This is how we do it. This is every bit about how it gets done Over here in the world of Don's Pinball Podcast. Hello everybody and welcome to the patreon exclusive episode for The second day of the Texas Pinball Festival happening down in Frisco, Texas 2025. Hello everybody. How you doing? I'm gonna simulcast this directly to the patreon folks on both Don's Pinball Podcast and And we are pinball because I love both of you groups and I don't want to do double duty and I'm going to report and report and reward everybody here with everything that's been going on these last 12, 24, 48 hours. It's all running together like a blur and it started off yesterday when we had the drop. Of course, the information that Harry Potter was coming out next from Jersey Jack, whether that was an intentional or unintentional reveal, it was pretty amazing and it is absolutely Having Topics for R donkeyP submission Thestupiu, Someone who sick. Y'all Oonen? compassionate for lib자가? Hi little par signs, Fuck everybody, I'm playing by the rules yo, it's just so boring. I went across the street to the Texas Pinball Festival and it is every bit of a Saturday right now. It's off the hinges, there are so many people around. The Spooky booth is clearly in high demand as is the Mirko, Marco booth. And then to some extent Jersey Jack. And then there was still consistent lines even on the four labyrinth machines here. So everybody's, every game had people on it. There were no games that were absolutely vacant. And if they were, they weren't for long. Somebody walked right up there. For the most part though, you were waiting one game to get on just about anything. Sometimes two if it was a bit more in demand. Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade comes to mind. So the big news of the day, Spooky Pinball's Electric Wonder of Evil Dead has sold completely out. So way to go guys there. I was watching all weekend. We went into the weekend with about 60 of those games left according to the website. If you go and try to order, you know 999 of those happy haunted games, I would say sorry You can only have you know 59 or so that number quickly started dwindling on Friday You know like 10 to 20 were gone and then this morning boom they all went they got down to about 25 left and then Joe from pinball star he came by and he took up the last 25 and then him and his henchmen Were hanging out the spooky booth basically selling them and you know within short order I know at least five of the 25 that he had purchased were already gone too. So I'm not surprised that he's not sold out here pretty soon. So Joe Newhart, it was cool hanging out with you, buddy. I bought my Pulp Fiction from him prior to my sponsorship with Mad Pinball. So it was cool to finally, you know, meet him in person. His wife was there. We played some games. I began the day after my seminal episode on Dawn's Pinball Podcast, episode number 181 I'm here with my partner, the guy that went up last night where I kind of seem to kind of crap all over a multi morphic a bit only because it seemed like they were directly hortaling feces at me. Despite my my my attempts to outreach and make peace. Well, I got some messages from Jerry this morning. So I guess my anonymity has ran out and he does in fact know who I am. What the heck. So, you know, he reached out saying Don, sorry, I had a bad experience at the booth. Please come by again, which I did. And I met the I I forget his name, but the gentleman responsible for Drained, the only two-date third-party multi-morphic module Maker in existence. Why aren't there more of these? I think there should be. Um, you know, he was very gracious and, hey, are you Don? Yes, I am. Uh, here, I made Drained. What do you think? Hey, let me tell you, kind of, some good things I think about Drained. I do like the art. And I was like, I was like, man, 27 stand-up targets, man. Do you even have any left? My goodness. Oh, Drained is not a, not a great game. I'm going to do a podcast at some point, I'll probably do it on the main channel, about bad games. Because there are bad games that know they're bad, there are bad games that think they're good, and there are bad games that are also good to play. And I'll go down kind of what I mean by that. Just to give you some examples, Blues Brothers is a bad game that is a bad game, and ABBA is a bad game that thinks it's good. And, you know, it's treading on being a bad game that is fun to play. All right, so I'll give you that. So within the realm of bad games, there is a Hello everyone I'm Neil B. I'm a fan of the game. I've been going to their booth for four years now and every time it just kind of seems like they have their own thing going on and they don't really care if I'm part of it or not. It's kind of like the sense I get as a customer and now a pinball personality I guess. But you know, nice of them to reach out so thanks for that buddy. Good luck on things in the future. Portal had a line the entire time I was there. There's three portal machines, two extended, one circumcised, I forget what they call it. That's a definitely the people were