SDTM Episode 52: Pirates of the Caribbean Pinball Machine Review - Deluxe Edition Part 2

Straight Down the Middle·video·1h 3m·analyzed·Mar 5, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

SDTM reviews Pirates of the Caribbean: art A/A+, layout A+, code A/A-, praising cohesive design and innovative wide-body mechanics.

Summary

Straight Down the Middle reviews Jersey Jack Pinball's Pirates of the Caribbean (Part 2), covering art, shots/layout, and rules/code. The hosts give high marks across all categories—A/A+ for art and layout, A/A- for rules and code—praising the cohesive design, innovative wide-body layout that avoids typical wide-body floatiness, and deeply coded ruleset inspired by The Simpsons Pinball Party. They emphasize the game's accessibility to casual players while offering competitive depth, and note the machine is production-ready despite being prototype.

Key Claims

Pirates of the Caribbean's playfield art is hand-painted, not clip art as initially suspected
high confidence · Eric Minier told the hosts during their visit that the art is hand-painted; hosts observed it looks like an oil painting up close
The game's wide-body layout uses a standard-sized inner loop (similar to Demolition Man) rather than typical wide orbits, making it feel like a standard body pin
high confidence · Hosts analyzed the layout extensively, noting Eric Minier 'took the best of both worlds' by closing off the back two-thirds and adding a third flipper while maintaining quick shot flow
The frosted/matte ramps are an intentional design choice for LED diffusion and durability, not confirmed as permanent across production models
medium confidence · Hosts praise the frosted ramps; Eric Minier mentioned these may be prototype frames and it's undecided whether they'll stay that way
Pirates code is comparable to The Simpsons Pinball Party with stackable modes and multi-balls, featuring five films with randomized modes
high confidence · Hosts directly state it's 'The Simpsons Pinball Party on steroids' with five films, five modes per film, five multi-balls, five mini wizard modes, and master wizard mode
The game features 22 selectable characters, each with unique powers and balancing mechanics
high confidence · Hosts discuss selecting characters based on both appearance and gameplay mechanics, noting some characters have drawbacks to balance them
Pirates has five subway entrances feeding into one subway plus one entrance between subways—unusual for contemporary pinball
high confidence · Hosts note subways are rare in Stern and Spooky modern games but this machine integrates them extensively
The machine is production-ready despite being a prototype they reviewed
high confidence · Hosts state they reviewed it based on substantial play time at multiple shows and note 'it's production ready' and they're 'not worried' about reviewing again later

Notable Quotes

“This is like an acrylic versus an oil painting... it's that rich and again it's just the colors, it's something that just draws me to it.”
Host (presumably Greg or Zach) @ ~5:00 — Describes the hand-painted art quality and color saturation of the playfield
“This might be one of the best shooting wide bodies ever. It really might be.”
Host @ ~18:00 — Strong endorsement of the layout design, highlighting how it avoids typical wide-body floatiness
“This code is a masterpiece. This code is a masterpiece. Now, is it the type of code set that I generally go for? Absolutely not.”
Host (Zach Sharpe, discussing Keith Johnson's code) @ ~28:00 — Acknowledges exceptional code depth while admitting personal stylistic disagreement with stacking-heavy design
“The Simpsons Pinball Party on steroids. Yes. That's what this is.”
Host @ ~29:00 — Direct comparison framing the ruleset's complexity and multi-ball stacking mechanics
“If somebody told you that they understand completely all the little multipliers, all the collecting gold, all the character advancements, if they tell you they know what's going on, their name is Keith Jeff Johnson or Eric Menier or Joe Tapp.”
Host @ ~38:00 — Emphasizes the extreme depth of the ruleset and credits the design/code team
“I understand this better than Dialed In!. I know that that sounds ridiculous.”
Host (Zach Sharpe) @ ~35:00 — Highlights Pirates' superior accessibility compared to notoriously complex modern Stern games
“He made man overboard where he falls off the ship ramp or shipping. Oh, my God, yeah. There's nothing more pirates about that.”
Host @ ~22:00 — Praises thematic integration of game rules with IP narrative
“Every single aspect of this is so deeply coded... and maybe the most deeply coded is 22 characters when you start this thing and it's not just for fun.”

