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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast March 2023 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·2h 0m·analyzed·Apr 4, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Texas Pinball Festival 2023 recap with new game launches and manufacturer interviews.

Summary

Jonathan Houston and Martin Eyup recap March 2023 pinball industry highlights, dominated by the Texas Pinball Festival where multiple manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Spooky, Chicago Gaming, Multimorphic, Turner Pinball) unveiled new games. They discuss new releases including Foo Fighters, Godfather, and others, conduct interviews with industry leaders, and praise the festival's organization while noting it was the most crowded edition yet.

Key Claims

  • Texas Pinball Festival 2023 was the best show yet with unprecedented attendance and new games from seven manufacturers

    high confidence · Jonathan and Martin's direct experience at the festival; described as 'the best edition' with 'sheer number of games, new games that were launched'

  • Ed Van Der Veen and Kim Van Der Veen are retiring as Texas Pinball Festival organizers; Paul McKinney will run the show next year

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'Paul McKinney who as a bit of news will be running the show next year without Ed and Kim Van Ravine who are basically retiring as show organizers and that news got out during the show'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is producing 6,000 Godfather machines total (5,000 Limited Edition, 1,000 Collector's Edition) with no Standard Edition

    high confidence · Explicit statement: 'a limited run in total of 6,000 units, of which 1,000 units are collector's editions' and 'No standard edition, just so you know'

  • All 1,000 Godfather Collector Edition units sold out

    medium confidence · Jonathan states 'apparently all 1,000 Godfather collector editions...sold out' with caveat 'whether they went directly to buyers or whether they went to distributors, we don't know'

  • Foo Fighters has an upper playfield available on Premium models but not Pro models

    high confidence · Direct observation: 'they had...a mix of premium and pros, mostly pro machines there, but a few of the premiums with the upper playfield, the Area 51 upper playfield on the Foo Fighters games'

  • Stern Pinball announced Rush machine accessories including a topper for $1,699, expression lighting side blades for $500, illuminated shooter rod for $140, and side armor for $250

    high confidence · Direct pricing statements with specific product details provided

  • Stern Pinball's April 1st Jersey Shore announcement was an April Fools' prank using WrestleMania dot-matrix imagery

    high confidence · Martin explains the prank: 'it had the WrestleMania golden speaker panel with the dot matrix display' and acknowledged it was similar to previous year's Frasier prank

Notable Quotes

  • “It was an amazing show. Very well run, and nothing but compliments for the organizing team”

    Jonathan Houston @ early in recap — Overall assessment of Texas Pinball Festival 2023 quality

  • “It was the best show yet, not just because of the sheer number of games, new games that were launched there, but also I thought it was so well run.”

    Martin Eyup @ Texas Pinball Festival discussion — Establishes 2023 as record-breaking year for the festival

  • “I have to congratulate Jack Danger and his team for creating a very flowing pinball. It's quite extraordinary, really, I think, the flow.”

    Jonathan Houston @ Foo Fighters discussion — Praise for Foo Fighters game design and playability

  • “I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to, I have to admit.”

    Martin Eyup @ Godfather impressions — Positive reception to Godfather gameplay compared to prior Eric Muneo designs

  • “The Godfather was a lot more intuitive...whereas I found that Guns N' Roses...the rules on that, I found very confusing.”

    Martin Eyup @ Godfather discussion — Direct comparison of rule complexity between Eric Muneo designs

  • “It's an entirely different game than, for example, Foo Fighters or Scooby Doo or any other. Basically every game, every new title that came out is a world on its own and has no overlapping...”

    Martin Eyup @ March 2023 games overview — Observation about diversity and uniqueness of new releases

Entities

Jonathan HoustonpersonMartin EyuppersonTexas Pinball FestivaleventStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyFoo FightersgameThe GodfathergameRush

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Quiz prizes donated by all major manufacturers (American Pinball, Chicago Gaming, Color DMD, Dutch Pinball, Jersey Jack, Multimorphic, Pedretti Gaming, Playing Mechanics, Pinball Brothers, Stern, Spooky, Wormhole Pinball); indicates strong community participation

    high · Extensive list of manufacturer prize donations; quiz extended from 1 hour to 90+ minutes due to prize volume; described as 'biggest crowd ever' at seminar

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Texas Pinball Festival tournament positioned in separate upstairs location away from main hall floor, limiting visibility to casual players but protecting tournament integrity

    medium · Jonathan and Martin debate pros/cons: isolation prevents spectator interference but reduces newcomer exposure to competitive pinball; streamed well according to coverage

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Foo Fighters demonstrates flowing ball mechanics and surprise shot routing as design priority; praised for distinct identity from other 2023 releases

    high · Jonathan praises 'very flowing pinball' and 'element of surprise' in shot routing; Martin notes it's 'a unique gameplay experience' distinct from competitors

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2023 was largest and most successful edition with record attendance; described as 'bursting at the seams'

    high · Direct attendee observations: longest lines ever, most crowded show, games set up outside corridors, highest seminar attendance (So You Think You Know Pinball quiz), multiple new manufacturer games launched

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Pinball producing extensive aftermarket accessory ecosystem for Rush including high-priced items ($1,699 topper); indicates strong market demand for customization

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.361

0:00
It's the Texas Pinball Festival New games from Stern Pinball Jersey Jack Pinball American Pinball Spooky Pinball Chicago Gaming Multimorphic and Turner Pinball Interviews with Jerry Stellenberg Jack Guarneri Daniel Ganton and Chris Turner And we visit the Multimorphic Factory Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston and I'm joined here as editor of Pinball Magazine by... Hi, I'm Martin Eyup and I'm the editor of Pinball News and we are here to look back at all the excitement in the pinball world that took place in the month of March 2023 and we always say... It was an exciting month it has been, but this one was ridiculous. It was. It was just crazy, as you just heard from the headlines. Yes. I think we had like teaser after teaser for a new game from a different company, and it was just new games everywhere. Yeah, perhaps this should be a tease for our actual Pincast, rather than actually being the Pincast. But no, we won't do that. We'll actually get on with it. But what we can do is we can tease the fact we have got interviews coming up. Yes, but in a separate episode, because it would else be a very lengthy episode, this one. So we're going to talk about the interviews that we did, but all the interviews will be in a separate episode that will be uploaded at the same time. So you have two episodes. Yes, that's a bonus pin cast, I suppose. So as we said in the headlines, we have a special interview with Jerry Stellenberg of Multimorphic, which is the factory. Yeah. In his boardroom there. So we have a lengthy, well, lengthy, a good honest and worthwhile discussion about what Multimorphic are up to. Then we also talked to Daniel Jansen of Pinball Brothers, who's heading up that company these days. So he tells us about his plans for the company. Yeah, and the merch with Pedretti Gaming, if you can call it that. Yeah, the Euro Pinball Corporation. Yeah, exactly. Then Jonathan speaks to Chris Turner of Turner Pinball. Yeah. In fact, he was talking to him on the stand. I spoke to him on the stand as well, but Jonathan spoke to him and had the foresight and the good thinking to actually start recording. So he turned that into an interview with Chris Turner to find out what Turner Pinball are doing and their Ninja Eclipse game and what they plan to do with that. Right. And finally, we speak to our good friend Jack Benary of Jersey Jack Pinball to find out what's going on at the factory there and talk about licensing and the Godfather and, well, all the excitement that's taking place at both Jack's place and at the factory in Elk Grove Village. Right. So, and, well, starting off the regular recap of the month, so to speak, I think the best way is to start with Stern Pinball, who are not only the largest company and the biggest manufacturer, but they also announced Foo Fighters. Yeah, we actually covered the review in last month's Pincast, but the game was shown, and we got to play it as well at the Texas Pinball Festival, where they had, I think there were around about 21 Foo Fighter machines there, along with a bunch of other titles, including several James, quite a lot of James Bond machines and... A couple of Godzilla's. Godzilla's, yeah. Yeah, so a big stand there. Rush as well, I think a couple. Okay, all on the Stern pinball stand, which was actually being run by Marcos Specialties and Fun Amusements. Yes. Stern weren't actually there themselves, although they had a large turnout of staff at the show to talk about it. Right, to represent this... Yeah, so Michael Grant was there.

  • Jersey Jack Pinball produced approximately 9 months of Toy Story 4 production, likely same for Godfather

    medium confidence · Jonathan states 'I think he's planning on being about nine months worth of production for Toy Story 4 so probably about nine months of production for The Godfather'

    • game
    Jack Dangerperson
    Ed Van Der Veenperson
    Paul McKinneyperson
    Eric Munizperson
    American Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Chicago Gamingcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Turner Pinballcompany
    Pinball Lifecompany
    Mark Ritchieperson
    Jerry Stellenbergperson

    medium · Detailed pricing on multiple Rush accessories; Martin notes prior expression lighting shortages, suggesting pent-up demand

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Texas Pinball Festival leadership transition: Ed Van Der Veen and Kim Van Der Veen retiring; Paul McKinney taking over as primary organizer for 2024

    high · Jonathan states this news 'got out during the show which was apparently not intended' and they will do separate interview with Paul about future plans

  • ?

    announcement: Jersey Jack Pinball officially revealed Godfather with 6,000 unit production cap (5,000 LE, 1,000 Collector's) and all Collector's units sold out

    high · Direct statements on production numbers and sellout status; confirmed pricing and availability strategy matching Toy Story 4 model

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball announced Foo Fighters, Rush with extensive accessory ecosystem, James Bond 60th Anniversary, and multiple code updates

    high · Explicit mentions of games shown at festival with play-testing by hosts; Rush accessories with specific pricing ($1,699 topper, $500 lighting, $140 shooter rod, $250 armor)

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive reception to Godfather's rule intuitiveness despite prior concerns about designer Eric Muniz's complexity (Guns N' Roses); game exceeded expectations

    medium · Martin's admission: 'I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to' and explicit comparison showing improved clarity vs prior designs

