it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teolis you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on twitter instagram at pinball profile we've got a great facebook group as well you can email pinball profile at gmail.com and if you'd like to show your support boy that would be kind don't worry the show will always be free but if you'd like to go to patreon.com slash pinball profile. That would be wonderful. Thank you to great supporters like Rodney C, Derek S, Tony V, and so many more. Really appreciate that. Here at the Delaware Pinball Collective, where I'm looking at two machines I'm very familiar with, except they're a lot different. The games are No Good Gophers and also Black Rose, but 2.0, if you will. That's right, because of Jim Cardona, who's here right now. Jim, how are you? Doing well. Nice to see these games here. I think I saw No Good Gophers on location with the 2.0, if you will. What have you done to that game? Right. So when we remake these games, it's a complete hardware software package. So we replace the CPU board, sound board, DMD board or audio visual board in the case of WPC 95. So all that hardware is replaced. And we also add the DMD itself is replaced as well when we put in a 15 inch LCD screen and new speakers in the case of the gophers. So that's all the hardware changes. changes and as far as the software it's all completely new rules written from scratch we spent several years on each of those titles writing the rules and as the licensing as it came out or as it happened the licensing took a little bit longer so that's why our two titles were released close to each other but there's a complete new game and the idea was to take games that didn't get that much love or we didn't feel that they were finished and try to bring them up to today's standards so any game that you play by stern or any maybe not maybe i won't compare myself to jersey jack but any of the other manufacturers we that was our goal to try and make a game that played just like those modern rule set modern sound effects modern animations music the whole shooting match but you could put it in an older game so it's not costing you twelve thousand or nine thousand dollars to do that that's uh what's interesting about these games you've got so far we mentioned no good gophers and also black rose and there are more on the way maybe we can get jim to say if you are give us a hint but you're kind of giving us a hint right now it's games that you feel incomplete i know what chicago is doing with cactus canyon that probably would have been a perfect one if they weren't doing it because that was an incomplete game, but no good gophers, a fun game, a good shooting game, a Lawler classic. What did you do to change it? Give me some rules. Okay, so the main thing, we changed quite a bit on gophers. So one of the main things that always bothered me about that game was that the progression of it was, you know, it's modeled after golf, but it's not set up like golf. You know, golf, you want to make less shots and then putt out. Whereas the way the original gophers rules were played, they would start off with like, say, you know, a score of six. Yeah, say six or seven, and then you had to make that number before you could putt out, which was – that was always weird to me. So what we did was we did it more like real golf. So like maybe the first hole might be 400 yards away. Each stroke is 100 yards. So basically that would be a par five, right, because you have a stroke for your putt out as well. But if you get combos, so if you hit a stroke and then you hit another stroke, you advance the ball 100 yards without incurring a stroke. like say you hit four combos in a row and then you put out your stroke count would be two. So obviously the lower the stroke count, the higher the points for it. So it's more like like regular golf. And obviously you can hit the hole in one shot and get a hole in one as well. So, you know, if you don't get the hole in one, the best you could do is two strokes. So it's you know, it's that was that was the whole concept behind that. The other thing we did, the original gophers, if you recall, once you put it out, there would be like a mystery award and some of those mystery awards would be modes you know pop a gopher or um q jackpot those type of things so it already had a few modes but people who really know the game if you you know because like the wheel spins and the words of what the possible choices of modes are are on the screen there was like four or five that were listed on the screen that you never get because they never know that yeah they never made them they never made them so So there was one that was called Turtle Wax that's on the screen, and people just don't pay attention to it, so they think, yeah, yeah, Gophers is finished. Why did you work on that? But I guess if you got the game and you got the glass off and you're testing all of them, like, I'm never getting Turtle Wax. I never knew that. Yeah, yeah, so there was several modes like that that they had it must have been in their initial design but for whatever reason they just never finished And so we said we want to do more modes We actually ended up not doing a turtle wax mode but we did a bunch of other gopher everything's golf or gopher-related modes. But one of the things was I wanted to not have everything so much focused on putting out. So we wanted to have two different