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Zen Original Sneak Peek

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·59m 37s·analyzed·Jun 6, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Blockade Podcast critiques Han Solo VR table's Unreal Engine physics and punishing game design mechanics.

Summary

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan analyze the newly released Han Solo VR table in Zen Studios' Pinball FX, discussing technical issues with Unreal Engine physics (particularly affecting designer Zoltan's tables), timing problems on mini-flipper shots and ejects, and harsh game design that makes spell-a-thons punishing rather than fun. They advocate for code updates and living-table philosophy to improve playability without reducing difficulty.

Key Claims

  • Han Solo VR table was uploaded for free to Star Wars VR owners in Zen's Pinball FX

    high confidence · Chris: 'A new to VR table for free. It was just an automatic, which was rather cool. And that was the Han Solo table.'

  • Han Solo has been completely redone in Unreal Engine (moved from FX3)

    high confidence · Jared: 'This version is now wholly made in Unreal Engine. It's been essentially completely redone.'

  • Timing issues with mini-flipper running shots are present on Zoltan-designed Zen tables (Collectibles, Masters of the Force) but not on Deep-designed tables (Jedi, A New Hope, Mandalorian)

    high confidence · Chris: 'It seems like Collectibles, Masters of the Force...those three, though, that I'm having the issues on.' Jared confirms Deep's tables play consistently to FX3.

  • You must spell COURAGE 21 times to start Courage multiball (7 letters × 3 times)

    high confidence · Chris: 'C-O-U-R-A-G-E...Twenty-one times you have to hit that ramp in order to start the thing.'

  • The Falcon minigame arm mechanic lacks a reticle or perspective indicator, making it unintuitive

    high confidence · Jared: 'It needs, like, a reticle or something.' Chris agrees it's missing visual feedback for ball position.

  • A Discord user (possibly mbeaching) played for 1.5 hours and only successfully lit 4 of 8 modes

    medium confidence · Chris: 'He was saying he played for an hour and a half, he only successfully lit...Four modes. And I think there's eight total.'

  • VR is being used as a testbed for Zen's first Unreal Engine implementation

    high confidence · Jared: 'You can pretty much guarantee it is, Chris. Let's be serious. It's their first foray into Unreal. They are absolutely experimenting in the wild with this.'

  • Mandalorian is a punishing but fun table, whereas Han Solo becomes a slog after failed modes

    high confidence · Chris: 'Mandalorian is a punishing table, but it's fun the entire time.' Jared: 'do I really want to try and load that one up again? Because jeez louise, it was a slog.'

Notable Quotes

  • “It's their first foray into Unreal. They are absolutely experimenting in the wild with this.”

    Jared Morgan @ midway through Han Solo analysis — Explains technical issues as expected growing pains from platform migration

  • “You have to be tracking with the TIE fighter to shoot it. You can't just be firing in one spot.”

    Chris Frebus @ during quad laser mode discussion — Identifies design flaw that makes mode difficult on pin sims and cabinets

  • “If you have to shoot it three times, you should have retries three times.”

    Chris Frebus @ during code philosophy discussion — Proposes design principle for fair spell-a-thon mechanics

  • “Just make it more fun. Like, make it so...if you change the mechanic of all the sinkholes and eject holes to make it so it was very clear when the ball was coming out and very easy to get those balls—that would make a tremendous improvement to the enjoyment of the game.”

    Jared Morgan @ remedies discussion — Frames critique as fun factor rather than difficulty level

  • “They need to go revisit the codes and refresh them. Make them more fun.”

    Chris Frebus @ philosophy discussion — Advocates for living-table approach to code updates

  • “This is what I mean by it's absolutely brutal in terms of it's punishing you...you spend all this time getting something open, and then you get one really quick fleeting shot at success, and if you fail, oh, well, you're back at square one.”

    Chris Frebus @ Smuggle/Falcon minigame section — Core criticism: punishment is disproportionate to engagement

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyHan SologamePinball FXproductUnreal EngineproductZoltanpersonDeeppersonThomas CrosspersonStar Wars VRproductPinball FX 3product

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Discord player feedback on Han Solo's difficulty (1.5-hour session yielding only 4 of 8 modes lit) is being monitored as data point for community reception.

    medium · Chris references unnamed Discord user who shared extreme difficulty metric; hosts use this as evidence that problem extends beyond their personal experience.

  • ?

    content_signal: Blockade Podcast is covering Zen Studios' Pinball Show announcements on delay (1-2 weeks behind), positioning themselves as secondary discussion/analysis platform.

    high · Chris: 'We once again are out of sync with Zen with when they're doing their Pinball Show...We are a little behind. But that's okay.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Vertical flipper placement (required to hit Death Star target bank) is 'unforgiving' and prevents aiming due to ball speed, making shots feel random rather than skill-based.

    high · Chris: 'You literally again: it drops from this hole...you have to flip in order to get up that ramp. There is no room...It's completely random what you're going to be hitting because you cannot aim.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Falcon minigame lacks visual feedback (reticle/spotlight) to show ball position in claw drop area, making mechanical success feel random rather than skill-based.

    high · Chris: 'You don't know where the ball is hovering...It could be anywhere. Like, I have no idea where the thing's going.' Jared: 'It needs, like, a reticle or something.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Quad laser TIE fighter targeting mode is poorly adapted for pin sim and cabinet play—requires simultaneous flipper button (track) + launch button (fire), impossible on standard cabinet with right hand already on flipper.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.179

