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The Great British Pinball Podcast - Episode 20

The Great British Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 35m·analyzed·Jan 11, 2025
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TL;DR

British pinball hosts discuss David Fix's departure from American Pinball and production pipeline updates.

Summary

Scott Rundell and Neil McRae discuss pinball industry news and their collections in episode 20 of The Great British Pinball Podcast. Key topics include American Pinball's leadership change (David Fix departure), Pulp Fiction production volumes and timelines, Pinball Life's manufacturing capabilities, upcoming tournaments (UKCS, Texas Pinball Festival), and recent game acquisitions including Metallica Remastered and Elvira. The hosts also discuss Stern Dungeon Dragons and Evil Dead, plus personal updates on cars and club management.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball has made significantly more Barrios games than the 37 units sold—possibly around 137 machines

    medium confidence · Neil and Scott discussing unsold inventory at an Expo, estimating much higher production than sales

  • Pulp Fiction production has hit 300 LE units in two months (December to February) with 700 total to manufacture

    medium confidence · Scott and Neil discussing current production pace and remaining inventory; Scott predicts completion by end of first half of year

  • Pinball Life manufactures most of the parts they sell on-site, not sourced from China as commonly believed

    high confidence · Neil's firsthand tour of Pinball Life facility in Chicago; describes machinery for plastic cutting, metal and electronic component manufacturing

  • David Fix left American Pinball; Scott Rundell attributes departure to Fix being 'too candid' about business operations

    high confidence · Direct statement by Neil: 'David Fix has left the building'; prior discussion referenced Fix's public criticism affecting product lines

  • Metallica Remastered is a top-tier game; Neil gave it perfect or near-perfect marks 'on every aspect'

    high confidence · Neil discussing his personal machine: 'I've kicked it out of the park on every aspect of it'

  • Tournament pinball in the UK feels fragmented and is facing challenges

    medium confidence · Neil discussing Turkey Fry Up tournament: 'Tournament pinball I believe is in trouble right now... it feels very fragmented'

  • Raw Thrills is frustrated with CGC production timelines (Pulp Fiction took two years) and may seek alternative manufacturers

    medium confidence · Neil discussing market dynamics: 'They're frustrated about how long Pulp Fiction took to get out... if they're going to do it, they're going to do it properly. But what they're not going to put up with is two years'

  • Neil owns 21 pinball machines and recently brought Jurassic Park back from storage

Notable Quotes

  • “If you're going to pinball someone like play mechanics raw thrills don't start in pinball unless they're going to be serious about it right, they're a proper well-oiled company.”

    Neil McRae @ ~1:15:00 — Analysis of Raw Thrills' potential entry into pinball manufacturing and their operational competence

  • “I've kicked it out of the park on every aspect of it [Metallica Remastered], I got the topper as well which looks great but it actually feels too small for me.”

    Neil McRae @ ~38:00 — Strong endorsement of new Metallica game with minor topper design criticism

  • “Tournament pinball I believe is in trouble right now. We've kind of, it feels very fragmented and that's going to be a challenge.”

    Neil McRae @ ~30:00 — Concerns about UK tournament pinball health and fragmentation

  • “Pinball Life is as big as Stern's old factory... Most of the stuff that's metal or electronic is made in their location.”

    Neil McRae @ ~55:00 — Revelation about Pinball Life's actual manufacturing scale, contradicting industry assumptions

  • “What American pinball seem to be doing is position themselves as a contract manufacturer for other pinball companies. Which is not a bad idea, if they can get volume.”

    Neil McRae @ ~1:08:00 — Strategic pivot for American Pinball post-David Fix; potential business model shift

  • “I think they've now got it nailed [Pulp Fiction production]. Genuinely believe that.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~1:05:00 — Optimism about Pulp Fiction manufacturing efficiency improvements

  • “The struggle they've had is keeping the parts flowing in. That's why I thought maybe they had a backlog of games that were just sat there waiting because they were missing the toppers.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~1:06:00 — Analysis of supply chain bottlenecks affecting CGC production

  • “Having a storage unit like that where you put a few games away where you don't sell them, but they're not there and you kind of do I miss this? Yeah. Missed Jurassic Park, so I brought it back.”

Entities

Neil McRaepersonScott RundellpersonDavid FixpersonAmerican PinballcompanyPulp FictiongameBarriosgamePinball LifecompanyTerry and Margaretperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball appears to have significant unsold inventory of Barrios machines (estimated 100+ units unsold out of 137+ manufactured)

    high · Scott: 'they've sold 37... I think they've definitely made a lot more than 37... It looked like they'd made 137'

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball pivoting to contract manufacturing model for other pinball companies

    medium · Neil: 'what American pinball seem to be doing is position themselves as a contract manufacturer for other pinball companies'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Tournament pinball in UK experiencing fragmentation and attendance decline; health of competitive scene questioned

    medium · Neil: 'Tournament pinball I believe is in trouble right now... it feels very fragmented and that's going to be a challenge'; Turkey Fry Up had lower attendance than previous year

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Raw Thrills (major arcade company) evaluating pinball entry but may reject CGC as manufacturer due to two-year Pulp Fiction production delay

    medium · Neil: Raw Thrills 'frustrated about how long Pulp Fiction took to get out... if they're going to do it, they're going to do it properly. But what they're not going to put up with is two years'

  • ?

    community_signal: Metallica Remastered topper design considered undersized relative to game scale by at least one major collector

    medium · Neil: 'I got the topper as well which looks great but it actually feels too small for me'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.285

0:00
Welcome to the Great British Pinball Podcast, and here are your hosts Scott Rundell and Neil McRae. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a new year. It's a new episode. There's some new pinball machines, but sadly, it's the same two old gits. that are doing the Great British Pinball Podcast, episode 20. Welcome, Scott. Welcome, Neil. How are you, mate? Yeah, I'm not too bad. Yourself? I'm good. How was Christmas and New Year? I ate too much, and I'm still trying to lose the weight from it. Don't bother doing that, man. It's never killed me. I always eat too much, but then I always eat too much. How was yours? Mine was good, actually.
0:53
I'll be honest with you. So I'm not a big New Year guy, but... Right. Christmas I loved with the kids Me and the grandkids Were playing I bought them a couple of Nintendo games So we were playing Yoshi Oh nice And Theo got really into it Which was awesome We had folks down I managed to survive without killing them And was very happy To drive them to the airport And say bye Yeah no it was good It was good I ended up having to go to Saudi Arabia last minute, which wasn't, like, literally a week before Christmas. Wow. Which was a bit of a pain. What was it like on the flights? Was it busy in the airport and stuff? It was busy because it was this, and actually I can't remember if I did the last podcast before or after this, but I didn't realize this, but I knew this was on, but there was a big boxing match on with, what was his name, Tyson, is it Tyson Fury?
1:50
With Logan Paul, that one. Yeah, I don't know where, but there was some huge boxing match on. I knew about the match. I'm not in the boxing, really. Yeah. Other than Rocky. But I didn't realize it was in Riyadh where I was. It was literally in the building next to the hotel I was in. And I actually got a suite upgrade. So I was in a normal Bozo room, but I got upgraded to a suite, and I was in this place that was the size of bigger than my house. It was fucking huge. And it was totally wasted on me because I'm literally in there just to sleep. and do a bit of work, but it was rammed. I came back via, I had to come back via door. I couldn't understand why I couldn't get flights. Yeah, I bet. But the flights were ridiculously expensive. But it was a good session, and also Saudi Arabia, it's a beautiful country, amazing people, amazing food, but they're also big on gaming because there's no, it's a dry country, there's no booze, which for me is fine because I'm not a big drinker, as people may or may not know. You know, for me it's fine, but they're big on coffee, which I'm not a big coffee guy, so they're also big on tea, so I was kind of on tea. But luckily, and the only downside, we were just having a debate where Scott was wrong. I'm a big Diet Coke fan, and they have Saudi Arabian-made Diet Coke. Okay. It's awful. But they have Coke Zero, which tastes okay. I didn't try Pepsi because no one drinks Pepsi. Everyone drinks Pepsi in this country. It's like the number one now. Scott and I just discovered that he's a Pepsi drinker And I'm a Diet Coke drinker Pepsi Max The podcast is over This is the last episode If you can ever tell that we aren't further aligned on things That shows it really doesn't it So speaking of new things I forgot to mention this in the pre-roll I understand you've got a nice new car Well it's not new new But yeah I do Long story short I was very vehemently against Getting a Mini because my wife already has one and I hated it because the trunk size is just dire. Yeah. But then we went, like, car shopping and went into, like, Kia. And look, I'm going to offend anybody who's got Kia now, sorry. But it looked like milk floats. And I was just like, I'm not buying a milk float. They're just glorified milk floats. We agree on something. Finally.

high confidence · Direct statement: 'I've actually broken the 20-pin rule. I'm on 21 in here at the moment. Brought Jurassic Park back from the storage unit because I missed it.'