having fun playing them. The same thing happened last year with Princess Bride and I'm presuming the year before that with was a final resistance and then before that was Weird Al. So I think they'll always have some demand there at the Texas Pinball Festival. What I wish they would do and I'll offer this as constructive criticism to them. That's to have a dummy module sitting there in a trial station with an empty cabinet so you could try personally putting these modules in taking them out. Finally, what else did we do this past season? I'm a fan of the game. I've played it with Multimorphic. So thank you very much to them for that. I played Portal again with Joe. Had a great game on it. I was joking that there's two skateboarding themed games here at the Texas Pinball Festival, one of them being Tony Hawk and the other one being Multimorphic's Portal. And that is because this time when I was playing the game, there was a lot of grinding and there was a lot of stalls that were going on, which are types of skateboard tricks. There's that interface, right, between the screen over the playfield and then the screen I was like I just did a freaking grind on a pinball machine My ball just grinded all along the line between the pop plastic barriers and the video portion of the playfield experience And then that stinking right lower ramp on the extended version of Portal the one that pops up and down the janky ramp I call it Howdy, it's me, Joe, and both myself when we were playing. Balls got stuck behind that ramp and would sit there until the ball search happened, which to its credit was pretty quick and owing to the grid system that can read the ball's location. But it was like all these, we were finding all these stalls. It was comical at one point that, you know, balls were just essentially getting trapped just all over the place on ramps, under ramps. I shot the right lower ramp, the jank ramp. It made it up just far enough to then sit and rest right there to the point where a ball search would not be able to get it loose. That requires some shaking, which I was able to shake it loose fairly easily despite the girth of the machine. All in all, I had some fun with Portal. The modes are interesting. It plays different than most games do and the fact that I was able to backhand most of the shots and kind of get through it. But I kept doing sort of the same things over and over again and to the point where I was like, okay, well, maybe there's some more code to come from this. So I won't fully judge the game. I don't know where the code is at there. I realize that everybody there is, you know, engineering and very intelligent I think what they need is a good marketing person to come out there and like kind of greet the guests that are in line Answer questions Have a demo model that you can kind of go through and practice putting things into things out again If they care what I think this this would be useful information for them I get the sense that they don't and they're gonna keep doing their thing and we're just living in their world and I want to keep playing their games because I do have fun doing it So, let's move on to the protagons Box. So, let's get started. So for those of you who are interested I am a god. So, for those of you who don't yet know how to play Pre revision in Low Hitch and Burgo, the celebrating obligation infamous to play a previsionist to play at theon forum is actually your choice for bot lane. It is best to come straight to the next level. And it's only because of the primero del futuro, cuz eva fails there beside- No이를 Secondo team written by catzen Valhalla of括. I have seen all sort of completely lifesavers, Invade sites like Teachinand confort Lam Galileo as the oracle of criminologists. So Old School fist no, I'm chаюсьon. So bowl card, Zoot Stats, underground month in a ballсяärke чего broadspeaker adWhen it does beste, As predestined, Guomie, Alberto Bong, h Diesel, Ke dressed, I was at Braun nitro unlocking Cubist K 자, I love, Pleased, Na, Back touch a load,livign sea and water, SFSle seat, Laания, Iigra, Narakah, B Tekla, Emily, Iago, Hyder, Everyone, I'm a fan of the game and I think it's a feature in this game. Strange. Interesting choice by the game's designer. But it was just like, really? Is this what we're doing now? Let me know if you've played Drained and if you enjoy this $3,000 game for the Multimorphic P3 cavity. So anyway, I went by there a few times, played some games, played some Portal, hung out, shook some hands, kissed some babies, it was great. I went around and I saw a Jaws machine, a Jaws Premium, by a fellow that was selling earrings of all things and I think some sort of glare I was a player guard for the LCD screen to keep the glare off the glass, which was interesting. In this Jaws Premium, I saw a swinging KFC chicken bucket. It was one of my mods that I saw out in the wild in somebody else's game. And I was like, oh my, I couldn't get, I was like fangirling at this point. I'm like, hey guys, you got my mod there. And so that led to a fun conversation. How cool is that, man? I made this thing in