strategies. So you have a mode-based strategy where you have to basically spell the names of the gophers, whether it's butt or buzz by hitting them a certain number of times yeah you see that on the screen like what letters are left i like that exactly and the cart as well so cart you know is four letters it would be four shots if you're playing in an easy mode you start off with three already done so you only need one more likewise for the gophers once you spell those out then you have basically a mode qualified then you shoot the putt out whether or not the putting green is lit doesn't matter so you could get it could be both shots at the same time if you have the putting green lit for putt out, it would putt you out, and it would start the mode. So you get both. So when you're making a game like this, and you keep using the words we, so who are some of the people? Well, some of the people is me. And then basically, I do say we because I have a lot of, I don't have any staff that are permanent, that are paid, but I have people that I hire. So I have, yeah, I have subcontractors, basically the subcontractors, right? I use we too for pinball profile, and people are like, who are the we? Well, it's the community. And you've got people like yourself. Okay, so when you're doing No Good Gophers, Battle for the Green, this 2.0, if you will, you're, I don't want to say stuck, but you are limited to what's on the play field, whether it's the disc, whether it's the inserts, whatever's there. That's where this LCD screen comes in where you can spell Bud, you can spell Buzz, you can spell Cart and all these other things and give you a lot more information. That's probably the saving grace and the importance of the LCD. I think so. But you bring up a good point because one of the things people say is there's this rock and a hard place that companies like mine are in where people want to be able to still play the old game. So we can't change the play field because if my kit delivers two new ramps, then people are going to say, well, then when I go to play the old game, it's not going to be the same. So I'm kind of stuck there. But in future games, we do have some plans for potentially changing some things on the play field. But yeah, but back to your point, the LCD is pretty important. Likewise, in Black Rose, there's a mode selection screen where you would scroll through it. And that one had that particular mode selection screen is kind of has a feel of like Guardians of the Galaxy where the ball is trapped and you can select which one you want to play next. And there's a lot of information on that screen. It's not just saying, OK, which mode do I want to pick? But it also tells you this mode's a multiball. This one's, you know, the ball saves X, Y, Z. or if you complete this mode, it's worth $40 million or is it worth $10 million? So you've got a lot of information there that you can make your choice of what you want to do. I know everybody's different, right? And I get a lot of feedback from the industry. And I've got some people that are like, I don't want any information on the screen. I just want call-outs because I never look up. That's a good point, but you can have both. You can have both, right? And then I've got other people that they want all the information on the screen. They want to be able to hold the button down and get the info screen and get additional information. So it's just all, you know, we try and do both as best we could. Can I guess? I mean, you said off the top that some of these games felt incomplete or maybe just the code wasn't there or maybe it's something that's just kind of repeatable. Oh, I don't know, like Bride of Pinbot. And then you see Bride of Pinbot 2.0 where they really changed the game. I love Bride of Pinbot 2.0. There's not a lot of people out there that have that. Was that maybe an inspiration for doing this with Cardona Productions? So, yeah, I've been doing this kind of stuff for a long time, but it was always just hobby based. you're doing this for a long time it's not easy just to say i'm going to take a saturday and do this it's going to take months and if not a longer period of time and the licensing this is this is quite the hobby yeah basically as a hobbyist i was modifying code on arcade machines originally we're talking 15 years ago and i used to write novels as well so uh you know i've written nine books and you know and that's it's just a creative piece people are creative they just create things they make things and they like doing whether you're building furniture whatever you're doing My initial plans were when Cactus Canyon Continued came out, I wanted to do something like that, and I was just going to release it for free for the general public at first. Then just through a strange series of events, I got in touch with Planetary, and they convinced me that it could be done as a – there was a business model here. So here we are years later, and now it's a business. And we've talked a little bit about No Good Gophers, but also Black Rose is the latest. By the way, that's a little different. I mean, you've kind of used the back glass of no good grofers. You talked about changing the LCD screen, the speakers, and that bottom panel. But you've got a whole new image for Black Rose when you're looking at the backbox. You got great artwork from somebody I know very well in Scott Gullix who did Legends of Valhalla Great