All right, let's go with something I'm calling Don's Pinball Podcast, episode number 77-1, day one of Expo. Let's talk about all the awesome, amazing things that happened today. DPP 77, what's going on? It is Thursday here at Expo, and we just had the first full day of Pinball Expo 2023, and everything that comes along with that. So come along with me on a journey. I'm just going to go through the most amazing day that I had today. Let's recap everything. So let's just start. Let's go chronologically. This morning, 8 a.m., I'm down out in front of the bus pickup area of the Renaissance Schomburg Hotel and Casino and Convention Center for the Stern Factory Tour. And that's what we did first thing. I was on bus number three. I got there, departed. We went to this cavernous factory. It's half of a FedEx distribution warehouse center. It must be like 700 billion square feet. So we go there. were greeted at the door in the lobby by none other than gare bear himself and a ceo seth and we went in in groups of 10 and got to do a little quick meet and greet and like photo and what have you with gary stern of stern pinball um from there we were ushered in we met our tour guide for the day Brian Eddy who you may know as lead designer for venom stranger things attack from mars and believable madness and all everything mandalorian all those games he was our tour guide you know for the tour. So I was there. It was myself, Kaz, and Flip N Out Pinball Bros, and we toured through the factory. Now, they weren't allowing photos after the initial Gare Bear encounter until you got all the way to the end of the merchandise gift shop. So we couldn't take photos along the way. So I have to just use my sonic abilities to paint the picture for you. So this huge cubicle farm, that was very well done. It looked a little sci-fi as the area is all brand new, renovated. Only about half full, but there must have been about 200 cubicles there for everybody, for marketing, for art, for research, for reach out, whatever, game development and everything. There was a back area that we didn't get to go into, which is like where the new product development is, and that's where you would see things like Indiana Jones and Jaws and Back to the Future and all these future themes that are coming out that we have to stay tight-lipped about. Security was pretty tight. They had people posted to make sure there weren't any runners. No one's going to go running, picking around a corner to see what their next game would be or anything. From there, we managed to go right into the factory, and it was like walking into Wonka's frickin' Wonderland. So, you know when you go to Ikea, and at the end, you just enter that cavernous warehouse, it's just like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? That's what it felt like. We walk into this place, and there's just a huge assembly line of people, all cordoned off into sections, people running miles of wire harnesses for the games. We got to see where the wires are laid out, where their clips are put on, where the Molex connectors are going, and just on from there, like it starts. each game has its own code name, too. And so on the templates for the wire harnesses, they were there as well. You know, so you saw Waffles and you saw Jaws, and, you know, Jaws being the code name for Jurassic Park. Waffles, I think, was the one, not for Stranger Things, but for, what was it? Goonies was the one for Stranger Things. I don't know. They didn't tell us what Waffles was for. Falcon was there. Who knows what that went to. But, you know, it's just as fun to see, like, this is the place where they are now putting all these things together. It was amazing to see these wire harnesses go together by hand, and the very talented people putting them together. Moving through, it was just bins and bins of parts of all sorts of Mollusk connectors, everything you would need to put a pinball machine together. We walked the entire line. We got to see the presses where they take all these freshly painted and powder-coated or clear-coated playfields, and then they stamp all the holes in them for the connectors and everything, for pins and screws and things that are going to go in later. There's one machine that does it all. Apparently, it's from the old Gottlieb factory, and it's still in use to this day. They were stamping Deadpool Pro playfields right there. It was just fun to be there. There was an energy there. I wanted to take pictures of the whole process, but, of course, that wasn't allowed. Moving down, I mean, it felt like it was a quarter mile of a whole assembly line, and everything was going from initial connectors to mechs being put in to play field finalization and then all the way to testing all the way in the back. Now, they've got room for two huge parallel lines, and right now there's one that's not even populated yet. And so they were cranking out Venom Pros, Venom Premiums, and Deadpool Pros today from what I saw. There was another section where this lady was working on toppers. There's a couple of ladies. They were screwing together Rush toppers right now. They were screwing together Elvira