    • 4:12
    John Bork was there. Yeah, Mike Vinicore. I think John Bork is actually just going on his own expense. He's not even going as a representative of Stern. He's going there because he'd like to go to the show. Well, as do we. So that's perfectly understandable. But they had, let's say, a mix of premium and pros, mostly pro machines there, but a few of the premiums with the upper playfield, the Area 51 upper playfield on the Foo Fighters games. Right. So that was good to be able to play both versions there, and we played them both, didn't we? Yeah, we did, yes. And I have to congratulate Jack Danger and his team for creating a very flowing pinball. It's quite extraordinary, really, I think, the flow. It's got some very interesting shots to it, which don't necessarily end up exactly where you think they're going to, So there's a certain element of surprise in it. But even from the very moment you launch the ball, and it goes up on a ramp onto a curvy wire form and comes back to the flipper, and there are a whole bunch of different skill shots in the game as well, of course, as you'd expect. Some of which we found, and I'm sure there are plenty more in there as well. Yeah. Now, it's a very interesting game, a very good game, I have to say, as well. But I think that goes for Basically all new titles That we are going to discuss There was not a bad game between them No, absolutely not No, we thoroughly enjoyed playing it There's a lot going on in it I'm not sure we entirely understood the rules Straight away on Foo Fighters They're a little more complicated than some of the other games The tie-in with the story and the Foo Fighters Is a little blurry to me But if you're a Foo Fighters fan Maybe it makes sense Yeah, it's all based on the cartoon of Alien Invasion and the Overlord character But even without understanding it entirely, there's still plenty of fun to be had You still do the basic things like shoot the Overlord, lock the balls in there Start a multi-ball, do that very easily And then there's so much more to it as well Yeah, I think you had a couple of decent games you've got to put your name in, so that says something, I suppose. Yeah, I guess so. That was, I'm trying to remember when we played that, that was on Saturday night, wasn't it? About 1.30 in the morning. Yeah, something like that. Or Sunday morning, I suppose it would have been, in the vendor-exclusive period, where it wasn't open to the public, but only to those people who had stands there, or us, like us, who sneaked in. And while speaking of that, It's great that there is such a time slot where only vendors and people who brought games and so on are able to play games. Because during regular hours of the show, I don't see vendors playing games. No. It was so busy. And I think probably the busiest year that they ever had, which is a good thing. I hope it doesn't kill the vibe of the show for some people because some people said it was too crowded at some points. Maybe it was, but it was still a great show. Perhaps we should just have a little discussion about the Texas Pinball Festival and our thoughts about it before we get too much into Stern Pinball's news from this month because I think pretty much everything that we're talking about is kind of dominated by what happened at Texas and all the run-up to it, where people were getting games ready. That's a very good idea, Martin. So how did you experience Texas Pinball Festival? I thought it was fantastic. I think it was the best show yet, not just because of the sheer number of games, new games that were launched there, but also I thought it was so well run. As you said, it was hugely popular. The queues outside on Saturday morning when I went down there to take pictures. The first people in were the longest I've ever seen.
    8:19
    But it didn't seem to me to be massively crowded in there. You know, you could still move around and you could still find a game to play. Because there were so many new games, they tended to draw the crowds. So if you wanted to play some of the games bought by collectors or some of the lovely restorations there, you know, you probably didn't have to wait to find one. Yeah, it was easy to find a game to play if you were interested, but if you were waiting to play Pulp Fiction or Galactic Tank Force, definitely a cue. So what were your thoughts?
    8:58
    I thought it was an amazing show. Very well run, and nothing but compliments for the organizing team, which is Ed Van Der Veen and his wife Kim, and Paul. Paul McKinney who as a bit of news will be running the show next year without Ed and Kim Van Ravine who are basically retiring as show organizers and that news got out during the show which was apparently not intended or at least not the way that Ed Van Ravine intended it to go out which was kind of a how do you call it a little a downer I suppose a downer on the Sunday I suppose or whenever we get out but yeah it's I mean they've built up an amazing show there and I mean Paul's been working on it all the time as well so this is not something new for him but we did go to cast and sit down with Paul and discuss what his plans are for the future of the show and any changes or new ideas he might be coming up with.
    10:17
    Most of that was sort of off the record, so we don't want to go into that too much. But suffice to say, we are certainly looking forward to going back next year and seeing what changes are taking place and what new ideas he's introducing. And, of course, he has a full team to work with, so it's not just him running it because it's such a big show that it needs plenty of people to work on it but next year will be the well we hope to be back well we certainly asked Paul if he wanted us back and he certainly did so we should mention of course we do our So You Think You Know Pinball quiz at the show it was one of the seminars we did that on Saturday evening at 6pm. Biggest crowd ever. It was. Yeah, it was very impressive. The biggest crowd at the show and I think that helped bring people to our particular quiz, which was held in the bar area and I suppose we should thank all the most generous vendors and people companies who supplied us with prizes for that. Yeah, so thankfully I have a list because it's... Oh, good. Yeah, it's quite a lengthy Quite a lengthy list I should say In alphabetical order Which I copy and paste from your website Thank you for that So prizes for the So you think you know pinball quiz Were donated by American Pinball Chicago Gaming Color DMD Dutch Pinball The Dutch Pinball Museum Jersey Jack Pinball Multimorphic The Dredgy Gaming Playing Mechanics Pinball Brothers Pinball Magazine Pinball News Spooky Pinball Stern Pinball and Wormhole Pinball and the last one is not a manufacturer but it's an arcade but we're still very thankful for the prizes that they donated for our quiz to be given away yeah we had so many prizes we actually extended the quiz a bit in order to give away some more we were scheduled between 6 and 7 but I think we were still going at about quarter past or twenty past seven to give away some more prizes to the crowd. And I think everyone was sort of aching us on and saying, go on, let's do another round. So we did. And, well, we did quite a few extra rounds in order to get more prizes to more people. And it was fun. I was very impressed with the type of prizes that we received to give away. first thing that happened when I walked in on the show floor was I ran into Ryan White of Chicago Gaming who was immediately like, Jonathan, I have something from you, from Mark Ritchie you owe him dinner and he came to me with two playfield artwork drawings one on a sort of cardboard yeah, thicker board and one was more on poster-like material of which only apparently two are in existence.
    13:33
    And you signed them, of course. Yes, both were actually signed by Mark Ritchie, indeed. So, yes, I was very happy that we could give these away, although these were actually items I was like, do we have to give them away?
    13:50
    Yes, I know what you mean, but That's what we do. We give away everything. And we have some lovely Chris Franke artwork posters, both from American Pimble and from Jersey Jack. And they were signed by the team there as well. Or teams, I should say. So thank you for everybody who donated to the quiz. And congratulations to all the winners there. Right. And Michael Grant of Stern Pinball gave us some Stern Insider tokens, which I had never seen. And apparently they made these tokens as awards for two different games. I think this one was the one that we had was for Avengers. And there's another one for, I don't remember which. but they abandoned that program so they are basically stuck with a box of coins that they have no use for which I understand that they are giving them away but that makes them also very collectible. Yeah, absolutely. It's a little bit of Insider Connect history there because you won't be able to buy them and you won't be able to win them.
    15:03
    Well, you are able to win them with us. Well, with us, that's right, yeah. You won't be able to win them through the Insider Connect scheme. Right. That's the point. But getting back to the show, absolutely, yeah, the best edition. I mean, the seminars were run well, as I understand it.
    15:24
    Plenty of games on the show floor for people to choose from. It helps, of course, that you have manufacturers showing up with new titles and them all being so good. I saw on Pinside a couple of negative responses Which mostly had to do with people not using deodorant Oh, right But that's more something that Well, we've been long enough in this hobby and attending shows I think that's something that goes for every show There's always somebody who could use a shower Yes, it's not necessarily something you can blame on the organisers of the show No, absolutely not That's a personal responsibility. There were so many people at the show, the chances of that happening are increased, of course. But no, I thought it was a good display. There was some really wonderful homebrew games, some lovely restorations there.
    16:25
    And I mean, the only downside is that the show could be so much bigger, I think, because it's bursting at the seams. There were some games, some video games out in the corridor as well, as well as vendors out there. So I think it could expand even further. And I suppose if I was looking at any criticism, it would be the fact that the tournament is sort of tucked away up a staircase where it's kind of only for those people who are competing in the tournament. Which on one hand is a good thing. Yes, I was going to say, yeah, because you don't get people wandering in there and trying to play the games by mistake. It obviously is a tournament area. When it was part of the main show hall, it took up a big chunk of that, and you would find people sort of saying, oh, can I play this game? But no, it's actually, we're actually in qualifying or in the playoffs or something like that.
    17:24
    But on the other hand, it doesn't really expose newcomers to the fact that there is a tournament going on. It might be better indicated maybe Or at least Have some visibility Of it on the show floor Near the entrance or something Yeah, it could actually have the streaming Fed to the main hall and put it on a big Screen somewhere so people can see What's going on But on the other hand I think it was very well run and it is Really starting to attract The top players from the world To that tournament now So I think they're doing it very impressively, and it was nicely streamed as well from what I saw. So I did link to the tournament coverage on the Pinball News report there. Just about to say, if you want to read more about the Texas Pinball Festival, we both did reports. Actually, I'm still working on mine, but it's already up on the pinball-magazine.com website. Excellent. Yeah, and your report is on pinballnews.com. Yes, indeed. I forget how many pictures are on there now, over 200 pictures. And the video, of course. Which made me decide to go for a different angle, because there's no point in us writing the same report. Absolutely, good plan. Yeah, no, so I'm taking the angle of really what I was doing during the... The personal diary. Yeah, sort of that angle, the personal diary. So I indicated... It's not too in-depth about the side effects of having gone to hard eight. No, no, I left that out. Good. I think that's a good move, yes.
    19:09