artwork there And again the LCD screen Tell me about Black Rose What you do there So Black Rose I felt a little bit more freedom to do a complete regain with that because I know there's a lot of love for Black Rose amongst people that have the game, but in general, not. It's one of Raymond Davidson's favorite games ever. He's actually played my version a couple times and given me some feedback. I don't know if that's name droppery, but... No, no, that's good for a guy who's coding for Stern. and passionate about the game, that's probably good. Yeah, but we did do a completely new game with that. And so, I mean, obviously, again, we're limited to the play field, but I think that play field layout is great. You know, I mean, I like the variety of shots. There's a lot of bank shots in that game, which is atypical for pinball. Like there's the nine center targets that are right in the middle. Some of them you can't really hit unless you bank off of something else consistently. The three-way bank is great. Yeah, you can do a three-way bank. And then there's kind of like a walk-the-plank shop that's on the left-hand side, which you would think you could hit that from the upper flipper, but it's very difficult to do. But you can bank it off the green targets. You just don't see that in pinball. It's so unique. You know, three flippers, three ramps. It's got the under-subway thing. So, I mean, the game itself was great as far as the hardware. But we just saw that, like, yeah, but, you know, the software just wasn't up to snuff, especially in today's standards. Maybe at the time it was okay. You're absolutely right. A very unique play field with shots that are makeable, some that you require banks and whatnot. But also the original code, too. I've talked to people like Raymond Davidson and others. There are different ways to play the game. Are you really good on that right ramp? Because you could do that for a million here and there. Are you going to lock balls? That's an easy thing. There's a lot of strategy. So you've got that already in the original. If you can do that with the original, you had to be thinking, I can do a lot more. I can totally revamp this. Right. And that's what we did. So one of the big strategy things that we did with that game was this idea of collecting treasure and that you could collect it and then later you could bury it somewhere. Right. You would bury the treasure. It would be basically cashing it in. So on the left hand side of the screen, there's a little picture of a treasure chest. And throughout the game, you can accumulate treasure doing different things. Mainly it's pirates booty. So there's like a pirates booty shot that's on the left hand side where in the original game that was where you would lock balls. But when you saw you spell lock, L-O-C-K, which are inlanes, you shoot it up in there. It starts this pirate's booty mode. And then in that pirate's booty mode, you're just collecting treasure. You can also cash it in after you've gotten a certain amount. But the thing is, you can cash it in in other modes as well. So the key is collect a lot of treasure and start a different mode that might have a higher multiplier. So now you have another different mode that maybe has a 10x multiplier or 12x multiplier. Then you cash your treasure in, and then you're killing. So that was one of our big things. And then the other thing is it has a lot of modes, and we have two wizard modes in that game. Pretty incredible, too. In the original game, too, I remember the video modes. I can't say I'm a big fan of those video modes. Certainly the bashing of the action button. I know this is a shocker to anybody listening to Pinball Profile not being a fan of bashing a button. I didn't mind that one because you're doing it while the ball's not in play. Now, that's the original one. You've got an LCD screen, and I've always wondered about people who are programming now. We don't see as many video modes. Star Wars has the flying through the asteroids, if you will, but we really don't see them. Is that something that you're a fan of, not a fan of? It requires a lot more animations and probably programming. True. I'm not scared of video modes as far as a programmer and doing them. I had done some code for Demolition Man a long time ago, and I had video modes in that. I just feel like pinball is the physics of the ball. You know what I mean? And I just really wanted to focus on that. I could have done. Yes, I agree. Yeah, I could have done video modes, but I just, I don't know. But I do agree with you. The video modes are the weak spot in the original game of Black Rose. So we use the LCD screen for basically for information and status and finding out what's going on and helping you develop a strategy of what you want to do next. But we don't use it for video modes. Now, as far as your mashdown button, that's for firing the cannon. But we also, there's another mode that I have. It's just like a typhoon mode where your boat's trapped in this typhoon and the waves, you know, everything's crashing and going around. And if you make a certain number of shots, randomly this typhoon ghoul will pop up. The first time the ghoul pops up, a lot of people, they kind of shriek when this ghoul, you know, screams at them. but if you hit you have like two or three seconds to mash the lockdown button when that guy screams and if you do that then you can get some extra points