so what is it it's monday october 27th yeah so we've been back from expo for week we got back a week ago yeah i think so yeah we got back last sunday so it's monday about a week ago that doesn't align with my body in terms of time yeah the whole event like three days or whatever three and a half or four days if you include set up and travel and tear down yeah it just feels like one long event yeah but it also felt short by the end of the day saturday it's like we didn't get to do anything yet it just felt like one long day and then five minute hangout sessions here and there. So this year was different because we had a booth and we were sharing it with Ian from Nudge magazine. And we had 10 by 10 space to put our crap. Yeah. Which turns out is not a lot of space. It's not as big as you would think. Yeah. It's the size of like the smallest bedroom in anybody's house basically. But it worked. Yeah. It ended up being fine but it was tight definitely i mean we brought coffee we were serving espresso shots that seemed to go over well yeah the coffee was a huge success yeah it was cool man i think overall it worked maybe our booth location wasn't the greatest but people came johnny crap said next year they should move us to the very middle so that everyone can just see the coffee from all angles and i agree well you're gonna have to hire probably a couple employees man well we'll text rob berg about it see if he can do it yeah see if he can make that happen yeah so we made the decision to get this booth i think back in march the earlier you book it the cheaper it is right well honestly you did i was kind of like not on board 100 i was like i don't know man this might be a lot of work and yeah are you sure you want to do that ultimately like the booth is pretty cheap and you get two free tickets and we were splitting it with ian like he was on board so it was like it seems like something to try right right but then like a month before expo we're like oh we got a lot of stuff we got to get together to make this actually happen i know it's a lot of work. I mean, we've both done convention center booths before, so we weren't going in totally unwares. Right, right. Either way, I think we'll be ready though. Yeah. For the next time. All the questions have now been answered for the most part. For the most part. Yeah. I think we could do a repeat booth with much less stress and effort and cost. So how was your experience having the booth? Like what you thought it was going to be with what it ended up being? It was pretty close to what I was expecting, to be honest. I thought our location was going to be a little better. On the map, it looked better than it kind of was in reality. Well, we compared it to last year, and last year it would have been better. And then also at the last minute, that random Roger Sharp merch booth appeared that wasn't there on the map. We had kind of a worse spot, and then no one was at that. That was like an unmanned booth that was kind of just weirdly stuck right there beside us. But just like we were too far off to the side to get traffic. Like natural, just casual foot traffic. Yeah. I think somebody mentioned like why not line the whole walls of the convention center with pinball machines. Yeah, like on the outside walls. And if they had games like Along the Walls, there would be a way to arrange the games, I think, like Rob Burke's collection of games to kind of help keep a flow of traffic happening. Yeah, I think it's a great suggestion. And I think Rob Burke, if you're listening, I think it's a great idea because then you would have a good variety and a good mix of games throughout the place. And then you'd have people seeking out games or having shorter lines for certain games in certain places. and maybe you would spread out the crowd a little bit too. Yeah, I can see the downside of it being if you're trying to keep all those games maintained, be much more spread out. And that would probably be more of a hassle. Shout out to Scorebit for helping us score that Harlem Globetrotters. Scorebit is like a system, like insider connected for games other than Stern. Right. And so you can install it on basically any solid state game. Ultimately, it didn't work for the tournament, but the game still worked and we did have quite a few random people walk up and play it. Yeah, yeah. Obviously we got lucky just to have that in our booth at all because Ian worked that out. He's the most connected man in pinball. Ian has good luck having people bring him all kinds of stuff so we just gotta figure it out from him I guess. He was getting little packages and things dropped off Hey, can you give this to Ian? When Ian gets back, do you mind giving him this? It's like all wrapped up in a bag. What is this Ian? Like a fan club or something? But yeah, anyway, as far as the booth reality versus expectations, how did that go for you? I would say it was wildly different. It's hard to say, right? It's very positive in certain ways and also negative in some ways. Starting with the negative, just not having enough time to be out and about and look for games, look for cool stuff. The feeling of being tied down to the booth for a certain amount of time. for yeah we had like a live stream going you were serving espresso we had people coming up to talk to us about the show we had giveaways there was a lot going on and well and it was all stuff we had never done before i don't want to say we were overly ambitious because i think ultimately we did it but i wish there was a little bit more time yeah because really i only had about i would say two hours total out of the whole event to play games. I was expecting that I wasn't going to have a ton of free time to play games, but it ended up being even less than I... Yeah, I'm sure. The only negative aspect is just like the management, the admin. Yeah. The positive side was having a home base and having an area you could send people to, to come find you later. having a cool inflatable couch to sit on when your feet got tired yeah having an espresso machine to keep you energized that was handy that was the positive side of it for sure yeah also you can like drop off your crap leave a backpack you don't have to carry it all day yeah but the lack of actual pinball that i played was the biggest downside for me for sure yeah it made me feel sad a little bit the whole homebrew section i feel like i totally slacked on right the homebrew stuff can be a little bit of a challenge because there's usually only one of each game. Yeah, there's one of