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Track 'n' Field Drum Solo

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·37m 3s·analyzed·Feb 5, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Blockade hosts discuss TV work and critique Zen's Rogue One pinball table design.

Summary

Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan discuss their work schedules in TV production, writing pinball into scripts, their experiences with Zen's Star Wars: Rogue One digital pinball table, and various gaming acquisitions. The hosts critique Rogue One's playfield design, mission selection clarity, and compare it unfavorably to other Star Wars tables. They also discuss Humble Bundle deals and Cards Against Humanity.

Key Claims

  • Rogue One's upper playfield has a large gaping hole that makes ball recovery slow and frustrating, especially during timed missions

    high confidence · Chris describes spending 5+ seconds waiting for the ball to return from the upper area during timed missions

  • Rogue One's mission select system is poorly explained and unintuitive compared to other Star Wars Zen tables

    high confidence · Chris had to discover through trial and error that you must complete the initial K-2SO robot mode before mission selection becomes available

  • Rogue One ranks in the bottom half of Star Wars Zen tables, above only Dark and Light Side

    high confidence · Jared explicitly places it in bottom half; Chris agrees it's not one of his favorites

  • GarageBand (physical machine) features force feedback flipper buttons that prevent flipper activation at certain points

    high confidence · Chris describes a mode where 'the flipper button does not want to push in' and suspects it's tied to the drum solo video mode

  • The drum solo video mode in GarageBand requires rapid button mashing similar to Track and Field arcade game

    high confidence · Chris describes standing the controller on its end and hammering buttons; Jared confirms placing it between lap for 'track and field action'

  • Zen's main design weakness is poor in-game explanation of rules without consulting external instructions

    high confidence · Both hosts note having to look up instructions or read DMD carefully to understand mission flow

  • Pinball Arcade community forum has a monthly user-curated table ranking system tracking which tables are highest/lowest rated

    medium confidence · Jared mentions a user who updates rankings monthly where Bonebusters has dropped below Going Nuts

Notable Quotes

  • “The ball seems to spend a lot of time either going up there to get the Rogue targets, but also if you brick a shot and you don't get it right, it takes way too long for the ball to get back down to the flippers again.”

    Chris Freebus @ early gameplay discussion — Core design criticism of Rogue One's playfield layout

  • “It turns out I might have been like not realizing there was action up on the DMD... normally it's clear that you shoot a hole, and in all the other tables it's like, 'start mission' or 'mission select' or something really obvious.”

    Chris Freebus @ mission select discussion — Criticizes Zen's inconsistent UI design patterns across Star Wars titles

  • “I put it in between my lap and do a little track and field action on it.”

    Jared Morgan @ drum solo discussion — Humorous description of force feedback button mashing in GarageBand's drum solo mode

  • “It's one of those things where it was so cool when it was like, 'what is this? This is interesting. This is different.' And it was kind of a shock to the system.”

    Chris Freebus @ force feedback discussion — Recognition that force feedback flipper buttons are novel but poorly integrated into gameplay understanding

  • “That's probably the worst skill shot um in the game apart from March of the First Order, which is pretty pants as well.”

    Jared Morgan @ skill shot discussion — Identifies multiple poorly-designed skill shots on Zen Star Wars tables

  • “Zen's one of their main Achilles heels is that they don't really explain what you need to do very well without having to actually bust open the instructions.”

    Chris Freebus @ design critique — Summarizes recurring complaint about Zen's UI/UX design philosophy

  • “It kind of kills the fun when you're down to one manufacturer for who you can make a prediction about... only having essentially access to Gottlieb and Gottlieb EM... it would be like one massive Gottlieb collection, and that would not be good.”

