bring upon the summoning of the Great Pyramid. Do your part. Join us.
I'll just watch the uh the Twitch. I think it'll be
He's just going to watch the Twitch. Hey everybody, welcome to a new episode of the Daily Pool podcast. Uh this is number 23, I think. It's crazy that that it's that many numbers. Uh it's an awesome episode today. I finally got another audio guy on. Hey. But we're going to talk mostly about TNA. Um, everybody, if you've been watching Pinball and you don't know who this is, you're you're insane. But, uh, it's Scott Danesi, everybody.
Hi. Hi. Thank you very much for having me, man. This is awesome.
Thank you for being here. Uh,
we, uh, we we did an like a little more evening one, right? We've got our mood lighting set up. I feel like both of our spaces are appropriately RGB lit, right?
Yeah, correct. You know, I've got a little bit of uh you know, pink back here and uh you know, a little bit of uh you know, Dance Dance Revolution or whatever. You know, it's called Step Maniacs, but you know, it's back there, too.
Well, that's that's good you saved me because I was about to ask about DDR and and it's not. So, wait, what is the difference between DDR and Step Maniacs?
All right. So, Step Maniacs is actually the new version that's out now. It's still in production right now.
Okay. So, that's cool.
Yeah. and they um it's run by just a super nice dude and he reached out to me and was like, "Hey, we wanted to put some of your music in this game. Would you let us do that?" And I was like, "Sure." You know, so I sent them some uh some music stuff. And they're like, "You mind if we remix this?" I'm like, "Uh, sure."
What What does that mean?
Okay. Well, I don't know. You know, it's like, "Okay, sure. Here, go ahead. It's perfect." Um, and they uh they came back and they're like, "Well, what do you think about this thing?" And they sped up the they took the they took the song Total Nuclear Annihilation and Alpha Particles, mashed them together in a mashup and increased the BPM to like, you know, I don't know, maybe like 140 or something.
What was it originally?
Way faster. And at first I was like, "Oh my god, what is that? Sounds crazy."
And then um how do you feel about this? I feel like this is almost like a huge no no to be changing somebody's music this much.
Well, it was a big change. And then I realized like I'd been playing DDR like when I was younger a lot. So I realized like all these things are just very like they're very active and very quick and like just real intense. And what they did was they turned my music into a DDR song, right? And after looking at it that way, I was like, it's amazing. And uh
maybe see if I could actually like launch that somewhere like that. I have the remix. I should probably see if they'll let me uh put it on the streaming services.
I mean, I feel like if they took your song and modified it for their game, you could take their modified version and put it on wherever you want.
No, I would ask for permission, but you know,
of course. Of course. Uh well, so to everyone who's just hopping on today's episode, I'm trying to do a series on specific games and uh it just happened to be aligned, the stars aligned and uh Scott was like, "Let's do TNA." And I was like, "That'd be amazing. I would love to have you on." And uh I mean I I chased you down and we did it and here we are. You have a website that you recently put together that has here we'll give it a quick a quick preview. Uh you have cataloged the anthology journey of the creation of Total Nuclear Annihilation. Um which is a fantastic game.
Thank you. We appreciate Let's talk what what was the original like was it always going to be total nuclear annihilation or was it a whitewood and then the theme came after?
So, okay. So, here here's what happened. So, I started um I started this project. I just wanted to build a homebrew game. I had been messing around with PR stuff for like years before that and we were trying to get the uh you know the um homebrew community you know really built up and stuff. So, but I was like I had never personally built a game from scratch. I was just reprogramming things that already existed like Judge Dread and Earth Shaker um and just kind of screwing around with that. So, what I did was uh I just decided like, hey, I'll just build I'll build a game finally. I got peer pressured I guess into it too from some uh some of my friends as well. And uh yeah, it started out as a whitewood, but I had this idea that I wanted to build this upper reactor core area where you'd be destroying nuclear reactors. And it sounds like it sounds pretty like I don't know, kind of dystopian, I guess, or it's kind of like, you know, kind of sounds bad, right? You're killing people in nuclear reactors. You're not really a hero. So I had to write it like I had to I had to write this like little narrative that you've you know traveled to this future and now are destroying the reactors that this evil civilization who is you know discovering reverse time travel to come back to your 1980s and like you know really screw stuff up.
This is official canon lore right by the way for TNA.
I yeah I had to like come up with this thing. So, I came up with this whole story. It actually turned out really fun and had a great time with it. And then and you can kind of follow along with that journey and I put it into that pinball machine. Um, but the overall physical design of this thing though is I wanted to build a game that I wanted. Uh, all the games that were being made uh at the time that this came out was in 2015 was when I started working on this. um like Wizard of Oz from Jersey Jack had just come out and they had they had full RGB on that playfield and they were blasting full RGB all the time just always in that game uh at least in the early versions and I just really wanted to do the same sort of thing but not blast the RGB all over the place.
Are you are you saying that Jersey Jack might abuse RGB? Well, you know, I mean, what happens is what's with Jersey Jack is so check this out. I'm going to say it really nice and and politically correct, but like but yes, there's a lot of RGB rainbow stuff going on on Jersey Jack's light shows, but
completely agree. I've said it on the channel a million times.
Yeah, they're doing that because they were trying to draw people in uh to like when people are walking around arcades, right? You see like bright flashy stuff all over the place, people get drawn into it, right? Sure.
So, I get what they're doing with it and it makes sense. But like as somebody who is like a pinball collector, right, and someone who plays pinball and wants a really fun adventure, the actual use of RGB should be very limited and only use it and use it really crazy when it counts, right? So it looks like a normal pinball machine when you're playing it and then all a sudden like out of nowhere it's like blasted you with like fire, you know?
Totally. Just cuz you have the power to do something doesn't mean you should do it 24/7. And you know, similar in music as as you know, like there's a time and place to really kind of like crank certain moments so they have meaning. If you just have it as like a wall of noise the whole time, it loses its purpose. So, and
it's like in movies too. Movies do it all the time. And I'm sure I'm preaching the quietness because that's your that's your gig, man. But it's like you keep everything sort of sort of medium quiet and then for the most part, but when you want something really impactful, man, it gets full volume. Yeah.
Right. You crank it up at the right moment. Um Yeah. One thing I really love about TNA, and if people I if you haven't played TNA, I guess I should obviously specify you should probably go find a TNA. Uh you could use Pinball Map. There's a great app for that. Uh it's it's a single level playfield. It has a kind of mini playfield built into the uh core component of it, right? There's lock steels. It's It's basically an entire modern pinball machine, but done on a single level playfield. And I mean, I would argue that it was done before obviously Pulp Fiction, but you've kind of set a trend now of reviving system 11 era style kind of like playfield layouts, but but infusing it with kind of modern sensibilities. Would you say that's true?
Absolutely. And that's that's really what I would was really going for, right? So, I had no idea though when I was building this that it would even be a production game. I didn't care. I was just building it so that my friends and I could play this thing and I could bring it around to shows and share it with people and just play dollar games on it and have a good time and get some high fives. Sure. But like
everyone loves
dude I mean everybody loves high fives. Yeah. But uh so that was really the ultimate goal with it. And then when Spooky uh approached me about that and we started seriously talking about it, you know, I I you know, Charlie and I agreed to let's just let's run it and see if anybody wants it because it was really it was getting good reception at the uh at the shows. So
that's awesome.
We thought maybe it would sell like 50 units.
So it was uh you know it was a real big surprise when it just kept going,
which is great. Congratulations on the success of that. Yeah,
TNA is is not just like a small household name. I think if you say to total nuclear annihilation to most pinball people, they know exactly what you're talking about. U want to give a few shoutouts. Of course, we have all the regulars hanging out with us. But we also we got Barrels of Fun CEO is here. Eric is here as well. Flipronic, what's going on? Misled, all the all the regulars. Uh ready to hear some some fine nuclear annihilation stories. Um, so before we get into like the finished product arriving and and Spooky's involvement and doing trade shows and stuff like that, you know, you you've got you've got a plank of wood here and you've got a concept. How did you visualize the original concept in terms of like prototyping it? You know, did you just start working with stuff on a whitewood to see what works? Did you do this in VPX format or some sort of digital format um before you actually went into the whitewood development? Yeah, I I think I might be weird in this and I preach this a lot and I think it might be bad information. Um, but I went right in and uh started sketching in Solid Works. So, I'm a I'm a Solid Works guy. So, I went in there and I just started aligning things in Solid Works and doing all sorts of um you know, just just all sort of just drawing in there and messing around and till I kind of saw what I envisioned in my head. Um, the first thing though, if you look through those pictures, actually, those early Whitewood pictures, if you pop back over there, um, you'll see like the really early versions of it, there's like all the way at the top, it's like Whitewood one. Um, the pop bumper location was very, very important to me. And it was actually, it was actually done first uh, before really anything else.
Interesting. And pop bumpers, not a commonly used thing now. I feel like a lot of designers feel like it's a waste of space, but these single pops that act as like a utility randomizer, I feel have an excellent uh purpose. And your game mean super mean.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It is. You You'll notice too like on that uh on that pop bumper too, the the bottom side of the pop bumper is pretty exposed. Um there's uh for instance like the new Star Wars that came I don't know if you're familiar with the layout of it too much but uh it does have two pop bumpers generally in the same area there but the bottom side of the pop bumper is actually kind of blocked by a post
so it can't really fire it down the in lane but on TNA it's very dangerous and can fire it in that area and uh really be be a little more aggressive. I was just you want games to be difficult, right? At least I do. I want
If you want them in your home, I get why they don't want that. And I, you know, you're using Fall the Empire as an example. Like I think that game is definitely more accessible. It's not designed to be a home soul crushing experience as uh TNA and other kind of difficult home games can be. You know, Jurassic Park comes to mind.