    Yeah. So, but no, but I do mention we had to prepare for the quiz, of course, so collect prizes, prepare the presentation, which I, this year, got out of the way on Friday morning, which is good because then you don't have to worry about it anymore and you can focus on talking to manufacturers or all the people that you run into that you haven't seen for six months or a year or maybe even longer. Yes, and the timing actually works out quite well, I think. We got there on Thursday, Thursday afternoon. The show doesn't actually start until Friday evening at 5 p.m. so you've got basically a day where you can catch up with people and then Friday morning that's when we go through our quiz and work out all the questions and answers and check and do the research and after that's done you've got until 5pm to as you say go and socialise and catch up and go into the hall and see how the set up is continuing but pretty much everything is already set up by the end of Thursday night I'd say I think there were only a couple of stands Well there were a couple of manufacturers That had games coming in Very late because they were held up In traffic and that kind of stuff But you're right Most of the games are set up on Thursday Which is one possible Change that might occur In the future The show might open all day Friday But that depends on The vendors agreeing and the conference, the convention centre actually working with them on that as well. Right. But, you know, that will be announced in due course if and when that change is made.
    21:03
    So, yeah. Thank you very much, Carl. That was our Texas Pinball Festival trip. I'm missing it there already. It was great fun and lovely weather as well and great food and great company. Yeah, it's a pity that such a great show, personally for me, was overshadowed by a strike in Germany causing my airline to cancel my flight and have to worry about that all weekend. Like, how am I going to get home? Because that really took a lot of the fun out. Absolutely. Yeah. I would just provide a bit of background to that. you were due to fly back on the Sunday evening, a couple of hours before I was, and then you got an email from your airline saying that your flight had been cancelled and you had been rescheduled for Thursday. Yes. Four days. Four days, yes, with no compensation for any hotel or whatever because strike is out of their hands, so not their responsibility.
    22:10
    Yeah, which is great. and of course you couldn't contact the airlines on the boat everybody was trying to contact the airline and yeah yeah trying to call shareways they basically said we can't we can't put you through so go to our website and do it there and you can't do anything on the website so it's a waste of time yeah and then somebody eventually was mentioned contact american airlines and um that didn't help much either. No. Eventually, I was able to... Basically, I took off around noon on the Sunday.
    22:47
    You left the hotel, I should say. You didn't take off. Well, I left the hotel with no clear plan what to do other than let's go to the airport and see what they can do for me over there. them in person, which is the only way to ever contact them. Yeah, so I have to thank Scott Dinesi and the team of Final Resistance? No, no, no, no.
    23:17
    Pinball Life. Pinball Life was... They actually they were waiting outside the hotel lobby to go to the airport. They had booked a small bus apparently, that could host 14 people. That didn't show up. Then they ordered two Ubers, and I was able to ride along with them. So thank you for that kind gesture. And to cut a somewhat long story short, you got to the airport, and you were eventually able to speak to someone, and they knew what they were doing. There was an angel working there, seriously. This girl was absolutely fantastic. She tried like this and 20 options to get me on a flight. And eventually she was able to book me on a flight, which would leave in 20 minutes. So she basically printed out a boarding pass for me and she's like, go.
    24:16
    And off I went. Yeah. And before long you were in the air. So on your way to London, then Dublin and then Amsterdam. Yeah. Eventually. Yes, eventually. Yes. So it all worked out in the end, but you didn't have to spend an extra four days there. But it was a worrying time. Yeah. And you had to leave before the end of the show, which was also annoying. Yeah. Too bad, but oh well. Anyway, that's not any reflection on the show themselves. It's just the airlines who kind of ruined the end of it for you. But hey. Oh well. But that does not take anything away from such a great show. No, it was fantastic. So thanks very much to all the organisers there. And as you say, let's get back to Stern Pinball, because we were just talking about Foo Fighters and how that game was at the show, along with several others. But one game that wasn't there that we were hoping to see was the 60th anniversary James Bond machine. No, no, no. It was surprising. I thought that would have been there. I don't think it was at the Midwest Gaming Classic either, which was just gone, actually, at the time of this recording. Right, yeah. Just finished. Which was the weekend after the Texas Pinball Festival. That's right. So we didn't get to see that one.
    25:37
    But what else did we get to see today? In certain news, I think there's some information about the Rush game. Yes.
    25:48
    A topper and other accessories have been announced. There's a special video of that on YouTube. The topper has, I'm not sure, sorry, English is not my native language, but kind of these clockwork wheels that are tied together, that are spinning during the game, and it does other stuff as well. It's lit up, of course. And you can buy that for a merely $1,699.
    26:26
    There's also expression lighting side blades, which of course light up, enhancing the music experience, I would say. there is a 2012 themed illuminated shooter rod a rather big one I should say which comes at the price of $140 rounding it off the earlier mentioned expression lightning side blades will cost you $500 and there is also a special set of side armor which have the 2012 logo sort of incorporated, and that will cost you like $250. Now, I'm no great Rush fan, but I suspect from memory that it's actually 2112 is the year, rather than 2012. Sorry, my mistake. I think that's the title of their music. But, I can't remember if it's an album or a track, but I think that's the, that's the theme. And the spirit of radio is the theme of the topper, I think, with all the cogs. Yeah. Okay. So plenty of Rush add-ons if you want to get them. I'm hoping that they actually do have the expression lighting side blades, because when they brought out the expression lighting for earlier games, That's how I believe it. Yeah. Add-ons. they were very scarce and very hard to find. So hopefully they've resolved those shortages now and they do have them for rush. And just when you think you were done with all the teasers, Stern came up with another one.
    28:22
    Yes, absolutely. On April the 1st, that particular one. I assume that's the one you're referring to. Yes, I am, yes. Yes, okay. Yes, Stern, Pimble. is pleased to announce a special limited edition release of one of the most iconic, beloved, and thought-provoking series of all time. Yes, that's right, Jersey Shore. Yes, they are bringing out a Jersey Shore pinball machine.
    28:50
    There's a lot of information about it, various modes, features, and they provide a link to order one of the hottest items ever created in pinball. And then you click on the link And it takes you to a rather nice Rick Astley song Good one on Stern But in all fairness There was an image with the announcement Which immediately gave away This probably isn't right because it had the WrestleMania golden speaker panel with the dot matrix display, and I don't think it's very likely that Stern would do a dot matrix display pinball machine right now in this day and age. No, and also the artwork on the side of it was the crew, or the cast of Jersey Shore, it was all sort of stretched out and distorted, so it wasn't a properly made bit of artwork, something I was just facing on the side. Last year they came and did the same prank with Frasier if I recall correctly Oh right Okay well done I saw that around on Facebook and social media this year I forgot the news from last year But yes, that's right. Yeah, because they had, I think they had the sort of, the flip of buttons or something through Daphne's eyes or something like that. Yeah. Which didn't really work very well. But anyway. Anyway, they tried to have a sense of humor as they were. Yeah, very nice. Good fun, good fun. now we just mentioned the Texas Pinball Festival which is dominating this pin cast of course but there were other shows as well actually quite a few basically the past 10 days one of them was the amusement expo amusement expo, sorry I can't think of the name and you found some news of a American Amusement Machine Association Inaugural Hall of Fame Yes, I saw it A new Hall of Fame As opposed to recognize people who contributed to the amusement industry Yes, around about 20 people were inducted into this inaugural Hall of Fame Some living, some legacy inductees so amongst those who are in the land of the living still Gary Stern, co-founder of Data East Pinball and Stern Pinball and also a co-founder of this American Music Machine Association he was inducted into the inaugural Hall of Fame along with Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, Chuck E. Cheese and so on Eugene Jarvis, of course, who we know very well as a great creator of video games founder of Raw Thrills, programmer at Williams. Yeah, F14 Tomcat comes to mind. Yeah, Joe Kamikau was also inducted.
    32:01
    Sort of great game designer with Williams and co-founder of Data East with Gary. And of course... Shelly. Shelly, yeah. And very, very prominent in the slot machine business of late. And Kapow Pimble, too. Of the legacy inductees, there are a lot of them. Some notable ones would be David Roccola of Roccola Duke Boxers, Harry Williams, Bill O'Donnell, President of Bally, Hank Ross, who's not a name I'm actually familiar with, but he was co-founder of Midway Manufacturing. Right.
    32:41
    As was Marcine Wolverton, co-founder of Midway. JP Seaberg I think you know from Dubox fame Lynn Durant of course founder of United Manufacturing Ray Maloney founder of what was Lion Manufacturing which then became Bally David Gottlieb and Sam Stern so some famous names all inducted into the inaugural round of membership of the American Amusement Machine Association's Hall of Fame so congratulations to those living and no longer living, on their recognition. Right, okay. And, well, it wouldn't be a complete roundup if we didn't discuss new code that would come up or was released from Stern Pimble. It wouldn't, but because there was so much going on this month, I decided that I wasn't going to bother going through all the details of the code. But there is new code for Rush, Foo Fighters and James Bond. Okay, let's leave it at that Make sure to update your game If you have one of these And it hasn't updated automatically already It's online Now, moving on to Well, the next block I would say Jersey Jack Pinball Yes Well, I think the last time we had a tease Of the upcoming Godfather As every company Now teases at least once If not multiple times But in this month we actually had the reveal of the Godfather in the limited and collector editions. Yeah, no standard edition, just so you know. And a limited run in total of 6,000 units, of which 1,000 units are collector's editions. So a maximum of 6,000 games. Yeah, so that's 5,000 limited editions, so it's limited to 5,000, which is the same number, I think, that was on Toy Story 4. Yes. which as we talked to Jack about that in our interview with him so I won't go into too much detail here but I think he's planning on being about nine months worth of production for Toy Story 4 so probably about nine months of production for The Godfather. Right now we of course we don't know whether they sold all 6,000 Toy Story games that they are allowed to make. That's true. So it It might even be a title that comes up on the line later on again, if there is sufficient demand and they are still allowed to make them again, because they didn't max out yet. Well, apparently all 1,000 Godfather collector editions, I should say, sold out. Now, whether they went directly to buyers or whether they went to distributors, we don't know. It's difficult, because Jersey Jack is also selling them directly now through their website, as with Toy Story, by the way. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Anyway, there was a big display of Godfather machines, both the mostly limited editions, but also some collector editions on the Jersey Jack Pinball stand at the Texas Pinball Festival. And we got to play it. So what were your impressions of the Godfather? It's an entirely different game than, for example, Foo Fighters or Scooby Doo or any other. Basically every game, every new title that came out is a world on its own and has no overlapping...