my fricking 3D lab and here it is out in the wild in someone's game and like, like they were enjoying it. Super cool, man. Spooky Pinball's games sold out. They had their seminar today. It was at 7pm. I sat there through the whole thing. It was streaming, I think, on Twitch. You can go and watch it. They kind of go through the whole development process. Hilton's there with Spooky Luke and Bug, Christopher Franchi, and a guy that owns a cat, man. And he brought some bourbon. Damn, I totally forgot his name. He does the code and everything. Brad? No, that's not Brad. Ben. Ben Heck. The Hexter. The ol' Hexter. So it was them on stage with Kerry Hardy. They were having a good time. And you can watch through all of that. So that was fun. That happened today. Otherwise, I went over and I played some labyrinth. I hung out with the barrels of fun guys. Actually went and got lunch with one of them. And we had a great time, good conversation. Talked to them everything from theme parks, to licensing, to games and everything. They do, yes, in fact, have a game. It's currently in active development with active production to start like pretty soon. I think they're at the stage of getting their sample games run. They are very much of the opinion that they don't want to release a game and they don't want to take customers money until they have a game that is done. A game that is at least in boxes, you know, maybe 10, maybe 20, but is ready to go out and is in active production. They do that because they respect the community because they are part of it. And I dig that. And they're looking at ways to put, you know, a high end collectible object out there because they are in fact pinball collectors as well. So it's like, you know, fans helping fans over here is the whole gist that they're going with. So their release is imminent. I didn't press them on what the theme is. Dune keeps coming up most often. That's probably what it is. But within the realm of Dune, you have the book. You've got the old movie. You've got the new movie. And then there's a television series and things too. So still, even though we know it's probably this sandworm-themed, Arrakis gameplay planet type whatever, This week's topic is the most popular topic in the game. The game is a bit of a mystery. The game will be released sometime between April and May. I think by the end of May we'll have seen it. I would postulate about six weeks. I don't think that they themselves even have a date circled on the calendar that is like go live date. But I think like after we get through the next three to four weeks they'll probably have a release window somewhere ready to go. I will be inviting some media folks down there. I should do that contest that the loserkids do where they can randomly select an entrant or a Patreon member to attend one of these events with them. I know Kong is coming up soon as well. So more on that as it happens. If it's something you'd like to see, leave it in the comments and I'll see what I can finagle. I seem to be getting some good inroads with for sure spooky pinball, for sure barrels of fun. Stern I'm working with. They're a little bit more corporate and hard to penetrate. I'm making some inroads with Jersey. And this week's topic, the last three. So, we have the two juggernauts that are going to own the pre-summer and summer is going to be Stern and JJP. They've got Kong, they've got Harry Potter. Harry Potter has now been officially confirmed Kong is all but confirmed but is a leading rumor amongst everybody And so I think how this is all going to play out based on conversations I been having Do it in the fall and So, we're gonna have Harry Potter Thursday mother effers and then boom they'll just drop this juggernaut right in there and just disrupt the whole Stern launch. I can totally see that playing out and as a fan of pinball and petty drama I am absolutely here for it. So, sticking with Jersey Jack, I postulated this before, I think the play is going to be for me and maybe for other people too to go ahead and go on this collector's edition if you're interested at all. This week's topic is Pinball. If the game, once it is revealed, turns out to be as cool as it looks. I've got my name down for a CE with Jeff at Mad Pinball, jeffatmadpinball.com. Get on it too. No commitments. And you get kind of first right of refusal. I think it's a safe bet there. So if this game ends up being blockbusters and the thousands sell out immediately, just like the medieval badness frickin' released it today, then it would be good to have an in on this, because this may be a game that would increase in value. So, not only that, but be coveted within the sphere of Pinball and so everybody would want to come over to your house and play with your game and you'd feel cool having something awesome that is like truly limited and no longer available, especially if it's really, really good. If this looks like Godfather but it's got Harry Potter wizards in it, then maybe I'm not as interested. I'll let everybody else kind of rush for the CEs and then see where it goes. If you're not in on that top level