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris rebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway around the world it's jared morgan G'day Pinheads, how are you going?
0:27
We are doing well today I'm just trying to clean my screen again So Jared, in case you wonder Jared's having some interesting graphical anomalies happening We were just kind of chatting pre-show here So if you see his lips turn funny colors Or suddenly he looks like an expressionist painter Got a hold of his image That's what's going on It's some oddities with the very excellent OBS Ninja product that we use to stream. This is the first time I've seen weirdness like this happening with it, so I'm sure it's a problem at my end, and it's probably to do with the Australian internet. I was going to say, it's probably your end there. Yeah. It definitely would not be OBS Ninja because it's a rock-solid program. We love it. It's so good.
1:16
And it's free to use. And it's free, which is the right price for us. Yes, that it is. Jared, I went and did something that I have not done since beginning of November.
1:30
Can you guess? Oh, I think I might have an idea. You went and see a movie. I did. That was, yeah, I went and saw A Quiet Place Part 2. Oh, right. I saw that's coming out. Yeah. How was it? That was one of those that I really wanted to go see in a theater. In the cinema. The first one was one of my favorite theater-going experiences in a very long time. Because it was a packed house, and the crowd was dead silent, and the energy in the room just really enhanced the movie, which was already good to begin with. But it just made it that much, so I was like, okay, for sure, I want to go see this in a movie theater. And so, yeah, I went opening weekend in prime time. And not quite the same experience. No? Because there's no one in there. Yeah, well, literally, the way they do seating is whatever row they're seating people in, nobody in front, nobody behind you for the rows. And then you can't have anybody within two seats side to side of you. Oh, okay. So everybody was very spread out.
Mandalorian
game
Collectiblesgame
Masters of the Forcegame
Johnny Mnemonicgame
Theater of Magicgame
Wild West Rampagegame
Blockade Pinball Podcastorganization
OBS Ninjaproduct

high · Chris: 'I'm having to use my button up on top in order to do the firing...How in the hell do you do it on a standard cabinet? I don't know if this table is on the Arcade1Up.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Han Solo table design is excessively punishing with spell-a-thons (21 ramp hits for Courage multiball, 7 for Smuggle) and instant-fail minigames that don't reward learning or partial success, discouraging player engagement.

    high · Chris: 'Hour and a half of playing? That's ridiculous...He should have been through at least a wizard mode twice.' Jared: 'As soon as I fail a mode, I'm like, do I really want to try and load that one up again?'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts advocate for code updates and 'living table' philosophy to improve older Zen tables' playability without reducing challenge—make minigames allow retries, hold ball for aiming, or automatically light first mode completion.

    high · Chris: 'If you have to shoot it three times, you should have retries three times.' Jared: 'They need to go revisit the codes and refresh them. Make them more fun.'

  • $

    market_signal: Zen tables are becoming increasingly criticized for fun factor degradation despite technical soundness, with Mandalorian held as model of 'punishing but enjoyable' vs. Han Solo's 'punishing and frustrating'.

    high · Chris: 'Mandalorian is a punishing table, but it's fun the entire time. But it's easy to get things started.' Jared on Han Solo: 'do I really want to try and load that one up again? Because jeez louise, it was a slog.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Han Solo displays instructions on screen that disappear and never reappear, leaving players confused about mechanics without on-screen guidance.

    medium · Chris: 'There are a lot of instructions that pop up on this...And the thing is that the instructions then disappear and never show up again.'

  • ?

    product_concern: VR is being used as a testbed for Zen Studios' first Unreal Engine implementation, with imperfect testing evident in the published Han Solo table.

    high · Jared: 'You can pretty much guarantee it is, Chris. Let's be serious. It's their first foray into Unreal. They are absolutely experimenting in the wild with this.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Ball eject timing and visuals in Unreal are softer/less pronounced than FX3, making it difficult for players to react—ejects appear to go 'bleh' instead of 'BAM'.

    high · Jared: 'It's not like it's going BAM! It's just kind of burping it out more or less. It's a soft eject.' Chris: 'You have time to flip. And currently that's not—but it feels like it's just going straight through the flipper.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Unreal Engine migration is introducing physics timing issues that did not exist in FX3, particularly affecting mini-flipper running shots and ball ejects. Issues appear isolated to designer Zoltan's table physics model.

    high · Chris documents inability to hit mini-flipper shots that work consistently in FX3; timing window is too tight in Unreal. Jared confirms Deep's tables have zero timing difference from FX3, narrowing problem to Zoltan's physics implementation.

