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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast April 2021

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·2h 21m·analyzed·May 2, 2021
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TL;DR

Haggis expands with Fathom Revisited; HomePin relocates to Taiwan with veteran designers

Summary

April 2021 pinball industry overview covering Haggis Pinball's major expansion and Fathom Revisited announcement, HomePin's relocation from China to Taiwan and new design partnerships with Joe Balser and Jeff Bush, and industry infrastructure changes. Haggis projects 50 units/month production and is developing in-house back glass printing; HomePin is transitioning to Taiwan-based operations with plans for a new licensed title before Christmas 2021.

Key Claims

  • Haggis Pinball announcing Fathom Revisited as their second title and first in a planned series of classic game revisits

    high confidence · Official announcement by Haggis; editors discussing April 2021 news

  • Fathom Revisited launching in two editions: Classic ($9,500 AUD / ~$7,400 USD) and limited Mermaid Edition (limited to 250 units, $11,500 AUD / ~$9,000 USD)

    high confidence · Jonathan and Martin citing official Haggis pricing and edition details

  • Haggis expects 50 units per month production capacity in new facility

    medium confidence · Martin notes this as 'optimistic' and rare in industry; only Spooky and JJP achieve this; Dutch Pinball struggles to reach 8/week

  • HomePin relocated from China to Taiwan due to government inspections, authoritarianism, and personal/family reasons

    high confidence · Mike Kalinowski detailed account of December move; staff unable to follow due to Chinese passport restrictions

  • HomePin contracted veteran designers Joe Balser and Jeff Bush for new licensed machine

    high confidence · Mike Kalinowski announcement; 20-year collaboration history on Apollo 13, Baywatch, Batman, Hot Wheels, Wizard of Oz

  • HomePin's new licensed title must be completed before Christmas 2021

    high confidence · Mike Kalinowski states 'there is quite a strict stipulation in the contract that it be available before Christmas'

  • Haggis Pinball producing mirrored back glasses in-house, with potential to serve other manufacturers

    high confidence · Jonathan and Martin discussing Damien O'Shaughnessy's announcement of in-house screen printing capability

  • Fathom Revisited Mermaid Edition includes choice between original ruleset and new 2.0 version with mode-based gameplay and wizard mode

    high confidence · Jonathan and Martin discussing feature differences; Classic edition has original single speaker

Notable Quotes

  • “Well, pinball's easy Matt... people tend to change their mind after a while don't they”

    Mike Kalinowski (HomePin) @ mid-interview — Ironic opening establishing how challenging pinball manufacturing actually is despite surface perception

  • “It's like a breath of fresh air moving to Taiwan... you're not stared at like I was in China... here you're just another person they don't care they don't look twice”

    Mike Kalinowski (HomePin) @ Taiwan relocation discussion — Contrasts operating environment between China and Taiwan; reveals personal stress of China operations

  • “There's not that many companies that actually make that number of games. Probably only two, being Spooky Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball. And everybody else is lucky to get to 50.”

    Martin Lave (Pinball News) @ Haggis production capacity analysis — Industry context showing how rare 50 units/month is; underscores ambition of Haggis expansion

  • “I don't want to repeat what happened with Thunderbirds where we announced it and people were all excited and then I had a lot of misfortunes”

    Mike Kalinowski (HomePin) @ New license discussion — Acknowledges previous communication/delivery challenges with Thunderbirds

  • “We deliberately chose a theme that we felt would sell better in other markets that weren't their primary markets, such as England and Australia and New Zealand and Canada... This time around, we've got a theme that's very strong in America.”

    Mike Kalinowski (HomePin) @ Market positioning discussion — Strategic shift from Commonwealth-focused Thunderbirds to American-market appeal for new licensed title

  • “In China we had to make every single part because you simply can't import things into China that easily. You can't even order a book from Book Depository and expect that you'll get it.”

    Mike Kalinowski (HomePin) @ China operations context — Reveals systemic trade barriers that forced vertical integration in China; contrasts with Taiwan flexibility

  • “It's a bit early in the day to do that. Certainly, perhaps next time we have a chat, I'll be more at liberty to say something.”