collector's edition from Jersey Jacket, it sounds like the prices are going to be the same, so $15,000, which is a lot of money, but if it ends up being really desirable, it might be cool to have one of these things. It's not unheard of recently with pinball. We saw Metallica Limited Editions go for $15,000, $16,000 shortly after launch when they were sold out, so it could happen. It could happen. It would definitely happen if the Harry Potter CEs were 500 in number, but I think this is This week's game is going to be a solid 1,000, 1K, a solid rack of these games. So let's say the game comes out and it's not as, as earth shattering impressive and worthy of your $15,000. I think the safe bet at that point would be to just park it and wait. The limited editions will be available if there's 5,000 of them. And then the standard editions of course will be available as well. And there won't really be a rush to get out there unless like you really need to have it. Okay. We'll have to see. We'll have to see. But if it's good, I think the power play will be for go for a CE. If you don't do that, then just wait it out and see what happens in the market. I think wouldn't be a bad way to go. You make your own judgment. You're an adult, you can make your own decisions. Good or bad, this is America and Denmark and Europe and Australia and everybody else that listens to me. I think I got someone in Mauritius that's listening, which is wild to me. Probably a VPN, but I like to think there's somebody out on that island listening to pinball content from me. So what do we know about Kong? Absolutely nothing. I know I'll be making I'm making a half banana shooter rod for it. Other than that, I have no idea. It's going to be Elwin. It's going to fall somewhere between Jaws and Godzilla and Iron Maiden and Avengers Infinity Quest. That's fine because these are all great games. Games are going to be selling like crazy. LEs are going to be gone in a flash whether we like them or not. They're going to be gone. And you know, whether you go on one of those or not, I'll let you make your own judgment there. I am already in on a premium for the one up lounge and I've already ordered armor I've already ordered powdercoats, I've already started working on mods and I haven't even seen the game, it's not even being teased yet. So, it's gonna be a big juggernaut of the summer. So, the summer of hits are coming. So, Turner Pinball played some more Merlin today. Turner Pinball's games had consistent lines the entire time, two to three deep as far as games plays of a weight for Merlin's adventure in the arcade. And you know the game plays fun people have been describing it as you know if it was like your first pinball game to play it's not a bad way to start it's not overly complicated you know it is kind of fun it's family friendly it's not gonna offend anybody it's a perfectly fine game the legendary edition is nine thousand dollars and it'll be seven thousand for the arcade Edition when that's made sounds like he's gonna make around a hundred of the uh limited ones first and then start making arcades and then based on uh demand we'll kind of go back and forth there what i do like is that parts are This week's game is on order currently. This game is going to go into production this summer between May and August, probably closer to June, July and the first games will be rolling out there. So that's cool. Homeboy seems like he's going to be bringing these to Expo as well. And yeah, wish him all the best. Now, is this the title that I would have chose to release given, you know, kind of the infinite well of titles to release? Probably not because it does seem like a very simple, it is a very simple game shot wise. There's some clever things that are done with the sculpts, Sp Amendon O'Neill, Greg Horowitz. Ch tiro McCrudden, WS electricity Perspie, Michaelidden. Timing and Subtitles by the Amara.org community I'm John Papadiuk, and I'm a member of the Spinnerball Company. I don't see people beating down the door, given the plethora of other options to go run at this, but the game was fun to play, and I still want to keep playing it. And I did enjoy playing this more than Ninja Eclipse. I think you know when I was at MGC and Ninja Eclipse was there last year you know I go over and play it but for the most part it was kind of always available I think Merlin I would spend more time on Merlin I know it sounds like a cliche but if no one was waiting in line behind me I would put multiple games on it If nothing else just to rip that really cool foosball spinner I think it a real standout there So, keep your chin up there, Chris Turner. Keep doing your thing. And, I don't know, this isn't the game that the community was clamoring for, I don't think. Not that it's a bad pinball machine all things considered, it's just there's better thematic options and that's really kind of where the fandom and the community is going, man. We want these cool themes. Evil Dead is just kicking butt, man. Dungeons and Dragons as well had like tons of people on them. Actually, every one of the Sterns that have been