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Texas Pinball Festival 2024 - 12 Interviews!! - Pulp Fiction, Friday the 13th, Princess Bride & More

In Before the Lock·video·38m 42s·analyzed·Mar 20, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

TPM 2024 interviews: Pulp Fiction design, homebrew boom, Multimorphic Princess Bride debut, vendor showcases.

Summary

Coverage of Texas Pinball Festival 2024 featuring 12 interviews with game designers, manufacturers, and vendors. Key discussions include George Gomez on Pulp Fiction's design journey, homebrew games like Friday the 13th and Motorhead, Multimorphic's Princess Bride reveal, Turner Pinball's Ninja Eclipse progress, and various aftermarket vendors (PinSound, Precision Flips, Rocket City Pinball). Strong emphasis on homebrew community growth, accessibility, and cross-platform innovation.

Key Claims

  • George Gomez initially tried to emulate Pulp Fiction movie imagery directly, but the artist (Matt Scott McCleskey) requested a '70s/80s vibe instead, not based on the movie per se

    high confidence · Direct quote from Gomez discussing design iteration with artist

  • Friday the 13th homebrew has 23 modes, 4 multiballs, and features voice callouts from 6 real actors from the film series

    high confidence · Kyle's explicit statements about game features

  • Friday the 13th homebrew took approximately 1.5 years to complete and uses parts sourced from multiple manufacturers (Williams, Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, D-Group, Spooky)

    high confidence · Kyle's detailed breakdown of timeline and component sourcing

  • Motorhead homebrew has been in development for about 2 years by Brad Albright and David Peck (Rotordave)

    high confidence · Brad and David's discussion of development timeline

  • Princess Bride is Multimorphic's biggest theme/title to date, and the platform's screen capabilities enable better execution of movie themes than competitors

    high confidence · Jerry Stellenberg's comparison statements

  • Multimorphic has 8 physical modules and 21 total games (including downloadable games) at TPM

    high confidence · Jerry Stellenberg's explicit product count

  • Turner Pinball's Ninja Eclipse is planned to ship in fall 2024 with code approximately 95% complete at TPM, planning to release feature-complete at launch

    high confidence · Chris Turner's shipping timeline and code status

  • Ninja Eclipse production run is 100 units for Blackwater configuration

    high confidence · Chris Turner's direct statement

  • Precision Flips' aluminum flipper system allows coil power reduction of 15-20 clicks and maintains performance over extended play sessions

    high confidence · John's product performance claims at booth

Notable Quotes

  • “If you guys don't understand what I want, then I'll get somebody, my own guys to do it.”

    Matt Scott McCleskey (artist on Pulp Fiction)@ 2:25 — Reveals creative tension in design process; artist demanded creative control over aesthetic direction

  • “It's just so immersive... Not many play great. This one definitely hits the mark.”

    Interviewer (discussing Motorhead homebrew)@ 5:57 — Validates Motorhead homebrew quality; positions it among top-tier homebrew games

  • “Everything louder than everything else... We are Motorhead.”

    Brad Albright (describing Motorhead band philosophy)@ 7:59 — Captures design philosophy driving the homebrew; directly reflects Lemmy's defiant ethos

  • “We can do movie themes on this system better than anyone else can, because we have that screen and we can immerse you in the content of it.”

    Jerry Stellenberg (Multimorphic founder)@ 21:56 — Claims competitive advantage for Princess Bride via screen-based immersion

  • “I realized the cabinet was like this sacred thing, and I didn't know about that. But the cabinet is sacred.”

    Chris Turner (Turner Pinball)@ 17:26 — Reveals community attachment to classic cabinet form factor; shift from slimline back to standard design based on feedback

  • “Pinball's hard. There's a lot to it. I mean, it's probably the most multidisciplinary project I've ever worked on.”

    Chris Turner@ 18:13 — Emphasizes complexity of pinball manufacturing; justifies extensive team (electrical, mechanical, software engineers, artists)

Entities

George GomezpersonMatt Scott McCleskeypersonKylepersonBrad AlbrightpersonDavid Peck (Rotordave)personMatt KemppersonJerry StellenbergpersonChris Turnerperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Multimorphic's open platform strategy successfully driving third-party development ecosystem; 8 physical modules, 21 total games including downloadable titles and conversion kits

    high · Jerry Stellenberg: 'We consider it an open system, an open platform. So we have a development kit. Developers can write their own games.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Fast Pinball highlighting camaraderie and supportive ecosystem as key value proposition; emphasis on encouragement and accessibility for new builders

    high · Aaron Davis: 'The fact that like we just want you to join the madness with us and actually bring a Pinball to see the delight.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2024 homebrew section records unprecedented attendance and foot traffic; reportedly busiest section of entire show for three consecutive days

    high · Aaron Davis: 'The homebrew space here is packed. This has been the busiest section of the entire show, I think.' Multiple corroborating comments on line length vs. other games.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Artist-designer collaboration reveals tension over aesthetic authenticity: Matt McCleskey rejected literal movie adaptation in favor of '70s/80s design language for Pulp Fiction

    high · George Gomez recounting McCleskey's demand: 'If you guys don't understand what I want, then I'll get somebody, my own guys to do it.'