    • 2:41
    Then you're also supposed to wear your masks the entire time. But there's a loophole. And that little is if you're eating. So I happened to have a free popcorn reward on my card. And so I was like, aha!
    2:57
    So I sat there. So you got your eight kilograms of popcorn that you get at a movie theater? It was just small. No, I just got the small popcorn, which I'm sorry. Which is ridiculous. No, what's ridiculous is the prices of popcorn. Side note here, it was $8 for a small popcorn? $8 US too admission was $12 okay so I don't know if those prices because I rarely buy concessions I don't know if those prices suddenly jumped up even higher to kind of like help them recover from COVID and not having the things but I was like popcorn literally is pure profit for a movie theater it's a couple of cents if that I mean it is pure profit as opposed to your soda, which they'll pay like 25 cents for the cup, but they get the syrup for free. Oh, do they? Is that how it works over there?
    4:00
    Any place you go to that has the brand of the soda on the cup, the post-mixed, yeah. All right. You're getting the soda for free. Oh, all right. If you're the, I mean, you know, whoever is. The owner. Yeah, the owner. So that's why concessions is where the movie theater makes all of its money. Because they have to share way too much of the box office with the studio.
    4:25
    Right. So that's why I never felt guilty theater hopping. Because as somebody that used to work at a theater told me, so long as you buy a soda from us, we're good.
    4:38
    Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. because they were like, we weren't making much money off the box office anyway.
    4:46
    That's an interesting fact. I spent the entire movie going like this with the popcorn dough. But I'm eating. I need to have no mask. I'm sure that you weren't doing it because you don't like masks. No, you want to know why I was doing it? Because I wear glasses and when you wear the mask, it fogs up. your glasses so it's either that or pull the mask below my nose which I was doing that also yeah I know masks are a pain, a necessary pain but a pain but still it was good to be back there and feel like a normal human again watching a normal movie in a normal theatre exactly and based off of what I looked at for the summer of what's coming out there's only a few things that I'm willing to go to a movie theater for regardless. So I figured, well, let's take advantage of one of those.
    5:45
    Let's do it. All right. We're going to dive right in here. We once again are out of sync with Zen.
    6:00
    We are. With when they're doing their pinball show. and so therefore uh it wasn't this last week but the week before that's right we are a little behind uh but that's okay that means uh if you guys have had a chance to digest and uh if you were you know following it interesting uh otherwise if you weren't interested then hey we're news oh that's right and you're hearing it first yeah exactly so let's start off with The first thing that was rather a nice surprise, and that was that for the Star Wars VR owners, Zen went ahead and uploaded a new, well, new to the game. A new to VR. New to VR table for free. It was just an automatic, which was rather cool. And that was the Han Solo table. Yeah. A table that I realize I barely played previously.
    7:08
    The thing about this table is that overall, there's actually nothing too bad with it. It's fun enough to shoot. It's a bit of a stop starter, and it's unfortunately a bit of a spell-a-thon as well. Well, let's throw the image up here to remind people of what it looks like. So that is what it looks like, for those who didn't remember. You've got a fan layout. You've got orbit, ramp, or a dead end to a space worm.
    7:44
    Yes. Or not really an orbit. It's more of a, yeah, actually, take a bet. That is an orbit. And that one there is a ramp that comes back to feed the flippers. And then you've got a flipper up here that shoots a ramp in this general vicinity. which will also send the ball back down the how trail. And then this ramp up here can feed to a... Oh, excuse me, it doesn't feed to that. This ramp over here feeds to this saucer, and there's a flipper up here, which you can knock the ball over, and it enters in the falcon. The falcon rotates. If it's pointing towards you, that opens up the minigame, two different ones at the top.
    8:25
    And then you've got the cantina that rotates in the background, which I'd completely forgotten about, because when I play in cabinet mode, you can't see that at all. You can't, no. But in VR, you can certainly see it, so that was nice. No, it's not a bad layout. It's fun to shoot. You always find a shot on the playfield, which is good. It's fun. I think it ends up, for me, too easy getting that in the sinkhole. It's a gaping sinkhole, and it takes up so much of the area. What sinkhole are you talking about? The one right next to the main sinkhole. The mid-play field? Yeah, the mid-play field one. Right below the desk there. So big. And it's sort of in a really awkward position as well for me. It is. It's not the easiest thing to hit from the right flipper. No. Because for some reason you wind up hitting this post over here a lot, and it's bouncing away. Definitely a lift-flip only. Same goes for, there's a ramp underneath the Falcon. Actually, that's the ramp. The ramp underneath the Falcon is what feeds the flipper up here, not the side ramp. That ramp underneath the Falcon is a blind ramp, so you have no idea.
    9:38
    I'm assuming it's gigantically wide and just, like, fumbles the ball or whatever. I don't know. But, again, very difficult to hit with the right flipper. It's definitely more of a left flipper shot.
    9:52
    Oh, and I forgot. There's another fourth flipper right over here, this little mini flipper. Now, this is where I started having issues.
    10:00
    So when I played it regularly, and I did test between doing the VR version and this version, because remember, this version is now wholly made in Unreal Engine. That's right. It's been essentially confederated over. They've got some tinkering to do. What are you alluding to there? First off, when you shoot this saucer here with the space worm, right, it ejects the ball from here, and you're going to hit this flipper. You're going to shoot all the way across, and over here on the left side, there's another sinkhole that you want to hit because that, if you land it in there, raises up a third pop bumper that if you hit the pop bumpers enough times, then you open up the mini game of flying through an asteroid field. Oh, that's how you do it. All right. That's how you do it. which I can do in Pinball FX 3.
    10:58
    So you follow it in and just do it. The timing is it ejects the ball, and you visually have enough time to see the ball eject, and then flip, and it's just a quick bit of timing to get it there, but more often than not, you can actually make the shot.
    11:15
    In VR, if you don't eject, or if you don't flip, the second it ejects out, you're not hitting that shot. This is what I found ultra frustrating on the collectibles table. It suffers from the same problem.
    11:32
