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Ep 105: Bad Mother Flippers with Mark Ritchie and Josh Sharpe

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 4m·analyzed·Mar 16, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Steve Ritchie discusses Pulp Fiction pinball development, returning to design after 30+ years.

Summary

Steve Ritchie and Josh Sharpe discuss the development of Pulp Fiction pinball with hosts from LoserKid Pinball Podcast. Ritchie reveals his return to pinball design after decades away, working with Raw Thrills and Play Mechanics (led by George Gomez) in partnership with Chicago Gaming Company. The game features an intentionally retro 1980s aesthetic per Quentin Tarantino's direction, avoiding ramps and displays, with innovative mechanics like a motorized briefcase topper and modern rule depth disguised in classic packaging.

Key Claims

  • Steve Ritchie had not worked on pinball since Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure (and Capcom's Kingpin)

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie stated 'The last game you worked on besides for Capcom with Kingpin was Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure' and confirmed his return after this gap

  • Raw Thrills and Play Mechanics approached the Pulp Fiction project with George Gomez as President of Play Mechanics

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie: 'George is the President here and he's got lots of other stuff to do' and 'George Gomez, The President of Play Mechanics and pinball programmer'

  • Chicago Gaming Company partnership came about organically when Doug discovered what Raw Thrills was working on

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie: 'I actually just went over there one day and said Hey can i get some stuff from you... Doug, he sniffed something. And eventually he says, I think I know what you guys are working on.'

  • Quentin Tarantino specifically requested an old-school aesthetic with no LCDs or fancy features

    high confidence · Josh Sharpe: 'quentin had he the only real direction he wanted was old school right he didn't want lcds he didn't want all his fancy stuff'

  • Tarantino rejected the initial wide-body design with ramps and displays

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie: 'I had submitted my first crack was a wide body... And he basically just peed all over it. I don't want that. Get that out of here.'

  • The game development took approximately 5 years from initial concept to release

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie: 'Obviously, we've been on this thing for five years'

  • Pulp Fiction Limited Edition (Bad Mother Flipper version) with topper is sold out at major distributors

    high confidence · Josh Roop: 'it sounds like everywhere i'm talking to the Pulp Fiction (Limited Edition) has is sold out unless if you you might have to dig in some corners'

  • Doug [Chicago Gaming Company] engineered and iterated the motorized briefcase topper extensively

Notable Quotes

  • “I had all but kind of given up on the thought of getting back into it, not wanting to go back to work for Sam Stern or any of the big companies... but I'm super glad I did because I feel like this is the best group I could have possibly ever been blessed to work with.”

    Steve Ritchie @ early interview — Reveals Ritchie's hesitation about returning to Stern and his satisfaction with Raw Thrills/Play Mechanics partnership

  • “He basically just peed all over it. I don't want that. Get that out of here. Way too much. No ramps, no displays.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid-interview — Illustrates Tarantino's decisive design direction rejecting the initial wide-body concept

  • “Doug does good, and he does cheap. So it's not fast. And I couldn't think of two out of the two out of those three things I would pick would be the two that Doug picks.”

    Josh Sharpe @ mid-interview — Characterizes Chicago Gaming Company's trade-off between quality, cost, and speed—quality over speed

  • “The game is going to live for 10 20 30 40 years out there and all of the trials and tribulations of getting to this point and having a game that is of this quality and looks like this will be worth it for long after mark and i are gone”

    Josh Sharpe @ mid-interview — Emphasizes long-term value justifying the extended development timeline

  • “You can play that game any way you want. The features are not dependent on one another, per se. So you can have fun with one of those features endlessly.”

    Steve Ritchie @ gameplay discussion — Core design philosophy: non-linear, flexible rule set allowing multiple play strategies

  • “We're not selling a game to that audience of 30 years ago, right? Like We Are Pinball selling this game to a modern audience.”

    Josh Sharpe @ rules discussion — Justifies modern rule depth (mini wizard modes) in a retro-aesthetic package

  • “When you reach the LCD era, it's like, oh, we can do whatever we want, because then we can just throw some stuff up on the screen and people will figure it out. And the real trick... is to embrace the limitations that the system has.”

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonJosh SharpepersonJosh RooppersonMatt Scott LarsonpersonGeorge GomezpersonDougpersonMatt ScottpersonQuentin Tarantinoperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Pulp Fiction Limited Edition (Bad Mother Flipper) with motorized topper is sold out at major distributors, indicating strong demand and successful market reception

    high · Josh Roop: 'everywhere i'm talking to the Pulp Fiction (Limited Edition) has is sold out unless if you you might have to dig in some corners'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie, legendary designer inactive from pinball for 30+ years, returned to design Pulp Fiction for Raw Thrills/Play Mechanics partnership after declining Stern Pinball offers

    high · Steve: 'not wanting to go back to work for Sam Stern or any of the big companies... but I'm super glad I did because I feel like this is the best group I could have possibly ever been blessed to work with'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Raw Thrills/Play Mechanics partnered with Chicago Gaming Company to produce Pulp Fiction, representing collaboration between arcade game maker and pinball specialist on original licensed title

    high · Steve Ritchie: 'Before I knew it, Eugene and George had a talk with him, and we had a partnership' regarding Doug at Chicago Gaming Company

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Quentin Tarantino imposed strict creative direction: retro 1980s aesthetic, no LCDs/ramps, rejected wide-body design, slow approval process requiring mail communication; removed Butch and Mia characters during licensing approval

    high · Steve: 'Quentin wanting to get a pinball machine made' and 'he didn't want lcds he didn't want all his fancy stuff' and 'He basically just peed all over it... No ramps, no displays'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Chicago Gaming Company engineered an innovative motorized briefcase topper with extensive iteration on motor selection and bearing engineering; represents novel mechanical innovation in recent pinball design

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.193

0:00
thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 105 i am josh roop with me my co-host as always scott larson and scott there has been nuts so many reveals so many releases yeah if you're gonna be buying pulp fiction that seems like the new hot the hotness right now where are you gonna be getting yours from you know i would call zach and nicola of flipping out pinball and i would definitely see if i can get the bad mother flipper edition because my gosh that's amazing amazing and that topper is great you know speaking of the bad mother flipper we've got two bad mother flippers with us today we've got josh sharp which everyone knows you know the overlord the king whatever you want to call him he did the college shot right yes something like that and then we have a very special guest a man that has been in the industry for 30 plus years with amazing titles like Indiana Jones Pinball Venture, Fishtails, Taxi, and it's done numerous call outs. We have Mark Ritchie with us. How are you doing, Mark? Good. How are you guys? Doing great. And how are you doing, Josh?
1:15
Fantastic, boys. Better now that your computer's working? Yeah. We're going to pretend like this wasn't supposed to start 20 minutes ago.
1:24
Oh my goodness. Well, hey, I'm glad we're all here. I'm glad we were able to figure out the technical difficulties and get this underway. But, Mark, this is amazing. The last game you worked on besides for Capcom with Kingpin was Indiana Jones Pinball Ventures. So what brought you back into the realm of pinball?
1:43
These guys here at Roth Rills, believe it or not. I had all but kind of given up on the thought of getting back into it, not wanting to go back to work for Stern or any of the big companies. I just, that prospect just would love the design, but not under that roof. I don't know if that's, you know, I could have done that a couple of times, but passed on it. And I'm super glad I did because I feel like this is the best group I could have possibly ever been blessed to work with. Definitely. I'm a lucky guy.