    36:21
    Yeah, it's a unique gameplay experience, certainly. And I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to, I have to admit. because I think my last experience of playing one of Eric Muneo's games was Guns N' Roses, and I found that, the rules on that, I found very confusing.
    36:43
    I didn't really know what to go for straight away. There's so much going on in that game, whereas I found that The Godfather was a lot more intuitive.
    36:51
    Although it does seem a bit strange at the beginning, I think we mentioned this several times when we were talking to people about it, you have to pick a family at the start which it seems on the way in flying in I should say I was actually able to watch all three Godfather movies on the plane it's a long flight and yes there are several families in the Godfather movie but it all evolves around the Corleone family and there's other families as well which are more like rivals so if it comes to the Godfather it makes no sense to me why would you pick to be the family or choose the family of a rivaling family other than the Corleone's yeah obviously the Corleone family is the main storyline of the film so that could seem a little bit sort of stretch in order to make these other families in any way as significant. But of course, so when you walk up to the game and you have to choose a family, it clearly indicates like if you select this family, it gives you these perks and some pluses, some minuses. Yeah, so a multi-ball would be easier or you score more for certain features. Or you have a shorter ball save on multi-balls and that kind of stuff. I thought it was a great shooter It really played very nice And the layout is Absolutely Unique And innovative I would say Because Eric is coming up with Ways to Have that ball travel on the playfield That I haven't seen in any other games I think the bash toy at the top Is a unique idea And it's far more than just that Yes, the whole spinning disc underneath it And the whole thing rocks You're basically shooting into a pivot point underneath And the thing turns around At least it does on the Quicksilver Edition And I think it does on the Limit Edition as well And shoots at you There's a light in the end of the gun So it's firing at you And the whole ball trap area as well On the right, the compound bit Where you can lock the ball and it turns into a captive ball at that point. Very nicely done. In fact, it takes several games before you actually realize how the game works. Yeah. In typical Jersey Jack fashion, it's a very deep game. If you buy this for your home, you'll have plenty to discover. This is not a game that is very shallow in rules and if you're a good player, you're done with it within a week. No, absolutely not. No, there's even hidden stuff in there as well. I forget how many skill shots are in there, but it's something ridiculous.
    40:00
    It's like a dozen different skill shot options, and I think they promote there's like 20-plus different ball paths that the ball can take. 29, I think, is what they say. And I can believe it, because you never quite know where the ball's going to end up. It's always quite surprising. I mean after playing it a few times you get used to that I'm sure but from when you're first playing it you're wondering where the ball's going to emerge from which is fun and a nice easter egg I would say is a lot of Jersey Jack Pinball employees or design team members I should say popping up in the animations as the various characters that you're dealing with while you're playing the game Yes, and some other Easter eggs in there Which Eric demonstrated During the Treasure Jack Pinball Seminar At the Texas Pinball Festival Which is the music tracks In there There's the main theme To The Godfather Which appears in three different versions I'm not sure how they appear in the game But there's one which is an instrumental version By Slash There's one which is a vocal version By Mark Tremonti Of Alterbridge fame And there's even a version Of a vocal version by Eric himself Singing the main theme Which I have to say Is very impressive He's a good singer I didn't know that before But he does a very good job I think that was to Mark Tremonti's orchestration But he was singing it and did a very creditable job. So congratulations to Eric, not just on the game, but also on his vocal performance. Yeah, and I think, like you said, the collector's edition is already sold out. The limited edition is apparently not yet, but if you have a chance to play the game somewhere in the near future and you're on the fence of should you buy it or not, I think you might be in for a surprise. let's put it like that yeah a pleasant one it's a very good game it is contrary to for example a Guns and Roses game I think in some way it captures the mood of the movies at least of the first two movies very good so it's not an in your face pinball maybe not like Foo Fighters with in terms of the music and being loud and no, it's a completely different experience but still a very good one yeah, very immersive and very good integration of the movies into it you may not think that The Godfather is an obvious movie that would work well in a pickle machine but I think they've done a very good job with it congratulations to everyone involved in that And there was one bit of news that came out of Jersey Jack just a little before the Texas Pinball Festival, which I think caught people by surprise and certainly caught one of the companies by surprise, which was that Jersey Jack announced they were no longer supporting the Scorebit system. Now, I don't know if you're not familiar with Scorebit. It's sort of online tracking of scores and achievements, a bit like the Insider Collect system from Stern. but they had Jersey Jack had integrated that quite some time back and had applied it to all their previous titles and it was a free feature, didn't cost anything whereas if you buy Scorbit as an add-on to any other game and it's available for many other games then you do have to not only buy their board, the Scorbitron board, but you also have to pay a monthly subscription but Jersey Jack integrated, entirely free of charge but then they announced that they were pulling support for that and there would no longer be in fact it was pretty much cut off straight away so that caught a lot of people by surprise and a certain amount of disappointment I would say from owners who use the Scorpio system they say that there wasn't the take up they'd hoped it would achieve and it was costing them a lot of resources in order to maintain it and extend it onto future titles, which they'd rather spend on implementing their own system. But you'll be able to hear more about that when we interview Jack Wannary about it and everything that went on at the Texas Pinball Festival and what's going on at Jersey Jack Pinball in general. So as part of our bonus podcast, or pincast, I should say, you will be able to hear Jack talk about that. And, yeah, we do ask him about Scorvitz and what's going on there. So I won't pre-empt his answers, and you can hear them for yourself.
    45:12
    Right. So, have we got anything else? Jersey Jack Pimple, really? Oh, of course, we should say that Jack was at the show as well, along with Eric and Chris Franchi, Ken Cromwell. Yeah. I think Ken was up front on the main desk on the way into the Jersey Jack Nimble stand, answering questions and arranging either interviews or signings from the various members. But Jack, unfortunately, had lost his voice, which was a bit of an unfortunate one. But he was sounding, well, he got to think he was sounding a bit more like Marlon Brando. I think you just called him Barry Gibb Yeah so you described him more like a BG because it was quite squeaky but he couldn't really talk very much which limited his impact in the Judge Ed Pimble seminar so he basically introduced it and handed it over to Eric to take over but Jack was there to meet and greet everyone so nice to see him around as well but you'll be pleased to know that when we did our interview with him His voice has recovered So he As has he So he'll be In fine voice In answering our questions So I think that about Wraps it up for Jersey Jack Pinball I think we got everything From that But now we We need to Call our Our special Inside Information source Right And if you're wondering Who could it be None other than Gary Flower Of course Yeah, Gary Flower, who always has scoops and information on new games and everything.
    47:02
    Yes, but... That's not public yet, so... No, but he's a bit busy at the moment, but I think we're going to be able to get through to him, because he's... Where is he at the moment? Well, I believe he was supposed to attend the Midwest Gaming Classic, but he also got tickets for WrestleMania. Oh, right, okay That's probably where he is at the moment then So let's give him a call and see if we can get through Right, okay Let me get my phone And his number here I suppose so Right now, yeah That sounds very noisy Yeah Hello Gary, can you hear us?
    47:45
    Gary? Oh I think he's... The crowd will turn on. He's not talking very much, is he? No, he's following what the crowd are telling him to do. Okay.
    48:00
    I guess it won't work this time. Maybe we'll try later in this episode. Yeah, or in the bonus. Maybe we'll get it off that. Right, okay. So, sorry about that.
    48:11
    Moving on to Pinball Brothers. They were there with Queen and Alien Yeah, they had three Queen machines On their stand And they also had two more On the Cointaker stand Cointaker, of course, being distributors For Pimple Brothers in the US And two Alien machines Yeah, and I think Friday afternoon I was the very first To play the latest Updated version of Queen with a code 0.90,
    48:47
    which they installed, and everybody else could play it at the show as well, of course, but they just upgraded the machines with the new code.
    48:55
    I have to say, having played it at Expo, that game is really becoming more and more interesting, I should say. Yeah, I agree. It felt very different to the one at Expo. There's an awful lot more assets now in the game, and it just feels more of a rounded package than it was before. Although I still have to have that criticism, I think, that we've spoken about before about the voice calls being rather low energy. Yeah. But that's something which we actually addressed with Daniel Jansen. In our special interview, which is part of our special pin cast. Yep. So we want to hear more about that. and what they might be doing about that, then have a listen to that. But the games at the Texas Bingo Festival are, of course, very popular all the way through the show. I think after playing the beginning of the set-up time, I don't think I was willing to spend enough time to get in line and play them again after that, because you'd probably have to wait 10, 15 minutes in order to get on them, which I thought could probably spend time in a more productive manner. Right. So that goes to show how popular they were, even though there were five Queen machines and two aliens at the show. So I think, and they were also, especially the Pimple Brothers, giving away quite a lot of merchandise related to the Queen brand, the Queen Pimple brand. There were posters and stickers and bumper stickers as well that you could pick up from their stand for all for free, which is very much appreciated by people there. I think some people were actually quite surprised that they weren't selling them, that they were actually available for absolutely nothing. So there was a little reticence to pick them up and walk away with them. Yeah, and they also had... The game comes with a goodie box, as we call it, which is literally a box, and we were actually able to give some of those boxes away and our So You Think You Know pinball quiz as well. But the box contains a rule guide book. Apparently one of those got stolen at the show. Probably not a big deal, but somebody probably thought, like, this looks rather nice. I mean, it's an A4-sized book with quite a few full-color pages, and every page has like a playfield shot map explaining what to shoot for in which mode. So if you want to get to learn how to play the game, that's very, very useful. On the other hand I also think that Some of the best games don't need A book to tell you How to play it It was a part of the fun Finding that out for yourself Isn't it? Exactly yes But that rule Rule sheet book That looked very nice So That's a shame One of them got taken but never mind I'm sure they've got plenty more Yeah, but not at the show No, not at the show, no And we got to sit down with Daniel Jensen, like we mentioned earlier Which was a nice, I think Something like 30 minute interview Daniel is not While he is at the shows He's not Someone who Frequently talks to Podcasts and so on To to explain what Pinball Brothers and the Euro Pinball Corp are going to. So I wouldn't say it's an exclusive, but you don't hear it anywhere else? No, I think that's pretty much exclusive. Yeah, I think it was very interesting. I would say that, but I think it was nice to talk to Daniel about and sort of clarify what the relationship is between Pinball Brothers, Madretti, Euro Pinball, and what they have planned for Queen and 12 feature titles. So a lot of information to talk about and learn from that interview. So I thoroughly recommend listening to our central bonus, Pincast. Right. Now, moving on to Spooky Pinball, let me start off by, well, I wouldn't say an apology, but we did plan to interview Bug from Spooky Pinball about the Scooby-Doo game and the plans for Spooky Pinball in general.