    When you're trying to shoot, you know, you do the Death Star loop, comes around, back down, and that little flipper. Yes, the little flipper. You go and shoot it up. It's the timing on those running shots that seem to be out in Unreal. Like, they just feel unnatural. Well, they're completely unforgivable. you either hit it or you're wildly off and here's where it becomes the next issue that I had on the table which is this upper saucer flip so you have a flasher light I literally was thinking because again I hadn't played this table in forever so when I'm in VR and I'm playing it and I keep on getting the ball into this thing and for the life of me I could not flip the ball half the time the ball was past my flipper before I even bothered to flip. So then I started trying to flip early, and I just kept on bashing into this sidewall here. I was like, I know I have to get it up here, but why can I not get it? Why can I not get it? So I went to see if it was that difficult in FX3. It's not. Nine times out of ten, I managed to hit the ball over here with no issue whatsoever. And the thing is, it should be that relatively simple. it's a wide target and it's a hole that is for super jackpots it's a hole that you should be able to make uh relatively easy frequently i should say right yeah but i was nailing it over and over and over again i go back in this to vr still couldn't do it so i started i was like there's where's my audible warning where's you know there's got to be a visual warning so i was listening for that too yeah i was like all i can see is a flasher it flashes really fast it doesn't go bing bing bing shoot this flasher in vr is not nearly as prominent as it is in fx3 it seems to really like pop and in vr it was kind of diminished so i was really having to concentrate and it does a real quick blink and then it releases the ball i was found that i had to flip as soon as that thing blinked off flip i was not looking at the ball i was looking at the light. That's the only way that I started making that shot. That's not how you should be playing pinball. It's the ball that gives you the timing, not a light. The light should alert you to the fact that a ball is about to eject, but it's not a timing point.
    13:58
    It's really frustrating me at the moment because this is the same thing that's doing it for me too. This eject is basically just kind of going bleh. It's not like it's going BAM! It's just kind of burping it out more or less. It's a soft eject. Yeah, so you have time to flip. And currently that's not... But it feels like it's just going straight through the flipper. Like, you're flipping it, and it's just not actually touching the ball. And maybe that is actually what's happening.
    14:27
    I don't know. It just feels wrong. It feels wrong, and they really need to do some tuning on these... I don't know. I don't know whether it's just certain elements. Well, and here's where I find it interesting. the tables I was having issues on are all Zoltans yeah yes collectibles is a Zoltan in terms of these timing issues yes so it this collectibles Masters of the Force and Rogue One I think he did Rogue One? No.
    15:03
    I'm not sure. I can't remember. It was basically those three, though, that I'm having the issues on. And I don't know if it's a case of... Because Zoltan's... It's not just his layouts. he has a different mindset about the physics than deep and thomas cross yes i have yeah um so his how he designs his tables is with a different physics set in mind in mind those physics have not changed but i think something has made them even more unforgiving in this transfer to unreal than what i'm noticing happened because i'm not having a problem playing jedi i'm not having a problem playing a new hope i'm not having a problem at all no other than it being difficult playing mandalorian those are all deep tables so yeah you're right all those ones are actually playing just as they do in fx3 like i've noticed zero difference in timing zero difference in flip of behavior they're all very consistent but you're right it seems to be zoltan's tables yeah so maybe that's something that's interesting i don't know if they all had to you know sign off on their tables after the fact, and maybe it didn't get tested properly or something. I don't know. I don't know if VR is being used as a testbed to figure out these problems. You can pretty much guarantee it is, Chris. Let's be serious. It's their first foray into Unreal. They are absolutely experimenting in the wild with this. Jared, wipe your screen. Wipe your screen. Oh, there it went. Oh, there we go. I had a bug. I had a bug on my face.
    16:40
    This could be spot the graphical anomalies on Jared. change the title. It's the glitch in the matrix, folks. So yeah, that's... I was having that issue, but then once I figured out how to kind of circumnavigate around those issues, other issues then popped up, and these have nothing to do with Unreal. This has everything to do with the code. Because this table is brutal. in terms of like, Jared's not kidding, it's a spell-o-rama. So you have a ramp right here that is courage. You have to spell courage, and that then gives you a ball that pops over here. You have to do this three times in order to finally release these balls for multi-ball,
    17:36
    which then automatically, oh, it doesn't automatically, then you have to shoot the, because they're like ceramic balls, and you've got your metal ball, you have to shoot, have the metal ball get captured by the pop bumper, which then will raise, and then you have to sink the three balls into this area.
    17:51
    That's how you basically play Courage multiball. But it takes forever to get Courage multiball started, because think about it. C-O-U-R-A-G-E. 21 times you have to hit that ramp in order to start the thing. That's a ridiculous amount of times to start a multiball.
    18:14
    I hate Colorama so much. And it's not the only one. Over here, this ramp over here is Smuggle, I believe. Yeah. S-M-U-G-G-L-E. Yeah, seven again. Another six. So you have to spell Smuggle, and that then opens up this. There's a gate on the back of this ramp here, and that opens up so that the the ball will come here and basically start the mini game on and there's two different mini games in the falcon one of them is four targets the back of the falcon you've got two flippers and you have to flip and light the four targets and then the other mini game is uh was it 12 holes is it a four by four or a four by three grid i'm not sure what the grid is. Yeah, it's like an arm that comes with it. Very much like Johnny Mnemonic. But steering the arm is not intuitive in the least. I hate it. It is ridiculous. It's like the worst claw game ever. And not only that, if you drop the ball and it doesn't land, let alone landing in the correct hole, if it doesn't land in any hole,
    19:30
    there's no ball lock and basically you just wasted it and now you have to shoot another seven times. in order to get it going. So that's what I mean by it's absolutely brutal in terms of it's punishing you. It's not. You spend all this time getting something open, and then you get one really quick fleeting shot at success, and if you fail, oh, well, you're back at square one. And you have to do that. You have to lock three times. So, again, 21 successful shots, three successful times of dropping it in a hole in order to start that multi-ball. and if you want to get the the true goal you needed to actually drop the ball in the lit spots that it wants you to drop them in you're good luck with that because there's no there's no perspective up in that area of the play field like you don't know where the ball is hovering like on johnny mnemonic the call functions as such it's like you know you can get down you have a look where the ball is lined up and then it's such a close yeah a close drop but this is like that, you know, it could be anywhere. Like, I have no idea where the thing's going. Yeah. It's a really frustrating mechanic on this game. It needs, like, a little reticle or something. A reticle or a spotlight? That shows where the thing is going. Maybe it does it on FX3 because of the graphics mode and it's missing on this. It doesn't. No, it's just... It's just... They need to add it in. It's so frustrating. And you're right. If you screw up because of the game mechanic up in that area and it's really hard to control the arm and you don't drop it anywhere near the thing yeah you're stuffed another seven tries thanks very much come back again this is it's not the only instance of everything is hurry up mode and yeah lax okay so here's another here's another fun one um so if you trying to think how you how it is that you do it uh oh okay so if you've done the skill shot, you lock a ball behind the space slug. If you then shoot into this saucer, that opens up a mode where you're going to be trying to shoot a TIE fighter.
    21:45
    You're going to be doing it in one of two manners. You're either going to be doing it from third-person perspective, Han runs over into the quad laser,
    21:53