Neil McRae @ ~1:00:00 — Insight into collector psychology and game rotation preferences

Scott Denisey
person
Metallica Remasteredgame
Stern Pinballcompany
Elviragame
Raw Thrillscompany
CGCcompany
Barrels of Funcompany
Pinball Brotherscompany
Josh Sharpperson
Jurassic Parkgame
Evil Deadgame
Stern Dungeon Dragonsgame
?

personnel_signal: David Fix has departed American Pinball following public criticism of company business operations

high · Neil states directly 'David Fix has left the building'; prior discussion about Fix being 'too candid' about business operations

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pulp Fiction production quality and efficiency significantly improved; CGC now producing 150 units/month (300 in two months)

    high · Scott: 'I think they've now got it nailed... Genuinely believe that'; discussion of 300 LE units in two months

  • ?

    product_concern: Barrios game design theme/IP not resonating with market despite solid playfield mechanics and shooting

    medium · Neil: 'I think what I would do... would just sand it back, put a new playfield theme on, put new code in... the playfield design's fine. It's just the theme's not'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: CGC Pulp Fiction production constrained by parts availability (toppers) requiring backlog management

    medium · Scott: 'the struggle they've had is keeping the parts flowing in... maybe they had a backlog of games... waiting because they were missing the toppers'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball Life revealed to be major on-site manufacturer of metal/electronic components, not primarily importing from China as industry assumed

    high · Neil's firsthand facility tour: 'Most of the stuff that's metal or electronic... is made in their location'; describes plastic cutting machines and manufacturing equipment