each. And if Stern brings a new game, they bring like 15 of them. So a lot of the homebrews have quite a bit of a line almost the entire convention. Like Big Trouble in Little China didn't get to play that. Exactly. That's on my list too. And I guess because we're talking about it, I have to give a shout out slash recognition to the MVP, my beloved Sarah. Dude, she held it down. I'm so thankful and so grateful for her to be there selling shirts, helping with the giveaway raffle stuff, selling magazines. When I told you that I wanted you to come to Expo, this is for you, Sarah, by the way. I imagined us playing games, hanging out, having fun. I didn't really picture you working for 12 hours, talking to people, passing things, taking pictures and videos and helping us with content. Thank you, and I hope that you will come to Expo with us again. Because we need help. Who knows? Maybe by next time we'll be able to afford paying someone. But you have to find somebody who actually wants to be there. That's the hard part. Yeah. You couldn't pay somebody enough to make it actually worth it for everybody. I mean someone. Like a younger person, right? Like a high school kid or something. It has to be somebody who loves pinball and just wants to be there. To work in the booth. Maybe they're listening right now. Contact us if you want to be our intern. Pod at bashpinball.com. Our expo intern. We will pay for your transportation, your ticket. You just have to work 22 hours a day for five days straight. You can't be better than us at pinball. Preferably bilingual. Not too good looking. Not too good looking, for sure. And be nice. Yeah, that's it. Contact us if you're interested in a gig. Cool. For 2026. You have to be trainable to make espresso. So this will include free barista training. Free barista training. Wow. That's worth it. Yeah, I could charge for that. You could probably get a gig at Starbucks. You could put this on your resume. Probably. Yeah, I think anybody can get a gig at Starbucks. Oh, man. Well, we'll figure it out, man. Okay, so we did get a little bit of time to play. Most people probably know, maybe not, that Pinball Expo was started by Rob Burke. This was the 41st year, the two years that we've been. he brought a large number of his own personal games on free play it's something like a hundred games it's quite a few it's got to be around a hundred this year he brought a totally different set of games so every time to me like i'm just looking for games that i've ever played before right and there's a bunch especially because there's weird brands and you know european super rare weirdos stuff you've never heard of stuff you've never seen on pin side and who knows when you'll see them again the crazy thing is they're all pretty nice they actually try to set them up well and keep them running throughout the show sometimes the game will go down but they fix them yeah day one i think tx sector was down but went back next day and it's up and running playing great so yeah we should talk about some of the highlights of the rob burke collection rob burke rob burke these are my games so which ones were your standouts the first one i remember playing was bmx i had never seen the game it's like a 1982 bally they made like 500 of them or something so it's pretty freaking rare and it's pretty freaking old so how many of those 500 still exist it was pretty cool but this one's nice it has that early 80s upper play field where it's just kind of like pointlessly higher than the lower play field and has like a couple flippers at the top and the flippers at the bottom the cool thing is it has extra buttons on the sides oh and as the ball's coming down into the inlanes if you don't push those buttons the ball will just drain straight down you push the button and it fills the gap of the in lane and the ball can pass over it you have to hit the buttons to get the full in lane function yeah yeah like so if you're not paying attention you'll just drain that's crazy all the time and there is a little bit of a timing to it like you hit it and it stays for a second it reminded me of the king kong action button yeah we're on the top left it feels that pops up and it's the same kind of thing but it's on both on the left and right and they have their own buttons that's independent of each other so like your right side has the right button left side wow that's crazy i bet that's the fun i was playing with ian and he was able to adapt to those buttons very naturally and i just could not do it i played it maybe three times and i think i saved it with those buttons once yeah that's a fun game it's a ward pemberton game. He did Mousing Around and a couple other random, but not like a super well-known designer, but it's really it was a really fun game. Like anybody who finds one should jump on it. They're kind of expensive because they're rare. They're in the $4,000 to $5,000 range or something. I bet. I mean, it looked cool. It's kind of like a retro art extreme sports. Yeah, it was cool. I actually liked their work a lot. I think that is one of my favorite things about Expo is stumbling upon games that you've never even heard of before. yeah i mean there's definitely ones you you seek right like which is the game i'm gonna talk about next but just stumbling on a game you've never seen or heard of before just looks cool you like the art or something you play and maybe it has some kind of magical component to it yeah it makes it even better yeah i do wish there was more of that kind of weird innovation in games like modern games you mean yeah there's not you know what you're getting into with everything nowadays It's just hard because some of those older 70s games played the flow, right? It felt more like curvy, more windy, more side to side-y. Yeah. I think you pointed out that some of the shots were similar to X-Men or something, but... The way they go across the playfield. But I think because the shots are so quick, like the gameplay is so fast, right? And we're used to having straight shots. You don't necessarily feel that different flow. And maybe that's the problem. Yeah. The games play so quick, they just all kind of feel the same in some ways. From an operator's perspective, you kind of want the games to start and end quickly. I guess, yeah. I guess. And then the better people get at pinball they just want more difficult games and faster games I know I do I am looking for something different unique and innovative that feels different I don want to just see a straight shot hit the thing and then it