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Episode 126 – Timballs Of Rage

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Apr 3, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Tim Sexton reveals Black Knight: Sword of Rage details, rules, music credits, and behind-the-scenes Stern development insights.

Summary

Tim Sexton (Stern Software Engineer) returns to Slam Tilt Podcast as a guest to officially announce and discuss Black Knight: Sword of Rage, the next flagship Stern pinball machine designed by Steve Ritchie. The episode covers game rules, story, multiball mechanics, artwork, and music featuring Scott Ian of Anthrax and Brendan Small of Metalocalypse. Hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale also recount their experiences at Pinball Expo, including a Dragon's Lair arcade cabinet and various seminars.

Key Claims

  • Black Knight: Sword of Rage is designed by Steve Ritchie and is the sequel to 1980's Black Knight and 1989's Black Knight 2000

    high confidence · Tim Sexton, Stern Software Engineer, official announcement on Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 126

  • Tim Sexton is the lead programmer/software engineer for Black Knight: Sword of Rage

    high confidence · Tim Sexton confirms this directly; Ron and Bruce acknowledge and celebrate this role on the podcast

  • The game features music by Scott Ian (Anthrax) composed with Brendan Small (Metalocalypse), with original songs for every mode, multiball, and wizard mode

    high confidence · Tim Sexton explains the complete music package during gameplay discussion

  • Steve Ritchie provides the voice of the Black Knight character; Ed Robertson (Barenaked Ladies) voices Bernie, a skeleton flamethrower character

    high confidence · Tim Sexton corrects the IGN article claim and explains the voice acting credits

  • Black Knight: Sword of Rage will be available in Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition models

    high confidence · Tim Sexton states this as standard Stern cornerstone release structure

  • The teaser trailer for Black Knight: Sword of Rage was released on the 25th (of the announcement week) and is the best teaser trailer Stern has produced

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce discuss; hosts agree it surpassed Deadpool and Iron Maiden trailers

  • Tim Sexton has been at Stern for 14 months and working on Black Knight for approximately 9-10 months

    high confidence · Tim Sexton confirms timeline; Bruce questions development duration

  • The game features a Lightning Wheel RGB element with 12 inserts as part of the rules

    high confidence · Tim Sexton describes the War Lanes mechanic and RGB lightning wheel design element

  • Stern has recently hired multiple new staff members across software, art, and mechanical engineering departments, including Keith Ellen (2017), Rick Nagel (2017), and others

Notable Quotes

  • “Black Knight Sword of Rage is the next cornerstone pinball machine coming out from Stern Pinballs, designed by Steve Ritchie. It's the sequel to the 1980 Black Knight and the 1989 Black Knight 2000.”

    Tim Sexton @ ~16:30 — Official announcement of the game, confirming lineage and Stern's positioning

  • “The whole sound package of the game is the Scott Ian music package, and he did songs for every single mode, every multiball, every wizard mode, plus some of those other features like the war hurry-ups.”

    Tim Sexton @ ~35:00 — Clarifies the complete scope of the Anthrax founder's musical contribution

  • “Steve Ritchie is the voice of the Black Knight... Ed Robertson is the voice of Bernie, who is a skeleton that's part of the Black Knight skeleton army, who wields a flamethrower.”

    Tim Sexton @ ~39:00 — Corrects media reporting about voice acting; provides character details

  • “I'll try the kid. And we had already been talking at work just, you know, at lunchtime and stuff... and then finally he decided, okay, I'd like Tim to be my lead software engineer.”

    Tim Sexton @ ~48:00 — Explains how Tim was selected by Steve Ritchie; humanizes the professional relationship

  • “This was the best one by far. Yeah, I agree with that... I was enjoying more the music than anything else. That was the first overpowering, you know, your senses are watching everything, but the music was just like i want this fucking game.”

    Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale @ ~43:00 — Host reaction to the official teaser trailer; emphasizes music impact

  • “So he must really like Dragon's Lair, too. But it was right next to this, like, art thing, like they were selling prints. And he had a Daphne print... and guess who was the first to save the princess? Nice. And I got the print.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~7:00 — Anecdote about winning a Dragon's Lair competition at Pinball Expo; nostalgia element

  • “He said he was going to reveal all secrets... but the first thing he says is he's not going to tell us what the new game is.”

Entities

Tim SextonpersonSteve RitchiepersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonScott IanpersonBrendan SmallpersonEd Robertsonperson

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Official announcement of Black Knight: Sword of Rage as next Stern flagship game; designed by Steve Ritchie, lead software by Tim Sexton

    high · Tim Sexton provides detailed gameplay breakdown, rules, story, and mechanics; confirms Pro/Premium/LE models; discusses teaser trailer release on 25th

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Game rules and mechanics are narrative-driven: player is a swordsman defeating the Black Knight through different realms; story guides design decisions

    high · Tim explains: 'the rules are driven by the story, or at least the story establishes how to create the game' and describes first-person perspective from swordsman attacking monsters

  • ?

    design_innovation: Premium and LE models feature multiball stacking capability: Triple Knights Challenge (lower playfield) can combine with Catapult Multiball (upper playfield) for 6-ball multiball scoring opportunities

    high · Tim describes: 'on the premium and le those multi balls you can stack together... then you get both of those multi balls at the same time and that's six ball multi ball'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Enhanced version of Black Knight 2000's WAR hurry-up: three simultaneous dangerous shot sequences (flail/Black Knight bash/shield mech) with pop-bumper value building; defeating all three triggers skeleton explosion visual effect

    high · Tim provides detailed explanation of WAR lanes mechanic with simultaneous hurry-ups and skeleton defeat sequence

  • ?

    product_strategy: Black Knight: Sword of Rage licensed from Williams Electronic Games; Steve Ritchie retains design rights to original IP he created; business model allows for multi-edition pricing tier strategy (Pro/Premium/LE)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.316

0:00
Today I'd like to recognize two students who took some of their free time to make this school a more nurturing learning habitat. Whoa! What a couple of wussies!
0:14
Wussies! Wussies! I was hoping Principal McVicker would be able to commend these students personally. Anyway, thank you, Beavis and Butthead.
0:26
Uh... coming to you from beautiful upstate new york this is the slam till podcast to show about all things pinball i'm your host ron hallett here with my co-host bruce nightingale oh my god i'm freaking exhausted great intro bruce this is episode 126 of the slam till podcast and bruce is tired yes god long week at the bar but that's good that means busy bar busy bar busy life yeah no life we're not alone this week bruce oh i've been waiting for this for months oh yes you know we're welcoming back the person who's been on more he's been a guest on more episodes Yes. On Slamto Podcast at anybody. And now he's going to increase his count. Timmer! Tim Sexton joining us. How's it going, Tim? Doing great. Took a year break and no one even came close to the record. And here I am to make it even more difficult. Ooh, nice. So Tim Balls 1.0 is back. Yes. And I was talking to Timmy beforehand and he said he's here to answer all our questions. Yes. Yep, everything. Everything. Me and Bruce talked it over, and we actually only have one question.
1:56
And I'll let Bruce ask the question. Yes, I will ask this very difficult and complex question. Okay, I'm ready.
2:06

high confidence · Tim Sexton explains Stern's expansion and hiring during game development discussion

  • Black Knight: Sword of Rage will feature a playable demo at Midwest Gaming Classic with Pro and Premium display/prototype models

    medium confidence · Tim Sexton references Jack Danger's comments and upcoming show appearances; notes some uncertainty on exact details

    • Ron Hallett @ ~9:00 — Sets up the reveal; shows teasing approach by Steve Ritchie at TPF seminar

  • “I think it looks it reminded me a little bit of the artwork from like Capcom early 90's games... you get the full power of these characters that you're going to be playing in the game.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~22:00 — Comparison of game artwork aesthetic; positive reception of visual design

  • “So he just said like, OK, I'll try the kid. And we had already been talking at work just, you know, at lunchtime and stuff.”

    Tim Sexton (paraphrasing Steve Ritchie) @ ~48:00 — Shows Steve Ritchie's willingness to work with newer team members; informal selection process

  • “You think it'll be the pro first? I can't say. Okay. That's cool.”

    Tim Sexton @ ~60:00 — Demonstrates tight control over marketing/release details; Tim's reluctance to confirm specifics

    • Jack Dangerperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Rick Nagelperson
    Keith Ellenperson
    Lyman Sheetsperson
    Larry DeMarperson
    Eugene Jarvisperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Black Knight: Sword of Ragegame
    Black Knightgame
    Black Knight 2000game
    Pinball Expo (TPF)event
    Williams Electronic Gamescompany
    Anthraxorganization
    Metalocalypseproduct
    Midwest Gaming Classicevent
    Slam Tilt Podcastproduct

    high · Tim notes game is 'licensed from Williams Electronic Games for the Black Knight games that Steve created when he was there'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Scott Ian (Anthrax) and Brendan Small (Metalocalypse creator) composed complete music package for Black Knight: Sword of Rage with original songs for every mode, multiball, and wizard mode

    high · Tim explains: 'The whole sound package of the game is the Scott Ian music package, and he did songs for every single mode, every multiball, every wizard mode'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Tim Sexton (14 months at Stern, ~26 years old) selected as lead software engineer for flagship Black Knight game by Steve Ritchie; informal selection through workplace conversations; suggests meritocratic approach despite Tim's relative inexperience

    high · Tim recounts: Steve 'decided, okay, I'd like Tim to be my lead software engineer' after observing discussions at lunch; Steve had choices among other available engineers (Dwight on Munsters, Lyman on Batman)

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball has significantly expanded staff across software, art, and mechanical engineering departments; named hires include Keith Ellen and Rick Nagel (both 2017); expansion to support increased production pipeline

    high · Tim states: 'we've hired up a lot of people... including myself... Keith Ellen was hired in 2017 and Rick Nagel who worked on iron maiden he was hired in 2017 and a bunch of other people have been hired'

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern maintains strict control over game development details; Tim unable/unwilling to confirm specific release timelines, show appearances, or version numbers despite being lead software engineer

    high · Tim repeatedly declines to confirm details: 'I can't say' on which model first; 'I'm not going to confirm 100%' on show appearances; notes 'I have to code the game so i i don't want to make any promises on exactly when marketing things happen'

  • ?

    event_signal: Black Knight: Sword of Rage expected to have playable demo at Midwest Gaming Classic with Pro and Premium models; Jack Danger has already playtested with stream announcement coming 'soon'

    medium · Tim references Jack Danger's comments about playing the game and upcoming stream; mentions 'it's supposed to be at midwest gaming classic i believe... there will be pros there and at least a couple of maybe display models or proto like premiums'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive community reception to Black Knight: Sword of Rage teaser trailer; hosts describe it as 'the best one by far' among Stern teasers (better than Deadpool, Iron Maiden); music package drives purchase intent

    high · Ron: 'This was the best one by far. Yeah, I agree with that.' Bruce: 'I was enjoying more the music than anything else... the music was just like i want this fucking game i really was like man this thing is just like kicking some fucking ass'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Software engineer's role in pinball design is primarily responsive/constraining: can influence design through feasibility feedback, rule implementation choices, and technical recommendations, but primary creative vision comes from designer

    high · Tim explains: 'software engineer might say, well, if you change this, this isn't going to work. Or if you want to do this and this, like I have to change a lot of this stuff. But then that's sort of like what the designer will use.'