  • $

    market_signal: Precision Flips aluminum flipper system showing strong TPM sales demand; John reports 'selling really well' and running low on stock

    high · John: 'It's been selling really well. Have you had enough stock? Oh, barely, barely. I've got a couple left.'

Topics

Homebrew Pinball SurgeprimaryGame Design Philosophy and IterationprimaryManufacturing and Production PlanningprimaryAftermarket Hardware and UpgradessecondaryPlatform Innovation (Multimorphic, Fast Pinball)primaryCommunity Engagement and SupportsecondaryArtist and Thematic Design IntegrationsecondarySoftware Development and Code Updatessecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Strong positive sentiment throughout. Consistent praise for homebrew quality, game designs, and community support. Enthusiasm for shows and festivals. Only minor friction noted: cabinet form factor feedback and design iteration challenges. No significant negativity or controversy.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.116

We'll be right back. We'll be right back. All right, I'm with George, designer, everything around fault fiction. Software guy. Software guy. Well, I'm going to call him designer. software guys are designers too and in this freaking awesome case let's see this all right we're not gonna go too far but there's something in there baby there's something in there uh good stuff yeah scott mccleskey did the art i went to pull uh tell us about the journey with that a little bit anything and do your curveballs when you put it together only that in the early part i was trying to emulate the movie with you know images from the film and stuff and he goes if you guys don't understand what I want, then I'll get somebody, my own guys to do it. Oh, no. So I had to sit down and kind of rethink what he wanted. And what he wanted was like a 70s pitbull, 80s pitbull, but not based on the movie per se. Yeah. So that's kind of why the character. I love how you brought all the characters into the scene. I noticed the Jack Rabbit on the left. Any controversy about bringing him in there? Or was he like, I guess he was featured on the sign, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's supposed to be Jack Reb. It's the bottle behind the bar. We're in the bottles, yeah. The bottle has been meeting. It's three-chain limber. It's the bottle and the bar in the back. All right. So now there's 1,000 of the LE model, right? Did you call it LE? Yeah. Yeah, and then the other one, is there a limit on that one as well? No limit. No limit, all right. Friday the 13th. Kyle, right? Cracking open? Spent a year and a half on this, which is a ridiculously short amount of time for what it is. It's got fallouts from the real actors. Callouts from the real actors. Callouts from six real actors. We got six actors from the series providing custom callouts, 23 modes, four multiballs. Took me a year and a half. All original layout using parts from Williams, Stern, JGP, American Pinball, and D-Group. So this is from Walking Dead, that's from Tron, that's from Hobbit. All right, give me that again. All right, this is from Tron, this is from Walking Dead, this is from Hobbit, that's from Spooky, this is from Kiss, this is from Terminator. And the flippers are deeper flippers, and I've got a chain pop written on them. You alright with that? Yeah. Alright. I mean, it doesn't look too bad. At least you color-coded it. Yeah. For your own sanity. Yeah, so I got rid of a lot of the paint and stain, I tried to be pretty methodical with the terminal blocks. Wow, dude. Have you ever tackled any projects of this magnitude for pinball before? No, I've been in the hobby for about 10 years, and I love playing them, but I like working on them more, and I said, how can I combine my love of the 80s and sci-fi movies and horror movies with my love of pinball? I'll just make my own game. Hell yeah, man. Here I am. It's incredible. So you got plans for any more? Yep. I'm going to take a nice long break after TPF. I've been hauling ass for this one. I have ideas for pin number two. I'm thinking maybe a music pin or another movie pin. Check out Motorhead. It's a no-cube homebrew designed by Brad Brad Albright, and he's developed it by David Peck, Rotordave, if you're on pin side. David Peck. These guys have been working on this for how long? About two years. Two years. It's amazing. I mean, I've played a lot of homebrews here. Some play great. Some play don't great. Not many play great. This one definitely hits the mark. My favorite thing is it's just, like, so immersive. Like, it's up to you. We'll get into that, though. What's the story on this game? Yeah, so, well, David and I, we've been friends for about five years, purely over the Internet, messaging back and forth, all about pinball and music. and we worked previously on his Led Zeppelin re-team of the Valley Freedom 1976. And then he asked if I was a fan of Motorhead, which of course I was. It's the loudest show I've ever seen. And so we started throwing ideas back and forth. He was working on his Whitewood and I started exploring what the visual world would be with a bit of a set bar inspiration. That kind of monochrome limited color palette. And his design philosophy as far as layout is kind of like a retro single-level playfield with a dual-right flipper-scissor situation, but also integration of some modern features like modes and video components. So it's accessible to the layperson with not an intimidating rule set. anybody can come up and play and have fun. But for those that have the skill and the, you know, the knowledge of pinball, there's more to dig into and be rewarded by. So, you know, I don't know much about Motorhead. I know a lot of people don't. One of the things that I noticed was, like, it's pretty damn funny. Like, the guys are calling you out. They're kind of antagonizing you. I know this Lemmy guy, and I know he's a character. What's his story, and, like, how did you integrate him into the game? And he's just, Motorhead is synonymous with Lemmy. He was just a legend. And just such a defiant devil may care kind of attitude. Got the mutton chops, right? That was mutton chops. Like huge mole on his face. You know, everything louder than everything else. You know, we are Motorhead. We're just, you know. And were they tongue in cheek about that? Or was that, that was them? No, that was just the whole vibe. It was fun, but aggressive. You know, it's very early thrash, which directly leads to, like, Metallica. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, if you look these guys up, I mean, so many famous artists were inspired by Lemmy and these guys. Very cool. So there's three of these? Is that what I hear? In different states of different there. So that part of the process. Yeah, yeah. We haven't mentioned him yet. Matt Kemp is our programmer. You might know him from working on Ultraman and Halloween. He happens to be about 10 minutes away from Dave in New Zealand. So the two of them could work together in person, figuring out how the implementation of the rules is going to work. And then I've been with them strictly over Facebook Messenger and email for the last couple of years. and in fact we just met in person just okay three days ago but we were already like best of friends yeah the collaboration on this like obviously it's very art driven probably from the beginning yeah that glass is awesome it's got this muted you know color that you know i wouldn't think would work you know just right so he described it to me but uh it looks really great Yeah, yeah. It's a black, red, white. I was responsible for the cabinet back glass the play field the arc blades We got a dimensional component in the inner back panel I did animation and motion graphics and then user interface layout that then Matt has actually brought to life Tell us about what you did with Spooky on this because I know that they were a part of... That's what helped me bring this to life. So Spooky sponsored it. They provided the control board, the work board, and some of the mechanical guts of how it was put together. David constructed the cabinet, and so the idea was to do it with largely just stock parts. We have some original playfield, you know, bash toy, stuff like that for the topper. but largely it's stock components you guys are going to be doing maybe a stream on this coming up getting a little bit more deep dive in the coming weeks yeah I believe they're going to do a stream from Benton Wisconsin, Spooky HQ yeah alright so last thing, the shake it feature I want to get in on that and I want you to kind of describe that to us and maybe we'll get back to them Yeah, so the left out lane rollover triggers basically a disconnect on the tilt-bop so you can shake or leave it out of the machine and save it from going out the out lane. And it goes shake it, shake it. You mind if I do it? One of my favorite call-outs is if you fail, the zero shake brought no one to the yard. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, the voice call-outs are particularly great. Yes, the voice is great. So Brad Brad Albright, he's got a sweet light over here. He's got some amazing artwork. Thank you. He's got to pick up his TPM poster. You guys are here. Thanks for showing it off. And also, Brad is collaborating with Electric Playground on a topper that we've got coming up later this year. We do have a sneak peek at the show. The feedback's been amazing. I can't tell you how many people have been like, I know who did that artwork. That's Brad's style. So, I'm very excited to be putting that out there. And, Brad, congrats on Butterhead. It's awesome. Thank you, guys. All right. I am here on the Precision Flips stand with the lovely John from Precision Flips. We're at Texas People Festival. We're on the third day now, isn't it? Sunday? Day three, and my voice is starting to really falter. I think everybody's voice is a little bit lighter. Yeah. All we've been doing is playing people and talking to people. Yeah, I haven't had a chance to go out and play any of the new games but just maybe 10 minutes. But it's good. I like some of the new stuff. It's pretty neat. They definitely need a little bit of a flipper enhancement on some of them. Indeed, indeed. What John has is he built precision clips. Now I've really never come to mind getting a national build. It's these machine aluminium flippers. precision of the shots. These machine aluminium flippers improve the overheating coils of the flippers. Precision of the shots is great. Yeah, there's the big advantage because you're not losing any of the mechanical, you know, But it's right. I mean, the coil has to overcome the slop that's in the factory setup. So this takes all that away and makes it a lot more efficient. So the coil does its job without any kind of, you know, slippery and wasted energy is the big thing. So most of the customers can reduce the coil powers down 15, 20 clicks easy. these games have been in here on for 14, 16 hours and they play as fresh as they did at 16 hours as they did when we first turned them on people down at the Marcos Turnbooth playing those games they come back and they go wow your game plays a lot different well it's because of the flippers what's up guys I've got Timothy with Pinsound you all know his products you probably have some of them but they've got new stuff for the show are you debuting? These things here? Definitely. Thanks a lot for stopping by to this awesome technology we are releasing for the GPF20.4. The PinVision and PinBlaster are the two new products we are showing off for the Texas Pinball Festival. The PinVision is an LED matrix that goes on the top of the speaker. I would say it's not a speaker ring because it's Waymo. It's a 2D matrix synchronized with the game. So it's actually LED matrices, but it's like matching the pitch of the grid, you can see. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So this is, you guys are doing custom animations for each game for this, right? So you're building these to the game? Correct. What we do is for the Godzilla, Jurassic Park, and Elvira. But now we have platform, we'll be able to add custom animations like once every month. Currently we are offering a boat, then the next item I get will be a stranger thing. Let me show you how it works behind the scenes. It replaces the original speaker holder here. It's all included, very easy to set up. You have the controller here, the 48V, the original one, so no fiddling with the service socket. What's amazing to the sound, because we are Pinsound and we do love sound, we needed to do something about the sound on the Spark games. Here we are, because we do offer aftermarket speakers, but we want to go further. Here is a 15 second amplifier. You simply disconnect the power supply and speaker wires, slap it on it, 15 seconds