comes back I want to actually have some mystery. Yeah. You know, like the BMX thing with the inlanes. I mean, that's kind of like a gimmicky thing maybe today, but I love the idea of it. It's an extra challenge that you're putting right up front in the game. like spooky evil dead with the third yeah flipper is one of those gimmicky things that's actually fun yeah i guess i'd like more gimmicks if they're well executed and like actually add to the game the one in evil dead i don't know if you actually need that flipper to make any shots i haven't played it enough i don't know either yeah it's still fun like a novelty it is useful i will say this every time i've tried to use it it betrays me yeah so to get back on track i guess one of the games that i was most excited to play is 24 2009 2009 Steve Ritchie stern i think because at the time i was younger i didn't really appreciate the games that were coming out right i would just kind of stumble up on them wherever they were and i would play them family guy etc etc there's a whole slew of games csi 24 2000 to 2010 world series poker yeah wheel of fortune yeah the artwork is like pretty bad pretty bad the fonts are very powerpoint yeah it's like low res photoshopped some photo realistic some photoshopped is it kind of grainy looking illustrated is it a picture we don't know there's some of the ugliest pinball machines i mean really dude but so fun oh my god dude 24 i don't even know why dude like immediately it was so freaking fun yeah you played that before me but i it was on my to-do list because that's a game i've never played exactly and i don't think they made that many of them hard to find no dude but honestly yeah it played it very much like a fun Steve Ritchie game. Pretty fast and quirky and fun and kind of like not forgiving but kind of forgiving. It was like a little punishing. So yeah, I played it like twice maybe once or twice and that was one of the few games where I got on the scoreboard. Cool. It did feel pretty forgiving. Yeah, man. It was just like simpler time like the actual gameplay itself. I think it's fun to go back and you know how much we love 90s Bally Williams games are just like easy to figure out easy to kind of begin at pinball it's cool to see like the next step in complexity in terms of gameplay and rules even though the art kind of sucks kind of like the actual gameplay itself is fun it's a little faster but still kind of basic yeah it was funny because when i i walked up to it at one point i could have told you that that was a Steve Ritchie game probably walking up to it i was like is this pat lawler it's the arch i couldn't remember because yeah they all look the art throws you off dude yeah they all have that same look i didn't think it was but i was like This feels like a Steve Ritchie game. It really does. The only thing is it does stop the ball a lot more than most Steve Ritchie games. You hit a ramp and peg pops up and stops the ball. You hit this other thing and a little thing pops up and it stops the ball. It's not like a total momentum killer, but it's not as flowy as probably a lot of people like. Interesting. I didn't experience that at all. I didn't feel that way at all. Well, you weren't blowing it up like me. i guess not dude i was i was distracted by the the house that opens and the two guys with guns the drop targets that you have to hit over and over and like get into the house yeah i mean it was great briefcase multiball yeah briefcase multiball correct me it's like a little briefcase toy it's just like that's the lamest name for anything i love it i love it i thought it was really fun i had a ton of fun with it but i always have fun if i do well in a game right well that's what i'm saying i love games like that just simple and fun you know you could have people over your house hang out together and you don't have to know anything about pinball and still have fun it has little toys has things that move it has physical ball locks it's funny it's entertaining and i think that's why i gravitate to those games because i imagine doing the same thing with in your game yeah and people's eyes just like glaze over like wait what yeah supposed to do what if i do this and this yeah you know what i mean like you see that guy with the gun yeah that dude he knocks like falls down now we get the other guy yeah and this has the red stern dmd era it was a sam game so i guess it feels pretty modern it actually felt pretty modern it feels modern yeah it's 2000 2009 from my experience with a lot of those 2000s like mid-2000s early even the whole 2000s stern games it's like they're all so much fun and just kind of victims of bad font and bad art because if you actually play those games wheel of fortune they're all so much fun and the show 24 i mean i didn't actually watch it much but it was basically like a hurry up the whole show the whole show yeah so it kind of fits man that game was fun when i play those games i usually don't expect to like them that much i didn't even look but it's probably it's not rated super high and it's a lyman sheets coded game too so the fact that it's Steve Ritchie and lyman sheets like because a lot of those games are like well they shoot fun but the code sucks and if Lyman did the code, then maybe the code's not bad either. This is a great game, guys. Seriously. It's number 286. We'd have to sit there and read reviews, which I'm not going to do. Maybe the game sucks, but to me, super fun. No, I'm team 24 all around. Team 24. I mean, how many reviews is that based on? I made the mistake of pulling up some comments. Some reviews. It's bogus, man. So this guy's talking about five months ago. This suit's talking about how you can feel the cost-cutting on this one. So come on now. This is a 5.7 rating. Because of all the cost-cutting? You can definitely feel the cost-cutting on this one. And why are all the major mechs in the back of the playfield? Because that's how Steve Ritchie designs games. Gameplay's alright, but nothing to write home about. I never followed or seen the show. The call-outs seem very uneventful. And don't get you excited while collecting jackpots. all right game doesn't stand out and to me hasn't aged well and not to uh throw this guy under the bus uh blow back 1976 i mean your opinion's valid like i you know yeah let's take it back to the square one dude is the game fun or not my answer yes if i could find one cheap cheap yeah i would get it yeah there's only 1200 made so like it would be a fun quirky i mean come on what does say it's worth what's the