Absolutely. And you got like Well, there someone posted in the in the chat about Rick and Morty. We can talk about that in a second. Um, but uh that's uh that's a whole different thing there. But um but yeah, you want you want games to be in my opinion, my philosophy, and this doesn't go for everybody, but you want games to be physically difficult and then make them feel more fair and balanced in the software because you can always make a game that is physically hard. You can always make it easier. You can't make a game that is physically easy harder with software. You can't fix geometry either. So, the game's got to be fun from the get-go. So, I have to So, I have a a statement.
I hate when they use ball save to circumvent difficulty, right? And your game does this constantly. However, it's built into the design because you have, you know, this countdown timer right next to the flippers. So, it doesn't feel unfair. Like, it feels deliberate in a way where I I'm thinking of like Dn D right now. Like there's been a lot of code updates where in order to make like the dungeon crawl experience more fair, they're just adding more and more ball save. And to me, just having infinite ball save running while you're playing pinball is not really the pinball experience.
It's not. And you'll notice in TNA, too, what happens is um the you'll get a ball save just like a normal pinball machine when you start the game. Um and that's going to run out fairly quickly and you are going to try to do stuff to get that ball save back. So you have a level of defense and that the ball save in this game is one layer of defense that you can put up against that that actual physical game. So that's very deliberate on being able to reactivate those with the inlanes. And it's also very fair, too. Like, if it thinks like it's constantly watching the ball, and if it thinks it shot it straight down the middle out of the scoop or something unfair, it's just going to fire that back and give it back to you because that could, you know, that could happen from time to time depending on how certain games are set up.
Can we Can we do a fun little thing? Can we do a fun little thing?
Can I set a 60 Can I set a 60-second timer
and you try to give a crash course on the rules of TNA to somebody who is just finding this video and has never played it before? Sure thing. All right. You ready? Yeah.
Got I got it pulled up here. I got a one minute timer set to go and go.
All right. So, you start the game. Uh fire the ball out, try and get a skill shot. But basically, what you're trying to do in this game is you're trying to light the reactors, start them up, and then bring them up to critical temperature, and then destroy them. So, it really is pretty simple. So, the first step is hitting that grid in the center. The second step is getting into that scoop to start the reactor. The third step is getting into that core with the top through the outlanes or I mean not the outlanes, the orbits. Uh getting in there reactor, bounce that around in there, get it up to critical temperature, get that ball back on the lower play field and hit the proper destroy targets that are lit and that's it. You do that over and over again and it gets harder and harder.
You had 20 seconds uh extra time. Didn't even need the full minute.
So the game's simple. The game The game's simple and and there's
But that's what's beautiful about it.
It's simple.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah.
I don't know a lot of people that have gotten to Reactor uh 9. I know Nuclear Black is is here who is an excellent excellent pinball player. Um just as a quick question on the upper playfield here. You don't see a lot of star rollovers and it's awesome to see them in your game and I think of like that. I think of very targets. There's just a bunch of like pinball like hardware that has been like removed from time and it used to be common place in games constantly. Um, I'm assuming rolling over these increases the core temp as well.
Okay. So, the star rollovers were only in the whitewood.
Oh, they're not actually in the production model.
The production model has um just inserts there where those star rollovers are.
So, sadness.
I know. So, there's a reason why people are probably not using those is because they are not super reliable uh in the field
and I was using them in sort of a critical way. Um, pun intended on that for sure.
But, uh, yeah, I know, right?
Because the cores go critical for people who aren't following that one.
Yeah.
So, basically what happens is you get up into that reactor core up there and I was having it bounce off the slings cuz there's three slingshots up there all aimed at each other. I don't know if that's totally noticeable or not from the pictures, but there Yeah, there's three slingshots in there which is just crazy. It gets real wacky in there hitting going against itself, but you wanted to just roll over all those rollovers and that would bring the temperature up of the reactor and once it hits 100% you get out of there.
Was part of removing the rollovers to make it more reliable for like on location usage? cuz I found that every time I've go gone to an arcade like TNA is is functioning to a point where it's always playable or at least always fun even if it's slower because it's dirty or you know coil sleeves are swollen and they're not kicking as hard and whatnot.
Yeah. I mean TNA does break just like every other pin machine does. Sure.
But I wanted to try to make it as reliable as possible and those star rollovers just were not reliable. Um they needed constant tweaking and adjustments and I just didn't want it to feel like it was kind of broken. So, the best thing to do there in that situation was I just instead of using the star rollovers, I used the um the slingshots as uh a way to increase the reactor temperature. Also, the spinner increases the reactor temperature as well.
Kind of the chaos of I mean obviously slingshots are going to make the ball bounce around more. You get more of that kinetic satisfaction. It's all good.
Yeah, it's pretty great. Um, I al this is the mid mid interview reminder as well that this is uh a live interview where we can we can see your comments. Uh I've been negligent of the chat just because I'm so excited to talk about this game. Uh because it's it's really bent me over most uh uh League nights uh that it's been there. It's not a it's not a it's not a nice game. Uh but it is it is fast is exciting and it's an excellent like u kind of equalizer for skill levels. like you can sometimes ek out a win against a player that is of a substantially higher skill level by getting them on DNA. Um, so yeah, fire your questions away. Uh, so I I want to dip into the art, but I think before we get into there, I want to I want to talk about the code a little bit because a pinball machine is nothing without excellent and fun things to do and for those to be integrated. So you coded this, correct?
Um, I did. Yeah. So the I did all the all the coding for that. Um using a framework that a buddy of mine developed called skeleton game. So that was a it was a framework that kind of get got you started a little bit. Um you know I didn't use it in a really great way. I am not the most amazing programmer on the planet. Um so what I was doing was like hacking the firmware to get it to or the the framework to get it to do stuff that I wanted it to do instead of like properly classing things out. So, uh, a lot of my programmer friends kind of like teased me about that. Um, I know, uh, I know Eric from, uh, Barrels of Fun has actually seen my code and stuff and he's, uh, he's probably laughed at it, but you know what? It's fine. It works great. It's all good.
Yeah, the end product works. Does it matter?
Does it matter? I Nah, it doesn't. I mean, you know, I'm not upgrading the framework or anything, so it's fine. Uh, but uh, but yeah, I did all the code for that. Um, I had some uh, you know, I had some like people help me once in a while with like if somebody had like certain ideas, I could take those ideas and, you know, turn them into something else and get it in the game. I know like Josh Sharpe helped with a few little things. Um, just some suggestions about like how jackpots are collected and stuff like that. It's all the boring stuff, but uh, I mean those blocks end up being really important in the end. For sure. They
do. Yeah. It kind of makes the whole game just feel like really well polished, you know? Um, Jabarug, I I don't even know if I'm saying that right, but he has he has identified your step maniac cabinet and is asking about it. You missed the intro. We did talk about that. You have a track in in it.
I do. I do. One of my tracks is in there. You can actually go on any Step Maniacs machine that's out on location and you can play the TNA song.
So,
and not even like hacked. This is like a real thing. They reached out to
Oh, it's not even hacked. Yeah.
Yeah.
So, it actually took me So, here's a funny story about this. So, I got the machine, right? So, I'm like, "Well, if my music's in it, I guess I got to get one, right?" And I just I like the DDR style thing, right? So, I get this thing and I set it all up. I download the update. I turn it on and I play it and I go to my song, you know, and I play the song and I'm just kind of like looking at I'm like, "Okay, that's pretty cool." And it didn't like register in my head that it was that I didn't hack that and put it in there, right? Because it would be that my brain would do, right? If I had a DDR machine, I would hack it and put something in there that I wanted, right? So, my brain was like accepting it as like, oh yeah, you just put that in there. Great, you know, no big deal. But then when you go somewhere and realize like, wait a second, like this is not my machine. This is on location. I have to pay for this. My music's in there, right?
I didn't put that there. And it's like that is like a really strange feeling actually.
I mean, is it must be super cool to walk into arcades and CTNA there as well. Oh, I imagine that's got to be a similar feelood.
It was the same thing for TNA. Absolutely. Like the first time I played TNA and I actually had to put money in it, that was a big uh like a big moment. And uh I remember seeing I remember the first time I saw a TNA on location that was completely beat. Like really dirty, like still functioning, but like an arcade. Like it was in an arcade and it was really used. Like that [ __ ] like the sugar lane's all messed up. You know what I mean? like it's all dirty and gross
and I'm like that's it it really hits you like oh man like that's not mine anymore but it's something that came out of my brain you know
but as like an artist I feel like that's the ultimate in like the creative cycle like the full circle experience right like as a musician like when you know when I release music like buying the record like and holding the vinyl like for real is like kind of like that cathartic like I did it moment and I feel like did you get that feeling like inserting the corner into TNA Yeah. Well, I also got really nervous, too, because like whenever I was playing TNA before, it's supposed to make your adrenaline get get crazy. But like when I put when I had to put my money into it, like I'm like, "Oh, I better play. I better have a good game."
Holy [ __ ]
If you don't, man, it's like no street cred. Right.
Right. Can you imagine if someone saw me like just like house ball three times? Uh the uh do you think that like Irish river dance people are banned from competitive play for DDR just from like unfair advantage or no?
Okay. So have you ever looked at people on YouTube play step maniacs?
I I have not. I've seen people play DDR but you know I haven't watched any highle play.
They've gotten crazy. They've gotten absolutely crazy. Like they have two um major like distinguishing groups of people, right? There are people that hold the bar and there are people that do not hold the bar.
