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Jarful, Meaty, Prickly, Pinball Discussion

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·47m 48s·held·Mar 2, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

BlahCade discusses TPA lighting/visual issues and Season 6 wishlist including Swords of Fury.

Summary

BlahCade Podcast hosts Chris Friebus and Jared Moore record a birthday episode featuring extended tangents on pizza, jaffles, and bacon marketing history before discussing Pinball Arcade (TPA) table issues, tournament results, and Season 6 predictions. Key technical complaints focus on Cactus Canyon visual presentation and lighting problems across TPA tables, while community feedback on Farsight's recent improvements is noted. The hosts announce the launch of blackheadpinball.com as a centralized podcast hub funded by t-shirt sales.

Key Claims

  • Space Shuttle has appeared in FarSight tournaments more than any other table

    medium confidence · Chris Friebus discussing Pinball Arcade tournament frequency; someone posted statistics but he cites this without direct verification

  • Cactus Canyon in TPA has unbalanced scoring where end-of-ball bonus is sometimes larger than the total score during play

    high confidence · Chris Friebus describing specific gameplay experience in TPA; cites instances where 3 million points in play becomes 25 million after bonus

  • Cactus Canyon Continued (the real machine) caps multiplier at 5x while original TPA version allows 99x

    medium confidence · Jared Moore comparing mechanical version to TPA; states current cap is 5 but expresses uncertainty ('if I'm not mistaken')

  • Android TPA now has ball shadows on the playfield (recently added feature)

    high confidence · Jared Moore describing recent Android update; contrasts with iOS which had this 'for a fair while'

  • Flippy Floppy is assisting Bobby with TPA table tuning and learning from him

    high confidence · Chris Friebus providing community update about FarSight personnel; describes ongoing mentorship

  • BlahCade t-shirt sales have generated enough revenue to fund domain purchase and website development

    high confidence · Jared Moore announcing blackheadpinball.com purchase and setup; reinvestment strategy from merchandise

  • Chris Friebus is a leap year baby (born February 29)

    high confidence · Jared Moore's birthday greeting and Chris's explanation of recording date change due to leap year

  • Montana Frank defeated Chris Friebus on both Space Shuttle and Taxi in recent tournament, dropping Chris to 17th place

    high confidence · Chris Friebus recounting February tournament results; Frank is described as honest about his skill level

Notable Quotes

  • “Space Shuttle is the ever-present, hideous table that I cannot score well on to save my life.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~11:30 — Expresses frustration with persistent table selection and his performance struggles, noting 1 in 20 plays result in decent scores

  • “There are no direct spots aimed at them. It's all the ambient light that gets them. But because the throw of the light isn't far enough, it never reaches those figures, so we just get these black figures.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~32:00 — Technical critique of TPA's dynamic lighting implementation, specifically addressing Cactus Canyon and Champion Pub figure lighting deficiencies

  • “The lighting that was done with the dynamic lighting, it was more like the lighting was put through a code... it didn't have – nobody ever went through and looked at it specifically and went, oh, that looks right, that looks wrong.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~35:00 — Critique suggesting FarSight's dynamic lighting beta lacked human review and quality assurance before implementation

  • “In the natural world, the light would be reflected on the bottom half of the ball. In TPA world, that reflection is on the top of the ball.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~43:00 — Identifies specific graphics bug where ball reflection logic is inverted, described as 'should be pretty easy to fix'

  • “It's just so boring... the only way to get a good score on that is to raise your multiplier and get this ridiculous end of ball bonus that's sometimes bigger than the score.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~28:00 — Critiques Cactus Canyon's TPA balance issues; strategy becomes repetitive (shoot mine continuously) and bonus scaling is broken

  • “We decided to join in the fun since we're slightly over halfway through season five... now's my time I'll be able to make predictions without fear of lawyers.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~56:00 — References NDA contracts with FarSight that prevent discussion of unreleased table knowledge, explains why early Season 6 predictions are safer

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MoorepersonMontana FrankpersonFlippy FloppypersonBobbyperson[name withheld pending review]personBlahCade PodcastorganizationFarSight StudioscompanyPinball ArcadeproductWizard Amusement

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Multiple unresolved lighting and shadow issues in Pinball Arcade affecting table visual accuracy: figures not properly lit (Cactus Canyon Bart, Champion Pub boxer), ball shadow persistence bugs (ghost shadows at drain and launch), inverted ball reflection on inserts, inconsistent insert bloom/glow behavior, and sub-par dynamic lighting throw distance.

    high · Chris Frebus detailed critique of lighting implementation; references to specific tables and visual problems; acknowledgment that some FarSight staff are now revisiting tables to improve visuals

  • ?

    code_update: Android version of Pinball Arcade recently added ball shadow feature on playfield, significantly improving visual depth and ball weight perception; feature was previously iOS-only.

    high · Jared Moore: 'Android now has ball shadows on the play field. And it's really quite amazing just what a difference that small thing makes.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Cactus Canyon TPA version has severely unbalanced scoring where end-of-ball bonus dwarfs in-play scoring; multiplier system is broken (99x cap vs real machine's 5x), making optimal strategy repetitive (shoot mine continuously). Cactus Canyon Continued fixed these issues.

    high · Chris describes instances where 3M in-play score becomes 25M after bonus; bonus is sometimes larger than total play score; identifies this as needing update to Continued standards

  • ?

    personnel_signal: FarSight is investing in junior talent development: Flippy Floppy is receiving formal mentorship from Bobby on table tuning techniques, with progress reported as strong. Indicates potential pipeline for future maintainers.

