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Pinball Innovators & Makers Podcast Ep 19: 3D Print It And Forget It!

The Pinball Network·video·1h 11m·analyzed·Jan 23, 2024
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TL;DR

Homebrew builder Greg Brault discusses designing and building Beer Fest using 3D printing, Blender, and CNC machining.

Summary

Dan Rosenstein hosts episode 19 of the Pinball Innovators & Makers Podcast, celebrating the show's first anniversary with guest Greg Brault and his homebrew machine Beer Fest. Greg discusses his journey from childhood electronics tinkering (inspired by Cue Ball Wizard) through building a custom pinball machine using 3D printing, Blender modeling, CNC machining, and iterative playfield design. The conversation covers theme selection, design philosophy, technical tools, and manufacturing processes used in homebrew pinball construction.

Key Claims

  • Greg Brault has built approximately four physical iterations of the Beer Fest playfield

    high confidence · Greg states 'Physically, I think four. I think I'm on the fourth one' and discusses moving from hand-drilling to CNC machining during the Colorado move.

  • Greg uses Blender exclusively for 3D modeling because it runs on Linux/Ubuntu and is free, despite being overkill for pinball design

    high confidence · Greg explains: 'I run Linux, Ubuntu at home, so I needed something that was available on there and preferably free' and 'It's probably overkill because there's a lot of stuff with Blender that professional animation studios use.'

  • Greg uses a makerspace CNC machine (8x4 foot Avid) in Colorado Springs for playfield drilling and routing

    high confidence · Greg confirms: 'I pay to be at the Makerspace here in Colorado Springs, and they have a nice, I think Avid is the company. It's like a nice eight foot by four foot.'

  • Greg hired an artist cousin for initial artwork, then redesigned it himself using Facebook group guidance

    high confidence · Greg states: 'I actually hired my wife's cousin to do it' for version one, then 'the version I have now is actually all me. And I heavily relied on one or two guys from Facebook.'

  • Greg used auto detailing shops for playfield clear coating rather than doing it at home or finding pinball-specific vendors

    high confidence · Greg explains he called pinball tech companies without success, then 'started calling around auto shops' and 'I used the same guy at one of the auto shops here in town.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I literally only had a piece of plywood with one hole drilled into it. There were no switches, no software. There was no code.”

    Greg Brault @ ~8:30 — Demonstrates the humble, hands-on origins of Greg's engineering education and DIY approach to pinball building.

  • “That's kind of what got me into engineering in the first place... I learned about what bits and flags were and all kinds about digital electronics. It was a 7490.”

    Greg Brault @ ~6:00 — Shows how early childhood pinball experimentation sparked a career-long passion for electronics and engineering.

  • “I went out and bought some MDF board and just started painstakingly drawing out with rulers.”

    Greg Brault @ ~23:00 — Illustrates the iterative, low-tech starting point before advancing to digital tools like Blender and CNC.

  • “Blender... has a lot more features than what I would ever need... But since I had already kind of used Blender, and that's kind of how I learned the ropes for 3D printing, I'm fairly proficient at it.”

    Greg Brault @ ~31:00 — Explains tool selection pragmatism in homebrew projects—choosing familiar tools over theoretically better options.

  • “I am not a graphic artist by any means... I definitely learned a lot about graphic art and what looks good and what doesn't look good. And it is not perfect by any means, but I'm happy with it.”

    Greg Brault @ ~43:00 — Reflects the learning-by-doing ethos central to the homebrew pinball community.

Entities

Dan RosensteinpersonGreg BraultpersonErnie SilverbergpersonBeer FestgameStrictly Custom PinballsorganizationVirtual Pinball X (VPX)productBlenderproductFreeCADproductColorado Springs Makerspaceorganization

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Strictly Custom Pinballs Facebook group serving as primary feedback and collaboration hub for homebrew builders.

    medium · Greg attributes early game design feedback, 3D printing advice from Ernie Silverberg, and artwork guidance to Facebook group members.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Theme selection for homebrew machines driven by personal passion and niche appeal rather than licensed IP or mass-market viability.

    high · Greg chose Beer Fest based on personal interest in the movie and beer culture, acknowledging niche appeal and that 'few and far between' players will recognize it.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Homebrew builders prioritizing iterative playfield refinement and shot flow tuning based on feedback from both virtual and real machines.

    high · Greg describes play-testing at locations to compare ball speed, making major playfield changes mid-build, and continuously refining mechanics like pop bumper placement.

  • ?

    technology_signal: 3D printing and CNC machining becoming standard manufacturing methods for homebrew playfields, replacing hand-drilling.

    high · Greg evolved from manual drilling on MDF to CNC-cut plywood after acquiring makerspace access, iterating playfield designs multiple times with precision tooling.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Open-source software adoption (Blender, FreeCAD, Linux) as standard tools for homebrew pinball design and manufacturing, driven by cost and platform constraints.

    high · Greg's exclusive use of free, Linux-compatible tools (Blender, FreeCAD) and emphasis on the learning curve and community support around these platforms.