Entities

Pirates of the Caribbeangame Jersey Jack PinballcompanyEric MinierpersonKeith JohnsonpersonJoe AipperspachpersonRaymond KatzpersonZach SharpepersonJack Sparrowperson

Signals

?
community_signal: Straight Down the Middle (Head2Head Pinball) giveaway campaign soliciting viewer-submitted memorable quotes/sayings from show hosts to win Star Wars laser-cut topper mod
high · Hosts announce giveaway mechanism: fans email SDTMPinball@gmail.com with favorite quotes; winner drawn in couple weeks; mod created by Jason Roofer available directly at mnpinball@yahoo.com for $45 shipped continental US
~
sentiment_shift: Positive reception to Pirates' accessibility; hosts note game is more comprehensible than Stern's Dialed In! despite greater code depth, suggesting strong balance of casual and competitive appeal
high · Host states 'I understand this better than Dialed In!' and describes ability to grasp basic strategy while acknowledging limitless depth for competitive play
?
design_philosophy: Multi-ball frequency criticism exists in community but hosts argue it's invalid critique based on designer skill obscuring true difficulty; compare favorably to Demolition Man which players love despite being 'strictly a multi-ball game'
medium · Hosts note 'people are critiquing it too heavy on multi-balls' but attribute perception to Eric's expert playstyle; contextualize as similar to well-received Demolition Man
?
design_philosophy: Eric Minier (first-time lead designer) deliberately balances wide-body shot variety with standard-body feel by using single inner loop instead of wide orbits and adding third flipper, avoiding typical wide-body floatiness
high · Hosts detail how Minier 'took the best of both worlds' and contrast with Demolition Man; note the game 'shoots fast' and 'doesn't float' despite being wide body
$

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.190

0:00

Are you ready for your next pinball machine? Call Flippin' Out now and choose from the newest and hottest pinball machines from Jersey Jack Pinball, Stern Pinball, Chicago Gaming Company, and American Pinball. Flippin' Out also offers the Escalera stair climbing hand truck. Visit now at FlippinOutPinball.com.

0:23

The wait is over. A revolution in LED lighting for your pinball is finally here. fully customizable full spectrum lighting from pin stadium lights order yours now at pinstadium.com check out pin graphics for the latest and greatest in pinball enhancements power blades blade skins pin blades and even more visit pingraphics.com now to see what's available for your pinball machine marco specialties same day shipping accessible website exceptional customer service and with over 50,000 different pinball parts in stock, Marco Specialties is a must for every pinball enthusiast and operator. Treat your pinball machine right by visiting marcospec.com now. Mr. McNally, sir, could you please emphasize... Yarrr! A little heavier, please? Oh, yeah, mate, no problem. Yeah!