high confidence · Steve Ritchie: 'Doug went nuts with that thing he went and he did it right and he took an idea and basically ran with it did all the engineering did all of the you know all of the trials with the motors'

  • The game originally included Butch and Mia as playable characters but was directed to remove them during licensing approval

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie: 'when we submitted for approval, we were asked to remove both Butch and Mia. Which was also equally devastating'

  • Quentin Tarantino influenced the hand-drawn comic book art style and recommended an artist

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie: 'you guys should do hand drawn art. And by the way, if you don't have an artist, I have a guy. And Matt Scott heard that and he's like, no, we have a guy.'

    • Josh Sharpe @ design philosophy discussion — Critiques LCD-era design laziness; praises constraint-driven creativity for Pulp Fiction's alphanumeric/insert design

  • “It's a licensing thing, and that's all I'm going to say about it.”

    Steve Ritchie @ character selection discussion — Indicates licensing restrictions forced inclusion of Quentin Tarantino as playable character

  • “He found another one. Not as bad, though.”

    Josh Sharpe @ bleep audio discussion — Suggests audio censoring challenges; implies unbleeped profanity discovered during testing

  • “Larry DeMar, to me, is like the GOAT of really transitioning from classic to modern. Modern pinball would not be what it is today without Larry.”

    Josh Sharpe @ design inspiration discussion — Identifies Larry DeMar as primary influence for blending classic and modern rule design

    • Eugene Jarvis
    person
    Zach Minneyperson
    Nicolaperson
    Raw Thrillscompany
    Play Mechanicscompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Pulp Fictiongame
    Indiana Jones Pinball Adventuregame
    Fishtalesgame
    Taxigame
    High Speedgame
    LoserKid Pinball Podcastmedia
    Straight Down the Middle: a pinball showmedia
    Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Larry DeMarperson

    high · Steve: 'Doug went nuts with that thing... did all of the trials with the motors and everything he went through to get that thing to where it is today... Doug is a passionate dude man he was a huge part of this thing'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pulp Fiction intentionally blends retro 1980s visual/mechanical aesthetic (no LCDs, stenciled cabinet, gallery-game-inspired features) with modern rule depth (mini wizard modes, RGB inserts, risk-reward scoring), creating modern gameplay in vintage packaging

    high · Josh Sharpe: 'We Are Pinball selling this game to a modern audience... it was important for me on the rules side to have modern rules in a game that are equivalent to other machines'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Pulp Fiction features non-dependent game features allowing multiple play strategies without required progression order; enables endless play of individual features without advancing overall objectives

    high · Steve: 'You can play that game any way you want. The features are not dependent on one another, per se. So you can have fun with one of those features endlessly.'

  • ?

    product_concern: R-rated Pulp Fiction theme (profanity, mature content including gimp character) created market segmentation concerns; bleeping version developed to enable family/location play but gaps remain (staff found unbleeped instances during testing)

    high · Josh Roop: 'we have a version of audio that bleeps basically every square in the game. Except for Josh's house, apparently... We actually had it happen again last week... Found another one.'

  • ?

    production_timeline: Pulp Fiction development took approximately 5 years from initial concept to retail release, attributed to Raw Thrills' arcade focus, Chicago Gaming Company's quality-over-speed approach, and Tarantino's slow licensing approval process

    high · Steve: 'Obviously, we've been on this thing for five years. So take that into consideration with the timing. I mean, we primarily make arcade games, so pinball was kind of a journey for us.'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Pulp Fiction incorporates mechanical/rule callbacks to Steve Ritchie's classic designs: dual 3-ball lock systems from Indiana Jones and Fishtales, character collection from Taxi, 146 mph Easter egg from High Speed

    high · Josh: 'we have both of those multiballs in this game... to have two different three-ball locking mechanisms on a retro vintage game is really cool... miles per hour you have to hit to light your extra ball is 146 miles an hour, which is from High Speed'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Raw Thrills (arcade manufacturer) and Chicago Gaming Company (pinball remake specialist) collaborated on original licensed title, suggesting diversification and cross-pollination between adjacent manufacturing segments

    medium · Steve: 'George Gomez, The President of Play Mechanics' at Raw Thrills subsidiary; Doug from Chicago Gaming Company became integral to cabinet/topper engineering

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Community speculation about Easter eggs in Pulp Fiction (Tee'd Off, Fish Tales, Hidden references) mostly denied by designers; only confirmed special is You Cheat Dr. Jones ball save in locked pawn shop

    high · Josh: 'Is there anything like that in this game as well?... I think we score anything, but there's definitely a special if you get a You Cheat Dr. Jones style ball into the pawn shop while the pawn shop is locked.'

