The Pinball Network is online. Launching Just Another Pinball Podcast. Hi, this is Just Another Pinball Podcast, episode number 33. My name is Joel Engelberth. And yeah, today we have one heck of a guest. I know episode 30, I had a chance to interview George and Tanya and go over Deadpool, kind of the ins and outs of Deadpool and the design process of Deadpool. And I loved, loved, loved that interview. I also had an opportunity to do that with Scott Denisey with TNA. And so I know I've played the heck out of this game and I knew I wanted to speak to its designer. And so today on today's episode, we're really going to dive into Godzilla, the design process from start to finish. And really, there's only one person that we can talk to about that. And that is Keith Elwin. Keith Elwin is here. Yeah, Keith, thanks for thanks for joining me today. So yes, anything to break my COVID boredom. Yeah, we were supposed to record this a few days ago. And like late, late at night, the night before, you just said, hey, I don't know if tomorrow is going to happen. I have COVID. I was like, OK, no big deal. And then the next day you're like, my throat's on fire. We're going to have to postpone this. I said, yeah, you do you. So I'm glad you're feeling better. Yeah, thanks. I blame District 82, by the way. Oh, perfect. Yeah, yeah. Those people up there. I don't know how well that place is run, you know, especially the streaming guys. Yeah, but, well, yeah. So Keith Elwin, he is a senior game designer at Stern. This Godzilla happens to be the fourth game you've designed for Stern, and it is currently rated number one overall on Pinside. So I don't know if you ever look at that website or happen to look at that ranking system, but, Keith, apparently people like your game. Yeah, it seems a little excessively high, but I'll take it. Yeah. I mean, do you want to rank it? Do you want to put it somewhere else? If you just give it to, you know, give you give yourself some room to grow, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. OK. It's no fun being at the top. You got it. OK. Sounds good. Well, I do. This is a random thank you. But I when I interviewed George and Tanya a few months back about Deadpool, I'm a fan of Deadpool. I really enjoyed Deadpool. I had a pro and I asked them, you know, can you talk me into getting a premium? and they basically were just like, you got to play one. And one of the things that they credited you to actually is when you hit the left orbit on a premium or an LE, it whips around and there's an up-down ramp that feeds the katana. And George actually said that was your idea. So I don't know if you take credit for that, but George is giving you credit for that. I don't remember that. Oh, well, I will tell you, I went to a local bar who had a premium. I hit that shot, which is unique to the premium. It's not on the pro and that sold me that sold me on upgrading to the premium. So at a roundabout way, Keith, thank you for upselling me on Deadpool premium is what I'm saying. Because I should be getting commissions. Yeah. OK. Talk to George about that. Yeah. Yeah, I will. I remember that game was such a crunch. I remember when that was a whitewood in the lab. George is like, flip it. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me what you think. Flip it. Tell me what you think. So, yeah, it was amazing what he got done and the amount of time he had to do it. A hundred percent. And that is a game that just continues to go up and up in the in the rankings as well, which is awesome. And I know from a production standpoint, you guys can't make enough of them. So that's that's I'm really I'm seeing that right now. Stern is just you can't make enough Deadpool's. You can't make enough Godzilla's really can't make enough. Everything is what it runs comes down to. So that's got to be pretty awesome. Yeah, you know, when I first started, it's like, well, let's see how many we sell on the first run. Now it's just like it doesn't matter because you can't make enough. So anything we make now is sold out day one. It's already sold. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, it's somebody's already claimed it, which is pretty crazy. But yeah, so Godzilla. Godzilla, we'll dive in. I mean, to be honest, we could easily do this with all four of your games. All four of your games have been amazing. But Godzilla is one that I know I've spent a bunch of time on. And Zach and Nicole are flipping out. Let me borrow one for a few months. And I had an absolute blast with it. I know there's a ton of people streaming it. Carl D'Python Anghelo is streaming the heck out of it right now. He's blowing it up in ways probably you never expected. But, well, we can talk about that real quick. Do you watch Carl's streams? Yeah, I watch his streams, and then I adjust the rule set accordingly. Exactly. And I have to give you props. The fact that he has a call out when he signs in with Insider Connect, the fact that you've given him like a shout out with the Carl Carl Carl, you know if he resets I mean brilliant I think that's that's that I'm assuming that was your idea. Well, actually that was a mark rid of relays idea our He's our systems guy that he worked heavily on the insider connected he's Our voice guy. I said hey once you will give Carl a shout out and not only did one he did like a dozen and that's awesome and I was one of them and Mark's like you know Carl's just constantly restarting games we should find out his user ID and then put him a special call out so yeah that was a that's pretty funny yeah that's really well done yeah really well done so I will tell you when I stream that game I was nowhere near what Carl's doing but um it's pretty cool to see so many different people take the game in so many different directions and yeah we'll dive more into that but let's let's just go way back to the beginning so first First off, when it comes to like getting this theme, was this something that you had to like fight for or were you just given it like, hey, Keith, you're on Godzilla? Or was there like a I don't know, a bunch of people internally that were all trying to get this theme? As far as I remember, I was given this theme a long time ago. I think it was right after Deadpool. George was going to do it. OK. But he was overwhelmed. and uh he asked me if i wanted to do it and i said yeah absolutely i think uh monsters and pinball kind of go together especially with the cheese of godzilla yeah so yeah i i uh i jumped on that when given the chance but it was still uh still like two and a half years out so uh in my spare time i kind of started uh re-watching the movies and you know kind of thinking of cool stuff for the game and then crunch time came on avengers and i kind of abandoned it for a while uh focused on avengers and then uh after avengers released and i expect full steam on uh godzilla and i kind of had a a core layout done but without any toys and then i just started going to town trying to figure out what toys to use see that that really surprises me and the reason i say that is because this game is just like loaded with toys and to me i just assumed that was going to be kind of my next question like where'd you start i assumed you started with toys but that's not the case at all you you just you're saying you completely had a layout like shots you knew what shots you wanted and then you just kind of made toys fit around it uh no so what i do is um i'll lay out i'll make a layout but i'll reserve space for toys okay so in the godzilla's case i just had like four posts with a gigantic square rubber there i said okay something cool is going to go here okay and then i did the same for the bottom right where the mecha shield is you know something cool is going to go here um and then you know after i got the shots feeling the way i wanted then i i started focusing on um you know what the toys are gonna be the only the only toy that was there from like day one was the the magna grab uh that's only because i had already tested it because it was originally going to be on avengers i remember you i remember you said that somewhere and so i know the magna grab is an amazing mech it's an amazing amazing mech um it works incredibly well um and i know anytime my friends or family stepped up to the game and that it causes the ball to do stuff you you don't expect you know for a ball to be coming down and then whip back around and go back up like you just don't i don't know magnets are incredible i don't i don't know what else to say about that but um yeah so so that was the one toy you were like i'm using this yeah so this is going here and then you built everything else around