Entities

Jonathan EustonpersonMartin LavepersonMike KalinowskipersonJoe BalserpersonJeff BushpersonDamien O'ShaughnessypersonBarrypersonHaggis PinballcompanyHomePincompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: HomePin production delays compound: Thunderbirds toppers promised pre-order buyers still pending (4 years late); new licensed title faces aggressive 2021 deadline

    high · Mike Kalinowski acknowledges 'I'm well aware it's very late' on toppers; cites Thunderbirds delays as reason for not announcing license prematurely

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball announces major facility expansion with ambitious 50 units/month target, signaling transition from boutique startup to significant manufacturing operation

    high · Martin notes only Spooky and JJP currently achieve 50/month; acknowledges this represents 'complete step change' and 'grown pains' for Haggis

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Fathom Revisited officially licensed through Planetary Pinball and Scientific Gaming Industries (Williams/Valley rights holder); first in planned series of 5 potential classic remakes

    high · Jonathan/Martin citing official licensing; Haggis considering 5 additional titles in remake series

  • $

    market_signal: HomePin relocates manufacturing from China to Taiwan due to government inspections, authoritarianism, and regulatory burden

    high · Mike Kalinowski detailed account of weekly inspections, staff restrictions, personal stress; notes Australian business contacts also facing visa difficulties

  • ?

    personnel_signal: HomePin contracts veteran designers Joe Balser and Jeff Bush (20-year collaboration history) for new licensed title

    high · Mike Kalinowski announcement; designs span Apollo 13, Baywatch, Batman, Hot Wheels, Wizard of Oz

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.424

0:00
Haggis announces Fathom revisited Homepin contracts two pinball industry veterans Heist beats Apollo 13 for multiball record Hi, my name is Jonathan Euston, I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined here with I'm Martin Lave and I'm the editor of Pinball News and we're here to look back at all the exciting events that took place in April 2021. Yeah, and you fancy the pinball industry, that is. Well, I think we can cover everything, can't we? It's a very quiet month apart from pinball. Well, what do you think of WrestleMania, then? Well, funnily enough, I was going to talk to you about that, but we'll do that after. Okay. Let's focus on the pinball stuff first. Yes. it's interesting the HomePin headline that you just had HomePin contracts two veteran pinball industry names, sounds like they got a disease, but it might be my poor English that if you contract something that might not be the best scenario, but anyway, turning that into a positive, we actually will have an exclusive interview with Mike Kalinowski of HomePin So stay tuned for that to find out. All the way live from Singapore. Right. So stay tuned to find out who he hired.
1:28
But let's start with probably the biggest news of last month. Haggis Pinball announcing Fathom Revisited.
1:38
Yeah, although they're busy building their current Celts game. Yeah. And they're being held. Well, they announced that the first production game been built, boxed, and was about to be collected by a buyer in Australia. Right, and that was it? And then the run was done? Yeah, it was a run of one. No, that was the landmarks that they announced. I'm sure others have been built and shipped since then. But yeah, as you say, the big announcement this month was that their second title will not be a completely brand new design. It will be the first of what they say will be a series of revisited game designs of classic games. And Fathom was the very first of those. And it was a bit confusing because they started doing a sort of teaser campaign, which after... It's the finals of five months. Let's mention that. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I've been on social media. We haven't heard anything from Haggis in five months, and then they started with this teaser campaign. So everybody was like, okay, what's coming up? What's coming up? Yeah. And there was this underwater video with a quote from what apparently sounded like one of the Jaws movies. Yeah, it was Jaws 2. It was just when he thought it was safe to get back in the water was the tag, which is from the Jaws 2 movie. And everyone thought, oh, yeah, Jaws game. Amazing. and I think it's almost like the next day it came out with another one about Pinball going back to its roots to where it all began and they were like, oh, maybe it's Jaws 1 then and then the next day it was the announcement of this remake of Fathom which is going to be brought out in two different editions there's the classic edition which is probably the truest to the original which comes in at 9,500 Australian dollars which, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the value of the Australian dollar against any other currency is about 7,400 US dollars 6,140 euros and 5,334 UK pounds and then there's the limited Mermaid Edition which is basically 2,000 Australian dollars more 11,500 which is just shy of 9,000 US dollars 7,400 euros and 6,500 pounds so the choice of those two the additional features on the Mermaid Edition are enhanced lighting effects enhanced audio system that the the classic one actually goes as far as to have the original single speaker on it which was found on the the original fathom game right cabinet it is yeah that's right yeah and uh but the the new mermaid edition also gives you the option to choose between the original rule set and a new 2.0 version of the rules right um which okay it's It's a nice feature on the Mermaid Edition. I think it would be something that would be quite easy to add into the original one as well, because it's software. So unless they put some checking in there to see which version of the game you bought, you'd think it would be easy to add those extra rules into the classic version as well. But the Mermaid one is limited to 250 units. there was a four week ordering window with a two week advance you're right, absolutely right two day advance window for those people who are members of the clan haggis membership which gets you some special features and also this ability to order the mermaid edition two days before everybody else but it does cost you money to join that, the Clan Haggis. I think it's about $90, $99 for membership. Australian dollars. That two-day period already expired by now, so if you're listening... Oh, yeah, that's right.

