IFPA Sanctioned Pinball is back! My pin Slash experience and my initial Mandalorian thoughts after playing it for the first time. All this right now on A Pinball Podcast. Alright guys, welcome back to another episode of A Pinball Podcast. Thank you guys so much for being here. And before I go on, I have to plug a couple of shows real quick. I am on a new podcast over on TPN called the triple drain pinball podcast. At least I think that's what it is. Maybe it's just triple drain podcast. Oh, I don't know. I didn't pick out the name, but we're going with it, but I'm doing that over there with Joel and with Tom graph. And yeah, if you guys want to check it out, I'm over there. I think we have two episodes out currently. And it's funny. The feedback on it has ranged from it is now my favorite podcast to hear to wow i could not get through five minutes on it it was really bad so needless to say your mileage may vary it is very different than this podcast it's just a few friends getting together with a guest every couple of weeks and we just basically shoot the shit and we just talk about some pinball in between it so if that's something you guys would wouldn't mind listening to just head over to tpn and you'll hear it over there somewhere somewhere with all their podcasts that they have out right now so getting right to all the news and everything that's happening ifpa pinball is officially back i'm pretty sure all you guys know this already but sanctioned pinball is coming back effective august 1st so currently as of this recording is june 22nd 2021 and i'm thoroughly excited of course we've all been playing a little bit here and there as much as we can and it's a very exciting just the fact that Sanctioned Pinball is coming back because the main thing about it is it's not just the points. And yeah, I would love the Whopper points because I do want to make a big push towards Iffo Worlds. I want to be able to play in that eventually. But I'm so happy that Sanctioned Pinball is back just because that means more events will be happening. And because more events are happening, that means I'll get to see more people. I'll get to see friends I haven't seen in well over a year now. And so I'm very excited about that. And it just means that basically a lot of leagues that might have been defunct are coming back. A lot of tournaments that weren't happening are probably coming back. And you guys can go over to ifpapinball.com and check out the calendar, as I'm sure there's plenty of tournaments being posted up right now. And I'm sure Adam Becker is losing a lot of sleep trying to get all caught up on all the submissions. Or maybe Josh Sharpe is actually doing some work. Are you, Josh? I don't know. I know he's a busy man as well, but I am excited about all the events coming up. I have decided that I am going to go to Expo this year in Chicago. So originally I wasn't going to go, but my schedule worked itself out and we will be going here pretty soon. And I'm also going to the pinball super series, which is going to be held at district 82 in Wisconsin. I believe that is going to be October 13th or 14th through the 17th, 18th. I don't have the dates right in front to be, but I know it's a Thursday through a Sunday, and that's going to be six events held. So all of it's 100% TGP, and if you want to get your points up, if you want to get your rankings going, if you just want to dive right back in the tournament pinball, that's where to go. There's going to be a lot of exceptional players there. Several world-class players will be there. I won't reveal the names just yet. I'll wait for District 82 to do that whenever they do start posting up the player list. But I know that signups for that is not happening right now, but it will happen on July 3rd at 10 a.m. Central Time. So look forward to that, to signing up. I know that they got prices off in terms of playing all six tournaments, or you can just choose to play one tournament. Whatever you want to do. But the cool part to it is, is that they're going to have their own point system built into these six events, and some of the cash prize is going to go to somebody who does the best overall after six tournaments. You'll get a badass trophy and you'll get a little bit cash on top of that. So that's pretty cool. So that's a new event that's kind of like a big giant Whopper series going on. And I'm really excited to be able to participate in that. Then I also plan on going to the Houston Arcade Expo that's happening in November, I believe. And I'm also booked to go play down at Freeplay Florida. Now, unfortunately, with Freeplay, there's no tournaments that have been announced just yet. So I'm just making an assumption that there is going to be a tournament. I just wanted to make sure that I had my hotel booked because I loved it down there the last time I played in 2019 just because the people are great, the hotel pretty nice. I love the pool. I love the lounge. And I like the tournament format with the Herb, with Classics, and with Main. So hopefully that is coming back. If not, obviously probably not going to go down there, but I have everything booked to go down as of right now. So if you're looking at playing sanctioned tournament pinball, now's your chance. August 1st. I know I got several listeners out there that have not had the opportunity to play sanctioned