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Episode 11 - SPL July 2019

Do or Die Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·32m 8s·analyzed·Jul 25, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Raymond Davidson details SPL July 2019 tournament run and discusses pinball strategy and upcoming games.

Summary

Raymond Davidson recounts his experience at the Seattle Pinball League July 2019 tournament, detailing his gameplay strategies across five games (Simpsons Pinball Party, Iron Maiden, Paragon, Red and Ted's Road Show, Laser Q) in the group round, his semifinal run, and his second-place finish in the finals to Steven Donaldson. He discusses code updates for Dialed In, Game of Thrones, and mentions excitement for upcoming games Jurassic Park and Wonka.

Key Claims

  • Steven Donaldson won the Seattle Pinball League July 2019 event

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson, host, describing the finals results where Steven Donaldson defeated him in the final game (Laser Q) with Steven placing third (47,000 points) versus Raymond's first place.

  • New Dialed In code reduces the Big Bang award from 50k to half of total completion bonus

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson citing a code update: 'There was new dialed-in code that reduces the Big Bang award. So now if you're in a mode, the Big Bang will not give you 50k and it will only give you half of the total completion bonus.'

  • Game of Thrones beta code by Dwight Sullivan makes Lannister really strong and allows buying playfield multipliers

    medium confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'dwight sullivan has been releasing sort of secret betas on the tilt forums and i think it uh it really changes up the strategy um it makes lannister really really strong uh lets you buy playfield multipliers'

  • Jurassic Park will feature 'Jurassic Perks' similar to Batman 66's perk system

    medium confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'I heard that Jurassic Park is going to have Jurassic perks. So similar to Batman 66, whenever you capture dinosaurs, you get perks for the rest of the game.'

  • Raymond Davidson achieved 400 million points on Iron Maiden's Flight of Icarus mode

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson describing his gameplay: 'i started flight of icarus and basically just never missed a shot it was like you know eight way combo and i got like 400 million from flight of icarus which was like my record like all-time best flight of icarus score'

  • Red and Ted's Road Show at this venue had a custom ROM randomizing city progression

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'this roadshow actually had an interesting rom on it which i uh highly recommend that you at least try it out which makes the cities sort of uh go all over the map literally so you don't just always play new york and then new orleans'

  • Simpsons Pinball Party at this venue was not set in competition/tournament mode

Notable Quotes

  • “It's such a great game. So the third game, oh, I got first on that one. And so I got two firsts. So I'm basically locked into the finals unless I get last and Dave Stewart gets first on the third game.”

    Raymond Davidson@ 18:39 — Shows tournament math and how the points-based advancement system works in SPL format.

  • “It's one of my favorite games of all time. It's kind of the game whenever someone asks me what my favorite game is, I usually say Simpsons Pinball Party.”

    Raymond Davidson@ 2:24 — Personal preference statement indicating deep affinity for Simpsons Pinball Party; demonstrates why he chose it strategically.

  • “the only control you have is when the ball is coming to your flippers, the best way to reduce the chaos and then try to aim your next shot.”

    Raymond Davidson@ 15:36 — Design philosophy insight about Laser Q mechanics and ball control strategy.

  • “that's not how you win tournaments you have to pretend that the the gods will like the pinball gods will have it your way every once in a while right like you can't worry about what happens to the other players”

    Raymond Davidson@ 23:40 — Mindset coaching about tournament play and maintaining focus regardless of opponent performance.

  • “Jurassic Park is going to have Jurassic perks. So similar to Batman 66, whenever you capture dinosaurs, you get perks for the rest of the game.”

    Raymond Davidson@ 30:19 — Intel on upcoming Jurassic Park game mechanics, indicating design philosophy borrowed from Batman 66.

  • “i really think that was a great strategic decision uh joe cats is uh great for uh for keeping that game awesome”

    Raymond Davidson@ 28:53 — Praise for code designer Joe Catania and the Dialed In Big Bang change, crediting him with maintaining game balance.

Entities

Raymond DavidsonpersonSteven DonaldsonpersonDwight SullivanpersonJoe CataniapersonKeith ElwinpersonDave StewartpersonSeattle Pinball LeagueorganizationSimpsons Pinball Party

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Seattle Pinball League July 2019 results: Steven Donaldson won event, Raymond Davidson placed second in finals.

    high · Raymond's narrative describing his path through group play, semifinals, and finals with specific scores and game outcomes.