1:27

Thank you. Ooh, I'm fired up now. I'm fired up. Do you like that intro, huh? It's nice. It only took me about 14 and a half hours to get that thing. It's not that great. All right, I'm fired up because we get to review Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, the long-awaited Pirates of the Caribbean. This is part two of our deluxe review. Yeah. Deluxe review part two. We had a great time out there. Thanks again. We had to break it up. Yeah, thanks again to the JJP crew, especially Eric Menyer, especially Keith Johnson, especially Joe Katz, and the whole crew up there. They were nothing short of just awesome to us. Agreed. We consider ourselves friends now. Thank you, fellas. Thanks, guys. No matter what we may say during this, we will remain friends. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, regardless if we go up or not, all bets are off at this point. We love you. It is. This is the real deal. This is what we do. All right. So, anything we need to... Oh, you know what? Before we start, we had Crazy Jay, Jason Roofer, reach out to us. and he wanted to donate a mod for us for Star Wars. Yes. And I thought, oh, we'd love that. We'd love to give that away. Yes. So we're going to give that away in a... How are we going to give that away? I got an idea. All right, so this is... If you guys can see that. I think it's really sharp. Oh, my gosh. It's brushed aluminum or brushed stainless 16-gauge laser cut with clear imagery. It is very clear. It says, use the force, light speed, fire. So this thing is missing on the Star Wars. You get this big, beautiful machine. You're missing this. I mean, this is... I do think it adds a lot to it. It's in the head. So it's nice. It's got 3M adhesive. It goes on really easily. He wanted to reach out to the SDTM viewers and give this away. So what we're going to do is we're going to give this away by means of email. Where do they need to email us at? They can Facebook us. You can Facebook private messages. Facebook messages, yeah. Or you can email us. Tell them about the email. SDTMPinball at gmail.com. Yes. That's SDTMPinball at gmail.com. You can win that. All you've got to do, the fans of the SDTM show, we want you to message us one of your favorite sayings or quotes that you've heard Greg or I say or anybody on the show. We want to compile those. And if you're kind enough to give us one of those memorable moments from the last year, we're going to draw a name out of the hat here in a couple weeks. and we're going to send that to you. In the meantime, if you want one of these and if you have a Star Wars, why wouldn't you? Right? I agree. You'd have to ask this. I do agree. I do think it's really awesome. Absolutely, because it's on all the other Steve Ritchie games. You've got Star Trek like that. ACDC's all got that. You need this. And the Star Trek really stands out. And they're cheap too. This thing is $45 shipped into the continental U.S. and it's $52 shipped internationally. So get a hold of Jason Roofer, Crazy J, at, listen, here it goes. Get your pen ready or your pencil. or your quill, mnpinball at yahoo.com. That's the letter M as in Mary, N as in Nancy. Well, hell, it's on the bottom of the screen. And he really did do a good job. The TIE Fighters are really sick looking. Oh, they're absolutely. It's a little bitty intricate detail. It says fire and light speed. Yeah, it really is very well done. Yeah, so we want to send this to you, lucky winner. And if you don't win, go ahead and order one from him because this is needed on your lock. It's not a lot, stick it on any machine. That's right. all right so in typical SDTM fashion let's start with art this is Pirates of the Caribbean by Jersey Jack now people are gonna say Greg why are you guys rating this this isn't even in production yet what do you guys jump in the gun here but we were able to get quite a bit of time we played it at Chicago we played it at Louisville Expo we got to play while we were in Chicago with Eric and Joe and Keith so we've actually put a substantial amount of time yeah on it for it to be a and prototype pin how developed this thing is oh it's very developed yeah it's i mean it's production ready yeah really i mean yeah yeah so this is based on the prototype i guess we'll review it again if we need to in a year but yeah i'm not worried about that no all right so let's start with art does the art stand out the art stands out tremendously like the i love the art okay um you know and i'll tell you what the colors like like jjp has the the color saturation and it really is the way that their colors work on a play field is gorgeous but even that that trans light around the lcd screen is actually looks very vintage pirate yes it is very gorgeous but that play field is so beautiful and i thought that it was just a quick photoshop look like clip hearted clip art heads yes that's what we thought but eric told us it's hand painted when you go up and look at it really close yeah it looks like an oil painting it does it is that rich that's how it's like an acrylic versus an oil painting yeah it's that rich and again it's just the colors it's something that just draws me to it now the going into it i honestly did and i told you on the trip up there i said i think the art might be the thing holding it back yeah But when I went in person and you see that cabinet, see my favorite is that side cabinet. I like the side cabinet. Of all their portfolio faces. It is. Oh my. Well, but again, it's one of those things that I love that I always find so important is the cohesion of a pin. The play field matches, the cabinet matches, the trans light. It all is one beautiful art piece in conjunction. You know, the play field doesn't look different than the side art. The side art doesn't look out of place with the play field the way it's lit up or anything else. I mean, look at, if we take another Pirates pin, look at Black Rose. Yes. Or even look at Stern's Pirates of the Caribbean. They said very traditionally, Pirates are, you get a little bit of blue from the water, but mostly you're going to get tans, you're going to get browns, you're going to get reds. They could have went that route. But for these guys, this artist went pops of color and he found a way to make it look fantastic. I agree. So much so you're an A. Yeah. An A on art. Yes. I would have never thought. Because, like, okay, and that's a good comparison. And I like Stern's Pirates. I do. But if you look at that back glass, you can never light that back glass up according to the play field. It looks off. And you've got all the blue surrounded by the map, the brown, the tans. It's just not a cohesive pen. This is juicy. It looks juicy. Freaking stellar. I gave it a B+, because I can't give it an A, because to me, A is just in its own league. This is not in its own league. It is definitely beautiful. There's really no action scenes. When I think pirates, I think kind of action. I can understand that. So I've got headshots, and I like. everybody uh is worried about the johnny depp guess what johnny depp's in there yeah jack sparrow is in the game he's he's the biggest head on the