0:03[Music] [Applause] oh [Music] what's up everybody welcome to in before the lock episode 20 we're here to talk about all things pinball and pinball mods Davey welcome back to the show man hey Rob how you going man it's good to see you good good now you know we may have a little bit of audio issues guys I know my mic's all over the place but uh do let us know how it's sounding for you uh we got some uh audio is quiet on Davey's side oh no what's new what's new I'm GNA Jack you up a little bit Dave let me uh let me have a look at my settings as well man nothing like some last minute Tech changes we got some we got some friends in the back on the on the uh in the background helping us out what's up flip Nick H we got Rocket City uh Kyle's on so yeah great great to be back guys I mean it's been it's been a bit how you looking over there Davey I don't know man uh I to know how am I sounding everybody how's my Qui how's my mic sounding any better any better audio is quiet on Davey's end all right let me have a quick look sorry guys you keep talking tell me what you been up to rec for sure could be louder yeah man well yeah we've been we've been kind of diving back into things um we've got Godzilla conqueror Edition on the line uh and that's pretty busy for us we just got a bunch of attack from Mars out um twilight zone is kind of on the back burner we're gonna be picking that back up probably early next year uh but we also are in a new shop so things are kind of changing for us I'm excited to give you guys a little bit of a tour today so on the agenda side things uh Dave is going to give a little bit of an update um I'm going to give you guys a a tour of our new shop and show you what's going on and what we're working on um and then we're going to dive into all things Expo so you know we saw so many of you guys uh there at Expo we got to play all the new games which is pretty exciting um so talk to you a little bit about that did some great interviews we're going to share some of that with you uh and then of course the mods that continue to build up probably some X-Men stuff coming Dave you think or is it gonna be what we got man yeah uh yeah I'd hope so um I mean look uh the last couple of weeks just been catching up on existing mods so we've been sending out Subways and noodle bars and taking Neons and uh big Labowski Hollywood roofs and stuff and so we've sort of just been trying to get to the end of those uh lines um as quickly as possible just so we can start kicking off on the new mods which is the Jaws buoy um and then hopefully moving sort of quickly past that and onto um the Godzilla middle building which has been something that's been hanging around for ages and ages uh and everybody's been patiently waiting for us to finish off the final installment of the Tokyo neon series um but yeah we've been trying to do some sort of extra special stuff for that just because you know it's the last one of the series you wanted to make it you know do something a little bit different something we haven't done before uh we're going to try and tie into like uh like a plaque that you can put on Godzilla so that people who bought all four of the Godzilla Tokyo neon mods can stick like a stumblr Edition plaque on their game and we're hoping to light that up as well um if we can get some wires to go through the screw holes and and get it to stick on with the magnet so yeah lots of lots of fun stuff and exciting stuff in the pipelines that's awesome yeah I'm kind of entering your world with people waiting we've got these buildings for our Godzilla topper that folks have been waiting on for a long time I've actually recently decided to uh get get get help from s who many of you guys may know he did some early Godzilla stuff and he he helped me with the buildings initially and he's finally uh he had a baby uh I think he's probably uh start things are starting to uh uh even off for him so he's gonna take that on so that's super exciting so we're still hoping to get those out this year um as we had had always planned um well I hope I hope your audio is looking a little better uh folks you know let me know if it's sounding any better at my end um just did a big Spar lens so you should be able to tell me whether I'm still sounding quiet or not it is a brand new mic um so what I lack for in volume I I make up for and sexiness um on you've moved in you've moved into a new workshop Rob I have yeah we've been back kind of both doing that this year so yeah I'd love to do like a little bit of a walk around I know people really enjoyed this when we did this last time um we haven't really done an official video on the new space yet so for those that are really uh paying attention this is where you're going to see that um so yeah let me uh let me give that a shot I'm gonna unplug a couple things um so uh so we're we are um in basically the city of St Louis uh still kind of in the same area um but we've got uh this new space which is about three times um as big as our our last space um we've still got kind of a similar setup with our workstations here um so we've got four workst s um I kind of start over here this is this is a bit my R&D area um still a little bit of a mess sometimes these are air guns for uh painting the consoles uh all these shelves