    Jared Morgan — Expresses frustration with Data East/Sega moving to Stern exclusivity and lack of Williams resolution

Entities

Chris FreebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlockade PodcastorganizationZen StudioscompanyStar Wars: Rogue OnegameGarageBandgamePinball ArcadeproductZoltanpersonWizardAmusement.comcompanyHumble BundlecompanyWilliams

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Arcade licensing fragmentation limiting speculative content: Data East/Sega moved to Stern exclusivity, Williams license unresolved, leaving only Gottlieb for Pinball Arcade

    high · Jared: 'It kind of kills the fun when you're down to one manufacturer for who you can make a prediction about... one massive Gottlieb collection would not be good'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Rogue One ranks below average among Zen's Star Wars digital tables; placed in bottom half with only Dark and Light Side rated worse

    high · Jared states 'bottom half' when asked ranking; Chris agrees 'it's certainly above that Dark and Light Side table' but 'not one of my favorites'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen's mission select system unintuitive and inconsistent with other Star Wars tables; requires understanding hidden DMD mechanics

    high · Chris had to discover through trial-and-error that K-2SO robot mode must be completed before mission selection appears; normal pattern is obvious 'mission select' prompt

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Rogue One's playfield design criticized for large upper-area gaping hole causing slow ball recovery and poor mission mode usability

    high · Both hosts describe spending excessive time waiting for ball return; Chris mentions 5-second waits during timed 5-second missions; Jared notes entire bottom playfield appears underutilized

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen's recurring design weakness: poor in-game rule explanation requiring external instruction consultation

    high · Chris: 'that sort of mode transition to all the other Star Wars tables, and none of the other ones do that'; both note rules unclear without reading instructions

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.111

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. WizardAmusement.com, the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods. Easy to install, totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com, sales, restoration, customization. you are listening to the blockade podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always jared morgan hey there chris what's been happening what's been happening well i have been enjoying a lovely week off of uh work uh so that's that's what's been happening we get hiatus weeks.
0:51
Oh, okay. It's not uncommon with TV shows, especially comedies. And so what they do is they'll work four weeks, and then they'll take a week off. And a lot of times that is basically so the writers can catch up and fine-tune things. In the case of our show, I think it's less about the writers and more about that labor laws require that the kids have a certain amount of time off. Oh, yeah, yeah.
1:19
Yeah, so I think that that helps ensure that they're not being overworked. But we get the benefit of it. I mean, some people would be like, oh, no, that's a week without work. But based on our final week at work where everybody was pretty much getting ready to tear each other's heads off, it couldn't have come at a better time.
1:41
Yeah, fair enough. I guess there's probably been a little bit of frustration recently with certain events happening. Well, it's not only – it's a combination of that, and it happens regardless of world events. When you spend 12 hours a day with a group of people that are in tight quarters, and sometimes the job can get high-pressured because of time constraints and rushing to get things done, people tend to start barking at each other. Yeah. Yeah, there's been shows where their first break wasn't until Christmas, and then they don't get another break until the show is done, which would be, talk about mid-April.
@ Pinball Arcade licensing discussion
company
Stern Pinballcompany
Gottliebcompany
Cards Against Humanityproduct
  • ?

    product_strategy: GarageBand physical machine includes force feedback flipper buttons that prevent flipper activation during certain modes, creating novel gameplay friction

    high · Chris describes flipper button 'does not want to push in' at certain points; suspects correlation with drum solo video mode

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Jared's initial frustration with Rogue One stemmed from unknown mission mechanics rather than fundamental design, suggesting learning curve issue rather than core problem

    high · Chris explains the actual mission flow mechanics; Jared acknowledges he may not have been 'getting into the shoot the target enough' and timing out

  • ?

    technology_signal: GarageBand's drum solo video mode requires rapid button mashing similar to 1980s Track and Field arcade (track and field simulation), suggesting mechanics may feel disconnected from Beatles musical theme

    medium · Chris humorous description: 'track and field action on it'; Jared confirms 'stand on its end and hammer buttons' approach; Chris notes 'ridiculous' nature