Oh, there's there's two there's fighting techniques over the best way.
Yeah. Yeah. So, because I mean one you would think, right, holding the bar would be easier because you can use the the dance pad as a controller basically, right? So, you're just playing a video game at that point maybe.
Right.
Still very, you know, it's it's impossible.
So, wait, are you are you a bar holder or a non-bar holder? I've never held the bar unless I was gonna fall over. I thought that's what that bar was for. So, I'm not really sure.
It's for when you're just extremely drunk and want to play step mania.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's also like really good to like, you know, if you're just like sitting around with your friends or something like that, you can like swing underneath it and stuff. It's really solid. Like it doesn't move.
That's good.
That would be bad if it was like if it fell over onto the game and caused some sort of like I don't know, legal nightmare. Uh Emoto's here. What's going on? A shout out to Marco and uh She says that bar holders are cheating.
See, that's the thing. So, you're going to that's what you're going to see. Like, but if you go on YouTube, you can see like um when you type in something like uh you can actually watch people play the TNA one on like the world record holder ones get like 100% perfects on it. Like, no problem.
We got it. Please send me a link to that and I'll put it in the description when we do the VOD for this because that's that's too that's too awesomely quirky to have your music be in a DDR machine or step mania. Do the DDR people get mad if you call it Step Mania and vice versa or No.
Well, it's it's not even Step Mania. Step Mania was an open- source uh like DDR platform, okay, for like computers and stuff. This is called Step Maniacs.
So, this is even more confusing. So, this is a company uh it's a company called Step Revolution who makes dance games. They make like the I think they made like the the Pump It Up game. Um
some other I'm probably messing that up, but they made some other stuff for years and then they when DDR stopped making the Dance Sense Revolution stopped making physical arcade machines,
okay,
they stepped in and took over that area and what they did to get around um lawsuits and stuff is they added a center button. I don't know if you know much about DDR, but it was just up, down, left, right.
Yeah. So there is now with step maniacs it's up, down, left, right, and there's also a center.
Totally different game. Not the same.
Totally different game.
Not the same.
Legally safe. Yeah.
Totally.
So yeah, but it's uh it's like the new the company's doing really well. It's run by a really genuine awesome human and it's uh it's they update it all the time. Every single month there's five new tracks that get loaded into it automatically from the internet.
That's awesome. Very cool. Especially good for people that want to have new content in their games and not have to pay for it. In a world of microtransactions and DLC, giving out free [ __ ] every month is like unheard of.
Um, it is.
Can we do a rapid fire? I got a ton of chat questions that I probably should
Yeah, I was trying. I kept getting distracted looking at the chat and I was like, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh."
Everybody wants to ask you [ __ ] So, we're going to do it. You ready?
Do it.
Yeah, let's do it.
I'm scrolling back all the way. We talked about not asking this, but he asked it, so I'm going to have to. Are you working on a new machine now? Am I working on a new machine? I am not working on a new machine right this second. So I am working on some sound for some other stuff for some other games. Um but uh that's right now.
Cool.
Did you get paid any favors to help out big trouble in Little China or was it just a passion project?
Um that I was hired to do.
Cool. Nice to be paid to do work.
It is. It is. But, you know, with homebrew stuff, uh, you it's you also do it to help the person as well.
There's just people that are just such genuine individuals that you just want to help. I'm helping Ryan Tanner Patch if you're familiar with him. Um,
Ryan Tanner.
Yeah, Ryan Tanner's just such a sweetheart and such a nice guy and I just Yeah, I would.
There's just people like that that just you want to help, you know? So, I get it.
Yeah.
Nuclear wants to ask about the Mystery Awards and he there's no follow-up. He just says, "Please ask about the mystery awards."
What does that mean?
The mystery awards. I Well, I'll just I'll assume he's asking about the uh um like the fake ones that are in there.
Okay.
Um so, when it scrolls through the mystery awards, there's it it just like rips through a bunch of random rewards and then it just lands on one and stops, right? And it gives you that one.
Um but there's a whole bunch of crap in there that you can't land on. It says all sorts of stuff like Yeah, like what a day or adopt a cat or game over. Oh, that's a nice reference to uh or no, Feed Me a Cat. I'm thinking of uh Never mind. What's that movie with Christian Bale? American Psycho. You don't have a nice American Psycho reference in your TNA?
I don't. I don't. Soird. There's uh I got to You got to be safe. You got to be safe.
So,
okay. Did you say you need to be safe when your game is based around blowing up nuclear power stations?
I mean, you know, that's in the future, though. We're in the now, so that's fine. We're safe.
Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh, misled says, "Are you still releasing new code updates for this? Love the love the passion."
Yes, absolutely. So, I when I first made this game, I promised anyone who bought it that I would do whatever I could to make sure that they were happy with the game and make sure it was just, you know, the best it could be. And I still am doing code updates on it because we've find little things here and there that we want to add to it. um by we're basically running at Olympics every year at pinball Olympics and we keep identifying things while we're there like oh wouldn't it be cool if the game could control the room and make it do this right so I'm making code updates for pinball Olympics also and I'm rolling those things into the production code and I'm also just adding little things here and there like there was a new track added I remastered a few of the uh sound effects and stuff um because when you're playing it on 5000 watts the sound effects absolutely need to be uh need to be calmed down a little bit and clashing over each other real bad.
Can you without going too deep into it, can you can you tag something unique that you thought was really cool that you added to a recent update?
Sure. Sure. So, um the well the most recent update had a really big thing is we were watching um some tournament players play it. Uh and we realized that when the really good tournament players were playing, they would just start a multiball and then just go for jackpots only. And then as soon as multiball ended, they would just start multiball again and go for jackpots again and that was it. And they weren't actually playing the game. And the tournament players are like that's a it's a boring game at that point, right? It's a one trick.
If you can just like one trick pony, why do anything? A creature from the back or goon comes comes in mind.
Who can keep the multiball on the longest? You know, that's like that. So, it's it's dumb. So, what I did was I just made it so that if you start multiball the first time, it acts normal. You can go for jackpots, whatever. But if you lose multiball and start multiball again, your jackpots are cut down by 55%. Or 45%, I'm sorry. So, specific number. Why not Why not an even 50? Well, because 45% it does that the first time. So that and if they do not progress to another reactor, if they die again, get out of multiball and start the multiball again, uh it will cut it down by another 45%. So then you end up with only 10% of what you actually would have uh if you had just gone to the next reactor. So
Got it. Does it reset after you go to the next reactor?
It does. It resets immediately. So, if they've got like 10% jackpots going on, but they start a reactor
and like the next one, it just immediately resets their jackpots for them.
Yeah. How do you feel about 99.9% of all players that have played TNA not getting past reactor 2?
Uh, that's totally fine because I I was there for the longest time. I actually got to reactor 6. Like, that's my that's my furthest I've gone.
There you go. That's it's it's said on the internet. It can never be taken back. Scott Danesi has only gotten to reactor six. Have you I'll keep going.
Are you planning on uh Are you going to do it all the way? What happens when you finally beat your own game?
Oh, I won't. I'll be I'll be dead before I can do that. So, at least that's the plan. Like I I'm hoping I never actually beat it to tell you the truth, but if I do beat it, that's okay.
So,
amazing. Uh this is a pretty good uh launch question for it. So, Pizza Jake asks, he says, "Scott, you've said that you uh like to make it feel like your pinball machines are physically fighting back." He loves that philosophy and is has the game ever kicked your ass physically, like you slapped it so hard that you've injured yourself? He wants to hear a battle story.
Okay. Not me, but somebody uh it might have been uh Crystal from JJP was playing and she slapped it so hard that she like sliced her hand on the lock down bar.
Ouch.
On one of them. I was like, "Dude, that's just that was crazy." Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I've never been physically hurt by it. Um, aside from like working on it and smashing knuckles and stuff like that and making, you know, blood comes out on the playfield a little bit, but um, you know, Yeah. No, not really. I didn't even throw my back out or anything. No, good.
Every time you open a machine, there's always like some sort of mystery cut.
Yeah. Yeah. It Yeah. What you do is you just wait. you're done working on your games, you use a little bit of hand sanitizer and you just make sure you got a few cuts. So, you'll
It's just a reminder. One good squirt is just all you need to be like, "Oh, yeah." Ow.
Is there like You think there's like a little gremlin in there with razor blades that every time you stick your hands in there, they're just like
Yeah. Yeah. And they're real sharp razor blades, too. So, you don't really notice. You don't really feel it while it's happening. You just feel it afterward.
So sharp you don't even know it's happening.
Uh Emoto wants to know when you're playing live next. Yeah. Oh, when I'm playing uh like doing a live show,
I believe. So, yeah,
that will be uh that's MGC. So, yeah, MGC is the next time. Uh I actually picked up a uh something really cool. I don't know if anyone in chat's going to be able to relate to me on this because this is super nerdy, but I picked up a new Euroack module uh for my synthesizer stuff, which
I mean, I can relate to that. and you can relate to it, but I don't know if anyone else will you and I are like I don't I'm trying not to go too deep, but I will for a second. Um, the Pioneer DJ link data that comes over the Ethernet between the CDJs when I'm performing on CDJs. Um, I have a module, my Euroack that now sniffs that data and pulls the clock data out of it. So, if I'm performing on turntables, I can have my my Euro Euro modular stuff next to me and it'll be completely clocked in sync with what's going on. So, I can like jam out on both at the same time.
Nice. Does it have divider? Does it have divider stuff to do like half or double tempo if you need to for
Wait, I can I can do whatever I want with it because I can just divide it myself with a clock divider. Yeah,
true. Shout out to Who makes the It's ALM that makes that one module. I see some Euroex stuff back there. I think that's where he's going.