    • How was the third ball? Things are a lot better with that. It was actually, I had to get a hernia repair surgery. I think I was lifting a few too many pinball machines, but got that all patched up. Everything seems to be working 100% correctly. I've been back issue-free for about six, seven months now. Doing great. Everything's awesome.
    2:30
    Okay, thanks, man. Have a great night. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Tim. All right, see you guys. Later. Bye.
    2:37
    Okay, Bruce, guess what happened this last weekend? I was at TPF. Did you hear? Yeah, I heard because I saw all these great pictures from you having a great time and hanging out with all these cool people, and there I am watching. Yeah, and I was hanging out with Dwight Sullivan. We were talking about action buttons. It was great. Oh, no. And I was also on another podcast. I heard. You sound great with Marty. Marty and you was a nice combination. So I'm going to bow out because I know you like to do the show of Marty because then you don't have to edit. I don't have to edit. It's just wonderful. It was nice, and no need to talk about TPF that much because, I mean, I pretty much covered it all. But I will cover two quick things that have nothing to do with pinball, so it's perfect. Excellent. I'm still awesome at track and field. Good. They had a track and field cocktail there with the leaf switches. I'm getting old and stuff, so I keep waiting for my speed to decrease, but it just didn't happen. Your steroids keep on. I blew it up, man. I had the longest hammer throw I've ever had. Nice. It's just great. It was awesome. just killed it, man. And then they had a Dragon's Lair there. Oh, nice. I don't know if you've seen it before. The big one, it's like got a big wide screen. It's like a custom cabinet with like a huge marquee, and you sit down. No, I didn't see that. Okay. They had it there like three years ago. So I'm looking at this thing, and this dude's playing it. It was obviously pretty good, and I'm looking. It's like, wait a minute. That's the same guy that was playing it three years ago when it was here. Oh, boy. So he must really like Dragon's Lair, too. But it was right next to this, like, art thing, like they were selling prints. And they had a Daphne print, like Daphne is the princess. Yeah. So, and I noticed on the game it had a little note that if you finish, the first person to finish gets the Daphne print. Oh, nice. And? And it was not, it was running the enhanced ROM version. Oh, that's a lot harder. Different movesets. Yes. So I did what any good person would do. You cheated on them and went online? I went online and looked up the moves, yeah, but then they didn't work.
    4:49
    And I could tell some of them weren't right anyway. So basically we kind of went back and forth, me and this other guy, and guess who was the first to save the princess?
    4:59
    Nice. And I got the print, and there was a bunch of people standing behind me, and they applauded and stuff. It was cool. It was like the old days. Nice, very cool. I went to seminars. Well, I was disappointed. I went to the Steve Ritchie seminar, You know, the window's going to reveal all secrets. Okay. And the first thing he says is he's not going to tell us what the new game is.
    5:19
    I wish we knew somebody who actually could tell us. Oh, wait a minute. You know what? Tim could probably tell us. He could tell us who's working on the game, what the game is. Yeah, doesn't he work at Stern? He does work at Stern. Hold on. Let me get him back on. Just while I'm here.
    5:36
    Hey. Hey, Timmy. Hey, Tim. We were just talking about TPF, and I was mentioning how I went to the Steve Ritchie seminar. Oh, how was that? He said he was going to reveal all, but then he didn't really reveal anything. He didn't say what the new game was, and I was just wondering if you knew maybe what the game was, maybe who was working on the software, I mean, being in the software department yourself. Maybe you would have an idea. Maybe you could give us like a scoop on what the game's called. Oh yeah, he had been working on a game I think it was called Black Knight Sword of Rage with Tim Sexton as his lead programmer Whoa, no shit! Really? You were the lead? How do you lead on the game? You're like 12 You've only been there like 3 months I'm almost 26 Oh, okay Almost 26 And I've been there 14 months All trolling aside, Tim is here to tell us about his new game. We are so proud for Tim. This is so awesome. It is. I mean, I have a Black Knight downstairs right now, and I can't wait for a sequel to be next to it. Yeah, you have the original Black Knight. I just watched that video you put up there with the famous Ron horizontal camera filming pinball YouTube videos. Oh, yeah, back when we tried that. Yeah. It just, you kind of hurt your head cranking it to the side trying to watch that crap. Yeah. And I've had the Black Knight 2000 theme music in my head, like, just constantly for the last week. You were on the Coast to Coast pinball podcast, thus lying to us, saying we would get first dibs. I lied to you? Yeah. And you say we would be the first to know. Oh, sorry about that. I know. I stern made you. Stern made you. But then he jumps on somebody else's podcast also. Oh, he did? Yes. Oh, I didn't know that. Ah, see? What other podcasts did you jump on, Tim? That's a good question. I think Bruce knows something I don't. I thought you were on Special Win Lit. Not yet. Not yet? Oh, so we get to jump ahead. Good. That's the way it should be. It depends on who edits first. Oh, you're editing now. You're in a record speed. Record speed. But, well, you explained a lot, but you have lots more to say, I'm sure. Tell us about Black Knight Sword of Rage. Great question, Ron.
    8:05
    Black Knight Sword of Rage is the next pinball machine, next cornerstone pinball machine coming out from Stern Pinballs, designed by Steve Ritchie. It's the sequel to the 1980 Black Knight and the 1989 Black Knight 2000. It is done in a pro, premium, and LE model, as all of our cornerstones are. and is licensed from Williams Electronic Games for the Black Knight games that Steve created when he was there, kind of ironically, but not really because that's sort of how it works. And it's awesome. It has the best music ever in the history of pinball on the game, and it has the best animations ever in the history of pinball, although my coworkers might disagree with me and say their games have good animations. But, hey, this game is the best animations in the history of pinball, too. That's what people haven't seen yet. So there's a few things to talk about. And also the game's awesome. So is the game awesome? It sounds like it's awesome. It's awesome. I listened, like, five minutes of you talking about it on Coast to Coast, and it's like, man, I want to buy one. Then, you know, logic took over. It's like, no, I need to actually play it first. But the artwork, I have to say, I've said this on the podcast many times, poor Steve, he has not had a good art package since No Fear in my opinion I think that has just ended Steve's streak comes to an end What do you think Bruce? Oh I agree, it looks really really good I think it looks it reminded me a little bit of the artwork from like Capcom early 90's games like the dark video games you mean? Yeah the video games, the Capcom video games where it is like dark and evil and you get the full power of these characters that you're going to be playing in the game. So it was really cool to see that. And I like the artwork. I think, you know, I want to see more of it, you know, that we need more originality. And he finally got a good art package. Finally. Which one's your favorite of the three packages? Ellie.
    10:11
    That mirrored back glass, the pictures don't do it justice, but it looks really, really nice. I was thinking, Bruce, when was the last time you recall seeing blood in artwork on a game, on a pinball machine? And I was looking at my Dracula, thinking, you know, Bram Stoker's Dracula obviously has to have blood. But it really, it just, like, the Dracula is written in blood, you know, supposed to be blood. But there's nothing that, I couldn't find anything that showed anything bleeding. Like, on the side art of the premium, he's got the sword, and he's hitting something. You see blood splurting out, and I'm like, hmm. I'm trying to remember the last time I've seen blood on a game. Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. So, Tim, which version are you getting? I'm getting the Premium.
    10:57
    Yeah. Yeah, Premium. He's like, Premium. I was between the Premium and the LE, but I wound up going with the Premium because the LE is, like, limited. So, Premium, I could just get that at the end of the round. hey, we're making a run of premiums, you want one? Sort of thing. That's cool. Walk us through this. I heard there's like a whole story to this game. Go over the rules, Tim, software guy. Tell us all about Black Die, because you know I love rules. I want to hear all about it so I have some idea of what I'm doing when I play this thing. Well, yeah, the rules are driven by the story, or at least the story establishes how to create the game, like what we're doing in it and what because i don't know creating a pinball game story it's a little more like creating the story of a video game in the 80s maybe where like okay if there's cut scenes yeah people might skip through them or whatever and people just want to get to like here's the next level here's the next level but the story at least guides the design of the game and the the first question is really like who are you what are you doing playing the pinball machine so there's okay a big black knight on the pinball machine you're not the black knight you're someone facing the black knight who that person is is kind of like the it's you the player who's in this game now a hero with a sword that's powered up and you and i sort of explain this on coast to coast but whatever i'll repeat it because not everyone listens to the same podcast you the player are trying to destroy the black knight and you're trying to use your sword to do so and you have to unlock its full power by defeating all the different realms around the black knight's castle to power up your sword which gives you you know enough might enough power to defeat the Black Knight, kind of based on the song, in Black Knight 2000. And so along the way, the pinball events that happen are like there's these different skeletons that come about on the different switches and shots, and there's a skeleton army that comes about when you complete the war lanes for the war hurry-ups, so you have to get through them.
    13:22
    And there's... Actually, I'll explain that mode a little bit, because that one's kind of cool. So the war lanes are above the pop bumpers. WAR is a spell on the three lanes on top of the pop bumpers. And the war hurry up on Black Knight 2000 is like, okay, you complete WAR, and then you just shoot the ramp, and then you get the cool music, and you get some points. So this one's a little, like, enhanced. This one is you complete the WAR lanes, and the pop bumpers below each of those lanes build the value of the individual hurry-ups, where the left pop-umper corresponds with the flail hurry-up, the bottom pop-umper corresponds with the Black Knight bash target, and the right pop-umper corresponds to the shield mech. And you start war, all three of those hurry-ups go simultaneously, and all three of those devices are dangerous shots, because if the flail is spinning toward you, that ball could fly right down the middle and if the shield's gonna bash or if the coil is gonna fire reflexively right when the ball hits it that could shoot the ball down the middle so you have to be kind of careful to choose your choose your angle of shots and be ready to recover and then if you get it through those then you get the points of each individual hurry up and if you could beat all three of those hurry ups then you go to you explode all the skeletons so on the screen their bones i'll go flying everywhere it's pretty funny defeat all those skeletons and then you've got the black knight on his horse his horse is named fury behind the skeletons and you shoot the black knight to collect like a sum total of all those hurry ups as well so beating them fast not only gives you like you know better hurry up value but the combination of all of them gives you that final hurry up shot and that's where it can be a lot of points so there's like that's one aspect of the game that sort of that feature that mini mode or whatever it is in pinball that can happen all the time so especially on the pro because the ball is going to plunge into the pop bumpers like you might start multi-ball then you might get another war hurry up and those things might start stacking on top of each other so there's just more points available and then there's the two main multiballs. So there's the Triple Knights Challenge on the lower playfield, and that's kind of taken the name from the Double Knights Challenge on Black Knight 2000. Even though that wasn't the main multiball, I think the main multiball on Black Knight 2000 was just called Multiball. Is that correct, Ron? Yeah, it would just stand up and fight, prepare for battle, and then here come the balls. So the Triple Knights Challenge is the lower playfield one, which makes sense because it was the double knights challenge down there but it's three balls not two and that one is sort of like a shoot the shots to expose the real black knight not the imposter black knight and then get past him to get his gold and get all his money that he stole from all the kids playing black knight 2000 and black knight very good so that's like a little side mission on your journey and then the one on the upper play field is the catapult multi-ball and that's where like an army of people are bringing these siege weapons in these catapults in and then jackpots there are like some of the rules of that multi-ball are tied into the upper play field so like every shot on the lower play fields a regular old jackpot you know those used to be cool in the 80s but now today everything's a jackpot then up on the upper play field you've got um super jackpots that you can get a double triple quadruple value based on how many times you hit the lock target in that multi ball then bam another one up there and then on the premium and le those multi balls you can stack together so if you start the triple knights challenge first and then you have three balls going in the triple knights challenge and the auto plunger will fire balls to the upper play field and then you lock a third ball into the catapult lock then you get both of those multi balls at the same time and that's six ball multi ball so that game's probably a little i mean it's hard to get to that point and it's hard to get to that point twice in a game for sure but that adds like a big scoring opportunity so that i imagine like if you're playing on a pro versus playing on a premium, you're going to get higher scores on the premium on those games where you can get all that stuff going. So the scoring potential is a little higher on the premium that way. But I don't know, I think it should be.