median pin side standby inflated value estimated value 4160 to 4840 i think that might be a little high but i think it's pretty fair like 4000 i think it's probably yeah appropriate for that game yeah i think if you could get one for like under 4000 you're doing pretty good it's a fun game again i just think the theme is kind of like dated now and nobody cares about 20 like yeah but like if i were to go to someone's house and they had that game i would freak out i would scream and i would be like yeah i need to play this game right now even though it's a 2009 game it almost feels like more retro than it actually is yeah it kind of does yeah yeah i will never forget and maybe because of the nostalgia factor in high school my science lab teacher mr deweese deweese this was his favorite show really one day he was out right and it had some science shit in the episode and he let us watch it in the class so anyways 24 yeah great game anyway so yeah that was my highlight of rob brooks collection besides phantom of the opera okay and orbiter one yeah and barbed wire i spent so much time on 24 but those games also were like Honorable mentions. Data East, Phantom of the Opera, probably the best Data East game of all time. Maybe. Maybe. Orbiter One, as we know, as we learned at Gorgar Shed. Phantom of the Opera has that black and red and white kind of color scheme. Yeah. Like almost centaur-ish or something. And that just works for me every time. Really. The art's cool. It's pretty cool. it's a little creepy since it's the artist's daughter Paul Faris daughter is the one who posed for the scantily clad i don't know who the woman is in fan of the opera but what miss phantom miss phantom yeah phantom is what was mistress phantom what's the lore real quick ian told sarah that well she told me he said something like the artist asked his wife to do it said no and she was like nah you creep okay so i'm gonna get my daughter yeah it's a little it's creepy but i thought it was madonna yeah like it looks just like madonna it could be something that's like way more innocent than it seems could just be the face i just need like a general female face to make the art on you know yeah but when you hear that you immediately just imagine like telling His daughter. Or like he has a shrine for his daughter. Can you show a little more shoulder? Oh, no, Matt, stop. I don't want to go there. Maybe he was so in character that he became the Phantom. Yeah. Because that's kind of what you're sounding like right now. He's like, put this on. Oh, man. But the art is incredible. And I actually don't even know if I'd seen that game before. Yeah. That Backglass? Yeah, because it's a pre-DMD. It's alphanumeric. alphanumeric the back glass was like semi-translucent yeah with the mask oh yeah and you could see like his disfigured face below yeah ever so slightly it was kind of like this like frosty it was incredible man it had that cool depth and you know what i'm talking about right you could kind of see his teeth caught like all jacked up through the mask yeah it was amazing it was great it's a cool game and the music is actually really cool and it shoots fun it's got red ramps which you don't see every day yeah and like what savecracker is a handful of games with red ramps but it's just it's just vibey what an awesome game yeah we should try to get Paul Faris on the show and clear up any misconceptions about the art there's definitely people pretty creeped out by that and now for a word from our sponsor Hey, it's me talking, the Fonz Pinball. Want to play me? Play the Fonz Pinball, a rugged machine with plenty of fast action. Pretty slick, huh? The Fonz Pinball is the real thing, with drag strip raceways, lots of bumper action, too. Watch those independent action flippers. Perfect. L's, lights, real scoring. The Fonz Pinball Machine. Hey! by Coleco. And now, back to the show. So, we had like a couple hours the first night and we got some time in for a few of these games and we were hanging out with Amy from Tilted Orbit and Jojo Dojo. Really fun. They came out and we got to hang out for a little bit and ended up playing some games together. Yeah, and I think one of the first games we played with that group was Transporter. transporter yeah you play that right i was on the phantom we were playing in tandem because we had like six or seven people or something so we were split up across two games i hadn't gone in on transporter but did you end up playing it i never played it okay so transporter is another one that was on my wish list because it's pretty rare i think it was like around a thousand or something that was made i've played it on vpx before the music is super cool it's kind of not the best game, I would say. But it's fun. It's a System 11 right after the Bally Williams merger. So it's like, I think it's a Bally game, but it has Williams hardware from that transition period. It has one of those playfields, everything is really close, and there's one shot kind of up the middle. But if you're not finding the shots, you're just bouncing all around very quickly, fumbling in the lower half of the play field. That's rough. Yeah. And it's hard to see the shots because there's like stuff in the way. But it has a really cool upper flipper situation. It's sort of like No Fear, like that jump loop. Yeah, where you're kind of like hitting it around to an upper flipper and then you have to time that. It's fun. It's got a fun gimmick. Yeah. I think I would like to have that game because the art is insane. It's like an original sci-fi theme with crazy monsters and aliens. Aliens. Just really over-the-top artwork. It's almost comic book-y or something. It's definitely comic book-y. Cool art and pretty fun, actually, once I started to find the shots. I'm sure it's not the best game in the world, but I was glad to find that game, finally. Yeah. Honorable mention, Barbed Wire. Barbed Wire. I did play Barbed Wire. I don't need to say much about that game, but it was fun. It wasn't as fun as I was hoping it would be. Yeah. Gottlieb. Ultimately it's still got those flippers Kind of wonky It was fun to play an older Pamela Anderson I think it was the last Gottlieb game It was like 95 It a pretty fun game There like a fat guy in the middle It got got like weird like uh looks like a buddha sort of yeah yeah there a door that moving up and down and you have to time it so that you get it through the door it's simple but i can't think of a lot of games that have that it's a fun shooting game it's cheesy looking no but it vibes hard like