    high · Chris Frebus: 'Flippy Floppy is sort of helping out Bobby now with the tuning. So he's getting some lessons from Bobby on how to actually do the tuning. It's making really good progress too.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.143

0:00
This is a Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jaren. wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization
0:44
You are listening to The Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, my co-host, Jared Moore. G'day, Chris, and happy birthday. Thank you so much. Yes, we're recording this not on Sunday like normal because of circumstances. Instead, we're recording it on that day of the year that only exists once every four leap year. That's me. I am a leap year baby.
1:10
So what sort of special things have you done? Well, yesterday we went to the most delicious pizza place on the face of the planet.
1:20
It's in the hometown I grew up in, which is in La Verne, California. It's called Warehouse Pizza. It's a warehouse full of pizzas.
1:31
Well, when it first opened, it was like a Quonset hut. I mean, it was a warehouse. And then it burned down.
1:40
Or they had a fire. and they rebuilt and put it into a proper building at the same location. Oh. But they've been there for, I mean, as long as I remember growing up there. And it just never has failed on the quality of the pizza. What makes it so good? Well, I am not one of these New York-style pizza people. I hate New York pizza. It's floppy pizza with barely any sauce, barely any cheese. and more to the point, they cook the pizza usually as cheese first and then they throw the toppings on and then when you order it, they throw it back in the oven for a couple of minutes to warm it up. That's crap to me. Oh, really? All right. And I don't like having to taco a pizza.
company
Cactus Canyongame
Cactus Canyon Continuedgame
Space Shuttlegame
Taxigame
Starship Troopersgame
Champion Pubgame
Funhousegame
Attack from Marsgame
Swords of Furygame
Doctor Whogame
blackheadpinball.comorganization
  • ?

    community_signal: Community members (Chris Frebus) proactively providing detailed visual critique to FarSight, including forwarded photos of real machines for reference; signs that FarSight is now receptive and revisiting older tables for improvement passes.

    high · Chris mentions forwarding photos of Bart and Champion Pub during DX11 beta; notes 'there's been a couple of individuals up at Farsight who are back to attacking these tables and trying to make them look as good as possible'

  • ?

    product_concern: Cactus Canyon TPA playfield mechanics significantly differ from real machine: mine lock behavior is unrealistic (balls go through when gate is down), making ramp strategy paramount in digital vs real-world gameplay; lock mechanism has three-stage unlocking on real machine not properly modeled.

    high · Jared Moore's comparison of real machine experience to TPA; notes mine lock has three stages on real machine, single-pass behavior in TPA is 'unrealistic'

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade Podcast securing dedicated domain (blackheadpinball.com) as unified content hub, moving away from scattered hosting across ShoutEngine, Pinside, iTunes. Website launching in 2 weeks with blog format. Represents professionalization of community podcast infrastructure.

    high · Jared Moore announces purchase of blackheadpinball.com domain; describes consolidation strategy; cites t-shirt sales as revenue source for ongoing maintenance

  • $

    market_signal: BlahCade Podcast successfully monetizing through t-shirt sales with revenue reinvested in infrastructure (domain, website development). Model appears sustainable enough to fund ongoing operations and future purchases.

    high · Jared Moore: 'we'd love to hear your feedback about it and let us know what works for you... we've got other things we'd like to purchase and apply towards this podcast. Plus, just pay the continual annual fee'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: BlahCade tournament in February featured Space Shuttle, Starship Troopers, Cactus Canyon, Taxi as set. Chris Frebus placed 17th; Jared Moore around 12th. Montana Frank (self-described casual player) notably defeated Chris on both Space Shuttle and Taxi, indicating Chris struggles with alphanumeric/pre-DMD scoring mechanics.

    high · Chris: 'This dumped me down to 17th place for this tournament'; 'I even got beat by Montana Frank on it... I got pummeled twice'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Chris Frebus publicly predicting Swords of Fury for TPA Season 6 based on gameplay appeal and Arcade Expo exposure, not insider knowledge. Framed as prediction now possible due to NDA restrictions preventing early knowledge sharing.

    medium · Chris: 'I decided to join in the fun since we're slightly over halfway through season five... now's my time I'll be able to make predictions without fear of lawyers. Number one, Swords of Fury'

  • ?

    industry_signal: BlahCade hosts operate under formal NDA contracts with FarSight preventing discussion of unreleased TPA tables, even when learned in advance. This creates community dynamic where informed hosts cannot speculate on unreleased content, altering podcast dynamics.

    high · Chris: 'me and Jared are both under NDA contracts with FarSight. So once we learn something, we can no longer discuss it... if all of a sudden we're quite obviously dodging certain titles, that might be a clue'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Swords of Fury identified as engaging 'side to side shooter' design where horizontal movement is core mechanic (not drain-based). This era of System 11 machines (1980s) prioritized dynamic sound and multi-level playfields; represents different design philosophy than later ramp-heavy machines.

    high · Jared: 'it's that era of table where they really pay a lot of attention to the sound on it... it's kind of a side to side shooter... you're shooting the ball side to side'