Transcript

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0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching Pinball Innovators and Makers Podcast. Hi, and welcome to the Pinball Podcast focused on the innovators and makers who are crafting homebrew, custom, and rethemed pinball machines. the technology that makes these personal projects possible, and the companies helping with these journeys. Custom pinballs are a deeply personal and technically challenging undertaking, requiring time, money, knowledge, and most importantly, the desire to make it happen. I'm Dan Rosenstein, your host. Join me, and let's go under the playfield and see what's needed to make a custom pinball possible. Hello, pinball makers and innovators. It's episode 19, and we have been interviewing makers and innovators across the pinball hobby for a full year. I'd like to thank each guest that took time to be on the show, and all of you listeners for going under the playfield on this journey with me. It's been intriguing, humbling, and a ton of fun. Thank you. To celebrate our first anniversary, I have Greg Brault and his homebrew, Beer Fest. Welcome to the show, Greg.
1:17
Well, hi, Dan. Thanks for having me. I didn't realize this was the one-year anniversary. Are you sure you still want to go through with this? Absolutely. Beer Fest has always been one of my favorite movies. You've got an amazing machine that I've gotten to play. I don't want to get ahead of myself. So, you know, we met at Pinball Expo in October. I saw Beer Fest, got to play it. Others got to play it. You had it set up there. So before we talk more in detail about Beer Fest, which is really what everybody wants to hear, why don't we learn a little bit about you? Let's talk about your origin story. How did you get into pinball?
1:48
Okay, well, I'll start off with I'm by no means like a... Very skilled pinball player. I'm just kind of medium the road. I really got into it. I remember in junior high, for anyone who knows what the buzz time NTN bar restaurant type trivia is, there was a place that we would frequent and in their basement, which was kind of a more of an adult's crowd. I'm surprised they let us kids in there. There was a game called cue ball wizard and before that I hadn't really played much pinball but every Wednesday we would go and play trivia and after we'd get done with the trivia game we'd go and play a couple games of cue ball wizard and people have different thoughts about that game but I loved it that was kind of my you know intro game and me and my buddy he was actually my brother's good friend we we had set a contest after playing for about you know six months we were like hey all right let's see who can build the best pinball machine all right now I'm like 12 years old right 13 years old I'm like deal let's go and I won at the time because I bought a piece of plywood and I drilled a hole in it and I think my dad got me some of the ball bearings so you know he didn't do anything so I obviously won that one but that really got me into electronics as I reflected on, because I figured you were going to ask me an origin story, I realized that at that point is when I really got into digital electronics. The first thing, and I think the only thing I really tried to tackle with that pinball machine was a way to display digits, you know, using a seven segment display. And so I went to the local radio shack and got some books from the library and learned about what bits and flags were and all kinds about digital electronics. It was a 7490. I don't know how low level you get, but some of your listeners might know that. It's a BC. I have a box of 7490s downstairs. Right. So that was kind of my first chip. And I'm like, this is freaking cool. You know, I can like give it power and tell it, you know, what to do, count up, count down. That's about as far as the pinball machine got with it. But I really took that and I started to learn more. And so that's kind of what got me into engineering in the first place. And then, yeah, about 2021-ish, I had decided that it was time to do a pinball machine. I had done lots of projects in my past. I've made little embedded MP3 players from scratch. I do all the circuit design and then embedded, usually in C coding. I've done wireless buzzers. That was the other thing that got me into electronics because I found out how much those old high school buzzer systems cost. I'm like, $500, I could do it for a lot cheaper. So really, yeah, it was about two or three years ago, and I decided to take the plunge. And, yeah, I just used the Internet for a lot of research and kind of jumped in feet first. So that's an amazing origin story. I didn't I didn't know that you had so much electronics background. And, you know, we had we had talked a bit about those. So that's why I love doing doing these interviews. So when you were you know, when you were in middle school, junior high and and had the bet with your with your with your friends and your brother, you went to build that that machine. You did the displays. and it's amazing you went to the library and got books and learned how to do this yourself have you always like had the knack have you always like to tinker and build stuff or was this really the first time that you went down that road or does it go even farther back than than your very first pinball machine yeah no I've always been a tinkerer much to my mother's lament all of our flashlights would be missing their light bulbs because and probably batteries because in fifth grade I learned how to wire up a circuit and that like fascinated the heck out of me so I was taking apart VCRs much like other kids of that age you know that are just inquisitive and want to know how things work so yeah I've always been I've always been a tinker I've always wanted to like make things from scratch even though you could go out and buy you know an mp3 player I'd I always wanted to do things like that. So, yeah, I've always been that kind of mind. So let's talk about that first pinball with the ball pairings that your dad got. So you made a seven-segment display for it. How did you register whatever the rudimentary score was? Like, how did you decide what to put on that display? How did it actuate? Maybe I talked it up more than what it was. I literally only had a piece of plywood with one hole drilled into it. There were no switches, no software. There was no code. So really... You didn't talk it up. Like, that's how you explained it. I'm trying to understand, like, what did you do with this? Like, connect the seven-segment display to the, like, mentally to the pilot. Yeah, so I basically bought a breadboard, and I got the seven-segment to either count up or down. And that's pretty much as far as I got. I never went as far to, like, hook it up to a switch and then put that switch on the play field. So really it was, yeah. Was it manually actuated then? Like you press a, yeah, okay. So like you stick a piece of wire into the breadboard, you know, to complete the switch. I was a poor junior high student. So there were two projects that were related, but not integrated. There was the electronic seven segment display and the plywood with the hole. And yet that's the foundation. I mean, that's more complex than many of the first pinball machines in the early 30s. So, you know, other than it had only one hole rather than a few more. That's an amazing story. What was so interesting about cue ball wizard? I realized that it was a game of opportunity because it was there, but obviously something attracted you to it. So what was that? So I did love playing pool. I've always liked playing pool as a kid. And I don't know, that combination, especially with that cue ball hanging out in the center, I had never seen that before. And like I said, people have mixed emotions about about that game. But I loved it. I love the call outs, the audio for it, because it was it's an obvious rip off of like a Clint Eastwood. Right. But maybe they couldn't get the rights to have its voice in there. But all the art, you know, he kind of looks like an old Clint and in the call outs, you know, we're just great. So, yeah, you know, being a junior high kid and like you said, the opportunity was there and that's what we played. And, you know, I'm always looking for that game whenever I go to a new joint. I'm like, oh, they got cue ball wizard.
Cue Ball Wizard
game
Pinball Innovators & Makers Podcastorganization
8:47