maximum, and that's it. That's with fine control like tone control, external output, DC chaining for subwoofer up to six gain, so it has multiple by two gain. You can DC chain them for single subwoofer, single subwoofer. That's the way to go. Which price is 200? It's a no-brainer for a game room. So this enhances the current speakers on the system. Correct. You do not need to add new speakers. Yeah, it's it work with the original one to pull me to one and you don't want my wings to of course And you can add a sub to it We yeah guys Really cool product. I mean This is a simple solution obviously More affordable than some tops is definitely affordable If you want to go down to do it yourself way pretty much coach to the same. So I think it's no way you know, awesome. We're here with Chris Turner, with Turner Pitball, into Eclipse. You guys were not very far along, at least as far as you are now at TPM. Last year here we are a year later, and it's really coming together. Game looks great. How's the reception been so far? It's been awesome. So, yeah, last year we were here at TPM. We had our whitewood prototype. It was really early. I I mean, we're just barely shootable. But we got a lot of great feedback on it, and we iterated through the play field and the shots. Then we went to Expo in October, and we went with a slimline cabinet that I thought people were going to think was really cool, but I realized the cabinet was like this sacred thing, and I didn't know about that. But the cabinet is sacred. We just don't learn, right? That's what I learned. And so we took all the feedback that we got up there, and we incorporated it into this final design, and the reception has been amazing. I mean, people have loved it. They've come. They've been complimenting on the artwork, the layout. Everyone really likes the scoop shot. It's kind of like a ninja wall jump. And the game has performed great, played great, and we're super excited. All right, so you're doing 100 of these, right? Yes, sir. We're going to do 100. I mean, when you set out on this journey, like, obviously, you know, you're taking the feedback. What are some things that have surprised you about just the process of making this? Is it a bit harder? I know you've made pitfalls in the past. doing on your own is a whole nother story. Pinball's hard. There's a lot to it. I mean, it's probably the most multidisciplinary project I've ever worked on. We've got a talented team. We've got electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, software engineers, artists, animators. It takes all of those different skills to make a great pinball machine. So you're doing a hundred of these. You may do some more in some different configurations, but you're probably also thinking about what's next. And this has been a jumping off point for that. How far are you on what's next? Well, I'm really taking it one step at a time. So I want to get these, I want to get the chip, and then I also don't want to be behind on the next thing. So I'm kind of trying to balance those two things. Yeah, yeah. You know, as mod makers, or in your case, the ultimate mod, which is the game itself, you know, it's a process of like balancing those two things. But, you know, you're going to learn about also supporting it too. Like, you know, you can't lose sight of that, which could be really tough. But yeah, I mean, what else do we know about Ninja Eclipse in terms of things that are different about it or things you most excited about So there a really deep backstory to this The team put a lot of effort into it We came with this unlicensed theme and we thought it was important that we develop that story to really engage the audience. We've got a 36-page illustrated comic book that my team developed. We also put together a short video. It's on our YouTube channel, Turner Pinball on YouTube. People can go, and they've got to get a glimpse of what the backstory is. but our artist and playfield designer Brad Duke, he was actually an English teacher in Japan for a while, and so he knows a lot about Japanese culture and all the things that you see on the playfield. I mean, these are, like, legitimate Japanese folklore things. The characters and everything, all of that actually means something. And there were a few people that came up and played it, and they were like, they actually knew Japanese, and they were like, oh, this means this, this means that. So it's really cool to see people recognizing that there's actually a deeper meaning here. I mean, it's beautiful, but there's more to it than you might just glance at. So this is shipping roughly? In fall. I'm estimating about six months to start shipping. So we're taking orders now. We think that it's going to take probably three to four months to get to parts, and then we'll start building it. And will the code be, like, really where you want it, or is it going to be early at that point? We've been working on the code from the very beginning. We went to Expo with Kodos about 60% complete. We're about 95% now. We've got one more wizard mode to implement. But I really want this to be completely full-featured at launch. And then it's interesting. I talked to some folks here at the show, and I was like, they noticed that I put code complete at delivery. And they said, I actually don't like that. And I was like, really? And they said, well, it's nice to have little things that are going to come out. And we're excited to look forward to the next features. I said, okay, I need to try to balance that, right? I'm always trying to listen and learn. And so we're going to give a full featured game, but maybe we have a few things we could add to bring more value to the game over time. Take us on the journey with you. I got Gerry Stellenberg with T3 Multimorphic. How you doing? I'm still going. It's going great. The lines have been huge the entire show. I've noticed. I've only got in like one game, and I had to get in a special time to get in the event. Yeah, even Saturday night with the VIP party, everyone came and flocked over. Well, there was a big rush, and the rush dispersed out, and a lot of it came here, which is exciting. You know, you've done a lot of shows, debuted a lot of games. Did anything feel different about this one to you? I mean, it's a bigger theme. It's a bigger title than we've done before. People walk in knowing they want to play The Princess Bride. We had Weird Al before, but