    • 2:22
    I don't know if you know what I mean. Taco a pizza? Taco a pizza. That means you grab it by the back crust, you put your finger on it, and you fold it in half. And you have to do that with a New York style because otherwise it flops. Yeah, right. It's got to give it a better rigidity. Yes. And then you take a bite onto it, and basically now you've created a funnel for all the grease you just pour out of it.
    2:41
    Yeah. We have these – we actually do have a chain of pizza places called New York Slice. And they're the big, massive, floppy pizza slices, and they're only good if you're hungover. Right. Yeah.
    2:54
    Which is maybe why all those pizzas are, you know, happy in New York. I don't know. Yeah. For when you're staying out really, really late, you know. But the kind of pizza I like, and I think I heard it as Naples style. It's basically what your Domino's style is, where it's a big, thick crust on the back and a little more rigidity to it. But anyway, what this place does is they put their sauce is fantastic. Yeah. It kind of airs on the sweeter side. Yeah, right. Thick layer of cheese. the ton of topping on top of it whatever you do and it's totally integrated melted into the cheese it's really good and then but the most important thing for me is the back crust it's almost a bread it's very doughy and squishy and tasty and good and good and the best part about it is the next day when you eat it again you know because you we usually order enough so that we have leftovers of course yeah the bread hasn't turned into this solid hunk of rock because there's very little grease in this particular bread. It's not a greasy pizza. It's a very doughy pizza. And so it stays nice and soft. So if you eat it cold, it tastes fantastic. If you throw it in the microwave, it still tastes fantastic.
    4:07
    I'm fine with the Costco pizza, since we're on pizza. The Costco pizza here, at least, it's okay for what it is. It's so cheap compared to the other pizza places we have here in Australia. But I find that it really benefits from a bit of a session in a sandwich toaster so not a jaffle maker but like one of those like dual contact sort of um cooking surface things yeah we we call those broiler relevance what's a jaffle maker a jaffle a jaffle maker a jaffle is um a bread it's basically a sandwich but instead of just having it flat toasted in a broiler as you call it yeah it's actually got a um a patent plate on it which is sort of as you What you do is you butter both sides of the bread, of course, and you slam it inside the Jaffa maker. And what it does is it crimps everything together and locks everything in, so it steams the inside contents. Okay. And also puts perforations and cut marks into the bread. So it's really crusty and really good. Yes. Yum, yum. What do you call those over there? Well, at first I was going to call it a panini press, but then when you said it seals the edges like that, I don't know what they call them. They always had them at the county fair, and people could put dough and then jelly in the middle and then you got pastries or you make grilled cheese sandwiches that are sealed and cut and stuff. I have no idea what we would call those. Maybe it's just a toasted cheese sandwich. Maybe that's what you call it. Maybe. Yeah, I'm not sure. But Jaffel. Never heard of that word before. Jaffel. I'd like a Jaffel and some shrimp.
    5:47
    A shrimp Jaffel. that'd be pretty pretty deluxe anyway you people don't actually drink fosters uh poor me from forex people don't drink that either oh no it's horrible stuff i live in the in the city that produces that beer isn't each uh region of australia have its own signature beer and that's that's yours they tend to yeah they they do tend to have their own sort of beer um we unfortunately have forex and all the southern states have a really good beer like victoria and i think adelaide have james squire and over in perth they've got little creatures which is a great like mainstream beer manufacturer the thing is they're all owned by a couple of conglomerates anyhow so well welcome to the world yeah they're there like we were talking about last episode with the seven people who own all the entertainment ventures in the world it's pretty ridiculous right pretty much yep everybody's owned by everything yeah terrible hey i'm wearing um i'm just before we go on to actual topics how long we've been talking now about 10 minutes about jaffles and pizza which is fairly fine yeah because we never talk about snacks on our we have not talked about snacks in some time no we have not that's right so i think it's i think we've met our snack quota The other thing that I think is worth noting is I put an order through ThinkGeek, which is American-based. You guys probably know about that. And I decided to choose a random shirt of awesomeness. And have a look which one they sent me. Yes, it's your periodic table of bacon. Yes. So, barium, cobalt, and N. I don't know what the N is. Nitrogen, probably. Yeah. So, there you go. It's a pretty cool shirt, and it's very apt because bacon is my favorite breakfast cereal.
    7:42
    sure why not go on a tangent so i was watching this thing and they're talking about bacon we'll get to pinball eventually people there's not much to talk about but so you know here we go um yeah so uh anyway what they were saying was that how back in the late 70s early 80s uh bacon was a nothing product right really well it was basically the last thing that you used on the pig. Sure, it was used for breakfast, but that was it. Nobody used it for anything else, and it wasn't a huge seller. We were selling it dirt cheap to third world countries, basically as their meat source.
    8:32
    And it just had zero cachet, right? But everybody liked bacon, sure, but it was just breakfast. And so they were trying to figure out how to put some lipstick on the pig.
    8:44
    Nice turn of phrase. Yes. And so they decided that what they need to do is they need to start convincing the restaurateurs that, hey, you can use bacon for other things. Bacon is not a breakfast only food. Back then it was, though. See, all of a sudden it was, well, sure, add bacon to a salad and sure, add bacon to a potato. But that still wasn't like, it was still just a condiment. You know what I mean? It wasn't what you based the meal around, what you integrated, fused it into stuff. It wasn't a core protein, as they'd say in the chef world. Right, right. And so finally, what turned it around was when they started putting bacon on burgers. Oh, yeah. And all of a sudden, it was, and because all the fast food restaurants that were doing it, hey, bacon's cheap. We can do this. Yeah, it's a very, it's an upsell. Right. Because, oh, would you like bacon? 50 cents extra. Right. And so once they convinced the fast food restaurants that, hey, this is a good idea, well, then it started creeping into your mainstream restaurants. Well, now once they're ordering the bacon, it was like, well, what else can we do with the bacon? Suddenly bacon is being put into all sorts of main dish meals and becoming an essential ingredient. And all of a sudden your fillets are getting wrapped in bacon and all this. Next thing you know, the price of bacon is going up way up higher and higher. And then you get to the point where we are today, where it's just like, yeah, you've got this whole industry around bacon. Bacon. Yeah. Really. Like this shirt is just one of those things. There's a movement out there. People just have a thing about bacon. And it's one of their passions. And I think that's a wonderful passion to have.