it because the way i try to use it in avengers there was a geometry flaw and it would i would have had to redesign the whole game okay so i was like you know i'll just bump this back to the next game and actually design shots around the magnet obviously because the ball kind of whips around there yeah um so i had to design that in there from day one but everything else was just kind of uh fit you know fill in space here someday just that's a later problem yeah but i knew the things i wanted to have i wanted to have a bridge and a building um and then i wasn't sure about who the villain was going to be either king adora or a mecha godzilla okay um so i had to re-watch the movies and then i saw was it ready player one i think yeah they had mecha godzilla in it yep okay obviously this is more recognizable than uh king adora so that's when i said okay we're gonna make some mecha godzilla based toy here and um after watching the original movies with the circular shield that comes up i was like all right, perfect. There's, there's our toy. Yeah, that's awesome. And, um, yeah, I just, there's, I'm just, I'm looking at a picture here at the playfield and it, to me, like the building, the building mech, um, me and Travis and Tom on the triple dream podcast, we kind of geeked out about this for a while. And, and before you dethroned it, uh, medieval madness was the number one game. And, and I think there's a ton of love for the castle and in medieval madness. And I know for a lot of novice players, it's a very obvious, like very clear cut thing to shoot for. It's a really cool mech. And to me, it's like, I feel like you, you took that and you expanded even further. You put this building on a play field that, that truly changes the shots. It interacts well. I mean, did you know from day one, you were going to do something crazy with the building or what, how did that kind of become what it became? Yeah. I wanted to do some crazy, um, multiple the way diverter. Um, so that, that's how I, I, I went into it and I was like, Well, I can have this vertical diverter that changes three different shots. It's going to go up and down and this can be the building. You know, you can smash the building and then the building lowers and it changes a shot. That's kind of where I started. Yeah. And then once we started prototyping, Harrison's like, you know, there's like an inch and a half of space left on the roof where it's the glass. So we barely have room for a ball lock. So I was like, ooh, all right. And then we started messing with that. and we uh we mocked up an uh aerosmith premium a vertical up kicker which is the tallest we've ever done okay um we mocked it up with that and it's like oh yeah this has no problem shooting the ball all the way up here and that's how uh the locking system was uh got added to that so then it became like a full functioning uh you know diverter slash ball lock mechanism yeah and And then I also – it's funny you mentioned the medieval castle. I actually prefer Attack from Mars because I like bashing the center and getting the ball back right away. The medieval castle is really cool. It's animated, but I hate shooting it and waiting for the ball to dribble back out. So when I designed the building, I was like, I'm going to put – I want to have this like a two-stage skill set where if you shoot the ball under the blue pads, you get a bash. you get a credit for it, but the little ball comes flying back at your flippers. If you snake it through the tiny shot between the blue pads, you're going to get credit for a bigger bash, plus the ball will be set up on your upper flipper. Yeah, yeah. And that shot, well, the other way, like if you happen to hit the shot directly to the left of the building, it whizzes back at you. I'm glad now in the later code you've rewarded that, because I know early on it was like, why is this impossible shot on the play field the one that I seem to keep hitting the post. Okay. There's actually a funny story behind that. So originally in the Whitewood, the, the magnet grab, the cylinder was a little bit bigger. Okay. And that shot was not possible. Okay. But we couldn't source that material in time. So we had to go one of the slightly smaller diameter. And so when we, we put that in there all of a sudden, like, you know, a couple of weeks before production, we realized, Oh, now you can actually shoot this shot. Crap. So we actually had to redesign part of the building so the ball wouldn't get stuck back there when it's down. And that's why when the game released, it didn't do anything because it was such a last-second scramble change. I was like, yeah, we'll do something with this eventually. There you go, eventually, yeah. But, no, it's awesome. I mean, it's a really cool shot now because, believe it or not, there have been times because it'll spot you a shot that it's like, you know what? To me, it's almost easier for me to try to aim for that right now. It's probably a terrible tournament strategy or whatever. It's a very dangerous shot, but I don't care. I mean, I'm shooting for it. It's fun. It's a fun shot when you shoot it. But it is fine. But yeah, it was never intended to be a shot until the very last second. So awesome. Well, just looking around the shots. I mean, this this game, you know, we talk about in pinball. We talk about fan layouts. And most of the time it's like, you know, you have your two flippers at the bottom and all the shots are just left to right. Nice, big open fan. But this is so far from that. I mean, you have shots like the tail whip shot. you're hitting an almost directly horizontal shot that then is coming down at you i mean like is that a i was that an early on kind of thing or did you just think well i'm gonna plunge it this way and oh maybe i can actually go back the other way and make that part of the game no that was uh very early on actually um i played some um classic uh i guess you could call them classic godly baby b games and they had some really weird uh unusual shots uh and one of them was a deadly weapon where you can kind of shoot this shot from the bottom of a flipper into that thing and it whips around kind of similar uh to godzilla but except it feeds right into the in lane okay so i was looking at that shot and i was like that'd be a cool shot but it'd be cooler if you can hit it from an upper flipper and it didn't go to the in lane because so fast. So I was like, okay, I'll just have it, you know, whip around here. So we mocked that up pretty early. I was like, oh, this, okay, this actually works. And then, you know, you can combo the loop into the reverse loop. I think I call it at the time. I was like, yeah, this opens up some cool combo opportunities. So that was, that shot was in early and never really changed, honestly, from the first concept. Nice. And the fact that you have shots like the upper flipper, the fact that you have a shot that goes behind the upper flipper in both directions, to go under it, to rip that spinner versus over it. I mean, this game combos all over the place. And you add in a spiral wire form on the way. It just seems like, yeah, nothing's straight or linear. Everything's just whirling in and out, which is really, really a lot of fun. That left shot with the floating upper flipper, that was another thing I was wanting to do. something that you know some old school games did and then after playing doodle bug i was like oh this is kind of cool not having no lane guy to the flipper this is cool i want to do something similar obviously i can't do that on the bottom so uh i chose the uh upper flipper and actually the uh the um helix ball guide you're talking about that george she was like saw my ramp and he's like this is boring put a helix on it he's like all right come on keith this is boring yeah No, after Avengers, he saw these, my wire ramps, you know, it was kind of straight. I don't care what it costs. We're playing the Helix on this. I was like, okay. Dude, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, Avengers is an incredible game. And I borrowed an Avengers for a while and I loved playing it. The shots, everything felt great. The shots were great. My one negative, and I can't believe I'm saying something negative to you, Keith, but my one negative was you know friends and family that are not pinball players would step up to Avengers and they didn there was nothing on there that like screamed at them you know like do this thing And and so I have to talk them through it And I think that's what some of these higher ranking games usually have some sort of mech that just yells at you like this looks fun. Try to do something with it. And and that's