    • 2:16
    Well, in my understanding, it sounds like there's a lot of the old school Ballywilliam guys still there with raw thrills and with play mechanics and stuff, right? Yeah, there's a few of us. There's a few of us. George and I go back. George Petro, president of Play Mechanics and pinball programmer. Nice. You know, I was pretty skeptical when we started this for that reason, because George is the president here and he's got lots of other stuff to do. And it's really been, I don't know how to put it, I guess a surrealistic kind of ride.
    2:49
    It's been a while. Obviously, we've been on this thing for five years. So take that in consideration with the timing. I mean, we primarily make arcade games, so pinball was kind of a journey for us. So even though we knew how to do it, there were all kinds of new hurdles, and it was a ride. Well, so that brings up, yes, you're a company that is involved in all sorts of entertainment, home entertainment, and you're known for the remakes. The remakes have been, or at least the Chicago Game Company is known for the remakes and being able to make these classic games. However, this is really branching into an original title that they're helping out with. And so it's a partnership. So tell me about how that came about. Interesting story.
    3:43
    I had reached out to Doug to try to acquire a few parts, basic things, flippers, bumpers. we had at that point decided we were going to go ahead and start making a whitewood creating the game this is down the track i mean the story starts earlier than that but regarding doug and chicago gaming i actually just went over there one day and said hey can i get some stuff from you and in fact i have the receipt somewhere here for the bill for the cabinet and for all the basic stuff you needed to get a game fired up. And it's kind of funny.
    4:17
    Doug, he sniffed something. And eventually he says, I think I know what you guys are working on. I got a pretty good idea. I know what it is. And that's kind of a George story. I was not privy to that, but George told me about it.
    4:32
    So, yeah, he figured out what we were doing and got interested. And all of a sudden we started getting more support from Doug, a little bit more support. Pretty soon we had a hardware system. Pretty soon we had, well, everything.
    4:45
    And, you know, it was a process, but we didn't, we never, I certainly never said, hey, Doug, want to make a game with us? You know, it didn't happen that way. He sort of got involved on his own through George.
    5:01
    And before I knew it, Eugene and George had a talk with him, and we had a partnership. So I wasn't really involved in it directly, you know, so but that's what I know about it. Well, Pulp Fiction is an iconic movie that is really genre changing. You could you could definitely say that Hollywood tilted a little bit when Pulp Fiction came out, but it's also 30 years old. So how did the process of deciding to make a Pulp Fiction game or at least knowing the Pulp Fiction license was up for a game? How did that happen? Josh, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe this project started out as a video game. Yeah, I think we went to them for that. And then they pitched us on wanting on Quentin wanting to get a pinball machine made. Right. And then it was sort of in our court. If we if we I didn't even know about this project back then. But if George and you guys over there in your building wanted to do something, you guys took it on.
    6:06
    I think Scott and George were talking about a side scroller, very similar to, I guess, an arc. I believe that was the original plan for that game. And at some point, I think Eugene said, why don't you guys make a pinball? You know, and and that's kind of how we ended up shifting from that to the pinball. and in my understanding too is quentin had he the only real direction he wanted was old school right he didn't want lcds he didn't want all his fancy stuff and even some like getting a hold of him was old school you had to send papers in the mail telegraph oh my gosh express yeah i mean yeah that was such a long process so many times i mean it would have been okay if it happened once but It happened like multiple times and where we were just sitting, you know, OK, what's the next step? We've sent approved, you know, we've sent stuff in for approval. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Six weeks later. Oh, yeah. OK, fine. Go ahead. You know, early on, it was that way and it's that way now, you know, regarding approvals and things like that. They're just really slow to react. I'm not sure why. You know, maybe the Weinstein thing had something to do with that early on because that was going on. So, you know, Hollywood's a different world, man. Different world. Definitely. They definitely dance to their own music. And I can't play that song ever.
    7:39
    But, you know, kind of an interesting side story here. You know, I had submitted my first crack was a wide body. So I had way more in the game originally.
    7:54
    And he basically just peed all over it. I don't want that. Get that out of here. Way too much. No ramps, no displays. Here's what I want. And I started getting emails with pictures of Dolly Parton and Captain Fantastic, Strikes and Spares, all these old galley games. It became real clear what he wanted very quickly. So we wanted to make him happy. I mean, he's the guy. He's got to be happy or we're not going anywhere or doing anything with anybody. So that was kind of the tact we took with it. And from there, we made an 80s game.
    8:36
    So he didn't want any ramps or displays. I know that this is traditionally it's a single level, but it has stuff in it that you wouldn't typically see in a single level, like the vertical up kicker that goes to the ball lock behind. He hasn't noticed it yet. He hasn't noticed. Oh, okay. I'm going to say in the subway. I didn't know. Oh, no, no, no subway. Nothing under there. Yeah, we did the cool stuff, but we kept it. We tried to keep it. It's impressive, though, because I think, like it said, I'm going to reference the straight down the middle feature here and there, but it's a great collaboration of it was a 90s movie, but they're dressed up like they're from the 70s. So there's a lot of mixture of modern, you know, that 90s and 70s. And I feel like that's interpreted in this game very, very well of like you can't really put an error on this game, right? No. And so, I don't know, just looking at this, was it difficult trying to make something that was going to appease him, I guess?
    9:33
    Not really. Not on my end. I kind of had a good vision of stuff early on, like the briefcase and the characters and things. Those things came really quickly. The pawn shop probably came right after that. And then I started naming the features before I actually had them. So I kind of had a really good idea of having these different paths that didn't know what I was going to do with them, but laid them into the game and thought, this can be cool at some point. You know, a lot of times games go that way for me. I don't always have a whole idea. I'll have a piece of it and I'll start with that. And that's kind of how the play field evolved.
    10:16
    So I think very visually and I think if I look at a license, I'm looking for artifacts. I'm looking for things that people are going to remember that I can mechanically make happen in a game. Obviously, everybody does that, I'm sure. But the briefcase was automatic. Originally, I wanted to have the balls actually load into the case. So as the case rotated, the original plan was that the balls would drop out of the bottom of it. But that became very quickly a mechanical nightmare. So we abandoned that.
    10:49
    So I think what we ended up with was much better, much more reliable. So you have to think about reliability. You can't throw a bunch of crap in a game and expect it to work, you know, with a horrible design behind it. So, yeah, it's a process, you know. So walk through the cabinet because the cabinet, this is where you guys nailed that vintage effect is because the cabinet doesn't look like a modern cabinet. It doesn't feel like a modern cabinet. Even in the back lot, the back glass, does that lift off or does that fold down?
    11:25
    It folds and it can also be detached from the cabinet. It actually has hinges directly above the speaker board. Okay. Kind of like the old days where you remember we had hinges on the necks of games. Yeah. I know Valley did it. And you could just fold the back box down. But, yes, it's modern as far as that goes.
    11:50