play field he's the biggest head on the side of the cabinet yeah um until you go to the ce then the ce you have david jones at the bottom in the place of jack sparrow still looks good oh it looks fantastic yeah it is different it is different the artist the art's fantastic it's phenomenal you're gonna see a trend here of what we're going through this game's special guys this game is special this game is special in a lot of way so we'll keep going shots and layout so this is a first time designer a lead as a lead designer did he just totally botch it no what you give him tell him what you gave him for shots and layout i was an a plus that kind of laughed at me that's awesome and i i'm i'm not kissing eric's ass um but no like like the thing is that i like and i i i'm not i haven't played the vast number of pins that you have or a lot of people like I played a lot of pins but I haven't played a vast number so some of these things may have been uh recreated or something else and and other pins or something else I don't really know what are you talking about I'm just I'm I'm I'm I'm rambling it's you have an a plus I was at an a go ahead damn bastard um so like you know like that far out lane like I like that that far out lane is not your drain lane yeah and that it goes back in it's your middle lane that's your your drain no that is cool I like that it's like a outland crossover yes I do like yes and so I enjoy that that's different and it builds a lot of speed coming down to that left flipper yeah which is hard to deal with or get used to yes and then he's got the saves on the outside like I like that and I thought I got to say this when we were up there and I was watching Eric play those because I I played it and I saw the outlay but I'd I never really tried to nudge it and mess with it too much. But watch it. Eric said that there's a post there. And that post, he's going to supply rubber with it. Because it makes it a little more difficult. And I thought, watching Eric play, he'd save the shit out of that ball. And I'm like, dude, that pen needs to come with that rubber. Because it's too easy to save that ball. That's true. But I played it more and more. I couldn't save the ball that easy. Oh, could you not? he might have played it 10,000 times that's what I'm saying so I was judging it from the designer playing it but the nice thing is about having that option of that rubber is if you get too good at saving it yeah like Eric is I'm not and there's two spots that you can change the rubbers yes you can take them both off put one on put one I mean yes there's different levels but you can put that rubber on there and up the difficulty no different than changing your out your your post or anything else so I like that but and again the ship I mean we've had some upper play fields but the rocking ship the cannon um i love the the what's the swirly whirlpool thing called oh the maelstrom yeah like i love that that's not just a ramp it's a diverter that puts it the it's a neat shot like i one of my favorite shots this sounds so stupid i'm sorry i'm rambling but like i love i love this part of you i love when you start the mode up in that magnet area and the post comes up and it's slinging it around in there bouncing it around i don't know why i like that but i just so there's so much different stuff to this pin is why that i ranked it so high you make me want to do an a plus yeah because i think shots and layouts on indie that's one of my you know that's one of our highest ranked pins another wide body another white one look at you so weird it's coming around so weird about this but that like there's so there's so many cool shots on this we could go on and on and on an episode just about the shots yeah that's my favorite thing about the pin i'm the nice thing is uh a lot of people hear wide body like you and you're like you shrill a little bit this plays like a demo man wide body because you've got you really you have your loop that is structured around a standard size inner loop which is one of the most fantastic shots on the game the inner loop that like that shadow loop um and it's used for so many different ways and then you've got instead of like demo man how you have two left lanes are just captive falls this is literally it's always going to be over there it's a scoop and it's a turnaround with a uh with a subway entrance in there but not only that unlike demo man because demo man to me i love the pin is a it's a standard body pin in a wide body because the two the two left lanes they act as you know you don't really use them but on this pin off to You're literally using the entire pin because you're through the pops on the right. Like you said, there's that scoop. There's the orbit over here. You literally use that entire thing, but it shoots so fast that it's smooth. That's what Demoman feels good. If you've got a good, strong flippers on Demoman, that doesn't feel like a wide body because it doesn't float. That's a good point. It shoots fast. It's not like the Hobbit where you're waiting for the ball to come to you or anything. or it's just floating around up there and up slowly up the ramp. These are good, quick, standard body shots. They are. The argument that I would make of why the shots and layout is so terrific on this, because what Eric Menyer did was he took the best of both worlds. He knows that when it comes to wide body, we love as players having a number, an array of shots. Wide as we can, we want to stuff as many shots in. but a lot of people don't like the wideness of orbits on wide body so he said okay i'm going to give you all of the shots out of the out of the flippers the main flippers i'm also going to close off that back two-thirds so that you don't have those big wide orbits i'm going to give you your standard orbit that you love that's a damn good point i'm going to add that third flipper that everybody loves that repeatable i mean just those three little techniques right there makes the best foundation that you can in a wide body yes this might be one of the best shooting wide bodies ever it really might be yeah honestly it really might be and then that's not all then you got inner loop you've got i like the shots and layout um the ship is cool enough but he designed it in a way where if you hit that right ramp a lot of times you're going to hit a spinner uh those sails oh yeah i've hit it i've hit it quite a few times that's straight up and i'm automatically into it and if you guys haven't seen our uh our part one uh deluxe review where the designer and the coder go over it he'll tell you how he dialed in that inner loop shot to make it perfection yes i agree uh another shots i like is the behind the flipper oh behind the bayou it feels good you hold it up very good oh again that why that like some people got so many people got mad that i i i compared it to twilight zone it doesn shoot like twilight zone no but I talking about all the different shots and all the hidden shots that Twilight Zone has This is like that Yeah. But better because Twilight Zone to me is a lot of up that center. It is. And this isn't. It's true. It's varied.