I'm actually a big fan of cue ball wizard. There's something about kinetically hitting that cue ball and seeing the little ball make the big ball move. It's like, I mean, you know, as an engineer, I know how that works. So, you know, I've learned it, you know, 30 times over my life. But still just seeing it, it's always interesting. So I'm with you. I happen to also like Capcom Breakshot, which is another kind of modern pool, a pool themed machine. And so, yeah, I think those pool themes are amazing, especially the ones that, you know, as we went to digital. Yeah. So in a game, like you went down the design journey, you know, as your time progressed. Did you play more pinball and find out like what you liked or really it was cue ball wizard and then a number of years later you worked on your home run? Yeah, it started with cue ball wizard. And when I first decided that I want to build a pinball machine, I went online and I downloaded VPX and I played a few tables. Because like I said, you know, I played pinball before, but nothing, like nothing to the line of, you know, it was once a week for a couple of years, and then I wouldn't play for a couple of years. and so I kind of went online and tried to you know I did a lot of reading about what makes at least as much as I could about what makes a pinball game fun what makes a machine playable you know the shots which are things that I had never really thought about prior to that and I know I didn't get it right on the first time because I was probably six months into my build I had, you know, some kind of MDF board and I went out to play some pinball. We were living in Florida at the time. And I realized, hey, these tables, they're a lot faster than mine. Mine seemed really slow, especially when it's like bouncing down in that lower third. And so that kind of made me tweak the game more. But, yeah, I tried my best to look, you know, talking about shot flow because all of that was new to me. And I'm still learning about like what makes good shots and and why that could be a bad shot. I got a lot of good feedback at the two or three expos I've been to the last couple of years. So in playing those machines, you said you were going sometimes once a week for a year and then you'd go a while, a couple of years without without. What were some other games that started to mentally show up for you when you're doing your research? you know in reading what were what were some games you you kept coming back to and said this is what i like in a pinball machine hmm that's a good question nothing like comes to mind immediately i think i downloaded the pirates of the caribbean demo because you know that uh or wait no that was one of the dpx games i don't think i could get demo demolition man to work for BPX. But yeah, there wasn't really one game that jumped out at me. Obviously, I wanted like, not obviously, I didn't want like a standard Italian bottom for the lower third. And I knew that I wanted to try and get the ball airborne at some point. That was my initial thought with the specifically now for Beer Fest, getting it airborne and maybe having that be like you're throwing the ball into a cup and I worked out a couple prototypes and I'm like, maybe that's too much uncontrol of the ball. You know, I'd prefer the ball to be more controlled. I think, what is it, the NBA, the Shaq game? Yeah. So something like that. You know, I just decided to make a little more controlled. So I definitely knew that I wanted an elevated play field because I knew I wanted to have the beer pong cups in there, you know, because it's called Beer Fest. So that's got to be a staple, right? So were there, just going down the slide a little bit longer, were there any designers that started to pop up as you were playing or doing your research that you were like, wow, I like how, you know, this person does this or that person does that? Or really it was just kind of everything? It was just kind of everything. I joined the Facebook group. That was helpful. They give a lot of great feedback. The Facebook group, Strictly Custom Pinballs. Strictly Custom. And also VPX, for those that don't know, is Virtual Pinball X. Yes.
13:27
Ernie Silverberg, he was one of the first people that I kind of interacted with. He saw my 3D printed lower third for rails and whatnot, so he asked if he could have those 3D printed designs. I was like, sure. And we just started talking, you know, after a week or so. We were talking on the daily because that's when he started his League of Legends game. So we were bouncing off ideas. So, you know, that was great to have someone like him to lean on. Yeah, he's a sharp dude. Ernie's absolutely fantastic. He was actually on episode three of the podcast for those who are catching later and want to go back and listen. It was a really good interview, and I would love to have him back on. He's one of my absolute favorite people in this hobby. so with that you know you talked about how we got here you know we've teed up beer fest we've thrown the ball into the cup a couple times so let's actually go there how did you decide of all the themes out there beer fest was the one to make a pinball machine about right so I told my wife you know we were watching TV I'm like I think I want to make a pinball machine next and she's like oh that's cool what are you thinking for a theme and I'm like huh I don't know And we had just gotten done watching the movie a couple weeks prior, and I threw around a couple ideas. I'm a huge Seinfeld fan, so I've been wanting to look at making a Seinfeld machine, too. I think that would be great. Oh, wow. And just kind of Beer Fest popped in my head, and I'm like, you know what? I think that would be a pretty good machine to do a pinball theme with. you could do a lot with like the different beer events, you know, and kind of incorporate just kind of the silliness from the movie. That's kind of what I was going for.
15:08
So in addition to the silliness of the movie, for those who aren't familiar with it, can you like the, the nice thing about the theme, let me start there, is that it's not a theme that is widely known, but those that know this movie and know the comedians who worked on it are like, these are some of the funniest people in the last 20 years. So why don't you tell a little bit more about what the movie is, what it like, what it inspired about you, what you liked about it besides it just being fun?
15:36
Well, I do like to drink beer. So that is the first inspiration. So I thought it would be a good movie because I can incorporate lots of events from the movie. So the basic theme of the movie is there's a group of friends that decide to visit Munich, Germany, for an Oktoberfest because they need to spread their grandfather's ashes. He had passed. So the grandma sends them over because there's supposedly some big burial spot for their family name over there in Munich. And so they go. They couldn't find in the in the standard Munich, you know, with all the tents, they couldn't find the person they needed to find. Ultimately, they stumbled upon an underground beer games fest that that happens at the same time as the Oktoberfest and all kinds of crazy events like chugging. chugging, they call it volume chug, so chugging as much beer as you can from one giant mug. Obviously, you've got Das Boot, that's the final event. You've got like upside down monkey chugging, they call it. You know, the beer pong, standard beer pong, quarters. So I felt like a lot of those things I could easily adapt into a machine to kind of give you the feel like, hey, you're one of the characters. And you're right. People will walk by, and I can tell who's seen it and who's not. Some people look at it and they're like, okay, I don't whatever. And then people glance at it and they're like, no way! F'n beer fest? I love this movie! So yeah, it's few and far between, those who really know the movie, but it makes it worth it watching them play. They're noticing things about the machine that oh, that's from the movie! So with that, have you ever been to Munich? I have. We finally went to Oktoberfest. I think it was 2018. So I'm assuming you had a good time at Oktoberfest. I don't think anybody has a bad time. I been to Munich a few times in my life and each time that I been to Munich I ended up at the Hofbrauhaus And like I told many people that I feel like my soul was like left at the Hofbrauhaus And, like, every time I walk in there, I light up. And I'm like, this is where I've been for the last thousand years. Like, I absolutely love that place. And, like, the very first time, I didn't even know the Hofbrauhaus was there. I was drinking with some buddies. And, like, we stumbled all through Munich. And like that place called to me and somehow I ended up there with him. And there was just like drinking and like, you know, singing and everything that ensues. And so when I saw your machine, like it instantly brought me back to that happy place. And so not only, you know, is it beer fest and the movie is really funny and I like it, but you've done a fantastic job integrating the theme into all aspects of the machine. The artwork, the video assets in the screen, and when you look at the play field and you've seen Beer Fest, it instantaneously takes you to extremely memorable moments in the movie. And then you have got the clips actually playing while those things happen. We'll get to that. So with that, like, you know. Thank you for that. Thank you. Oh, you're absolutely welcome. So you already mentioned that you started with Virtual Pinball X, Virtual Pinball 10. Can you tell the listeners what you did in Virtual Pinball 10 or Virtual Pinball X to start off with?
19:17