Yeah, I'm looking. It was TJ Teenage Engineering that makes a really good clock divider that I have. I'm trying to remember. I couldn't remember who it was. Um
anyways, uh so that's cool. Amazing. Always good to get new toys. Have you used did you use any of your modular stuff in doing the I mean I guess this is a perfect segue to talk about the sound of music for Total Nuclear Annihilation. Why not? Uh did you use any uh hardware in the development of the soundtrack? Um, the only thing that I used hardware-wise in TNA was a bunch of circuit bent toys that I had created. Um, I used those for sound effects.
So, people that don't know what circuit bending is, it's when you take a already existing piece of hardware and kind of put either pots or some sort of connections onto it that connect into the original circuitry that's inside of it. And then you can [ __ ] with it and make it do all sorts of crazy stuff. People do it with speaking spells. I mean, you can really There you go. There's a speaking spell that has one. One of the
That's one of them. Let's see. Hold on. I got another one. I got all sorts of stupid stuff.
What's wrong with you?
Stupid.
Oh man. Well, kind of. Well, see this is this is a really rare speak and spell from the 70s because it has the physical like raised buttons on it and it was it's perfect condition and I got it off eBay and the first thing I do is like rip it apart and
drill a hole in it.
This is a quarter inch output jack right with you know all the circuit bent stuff on here. It's pretty crazy though. This one I actually um this one I started circuit bending and never finished. And I actually sent it to one of my buddies who was like one of the best circuit benders that I know.
And I was like, "Hey, can you uh finish this for me?" And he was like, "Yeah, sure." And he like took it all and like took my bends and like, you know, left them in place and just added more stuff to it.
It's It's kind of like
Yeah. I'm trying to think what the a comparison in modern artwork would be to what circuit bending is, but you're really just like trashing something else to make it do things that it probably shouldn't.
Well, I mean, if you took um Okay, so if you went in and took a piece of artwork that someone made and dumped it in Photoshop and applied a bunch of filters to it to make it look all cool and like RGB shift it and stuff, right? Making it look really neat.
Sure.
That's kind of like circuit betting, something visual,
you know? It's still the other person's thing, but you've completely destroyed it. And you got
It's like putting a nause like a nitrous kit on your car, too, right?
Yeah, that destroys a car, too. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, so does circuit bending to a circuit degree.
It does. There's a high chance when you're doing circuit bending manually, when you're poking around just trying to find things like little points on the circuit board, um you there's a there's like a 80% chance you're going to like ext you're going to blow the thing up and it's never going to work again. Yep.
Like electricity is not designed to go everywhere in both directions. Um, no.
Okay. Okay. Anyways, but back to back to TNA. So, Oh, yeah. Did you write did you have these tracks written and you were just like, "Man, I can't wait to put these in the pinball machine." Or did you get the artwork and then you were like, "Oh, man. I'm inspired now. I'm going to start writing some music, etc."
Um, no. All the um all the sound was done before the artwork was done. So, I I had this whole vision in my head for this retrofuturism thing that was uh that I was really into uh in 2015. Um you know, like that new retro wave stuff. It's kind of like that. It was like when synth wave wasn't, you know, everywhere
before Tru kind of like set the standard for what that was supposed to be.
Well, Mitch Murder was making music back then.
Mitch Murder was excellent. Yes. He was doing that well before Comuse did his did his whatever synth wave revival. Absolutely. So, uh, I would listen to a lot of that stuff, but then I was like, hey, I want to put my own take on this. So, I'm a techno guy. So, I was like I had been writing, producing, performing, like doing all this stuff just around like tech the techno genre, which is a pretty hard genre. It's not like something normal people listen to usually. But um I took synth wave and sort of melded it with this techno and made this like hybrid genre that is the TNA album. Um it's like synth wave but it's not it's not chill at all.
It's not chill wave. It's unchill wave.
It's not chill wave. It's It's unchill wave. Yeah. It's like
uh so you so you had these tracks, you wrote them and then at what point do you actually put you at some point you must have put the music in the game and you were just like
it's working as things are falling apart in my office. Uh that must like it was that the real moment for you that you were just like okay like this is going to be a banger.
Yeah, I think so. Like so um for me though like I'm when I listen to my own music I have a little bit of like imposttor syndrome going on all the time. So I'm just like ah you know it's okay like you know but I I had the first two songs in there. I had the t the total nuclear annihilation song and I had alpha particles. Those were the first two songs that I completed. So the first two tracks I put those into the game um as as they are now. And alpha particles was just every reactor. So when a reactor was running it was just playing alpha particles. And I brought that to expo 2016. Yeah expo 2016. And then um and everybody was like dancing like crazy and stuff on there. And I I think the reason for that though is because it was just so damn loud. Uh if you scroll through some of those pictures, you'll see that the whitewood like has the uh subchamber in it.
Oh yeah, I meant
Yeah.
Yeah. So that was uh that you could hear from, you know, around the whole place, right?
So there we go.
Brilliant. By the way, for people who don't follow audio, this is allowing air to be ported out from the outside instead of to destroy the inside, creating all sorts of phase issues and room modals and stuff so that the sub can be as perfectly clear as possible, which is why there's this gap here to allow the speaker cone to do all of its hard work and not [ __ ] up anything else in the game.
Pretty cool.
Yeah. And if you look at this, this is this is called a band pass box. So, this is a band pass design. So, this design actually uh that sub is firing into an empty chamber and it's sealed underneath there and there's a t-shirt jammed in there uh to kind of absorb some of the really high frequencies.
Sure.
Um so, uh what that does is then the back side of the speaker gets vented out the bottom of the cabinet by going up and doing a 180 and out the bottom.
Yeah. You can see the wall doesn't go all the way up here
for people that are
Yeah. So, yeah. So when that with that uh reduces the amount of uh of higher frequencies as well and that just makes it really rumble and you can really push these speakers. Um this is a uh it's like a 600 amp uh or 600 watt system that uh I put together was a kicker system. Uh and what I did was I fine-tuned it though. So, I would go in and if you scroll to a couple more pictures in there, there's some like oscilloscope pictures which are kind of, you know, kind of boring, but like I was dumping uh a 50 Hz sine wave into it where uh and I would push it through the actual computer itself and then I was measuring the output of the subwoofer like at its uh like while it was actually working on its actual terminals and seeing where I was pushing it just loud enough so it wouldn't hard clip. So, it was just underneath that. So, the subwoofer was actually or so the amplifier was actually being pushing that subwoofer as hard as it possibly could without clipping.
Amazing.
So,
that's just free square waves really if you think about it, you know.
Yeah,
it's fine. Uh, as an audio person, it's awesome to see somebody put so much work into making sure that the fidelity of the audio, cuz as I'm sure you'll probably agree that the built-in systems on a lot of pinball machines just require aftermarket components in order to be good.
Yeah. So, and that's like this was actually too expensive to build exactly how I wanted it for production. So, we did end up firing the subwoofer out the bottom of the cabinet for the production ones. So, and uh
so it's funny. I have a literal question that's about what it is like to go from prototype to production model and was there anything that you had to sacrifice in order to for the spooky production model to actually happen? So, I feel like we've touched base on exactly that.
Was there anything else that needed to be tweaked?
Um, well, there was a bunch of little things that needed to be tweaked just so it could be easier, like more easily assembled. Um, and you know, it really nothing was cut out of it, though, cuz Charlie really really didn't want to take anything away from the magic that it had as a whitewood. So, it was my decision to remove the star rollovers on it. Um, that was not, you know, Charlie wasn't harassing me at all to make it more reliable or remove anything or do any of that stuff. It was all, that was all my decision to do that. Um, and uh, you know, I still do think that was a good idea, but that was really it. The subchamber changed a little bit. The star rollovers changed. Um I believe we uh I had a lot of posts that were using T-nuts that we switched over to just screwing them into the playfield with an actual like you know a screw post instead. Um that actually will keep it we didn't want to loctite stuff but it should that'll keep it more reliable because that screw is not going to back out very easily but a machine screw without loctite on it could back out easier. So, it's little things like that that you
especially with a game that has as much sub as yours does, there's a lot of cabinet vibration.
I mean, most of the vibration most of the vibration is coming out of or is getting forced out of the cabinet though because remember it's not like none of the TNA games use the actual pinball cabinet as a speaker box.
Yeah. So, like everything it's all sealed away from that, right?
I wish more people would do that in their their systems, but I agree.
Just cost of it is way too much. I mean, it costs money to make pinball machines, and most companies that are making them aren't trying to do it to just barely break even. Stern,
the uh Roller Coasters is asking, "What type of wood did you use for your white wood?"
Um, that's actually just birch uh plywood that I got from Home Depot.
There you go.
So, yeah, it's uh Yeah. And it's not anything super fancy. It is uh it's got like three layers and then veneer on the top and bottom. So, people do make cabinets and stuff out of it, but it's not it's not that great. I'm not going to spend a lot of money uh on, you know, maple plywood with, you know, the perfect grains going opposite ways or whatever. Uh so, it Yeah, that's totally not necessary for whitewoods.
Great.
We got a really important question.
Oh jeez. Okay. Okay.
Flipronic wants to know, would Pinball Life ever sell a pinball cat calendar? I mean, like if the cats were like doing something awesome, like playing pinball?
I don't know.
Have you ever seen a cat play pinball?
You've never seen a cat play pinball?
Have you?
Well, you ever seen a Oh, I have actually. Cuz you ever played a You ever played pinball with a cat on the glass?
I have played pinball with a cat on a glass. I played pinball with a baby on the glass, cat on the glass,
beer on the glass. That's not a good idea.