    But the cabinet, you know, I guess you're alluding to the coin door and some of the things that are. Just everything. Everything looks non-modern. Even the cabinet says this is not a modern game. Is it like a two-tone paint too, like the old school? Almost looks like there's simulated overspray. We purposely designed the cabinet to look like it was a stenciled cabinet from the era. Because in the old days, they would run two or three stencils to do the designs on the outside of the cabinets. No decals. This was way before decals. So we basically mimicked that look for that. That was Scott's deal. He did a great job at that because I have people going, hey, man, did you guys stencil? Yeah, I got the same stuff, you know, and it's like, wow, you know, we look at it every day. So when you see people saying stuff like that, it's just it's awesome. I mean, that's that's exactly the effect we wanted.
    12:48
    The coin door actually came out a little bit later when we started going down the retro road. We're like, hey, let's go all the way. You know, we can't like we can't put a half coin door on this thing and expect it to look like a game out of the 80s or 90s, you know. So that came from George would push that pretty hard. He was on on that program. And then the integrated start button we took basically right off a gallery machine, you know. So a lot of it was inspired, again, by just the general look of games from that era. and it definitely hits the mark i think the other thing too is it's impressive looking at what price point this came in at and how custom this is i mean this is just not a cookie cutter off the line and and you guys are obviously hit an amazing mark because it sounds like every everywhere i'm talking to the le has is sold out unless if you you might have to dig in some corners right now but it seems like all the major distributors have sold their bad mother flippers, which comes with that amazing topper. You've got to tell me about that topper. Who came up with that, and how did it come about? It was a couple of people. It was mostly me. I had the vision in the beginning, and then Scott got involved with me on that pretty early.
    14:06
    We shot it over to Doug and said, hey, here's the idea. and Doug went it's hard to Doug went nuts with that thing he went and he did it right and he took an idea and basically ran with it did all the engineering did all of the you know all of the trials with the motors and everything he went through to get that thing to where it is today it was just I could write a book about that you know but Doug is a passionate dude man he was a huge part of this thing. I think we couldn't have pulled this off without him. There's no way.
    14:45
    We certainly couldn't have pulled off a game that looks like this. The stuff that the CGC side was able to bring to the table was equally important to the game itself, was the package.
    14:59
    Yeah, they were instrumental in pulling that through to the finish. He would call me on Sunday evenings and go, hey, what do you think about this? You know, I'm going to try this movement. I'm going to try these bearings, you know. I'm like, yeah, great. Cool. When can we see it?
    15:20
    A lot of when can we see it, but it was worth it. You know, I mean, he does things in a way that he has quality in his mind before he does anything. Yes. That's a huge thing. Even if it takes him longer, I think in the end it's completely worth it, you know. I agree. That three-legged stool of good, fast, cheap. And Doug does good, and he does cheap. So it's not fast. And I couldn't think of two out of the two out of those three things I would pick would be the two that Doug picks. Yeah. Not to say it not frustrating to deal with the fast side but I talked with Mark about this over the years of this thing being developed but the game is going to live for 10 20 30 40 years out there and all of the trials and tribulations of getting to this point and having a game that is of this quality and looks like this will be worth it for long after mark and i are gone yeah well this is going to fit really well with i would say a lot of people's game rooms where they're trying to have something that's a little more of, I guess, for adults, not a kid's game room. You know, there's no bounce house where you're putting this. But how was that zoning in on that? I mean, it's a very R-rated title.
    16:48
    And trying to find, okay, here's the market for it. Were you concerned that, hey, there's a lot of stuff in here that would not go into some families' homes?
    17:00
    Absolutely, which is why we have a version of audio that bleeps basically every square in the game. Except for Josh's house, apparently. Well, yeah. Work in progress.
    17:13
    We actually had it happen again last week, but I won't talk about it. I found another one. Not as bad, though.
    17:22
    But, yeah, absolutely, I think about stuff like that. It brings to mind a story. A guy years ago, when I finished Fishtails, a guy from the south, I got a phone call. At that time, we had a woman that handled all the incoming calls. She was a receptionist, and she's paging me. There's a man on the phone to talk to you. He's from Georgia. And I'm like, okay. So I get on the phone with this guy, and he's going, hey, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of offended with the accents that you guys put on that game. on a couple of them characters.
    17:58
    And I don't know, I was flabbergasted when I heard that. It kind of left a mark on me, I guess, kind of after that. And I just ended up telling the guy, hey, I don't know how I said this, but I go, hey, we pick on everyone equally. I haven't gotten a call from the guy in Wisconsin yet.
    18:19
    Anyway, it's a crazy side story. But, yeah, it does make me nervous. I mean, I think some people are going to pass on it possibly for that reason. I mean, that is a risk. There's no question. It's not even the swearing that concerns me. You've got the gimp as the drop target.
    18:40
    My kids think that's just a Halloween costume. It is a Halloween costume. It's a big deal. What, Josh, you don't have one of those outfits? No, I do not. You sure? maybe that's why i mean that's why they think it is a halloween costume it's josh's house yeah i don't even think pulp fiction is the worst game in my basement i'm definitely not there's not there's no dad of the year awards in my house you somehow ended up with the zingy bingy prototype in your house that's the only thing i'm missing Yeah. OK, so, Mark, walk us through the game. So I step up to it. What am I going to do? I'm going to let Josh take that answer. You know, I play it a certain way. And Josh has alluded to this already. You can play that game any way you want. The features are not dependent on one another, per se. So you can have fun with one of those features endlessly. I can tell you what I would do, okay? I'll walk through it my style. First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to try to spot the skill shot in the upper, in the center hole up on top of the center saucer. Blue arrow in the center, max points, right? Spot a character at that point. Ball kicks out. Now I'm in the bumpers. Now while I'm in the bumpers, I'm going to try to get big kahuna lit. First thing, because that is a play field multiplier. When I get both of those targets lit, I can now shoot the magnet on the lower right side and jack my play field multiplier, which I'm going to want to do right away.
    20:18
    After that, I'm going to start shooting for multiball, either in the pawn shop immediately or the briefcase, which is three drop targets down. Both are three drop targets down, although I think briefcase might be a little bit tougher only because of the distance. but I think in any case, I, when I play that game, I get multi ball, no less than five times in one play. So I'm going to, I'm going to do that. I'm going to go for all the bonus points and payoffs. I can, I mean, it's really that simple. And you can do that either with the briefcase or the pawn shop.
    21:00