    53:56
    But you know how it is with shows like Texas Pinball Festival. When you run into someone during set-up, it's like, yeah, sure, come back in an hour. And even if you manage to come back in an hour, either they're not there or they're busy with something else, it's not a good time, and in the end we didn't get to talk or at least record a bit for our interview pin cast. But they were present at Texas Pimple Festival, and I might say very present. In a big way. Yeah, absolutely. Six Scooby-Doo machines all lined up next to each other. I played it for the very first time, and I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah, me too. I thought it was an enjoyable game to play. There's some good content in it, lots of nice shots, lots of interesting shots as well. Yeah, and for a wide body, I don't think I ever played a wide body that played so fast.
    55:02
    I'm trying to think what I would compare it to. I'm thinking probably something like Demolition Man. I suppose that would be a fair equivalent. But, yes, it took a little moment to get used to the upper playfield with the diverser slash flipper combo, but once you get the hang of that, there's a lot going on up there. Yeah. And it's a... I really like the drop target banks on the left-hand side as well. They're a bit of a drain monster when you shoot them because the ball is liable to go down one of the outlanes from them if you're not too careful. but there's an awful lot going on at the top as well. And even on the upper playfield, I don't know how many different shots there are up there, but there's three on the right. There's an orbit, there's stand-up targets, there's the bash toy.
    55:53
    Yeah, there's plenty to shoot for up there. And it's not just an add-on they throw up there. Just for the sake of it, it really does integrate with the game very well. And the... I can't remember how many shots are at the bottom, like seven or eight shots on the main level of the playfield as well. Yeah. So I think, yeah, and it seems to be quite an intuitive game as well. I found, you know, you start a storyline and it would be quite obvious what you had to shoot for in order to complete it, which isn't always the case on games that have so many different shots. Right. But the lighting effects, I thought, were also good in guiding you to where you needed to shoot. Yeah, and I was very impressed also with the integration of cartoon sounds in the game, which obviously makes sense, but I didn't realize that until I actually played the game, and I was like, oh, that's a very clever find to use those kind of sounds for this kind of effect. And yeah, very well done, I have to say. So compliments to Spooky. And I have to say, their stand was busy all the time. Lines for Scooby-Doo Even with six machines Still people waiting For every game to play All the time Yes, they had those six machines Those six Scooby-Doo Where are you machines there They also had a TNA And a Halloween game there And a Scooby-Doo themed claw machine Which was a quarter 25 cents per play Which you could win Scooby-Doo branded sort of mug koozies or a Scooby-Doo toy or all kinds of things. I don't know how generous it was in giving them out, but it certainly seemed to be attracting a lot of attention. And, of course, they had the Mystery Machine van parked right in the middle of their stand, which was also a huge draw for people to look at and made the whole thing very Scooby-Doo themed, the whole stand. So I think that was very good We didn't see Charlie or Katie I don't think there No I haven't CPF Yeah I think they stayed home or something like that I don't know I mean when you talk about getting an interview with Bug Every time I went there I think Bug was either being interviewed or being filmed Or was doing a promo or doing something Some filming for Scooby Doo Right So he was pretty busy that show So I don't think we've had an awful lot of time to sit down with him anyway But Spooky is really well in doing interviews anyway Because they also made an article Or got an article in a local Wisconsin newspaper as well Basically explaining how they have been growing for the past 10 years And it's a very nice article There will be a link in the Pinball Magazine newsletter that goes out in hopefully a couple of days. So if you're interested in that, make sure to check out the newsletter as well. And then you can basically find your way to that article as well. And that wasn't the only show where Scooby-Doo made an appearance, because it was also at the Louisville Arcade Expo. And at that show, it won the Best in Show Award. So congratulations to Squeaky Pinball on picking up that title. We'll have a similar award reveal coming up a little bit later for the Midwest Gaming Classic. We'll find out who won that. Yeah.
    59:40
    And here I was expecting Pulp Fiction to win, and it turns out there was at the Texas show no Best in Show award. No, that's right. Well, not for new games. No, that's true. Yeah there are lots of best in show awards but they are for restorations or for originals or for basically divided by eras So there be like pre 60s 70s 80s 90s 2000s and modern But they will all be collector games rather than vendor games Yeah. Okay. Moving on to Austin-based, or Round Rock-based, I should say, Multimorphic. Yes. And we were able to visit the factory of Multimorphic, now for the second time, I think, in this location. But it's been a couple of years and I was very happy to see that, first of all, despite a number of people calling in sick the day that we arrived, which had no relation whatsoever with us coming or showing up there, at least I may hope. But, no, I was happy to see that, in terms of space, the location more than doubled in size. Yeah, well, we were last there in 2019, where they had sort of like one unit, and they now added another unit the same size to that, which the second unit is now being used mostly for woodworking, or cabinet and playfield making. And storage. And also for their software development, it takes place in there as well. And that's where they have their full display of the history of the P3. Oh, I thought that was in a separate unit. That was not part of the add-on unit. And then there's a double size and then a little bit more. Yes, that's right. There is a dividing wall there. but I think the upstairs storage bit, which we went to see, I think that's over the top of where the software development and the museum of P3 is, which will be developed further, I think, once they have some more time. But it was, yeah, it was very nice to see them making their own playfields, their own cabinets, doing their own woodworking there as well. So they are pretty much self-contained now. Yeah. They build their own P3 base cabinet, or base machines there, using their own cabinets and their own assemblies. So previously, when we were there, some of that work was being done by the external contractor. But now it's all been brought in-house, so they have a lot more control over that, which is obviously a good thing for them. And they also have their own spray booth there, where they can paint the cabinets, They're basically black, so you can spray those there. And it was a lovely waft of fumes coming from there when we were visiting. Yeah. And let's not forget, Multimorphic, in line with many other companies, announced a new game. Yes. And revealed it as well. They've teased it and revealed it. Yes, they announced, or revealed, their new Final Resistance game, which has its own new playfield module. It's a creative director on that, Scott Denisey.
    63:17
    Scott composed and created the music and sounds. Bone Kerens was on the ruleset. TJ Weaver, mechanical engineering. Rory Sanuda, designer of video graphics and the animation. and Jonathan Bergeron was artwork designer while Michael Ocean was in charge of the software. So some familiar names there if you follow game development at Multimorphic. But this was a very interesting game. We got to play it at the factory before it made its way up to the... Which I think is a good thing because there were only two games at the Texas Pinball Festival in a line of 10 P3 machines, Only two were the final resistance game Or playthrough module We got to play it in a factory Which allowed us to Well, you can hear the voice calls And the music later and so on So, thank you A big thanks to Jerry For allowing us to do that And, yeah, it's not TNA but it has the same vibe to it and TNA being Total Nuclear Annihilation a previous game designed by Scott and Easy to clarify that as Scott explained it it's in the same steampunk realm that he sort of designed this game but it's a game that stands on its own definitely again it's a good game nothing bad to say about it no it certainly had that one more game feel to it because several times we thought we were going to walk away and then we said let's play it again and then again and again so we just wanted to keep going back and playing it and fortunately we were able to do that because nobody else wanted to play it but the only downside to that was that we were tying up Jerry and the rest of the team while we were doing that But it was great fun. The music is not as sort of in your face as it is in Total Nuclear Annihilation, but it's certainly in the same vein. Yeah. And you were particularly taken, I think, by the playfield, the inserts on the playfield. I was trying to, actually I wanted to bring that up, because if you're familiar with the P3 and you're sort of on the fence like, well, maybe this is too advanced or too far away from traditional pinball, then this is probably the game that's going to close the gap for a lot of people and pull them into buying a P3 machine. Because with these inserts looking like traditional inserts and always being present solidly on the LCD screen, which forms the base of the playfield while you're still playing with a steel ball.
    66:27
    It really gives you the impression that it's just a traditional pinball machine, but it has some interactive elements that you don't have with a wooden playfield. Yeah, it's almost sort of like a throwback game, because it doesn't. It has alphanumeric displays, but they're done on the LCD in the back box. There's no back box animations as such. There's no sort of secondary monitor on the play field. And as you said, the main play field monitor is pretty much static. I mean, it has effects on it, which is nice. But the insert layout on it doesn't change. The inserts light up. Maybe the colors around them change to highlight various things. and you have lighting effects on there, which kind of guide you from where your shots need to go. So you make one shot and you have this light beam that moves from that shot to the next shot you need to make, which is a nice effect. But it is basically fairly static throughout the game as far as the animations go. So it is a pre-empt what we're going to talk about Chicago Gaming in Pulp Fiction. but it just kind of had that, I don't know, sort of 80s feel to it, in terms of not having big video animations, not having animated core displays, really, other than alphanumerics. Right. But I think they did it in a great way in this photo. I agree. Pulled in a lot of new customers, I think. Yeah, and it's available as a kit for anybody who has a P3. You should be able to get them fairly soon. And if you want to get into the P3 universe and get your first P3 game, there's still about a 12-month wait time on new orders. I believe that's the delay or the expected time before you can buy one. you've got an order in now, it's probably going to be about 12 months, maybe 10 to 12 months before you receive your P3, but then that can come with playfield modules of your choice at that time. Right.
    68:50