pinball and it's coming up. So that's pretty exciting for everybody and pinball is going to come back roaring, I hope, and hopefully everybody will have a great time with that. All right, so Pin Slash happened. If you did not watch Pin Slash, it was just a couple weeks ago, ran by Carl D'Python Anghelo. And thank you, Carl, for running such a great event. And thank you to all the volunteers for running such a great event, from commentators, from people working behind the scenes on Discord, getting things set up. I mean, it was a really well-run event and probably one of the most well-run events I've ever participated in. And what's amazing about it is the fact that it was all done online. And there's so many things that could have gone wrong. And I'm sure there was some things that went wrong that we didn't necessarily see. And that just goes to show you how well it was actually run, that nothing was really noticeable that could have gone wrong. I think maybe one of my events, the timer got stuck maybe or started early, but they had a backup timer. So it wasn't even an issue. So amazing job by everybody associated with that event. I had a lot of fun and I'll talk about that right now. A little bit about my experiences, including my giant, just train wreck, just like a crash, just an epic disaster that happened. That was just, it was funny at the time, frustrating afterwards, and then it got to be funny again. So that's kind of where I was at with that evening. But anyhow, so I forget exactly what I qualified at. I can't remember my seed. I think I was 14th or 15th. I was somewhere right around there. But anyhow, I didn't have a buy. So my first round opponent was Nick DiStefano, who's an excellent player out of Massachusetts, I believe, or at least one of the New Robert Englunds states up there. And with this, if you're not familiar with Penn Slash, all it is is just timed rounds. You play three rounds or time challenges built into three rounds total. And it's just tier challenges to where the challenges get progressively more difficult as you move on or as you get further in your own round or as you get further in the tournament itself. And these time challenges also have points associated if you finish it in X amount of time. So that's the easiest way to put it without going too deep into the rabbit hole. But anyhow, With my first match, my tier one match was collect a 3x Hawkeye. Now, this was a tier that, or a challenge that I was actually dreading. This one and the shield bonus were the two ones that I was a little bit iffy on because I felt like it was funny. With shield bonus, which is basically to where you have to hit a Hawkeye combo, which is the upper loop, and then that would light the shield bonus between the pop bumpers, and you'd have to hit it between the pop bumpers to collect. that was one of those that could either be finished very fast or it could be a complete disaster. The 3x Hawkeye challenge was one that I felt like was going to be difficult no matter what. Like you had to play it perfect to really get a solid run in because there's so much that could go wrong. And in order to finish this challenge, you have to hit the gauntlet ramp three times in a row and then complete the Hawkeye loop. So it's not too easy at all. You've got to have several things go right for you in order to complete this particular challenge. Now, for myself, it took me a few to get the gauntlet going. I think I hit it once, and then I promptly missed the shot, and I kind of missed the shot itself a few times. And finally, eventually, right around the 45-second time frame, or maybe it might have been the 30, I'm not sure. It was sometime right around there, I finally started dialing in the gauntlet. And I mean, I basically got lucky, to be honest with you, because I got it three times in a row. And then I just had some nasty spin come off that wire form to my upper flipper. And that ball was trying to get away and trying to spin away from my upper flipper. And luckily, I was able to get enough juice on the shot that it completed around the Hawkeye loop. And it completed my challenge. And I believe I had 55 points after round one. And we moved to tier two. Again, I'm not sure where my opponent was at. I think Nick might have finished it with either 50 or 45 points, somewhere right around there. And so we moved on to Tier 2, and that tier was to, or the challenge was to start an Ironman multiball. Now, in order to start Ironman multiball on Avengers, you have to spell iron with the outlane and inlane. So it's I-R-O-N, right? So left outlane, left inlane, right inlane, right outlane. You just have to spell that, and then that will light your Avengers tower. And then from there, we had to hit the Avengers Tower three times to start the Iron Man multiball. So the challenge would not be done until that animation showed up. And my initial plan was to just auto plunge, which would lead it all the way back to the right end lane. That would spot my O. From there, I was going to ski jump over to my left flipper and let the ball just come to a stop. And then I was going to hit the Black Widow ramp, and it was going to come back around to the left end lane to collect my R. So that's two letters right there. And from there, I was gonna actually ski jump from left to right let the ball settle in if I could and then