this seems bigger, and it's a movie theme. And we can do movie themes. Yeah, I love it. It's a movie theme. Yeah. We can do movie themes on this system better than anyone else can, because we have that screen and we can immerse you in the content of it. So it's really cool. Absolutely. So anything you've been surprised to hear? Because this is really the first time you've showed it, right? It's the first show it's been at. A lot of people have played it. No, it seems like most people love it. They walked away smiling. Yeah, I mean, it's a full package. The art is amazing. It really all comes together. The topper's pretty sweet, too. I'm a topper guy. Okay, all right. So anything interactive about it? It looks like you've got some modes. It's early in the development of the topper code, But the storybook is interacting, telling you your progress in the mode. The flame spurts go when you activate the fire swamp mode. And light shows run through it, too. So I know, you know, so there's these guys out here making vibes. Like, it seems like there's a couple themes that people have kind of run with, with the multi-mobility platform and done their own. Like, you guys are welcoming folks to come in and do their own stuff. Yeah, so we consider it an open system, an open platform. So we have a development kit. Developers can write their own games. They can create their own modules. They can make their own button boxes. If they want a different button configuration, they can do that themselves. We work with people to help them make the system better for them. All right, so we're going to do a little tour of some of the other platforms. You've got about six, maybe even ten different titles at this point. We have eight physical modules, including Drained, which is a third-party one. There's 21 total games with downloadable games included in that. So you don't necessarily have to have the full package to play some different games. I think we've got some options on it. It's like the Heist Playfield. We have one Heist running Heist, and then another one running Dungeon or Defender on the Heist Playfield. All right, so T3 Multimorphic, super innovative platform, lots of different options with this. You're going to have a lot of life, and you guys are all building to the spec of the original cabinet that you're buying, right? So if I bought the cabinet today, I would know for a long time everything you're making is going to be compatible with that. That's right. Everything's fabric compatible to the original machine. The original original machine. The first one we've shipped. And any upgrade we've done can be retrofitted into old. All right, guys. Check him out. Jerry with B3. Hey, guys. I'm here with Andy from Rocket City Pinball at the Rocket City Pinball booth at TTF 2024. It's Sunday, so we've been through three days of talking, selling, and how's it been going? It's been going great. It's been an amazing show. I'm really tired, but it's been a lot of fun. But now the crowds have been huge, the games have been great. I had some time to sneak away and play some pinball, get some high scores all over the place. Got my name peppered in some games. Right, right, yeah. So I'm having a blast there. It's been awesome. And I can see that your choice of airball deflector is out in front there. Yes, I... What's been the figure of life on that? Oh, yeah. You know, it's been really funny because people have been coming here and being like, oh, this is that thing I heard about. Oh, let me grab one of those. So it's been selling really well. Have you had enough stock? Oh, barely, barely. I've got a couple left. So if anybody's watching, they've got to come back. Yeah, great stuff. But everybody's saying really good things about it. I think the UK crew picked off seven, didn't they, when they came past it? Yeah, your buddy got seven or eight. So hopefully it'll be all over UK now. That's great. Now, what are some of the other items that people think might be cool? Well, aside from all the Jaws stuff, I mean, the star buttons are always kind of like my big thing that everybody loves. Everybody walks down the road and they say, oh, look at these pretty lights. And then they come up and they say, oh, wow, those are buttons for games. George's one's my absolute favorite. Oh, thank you. So, yeah, that one's a lot of fun. It's got so many different colors on that one. I got a bunch of new stuff, new star buttons this time around that I didn't have last time. I made a fun one for Demolition Man with that, you know, the star kind of hidden in the ice here under the claw. Of course, I got Labyrinth. This Labyrinth is relatively new and a lot of fun. That's an old Iron Maiden one right there. I got Looney Tunes. So, yes, people love the star buttons, and I'm happy to provide them. They're a lot of fun to design and put together. I can say the Joe's Boy live present for me on the front deck. Yeah, so I brought it to start showing it off. I haven't put it up for sale yet, but I'm working out some details on the finish. I want to make it a little bit steeper. And that's for the center button, isn't it, or the lockdown bar? Correct. Yeah, because in the game, you know, the lockdown bar button serves as your light ring. So a light ring around it was perfect. So I've got this version, and I'm trying to make another version that has the workout lettering on it. That one's been proven challenging, but I'll get there. But I'll have the rest of the game. You need the tier to hold down the rope on this version. So actually, yeah, this one's kind of fun because the way I modeled this one is I actually put holes behind the wrap and I feed the rope through so it actually goes all the way through. But I have the option to be with or without the rope if anybody wants that like that. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun doing this stuff. It's just, oh, I need more time. I need more hours in the day. All right. I think we all sort of fall into that category. I think we're sure. Hey, guys. I'm here with Paul. People might know him as Daz Boucher on the inside. Paul's the guy who did the amazing atomic Godzilla, Fort Godzilla. and a bunch of other mods. We're here at the Stern Arena and most of the Jaws' but you've also done lots of other games like James Bond. Yeah, that's right. So tell us a little bit about that one. So, I mean, we were talking about it earlier but with James Bond I really didn't know what I was going to look at in terms of mods. I didn't know what opportunities there would be until I played it. But once you play the games, that's what's great about going somewhere like this. you really get to get under the hood a little bit and play them and experience how they flow and where the points of interest are in the game and that's what I love about about getting here and getting physical with the games so with James Bond once I got to actually play it a little bit at home that's when I realized I really wanted that moment of the laser cutting scene yeah and that's what I worked on and put all the effort into really so you know it's getting that moment of inspiration when you've actually played it a little bit so yeah you found the same thing going around the all this time around yeah it's been great I mean obviously we've been hanging out a little bit but playing some of the games here particularly Jaws it's really really inspiring and it gives you some ideas like honestly before coming here I didn't know what I might do with Jaws but it's given me a few good ideas but also playing the old games you know like really old games you see little mechs that haven't been used in any recent games and it just sparks ideas and you sort of cross pollinate a little bit the new stuff the old stuff and it just sort of triggers some interesting thoughts because we were on Elvis weren't we yes the amazing hip wiggling Elvis awesome what an amazing thing that is so cool so simple but so effective so looking at things like that really triggers inspiration and yeah I'm looking forward now to getting stuck in on some new ideas actually right yeah I love what you're saying that well hopefully that's how I get into it Aaron basketball hello how are you man it's Sunday afternoon at TPM, my voice is gone, we're thinking we're gonna update some firmware and stuff at the booth, we're insane. Like it's just the stuff you're trying to do at the end of a show, and I don't know, I blathering right now but like the homebrew space here it packed like this has been so full all weekend This has been the busiest section of the entire show I think that such a testament to what these guys have done your assistance in what they've done, where the technology's at, where the skill level is at of these guys. It's buzz. Oh yeah. When we come in, the door opens and everyone's making a beeline over here. Murdoch walked over and said, the lines are longer here than we're seeing on all the other games around. It's so exciting for everybody here. I mean, the ability to, like, bust ass and get to a show and actually show off your work, it's a good goal for a project. But I think the camaraderie here has been, like, the best part. I mean, I've been so proud seeing people bring their friends over to come meet us. They're like, we want to do a homebrew, and they need to talk to us to hear how, like, encouraging, how supportive we want to be and stuff like that. The fact that, like, we just want you to join the madness with us and actually bring a pimple to see the delight. And the quality level of these guys is like nothing I've seen before. This is off the charts. We did a Making Pimble, Making Friends panel the other day, and I appreciated Ernie Silverberg at the end jumped in and said, by the way, if you come by and see the homebrews, these are fit and finish off the charts, like our packages, everything else. Usually you see some whitewoods and things like that. We don't want people to feel discouraged that their project might not be at the full dress stage. Just getting here with a game that does anything, you're going to get feedback, you're going to try things out, you're going to find out whether things are fun or not. Getting to shows is definitely a good milestone in your big pinball journey. For people who don't know, Fast Pinball creates essentially a board set that facilitates the building of the pinball machine. So not all of these games are running fast. Not all of them, no. So most of them tend to be. So Saw and Beavis and Butthead are using our modern system. Swords of Vengeance is running our retro system, which is like a system level drop-in board. Like you see in the conversion kits at the 2.0 projects and stuff like that. But I feel like we've made some good friends here, so maybe people's next games will be in the Fast Family. So, very proud of that. It's also a bonus to the production, like, manufacturers. Yes, absolutely. So, that was one of the most wonderful parts of the project. Very proud to be a part of the Labrador project. I was telling people earlier that, like, I hadn't seen the Labrador movie since I was a kid, maybe at a slumber party. So I put it on about a month ago. I was telling my wife, it's like watching the Labrador movie, it's like watching a movie made about the pinball machine my friends made. So you see all the characters and the jokes and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, that's why that makes sense. So working with them has been fantastic. We got to actually be involved enough to provide some guidance. This is how we would do it if we built a game. They're like, cool, everything makes sense. So it's been a really great thing to be a part of a really complicated project like a pinball machine. And we can be over in our corner ready to help out anytime you need it. So that's what we try to do for all the commercial projects. How do you make it so that it's all that scale? So honestly, it hasn't been bad. So during all the supply chain challenges we've had over the last so many years, we got ahead of it a bit. We have worked with a lot of other big customers outside of pinball that were like, trouble's coming. So we were buying up processors and things like that. So we're forced to really figure out what you do with a lot of stuff going on all at once. So when it gets down to scaling up with the needs of manufacturing, it's doing the stuff that we've done, but just at a greater scale. So our manufacturing partner stateside, it's just like crank up the numbers. Yeah, it's like the ACVs on the site. Right. Try a little bit. We do some LED stuff overseas and stuff still, but I was actually able to convince our manufacturers locally. I said, if you buy this certain machine, 50 grand, I'm not just going to grind you on price, but I can bring stuff back stateside because it becomes more cost effective and