Mike Kalinowski (HomePin) @ New license question — Confirms new license exists but under NDA; teases future announcement

Planetary Pinball
company
Scientific Gaming Industries (Williams)company
Spooky Pinballcompany
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Dutch Pinballcompany
Stern Pinballcompany
Porschecompany
Fathom Revisitedgame
Fathom (1981)game
Thunderbirdsgame
China Zombiesgame
  • ?

    announcement: Fathom Revisited officially announced as first in planned series of classic game remakes; limited Mermaid Edition with mode-based ruleset innovation

    high · Jonathan/Martin detailing two-tier pricing, feature differentiation, and teaser campaign strategy

  • ?

    product_strategy: Fathom Revisited Mermaid Edition includes dual ruleset option (original vs 2.0 with modes/multiball/wizard mode); Classic retains original single-speaker audio design

    high · Jonathan/Martin discussing feature differentiation; noted as software-based feature potentially available to Classic via unofficial means

  • ?

    product_strategy: HomePin new licensed title contractually required delivery before Christmas 2021; theme described as 'very strong in America' marking strategic shift from Commonwealth-focused Thunderbirds

    high · Mike Kalinowski states explicit contract deadline 'a month or so before Christmas'; confirms American market pivot strategy

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: HomePin highlights trade friction in China forced vertical integration (even importing electronics via personal smuggling); Taiwan offers tax-free import of arcade/pinball parts for finished products

    high · Mike detailed importing ICs via Hong Kong to circumvent China restrictions; confirms Taiwan allows tax-free pinball parts import for production

  • ?

    technology_signal: Haggis develops in-house back glass printing/screening capability, creating potential secondary business serving other manufacturers

    high · Jonathan/Martin discussion of Damien O'Shaughnessy announcement; capability enables independent glass production