  • ?

    code_update: Dialed In received code update reducing Big Bang award from 50k to half completion bonus, changing strategic decision points for mode selection.

    high · Raymond: 'There was new dialed-in code that reduces the Big Bang award. So now if you're in a mode, the Big Bang will not give you 50k and it will only give you half of the total completion bonus.'

  • ?

    code_update: Game of Thrones secret beta code by Dwight Sullivan makes Lannister mode very strong and introduces purchasable playfield multipliers.

    medium · Raymond: 'dwight sullivan has been releasing sort of secret betas on the tilt forums and i think it uh it really changes up the strategy um it makes lannister really really strong uh lets you buy playfield multipliers'

  • ?

    machine_intel: Jurassic Park will feature Jurassic Perks system similar to Batman 66, where capturing dinosaurs grants ongoing perks for the rest of the game.

    medium · Raymond: 'I heard that Jurassic Park is going to have Jurassic perks. So similar to Batman 66, whenever you capture dinosaurs, you get perks for the rest of the game.'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Raymond expresses high excitement for Jurassic Park, describing it as 'Iron Maiden on steroids' and looking forward to its release.

    high · Raymond: 'the leaked game that was leaked uh jurassic park excited excited for that super excited that looks like a fun game that looks like uh iron maiden on steroids'

Topics

Tournament format and scoring (SPL group play structure)primaryGame-specific strategy and mechanics (Simpsons, Iron Maiden, Paragon, Roadshow, Laser Q, Flash Gordon)primaryCode updates and balance changes (Dialed In, Game of Thrones, Jurassic Park)primaryCompetitive pinball performance and tournament resultsprimaryUpcoming pinball games (Jurassic Park, Wonka)secondaryStreaming and content creation (new webcam, Twitch channel)secondaryPinball design philosophy and player psychologysecondaryVenue-specific machine setup and ROM customizationsecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Raymond is enthusiastic about the tournament experience, praises games and code updates, expresses excitement for upcoming titles and future events. Minor disappointment about not winning finals, but overall tone is upbeat and focused on improvement and enjoyment.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.096

0:00
Welcome to Do or Die, a podcast about competitive pinball. I'm your host, Raymond Davidson, here to help you stay up to date on the latest strategies, tournaments, and happenings in the competitive pinball world, while also sharing direct stories of me as I go forth on my pinball tournament adventures.
0:30
Welcome, welcome to another episode of Do or Die. I know it's been a little bit of a hiatus. Not a whole lot of...
1:00
crazy tournaments for myself lately, although there was a tournament in the Seattle Pinball League that I attended about a week ago, and that's what this episode is going to be about. So luckily I got a new microphone. I think this one sounds a little better. Always appreciate all the feedback. Let me know what you think, and yeah, let's jump right into it. So the Seattle pinball league uh you might have heard a previous episode basically it's a the multi-round tournament
1:31
where the first round is five games in your group of four and it has seven five three one scoring and then the top 16 people move on to the second round so you know usually need about 23 25 points to move on which is usually like you know a couple firsts a second a third um don't want to get any fourths because those are hard to come back from obviously um and then after the round of 16 it just goes straight to top four um and then the four players play a pop of finals uh style uh
2:06
three player four two one zero to determine the winner so the first game i got to play i got to choose the first game so you normally you take turns uh choosing the game um and i got to choose Simpsons Pinball Party because I absolutely love that game. It's one of my favorite games of all time. It's kind of the game whenever someone asks me what my favorite game is, I usually say Simpsons Pinball Party. I've owned it before. The only reason I don't own it now is because when I owned it, I literally played it like two hours a day every day. Like I just

high confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'this one was not set in competition mode and you can kind of tell one of the dead giveaways is when you start an auto mode which is double scoring... i knew immediately it wasn't on competition mode because i got the living room as my first double scoring award'

  • Steven Donaldson is relatively new to Seattle Pinball League but already placing in finals

    high confidence · Raymond Davidson: 'steven donaldson um who uh pretty new to the seattle pinball league but he has just like already you know got up to speed and is just like kicking butt and taking names already He made the finals of an SPL. It's really hard to do.'