    10:22
    So are we saying that Stern's next pin should be bacon the pinball? Yeah. Bacon. Yeah, making bacon, you could call it. Sounds like an Angelo table. Yeah, totally. Big juicy melons, Megan Bacon. Coming soon to Stern.
    10:43
    There would be sausage on the table. Oh, wait. Yeah. Yeah, so much innuendo, so little time. Hey, we just had our February tournament of the month. Yeah. where we played Starship Troopers and Cactus Canyon and Space Shuttle. Ugh. And I'll say why the ugh in a minute. And what was that final table? Oh, yeah.
    11:13
    Taxi. So here's the funny thing is we picked Space Shuttle to be in our tournament, and what table pops up in Farsight's tournament? Space Shuttle. Yeah, I saw that. Somebody posted of how many times Space Shuttle has been in Far Size Tournament. I think it's got the most out of any other table.
    11:36
    It's just the ever-present, hideous table that I cannot score well on to save my life. You would like it if you got into the flow of it. It's a really fun game when you get in the flow of it. I don't know what it is about the table.
    11:52
    It doesn matter how many attempts I try on it it be maybe one out of 20 plays that have a good game And by good game I mean maybe I hit 4 million
    12:04
    I cannot, for the life of me, get a really strong score on that table. And I'm being careful and trying to catch the ball and nudging like crazy and trying to avoid the bad pitfalls and everything. And just it eats me alive every single time. To the point that in this tournament, I even got beat by Montana Frank on it. Now, for those of you that play Pinball Arcade and play our tournament,
    12:30
    Montana Frank is a wonderful guy who really appreciates the pinball community, but he has readily admitted that he's not the best player in the world, especially on a DMD table.
    12:45
    Now, special not being a DMD, it's just being an alphanumeric. I think that falls more into his wheelhouse, and he gave me the what for and defeated me in my own group. Gave you a chaining. Yes. And he did the same thing to me on taxi.
    13:00
    All right. I got pummeled twice by Montana Frank, so good on you. Good on you, Montana. That dumped me down to 17th place for this tournament. I don't think I turned overly well either. No, I don't think you did either. I think you were like 12th. That was terrible. I had a terrible round. I just really dislike Cactus Canyon as a game. And I'll explain. This is my, out of that set of tables, Cactus Canyon is my least favorite. And these are the reasons why. Number one, it comes down to a polished thing in TPA. And on mobile, it's probably the worst looking table in the collection. The reason being is that half of the flashes aren't wired in, so they don't even work. and the table itself is just really sort of flat. The ramps are really non-opaque. Sorry, they're opaque, so you can't see through them, and it blocks off so much of the play field.
    14:02
    And Bart, or the moving sort of head assembly, is off-center, so when you hit the thing, it moves in this really unnatural, out of alignment way. It's not like it would on the table at all. And it just looks horrible. It looks just really rushed, the table. And it's got nothing that really excites me. I don't like the fact that the ramps are pretty much only, like with the exception of that right ramp, you pretty much have to shoot the left ramp from the right flipper. You can't backhand it. No, you can't. So you really, you have to shoot from that right flipper. and it takes away the options for me when I play the game, and I just don't like it. I don't know either. Have you actually played one in real life? Oh, yeah.
    14:53
    With the lock hole. I played that and the Cactus Canyon continued. I played both versions. Okay. So tell me, that assembly, the mine where you shoot the lock, that should stop balls from going in it when it's fully down, right? When it's fully down. It should be a barrier. Yes. When it's fully down, it should stop the ball from going in. and it should only let the ball go in when it's fully raised right no no basically what it what it kind of comes down to well i mean first you have you have to be able to get a ball in there okay um it's just it won't go in so easy right off the bat okay so it's got to be a little more so because i mean how else are you gonna unlock it right you've got to unlock it well it's it's got a sensor in the play field that when you hit that area it detects that the um the balls hit it it's got any sensor in there okay so maybe it is you have to hit it first once and then that'll raise it up enough that the next time the ball will go in yeah but it's actually got three stages to it i don't understand that in tpa you can shoot that the lock with the thing all the way down and it'll just go straight through and it's like it that is unrealistic And I'll tell you something, because the way I play it in TPA, it is shoot the mine all day, every shot. A lot of times. If I'm going for... It's just so boring. And it gets boring because the... And this is where the unbalanced scoring is on this table and where the software clearly needs to be updated, which is bring it up to Cactus Canyon Continued Standards. Because the only way to get a good score on that is to raise your multiplier.
    16:30
    Yeah, and get this ridiculous end of ball bonus. that's sometimes bigger than the score. Sometimes it's like that's the key.
    16:38
    That is how you score. There's been times when I've had 3 million points prior to end of all bonus, and then after my end of all bonus would be like 25 million. Yeah. I mean, it's way off balance. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, Cactus Canyon Continued caps your multiplier. um right now it's 99 i think it caps it like five i mean it really becomes an issue of don't even bother for it that's not where your points are anymore um so it it helps on that aspect the other thing about playing it in real life is shooting the mine is so much more difficult and yeah it's not what you want to do um whereas he in the strategy it's it's bounce and i can hit it just like left and right in real life yeah all about the ramps actually um you all right okay and the ramps are so much easier in real life than they are in tpa in tpa i just can't get a shot the middle ramp is very easy to hit in tpa yeah it is it's well yeah it is pretty i really don't have a good time with the ramps at all in that game even the center ramp i have trouble hitting and i think basically it's because i don't play the game that much because i just really dislike it. It's just visually unappealing. There's nothing about it that I actually go to it at all to play. It's just unappealing. I will shoot the center ramp. I avoid the side ramps at all costs.