kind of contain different elements that working on from an R&D perspective so I've got some pretty interesting things over here some linear actuators new connector types uh that's a little like water condenser which actually kicks out smoke which is something we're kind of playing around with uh for some of our Toppers so lotss of kind of stuff that's now a little bit easier to kind of keep at arms length which is nice um these are uh consoles for the black and white that are coming together nice they're looking great man um so yeah Margaret was in painting those earlier today that paint is uh called rubbin buff and it goes on with these little applicator pads and of course they start black um so you can kind of see uh what those look like uh John is uh one of our assembly guys and he's also very good at pinball so these are all the banners he's won at various launch parties so exciting to have those uh here in the shop um these are conquer upgrades for the black and white I'm sorry for the color Edition that are coming together so these are actually uh add-on upgrades uh that are coming together uh this is some of our test kits and then lots of Parts over here so one thing that's really nice about this new setup is that we've got you know a lot of like quick access to a lot of uh the parts they're working on and they're a lot better laid out um that they than they've been in the past um so all that's in various uh states of organization uh this is Keith's desk um he we we kind of divide and conquer on things so he works on the aliens uh for attack so these shelves are kind of like for the team to have their own kind of personal stuff set up uh this is John's desk who's working on a lot of the screen assemblies for uh the conquer upgrade um we had this uh really cool jacket that he was uh given from given given to him by Brian Eddie for for winning a tournament back in I think the maybe 2000s or or or or or late 90s so he's got that on display very on well night yeah so these are a couple attack from Mars that have kind of various little nuances that need to be updated before we get those done so those are kind of set aside and then now we've got a lot more rack space for like different things so we kind of have Godzilla and attack lined up um and then over here is Twilight Zone and up here is poor little Labowski which uh won't be getting as much love going forward due to the limited nature of it but his uh his parts are sitting up there um over here dedicated packout area so you've got attack from Mars coming together lots of boxes uh this is where we program uh the chips for the Toppers that's kind of dedicated spot there and then a lot of the 3D printers we use I have at my house still but yeah one of those guys is sitting here uh moving along uh we have machines we can play now in the shop which is pretty awesome so U various things we're working on uh we did recently at Expo announced the uh Captain Fantastic topper uh which is here uh very excited about this because it's kind of a new format for us to build uh slightly more simple Toppers but do them for older machines that maybe won't drive the volume we need uh for a more complex topper but it's a new format uh that we're very excited about um lots of lots of signage um and then uh getting back this way we've got a kitchen which is nice uh we're thinking about maybe doing some events here every once in a while uh yeah absolutely more parts uh our little sticker thing going on here so if you guys got any stickers you want to send our way uh mini mini laser cutter this one's quite a bit smaller than the one that we use mainly but it's here on site which is nice and then we got uh is it back that one in my garage still that one's still in my garage yeah and then this is my space uh for both kind of R&D a little bit of a breakout room and then we've got a photo studio setup so I'm really excited about this we use this for attack so this is actually a 360 degree kind of rotating device let me spin it for you so it does that yeah um so that's what you what we use for the attack uh from Mars topper um to uh to to do a lot of that video so yeah so um pretty cool to have bun more space and you know pump things out a little faster I mean I'm proud of my workshop but I've got a bit of I always get Workshop Envy when you show me around your space like you've got everything's just better organized it's on better shelving uh you've got 360° spinning things which I don't have and just generally more spice but well we make a bigger product so I can promise you it's it's a major factor in our planning that's for sure and in my defense I use up a lot of my space for pinball machines now you do have a lot every time I keep asking you I'm like do you have this machine and it's like every time the answer is yes I don't know what's going on here this is crazy I know I know it's a it's it's an issue and a problem and I'm trying to cope yeah so well thank you guys let you around yeah if any of you are ever in town I would love love to host you and of course for those here in St Louis uh we're thinking about doing a bit of an open house like in March or or April so keep an eye out for that awesome man well I'd love to visit you guys one time and and get a look around um where is I mean