    • 2:34
    Mid-April? Yeah, so I'd go day play on those shows near the end, say, you know, end of March. And there'd be people within their own department not talking to each other because it was just gotten that bad. Yeah. Oh, that's terrible.
    2:50
    Yeah. Then you go back to the next seat, and, you know, at the start of the season, then everybody's all happy-go-lucky and, you know, nice to each other and stuff. So I think it's wise that we show it through scheduling breaks because it's much, much needed.
    3:03
    Yeah, definitely. Because I imagine it's pretty – you're doing pretty long days, aren't you? Yeah. On set in most cases. So, yeah, you're kind of cramming a lot into each day, and that would take a toll. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the toll comes from, I mean, in my instance, once you add in the commute time to and from the show, you're away from home for 15 hours, basically. So by the time you get home, you have enough time to basically be awake for two hours and take care of whatever you need to take care of. And then you go to sleep and then wake up and you go do it all again.
    3:39
    That can get pretty tough on everything, really. yeah yeah it's it's amusing when i've worked uh an eight hour day uh that happens now and then with day players where they'll just be hired for just an eight hour shift and then they get sent home while the rest of the crew still works yeah and you get into your car after an eight hour day and you're like but the day's just like i can't believe i'm going home already i feel like i'm copping out.
    4:10
    It's mind-boggling to me that most people only work an eight-hour day. It would be weird. I sort of clock off after eight hours for sure. When I have to work back on occasion longer than that, it's like, oh.
    4:24
    It's like every minute feels like 15. Well, the funny part is that we take our lunch, we go to lunch after six hours of work. So, yeah, two more hours and you'd go home. Yeah, that's weird It is weird You think that's sort of breaking up halfway through the day at least Well it is halfway in our case because then we tend to work another six hours afterwards Yeah, I guess Yeah So anyway, I've been enjoying the break watching movies, TV playing with the boy and I actually for two days that I was off just because I'd come up with a good idea on set one day, I went ahead and banged out a script for an episode. Not that it'll be even remotely have a chance of being presented to anybody because that's kind of against the rules. But I still decided to bang one out and I incorporated one of my favorite things, which is pinball, into the script. That's work. I was going to say I need to I reckon we need more examples of pinball and popular culture so the Pinheads Pinball Podcast can actually play it on air when they do their pinball and popular culture segment. Of course, it's purely for selfish reasons why I would write something like that in, because then I'd have to get a pinball machine on set. Exactly. And then what do you think I'd be doing during lunch? Yeah, exactly.
    5:51
    That's right. What you really need to do is create a sitcom-based arcade. That's what you need to do. I have thought about that. I actually have thought about that. And what my idea was, was kind of think of like Cheers, where it takes place in an arcade and it has next to nothing to do with the actual arcade itself. It's just the people that would come into the arcade and who would hang out. And you could have all sorts of different, you know, you can have, you know, you got your owner, you got the weird guy that fixes all the machines. You've got the various clientele that come, you know, whether it's youth that hang out on it or, you know, some of your older people that would be, you know, pinheads of that nature. Yeah. And just kind of the interactions. And I've thought about that. I don't know how it would actually come to fruition and work. I don't think you could design it being about an arcade because that would get old real fast. What you could do is a barcade. like you'd actually have it as a, you know, like a bar and an arcade. And that would actually give you a lot of material.
    7:04
    Right. So it's like cheers 2.0. They'd have to reboot it. Yeah. They probably, that's exactly what they would do. It would just rebrand it.
    7:13
    Yeah. So there you go. Make it happen for Jesus and script writers and things. Yeah. Get, get right on that. Sure.
    7:25