toppers. There was a ton of Elvira toppers already assembled, like ready to go. So it was great seeing like whole pallets full of topper boxes like ready to go out. It's like, you know, here's like 75 Elvira toppers getting ready. So if you want to get you that Elvira topper, they're putting together right now. And they're running Rush toppers again right now too. I saw that with my own pupils. So if you're waiting for your Rush, that's going to be coming out. And I have a feeling like we're going to get bombarded with back stock catch up with all of the back orders and everything. You know, behind there, there was just floor-to-ceiling racks like you were at Costco or something, just of backstock parts, you know. I was talking to Brian Eddy. Like, if you give the signal, like, we're going to change the line over and we're going to run something else, like, how long does that take? Because they have to go into the backstock and populate the entire assembly line before they can get to work. He said it takes, you know, one to two days to do that process, and then, like, they're turned around and ready to go. Fantastic. This factory is working at such an amazing clip. But we saw the area where the vinyl graphics could put on the cabinets. The cabinets go down to get assembled. The playfields go on the cabinets. They get tested. It's all one big, long process, all on one floor, efficient as I can imagine it could be. And with as many games as they're churning out of this place now, they don't even have the other line populated and fired up yet. So the capacity of this place is unreal. I wonder if they almost would get into contract manufacturing with all this extra capacity they're going to have. Getting down to the end, it seemed like we were in there for two hours, but it must have only took like 20 minutes. But there's just so much overload of things watching this factory being put together. Clean floor was not a dusty factory at all. These things are being assembled in a high-quality facility, like you would expect from Big Daddy Stern. And then towards the end, you see these pallets of final products ready to go out, like boxes of everything from side armors to other accoutrements, pallets full of toppers, like pallets of pallets of toppers. I couldn't believe how many toppers I saw. Then when we get to the end of the tour, there was an area that was cordoned off with tarps, so we couldn't see through it to see what was over in that product development area. But then they had a gift shop and right out in front of the gift shop and you seen these pictures on App Arcade by now for sure the Elvira Blood Bread Kiss Edition from Stern Pinball It's another LE run that they're doing, 500 machines. Now, I had heard the rumors, and the rumors were correct, that they were going to run Elvira's House of Horrors. Fantastic game. I've got one. But they were going to do it in a black and white edition, right, except with red highlights. and I thought, how do you take a game as gorgeous as the purple and ghoulish Elvira House of Horrors and suck away all the color and then try to make it work? And I'm like, how's that going to work? It freaking works. The back glass is black and white. Everything is black and white except for Elvira and her lips and her dress is sparkly red. Like if your fingernails were totally on fleek, that's what this looks like. Like sparkle, glitter, red. And then the highlights through the play field. At the bottom of the play field, I must not have really noticed this before, but there's an inflatable flamingo with a gargoyle floating on it, and that flamingo is just bright, sparkly red against a black and white background, and it just pops so well. The art blades that are in there look great. They have the shooter rod from the 40th Anniversary Edition, which isn't my first time seeing it, and I didn't realize that it is just a plastic housing with plastic jewels in it. I thought it was like an actual metal sword handle or dagger handle, but it's plastic. It feels pretty flimsy. I don't think it lives up to the quality of the rest of the machine. The graphics on the side are that, you know, it even surpasses foil. Like, there's a texture all through it. It looks like it's lacquered almost. It's the same kind of print that you would see on the Elvira 40th anniversary, but it seemed like it worked even better with this one. So, yes, the black and white playfield art looks great. The red really pops, but the art on the cabinet is really an unsung hero here. That's really what you're buying with this edition. The Shearer Rudd's the Shearer Rudd. Grab a topper. They'll be $1,000. They'll be available soon. But, man, this machine looks amazing. I was tempted to consider putting my 40th anniversary light up for sale just to get this one. It's a great game. If you were waiting for an Elvira, this is a definitive edition to get. The back glass is gorgeous. The thing stands out. It pops better than the 40th. I can't even believe I'm saying that. It's got the same cut armor on the side, but it's got the black with glitter through it, powder coat. Man, just chef's kiss. Great machine. I mean, like, Stern, you're