    18:08
    I mean, it's more about just if I happen to get lucky and they go up at yay, but otherwise I completely avoid them. My complaint with the TPA version is the lighting. Now, I'm approaching it from the PC with DX11 as opposed to what you're dealing with. and... Which is zero. This is a problem they have that with the dynamic lighting, yes, it looks cool, and yes, it is reflected, or it, I guess you must say is interactive or whatever, but the problem is that the light doesn't throw far enough.
    18:47
    So, in the back, Bart, you should be able to see him clearly when the table is lit. Even in a fully dark environment, and there's plenty of photos on the internet, and I've actually forwarded them to Farsight before. Actually, I did it during when they were doing the DX11 beta. But I showed pictures of Bart, and I also did it with Champion Pub, which, by the way, will be this week's Table of the Week.
    19:11
    I like that game. But the Boxer is not lit at all, either. And both of them should be lit, much like Rudy is lit, in Funhaus. There's spots on it. In Funhaus, there's actually spots aimed at him. On Cactus Canyon and Champion Pub, there are no direct spots aimed at them. It's all the ambient light that gets them. But because the throw of the light isn't far enough, it never reaches those figures, so we just get these black figures. The other thing is the stand-up targets that pop up for the gunfight.
    19:51
    Yeah. Well, there's an insert right in front of those stand-ups, right? Yeah. That light from the insert should be lighting the stand-up also. The stand-up. It should be reflected in it. Instead, half the time, I can't even tell if the stand-up is actually up.
    20:06
    I have to more look at, oh, is the insert lit? Then is the stand-up popping up? And there should be light being cast onto those inserts. So I think there's a problem with the lighting program in that light does not travel. It travels out, but it does not travel up. They could also be that some of the textures they've got mapped aren't actually reflective textures. Yes, I agree. I think things with drop targets, they're not probably something that would typically reflect light because there's generally not something so close to them in front of them. Like normally with a drop target, if you hit it, it'll be down, but the light will be on. Whereas these, because they're like spot targets essentially that pop up in the play field, it's the reverse functionality. So they probably, Farsight probably don't have a texture map on the drop targets to actually cast light or allow light to be reflected off them. And I'd say it's probably the case with all the, like, the figures and the features in the tables you're talking about as well. They're probably going, oh, well, like, they will be just one big 3D model. So for them to actually put a map over that, that would actually, like, not really absorb light, but actually attract the light to it, that's probably something that at the time when they were making those tables, that's something that just couldn't fit into the schedule. I'd say it's probably not as trivial as we're probably making out to do to actually put on flat surfaces pretty easy, right? Because it's just a flat surface. But on a full 3D model surface, that'd be pretty hard to actually map. There are a couple of issues that I feel that, To me, the lighting that was done with for the dynamic lighting, it was more like the lighting was put through a code. You know what I mean? It didn't have – nobody ever went through and then looked at it specifically and went, oh, that looks right, that looks wrong. You know what I mean? So I think it would benefit them greatly. It's like, come on, guys, you have these tables here. You know what they look like. You know what you should be able to see in a dark room, and you need to replicate that. And again, or you just go on Google, search for the images, how they how they photograph. Yeah. You know, so there's there's that issue because there were some tables initially. And I haven't I probably should go back and look. And I haven't I kind of, I guess, have resolved myself to the idea that, hey, these tables are the way they are. and I wasn't expecting changes, but now there's been a couple of individuals up at Farsight who are back to attacking these tables and trying to make them look as good as possible. So it's like maybe it's time to revisit some of this stuff. But I remember... I think it's always, yeah. It's always worthwhile just sort of poking the horse, essentially. Yeah. You remember this? Right. It's probably time to go through them. But I remember there was certain tables when they were first doing the beta with DX11 where things were glowing that had no right to glow. And I remember specifically it was on, I want to say it was Attack from Mars. It was one of the most egregious. But when you went to plunge the ball and you could see the front cabinet, letters and stuff were glowing as if they were lit. It's like no lights down there. So it was just this overall pass of, hey, I think if it's kind of getting this highlight, it should glow because of a light.
    23:33
    It was really kind of annoying. So there was that. Like I said, they need to go through and do the human touch because there's also certain inserts. And I trying to think of which tape it was that we played fairly recently that you shot the same lane five times basically right And there was a light that would lit all five times But when you went to that final light it never glowed nice and brightly and all the other lights now glowed dim So it was like they forgot to do a final art pass on that last insert, and it reverted back to what the DX9 or the non-dynamic lighting version looked like.
    24:11
    Occasionally, I've seen inserts here and there where like, hey, how come that one's not glowing like it should? Nice and bright. It doesn't have that bloom to it that you would normally have from like a light in a low light situation, right? Right. And then the other thing that is still an issue, and on some tables it's really bad just for whatever reason, but the ball, and since we have the thing ball, so you can actually control the ball and put it where you want it and actually hold it in place. You put a ball over the top of an insert that's lit. Yeah. Well, in the natural world, the light would be- You would actually get a reflection. You get a reflection on the bottom half of the ball, right? Yeah. In TPA world, that reflection is on the top of the ball. Really? Yeah. So let's say it's a purple insert. Well, now you have the top of the ball glowing purple. It makes no sense whatsoever. That should be pretty easy to fix. That should just be, oh, yeah, we just need to invert that map, basically. You would think, but I don't know. It's one of those things that I guess, again, we could – Just keep on bringing it up. If you're taking screenshots and stuff, it probably would be helpful to show. Yeah. That's what you probably need to do. And I don't know how you do that on PC. I'm sure there's a way you can actually take a screenshot pretty easily. Yeah. It's called F12.