in like an ugly way it has its own like tacky thing that makes it cool like sarah loved it and what's funny is there was one for sale around here that's why i wanted to play it because i saw it and i was like oh yeah i've totally forgot about that movie yeah and maybe it'd be fun and it was but probably not four thousand dollars worth did you ever see that movie i never saw the movie i think i might have seen it i want to say it was rented at somebody's house at some point we should have a nostalgic movie night yeah dude i don't know if i can get through barbed wire i haven't that's gonna be rough did you play space jam i did not play space jam there used to be one locally but it never worked right so i never i couldn't play it so space jam was a 1996 sega game 800 produced wow so i had never seen one before and they had one there and i was like oh space jam like kind of forgot this game existed it's funny because like i was expecting more looney tunes yeah and i can't honestly remember the space jam movie that well this game is basically michael jordan pinball forget the looney tunes they're barely on there it's like michael jordan yeah in the center of the play field like a huge image of him yeah and it's a basketball game it's a basketball themed pinball machine right there's like a couple looney tunes characters like little inserts but the rest is just michael jordan i was like oh okay i get it now it's pretty fun did it play well yeah it played fine it's got kind of a tough shot that reminded me a little bit of the death star shot on the new star wars basket i was like is that even possible to get the ball through the net because it jumps at the top of this ramp and goes through a hoop and it works yeah it's not super satisfying because you can't really see what's happening that well that's the problem is when i did play that game years ago it wasn't working right and that shot was impossible so i kind of just wrote off that game altogether also i'm not really the biggest fan of sega games they just feel kind of like toy plasticky to me they don't feel that great and i didn't even consider it but had i seen it i would have probably played it at least one game yeah well i was in the middle of a game and i was like i'm not sure this ramp shot is possible the one that goes into the basketball goal like you said but then i hit it it's real tight it's hard to hit like it tapers to basically the width of the ball at the end of the shot so if you don't hit it really cleanly you won't hit it but yeah i mean it seemed kind of fun that's cool i only played one game but i wouldn't mind playing another game of it if i ever get the chance but like compared to nba fast break or something it was like yeah this isn't that great Team Fastbreak all day. Yeah. So another game that was on my Data East list was Time Warp. Wait, is that what it's called? Time Warp is the one with the banana flippers. Okay, there's Time Warp. Time Fantasy is a snail. Not Time Fantasy. Time Cop. The Van Damme movie. Time Machine? Time Machine! Okay, so as late 80s Data East games go, this is one that I've never seen. And it's really fun. Really? Yeah, it's just really corny and goofy and has lots of robot call outs like that kind of 80s robot voice thing, which just works for me with pinball for some reason. You're traveling through time in the game and it changes the sound effects based on what time period you're in. I guess if you're in the future, it's like the robot things. I think it even has electromechanical bells in the game. That's cool. And it's got like two or three ramps. It's just a fun shooting, kind of simple game, but really 80s art and very retro vibe-y. I was having a lot of fun with that game. And I don't think they're that expensive. I wish I would have played it. It's got a toilet-y shot. It's got kind of fun flowy ramps that do little things. I didn't get to play that much, but that one's now on my definite to-buy list at some point. I wonder if there's one around here. The other game that I played that was on my to-do list was TX Sector. I'd never played a TX Sector. Did you play the one there? I did not. It's like a John Trudeau Gottlieb game before he moved over to Williams. And it's fun. It's got like eight drop targets. It's got an upper flipper. It's got like a drop target in front of a ramp thing. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. It's got the upper flipper that shoots to a side ramp, like high speed, but on the other side. It's got cool art and just really cool music. I see why people like it. I don't think there's anything mind-blowing about it. I know it's a popular tournament game, but it definitely seems like one of the cooler Gottlieb games from that era. It just kind of has all the fun stuff. It does have those real floppy round flippers. Yeah. Even though it's a late 80s game, that must have been the end of that era. Which, by the way, I'm starting to love those flippers as a novelty. They felt fine in this game and said they didn't really bother me, but it was notable that they were the chonky flippers. They're entering another dimension. Yeah, so one of the few new games that I got to play was Harry Potter. And we played, I think it was, what's their hierarchy? What's the basic one? Collector's Edition, Wizard Edition, and Arcade Edition. Arcade Edition would be like the Stern Pro. Collector's Edition would be like the Stern Limited Edition. Yes. Essentially, right? That's my understanding of it. And I think the Arcade Edition is a new thing for Jersey Jack, as far as I know. Okay, so the Collector's Edition is $15,000. The Wizard Edition is $12,000, which is kind of the price of a Stern LE is like $12,000 something, right? Sure, sure. Maybe a little less than an LE. And I believe the new Barrels of Fun games are $11,000 something. So they're in that kind of range. And then the arcade edition is $10, $99.99. Right. So it's kind of the same as Stern, but every tier is like $2,000 or $3,000 more. Yeah, I played the arcade edition and I played the collector's edition. I made it a point to play both to kind of just feel the difference. Honestly, I didn't really... I mean, granted, I only played one game of each, but I wasn't really missing anything. I mean, I think if I was a diehard Harry Potter fan, I might go all the way. into collectors because it had all these little extras and it was actually really cool we got to play with don from don's football podcast we played a three-player game yeah he has one and he was like well you want to do this it was