my my American geography is so bad it's about 5 hours south of Chicago right kind of right in the middle just like Chicago is H but south of it yeah yeah yeah okay so if I was going to visit you it' be in conjunction with an expo trip probably totally totally come come hang out for AEK help me build some Toppers nah just like yeah just come for the jolly and then buger off for sure for sure well um so so you want to talk about Expo I mean like we played new games which is super exciting uh we did a ton of ton of interviews uh which we're gonna be kind of telling you guys a little bit about throughout the show uh Dave surprised me um in that one of the things that he did was he kind of did a bit of a kind of a spot check on folks on the floor to see what they were really into anything that came up that surprised you as far as uh General well uh yeah I mean a couple of things really I mean um well you know it was just the usual stuff you know X-Men came up a lot which is which is what you'd expect um Metallica came up a lot which is what you'd expect I mean these were the two sort of hypest shows of the game I would say um Avatar came up a little bit but probably less so I mean I don't know whether you um sort of seen sort of some of the surveys done sort of after the fact um I well yeah just a couple of the guys who do the newsletters and stuff have been doing surveys of what was the game of the show and stuff or I think maybe what the man like what was the what was the best bit of the show and I think Stern sort of came in number one which is what you'd expect but what came in number two was The Homebrew section which is completely awesome that you know I guess the home brew and you know Aaron who organizes it all and you know most importantly the individuals who invest so much time in making these games sort of just going from strength to strength when when it comes to their presence at these shows um uh so you know a lot of people were talking about the home brw a lot of people were talking about lead Zeppelin and The Stairway to Heaven that was one of the ones that came up um Josh rot brought up funh housee which I wasn't expecting so that was that was quite left field um and and then you the other big surprise hit of the show was Ninja E clips um you know obviously you know we've um we've talked to Chris before on the show uh you know and obviously he's a lovely dude you know his heart's you know certainly in the right place you know he wants to make a a proper go of this he wants to make a brilliant machine um he's not uh he you know the production of this game hasn't been without its hurdles when he initially sort of um brought this game out at and I always get this wrong but it was tpf I think that he first um first showed the game uh and then maybe it was Expo sorry it was Expo last year that he showed the game and then I think by now Expo again this time around so a year later he sort of um absorbed all that you know let and you know let's not sugarcoat it negative feedback and turned it around you know he he sort of made some alterations to the cabinet he made some alterations to the you know the plexiglass that was originally sort of the glass on the Playfield uh and essentially just turned around the negativity into you know like an overflow of positivity you know the his hype threads going off um you know he's now sold out of his uh 100 game allotment that uh that he sort of had uh organized and um you know I couldn't be happier for him yeah no I mean t of like I saw from multiple sources like you got to check this out I think Carrie was Carrie Hardy was maybe one of the first uh to do that and certainly a lot of people followed suit um it's a it's a great price point um the cabinet looks great I mean it looks now like the cabinet that we would all want to see um if you're even mildly interested it's it's easy to want to help uh support Chris in terms of absolutely you know being making his work a part of your collection so yeah kudos to him for sure yeah um the home brew section like you said was amazing one of the kind of interesting tidbits that I learned um was that because Stern went a little bit different route with their booth in terms of uh not uh using Marco to to set it up in its entirety they had all of that uh metal structuring that they normally use for the stern Booth available to use in the home brew Booth um and that really like took the home brew Booth to a whole another level in terms of just a feel um so I was really excited to see that I mean and and we had was the case actually that's awesome yeah yeah so that's what kind of made that happen and you know the stern Booth was really nice I mean like carpeted padded uh the the danger room that they created yeah that that Expo sorry the X-Men sort of box that they' created um did you get a good look at that like you know they had sort of like laser cut sort of uh detailing in the ceiling that was down and so it was just really really nicely done you know I mean you know trust trust Stern to sort of know you know all the right supplies to call to get something like that to happen but even still it was an impressive thing to see particularly as a maker um where you know you're always on the lookout aren't you for tricks that people are using