    • game
    Iron Maidengame
    Paragongame
    Red and Ted's Road Showgame
    Laser Qgame
    Flash Gordongame
    Dialed Ingame
    Game of Thronesgame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Wonkagame
    Batman 66game
    Pinbergevent
    Tilt Forumsorganization
  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Detailed strategy breakdowns for six games used in SPL event, emphasizing mode knowledge, feed control, shot safety, and risk management.

    high · Raymond provides extensive tactical analysis for each game (Simpsons, Iron Maiden, Paragon, Roadshow, Laser Q, Flash Gordon) with specific shot sequences and risk assessment.

  • ?

    venue_signal: Seattle Pinball League venue featured customized machine setups including Simpsons in non-tournament mode, Red and Ted's with custom ROM for randomized cities, and Paragon with Powerball and modified gate.

    high · Raymond: 'this one was not set in competition mode,' 'this roadshow actually had an interesting rom on it,' 'this Paragon had a Powerball in it, and it also had the gate removed on the lower left.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Raymond Davidson upgraded to 60fps webcam and is planning to stream more frequently on Twitch (Rayday Pinball channel) from upcoming Pinberg event.

    high · Raymond: 'speaking of streaming I now have a new 60 frame per second webcam... i will probably be streaming slightly more often now that it actually looks decent. And you can find my stream at Twitch, Rayday Pinball.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steven Donaldson identified as new to Seattle Pinball League but rapidly climbing competitive ranks, winning SPL July 2019 event.

    high · Raymond: 'steven donaldson um who uh pretty new to the seattle pinball league but he has just like already you know got up to speed and is just like kicking butt and taking names already He made the finals of an SPL. It's really hard to do.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Iron Maiden exemplifies design philosophy where fun-to-perform shots align perfectly with high-point actions, creating intrinsic motivation and skill-based reward feedback.

    high · Raymond: 'It's like one of the most perfect designed games where the points feel like they actually map to like, you know, skillful events in the game... the thing that's worth points is the same exact thing as the thing that's fun to do.'