making things we didn't even know we wanted. Otherwise, at the end, you know, there was some hats and T-shirts and hoodies and things for sale. They had the Stern pop bumper lights, 449, did a live stream. Everybody's shown that. I mean, it was just a fun time, right? So that's how the day started. Okay, following that, we got back to Expo at around 10 o'clock or so. It was a little bit before 10. I was able to, through some associations, get access to the show floor and get my butt over to Barrels of Fun, to their booth with Labyrinth. Now, they had four Labyrinths available to play. One of them was fully dressed with the upgraded back glass, the gold mirrored back glass. The topper was up on there. It was functional, although I couldn't really hear the call-outs too much. But the eyes were lighting up red. The Nibbler shooter rod was on there. All the accoutrements that you can buy for this machine were there. I got to just go around and take pictures of the whole thing, look at the art up close firsthand. Johnny Crap was there who did the art for it. It turns out it's not his real name. It's Anamda Plume there. But cool guy. The art looks great. I mean, look at the pictures of the characters. But seeing it in person, it really does live up. The art blades look like they're a better print quality than just a simple vinyl. So I did appreciate that. And I liked all the nuance of things along the play field. So I got to play a couple games there with my boy Brian Cause. and it's just a fun game. It's not Black Knight Sword of Rage, like shooter, fast, furious, drain monster. Take some nuance. Take your time with the shots. Try to get the modes and things. There's a whole lot of stuff to shoot. It's not a simple fan layout. It's all over the place. Little nooks and crannies and things. Little spots in the play field that you're like, I wonder how I get in there or I wonder how I activate that diverter. I wonder how I can get in here to make that little worm character say things. If you like the theme at all, this is a complete machine, man. These guys just are swinging for the fences right out of the gate, and I think they're nailing it, especially with the price at $10.60. Because I had pre-ordered, I even got a free T-shirt, so that's fantastic. So that's a deal they have going on throughout while supplies last. If you go ahead and do get in on one of these, which I still have them available as of now, you can just have a T-shirt too, and go ahead and grab a topper. They don't have any toppers or anything for sale now to take with you, which is what I really wanted to do. They have 10 games total. Tomorrow night is the pizza party where they're going to have all their games out. We'll have more times to play them. All the games are spoken for that are currently there. But I'm trying to work some angles so I can get myself an early media copy or something, like a full-price copy, but one for home so I can get on the live stream. If things align, if the stars align, even though the stars are crazy, even though the stars are blind, I'll show you your love and you'll show me mine, Paris Hilton. I'll be able to live stream this thing from Expo. I don't know if the Wi-Fi is going to hold up. I need to get some access to it. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. I talked to Mr. Brian Savage, who's the chief business officer for Barrels of Fun Pinball. Super helpful guy. And he's really trying to help me with the outreach and everything. So we can get the word out about how cool this game is. But I played it myself, completely unbiased. I'm paying full price for this game. And I am happy about it. And I want to get this game into my game room. And I'll sell a couple things to make room if I need to. I do enjoy this game. For me, this is what I look for in pinball. adventure to play. Something that will be fun, not so much score-driven. It doesn't have to be a tournament monster for me. I just want to go on a cool adventure in pinball in this Jim Henson world. Every time somebody started the mode with the Dance Magic Dance song, that was it, man. I'm happy about my deposit. These guys are great. They'll be here for all of Expo. Get down here if you can, if you want to play this hands-on. Hopefully, I'll have a stream. I'm going to try my best. but they were very gracious to me earlier on today so thank you so much Labyrinth people for being awesome Barrels of Fun is their name it's not Balls of Anything next door down the road I happened across Turner Pinball got to meet Chris Turner what a cool guy charming personable he's made a pinball machine you guys a pinball machine that looks a little different than what you would expect now I'd heard that it was like a half-sized pinball machine and I was like wait what But all right, so I walk up to this thing. The cabinet is half the depth of a normal cabinet. Now, the classic cabinet that we're all used to is mostly empty space. So he decided to not waste that space and just shorten the depth of the cabinet But it is a bit striking to see that given what we used to of being a pinball machine And this thing is obviously not as big as