Yeah. I'm trying to think. I dog on the glass. Like what other animals have have people played pinball with pinball on? Oh well hello. Yes. I'm sorry. Hold on a second. I'm being brought alcohol. I mean I'm being brought a very non but delicious beverage. It's
I think this is it a paper plane.
Paper plane.
Oh, cool.
Cheers, Scott.
Okay. Apparently Apparently the Illuminati ladies have decided to [ __ ] review bomb the our our interview. Somebody's got a way bigger one than you.
What is that?
It's not the size, man. It's how good it is.
Well, that's what I'm saying, though. But someone has something that's just as good, but like 10 times bigger. Did you see that glass that came in the shot there for a second?
I know. Why didn't I get that one?
There you go.
That's not yours.
That's mine.
It's not yours.
That's mine. Give me Okay. Okay. Right. Don't Don't steal it too much.
Now I'm going to be in trouble. Well, now that I have my new delicious beverage, let's get back on topic. Um,
yeah. yeah.
So, yeah. Uh, so pinball. Pinball with cats. Cats are cool. Uh, we have a a few actual legit questions now that aren't involving pinball calendars, alcohol, or cats on glass. Uh, was use of an LCD screen part of your original design.
Uh, no. I didn't want to use an LCD screen. I wanted to build the game completely with just numeric score displays. And then when I was working on it, uh I realized like I got to create a service mode so I can start doing switch testing and all this other stuff. And um it was very very early on and I'm like you know what it's just easier just to throw an LCD on here. But it was never it was it was just an afterthought. And to this day, like if you if your LCD is dead, like if somebody cracks that LCD on there, um it you can play that whole game and know your score, know who's you know who's up. Um you really won't know what ball you're on to tell you the truth. But you know what? It's fine. Um but yeah, it was just an afterthought and
it's fine. Uh for for those that don't know, this is I believe the final uh iteration, but you can see here there's alpha numeric uh above as well as the LCD screen below. So you can
Yeah, I'm assuming the LCD screen is replaceable if somebody has damaged it to the point where it needs to be, right?
It's offtheshelf parts.
Yeah,
it's just most of this thing is offtheshelf parts. And this thing is not like for pinball techs and stuff, it is not uh anything scary under there. It's coils, it's switches, it's just, you know, a pinball machine.
Yeah. A lot of people think that you can magically get electrocuted to death with a pinball machine. Like I think 50 volts for the solenoids is pretty much the the beefiest thing that you could really get into trouble with down there.
Well, on this one, yeah, but like the old Williams games, like the '90s games plasma or whatever,
70 volts.
Yeah. 70 volts crossed a threshold though where like if you touched it, it would actually penetrate your skin and it shocks you a little bit, but it uh you're not going to die from it.
There you go. What is this? Jabria says, "Do you recommend he keeps the power on and service it while standing in a waiting pool?" Excellent advice. This is your opportunity, Scott.
Yeah. Well, I would say uh that's a really bad idea um because there's not enough salt in the waiting pool to uh actually make the whole conduction. So, put the salt in the waiting pool first and stir it around.
Get the salty water on your hands and then go ahead and start working on it.
You got to brine yourself if you really want a good pinball repair experience. Like,
I mean, who doesn't do that?
Yeah, that's salty, right?
Yeah. Regular water is like an insulator, dude. Regular water sucks at conducting.
You heard it. So, the artwork, this is the Playfield sketch, right? Uh, who did the who did the playfield artwork for the final production?
So, Matt Andrews did that. And this is a Matt Andrews sketch. This is when we were that one right there was when we were just kind of laying things out and I'm like, hey, you know, we were talking about how the like the shot lines kind of have to go away from the middle and away from the flippers.
Sure.
And he had this cool design. I'm like, you know, we had the inserts in a fixed area, right? So, he was pretty constrained to what he can do. Uh, so I'm like, "Hey, there has to be the map thing right here and all this stuff." And you can see it used to be green, which is pretty cool.
Yeah. I mean, the artwork of the production game is awesome, but this is in its own style is amazing as well as like a totally different piece of artwork or similar piece of artwork.
Yeah. Well, and you can see too like he took he just took my CAD drawing and then just drew over the top of it with this thing.
Um, and it's it really is sketch like it's just a sketch. Like if you like scroll in on this thing at all, like even toward the top where the lanes are, you'll see that it's just him like sketching things to get the idea of what we sort of want this to look like.
That's as big as I can get it.
That's as big as you can go. Okay. Well, all right. Well, can you right click on it and do There we go. There. Okay. Well, kind of. You can get There you go.
There we go. Here we go. We're good. We're good. Excellent idea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that uh Yeah, that So that's just a sketch. So, it is uh it's super cool to see this and it's really fun for me to like go back and actually look through this kind of stuff. You know, we put like scan lines and stuff on the actual uh map to make it look like it was like a CRT.
That's cool. I didn't realize that these were like reactor coolant uh like whatever tubes.
Yeah, they're they're core. Yeah, they're like the the um the actual core the rods, right? The rods.
Rods. That's the word I couldn't think of. Rods.
Rods. Yeah. Yeah,
rods. And you can see there's some that are empty, right? So there's not they're not all full. Yeah, there's uh all sorts of fun stuff. There's like if you pulled up a a final version of the playfield, which is it should be in there as well. Um you'll see that there's a lot more detail on everything on those.
Are there are there any artistic Easter eggs that you know of on the Playfield artwork?
Uh no, but there's a ton in the back glass. There's a bunch of stuff in the back glass. So,
is this the final production or
almost final?
So, almost. Yeah. Let's see. There's got to be
It literally says almost final at the bottom.
Almost Almost final. Yeah. It's just like the names of the files, right? Um
final final O26R- Right.
Final Fal final.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And then um yeah, he had a bunch of other little sketches that he took that he drew off to the side
and he took those and then like shrunk them down and put them on the playfield. So those guys that you saw below that were on the left side of the left orbit.
And those are
Yeah, those are like the the workers, right? They're just trying to get out of there, right? Like is the reactors going critical and they're like just getting
I haven't been around a nuclear reactor exploding, but I got to be honest, that's a no. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm really like in real life, I am deathly afraid of radioactive stuff. I'm fascinated by it, but I'm definitely afraid of it. Like, I
mean, they're invisible razor blades that cut you up. That's no good. Ain't nobody got time for that.
It's no good.
Yeah, exactly.
Um,
it's scary, man.
Let me let me do a lot of
I know. Can help me out here. You got to pick some of these chat questions. We're getting bombarded. Grown up and Jason just raided with 14 people.
I'm getting distracted. I'm looking at chat trying to figure out some stuff here and it's uh distracting.
Shout out Aaron. Thank you for the raid. Uh Emoto wants to ask if she can buy uh Playfield overlays for their TNA. That is the original Sharpie design.
Oo, that's really easy. Actually, you can just take the um like if there was somebody who was brave enough to sand down their playfield and then you know get me to come over there, I'll draw it back on there. You wait, you could do one of those uh what's that hard plastic um like protector like laser cut thing that they that they took it out. I put one on my grand loader before I sold it.
Yeah, hard top. So, you could do that, but like you know
with the scratched one, this is amazing too.
It has to be wood color though.
It would definitely need to be wood color. You could not make it any other color. Uh Emoto is like uh Pinball Life's conductive brine. Like we've This is a new product that that you could be, you know, salting.
Yeah. Yes, you could. I mean, that's it's basically what's in batteries, right?
This is true.
It's an electrolyte.
We're all just electrolytes, really.
Yeah. Just big.
So, so the music, the music has come together, the artwork has come together. You are traveling through expose to try to show off this product. At some point, an opportunity comes to you and you have a manufacturer.
Yeah. So,
this is like every homebrew's dream, right? It is, but it wasn't the goal. See that the this is very very rare and I try to explain this to people um a bunch that when when you build a homebrew, you should be building it for yourself and building it for, you know, for the learning experience. And if you want to work in the pinball industry, you use that homebrew as a resume and say, "Hey, here is what I've done, right? Let me show you and talk about this and all this stuff." and you go and you get in the industry and you go build another game or work on a team that builds another game, right?
Um but it's super rare that something like this would go from homebrew all the way to someone's house.
Absolutely. You are the most rare I mean the game's insanely fun. It is fairly simple production based on the fact that it doesn't have like a really crazy mech and not not a lot of ramps and wire forms and stuff and and that's not an insult. I think that the simplicity in your game is is what makes it so much fun and that the the what do you call it? The kind of like gameplay loop that you've created both in code and it's in its design is is thoroughly addictive.
It is. That's and that's what it's supposed to be doing. It's It's supposed to try to get you to come back, right? So you I want the player right when I say you I want that's like I want the player to feel like the machine is fighting them and then when the machine wins because it always does I want the player to go I could do better than that I'm going to go I'm not letting it get the best of me I'm doing it again right and then
just keep going at it right until you're obviously so tired because obviously you never really win unless you're someone like you know Bowen Kerins or Ryan McCoy or you know Carl Carl has beat that. Carl was uh like the second person I think to beat reactor 9 reactors. If you had to guess how many times a TNA's glass has been punched out of out of pure rage.
What do you think that number would be?
I don't know. I get a lot of like [ __ ] you Scott messages though sometimes you know like people like
I only sent that like five or six are you talking about you dude.
So they're like screw you. Oh no I'm just kidding. Nice to meet you. I'm like, "All right, all right, cool. Perfect."
There's got to be some sort of like deep dark satisfaction for that you created a game that is punishing but entertaining, right? Like Like you're you're pissing people off but making them have a good time at the same time.