    18:08
    Because if you have the premium, you've got like that whole other, you know, three ball lock. It shouldn't be like a nerfed value thing. It should be like a big thing. And then the main attraction is the different modes that are in the lightning wheel and i only talked about a few of those on coast to coast but there's five different realms plus the sixth one is the black castle which is the last one in the progression and each one of those has like like a really awesome graphics package that people haven't seen yet really awesome color scheme light shows all that sort of stuff so um people will like that at least everyone in the office who plays is like looks at the graphics on those and goes like, oh, that looks really cool. That looks awesome. And those are modes where you make different ways to make arrow shots, but they're worth a lot of points, and then they could be brought into the other multiballs as well, and the war hurry-ups could be brought into everything. And then super features are the same way, where super features could be brought into everything as well. And then there's a little bit of an interesting thing on how you can stack those super features together, but they're not really part of the story. They're sort of just other pinball features. But in every single mode in multiball, it's taken from a first-person perspective of you're a swordsman attacking a monster. And it's hard to explain how the graphics are going to look and how they're going to tie into everything because everyone's kind of looking at what do you do in pinball. But once we do streams and stuff, people will be able to see how it all fits together. and they'll also be able to hear the different pieces of music that Scott composed with Brendan for every mode. The whole sound package of the game is the Scott Ian music package, and he did songs for every single mode, every multiball, every wizard mode, plus some of those other features like the war hurry-ups. So that's the game. That's the game. it's funny my co-worker that's next to me is a huge Metalocalypse fan when I said Brendan was involved he's like really? it's like damn now I'll have to buy the game nice if anyone's ever seen it it's like Metalocalypse the name of the band is Death Clock and Brendan does like all the he brings all the music for the show but he's also he's like the voice of Sparky and Jackie and the snake I would assume because it kind of sounds similar I'm listening. Well, speaking of voice, who is the voice of the Black Knight? Just to confirm. Steve Ritchie is the voice of the Black Knight. Why did the IGN article say it was... Who did they say it was? They said it was... They said it was Ed. Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies. I'm like, huh? Ed Robertson is the voice of Bernie, who is a skeleton that's part of the Black Knight skeleton army, who wields a flamethrower. Now, the way that we have... Okay, so Steve on the game said that he wanted to have a skeleton with a flamethrower. And he imagined it as a World War II flamethrower. But our art guys are saying like, well, we don't know if World War II skeletons would fit into the style of everything else. But then one of our art guys came up with a concept of how a medieval skeleton could have a flamethrower.
    21:34
    And when people see that, they'll be like, oh, that's awesome. A skeleton with a flamethrower. Yeah. He's got this big barrel on his back, presumably full of kerosene or something, and he's got a couple half-skeletons, so they've got no legs, just tied up to that barrel, just pumping, I guess, oxygen to mix with kerosene and mix with a pilot light to make a rudimentary medieval flamethrower that torches the screen when you shoot the spinner.
    22:09
    Wow. Okay. So, yes, and that was Scotty Ian of Anthrax, which I guess the music is going to be stupendous, as you said on Coast to Coast. Stupendous, yes. Stupendous. I don't think he said stupendous, but, yeah, I'm saying stupendous. This came out, what is it? It was the 25th? Yeah, 25th the teaser trailer came out, and I have to say, I don't know, how many teaser trailers has Stern done? They did Deadpool, Iron Maiden, Black Knight. Did Monsters have one? I don't remember Monsters. I don't remember. But, I mean, who cares? This was the best one by far. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, did you see it, Bruce? I would assume you've seen it. Yes, I have. It was incredible. Were you, like, shitting in your pants when you saw that? Like, oh, my God. I was enjoying more the music than anything else. That was the first overpowering, you know, your senses are watching everything, but the music was just like i want this fucking game i really was like man this thing is just like kicking some fucking ass then the laugh it's like oh there it is there it is steve is there yes so how did how did i know you you kind of explained this like coast to coast let's steve just like i want this timmy guy code my game pretty much as far as i can tell that's correct he he was just at the point where he needed a software guy you know at stern now we have we've hired up a lot of people as you know some people who've been following the news of the company have seen like there's a lot more new people on board at stern uh including myself and like you know keith ellen was hired in 2017 and rick nagel who worked on iron maiden he was hired in 2017 and a bunch of other people have been hired in our in our art department in our mechanical engineering group you know just all across the board we've been hiring people but with that hiring there's also like that was to match the level of of what we were going to be doing at stern so just with the availability of you know who who could come available for which projects was still sort of being, you know, there's just times where, you know, it's like, okay, Steve is coming to a point where he needs a software engineer, and it's like, well, here's who you have available. And Steve decided, you know, among all those people to work with me just to give it a shot. Because Steve's worked with a lot of software people in the past too, and usually the people he works with give him really great games, I think. I think he has a ton of great software people in his history that have worked with him, including, you know, Larry DeMar and Eugene Jarvis and Dwight Sullivan and Lyman Sheets. So he's just sort of, you know, sees like, OK, Dwight's working on Munsters and Lyman wasn't available because of, you know, he was still working on Batman and stuff. So then Steve just said like, OK, I'll try the kid.
    25:17
    And we had already been talking at work just, you know, at lunchtime and stuff. and everyone at work knows that he's designing Black Knight, and he's drawing, and people are saying, what about this, what about this, like, what's the ideas and stuff? And then I had sort of come along a little bit because in some of the earlier design meetings, he just wanted me to be there, and then finally he decided, okay, I'd like Tim to be my lead software engineer. So I don't know if that's an exciting story, but it's just kind of like, oh, it just happened to work out at work, and now I'm his lead software engineer. I want the kid on my game. Code faster, Timmy. He never said that.
    25:59
    How much, like, how much does the software person have, like, any input on the play field at all? Like, any of your ideas actually physically on the play field, or is it mostly Steve, or is it more of a team effort?
    26:13
    Okay it depends on who working with who The software person can have a lot of influence on the design especially if they working early with the designer on what they want to see in the game Also, a lot of times the designer will come up with a few ideas that, you know, like the designer will come up with something and then a mechanical engineer would have to, like, make sure it's feasible and explain, like, okay, we could do it this way, this reliably for this cost or something. You know, there's always more ideas that can actually fit on the pinball machine as well. So there's always going to be a process of deciding like, okay, what are the best things that can go into this pinball machine? And at that point, the software engineer might say, well, if you change this, this isn't going to work. Or if you want to do this and this, like I have to change a lot of this stuff. But then that's sort of like what the designer will use. They'll use the software engineer's feedback and take it into consideration in deciding what makes the final whitewood of the game. So that's not that exciting. I guess, you know, a software engineer could have a lot of input into the design, but it just hasn't happened yet. I think for at least the games I've been working on where the software engineer is like creating any mechs or creating any shots that hasn't happened yet. But it could like there's no reason it couldn't. Well, how about things like like on the new Black Knight? I know it has the lightning wheel, just like the old one, like the war lanes. Is that is that more of a collaborative effort at one point? You know, we're going to bring back the lightning wheel or just say, you know, I want the lightning wheel from Black Knight 2000 on this one. um so that the lanes he just drew some lanes and i wanted to call them the war lands but that's whatever that's just text that's not really anything steve did put the uh lightning wheel rgb lightning wheel in this game with the 12 inserts i mean steve steve the way he designs is just he is he likes to come up with really great insert patterns especially in the middle the game and he had that lightning wheel for a really long time on the in the design process so and he wanted it to be rgb and but he left it up to me to like what to do with it what to call all those inserts and and how the make the effects work super slings i noticed they're on there super slings are in there timmy trademark the super slings well keith came up with it for the power or no it was super slings in iron maiden yeah but you coded them just say it's yours just take it tim just take it i didn't code i'm rick rick coded him i coded him on this game oh i thought you coded the slings i we always used to say that's timmy sling code it's not no i did the light show for it which turns off the gi for like a 30th of a second every time you hit a slingshot that's all it does okay it's really annoying so when are we gonna see black knight and which ones are we gonna see i asked because i know like monsters they actually had the it was at the show and actually showed like the le first i think they had the le and the pro there so you get to see like both models and i know people have been asking i've heard jack danger basically animate that he's already played it and the stream is coming soon um it's supposed to be at midwest gaming classic i believe i've heard there will be pros there and at least a couple of maybe display models or proto like premiums is there anything you can give us on that or is that all like just just wait and see yeah i think i could reiterate what jack said is that like soon his stream's coming from what i know because if i'm really the one i have to code the game so i i don't want to make any promises on exactly when marketing things happen or when games get made i so yeah sorry i'm not going to confirm 100 that like yes like there's plans of stuff, but we'll see. We want to show the game, obviously. Soon. Well, you think it'll be the pro first?
    30:24
    I can't say. Okay. That's cool. Which one are you looking to get, Ron? Well, it's Black Knight. It has to have the upper playfield. I mean, it just doesn't seem right without the upper playfield. It's Black Knight. So, what about what version you think you're at at this point? You said you think it would be released on like .8 or .9? You want it to be as close to complete? So is it close?