stuff. So we're so proud of being able to aim what we're doing wherever it needs to. Even looking at the future with some of our partners that we're working with overseas in Europe and stuff now to come up with a licensing model where we get up towards manufacturing over in Europe as getting around tear-outs and extra shipping stuff back and forth. So really looking at the ways not only for scaling up production ourselves, but find ways to let our customers save money on higher volume production. Because, I mean, businessy business, we still make the same money if they're doing a lot of manufacturing over there and saving money on shipping. Brian Redshaw, my buddy from St. Louis. He runs the league that I'm in. I think I took you down. You beat me. You got me first. Big division, yeah. Judge Dredd came through for me. So Brian works on what's called pre-wars. Pre-World War II. Pre-World War II. We've got a huge collection of pre-wars. How many of these are yours? Five of them are mine. Okay, so five of these are yours. And, you know, I've been hearing about this airway game. Airway is one of my absolute favorites. And if I understand it, there's ten cities, you've got ten balls. You've got ten balls, you've got ten shots, you can play a perfect game. You get to see anyone pulling off. Yeah, he's got a $100 offer for anyone that can get in. And we haven't had to pay that down again. So they're literally giving away $100 if anyone does it. You've done seven before? I've gotten up to seven. I've seen someone get nine, and they just missed the tenth shot. All right. Give us a little demo of this guy. All right. So it goes all the way around, and then you can bump it. It does have a tilt. Most people don't realize that up in the top right corner there's a tilt mac, But it's more to keep you from lifting the front end than it is from nudging. All right, I'm going to let you go. Get up there. And this was also one of the first ones to have a score totalizer, so it shows you which ones you scored at the bottom, so it's easier to add them up. There we go, Cleveland. Now I've got the more worthless ones. hey i'll get in new york chicago yes that's one i never get if you're recording and i hit 10 i'm gonna love you forever so what uh what condition would you say this is on a scale of one to ten this is pretty good this is probably a seven or eight at least like we've got it all cleaned up really well everything's working i don't think the cabinet is original jeff has one over here that i think is an original cabinet and you can see some of the differences with it but it's whoever made the new cabinet did a fantastic job and it looks very good so it's like i never complained on it so how hard does this come by like these come up they come up every so often yeah yeah you know like if we're in the facebook group we've seen two or three come up in the last couple of years so you can find them it's just a matter of are you willing to pay what they're going for and what's the rough price on something like this. I've seen them go for $500. I've seen them go for over $1,000. It just depends on who has it, how much they want to keep it, and how much somebody wanting to buy is willing to go. If you get into a bidding war, make it expensive. We're here on Sunday. You know I've got to get some Don's Fistball Podcast in. Don's Fistball Podcast. Final day of TTF. Show just about to close, and my voice has about this much volume. I can tell. It's so loud here. You're screaming for three days straight. Yeah, this video's gonna have all sorts of pops. We're a little loud right now, but we're here at Back Alley Creations. These guys do some awesome stuff. Say hi, guys. Back Alley Creations. These guys do some sick stuff. Anything dumping out at you? Yeah, so this is this wooden apron they've got for Jaws is amazing. They've got a light up to the corner here with the head of the dude's boat who gets eaten, right? I mean, you've got an accompanying shooter rod. It's fairly grotesque, but I mean, come on. What? He's also doing his take on the Elvira crypts. These have been amazing. I've got my own variation. People have their own up inside. So much fun to add more greeting to the flat glasses that we have there. Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. I have this for Scooby-Doo. Oh, this is like a missile, right? This is for the apron. Yeah, that's it. So he did all the sculpts for the castle and rock work for Scooby-Doo, for Spooky, but he also has this optional apron you can add, and even more minecart characters if you want to put them on there. So all this stuff is resin cast that he does. He's the guy that does all the dripping blood and goo and whatever. Make your color. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, the selection has really expanded over the years. So if you want to add any kind of goo or other bodily fluid to your game, like, this is your guy. What else? You seen anything? You played anything new that really jumped out at you? Yeah, so I'm going to spend more time on Barbecue Princess Five. This is the first time playing that here. Yeah. And, you know, it's enjoyable for what it is. It's a niche product for a niche market. It's gorgeous. I mean, like, if you love Friends of Pride, I think you're going to have to go in on it. I love that theme so much that I'm even compelled to consider it, you know. But it's the sort of thing that the people that have a P3 will tell you all day about how much they love it, and people that don't have a lot of reasons why they don't. But they're here to play, and it's a fun game. I got to get on the send card. The one of one. Will there ever be any more? And maybe the rarest production in my machine of all time, and it's here. Yeah, well, they'll get there. What shows you got coming up? Anything else on your radar? There'll probably be a Southern Fine Gaming Expo in July down in Atlanta. Expo for sure. Probably MGC in Milwaukee. Beyond that, it's all speculation. Signing off from CBF, guys. It's been great. Great to have Don here with us. Absolutely. A little walk of action. He's got five gold tickets. They're probably all gone by now. People finally found them all. They've been turning them in all weekend. Free t-shirts. Awesome. It's been a blast. Take care, guys.
  • PinSound is releasing PinVision (LED matrix speaker ring) and PinBlaster (15-second amplifier) for GPF 2.0.4 games at $200 price point