    I'm sure Josh has a way different strategy. because he kicks my ass every time we play it. Not really. I mean, I think, you know, to your point, what you touched on first, the Kahuna bonus is obviously a really big deal. So I will usually, you know, work towards those multi balls, but then not start them until I can get my multiplier up. Yep. And outside of that, it's sort of the game falls into the, The like the mode shot, for example, on the right is also the collect a character shot. So if I don't hit the saucer on the top, it means my target is still up. So that kind of opens up the single ball modes for me. So it's sort of like it's situational where, you know, I missed the top. So it's like, all right, I'm going to go after this target because the single ball scoring modes have the potential to score even greater than any of the multi balls. if you get a hold of it, and then you can collect those points again at the end of those modes. So it really is, you know, I haven't been bashful about being a fan of Lyman and his work and the risk-reward that he's put in his games, certainly in the tail end of his career, but it's definitely built to be that, where anywhere you want to go, if you execute, your points will come. And if you don't, you should be close to something else that you are advancing as you do things. I do think it's cool for me, this game seems older than Fishtails and Indy Jones, but we somehow have both of those multiballs in this game. We sort of have that front Indy Jones multiball, which Indy's lacking the Fishtails deeper lock shot, and this game has both. So to have two different three-ball locking mechanisms on a retro vintage game is really cool. We can lock four balls before we have to start kicking them out and stuff. So it's pretty cool. And then just, you know, I've always believed that, you know, the Williams games were always that perfect, perfect level of charm, difficult, you know, stuff that I've talked about forever. And the one thing that that those games always lacked were, you know, these mini wizard modes that have developed over the last 20 years that those 90s games didn't have. They had eternal life. You know, by the time you got to Indy Jones, you know, they had lost in the zone. They had tore the mansion. But there weren't these midway points that were explored to like the level of depth that modern games do have now. And our game has that. So, you know, if this game did come out 30 years ago, you know, a lot of the game would have been the same, but it would have been missing that depth that we have for, you know, it has a taxi role regarding the characters that are like picking up your passengers in taxi. But then there's a wizard mode at the end of that versus in taxi, you get your jackpot, you're back to your game. So I think sort of just paying attention to, and I think I mentioned it in the Zach video, but like, we are not selling a game to that audience of 30 years ago, right? Like we are selling this game to a modern audience. So it was important for me on the rules side to have modern rules in a game that are equivalent to other machines, just hopefully less confusing if we did it right. which I think we did because we were we had to because we couldn't rely on an else. You know, I do feel, you know, the tail end of the DMD era into the LCD era.
    24:58
    It was it really serves as a crutch to be able to. There's nothing worse. And I have joked about this with Lyman over the past. But, you know, when you reach the LCD era, it's like, oh, we can do whatever we want, because then we can just throw some stuff up on the screen and people will figure it out. And the real trick and the really hard part, and Lord knows, I set Mark hundreds of bad rule suggestions before we landed on stuff that was far too confusing. And we always had to harken back to like, how do we explain this knowing that we have alphanumeric displays and inserts and sound and speech? And, you know, at some point you you go from like, oh, damn, I wish we could do this to sort of embracing the limitations that the system has, because it makes you put on your problem solving hat. And it's like, I have this cool rule idea. Can we make this work with the limitations we have? And having some RGB inserts allowed us to create some depth of rules because you now know you had a chance to do something more than one time. You could do it at different color levels that would raise the value through the story that you're telling. So I think we tried to exploit that as much as we could to make the gameplay as modern as possible. Man, that was really long. That's like my dad's kid. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. That's what we said. Therapy. Therapy in an hour. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Okay, so rule sets. You obviously take some rule sets as an inspiration piece for any game, right? And so what are the games that you drew inspiration from in creating this rule set? for this it was really you know a lot of it was paying homage to mark you know i think seeing and by the time i was involved like it was already this single level game so you know the first image i got from from mark had sort of the five characters in the center so you know i immediately like started focusing on like the taxi rule and collecting characters and then just trying to find a way to extend like how do we make this a modern rule version of a classic rule so it was a lot of of that you know there's other modes like the uh one of the mini wizard modes the shot is uh it's there's one shot lit on the play field and you can hit it as many times as you want which kind of calls back to the the super jackpot stage for indiana jones and fishtails where you've made it to this event and you can just start going to town and it's a really special moment. So, you know, a lot of stuff from Mark's previous games and just a lot of stuff like really – I'm not a huge fan of colored arrow modes in terms of that being what distinguishes one mode from another. So, you know, trying to highlight different areas of the play field. You know, I'm a huge Larry. Larry DeMar, to me, is like the goat of really transitioning from classic to modern. Modern pinball would not be what it is today without Larry. And, you know, one of my favorite games that he did was World Cup Soccer. So, you know, the ultra modes that he has on those games that suddenly increase the scoring for very common pinball items like jet bumpers and spinners and in that game ramps and the goalie and whatever, you know, tying that into, you know, the role scene modes are pretty much a version of that where it's not just super jets, but you're actually dancing out the scene to through that mode through the jets, which is where the dance floor is on the game. So trying to stick to the story, trying to do things that players, you know, after playing a couple times will identify that, like, you know, this mode is the jet bumper mode and this mode focuses on the spinners. And then having that risk reward for the tournament players built in to be able to execute and get a good payoff. Is there any other, you talked a little about Easter eggs with previous games. I know like in Indiana Jones, you can get to the Fish of Tales or to the WB Frog if you go the right cart path. Is there anything like that in this game as well?
    29:38
    I think – I don't think we score anything, but there's definitely a special call out if you get a You Cheat Dr. Jones style ball into the pawn shop while the pawn shop is locked. Nice. Outside of that, I don't think we went to, you know, I mean, every decision we made really tried to focus on the vibe that we were explicitly trying to go for with the game. That, like, things like that are cute, but it kind of just didn't fit within this game. Yeah. So, not really. I know that, like, one of the rules, the drive fast rule has you building up the speed of your car faster and faster. And there is an Easter egg that the miles per hour you have to hit to light your extra ball is 146 miles an hour, which is from high speeds back less, which is how fast Steve was going during his adventures. Yeah. So what made you guys land on the five characters? The Samuel Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Quentin Tarantino and Mr. Wolf. I can't remember his name, but I mean, Bruce Willis is a pretty big part of the story. why wasn't he one of the modes versus Quentin's obviously it's his game it sounds like he wanted this made so I don't blame you for for putting him there but just just uniquely picked Quentin's character Mr. Wolf's versus uh made the other two well originally we had we had Jules we had Vincent we had Butch we had Marcellus we had Mia and we had Mr. Wolf originally when we submitted for approval, we were asked to remove both Butch and Mike.
    31:21
    Which was also equally devastating because, yeah, I agree. I mean, the question is, why is Quentin on the play field? Well, it's a licensing thing, and that's all I'm going to say about it. Okay. Easy enough. That's what they wanted, and that's what we gave them because we believed in this game, and we believed that the theme would carry it pretty far, and that, you know, if they wanted that, okay. So we had fun with Quentin in the game anyway. I think it turned out great. I mean, I don't hate it anymore.
    31:52
    I wasn't all about it in the beginning, but you evolve, you adjust, and you keep going. And then also, originally, the back glass was supposed to be the iconic Pulp Fiction poster, but then Quentin kind of pushed against the back. that did did was it originally gonna be like realistic art or was it always this kind of comic book style art that you guys have You know we never got that far with it but I think we were kind of going to do
    32:23
    I don't think we would have done the comic book thing if we hadn't been directed to do so. I think Scott had a different plan for it. I don't recall exactly what if we had carved a style in or anything, because what we were giving them were just concept sketches, basically, at the time. So we weren't really hard line on how the art was going to look at that point. We basically got most of that direction from QT himself.
    32:50