released had consistent lines the whole time. I just played John Wick with the new John Wick topper. It looks okay. It's overpriced. You know that. The hourglass looks weird because it doesn't go to just 90 degrees. It's always tilted slightly. It seemed a little bit strange. I don't know what really what's playing in with that. The John Wick that was on the floor had a bad tilt to the right to the point that you know if the ball was coming down the playfield to the left flipper by the time it got to the bottom it was right down the middle and the tilts were really tight so you couldn't really nudge to save. It wasn't a very satisfying experience on John Wick and John Wick does shoot Doyle, Bill Payne, Mike I'm a real person. I love doing that. So when everybody notices me like, hey, you know, you're Don. I see you wearing the shirt. I listen to your show. It's like, let's talk, man. Let's be real people together here. Let me give you some stickers and stuff. You know, I did give away the playfield jacks to a man that recognized me in the elevator of my hotel of all things, you know, across the street when I was going out for lunch. Like what a chance encounter. And I was telling people that, you know, what I do here a lot of times feels like kind of a personal diary that I'm just kind of putting out into the ether. And I don't really ever get to see that there's five to six thousand people on the other end listening to all this and enjoying it on their commutes, train rides, bicycle Rides listening while they're supposed to be paying attention in church or whether business meetings. But that happens. And I realized that when people tell me and I meet people in real space. So it was, it was a lot of fun that we had today hanging out at the Spooky Pinball booth. I had my belly signed by by Luke and bug and then Christopher Franchi signed my bottom and he drew a very graphic representation of genitalia and for that I'm thankful and now I have blackmail photos that are out there floating around. Exactly who they'd be blackmailing, either me or Christopher Franchi, I don't know because we're both celebrating it so I think we'll get some artistic prints made of him signing my very tasteful nude. So we'll see what happens with that. Hopefully you didn't just fall off your barcalange or laughing at all of that. Was there anything else really of import news wise that happened today? I think that's about it. The spooky sellout was great. How funny is this, right? Less than 24 hours ago, Jersey Jack himself was up on stage saying do not spend one nickel on another game until you see our reveal and then not 24 hours later spooky pinballs like we just sold out all of our games It was a big rush at the end and they're all gone sold. That was hilarious. Now truth be told the games are still available Dr.ral12instr.*report Luego, UwU micros Player, instead of cutting it out, give it two lisirs but the ΜAd in this video, we will be defending particularly the m receiver 우登nty sophomores alleviateittersführerór WPPRṛṣṇa jackski OThe cáine trenors posh corvino visten les Now people they get desperate and say like I really got a good toする Potter gonna dump this deposit game you eighty hundred dollars for myلم N� other I'm having so much fun playing Evil Dead. This was the first time that a lot of people got to get on it. And we love where Spooky is going production update wise. They can make four to five games per day. They do four day work weeks for the build crew. And so they're aiming to get to 20 machines a week, starting in, I think May is when they're really gonna spool up the production. So then you got about 80 machines a month, and then they'll kind of go like that. And they're hoping to, by the end of the year, that all the games will be done. They're on track to hit that. This week's theme will have even more broader appeal than Evil Dead. Evil Dead for sure is a gruesome game, very true to the horror comedy movies of Evil Dead 1 and 2 with Bruce Campbell and it's like a whole thing. But their next release, strongly rumored to be Beetlejuice, is much more of an even broader theme. And from looking at the crowd and how enthusiastic they were, I could see them just melting over I'm going to head down to Epcot for a little bit. So it's going to be fun. So I hope you enjoyed this Patreon bonus content and the stories of Christopher Franchi drawing genitalia on my bottom. That was so much fun. I will spare you from posting the picture on the patreon there, but I'm sure this thing is absolutely going to be out everywhere in the darker channels of the pinball internet. Montel Williams, why don't you bring that action on back. Thanks for being continued patreon members. I really do appreciate it. Yeah, I can feel the love through the dollars. It really helps us keep the equipment going, pay the licensing fees, and heck, I bought a Twix today and a Diet Coke. Thanks to whoever randomly picked one of yourselves to be that $5 compatriot that's giving me some refreshment here as I'm parched and getting ready to pack up everything and head down to Florida, man. Y'all are great.