    • 4:06
    No, it's just like, I'm not having this. I don't care if it's got a seven-year warranty. So I just walked in, walked out, went into Volkswagen, didn't realize it was the commercial dealership. and then just yeah so then i as i walked out of that and we were driving down the estate it's like obviously for car dealerships in the area there's the mini area and she's like can we just go in there have a look and then next thing i know i walk out of a car so um that's the basically um but yeah it's a it's a countryman it's like a hybrid cross i think they call it cross suv type thing i i really wanted a hatch but i was struggling to find like anything these days that isn't an SUV. They seem to have hot hatches that are dying out. Well, it's also the fact that the whole electrification is killing them off. Yeah. It's probably one of the downsides of, you know, the Chavs and the Chavaliers. That will definitely end with the electric world where, you know, you had a Vauxhall Corsa with an exhaust the size of the moon. Yeah.
    5:08
    That's the thing. I do like this. They're coming to an end. Yeah, I do like this car because it's got that kind of Chav exhaust where you turn it on and it starts like, you know, burping is the only term I can use. Turbles, the turbo burbles. Yeah, turbo burbles, yeah. And it's a JCW, so it's John Cooper Works. It's got 300 brake. I was like, yeah, look, it's a small enough car. I call it more of a manny than a mini because I just think mini is just getting so big these days. I know. Actually, I saw I was driving.
    5:38
    This is my wife pointing at me. We were driving. I can't remember where we were going, but I think to Reading. and a normal Mini, like the original one, the big SUV version. Yeah, that's what I've got. It dwarfs it.
    5:54
    Two of those little Minis in the space of the... I was like, holy shit, it's got big. But I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't want to be in a normal Mini for all the tea in China because they're literal death traps. I mean, they're lovely little cars, they're a lot of fun, but you have an accident and that and you're if you survive you're probably you know you're probably losing a limb or something um anyway on that happy note let's let's move on um car wise i am waiting for a car um i've got a new m5 in order and i did see a picture of it it looked insane i cannot wait yeah um what's the break also now 762 wow um but and then chris i don't know if you know chris on cars i forget surname. He's had a Lona one and he's kind of given it a thumbs up, which has made me even more excited.
    6:42
    But I'm actually getting a Lona one. I've got one. I can still cancel it, which I'm very tempted to do because I don't like hybrids and this is a hybrid. It's a plug-in hybrid. That's what I've noticed, even in the newer cars, isn't it? I mean, I've noticed the engine sizes keep dropping down. Obviously, it's just force measures, I suppose, as you say, around the change in like, solar and everything like that. Yeah. We're being regulated into not buying the cars we love. Anyway, moving on.
    7:10
    So, let's say... My wife is calling me for one moment. You carry on doing what you do, and I will go take this. One sec. Okay, so just... Here's what we're going to cover whilst... We're putting out a couple of interruptions here, because today my gas boiler decided to go on the fritz, so I've got British gas coming around. Anyway, Scott Sonny's way to assist his lovely wife, Holly. So what we're going to cover Obviously we've done that Happy New Year to everybody And we hope you had a great Christmas and break We're going to quickly cover pinball Christmas gifts Which we did a little bit in the last one An update on our collections and what's going on Scott's going to talk about his homebrew Which you can see in the corner of his screen right now If you're watching on YouTube Then we're going to cover American pinball briefly We're going to cover a little bit of Evil Dead We're going to cover Stern Dungeon Dragons. So I went to Chicago this week, actually, to the launch of this game. And we'll talk a little bit about that. We'll talk about trippies and then kind of events that are coming up, probably about an hour and 15 minutes worth of content. So let me start with my collection changes. Actually, not any changes for a change. I've bought an Elvira. It's in the club So if you And actually Maybe I'll just Well Scott I'll just add a little bit On the club So We've had a We had a great tournament At the Turkey Fry Up Wasn't as many people there This year as last year And definitely Tournament pinball I believe is in trouble Right now We've kind of It feels very fragmented And that's going to be a challenge And then coming up in March at the club is the UKCS, which is the kind of top players that have played in the UK, 64-player tournament. It's going to be quite exciting. I'm going to be streaming it. I actually don't think I'm going to qualify because most of the pinball I play isn't in the UK. And actually, a couple of tournaments I did, I played like a chimp, so I didn't help myself. But anyway, I'm going to do a proper stream, be focused on that. So you'll see the art of the possible when it comes to streaming. I'm going to go full in Other stuff in the club We've got an Adams family in the club now So I know folks love that game For some mad reason But Adams family is back in the club And yeah we've got Elvira And other games that have come in Recently I'm trying to think We've got Jaws We've got Nineballs back in there Quicksilver Pinball Champ Tron I mean we've just got so many games It's actually hard to keep track of them but please go visit our club. We need you to come and spend your money there. And I'm just seeing if Scott's ready, or he looks like he's not ready. The guy is Ernie, unfortunately. Ah, okay. For the printer I was selling, which we can get into in a little bit, but you carry on talking. I am listening, Neil. Okay. And then I'll be back in like probably five minutes. Okay, so what else has gone on in the club? Actually, the other thing that's gone on is the London and South East League. So a shout out to the UK Pinball League. I'm not a big fan of it because I think it's too laid back from my liking. But if you like kind of social event, play a few games around a few houses, look at UKPinballLeague.co.uk. Dai does a great job of running London and South East. It's at Medway Pinball on the 18th, I think. And yeah, on the 18th. And then it's at Matt Vince's in, I want to say, March. It's at Julian's, I think in June and then it's here at the Domino Arcade in July. Also, we've got a big crate of low reflective glass. We've been dealing with that this morning.
    11:01
    About 30 slices have been arrived. It was always good to see it arrive and not be a box of diamonds.
    11:10
    If you wonder what this is, it's basically low reflection glass with a coating that takes out reflections. and it's the sort of basically the glass we use it's called Guardian glass that's the manufacturer of it and it's the sort of glass they use in museums and jewellery shops so that you can see the exhibits or the fantastic watches as he waves his favourite Omega Speedmaster on the camera. It's that sort of glass and it's beautiful in a pinball machine and I work with this guy Zolt in Europe that can get this glass So, importing about 130 sheets and 130 sheets of glass. You know, you can just imagine how hard that is. It weighs about a ton, but it's here and people are collecting it. And I've got a few extra sheets. If you're looking for a sheet, drop me an email to neil at dominote.org.
    12:05
    Well, so a couple of our World Scots going on. Let me do a bit on up-and-coming events and tournaments. So I'm off to the US Next week for Indisc I actually got to Vegas the week before for some work There's a work event there I'll be at the Pinball Hall of Fame for sure Just to see what's going on there Well if I don't rate the place It is an amazing collection And it would be kind of rude not to be in Vegas And not go I'm hoping they might have the Blues Brothers Game in which actually has arrived So my friend John Costin Has got Blues Brothers He's promised me as an unbiased review as he can, which I don't believe in unbiased reviews. People are human. Humans are biased. There's no one that's unbiased. But I haven't looked at it. He posted a picture. It looks horrific. The artwork is terrible. The only good thing about it is the trans line, which has got Elwood and Jake on it. The rest of it looks absolutely hideous. And it breaks my heart to see such a good IP going down. So I'll also cover some other events. There's TPF. A bunch of us go to TPF. Actually, a lot of Brits go to TPF. I think we might have about 20 people go to TPF. Texas Pinball Festival. It's probably the best gig for pinball players. The food's great in Texas. You can go shooting. You can do all that. If you want to do something crazy, Texas is the place to go.
    13:33
    So I'm really looking forward to that. Some good stuff coming up. There's also Pinball at the Beach in the first week of February, which I am tentatively going to. I might not make it because I've got a work thing, but that should be a great gig. And the reason I want to go to Pinball at the Beach is they're going to have Evil Dead there, and Scott and I are going to talk about that in a little bit.
    14:00
    Actually, let me tell you a story that happened whilst moving my Metallica. So you can see behind me, if you're on YouTube, my Metallica. in the mess beside Metallica the new Metallica Remastered it's an absolutely amazing game I've kicked it out of the park on every aspect of it, I got the topper as well which looks great but it actually feels too small for me it's kind of weird, I think it should have been bigger but anyway so I took the game to the club for the launch party which Stern gives us a bunch of swag with your launch party and on the way there the coin box key managed to wedge itself in the trough of the game and when i turned it on the trough board and three of the light boards went um and it took me a while to figure out what happened i managed to borrow the trough board out of star wars in the club and got the game back i'm running but the lights were at the bottom end of the game were locked on infuriating I've moved hundreds of games, hundreds of times, and never had anything like this. So make sure your coin door keys are well strapped in, or as I'm going to do now, take them out. Which is kind of infuriating, because there's one more thing to get wrong when you're moving pinball machines.
    15:21
    Thankfully, when I was in Chicago, I managed to pick up the boards that I needed, and I picked up a few extra things.
    15:28
    Actually, well, I wasn't planning on covering this, but I will, because it was a way for Scott. So we had, whilst I was in Chicago, I paid a visit to Pinball Life. A big shout out to Terry, Margaret, Scott, and the gang at Pinball Life.
    15:46
    Pinball Life is an amazing organization. Yes, they're a retailer. They sell stuff on their website, pinballlife.com. But actually, a lot of what they sell, they manufacture themselves. So they make all sorts of parts. And I got a proper tour of Pinball Life from Terry, who's, I think, the owner. I think between him and Margaret, I think they own it. And what I was amazed by is how big Pinball Life is, the location. It's as big as Stern's old factory. And, Scott, I was saying that at West, I was in Chicago. I visited Pinball Life. Right. And what's interesting, most people think Pinball Life just sells stuff, but actually they make most of what they sell. So whilst I was there, I got a big tour of their facility. It's huge. Oh, really? It's absolutely huge. I always thought the rumor was that they got all their stuff from China and that, but they actually make it on site, don't they? So look, I think they get some stuff from China. Everybody does, right? Yeah. But most of the stuff that's metal or electronic, I think for the most part is made in their location. So, you know, they will show me, you know, the machinery that they've got to make parts and do stuff.
    17:05
    Like they've got a plastic cutting machine that will do all the plastic protectors and stuff like that. But they are as big a manufacturer as they are a retailer, and they supply parts for the other companies. So, you know, I'm pretty sure Phil... Labyrinth is definitely barrels of fun. They've got a lot of pinball life parts in there. Yeah, I know the Spooky Guys do. I know, I think even... They're good quality parts, though. I tell you, like, I've got parts for my homebrew from them, and they're really good for that as well. They promote homebrew quite nicely in their website. Yeah, and, you know, that's where Scott came from with... Oh, Scott Denisey, yeah? Yeah, so Scott Denisey works there. He's one of the designers of the stuff that they make. Oh, wow, okay. That's what his job is. And, yeah, because I always thought, why does Scott work in our shop? but he's there designing parts and creating stuff there's a big team of them but the facility is huge if you're near Chicago area well if you're near the airport and actually I've got a story to tell you about the airport but if you're near the airport they're 20 minutes away did they let you record while you were on site or anything like that? no I wasn't planning on a tour to be honest I didn't have any gear with me and I lost my phone which I'll briefly bore you all about in a minute just to get the rant out of my head. Terry and Margaret that run it are just great people. And when I go there for stuff that I need, stuff that, you know, I should probably get a lot of it here already. You know, Phil's got a lot of things like coil parts and flipper mechs and stuff like that. Yeah, of course, buy it from Phil. It'll be cheaper because you're buying it locally. Same with David from Retro. but I went there for a couple of... Because of the club, we buy in bulk. So I went there and bought... Actually, have I got them? No, they're in my car. I went there, they've got this new foot thing for games that sit on wood, like clips in. In the club, what we're starting to see is because we move games, we're starting to mark the floor. So I bought a load of them to put on the gate. I've seen that. They've got leg levelers with caster feet that are made of nylon or something like that. Yeah, that's right. but also got they got felt on the bottom of it so you can move it unless you want to move it yeah well if you do want to move it it's not like rubber feet where it just nothing you know you just end up popping the feet off so well at least I'm hoping that these work well because we need to do something so I bought a load of key locks for games because we changed the locks from the games in the club and I also bought the boards that I needed to fix my Metallica which and you didn't hear but I managed to blow three of the light boards off of Metallica when I moved how did you manage to do that? the key so I moved the game the key from the coin door oh dear I can't believe where that's going already it wedged on something turned the game on bang you went short basically yeah and a bit frustrating and took me a while to figure out what had gone on but anyway the game's back up and running thanks to Pinball Life and the guys at Stern thank you very much for that but yeah Pinball Life great if you're visiting Stern or JGP don't forget to go visit those guys put an order in they will have it ready for you I've spent more than enough with them recently I've always got the thing I like about their website is they've got a cart where you can add stuff and save the cart so you go back and when you've got a decent wedge of stuff, okay that's a decent it's worth the shipping, hit the button, boom and actually one of the things I bought for the club is white they do white armour so I'm going to put that on the jaws of the club because it's still in the horrible stern acrylic feeling black stuff so with that let's get back to the agenda so any I won't say agenda but were you given any interesting pinball Christmas gifts Scott? Because I've got a car, I've got a lot of weird car stuff basically Of course. You got a lot of little minis and... Yeah, like mini badges and stuff to accent the car with, basically, that I haven't even done, I'm not going to lie. That's awesome. What about yourself? Well, I think I talked about my secret sign on the last one. You did, yeah. My esteemed wife got me another pinball book, which is good.