take a clean shot at the sanctum target because that would spot the letter And unfortunately I ended up totally missing that and hitting the disc instead even though I had the disc set away. My wife, Monica, was helping me preset the Dr. Strange disc, which you're allowed to do, and I had certain spots that I needed to set it at in order to help me through the challenges a little bit more. But I accidentally spun the disc, and by doing that, it actually is beneficial, a little bit just because it will move your inlanes for you. But unfortunately, the way that I hit it, the inlanes did rotate around, but then they came right back to the O and the R. So I didn't get any progress with that either. And it just, it was a bummer doing that. And eventually I actually ended up draining out the right side and I was prepared to even nudge it to the right side just because that's where the N was at. And so from there, I was able to have three letters at this point. I had the O, R, and N. And all I needed was the I. And from here, the disc was actually smack dab in the way of the sanctum target. And it was in such a spot, when it's like that, it was in such a spot that it was actually, it was going to take me like a precise shot to actually move that disc out of the way and be able to even spin that disc at all to hope that my letters would kind of settle into a spot to where I could get a clean shot at one of the inlanes or at one of the returns for the in lane and luckily i was able to move the disc with one of the hits and then i just grazed the sanctum target just barely to spot my last letter which was i and from there the avengers tower is lit although i did proceed to miss the shot three or four times before i finally settled in and from there i got a couple of locks finally and i was just my main goal was just to take drop catches just nudge it whenever the ball started coming back down the Avengers Tower after it stayed up there for a lock for a few, and I was just going to nudge it back to my right flipper and then send it right back up there. And I did that a couple of times, although one of the times it kind of, it didn't stick, it kind of rejected. Then other times I just flat out missed it. And so at some point, I finally just decided to let the ball just automatically drain after I tried to post pass and that wasn't working. And by automatically draining or draining on purpose, I guaranteed that I would at least have a chance for that ball to get on the right flipper. So the automatic plunge came back around, luckily, and it made it all the way through to the right flipper. And then I was able to get a clean shot to the Avengers Tower, and I completed the task at right around a minute and 55 seconds. So that was enough to bring me to, I believe, as a 100 to 80 lead going into Tier 2, which is about two minutes worth. And this tier, in our final challenge, which was a Tier 2 challenge, was to collect a level 1 Black Panther. and from here it's basically just hitting the right orbit until you're until you have it complete now you can't just spam it all the time you have to activate a few other switches and just keep going back and forth and so i had a couple early successful shots at it but i also accidentally hit the thor captive ball a few times as well and finally i accidentally started multiball and i didn't mean to do that but it really wasn't so bad either because i kind of anticipated that something like this might happen. So I was just strategically draining and letting the ball clear out and then just hit the right orbit shot. And then anytime there was an auto plunge, maybe I was just ski jumping over or trying to activate another switch to get that right orbit shot ready to go again. And luckily I was able to work around it and secure a win from there. And so that put me to the second round, which was against the reigning champion Escher Lefkoff, who's also one of the best pinball players in the world. Now, this was actually one of the people that I wanted to face early. And just because one, to me, it's when you're dealing with timed events and I am horrible at timed events because it doesn't really suit my play style. Although I'm trying to trying to change my play style a little bit because of that. And I'm finding out some things about how I'm playing that I can try to fix. And this was one of the situations in which I definitely found some of the things that I could fix when I look back at decision making, when I look back at shot selection. But I was happy to face Escher in that next round because I do want to face the best competition I can possibly face. And he obviously is just excellent at pinball, just world class. And a lot of games, he's an amazing player. And we got our three tiers at the very beginning. It was start a gym quest, collect a combo jackpot, and collect a level two Hulk. Now, to be perfectly honest with everybody, these were the three tiers that were my favorite tiers, or these were the three challenges that were my favorite challenges. So I was very excited to hear that the stars were aligning. I was facing somebody as good as Escher, but I was getting the challenges that I felt like I could handle and I was excited about because all these challenges, I knew exactly what to do and I felt comfortable doing them. So with the first challenge, it was start a gym