    • 2:41
    played it, played it, played it to death, and then, you know, got to the wizard mode multiple times and eventually it started like, you know, do I really want to invest a couple of hours on this and play a game of Simpsons? And I was kind of like, no, I think I'd rather, you know, play something else now. I've done that, you know, been there, done that, played that game a ton. But I wouldn't mind getting one now again, you know, five years later, just because that game is so awesome. So that's why I chose it. And not a game you see in competition a lot.
    3:16
    this one was not set in competition mode and you can kind of tell one of the dead giveaways is when you start an auto mode which is double scoring which is activated by shooting the elementary school shot which is the right inner loop shot the the game refers to it as the the right what was it called shoot the right loop that's what they call it they call it the right loop and basically if your double scoring mode you get is not the bumpers then you are not in tournament
    3:54
    mode because i believe the first uh double scoring you get is bumpers and then it sort of rotates around the play field and the living room is your last award and so i knew immediately it wasn't on competition mode because i got the living room as my first double scoring award and your strategy changes a little bit because if it's in competition mode you can light the garage and for mystery award and keep lighting tv modes that way but when it's not in competition mode
    4:25
    the garage awards are basically random which was kind of funny because some people were getting like two gletus kids and other people were getting you know light tv mode or award lock or or whatever but it was still fun. So you know that was something I noticed right off the bat. I think double scoring on the living room actually doubled my monorail which was kind of cool. That was the first mode I chose sort of by accident. Usually the strategy for choosing
    5:00
    modes in that game which you do by hitting the right flipper or left I think or I think it's does the right flipper changes your mode or maybe it's just the left flipper i don't know either way hit the flippers you choose your mode on the little uh there's like a list of all the modes by the tv and you usually want to start with the crusty mode because you start crusty mode and then you shoot the right orbit and that gives you progress towards crusty but also relights your tv mode um so you get your two for one special now you can go back up to the tv and start another
    5:35
    mode. In competition mode, you don't really need to do that because, like I said, the TV will get lit from the garage mystery rewards quite often. So oftentimes in match play, I'll actually choose one of the modes that have sort of the easy shots, like Wiggum vs. Snake or Willy's Woes are two of my favorite ones because those both include hitting the auto shot, and the auto shot will reset your timer, which comes in handy, basically, and keeps your mode alive. So anyway, in this particular
    6:08
    game, I started Ride the Monorail and was able to start multiball and also started Homer's Day and beat Homer's Day. I really love Homer's Day with multiball because the final shot is the couch for the super jackpot, and it also beats Homer's Day. And so anyway, I got like 20 million after ball two um and that basically was enough uh no one else really got too close um the game was set up pretty brutal um you know no ball save tight tilt um so we got a seven points after the first game
    6:44
    and then next i got to play iron maiden which i was super stoked about and uh this one was the premium and um well i it was a really weird game of iron maiden i i started flight of icarus and basically just never missed a shot it was like you know eight way combo and i got like 400 million from flight of icarus which was like my record like all-time best flight of icarus score um so that was that was a pretty sweet way to start off that game um some interesting notes
    7:20
    I found out was it's kind of an interesting strat to collect the second tomb award to start super slings from the left ramp which then feeds out of the sarcophagus into the upper left flipper and you can wail on the captive ball to start mummy so I accidentally kind of set that up where I started super slings and then immediately started mummy multi ball and I just did did like all the things. It was pretty incredible. No one else really did a whole lot, so it was kind of wasted,
    7:56
    but it was Oh man that was awesome I absolutely love Iron Maiden for that reason where you can just get in a rhythm And it weird because sometimes you play that game and you'll feel like you're not getting any points. And that's because it is like one of the most perfect designed games where the points feel like they actually map to like, you know, skillful events in the game that if you plan and execute, you get rewarded with points. and the things that are worth points are also the most fun things to do.
    8:30
    So it's the perfect game where the fun thing to do is the same exact thing as the thing that's worth points, including the loop jackpots. Those are super valuable, and they're super fun. So Love Maiden got a first place on that one, so 14 points after two games. Next we got to play Paragon, and this Paragon had a Powerball in it, and it also had the gate removed on the lower left. So that meant tap passes were a little harder, and using the left flipper was pretty dangerous,
    9:03
    as in using it to trap the ball was dangerous, and dead passing off the right flipper was also dangerous. So I kind of just went into a little bit of a flail mode, just kind of keeping the ball alive. But then once I ever did get the ball trapped on the left flipper, I was able to execute some tap passes. but I also noticed because of the powerball the spinner actually spun super well so as opposed to going for the drops I actually went for the spinner just to get my bonus you know I think I
    9:34
    got like 10 bonus advances from one of those rips so you know pay attention when you step up to a paragon some of them have really nice spinners and some of them don't but if you you know your go-to strategy should still be the drop targets because they really don't drain you that often and they usually, you know, feed back to your flipper, and they give you bonus advance, obviously. Well, the third target gives you bonus X, but all the targets advance your bonus a little bit, like one or two increments, so never a bad idea to shoot for those left drop targets on Paragon.