    21:34
    Other than that, Clive and Diane, who help us at the club, and Di runs the league, They got me an emergency pinball survival kit. And what was in this emergency pinball survival kit was two pot noodles.
    21:52
    Okay. And it goes back to a day where we were at an event and we were starving, and there was nothing to eat but pot noodles. Anyway, thank you for that. My wife thought it was hilarious.
    22:05
    But, yeah, that was good. And, actually, I've got one for you as well, mate. All right. I need to send it over to you. I've got you a Pinsnake. Oh, nice!
    22:16
    Because they're really cool. Yeah, I remember carrying around a review on that. It was quite handy. It's good, but it's not as good as it needs to be. It's not a fault of the device. It's just to get a certain dirt off from the game, you need a bit of pressure. It's hard to get that pressure at the front end of the thing, but it works really well. I use it to clean all my games. Great. So I'll get that over to you at some stage during the year um and then um so that was it basically and then i covered my collection what's what's new anything new any movers shakers no i mean like as i said i got ride of pinbot uh which we talked about last time i think i'm probably gonna have to sell that already i'm trying i'm in two minds of whether to restore it and sell it or just sell it as a project because it's like i had to put some money into it to get it working and i've got parts on order so do I just sell them with all the parts? I'll figure out what I need to do long story short is we want to basically back on the house move again this year so I'm looking at the space and I'm going I can't really keep 14 games in this house and basically having a go at me because he's selling his house at the moment you need to be in a position where there's no pins in the house and you can only have pins in the pin room and that's it so for that to happen I need to get rid of that behind me and I can free more if it helps I've got some storage space here I'm walking no I appreciate that I've got so Mark who I know from pinball info I think his name is Jackman on the forum okay he got a workshop near me and he offered up some space for me to dump some games there So I said to him, you can play them. I don't really mind. I don't care. As long as he's happy to just take them for me, so that'll help. Excellent. But yeah, it's one of those things, isn't it? It's the age-old trouble of you want more than you can store. Absolutely. We were just talking about that. I was talking about the fact we've got a glass. I had a few people collecting it today. Oh, yeah. you know they came so I showed them the arcade and they were like oh this is awesome I was like I wish I bought twice the size yeah I bet like really I was like yeah it's just this is a drug anyway and there was a guy who's you know he wants close to buying his first pin the first game he wants to buy was Jurassic Park and I was like whoa I said that's a brave choice he said why it's one of the hardest games I mean it's a great game I love it. In fact, mine is now back here.
    24:44
    I've actually broken the 20-pin rule. I'm on 21 in here at the moment. Brought Jurassic Park back from the storage unit because I missed it. This is the thing.
    24:57
    Having a storage unit like that where you put a few games away where you don't sell them, but they're not there and you kind of do I miss this? Yeah. Missed Jurassic Park, so I brought it back. That's good in a way, isn't it? You can really test whether or not you'd want it back. and right there the other game I missed, I don't have space for it but I wanted to bring it back is Avengers but also I've got there Led Zeppelin and Star Trek and Mandalorian I don't miss those three games right now same with me with Star Trek to be fair, I bought it twice and then I got rid of it and I think nostalgia was kind of kicking in because it was the first game I got, I like it it's a good game but um it just gets picked by other games these days yeah we're blessed with so many good games at the moment uh okay uh let's uh pivot to the story that just never ends american pinball right um so david fix has left the building um which is interesting obviously as i said like last uh podcast we discussed the fact that he was being a bit too candid about i don't know the business so to speak and you felt like it was analogy you used where someone started dissing their own products and then it killed their own product line yeah i mean i i was shocked by that because david's normally i know david i like him he's a good guy yeah um i think he bit enough more than he could chew on running pinball company um and and and the thing the thing you've got to remember is when you're running a pinball company it's not about building the themes you like it's about building the themes people want to buy definitely and you know to hear the barrios made it out before you know potentially whitewater 2 or so how many they made as well I do Oh you do 37 Are you sure they've sold 37 Ok well they've sold 37 Yeah ok so I think they've definitely made a lot more Than 37 Maybe so When we were at the expo It looked like they'd made 137 Wow That's a real sinker isn't it I mean I mean, the thing is, it's not a terrible game. It's actually okay. I remember you saying it shoots really well. I think what I would do, if I was in that position they're in now, I would just sand it back, put a new playfield theme on, put new code in, and go with a different theme. Because obviously it sounds like the playfield design's fine. It's just the theme's not. Yeah, I just think if they're going to do that, what they'd be better to do is just cut the price, get rid of them. Maybe. and then redo it, redo the layout with a new theme, rather than, I think changing the games we've already built, I think is probably too much, too much cost. Maybe. To do with it. And throwing good money after bad is never a good thing in my experience.
    28:02
    I think, you know, what seems to be, what American pinball seem to be doing is position themselves as a contract manufacturer for other pinball companies. Which is not a bad idea. It's not, well, it's not a bad idea. if they can get volume.
    28:19
    So, you know, and let's think about who might use them. So, you've got... The Pinball would be a good candidate.
    28:27
    You've got the guys, Pinball Brothers, potentially. You've got, well, you've got someone like Raw Thrills who are currently using CGC. But the sense I get is that they're frustrated about how long Pulp Fiction took to get out. I think everybody Yeah I mean Two years I mean the ones In the UK I think have arrived And are being shipped out now The USLEs are getting out So literally I think they're on 300 Or something isn't it They hit a milestone Yeah they've got 700 to make So Yeah that's a lot Still a long way to go It's funny everyone Keeps going on about like Oh you know Oh they're going to announce Like Medieval Madness this year For No They're not They're going to be making 700 or more Pulp Fiction still Like they'll be through To the end of the year on that I think Actually I think I'm going to disagree with it I think they'll be done with Pulp Fiction By the end of the first half of the year Okay So there's a lot of games to go through But I think they've now got it nailed I genuinely believe that And if you look at this piece That they did Cactus on I mean I like the barrels of fun And they were quite open about their numbers Yes which is really refreshing to see actually people showing how many they're pumping through but i mean even turner was pretty honest i just think cgc is somewhere between turner and barrels of fun in terms of their production volumes i just feel like realistically they can't pump through more than maybe a hundred in in best case a hundred in a month right which is nowhere i don't think they're anywhere near that well if you believe that they started making the le's in December.
    30:07
    So the two months they've made 300 games. Yeah, I mean, 150, that's a lot. I didn't think they had the production facilities for that. They definitely do. I thought my idea was that what the issue was is, I think one big, so I think they've got the assembly for that. Yeah. The struggle they've had is keeping the parts flowing in. That's why I thought maybe they had a backlog of games that were just sat there waiting because they were missing the toppers and now they've got the space again they can then go back to the normal run but that just feels like maybe they're ahead of head start but i suppose we'll find out i think i think some i think that's true to some extent for sure um yeah but look i think if you're going to pinball someone like play mechanics raw thrills don't start in pinball unless they're going to be serious about it right they're they're a proper well-oiled company their CFO is Josh Sharp, who knows one or two things about pinball. The guy owns the company,
    31:05
    has, you know, worked at Williams and, you know, knows pinball as well. So if they're going to do it, they're going to do it properly. But what they're not going to, what I don't think they're going to put up with is, you know, two years to get their game out because it just pisses people off. Especially when they did such a polished promotion, do you remember when it first came out? Yeah, I mean, you know, they also, they've built a pretty decent game. I know it's not for everyone, but I think the demand... I think there wasn't a lot of Tarantino kind of saying he wanted it to be like 70s-esque and stuff like that. Yeah, so I think they followed the design requirements, right? I think what they've done is impressive. I still would have one. I think it looks great. Yeah, it's a great game to play. It's not easy, but it's a fun game. Yeah, the topper is still phenomenal. The topper is awesome. It really is great. so you know that could be another customer for American Pinball and then there's all you've got people like Dennis Nordman who says he's got like 10 games designed wow that could be a customer so if they can and this is the thing about Stern that I think it's the key to their survival and success Stern keeps the factory running no matter what yeah and I'm still super impressed by it, even by even Spooky as well. They all have the same kind of weird test beds where they have a spike-to-machine set up to go. They stick a plate field on it. They don't have to stick it inside a cabinet. They can do all the testing. I just think it's so well thought out, the whole process. Yeah, and when you see it in real life, it's the size of that plate field. Sorry, that warehouse. It's insane. It's so big. I mean, the stern just is insane. And they have another building full of parts that isn't the one that... I don't think they open that one to the public. But even Spooky's new place, I saw Cary Hardy's video of it.
    33:03
    It's huge now. They've got a huge-sized place. They've got a lot of building. I'm hoping that they pick up on QC.
    33:11
    So, look, I'm hoping American Pinball, one, first of all, get the games out that they've got designed. Get someone who knows how to run a business, that's passionate about pinball in there. They need someone like Bug, right? I think when you look at Bug and the way he presents, that's spooky, that is, for anyone that listens, but he's very excited about anything he's got to tell you about the game. He lives and breathes it. He's just like, this, this, this, and he does that. He gets so energetic about it. I think you need that energy. The thing, 100%, but I think they need more than that. I think they need someone who knows how to build stuff, knows quality processes, knows how to procure stuff, stuff knows you know i'm not saying that spooky don't know how to do that but if you're going to go to cm you know price and and efficiency is going to start to really matter yeah um so i think they kind of need someone that's been in the industry a while has got a few bullet holes in in the back from you know mistakes that they've made etc stuff that they've learned and someone that can you know focus on there's on two things design a good game build a good game ship a good game um you know those are the things that they need to they need someone who knows how to do that in volume i don't think that was david fix um actually on the production side i think david did a actually a reasonable job on that because you know they definitely lifted their production capability it's still i don't think anybody any complaint about the quality no again quality as well i think that that came from their parent company um right where they you know a lot of processes in place. I've been to the American Primor factory.