quest, which quite frankly was pretty easy. It was just a matter of placing the disc at the right spot, which I placed it at basically a 3 p.m. spot. And from there, you could just plunge it to your right flipper, hit the disc, spin it, get it back to a left flipper or even a right flipper, and just hit the gauntlet to start your mode. And that's what I did, and I was able to do it fairly quickly. I think I got in about seven or eight seconds, so we just cruised through that. And that was mainly because we got a pretty good bounce. But my plan with that either way was to spin the disc first. if the bounce got crazy i was just going to let it just automatically drain let the ball come back to right flipper ski jump to the left and then finish it so i had had a general plan of action and contingency plans as well if something just went haywire so we ended up completing that i believe we were tied 60 60 going into tier two which is or round two which was collect a combo a jackpot. And this is where tactical errors came like crazy. I just, for one, I was missing my shots completely, like full stop. I got nobody to blame but myself. I was missing my shots, which was frustrating in itself because I'm fairly accurate with this game. I'm not the most accurate, but I'm not the least accurate either. But you would not know that watching this. And I can promise you guys, it wasn't nerves. I wasn't nervous at all playing. It was just all of a sudden my shot just completely left me. And I found myself trying to rush. I found myself thinking, okay, if I'm missing these shots, Escher's probably hitting his shots and I need to hurry things up a little bit. When in hindsight, probably what I should have done is just play my game. Because once I started rushing shots, my initial game plan, my first game plan and my second game plan went completely out the window. And so my initial strategy was to use the Black Widow, Captain Marvel combo in which I would just go Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Captain Marvel. And I would just keep doing that over and over and over again. And I'm usually pretty good at that. And in practice runs, I was finishing things up fairly quick by doing that. And if that wasn't there, my other strategy was just to go Black Widow, Gauntlet, Hawkeye. But I also, for whatever reason, abandoned that too. And even though I had some clean shots. Now, I do remember going back to it once I was just missing shots galore. But long story short, I missed a bunch of shots when they mattered and I just got beat. And not only did I get beat, I got beat down. Because I did not even get my combo jackpot collect until like 5 minutes and 50 seconds. nearly the full amount of time, which effectively led me to just having five points and being all but eliminated. I would basically need Escher just to turn off his game for round three for me to even have a chance to win. So it was very, very bad. And I did beat myself up a little bit afterwards. I played it probably five times in a row, all five times. I got it in less than two and a half minutes. Then the next day I played it, I decided I was going to do this 10 times in a row, just cold. I was going to see how, what I should have did. And of course, all 10 times got it again below two and a half minutes. And I just kicking myself for ditching my initial strategies. And I guess in hindsight, what I need to remember is play the way that you can and do the things that brought you to the dance in the first place. And it was just kind of a game time decision. and it's just one of those things that I've learned straight off the bat and I'm glad it happened because I've learned stay confident in what brought you here and keep plugging away and even if it doesn't work try try again and then make a pivot I feel like I pivoted way too early and then once I start missing shots on there I went through all my strategies way too quick and I abandoned things way too quick and it was just just an implosion if you ever seen Tommy Boy I It was just like him, just with the ambulance and everything, with setting everything, all the cars on fire, and just making all the sounds. That was me. That was essentially me. So going on to challenge three, it was collect a level two Hulk, which, again, I was very comfortable in that. But knowing that I had about a four and a half minute disadvantage, I had to basically just rip through it. And unfortunately, I didn't really do that too much. I had a couple of good rips. But the funny part with this, and even though it was basically academic at this point, a funny part was, is I heard my wife Monica in the background say, and I could have swore she said, he's got it. And so I stopped playing in the middle of it after ripping the spinner, and I just kind of like looked off to the side. And then I realized once I was looking at the screen, Escher's timer is still going. So then I went back to playing and we were kind of talking back and forth during, I think even during the game, but even afterwards I found out that she had actually said to me, you got this. And it was funny because I interpreted that he said he's got it. And so that's why I stopped. But even then, even when she said, you got this, if I feel like even if I would have heard her say that, I might have actually stopped by accident, too, because it wasn't in like