you know, I see every one of your games. It seems like you're just building on the one prior. You know, you're only getting better. And that's the one thing that I think you've just crushed in this game is there are so many areas of this game that if we completely remove the code, there's you still want to shoot it like you still want to shoot the building. You still want to see how that left ramp works. You still want to figure out the right ramp, that upper loop, the tail whip shot, and then every one of your toys, the bridge, the building, the Mechagodzilla. I mean, did you go in with like a different mentality in this game? Like I want to focus more on toys or I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know how, I mean, this game stands out so much in that way. Yeah. So unfortunately Avengers was a victim of both, uh, kind of a short, uh, short, I think it was, I think I had a 10 month window to do Avengers. So, and coupled with that, that's when a COVID hit and we were shut down for a couple of months. Um, And so Avengers, I unfortunately took the brunt of that as far as like, you know, any kind of cool mechanical devices. So Harrison and I were against the gun, my engineer, to kind of just reimagine existing mechs. So that's why we kind of took the Batman spinning disc and kind of modified it to use just one post. And then obviously we had modified to go up and down on the premium. and then with the flight 2000 lock yeah i wanted a subway um so we kind of did an upgraded version of that so yeah we didn't have time to like really imagine anything from scratch in that game but um it's it's funny because i actually think that's my best shooting game yeah and i think that was part of the i didn't have time to second guess anything i had to get it right the first time so i really didn't take any uh monumental risks um obviously the uh the blocking tower the magnetic tower was like the one, you know, thing from my imagination ended up in the game. Actually, I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, that is a very fun shot. Yeah. Yeah. I actually, we were surprised how well that works. He's like, Hey, look, you can catch a ball. Why don't you shoot another ball up there? Let's see. Hey, it catches two balls. Yeah. When you're playing soul gym and you're, you know, you're limited on the number of flips and you're down to like one or two and you sink that shot to finish it, it is, that is an incredibly satisfying shot. That entire mode, the soul gym mode where you're limited on flips there, there were times that like my brother or brother-in-law would come over and they're, they're not the best players, but I would get them to that mode. I would play. And then I'd step off and be like, Hey, now you play, try this out because, um, that, that was really cool for sure. Yeah. You know, I was just, you know, I took a step back and say, what is something that is totally unique to an expert player? They don't care about flipping. They'll just use waist flips, getting the ball under control. That got me thinking. I know Carl did something similar at a Pinball at the Lake tournament. I think he had a modified creature where you can only flip so many times. I had forgotten about that. When I was thinking of this, I was like, oh so i think i went and looked for footage of it and i was like yeah that's actually kind of cool so if we take this and actually make it like just a mode a single mode of a game this could be a lot of fun and uh yeah we we uh rick looked at me like i'm crazy what you want the mode to end he ran out of flips what yeah and uh he's like yeah okay so we tried it and you're like okay this is pretty cool but then you know raymond's like oh this is way too easy of course he's like Oh, yeah, this mode isn't for us, Raymond. And then I was watching Bowen give a tutorial, and he was just intentionally wasting flips because it was so easy. And it just pissed me off to the point. He's like, all right, you know what? I think we need to add one more tier to this, add a hard mode. So if you hold the action button, he's like, all right, go ahead, waste flips now, Bowen. So you yourself are a pretty decent pinball player. So it's like you have people at Stern, you know, So you and Timmy and Ray Day and Zach, I mean, like some really high end players and you guys are, you know, playtesting your games. You're you're, you know, I don't know, like your skill level so high. How is it a challenge for you to like design games for all different tiers of player? You know, for every. Yeah. Like the homeowners that want to just slowly chip away at a game for years and years and years. And then other people like Carl that blow it up with every single code update you give them. And then you have other people that barely scratch the surface of the game, but still want to be entertained by, you know, some of the novelty items or the simple things in the game. Like, is that do you find that challenging? Yeah, it's very challenging. So for Godzilla, I kind of went back to my maiden approach where it's like, OK, you got all these things available. They're all pretty close to the start button. Choose your path, you know. But once you get halfway through the game, then you're going to have to start making some important decisions and collecting things you need to collect. So that's the approach I took for Godzilla. Nothing is really locked up right away. There's so many different modes available in battles. And then even unlocking a Tier 2 battle isn't that hard. So my goal is just like an average player can get there. yeah um yeah so godzilla definitely i kind of put a lot of stuff towards the start button and then that's kind of what we're released with some members are seeing people wow there's only that much strategy in this game it's like well yeah because yeah just wait yeah gotta get the game out the door with something and then we'll start adding some stuff carl will uh sink his teeth into later so um i think i did that with the annihilation bonuses and yes the city perk stuff so oh yeah Yeah. And now, yeah. Now the next update should have the power ups, which will further confound Carl. Perfect. Yeah. That's something that I think is awesome because it gives people like, you know, like Zach many. He he he's all about just moments like he just wants to progress through a game. And there are times that that's how I focus. So it's there's a lot of content here. You can you know, there's a lot of different battles. There's a lot of different stuff to do and see and experience. And if that's your focus to kind of work your way through the game just to get through it, then that's fine. But for the, you know, the top tier players like Carl, like Raymond, they the fact that they they want to go to every city and do as much as they can in that city before they move to the city, because then it gives them crazy bonus. I mean, it's yeah, you've given a lot. I think you've you've given a lot to all the different skill levels, which is awesome. I mean, I can't I can't thank you enough for that because it makes a more versatile game that really fits every audience. yeah yeah i mean i definitely learned a lesson with uh avengers where i was like yeah hey these uh each one of these gems does something you know unique and it changes the game uh but i always i always intended that to be for players like carl and you know yes sure and it's like you know the average player doesn't really need to know what they do they just need to collect them yeah yeah i get all this feedback i don't know this gem though where do i put i'm confused I don't want to play this. I was just like, it doesn't matter. Yeah. I think you're overstating how important they are because they're just basically perks. They don't really affect your journey from the beginning to the end of the game. So I took a lesson with that and was just like, you know, I'll bury this stuff even further in the game. So it's not going to be something that Joe Blow at the bar pressed to start and was like, well, what do I do with this? It's going to be annoying. Yeah. What do I pick? Yeah. I totally get it. And I hate games that have a bunch of choices, too. So, yeah, that's another thing I try to avoid is, like, choose your character and, you know, such and such for whatever perk. Yeah. It's like, well, you know, the perks are in the game, but you can choose, you know, you can choose them anytime. And, you know, it's just the whole the whole games open up to you. Yeah, for sure. No, absolutely. Well, let's just kind of look or, you know, work our way around the play field here. um first off i think you do an exceptional job