    10:07
    I ended up getting second, barely. Like, it was, I don't think anybody really did a whole lot, and I just kind of flailed enough to get second, so that was five points. and then we got to play red and ted's road show and i uh like that game uh whenever i played it in competition it's it's usually set up really really hard like super tilty you know nothing but metal on the outlanes um but you know if you make your shots this game is actually super
    10:41
    controllable and uh i for some reason i have this thing where i just love to go for multi ball even though i know i shouldn't and so on ball one i usually uh i still try to get the skill shot but i usually shoot the bulldozer just try to light locks on ball one and i did that i was able to light all my locks on ball one um but i drained getting to friday and so ball two uh So I ended up locking the three balls, started multi-ball, and did this crazy combination where I think I got like three jackpots in a row where the Ted, you know, he goes up and down and you have to shoot it in his head to get the jackpot.
    11:27
    and so I shot like a ball up there it went into his head and then uh another ball like ricocheted into red like right after that and got the red double jackpot and then a third ball that I was flipping with like my other flipper like slammed back into Ted again and it did this constant stream of jackpot animations it was so so many jackpots that actually my opponent um actually I think Kaylee was one of my opponents uh he he was like screaming like whoa that's that's
    11:59
    effed up what's going on that that's clearly like you shouldn't just get free jackpots and the other players were like no no he hit I saw them it it hit that then hit that then hit that it was it was crazy and I'm like yeah I don't I don't know what to say um I wish I you know it was definitely more accidental but uh hey you know sometimes you make your own luck in these sort of things and uh it was a pretty awesome way to get a whole bunch of points was just getting a
    12:31
    bunch of jackpots but even after the multi-ball i was able to just play modes and get even more points um this roadshow actually had an interesting rom on it which i uh highly recommend that you at least try it out which makes the cities sort of uh go all over the map literally so you don't just always play new york and then new orleans or whatever the normal progression is you can play a mode from pretty much anywhere in the country um with the exception that i think you have to
    13:03
    play the west coast modes last um which is which is good uh it makes you you know play play through all the modes and still hard to get to the wizard mode um and it was really cool i got to play some weird cities that I hadn't seen before. There's this one mode that all you do is hit the bulldozer once, and it's like a return of the taxi. That was cool. It was like free 70 million points or whatever. So yeah, I really like Roadshow. I ended up getting first place on that game. The normal strategy is, by the way, if
    13:35
    you can either go for multiball or you can go for modes. And if you go for multiball, you should start doing it on ball one because it's a little dangerous. if you go for modes that's sort of like a like a ball three strategy where you know you you don't want to risk draining from the bulldozer so you shoot ramps and you just combo the ramps that's all you do because the ramps give you bridge outs which also advance your bonus multiplier and they give you miles which light your city and then you shoot the scoop start your mode and just play the
    14:07
    modes the modes are worth points um except the new york mode don't play the new york mode because if you're going to hit the bulldozer, you should be getting progress towards multi-ball. That's the strategy there. So yeah, we got first on that. So now I'm in the clubhouse. I've got first, first, second. So even if I get last on the fifth game, I'm still guaranteed to be in the finals or in the top 16. So you might be thinking, well, what do I... I got to pick the last game. And it's like, well, what do you do? What do you pick when you know you're already in?
    14:40
    and so I employed the Keith Elwin strategy of picking a game you think someone else might pick against you on the especially like in the next round so I picked Laser Q because I had a feeling that people would be picking that uh going on in the next rounds and uh I picked it and I I did pretty good on it you know I cleared some racks got some bonus multipliers uh I was able to the key to LaserQ is learning all of the feeds.
    15:13
    Because if you can shoot those side stand-up targets and know that you can dead pass off the upper right flipper and catch on the left, that is huge, valuable information. Knowing how all the dead passes work, knowing when to drop catch and that sort of thing, that's really all that game is about. Because none of the shots are safe. So the only control you have is when the ball is coming to your flippers, the best way to reduce the chaos and then try to aim your next shot.
    15:45
    And yeah, I was able to sort of guess a few feeds. And then once I saw that, oh, I can dead pass this after shooting the target, I was able to do that. Similarly you should always try to hit two targets at once because it give you credit for both and it a dangerous shot so you might as well get get two targets and then when in doubt just throw it up top laser q just keep throwing it up the right orbit because you'll get pool spell pool which gives you bonus x and i think every time
    16:17
    you spell pool it spots a letter in ball and every time you spell ball it actually spots you a ball So if you hit, you know, like 20 shots to the right orbit, you actually might progress like a ball or two. But more importantly, when you spell ball, it lights your spinner for a thousand a spin. And that can be pretty juicy, especially if you land in the plunger lane and then you can full plunge and get a bunch of spins. So I ended up moving on to the semifinals.
    16:48