    and... A little thing comes down on the side there. Yeah, so basically what happens is the ball gets locked up here, a TIE fighter winds up image appears over the top of the ball ball gets released and comes all the way down the ramp and you need to shoot with the quad laser the tie fighter how you move that is with your flipper buttons moves where along the ramp you are and then how you fire is by hitting the launch button which is all fine and dandy if using a controller because you can use a finger and a thumb at the same time so you can and what i've discovered is you have to be tracking with the tie fighter to shoot it you can't just be firing in one spot oh is that right that's why i'm filing nope you have to be tracking it so here's me on my pin sim using the right flipper to track down and where's my launch button right with where my right hand is so i'm having to use my button up on top in order to do the firing to do it. Yeah, it's not designed for Pym Sims. Not designed for Pym Sims, which makes me wonder, how in the hell do you do it? I don't know if this table is on the I didn't check, is this one of the tables included in Arcade 1-Ups? It's not? I don't think so, no. Because you'd have an issue. It'd be really difficult to complete that mode. Yep. Because your right hand is already occupied. um well it's no difference it's no different than having a um um like a smash button on the top of the lockdown bar that you have to hit with your left hand and your right hand like right which is what i started thinking of it as is oh wait no just use the the smash button on top you know that's what i'm going to pretend i'm doing yeah that's right but uh and then there's a first person view of doing the quad laser exact same function it's just now you're completely behind the guns and in vr it looks pretty cool but it's still wildly difficult i've yeah i've only got it once i've only seen that once hit it once and it was yeah not not easy um but the weird thing is though with that with that you know um immersion mode um view of in the quad laser i've only been able to get that view once while i've been playing it was the first time i played the table it dropped me into immersion mode and did it do you not i've never been able to do no let me educate you jared how do you actually get so to activate the mode folks once you have the multi-ball you have two ball multi-ball in order to activate the mode you have to hit two different uh no no no sorry i don't mean i know how to get to the mode you shoot the the space um but it matters how you shoot it so oh really you lock the ball in the sinkhole first and then shoot up here uh in the ramp that's underneath the Falcon. I believe that is the one that opens up the third person view. If you shoot the one that goes up under the Falcon first and then shoot the sinkhole, then that opens up, I believe, the first person. Or it's vice versa. I can't remember which. But that's how it matters. One of them is because essentially you're choosing between the top quad laser and the bottom quad laser of the Falcon. Really? Yes, really. Okay. Thanks for telling me that, Chris. Right? Thanks, I hate it.
    25:19
    Now, I'm going to point out, there's a... Oh, here's the other one that I hate. Okay, you'll see here that there is a four bank target of stand-ups in front of this rotating Death Star. The only way that you will hit these by choice is with this flipper over here. Zoltan loves his vertical flipper and his vertical flippers are really difficult to use because they're completely unforgiving if you want to hit this ramp right here which is how you do probe lighting probe you literally again it drops from this hole up here in the falcon typically the ball drops down and the second it hits the playfield you have to flip in order to get up that ramp there is no room now if you delay just a microsecond and then flip you might hit the s or the d it's double it says um death star and that's what you're lighting uh you might hit that top one or you might hit the bottom or you might hit the bottom one because there's really no aiming it's completely random what you're going to be hitting because you cannot aim the ball is moving too fast and the thing of it is it's twitch gaming it is just twitch twitch flipping it's yeah and the thing of it is is it's unreachable from either of these two flippers yeah you have to use that that mini flipper and i don't like that design that's a bad no that's a bad layout design it should be these should be randomized or just bash it four times and then it should just be a like a four like you know like how stern's doing like these big long targets that all just like count every time you hit them. One of those would be fine. But to have it be that you actually have to successfully aim and hit it properly, and guess what, folks? You have to do it, so once you do all four, this bank drops down, then you have to shoot a ball and lock it into the Death Star, which isn't the worst thing in the world. It's not terribly difficult. It took me three or four shots to get it. Yeah, you're going to miss a few, but it's not frustratingly so. The problem is, is it took me forever to just do the first bank. And you have to do it three times in order to do Death Star multiball. You get what we're getting at here. You're bashing your head against the wall trying to complete and start or just, excuse me, trying to just start any mode on this table. Just experience the mode for the first time. Everyone knows that when you experience something for the first time you're never going to get it. And so you're punished so hard on this table for just trying to do stuff on it. And I know one of the guys on Discord, and I want to say it's mbeaching. I'm not quite 100% sure, but I think that's who it was. He was saying that he had a go on this table an hour and a half long, which I will say the one forgiving thing on this table is the MagnaSave. It's easy to get it lit. You can bank three of them, and you can MagnaSave literally from a center drain or from either out lane. It doesn't matter. literally sucks it back up to the magnet, doesn't it? Yes. It's the most powerful magnet save I've ever experienced. It took me a long time to even start using it, because I was like, oh, I'll just save it for the next one, because usually magnet saves, you're like, no, I'm only going to use it under absolutely desperate. Yeah, they're precious. And then I started using this like candy, and it was like, oh, wait, my game time has increased a long time. So anyway, he was saying he played for an hour and a half. he only successfully lit so when you light on the playfield there that means you succeeded in doing the mission four and I think there's eight total hour and a half of playing that's ridiculous that really is he should have been through at least a wizard mode twice with an hour and a half of playing and And it's what worries me with some of Zen design choices in their coding. And this is why I keep on saying they need to go revisit the codes. And refresh them. Refresh them. Make them more fun. Because it not that it a bad layout design It just lacking the fun factor I keep on going back to Mandalorian is a punishing table but it's fun the entire time. But it's easy to get things started. Yeah, it has that, oh, just one more time. Whereas while I'm playing Han Solo, as soon as I fail a mode, I'm like, do I really want to try and load that one up again? Because, jeez louise, it was a slog to get it going. Yeah, exactly. Only to then fail the mode within five seconds. you're totally right you know what i opened the i opened the scene saying yeah it's not a bad table but clearly i've got some issues with it i think you do too i do i do this discussion has been useful and i hope like our opinions are just our opinions right but i hope zen gets some feedback about this table and thinks about ways they could actually do a code update and we talked about this idea of making these tables living tables now. Yeah. Not just treating them as a one and done, no more fixes. Like, they need to rethink how these tables work. The layouts can remain, but the rules need a bump on these older tables. And the thing is, is you can assure that Stern has put out code that while some of it was positive, some of the made players go ah no that you just made things worse and then they come up with another code and they fix the worst thing but keeping the things that people like and maybe even something beyond that so yeah keep on keep on going until you finally get to where everybody goes a sweet spot good we're golden now you know that's right and i look i'm i don't think either of us are saying make it easier that's not what we want we want challenge but just make it more fun like make it so like for example if you change the mechanic of all the sinkholes and eject holes to make it so it was very clear when the ball was coming out and very easy to get those balls that would make a tremendous improvement to the enjoyment of the game um the other thing is like when the the ball pops out of the falcon like hold it in space so we can see it they're like they do that put it on a magnet yeah hold it so we can go okay now i can get ready for the shot right and actually have time to aim not just like plop and roll like literally just plops and roll and it's the same on i've noticed this on wild west rampage as well it's going back a few years but when it pops out of the side of the saloon it just goes plop and roll and it's like just it feels unnatural and it needs a little bit more hang time. You know what I mean?