    25:28
    Screenshot and trim it. And trim it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I found something. So on mobile, on the subject of lighting and graphical effects. So mobile, well, Android, because I think it's been on iOS for a fair while. but Android now has ball shadows on the play field. And it's really quite amazing just what a difference that small thing makes. It really gives a ball sort of weight on the play field and makes it look like it's interacting much more than it did before. But there's some strange behavior with the shadows. Like when the shadow appears on something that's higher than the ball? No, no. This is not something like that. Like this is the shadows.
    26:13
    Like if the ball drains, the shadow, its ghost is sort of left just before the out hole. So it hangs around just before the out hole. And if you've got a shadow, like say you've got a launch lane. So when you plunge a ball and it goes up a rail or a habit rail to bring it onto the play field, it will leave the shadow for the ball just at the point where the rail like slopes up. So there's a few tweaks that need to be made to how that works. I'll probably need to tell Flippy Floppy about that. Yeah. Flippy Floppy is, for those who don't know, is sort of helping out Bobby now with the tuning. So he's getting some lessons from Bobby on how to actually do the tuning. It's making really good progress too. So I should probably point those out to him so he can have a little look at tweaking them. Hey, so, Jared, we – I'm going to shift gears here. The T-shirt sales, we had mentioned that what we were going to do with the profits there was apply them back into the blockade for certain purposes. And I think you have an update about that. Yeah, sure do. Yeah, you're right. We were going to reinvest back into the podcast again. and we've done it. So I've purchased a domain called blackheadpinball.com and we're going to, well, I'm going to set that up as the canonical site where you can go to and see the episodes that we've done, all the summaries and everything like that and you'll start to see when that website becomes live that we're not going to be putting the full episode descriptions in ShoutEngine, our hosting provider anymore. we'll just be putting a link to the blog post and then you can go to that to get more information about the show and likewise probably in the forum too we might actually just create a new post but actually link off to the blog post rather than repeating ourselves exactly basically we're trying to make this the go to site for all things blockade and rather than having it be scattered to the wind with all these different areas of people trying to oh, I don't like Pinball Arcade fans, so I'll pick it up at ShoutEngine, but oh, I don't like it at ShoutEngine, so where do I get my description from? I mean, it'll still be available, obviously, on iTunes, but this will also encompass anything else we want to do. So we'll be able to advertise our T-shirt right on our own website. We'll be able to put a link to Wizard Amusement, our sponsor, directly from our website. That's right. So the format just, it seems that a lot of pinball podcasts that are out there at the moment tend to use a blog format as the way to do websites. And there are some limitations in that format. So, you know, rather than having a page format, you actually have a post format. So we can get around that by just pinning some posts at the top with like the regular information. And then as you scroll down the list, you'll see the latest episodes. So it's sort of like having advertisements in a way for the website. But, you know, just for those people who want to know more about the shirts and stuff, we want to have that information up there all the time. So the other thing is that, you know, we could actually do it. So those posts are filtered down the list and every time we make a new blog post, we just link to it. Right. So that's another option as well. There's plenty of ways that we can actually do it. And as the site goes live, it should be live in the next couple of weeks.
    29:51
    So when the site does go live, we'd love to hear your feedback about it and let us know what works for you and how you like to use the site and all that sort of thing. So, yeah, it'll be good to get it done. It's been a long time coming. Long time coming. And obviously we very much appreciate those of you that helped contribute by purchasing a Blockade shirt. If anybody else wants to continue to contribute and only make things better, we've got other things we'd like to purchase and apply towards this podcast. Plus, just pay the continual annual fee that is maintaining the site and or our domain name. So please continue going to represent.com forward slash blockade dash shirt. And you can buy your own blockade t-shirt and help contribute to this. So, again, thank you so much to everybody that already has purchased a shirt. It's a fashionable colors. Yeah. Now it's available in colors too. Yeah.
    30:51
    So there was a discussion about, obviously we know what the rest of season five pretty much is. And there was discussion about what your wishlists or, or what your predictions for season six are. And so I decided since me and Jared are both under NDA contracts with Farsight. So once we learn something, we can no longer discuss it.
    31:17
    Well, oftentimes we find out about tables well in advance. And so it kind of kills the fun of guessing what's coming up because we know. And, and if all of a sudden we're quite obviously dodging certain titles, that might be a clue or whatever. So I decided to join in the fun since we're, or, you know, what just slightly over halfway through season five. And there's been no announcements of season six, other than obviously with Dr. who passing the Kickstarter. That'll be in Season 6.
    31:45