    Hey, since you posted a score on Twitter I've got to imagine you had some time to mess around with Rogue One Yes I have had a bit of a good go at it and I think overall it's okay there are some things that frustrate me with it though and I think a lot of it has to do with the big gaping hole at the back of the playfield the ball seems to spend a lot of time either going up there to get the road targets but also if you like brick a shot and you don't get it right, it takes way too long for the ball, in my opinion, to get back down to the flippers again. It's like it needs a stage ball somewhere, like a virtually stage ball, just so it shoots it out immediately from that vertical up kick and back into play because it's just, it feels, it's particularly if you're like playing a time mode, like a mission mode and you're going, oh, I just want to get that ramp, but it's going to take five seconds for the, like I've got five seconds left, but I've just got, I've only got five seconds left and now I bought the shot. I bricked it and it's now into that top levels. I've got no chance of getting the final shot. You know, that is what's been frustrating me about the table.
    8:38
    What do you think? The upper, the two upper flippers. Do you, I've, I can barely figure out what they're even there for. What shot you're supposed to be hitting. I think I randomly hit a ball the other day that wound up hitting the general that's on the left side of the screen. And I was like, wow, I didn't even know that was a path. Yeah, that's how you lock balls.
    9:05
    Yeah, how you lock balls. Okay, yeah. So that's one of the shots there. And you also got like these two it depends on what view perspective you playing on It might be hidden on some But there actually two sort of very sharp left and right ramps I guess you'd call them bank ramps that those flippers do let you shoot for.
    9:27
    But you do have to play the game for a while to realize they're there. And they're sort of hidden behind the other main ramps. So they're not really that obvious. You think that, well, okay, there's two flippers there. there must be some sort of side ramp action I need to shoot. So you kind of just have a go and see where the paths are by just brute forcing your way around that area of the play field, really. But as far as, I don't know, immediately walk up to the table and go, okay, there's two clearly visible side ramp shots I need to take. It's by far clear in the game. It's not easy to find at all. And they're really hard to get for me. Like there's such a strange angle. and I'm still trying to work out at what position of the flipper I need to shoot for them at.
    10:13
    Yeah, I think that was the issue that I'm coming across. I'm just like, I can't quite get the timing and I don't know if it's because I'm visually not cueing into where I'm aiming. To me, it just feels like I'm randomly shooting.
    10:24
    Or that, like you said, instead I wind up hitting the big gaping hole in the middle. Yeah, it's like so easy to do because it's like pretty much the top half of the play field is a gaping hole. so yeah it's a fairly large target to hit if you shoot it anywhere up near there and i think that's a problem like i was gonna say do you agree with my sentiment that it feels like an old wide body with everything symmetrical and that wide open play field in the middle yeah it it does it's it's a very it does have a feel of the wide pin um it's certainly not a narrow one like some perhaps arguably some of the um the latest star wars tables were and I don't know I think probably with the amount of stuff they've crammed in there it needed to be that wide but I don't know if the area on the playfield has actually been utilised as perhaps well as it should it seems like the bottom half of the playfield is really empty compared to the top half and you know like you know in the other tables typically if the playfield is wide open on the bottom of the board it would be like some sort of mini playfield revealed or something like that underneath the in that sort of area but there doesn't appear to be anything there unless I haven't hit it yet in the modes but I've played like a 270 million score game so I've covered a fair bit of ground in it and I haven't seen anything really that shows there so I don't know it sort of seems a bit I don't know I don't feel it's one of my favorite games. Where would you... There is what?
    12:09
    I don't even know how many Star Wars tables there are now. Is there... We're on 12 or 14, right? Something of that nature? Yeah. I could quickly open the app and find out. But if you're going to ask me where it sits... Where do you place it? Where does it sit? Top half or bottom half? Let's put it to you that way. Bottom half. Bottom half? I'll put it in the bottom half. whereas there's some Star Wars tables there that are like well and truly in the top half.
    12:36