a normal pinball machine is The legs are really long. She's got long legs, you guys. She's got legs. She knows how to use them. Ninja Eclipse. So let's just talk about the gameplay. I played a couple of games through it. There's no shooter route. It's a shooter button. There's a start button. There's no coin door. Get to that in a second. but it is a ninja world under the glass there. There's interesting things to shoot. It shoots well. It feels like it was engineered and AutoCAD was utilized to line up the shots because the shots were makeable. Nothing was brickable. I had a good time with it. There's some diverters in there. There's some physical ball locks and there's some cool toys. It's got like an ancient feudal Japan kind of theme. So there's a torii gate. There's a dojo in the back. There's some lanterns with some spirit lanterns with some flickering effects in front of that dojo that's in the back. I played into one of the modes. Essentially, you enter the mode, and it's kind of pick which one you want. There's a bunch of bosses you can battle. I think I fought a giant caterpillar. You know, and it was interesting. You know, there was roving shots. Oh, I will say, I did have a moment playing this game. It did something that pinball has not done to me before utilized. Okay, so here's the scenario. Across the mid-play field, facing each other, are two VUX scoops, right? Vertical up-kicking scoops. not dissimilar to the one that's on the right side of Elvira House of Horrors that ejects your ball. So in this instance, when you sink the ball into the right scoop, it shoots out directly across the play field into the left scoop, which then shoots out across the play field upwards towards the upper flipper. And all that can be fed by a, God, what do you call it? You know when your ball goes on the out lane and it gets shot out? Ball saver, ball reject, ball plunger, kickback. There's a kickback on the left out lane. Guys have been awake all day. The kickout on that left out lane will feed the right scoop, which feeds the left scoop, which feeds up to the upper flipper. So you can have this kind of cascading effect of the ball rocketing back and forth. It didn't work every time, but it worked enough times that it was something special that I haven't seen before. So don't just dismiss this game because it does look like a toy when you walk up to it because it's only eight inches deep and there's no coin door. There is some fun to be had there. There's also some innovations here that are interesting. So when you reach underneath, there's like a latch release, like you're popping your tailgate, and then the glass pops off. Now, there's LED strips that run the length of the glass. The glass is surrounded by a frame, so like the lock bar and the frame around the glass, the side armor are all one piece. The whole thing comes off, and there's no wires going to the LEDs. There's silver contact plates down in that lock bar area. So you can just take the glass off, put the glass back on. It was very easy to remove it as a whole assembly. This has to be some tech left over from the deep group assets that he got. And then the whole play field can just tilt up in the cabinet. There's no rails that it's on or anything. There's no, you know, like service position to put it in. There are rails to set it in a pseudo service position, but you don't have to necessarily, like, you know, be watching, you know, scraping the art blades or anything. Also, there's no art blades, but they said that that's a work in progress that they can add later. All right, so there's no coin door, and there was speculation that there was going to be a pin bar. Well, there's not that either. What there is is a phone app, apparently. So the deal is you download this app, and through that app you can purchase credits to play in the game, and maybe there's some interactivity or something there. And so he was thinking that you'll be able to put this thing commercially on a location and then have a way for people to know to download an app to buy credits for it to play this game. I don't know if that's been play tested yet. I didn't get into that deep with him today, but I'd like to go back again. I will say, in no uncertain terms, the gameplay was fun, and it was a bit compelling, and I thought it was interesting. And there's some interesting attributes to this game. There is a speaker out in the back for a subwoofer in the back of the backbox. If you want to go out to that, you can. There's an Ethernet port if you want to connect it to Wi-Fi or Internet if you don't want to use Wi-Fi, but Wi-Fi is available. That is it. Oh, how much does this game cost you? Well, it's $9,700. so there's that y'all can decide amongst yourselves where the value lies there but the game was fun and I want to go back and I want to play it some more and the guy is charming I did like the Turner dude so go Turner guy what else did we do I wandered over to Pinball Brothers I talked to them today the brothers from Svierge the Swedish guys with the factory near Milan Italy in the north there they've got Aliens and Queens on site so they had two champion editions