    Now's my time that I'll be able to make predictions without fear of lawyers. Yes. So, this is more of a Season 6 wish list for me than it is a prediction, but some of it is kind of prediction-based. I'm just going to rattle through these real quick, and Jared, you can comment what you think. So, number one, Swords of Fury, because, hey, way fun, System 11 machine, and it was kind of one of the highlights of the Arcade Expo. now swords of fury is great um again it's that era of table where they really pay a lot of attention to the sound on it yeah for what it was able to do in the time it's just really dynamic in the way it sounds and it's a good multi-level playfield game as well yeah um and it's also kind of it's kind of a side to side shooter not in a oh we're making the ball go side to side to make the ball drain, but in order to make shots, you're shooting the ball side to side. So it's kind of a little bit different gameplay there. It is a little unique.
    32:44
    Then I decided to go with 8-Ball Deluxe and, you know, like I mentioned before, I may have convinced Norman of this table finally at Arcade Expo. Some people were like, well, no, it's no way it got poo-pooed because Farsight clearly went with Cubole Wizard for a reason, and my argument to that is, yeah, but they had never played 8-Ball Deluxe. That's right. We've since rectified that.
    33:10
    What's wrong with having another pool-themed table? I mean, I'd love to see Breakshot appear in the collection as well. It's another great pinball. Pinball is riddled with card game bowling and pool. Strangely enough, we don't have any bowling yet in TPA. Not yet. That should be... We need that rectified, right? The closest thing we can get to bowling, I think, in TPA would be Flintstones, because it has that little mini bowling rink in it that you can shoot. Well, I actually really like... Well, I shouldn't say really like, but I like Not Leaves 300. I wouldn't mind seeing that in. I haven't played that. It's a little bit different of a table. Yeah, right. So it's just got some cool back glass functions going on with all sorts of various bowls and stuff. Anyway, look it up. Oh, cool. It's kind of interesting. That didn't make my list, though.
    34:09
    Next, I say Pinball Magic, because if they do a Capcom, I'm betting that'll be the first one they do. Yeah, because it's great. There's something about Capcom tables, again, from a sound perspective, they're superior in a lot of ways to Belly Williams. They've just got this, it's the sound system they've used in the tables, and I don't know if it's going to come over to like a tpa if it ever happens but it's like they've they've really haven't cheaped out the speakers in them they're when you crank them up yeah they sound amazing and pinball magic is no exception it's a the capcom way of doing sounds is quite staccato as well so it will actually interrupt the flow of music and do a sting and then go back into the flow of music whereas um Belly Williams tables tend to have the sting play over the main soundtrack a little bit more. So it's a very engaging way of presenting sound in a pinball machine. I think it's very cool. And the gameplay on that is fun as well. It's quite hard to get to the wizard mode on that. Yeah, quite.
    35:15
    Then I have what I want everybody to jump on the bandwagon for, and I will continually harp on this one, which is Vector. Again, I just think it's just one of the true highlights of 600 tables that we're going to room.
    35:32
    We need a Bali wide-body machine. I know everybody wants Paragon. Or Space Invaders. Well, I'd take Paragon over Space Invaders. I really don't like Space Invaders. Plus we never get the art package for that No It a total breach of God Yeah I leaning more towards wanting like Embryon or Medusa especially since we now have the zipper flippers in Fireball Medusa has the zipper flippers too, but now it's in wide body. And when I say wide body, if you've never touched a Bally wide body from that era, they are wide. Oh, man. They're huge. Yeah, they're huge. I remember stepping up to Space Invaders when I was like 15. And the thing is, it's about as wide. I think it feels about as wide as Genie does in real life. Yeah, I think it is of that nature. Huge, huge tables. Yeah. So anyway, I hope that we get a ballet wide body of some sort. My preference, like I said, would be for something like Embryon. But obviously, we know we're getting Doctor Who. Yeah, that'll be fun. and regenerated as well, which is going to be interesting to see what they can pull out with that.
    36:46
    The other table I will continually harp about until I get it, which is Roller Games. Simply needs to be, go for the wall! Flip, don't flip!
    37:00
    I still haven't had a chance to play it. I have not had a chance to play that one at all. You're going to love it when you do.
    37:08
    It's another one of that era. I think Roller Games is the same era as Taxi around that time. No, later. Later. This is Black Knight 2000 era. Ah, yeah, that sort of era of sound as well.
    37:26
    It's basically right before DMDs came out. Yeah, yeah. And they were pushing that System 11 hardware to its maximum. Yeah. They really knew how to get around that architecture. and they'll go, yeah, we can really push this with an inch of what's capable of. It's very cool.
    37:46
    Then we need, of course, a big license table that doesn't require a Kickstarter. So my pick is Johnny Mnemonic.
    37:54
    I wouldn't be sad if it was The Shadow, but I'm kind of leaning towards either of those two. Johnny Mnemonic is one that is just super ridiculous scoring. I could never get into it.
    38:05
    But The Shadow would be something I'd be quite interested in. It's got a lot of quite cool features. That mega long drop target for the lock.
    38:15
    The sanctum, I think it's called, is very cool. And also a real mongrel if you have a real life table and you need a replacement for it. Because they're very hard to get. But the upper play field is very cool with that kicker rather than flippers. It's quite hard to control that. You have to really dial yourself in to control it well. It's one of those features that was stolen for one of the Zen Pinnacle tables.
    38:42
    Yeah, it was. I'm trying to think which table it was. It was a marble table. I can't remember it either, but you're right. You know what I'm talking about, though. I honestly stole it to play homage to it. Yes.
    38:56
    Instead of having an actual Gottlieb table, since they tend to be putting one in per season, I'm going to go the Alvin G route and say let's put in Garage Band instead. Yeah, that's quite a fun game if you've had a chance to play it.
    39:09
    A lot of the LNG tables are actually quite fun. I think if rumor is correct, we'll be getting the LNG soccer ball in this season.
    39:19
    That in itself is a rather unique table. But the thing about LNG tables is they didn't really go down the same path as Glee, even though it was made by one of the brothers, I think. the company is one of the brothers, it's still Gottlieb one of the Gottlieb boys but it's a different Gottlieb than Gottlieb Premier and yeah they've got some different design ideas with the tables and they're worth checking out and then last but not least my number 10 table what would it be without having NBA fast break and why I am semi encouraged that something could be done is because of what they're planning on doing with Doctor Who Regenerated. If they're able to make a completely, what they mentioned was instead of doing a DMD, they might do a video screen.