    You know, and yeah, definitely bottom half. It's certainly above that, what is it, the dark and light side table. Oh God, everything is above that. That's right. But you know, it's not really one of my favourites. I think, yeah, it's that upper playfield I think kind of kills it. it's just a bit too open and to light force and then get a mission it wasn't really apparent to me i kept on doing the same mission over and over and over again oh really why why am i doing this mission over and over and over again isn't there some do i get to select a mission or something like that it turns out i i might have been like not realizing there was action up on the um dmd or something like that. Oh. And I had to actually select missions, which is really weird, because normally it's clear that you shoot a hole, and in all the other tables it's like, you know, start mission or like mission select or something really obvious. But I think on that table it's just you shoot force, and then that's it. Is it force or rogue? I thought it was rogue. Rogue. Yeah, it's rogue. So you shoot rogue, all the rogue targets, and then this thing pops up, and it was the, I forget the mode, it's like, I think it's called Invisible or something like that, where you've got to shoot the little... The little... No, it's, I think basically it's the one that when you first start a mission for the first time, it's the one that's selected by default. Oh, the guy that rotates back and forth on the... Yeah, and you've got to do it like three or four times, and then you've got the big spinning, spinning like looks like an octopus at the back but it's actually the uh the robot right the droid uh k yeah k whatever it is kf60 or something like that k260 i'm not i can't remember what his name is um but yeah that one i haven't been able to finish that mode for the life of me um and it like doing it over and over again and failing on it over and over again i was just going oh this is crap. I did not like this table at all. And then I went, looked up at the DMD, because at one point it didn't even, like, the mode started immediately when I shot the hole, and it didn't give me any pause. Because normally if the game pauses, I go, uh, okay, I'll probably look up the DMD.
    15:03
    But it just gives you zero indication that that's how you actually start the mode, if you're, if you haven't actually read the instructions.
    15:10
    You have to at least defeat the, that first part of the mode. If you defeat that, then the next time you complete Rogue, then you get the choice of what levels you want to do, what mission you want to do. But you first have to complete that very first one.
    15:30
    Not completing the robot portion. It's just shooting the pop-up target the three times or the three cycles of times I should say. Once you've done that, the very next time you shoot Rogue, you'll be able to the mission menu will pop up and then you can select your mission that you would like to do all right so maybe that was my problem i wasn't actually getting into the shoot the target enough and i was timing out right okay well that explains to see there again that's not really that well explained in the game either like you compare that that sort of mode transition to the all the other star wars tables and none of the other ones do that like you can basically just start any mode you want at the outset and you know well that's kind of i mean i've always felt that that's that's Zen's, you know, one of their main Achilles heels is that they don't really explain what you need to do very well without having to actually bust open the instructions. Yeah, it's particular. I've found this table particularly hard to pick up, actually. So there's it's sort of like, yeah, the rules are not apparent. I just I just wonder if that's actually, you know, due to the fact that it's a Zoltan table. maybe it's just maybe one of those things it's certainly one of his better ones but I also feel the rubber is really dead on it like there's no bounce yeah that's Zoltan here's the thing I believe it's actually quite bouncy for a Zoltan table yeah it is but it's frustrating when you come from the other really nice bouncy tables and you hit this one and it's like zero life in them at all that's where my ranking goes is that As far as the Zoltan table, I think it's one of his better ones and more enjoyable in that aspect. I agree with that. But I do agree that there's plenty of other Star Wars tables in Zen that I like better. So to me, it's probably a middle-of-the-field kind of table and one that you'd probably be fine waiting for it to go on sale, and then buying it on sale, you'd be happy. Yeah, I'd probably say that too. yeah definitely if it comes on sale grab it but I mean sure you know I don't think really it's that expensive to buy I think it was probably about four something dollars in Australia so that's not really that bad and you know I've got I certainly think I've got four bucks worth of value out of it to date like I've had a good game on it and you know it's quite alright but that zipper flipper behaves strangely like it's uh I have not been able to figure out what the super skill shot actually is. To describe it to you listeners out there, when you launch the ball,
    18:07
    if you do just a very soft launch, it'll go up the lane and then drop back down, and there's your mid-table flipper. By triggering it, it zips down, and now as the ball plummets to it, you be able to flip a shot But it is so quick and I yet to be able to identify you know all I hearing is the audio saying you know that you can shoot a a scooper skill shot And then I just get skill shot. And I'm like, okay, the skill shot is that you actually activate the zipper flipper, but I do not know for the life of me where you're supposed to shoot.
    18:46