Eric Minier designed the game to feed the third flipper frequently as a core gameplay strategy

high confidence · Hosts reference Eric's intentional design philosophy and note the Treasure Chest lock mech was redesigned during prototyping for easier shot access

Host (discussing Keith Johnson's code) @ ~31:00 — Emphasizes that every game element has meaningful depth and balance

“You can open anything up. You can stack anything damn near... there are five films. There's five modes randomly selected for each film. There's five multi-balls. There's five mini Wizard modes. Complete it all. Master Wizard mode.”

Host @ ~30:00 — Summarizes the core ruleset structure showing the game's modular complexity

“It's like they said, okay, I was able to grasp and comprehend that game. So on location, I could play that game and have a fantastic time... But it has so much depth that I don't already understand that it's going to appeal to competitive players.”

Host (Zach Sharpe) @ ~39:00 — Articulates the balance between casual accessibility and competitive depth that makes the game appealing to both demographics

Flippin' Out Pinballcompany

Chicago Pinball Expoevent

Louisville Pinball Expoevent

market_signal: Star Wars laser-cut mod by Jason Roofer available for $45-$52 shipped; aftermarket demand for toppers/hetkits noted as necessary aesthetic enhancement across multiple Stern games (Star Trek, etc.)

high · Hosts explain topper need: 'You get this big beautiful machine. You're missing this' and note it's standard on other Steve Ritchie games at Stern

personnel_signal: Eric Minier confirmed as first-time lead designer on Pirates of the Caribbean; represents trust in emerging talent at Jersey Jack Pinball

high · Hosts repeatedly reference 'first time designer as lead designer' and emphasize game's quality despite this; praise shows confidence in Minier's capability

announcement: Pirates of the Caribbean by Jersey Jack Pinball is being reviewed as a production-ready prototype; hosts have extensive hands-on experience across multiple show events (Chicago, Louisville) confirming advanced development stage

high · Hosts state 'it's production ready' and 'we're not worried about reviewing again later' after substantial play time; game shown at Chicago and Louisville Pinball Expos

product_strategy: Pirates features 22 selectable characters with unique powers and individual balance mechanics; ruleset based on five films with randomized modes per film, creating significant replayability differentiation

high · Hosts discuss character selection system and note each character has 'special power' with some having drawbacks for balance; five films x five randomized modes structure explained

product_concern: Hosts initially concerned Pirates art might be 'clip art' or photoshopped, but confirmed as hand-painted after in-person inspection; frosted ramp diffusion design may be prototype-specific and not confirmed for production

medium · Hosts admit initial skepticism; Eric Minier confirmed hand-painted; frosted ramps described by Eric as uncertain for final production ('we don't know if I'm gonna stay that away')

technology_signal: Pirates integrates subway features uncommon in contemporary Stern/Spooky games; five subway entrances feeding one subway plus inter-subway routing noted as unusual modern implementation

high · Hosts note subways are 'hard to get into contemporary pin' and rare in Stern/Spooky; praise the five-entrance integration as distinctly themed