    And interestingly, we're very likely to see another P3 playfield module being revealed later on this year. Yeah, that's the plan. That's what Jerry told us in the interview that we made with him. Right, which you can listen to in the separate interview pin cast that is being released simultaneously with this one. So just make sure you click that link on whatever device you're listening to right now. Yeah, obviously they were at the multiple 15-year-old wrap, the Texas Pimple Festival. It's their local show, that along with the Houston Arcade Expo. So they're probably equidistant to both of those. Scott Denisey was there, Bowen Cairns was there, TJV was there, and of course Jerry was hosting it, and they were talking about vinyl resistance and of course how the cost of that fits in or compares to buying a brand new standalone separate machine. And also the obvious benefit of the P3 pinball platform, which we've been over many times and we won't go into again here, but they yeah it was nice to see they had two of the machines actually on the stand and they also had as you said there were ten machines in total on the multi-morphic stand at the Texas Pinball Festival and they were demonstrating some of their many other titles including the head to head games which are always fun to play so we won't go over all of them but obviously Weird Al is hugely popular as well at the moment, so that got a lot of people playing. Right.
    70:40
    Okay, I guess that rounds it up for Multimorphic. I think so, yeah. Check out the interview with Jerry Stallenberg in our special interview pin cast. And right now, here we're moving on to Chicago Gaming, who were also present at the Texas Pinball Festival in the company of, well, their Cactus Canyon remake machines, but also their new alliance with Play Mechanics resulting in Pulp Fiction. Yeah, we've been trading that for about a year. Over a year. Yeah, we're expecting it to appear, well, we thought it might appear at the last year's Texas Pinball Festival. It didn't. And so this was the first outing of that game. And it was I think it was fair to say It was hugely successful I told Mark Ritchie The designer of the game Unaware of the fact that They didn't have a best in show But I was really expecting that game To win best in show Yes It has nothing to do with me being Putting up a grand champion score Of 5 million With with um ball one ball one yeah basically uh and then ball two and three basic guys sucked again
    72:04
    yeah you you basically uh almost completed the game i think on your first ball yeah so uh which is probably not a great thing but it's uh but then of course you never recreate that but the the great thing is that i didn't so it leaves me wanting for more because i think i can do it again yeah and uh there's still a little bit further to go i think you had like one more feature to finish to get all the way through to I forget what the final wizard mode was yeah it will come to me in a minute but Divine Intervention that's what it was but what a fun game and for me this is like the perfect combination of 80's pinball with a modern twist let's put it like that Yeah, as we saw with the Final Resistance, it's also got alphanumeric displays, so these are actually physical alphanumeric displays, not on an LCD. On a large silk screen mirror, mirror backless, with a topper that everybody... How can you not like that proper? It's really the perfect integration of the theme, I think.
    73:26
    Done very well. No surprise that the 1000 Limited Edition, or whatever they are called... Yeah, Bad Mother Flipper. Yeah, exactly. Sold out instantly. But you might still be able to find it at a distributor. I predict this is a game Which operators are going to love Because I think this is the type of game That any drunk idiot in a bar Can walk up to and still have a good game Or at least feel good about what he did And Low maintenance I mean there's hardly any grams or anything It's a single level game really So yeah it should be easy to clean Easy to fix and easy to access everything. Actually, under the play field, there's also mostly PCBs, so it's really a good game for operators, and I'm already talking to a local bar owner. It might take a while before the game actually sees the start of production, but this is definitely a game that I think that I'd like that bar to have, because I think it will do, theme-wise, will do great for them, but I know that there's currently a Mata Hari pinball in there, so we've got the Mata Hari for a Pulp Fiction, and I think people are going to love it. I suspect you'd have to charge a bit more for the Pulp Fiction than you do for the Mata Hari, but if that's the kind of gameplay that people love, then absolutely. We should probably explain that, as we said, it's a single level, sort of early 80s style game without the cabinet it's also very 80s style with a the back box large back glass and the back box on a pedestal like you've seen on on valley games and williams games from from the early 80s yeah the cabinet art looks like it's screen printed although it's actually on decals but it's of that style so but but in very rich colors which i don't think you probably get from the screen printing but it's very very uh nice looking game quite simple in in many ways but uh but also difficult to master indeed yeah i think it it um it doesn't have a display so it hasn't got um i haven't got a video display so there's no video in in there which is uh quite remarkable since it's coming from a video game company And it's also based on a movie Yeah But if any company could have done it And nailed it with video It would have been Play Mechanics Well, there isn't any in it But it does include 250 sound samples From 19 different characters I didn't know there were 19 different characters In Pulp Fiction But I guess there are And it includes 5 licensed music tracks Which were from the film Comanche, Jungle Boogie Mr. Lou Son of a Preacher Man and You Never Can Tell of course which is probably one of the most famous ones as you said there are a thousand Bad Mother Flipper limited edition modules available or machines available at a price of $9,499 that comes with the animated Topper which we were talking about just now which is Mia and Jules on the top dancing at Jack Rabbit's limbs, with a nice neon in the background, which looks very impressive. I'm sure it's not neon, but it certainly glows like one, so you've got a very nice lighting effect with that. It's got Shaker Motor, Mirror Blade, a special speaker panel with emblems of, I think, Play Mechanics and Chicago Gaming on there, and a numbered sculpted wallet on the bottom arch and also comes with a banner.
    77:31
    The playfield is basically the same on the two models, the $1,500 cheaper one, so that's about $7,000. No, $8,000. I was going to say, I'm not a math magician, but... $8,000 for the special edition. Same playfield, so same gameplay and everything, but just Laxo the topper, which is probably the biggest feature,
    78:01
    and several of the other sort of add-ons. Yeah, and I understood that Josh Sharp, the rule designer of the game, has indicated that unlike with previous Chicago Gaming games, it will very unlikely be that you can add or buy a topper separately later on to upgrade your game. Of course, I think you can implement a shaker motor and mirror blades if you want to.
    78:43
    Yes. But that topper will most likely not be separately sold. Yeah, well they had two of the limited editions and two of the special editions at the show at Texas and there were long lines for all of them I don't think people were worried too much about which one they got to play because the lines were about the same for all of them but it was constant throughout the entire show there were probably about I don't know 10, 12 people in line for each machine although some people were playing groups of four so that wasn't as bad as it looked But the gameplay was quite long, wasn't it? It was long. On my first ball, yes. On my second and third ball, not so much.
    79:31
    But it certainly got good value for play out of that. Oh, it definitely has that one more game feel to it. Yeah, absolutely. Which is kind of annoying when you've got a line of ten people behind you waiting to play. It means you can't have one more game. Yeah. Or you have to wait quite a bit to do so. But like I said, I predict this is going to be a hit game for operators. Yes, speaking of operators, it's interesting that it says it includes Play Mechanics' CoinUp online connectivity system, which is something which is really dreamt up for Big Buck Hunter and is aimed at operators where players can take part in tournaments or local or global tournaments and pay extra in order to be part of that. I don't know whether that's going to be implemented on Pulp Fiction or whether it's simply going to be more like a leaderboard type thing, but you'd have to log in, identify yourself. It doesn't seem like something that's that fitting for an alphanumeric display game where you haven't got an LCD to enter your details or see what the leaderboards are or anything like that. But maybe there'll be an extra, you know, there'll be an online version where you can look and see what the current scores are and you can put a monitor up so you can see the leaderboards and things like that. I'm sure they've figured that out. I know I could enter my initials. Yeah, absolutely, but you'd have to register.
    81:15
    Because if you've got your initials in and somebody else has already got the same initials, how do they know it was you and not somebody else? Yeah, no, good point, good point. Yeah, I mean, the current Play Mechanics CoinUp online connectivity system is a subscription service for operators, so they have to pay quite a lot of money. I think it's about $25 a month for that. And it's, well, as I say, it's much more geared around Big Buck Hunter because it gives you extra animals in the game and extra bonus rounds and things like that. I don't know. I can't see them going that far on Pulp Fiction.
    81:57
    So it's a simpler version. But it's interesting to see what they do with that over the coming months when it actually goes into production, which obviously has been built by Chicago Gaming, and they are pretty busy already building Cactus Canyons.
    82:14
    At a rather slow pace. Yes, exactly. So exactly when it will go into production, we're not quite clear. But we're bringing you news of that as and when we hear it. Right, okay. And that rounds it up for Flame Mechanics and Chicago Gaming at this point.
    82:36
    And we're still not done with new games, although we're going to talk about a title now that has been teased forever and still didn't make it to the show. No, I guess we're talking about Pony Factory at this point. Yes, we are. Yes, well, apparently the first Pony Factory, complete Pony Factory game has come off the line, such as it is, at Pinball Adventures. So the first game is done. It wasn't, as you say, at the Texas Pinball Festival, but Pinball Adventures will be attending three shows this autumn, or summer. They'll be at the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show in Tacoma. Bear in mind that Pinball Adventures are based in Vancouver, so that's just across the border to go to Seattle and Tacoma. they'll be at the Teg Pinball and Arcade Expo I don't actually know what that one is in July and they'll obviously be at the Chicago Pinball Expo in October so if you want to get your chance to play Pony Factory go to one of those shows or maybe buy one, I don't know when they'll be available to purchase from Pinball Adventures so keep an eye on their I was going to say on their website but also keep an eye on their Instagram feed where they are posting pictures and videos of their progress so far. Right. So, and that's all the news. There was no news from other games that they have in development, like Elements or anything. No, not that we've seen, no. No. So, yeah. Now, moving on to Pedrecci Gaming in Italy, that we know for their contract manufacturing for Pinball Brothers, but also their 2.0 upgrade kits for Williams System 11 games, like Funhouse, their first one. Well, that's a WPC game.
    84:40
    But yes, they were due to announce their next 2.0 game just in time for Texas Pinball Festival and to premiere there, but unfortunately there have been some delays in getting some of the fast pinball boards ready in time. So my information is that they may well return to using the pin sound boards for the audio for their next title when that is announced. And I think they've actually made that decision, and they're hoping to be able to announce the title and the details of the next 2.0 kit. this coming week. In fact, this very week we're in. So maybe later this week you'll find out all about it.