giving like you have fun shots all like as close as you possibly can to the inlanes and outlanes so like the Paul Mazur cannon that Paul Mazur cannon there are so many times that i had to hit that shot and it just it's so far up that um yeah it's like come on just hit the freaking shot and um i don't know is that i mean i'm assuming you've figured all that out like how how far can i push it how low on these on these playfields can i go with these shots no i mean that's just a stand-up target so i wasn't too worried about that yeah um uh i was worried about the shot above it because it's kind of narrow yeah i was like man this is gonna be a tough shot it's not i don't think it's quite as hard as um revive on maiden but it's it's close um you've made it uh an it's a frustrating shot but when you hit it the fact that you gave us a spinner to rip is immediately makes it worth it because hearing that sound it's such a awarding sound. And then on top of that, there are times when you hit that, that left spinner that the magnet grab then grabs the shot, which makes it even more satisfying. So it's, um, those are both very important shots, but, um, they're, they're both fun. I mean, they're both fun shots. You've, you've added good light shows to them. But, um, speaking of spinners, I mean, I know we're going to work our way around here. You gave us three. I mean, why not five or four? Like, it's just keep them coming, put a spinner on everything. We can't get enough. We can't get enough spinners. So I thank you, though, that you put three on the game, for sure. I love spinners, obviously. The funny thing is, actually, they serve a purpose. So the reason the one on the left is a normal-sized spinner and the other two are wide is because the two wide ones were actually meant to slow the ball down a little bit, whereas the one on the left, it didn't matter. If you want to rip that one, you can rip it, because it's going to hit that magnet anyway. Yeah, so I wanted the big heavy spinners in the middle and the Mecca to but you know, just to slow the ball down. Plus those are, I think they're more fun to rip once you get those big heavy ones going. Yeah. Yeah. Every, oh man, it's ripping spinner. Now, I mean, are you a fan of opto spinners? I mean, is that the next goal? Or cause I mean, those just spin for days on rush here that I'm borrowing. I mean, that thing just spins and spins all day. Of course, yes. The problem with the opto spinners are I can afford three regular spinners for the cost of one opto spinner. Okay, well, in that case, I'll tell you right now. Thank you. I would rather take the three regular spinners over the opto so thank you for that um there are people you know that have made comments about the bomb like when this game came out they're like well clearly stern got smart and gave keith more of a bomb and and what i will tell you is i think you just put the entire bomb on the top of the play field like everything is there everything's visible when you lift the play field up you don't see nearly the amount of mechs that you were used to seeing on other i mean i'm not saying that in a bad way i just think i think personally and maybe maybe stern did give you more of a bomb But I just think you were you use the money in very lucrative places like like you're saying instead of an Optus spinner, you did three spinners like, you know, maybe in the middle of the play field where the Godzilla art is instead of having a ton of LED inserts. You know, you save that money a little bit and put it towards another mech. I mean, it's I just whatever you did with your money management. I feel like you did it the right way. So congrats on that. Oh, thanks. A lot of that's for the engineer. Harrison designs a lot of these. Hey, I can cut five dollars out of this by using this type of hardware or whatever. And it's it's that's more of an engineer's job to get the cost down. For me, I'm just like, hey, I want this here and that there. He'll either tell me I'm dreaming or he'll, all right, yeah, I might need to redesign. Because it's just like anything else. He does multiple iterations of something. The building was originally tons and tons of standoffs and hardware inside of it, and it was really heavy. He was like, well, we need to cut some of this out of here. so you know it just takes numerous uh numerous goes and tries until we figure out nice uh balance between quality and uh reliability and cost and yeah yeah well congrats on that i mean i just know like the the buildings on the backdrop of the game the fact that those are 3d molded buildings i mean that that to me is like holy cow like they didn't they didn't spare any expense like this is they give us everything on this even even on the pro um we're so used to either just a a sticker back there or a stand up, you know, like a plastic. I mean, was that your idea? Was that something like, Hey, let's really make this even more dynamic back here. I originally had a bunch of the flat plastics bracketed together. And when the powers that be saw that and they're like, that looks like a pan and ass put together, let's just use molded buildings. So that works for me. Nice. So more expense, but yet less labor. That's, that sounds good. Yeah. It looks way better. Yeah. It looks great. It really adds so much more. it makes it so dynamic back there yeah um all right so working our way around we've already so left spinner ripping that we talked about the left flipper i mean that that's fantastic adds a ton to the game the left ramp the left ramp when i the whamp by the way hit the whamps i know you read that all over the place um i love it i personally find hit the whamps hilarious but the um the left ramp you really have to hit that clean i mean it's it is back there and you cannot rattle that shot but when you hit it it feels it feels good like it's just a simple ramp but i i don't know was there anything was that um was there anything different originally for that or you just always had that kind of envision of this way back left vertical you know turnaround ramp i mean that's literally the only place we can put a left ramp and have it feed through the building so it was by necessity it works and it's um it is cool when you when you combo those shots left and right, left and right. I mean, they travel so far. That's the other thing. The fact that the return, you know, goes one way and then whips back around and comes back around to the other, to the other flipper. Yeah. I didn't mind if that shot failed, you know, if it rattled or didn't make it all the way up. Cause then it just, it sets up your upper flipper. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't mind it. I didn't mind at all that, that, you know, it has to be a perfect shot to make it because if not, okay, well you still have an upper flipper set up. Yeah. That is one thing I like about turtles the fact that borg there are parts in the game that it understands hey you're probably going to want to hit an upper loop or an upper ramp right now so it throws that diverter up to like stop the ball from being in orbit and then feeds the upper flipper um i have found there's certain other games where the upper flipper is really important and there's very few shots that feed it so yeah i applaud your castle actually yeah yeah what else we got the magna grab so the magna grab you said you originally designed that for avengers so you actually have some good you know r&d time spent on that um it it's so functional i mean there's there's actually a captive ball behind that correct i mean it's not just yeah but it's it's strictly used uh to trigger a switch yeah um because obviously there's this big huge round magnet underneath the playfield so we had to put the the stand-up target you know like three inches past where the mechanism that grabs it's at so it made sense to make that just the captive ball um i know i saw some people complain well you can't see it it was like well it's never really intended to be a visible captive ball it was just basically using it to know that it's been hit so uh so where did that i mean you've credited a lot of other games for some of these ideas but where did that the captive ball magnet where did that come from uh that came from my imagination i reckon i can't think of anything that came from nice and i'm always sitting around thinking of stupid crap so i think that was one of them, Hey, it'd be cool to, uh, have a magnetic Newton ball. Yeah. And like I said, we kind of messed around with that on Avengers, but the problem was it kept leaving residual magnetism on the balls and it would get stuck on there. And it like it like Harrison like yeah