    40:16
    If they can get away with doing that, they could actually do something to NBA Fast Break. But again, I don't know what the contract issues is. Maybe they have to have the original version available, and then they can do something funky with it. They can rework it. Pretty much like all the other ones they've redone, like turning Haunted House into Ghostbusters and doing that reskin. I think you might be right. They might have to have the table already released before they can do that. That wouldn't be a bad season at all. I'm having a look at some. I agree with all of those ones. Certainly, I would like Swords of Fury as well.
    40:55
    I think some of those earlier tables like 8-Ball Deluxe and definitely something a little bit different like a wide body would be a really good addition to the collection. I'd really like to see Bonsai run basically because I've never played it before and it will be great. The only, the closest I've come to playing it is the paranormal in, because that's the only way I can get one of those vertical play fields. Love to see it. It will be a fun game. Again, that's the same sort of era as Black Knight 2000, I think. That one is a few years earlier. This would be like,
    41:31
    I think it's 87, so you're close to Earthshaker. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's something right around there. Yeah, good sound package on those tables. Honestly, I would take, well, and I hope that we'd get every single System 11 machine. I love all the System 11s. There's something about it. They've got this charm about them that make them just like, you want to go back and play some more.
    41:54
    And they're really good. So I'm actually having a look at the Pinside Top 100 at the moment, squalling past all the Steam ones, because I think we pretty much agree that, yeah, they'll be in the Stern app if we ever get them.
    42:05
    So just looking at the top 100, and it's surprising to see how many Pinball Arcade tables are in the top 100. We're pretty spoiled.
    42:17
    So the ones that are... But that's where I also kind of been thinking, we need to start thinking outside what the top 100 ranked tables are because a lot of that is also what's fun to own, you know what I mean, and what's fun to collect. and let's start getting into what's fun to... In terms of pinball arcade, you have to think about what is fun to play in pinball arcade where you're going to be able to make the ball go a lot longer than you would in real life. Yeah, you've got to have that staying power on the table. Yeah. It really does need to be longevity. I wouldn't mind. It's a pinball machine and a fun one to play. Stargate is actually one that I rank pretty highly. It's a godly game and it's a godly premiere. Yeah, so, you know, take that as you may. But I used to play that a lot when it was in the arcade, a lot. And it has some of the steepest ramps I've ever seen on a pinball machine ever. Yeah. They're pretty much vertical. I don't know how the ball gets up sometimes. But it's got a lot of cool features on it. And I actually just saw Stargate on TV the other night. And again, I go, oh, it'd be great if I could find a Stargate. Because at the time, when it was out in the arcades, I didn't see the movie, so I had no references to all the stuff that was happening. So, yeah, I didn't quite get that. But, yeah, for me, I'd really like to see Breakshot in the collection as well. That would be a really good one for me to see in there, another Capcom, 1996 Capcom.
    43:45
    The thing I like about that table is it's so simple, yet it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of stuff to shoot for, and the DMD animations actually emulate reels. so it actually looks like the reels are turning on the the back glass which is really cool it's a nice little feature um what else am i seeing here um so well i know a lot of people are asking for fire which that's one of those tables that i don't think is going to be as much fun as they think it is in tpa yeah um it it you know it's just one of those one of those things mind um Blackwater 100 or Blackwater 300? And again, that's one that is 100, and I don't think it's going to translate to a 2D screen. Even in person, I had a hard time figuring out where the heck the ball was actually going to be going.
    44:39
    Because it's so deep. It is an incredibly deep, you know, the depth of the table from where the top ramp to the bottom of the table is. I mean, you'd almost have to throw things out of focus depending on where the ball is. But then when you've got multi-ball going on, How would you do that? I have my doubts on how that would translate, personally.
    44:59
    And, again, if you're going to do a motorcycle racing game, I want Banzai Run before I ever want to see Blackwater. Right. Okay. The other one would be interesting. I don't know if they'd do it because, again, I'm not totally sure how similar the play fields are. But Centaur 2.
    45:16
    Centaur 2 is... They're identical. They're identical, are they? It's the exact same thing. it's just in a different cabinet body. Ah, right. Okay. That's all. They wouldn't do that. Yeah.
    45:30
    Hey, let's table some things for next time, because we don't want to shoot our wad here and have nothing to talk about for next week. No, absolutely not. Then I have to go pick up my kid. So, you know.
    45:45
    Life, those things. And I didn't get to my wonderful story about one of our friends of the show and forum members on Pimple Arcade fans, I wanted to talk about his crazy hospital stay because he suffers from epileptic seizures and the trials that he just went through to figure out the root of it all was quite harrowing. Quite extreme. I think I'll make sure I get to that. Instead of talking about snacks, maybe we'll talk about this. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, Hey, feel free to follow us on Twitter at blockade is the, the main thing you should be following. And then you can follow myself at show your traps or Jared at Jared morgues. You can get our own personal takes and stuff like that, but we need all your support. We appreciate your listenership and we shall see you all again next week. So yeah,
    46:41
    take it easy, take it easy. And, uh, I'll still have Easter later. wizard amusement.com the west coast leader of classic pinball makers of custom pinball shooter rods to buyer specifications swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools even if you don't own the table looks great as a pinball memento to admire prices start at 39 but mention blockade podcast and receive 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that BlackAid is delivered to. We can't prove unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.
    47:47
    you