    30:51
    Let's ask some other questions. Okay, okay, okay. That's fine. You got any more? Bruce, are you going to ask anything? I've been waiting for you to shut up. Whoa!
    31:01
    Whoa! I want to get behind the scenes of Stern a little bit. Well, no, we just said we can't do that. No, I'm just going to ask, like, how many meetings do you actually go in a, like, when going through development and that kind of stuff? how many meetings are there for pinball machines and that kind of, I'm not going for like current stuff. I'm saying like when you were built, when you were doing black night, how many meetings did you go through in the beginning? And then, you know, touching base was, you know, just the back scenes a little bit, not don't go into details, but like, you know, say, Hey, I, you know, during week we go through, like we talk, talk based, like, you know, whenever, and that kind of stuff. I just want to know a little bit more behind how Stern can actually make all this happen to bring out a good game in such a short time. Because think about it, as you just said before, you've only been there for 14 months, and you did work before you got on this machine. So this machine probably is about 10 months, maybe nine months in development.
    31:54
    Yeah, this is a great question, Bruce. You should teach Ron how to ask some good questions. Whoa. I'll mute now. Okay. uh yeah so well okay we're set up at stern so that we have the designer the software people the mechanical people the electrical people the artists are all working in-house like full-time so everyone at at any point of the day is working their full hours and they should be available for any questions you know talking to them which is nice because i've worked at a place where a lot of people are remote and sometimes with that it's like okay you can send them a message or try to call them but you might not get back to them right away it's like with at stern like i can go into steve's office at any point in the day which i do i talk to steve every single day about the game and i can say like look at your drawing here this blah blah blah blah blah and he'll say okay yeah this blah blah blah and then he'll come over and say like i've been playing the game and i want to see the light show be a little more like this when you do something i'm like okay i'll add that to the list of features to add and stuff like that so there's every single day there's interaction between uh me and steve and also there's interaction between me and the art team pretty much every single day because it doesn't have to be that way but there's just been a lot of like at least the people who like do like sound and art and stuff they have like pieces that i have to the software people have to integrate and also mechanical has you know they want to see feedback on devices when we're working on any of those pieces those people will want to see like feedback every day of like is this getting in is this getting supported instead of just sort of making something and then sending it to me and then just waiting on me. So I try to keep up with them as well. And then we do have like big, you know, team meetings to like update everyone on the game weekly. And we try to keep up with those. And that might be where like I would interact more with, say, Kevin O'Connor or Greg or someone who's working on a piece that isn't necessarily going to be too affected by anything I do on the game. or that's where I talk to with the um or that's where I get to know about like you know parts being released for production and prototype parts we're getting in and what the dates are for those parts because sometimes we have to make a whitewood and then I have to do something with that whitewood and then I'm expressing like concern or you know explaining like why I need a part as soon as I can and and what is going to affect the development and stuff like that so we have every week we're checking in with all pieces of the team, but then just generally through the design process, it's not just sit in your room all day and code. It's, hey, I've got a question, Steve, two or three times a day. And Steve, hey, Tim, what are you going to do for this two or three times a day? And here's an idea I have in the game. Can you put it in? And I say, oh, yeah, we've got a spot for it. Or I don't know, I'll think about it. Or no, that's not going in the game.
    35:11
    Okay, that's cool. Now, you said that other designers have been, and people have been playing it around the office. and you said the vibe has been very good, which is a great thing. Who's been the most brutal to it? Like who's really kicking some ass on it? I took a look at our high scores, and it looks like Lyman, or at least LFS, got a pretty big score recently. Our testers, Mike Viticore and also Nick Wehner, who was on spring break, so he was able to come in and help test, are always putting up huge scores because they're playing it all day pretty much and trying to find different things about the game. So those guys have a lot. I haven't seen KME as a grand champion yet on the game, although I know he's been playing it, so he may need to play it a little more or something. But the testers are most likely to have the highest scores because they're playing it. I mean, they're putting the most hours into it, where other people have their work to do, so they'll play maybe a game or two. and our testers are very skilled pinball players as well so there's not like it's not like keith just comes by and puts you know grand champion and it plays at once and says i figured out everything about the game he still needs a little bit of time to learn the rules learn the scoring paths and stuff and also everyone gives me feedback in the office on the game some of it's like hey this is missing and i'm like yeah i know this is it's 100 i know and sometimes anyone can find something where it's like, oh, that's interesting, and find a bug and I can fix it.
    36:48
    So how many bugs have you found? Are you surprised how many bugs can pop up? Yeah, I knew. There's like, at least, it depends because, so we have a lead software developer, but we also have support people, support software engineers working on every game. So I was in a support role on Iron Maiden and Deadpool, and in that role, you don't necessarily know exactly how something is supposed to work or something, you know, like the intention of how something's supposed to work. at least for me when i was in those roles i would play the game a lot because then i could kind of figure out on my own like what looked like it wasn't done or what looked like there was a problem to it and then go back to the lead engineer and say hey this is you know i see it seems like there's an issue with this do you have it covered and if he said yes or no that i can say well i could take this part over or i can work on this part with someone else but on the game it's like so we're sending code every day not like at a at a release milestone so every single night i'm just sending code and maybe someone left for that night and only got something halfway implemented or they like did their first pass on it and it's not done so a lot of it will be like hey this is not done and then someone be like yep yeah yeah i just did you know i got to a checkpoint i checked it in it's not done i'm gonna fix it for tomorrow so there's stuff like that so that's not surprising the number of bugs or anything, I guess, just compared to any sort of software development or game development project, I guess. But it's, yeah, it's not surprising. I don't know. I have no interesting answer there. So, Tim, the question everyone wants to know, does it have flow?
    38:43
    Oh, of course. It's a Steve Rich again. I just need to make sure, you know. And one more question about the – I just – I see this coming up a lot on people that have seen, like, the video and the pictures. There seems to be some concern about – as you know, Black Knight 2000 was a very right-flipper-centric game. You could say you could probably take the left flipper off and still get a good score on it. And just a lot of the posts I'm reading that people are concerned about, like, it might be too right-flippery. like the left flipper doesn't do anything okay so i mean they're wrong first of all but i mean okay imagine that you have okay you're playing black knight 2000 you shoot the ramp and then the ball comes down to the right in lane and then you shoot the ramp again okay so you don't hit the left flipper there on black knight sort of rage the ball comes down to the right in lane and you shoot the flail and then where does the ball go you have no idea like you're you're not going to just take your hand off the left flipper for when the flail shoots the ball at the left flipper so there's just more things in the game that aren't going to make the ball just always come to the right flipper now steve definitely prefers right flipper feeds steve's left-handed but he's observed that most people are right-handed and most people make shots better on their right hand. He'll put upper flippers on the right side usually. I don't think he's ever put just one flipper on the left in any of his games. I can't remember one where he has. He favors the right side, but I'm looking at the audits of flipper activations, and it's not like it's 3-1, right flipper to left flipper. It's much closer to even. See, great question. Right, Bruce?
    40:39
    Bruce is still here. Yeah. No, I was letting you just hang for a few seconds. You know, that's the kind of guy. Thanks.
    40:47
    I just figured I've seen that come up a bunch when people start looking at the play field. Like, oh, it only feeds the right size. Is it going to be like just I use the right flipper and never anything else? So I figured what better person to talk to who's played. I mean, how many times have you played this thing? Thousands of times by now?
    41:03
    Yeah. Yeah, well, it's hard to just, I mean, it's hard to call it a game either because I'm playing sort of in a state of like semi-flipping, semi-catching the ball, semi-touching switches and stuff all the time. So it's not like playing real glass on games when I'm at work. But yeah, I am flipping it. And what people don't see, of course, is the natural feeds to the left flipper. And they'll never see that because they can only really see the wire form. unless they've got a really, really good sense of the geometry and how the ball's going to bounce off the rubber. And the post and stuff, they're not going to see when the ball's going to go to the left flipper, which, I mean, that makes sense. But people aren't post passing, like, right to left all the time to shoot shots from the left flipper. They're just getting the ball to the left flipper naturally in the game.
    41:54
    Bruce. Yes? Any other questions? If you go by the normal thing for Stern, you know, of first pro being built, of course, and then it's going to be the LE and then the premiums. So I'm assuming within the next month we'll be seeing the first game coming down the line. Do you plan on any tidbits from your personality in the game?
    42:20
    Tidbits from my personality in the game? What does that mean, Bruce? Like, you know, your own rules. Like, you know, I know you want to be different than everyone else's rules in some ways, but you want to use the good parts of good designers' rules. Like, Lyman has great rules in certain things, and so does everyone else. Do you want to make, like, your own rule? Like, you know, is there one rule in the game that's going to say Tim?
    42:46
    Well, people will start to feel that way as I make more games. This isn't a good answer to your question, but I didn't really understand it. He's asking the Timmy style when literally this is your first game as lead. So he's still developing his style, I would say. I know, but does he have a rule in there that's going to be like, people are going to say, oh, wow, that's totally original. That's the Timmy double-doubler rule or something like that? Is that something like that is what you're thinking of? Like, oh, you know, Tim made that up, and now everyone uses that. Yeah. Right now, I have no intention of just doing the same thing from game to game. However, it may happen that as I make more games that there's a style that people pick up on that gets transferred from game to game, or at least the rule set philosophy follows a similar style or something like that. because I can I mean I can definitely feel the style of at least our lead developers like what feels like a Lottie game what feels like a Dwight game what feels like a Lyman game just just sort of based on how they how they approach their rule design like how they take a play field and and make it into a game like I can feel something there and I'm sure that you know and you can feel the same thing when you play a game designed by someone like Ron loves Steve Ritchie games because he loves some signature things about Steve Ritchie games I imagine and there are just things that stick with a person but I don't know as as a game designer I don't want to deliberately put in like oh this is my thing that because that'll just happen and you know I want people to feel like they're playing different games every time they play a game that I wind up developing The other answer is like, yeah, I plan on being lean on more games, and that would be great. Right now it's going to be working on finishing up this game and getting it to its 100% perfect, most fun game it could get to. Okay, a couple more questions for me then. Is there anything like you said, we need this in this game? I don't know if originally maybe the pro didn't have spinners, like we need spinners or something like that, or nah, not really.