    You've got to shoot for the, the right, I guess it's the, from the zipper flipper over to the, I guess the left hidden ramp. I'll call it.
    18:58
    So basically it's plunge and flip. Plunge, flip. And that's pretty much how you get the shot. Because it's the thing that there's problems with that skill shot, I think. Number one, think of like how Twilight Zone does the skill shot where it's not like a – Well, that's an analogy. You plunge it.
    19:17
    Yeah. So you plunge the ball and it goes up and then technically back down again. but with this particular skill shot, you pretty much plunge it, and it plops onto basically this virtual target just at the exit of the ram or exit of the plunger lane, and then immediately the zipper flipper flips back, like zips back, and then almost instantly you have to flip. It's like basically if you manage to get the skill shot, you pretty much got to be prepared immediately to shoot. there's no grace period where you go okay now I can line it up and it's coming down to the flip and I can actually time my shot it's basically plunge flip and that's it um it's not really good like it's it doesn't actually allow you to the idea with skill shot is you should have some skill getting and not just like twitch reflex which is what this is right I just don't like it at all it's probably not it's probably the worst skill shot um in the game apart from March of the First Order, which is pretty pants as well.
    20:22
    Did not like that one. Isn't that, though, also a Zoltan? I don't know. I'm just going to blame him for any bad table.
    20:30
    Sorry, Zoltan. Their lead designer, let's see who I least like. Yeah, give me Graffle Tables any day. Oh, yeah. So, what I haven't been playing... I've sampled that. I sampled playing a little bit more of GarageBand.
    20:52
    One of the things that's disappointing with GarageBand, and I mean, I knew it was going to be disappointing, but the key thing that you're missing from this table is the force feedback flipper buttons.
    21:04
    Oh, really? Which you probably did not know existed, because it was very much a surprise to me when I played it in real life. And basically what happens is, and I don't know what triggers it, but at some point you go to push the flipper button and it's like it does not want to push in. And you've got to push the flipper button in. And you have to do that a couple of times until finally it goes back to letting you do what you're doing.
    21:32
    And I'm almost wondering if it is during the drum solo video mode because that video mode is so bizarre. So what am I doing here? Yeah. Just tap the screen or tap your controllers. I usually, like, when I do it, I don't know if you do the same thing to get a big score, but I get my controller, my hardware controller. I stand on its end, and I just, like, hammer buttons.
    21:57
    Yep, I put it in between my lap and do a little track and field action on it. Track and field, exactly.
    22:05
    That's exactly how I would give the analogy to it. It's track and field, but in a drum solo, which is ridiculous. So if anybody has actually played this machine in real life, maybe you can enlighten us as to when the force feedback flipper buttons actually activate during that. But it's one of those things where it was like, it was so cool when it was like, what is this? This is interesting. This is different. And it was kind of a shock to the system, you might say, while playing it. And it's the equivalent of when you were playing Attack from Mars and you got strobe multiball and you went, what's so special about this mode until Farsight finally did something about that and blacked out the play field. Yeah, exactly. That was my takeaway of GarageBand this week in playing it.
    22:59
    I still don't mind it. I still think it's a whole hell of a lot better than Bonebusters, which apparently on the Pinball Arcade fan forum, there's a thread where, I'm not sure which user has done this, but has a table rankings.
    23:17
    Each month a new table gets out, he updates the rankings and basically you can go in and rate each table from I don't know if it was probably from 0 to 10.
    23:29
    And then it kind of keeps track of what table is tracking and where they're going and stuff like that. And apparently Bonebusters has dropped even lower than Going Nuts. Whoa, okay. That's a feat. That's pretty low. Or maybe people are just thinking how terrible Going Nuts is and they should go and replay it again. I think Bonebusters has got to be better than Going Nuts, surely. I don't know. Yeah.
    23:54
    They're pretty close. I'll give it that. Yeah. So one of the other things, though, I've been playing this week, and I think I mentioned it last time I picked up Humble Bundle, was they do a monthly game, and it's only $12 for the game.
    24:14
    And this time it was XCOM 2. And so it was $12, except for I bought it before a certain date, and that gave me another 10% off on it. So I only paid just slightly over $10 for it.
    24:34