    • 6:07
    Yeah, that was at the announcement time, that was a benefit to Clan Haggis members. Right. So, as I say, this is the first of what's planned to be a series of remakes. Yeah, I understand They're looking at like five titles that they might be considering to look at or to do in the future as well. I have to note as well that this is all done in collaboration with Planetary Pinball, so it's an officially licensed product.
    6:43
    And also with Scientific SG Industries, Scientific Gaming Industries, which is the old Williams that owned the rights to Valley. That's right. Yeah, it's licensed through them as well, through Planetary Pinball. Right.
    6:58
    Well, it's obviously exciting news. Fathom is a very classic game. 1981 was a very good year for Bally, I would say. Very good titles came out in that year.
    7:11
    Yeah, it will be interesting to see. Personally, when I read what they were going to do with the Mermaid Edition with a more mode-based type of gameplay and multiple multiballs and getting to a wizard mode and what have you.
    7:32
    Not sure whether... I mean, leave the classic a classic. You know, it's already difficult enough to basically beat the game, to get the multiball going and, you know. But then again, there's players for who that is just not enough So I can understand But personally I think the rule set of the original is already difficult enough for me I agree, yeah I suppose it's nice to have the choice Which is available in the Mermaid Edition If that's your thing, if you don't want it, you don't have to use it Right, so And, of course, well, they'll be using their playfield technique, which is non-dimpling.
    8:21
    Yeah, but it's also not printed on the wood, is it? I'd always call it an overlay, because it kind of undersells what it actually is, but it's a layer of artwork on top of the wood, rather than being printed, either screened or... Yeah, but basically you're playing a large acrylic playfield with some wood underneath. Yeah, which I guess generally doesn't even need to be wood particularly. It's just that wood could be MDF, it could be anything underneath because it's the surface of the acrylic that you're playing. Yeah, okay, but if it works, it works, you know. Oh, yeah.
    9:00
    It will look amazing, and the good thing about it is 20 years from now it still will look amazing. Yeah, well it works well for Hardtop Who sell these large sheets That go on top of existing games To completely refurbish them So I think that's a proven technology And Haggis is I guess they've shown with the Celts game How tough their surface is Right, yeah So in other news about Haggis They also announced that they are expanding to a larger facility or new facility. Which I have to do, don't I? Yeah. And optimistically, I would say, they expect a production of 50 units per month. Now, the reason I say that's optimistic is there's not that many companies that actually make that number of games. Probably only two, being Spoon Pinball and Jersey Jack Pinball. And everybody else is lucky to get to 50. I mean, I know Dutch Pinball is trying, and if they have a very good week, they might get to eight games times four and a half, then you're still not at 50 games. So, of course, it depends on how many people you hire and everybody working in the factory.
    10:21
    And availability of parts. Yeah, exactly. because I was talking to Barry of Dutch Pinball last night and he basically said that everything has to align perfectly in order to get to eight games a week. You can't have anybody calling in sick or going on holiday or something like that. You need full capacity, everybody available, all the stars aligned. Nothing goes wrong And then you might get to 8 games a week So But then again They might have figured out A way to get to 40 games or 50 games a month So Hopefully We'll see them Show everybody else how it's Apparently done Yeah it's certainly a Complete step change for haggis from going from the number of orders, which you don't know how many orders they had for kelps, but you can imagine that it would be, what shall we say, 30 to 40, something like that maybe, and with a classic like fathom,
    11:38
    the orders are going to be in the hundreds. Hopefully for them, yes. Yeah, so they're going to have to really get their act together and produce a professional operation, because up until now, you know, it seemed very professional in the presentation of it, but it's still a start-up company, it's still a young business. It wouldn't be boutique pinball from a rented storage space. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah, now with this, and this being the first of a series of remakes or revisits, then it's turned into the big time really and it's become a significant force in the pinball business which is great, you know. But with that come certain growing pains and it's a different proposition as we've covered many times from building 30 machines to building 300 to 500 machines. Then you're into serious issues with employment of people and parts supplies and so on. But what's also what I found... Not being negative, but being realistic. Just looking to the future. Right. But what's interesting also is that Damien O'Shaughnessy announced that they will be doing in-house production of mirrored back glasses. They are able to print the back glasses or to screen the glass themselves, which is interesting obviously they will need to do that for Fatum but once they have the capability to do that they might as well do that for other games as well so that could be a little side business if they are in need of something like that yeah that's a nice additional source of potential source of backglasses particularly as they are working with Planetary Pinball So might be able to go back through back catalogue And produce some mirrored glasses That aren't currently available Right so And they also showed a picture of Some pinball legs using I think they called it Gerbil paint or something like that Which is actually a colour changing Paint That changes from green to purple Or something And the caption was something like Why stick with one colour Right yeah I guess it depends on the angle you're looking at it at. Yeah, nice. Yeah. So, plenty of options coming up, and congratulations to Damien and the Haggis Pinball team on their new announcement. Best of luck. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, look forward to covering all the developments as and when they're announced. Right. So, well, moving from Australia a little bit...