    45:10
    You're talking about just mechs? Or anything. Like, honestly, when you look at the Black Knight, the mech itself, it's probably one of the most interactive mechs we've seen from Stern since Big Buck Hunter. Yeah. We were talking about it, actually, at the bar yesterday. You know, like, what other interactive mech have we seen? And Todd from, you know, was like, you know, oh, boy, it's got to be like Big Buck Hunter. and it's nice to see that interactive and the originality from that yeah so at least on the concept of any mech or anything in the game no for me i didn't say that we should put this here or something but it's also like it's not how steve works either where like if he's making a shot or something he's already thought about what could be on that shot like could a spitter be here would it work how would he how would he mount it how would he put the holes in for the plastics and you know how would he change his his ball guide mounting points and all that sort of stuff so steve's already way ahead of me on that the thing i have input on is like how i want the mech to behave and that was for that center mech that was completely up to me on like the behavior of it i mean we had okay it could spin forward okay it could spin backward and then um we had to do the code of like how do we get it to stop open precisely how do we get it to stop close precisely if you not if you bash into it and it moves then we have code to um rotate it once again to like a pure vertical position on the shield that was just like okay a coil can open it or close it but then we noticed like sometimes you'd lob a ball up there and you'd break the opto and that would open the shield we said oh it's really cool when it bashes the shield so then we could set the Set the node board to have, like, a real-time, oh, when you break that off to a fire, the coil code so that you can configure the node board that way, and then it would go, bam, you know, knock the ball back to the flipper and something like that. So, like, adding that functionality was, you know, on my end. And then with the night mask, Steve just gives, like, I mean, he designed it, and then he has a sculptor make the sculpt. and then he says here's what i want i want the knight to say things in different colors and when he screams his eyes kind of alternate or when he if he says wink wink he'll wink wink at you so he just said set up to give me the individual lamp control and then let me decide what to do with it and then i decided to go with like a a speech driven talking system so that every single thing the Black Knight says is turned into a click track that generates the output of the LEDs as well as the color for him talking in the game, so it looks like he's talking in real time based on the speech call that's playing. That's sort of my input in the game, and that's plenty to do. Oh, yeah. So the eyes flash when he talks. Yeah. Cool. How about a couple more things about the play how about the the fire thing this is like the back panel it's going to be an effect where it's like on fire simulating the castle burning yeah that's uh that's an awesome like looking fire panel i guess it's like this is one panel that has a bunch of leds on it and then when you put sort of like something to mask like if you if you look at it just as the leds you have you know kind of looks like fire when you sort of mask it with plastic it looks a lot more like hey there's fire burning back there. And there's different types of electronic fire light toys. You see them at like when you go looking for stuff at Halloween. But this was just sort of like one strip we could put on there. And yeah, it looks nice.
    49:10
    What can you tell us about the topper? Nothing. Damn! But Steve told us some stuff. It's supposed to like turn left and right and like, it's If it says no way, it will actually shake his head. He basically flat out said this is going to be the best hopper that we've ever done. Cool. Sounds awesome.
    49:34
    Says the guy, you'll have to code it, but okay. No way. I should put that clip in there whenever I ask something. Just no way. No way.
    49:43
    So how is Chicago treating you, sir? Thanks, Bruce. It snowed last night. and it's almost april but uh yeah it's good there's a lot of you know arcade barcades over here like logan arcade which just won the the twippy award and there's a big pinball community both in the suburbs and in the city i guess there's a lot of people here so i've played in places like the galloping ghost arcade have you heard of that place i have i have they've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of classic arcade games. It's almost a little depressing to walk in because it's sort of a relic to the booming Chicago coin-op industry of the 80s and 90s that doesn't exist the same way it existed back then. It's a lot smaller, but it was awesome to see a row of George Gomez games and play games that other people I work with have worked on in the past. so there's just a lot of cool places related to pinball and arcades in the area the city is nice, it's great in the summertime makes you forget how cold it is in the winter but luckily most of this winter I've been just working on the game anyhow so I haven't really needed to go outside and brave the minus 23 degree air temperature days that happens we actually had to shut down Stern one time because it was so dreadfully cold that they just, you know, they weren't sure, like, the water was going to work.
    51:20
    Yikes. The pipes would have just freezed. I think Keith just walked in without shorts, and they said, okay, it's too cold, and they just shut down. Yeah, that's usually – Gary checks to see, like, if Keith's wearing pants that, you know, he's checking the weather to see if they need to keep it open or not.
    51:35
    How about the NYC PC, Tim? What can you tell us about the New York City Pinball Championships? I hear you're involved with that. yeah probably a little less than i was in the past but it's going to be awesome we've got our you know we're working on our like finalized production schedule of everything uh we got some sample of t-shirts that just came out there's just a lot of things that are rolling out for that again people went last year and thought it was a great show they should believe the same thing it's going to be another great show this year we've got more space a lot more space we'll have more games. We'll have more games on FreePlay too, kind of like a dedicated area for that so that people in New York City who aren't competitive players can still come in and play some games and see sort of the spectacle of competitive pinball and how we've had it all laid out. It should be a better viewing experience and a better playing experience for everyone, we hope. We hope everything's going to go great. Obviously, it's going to be a lot of work It already is a lot of work every year to do it But yeah It going to be fun You signed up right Ron I am signed up I think Bruce is And Bruce is signed up too That good He didn't make it last year, which was unfortunate. We all missed Bruce, Nightingale. I know I did. Yeah. We're missing him right now as he's on mute or walked away. No, no. Better security, I hope. We have a doorman for the event. Good. That's very good.
    53:02
    No, I'm planning. I got my, unfortunately I have a dilemma right now, guys. I have a major dilemma. Pinberg. Tim, are you going? Yes. Good. Very good. That's great. I know Ron and his dad, and I am. And that is August 1st to the 4th. Guess who's playing in Pittsburgh August 1st?
    53:24
    Yellow. The Pirates. Yellow. The concert starts at 8 o'clock. Pinberg round five starts at 830. So, hmm.
    53:40
    I don't really see a decision here. Pinberg all the way. What? Yeah, Pinberg. Yeah. Wow. What's the matter with you? Wow. So, Tim, are you going to have more time now to actually play in tournaments? Your ranking has been plummeting. I know. It's down to the second page two or whatever.
    53:58
    Yeah, I'll have more time. I'll be free to have more time. The summer is usually the time where there are a lot more pinball tournaments anyhow.
    54:07
    There's not that many from... I guess I played in the 24-hour battle in November, and then I haven't really played at anything since then, but there have been a ton, besides Texas and the Las Vegas ones this weekend. But yeah, I'll be back on it. Pinberg for sure. Seeing about maybe Pintastic I could go. Things like that. I'm sort of looking towards the summer right now and seeing what couple of pinball tournaments I could get out to. You might even have to actually be like in a, like, Pintastic for like a panel thing or something like that. Yes, show organizers, sign this man up. Yes. He made me want to buy this game within five minutes, and I haven't even played it. I know. Sign this man up. That's the way I'm looking at it. We might see Tim more at shows because of the game itself. Yeah. But, you know, it's hard to say this without putting anyone down, But, you know, I've seen a lot of the industry heavyweights at these shows, and a lot of them will do the same speech or the same things, same thing every show. And it would be nice to hear something new. Wink, wink, hint, hint. You know, I'd like to do sort of a presentation. I'm trying to collect some pictures of Steve from when he was younger and when he was designing some games and then put some of my baby pics in there as well to show kind of the evolution of how the Black Knight was formed. You know, and have a middle-aged Steve standing next to a Star Trek Next Generation as I'm a baby wearing, like, a Rangers Stanley Cup Final Championship outfit with a little hockey stick. Very good, Timmy. Very funny. Yes. Yeah. So is there a lot of practical joking on that at Stern? I mean, I noticed, like, was it Halloween you were dressed as Steve? Yes. Yeah, Steve went to George, and he asked him if George could make me wear that every single day.
    56:03
    If people don't know, they both dressed exactly like Steve. Well, Steve didn't know I was doing that. Oh, that would have been class. No one knew except for Keith, I think. Steve primarily dresses in black, so Tim was in all black. With sunglasses. and his beard, which people said, hey, that's not really Steve Ritchie. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Steve Ritchie used to have a beard probably for most of his career. He's Steve Ritchie classic. Steve wears pretty much the same thing every single day, except for one day when I told him, this was like two months into me starting, I told him that he should check out the show on Netflix called Queer Eye.
    56:44
    Oh, boy. Trying to get a little more color into people's closets. and he came in wearing a tie-dye shirt the next day. Yeah.
    56:53
    Oh, my. All black. And I think he has to get rolled with one of those dog hair lint roller sort of things to make sure there's no lint showing up on any of his clothing so he can be dressed in pure 100% black. Nice. You are in so much trouble now, Jim. You better hope they don't release this. I'm really pissed at you.
    57:17
    But yeah, the Steve outfit, it's black Skechers, black skinny jeans, black long-sleeved top, black sunglasses, and then a gigantic shiny watch that you have to wear in your right hand. That's the perfect Steve look. Oh, yeah, and then you have to get the Flobie haircut going.
    57:37
    And then you got to sort of – I put some pomade in it to get it to go up for me. Wow, wow. Oh, man. I have to ask this here. So if the world-famous Rock Fantasy gets one of these, are you going to go to the launch party, like the conquering hero returning home?
    57:59
    Oh, man. Well, we'll have the launch party weekend. There's usually the Logan launch party here, too, which is where we have our Chicago launch parties, and that's usually where the Stern people go and Jack Danger's there. But I wouldn't rule out a revisit to the world-famous rock fantasy in my future.
    58:19
    Cool. That's going to be wild. Yeah. Wow. I heard they got Scott Ian. Wow. It's metal. I have to buy it now. Yeah.
    58:36
    Well, it is metal. There's no question that it is metal The game It's everything It's like the music pin Black Knight was never a music pin But it was always known for its music It was before we could do Music pins like Guns N' Roses Maybe it was one of the first music pins I think You can say Rolling Stones and Kiss But you get the That's not really much music there I almost forgot to ask this because this was mentioned in the flyer, the promotional materials. It mentions a retro mode. What's that all about? It has the sounds of original Black Knight. Original or Black Knight 2000? Original. Wow, so not even Black Knight 2000. Okay. But it's a hybrid retro mode. It has a retro version of the Black Knight 2000 song playing, and then it has switch sounds of Black Knight. Like it has the spinner sound from Black Knight. Like kind of like Deadpool did with the – it uses a lot of the sounds like for the spinner or a lot of the background sounds from like I think Firepower. Deadpool integrated it into the whole game.