    And then on top of that, they give you a whole bunch of other games a few days later, and I just got revealed what those games are, and I thought I might let people know what happens when you... Go in early.
    24:51
    Yeah. Well, you don't actually have to go in early to get all the other games. Okay. They just don't reveal what those games are until after a certain date. So by picking up XCOM 2, you also get, along with it, Rise, Son of Rome, which is, I guess, some kind of a third-person game.
    25:19
    It looked graphically intense, but I've never heard of it. Abzu, SteamWorld Heist, Oklos, Project High-Rise, and Husk. a couple of these actually looked fairly interesting when I was looking at them just watching a gameplay video on Steam but so anyway yeah so they threw in another six games on top of XCOM 2 and those were through Steam and then there's two other games that they threw at me that don't run on Steam that you just have to download directly to your PC and you also get 10% off any Humble Bundle store purchase thereafter. And one of those things is they have all the DLC for XCOM 2 packaged. Normally it's $20, and it's on sale now for $9. So not too shabby, I've got to say. That's pretty good. Yeah. And for those interested, the next month's game, which I won't be getting, is Total Warhammer.
    26:27
    Total Warhammer? so that yeah you know the series warhammer yeah yeah this one it's i guess this particular iteration is called total warhammer um 60 bucks normally okay so 12 bucks if you do that kind of thing so that's pretty good yeah it's a good deal not too shabby i think that's good about humble bundle on steam it's that they just give you codes hey so yeah they give you codes to unlock and then steam takes over with the updates and all that sort of stuff and keeping your games up to date. Yes. I think it's better than how it works on mobile because I'm pretty sure that Humble Bundle have like their own app that then manages the apps that are released through Humble Bundle. So you've always got to have like an alternative app store on your phone just with Humble Bundle, which is why I never bother. Okay. It's just like I don't want to do that. I just unlock them through Play Store and give them to me that way, you know. But they don't do that. So, yeah. The real question is, will I actually play? How many of these other games will I play? There's one on here called Husk. It's a first-person survival horror game.
    27:38
    Yeah, I'm not sure if you can play that. No, thank you. So if anybody wants the Steam key for that just hit us up via well actually probably hit me up on Twitter at ShutYourTraps and first person that wants it I give you the game code because there's no way I'm downloading it and playing it. I can predict that one right off the bat. Do not want. Yeah. Do not want. What else has been going on?
    28:08
    Not really that much, I don't think. I think it's a bit of a low news week this week. It is kind of a low news week.
    28:16
    Yeah. That's okay because we've sort of done big episodes in the past. We haven't really had any listener questions. The last listener question we had was, you know, what's going on with Season 7 and all the Williams tables. We don't know. We actually don't know. No. So, not sure. It's really hard to expect. one of the suggestions was also hey, what would speculate about season seven? Well, it's hard to speculate about season seven when we speculated about season six and we're completely wrong since no Williams tables came out essentially. Exactly. Yeah, we're totally off. Let's get away.
    28:57
    If we find out that the Williams license has been resolved and more Williams tables are coming, then I'm more game to make some predictions, but at the moment, it's kind of... It's too sad to think about predicting Gottlieb tables, and we can't predict any Data East or Sega tables anymore, because those are all going to go to Stern Pinball Arcade.
    29:25
    You know, that leaves us with, yeah, the Gottlieb tables and with Alvin G tables, which I know next to nothing about, and the possible threat of if there was a Capcom table but until I see one I won't believe it.
    29:43
    That's right. I would agree. It kind of kills the fun when you're down to one manufacturer for who you can make a prediction about.
    29:52
    It's not really great, which is why I think it's pretty fair to say that the Williams deal needs to happen.
    30:00
    They really need to. When you put it that way and only having essentially access to Gottlieb and Gottlieb EM or Premiere and Gottlieb EM tables in Pimple.ok, it's going to be like one massive Gottlieb collection and that would not be good.
    30:17
    That would be the worst. Certainly not what us players would be looking forward to. I know something else I was going to mention. What's that? So at Christmas I wound up getting the Cards Against Humanity game. Yes, yeah. Which is great fun. We have been, I brought it with me to work and we've been playing it lunch.
    30:45