Yeah, I kind of learned how to, first and foremost, kind of build the play field. If you go to my website, which you probably did, and I have a blog, This was the first project where I actually like wrote down almost on a daily to weekly basis kind of what progress I've made. And Greg, that was really cool to see. I will link the – it's oldbrew.net, O-H-M-B-R-E-W. I will link that in the show notes when it goes live. Yeah, and so I kind of started just making a basic play field. Since I knew I wanted an upper play field or ramps, I kind of built that in there. And that was more to like test this new thing I had heard of called shot flow, right? Like, oh, you've got to make sure that the balls can get up the ramps and everything. And I just wanted to make sure that things were playable. I've only brought that to like a point where I was comfortable that this was going to work. I didn't flush out a lot of the details. I did have some audio call outs and there was some basic scoring. But yeah, I kind of used VPX just to kind of get a mental image of kind of where I wanted to go. And if you go to my blog, that website, you can kind of compare. And yeah, there are some similarities, but some differences. You know, obviously, after having done a machine, you're not going to hit it right on the head, that first prototype. So you're always going to change something. Right, right. So you did some basic plate field layout there. When did you actually go to a physical play field and how did you start that process? I think it was about if I think back to my schedule, it was about a month or so after I started with the VPX design. I went out and bought some MDF board and just started painstakingly drawing out with rulers. All right. Let's see. According to VPX, this hole is over here. And that's kind of at the same time I started with Blender, which is a 3D modeling software for 3D printing. I have almost my entire machine modeled in Blender. And, you know, some folks like to do it that way. Some folks go straight to, you know, a plywood board and start drawing. I feel like I kind of have a balance. I do like having the model there because if I wanted to make a change, I could spend a couple hours on the model and at least make sure that things will fit. And the nice thing about that is then if it's a part that is 3D printable, I can go to the 3D printer and print it and test it out and then iterate on that. Had you had experience with 3D printing before you started this project? Only about a year. I got my first 3D printer, yeah, around 2020, 2021. And so, yeah, I had about a year under my belt. I was pretty fluent with Blender. It's kind of a high learning curve at first, but, man, once you get used to it, like I'm able to do what I need to do in Blender, and, you know, everyone has their favorite go-tos for that kind of thing. It just happened to be that was the software that I stumbled upon. I run Linux, Ubuntu at home, so I needed something that was available on there and preferably free. I was going to ask how you ended at Blender, and as soon as you said it would too, it made sense.
22:37
So, okay, very cool. And so did you find Blender to have the capabilities to get you through the build process or did you find any limitations? The reason I'm asking is you're the first person that I know that has used Blender for a pinball, for a homebrew project. And so I'd like to know a little bit and I'd like the listener to know a little bit more. Sure. It's probably overkill because there's a lot of stuff with Blender that professional animation studios use, because that's kind of what its claim to fame is, at least from the reading that I've done. But it can also do stuff for 3D printing. So it definitely has a lot more. Well, I don't want to say that. I feel like it has a lot more features than what I would ever need. And yes, I could have went to like a Fusion 360. I'm not sure what exactly they call it. And I might have been able to get up and running had I been starting from zero. But since I had already kind of used Blender, and that's kind of how I learned the ropes for 3D printing, I'm fairly proficient at it. So that's what I – I never really got any roadblocks from Blender other than, yeah, can't really think of anything. So it served me well. That's awesome. I noticed in your blog you also used or learned FreeCAD at some point. Was that like a secondary project or was it for something specific you couldn't use Flunder or you just wanted to learn something new? Yeah, I needed FreeCAD because I started dabble in the CNC, the computer drilling. So I wanted to do my own play field. I was done with measuring and manual drilling. I wanted it nice and precise. And if you want to do that, well, you got to go to the CNC. So, and again, since I run Linux and Ubuntu, there's not a whole lot of really good options. FreeCAD, while it has its drawbacks, is pretty dang good for, you know, a CAM software.
24:53
A bit of a learning curve with that as well. And things aren't necessarily 100% intuitive. but again it did the job for me without too much hair pulling out yeah and i don't have much hair left to pull out anyways but can't can't be in computer aided machining it's uh basically you can take information kind of like a 3d printer can go print something a cam and a cnc machine can actually go and drill and cut um right you know those who've been listening to the podcast know that you know i won't you know i won't sugarcoat it that was a big learning curve for me too. I had never done any, I guess that's more of a subtractive process, right? You're cutting away wood. And I had always been used to an additive process like 3D printing. So some of the vocabulary and terminology was new to me. I'm like, what do you mean feed rate? How do I calculate feed rates? Why do I care? You know, things like that. But again, they have a great community behind them too. So if I got stuck, go to the internet and, you know, wonderful people out there. Did you get a CNC machine during this time? No, no. I pay to be at the Makerspace here in Colorado Springs, and they have a nice, I think Avid is the company. It's like a nice eight foot by four foot. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's awesome. So as you were designing your play field, you had done some work in virtual, in VPX. You obviously were refining shots. And so how did you iterate on the playfield layout and then that includes both the shots but also the inserts and the information that you wanted to convey to the to the player yeah so in the high flux of the iteration which was at the beginning you know i still had my mdf i might have even bought a nice a nicer like cheap uh plywood at one of the big box stores not my final version at all and i was still manually drilling so if I wanted to make a change like I realized my first go that my three pop bumpers were a little too far apart the ball wasn't making that nice you know and so I needed to move one of them closer well that left me with a huge you know two inch hole in my plate field so I ended up 3d printing a little circular thing and just glued it um you know there's several ways that could have solved that one. But yeah, I would just kind of move things over.
27:17
I'm of the type of mind where I don't like seeing stuff like that, even if it's a prototype. I want it to be nice and neat. And so after I had two or three whole changes for inserts and drop targets and holes like that, I would just go out and buy another wood or do another CNC, especially with CNC because it makes it so easy. You move one little circle, you know, and you can go print and everything's nice.
27:50
How many iterations of the play field did you actually end up building physically? What do you say? Physically, I think four. I think I'm on the fourth one. The one I think that you saw in October was a previous version of the play field. I did change it. I've done two very nice ones where they were clear-coded and all that. Prior to that, I probably did, yeah, I think about two or three iterations of just MDF. And did you start CNC from the first one, or you were drilling by hand? Right, I was drilling by hand. I was on the precipice of a move back from Florida. I was retiring. I was Air Force. Oh, thank you for your service. No, I appreciate that. We were moving back to Colorado. I knew that. And I started this. I started Beer Fest about a year and a half before we moved. And I didn't really do any cabinet stuff until I moved back here just because our house was a little smaller in Florida. I was kind of cramped in this tiny, tiny room that my wife calls it my room of death because I have like drills and tools and everything everywhere. And so, yeah, I really didn't start a lot of the real work working until about two years ago when I moved back to Colorado.
29:14
And so, yeah, you you've also gone through a few iterations of the artwork. Do you want to tell the listener about that? Yeah, so the first version of the artwork, I actually hired my wife's cousin to do it, and that was kind of a back and forth. He was great. He was a starving artist college kid. He does a lot of graphic design, so I paid him some money, and he gave me some artwork. I rode that for about a year until I decided to change it out.