    85:29
    I can't really say any more about it than that because until it's ready to go it's not ready to go. But there's a lot of changes. It was meant to be ready but it was delayed so hopefully they'll be able to plough on and get it launched now. Now all the fuss and the furore around the other game launches have taken place and they're in a little bit of a calmer period, this will get the attention that it will no doubt deserve. Right, okay. So, we mentioned Turner Pinball earlier in this episode, but let's properly discuss it. To my surprise, they had a prototype of a new original themed pinball machine at the Texas Pinball Festival called Ninja Eclipse.
    86:24
    That's right, yes. You played it. I did. I didn't get a chance to play it. It's the only new game I didn't play. Yeah, I thought it shot very well. I was pleasantly surprised because it's in a pretty early state, I'll say that, pretty early condition. There's a lot of development work still to go on it. The artwork, the software, where they put together a couple of modes, a sort of mini wizard mode, so you could actually play it properly. And I thought it was fun.
    87:01
    They weren't planning to be at the show. They weren't planning to bring a game. But at the last minute, they decided to change their mind and spent the last two weeks before the show working frantically to get the game done. I should mention it's a design by somebody called Brad Duke Who may not be familiar to you But he's actually the artist of the game And he also did some of the artwork for Spooky Pinball On their Scooby-Doo game So he's not unknown in the pinball world He's not only the artist but the designer of the game So he's part of the team from Turner Pinball He was there at the show As was Chris Turner Who was talking about that game And his company's plans And they had a seminar as well I think the first seminar of the entire show At midday on the Friday That was interesting They were talking about how they pulled that game together What they want to do What they want to achieve with the company seemed fairly sort of vague in terms of mostly being, well, we're a bunch of guys who love pinball and we thought it would be fun to make games.
    88:20
    Didn't really have much in the way of aims or targets or a clear vision of where they wanted their games to fit into the existing market. You know, when you've got so many other companies making games, releasing new games, where's their niche? what's their USP in the market. But I think it's making games, seeing how it goes, learning from it as well, and trying to produce what they describe as an enjoyable, reliable game with the first batch of about 100 units. And they reckon if they can do that and sell those, then that will be a success and they can move on to the next title. Right. And as mentioned earlier as well, or I talked to Christian, we both talked but I was smart enough to record it yep, I wasn't and that interview is also part of our special bonus episode with interviews from the Texas Primal Festival so make sure to check that out because obviously what better way to hear it than directly from the horse's mouth no slight no absolutely well I mean you will hear that Jonathan recorded that on the stand at the Turner Pimble stand so still during set up so it's not as noisy as during the show but it was still noisy yeah we certainly seem very open and sort of up front about it Chris I have to say is not sort of in any way shy of talking about his history with Deep Root but is also very keen to point out that that the past and now in the future they moved on and he didn want to see all the work that they done working together at Deep Root all go to waste, all be thrown away,
    90:20
    and a bunch of talented people there working on the game, on the games at Deep Root, and it can bring them in to turn a pinball and utilise that skill and talent to actually make games which are going to be produced, then why wouldn't he? So, yeah. Anyway, you'll hear more about it in Jonathan's interview with Chris in our special bonus pin cast. Right. So, moving on to American Pinball. Yeah, big show for American Pinball.
    90:53
    It was the full reveal of the Dennis Nordman-designed Galactic Tank Force. Now, obviously, we'd seen that game in, what was it, 2017?
    91:06
    Yeah. Okay, in Dennis's garage. Right. As a prototype. As a prototype, which he and Paul Reno had developed together. Yes. Didn't seem to be sort of destined to ever go into production, and yet here we are. Yeah. It's a tank-themed and a tank-shaped game. At least it is in the signature and limited editions of it, where the back box can fold down, and it has a sort of gun, a tank turret on the back of it, with a gun, which lights up, and also has five panels, which make it look like tank tracks.
    91:49
    So it did look like a tank when it was folded up, but now I don't know how much time it's been folded up, is the theme. There are going to be four versions of this game available eventually,
    92:03
    if all goes to plan. There's a signature edition, which is limited to 200 units, which I believe sold out pretty quickly. There's a limited edition, which has the same sort of cabinet and back box, gun turret type affair. There's a deluxe edition, and there's a plan to have a classic edition, which is kind of like what the American people have done with... Legends of Alhalla and also with... Oktoberfest? No. Houdini. Houdini, yes. Yeah. And Hot Wheels, I think, as well. Oh, right, OK. Which is a more sort of cut-down version, really. It sort of takes some sculpts and turns them all into flat plastics.
    92:48
    But the gameplay and the playfield action is unchanged. and also I think those earlier games had different back box designs so they're now being turned into a uniform design across all machines but that hasn't been announced yet, it'll only be made as a demand for it so at the moment you've got the Signature Limited and Deluxe editions, with the Signature Limited editions having the Tank Effect cabinet and back box I can't remember exactly how many galactic tank forces they had on the stand. I think five at least. Yeah, five or six. And one upstairs in the... The one in JJ's get-change room up on the 14th floor, the party room. Yeah. There was... Brian McQuig had motorised one of these, so he was driving it around as well, which was very impressive. It was a self-contained, battery-driven and powered, device that was driving like a tank so it was grabbing people's attention certainly at the show and they sent out a press release on April the 1st I believe not the best date to send out a press release no I would say that it wasn't really a press release as such well half of it was It said that they were doing the four shows in one week, which started with the Texas Film Festival, then went to the AMA Amusement Expo show in Vegas, which we spoke about earlier. The BCA show, I don't know which one that is. It doesn't ring a bell with me either. And this, that's the bar and catering show, which is co-located with Amusement Expo, also in the Las Vegas Convention Center. which would make sense. And then the Midwest Gaming Classic this past weekend. So four shows in, well, say nine days.
    95:00
    So a busy time for them, certainly. I think BCA must be the bar catering. Right. Yeah. Okay. But they also mentioned about a minor issue that they had with Galactic Tank Force. now I think we probably saw a little bit of that at the Texas Pinball Festival which was in the middle of the playfield there is this large tank device which had a big bank of stand-up targets along the front edge of it now there some people found that after hitting that or playing that for a while the targets were bending back and it was sending air balls off the targets I didn't really get that much But we did see the effect. We did. Yeah, the clear-code had quite a few dimples in them, which might be fitting to the theme, thinking that the playfield looks like a moon surface or something like that. But I'm not sure whether that's intentional or, well. Anyway, the press release said that they had come up with a temporary fix to stop those targets bending back and are working on a more permanent fix. So I'm guessing there aren't that many machines out there at the moment, so it's probably not an issue for people who have bought the game and have got them yet. Yeah, the same press release also announced the first official Galactic Tank Force livestream,
    96:36
    which turned out sort of to be inaccurate because that live stream is supposed to happen on Jack Danger's Deadlip channel on April the 4th, which is tomorrow. We were recording this on the 3rd. But the One iPod One Pinball podcast already beat them by streaming the game on the 31st of March.
    97:01
    Right, okay. Do we know where that game was? No, I don't. Okay. Well, so the first official stream then will be tomorrow. Right. Okay. So, but some good news for American Pinball, who I would say were the fourth show they went to was the Midwest Gaming Classic, which was just a couple of days ago. And at that show, they won the Best in Show Modern Pinball Award. So, congratulations. about that obviously with all these new titles being released that's a pretty hard-fought title so congratulations on winning the best in show yeah it's hotly contested i'd say right okay so
    97:52
    i think that rounds it up for american pinball at this point there was some dirt, let's call it that, but let's not dive into that. No. Okay, right. Let's move on to another company who were also at Texas Pinball Festival. To the surprise of many, I would say. Yeah, yeah, and pleasantly surprised, and that is Haggis Pinball, who were there with two of their Fathom Revisited games and two of their Celt games as well. But I understood that they did not bring the games themselves. These were all coming from local collectors who already received their games, which obviously saved them a lot of hassle and trouble to get games from Australia over there. So a smart move on their end. We were hoping to talk to Damien about what's going on with Haggis and their current silent mood, I would say, or mode, sorry.
    98:59
    And similar to with Spooky Pinball, you agree to do an interview and it doesn't happen because the show happens. Yeah, there's always so much going on. It seems like you've got three days, you've already got time to do all these things, but of course it's only really two days. it's that because the shows start till 5 o'clock on the Friday and then it closes at 2 o'clock on the Sunday so it's almost less than two days in total so there's an awful lot to get crammed in there with the seminars and we have the odd quiz and I actually like to play some of these games as well at some point and you like to socialise as well because you see so many familiar faces that you haven't seen in a while so yeah yeah it's so busy i mean there's an indication of how busy it is and this is personally um an indication is that there were there were three drinks on friday night saturday night uh thursday night and you missed them all i got one i got to one and had one drink in the entire three three periods and that was it and right and so i'll say a big thank you to uh Claire and Brian for giving me a drink after our quiz.
    100:19
    A very nice beer, which was much appreciated after doing all that talking for an hour and a quarter. Right. But back to having a spin ball. Indeed. Yeah, so Damien was there.
    100:32
    As well as Martin. Yeah. Marty, yeah. Martin Robbins, yeah. And they were talking. Well, Damien was assuring visitors to the stand that the game production is still ramping up after all their supply chain issues. They are getting the games out, which I think we knew, but it's a slow pace, shall we say, not the speed at which they would wish them to be produced. Right. Some of these things are outside their control. Yeah, so I understood from NAP Arcade, who had a reporter on the show floor as well, that Haggis hopes to finish the production of Fathom by the end of 2023, this year. And they aim to announce a third title at the Brisbane Pinball and Arcade Show, which is held from July 14th to the 23rd. That's a long show. That's a very long show indeed, yes. A rumoured title Could be that it's Another remake Of a belly title Which most likely Could be or would be Centaur That's pretty expected If they are going to do a remake Yeah But another title that is being rumoured Is War of the Worlds That you may know From the book and play H.G. Wells, which apparently is now in the public domain, so it doesn't require a license.
    102:15