a you completed it type of way. But it in a bless your heart You really trying type of way So I have to thank my wife for giving me support here And she basically like the Vanna White of Avengers for me helping me adjust the disc and all that. So I really do appreciate that. And plus she let me play pinball for nearly an entire day at our house while she was trying to take care of four kids at the same time. So I definitely do appreciate that. But yeah, getting back to it, I just got just beat down. I think I might have gained 10 points on Escher during that. But at the same time, he wasn't really playing too much for speed with his. I'd have to imagine he was just playing for safety because all he had to basically do was just complete it. And there was no way he was not going to complete it. And I believe Zach McCarthy was the one who ended up coming up with the victory. If you haven't watched it before, sorry. Sorry about that. Spoiler alerts. But he played really well. He is, I haven't got a chance too much to see him play, but I've heard good things about him. and obviously he was able to deliver in spades as he defeated Luke Nahorniak in the finals, who is no slouch himself. Luke is a tremendous player, and he's really good at the pin Slash format as well. And so I do hope that pin Slash is somehow still, even with sanctioned tournaments coming back, I hope that pin Slash is still a part of overall tournaments, whether it's before big tournaments or whether it's online. I feel like that this is a format that's a lot of fun, and I actually plan on trying to bring this format a little bit for the locals here in Oklahoma City just because I think it's something different. It teaches you a game also. It achieves so many different goals. It teaches you a game. It gives you that heads up feeling that you can't necessarily get in match play. There's a lot of sense of urgency and it kind of forces you out of your comfort zone as well. And those are the parts that I really enjoyed. And I wasn't so sure how I would like playing in it because I know that I'm one of the weaker players at that particular format, but I'm happy I did it. I learned a lot, and I learned some of the adjustments that I can make in my own gameplay when I need to moving forward. So I was very happy about that, and I had a great time playing in it. All right, so moving forward, I did go to Wisconsin this past weekend to play in a bunch of tournaments, and we will talk about those tournaments during the next podcast where I'll give a full breakdown of my gameplay, of my thoughts and round by round a little bit of those three tournaments. But I did have the opportunity to play a Mandalorian pinball machine. Now, obviously, it was the pro version, and I forgot what place it was at, but it was at one of the local locations or one of the locations up there in Wisconsin. And, you know, it's the game. It's funny. I didn't really know too much what to expect in terms of how I would enjoy it. I basically went in with a clear mind. I had some thoughts, obviously, from previous podcasts and from previous videos I've done in terms of what I believe the shots would be, what I believe the experience would be. But at the same time, you never truly know until you're actually in that environment and you're rocking and rolling. Now, I will say before I go into all this, I did manage to get a hold of Amanda Pro. That's why you see my Avengers. If you're watching on YouTube, that's why you see Avengers packed up and ready to go because I'm sending that out. I'm bringing another one in and I'm going to have a Mando Pro just for a little while, for a couple of months or as long as my kids. If my kids want to keep it, obviously it's going to be around a little bit longer, but I plan on playing it and really digging into it a little bit more. Now, my initial Mando thoughts, and this is, it's not really going to be too deep because honestly, I technically only played it twice, but I realistically just put in one full ball on the game. And I will say that this game was set up fairly easy. Everything was set to default with the rubbers on, alleying posts were in the middle. It really wasn't that high of a pitch. I think the pitch might've been six and a half degrees. So it really didn't lend itself to being too draining. And the ball saves obviously were on, multiball easy to get to. And it was just overall, the game played super easy. I mean, it played easy enough to the point that I actually had to bell out on my ball one because I realized I was about to get to the wizard mode for Razorcrest, which was Precious Cargo, and I was actually close to the wizard mode for Missions, which was I like those odds. And I just felt like I didn't want to see those modes in that setting. I wanted to experience it for the first time at my house. So I just kind of ditched out the ball, kind of skipped over my extra ball for the most point, kind of skipped over ball two and ball three. I just went through it, and then the next time I played it, I decided to do the encounters because I didn't do the encounters hardly at all in game one. So that's kind of where I'm coming from here. Now, this particular game, I think once it is in tournaments, and it will be, it's definitely going to have to be made a lot more difficult because it is probably one of the easier shooting