It is it's more like a it's it it's really tempting to just say you're welcome when people say like [ __ ] you to me, you know, about the game.
Um because it is really for them, right? It's not this this is not for me. This is not me getting some kind of weird satisfaction out of collecting people's tears in, you know, crystal vials, but it's, you know, it it's for people to actually feel that, you know, that that adrenaline to feel that they are the center of attention getting attacked. Right.
Sure.
It feels really good to me. And I want
you want an active environment, I think, with pinball. Like if you're not feeling like if you're waiting for something to happen from a pinball machine, like you're not playing a game that is providing the right experience in my opinion.
Yeah.
Um
it it should be immediately engaging from the moment you plunge and and TNA definitely fits that for sure.
Uh
absolutely. Okay.
Lyn in Denver says that one of her favorite things to do is to scream, "Fuck you." insert designer name and followed by slapping the start button. Yeah, I've definitely felt that for a few designers for sure.
Um
all right, this is a tough one. And you ready?
Yeah, I'm ready.
I'm trying to find it. Somebody asked what your favorite metric size screw is. Here we go. It'sronic, of course.
Oh, really?
It's the It's the Awesome Pinball Collective crew.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, the favorite metric screw is obviously an M3. So,
obviously
like a norainer.
Yeah. Obviously you guys like
uh common.
You said that you were in the Pinball Expo for one day, right?
This year.
Uh for for this year. I was there on Thursday night like for just a few hours just to say hi to everybody. And unfortunately, I think everyone was over at the Scorbit thing when I was there for the most of it and I missed a lot of people. So, I apologize. That was uh kind of sad, but
I got good selfies with people on my crappy uh camera. So,
I'm I'm building up I'm building up to the Did you Did you get to the homebrew section of Pinball Expo?
I did. And I went through all that and I walked through all of them real quick and I had like my hat down. I should have put sunglasses on, too.
Why? What are you hiding for? That's the whole point of going to Pinball Expo.
Well, check this out. Because then I can go and I can just kind of look and like just not have like a because I get asked a ton of questions, which is totally great.
Yeah, but you want to experience the stuff.
I want to actually just experience it as like a a bystander and see what's going on. Um, so yeah, maybe maybe next year I'll put like a wig on or something which would be really funny.
Can you imagine like a Groucho Marks like disguise? Uh, Rockhound 942 is surprised and and did not know that you designed this game.
Yes, Scott Deni.
I love it.
Now you know. Uh, well, the reason I was asking was was there anything from the homebrew section that you thought was just like especially amazing as a homebrew person that went from home to to industry?
Every single every single machine there that I see has one or more things in it that make it amazing and make it unique. Like, so people building homebrew games, there's there's not really boring homebrew games. Okay.
Totally. Like everyone's building these things and putting something some idea that they had and they're building a machine around this idea, right? Like there's crazy crap. Like I've seen uh a Led Zeppelin machine with a an actual stairway to heaven. Like no joke, like an escalator in the game as a ball lock.
Awesome. Even Steamboat Willie was spraying steam out the top. I mean, because these these homebrew uh designers like they're not trying to, you know, hit market. They don't they can just be completely creative without the risk of anything else.
They're doing it for them and they're doing it to share with their friends. And it's the be that is what homebrew is about,
right? And it's just it's so rewarding to have a game that you can that you've built and that you've put so much hard work into and then sharing with people and watching people play it and watching someone smile while playing it is like a feeling I can't even I I can't even describe. It just feels really good. And these homebrew people are experiencing that. And it's just it's just so cool to like see the person playing like from a bystander perspective. If I look around when I'm when I'm just watching people play stuff, I am watching the player. I'm watching the designer that's standing next to the game and when the player does the thing and it has the moment and has the smile, the designer sees that and I can immediately like I start feeling good because I see the designer like having this moment, right, that all this hard work is now worth it, right? They just they put all this stuff together and all of that for this one thing and this is this is their payoff, right? And I got I love standing around and watching that and experiencing that.
So poetry truly uh two two questions. One is for a moto which I'll get to, but the other one for you is what is that moment in TNA like? What was the when you saw someone play that game? Was it destroying the first reactor? What was that like? Wow. Well, the the first thing when some when it was first brand new and no one knew anything about it, the ball locking was the first moment, right? So, when that happened the first time, I I had people say, "Oh my gosh, it's broken." Like it the ball got stuck like in the in the lock
and I'm like, "What do you mean a ball got stuck?" "Oh, that like it's supposed to do that." And it kicks another ball out and lets you keep playing and you're like, "Oh, well I'm like, "Put another one in there." You know, it's like it it's really cool. Since Since somebody didn't know that you designed this, can you explain uh how this
stacking drop target I guess I should probably pull up the browser in order for people to be able to even know what I'm talking about. Uh can you can you explain how the stacking drop targets work on this?
Yeah, sure thing. Um, so the there's three drop targets in the game and they're all they're just independent one bank drop targets and they have optos in between them so that I can tell where a ball is all the time and if a ball gets shot into it, the uh the drop targets will actually pop up and capture the ball between two of them and then it'll like kind of bounce around there and then sit down on the opto. Yeah, if you look real close at this picture we're pulling up here too, um you can see that the uh you can see the optos that are just behind the first drop target and the second drop target where a ball would sit. Um and that is it. It really it's just computer controlled magic at that point. So it grabs the ball, keeps it there, holds it, and then you just hit it and release it. And uh yeah, they the drop targets know the first one got hit, so it drops the rest of them and lets the uh lets the ball go and puts you in multiball.
There you go. Which you can steal ball locks. And I have heard a lot of mixed I love stealing ball locks, but I know a lot of tournament players don't like it because it it destabilizes kind of like the even playing field for it. Is there an option to turn that off in TNA for lock
stealing or there is an there is an option. You want to know what the option is?
Don't play TNA. play single player.
Oh, okay. I mean, that works, right?
I I purposely do not have an option in there. I am a big fan of lock stealing.
Part of um if you are upset about lock stealing, it's because you probably left some balls locked on the playfield and died. So, that's that's your fault for leaving them there.
You chose you chose to drain instead of using your locked balls.
I chose to leave those there for the next person. So, just don't do that next time. Um, make sure if you're going to die, just die after multiball and don't relock anything.
That's amazing.
So, I don't know. I mean, I'm I'm kind of being mean with that, but you know, you get it.
Oh, totally. I do. I love locking. I think locking is really fun, but when I think of lock stealing, I think of lock stealing in most 80s games, right? Like, it's not something that's available in modern games. It's a design philosophy that kind of fell out of I mean, it was a technical limitation really originally. It wasn't by choice. It was just like it's easier to leave this ball there and if it if someone else frees it, go for it, you know.
Um,
anonymous is here, one of the original streamers. He says hi to both of us. We should say hi back. You ready? Count it. We'll do it on three. You ready? One, two, three.
Hi, Anonymous.
You This wasn't cuz I called him owl.
It's like
I don't know.
It's just Okay.
I missed the last part of his name.
We He's He's never going to let this go. This moment is ruined.
He's not. Do
you know he you know he was like the first like he was helping me beta test early code, right? Do you know that?
He specifically said that he played the original Whitewood and that's one of the reasons why he pre-ordered it. Is there any way anybody can get a new inbox TNA at this point?
Right now? No.
Is there going to be another run?
I mean, there could be one stuck in a box somewhere. Um, sure. I don't know.
I mean, you could put anything in a box at some point. Yeah.
Is there gonna be another run of uh like an anniversary edition of TNA?
I don't know. The 10 year anniversary is coming up real soon though because it was the 2017 is really what I call the what year it came out.
Um so we've got a couple years. Well, no, we've got a year.
One year.
Isn't that awful time, man? What's up with that?
It was just 2025. I don't know what happened.
I Yeah, like a like a week ago it was just 2025. Like literally what happened?
Yeah. What? I don't know.
I don't either. Weird.
Yeah. Super weird. But anyway, yeah. So, uh so I'll would he would he got one of the really early uh TNA machines and was more than happy to um help me beta test and find some really weird race conditions in the code that I had. Yeah. Number seven. Right.
That's amazing. Um, what was cool with that though is that when you're streaming pinball and I am watching the machine from a very perfect view. I can see everything that the machine's doing. I can see the display. I can see the play field. I've written the code so I know exactly what the machine's expecting to happen at all times. Like just, you know, I can kind of tell what's going on. Um, being able to capture and like and and record and clip those little tiny errors that you see uh were so invaluable to me and saved me so much time trying to figure out what was happening. We had like there was a crazy race condition. I forgot. I think it was on like I don't remember now. I don't remember exactly what happened with it, but we did find it and we fixed it and it was like it was it was awesome. and seeing that issue go away and it was awesome. I think it was a multiball issue like something was getting stuck in multiball or something.
That's neat. Still refining projects that are, you know,
have been out for a little bit. Uh
Zar asks, well Amy Crash asked this and this is kind of relevant to what we were just talking about talking about going from prototype to having it picked up by Spooky because they wanted to have it done. You kind of announced it a little bit. It's just like it's not don't go into it with the goal. Go into it with wanting to learn from the experience of creating a homebrew and all the other magic. If it happens, it happens. Um, but what was I mean what was that what was that experience like for the people that are curious here?
Um, so the experience was a little bit hard, but it wasn't that bad because I have a ton of industry connections. Um, so and I have a ton of experience with engineering stuff. So really what was going on was um was a little bit out of the ordinary because I had all the 3D files for all my parts and I had I made all the 3D files for all the stuff that I had to give over like the play field, right? So I could just give all that stuff over and we already had it like built. But a lot of people when they build homebrews, which I think is great is you're drilling holes in playfields and stuff. You're not setting it all up in Solid Works perfectly every single time, right? You're just you're just hacking through it, you know? Hey, I'm going to try and see what happens if I put a drop target over here. Cut a hole in the playfield, you know?