    34:50
    It's a decent sized investment. It's definitely bigger than I thought it would be based on the mental model I had.
    34:59
    Sadly, American Primor had to lay off a lot of people, including Steve Byron and a few others. They hired them back though, I heard.
    35:07
    That's news to me. I hope they have because that would be great. They've got a couple of games in the bubbling. I hope they get them out of Cuphead. I'm not sure about that as a theme, but who knows? If it's a good game, it could still... I mean, it's a game that appeals to the masses. I just don't know if it appeals to the pinball enthusiasts. Exactly. 100%. And then Whitewater 2, if they've really got the... That was the one they should have done. That one would just fly out. If it's a good game, if Dennis has done a good job and they manage to build them well, they'll literally fly off the shelves. Absolutely. The Bally Williams crazies Will be in there For their Their snort of Bally Williams cocaine Yeah And they will buy them In the truckloads Let's hope Moving on I mean we talked about Let's talk about Evil Dead I don't know if you've seen Any of the videos That they've put out I have The more I watch of it The more I just go I probably should have got this Well You can be my Yeah I'm your fallback guy If you don't like it My stunt double Yeah If they screw this up, I might be selling mine quickly, but I'm glad to be in on this. I mean, it's probably going to be six months before the game arrives. Am I right by understanding, by the way, they put an acrylic top on their playfield. So it's wood, then acrylic, then clear. It looks like there's a thicker layer on the top. They definitely do something different. Yeah.
    36:37
    It makes the colours pop, I've noticed. I mean, I think the way they print them, I think Charlie, who helps out the company, a really nice guy, his background was printing. Right. And I think that's where they started. They started doing these prints, printing up playfields. And their games always look really hoppy, colorful, right? Yeah. It's like, you ever notice that? Amazing. When you get an aftermarket Translight, and sometimes they do it on acrylic sheet instead of just normal Translight, it looks so much more brighter.
    37:12
    I think that's what they've done. They've cottoned onto something there. The game, the Scooby-Doo look lovely. The artwork and stuff, they've got Chris Franchi working for them full-time. Yeah, he's really good. The Evil Dead artwork just looks staggeringly good.
    37:30
    I am excited about this. the gameplay looks great, the code's coming on brilliantly you know, just get the QA, sorry, quality assurance quality control whatever you want to call it, just spooky just don't forget that because this could be your Godzilla Absolutely I think so we're looking forward to that let's jump to the other big topic and we'll obviously give when my game arrives we'll do a lot of coverage of it on the podcast maybe we'll do a special I'd like that, I want to try it a special Evil Dead when it arrives hopefully, I'm going to guess sometime July time frame is that the projected time actually? well I haven't been given one but that would be my guess I really hope it arrives have you been given your number yet? pin fest uh i haven't i suspect phil's got them but i don't give a shit uh what my number is it's like whatever um so let's move on so i mentioned in my monologue whilst scott was hawking his pinball well accoutrements um that i was in chicago this week i was invited um by stern to play the new brian eddie game dungeons and dragons um and actually i have actually before i get I've got three of these. Dean, if you're on YouTube, you'll see them. If you're not, you won't. But I've got three. I've got the Pro Premium LE. What do they call these? Flyers. They're signed by Brian Eddy, Elizabeth Geese, and Dwight Sullivan. I'm going to put them on eBay for people to bid on them. And me and Scott are going to go buy Porsches with the money. No, we're not really. All the money will go to National Autistic Society. So I'll post up the links when I've posted them. They kindly signed them for me. As many of you know, I'm a fundraiser for autistic charities. So please bid high. You know, spend your money. And these are real ones. They're not like the knockoffs that you get from other well-known criminals in the UK pinball scene. But, yeah, please bid on them. But let's talk about the game. So I'm going to start, Scott, with my apprehension of this game. So I got invited And then Stern They did their usual They do the trailer Then they do the bigger trailer They do the little teaser And it was kind of obvious It was this debate Is it Kong, is it Dungeons and Dragons I was pretty sure it was going to be Dungeons and Dragons They did the thing And I was like okay I'm going to this thing But I was very skeptical about this game i was thinking this could be it could be one of three or four things it could be game of thrones on steroids and you know how we love game of thrones with the complex rules to this day it's so i want a premium i just don't i just never want to play it um there's something about it i'm not a big game of thrones fan first of all so the theme does nothing for me I like Game of Thrones as a theme, but I feel like that one had... And again, not to steal what you're discussing here, but for me, it's a similar problem with the play field. I don't really like the artwork, if I'm honest. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I think it wasn't a great set of artwork. But for me, just the complexity in the rules just put me off. People would get... People who were playing it, they'd get like 500 million points from three shots. I'm like, how did you do that? So that used to always put me off. Nonetheless, so, but, and then Mando, it was, so I liked Mando, but it wasn't, it wasn't the Mandalorian I wanted. It was, it was, the rules set on it were not, it wasn't, I wanted more, more Mandalorian set pieces. And, yeah, the music was great. It's not a terrible game. You know, there was no move in Grogu, which I just think was a miss. Yeah. Well, that mod was really good. my game's got the mod but it's not it's not really interactive on the flip side though venom i loved i think it's a great game it gets a lot of shit but it's still the best on location game apparently so it's a lot of unfair criticism but and then stranger things i think it's a great game said to you before it's still my favorite stern if i'm honest i know everyone else has godzilla up there but for me it's i'm more of a bally williams guy so the simplistic kind of code nature just speaks to me more. So, yeah, so I'd go into this, I totally agree, I'd go into this kind of, hmm, skeptical, and also, I think you are too, Scott, but I play RPGs. Yeah. I've been playing them since I was five. I'm a massive Baldur's Gate 3 fan, and I, I don't know, I probably would have, it's hard to say whether or not they should have done it on Baldur's Gate 3. It was a massive game, but I think, again, with pinball, people even know what that is. Yeah, exactly. So, you've got theme question,
    42:36
    you've got how you break, So, you know, I wrote this on a pin side post. My biggest worry was, how do you create a game that doesn't piss off the RPG folks that might be interested in it, and also doesn't piss off the pinball folks who might be interested in it? And I think I went into it with that mindset, thinking it's going to be so hard to bring these two elements together.
    43:00
    Anyway, so I flew out to Chicago, and just give me one second. Hold on. you need to add that for one second yeah sure i think while you're doing whatever you're doing i'm going to speak about the dnd elements of what i found a bit interesting so for me the artwork is a little bit weird because it said what neil's saying there about trying to keep both sides happy i felt like it was trying to appeal a little bit more to the fans of original dnd because the artwork is very nice orientated to me just it's got that kind of muddy grainy look to it and while i feel it's super detailed because it's so dark and slightly muddy i think a lot of those graphic details are lost and you don't actually see a lot of it on the side art or on the playfield or even on the translate um that was that was my observation of what i could see because again it was every time they showed the game they showed it in a dark room so it's really hard to see it i i actually mentioned that to them so the room that i mean well where they feel i don't know where they film the the things but i said that they need to try and get a bit more light on it the room that the game's in yeah where we played it it's kind of dark as well there's some upsides to that because it makes the lights pop a little bit yeah especially with your video in but overall so yes i've started basically had two events on on tuesday in the morning they had distributors in the afternoon they had um what they call the media group and other randos like myself um although i think we i think i think we fit in the media group because of the podcast which which i was going to say the people i saw next to you were people i recognized like the guy from cool toy yeah yeah yeah and obviously you had i don't know if um did you have retro ralph there i couldn't yeah okay yeah and also gary hardy so yeah he was um i'd say you're in the influencers group yes okay um i'm known for my shilling of course um always yeah i mean i literally if i take my top off i've got a stern tattoo uh i'm sure it's there mate it's in your blood it's not really but um you know you invite me i said i'm like okay invite me but like if this is a shit game guys i'm gonna say it's a shit game and they're like no that's cool um so go on then what's your thoughts on playing it um so look so and these are on you on my youtube channel where um i did a lot of video and actually the way i play it when i go on an event like that i don't really want to try and make your mind up uh because i wouldn't let anyone make my mind up um what i try and do is record and ask questions to um make things clear right so that if there's any doubts you know pimble info and pin side there's always a lot of doubts about things so i try and clear the doubts up right so that you've got a level playing field of information and you can you can choose but of course look if you're buying a pinball machine play it before you buy it it's that simple yeah a game that you haven't played you've got no one but yourself to blame if you don't like it um basically people like but you know if i don't buy it they'll sell out then that's a risk you have to take and by the way games never sell out they they they become available i've never there's a game there's never been a game if i wanted it i haven't been able to get it right and especially Depends on the age of the game, but yeah. In today's market, you know, game values are down.
    46:23
    No one's doing the old kind of hatchet job of buying one just to resell it. It just doesn't work anymore to do that. Which, in some ways, is a good thing. In other ways, it is not so good. But, anyway, the flippers I'm talking about. So, I'm a bit sceptical. I get there and I come back to the Stern's factory was actually closed. They weren't actually making anything, which was a weird vibe. The place was, it was almost like a, you could almost shoot a zombie movie there, because it was... I was going to ask, was it, and this is random, right, no one's ever going to ask this, was it cold in there? It wasn't, it was definitely jumper material, you wouldn't be in there in a t-shirt, in my view. I was going to say, because it was a machine area, just how they heat that. Yeah, I mean, I had that hoodie on, and normally I would take that off, but in the factory side I didn't. In the other room, it was, well, the kind of office side of the factory it was warm and right and toasty thank god because chicago was freezing i mean it was um anyway so i get to to stern as yeah all these people here good to see some of them triple drain guys were there carry um loads of loads of people dug from cool toy retro ralph a lot of great players Vic who did some really good video of the game He brought this kind of mini rig that was actually quite cool And I think I was the only person from outside the US there. So I did a bit of... So Brian and Dwight kind of talked through the game for a little bit. I've recorded it verbatim. It's on my YouTube channel if you want to watch it. and they talked about the game which is basically you are playing an RPG through the medium of pinball you have a party of characters and you can level those characters up you can be injured, you can be hurt, you can, all the things are in an RPG. I have a question for you then, and I forgot to ask it because I gave you a sarcastic one instead when you asked what I did want to ask you was and hopefully maybe I would discover it or someone else asked it, or maybe even you asked it. Yeah. As it's an RPG, it's technically, well, it isn't technically, it is a cooperative game in its essence. Was there any ability to do cooperative play? Yes, that's in the game. It is in the game, right. No one's covered that. It's interesting to hear about that. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't, so it's in the game, and I'm not surprised because Dwight has been the kind of pioneer of cooperative play in Stern games. Right. So you can play, you know, you might have player one that's a level three wizard. Yeah. Player two that's a level five fighter. I don't know the classes of the game, but usual RPG stuff, right? Sure. Player three, player four, blah, blah, blah, right? And they make up your party.
    49:07