    59:56
    But this is a mode. This is just in the mode, yeah. Okay. So there's like the whole modern sound package for the main game and then you spell knight by completing major game features, and then you can start the knight mode, and then it takes you back to Black Knight, and you get the whole retro sound package. Okay. Is that on all three models? Yeah. The knight spell, that's on all of them, yeah. Now, the coolest thing I actually saw on the game is the Magna Save coming back. Mm-hmm. Oh, but are you sure, Bruce? Because everyone was complaining because it's the action button, and there's not an extra button on the side. Is that a bad thing for you? No, actually, the reason why I don't mind it, I do, but I don't. But the thing is, it's the first time we've actually seen a magnet from Stern that's not exposed on the play field in a long time, I think. Guardians had it, too. Sorry, Bruce. Oh, that's right. And the LE had more than one. Sorry. That's right. But, I mean, controllable. Controllable. Is it the last Magna save since World Cup Soccer? Or doesn't Theater Magic have one? I'm trying to think the last time that was used. Yeah, it's opto-activated in TV. Yeah, I think the last one for it is World Cup Soccer. That's controlled, which no one ever uses. I can speak to it as for being on the lockdown bar. So that's something I 100% think is the right way to go. Just because I understand the pinball traditionalists, I guess, have a knee jerk. We knew the pinball traditionalists would have a knee jerk thing of like, oh, Magnus seems always on the side by your hand. I'm a player who's played a thousand hours of pinball. Of course I know it's there. But a lot of people, like this is a whole new generation game, a lot of people just don't hit that button. I mean, I forget it's there half the time when I'm playing. and the lockdown bar button, at least, even if someone doesn't hit it, at least they'll probably hit it by accident and it will be such a big thing that they might remember it. And if we just put it on the side, not as many new players would be able to get to it. So that was the reasoning. It's right there. It's in your face. It says MagnaSave. If you hit it, you get the big sound effects and the shaker motor. It's probably illuminated, I would assume. Yep, it's illuminated. It's flashing. So Steve and I both said, like, this is the place for it. It's on the lockdown bar. We have this button. And it's great because when we look at, you know, casual players, they're like people play at shows. And a lot of time when people play at shows, they're not necessarily the type of person who would walk into an arcade and play the game. But it's there at the show. It's for free. And we see what they do. And a lot of times the first thing they hit is that lockdown bar button because it's the most, like, you know, the lights in their face. It's pointed most toward the player. and if that starts games and that launches balls and that save you know that does magna save they'll get to see all those features because that's the first place they'll go even before they pull the plunger which you know it's all second nature to us experienced pinball players people would sooner hit the top button than they do pull a plunger even though you're like well it's so obvious the ball is there you pull the plunger but sometimes people just don't see where the ball is and they hit a button, boom, there's the ball.
    63:20
    I actually like it. You're going to have to take your hand off and reach all the way over to hit it to decide whether you want to use it or not. So, yeah, it's on the right side. Use your left hand. Once you get used to it, it'll be fine. Yeah. I would think from a cost perspective it's better because you already have – I mean, it's been used on God knows how many games now as opposed to drilling more holes in the cabinet, although they did do that for Monsters Premium. Yeah, no, we could have done it on the cabinet, but we chose deliberately to put it on the lockdown bar. Good choice. Mm-hmm. Now, do we have anything else for Timmy? Because Timmy's a busy man. He actually has to get back to work. It's a Sunday, and it never ends. It never ends. No, it doesn't.
    64:02
    Well, then there's just another game. Yeah, there'll just be another game. There's more work to do at Stern. That's the case right now. Well, that's been the case for a long time. Stern's been cranking out games. And good games. Yes. We do miss you though, Tim. We do miss you, Tim. And I really hope to see some Black Knights at the New York City Pinball Championships. Yeah, it would be awesome. That would be pretty awesome. But I'll leave you with this because we apologize to anyone who didn't like our trolling at the beginning of the episode, but I thought it was fun. I did too. But I thought I would end with this because Timmy knows how nice the Internet is and how people are always nice with their comments. So I figured I could read this one comment. I have a video, and this does pertain to Black Knight in a way. I have one of my first gameplay videos I ever put on YouTube, back in the days where you could only put like 10-minute videos on, if anyone remembers those days. This is from like 2009. I had a gameplay video of Black Knight 2000, right? And it's got like 60,000 views. It's one of my higher viewed videos. See, everyone loves the music. And I noticed like somebody left a comment. It's the first time anyone's left a comment on this video, in like years. And this is from Mr. X, 1992.
    65:16
    He says, terrible video quality. Cannot even see the score. I would just like to say, bite me, Mr. X.
    65:26
    This video was made like pre-high def, for Christ's sake. This is from 10 years ago. And you know what the funny thing is? I can see the score on my effing phone. So I don't know how he can't see the score. So screw you, Mr. X. Flip phone. He had a fucking flip phone. Yeah, he had a flip phone. That was it. So thank you, Timmy. We really appreciate padding your record for most appearances. Yes, he has. You are welcome anytime. What happened to Greg Pavarelli? I thought he was supposed to take the record. Oh, nah. He's too drunk. He's too drunk to get on a lot, yeah. Yep.
    66:03
    Well, hopefully we'll see. We'll get, you know, when the game is actually released and you're starting to do the circuit again where you can actually talk a little bit more about stuff. We'll get you back on, sir. All right, awesome. Yeah, you guys will – it's always hard to explain. The game is the thing that wins at the end, so of course what I want is for people to play the game. And that will happen. We'll build them up. We'll ship them. People will play them, and they'll love it, I think, I hope. And no one on the internet will be mean to me, that's for sure. No, never. Never. I have 30 pages of Pinside talking about this game. that no one has played yet. Yep. Yeah. Loop champion. Loop champion, Tim. Loop champion.
    66:49
    Oh, actually, does it have a loop champion, like, in the high score? Because it does have that loop in the upper play field.
    66:55
    Secrets will be revealed. Oh, yeah. Oh, excellent. Yes. Thank you, Timmy. Yep. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, Bruce. Bye, guys. Bye. Thank you. Bye.
    67:06
    Oh, that was good. I like that. Timber! You have way better questions than me. Well, because I was thinking about it for the past week and a half after we told me we got Tim on. I was like, oh, I've got to start asking. Timber balls! I actually started asking people at the bar who come in, and the one question I was going to ask, he already answered, was about the retro mode. That was from Todd. I can't wait. So, are you ready for Stomp, baby?
    67:36
    Yes, I have a checklist of stuff here other than what we just talked about. And yes, I am ready for Stomp. Yes. I have acquiesced to Bruce's demands. I am bringing the rig. Yes, I am moving games starting tomorrow. Excellent.
    67:49
    I mean, please tell me that Hot Doggin is not still there. Hot Doggin is still here. Damn it. Maybe no one will pick it. Maybe. If not, don't worry about it because we'll have many games and many people playing. Yeah. I was actually thinking about taking out hot-dogging soon and actually replacing it with another Stern. A game that might earn? Actually, hot-dogging does really well. Really? Oh, my God. People love skiing and 70s mustaches? You got it. Wow. I've totally misjudged the public. Again. Yes, you have. Again. That's why I don't own a bar. Yes. Trust me. You don't want to own a bar.
    68:29
    My hour load has gone up and up and up. You said load. Load. But, yo, hot-dogging is done really well. But I might bring a surprise game in and take one out. We actually brought in Whodunit this week. I see that. And it died last night. Oh. But I've got to rebuild the driver board. Unfortunately, the 12 volts crapped out on it. So it's just a bridge rectifier and a cap, and I have them downstairs. So I'm going to be playing with that this week. Speaking of whodunit. Oh, yes. To answer, or we found the answer to a question that we had on our last podcast. Okay. Which was the skill shot, the Congo skill shot that two players didn't get back. Okay. It is because they had moved the free spin over to the left out lane.
    69:25
    And that's actually considered a switch? So, no, when they hit the switch, it does the animation of the reels.
    69:32
    The ball saver is still going during that animation. So if the animation takes too long, you lose the ball saver and the ball's over. Wow.
    69:41
    And I was able to replicate this. And thank you, Raymond Davidson. Thank you, Raymond. Who told me about that. And I was able to replicate it on my whodunit. It doesn't always do it. It depends on, like, what award comes up and how long it takes. But yes, the animation takes too long, and the ball saver is running during the animation. So if you're going to do a skill shot, and you're probably going to get the ball back anyway, don't move your free spin over to the left out lane in case it goes there, because you may not get it back.
    70:13
    No. Stop. Yes, stop. We have 21 players registered and confirmed. Pre-registration ends this Thursday. I don't know. Ron should have this out before Thursday, I think. We'll try. And I got some more New York City people interested, so hopefully we get a couple more people up here. I know Alberto's asked about it. Up where? Where is this located? At the Silver Ball Saloon, 135 West Commercial Street in East Rochester, New York. Woo-hoo! We will be streamed. It's going to be awesome. I only have one request for you, Bruce. What is that? Am I going to stream from the back? You're putting, like, a table in the back? That's fine. Actually, I'd rather do that. It would be out of the way. Can you get me a surge strip and power back there? Yes. Okay. Because I can't. I usually, if you remember, I usually bring my own surge strip, but it's actually in use now. I cannot. Because otherwise I'd have to buy one, and I'm cheap. No, I got plenty of them. And do you still have a free port I can use so we can plug in? I have a 100-foot Ethernet cable, which should reach from there. It should, yes. It was only 40 or 50 feet back to the library. Well, I had a 50-footer when we did the live podcast, and it just didn't reach, if you remember, and we did wireless. So the 100 should 100% reach. Yeah. Now, which corner would you like in the back of the bar? Would you like going down the aisle? Right, because the piano's gone now. I don't know. Would you like the right-hand side or the left-hand side? The right-hand side probably would be better. Yeah.
    71:43
    Because you won't see – if I have to go back and repair, I won't be getting in the way of that kind of stuff. Sure. Whatever you think is best, Bruce. I will move you to the right. I have to move some stuff around. But I have to move some stuff around anyway because... Because right now the rig is set for maximum, like, cheetah big game width. I really don't want to make it any wider because then that will make it more difficult to fit in between the other games, which would mean you'd have to move stuff even more, and I don't want you to have to do that. Like, it will fit... Like, William's super pins, it'll fit fine. We have none of those anymore. Oh. Bummer. You were happy about that. Really? I thought you had a demo man there one time. I did, but that's gone. It's been gone a while. But no, the last one was IJ. Oh, yeah, that's good. Yeah. Get rid of that thing. I agree. And the game that I ordered is not going to be here in time. You ordered a game? I ordered a game. It was on our poll. Our poll. Hey, poll results are one of my notes. Do you remember the poll? The poll was which is better, Star Wars? or what we said, which do you think would be better for a location? Star Wars or Batman 66? And then you did it twice. You asked non-pinball players the same question. Yes. And we got the same result. Yes. Which is bullshit.
    73:06
    I don't think they're non-pinball players. I think they lied. No, there was a lot of non-pinball players if you looked at the poll itself. So Batman 66 or Star Wars, and the winner is? Batman 66. By what? It was a slaughter. It was a slaughter on one side. The non-pinball players was actually closer. It was like 54 to 46.