29:47
Nothing bad on the previous art. It's just things didn't line up with the new features that I wanted to put in there.
29:54
And so I kind of left that artwork. I still kept the – I was about to throw it out a couple weeks ago, and my wife was like, are you just throwing that out? I'm like, yeah, I guess I should keep it. All right. Absolutely. Yeah, so I'll keep that. We'll do a coffee table or something out of it. And then when I moved back here and I was doing a nice professional CNC play field, I wanted to update the artwork. And so the version I have now is actually all me. And I say all. I heavily relied on one or two guys from Facebook. I'm sorry, I can't think of their name right now. I'll have to give them a shout out when this thing airs. But, you know, just walking me through things. I am not a graphic artist by any means. So things that I didn't really think about, like lighting and shading, because I would just always put, you know, a shadow behind something. not really thinking about, well, why are you doing that? And so I definitely learned a lot about graphic art and what looks good and what doesn't look good. And it is not perfect by any means, but I'm happy with it. And I learned a lot in the process. And that's kind of the reason that we all do this, right? We're always trying to learn more about stuff that we don't know. Exactly. including seeing and printing and art.
31:17
So what about clear code? You said you have two play fields. I believe they've both been clear coded. Talk about the process for how you went about that. Yeah, I didn't jump into that. I did a lot of reading, and I decided I didn't want to mess with those chemicals. You know, there are solutions out there for people to do it at home. I called up every pinball related tech company or there were like six or seven of them in the springs in Denver asking if they either a could do a clear coat for me or be recommend someone who would be able to do like one-off projects and I didn't get anywhere so I started calling around auto shops because I read online, hey, I take mine to an auto detailer or clear coder. And that's what I ended up doing. I used the same guy at one of the auto shops here in town. First one didn't turn out as great. I didn't really know it at the time, but around inserts, that's where you really need the special care of someone who's done a clear coat on a playfield before to make sure that the clear gets into all those crevices. It wasn't, you know, it was still playable, but it wasn't super fantastic. And so the second time he got a little better, and I felt like he owned it a little more. He's like, ah, I want to get this real good.
32:46
That's awesome. I didn't realize you took it to the same person the second time, and he did improve. Yeah. And so, yeah, he learned things from the first time he did it, And I felt like he really had pride in this one. He's like, we're going to get this looking good. And so, yeah, I was really appreciative that he spent. He put so many coats on there, and we sanded it down, you know, once after I realized this still isn't quite right. So, yeah, good on him. McCloskey Auto, they're in Colorado Springs. And has he taken on other pinball projects since? No, actually, I think he's left that. to go on to a different. So I'll have to look him up to see if he still has all the capabilities at his new shop. So that's awesome. You clearly spent a lot of time on your play field in getting that right. So when did you make the switch into the rest of the construction? And specifically, what did you do about your cabinet?
33:43
Yep. So when I moved back here to Colorado, this would have been like May of 2022. That's when I started working on the cabinet because, as I mentioned, her house was a little too small in Florida.
33:55
And the funny thing is, like, that was one of the most difficult parts for me because I didn't own any pinball machines, never worked on any pinball machines. I really didn't have anything to, like, just look at and say, oh, okay, it looks like those, like, the simplest thing. For instance, where to mount hooks on the play field so that it lines up and getting that height to match with the plunger. That was difficult for me because I couldn't look at anything. So back to Ernie, I'm sending Ernie a note, hey, can you measure how far your holes are from the, you know, things like that where it's surprisingly difficult. And a lot of that information I couldn't find online. I'd have to explicitly post in a forum, hey, how far apart are your, how wide are your in and out lanes, you know? And I know those things aren't 100% standard, but, you know, I just, I would like to know if I'm at least in the ballpark. So, yeah, that was really challenging for me. But, again, I just kind of jumped in and I was like, all right, I ended up buying a flat pack from the VirtuaPin.
35:05
They're actually located out of Michigan, which is my home state. So that was neat to interact with that guy. And yeah, so I bought a flat pack and put it together and just started making it work.
35:18
And so that flat pack worked for you. So then how did you go about artwork for it and decorations? We talked about artwork for the playfield. Yeah, so for the artwork for the cabinet, I decided to try Fiverr. And I posted kind of what my requirement is And I got you know a few responses And I had drawn out on paper kind of what I thought I wanted the size of the cabinet to look like and again this is where the community helped out a lot because I think I posted a version that I made myself and people were like and it looks too like clip art you know you're just copying and pasting you know the character's faces and I'm like okay I guess you're right you know things I never really thought about So I went to Fiverr and I'm like, all right, I knew I wanted it more simplified. And I think the bid that I got back was like, yeah, I can do this for $500. And I'm like, whoa, all right, this doesn't seem, that seems a little expensive for the simplicity. So I gave it a shot on my own. I found some background art and, you know, I've been getting decent at like Photoshopping, although I use GIMP again because I run a bootcamp Linux. So there's always got, you know, it's like Photoshop, but it's not, you know, it's definitely not as powerful, but it gets the job done. It's got a lot of good features in it. And so I kind of drew that up and I have a good relationship now with a sign shop here in town. You know, I'll email him some artwork and say, hey, you know, how much to print this? And, you know, I apply the vinyl myself. It's all vinyl. So I have them print it and I bring it home and getting a little better at the vinyl. That first go, you know, was a little difficult. I'm trying to stabilize this huge piece of vinyl while trying to apply it. But, you know. So is it just the stabilization that's hard or is there like how do you make sure there's no bubbles or? Yeah. So I bought like a I bought a little plastic squeegee. I don't know if there's another name for that, but I'm still not great at it. I find it difficult to try and I don't know. I try and fold it over slightly at the top because, you know, I do print little extras on the sides, you know, and just hold it with tape. And, you know, I'm kind of getting better. I think the first one I did, I thought it was lined up on one corner. And then I, you know, I'm smoothing it out and I get to the other end and I'm like, oh, man, this is like two inches off.
37:46
So now I'm getting better about like, all right, let's use both my hands and try and get it lined up the best I can. Is there a type or a method of vinyl printing that you prefer or based on your research or it's just whatever your shop can do? Yeah, it's pretty much whatever the shop can do. I haven't experimented more than just vinyl. The play field that I have there, it is a vinyl play field, and then there's clear coat on top of that. I know that's not the most professional, but it does a decent job for the speed at which I needed it and the ease of it.
38:29