    And when you're playing, they're rolling dices. So you play as a party. So, for example, if you're hitting a shot and you make the shot, you get points and and you get the value of hitting that shot your other three members of your team the game is rolling a dice for them to see if they got the shot right and i was thinking wow this is cool i really wouldn't you know like deep right yeah so and let me come back to depth and and in a moment but what is clear is is that dwight absolutely knows his RPG kind of DMV. I heard he used to be a Dungeon Master Stroke club organiser for Dungeons and Dragons. That would not surprise me. He knows this shit inside and out. Even Brian I think, he's been in gaming for years so he knows it. And they've literally built this RPG engine that runs this game. See, that seems to be the saving grace for the game for me. I mean, don't get me wrong, the dragons call the artwork I say just lets it down a bit for me and the theme may not scream amazing bye for everyone but if it's got the right code on location this could be killer and and I'll be honest here that's kind of where my head is so let me talk about the the physicalness of the game and I'll come back to code but this is Brian Eddy's best layout of all of his games even though I've got met though I think call toy even highlight this it very much looks like labyrinth in terms of its shots um i don't think the shots are as hard as labyrinth labyrinth well that's good no because labyrinth shots are bloody hard yeah super narrow but it's definitely got if you look at it he did a side-by-side graphic and i was like it's got the same shoot over with the ball travels up behind the dragon goes over it was very similar to like labyrinth in that respect it has hops over into the left out orbit and drains down yeah i mean so i mean this is the thing with pinball right There's only so many different ways you can design them So, Luke They may have taken some inspiration from Labyrinth They'd be crazy not to There's certainly definitely things in Labyrinth I would change about the shots I'm just wondering, if you were a Labyrinth owner, coming from that perspective do you think there's enough of a different game there to say this is worthy of being in your collection if you've already got Labyrinth? So, here's what I think will happen If you own Labyrinth You'll buy this game and then sell your Labyrinth That's my prediction Alright That's my Labyrinth for me is okay But it's not a game That you know I don't gravitate towards Labyrinth I think Barrels of Thunder did a great job of it But the rules I mean let's be really clear though Shot wise There may not be much in it I definitely feel that the shots on D&D are much more accessible. Okay. When you say that, are they wider, would you say? Is that it? Definitely wider. They're definitely easier to hit. Also, Brian was very specific, and he said that they've done some things to make this game easier to play for certain non-pinball types. And one example of that is when the ball comes out to the upper flipper, they've done something to ensure the ball doesn't come out crazy fast. They've done it so they Can come out low You've got a chance to hit it And that's definitely noticeable Actually for me it was a bad thing Because I kept flailing the ball too early And for some players They were hitting the ball too late still But they definitely said That they tried to make the game easier to play Interesting But I would say The thing I liked about this game Is it feels like a bit of shadow Okay I love Shadow, it's good Yeah, and it feels like a bit of Attack from Mars, and it feels like Two of Brian Eddy's best games, Attack From Mars and Shadow, that they've Kind of squeezed them together, and you've Got the kind of flow of Shadow And the Brutality of Attack from Mars Interesting, so Under the Dragon The Dragon is a bash toy right Away, you've also got Under the Dragon You've got the stand-up targets That are brutal, you hit them, you're in Trouble, basically but to me that plays to AFM the floor plays to Shadow and to some extent Venom a little bit as well but I think by a million miles this is Brian Eddy's best layout and design Nice! Better than Medieval Madness? Better than Medieval Madness, better than AFM, better than Shadow Wow! That's strong praise This is a very very good layout Considering how big Medieval Madness is, you know, for everybody, that's... Yeah, I mean, Medieval Madness is a combination of the game and the rules and the theme. Well, I was going to ask you about this, because Brian, at least back in the 90s, built a lot of humour into his games. I didn't get a feeling there was much humour in this. Just describe it for me. Were there any funny call-outs or anything like that? There are, but Dwight was honest about this. On the sound side, they hadn't done a huge amount of work. Okay. so they've got some of the call outs in more for the launch but he said look on the sound and call outside we've got a load of great stuff they've got an amazing cast they've got michael doran star trek yeah he's worth rising but yeah he's worth they've got an amazing cast and they've got a lot of funny stuff they just haven't got it set up right and that definitely shows i think there's a few people you know at the event a few things i've read that says you know call us or an issue. I just think, give it time, guys. I think they will come.
    55:03
    Put it this way, I hope they have, because having a cast like that and not with people thinking it's good for college would be a travesty, in my view.
    55:13
    The two or three things that are on the playfield, the dragon on the LE is just epic. It is stunning.
    55:25
    The It's like the T-Rex on steroids, from what I can see. That thing's massive. Yeah, the flow of it is beautiful. It blocks shots. It's very interactive. And I like it. It's a very well done mech. You can't have a game Dungeons & Dragons without a dragon, right? You just have the, what do they call it, the cube? I forget what they call it. Gelatinous cube. Gelatinous cube, yeah. You've become stuck in a gelatinous cube. That cube, that needs to be a much more delivery. It's so deadpan. get him out of the Gelanus Cube. It's like, do some delivery with that. Even if you just say it in a comedic fashion. Like, I know people didn't like the film that came out recently, but that had humour in it. And I feel like that's what Dungeons & Dragons should be. It should be funny. I think that'll come. I genuinely got a sense that that's going to come. I agree.
    56:16
    The Gelanus Cube mech is cool as hell, though. It's very cool. It's a double-sided magnet that can lock four balls. Yeah, that is very clever. and the way they've built and designed that is awesome i mean i'll be honest i didn't get a chance to experience it hugely i'm more impressed that's in the pro well let me come to the pro and premium and le actually in a sec but and then you've got the the pop-up dungeon thing i don't know what to call it but it's like a like half fuck isn't it it doesn't have it i felt like it could have done with being a subway personally yeah i i definitely agree with you on that i think opportunity missed there. But the other thing is the shield, which is actually really well done. Feels like the, what do they call it, the anti-gambling mech that we used to have back in the day around the Lord of the Rings era. Well, the, what do you call it, the skill posts. Skill posts, yeah, it's a skill post. To some extent it's like that, but you've got to earn the shield, right? Yeah. or your character it's funny when you think about it back then that was being used to prove it wasn't a gambling machine now it's being used as a game mechanic it's mad yeah so actually using the shield is quite hard it reminds me of Magna Save on Black Knight one person told me I think it was it Cary Hardy I can't remember if it was watching someone said they went to press it and they press and held it I think it was Richard Ralph actually and he said when you press and held it doesn't activate you have to tap it so you have to tap the action button yeah press and hold does something else yeah i can't remember what it was but actually the thing you do the thing i started to do with it um was i'd get a ball on flipper i'd hit the shield then i would go for the risky shots under the dragon yeah makes sense and it was glorious i mean it was hard to lose the ball and i think tournament wise i think i'm you know my first view is is if i'm putting this in a tournament i'm disabling the shield um i just think it will make it make you approval it'll make the game impossible to lose the ball um yeah basically and i you know there's a couple of long games and you find the dragon it's fun the dragon so i mean and the thing and doing the sorry dwight um warned us about this and it was definitely true so when you start on the on the le premium when you start dragging volleyball you literally have four balls in the playfield almost instantly i mean they're bang they're there and you're like holy shit i really like I thought that was a real kind of moment of pinball fun. I'm worried about the condition of the playfield. Wasn't there like six balls on the playfield at one point? Yeah, 100%. Crazy. That definitely worries me as well. It's one of the things to concern about. On the Pro, it launches the balls from the trough, so it's usual stuff. But let me just talk about, there's a lot of talk about premium Pro LE. Yeah. Luke, only buy the LE if you're an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'll buy it, right?
    59:11
    Premium or Pro? I actually think this is one of those games Oh, so you've actually just said you're going to buy an LE then, yeah?
    59:19
    So I ordered an LE off the back of the second video I thought, nah, this looks good The flow in the game, if a game's flowy, I tend to like it I've ordered a game and, which reminds me I need to send Phil the money Sorry Phil So the other So I would say that the pro versus premium debate is very much, it reminds me of Jurassic Park. And I have to say, if you want this game, look, if you want the cool dragon, for sure buy the premium. But the gameplay between pro and premium, is it worth three, four grand? No, definitely not. I felt like you get a really good value proposition on the pro in this one. Yeah, the pro's got everything in it. The dragon, the dragon though, and again there's a video on my YouTube channel that illustrates this so in some of this nice swooping lovely dragon, the dragon's more like a bit of a bobblehead where it goes that's all it does and when you've seen that it's hard to unsee it so I noticed this because I was standing watching Joel from Triple Drain play and I noticed this I was like it's like a chicken head Yeah, it's like, I mean, it's kind of like that. I'm doing this on YouTube. But yeah, just so you understand, it's like he's bobbing his head like a chicken. I'm bobbing my head like I'm bobbing for apples or something. And you kind of, it's not terrible, don't get me wrong. But when you compare the two, when you've seen the two side by side, you know, one of them just. One loses the magic then. Basically, right? So, but in terms of the gameplay, in terms of the RPG elements, they're all the same, right? Yeah. I know the dungeon crawl Vuck is missing but you just shoot the spinner and it shoots into a Vuck anyway and then it traps the ball this is the kind of weird thing, there's inline Vucks which I was like, what? inline scoops? that doesn't make sense to me it seems to work the whole D&D bit is really well done if you've played a D&D you'll feel at home with this if you've played an RPG you'll feel at home with this the whole notion of you've got a party You can't die I mean this is the thing that Dwight said And it's worth watching the video of him Talk about it He's got this pinball wins Sort of aspect Which is if we need to do something And it kind of And if it clashes with how pinball works Then we're not going to do it If it breaks something fundamental About pinball they won't do it They'll stick to something that works for pinball And I think that comes shining through on how this game plays. Right. You know, you can... You get into the mode shot, you select a mode, then you've got a kind of mission to do, and you see the thing you're trying to kill or the thing you're trying to do, and you're hitting the shot, you score the shot, and your players throw the dice. It's coolly done.
    62:25
    And then they've got an insane number of modes. Yeah. And there's three endings to the game. Yeah, I heard about that. Or three wizard modes, is it, or three endings? No, three endings. Okay. Which I guess will be three wizard modes, I'm assuming. Okay, the same thing. You can effectively play a different story. I take what I would have liked to see. That doesn't mean they have to do it. I know you say, like, you know, the whole thing can't die doesn't really work with Gimbal, but I would have liked to have seen it in the wizard mode, that if you hadn't got whatever you needed to get done in the timer, that then you fail the wizard mode, and that you fail. You don't say you die, but you failed. I still think there should be a penalty for failure. So I do think that's going to be in the wizard mode. Okay, cool. So they haven't, I think things like that, where, like, people were saying, well, it's really easy to kill the dragon. I was like, how have you killed the dragon? Well, I got dragon molly, but I got super jackpot. Yeah, all you did was annoy the dragon. It's not dead. Yeah. You know, it will come back. And I think those are aspects of the story. And Dwight was very careful not to spoil the story, Which I appreciate actually That's cool So and the discussion So the question I asked And it came in from one of the The Texas gang That I hang out with on WhatsApp Where we're going to Texas The question was how complex is this code So I asked The question I put to Dwight was Dwight if I take Game of Thrones And I take Venom Where does the code for this game sit on that scale and his reply was it's the most ambitious code that i've ever written dwarves and probably yeah both of them so and i was like okay that's cool and and i but again this before i actually played the game so my my alarm bells were ringing loudly i'm thinking oh shit that's gonna be brutally difficult complicated to figure out kind of thing yeah but honestly it does that just isn't the case the gameplay is fully kind of illustrated and i think you can definitely have a complicated game i think what you need to do is show to the user what you need to do exactly so this so look there's no question this is a more complex game than dead school right for sure um and even venom but the game is signposting you on what you have to do and where you have to do it um and as you progress as your characters progress of course the thing that the RPGs brought to, and I still play it in fact. I played an RPG when I was six called Wizardry on the Apple II. They've just re-released it actually on Switch and other platforms, which I highly recommend it if you like RPGs. This one's awesome.