and one Rhapsody of Queen I got to play that. It was fun to play the game again. Flippers felt a little bit weak to me, but I was able to make all the ramps. I had a good time. I beat the guy that I was playing with, so shout out to you, buddy. We had a good time with Queen. If Queen's your jam, that's your game. If you're not that into it, you're not that into it. I don't know how to convince you otherwise. Aliens, they had an LV there, a standard version. Their top version, their lower version, and then the Ellen Ripley version, which is kind of right there stuck in the middle. the limited version still looks pretty cool with those beacons on top, the standard and the Ellen Ripley, the new one, do not come with the beacons, but they come for like a hundred and something dollars, you can add them and add them to the topper, the topper was there so I will say this, the sculpts in the Ellen Ripley edition, they include they're made by Lior from Art of Pinball, right, our Israeli friend mine and yours so the xenomorph he's sculpted and the frame around the little screen that's in the game is a sculpt from him. It's cool that those are included. This game is retailing for $7,995, so it's under $8,000 for a wide-body alien adventure. The topper is extra. It's $1,300, and you've got to get the beacons, too, so you're up to $16 if you want the topper with it. There are Ellen Ripley assets from the movie that are in the code now. There's no new modes, but the video assets have been incorporated into the pre-existing modes from what they explained to me from the Pinball Bros there. The game's fun. You know, I got to play the LV for a while. You know, and it is really kind of a packed game with a good theme, if that's what you're into. It's got interesting mechanisms. It's got magnets. It's got four flippers. They're full-size flippers. You know, there's ramps on either side. There's some cool little areas the ball can slip through that are, you know, interesting and compelling. So, you know, this is a game under $8,000 for a wide body, four-year house, made by Pimbal Brothers, built solid, like it flips well. There it is. I felt like the flippers were stronger than queens were. I was able to hit targets, complete modes, get the xenomorphs going, lock the ball in its gullet. So it's still a fun game. So if you been waiting for an alien this might be the time to pick up an Ellen Ripley edition It seems to be kind of more a definitive edition although there is a little bit more cool embellishments on the LV version their top version that they call it. But it was fun hanging out with them for a while. What else did I do? I swung by Pinball Adventures booth. I got to meet Andrew in person, who is gracious as always. Punny Factory was there. Elements was there initially, up and running, and then had some board issues. I had to swap them out. There was some other packing materials that needed to be removed. And then later on in the day, the booth was kind of empty and both games were shut down and I couldn't find a cord to plug in to fire it up uh so I'm still waiting to play elements but I was able to see it I was able to see it powered up and that infinity mirror does look pretty cool I would like to get some games through there um and then I got to talk to him again about price I think we're around seven thousand dollars sixty five hundred seventy five hundred depending on the edition that you get I think that's where we're at I'll check with him again but again birch cabinet super strong I love the carpentry on the pinball adventures games and I was really looking forward to playing some elements I'll have to wait until tomorrow. It happens sometimes, guys. You go to the theme park, and the brand new Riot is down because it's new, and it's still having its kinks worked out. It happens, so I'm used to it. So we'll check it out there. Stern's booth was there. They have a big inflatable Venom. No red carpet this year. Stern Games everywhere. You've played them. If you want to play them some more, they're there. Jersey Jack had a booth with a blue carpet that was completely empty, but not for long, because they did reveal Elton John's... I was going to say Guns N' Roses. It was Elton John today. I saw the review videos. I went to the seminar. Steve Ritchie was talking about introducing everybody on the team, so I bailed. They had a couple of machines up there. I could see them all the way across the room. I was about 70 feet away, and you could just tell it's just a ball of LEDs going nuts. So I'm encouraged to go play that later. Tomorrow morning, Cromwell has thrown together a little media mixer thing at 8 in the morning that we're going to go check out on the show floor. I was very happy to be invited. I can't believe it. So I'm going to have some exclusive ride time, as we used to call it in the coaster industry. Some ERT with Elton John. ERT with EJ in the morning. Hopefully there's coffee and donuts. And I'll be able to give some playthrough reviews tomorrow on episode 77-2, right? God, I've been going all day long. I did my panel discussion with Matt Pinball. We talked about positivity in pinball, marketing