends, Joel. Pinball Pulse. All the way to the back. Pinball Players Podcast. Who the heck is Pinball Players Podcast? He doesn't even know the name of it. It's somebody. I wanted to see who is actually Pinball Players Podcast. So you were kind of close. You didn't know his channel. It's on Joel. Well, we're giving Joel shit. It's on Twitch. It's Pinball Pulse. It's not Twitch. It's Pinball Pulse, a Pinball Players Podcast. And it's on Fox. That's what it was labeled, but it's kind of going through some stuff. It's still Pinball Pulse. So Pinball Players Podcast is part of it. I didn't just make it up just one part of it it's like saying like Transformers you know Dark of the Moon you know the Dark of the Moon thing yeah Pinball Pulse if you liked the tournament conversation that we had 20 minutes ago and you want 2 hours of it and you want more make sure you subscribe to Fox Cities Pinball it's great it's awesome Tom's really good at getting good guests on they talk nothing about tournament pinball keep up the good work. We talk everything tournament pinball, not talk nothing about tournament pinball. Did I say nothing? It's time to wrap it up. I can't even say words. You're all over the place. Do you want to plug your own thing, Tom, so you can say the right thing? No wonder you couldn't drive the golf cart during Halloween. If you want to see really mediocre play, check out Flip N Out Pinball. Yes. On Twitch. On YouTube. Oh! On YouTube. I don't know. We're just roasting each other. If you want to see a guy hit one ramp for 30 minutes, check out the Pitbull Company's YouTube channel, X-Men Launch Party. Oh, well, you won't see the guy because the camera goes out, you dingus. That's true. And then the audio drops out. No audio from the game. The audio drops out after ball one. And I get paid for that, too. Amazing. Biggest pinball grift ever. Can Carrie do videos? I bet she can figure it out. We're about to. We got some things coming along. It's just taking time. Certain things have priority. It takes time, Joel. Yeah, exactly. You're not going to get your game finished when it comes out the door. You'll see a fully fleshed out YouTube Even if the game has been done before, it's not going to be done. All right. So those are the pluses. Tom, you got more to plug? No, I'm good. Oh, hey. Oh, wait, actually, I do. I'm going to be streaming at Atomic Pinball Arcade Winter Bash in December. It's a Sturm Pro Circuit event. Joel, you wouldn't know anything about that. But everybody else that's listening. You know what I'm talking about. So if you want to tune in for that, it should be a good time. A lot of good players are ongoing. Yep. Sign-ups ongoing, too. I'll tune in. You can still sign up. What's that? I said I'll tune in. I'll tune in. Okay. Hey, Joel, I just got. It's probably closer to you if you want to come and just commentate. Just come hang out. That would be great. Travis and I will be there. I got a spot right there in my basement. It is the last Sturm Pro Circuit event of the year, Joel. Okay. All right. We can keep going with the podcast now. I just found out I'm delayed until another day to meet with the client. Yeah. And I have vacation next week. I've already got a text about needing to go out to lunch, so that's why I said. With who? With my wife and children. You know? Don't these kids go to school? No, we have today off, which is random. They did like a teacher day, and it's a great day to do it because all the kids were up super late last night with Halloween and whatnot. My son had that last week. Yeah. Travis, you got anything to plug? No. I think you guys pretty much did on everything, so we're good. It's fine. Everybody knows where to find me. Yeah. And then, yeah, you need three YouTubes. Subscribe to Fox News Pinball. subscribe to the pinball company and subscribe to flipping out pinball on YouTube. We're trying to hit 5,000 subscribers. We're like 200 away to get there, which would be awesome. Yeah. Check it out. I've done some tutorial videos recently. And then Jared and I, we stream every Wednesday night so you can click the live tab and check streaming Papa events. And I can't get even that many subscribers. I got to start playing more mediocre. Yeah, that's where it's at. That's where it's at. People relate to mediocre, Tom. They relate to it, you know, but alright well I appreciate you guys this was fun thanks to all our supporters on Patreon thanks for the people that do that check out our merch on Silverball Swag all the stuff but we will definitely record again it's November 1st it's crazy we'll definitely get something out before Thanksgiving but yeah will we? are you committing Tom and I to more work we'll definitely get something out before Thanksgiving we'll figure it out I'll let you guys know my Vegas experience that's what I'll do No, great. Like always, Tom, you get the last words. Go out and vote.