so it's kind of like i would think not like as long as the teenage mutant ninja turtles um eating the pizza because it only like two or three seconds but you can hit that you know if you can hit the shot repeatedly then you can do it again and again okay so again different options there a lot of opportunities with black rose and you're not done yet like i don't know how long it took you for each of them yeah well we were i would say about two years we have four titles that we licensed through planetary they're all bally williams titles i guess you're trying to get a get some hints No, no, I don't want you to spoil. More the timeline. So how long to do for no good gophers? How long for Black Rose? If you find bugs, is it easy to update these kind of things? The games aren't connected to the Internet, so it's still kind of the old way of, you know, you would download a USB. Yeah, you would download a code, a USB, plug it in, and there's an update screen. A lot of the code base is really usable. So, like, for example, all your service menus, all your diagnostic, all that stuff. So once I made that, so it took, basically what I'm saying is the first game took a lot longer than the second, third, and fourth game are going to take. How much time do you think you spent on these? I'm retired, so I'm doing this full time now. So I'm retired from my day job. So, yeah, this is just, this is what I'm doing. I do like four to six hours a day, I would say, working on it. And title number three, we're looking forward to launch in March of next year. And then title four, hopefully sometime next year with Q3, Q4. Is March significant because of things like Texas Pinball Festival? We would like to do Texas. That would be nice if we could launch there, but that's just the way the math works out of what I have left to do. The important thing is, where do people get these? Right now, you can buy them online. You can get them from my website, cardonapinball.com. Planetary Pinball, their website, and Cointaker is also carrying them. I want to go play again. I was doing some No Good Gophers before we did this, and I know we're in the middle of a tournament here. We're in a quiet spot at the wonderful Delaware Pinball Collective. And, Jim, I'm glad to finally meet you and play these games. I'm looking forward to what's up next. Well, like I said, we have the Game 3 that we're getting ready to launch in March. And the only thing, I can't tell you what it is, but I can just give you a hint. Basically what you've kind of already heard, which is, you know, it's a Bally Williams title, doing games that I feel were not necessarily completed. or even there's some games that I would say that I could do that the game was complete, but I think I could make it better. If I feel like I can't make it better, I'm not going to do it. I love people like yourself doing these kind of things because, yeah, some of these older titles need a little bit of love and maybe some creativity, especially now that what we see with Jersey Jack and with Stern and American and Spooky and Haggis and everybody bringing these wonderful games that are so deep in code. Deep code is pretty important, and it just helps your investment so much more. so I appreciate this. I played one the other day. I don't know if you've played this. I didn't even know it existed. A Galaxy game which I thought, eh, it's a nice old Stern game but it had a different code on it with hurry ups and it talked to you and had music. I was like this is great! Yeah, it is wonderful and there's actually a lot more 2.0 out there. It's just it's not necessarily all advertised as such. So like the Haggis games are all, they have that 2.0 feature built into them and they are producing full complete machines so people don't think about them as 2.0s, but they are. And then, as you mentioned, the Bride of Pimbop from Dutch and Pedretti with the Funhaus and the Whirlwind. And then there's a couple other companies that actually haven't released yet, but they're in the process of doing this as well. So that's interesting. You talked about Funhaus and Whirlwind and whatnot. Now that you're doing what you're doing, and that's kind of the same area, not necessarily the same area. You're more in that Bally Williams kind of DMV era. Are you talking to make sure you're not both working on the same thing? Right. So we purchased the license. So Planetary would let you. Planetary. So like the licenses that I have, nobody else can have them. Likewise, Pedretti. So that's why I kind of have a feel for, I have a guess of what they might be doing, only because there's some license I've asked for and they said you can't have that one. But I'm not going to spill the beans on them either because I wouldn't want them doing that to me as well. Good call, Jim. Jim, great to meet you. And again, thanks for doing this. I love this kind of creativity. And if you want to check out for yourself, go to cardonapinball.com. C-A-R-D-O-N-A pinball.com. All the best, Jim. Yeah, thanks a lot for putting this out. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. Also Facebook. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And if you'd like to show your support on patreon.com slash pinballprofile, that would be wonderful. like great people including GME Law, Fox Cities Pinball, RS Pinball, LuaW, and so many more. We really appreciate it. Here at Delaware Pinball Collective, I'm Jeff Teolas.