to the public, trying to grow the hobby. I was there with the Angeli brothers from Ohio who have been operating for four generations. and they came up with cool ways to integrate new people into the hobby, people that aren't specifically pinball people but are just cool people in general, and we'd like to welcome them in. The more that we can bring in and generate interest in whatever our avenue is in pinball, the better it is for the whole industry. The more gross people that are into this, not just the gross ones, the more they'll be compelling companies to create more machines for all of us. So if you're another podcaster, get out there and get your content going, man. Let's do it. Let's collaborate. The more of us, the merrier. The more distributors there are that are successful, we're all going to be more successful. So we don't need to tear each other down in competition. Save that for the tournament, right? So, I mean, that went great. I went to the media mixer, you guys. Colin threw this great event. I won a T-shirt. Eric Mignore was there. Me and him got the job around for a little bit. I got to hang out with Barry from Dutch Pinball. What a gracious dude. Brian Savage from Barrels of Fun was there. Everybody's hosting. There was food. There were drinks. It was flowing. It was a good time. Pinball Sisters, what's going on? Thanks for listening. Thanks for being there and adding some kinetic energy to the fun. I played Pulp Fiction with Steven Bowden. Well, I watched him blow the game up, so that was fun. It's just a good time hanging out in an interior. I encourage you guys to go check that out anytime you're in the Chicago area. My God, I feel like I've been awake for 48 hours. My voice is completely gone. I got a couple of angry orchards in me and then I wandered the show floor for about an hour and I can't even remember all the things I talked about we were hanging out with Bug and Scoopy and Scoopy Spooky Pinball everybody's here, everybody's here, it was just a great day people ran into me the whirlwinders were in effect I gave out like five prize packs today I'm going to have some for tomorrow and I'm probably going to be gone because my popularity has grown faster than I was really anticipating but I am so very gracious and humble for that. Thank you, everybody that listens, that comments. People came up to me and they're like, Don, I'm on your Patreon, man. I like what you do. And it's like, gosh, dude, you're giving me $5 every month just to help me out, man. And it means so much to talk to a real human being that's doing stuff like that. People were buying the new t-shirts off of me. I'm doing a $20 special at the show because we don't have to worry about shipping. And I've been handing out stickers like a madman. So still, same rules apply. If you see me there, come up. You're going to get something. You're going to get a dab. You're going to get a high five. You're going to get a side hug. You're going to get a t-shirt, stickers, or a crude joke. You're going to get something if you come up to me. Other shout outs I want to do, Rocket City Pinball. Andy was there in effect with his buttons. They're looking great. He hooked me up with the blue wall full start button for Stranger Things. They're usually purple, but he did a blue one for me. I hope that guy didn't Google that. I'm afraid I may have scarred him. But he's got a new mod, him and Flip Mods, Rocket Flip, they're calling themselves. They have a new mod for the Daily Planet building, the Daily Bugle building for Venom, replacing that plastic with a 3D printed sculpt. So it's kind of cool, man. I just like, you know, what we're doing with our machines and tweaking them to our likenesses. And they're like our playground to play with, right? So pinball, pinball people, the reason I do this, I have fun playing pinball. I have even more fun talking to the people about pinball. Hanging out with the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast booth. They've got some crazy stuff for sale. This has been episode 77-1. There's going to be so much more coming, guys. Oh my god. I'm dehydrated. So if you haven't already, follow the Facebook page. I've been dropping content there constantly. It's still the quickest way for me to go on a live stream and we can interact. And I love that people have been jumping on. Pinball Expo is going on. We're going to have reviews of elements. So we're going to have reviews of Jersey Jack, Selton John tomorrow morning. I'm going to get some sleep and some rest. Like be ready to go again tomorrow. Thanks as always, you know, for joining your boy here. We are only here because of your efforts. And you know, the more you listen, the better it's going to get, man. Shout out to Josh Rue, my roommate from last night, man. He's here. We just had a great time meeting these people and seeing him in person, man. In mean space. Shout out to electric bat arcade, man. Kale and Rachel. We shared an elevator. guys. What's up? Everybody else is making content in pinball. Keep going, man. You keep me entertained. So I'm going to hear and entertain you. Stay positive, everybody. I'm going to bed.