Look, you ultimately have a working, playable game. Sure. And I couldn't tell you if it was an artwork or if it wasn't painted or vinyl decal until you would have said it. Thank you. Yeah, there you go. And color matchups have been have been fine. Like yellows turn out yellow and blues turn out blue. Not always. Yeah, there were a couple where he was like, this looks like it printed a little darker and sure enough. And, yeah, there were a couple of times where he was able to print some proofs and and I was able to kind of pick and choose. All right. I think I want to go with that. That looks like it color matches better. And surprisingly, the 3D print material that took a couple iterations. The first blue I bought was just a little too dark, and I feel like that tone of blue that I have in there, number one, it matched the artwork on the cabinet a little better, especially for, like, the Bavarian flag that I got going front to back. So, yeah, it ended up being good enough, you know, in the end. What about the head unit? Was that part of your cabinet flop pack, or was that a separate? It was. Yeah, the back box. Yeah, there's space in there to, and it's just a standard, you know, back box. And for the top there, I decided not to do a video display up top. Again, that's just, it's acrylic glass with the reverse print on it. And, you know, again, I think I would probably do something different next time just because I do have lights behind there. And they don't shine through as strong as I'd like. So I'm sure that's because either the thickness or the material, you know. But you do have a screen on the machine. Yeah, there is a screen. Yeah, there's two screens on my latest version. There's the standard kind of monitor that sits where a DMD would be. And then one of the reasons I decided to redo the artwork as drastically as I did is prior to this play field, I just had about seven or eight LEDs that kind of acted like it was a beer mug filling up, and I would just turn on one LED after the other as I wanted to fill the mug. But then I moved over to like a mini HDMI HD display, and that's what I have now. And I really love that because then you can show messages to the user, where to shoot, things like that. Where is that located? It's kind of right above the flippers. So it's like eye level, you know, when you're looking down at the flippers, it's like right there. That's so cool. Which HDMI display did you use for that? Oh, it was from China. It took like a month to get here. There wasn't actually a whole lot of options for the size that I was looking at. So, yeah, that was only one of a few that I had found, at least in the limited research that I did. But it's working out great. And then you had to create a partial insert so it'll sit in there, have enough space for something to go above it, and then also for the cable to be able to plug in effectively. Yeah, so I didn't think about the cable until I tried to install it. You know, I easily made a 3D-printed mount for it below, but then I realized, oh, all right, this big honking HDMI cable's got to get in there. So out came the Dremel and I basically just Dremeled out enough space for it to fit. It's 3D print to make stuff and Dremel to take it away.
41:57
All right. So let's get into more of the mechanical design. You've talked about ramps and them being 3D printed. How did you get the shape, the form? And in terms of the 3D printing, do you have to print them in smaller sections and connect them? or did you have access to a large 3D printer? No, yeah, that's an interesting question because my 3D printer is only like 220 millimeter by 220 millimeter. Which is like 7,000 feet by 7,000. I don't know. What's the conversion again? It's basically like the size of, I don't know, a small personal pan pizza that you would get at Pizza Hut. I appreciate you putting it in terms of all of this. Right. Yeah, so I did that in Blender, and that was a learning curve because, you know, I had never used. They're called Bezier curves. Like that's how you can have something follow, you know, an arc in 3D space. And so I kind of started with that and I've iterated on those ramps probably like 20 times. Just even though I have the full machine modeled in Blender, and that's one of the benefits of that is because I could design a ramp and I know that it will definitely fit. But then there's things like how much do you want it to curve and steepness and where do you want the inflection piece, you know, things like that. It's an iterative process. And that's why I love 3D printing because it allows someone to have very cheap access to something that you can then turn into. I mean, it looks pretty good. You know, it would look a lot worse to be pulling out my Dremel tool and doing all the subtracting plastic. You were talking about the color that you actually ended up finding for the ramps. You know, you look at the ramps, and you can tell that they're 3D printed, and that's kind of the charm of the machine at the same time. You know, they are colored. They're not the normal color you see in 3D printing.
43:56
And so what did you do to ultimately print them in small pieces and get them to connect so the ball flows smoothly? Yeah, so I can design the entire ramp in its full form in Blender, and then I just slice it up. In Blender, you can easily separate meshes and 3D objects like that. So anything that I'm designing, like the boot in there, I don't know if we're going to talk about the boot. Oh, we're going to talk about the boot. Okay, same thing with that. Yeah, I just slice it up, I print it, and I add in my own fixtures so that I can use, like, bolts to connect them together and make it a nice solid piece. Oh, okay, interesting. So you don't try to put some type of joint or connector into the model. You're actually just drilling a hole and connecting it with the bolts. Yeah, no, I would say those are definitely in the model. if you look at it, usually I put them as far out of view as I can, but on the bottom of those ramps, wherever two pieces connect, I have about, I don't know, a pencil width's worth of attachment pieces that come off of the ramp that allows me, with holes in them, and that allows me to drill a couple bolts into each of those. And it's pretty secure. They've lasted this long. And one of the things about 3D printing is a lot of people, the comments that I would get is like, well, I mean, the 3D print isn't going to really last. And I'm like, well, you can make it as long as you strategically put posts so that you're not hitting full force on a small little edge of a 3D print. 3D print's actually surprisingly durable. Yeah, and especially depending on the infill and the parameters you set. Is there anything special you do to make the top, you know, more flat or easier for the bottle roll or yeah it just yeah that was another iteration is after i took it to my first it was a denver the denver expo even after like two days of play i noticed like a black streak on these white ramps and i'm like oh that i wonder if i can somehow alleviate that i end up going to like an ace hardware and i bought polyurethane spray and i just kind of sprayed them you know i do one coat sand it a little bit another coat sand a little bit and it's working for me uh You know, you can't see it too much, but it definitely provides a smoothness. It allows, you know, the friction is a lot less for a ball rolling up. And, you know, it kind of gives it a nice finish. So that's kind of what I've been doing. Is there a special technique to the actual ramps themselves? Do you print only what is necessary for the ramp, or do you have more structure to it? And so basically you build what's mounting it to the play field as well.
46:46
It's pretty minimalist. There's not a whole lot of extra stuff on there. You know, I kind of had to play around with how thin can I make the walls. I could probably even go a little thinner than what I have, but this is working. It's stable enough. But that's about it other than the fixtures that I need to add for, you know, in order to attach, you know, multiple pieces to make one big ramp. Gotcha. So let's talk about wire ramps as well. You started adding wire ramps as you progressed through the project. What was the technique there? Did you build your own wire ramps? Did you buy them? Did you have somebody else cut them? Yeah, shout out to the pinball room. Steve, I was watching his videos, and he had a video on making wire form ramps just about the time that I needed to make mine. And, you know, I commented on his YouTube page. I'm like, man, this was perfect timing. thanks for this. So I kind of went to his video and he kind of gave me enough to be able to, you know, there's my ramps, they're, or sorry, the wire form ramp, they're not super fancy. And if you look close enough, you can see that it's not, you know, that it's human bent, but they look decent enough. And on this version, I decided to also spray, to paint them and put on that same polyurethane lacquer to kind of give them some durability. So yeah, those took like couple iterations but um yeah that actually wasn't too big of a struggle for me yeah i i love steve condors's uh videos um and that that ramp went specifically you know he he had the the 3d connector to put the ramps together which i think you use it looks like you use something similar he talked about how to bend them and what material to buy and it's just a really important video on how to do wire form metal work for an absolute novice.
48:35