    No, the theme doesn't, but obviously you'd have to do characters from it somehow. Yeah. So if you're doing a movie, obviously you have the sound samples or the video clips or whatever from that, but if you haven't, if you're using the public domain version, then you have to create all those assets yourself, which is something we talked to Jack about, of course, in our bonus pin cast, about the pros and cons of licenses and working with licensors. So we won't go into that again here. Yeah, okay. I think opposite of the stand of Haggis Pinball, we had Cardona Pinball, or the stand-off Planetary Pinball. Yeah, it was interesting to see Planetary Pinball back at the shows after being away for quite a long time. And on there, apart from the big selection of parts, reproduction parts, they also had a Black Rose 2.0 game called Skull and Bones, which came from, as you said, Cardona Pinball. Yeah, with artwork that reminded me a lot of Legend of Valhalla. Yeah, I have to admit, I wasn't keen on the back glass artwork. It kind of looked to me like it was done by somebody who can't draw faces. Right. But the theme and the upgrade kit look very interesting. It has an LCD display to it, and it's called Black Rose Skull and Bones.
    103:51
    It's another kit licensed by Plankley Pimble, as I said, made by Cardona Pimble. that may not be a name you're familiar with you may be familiar with an earlier 2.0 type game which they were working on which was a new version of No Good Gophers called Battle for the Green there was some animation shown from that which didn't necessarily go down all that well, it was a bear I think as one of the two characters and I don't know whether the other one was a gopher or not But that kind of went quiet For quite a long time But that's also available now As a 2.0 kit I think last month or the month before that But yeah it was interesting To see them Being small flyers For these two games Yeah So obviously 2.0 kits Are coming out from various different Manufacturers now, not just Pedretti As we've seen I would see Mirko produce one as well for Tales of the Great White. Yeah. Which apparently, rumor has it, that Mirko might have dropped that project and he's no longer involved. But I just heard something. Let's take that for a rumor right now, and we'll get back to that in a future Pinkast to see whether there's any truth to that. Yeah, well, if they're not doing it, then, well, Cardona are with these few kits. So I didn't get a chance to play the Black Rose Skull and Bones one.
    105:32
    I need so much time to test all of them. But I don't think the play field had changed that much. Obviously, the rules had, and there was an LCD in the back box, and the artwork had changed significantly. So have a look on Cardona pinball designs and get all the details on Black Rose Skull and Bones for yourself. Right. Okay. Now, moving on to Dutch Pinball, closer to my home. Indeed. Yeah. Any news from them? Well, yes, but I didn't see anything officially announced. But apparently there was some photos from the factory were uploaded halfway March, I would say. And it appears that the artwork on the Big Lebowski playfield has been upgraded, I would say. Oh. In the sense that it leaves, previously it had artwork in areas where posts for slingshots and so on would be. Right. And similar to Stern Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball and other companies, removing artwork from places where posts are supposed to be, Dutch Pinball did now the same for the Big Lebowski. Right. That helps the clear-coated here to the wood, I guess. This is not trying to attach to artwork. It's going straight through to the wood. Right. Yes. And at the Texas Pinball Show, I did see a Dutch Pinball LED sign at the Cointaker booth. Apparently, Cointaker is selling these currently. So if you're looking for decoration for your game room with the Dutch Pinball logo, then go see Cointaker, I would say. and Cointaker did have a Big Lebowski on their stand as well, which was also very popular. Even though it's a good few years old now, it still had a nice queue of people waiting to play it. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
    107:45
    That's all I have from Dutch Pinball, and I did hear people talking about which number of earlier, cheaper games they are currently building on. Apparently they are approaching 120, Well we know some people Will be very pleased to hear that Yeah absolutely Yeah so But that's all for now And of course I think we mentioned it before But clearly Dutch Springball is working on An upcoming title But that title will not be Announced or revealed Before all early Achiever games Have been delivered Right At least that's what I'm hearing So I have no official confirmation from that But let's go with that And of course Dutch Pinball is another company You make 2.0 kit Right, yeah They did the Bride of Pinball as well Yeah So add them to the list Let's move on then to our next company And go over to Taiwan And Homepin Because they've been busy We mentioned last time there was a dearth of information about production of This Is Final Tap. Well, some news from Mike over there that apparently he's been hiring some new staff with the help of the Taiwanese government. He says Taiwanese governments are very helpful when it comes to trying to find employment for people, and they are actually very proactive in getting people into new positions. and so now he's got some and are cranking up production of This Is Spinal Tap and to prove the point he shared a picture on Facebook of around 10 This Is Spinal Tap machines or cabinets at least in various stages of production. Right. So it looks like that game is actually starting to be built now. If you're wondering why or where that game was hopefully you'll be able to tell. It wasn't at the Texas Film Festival. It was not, no. No, he hasn't shared any plans for showing the game, but you would hope it would be at Pinball Expo in October at least. Yeah. If not, one of the more summer shows as well. Right. And in the meantime, Home Pin is also working on replacement parts for mostly Bellier and Williams pinball machines. and I think they posted about a test structure being built to test the voltages on a new WPC power supply that they are putting on. Yeah, the transformer I saw. Yeah. Which surprised me, because it's one of those things you kind of think never fails. Yeah, I can't think of anybody ever looking for one. Well, I guess if you're building a game from scratch, maybe you want to use a similar type of transformer. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Then we have a whole bunch of companies that we did not have any news on to report. So we'll just quickly name them. Circus Maximus. No news. Bittronic in Spain. No news. SDR Pimble I'm not sure why we even mentioned them But still There's still no news And Quetzal Pimble Also from Spain Who are working with Bitronics And we're still waiting to see their Tokyo Perfect Drift game Getting taken to production Yeah No news on that either Yeah So And then there's a little bit of Other news Yes Indeed Well The movie Pinball, the man who saved the game All about Roger Sharp And A slice of his life And his relationships Which is I have to say has been very well received It was shown at The Texas Pinball Festival At the screen there And that went down very well But if you couldn't make that It's now available on Amazon Prime And Apple TV And in some cinemas as well in certain countries. I don't think it's available in every country. I'm not even sure if it's available in Europe, but certainly in America you can stream it from there. I would recommend viewing it if you haven't already. Yeah, I'm still waiting to see it because I missed it at the Texas Pinball Festival. Yeah. Well, it's certainly one you should get to and get to watch. Hopefully it will make it into I don't know, some art house Cinema over here or something Yep Okay, so that's that news We already mentioned about our quiz At Texas Film Festival So we Can skip that I think Because we've There's any other news about that We already thank everybody who contributed to that Another thing that was on show At Texas Film Festival Without wishing to sound too much about that show, but there was a really nice topper for a game there. Yeah, a Twilight Zone topper, which turned out to be manufactured by a company called The Electric Playground.
    113:20
    And they have a website, TEP, P-I-N-B-A-L-L, T-E-P, that is, pinball. A Twilight Zone topper Which Has a A ball Rolling around on a wire form Around the pyramid And the pyramid has a LCD in it with the Ever seeing eye or whatever you want to call it Which is moving And blinking So a very nice topper Which is available for the price of $1,629. A bargain these days. Apparently, yes.
    114:07
    And according to their website, the first batch of this topper already sold out and they hope to start delivering the first toppers to consumers or customers in May of this year. And they are planning to do more batches. You can sign up for the next batch, the second batch, in which their aim is to do a batch of 50% people who registered up front,
    114:47
    and the other half of that batch will be for people who just basically walk up and decide to buy such a topper. So And well of course With Like I think over 13,000 Twilight Shones Machines being built Back in the day There could be a big demand for this stopper Yeah I got a picture of it On my report but Could probably do with a video To be honest because it's It doesn't really do it justice Just a still picture but you get the idea anyway, and you can see what it looks like on top of the game. And it's very good, very impressive piece of engineering. So congratulations to Electric Playground, or The Electric Playground. As you say, go to TEP, for the Electric Playground, pinball.com to find out details. Right, okay. And last but not least, something that I personally was quite happy about. There is a writer named Ed Guida and he wrote two books on Jimmy Johnson. One on the Jimmy Johnson amusement park which was in Texas I believe probably San Antonio if I'm not mistaken but don't quote me on that.
    116:19
    And he also wrote a book on the Jimmy Johnson Western Companies, which is the pinball company where Wayne Nines started his career in pinball. So we're talking pre-war, like the 1930s of the previous century.
    116:42
    I was familiar with the Western Companies book because Wayne Lyons showed it to me as a hardcover book and I've been looking for it ever since I visited Wayne for the very first time, which is like, I think, six or seven years ago.
    117:02
    It's impossible to find and if you find it on eBay, the hardcover edition costs around $200 or something, which is not within my budget, let's put it like that. But the good news is I was walking around the history of pinball booths at the Texas Pinball Festival where I noticed a copy of the book with a soft cover, a paperback version, so to speak, but still A4 size or letter size, with all the illustrations in it and everything, just not the hard cover. So I asked Jeff Frick about it, and he's like, yeah, he just ordered that from Amazon. And apparently it turns out it's a reprint which recently became available. Right. So if you're into pre-war games, this is a 168-page book, which is available for $15 or $20 or so, which is rather affordable, I'd say, and contains a lot of history on how the industry worked at that time. So highly recommend it if you're into pre-war games and history of pinball. Thanks for letting us know about that Yeah And I guess that rounds it up for This episode but don't forget We still have the Extra bonus Episode With the interview with Jerry Stellenberg Daniel Jensen Jack Guarnieri Chris Turner Yes Make sure to listen to that As well for the latest news from their various companies. And other than that, we will be back at the start of May, looking back at the month of April, and all the events that took place in the pinball world then. Yeah, I expect a lot less new games, but still always plenty to report on. Absolutely, it's a busy time, and it's a fun time to be in the pinball business, so we hope you enjoyed this particular month's PINCAST, and as I say, we'll see you at the beginning of May, and so until then, please have a listen to our bonus PINCAST, and we'll speak to you in, well, at the beginning of April. Okay. No, at the beginning of May. Oh, no. Yeah, beginning of May, looking back at April. Yeah, yeah. That's the one. Yeah. I knew April was in there somewhere. So until then, from me, Martin Eyre of Pinball News, and my name is Jonathan Houston. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine, and I'm also saying goodbye, and thank you for listening. Okay, bye-bye then. Bye.