    73:27
    But the pinball players have spoken powerfully. Yeah. What was it? 81% to 19%. Oh, well. I tried. And so did Zach. You and Zach both did. Yeah. They just don't realize the awesomeness of Star Wars. You just got to give it a chance.
    73:47
    Yeah. The problem is. Don't you want a high-impact, high-octane, fun-filled, action-packed game of Star Wars that lasts like a couple minutes? Or do you want a slow, boring, hour-long game of Batman 66? Make it hard. Make the Batman hard, and then you'll make it easy. Make it hard. Okay. But, yeah, so that's the thing. Unfortunately, Stern is making them in April. So I will be having it hopefully late April. Ah. But that's a good thing for everyone to know now. That's good. Come to Silver Ball Saloon to play some Batman 66.
    74:22
    And we got the whodunit, of course, in. I have to repair that today. What else is... Nothing else is new. I got a couple things. The dialed-in standard that is in our league. Yes. The thing on top of it, the little flasher thing that I thought was a mod because it looked so bad. Okay. It's not a mod. Oh, no. That's stock. Oh, no. Yep. It's stock on the standard. But hardly anyone's seen Standard, so they didn't even know. Yikes. Zoinks. It's like literally it's got a flasher thing, and you can see all the wiring coming out of it. It goes to the back of the game. It just doesn't look that good. I was just very surprised. But the LE looks great. Yes, it does. Maybe that's like, see? Look how much better the LE is. That's what you want. So Ron's going to be putting a deposit down for Black Knight. No. No? I have to play the game. I would have wanted the LE artwork, honestly, and there's no way I can get an LE before I actually play it because it would already be sold out. You can just buy it and then go from there. Just buy it and just don't take it out of the box and then just sell it if I don't like the game. Is that what you're going to say? There you go. Yep. But if you go by Pinside, I was laughing at Pinside, how many people are critical or complaining, talking about this game that no one has played in the general public. And it just proves how many wackos are in this world. There's a lot of wackos in this world. Yeah. It's just, oh, my God. And as Tim just said before, he was like, you know, oh, hope nobody's critical of me or makes fun of me. You know, yeah. It's like, what the fuck are these people thinking?
    76:01
    You know what happened yesterday, Bruce? What happened yesterday? Whipped tickets went on sale. And that's for the Women's International Pinball Tournament. Which grew from 64 players to 128 players. Did it sell out, Bruce? Yeah, in the Pinberg-style time. Speed, one minute. One minute. So congratulations, guys. That was a great... Gals. I say guys, everyone. Yes, you do. He does, folks. So it's not like I'm being... No, no, he just says guys for everything. but that was a very impressive very powerful statement stating like look pinball is alive with all for everyone and they just kicked ass with it and last year's tournament was incredible to watch i hope we have more streaming of it that would be the thing i would like to see for sunday and speaking of that this this weekend as we as we speak i believe there's tournament pinball going on in Las Vegas. There is. Because they had the Nationals and Women's Championship on, was that Thursday? I think it was Thursday. Yeah, it was Thursday. And the women's winner was Carrie Wing. Yep. And then the men's final was interesting. They had a bracket like online. And it finished really late because it's like in Vegas, so I wasn't up for the ending. And it had like Zach Sharp up 3-2 and then no other updates. So I figured he probably won, and they just didn't bother to update it because they all wanted to go home because they were tired.
    77:38
    And that's what I believe happened because Zach Sharp won. He did. He's the Nationals champion. And North American champion. And then they did the Pinmasters. Yes. The Pinmasters is how many? There's a lot of people. What was it, like 70-something? Yeah, something like that. Something like that. and they play over the course of two days. They play nine holes on Friday and nine holes on Saturday to get to the top 16, and then they have the playoffs today. Playoffs? Playoffs! So that's going on, so I have no idea when yet. Nope, not at all. So we won't know the winner until our next podcast, whenever that may be. Who knows? Whenever we feel like it. Yeah. It's cool, though. I don't have to talk about TPF. I already did. There you go. I know. Do you have a good time now? Oh, yeah. I was with Marty and all that. I was on Marty's stream, the Melbourne Silver Ball League Twitch channel, and people were asking me to do Stewie impressions and stuff.
    78:45
    Yeah. It's like, do Stewie. Do this. Do that. My favorite part is Marty, he tried to do an alley pass and failed, so I got up right after him and just immediately did an alley pass It like is this what you trying to do Like a dick Oh wow That was a dick I sorry That was a dick move I love it But it was good yeah My inner Bruce like this is something Bruce would do Well, except you would have failed at the alley pass, but, you know. I've been getting better at my alley passes. I don't like them still. I love that. I prefer doing alley passing over tap passing. That's for damn sure. Oh, I love tap passing. That's my favorite. Yeah. Alley passing is easier to not screw up. I like post-passing, too. Well, post-passing is old reliable. That's the first attempt. Always try the post-pass first and see if it works. But tap is my favorite next step to that. Because it's the tap. Because you're in a bar. It makes perfect sense. There you go. I'm at the bar right now, of course. Of course you are. God. Stop is going to be great. It's going to be next weekend. It is. We have 11 spots left. 11 spots left, folks. April 6th. Come on down. There'll be a surprise game here, though. I'm going to take out one. And no one's going to know the rules, really. So that's a hint. No one's going to know the rules. You can actually guess, Ron, since it'll be so close.
    80:09
    No one's going to know the rules. So it's got to be a game that just came out. No. No one's going to know the rules. You even said this to me many times.
    80:20
    Oh, what, some game I didn't want you to bring in? so you're going to bring it in? Of course. What did I say? I said that more than one occasion. I own the game. Is it some weird ballet game? Nope. Weird Stern game? Yep. But you already have Gamitron there. Yep. Oh, you're going to bring that. I am. So you're going to force me to film the back box sitting there idle while people don't realize they're supposed to do things. Yes. We're, of course, talking about Toast, also better known as Catacomb. Poor Steph's going to kill me because she's going to be like, I'm going to play Toast. And she's going to be down at Rock Fantasy, unfortunately. Not unfortunately because they're going to be having a women's tournament. Bells and Chimes. Bells and Chimes tournament at Rock Fantasy. So if you are closer to that area and you are a female, check it out. Also April 6th. And I have signed up for something on Thursday, the 16th of April. I think it was the 16th. Hold on. I'm going to check my dates.
    81:25
    18th. April 18th. Thursday. Thursday the 18th. And what did you sign up for? Ron's house. You're literally going to come up here for that? Yes. You're going to like, so I have all these pinball newbies, many of them getting much better from my league, who I'm trying to show my awesome place to. And then Bruce is going to come in and destroy everyone and be a dick. You suck. You're so mean. I am. They're not going to want to play pinball now. No, because I want them to look. I'm going to give out free drink tickets to the bar. Okay. And they will feel the full force of Bruce. Yes. For Stomp, we have Jerry Bernard coming up. And Towley's going to be up. So we have some good players there. If you want to play with the best players in New York State, you need to get your ass to Stomp. Wow. Okay. That's the easy way to say it. Um, what's not going to be easy is me doing anything in April after this upcoming weekend. Because we do our system, we have our system conversion that is happening the 12th through the 14th. It's basically, I will be working every single day all the way to the end of the month. Hey, welcome to my life. Yeah, seven days a week. I did manage to switch around and I will have to double shift and work like 16 hours or whatever in a couple days. So I can still do Allentown. Oh, good, because I am going to be going to Allentown. So I will be at Allentown, like, the 3rd and the 4th, and then Sunday the 5th, right back at work. Yay!
    82:57
    Well, here's the funny thing. I'm going to go to the Ohio Pinball Show. Ohio Pinball Show is this week coming up. It's Thursday through Sunday, right by Cayuga Falls. Yes. so uh i'm going to drive down after work thursday stay in a hotel go there friday morning till like 12 or 1 and then leave and then come back to bar yep that's you just to go for parts and see if i can find a good deal or two speaking of parts i did order your lift trim oh so i'll have it for hopefully it will arrive by the time i leave so it's got to be here by thursday all right we'll miss it. And then I think we need to buy another back glass soon.
    83:40
    Yeah, that went pretty well. Yeah, so I think we need to do a big game. It takes a while, but oh yeah, big game. What do you think? Because mine is trash. Yeah, my red is starting to really... My red, there is no red. Yeah, you have no red. I have no red. I use red bulbs where the red used to be. So bad. So I think that might be the next one. So if anybody wants to get a back glass done from BG Restorations, highly recommend it. Yeah, they came out good, and I believe that's what's in the Quicksilver, because it's got the same film over. I think it's Wabiji Resto. Yeah. I was going to mention, I did get the, I have a color DMD on the way for my whodunit. I had to do it. That's what we have at the bar. I love my whodunit. Told you. You know what it's time for? Something we couldn't do on our last show? What's that? The mail pullback. I knew you'd be excited. Yes. Hold on. Wait for it.
    84:36
    Okay. The first email from Andrew Clark. Woo! He did the thing we were asking about, like, how long have we been on? How long have you been stuck talking to me? Yep. It's going to be the comment, actually. So I hope I'm reading this correctly. Because this point, so it says 50.94. That means 50.94 seconds. So if I'm reading this right, it's 194 hours, 40 minutes, 50.94 seconds. Okay, so let's get the calculator out and see how many days you've actually been stuck with me.
    85:17
    Eight days. We've talked for eight days. We've talked for eight straight fucking days. Wow.
    85:25
    Damn. I don't know if you feel sorry for the people or you. Wow. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Oh, man. Thank you. That was a lot of work there. Holy shit. That's a long time.
    85:45
    Now times that by, okay, so eight days times that by four hours for each day, for each time you've edited.
    85:55
    Oh, well, it doesn't take four hours every time. Let's do three. Let's just say three. So 194 times 3 is 582. Say it's 3 hours per episode, and we've had 125 episodes.
    86:11
    So that's 375 hours divided by 24, 15 days of editing. Wow. Wow, when you put it like that, it's – I have a right to bitch, damn it. No, you don't.
    86:28
    Bite me. I fucking laughed my ass off today. Oh, I miss you so much, brother. I really do. By the way, I love the subject line that Andrew used. How long?
    86:45
    Tickter. Wall. Okay. Pinball. This is from David Peck. Hi, Dave. Favorite New Zealander, or if you're Bruce, Australian. No, he's from the continent of Australia. That's all I'm saying. Okay. Well, the university thinks it is. He puts a smiley face because I think Danny Peck got in on a – or had – they did something with pinball. They recognized it as a sport in her university. See? Yeah, yeah. Boy, I have been right so many times lately. It's just like not even fucking funny. Yeah.
    87:21
    Let me read the whole thing here, though. It's from competitive pinball is a sport. According to Auckland University, it is. Danny Peck has been accepted to the University of Auckland High Performance Sport Program.
    87:32
    There you go. So you're not going to get against, you know, Australians and New Zealanders. Whatever. Yeah, it's a sport. Great. It's not a sport. This next one is from Ryan. Hello, Ryan. Ryan from Wisconsin.
    87:48
    Oh, he's reiterating. Yeah. Hey, boys, regarding the flasher on top of Dialed In, you saw. That is actually from the factory. It only comes with a standard edition for some reason. There was a little bit of grumbling when the game was first released, but I think it died down since most people bought the LEs anyway. It is strange that it wasn't offered with the LEs since no topper came with the game. Yeah, no topper. I'm still pissed with that. Why is there no topper from I dialed in? That's funny. Fail. Let's see. Then we have, well, I just want to give a shout out to the email here from Aaron Pennington. Hi, Aaron. who wanted to hook up at the show, and of course I failed, as I always do. I forgot to text him, but he had a few games. Well, his dad brought a Stern Galaxy, his brother had a Stern Dracula, and he brought a Stargate. Okay. The Galaxy was the nicest Galaxy I've ever played. Cool. And it won best, I believe it won best for that era, because they do different eras, so I think it won like 70 to 79 or something like that. Cool. So congratulations. Sorry I didn't hook up there. I suck. So I hear on the podcast you did with Head to Head, they stole another one of our bits again. How could they steal it when I'm on the show? They did because they actually talked about it while you were on the show. Who's they? It was just Marty. Marty and Ryan. Well, hold on. Hold on. You mean the previous episode? Okay. Yes. They talked about how people should go up to Marty and give him a hug.