games for Stern that they put out in a long time. There wasn't any of the shots in particular weren't really that difficult to do. Now, I'm sure I heard from some people that they feel like that the orbits are a little bit tight, but I really didn't get that sense. I think if you're accurate, you're accurate. If you're hitting the shots the way you're supposed to hit the shots, you're going to basically burn through this game really quick. And I think if you are a high level player, you're going to really burn through this game pretty quick. And I can I can kind of see why they put impossible mode in there for situations like this. now on our particular copy that we were playing on a few things were a little bit surprising one i actually did not mind too much the ramp returns with the plastic returns coming back to the end lanes and i realized in the middle of playing it as i was watching it i was thinking okay it's not as bad in person seeing it and then i realized while playing it i didn't even notice them at at all i just didn't the only time i noticed them was when the ball was returning but i'm watching the ball anyways. And I didn't really have time to stop and think about what these ramp returns look like. And quite frankly, I just, I was surprised by that, that I did not notice it near as much, if at all, compared to what I thought initially it would be like. And so that was, that ended up being a plus. I thought something would really be missing with the wire forms not being there. And I didn't really feel that too much on this pro. Now my tune might change once I get a chance to play a premium, and it just seems that much better. But for this, I personally did not notice that at all. Now, a few of the other things, a little bit of the bad here, is that the center ramp, it was an easy shot the whole time. It was very easy to start your multi-balls. It was very easy to accidentally start your multi-balls because you don't have to relight any locks in particular besides just going up the middle the whole time. So there's no danger in really going for that shot. Now, the only danger that does come out of it just a little bit, and this kind of happened on the particular pin that we were playing, is that the center ramp return can be a little clunky. Sometimes it fed smooth, sometimes it didn't. In the left orbit itself, the feed was very odd. I mean, the feed was kind of all over the place to where it sometimes hit off the top part of the left sling, Sometimes it went to a flipper. Sometimes it was coming straight down the middle. Sometimes it would feed to the right flipper. It was just kind of, I don't know. I don't know if that's so much of a design layout or if that's just the way that this particular copy was set up. But with everything set to default and with that bubble being right at six and a half and that was still happening, it leads me to believe that it's potentially just how the design is for whatever reason. And so I'll be curious to play other copies as well, whether it's my copy or whether it's the local copy that Cactus Jacks is getting. I'll be very curious to compare all these different pro copies and see exactly how they're shooting and how they're returning. Overall, the other shot that I was dreading was the horseshoe shot, and it pretty much did exactly what I thought it was going to do. Anytime I hit that shot, no matter how clean it was, it was a different result every time. Sometimes the ball would get hung up there. Sometimes it would slam into the right side of the orbit, and it would just trickle back down. Other times it would come around and slam so hard that it would actually feed nearly to the left end lane or the top part of the left sling. It was all over the place. Now, sorry about that, bumping the mic here. For some people, that may not be that big a deal. I think in a home setting it probably won't be that big a deal. If I'm playing in a tournament, I'm probably avoiding that shot like the plague just because it just creates so much chaos even if you hit the shot perfect. And I feel like the only time that I could really justify hitting that shot was or in the future will be because that's where the super jackpot is at for certain modes or certain points in the game. And using a backhand shot for the most part, as long as the backhand is starting at a, basically at a standstill to where you're already trapped up, that was able to alleviate some of the chaos and some of the volatility that that shot had in particular. Now, if you try to hit it from a forehand, good luck. It's probably going all over the place. Now, I still don't know whether that was intended by Brian Eddy. I haven't listened to anything about it. If anybody knows that for sure, be sure and just leave a comment down below. Let me know. But it's still, I mean, at the same time, I can also justify the shot by saying it's a risk-reward. I mean, that's where your ambush is going to be. and I think that's going to be where a few of the mode shots are as well. So it's kind of like that risk-reward too with it. But at the same time, I'm just not a big fan of a shot punishing you when you hit it the way that it's intended to be hit. The only time that I don't mind getting punished by a shot is if it's a bash toy and it has a magnet in front of it or something like that because then I think there's