cool to play a new game to me with someone who owned one and had experience and knew the shots and like yeah pretty much on the fly could answer any question i had shout out to don it was really cool to to see the shot and honestly it gave me a an appreciation for that game it is actually an amazing game i didn't notice any huge difference in terms of gameplay between the arcade and the collector's edition one of the things that stands out to me now about the collector's edition was there's like sparkly paint like glitter yeah in the play field which that's the level of detail and nuance that comes with the collector's edition also like the powder coating on like the rails and the side legs in terms of gameplay i haven't played the game enough but my personal take was i wasn't missing anything in the arcade edition more of the aesthetics and bells and whistles right like sprinkles and cherry on top but the actual game itself was tons of fun i was pleasantly surprised at how good the game was and how fun it was and what we talked about in a previous episode right it kind of brings back the mystery of pin ball like where the ball's gonna go where it's gonna come out the lighting is incredible um if I was a bigger Harry Potter fan, this would be the game. Yeah. So I went into playing that game completely blind. I guess the game's been out for a couple of months at least. Right. But I had just gone out of my way to avoid seeing anything about it. So I walked up to it having never even seen a picture of the game or the play field or anything like no preconceived notions. I hadn't listened to anybody talk about it. I just like doing that. It's more fun. I did the same thing. I was kind of blown away by that game. It really was like an evolution of what Jersey Jack has been doing. And it was the best shooting, the best feeling Jersey Jack game that I've played. Yeah, how Elton John feels more like quote-unquote traditional pinball, right? Like that's some of the stuff that people would complain about Jersey Jack games, not flowing. This feels like that. It feels flowy, dude. Yeah, it felt fast and flowy. It had a ton of mystery, like what does that do and how does that thing work and how do I get my ball up there? That upper playfield thing, generally I don't care about upper playfield stuff at all, but this was different. This was like shoot the ball up the left ramp and you can hit it around that loop and then hit it up another little ramp that feeds it back down to the same exact flipper. And you can keep looping it as a ramp in the upper playfield. And it was super fun. that shot was just like dialed in and it felt really good super fun there's four flippers i think three full-size flippers and one mini flipper but man i was playing that i was just like if i was ever gonna get my kids into pinball like and and if i had ten thousand dollars oh yeah like this would be my go-to that is like the ideal home game just because there's so much depth to it and it's just a fun exciting game yeah i was pretty impressed with that game i heard some people talking about flippers and stuff like that and the games are getting played a lot yeah or is there some like fade in the coils and stuff like that probably by the end of the day i will say it did not feel like a stern game to me it didn't feel like stern flippers i think that's like a question that keeps coming up how do flippers feel interesting people complain about jersey jack flippers like crazy including myself what's the complaint because i have no idea they're sluggish they're not as responsive yeah to me it's like jersey jack has never said they want to be stern They want to be Williams. Yeah. That's been the whole thing is like Jersey Jack is the modern Williams. And to me, the flippers feel like Williams slippers. Maybe that's why I don't mind them. Yeah. They felt fine. They have a heavier feel than a Stern game. And lots of times Stern flippers, I've heard you complain that they almost feel too light, too plastic-y. Almost like I'm clicking instead of like hitting. You know what I mean? Yeah. I like how Stern flippers feel because they're so responsive. Like precise. And very precise. and you feel like you can do anything with those things. On Harry Potter, the flippers felt like they had more weight to them, but not in a bad way. It's just different. I didn't have any issue with it at all. They definitely have a different feel. Anybody who's like, oh, they feel exactly like Sterns. No, they don't. They don't feel like Sterns. But they feel good. I didn't even notice, man. They felt good to me. Yeah, they feel good. They just feel more like Williams to me, which I'm not complaining about. I will say that one of the games that I was playing, the upper flipper was not really working by the end of the night which one one of the harry potters yeah oh that's a bummer but you know these games were getting played a lot and worked non-stop it's like arcade to the extreme because there's literally a never-ending line yeah pretty much a never-ending line on all these games they're not getting a break the ultimate stress test for a game i didn't really hear about games not working at the whole convention everything was working same it feels like these manufacturers have ironed out a lot of technical issues because they realize it's it's not it's not a good news story if your game is down at a convention center and like you said it is a big stress test it's a yeah it's the test do you want to talk about winchester since you actually got to see it and play it winchester game mystery house which was announced right before yeah expo i wasn't expecting a new game from barrels of fun because Dune feels like it didn't come out that long ago. It feels new. Like at our local spot, Dune is still like, that's the new game. We haven't released that episode yet. Yeah. That's in the pipeline. That's hilarious. But Winchester Mystery House, I had no idea it was coming. We saw Jeff from Dirty Pool like a month ago who did the sound on Winchester. He didn't say a word. Freaking tight-lipped. Nothing. Congratulations, Barrels. You got yourself a good one because you said nothing. If you're wondering. We were shocked. we were like jeff what the heck we thought we were friends yeah not even a crumb no we didn't get anything nothing so the game was a total surprise and they obviously timed it for expo and kind of stole the show it worked because stern had come out with star wars like a month earlier and that was still their newest game right a lot of folks