    So, you know, like the whole comment about, you know, yeah, you guys got to do hand drawn art. And by the way, if you don't have an artist, I have a guy.
    33:00
    And Scott heard that and he's like, no, we have a guy. So it kind of evolved into that. Originally, you know, I'm looking at old stuff right now and a lot of it is photorealistic, but it's again, it's concept art. So there's nothing really finished that you could make a, you know, a clear decision on what the direction was at that time. Gotcha. We were kind of floating, kind of, is this going to work? Is that going to work? What do you think about this? What do you think about that? I mean, it was back and forth, a lot of back and forth with George and I and Scott at first on how the thing should look.
    33:39
    So we sort of, I don't know, it's hard to say, a lot of paste up stuff, you know, and the concept sketches. And just to sort of try to get a direction because I would say we really didn't have an art direction at that point, you know. What was the most surprising thing that happened in the game that turned out way better than you thought? For sure, the magnet shot. When George got a hold of that thing and got his programming fingers on it and had it throwing the ball all over the play field, it'll grab the ball and then it'll whip it. You don't know where it's going to go. Sometimes it finishes shots for you. Sometimes it'll lock the ball. Sometimes it'll go up straight up the spinner lane. I mean, that was probably the biggest surprise, surprise, cool moment for me. But I think also when I saw the briefcase work for the first time, that was pretty exciting.
    34:32
    So those two things, I think, were probably the biggest. What should I say? How should I describe that? I'll be nice. Very exciting. How's that? I got to say, and I love the briefcase, too, and the way that it mimics the movie, right? Like, no one knows who's in the no one knows what's in the briefcase. in the briefcase? Yeah.
    34:53
    There's a theory out there. It's supposedly the diamonds from Reservoir Dogs that Mr. Pink got away with the diamonds. Yeah, I've heard Marcellus' soul is in there, which explains the band-aid at the back of his neck. Okay. You've heard that one? I haven't. The soul was stolen, the band-aid was put on, and the soul ended up in the briefcase. Huh. Yeah. That's a good one, too.
    35:16
    As good as anything, right? Yeah. As much as you can speculate, that's as good as it's going to get.
    35:23
    So did you enjoy this process? I mean, you've been out of pinball for almost 20 years now. Was it just like coming back to home? Was it like riding a bike? How was it? Pretty much. Yeah, I loved it. It was a dream come true for me. I mean, you know, I kind of washed my hands of pinball. I thought, well, maybe I'll do it again sometime on my own time. I didn't think these guys would ever do this. It came as a complete surprise.
    35:50
    And, you know, I think somebody asked me, like, I don't know who it was, but, you know, how did you convince them to make that game? And I go, they convinced me. I didn't. It was the other way around. George hit me up. Hey, you want to do a pinball? I went, no. I mean, yeah, yeah, sure.
    36:09
    I never said no. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's awesome to be doing this again. It's something I know how to do. And then I guess the other question is, if you can talk about it or whatnot, what made you exit pinball? Because originally you were working for Williams. I don't know if I've ever heard the story of you going from Williams to Capcom and then kind of exiting.
    36:32
    What is the question? Your Williams exit to Capcom, Mark. Tell us all about how that went down. Oh, that was, yeah, that was fun.
    36:42
    I majorly pissed off Neil McCastro. he talks about it what's that um what is that public that uh video josh he which one he rants about it on the video at the end oh is it the pinball 2000 documentary or no no no the uh god i can't remember now it was that one dude that did like a whole history on video games oh it's the insert coin documentary that's it yeah neil just goes off on a rampage about some dude who ripped them off, stole stuff. You know, he went after them, nailed them in court. I was that guy. Wow. Nice. I didn't get nailed in court. None of that happened. He just harassed us endlessly. But we made games, you know, and the reason I left Williams was basically that guy.
    37:30
    I never liked him. He was, I just had a hard time. My thought was, why should I be putting money in this guy's pocket? He's already got enough. He doesn't like anything I do. I mean, I made the greatest game of my career. And he was very like, eh, no big deal, you know. Yeah. And I just, I guess I was just really pissed off, you know. And I left there and I thought, the heck with this. Next thing that comes along, I'm gone. Well, something came along very quickly after that, so.
    38:03
    And then how was Capcom? Like, was it enjoyable? when it went, I can't remember if it was in bankruptcy. Yeah, not many.
    38:12
    It was very pressuresome. It was like stepping out of the frying pan into the kettle in a lot of ways because we had nothing. We basically built that place up from scratch. They had absolutely nothing.
    38:27
    And we had a couple of sharp people there that were able to put stuff together relatively quickly, a hardware system.
    38:33
    That's always a huge battle. Um, so that was our first step. We got that done. I think in year one, at the end of the year, we had something that was playable. And I think the first thing we did was we tested the hardware on a redemption game because none of us could make pinball according to our agreements with Williams Electronics. So you had to wait a year before you could actually engage in the design of a competitive product, right? Yeah. We were all working on redemption games, which wasn't a pinball machine, so it wasn't competitive.
    39:11
    And basically, that's where we tested the pinball hardware. And from there, things matured and moved on, and we were able to start making games. And I had other guys in there. Greg Kamek was there, Brian Hanson, Python, of course, which was – that was a complete crazy – that's a whole story. I could for another time because it's just it's too long. So how did you how did you narrow down which moments of the game you're going to focus on? Because, I mean, you have the the Royale with cheese on there and you have the pawn shop and you obviously have the, you know, the dance scene.
    39:51
    What what made you select which scenes? I guess what I thought what I watched the movie like 20 or 30 times, I think, before I started getting into this. And I just, I grabbed things that stuck out at me and were like, you know, iconic moments that people are never going to forget. And when you see them on the game, you know exactly what that is. And so I guess I looked for the most, the things that pop out, you know, Royal Cheese was one of them, the briefcase, all of these things. The gun was my idea. That was just because these guys are carrying these chrome .45 pistols, you know, I mean, pretty cool. so that's kind of that was you know I call it loose theming I guess you're very loose with a theme like this because there's so much stuff there it was this one was really easy because so many great moments I mean there are things that we didn't do that I kind of wish we had but we just didn't have the space for it or that it didn't fit you know so like the scene in the diner at the end. I would have liked to have done a little bit more with that. We do allude to it within the modes, but there's other things that are bigger than that. I guess I have a scale that just says, hey, where's the most memorable moment here? Where's the most memorable audio? More importantly in that movie, it was more about the audio. Where can I put that stuff? How can I make it make sense in the game? you know i think that's part of the problem solving too where it's like you're you want to do five great things instead of 12 good things and you know that does you know like i think we have five modes like we could have had 15 modes in this thing you know but it just comes down to picking what works for the game you know kind of just always going back to what's best for the game So on Fishtails and on Indiana Jones, you have like an auto plunger feature with the fishing rod and on Indiana Jones, it's the gun. Was there ever a gun considered on Pulp Fiction or was it always you wanted just the plunge for the skill shot? There was a gun considered. In fact, I have a… The first hurdle was a launch button, right, that you guys built up over there. Well, there was a pistol too. I mean, we had a .45 pistol at one point very early. but yeah we we thought about it and then of course that was not again not going to fit the retro image was not going to fit in with everything else you know we do have an auto fire mode built into the game though so so you're telling me if there's a modder out there that wants to mod a 45 to the game they could probably get away with it i think so right josh we have to turn the flipper launch out right now you can if the setting is is set that way you can press the flipper button to fire the ball okay so possible factory setting though i believe default is off is that right yeah yeah yeah that's honestly i was showing my son he's like why didn't they put a gun as the plunger i'm like yeah but i figured it was something like that but yeah so i i like fit on the watch you put Richie as the manufacturer. Well I didn't do that. That was Doug.