we don have time to do this We have to put a cap on here so it doesn magnetically trap the ball No when in doubt magnets are magical So the more magnets, the better. And then, yeah, I think, you know, I'm not here to tell you or give you design philosophy. But when in doubt, more magnets, more spinners. That's all I got to say. Yeah, I got to say. And also, magnets aren't cheap. They're very expensive. Oh, okay. If you're just going to hide it under the play field and have it whip the ball around, I think there's more we can do with them. That's a good point. Stranger Things is a great example. It's like, here's a magnet that does a really cool little trick for you. I think we need to think outside the box a little more when it comes to magnets. Hey, I'm all for it. I will support you in that endeavor. So keep it up. Then we talked about the little left shot to the left of the building. Apparently that was never planned, but it's become a fun shot. and there's some risk reward there. So nice job there. Building, I mean, the building itself is incredible. I really loved during the stream, when you streamed it originally, you actually broke it apart. And once I saw that, that there were different, the fact that diverts the ball in a different way, depending on where it's at or it loads the shot up top. I mean, what an incredible mech. I mean, I don't really think anybody's complained about that. I don't know. You should be proud of that. If you're not, you should. That mech is incredible. I actually went to the art store and bought a bunch of foam core and mocked that up with business cards, foam core, glue. I kind of made this like little crossing intersection there we call the X. Just make sure the ball can feed through there. And after building that, you know, it's like, OK, this actually works. Let's let's build a prototype. And yeah, it's it's been solid. But I mean, I haven't seen any complaints of reliability or anything to that mech. Yeah, it's a big mech. It's heavy and it moves a lot. So I'm with you. I haven't read anything on pin side of it being, you know, anything about it not being, I don't know, stable or supportive. Now, I do know there's some people ask. So when the balls are locked on top and then when it comes down, where are those balls supposed to go? so if you hold up the left flipper it should hit the tip of the left flipper okay all right because i know there's some people making mods that kind of divert it in a different way and i think i read somewhere that the goal was to try to get them out of the way as soon as possible or so i mean i don't well so when the building's down it leaves the ramp uh exits exposed okay so if you're at a one-time it from a building drop up a ramp it's going to launch somewhere on the playfield or it can land back on top of the building. So that was why I kind of moved the feed to as close as the tip of the flipper as you can get so you can't one time shoot it up a ramp. I mean, if people want to modify it to dump forever, that's fine. But keep in mind, it is possible to shoot a ball up the ramp and have it get stuck somewhere. Good point. Good point. So fantastic job with that, Mech. Directly to the right of that is a big old fat spinner right there in the middle of the play field. and that sets up so many different shots. It's just a fun shot. I don't know. I mean, I don't really know what to say about it. It's nothing fancy. It's just a nice, you know, kind of looping spinner rip right up the middle. It's got a little serpentine action to it to slow the ball down. But, yeah, that was the only tough part of engineering that shot. It was like, if I can't make a direct shot because it's going to fly past the upper flipper too fast. So we designed it to lose a lot of energy, both between the big fat spinner and serpentining through the ball guides. So there's a whole lot of energy left by the time it gets to the flipper and you have time to react. You're not just designing a shot. You're actually like the speed of the ball is just as crucial as the placement of the shot. That's that's pretty. That's correct. That's that's some next next level thinking there, Keith. So, I mean, well, well done. um so then you got the right ramp the right ramp is another fun ramp um and you got you have to hit it from the left flipper you that one's a little more forgiving than the left ramp but i will say i mean it does whip around really quick goes through the building and then it hits that bridge mech i mean that bridge mech is is another fun toy watching that thing kind of tremble during different times or um i mean you said you always wanted a bridge mech i mean was there anything multiple iterations or troubleshooting that you did with with that whole setup No, no. It was based on some toy that came in this Godzilla pack George gave me, this little purple bridge that kind of comes apart in the middle. So I'm sitting there looking at it, and I was like, hey, this would be kind of cool. Normally, the ball travels across it, no problem. But every once in a while, the thing breaks and drops the ball, puts it in harm's path. So that's what I was going for. And, yeah, that worked. It's worked flawless. Yeah, it's another great mech, yeah, for sure. And then you have your typical upper loop. I mean, another upper loop that just feels fun to hit. It's repeatable. I will tell you, the animation that you've added when you hit that, the spinning guy, right? The guy that spins around. My daughter, she's almost four. So when I had Godzilla, first off, every time we played Godzilla, she was always like, why are the buildings on fire? You know, why? And she's like, she couldn't understand. Is Godzilla the good guy or the bad guy? You know, I was trying to explain this. but she would stand on a chair in front of me while I play. And the first time she saw that guy spin around, she just, she decided to spin around. And so that just became a thing. If, if she saw the guy spin around, she would spin around. And it was like, that became the most entertaining part of Godzilla to her was ripping that upper shot and, and trying to get in. And I love that you track how many times you've done it, the game, how many consistent times you've done it. I mean, it's, it's just an upper loop. It shouldn't be as fun as it is, but you've made that, I mean, with the animation and everything made that really enjoyable. I cannot believe I came across that animation. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I need an animation for this repeating loop shot. And so I was just drudging through the hundreds of hours of footage we have. And I, and there's jet Jaguar spinning in circles. I was like, Oh my God, this is perfect. Yeah. He's even spinning in the correct direction. Yeah. I, I've, I have to applaud you the, the amount of character. I mean, you, you, you embrace the campiness of Godzilla to, to the, to the nth degree. I mean, you made this a very fun, enjoyable, funny game. And, and I think the animations that you pulled from it, um, I mean like the extra ball animation of, you know, like Godzilla, like dancing, um, there's, there's a lot, or the, the, when you drain and you shoot again animation, I mean, there's so much fun in that game. Um, so well, that was more time well spent watching hundreds and hundreds of hours, apparently finding these animations. Yeah. Also I underwent it, uh, extracted all the clips and edited them down. So that was probably, I spent more time doing that than actually designing the game. Well, I want, thank you. Thank you for doing it because I mean, it's, it's one more thing like, uh, you know, Avengers, Avengers still fantastic game, but the animation, the LCD was something that I think people feel, you know, left a little bit to be desired, but like this game, it's, it's hilarious. Like there are so many things that I would point to people and be like hey watch this and i'd hit a shot just so they'd see the animation and then that your 3d animators did such a great job of seamlessly weaving in actual things that they created with tv clips i i the the animation and display in this game is is incredibly well done it's it's yeah yeah that was tricky for me because i was like hey we got all this footage i don't want to use too much of the animators time but then there were just some things we did not have because we didn't have access to all the movies like and um some of the the footage is so uh grainy and bad from the black and white movies it's like uh the train and the bridge both of those those the footage was just not up to par for what we needed so uh uh deny our early software um the 3d animator on this project was uh