    high confidence · Timothy's product announcement and pricing

  • “The homebrew space here is packed. This has been the busiest section of the entire show, I think.”

    Aaron Davis (Fast Pinball)@ 21:20 — Documents unprecedented homebre interest at TPM; signals community momentum

  • “The quality level of these guys is like nothing I've seen before. This is off the charts.”

    Aaron Davis@ 29:50 — Third-party validation of homebrew quality surge; positions homebrew at professional level

  • “Getting to shows is definitely a good milestone in your big pinball journey.”

    Aaron Davis (citing Ernie Silverberg)@ 30:22 — Normalizes homebrew at shows; encourages participation regardless of finish level

  • “I actually don't like that... Well, it's nice to have little things that are going to come out. And we're excited to look forward to the next features.”

    Unidentified TPM attendee (feedback on code-complete-at-launch strategy)@ 20:55 — Reveals preference for post-launch updates over finished product; contradicts traditional software launch expectations

  • Brad Duke
    person
    Timothyperson
    John (Precision Flips)person
    Andy (Rocket City Pinball)person
    Paul (Daz Boucher)person
    Aaron Davisperson
    Ernie Silverbergperson
    Pulp Fictiongame
    Friday the 13thgame
    Motorheadgame
    The Princess Bridegame
    Ninja Eclipsegame
    Terminator 3: Rise of the Machinesgame
    Multimorphiccompany
    Fast Pinballcompany
    Texas Pinball Festival 2024event
  • ?

    community_signal: Chris Turner's feedback integration: pivoted from slimline cabinet (rejected by community) back to sacred standard cabinet form factor after Pinball Expo feedback

    high · Chris Turner: 'I realized the cabinet was like this sacred thing, and I didn't know about that. But the cabinet is sacred.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Distributed international collaboration on Motorhead homebrew: Brad Albright (art/design, US-based) + David Peck/Rotordave (programming, New Zealand) + Matt Kemp (code, New Zealand-proximate) communicating via Facebook Messenger/email for 2 years before in-person TPM meeting

    high · Brad Albright: 'David and I, we've been friends for about five years, purely over the Internet... and in fact we just met in person just a couple days ago, but we were already like best of friends.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Turner Pinball emphasizing deep cultural authenticity: 36-page illustrated comic backstory with legitimate Japanese folklore integration by artist Brad Duke (former English teacher in Japan)

    high · Chris Turner: 'We came up with this unlicensed theme, and we thought it was important that we develop that story... These are, like, legitimate Japanese folklore things.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: PinSound releases dual new products for GPF 2.0.4: PinVision LED matrix speaker ring and PinBlaster amplifier at $200 price point; custom animations per-game with monthly updates planned

    high · Timothy: 'We're releasing for the GPF 20.4. The PinVision and PinBlaster are the two new products we're showing off for the Texas Pinball Festival.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Homebrew game quality reaches professional/commercial levels; Aaron Davis notes 'off the charts' fit and finish across multiple projects

    high · Aaron Davis: 'The quality level of these guys is like nothing I've seen before. This is off the charts.' Ernie Silverberg validation of packaging quality.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community preference for post-launch feature updates over code-complete-at-launch strategy; players value forward momentum and ongoing content

    medium · Unidentified attendee feedback to Chris Turner: 'Well, it's nice to have little things that are going to come out. And we're excited to look forward to the next features.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Multimorphic screen-based approach positioning as competitive advantage for licensed movie themes vs. traditional pinball; open platform model enabling third-party game development

    high · Jerry Stellenberg: 'We can do movie themes on this system better than anyone else can, because we have that screen and we can immerse you in the content of it.'