So with that, let's talk about the mechs, because the mechs truly make this game. You've got a couple of interesting ones. You've got Das Boot, Ramp. You've got the ball going through the drinko and ending up in the cup. You've got a rotating mech. Why don't you talk about them and how you went through the design, the iteration of your mics? Sure. I'll start with the beer pong table because that's kind of what I based the entire machine off of. I knew I wanted, as I mentioned earlier, I knew I wanted something where the pinball is falling into a red solo cup, right? Because that's like the quintessential beer day. So I started with that and I probably iterated on that design 15 to 20 times as well. and I have one more iteration planned just based on feedback from talking with folks at Expo. It is complicated. I probably made it way more complicated than I need to. There's two cups that start out vertically. And if you get the ball up into the upper play field, there's only one way that the ball can get out of that play field. Well, as long as you don't shoot it back down the ramp you came up from. And it's falling into one of those cups. And I have two solenoids beneath the table that act as levers and they basically move a sliding trap door that that rotates so it's kind of like uh it's kind of like having your finger underneath that cup and when i command it to move that that finger moves out of the way and the ball is allowed to fall so after you capture the first ball that table is mounted on a servo motor that i can then cell to move 180 degrees so that the other empty cup now is in the same position that first cup was in. And if you lock that one, the table will turn 90 degrees so that every subsequent ball you hit up into the playfield, it'll just fall to the playfield surface and you have to do something else in order to trigger that multi-ball. So after those two are locked, you know, I show a video and call out and if you drop the ball on one of the two holes in the in the play field that'll start your three ball multi-ball from that so kind of built the whole game around that that's why i wanted to make sure that that thing is reliable and it's not quite there yet but i'm actually going to remove the solenoids i i feel like i thought about this when i first tried the design but i'm like ah no this this will never this will never work and it's basically just you you have this rotating table on top of the table that has holes in it and you you can just rotate that to force the ball over a hole in the table below i probably didn't do it justice explaining it but there's an old game i forget the name of it it'll come to me in a sec where you put marbles down and there's a lever that you push forward or back and the two players are trying to get the ball to fall through when the holes line. Dayline, right? Dayline! That's it. Dayline! Oh, I love that game. Yes, that's a good description. Yeah.
51:45
I know I forgot the name because I'm old. It's one of my absolute favorite games. A number of years ago, my wife found a small portable version of the game for me. Oh, funny. Yeah, I know. I totally, totally get what you're saying. For the listener, as you were speaking on your website, you have a very detailed explanation with pictures of the old Mac and the new Mac and the revisions you went through, this one still has the solenoids. One thing to note, I know you're getting rid of them, but the solenoids are super small. Where did you find that part that's such a small solenoid to be under there? Yeah, I think Amazon. I was able to find them on Amazon, and that took a couple iterations too because the sizing was always good, but then even the same physical size, you can have a 12-volt solenoid, a 24-volt. and the first iteration I was using 12 volt solenoids with a 24 volt driver and I'm like it'll be fine I'm only going to be energizing them for like three quarters nope that's not fine so then I upgraded to 24 volt and then I ran into sticking issues where the tracks weren't so then I added in ball bearings and like everything else you know you iterate on it and you figure out what's wrong and you change the design and get it going better. I had an old mechanical engineering professor tell me that mechanical engineering is nothing more than either reducing friction or making as much friction as possible. Yeah, that's pretty good.
53:18
All right, cool, cool, cool. So what's the next mechanism you want to talk about? So the next mechanism is probably the DAS boot ramp In one of my earlier designs that was just another regular ramp like I have on the right side with walls and I posted you know the state of my project I think this one was pin side and someone commented hey man you need to get a boot ramp in there and I'm like 100% I do I don't know why I didn't think of that before so it took me I did not design that that boot the dust boot I did find the STL, which is a pretty printable file online. So I found the boot. Before you go any further, did you ever print it out and drink beer out of it?
54:06
No. Unfortunately, keep going. No. Yeah. I don't know. Something about plastics and food consumption. I'm not sure if I want to try that without putting something on it. Fair enough. Yeah.
54:19
Yeah. And so I did have to, like, hollow it out. hollow it out and make it a ramp, which was pretty straightforward and blunder. And then my wife contributed to this project. She's the one who painted it. So she did a great job painting it. I think it looks great there. I just love being able to shoot into that boot and having it come out, wrap around and come out the other side. So that was a fun one. And one of the things in the movie about Das Boot is because, like, everybody's like what's the big deal about drinking out of it but because it has the boot piece you know where the foot goes it's a 90 degree angle and the whole joke of the movie was like if you drink it too fast the bubble builds up there and like it pushes all the beer and like it causes a problem and so the the trick was that they had to turn it you know while he was drinking at the exact right time and so the fact that you've got it in there as a as a horizontal 90 degree boot It really gives an homage to the movie. I never even thought about that, Dan. That's good. That was not intentional, but now that you mention it, it is intentional.
55:30
What other mechs do you want to talk about? Yeah, so I think my next favorite mech, that's really just a ramp, but the next mech that I love is the shot glass that I put in there with a quarter, and I've got a little solenoid below the play field that pushes up a little push rod that causes it to shake and I'm surprised that that worked like the first time out I didn't have to adjust you know didn't have to adjust like the power or anything I'm like wow all right that makes a pretty good coin jingling sound because prior to that I just had an audio clip that would play and I'm like I can get rid of that audio clip now because you can hear that even through the glass. So that was a fun one. I've got Popo in there. So for those that haven't seen the movie, it's just a random movie gag about a doll that plays a critical plot point in the movie. I don't want to give it away. I gave away the whole thing about the food.
56:30
So I've got Popo in there. I went to Fiverr for that because my modeling skills are nowhere near that to be able to take a 2D image that I found online and be able to create this 3D model. So that was a really good Fiverr experience. You know, it was like 50 bucks and I thought it was well worth it. And then I painted that guy and put him on top of that. Behind him, you can't see it unless you're actually physically playing the game and you can look. There's like a hidden ball capture right behind Popo that I put in right before Expo. So that's kind of a fun little two ball multi ball that you can get. Something to note at this point is a lot of the brackets and, like, the pieces that connect, whether it's a light or a mech, to the play field, it's all, almost all 3D printed. Like, you created, like, if you would have had to build something, you went and said, can I 3D print a part that would do this? And it's actually quite interesting to see some of the innovation you add because you had the whole thing in CAD. You were able to build the exact 3D part that you needed for the geometry that you had, which is really, really cool. Yeah. And that's why, in my opinion, having a 3D printer is great. A lot of people just use them for little small mounts and everything. But for me, I'm not the best woodworker. I'm not the best metal worker. So just being able to design it, I know the exact dimensions it needs to be in 3D print and not have to worry about taking my Dremel and screwing something else up. You know, like that's been good for me. I know, you know, it doesn't make it look as professional as it could be. But, hey, if you need to get up and running, 3D printing is a great way to go. It's 3D print it and forget it. Like set it and forget it. All right. Cool. So let's go into electrical. On your site, you've got a really, really good electrical map of the whole thing. And you've got a bunch of really nice under the playfield shots, which I mean, you look at it and it's an elegant design. So why don't you talk about, you know, what control system you used, where you source parts for your electrical system, how it came together, how you did the design. Sure. So when I was doing my initial research, you know, I was kind of seeing what's out there and I stumbled upon MPF. So I started getting coding in that. And then for the mission pinball framework. Yes. Mission pinball framework. It's an open source framework. It runs on Linux, Ubuntu, as well as Windows. But I needed it for Linux. And you were just programming that and basically simulating the input and output on your machine. Okay. Yeah. And so I did a little research on what kind of control platform to use, and it just seemed at the time that MPF, sorry, not MPF, P3 Rock, it seemed like from the limited user feedback that I read, you know, it worked. It might be a little more expensive, but it had all the modules that I needed. that's one of that's what I liked about it is that it didn't have everything integrated on one control system and I know a lot of other systems are also are like this and yeah I just kind of went p3 and that's kind of where I'm at right now I I still go p3 rocket I'm running that for all my mechs and everything just like everyone else, like Pinball Life and Marco Specialties.