to get a certain effect um so you know it was just a really impressive structure I thought um yeah and they had tons of X-Men to play so I never really felt like I had to wait on that they had uh I believe they may have had an Le there was an Le on the floor but usually they don't have you know quite yeah that was the the nice models yeah and they put their Venoms to good use on the on the corner caps which is good so it was it was a it was a great setup so no mention of Alice at all but we gotta talk about it you know uh I got my hands on that for the first time uh should we dive into that interview at least talk about a bit sound good yeah so so we did uh we did a bunch of interviews and and last year I think or maybe it was at tpf we did kind of like an hourong thing and it was all just a ton of content now we've got eight videos uh on our YouTube channel so you guys can watch all these things including the one we just show showed which was best a show um it as as individual um videos if you'd like uh this is the one that we did with Melvin Williams with Dutch pinball um got a lot of good footage uh my my camera was a little off here so this early part is uh a bit uh a bit fuzzy but yeah so so they had two machines and then eventually three machines on the floor uh of course the lines were long people were very excited to play this um they got people moving through it a little bit quicker uh by putting it on two ball which I I know was a bit of a controversial choice for people uh to have to wait that long yeah I was uh I was arguing for it to be set up hard but on the three ball but I got over so yeah so uh but they stuck with their decision um but they were you know Melvin was like their uh guiding people through the experience uh the man put in the work uh for sure as well as the rest of the team they had a lot of people there which was really cool this at the line um the game is is gorgeous and Dave kudos to you for the work you did the small amount of work that you did to make this thing as it is it was a very large amount of work compared to compared to the work that they did but I I think the rails were like a huge success I mean and that's your part the rails with the lights yeah I mean you know like let's it was Melvin's idea he was the one that laser cut the rails he was the one that um you know in essentially invented uh you know a routed Channel underneath the side rails in order to put an LED strip so yeah you know like it's a it's a lollipops uh board there it is right there guys in case you haven't noticed it there it's it's it's on the outside of the cabinet but man does it look good yeah yeah yeah so and that that effect there you can see it sort of like it's like a meteor running down the side of the cabinet there and that's that's one of my brand new patterns that I've got in the Lolly version 3 so that wasn't a pattern that was available in earlier versions of the lollipops and as soon as I got it coded in and checked it I was just like oh my God that is gorgeous um and correct me if I'm wrong but I can now tap into your device and know what mode is happening in the game yeah exactly right So for anybody who's any mod maker for that matter yeah yeah so this is so we've been talking about this for ages haven't we like um we've we've wanted closer access to game data so that we can do our jobs better essentially now if we've got knowledge of you know a very superficial level switches uh and lamps then we can you know we we no longer have to use like light sensing resistors like you do for all your Toppers I I no longer have to do um double adapters for board pins that people have to install in order to you know route cables around the Playfield like when we sort of started talking about this board in Alice um instantly we were like well let's just do a USB between the mpu and the lollipops board and then the coder yanos um then just sends all of the commands um to the to the board so that switches and lamps and modes um and then the board can then just pick those up and respond to them so it's you know if if every manufacturer was doing this then all you'd really have to do is just plug in a mod board via USB to somewhere or some other some other mechanism perhaps it needs to be a bit more ring fence than that but you know a very superficial level USB straight into the computer of the game and suddenly that that mod board is able to understand what's going on in the game and you can code it however you like so um the side Ro that are in Alice um are changing the pattern uh of that LED strip depending on what mode you're in so you know if you're on the Queen of Hearts it does some sort of you know red sort of pattern that's a bit fiery or whatever and if it's the find the White Rabbit then it's two sort of chasing white lights and but it could be anything you know these are just ones that I've come up with based on those modes um but anybody who buys an ALICE will be able to hook into that board uh you know on their phone using using the new app and change all of the patterns create more patterns for different modes randomize them and do different stuff there's a a spare output so if somebody wants to create a mod of their own to do something completely different then they can do and it can be triggered