    14:35
    To an Australian. Yeah, well, but then in Taiwan. Yes. Let's call in Mike Kalinowski, the owner of Homepin. Hi, Mike, how are you doing?
    14:48
    G'day, Jonathan. Great to be here, and hello to you, Martin, as well. Long time no see. It is indeed, Mike. Yeah, great to hear from you, and I'm glad you'll be able to bring us up to date on all the exciting things that have been happening at Homepin over, well, since probably about the past year, I suppose, since we last spoke. well I'm not so sure it's excitement but more like a hard slog it's exciting from this end then but yes behind any pinball business there's a lot of hard work and yours I'm sure is no different in that regard but certainly very different in where you are and the challenges that you're facing well I've been told pinball's easy Matt yeah people tend to change their mind after a while don't they Some find out, yes. Well, as people probably know, Home Pin was started by me about 17, 18 years ago at home under my house making some replacement boards for pinball machines. They were just starting to sort of have a bit of a comeback, and the hobbyist was having difficulty finding some bits and pieces as it soon became obvious to me. So I started that business with boards, and then we sort of progressed along there, and opened the factory in China to build pinball machines, in particular Thunderbirds, our first machine. And we were there for nearly five years in that factory doing that. And January last year, well, it was actually before January last year, but some of our staff were telling us about some problems that were happening up north where their family lived in China and nobody knew what was going on, nobody could say, but they said there's big trouble and that's all they could tell us. This actually, it joined with some other problems we were having there. The previous 18 months had become quite difficult in China. You know, the authoritarianism, the inspections by every single department you can name and department you'd never heard of. It became a weekly thing. And it was becoming a real stressful problem. You know, you'd have inspectors just lob on your doorstep. And it's not an inspector with a clipboard. but it's like six people suddenly turn up, and they just waltz in and go through everything, and they might be looking at, for example, PowerPoint. So suddenly this week these PowerPoints are no good. You've got to change every PowerPoint in the factory. And, you know, I won't bore you with the detail, but it just became very, very difficult to keep my mind on the job. And there was other personal reasons, family reasons.
    17:20
    Amanda's brother fell ill, and he's the breadwinner for the family. So we had decided in late December to move stumps and get out of China and move back to Taiwan. She's from Taiwan. And that was our best option. I mean, being your girlfriend, just to clarify. Yes, well, she's now my wife. She was my girlfriend at the time. And she was helping me run the business there quite well, thank goodness. She'd been in China for 15 years herself. Congratulations.
    17:50
    Thank you. She was basically to IC in a very, very large bicycle parts factory, and she was very adept at running a small to medium-sized business and being fluent in Chinese. Of course, she could keep tabs on everything that was going on. So in the end, we packed up what we could. We had to leave an awful lot of stuff behind, and we shipped two 40-foot containers to Taiwan with all our essential stuff, and many cartons of other bits and pieces followed over the following few months. But we came here, looked for a new factory. We decided to downsize at that time. We had to leave all our staff behind, which was a bit of a shame because there were several of them that I really would have liked to bring with us. But for those who don't know, the political situation is such that Chinese people are not permitted to come to Taiwan, not even for a holiday. They are under extreme and very extraordinary circumstances allowed family visits, that's all. But if they're a Chinese passport holder they're simply not allowed to come here.
    18:57
    Oh, right. I thought China considered Taiwan part of the country. Yes, China does consider Taiwan part of them but the facts of the matter and they're indisputable facts is that the People's Republic of China, the CCP has never ruled Taiwan not for one second in history. So it's a simple lie and that's all and they've managed to lie to the world for a very long time. And as I said earlier, they have started ramping up the problems in China and I know several Australian business people who have factories and offices in China and they are even having difficulty getting a visa to go back into their business. so they tightened up very very hard and we were very very lucky to move out when we did because apart from not having the great staff that we wanted and all of my comments by the way are not against the Chinese people because we've had some fantastic staff we've had some great dealings with Chinese people sure it's the government it's the government that's the entire problem and that's