    32:33
    Absolutely. And then for the minigames with the Falcon, how about if you fail once, it gives you another try? It gives you a relight, or an instant relight. Just shoot it up there again and it holds it until you've had two goes. And if you fail twice, well then, yeah.
    32:50
    My philosophy on the table is if you have to shoot it three times, you should have retries three times. if they just put that mechanic in I'd feel better about spellathons the other aspect that they should be doing if they don't want to do any of that then how about if you started the mode the first time you go through it up to the wizard so long as you start the mode you're doing the theater of magic wave things bam it's lit it's collected yeah once you've done the wizard mode now you have to actually beat the mode in order to get it lit it's not uncommon it happens in a lot of williams games it happens in a lot of stern tables yeah because why is that first taste is for free exactly right you gotta pay you know easy to play hard to master right because very very same way and and it's something that zen has said oh well you know our flipper gaps are narrower and our outlanes are more forgiving and our ball save is longer because we want you to experience the story if you really want to experience the story let us experience the modes. Let us experience all that. So the other factor that popped in with this table, and we'll just, again, a refresher here. Hey, there's that lovely DMD without any of the D or the M. Yeah, it's a D. It's just a D. It's a D, all right. There are a lot of instructions that pop up on this. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know either because I'm too busy watching the ball. Pop out of things. And the thing is that the instructions then disappear and never show up again. So it's not even like I can hold the ball on, you know, capture the ball on the flipper and then look up and read what the instructions are. We keep on harping on them to improve the information. Instructional design inside the pinball games. You need to let us have a chance to read the instructions.
    34:46
    And a common way of doing that is being able to at least trap the ball so we can read it. Or, here's the easy way, have a voice call out, tell us what to do. Yes, and keep on calling it out. Like, you've got the sound-alikes in the studio booth, getting to do a few more call-outs. Yeah. Oh, yep. So many things that would make the game experience better.
    35:09
    It doesn't, it wouldn't take much. Anyhow, enough griping. That's that solo. I wore the appropriate shirt, my guitar solo shirt. Guitar solo. I think it's excellent. Yes. I didn't. I just got another pinball shirt on. Yep.
    35:24
    So we were going to talk about other things as well, but, geez, this whole episode seems to be solo-hating. That's okay. That's going to be the title of the show.
    35:36
    Let's move on to the... Solo constructive criticisms. Yeah. But it's not relegated to purely solo. We're just picking on solo because it was free. It's new. It's free and new. And I spent a lot of time since it was new and free, and I was like, hey, you know what? I really don't think I've played this. Let me give it a crack.
    35:57
    Because I like the look of the table. It's layout's fun. The layout is fun. The colors are bright. The theme is really well integrated. There's a lot of good things about this table. Don't get us wrong. We're not hating on this table because it's new. And the fact that they've gone and released this table for free as an upgrade. Like, awesome. It's really, really good. It would only take a few tweaks to the code to make it way better.
    36:28
    So much more enjoyable. In fact, it would probably would become one of my favorite tables in the collection if they did some tweaks to the code. Yeah. It's got a lot of good things happening in it. I just wish they go back and revisit. Right? So, let's instead visit what Zen has planned for the future. Been dropping in the pinball show. The pinball show. Yeah, so the Pinball Show... Oh, there we go. All right, so the Pinball Show has announced two of their three Zen original tables. We made mention of Noir. We didn't bother showing you a picture. And then this last time they made mention of this Mystery Pirate steampunk themed, and we'll show you that also. So let's take a quick look here at Noir.
    37:14
    So as you can see, nice use of black and white. We got some amber-hued lighting. Hey, look, Jared. It's the insert lights that I wanted.
    37:28
    Your classics, although these down here are not, I don't think, jeweled classics. I don't know. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. Not faceted. I would hope. Do you know what? Originally, when I looked at this table, I thought, oh, it's a Monsters Limited Edition. That's totally what I saw when I saw this table. Now. Because that one's all black. Now. black and white. Interesting things with regards to comments and everything. People are like, oh my God, it doesn't look like they're very far on this folks.
    37:56
    That's because they're not. Well, no, I don't know if it's not that they're not very far. I'm thinking they're showing you their early stages of work that they might have completed months and months ago. Again, remember we had been told they had two tables, Zen originals that were in the design stage and they were supposed to have been released about a year ago. yes so i think in order to string you along keep your interest to you know feel like you're part of the process as it happens they're showing you early renderings but this of what was done a while ago right but this is not necessarily final design how do i know that if i'm just looking at this table right here there's a lot of 2d objects that phone this the coffee the lipstick all these bullets all very much 2d all this this phone booth 2d this car is a total placeholder that is not a 3d model that zen made um this ramp is i don't know what that ramp is ridiculous yeah it is that feels very much like a placeholder ramp to me that's a lot of switchbacks and that would take the ball a long time to feed down and unless this is what everyone has said like they go on please please do something creative with that thing at the back there because i don't want to be spending all my time in it um if it's used for locking balls then like like i said if that's a 21 ball lock mechanism then count me in sure yeah like flight 2000 right uh oh yeah a little bit like flight or like apollo 13 which you know well i'm saying that really funky yeah that was cool um but this makes something cool like that but right that's just a rant you shoot no thank you i assume back here looks like a rotating play field of sorts like that i don't know um so i just wanted to kind of point out that don't take this as a final render no this is very this looks very much like a work in progress just here is think of this as like this is a taster of the theme it's certainly nowhere near final yeah right um so what you need to take away from this playbook render it's a black and white theme in the style of the 1930s and 20s um it's got a very almost cel-shaded feel to it i have a look at all those lights and objects in the play field. It's very cell shaded in its graphical style. So those are the things you should be looking at. Not at face value of the table. And I believe this is designed by the same guy that did Paranormal. Which, I'm not sure exactly who that was. I can't recall either. I want to say that that's what they said. And if it is, I actually kind of wish they'd just get the same voice actor.