by really exciting um it's a really exciting step I suppose uh in allowing mod makers better access to this stuff and I really hope hope that um you know it's kind of open the open band door's box I suppose for this kind of thing because you know you know that that data that's going to my board that could be going to any mod Maker's board um you know should they should they wish it to and uh you know hopefully this is just a first step in in sort of a close integration for mod makers yeah definitely uh I'm I'm excited about seeing how it works and it you know uh there's a lot of cool things we could do with it it it is something we've been talking about for a while uh your audio switched to a different device I think but I think we're still hearing you okay so if anybody is having any new trouble uh here in Davey uh let us know can you hear me Dave are we there uh I can yeah I can hear you um yeah my my computer's uh having a few issues now if I pull this microphone out and plug it back in again I think OBS is going to crash so just bear with me all right like it take back two uh yeah no problem so uh we had we had some really fun stuff on the floor too uh so we had ATT attack from Mars in our booth uh of course uh because of the new topper that we released and uh we we we started the day at like 24 bill which we thought was a serious number uh Sterling who's a an amazing pinball player he's got quite a cool cool following um I think he's he may be 13 or 14 he put up 38 billion on the game um in the middle of his competition um which was really fun to see um and told us a little bit about it I think it's it's so crazy watching him play because like he is a very nonchalant style player like if you if you watch him play he's not he's not getting into the moves like you expect you know for somebody who's as good as he is but he just he just makes it happen it's fascinating to watch um so that that was really really fun to see it's funny because um so the Dutch pinball open DPO was happening over the weekend and I think Ren posted that that there was a a Dutch uh kid champion who played Alice in Wonderland right and I think he posted like 30 30 million or something which is the biggest score that anybody's posted on that game at both Expo and DPO and he's 10 this kid right he's 10 and there's there's photos of him playing and again he's just like he's literally just sort of standing there like like this totally like you know how we all do this and we're like he's not done it so we are he is his back is perfect perfectly square or perpendicular to the machine the entire time CRA yeah should be so uh yeah so tell us a little bit about pin sound you know we've we we continue to hit these guys up because like their stuff is amazing uh the workmanship on it is one of my favorite things which is obviously a little bit of a personal thing uh but but I I I saw these at tpf and I was like they're pretty cool but man I I I'm like that closeup of the grill can tell us a little bit about what's going on with this what are you thinking okay so this is the first time I met Nicholas um but we kind of we've chatted over chatted over email and stuff um I sent him a board uh cuz his son wanted to get into some coding and stuff so I sent him a board to help with that um but like there were so many moments at Expo that I just I just sort of walked and you know like I know you were giving stick CU I'm like uh so everybody at home Rob's really great at doing interviews like he gets there on the first day and just smashes out about seven or eight interviews on the truck and then he always comes up to me and he says Dave how many interviews have you done and of course all I've been doing is like socializing and drinking beer so I've never done any interviews and I always feel really guilty about it it's always like rting at the back of my mind so by the time that I actually get around to doing the interviews I'm kind of like slightly dreading it I suppose you sort of I don't know you sort of have to build yourself up um to you know to to get to that point where you're being sort of you know asking the right questions and things like that and I find it difficult but once I got into the swing of it I just absolutely loved it and talking to Nicholas was another one of these experiences where you know just talking to him and hearing about sort of all the things that he's done and you know hearing his passion for stuff you know I was I was just really enjoying it now you know seeing the back of it like this so this is for anybody that doesn't know they've designed these uh speaker covers that are essentially screens but they are sort of like a hex design to sort of replicate the same sort of hex design that is on most Stone uh speaker plates um and yeah St speak speaker plates and uh and they act like a scream but because they've got uh holes in them they allowing the S sound to go through now could you just rewind a little bit Rob just so and pause it on that on the on the back of it so if you could turn it over wait till he turns it over there it is there it is there's the CLW CLW yeah so anyway but what this bit here now right now I'm just going to nerd out a little bit here oh oh let let me start the stopwatch hang on a second all right you're good