    And what do you know? First game, laser cue. Somebody chose laser cue against me. as predicted, and I crushed it. I got up like 500k and won it, so I got four points. It's a 4-2-1-0 in the finals. Next up, somebody chose Iron Maiden, and I did not get my 400 million Icarus, but I did get 150 million, which I felt pretty good about because it was playing really tough um but it ended up winning so that was enough for maiden uh basically just just play
    17:25
    in the modes always play the modes you know learn the modes if you don't know the modes learn the modes because how will be thy name is a very specific set of shots that if you know what's coming next you can kind of plan for them so like how will be the name starts with any like left orbit left ramp left orbit right ramp right orbit you hit any of those and then you hit the captive ball then you hit any of the shots you haven't hit and then you hit the three drop targets and then you hit any of the shots you haven't hit and then you shoot the center
    17:57
    so remember that because it's just it's like 100 million points if you beat that mode like if you do it really fast so uh yeah just modes modes modes um loop jackpots are good if you can get in the rhythm always get your first loop jackpot because the first loop jackpot will light your tomb award for 15 million or at least you know it'll give you a tomb award uh and it's only like five loops so you might as well just take it um yeah so that's about what i got to say about
    18:34
    Iron Maiden. I'm sure we've all played that enough by now. It's such a great game. So the third game, oh, I got first on that one. And so I got two firsts. So I'm basically locked into the finals unless I get last and Dave Stewart gets first on the third game. But turned out third game was Roadshow, which I had already played that day. And Dave Stewart got last and I got first, which was the opposite of what he needed to happen. So I swept the round and got to move on to the finals and the finals um well somebody picked uh flash gordon uh actually
    19:14
    not somebody steven donaldson um who uh pretty new to the seattle pinball league but he has just like already you know got up to speed and is just like kicking butt and taking names already He made the finals of an SPL. It's really hard to do. So he picked Flash Gordon, and I did my usual thing where I just shoot the drop targets, but I kept missing. And when you miss them, bad things happen. So I don't recommend missing them, but I do recommend shooting for them because
    19:46
    those drop targets are safe, they're worth points, and you can keep hitting them over and over again. And even after you hit all the drop targets, you can hit the target behind the drop targets. And that'll give you like 50k or extra ball. So yeah, just shoot those inline drops on the right. And if the ball's on the right flipper, find a way to get it to the left. Alley pass works well on most flash Gordons. Tap pass works well. Post pass can sometimes work, but I usually go for the alley pass.
    20:19
    and so I ended up getting 250,000 which was okay but Steven got like 300 and so he got first he actually got a lot of points with the upper play field and after I saw him get like 150k before the ball even went to the lower flippers I was sort of like hmm maybe there's something to this upper play field so on my on my ball I you know tried really hard to use that little mini flipper and keep it alive and it does it gives you a lot of points like if you can keep hitting
    20:52
    those drop targets up there um the points just kind of materialize um so i i know it sounds obvious like yeah i keep the ball up there but i don't know a lot of times i just sort of wrote that upper play field off as not really being all that important but if you can read the bounces and know when to flip and when not to flip with the upper play field or with the upper flipper it's kind of like Black Knight 2000 you can kind of keep it up there if you get in a rhythm where you bounce off the divider
    21:24
    between the ramp and the eject and then you hit it again and then sort of let it bounce off there again and hit it again so that was something I learned there's actually some good points up there so don't ignore them so I got second on Flash Gordon and now we're playing Paragon and I mentioned earlier that the spinner was really juicy so I would go for that and I'm starting to think that that might have been a mistake because it just throws the ball so out of control
    21:57
    like the speed the ball has when it's going through there and then also sometimes it can go down the waterfall and on this particular paragon the waterfall would actually throw it down the middle which kind of was annoying but you could save it but you had to be ready you had to do the perfect slap save um and so i think i probably would have just done better if i just did my usual strategy and just shot the drop targets because when i did finally pivot like i shot the spinner a couple times because usually what i do on paragon is i shoot the spinner a
    22:32
    couple times and then go for drops uh which is the right way to play it most of the time but on this one i noticed that i drained from the shooting the spinner just because it was so chaotic and the ball that I actually focused on drops, I was able to get so much more done because I was able to just shoot the drop, catch, tap pass, shoot the drop, catch, tap pass, shoot the scoop, kicks it up top, gives me some points. It's just, it's such a safer way to play. So if you're good at that,
    23:03
    I'd recommend just sticking with that because the odds just are better in your favor to not draining if you hit the inline drop targets rather than anywhere else on the play field. So I got second on that game, barely, with 87,000, which was kind of sad. So I got two seconds going into game three. Unfortunately for me, Stephen Donaldson won Paragon as well, so he's got eight points after two games. So the only way for me to win is to get first and have Stephen get last.
    23:35
    And so, you know, you could just kind of like write it off, like whatever, that's never going to happen. but that's not how you win tournaments you have to pretend that the the gods will like the pinball gods will have it your way every once in a while right like you can't worry about what happens to the other players you just if you do your part it allows the other players to do their part so i got to play the third game which was laser q and i did my part you know i was i was kind of mad about the paragon game honestly because it kind of sucked so i kind of took it out on laser