    40:47
    This is great. Make it just a sequel to Paranormal. Yes. Because Paranormal definitely had that hard-boiled... Oh, yeah, it was great. The voice in that was awesome. Yeah. You know, this could be... Because it was detective style. Like, you know, it had an early 1900s feel to it, that table, anyhow. Yeah.
    41:10
    So they could easily do a sequel to that in this... Anyhow. Where I would... Here's my issues with what I'm seeing, though, right now. And it does all center around this ramp. that is really does i don't like it at all of blah yeah that is a huge no it's just a lot of what's underneath the playfield god only knows we don't it it's you know there's no reminding of there's no reminding of lombard street right which i think is the whole point it's yeah it's probably trying to emulate lombard street because you have a look in the background there's a road i'm thinking oh it's probably lombard street in san francisco so i get that but please don't send them all out there all the time. Lombard Street is a bad street to go on. Just put some color on there. Put some lighting on here. Make it interesting to look at. Make it look like a street. Maybe take a couple bins out because Lombard Street doesn't have that many bins, I don't think. I don't know.
    42:12
    I would rather see a tilt play field for being Lombard. Yeah, put something cool like that up there. I don't know. It just needs something back there. I don't know what's going on. Something exciting up there, because the rest of the table doesn't really look super exciting. And if you're really going for that noir look,
    42:34
    noir, lighting, shadows, baby. It's shadow and contrast. So if you're going to do that, then you need to really... Here's a case where I'm like, your ambient room needs to be dark. and the light show has to be on point. The lights really have to be telling. Super contrasted lights. Like, they need to be very harsh. Like, you need to spotlight areas on the play field, right? I was going to say, there almost needs to be a fog over the whole play field, so that it shafts the light, right? Yes. Instead of just general illumination. You know, using Unreal, it does that well. Yeah. So, take advantage of it. I'm sure they will. Yeah. So anyhow, that's noir. And then the other table that they introduced, so we guessed that it was going to be a, well, they said it was going to be a pirate theme because they went, arr. And so we were like, oh. We thought Dreadnoughtical. We were wrong.
    43:40
    Instead, it's Melkirk Space Pirate. Yeah. Which I say that because, boy, does that look like Mel. especially with his long hair these days it really does so here is their steampunk vibe they call it pirate steampunk kind of vibe thing it's an airship which I believe they're calling the Marengoth they've got a fictional land I like this layout a lot more it's Pirates of the Sky kind of thing I like the layout but I'm also kind of...
    44:19
    There's something that's not appealing to me. And it has to do with... It looks like miniature golf back here.
    44:28
    Yeah, I can see where you're going with that. It's very flat. Even though we have a ramp here, this is like ramps that they were using in 1984 where we elevated the ball slightly but Yes we got it off the playfield for a bit The fact that the ramps are just going along the side here again there no crossover, there's no interest to me. Looks like there's an interesting mechanism bottom left, which looks like a cannon firing mechanism. Yeah, cannon fires. There's also this mechanism here, which obviously is your ball launch, I'm assuming skill shot, landing in the holes here.
    45:07
    It's all got the pistons and the actuators and stuff in that area too. It's definitely... They've got the theme dialed in. Kind of a rotating thing going on back here. Looks a little bit like Space Station. Space Station's rotating cam that redirects the ball around. Hey, cool. Whatever. You know, I'm not... Again, it looks like this is probably a mission hole. It's a mission hole. I'm guessing.
    45:34
    It looks like where your mouse is there at the moment. which looks like the only way to shoot this area over here would be with that ramp. Yeah, and where your mouse was, just where the round bit is there, just below that thing, you'll see a little void in the plastic. That looks like a flipper as well. Not there. Over a little bit more to the right.
    45:55
    Yeah, there. Oh. I reckon that's a flipper. That's a flipper void right there. Uh-huh. Yep. And up into that upper ramp area. so yeah that definitely looks like a flipper so it looks like a full flipper game if it has that there that reminds me of Biolab and reminds me of Earth Defenders oh yeah that's right which I'm not a fan of that because that flipper you forget it's even there it's hard to see it just gets buried into there again early early render you can see because even our... The figure is flat. Yeah, he's flat. He's a cardboard cutout. This looks like it's completely flat when that should be a 3D render. I would assume it's going to be floating around. I assume they're saying things about rocks are falling and air attacks. Well, then there better be a lot of explosions happening again.
    46:55
    I think we can expect that on this table. I'm just trying to help them with their lighting, their light show. again i want a light i want a light show with the inserts and with what's going on not necessarily atmosphere i mean i do want atmospheric lighting but um and this one's going to need it like you know on stern and even like jersey jack does this really well too is that when the ball is being ejected from somewhere the whole play field lights go down if the ball is ejecting down or across if the ball is out ejecting like that it tells you the direction before the ball ejects so you know oh it's it's that one up there and like you know it'll have a flasher going hey the ball's here and it's ejecting this way yeah that's the sort of thing we need to start seeing in their light shows just take cues like go and study how these light shows work on Sterns and Juicy Jacks and do that.
    47:59
    If you do that, it's going to be great. Because I mean, you think about Circus Voltaire. Half of that table is the lighting show. It really is. It's amazing, that table. That's a really good... If it didn't have the light show, it'd be such... It'd be a snore fest. It would be Comet.
    48:22
    You know. um yeah so again i'm not going to be terribly critical just off of a basic render of an early design um it's just things that i would like to see again to me it's very flat back here um this reminds me of a mid 80s or early early early to mid 80s prior to them putting ramps on tables um yeah just a very there's not elevation for the ball a bit like a five power two like uh it had a couple of they had a big feature on it with the ramp that took the ball up off the play field which if that's what you're going for more power to you um but that means you're going to have to make some interesting gameplay choices uh to keep your interest going um we saw this a little bit in octo island in um i think that's how you pronounce it um in the star wars collection It was very flat and quite green. It was very, well, obviously, because it was on an island.
    49:22
    But it had similar things, and they managed to make that look interesting, even though it was really quite flat.
    49:30
    So they can do it, and I'm sure they will do it. They just probably have a lot of placeholder stuff. Like, I would imagine that the Gulf Tee area up the back is going to be mountains.