extreme risk-reward in something like that, something like a Walking Dead or even something like a Sparky just any of those on Metallica I feel like that where the risk really comes from and I not really a big fan of risk shots from how a return is from a shot in particular. I would be more of a fan of a risk-reward from something that might be a shot that has like Groot or like Roadshow with the Bulldozer, something that is moving up and down and something that you have to get your timing correct to even complete the shot. That is risk-reward that I really do like, and I didn't really get that too much out of Mandalorian with that particular shot. Some of the other good things, or some of the good things about it, though, the right ramp was actually a tighter shot than what I expected, and I actually don't mind that because I feel like trying to combo shots on here, while still fun, it's a lot of fun, and while still doable, it is a little bit challenging. And I like that out of this pin. I like that the ramp returns in particular aren't necessarily around the same timeframes that it kind of throws off your timing a little bit and you have to make an effort to make adjustments on the fly. So I like that. I feel like the right ramp is a fun shot. The scoop is actually more wide open than what I anticipated. I think it's a backhand all day shot. I wasn't really missing it too much while doing that. Now, my forehand was just kind of all over the place. There would be times in which I would hit it two times in a row, and then there would be times where I'd miss it five or six times in a row. And what was a little bit disappointing, sometimes within those five or six times in a row, there would be two or three rejects just sprinkled in there. So I was either hitting a post or sometimes the ball would just flat out reject from the scoop itself. But the ball never did reject, though, when I was on my left flipper. I did notice that. And so that was a little bit different. But at the same time, even during the rejects or even during any missed shots, there was never really any time that I felt like I was in danger with how the ball was coming back to the flippers. It's just the game, if you're pretty decent at pinball, the game is going to be a long player, especially on default settings. But it's still fun, and I do still feel like even if you do kind of make the pin a little bit more difficult, it'll still continue to be fun. Now, the mini play field. So, you know, this is kind of, it's funny. I get a love-hate relationship with this mini play field right now, and I experienced it a lot more during my second game because I realized during my first game, during the first ball, I just kind of avoided it altogether, wasn't really thinking too much about it. But once I got up there, it was fun to play, although it didn't feel like there was too much to do up there just because even with the one single flipper, which I still feel like is going to be more fun than the double flipper even with the moving upper play field on the premium and le I just feel like there wasn't too many options for shots up there to where you were just going to cycle through your shots you're going to hit three or four shots I didn't feel like it was it was over overly difficult to do it happened fast you're not going to be able to stay up there all day with one flipper but with a pig flipper it wasn't really that difficult to kind of churn through it because even after missing it, my punishment was for the ball just to go to the right orbit and just come right back to the right flipper. And then I have a clean shot to the left ramp and I just repeat that process over and over and over again. So it wasn't really that difficult. And I don't know yet how satisfying it really was to play through that. And I was kind of rushed playing through it. So I'm going to kind of wait until I get that either in a home setting or I get to go down to CJ's and play it a lot more to really make my determination on that. But right now it's kind of underwhelming and it's just kind of one of those weird spots as well that I'm about 6'1 and I could see it easily, but my wife, who's about 5'7, she pointed out that she could only see about two thirds of it and she had to stand on her tiptoes a little bit. So the bad part is I know if my kids play it, they're probably not going to be able to see what's happening up there. And so that's a little bit disappointing, but that's just kind of how this design is. So if you haven't played it yet, you're below six foot, you might have a little bit of an issue with it. If you're below 5'5", you're definitely going to have an issue with it. But hopefully, I don't know, hopefully that's not going to play too big of a deal for a lot of people whenever they're playing this particular game. And obviously that's not going to be an issue on the premium or LEs just because it is an upper play field and it does move vertically to where you can clearly see what is happening up there. My other critiques of it, you know, with the child rollovers, I don't know how to feel about that still. It was blocked off from my view somewhat. At least the IL and the D for sure was completely blocked off from my view, from a player's perspective. That's, I don't know. It may not be that big a deal long-term, but there did feel like that