Yeah.
So, it's uh you know, it it wasn't terrible. I think we had to make just a few adjustments. We talked a little bit about the the subwoofer and the star rollovers being, you know, modified. Um but yeah, it it wasn't it wasn't crazy. I mean, what was real crazy for me was seeing the artwork on it the first time. That That was a little bit weird because I'd been so used to just seeing it as a wood
It is weird the difference of uh how much artwork really cuz it changes the lighting too cuz like literally, you know, light reflecting off a surface that has a color on it is going to reflect more of that color. So, it it immediately makes the experience like pop. And I imagine when you did you when you received did you get the playfield with artwork on it pre-working with Spooky or did you have to wait till the manufacturing process happened and put it in?
That was uh I was already on down the path with Spooky before the art was done.
So um the specific time. So we I worked with Matt got the art to where we wanted it. I submitted it all to Charlie and um I was just at work one day. Um and my boss's office is on the other side of the building of mine and I get a phone call uh on, you know, I get a phone call from him and he's like, "Hey, I need you to come to my office immediately." I'm like, "Damn it." So, like I'm grabbing my notebook, you know, I think there's like a problem with something, right? So, got my notebook, got my pen in my hat, you know? I'm walking down there all like preparing myself for like you know some kind of issue and uh I walk in and Charlie's standing there and he's got two playfields and a bath glass just propped up against my boss's desk
and like I I was like I I was beside myself. my my eyes actually were tearing up a little bit because like I it became so real at that point and it was so important to me um you know because of all the the hard work that went into this thing. Seeing it become more real was like a huge step and that that was a that was a big thing.
That's awesome. I've I've got I've got you holding your back glass up against the window off off your
Yeah, that Oh yeah, that's a that's so that's the that's the first back glass. Uh no, that one that one's not the first backlass. That is the That's the back glass without the score displays in it. That was before the score displays were in. That was a color test on the glass. Um I don't know where that one went. That one might have been framed and given away to somebody. Um but
a part of pinball history at this point.
Somebody has that somewhere. Um but it's not me. Um you just ask for it back at this point. Hey. No, No,
no, no. It's It's out there. But I'll tell you what, though. The prototype back glass that was uh in my game, which is in there's pictures of the prototype back glass. Um which is actually the same as the production one. It was just like some little tweaks here and there on some like alignment of the actual um like score displays and stuff like that.
Um that prototype back glass uh was smashed. So that doesn't exist anymore. No, by accident on purpose that you played TNA and got mad and then hit the back. You broke the proto glass, right?
Totally. That's That's totally my character to do that.
I know.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. So, uh, what happened was I was at Spooky and we were taking the prototype machine. So, I built this is what you're looking at right here on your screen is the prototype machine, right? So, this is the one that I assembled by hand. It was the first one with the full artwork package on it. And I brought it back to Spooky to get so we could take pictures and do the promotional material, all that stuff with it. Um, and somebody had set the back took the back glass out of the backbox and set it on top of another machine that was sitting upright and someone else bumped into it. And I like I was on the other side of the building when I heard it, but you hear it go like,
you know, that very specific sound. I kind of laugh. I was like, "Oh, somebody's in trouble." I'm like, you know, "Haha, someone broke a piece of glass." I walk over there and just see like bits of purple and pink and I'm like, "Oh no.
Oh no.
Where's my I'm looking at my machine. I'm like, where's my uh Oh,
that's that's that is so sad.
Uh I do need to chime in on chat though. Ovet saying that we're only moderating the Twitch chat." That's not true. We have unified chat here. I can see both. Uh Scott, I think, can only see Twitch right now, but uh we are we are seeing your comments. I promise. I promise. Uh that's heartbreaking. I mean, what do you do when you see like a piece of of a proto I mean move on, fix it and move on, right? But
yeah, they had some uh they had some production ones. So the production back glass is actually on the prototype machine now. So that prototype machine does still exist somewhere. I don't know who owns it, but it's somewhere.
Interesting. Well, if you own that prototype machine, send a send a message to Scott. Let him know that it's it's all right. It's doing good. Well loved. Do not like
Yeah. And if you're like if you have the prototype or the Whitewood machine, do not install production software on it.
It will blow all the fuses.
I need to send you custom software. So, reach out to me before you do anything.
Get you get you a custom custom uh code for your prototype single total nuclear annihilation that exists.
Yeah. Both of those mach there's three versions of the game. There's the whitewood, the prototype, and the production. And they're all three wired differently. So, don't uh don't just put production machine or production software on any machine. So,
there you go. Warnings Warnings be heard. Don't blow your game up.
Yeah. Yeah. There's no stickers in the game that tell you not to do that either, which is a miss on my side. So,
I mean, how many prototypes and how many Whitewoods are there really of the game? What was the production run for TNA? How many TNAs are there out there?
Uh there are the first run was uh 550 and then we did another 250. So, there's 800 of them.
A good number
if my math is right.
It's It's rare enough to be ultra collectible and super fun enough to be at a lot of arcades.
It's not a huge run, but that is a massive massive run as opposed to what I thought it was going to be.
Oh, and as a homebrew to production person, that's got to be a dream number. I mean, even five games being made would be amazing for I mean, for me or for a lot of people, I imagine. Roller Coaster is asking if you used fast for the proto whitewood. I talked to that uh earlier before we started our interview. I'll take it away.
Sure. Uh I did not use fast for it. So fast wasn't really around uh back then, I don't think. Um and I was using um I used the P3 rock system for this guy. Yeah. Which still that's the production stuff it uses the P3 rock system as well.
Yeah.
And
Moto's asking how you can tell if it's the first run or the 2.0. Oh, you can tell by the armor that's on it. So, the the um the CE version is what the the second run was.
It's got this on it, right? It's probably going to take a second.
Yeah, it's just got different armor on it. Really? Um so, the armor is black as opposed to silver or as opposed to stainless.
Yeah,
I'd take black game. It's pretty awesome.
But yeah, that's that's actually the prototype. So, this this is an interesting photo. Let me pull it back up then cuz we're on a bit of a delay. Hold on. It's back.
Sorry. Yeah, that machine right there. No art on it um is actually the prototype machine, but I disassembled the prototype whitewood out of it. And so I took all those components off after I used this for program testing and fitment testing. I took that completely apart and I installed the one with the artwork on it. So, that is the production or that is the prototype machine you're looking at, but that and that is not the um prototype playfield.
Gotcha.
With that custom armor on it, I don't blame you for putting the final playfield in there or a playfield in there.
Yeah. I don't know what happened to that Whitewood playfield though. That Whitewood prototype playfield.
H
I don't know.
I'd love to answer that for you, but there's literally no way for me to know that. That'd be really funny if I was like sitting here wondering what I know what happened to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't I don't I don't have it.
Yeah. And there's a picture of my wife and I sitting in the uh prototype cabinet.
Adorable.
That was the It's the It's the spooky retro uh cabinet.
Do you think Do you think that a pinball cabinet could work as a Winter Olympic Games luge or bob sled?
Yeah, it can work as a soapbox car, too. Like you ever you know those soapbox derby things?
Oh, for sure.
I think that could be an awesome soap box derby cuz you're kind of protected in that.
Do you think the move is front to back like that as opposed to back to back?
Well, I think the move
facing each other, you know,
back.
Oh, you mean when there's two people in there?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Normally people like to look the same direction of the sled.
Oh, I think Yeah. Yeah. I think you probably want to be like facing forward, right?
Right.
Both of you. So you can kind of see what's happening.
So
would forward be the backbox though? So you have extra weight in the front or do you you know what I mean?
I don't know. So you gota you got to remember soap boxing isn't all about winning. It's about looking cool
while you're doing good stuff, you know?
Uh so you want to be you want it to go forward right with the backbox in the back so people can like you know so it looks cool but really not aerodynamic.
If If you don't know what Soapbox Racing is and you're watching this uh later on VOD or whatever, I do urge you to go check it out. Soapbox racing is uh comedic, usually overseas, sometimes Red Bull influenced, and they are uh artistically designed things that barely roll uh down a track that has uh hay bales on both sides with a few uh oopsy moments along it. Usually like a chicane and then some sort of like bump to get over. And uh the bottom, they never make it to the bottom. It always completely falls apart in some sort of comedic fashion. Highly entertaining. Definitely go check it out.
Yeah, I've watched so many of those things, man. Like it that was a big vice of mine for a while is watching the Red Bull Soapbox derbies that it's so entertaining and like some people are you're you're just like I really hope those people are okay and they jump up like after being smashed down into the concrete. You're like, "How is that person not hurt?" Right. Like what?
It's the adrenaline. Most of their bones are broken.
Yeah. Yeah. They're fine though. They're fine in the moment and then they go, you know, off camera and they're just like
Johnny Flash is saying that Boy Scouts used to do that that they that they would really race that. So apparently we have the Boy Scouts of America to thank for Red Bull taking it over and making it some sort of international television event.
Yep. Absolutely.
Well, I tell you, fantastic. Thank you that we're hitting an hour and a half and honestly I could just talk to you forever about pinball stuff, but uh you know I do want to maybe start to wind it down a little bit if there's any last questions that you feel are uh imperative stuff that maybe we haven't covered already. I know that everybody wants to know. Someone asked what your dream theme was. We had talked about that earlier. That's That's a no no Scott Danesi question by the way.
Yeah, nice try. I see what you're doing. I see you
in chat. Let's go back and see who asked that. Thinking that they were going to get that secret info.