    And I've noticed something playing it. The, you start to kind of get worried about who you're playing it with because you're not quite sure what brand of humor they may have and what their taste level is. But what I've come away from it is everybody that we've played with afterwards, you've kind of bonded. You now, you know what makes them laugh and what doesn't and how twisted they can be. And, uh, the last time we played, we played it with our director and our, uh, director of photography and our set, uh, set dresser and our boom operator. And I haven't played with any of these people.
    31:32
    And for about an hour after lunch, when we were actually on set, all of us were just laughing with each other because of just jokes that had been transpired over the past hour during the lunch break. So it's kind of fun. It's dangerous because, like I said, you're not quite sure what somebody might think.
    31:52
    It could be on the borderline of not safe for work for some people. But for other people, it's like, yeah, just situational. Right, right. Fortunately, on a film set, you don't really have to worry about HR problems. That's good. That's handy. I don't know if I've been able to get away with a Cards Against Humanity session at LabRocks. Although, probably with the group of people that I work with in the technology team, I probably could quite easily.
    32:18
    The other fun thing is that, again, we're on a kid's show. And the premiere just happened yesterday.
    32:27
    Not that I would say for any of the adults to watch it, but if you have kids, let them watch it. But anyway, the kids show, and the rule on the set is try and keep the language kid-friendly as much as possible. Yeah. And so everybody tries and tries and tries, and there's a few people that are just incapable of doing that.
    32:49
    But the thing is, you play Cards Against Humanity, and then you go back on set, and everything anybody says just makes you think the wrong thing. Yeah, exactly. but it's a good way of also blowing off, you know, venting the, that kind of thing so that you can go on set and be pure and clean. We're like, so like, yeah, it's just a shoot your ward with all the sweary words you want. It's a really, it's a really, yeah, that's cool. I should actually, I haven't actually played cards against humanity yet. Um, it's great. I'm going to give it a go. Yeah. Good to give it a go. I think it's great fun. is exceedingly easy. We've had a couple people sit down with us or we forced to come. We're like, you're playing this time. They're like, I don't even know how to play. We're like, doesn't matter. You'll figure it out literally within three minutes.
    33:43
    Sure enough, they figure it out within three minutes. They're like, this is great fun. I need to do this more. There you go. I couldn't do it. I have to do it.
    33:52
    Well, Jared, I think we're going to have an exceedingly short session today because why not, right? Why not? Yeah, why not? That's right.
    34:02
    Folks, we do appreciate you listening. Please, please, please drop us a line at our email address, which is blahblahblockade at gmail.com. You can give us any topics that you'd like us to touch upon, any pinball news that you want us to maybe look at.
    34:22
    It's kind of hard to... I would love to talk about the Jersey Jack dialed-in table, but it's really hard when I have no access to it. So topics that range more on the digital front are definitely much easier for us to address. So if you have anything that suggestions on that line, we'd love to hear about them. Hit us up on Twitter. Our main account is at Blockade, or you can chat at Jared. He is at Jared Morgs. myself I am at shut your traps you can also check out our website which is pinball wait what is it Jared I always forget it it's blockadepinball.com blockade I was going to say pinball podcast I'm like no that's not us definitely not us blockadepinball.com that's where you can find all the past episodes plus show notes and links to any sites that we mentioned during the podcasts yeah so there you go good it's the good old Super Bowl weekend here so maybe I'll be able to talk about commercials next week maybe any pinball leagues happening for you over the weekend they normally do don't they there was actually one yesterday and I did not attend that normally it would have been on Super Bowl Sunday and the guy that hosts was like, you know what? I'm sick and tired of having it on Super Bowl Sunday not being able to have a Super Bowl party. So they did it yesterday. But no, I didn't attend that one.
    36:02
    There you go. Alright folks, until next time, we out. Bye bye. vacations. Swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table. Installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools. Even if you don't own the table, looks great as a pimple memento to admire. Prices start at $39, but mention Blockade Podcast and receive 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization.
    36:44
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blog pay is delivered to you can't prove unless you tell us how now stop listening and place it in ball