were expecting stern to have a surprise release maybe like walking dead collector's edition right or wait vault edition maybe walking dead will be remastered, but if that terminology will be used for a non-music pin... That's interesting. I didn't think about that. Because last year, Metallica came out just on one day. Right, right. So Stern didn't have any ace up its sleeve at this event. And really, it allowed barrels of fun to kind of steal the show a little bit Not to derail super far but this expo felt a little bit smaller in terms of vendors and like from from the big guys like spooky wasn there spooky did not show up and you know what did you see the news i did see the news i guess it wasn't ready yet this seemed like the perfect opportunity for barrels to do what they did and i think it worked even the stern booth seemed a little bit smaller than last year i don't know if that's true it was different definitely the layout was different but it may have been in terms of size it felt to me smaller yeah well and last year they had x-men and metallica metallica was debuting and x-men had just come out right i think you're right i think winchester mystery house from barrels of fun kind of stole the show this year yeah it was the game that everybody was talking about i guess that and predator predator was the other one that was kind of debuting right right but of Of course, Winchester had already sold out, so there was a lot of hype. They only did 525, and they sold all of them basically by the first day of the show. Like, you can't get one, period. What do you think about that model real quick? So we're in manufacturing. We make stuff. We make expensive stuff. We're familiar with the limited run concept to some degree. If you make 525 games and sell them for $11,000, that's $5.775 million. How many? 500? 525 at 11,000 bucks a pop. Oh, wow. So you're making close to 6 million in revenue off of that one game. Right. Honestly, I think it's kind of smart, too, because it gives you a nice kind of cash injection to keep debbing, to keep hiring people, to keep expanding, to just keep things moving. You got to be careful, though, right? Because you can get a little overzealous and then you basically, what is it? Haggis or? Haggis. Haggis. the Australian company that went belly up because they overextended themselves I think generally but I think if you do it in a safe way and responsible and keep up your deadlines and promises we're good I get the feeling barrels of fun is run well and I think they know what they're doing financially that seems like a pretty smart business model because you're creating hype off of the limited number and I don't love that but it's just a reality of economics. It's like fear of missing out. Well, and if you're serious about it, you're going to buy it. If you're serious about the game, you're going to buy it. The thing that I don't like about this, which is kind of ingenious if they do this, but this game is probably going to go up in value or hold its value really well because they made so few of them and they sold out so quickly. Not only that, it seems to be a great game and it's an original license. They're not even paying licensing fees. I don't know if they have to pay the actual Winchester house anything. maybe they should if they don't want to be haunted you can't haunt a game but my concern is like the next game they're going to do like 600 and it's going to be a similar situation and everybody who didn't get a winchester mystery house is just going to be like well now i gotta buy this game or i'm not going to be able to get one yeah and they sell out of the 600 then the next thing they do 700 yeah and it's just like a cycle of fomo yeah and And it'll backfire if they don't keep the quality of the games up. That's the only problem. If you cannot deliver the actual promise of the game, then that model sucks. Because then the game will lose value and people will be pissed. We're just guessing here, but this was kind of like a shoo-in last minute. Maybe that was the plan. Just like a quick capital infusion for the next game, which might be a licensed game, which they will produce in a larger number. Maybe this is going to help them fund the next game that's going to be the next Dune, the next Labyrinth, the next whatever. Well, and they still have Dune and Labyrinth available. Right, right. You can still buy those games. So, yeah, it feels a little bit like an experiment. I like it. Well, Barrels of Fun feels like they're really trying to appeal to collectors, right? So their first game, Labyrinth, is a cult classic movie, and there's a huge fan base for that movie. so they know making that game no matter what yeah yeah of course they're gonna sell half of them or whatever to people who are not even pinball players people who are labyrinth fans who buy every labyrinth thing and can afford it of course dune similar similar this is different because there's no theme there's no built-in collector market i was surprised to be honest with what you're saying i was surprised that it sold out that quickly because i i didn't really expect 500 and something people to pull the trigger that quickly on a theme that was literally just Haunted House because before the game, I wasn't familiar with the Winchester house. Winchester to me is just the rifle company. It is based on the family. The Winchester rifle family. The rifles killed so many people, they're cursed now? Sure. We'll go with that. Maybe that's all it was and the reason that they did a small release. It's like, well, there's no built-in fan base for this theme so we're gonna make half as many of them if you're gonna buy buy if you don't you don't see what happens and i guess it was good and i think it kind of gets me excited about the original theme stuff because you and i are always talking about how much yeah totally we just want more original themes and this was a little bit of a proof of concept right and it's also taps into like some of the most iconic sought after pinball machines are Theater of Magic and Tales of the Arabian Nights, which are both John Papadiuk games, but they have this mystery, whimsical, magical element to them. Papaduke loves magic. The thing about magic, you don't need an explanation. Magnets are kind of like magic. It's a good marriage for pinball. Magic and pinball go together so well. Hunting and supernatural, natural um you can do fun things with the toys and like disappearing and yeah and harry potter too that's another game that really capitalizes on the magical