    43:13
    But yeah it's cool. You're now part of Pulp Fiction. How does that make you feel? I guess the other, man there is an Easter egg Mark. So we have a director that for now is still Mr. Richie but in the role scene modes it goes a little fourth wall where we're actually like we're introducing these as movie scenes rather than being in the world and uh mark is is the voice of the director as you make progress during that right i don't know if we asked josh but how did you get roped into all this oh man i just kept showing up until they stopped me showing up they haven't I think, uh, man, Eugene randomly talked with me about this thing and I had no idea what was going on. And I'm just sitting there just like, my chin is on the ground. And it's like, how have these guys not let me know what they're doing? What the heck? And, you know, call Mark. And it's like, hey, Eugene just told me, Mark, you know, caught me up to speed. And it was like, I mean, it's kind of how I've been with pinball my whole life, especially with Stern over the last, whatever, 30 years, 20 years.
    44:34
    Like, I am Mr. Unsolicited Comments. So, you know, Mark says to me what he's doing, and immediately he's just like, this would be fun. This would be fun. Shower thought this morning. I think this would be, and it's just, you know, I'm sure at some point, like, Lonnie has emailed me to please stop emailing him, you know, the game's done. Or buggy Dwight or, you know, buggy Liven back in the day. But I just kept bugging Mark and he was gracious enough to not ignore me. And I think also, and, you know, what's so great about the collaboration of this team, I think, you know, it takes a lot of courage for, Not for me, because I don't care, but for people in my position, it takes courage to present ideas to these icons of the industry and hoping that they're not terrible. I'm fine if they're terrible, but I think it's a big part to have the graciousness and acceptance of the people on the other end to also be trusting enough. Mark can tell me that an idea isn't good. And he knows, and there's other people that I'm sure Mark couldn't tell someone that, you know, it's like, man, how do I tell someone that this is not good? And it's like the openness of the team to be able to know that, like, he's not calling me a bad person. You know, he's just explaining why something isn't going to work. And, you know, I was not kidding where, you know, a hundred rule suggestions go in and it leads to the one best answer. and it really does take you know we're fortunate that we had the time to get there but none of this was like bing bang boom we got a game we're done like this all is easy it's it's a lot of just you know here's something george puts it in the game mark's playing it it's not working here all right try this you know what about this that doesn't make sense a lot of just you know that collaborative team nature to get things to as fun as we can and i don't think that i mean i don't think i know i have been on teams where that that that nurturing environment of the team just doesn't exist and it becomes a lot harder so i'm really fortunate to that everyone on the team and and on the cgc side everyone is is listening you know isn't afraid to listen isn't afraid to be wrong and isn't afraid to support someone else who's right? When are these games going to be available to buy? That's a great question. Mark and I are asking that ourselves. We are diligently wanting to answer that question as soon as possible, of course.
    47:25
    I'm going to guess what the SEs are going to roll first. Is that right? I don't even know. That sounds right. Yeah. So that's the bill of materials that Doug's finalizing first. Given that, you know, it would be preemptive for me to say anything about that right now. OK, so I think the only thing Ryan Ryan White included third, he expected it to ship third quarter of this year. So I will say. Between July 1st and September 30th or else, Ryan's a liar. That's probably a safe bet. Yeah. Hey, I wanted to add to what Josh was saying earlier regarding his input and stuff. You know me being out of the business some 27 years and you know Josh alludes to it in another way too which is you know today rules need to be for today player I'm not today's designer so when Josh knocked on my door that door flew open I'm like yeah come on because he knows the rules he knows what's hot let's face it I've been out of it a long time and so I really trusted his judgment on a lot of this stuff and I'm glad I did because the gameplay is really good. I'm really happy with it. And I don't think that I would have come up with anything like that, certainly on my own. So he was a welcome partner, day one. So is this mostly a play mechanics game, or is this like a collaboration between you guys and CGC? Is CGC just manufacturing for you guys?
    49:06
    Yes, yeah. Where's the overlap? Where's the Venn diagram? CGC is the manufacturer. It was all developed here. Josh and I and George for the most part and Scott the four of us we were working on this thing over the COVID months where everybody was closed up or in George's basement you know we moved the game to his basement and we worked there and we just kept at it you know we had play nights every Wednesday night for a year and a half right on yeah some of the best nights and you know my teenage self was just eating this up. You guys have no idea how excited I have been through this whole process, just as a fan.
    49:49
    It was fun. Was it hard for you too, Josh, juggling? Because you've been doing the Cactus Canyon Continued Code, you're doing the Pulp Fiction Code, and you still have your normal day job of CFO over Raw Thrills.
    50:04
    I love this stuff, Josh. it's so it's stuff I think about in the shower it's stuff I think about when I'm driving home from work this is just I just got to do it with a group of people that I work with every day but if I'm go in and play Ghostbusters and hang out with Dwight the next few weeks is probably spent with me thinking about Ghostbusters in the car and messaging Dwight stupid ideas that he can ignore or make fun of me for. So it really is, you know, something that I mean, I have a notebook at home filled with, you know, really bad layouts. And now looking back on it, really bad rules. But it's a hobby for me. And so for me, it's it's it's stuff I'd be doing for fun in my mind anyway. You know, my doodling fake rules for fake games that don't exist. And I think sort of, you know, Mark alluded to it earlier, but I feel like where we really benefited was like Doug Duba's hobby at night is to just he's like he's not a mechanical engineer, but he likes to build and tinker and do things. And it's the stuff that he would do after hours anyway and just for fun. and you know he was able to apply the stuff he likes to do for fun on this project i always feel bad because i you know i joke with mark with george that like those are the guys that have to do the work this is not work for me this is just like camp you know it is playtime and i'm fortunate that that i can i can throw some stuff that has some value at it but like Believe me, it's all just doing it is exciting enough for me. So this is a new direction. Do we have other games that are being developed? I would say that our core business is going to remain arcade games. Yeah, sure. I can tell you about a couple of really cool titles coming up on that side of things. That's right. That's right. But I guess I guess the ultimate question is the door is probably not closed if there was another project to come along. Right. Yeah, I think if they're like if an opportunity presents itself that lines up, if that's in redemption, if that's in VR, if that's in pinball, we'd be stupid to not look at it and evaluate it from a business decision.
    52:41