    65:12
    One of the things that Wizardry called out was the first game you can save. Of course you can save your pinball game. Yeah, how does that work then? How do you save your progress? so your progress again you this is where pinball wins you kind of never really die what happens is you get sent back to the kind of tavern and you're licking your wounds right but it stores your progress so if you level up it seems like dark souls kind of at you yeah a little bit a little bit i don't know the campfire yeah so super well but similar but in effect you know if you've got a level five if you're a level five wizard um you know it'll save that you're a level five wizards.
    65:52
    And that works really well. But also this name, they've called it OneShot, which I think is kind of a name they need to teach everything for a variety of reasons.
    66:05
    But if you hold down the button whilst you're selecting the direction, you get a chance to select different routes, etc. Or different characters when you first start up. If you hold down the button, it deducts all your progress so you go back to level 1 there's like a fresh start button and then the same thing is the same question that came up was what if my game's offline, well if your game's offline then every time you hit the start button it's a random mission you've got no previous experience How does it work with the procedural generation of the dungeon? Is that something that's then downloaded each week or is it just randomly to each game? What I'm trying to get at I suppose is if, let's say for instance, me and you both had Dungeons & Dragons and we hit the next week and I then said to you, oh yeah, but if you go right, left, left and left you'll get this. Is that going to be the same for you or is it random?
    67:03
    No, it'll be the same for everybody. Okay. And I think that's... What I'm saying is, is it going to be the exact same dungeon for you or will yours randomly generate to be different to mine? No, it's going to be the same dungeons for everybody that's connected to Insider. Okay, so you could... Yeah, I mean, it depends if people want to cooperate like that. But this is the thing. I mean, let's just kind of follow on what some of the online D&D games are doing. Yeah. Which is to keep it consistent. If you're not online, every dungeon's random. So I didn't do the swap. Actually, I asked Dwight directly about that. He wouldn't give away how it works. my take is that all the details for each of the dungeons are on the game and then said the correct is just signaling it to change. He wouldn't talk about how they did that. I mean, he did say it was procedurally generated, so I'm wondering if it just uses some sort of hex code and then that dictates what map is pulled or something like that. Yeah, it'd be something simple, I think. But he seemed quite coy about it, like you know, I've done something cool. Yeah. Well, to be fair to him, he has. I mean, I think the one thing I like about this game, let's say, saving graces to me is what they're doing with the code. Yeah. Like, if it didn't have all that, I wouldn't be as excited to play it.
    68:28
    No, absolutely. Sorry, I'm just grabbing a drink. That's all right. Whilst my camera pans around like a crazy person. Yeah, it was tracking you crazily there. So, yeah, let me fix that.
    68:40
    So, it is the RPG I went in there thinking this RPG bit's going to be terrible. Yeah. That was my belief it's not, it's fantastic Great It's quite impressive considering it's early code as well right Yeah I mean this is the thing they've got work to do on that code one second Scott because that's going to be my British Gas guy Neil speaking So basically while he's talking to British Gas I'll carry on But yeah, I mean, the procedure generation on the maps, I think it's going to be at saving grace. It sounds like obviously they need to do a lot with the code, but I feel like the game itself is definitely in a step where people would hopefully play on location and say, oh, I want to play that again. So I need five minutes because it's a guy collecting glass. Go for it. Do you want to just fill in for a bit? I will carry on. I will talk about my homebrew and then... Yeah, good idea, good idea. Yeah, okay. So yeah, just to wrap up quickly with the D&D then. So I think from my perspective, I believe it's going to be at the show EAG, which basically is an arcade expo in the UK. That's going to be next week. I've booked a ticket myself and for my wife, although I'm technically at work that day. So I don't think I'm going to be able to escape out of the office. But she's going to join me on the train at least and then head off to Excel in London. She'll hopefully then be able to try it on site and give me any feedback on how she feels it plays. I'm not sure what edition of the game is going to be there but it sounds like to me even if we get to try the pro we're going to get to be able to try out the majority of of what's on offer obviously minus the dragon so from my perspective anyway that's my my view on the game obviously I haven't played it I do feel like it's it's intrigued me I do want to try it I'm hoping that next week when my wife tries it she feels like it's positive and it's something that then we might actually might want to buy but again it comes back to the space issue so on to my homebrew news then while neil deals with an errand so at the moment i've progressed quite far i've actually announced on the strictly custom pinballs facebook group at my design and it's been received quite positively i think i've just shot up 100 likes which is pretty good the game itself has been quite a bit of torture to put together if i'm honest with you and it's sitting there in the background for those of you that are on the watching it via video but basically I've had to source the ramp from Ramp-O-Matic which is basically a Data East Jurassic Park ramp. I actually bought a Black Friday set from him which he designs for home brewers and he does it by the sounds of it every year and it be like effectively a bunch of reject ramps that don fit the bill for his view of what considered a quality ramp so that could be like defects in the vac mold process it could be that the during the drilling phase he ended up stuffing it or scratching it something of that ilk that would make it be considered a second it'll then box all those ramps up so i got just shy of like 12 or 13 ramps in a pox sent to me and out of all of those 13 one ticked the box which was the jurassic park ramp so for those that don't know jurassic park from the data east era it's got a rather large right to left ramp um that loops basically around an orbit effectively and back down and then it splits into like a fork where it then works via a diverter to allow for the ball to either return to the left in lane slingshot or the right in lane slingshot similar to that of like adam's family for those that haven't ever seen a jurassic park ramp but it's very similar to that finding the parts for it was the more difficult part i had to kind of fabricate print brackets just to get it to to work i have managed to source some of the metal protectors that I needed to keep the ramp from getting destroyed. I had to buy parts from all over the joint. The other elements I used, so I've borrowed a lot of design ideas from Getaway. I actually had a playfield that was supplied to me with a lot of the wire guides, or if you want to call it steel ball guides, on the playfield. And it also had the up-down ramp mechanism, not the actual assembly that sits behind it, like the coils and the pivot and the armature and stuff like that, but the actual topside mechanism that allows the ramp to go up and down. And obviously that isn't made anymore and it gave me an idea thinking I could actually reuse this in my game. So I've got a multitude of different parts from different games that have basically been brought together to make one. So I've got parts from Bram Stoker's Dracula, I've got parts from Getaway, I've got parts from Jurassic Park as I mentioned and on top of that and for those that can see it so there's a wire form there that's basically at the moment in a raw state that was made by Avid Creations for those that don't know it his name is David Morrill lives in Australia great guy helped me out on my first custom set of ramps that I made for my Cyberpunk game he's done something similar for me where he's got a getaway from a friend of his taken that ramp return ramp wireform I should say and customised it so that it can fit into the Jurassic Park Day of East wireform return that I've also had made by him. So effectively two wireforms converging into one. He's done an excellent job of it and he did it over Christmas for me which was great because then I could then get to work with building the game. It's got to a position actually where the white wood is basically finished. I've got all the mechs on there including building the assembly that does the up down lifting of the ramp for the rear of the getaway up down ramp that was incredibly hard to source parts for no one sells the assembly in its in its entirety anymore what i had to do is basically open up the schematics on the manual source every part number and there's like 20 different parts i think that made that assembly and i had to source it across three different suppliers so at the beginning of the podcast we talked about pinball life sourced some parts from them sourced parts from planetary pinball sourced parts from uh pinball center and that's based in europe it's basically been a lot of uh international shipping and making sure and hoping that stuff doesn't get lost because whatever reason in england in the uk we have a very high risk of parts getting lost at least i do i've had more than my fair share of parts going missing getting lost in the in the shipment center i've stuff that meant to to go to the uk and it's and someone's mistaken swindon for the town that i live in for the word sweden and it's gone to sweden instead just crazy stuff like that i've had happen but yeah i mean got all the parts together i've got into a position where everything's basically set out and it's working took a lot of drilling a lot of patience a lot of measuring multiple times i even made my own custom diverter mech and because the diverter mech i wanted to use would typically sit underneath the playfield and but there is because i've gone with a bally williams playfield support design that meant that the posts of the diverter rod normally has to go through the playfield to then be mounted underneath basically via a pivot that just wouldn't fit in this design because the support rail that features on williams and bally's machines they use a rather a long piece of metal that basically has like a string at the end and that kind of like has this kind of like pivot gate that catches into the hinges inside the cabinet when you want to lift it up to stop it from falling off and and obviously collapse into the bottom of the cabinet it takes up a lot of space and it sits directly where the diverter rod would need to go so i had to get inventive and freely print my own kind of like uh diverter plate and fit it so that it just sneaks underneath the ramp. Thankfully it does. I've got away with it. I now need to get into a position now where I've built an enclosure around it. I'm thinking of ideas of what I'd do with that. Probably make it into what I call a generator room.
    77:02
    I was also putting down the inserts this morning. So plotting those out. Map out playfield. Show what areas I want to do in terms of game modes and that. I've got like seven modes in total. So there's like six standard modes and a wizard mode basically plotted out already. I have the sequences already plotted out in video and I've got callouts ready so it's taking a lot of shape rather quickly now. I'm at a position where I'll be doing the wiring and getting the game what they were supposed to call flipping soon. That in itself is obviously going to be a big learning curve for me. It's using the fast components so fast pinball. I believe it's based on mission pinball frameworks. I have to get my head around all the coding logic around that um wiring logic obviously and how it's built together in terms of electricals it's definitely going to be a bit of a learning curve but fairly confident i can get on with it my wife is currently finishing up a play field for someone i can't really talk about the theme yet so i don't think she's allowed to talk about it yet because it hasn't been announced but when that does get finished up and done she'll then be working on my artwork and hopefully then i'll be in a position where my play field will have all its artwork done and then we can send it off for final production and get it sent out as a finished product. So I'm still on target for playing it this year.
    78:25
    That'll be at Pinfest, right? Hopefully. It'll be tight, I'm not going to lie. It may end up going to... No pressure. Yeah, I'm tying with the idea to take it to Texas Pinball Festival next year instead. Ah, cool. That would be awesome. Although it's not cheap to get a pinball ship. I know it's not. I'll be working with David at Retro Arcade to help me out with that. I was just walking through the design. You just came back as I finished up, so that's good. Yeah, so I was getting glass because I'm out for a couple of weeks and so everyone's kind of grabbing it today. Let me just quickly finish on D&D. I like the game. I think it's going to be a good, fun, great... I think it's going to be a great game. It's probably not for everyone, though. if you're someone who likes playing the rules this might not be for you because you're going to have to think differently shooting wise is great if you're a flow kind of risk reward you're going to love this game in my view part of me kind of feels like Stern could have a surprise big hit on their hands the overwhelming feedback actually until today until yesterday was very positive about the game. A couple of minor things. Actually, Kari's been a bit more... He hasn't been negative, but he's like, oh, there's no wow moments in it. And I don't know if I agree with him on that. You know, fighting the dragon is a wow moment. The cube is... There's enough balls on the ground to make it a bit more... It's like a hectic game, isn't it? And the shots themselves. There's a couple of loop shots that I thought, that's a great shot to shoot. So I get where he's coming from. he always talks about stuck balls and i'd say i don't know when that happened maybe when i was eating pizza or something but i don't remember a lot of stuck balls on the game so i don't remember any i definitely remember pulling the glass off because that's the sort of thing i would remember um but you know for stuff like that i'm pretty sure stern will um he mentioned something like it was just like ball search wasn't picking the ball up sometimes yeah so ball search um hasn't been coded into the game that's right so if it needed that's all early doors it is That's why it didn't work. I don't know. It seems weird. Was this the game, by the way, that was meant to come out when X-Men was announced? Was that the idea? Was this something else? I honestly don't know.