element i think that's a big part of why that game is so fun because it's like magic is happening under the play field the ball yeah goes here it comes out here it looks like it disappears and reappears it's really kind of like easy stuff to pull off thematically in pinball and it just works it resonates with people I think Barrels was really smart to use that kind of magical, spooky sort of element in an original theme. Which, by the way, shout out to Brad Brad Albright. Yeah. Because that artwork was pretty awesome. This conversation reminded me of us talking to him because he was telling us how excited he was to work on this theme. Because he's also a fan of magic and pinball. Yeah. And just having the kind of freedom to do a little bit more original stuff as opposed to being bound by license or something. Yeah. It was really cool to talk to him at Expo and get a little bit of his perspective and background. And unfortunately, I didn't play the freaking game. I didn't get to play it. Yeah. I did go upstairs to the private little barrels of fun room. Yeah. Well, it wasn't private. Anybody could go in there. Right, right. but it was it was like an extra room that they had like the lights dimmed and they had that game and dune but in that setting where you could actually see like it was dim yeah so you could actually see the way the light was like popping off the back glass and just the whole dude honestly man like and it was quiet in there if you didn't see the game in the dark because the artwork and like the whole vibe and it just it popped so much harder well they had their main booth cover they had it kind of tented okay yeah they had it tented the main difference in that room was you could just hear it and the light was a little more controlled i guess but even like the dune game too right yeah shout out to johnny crap that artwork also kind of was striking to me as soon as i walked in and i saw it like the giant sandworm on that back glass art that was incredible dude that experience totally changed my perspective on the game it totally changed the way that i consume the art on both of those games just being in that environment a little bit quieter a little bit darker you can really see the colors come through the glass and through the light and the actual play field yeah the way that it all looks cohesive and almost like 3d in a way yeah i think if anyone ever during the show said anything negative about the art yeah you're wrong you should have seen it in the slightly dim room that was upstairs because it was totally different I think these games are so much more fun and feel much more complete in a home environment. Even in the expo environment, you can't hear anything. There's bright lights shining down on the playfield. It's like classic rock overhead somehow. Yeah, there's music, there's noise, people tapping you on your back constantly. I wish every manufacturer would have a space to play their new games. Barrels of Fun was very smart to have that type of setup at expo. I agree. Anybody could play it that way. i agree if you could wait in line long enough they had one in that room and then two or three more there was maybe four at the whole four less than five at the whole convention everybody's just waiting in line constantly for so there was like as many as like 20 plus people waiting to play that game at any time yeah i was in line the one time that i thought i was gonna get to play it they're about to close shop and i'm sitting in line i have a terrible headache because i hadn't really eaten very well i didn't drink any water all day yeah ultimately like the game beat me out because i was exhausted i had to leave but well so so i did play winchester i think it was saturday night expo goes to like 1 a.m saturday and i wasn't feeling when i left that was the same night right right we were all in line together and then i went downstairs to see if the line was any shorter it was not and i came back up and you were like i gotta go so i just took your place in line and did get to play the game. Unfortunately, it was like the 12.30 a.m. the last night of the convention and I was not on my game at all. So I had a very brief bad game. It seemed really fun, but I did not have time to get back in the line again to even play it a second time because they were going to be closed and that was it. So I was like, well, I guess that was maybe my one shot to play this game. We were so cooked. We were like running on fumes and I knew I wasn't going to enjoy the game no matter what because I felt so crappy. That's when I just threw in the towel and I said, you know what? I got to go because I'm not going to get anything out of this. Given the situation and the rarity of that game, a few arcades will probably get it, but it's probably going to be mostly in home collections. We might have to go to Brad Brad Albright's house or Jeff Dodson's house to play this game. Which honestly, dude, I think I would prefer. Yeah, it'd probably be better. It'd be way more fun. can actually hang out our our local place does have a dune and they've been buying up games so i they might maybe our local place will get one you never know they got an evil dead you know and that was a game that sold out who knows those guys are pretty serious triangle pinball collective i mean like hopefully they'll get one or or we'll find one we can play locally more and talk about it get a better feel for it but you know walking up to it blindly it seemed like it had fun shots obviously the art is really cool the house across the back the shots everything just seemed great the music was cool call outs were cool i wish i got to play it more but we'll figure it out yeah we'll we'll just have to report back later when we actually have a little bit more hands-on experience okay nerds i know what you're thinking the rare 1989 ballet game is not called transporter like we said it's transporter the rescue but the rescue part is written in like 10 point font and I forgot. So sue me. Actually, don't. Please don't. Anyway, our next episode will cover Predator from Pinball Brothers and a few other things to wrap up Expo 2025. And then after that, we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming. Look out for some upcoming Expo videos on our YouTube channel, including a great one about the Monster League Hockey Homebrew, one of the standout games of the show this year. Don't forget to follow and subscribe and review. All the cool kids are doing it. Don't be a poser. Return to your home. Evacuate all personnel. you