60:13
For some of the stuff, if you've seen on my blog, I even had to 3D print some mounts for some coils that I didn't have mounts for, which, you know, worked, but, you know, I don't recommend it for like a long-term solution, but it got me going.
60:28
And then Amazon for a lot of other random parts. I get some coils from there. I get some other controllers. there's some specialty hardware underneath there like a startup shutdown system so I've got a little board that powers on I'm running a single board computer in there it's a Latte Delta Panda it does what I need it to do it allows me to hook up two monitors because I do have that play field I have a few robots at work actually that run the Latte Panda Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. Latte Panda. Delta is the company. So it's Delta Latte Panda. And yeah. And a lot of other stuff I just randomly have stored here because I'm an electronics geek. So I've got a lot of parts just on hand as well. So then, you know, we talked about control system. You went with P3, you went with Mission Pinball Framework. Mission Pinball Framework allowed you to basically build out the control code and the game logic. What did you do around videos and game assets? And, you know, you've got those couple screens. How did you end up running them? Yeah, so I basically bought Beer Fest on Amazon Prime, and I could watch it on my computer. and I essentially ripped the whole movie right into a single video file and then saved that off as audio. And so that, you know, any audio clip I need, you know, I just pull it from that. And MPF, it just makes it so easy. You plop your audio files in a folder and you give it a command. Hey, oh, this shot happened. Play this audio clip. And it plays and it just works. You know, I love it for that. And then for the video, that took a little bit. Again, I'm not the best video editor, so I had to find something for my operating system, and it worked well enough. It works well enough. I can rip the video screen, and some of the clips have the audio in it, and other clips I just play silently. What app is that?
62:37
Oh, it's OpenShot for Ubuntu. I think that's the best one that I've found so far for my research. So, yeah, it gets the job done, and you can rescale it because I have different size screens. So you built, you know, we've got a beer fest game. It clearly is theme integration is fantastic. You've got mechs and the look and feel and the artwork. It really is a world under glass. and you, like I'm telling you, you feel like you're watching the movie again, or I felt like I was watching the movie again and I was in Munich when playing it.
63:14
With that, you know, for the game code itself, not the control piece, but what makes the rules the rules, did you build modes out? What are you trying to do during beer fest when you play the pinball machine? Yeah, so I kind of looked at other examples to kind of get a feel for, and MPF, Mission Pinball, has great tutorials. I recommend everyone go through the tutorials. And so I got really familiar with how to code modes. And, yeah, so part of it, and this had changed significantly from my last version. This version, I kind of knew I wanted to have my game modes. the primary game modes are in the center there that are on the little 3D table. Things like quarters and volume chug and strikeout. Those are all like beer fest events. So I knew I wanted to have a buildup where you got to collect all those before getting to the wizard mode. And then on this version, I also added in a country, some country inserts. because in the game, excuse me, the movie, they play different countries. And so I wanted to have that battle aspect in there as well. And so I put those in there. So the main game logic is you can complete either of those sets of goals to launch a wizard mode. And I think I coded it where if you capture both sets, then it does like a double wizard mode, you know, something like that. And, yeah, so that's the basic gameplay is getting qualified to get those theme modes. And the way you qualify is pretty simple right now. You just keep hitting targets when your ball starts. And as you hit those targets, your beer mug fills up on that embedded display. And once your beer mug fills up, then you have to make a shot to trigger one of the random game theme modes.
65:25
So have you considered making it so it actually becomes a drinking game when four people are playing, where they also need to take drinks while they translate through? I'll let you marinate on that. Yeah, that would be a good idea, because for those that don't know and haven't seen it, This thing actually has a little mini beer keg, not a beer keg, a beer fridge in place of the coin door. So it can definitely keep your beers cold while you play a four-player drinking game. So, you know, later at night at Pinball Expo, not too many people, we may have been having a few drinks right there at where all the customs and homebrews were. And you walked up and you tapped the flipper buttons in a specific order. And why don't you tell what happens in that case? Yeah, so I had the idea to put an Easter egg in the machine.
66:22
And by the way, there's also an adult and PG-13 switch on the back where some of my clips are a little raunchier than others. So if I know there's going to be kids around, I can put it on the PG-13. But I knew I wanted to put an Easter egg in there. And I think I found some sample online, an MPF code sample to do kind of what I wanted it to, but I did have to adjust it to make sure the pattern is correct.
66:53
If you like mathematics and you like pi, you might figure out the pattern. I'll leave it at that. But yeah, so you hit the left and right flipper buttons in a certain pattern, And depending on what adult mode it's on or kids mode, it'll show either a scene from the movie or a clip from, I had gotten video of me working on like the very first prototype and it's all in shambles. You know, it's just basically a piece of wood. Yeah, that's a little neat Easter egg. For the audience, the video of you working on the machine is not the adult mode. It's the DC-13 one. That is a good clarification. Those are two separate things. Awesome. So, Greg, I really appreciate you coming on and telling your story. I am jonesing to play Beer Fest again. And, you know, hopefully I'll get I'll get to see you in the machine soon. Is there any any parting words you want to say or anything you learned or any advice you would give to the next Greg who's just getting started today? you know, it's the equivalent of your 2021 or maybe even when you were in junior high? What would you tell them?
68:03
Yeah, I would just tell them if you're passionate about something, don't let the complicatedness of it scare you away because, you know, I have a lot of experience doing projects, but this was a beast on its own. But you just break the problem down. You know, you start small. You start with the VPX. And, you know, you're not going to do it in three months. I mean, maybe some people could do it in three months. Or you might be able to. Right. For those that have normal jobs and whatnot, and this is just a hobby, you know, as long as you get enjoyment out of it, you know, go for it. And I've learned so much doing this project that I probably never would have touched, like, CNCing. You know, my projects that I make are typically, like, handheld. So, you know, I don't really have the need for a CNC. But, yeah, it's just been a great experience. Don't be afraid to jump in there. And you've got a whole Internet community to lean on when you get stuck. And if you enjoy what you're doing, you're going to enjoy it.
69:09
That's awesome. Well, listen, thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you for being on the one-year anniversary show. It's been awesome to have you on it, and I look forward to seeing you. Thanks. Well, thanks for having me on, Dan. It was fun. Appreciate it. Cheers. Thanks for joining the podcast. Thanks for listening. And I can't wait to see what you make.
69:51
Thank you.