What What is it about the an IP that is your favorite that you feel is that you got to protect the concept of? That doesn't mean you're making it as a pinball machine.
Well, so here's this. You ready for this?
Charmery, his dream theme is Godzilla, right?
Well, he's going to be extremely excited to know that there are multiple Godzilla pinball machines.
I know. But his dream theme was making the Godzilla uh game like you know not you know obviously not uh at the same time as Stern right so he kept talking about Godzilla and he was going to do it and he was talking to Toho about it right the Toho original version Godzilla stuff and uh you know he was too slow to it and Stern got it before them
true
so it was like it was lesson learned man so if you got
don't be deterred by that right I mean look at Harry Potter Right. Harry Potter was a homebrew well before Jersey Jack decided to commit to making a Harry Potter pinball machine. A theme is a skill.
But if you're in if you're in the industry and you are able to pick themes, right? I wouldn't want to say like something that totally means a lot to me because what if I could actually get that? Uh it would be it would be amazing to do that. But you'd also don't want someone else stealing it out from underneath you.
There you go.
That does happen. It's that it's it's Scott loving this IP so much that it's not worth the risk. Respect. Respect. But I have to be honest though, Jabberg I can't even say the name. Already knows what your dream theme is.
Does he?
He said it right there. You want to say what it is?
No, cuz he said he says it's Baby Shark. And I'm just going to pretend like it's not Baby Shark. How about that?
Yeah. But you have been talking before we started recording this. You would not shut up about Baby Shark. Like you were like,
"Well, so I was I was just doing that to throw you off actually."
So,
okay.
Because I was like, I'm totally just,
you know, because like it's totally not like, you know, my thing, you know?
Yeah.
Like,
you know, like why would I want to have an awesome theme like that?
Yeah. I don't know. I'm not working on Barney the Dinosaur.
Yeah. I mean, who knows? I th I threw the BRB up just just for the hucks. Uh, okay. But in all seriousness, uh, thank you so much, Scott. I really do appreciate you taking the time to come on uh, this this ye old podcast and talk about cool stuff like everything that happened with TNA. Uh, I truly wish you the best in all of your future and efforts. I think I speak for the entire pinball community that we can't wait to see what's up next for Scott Danesi, whether it be at another company or your next original uh pinball design. If it's anywhere near as fun as TNA, man, hot damn. Hot damn.
Awesome.
Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the kind words. Thank you everybody in chat for listening and asking questions and just, you know, supporting honestly. Like, dude, this community has been insane about supporting this crazy stuff that I do, and I can't be more thankful. So, I'm humbled by that whole thing.
Pinball needs the support. Our hobby is so weird and like it just doesn't need to exist. Like these things like back here just like it's just such an oddity that is humanity and it needs to stay human and it needs to be nourished by all of us to try to make it uh, you know, as as popular as possible because more pinball is better. More pinball better. It is. It is. Absolutely. The more pinball the better. Absolutely. Keep going.
Uh so, how I normally send it off outside of rating and I do urge everyone to stay here for a hot second, but uh you know, we always ask our guests to plug anything that they want to. Obviously, you're not going to plug what your favorite theme is. Oh, I do have a really important question though. I see a few pinball machines back there.
Oh, yeah.
But I'm not seeing a lot of retro ones. Can I ask you a question about which of these retro games you might include with that lineup? I You got space for a fifth one back there. Uh,
I don't. That's a back there.
I'm going to give you these options. Here we go. You ready? Would you rather put a raven back there?
A raven back there.
Mhm.
Or a raven.
I'm probably gonna have to go with option three.
The third raven.
Raven. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a good choice. M
I can't I can't help but I talk about MN Retro Gamer a lot. I'm going to plug him in this podcast as well. This man picks up the memeiest pinball machines. His lineup is like gold ball, hard body, lady luck. He's on the lookout for a Raven. I mean, it's just like this is
mean pinball heaven,
dude. People like make fun of Raven so much. It's so silly to me because the game is actually fun. The sound on that thing, the soundtrack is great.
It does have an interesting soundtrack. That's true.
You know, the you know it's Rambo, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not. It's Raven, but they Yeah.
It's straight up Rambo and they put the female hero on there instead, which makes it 10 times cooler.
They advertised it as like the new evolution of Pinball Backlass. They talked about how this photo shoot was going to like revolutionize Pinball Backlass.
Well, I'll tell you what, too. If you look closely at that back glass, it's amazing. I mean, she's got an AK-47 in her hand and she's holding it backwards, so it's actually ejecting the stuff at her.
Yeah. And nothing says America like an AK-47 for sure.
Totally like shot from the hip. Right.
Right. Rainbow style.
Yeah. Like it it's crazy. It What a great back glass. Like seriously, I saw someone walking around with a Raven shirt on. I forgot where I was. some expo, maybe it was like Houston Arcade Expo or something, but they had an actual Raven shirt and it was amazing and I was trying to like run after them to like see if they'll trade shirts with me, but you know, I couldn't catch up.
I I got I have a Raven shirt. I could That probably was me.
Where was No, was it Houston, I think.
Oh, it wasn't in Houston. I can tell you where to get it. It's on Etsy. It's It's not So, Shay from uh Counterflip makes a lot of these like retro pinball uh t-shirts that I wear. He did not do a Raven one. Uh, but there is one. You can get that and Alien Star on uh on on Etsy if they're still available. Uh, I do have a legitimate follow-up question though because I I can't I can't not ask this cuz someone in chat is talking about pinball sound design.
What do you think is one of the most important or seminal like sound design pinball machines?
What What's the
any of any time period?
Of any time period.
Yeah. What What game do you think like really kind of like innovated and set the standard or or changed what the future of pinball sound design and music was?
Dude, sounding crazy. TNA did. But beside from TNA,
not your own [ __ ] Scott. Come on.
Well, it's it really like I forced Listen to this though. I forced people to listen to techno music. So that was that's something that I didn't expect people to actually like, right? That's that that was forced on there. Like that's that's actually legit techno music that's on there. That's funny. But
forcing people to listen to techno. Okay. But But games that aren't yours, Scott.
Correct. So, okay. So, games that not games that are not mine. Black Knight 2000 is the best pinball soundtrack um of its era, right? But stuff gets stuff got really good. So, we've got like even before that like TX sector, have you heard the heard the sounds that come out of TX sector? Yep.
Right. There's all these there's all these evolutions, right? Um
well, what soundboards were available for the time is usually what innovates the that moment.
Well, so I mean, and the sound designers had to use the hardware to its absolute maximum, right? Um there's a guy named Tim Fallon who actually didn't write music for pinball machines, but he was he wrote music for like NES games and stuff like that, right? So, but he was using hardware that was equal to what pinball had in it at the time. And it was um his stuff was blowing away everything and the that pinball machines were doing because this guy's talent was just ridiculous on how he used the actual hardware to how you're not supposed to use it. And then I think people started doing that in Pinball and started following behind that video game uh craze, right? So it and then adding speech in came in with Gorggar, right? Wasn't that the first one? That was the first one that spoke, right? This the problem with that question is that there's so many eras of huge like big milestones.
You got you got to pick one. You can do this.
I can't pick one. If I had to pick my favorite pick my favorite soundtrack out of any game ever, it would just be Black Knight 2000. Okay,
that would be like that's the I I don't know if I like the gameplay enough on Black Knight 2000 compared to other things though to like to say it's the best game ever made. But it is that and Swords of Fury are like Swords of Fury is right behind Black.
Swords of Fury kind of almost adopts that single playfield layout concept that you know that TNA has. I mean, I realize that there is a ramp, if you can call it that, on it. But
did you know that that ramp is actually the highspeed ramp turned sideways?
Is it really?
That highspeed one or two?
Highspeed one.
Interesting. That was one of my first pinball machines.
Also a game I think it was that Highspeed was the first one of the first pieces of music in a pinball machine if I remember correctly.
Yeah. You know Steve Ritchie wrote that, right?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
Pretty awesome. That's super.
Yeah, he's great. So, yeah. But anyway, yeah. So, that I got I've got problems when people ask me that question because there's so many good options and such cool stuff that's happened over the years that I
Sounds like the problem is you can't narrow it down.
I can't narrow it down. It's so difficult for me because it's just there's such good stuff and like everything is so special in its own little way. But yeah, Black Knight 2000's music is the best. second Swords of Fury,
which they put out on vinyl. Yours was put out on vinyl, too.
Did they put Swords of Fury out on vinyl?
Yeah.
Oh, it was that jackpot vinyl. That's right. That's right.
I wouldn't say it's like rocking to Tower Records or anything if you're old enough to know what that means.
But I actually don't have that vinyl. Um I don't know why I didn't get that.
I'm sure it's it's probably on uh what is it? discog somewhere.
Disc go look around discs.
Uh, all right. Well, enough on that. Thank you so much, Scott. I really appreciate your time. And, uh, let's go. Let's go see who's available to raid. Let's go make somebody's day. Um,
heck yeah.
Yeah. Stick around for a hot second so I can just say thank you and goodbye outside of all these, you know, people eavesdropping on our conversation. Uh, and if you have been eavesdropping on the conversation, I hope you've thoroughly enjoyed it. And, uh, yeah, look out for other cool stuff coming from Scott. Oh, you got to praise the great pyramid. Do it. Do the thing. Go like this. Go all praise the great pyramid.
Yeah, that's good. And then you got to say it. You got to say the thing.
The Great Pyramid.
That's right. Bye, everybody. Does your life lack purpose? Have you wondered is there anything more? Join the cult of pinball. The Great Pyramid accepts all into the cult of