    Sounds good. Nothing yet. But you never know, boys. never know well look you're always competitive i'm just saying you're trying to take down stern now and show show up your brother sharp i saw he updated his resume on linkedin yesterday so it's gonna be tough going for those guys over there did he say josh's younger brother or josh's superior brother right actually we uh are so we we purchased our contract manufacturer par tech who uh they build a lot of stern's harnesses for their games so it's uh it's in our best interest for stern to be the healthiest they've ever been and based on the the president at par tech i get i get his books at the end of every month the uh the stern business is doing great so oh yeah we wish those guys nothing but the best yep because we we stand to benefit from Pinball's good pinball, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, and they're definitely doing good and moving to a new facility. Man, that Foo Fighters just came out. It looks great. But we're on play mechanics time. We're not on stern time. Yeah. It's a small industry. We all support each other. Exactly. So is this going to be at TPF? Are people going to be able to play it? That's the plan. Even if Mark has to throw in the back of his truck and drive it all the way down there, right? I think Doug is putting it on the back of his truck. Yeah, it won't be mine. That's the current – Doug is volunteering. Is he bringing the topper? Because that topper is a showstopper. Like what Chicago Game Company has done with toppers, it makes all other toppers look pitiful compared to him.
    54:26
    It's pretty – Doug, man. Doug's crazy about it. Yep. it's like Crocodile Dundee that's not a top of it when are we going to see gameplay of the video sorry a gameplay video of Pulp Fiction we're working on a stream but it won't happen before TPF but I would expect in April we'll be working on a live stream and then trying to get a game shipped out to Carl because we have a very cool challenge. Some challenges for him to try to tackle in the upcoming months.
    55:09
    It'll be out there. What's something about Pulp Fiction that we should have asked you that we didn't? Or if you have a crazy story that you can share with us about maybe licensing or something like that with it. Not that I can recall at the moment. I've had a couple of kids since the game was started in development. That's probably the craziest thing. I've got two new cats. I don't think he wasn't mentioned, but David Thiel. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.
    55:39
    I think he's instrumental in, you know, we have some licensed songs, but we have a lot of not licensed songs and obviously sound effects. And I think he alluded to it in Zach's video, but, like, there were not clean stems. this was this this was all live boom mic recorded so there was no can i get all of sam jackson's speech can i get that that stem and they can send all clean speech of one character so the amount of work he did to process out the noise and i know we've played with it long enough that it's like you can still cut you like hear the keys jingling in the background or the wind or whatever it's just like the ability for him to process down to actually be able to like hear the speech calls you know the the game is so much better for it to be able to to focus on on that fun and humor and the the songs he composed that were custom and it's like hey we need a song for this mode that kind of has this kind of vibe and it's like here you go it's amazing and it's like thanks dave you definitely have to on the game like this the soundtrack and the sounds they are vital to the experience of this game. Yeah. Certainly when you have no video, it really is, Scott. Yeah. It really is. Major, major important. Absolutely.
    57:07
    Emphasizes just a little bit more. Like, was that a key jingle there? What was that in the background?
    57:12
    Find the sound effect. Yeah. Someone record this off their phone? Lucky for us, Dave is extremely intuitive with, you know, what the right path, what the right thing to do, how to level and balance the sounds, I think also is a huge piece of work that he still works at. I mean, we're still working with him. We're not done. So we're really close, but we're not done. Well, and there's a lot of, it says like 250 plus call outs. That's insane. That's, you're playing the whole scenes from this movie. Unless you got the bleep version, I guess, then you're cutting out half of it. There's a lot of laughing. I can't remember exactly what the phrase is, but it's hilarious when they take the body to the cleaners. He's like, do I look like a – I really hope that's in the game. It's in the game. Yeah. Yes. We got it all. We got all the good stuff. Yeah. I don't think we missed much. I can't think of anything we missed, Josh. You? No, no. I mean, some of the stuff that we missed, you know, is unfortunate. Like, because we didn't focus on a scene in a mode, there's less of it. Because we did try to keep the mode stuff all in context. So, I mean, I've seen on Pinside there's a lot of, like, oh, the game should have this speech call when you do something like this. And it's like, that would be funny, but it doesn't work within the context of the rule construct that we're doing, the story that we're telling. so a lot of that is uh you know we we pulled out everything we could for the things that we focused on okay josh haven't you learned that everyone is a designer and a concept artist out there you just need to accept it for it i'm one of them boys this time i just got someone to open the door nice i get it i get it i i'm i'm one of them i'm one of them so you're telling me if i want a job I need to start knocking on doors. Yeah. Just keep emailing incessantly, unprovoked, and eventually you find someone like Mark who's nice enough to open the door. And now you're one of us, so you've got to stop doing that stuff. That's right. We don't go there.
    59:27
    So if you have your suggestions for rules, please email them to Josh. Yes. Come on. Right. Okay, so you guys are both going to be there at Texas?
    59:39
    I'm not. Okay. I'm not. I'm on spring break with the kids. I will be sneaking. Are the seminars streaming from Texas? I think they normally do, right? Yeah. They will be streamed. I will be getting yelled at by my wife while I'm watching the team up there do their thing while I'm, like, not watching. I'm hoping that they are streamed because Josh and I cannot make it to Texas this year. It's killing us because this is this is one of those expos that you want. No, the festivals that you want to be to. So it's weird. It's definitely you know, you have those days where like, oh, Venus and Mars are passing. Yeah. So every 370 years, this is like, oh, all the nine planets are eight or I don't know if Pluto exists. But they're all like lined up. And the next time that's going to happen is like 40,000 years from now. Right. well hopefully this is a major boost to the pinball industry and you guys decide to do it every year and texas just becomes the hot spot for it then there's a zero percent chance there's a pinball game from play mechanics next year yeah of that zero percent zero percent all right well you guys heard it first okay okay yeah well cool thanks mark and thanks josh for coming on we really appreciate it if you want to hang out with mark down at pinball or not pinball expo down at texas pinball festival he will be down there and if you want to hang out with josh go and knock on his door actually if you want to hang out with me find my brother who most people think is me and tap his shoulder at tpf and just call him my name he'll answer i answer to zach he answers to josh it's all good and your dad is going to be down there that'll be there with the screening oh yeah and actually on on march 17th i saw it's going to be released on apple tv so if you haven't seen that go ahead and pull up apple tv and and watch uh watch roger sharpe's movie i think you'll even be able to buy it via amazon streaming as well yeah google play i think too yeah because i my it's funny because my wife i don't know how your wives are but my wife isn't so much into pinball as much as i am and i made her watch the roger sharpe movie and she loved it and she's already getting our family ready for it to come out and she wants to do a big family night because she That's awesome. She loved it. I was like – I told – it was funny because it was one of those standoffish things, right? Like you're going to make me watch a movie about pinball. I'm like it's not about – like it is pinball, but it's not – It's not. It's about my parents meeting. It's not that. Yeah, exactly. It's not the tutorials that I force you to watch. It's like a romantic comedy history documentary.
    62:21
    Documentary. Documentary, yeah. So, well, cool. If you want to get a hold of us, we are LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com. You can get a hold of us on all the socials. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, now YouTube, all at Loser Kid Pinball. Drop us a line there. It's easiest to get a hold of us on Facebook Messenger, where you hit us directly through Loser Kid or Scott or Josh.
    62:44
    You got anything else for us, Scott, before we hop off? Man, go to Texas. Go now. Do it for us. Let us live vicariously through you. Send us pictures. Not those kind of pictures, pictures of pinball machines. Yeah, no more of that, David Dennis. Don't be sending us that stuff anymore. We'll be right back. Shut up and sit down.
    64:01
    Sovereign Tech.