    80:42
    So John Borg was working on a game that they cancelled. Oh, they cancelled it. Okay. Yeah, and I think that was Indiana Jones. I don't know why they've cancelled it. Licensing costs, maybe? I don't know. I don't know about licensing costs, but maybe licensing issues. You know, maybe they can't get... Maybe they had to do it based on the Dial of Destiny, which I don't know about you.
    81:04
    Terrible. Yeah. What a way to screw a great... They should have just left it at trilogies. Absolutely. Just like every Disney property, no offence. After three, they've run out of ideas. They need new IP. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a go player, but I loved it. I'm looking forward to getting it and kicking it out. And actually, just one other thing. also those are the x-men phil sent these out the uh x-men is this the uh sure kit the fixed kit upside down i know you're quite involved isn't it you've got to get like this like plastic that guides the balls i spoke to carl about it i think it's basically i think there's this bit of this ramp transition where the ball gets slowed down right um and i was talking to george gomez about it and and what's frustrating for him is it's like the first 10 games get built by the kind of mechanical team that designed the game right which is different from the factory floor and i think they've learned a lesson about you know how do they do the qa on something that's so precise that's what i was going to say that i've noticed this with every manufacturer you can't automate pinball at least no one's found a way to do it so it's all manual so those little kind of millimeters here and there it makes a massive difference when i'm putting that thing together like like one millimeter to the left means the difference between the ball draining or hitting the flip up like is it's like those kind of tolerances i could see being an absolute nightmare for a game that's got very tight tolerances 100 um but yeah that's so look um i'm looking forward to playing you know scott's been sending me some photos and videos of the homebrew i'm looking forward to playing it um and seeing it and we'll be coding it sooner or later yeah well let's have a chat with that. I don't know if I'm good enough for making rules, but we can have a bit of fun with that for sure.
    83:01
    Okay, let's move on. Actually, we've only got a couple of things to cover now. First of all, the Twippies. Yes, they're back. We are being... We've been nominated despite the fact that we don't really want to be seen as mainstream.
    83:19
    I feel like we're going to have to do something to be... It's nice to be nominated, but it really doesn't... You know what I mean? I don't... It's like, I'm not Carrie Hardy. I'm not Retro Ralph. I just do this because it's fun. Yeah, I mean, look, there's some... Yeah, I mean, that's it. Look, there's some really great podcasters out there that put in huge effort. Yeah. You know, Slam Till.
    83:40
    Even... I mean, Zach Mennie's pinball show. Yeah, they put so much effort into what they do, right? Huge effort. I mean, we literally... I mean, to record this, I picked Scott this morning and said, Hey, let's do a podcast. He's like, yeah. and then like what are we talking about five minutes and then we're good to go right yeah i mean the only reason we don't have any technical issues is because i haven't broke it since i've actually done anything on this machine since the last podcast but we really appreciate um being nominated definitely yeah it's it's an honor in itself um we do this because we love pinball um and i mean you know we've scott and i've got two perspectives on the on the he's diet coke and i'm Pepsi Max.
    84:18
    I'm the best seller. I taste great. It's got the opposite. I'm the underdog. Yes. You're the Michael Jackson to my Christmas Santa. That's the only ad. Nothing wrong with Michael Jackson. No, absolutely. Do you know what? I know a quick one there. I would love a Michael Jackson pin. Oh, me? I'm in. I am in. Yeah. I would have that. A game that played Billie Jean. I am in I mean I am if that game came out and it was 30 grand I'm buying it I mean I would make money happen for that I would absolutely have it I don't know if you ever saw Moonwalking so I played that in Boston it was in one of the arcades in Boston well actually Cambridge more than Boston but it was really well done it's when I first started looking at pin books I saw a Michael Jackson pin I was really surprised no one had It's obviously back before all the controversy. So the Williams didn't pronounce it right. But yeah, back before that, it would have thought he would have been a logical thing because I've seen him play pinball as well. Yeah, I think he was definitely a pinball player. But look, we can but dream, Scott. We can but dream. I think that would be a massive game though.
    85:36
    And look, in America, if you can buy a gun, surely you can buy a Michael Jackson pin. That's my take on it. So yes, Luke Twippies, thanks very much I mean, please, the other thing is I want to shout out a couple of Brits who've been nominated The first one is Hold on, that might be British Gas, one second The first one I want to shout out to is Stumbler and the second one is Paul Boucher and Mojo Mods They're both nominated, please vote for them they are for sure worthy of winning. Let's face it, I think to be honest with you, they've elevated the pinball mod game. Give me one minute, Scott. Yeah, sure.
    86:29
    I was going to say, from their perspective, they really have put pinball mods in the UK on the map, and the quality of work that they put into their mods, second to none. I mean, the situations where I've bought mods in the past where I'm just a bit like you don't get any instructions you put it together and and effectively you're like the print quality is not good or something's missing or it's just not entirely obvious how it gets put together the packaging from start to finish in terms of like how to put it together it's clear instructions it's well made it's going to last I think this is exactly how mods need to be um they always need to be in a position where I think anybody needs to learn lessons from how they do stuff, basically. It's just like, if you're going to charge good money for what you're doing, back it up by putting decent levels of documentation, decent levels of quality in terms of packaging and in terms of the product. Because these guys, for me, set the bar in that respect. Yeah, I mean, if I quickly just turn my camera, see if I can get it. That's the updated Godzilla from Module Mode. it's absolutely amazing very well done I think the beauty of it is that I think even Davey said it at one point if it looks like it was meant to be in the game you've done well something like that I mean Tokyo you've got a load of other mods Free Fighters Area 51 mod excellent I hope they win and Luke you know we'd love for you to vote for us but don't feel like you have to don't worry about it we're going to sleep nice to get a nomination that's all really I think it's nice to be recognised for sure a couple of folks at the event were talking about the podcast which was nice to see you know what I found impressive actually people like even Cary Hardy knows who I am and I've speak to him a lot on Facebook now it's just weird because I know we put ourselves out there and we're obviously in the public eye quote unquote by being on these things but you just don't really go you actually know who i am it's weird i mean i had it even when i went to pin fest people would just walk up to me and they go oh he's gone who are you obviously know me i said it's happened to me a few times um i used to happen to me at work actually because i kind of when you're you're mad you're like people can obviously talk to you for like 10 minutes and you walk on it's like who's that i was like i've got no idea um i it's kind you don't want to i've started i've actually started asking people who they are um which i avoided because i didn't want to say i didn't want to piss them off that oh he doesn't even know who the fuck i am um you know what sort of boss is he but i just i think it's worse not to i think it's worse not to ask um it's awkward isn't it when you just say hey man it's their name how you doing dude how's the family and you're just bullshitting right yeah a friend of mine john um who i used or if you used to say, Neil, inner human, exit human. And I used to say, John, I love that, mate, but that means I just get 20 minutes of you and your dog when all I want to do is ask you what the status of the project is. Yeah.
    89:51
    Right, with that, I think, so events and tournaments, I think I've covered a little bit of that when Scott was away. We've got Indus coming up. We've got Pinball at the Beach. We've got the UK League. We've got the February Fantastico at the Pinball Republic in a couple of weeks' time. Obviously, we've got Phil from Pinball Heaven arranging a show in the near future. He's been posting about that on Pinball Info. And then probably the big thing is Texas Pinball Festival. There's a big group of Brits going. I think it's going to be a real laugh. Unfortunately, Dave Bishop isn't going, so no one's going to be shot, killed, or maimed, unfortunately. because Dave was... Go on, we should do this quick. What's your predictions for games and new titles? Well, I think you've got to believe Jersey Jack have Harry Potter there, right? You've got to believe that.
    90:44
    Actually, in a normal world, that's what you should believe. I don't think they will. I think they'll save it for Expo. Okay. In which case, I think, given it's local for them, You've got to believe Battles of Fun will have their new game there. Yeah. I just can't imagine. And you think it's Fifth Element. I hope it is. At the same time, I don't, because they want to make room and spend money, but there we go. I think it's unlikely we'll have anything new from Stern.
    91:15
    No, they've done it right, yeah. They've done it. It's possible, because they didn't get Foo Fighters out. I don't think Spooky will announce anything, because they've done Evil Dead, right? No, but it'll be there to play, which for the most part... Which is what everybody wants, right? First time. American Pinball, who the fuck knows what's going to come out there, but you've got to think they'll have Cuphead at that event. Yeah.
    91:36
    CGC, will they have... Might they have a Halo there? Do you think Predetti will have their release? Totan? I hope so, actually. I have to give some Predetti some sugar, as Bruce Campbell would say. you know, we had Funhaus in the UK Open, and it just went, it just worked.
    92:01
    We had one minor thing with it, no worse than any other game, but it was rock solid. And I'll say, I was surprised about that. And I'm actually tempted to try and get one to put in the club, because it's a game that people like. But I was... I think what I like about what they've done is, I mean, take Funhaus aside, I like the fact the standard model was like about seven grand. It's like the price of a pro. Yeah. If they do a Totan at that money, I'll buy it. Yeah, I'll sell you hotcakes. Unfortunately, it's a fucking terrible game. I know you hate it, but I'm a sucker for puppetry games. Shoot the genie. But hopefully they do code update like they do with Funhaus, right? Yeah, I mean, if they can do something to make it more exciting to play than just shooting the genie.
    92:46
    Can you give code updates quickly, I should ask? Cactus Canyon, is that coming along now? so the last rumor i heard it's mid this year so i think i mean josh is definitely working on it i think it's getting there i'm getting there but i think it's still um six months away probably i'm quite happy to wait for that because i think it'll be worth waiting for other code updates there's a new metallica update definitely get that because it fixes a bargain we get ours next week fixes oh yeah it fixes the same thing um you guys are in for such a treat man you really are I'm all jealousy. I was looking in the background on yours, mate, and I still think the best animated DMV I've seen by far.
    93:28
    Yeah. The animation they've just done is just so impressive. I managed to get the topper for it once I was in the US as well. Yeah, it's a shame what it costs. I know, it's stupid money for... It actually feels too small for the game. They should have made it bigger, but... Yeah, when you look at the Dinsley James Ponce thing, that's massive. Yeah, it's kind of weird. And there's a code update coming for Pulp Fiction that fixes a couple of bugs.
    93:57
    Oh, yeah, okay. And with that, Scott, I think we might have landed the ship. All right. I think we might have. We do apologize for both of us chopping in and out, but it is a busy day for us. Yeah, sorry. And part of the reason we're doing this is I'm out of the country for now. two weeks, maybe three weeks. So I don't know if I will be around. But look, I'm really excited. We've got a great kickoff to the pinball year with D&D. I think it's going to be a really exciting year for pinball.
    94:34
    And I'm upbeat and ready for it, basically. Nice. And all that remains to be said is to thank you for tuning in. and we'll see you probably sometime in February, if not before. But if you've got any questions, the best place to talk to us is on our Facebook page, The Great British Football Podcast, and we will see you next month. Scott, it's a pleasure as always. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Goodbye. Bye-bye.