oh yeah i can do that no problem i can do that and he made Hedera from a 3D model, which you probably can't even tell you're not watching the movie because he did such a good job with that. Yeah. Here's my whatever I thought of, just a random thing, but the Mothra call-out when you get the ball save is probably my favorite call-out in all pinball. There's something about that. When you're doing a multiball or something and things are going nuts, and when I play games, I put a head photo adapter on every one of my games just because I want to hear everything. And when you hear that Mothra, Mothra, like it's, it's such a good, like, it just makes you feel good. It's a, it's, it's like, thank you. You know, thank you Mothra for bringing that ball back. So once again, if that was your idea, thank you. Thank you for putting that in the game. No, that was a hundred percent Jerry Thompson. Nice. So we actually didn't have the rights to that call out. So he, he worked with some girls to just deadpan nail that the song lyric, and he put that in. I was like, wow, this is amazing. Oh, man. It sounds just like them, but the quality was 100 times better than what was in the movie anyway. So, yeah, that's all Jerry. Now, I have to say, I'm pretty certain that the insert on the play field says save outlanes, plural. Yes. And Mothra only works on the left out lane. That burned me. It actually says light outlanes. Light outlanes. There you go. Yeah, I've still got another outlane, you know. The right outlane, right? Yeah. Yeah, but it doesn't give you the return if you drain on the right outlane. Well, right lane doesn't do anything because it's not coded. Oh, okay. All right. So wait and see kind of situation. Gotcha. Yes, yes. All right. Because I remember early on, I was like, sweet. And then I drained out the right outlane. I was like, what is going on? What do you mean light outlanes? Where's my outlane? Yeah, but man, that left outlane though. Mothra. So at the time of recording, we're recording this on March 3rd, 2022, and you're at what, 0.91 code? Yes. Yeah. So we've got only more goodies to come, which is exciting. So still working our way around the play field. We have the tail whip shot. We already kind of discussed that. Fantastic shot. Hard to hit, but, you know, it is quite enjoyable when you hit it. Actually, when the shield's open, at least on mine, you can shoot the center spinner and just hold the flipper up and it goes right through there. So my entire experience was on the pro I have I've only played the premium a few times and the pro was it was a more challenging shot But what I what I do have to give you credit for because on the pro when you're trying to hit the Mechagodzilla Targets there's two or three of those targets that are nowhere. They're not even pointing two of them There's two targets that are not even pointed towards towards your lower flippers And so early on I was like how in the world am I supposed to hit that target? And I got to give credit to Travis Muri Travis is like here's what you do You hit the middle spinner, you hold up your left flipper, you let it just bounce off the left flipper and kind of give it a little nudge up. And it every time, every single time hits that side target. And I was like, he had to have done that on purpose. So, I mean, you can lie to me right now and tell me you didn't, but did you design it that way? Because it works perfectly when you do it. I was hoping it would. Obviously, I can't 100% and 100% of the machines, but that was my intent, yes. well i made one shot it was really hard to uh pull that mech out and put targets in a similar um kind of an array yeah um that that area was a little tricky but um ended up being a little tighter but probably a little smoother so it it were at least on a pro i mean early on i was like well that's not fair you know like the premium it turns and it's faced i mean it points it right at Yeah. But then on the pro, once I learned that, so anybody listening, if you have a pro and you've been pissed off that target, just hit the center, hit the center spinner, hold your left flipper up, give it a little nudge. Boom. It'll hit it every time. It's actually less of a sucker shot on the pro. Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. And then you got the right spinner. Once again, can't thank you enough. More spinners, the better. That's always a good time. And on the premium, the fact you got that little jump ramp to hit Mechagodzilla right in the tummy. I mean, come on. That's a that's a great shot. And the magnet holds it. So another great, I mean, that's something like the magnet holding it. Like if you're going to cut a mat, you could cut that, but it adds, it makes that moment because then it holds, it stops the ball and everything. I mean, was there always plans to put a magnet in him or what was? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was always there. Cause like, okay, you can bash him. Cool. But you know, we want, we have all this movie footage we want to show. And yeah, obviously when you're playing a pro that the whole intro starts going on before you can even see what's going on. So at least the premium in L.A., you know, he'll sit there and hold the ball and give you a show, a little moment. You actually hold it on for quite a while while it's kicking other balls out to give you a little bit of a breather. Yeah, it's that's a very cool mech. I mean, on the on the pro, you don't get that. It just kind of loops back around, but it's still a fun shot. I mean, you're giving me that that satisfaction with ripping a spinner. So that's always enjoyable. And then and then probably I know probably your favorite thing on this play field, which is that that scoop. I know you love scoops, Keith. I know in your world, the more scoops on a play field, the better. Am I right? Yes. Yes. No, I think you have said very clearly before you hate scoops. And apparently it slows the ball down to it. Is that the logic behind your, your hatred of a scoop? I just don't think they're fun to shoot. Okay. They're not. But, you know, obviously they serve a purpose. And in this case I needed a scoop. Yeah. So, you know, you take the good with the bad. And since it's so far off to the side, it's not like it's going to be a satisfying shot anyway. So it's a perfect spot for it. It becomes what I found is some of the most frustrating shots become the most satisfying shots. And I know I know. So I don't know why. Like one shot I always think about is with World Cup soccer, the freaking scoop to start a multiball. It's right there. It should be easy. But for whatever reason, it isn't. And so when you finally hit it, I mean, you know, you know what I'm saying? I know why. It's because it's angled weird. I think that's actually the beauty of that scoop. It's the same with Tales from the Crypt. It's got that scoop that's angled at a very weird angle, and it makes it hard to hit. And you're just like, ah, this is more frustrating than fun. Yeah, and it's the same with the World Cup Soccer. It's like, why can't I hit this? Yeah, it's right there. It's right there. But this was one of them. When I first got this game, it's like the scoop. It's like, God, I have to hit the scoop to do this. I can't progress in the game until I hit this scoop. But once you dial that in, I mean, Metallica has a similar thing, Guardians of the Galaxy. Like once you find that scoop, it's finally like I need to hit it. Here we go. Here you go. And you miss. And then in your case, you're evil and you just put a pop bumper right next to it to throw the ball out of control. But once you finally do hit that scoop, you finally get to take that breath. Like, oh, OK, thank you. Let me get my ally. So that was was that a late addition or is that always I mean, when was that added onto your play field? The scoop? Yeah. It wasn't that late. I originally had two pop bumpers in my first drawing, but, um, where was the other one where the scoop is? Oh, just two. Yeah. Yeah. And the other pop up over his position, slightly different. And it just, there was no action there. It was kind of boring. I was like, I need a scoop anyway. I think I'd rather just yank this pop, put a scoop there. Nice. Well, great call because that by doing that, it made the single pop bumper like more, I don't know, like it, it, it makes it feel unique. Like, I think it's awesome with it being a UFO, but it's just there's something about having a single pop bumper that almost makes it more enjoyable than if you put a cluster of pop bumpers. And you've coded that really well into the game, too, you know, making that some of the battle like finish shots