there was a lot of balls that came back down the center ramp area because it went over where the D was and it didn't hit any switches with the rollovers up there. And instead it just kind of trickled back through the little dangling target. And it just came back to my flippers and the shots were, it was never really in danger or anything like that. It just happened a lot more than what I anticipated. And I don't know if that's because of a lack of magnet in it. I don't know if that's just a design thing. I'm going to have to play a lot more to make that determination. Now, in terms of the famous Grogu, you know, the Grogu character that's in there, the little doll, I honestly, I didn't really have that big a deal with it. Now, I wasn't looking at it at all when I was playing. When I wasn't playing, yes, the doll or the character does take up a lot of real estate. On the plus side, it's better than just seeing a plastic figure. And it's, the mold actually looks pretty good to me looking at it. Now, obviously, we all still wish it did a little bit of something, but I think at the same time, it does what I think Brian Eddy intended it to do, which is to gain people's attention when they walk up to the machine because it is very noticeable, and it's one of the first things that you're going to see, and obviously, it's an extreme main character within the whole show. So I think that they achieved what they set out to do with that. But overall, my first impression of the game, The light show's excellent. I think Dwight did a great job, or whoever ended up designing the light show. I like the rules right off the bat. With this particular game, you can tell. If you're aware of how rules work, you can tell. There's been a lot of time put into this game. I mean, a lot of time. I can't imagine how many hours have been spent just synchronizing everything up with the video clips, because there's so many video clips and assets with the call-outs. There is a lot of call-outs from the show with how the light show is corresponding to it. I mean, it's definitely pretty impressive to see in person. I will give it that. The artwork, I was actually really surprised about the artwork. Now, seeing the video, the trailer of it, it makes the art look muted. It makes it just kind of look like it's a desert fill. And obviously, that's where some of Mandalorian takes place at. but when you see it in person the artwork was actually a lot brighter in person where i was at and it felt a lot more vibrant especially the blues and the yellows and the reds like they just went together and i was really impressed by the way that it looked and combine that with the light show combine that with the call outs combine that with the mandalorian music and even the music that stern put in there that i believe that they create themselves it did create an overall fun experience that I believe a lot of people are going to thoroughly enjoy. Now, I'm not so sure if this is going to be a game that's long lasting in people's collections. I think if you're a Mandalorian fan, you'll be pleased with how this is. I think if you're just an average fan that you'll watch the show, but take it or leave it, you don't really care about the lore too much. I think you'll put some quarters into it and you'll probably just move on to the next turn. I mean, that's pretty much where this machine is at. It does a lot of things solid. It does some things good. And it has a few parts that are a little bit questionable here and there. But overall, there's no denying because of the theme and because of all the elements that they have in this, it will be in a lot of homes. It will be a major seller. And I think this game from some of the distributors I've talked to, there's distributors out there that sold a lot of these. and they want to get more and they can't get a hold of more. I mean, that's how popular this game is. So I feel like it's going to definitely do well in terms of being at people's homes, in terms of sales overall. But that's kind of where my assessment is on it right now. But again, that could shift a little bit. The more time I get on it, the more time I learn the rule set, the more time I take to try to get to different wizard modes and try to figure out strategies to it and try to figure out how to work in multipliers and how to work in the best car in the foundry. I feel like that there is a fair amount of breadth to this game and there's a lot to do in this game. And I feel like with all those layers and all those combinations, it will give the player who's interested in learning those things, it will give them a lot to do within this game. So that's gonna about wrap it up. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you guys have any comments at all, any questions, you guys can put them down below in the comments or you can email me at apinballpodcasts at gmail.com. I am a little bit behind on emails, but I'm going to be doing a viewer-based, or I guess a question-based podcast here pretty soon where I'll answer all the questions because I need to get caught up on that a little bit. But I definitely appreciate the support. Thank you guys so much. Leave a like down below if you haven't done that yet. Other than that, that's all I got. Enjoy your day. Thank you guys so much for listening, and I'll catch you guys on the next one. Later, guys.