    24:13
    queue and i just like focused and went to town and got you know another 500 600k game um so i got first on that and i was watching and steven did not have a good game he had like 47 000 but someone else only got 22,000. So Steven got third place. And so it was kind of sad for me. But congrats to Steven because he got, you know, just enough. He did just enough laser cue and then also crushed
    24:43
    Paragon and Flash Gordon, of course. So congrats to him for taking down the Seattle Pinball League July event and he got one of the coveted SPL medals which are very hard to get and yeah that was that was the end of it there was there would have been a tiebreaker if Steven would have got last on that last on the laser queue and the tiebreaker I think would have been a random quote random just kidding it's not random it's on whatever the fastest
    25:15
    playing game there is which would have been actually I don't know what it would have been because we already played Paragon and we already played Flash Gordon. So it could have been on like an EM. I think Big Casino was there. So who knows what would have happened if I had to go to a tiebreaker. But yeah, it was a super fun day. We got some pizza that was there. Got to play a bunch of games. I got to remember how much I love Simpsons Pinball Party.
    25:47
    got to play Roadshow with the new code which like I said you should check that out and yeah it was a fun time so I wish I had more for you this episode but it was a pretty straightforward tournament and all the games we played were kind of games that people have seen I kind of play the same games every round sort of thing but anyway my next podcast will be after Pinberg so get ready for that
    26:19
    that'll be fun who's going to Pinberg? Anybody? Anybody going to Pinberg? I have a feeling might see some people there but yeah I don't know if you saw I did a stream and I previewed a shirt I will be wearing at Pinberg so I'm very excited for that and speaking of streaming I now have a new 60 frame per second webcam. So now with twice as many frames for your viewing pleasure. So I will probably be streaming
    26:51
    slightly more often now that it actually looks decent. And you can find my stream at Twitch, Rayday Pinball. That's R-A-Y-D-A-Y Pinball. So if you want to see some pinball by me you can tune into there i always archive all my past streams so you can always watch well they're highlights technically but you can always watch all the past streams there and um yeah i think that's that's all i got for this episode um yeah is there any any news or anything
    27:31
    uh oh the leaked game that was leaked uh jurassic park excited excited for that super excited that looks like a fun game that looks like uh iron maiden on steroids and iron maiden is already uh pretty pretty dang perfect in my book so uh i can't wait for that and uh Wonka. Wonka is looking great. Can't wait to play some of that. I found out there was new dialed-in
    28:01
    code that reduces the Big Bang award. So now if you're in a mode, the Big Bang will not give you 50k and it will only give you half of the total completion bonus, which makes total sense because before you would always start a mode and use Big Bang, right? There was no reason not to because it gave you 50k and full value for that first mode. Now for later modes, eventually it would tip the other way because the Big Bang would not award you the multiplied value. So on your fourth
    28:34
    mode, after you have three sim cards, the Big Bang, you'd lose out on 3x. But now they kind of move that decision up front and they say, hey, even for your first mode, you got to decide, do you want a Big Bang and get your way out of this? Or do you want to play the mode and try to get the full points from it and then once the mode is done use a big bang and single ball play and cash in on that 50k which i really like i really think that was a great strategic decision uh joe cats is uh great for uh for keeping that game awesome and i can't wait to install that on
    29:07
    on my dialed in um there was also oh game of thrones code uh dwight sullivan has been releasing sort of secret betas on the tilt forums and i think it uh it really changes up the strategy um it makes lannister really really strong uh lets you buy playfield multipliers but i think he's going to limit that so you can only buy a certain number per game so that'll be really cool to kind of know when to cash in you're kind of like all right this is it i'm using my playfield
    29:38
    multipliers here we go you know it really it kind of builds that that pressure um so i'm excited to see how those games play out as as opposed to the way they used to play out uh which was you know kind of monotonous kind of you just slog through the modes and you know maybe you'll get some big martels or gray joys if you you do well in them or whatever but it was really just kind of going through the modes. But now with the Lannister multipliers, you can really line up some huge
    30:10
    stuff. And then also the other houses have cool perks as well. And let's see. Oh, speaking of perks, I heard that Jurassic Park is going to have Jurassic perks. So similar to Batman 66, whenever you capture dinosaurs, you get perks for the rest of the game. So I can't wait to see what those are. I think that's a great way to get you hooked on a game where you just keep wanting to go deeper and deeper because the game gets more and more fun as you get into it. I
    30:42
    wonder if the perks are going to be like Batman 66 where there's like an additional ball to multi ball or extra ball saver or double points on this ramp or whatever. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. I think that's all I got this episode. Thanks again for tuning in and I will talk to you all after Pinberg and you can talk to me at Pinberg. So just say hi,
    31:13
    say what's up. If I'm playing a game, I'll probably be focused on the game, but any other time, I'd love to meet any fans of the podcast. and uh yeah i can't wait to uh see everybody all right that's it i'll talk to you later and remember do and don't die especially at pinbird big big big turn lots of lots of walks
    31:55
    Thank you.