    89:25
    Yep. Who's the one that brought that up first? Oh, you did, yeah. Yeah. Steel again. And I didn't say to anybody this. Did anybody come up and hug you at the show? No. Okay. No. They were very, very civil. Okay. But a lot of people came up to Marty. Oh, yeah. Well, you see, the difference is Marty is an incredibly handsome man. Oh, my. I mean, just one of the most handsome men you will ever see. So I could see that. Now, the funny thing is, if you look at the clips that he put in, like his face is kind of a little bit like mine with the goatee now the poor guy is gonna start looking like me which is scary it's all hell no he's got great hair oh wow that'll always beat you well i have a bald now completely i shaved the head so we're smooth and i were smooth thank you glad okay i don't even know what to say to that uh well yes yesterday i had my uh my uh shrek shirt on, which just says, just another sexy bald guy.
    90:24
    See? Next email. Okay. It's from Jim. Jim B. Hello. Hello, Jim. He says, favorite Steve Kirk games, Nineball, Meteor, and Stars. Well, you can't go wrong with those. No. Actually, what other game did he do other than Gammatron and partially Swords of Fury before he was fired? This is true. Jim is letting us know that Tim Sexton is programming Steve's next game. You don't say?
    90:55
    Unfortunately, we've known about this for about a long time, let's just say. I didn't know he was lead. No, I knew. Jesus, man, you know everything. We're that kind of people, and I didn't even tell Ron. That's true. Yeah, I'm hearing it. It's like, whatever.
    91:11
    Black Knight Sword of Rage. I would love to hear from Tim about what it was like programming this and having this secret, even if it was a prepared comment instead of an interview. Well, you're going to get your wish. No, it's kind of hard to get in touch with Tim since now he's such a big wig. You know, we'll have to see his scheduling. Yeah, we've had to clear his interview at at least five levels of Stern executives. Yes.
    91:36
    And last email from Jim Mueller regarding Podcast 125, regarding debate between Batman 66 versus Star Wars. Batman 66 wins all day. Lyman for the win in Lyman We Trust. Yes. Still listening to the show, even though it's less often. By the way, Head to Head got screwed. They should have won the Twippy this year. Cheers. Jim Pinsider, Captive Ball. Oh, his name, Captive underscore Ball. I have PA number 20071, but no one likes to talk about tournaments. No one does. Except for the 128 women who signed up in less than a minute. Yes, or the 1,000 people signed up in less than a minute. Yeah.
    92:22
    I'm looking at some of our giveaways we have for Stomp, Ron. We have giveaways? Oh, yes. Before you talk about giveaways, I have one completely meaningless thing to mention. Meaning away. And it fits us. It's about a toilet. Oh, right. Yes. I was playing Lethal Weapon 3, and I'm thinking, you know, this is the best game ever with a toilet.
    92:43
    Okay. I know at least a couple. Yeah. All I could think of was Lethal Weapon 3. I mean, actually, one of the modes is called Toilet. Yep. South Park. Yep. Austin Powers. Yep. And Junkyard. Yep. Those are the four. These are the only ones I could think of with a toilet. And I would say out of those four, Lethal Weapon 3 wins, hands down. Oh, definitely. Now, it's funny. Did you see somebody sent you an article? Yeah, there was an article about the Texas Pinball Festival, like a local article, and the very first picture is me playing Lethal Weapon 3. And someone responded like, wow, Ron really likes Lethal Weapon 3. I finally find you a Lethal Weapon 3 that plays really good. Yeah, I had to try out other ones. Yeah, of course. They had one there that was like all red trim and had two beacons on it, and it had like the pin sound system. and it was so distorted because it was up way too loud to the point where everything was cracking and it sounded horrible and the DMD kept going out like it wasn't working. Yikes. Zoinks. Isn't that funny? It looked like this great thing and then you play it, it's like half the stuff doesn't work. Then the other one I played, which is the one in the picture, played fine. Oh, wow. Funny how that works. It is funny how it works. Don't judge a book by its cover is the moral of the story. That it is. You were saying about giveaways. I have a ton of giveaways from the beer distributors, like what your father used to give me. You know what you do? You should text him and ask him what he's got. I have a ton of shit, Ron. Oh, my God. Okay. Because he could always send some. I could bring some up with me. Oh, well, if you can ask him. But definitely if you want to ask him. But I have T-shirts. I have a beach chair. I have cozies. I have Frisbees. What's a cozy? Beer cozy. You can put your beer in, keep it cold. Ah. Foam cozy. Someone right now is listening like, he doesn't know what a cozy is? Yeah, because Ron doesn't drink. And somebody just tried to open our front door at the bar. They just need to get in right now. They want. Well, we used to be open at 12 on Sundays, but. Oh. No, but now we're open at 3 because nobody would come in really except for football season. Football. So I heard him like, but I got to get upstairs soon because I got to start taking apart whodunit.
    95:08
    And I had to put on Yankee baseball. That's right. That is one thing we always have at the bar, baseball. Baseball, New York Yankees, baby. You got it. Only the best, baby. Only the best. I think I'm through all my list. I had one thing other, but it's only one game I found. Would you or would you not buy that? Okay. Let's do it because, you know, we don't get to do this all the time. I know. And by the way, Mr. X, up yours, Mr. X1992. I just have to say that again. Screw you, Mr. X. Oh, hold on. 1992, that's almost millennial age. That's why. So it went right down in there and just pegs it right at the top. So millennials are the enemy? Yes. But Timmy's a millennial. No, he's not. He's normal. Is a normal millennial? Yes. All right. Okay, folks. This is a segment where we go out to eBay and look at miscellaneous items that Bruce will give us and see whether or not we will buy that. Would we or would we not buy that? eBay, ticket number 264-258-653-234.
    96:24
    Okay. Pirates of the Caribbean at World's End Pinball. Zizzle. works fully. $990. Yeah, baby. One bid so far, $82 shipping.
    96:39
    Who made these? Oh, no, it was Zizzle. Was this John Papaduke when it was Zizzle? Yeah. And yeah, it's definitely Pirates of the Caribbean. And it's definitely way overpriced at $990. Really? How much did these things cost originally? Like $300, maybe $400. Really? $300, $400, and he starts at $900. Well, he has 100% positive feedback, though. Ooh. It's from Carmel, Indiana, which I'm probably saying wrong. Let's see what he says. This little pinball machine is in excellent shape and has been well cared for. It is an upgrade from the other older Pirates pinball that Zizzle made, Dead Man's Chest.
    97:19
    This has a lit bat box, play field lighting, and dual channel audio. Do you know it also comes with the original pound court? Let me try that again. It also comes with the original power cord.
    97:33
    This will ship folded and disassembled with the balls out. Oh, carefully packaged and fully insured. Oh, my. So at least he does put it at the bottom. In case you didn't know, this is not a commercial pinball machine. It does not accept quarters. It's smaller than a commercial pinball machine. It was made for home use.
    97:51
    Okay. Would you or would you not buy this? So you're saying that it wasn't $990. It was way cheaper? No. Way cheaper. So then, no, I wouldn't buy it. Okay. One more. I am so ready. 223.
    98:07
    450. 434. 520. What in the Sam Scratch is this? Ferrari F355 Challenge Theater Deluxe Arcade Sit-Down Driving Game. Mm-hmm. 325-inch LCDs. $5,000 or best offer.
    98:30
    Why am I looking at this? Well, this is really cool because it's three monitors, so you actually get almost like a 180-degree view when you're sitting in it. If you go to the last picture, you can see the three monitors. But these were linkable, so you can actually race against somebody in two of these. Two of these, so it'll only cost you $10,000.
    98:52
    Imagine like Rush 2049s with this kind of thing. That would have been really cool, huh? Okay. I'd rather just play Rush. Well, I'm putting out everyone in the world. I'm looking for a couple more Rush machines. I want to bring some to the bar. Wow. If only you had kept the four you had. The seven. Seven. The seven you had. I know.
    99:15
    But at the time, I didn't have a bar, so it was taking up a lot of space, and I got some good pinball machines out of it. But, yeah, I'm looking for some Rush 2049. So if anybody knows of any for sale in the Northeast, give me a heads up. I'm going to make them to the special editions and put them at the bar. I'm hoping for three. And you will need a larger vehicle than what you have to carry any of them.
    99:39
    Luckily, I still have Dad's truck and trailer. It's still a good thing. But that's all for the would we or would we not buy that. But if anybody knows of Rush 2049, come on down. Tell me, please. Email, message.
    99:54
    And stomp. Stomp. Stomp to West. The trophies are coming, too. We have trophies. And we have Bruce-isms on the actual page. Yes, let's say it. Yeah, okay, folks. I'm going to read this to you as it is written, and you tell me.
    100:14
    Well, you'll know what Bruce means, and Bruce will say that's the only important thing. Okay, here we go. This is the actual, this is the details under the about.
    100:25
    And I'll skip some of it. It's basically four hours of match play with 50% of the players going to play in the finals. Scoring is 7-5-3-1. Then it says, in finals, four games played with same scoring. Scoring is 3-2-1-0. Yeah, you know what I meant. How is it the same scoring, Bruce, when you just said it's different? Well, I'll change it right now.
    100:56
    It's good to be the king, huh? Yes, it's good to be the king. But you know what I meant. Yes, I did. Yeah, see? I even reworded it for the – I already have the overlay done for the tournament in OBS. So I reworded it to how I figured you meant it. Yep. So I'm done. Okay. And you need to fix it, whodunit. I need to install some Cliffies. Yes. Some Cliffie Lane guides so my demo man no longer has Flipper Hop. Go check now on the stump. Oh, what? Hey, I fixed it. Reload it. Go ahead, reload it. Let's see. I'll reload it. And, hey, look.
    101:39
    Very good. It's correct now. Yes, it is. Actually, it's still wrong. What? Well, actually, technically, it may be right. Stop using EST.
    101:54
    Everyone out there, when you put a time zone in, don't do EST, EDT, PST, PDT. Just do ET or just say Eastern. Then it's always right. But Eastern EST is right. Technically, it says registration starts March 9th, 11 a.m. EST. That's fine, but it's no longer EST. Another pet peeve of mine. because I have many. Oh, we know that. Just say Eastern or Pacific or Central.
    102:22
    What's the other one? Mountain. And there's also Atlantic. Yeah, isn't that like the very tip of Maine or something? No, it's actually Puerto Rico, which is a province of the United States, so we have to observe by it. Puerto Rico! Yes.
    102:41
    I think that's enough for episode 126 of the Slam Tilt Podcast. Where can they reach us at? They can reach us at Slam Tilt Podcast at gmail.com. Check out our website, SlamTiltPodcast.com. Upper right-hand corner has the links to everything, our Twitch page, Twitter, Facebook. We will be streaming this upcoming weekend, so please follow us, our Twitch channel. You'll see when we come online. Yes. We hope to be, and it won't be like our previous Stomp streams where we just have a game sitting there on play for long periods. We hope to have constant action with our awesome mobile rig. Oh, my.
    103:25
    Hi, Zach. Fun with bonus. Yep. Hi, Jeff. Pinball profile. Pinball players podcast. Riptide. Yeah, head to head. Mrs. Pin. Yep. We missed you. Sorry. it sucks we don't do this every week we kind of i kind of forget the whole spiel at this point i know i totally agree thank you to tim again for coming on and talking to us that was very nice and we'll get him back on soon thanks timmy you rock goodbye bruce goodbye scott millman
    104:08
    life. Oh my my, oh my my, you can do me if you try. Oh my my, oh my my, it's guaranteed to keep you alive.
    104:32
    Oh my. So I'm with Scott Denisey here, the creator of TNA. You have something to say to Bruce? God damn it, Bruce. You suck. What the hell? Exactly. Tell him how great TNA is. It's a great game. It's so good.