or different times where you have to hit it for saucer attacks. So credit ready, aim, fire for that. I remember playing that game at Papa and there were times where you have to hit a lit pop bumper. and I'm sitting there thinking, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. And then I do it and it's like, okay, actually that's kind of fun. I want to do that someday. So this is perfect because it so far off to the side the flipper not too powerful it not going to hurt it So I was like I going to make people shoot it And I knew it was successful when I tuned in to watch Carl actually draining trying to shoot a pop bumper. And I was like, okay, I knew the risk reward was there. I got dangled that carrot of an extra ball. Absolutely. And you added additional code where if you shats the right in lane and it goes up and hits the pop, that's pretty cool. That's funny. That was actually never intended on the first Whitewood. It wasn't until the second Whitewood I noticed that. I was like, oh, you can actually chat to this. All right. Yeah, it's a good time. Put some Easter eggs in there for that. Well, speaking of Easter eggs, your mystery shots. There's 10 mystery combos that you've just hidden in this game. And I will tell you, as somebody who has streamed it and even watching Carl stream it, all of a sudden you hear that sound. And it is a really good sound. Jerry picked a great sound for that to bring it to your attention. Like, hey, you just did something. these mystery combos um and then you immediately question like what did i just do what what combo did i hit and we've come to find out some of these combos are are nuts like they're kind of a fluke like what what just happened kind of thing and i don't think all 10 have been found yet which is pretty amazing nice yeah it they're they're meant to be stupid uh that's why they're not worth very many points it wasn't until like the last four uh dean grover actually i had him work on those it wasn't until the last four i was like okay uh if we're gonna unlock hetero too then we'll we'll put some in that you can actually can't shoot nice uh so like i know one of them is shoot the center spinner uh and then shoot the pop bumper you know stuff like that okay you can do this you can i think one of them is bank off the shield into the building uh you can do that uh but some of them are ridiculous like the slingshot hitting the ball backwards through the mecha lane through the skill shot. Yeah. And that's where you have the people that are doing with Insider Connect, the achievement hunting are like, that's the only one I don't have is the 10. It's like, well, good luck, man. The most I've gotten is nine. You're right. I don't know what the 10th one is. I have to look at my cheat sheet. Yeah. Well, I'll publish it eventually. Yeah. Carl has a cheat sheet going and he, uh, yeah, I think he has all 10. I don't think he has all 10. He may not yet. But yeah, I would say, I mean, that's going around the play field. I mean, just all, there's great shots all around. Now, I do know one of the questions I'd ask George and Tanya on Deadpool, which people now quote all the time, are like, do you have any suggested tweaks or fixes to this game? Do you have a suggested play field angle for this game? And then lastly, flipper position. When you're setting up the flippers, do you have like, they want to hear it out of the designer's mouth, right? You know, what do you suggest for this game? It is so ironic. I don't know where this wives tale came that I went on to some mountain proclaimed Jurassic Park needs to be played at this degree. I have never, ever, ever suggested a plane angle for anyone. That's why I think it's hilarious. Is he going to chime in with what angle to put it? Like he did Jurassic Park. It was like, I never did that. um now to be honest our whitewood games don't even have the little bubbles on them yeah uh so i don't even know what angle i'm playing at and i'll say this is also as an operator for a long time it's just like you when you get to a location you know set it up to where you think it plays best and okay this is one of those one of those things where it's like if it's uh too many hot lane drains for you you probably need to make it steeper if it's way too fast, you're having a hard time making ramps and lower the rake a little bit. These stupid apps, which I don't think work half the time anyway. I see people complain to building drains straight down the middle, but my 99 cent app says it's level. It's probably not. This game is very, very touchy for the rear leg leveling, unlike most games. That's why I said get yourself a good digital level. put it at the top where the building is and then level level that so side to side is way more critical in your world than the than the front to back on god's only it's definitely the most sensitive because of the magna drop stuff okay um yeah no that's i'm i'm fine with that answer i mean i think the fact that you know i just think there are certain games out there that it's like if you just if you can get it right here to this one particularly that's when all the shots start to work and uh no it seems like you've designed a game that that will work with pretty much any angle you throw at it so as long as it's good side to side that's that's fine with me um and then another wife's tale i think you just brought it up is that the flipper uh angle um they are not supposed to be even with the inlanes there's only one designer who did that that was steve uh no other designer does that so it cracks me up when people say well they're flopped they're not where they're supposed to be and it's like take a look at george's myself brian john's games none of them align with the inline yeah um might tend to be a little bit more flops and uh and it's funny because when george was doing deadpool we were experimenting we just we'd get flopping and flopping you know getting the flippers lower just to make that that side that side ramp even easier yeah and um so yeah godzillas are uh slightly flopped for two reasons uh one is obviously to make the shots to the sides more accessible with more power, but also to reduce power going to the building. Ah, okay. Yeah. You know, the building's pretty sturdy, as you know, but we like to keep it that way and not just completely destroy it with power shots up the middle. So that's the reason the flippers are angled where they are. Yeah. And George basically said the way that he looks at flipper angle is instead of trying to put a straight edge, you know, at the top of the the in lane and try to keep the top of your flipper all perfectly in sync. He's saying, no, take a straight edge. You have the two screws that hold the actual inlanes down. You put the ruler dead center of those two screw screws and you want the ruler to then end up dead center of the point of the flipper. And once he explained it that way, I was like, Oh, that makes way more sense. Okay. And if you, if you line your, your flippers up that way instead of focusing on like the hole in the play field it's, it's actually, I think way easier to line, line the flippers up. So it sounds like you support that. Those holes are so incredibly hard to get right because there's not a template. Basically, what I do is so I get a whitewood. There's no markings on it whatsoever. I align the flippers. Okay, the gameplay is best like this. Okay, now how do I translate this into CAD, which is not that easy? Because basically, I get a Sharpie, put a little dot roughly where the center of the flipper tip is, So then I have to take all kinds of excruciating measurements to figure out exactly where that is. Wow, yeah. So where to put the dot in the CAD. And Godzilla actually had a last second upper flipper change where I actually kicked it a little bit further counterclockwise out just to help with the magnet drop to give you a little bit more power knocking the ball into the lane. Nice. no i i yeah i think that's great i i i know people i don't know why they just want to they want to hear it from you you know like if i is my game set up right you know yeah believe it or not i spend hours hours with messing with those dots it's it's infuriating to me i i hate it more than anything it's just because i know what feels good it's just like getting it translated to the other you know hundreds of games coming off the line it's like okay where do these go because i you You get one shot to get it right. Yeah. If we have to make a last-second change, because it's a spotting press, so it just dimples the play field. It doesn't actually drill anything. And that is done way before the game goes into production. So it is frustrating. And Harrison knows how I get. Three months before the game goes out, I'm freaking out about the alignment dots. Yeah, no pressure. That's the time you've got to get it all figured out. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're approaching our one hour mark. I mean, we really dove in on hardware. And to be honest, there's a whole other side of this game, which is incredible, and that's the software. And I don't think we have enough time to really dive in. But I would assume, I mean, are you thinking about code? Are you thinking about software right at the beginning? Or at what point does that enter your head? Because you're also the one thinking up all the rules and everything else that's going to go on in this game. so yeah i'll have like basic basic basic rules in my head when i'm designing a game so i knew this building all right you're gonna bash this building the building is gonna collapse and then it's gonna be multiball and then you're gonna have this uh the mecha toy and the shield's gonna go up you have to you know defeat the shield and it opens up and um yeah so i have some basic rules um probably like everything that the game released with that's probably what i initially wrote okay um and in this case it was super easy because the achievement system was basically based on my initial rule sheet nice uh so there was only like 40 achievements at the time so it was like yeah that's basically i make it a very simple game and then once you know the framework's all coded in there then we could start adding you know elements of you know strategy and skill and deeper stuff and it's still still to this day working on the real set well um one thing travis suggested travis murray uh which i think would be hilarious is is you should just automatically give everybody one point when they when they play the game the first time on on insider connected and then you got to leave the final final wizard mode and make that you know four points or something or no you you get whatever it is make it so that everybody could have every single achievement but that one point that they're missing or something so that it just keeps them up at night. Carl will sit there and play until he gets all the achievements kind of thing. Yeah. I want some hidden achievements. There's an entire ball save storyline being told in this game. Oh, wow. You rarely get all the way through. So I was thinking about making that an achievement. Hey, go for it. I'm all for it. I know I don't have the skill to force myself to play a game to get all the achievements, but But, you know, hey, if you can keep Carl or Raymond or Travis or some of these high-end players up at night because they don't have all their points yet, then I support you on that. Oh, that's absolutely the plan, yeah. Good, good, good, good. Well, I mean, that's really all I can – looking at my cheat sheet here, I mean, I think we've pretty much hit everything. Is there anything else you want to say about this game? It's been a long journey. I'm happy everyone loves it. I love it too. I play it every day. I'm sure Rick will be excited when it's finally at 1.0 yeah it's you know when everything falls into place a licensor that's great to work with assets a motivated team you know it's just super fun yeah yeah and it's I will say as a player to be 100% honest you know Zach's let me borrow a handful of games for the last two years roughly and and this was one of those like Godzilla's never been a thing I cared about and and it showed up and it took me like one day of playing it. And I was like, holy crap, what am I gonna have to sell to buy one of these games? And on top of that, I have to buy the freaking premium because as much as I'm enjoying the pro, I played the premium a handful of times at Expo and that just blew me away. So thanks a bunch, Keith. Well, you know what? So I think of my job this way. I'm getting paid to make people buy something They didn't think they wanted. Okay. And it's funny you say that because I wasn't into Godzilla at all. I mean, I watched it when I was a kid, but I hadn't seen them in many, many years. I was not into Jurassic Park. I was like, wow, this movie is still around? It's like I wasn't. So it helps that – I think it helps if I get a theme that I'm not totally into. Nice. And then I can kind of turn that into like, well, if I was a general Joe public, what can make this fun? And then, you know, then I'll delve into the theme. And it's like, okay, this isn't so bad. Like now I look at Jurassic Park. It's like, oh, yeah, that's an amazing thing for pinball. What was I thinking? You know, sometimes, you know, I'm just stuck in my stubborn ways of some of these movies I saw a long time ago. I was like, oh, I was a kid when I saw it. I don't want to see it now. But they work. They just work. Absolutely. And that's pretty impressive. If you can make – and you did exactly what you're talking about. You're taking themes, you know, Iron Maiden, there were plenty of people that they probably didn't even like Iron Maiden, but you've made a game that's now, you know, they've enjoyed. And Avengers is a great theme, Jurassic Park, great theme, but this is definitely one of them. I mean, there are some Godzilla diehards out there that they saw Godzilla, they bought it. But the reason this game is selling the way it is and is positioned the way it is, is because of what you've done, what you've added to it. It's not the theme that's selling this game. So congrats on that. I'm annoyed at you for doing that because now I've probably got to have to buy one of these games because it's just an absolute blast and now you're almost making me excited about what are you going to do when you get a theme that you're super stoked about I don't know I don't know if I ever want that Okay, perfect So if anybody ever asks you, what are your dream themes we'll just know If it's truly a dream theme, I don't want to do it because the pressure is too much I'd rather do something that can be cool for pinball and I said like Iron Maiden. I was like, I hardly heard any Iron Maiden songs when I started working on Iron Maiden. Then I went back, listened to their music, saw how Eddie incorporates into all their stuff. I was like, oh, this is an amazing, amazing theme. And so this was totally off my radar my entire life. But now it's like, this works perfect for pinball. Yeah, absolutely. And I think George Gomez said something when I interviewed him that really stuck with me, which is like, at the end of the day, he wants to make a pinball machine that is fun in the whitewood. Like he's like, if it's if people are enjoying themselves when it's a white wood, then I know I've done my job. And Deadpool has so many fun shots that are just the way it moves around. And I can absolutely see that in this game. You know, the shots themselves are the fun part. Everything else you've added, the humor of the clips, the sound package, the light show, the art. I mean, Zombie Eddie's art's incredible. The mechs. That's only built on top of this core shot layout that that's that's giving you continued satisfaction. So, yeah, well done. I mean, I think having comedy in pinball is a must. And yeah, we're a little skeptical about Toho's like we don't know how these guys are going to react to me. We're basically kind of making fun of some of their characters. Yeah. You know, the case in point is the the Brooklyn accent guy. He's an actual character in the movie. He's an astronaut. But that's that's exactly how he acts. It's like, oh, we're going to take this act and just, you know, expand upon it, you know, and they loved it. So it worked. That's awesome. Well, great, great, great. Well, once again, Keith, thanks a ton. Thanks a ton for doing this. I really appreciated it and really enjoyed the conversation. This is a great game and I'm glad. Well, you know, you know how good you know how good it is. And I hope you're proud of it because you should be. And, you know, thank you for what you're doing for pinball. And I can't wait to see what else not only the the rest of the code on this game, but also, you know, what's coming next from you and from Stern. so when we talk about my next game we can talk about uh godzilla 1.0 hey yeah sounds like a plan all right absolutely well for everybody that was listening to this my name is joel this is just another pinball podcast if there's anything i can do for you feel free to email me at just another pinball at gmail.com also feel free to listen to the triple drain podcast um on uh tpn but yeah thanks again keith and hopefully we can talk again soon thanks for having me all right bye guys you