    49:42
    Now you see it. Doesn't it look like a nature golf? Look, we even got some cannons back here that I would love. I hope that there's going to be firing balls in landing places. That would be great if it was doing exactly that. We got some treasure chests back here that I hope things are happening back there, lighting-wise.
    50:02
    That green area, it's going to be mountains. I think it's going to be mountains and stuff. I expect there to be a windmill.
    50:10
    Something. Yeah, a windmill and then a clown. Right. That you can shoot the ball between. Exactly. It's got to be a windmill. Every mini golf course has a windmill or some description, doesn't it? Now, something that... The reason why we haven't said what the name of this table is, because Zen doesn't even know what the name of this table is. They're getting you to name it. Yeah, they were looking for people to name it. Now, I'm sure that contest is well and done, because... Because they received thousands of submissions. Good luck trying to fill the three of those. Right. So I thought I would announce what my submissions were. and Jared, you can tell me if I was way off base or if you would go, oh, that would attract me, just by if you heard the title and you were walking by the machine. Yep. First one, Sky Skellywags.
    50:56
    No. Too many syllables. Okay. Aeronaut Marauders. Maybe. Because they are an aeronaut if they're flying an airship, and marauders is another name for pirates. Correct. Okay, this one's the comical. Arrgh! Anot. No.
    51:19
    Rapscallion's Revenge. Rapscallion's? Eh. Maybe. Okay. Maybe. Rogue's Plunder. Mm-hmm.
    51:36
    So that would mean the character's name was Rogue. No. Another name for pirate is a rogue. Yep. And rogues plunder. What do they plunder, Chris? They plunder treasure. You see what I'm getting at? I'm looking at this grammatically, and I'm reading way too much into it. Anyhow, next.
    51:58
    Marauders of the Marengoth. Now, that sounds good. Tells a little story right there, right? It does. Yeah, I think that one's got some promise. I'll put that on a short list. Okay. I'd buy that for a dollar. All right, and then my last one, just because it was too obvious and too funny.
    52:16
    Dread Zeppelin. I like it, but you could never do it. Why? I just... Dread Zeppelin would be like... I actually think Dread Zeppelin was the name of a cover band of Led Zeppelin back in the day that played reggae covers of Led Zeppelin songs. If that's the case, that's awesome. I'm dead serious. I think I believe that they played here in Orange County when I was in college a lot. That's fantastic.
    52:46
    I love that. I love the mashup band. But yeah, I'd like that. Because I love a good pun, but I don't think... Let me just wipe my weird face screen off.
    53:00
    There we go. Look, I cleaned it up. Jared got a makeover. Just like that. It's done. Yours for only $19.95 a month. That's right. Yep.
    53:14
    All right. So anyway, we'll have to see what name Zen winds up coming up with through this thing. So here's the thing with names, right? Yeah. Like, of the names that you said, there were some good ones in there. I think bringing the name of the ship or something that Mel dropped. The reason why, essentially, you know, folks, Mel kind of gave everyone the brief in that thing that he did that was the reason why he was going into detail so that you could pick the right name so have a think about the names that you see on pinball machines now in the arcades they're not a sentence they're usually no more than two words and those words don't have a lot of syllables in them so you think Rick and Morty think iron maiden star wars um and yes sure these are all brands as well um but even medieval madness two words not a lot of syllables in them right so i think if zen is smart they're going to look at um things that don't have too many words in them and don't have too many syllables because it comes down to a real estate issue on the back glass and in the game and all that sort of stuff. And menus as well. I just want to pick something better than Adventureland. As much as I like Adventureland, it's a generic title that should be on a Zachariah table.
    54:48
    I agree there. And I'm going to say that. Think about Zachariah. Boy, did they clown karate or Kung Fu, whatever it was. Black Belt. I mean, see, that's a good example. Pool Champion. It's like, okay, can you get any more generic?
    55:07
    Yeah. So, you know, it's a... I think it's going to be interesting to see what they choose. I would predict that they're going to be choosing... They're going to be modeling the name of what you see on people machines. Wait, I got a new one. I got a new one because it's Steampunk, right? Yeah, yeah. And what do pirates do? They loot things. So it's Punky Looters. punky looters like punky barista i know we were going there punky looters please don't use that one sam oh don't worry i think you're pretty safe there but good on you for submitting your names i think there's a couple of good ones in there we will see what happens yep we sure will oh and i should say the prize for if of the winner you get to be the named the captain yeah so here's where unfortunately jared you really needed to submit things so that we could have had captain morgan oh no it's such a missed opportunity captain morgan it's it's such a pirate name and yeah you know not not the name of a particular rum brand or anything at all no no yeah the uh there's a very odd on the side there's a very odd campaign for captain morgan rum down here there's this ad and they go captain captain captain and they just like all these people in the bar just raising a glass of rum going captain like you know captain captain everyone's captain and they it's very strange so yes that that brand does stick in my mind i'm not a rum drinker though i'm a gin drinker i'm a slurpy drinker um okay so rum and me do not mix well at all no um they don't mix well with anyone really all right so i think that was uh that was really all that we have uh for you all this week we just wanted to kind of uh touch a bit do some pinball focus stuff yeah touch a bit about what was going on in the pinball show but also uh obviously again it was really cool that on solo wound up being free um but it does just hey if you're gonna throw something in front of me then i'm gonna take a look at it and then i might be critical and now is the time we keep on saying this before pin effects comes out now is the time to make tweaks and changes and differences because pinball effects 3 is locked in everybody knows that that's fine you want to attract right you you're you can't transfer your tables to pin effects so here they are new it's going to be brand new leaderboards it's going to be brand new everything how about doing that code update You did it when you went from FX2 to FX3 with Epic Quest and Mars. They were subtle differences, but they made a huge... They were great choices. Yeah, really, really good. Epic Quest was definitely one of those where it was just like, oh my god, I've got to do bats or skeletons again. Like, can I please end this mode? And then when they switched to FX3, suddenly it was like, oh, those were brief and we're just all about collecting the board. Things, yeah. so that we can get to the wizard mode. And that was such a brilliant choice. And then same thing with Mars, where it made progressing through the different modes so much more intuitive and so much easier than this convoluted mess.
    58:47
    Do the same thing. Update these things. Yep. Take the same approach. Do it. Because again, you already got your hands and fingers all over these. I'm sure that, I hope, somebody was like, hey, well, we're at it. I don't know hopefully it's just part of the iterations they got planned the inevitable iterations they got planned for these tables in Unreal I really do hope that that's part of their strategy because it's the right strategy and they should be doing it but that is all that we were planning on chatting about today yes and you know we'll be back two weeks from now we'll have other things to chat about what they are, Jared will tell you stuff and things Until then, folks, bye-bye. Bye-bye.