what was causing us the trouble and it's what's causing the rest of the world problems at the moment obviously but uh it's like a breath of fresh air moving to taiwan um whole different ball game it's in what way it's a first world country totally you can walk down the street and you're not stared at like i was in china everybody would look and go oh look a foreigner yeah here you're just another another person they don't care they don't look twice and uh it's it's a whole different it's like a breath of fresh air here you know So at one stage, towards the end, I was always looking over my shoulder, wondering if they were just going to come and pester me for no good reason and pull me up on the road driving along or something. It was just a worrying 12 months, I guess, the last 12 months. And that didn't help, you know, get work done either. So we moved here. We started from scratch. We rented a shed. We decided that we were going to downsize. We weren't going to try and do everything that we did in China. In China, we had two factories, and one built all the cabinets and painted them and that's another long story I won't bore you with at this point. But we've decided here that we'll outsource that work to a cabinet factory, which we have now found, and we will outsource a few other bits and pieces like wiring harnesses and things and we're just going to concentrate on the core business of designing the machine, of building the machine and getting it out the door. And we've spent the 12 months basically putting nuts and bolts and screws back in the right order on the shelves and finding suitable suppliers here that are happy to do business with us, and that's where we've been at. And probably, well, six months ago now, I suppose, maybe five months ago, we were approached by the design department from Porsche, and they wanted to build some pinball machines to put into motor show displays, basically as a gimmick to attract attention to, you know, sort of like trade shows?
    22:05
    Yes, trade shows, motor shows, that sort of thing, just to attack punters with their stand, and, oh, if you want a game of pinball, give us your email address sort of thing, basically an email harvesting device.
    22:18
    Have you had any sort of contact with Porsche before? No, no. Oh, right, so it's come out of the blue then? It did, yes. Well, they went looking for someone who could make them a small quantity of pinball machines, and as you're probably well aware, there's not too many places that would even consider doing it for a start, let alone what they're capable of doing it. There's very few places that would bother.
    22:41
    We took it on mainly because we felt we'd spent eight, nine months putting nuts and bolts and screws on shelves and we figured that we really needed a boot to kick us along. So we took on the job and we didn't make any money out of the job, but at least it fired us up and it got us back in the groove and we had cabinets built and we had design work done and got everything together and out the door they went. And it allowed us to develop our board set a little bit further, so now we can drive a monitor from our board set and that worked quite successfully with Porsche. And so far, as far as I'm aware, they're very happy with it all. I don't think they've actually displayed it at any shows as yet, that they've got all the machines and we are now in a position where we have obtained a new licence. Thunderbirds is finished, for those who don't know. We stopped production basically when we left China. We had intended to build some more when we came to Taiwan and we just never got there. So we decided that it was time to move on. And there's a bit of unfinished business from Thunderbirds, which is the toppers that I'd promised pre-order buyers. And I'm pleased to say that we're now building those toppers for them. And yes, I'm well aware it's very late, but better late than never. And we should have those ready to ship out maybe. We're still waiting on a few bits and pieces. Some motors have got to come yet. So we're probably six weeks away from having those ready. But they will all be finished and done and dusted before we actually move on to the new project full steam ahead. and that's our new licence machine. But what's probably more interesting apart from the new licence machine is a couple of guys that we've now got on the HomePin team to help us design this new licence machine and you guys probably know them as Joe Balser and Jeff Bush.
    24:41
    Pretty much have worked with each other on and off for 20 years, I guess, right from the Sega days with Apollo 13, Baywatch and Batman and things like that through to American pinball, you know, Hot Wheels and various other machines. And Joe also did the Wizard of Oz originally. He did the Wizard of Oz design.
    25:06
    He's pretty well known in the industry and I would like to think that both these guys wouldn't come onto the Home Pin team unless they were pretty comfortable with our, not just the operation and what we're up to, but more so the new licence we have. You know, they're not going to put their time and their reputations on the line for a licence that isn't worthy, let's say. Are you going to tell us anything about that licence?
    25:33
    Yeah, and then he can't tell you. It's a bit early in the day to do that. Certainly, perhaps next time we have a chat, I'll be more at liberty to say something. It's still early days at the moment. we don't have any fixed layout or anything so it's not a lot of point to mention it just now because I don't want to repeat what happened with Thunderbirds where we announced it and people were all excited and then I had a lot of misfortunes and so on and things got held up and also things took a lot longer to get going than I had ever anticipated because pinball is easy, remember? and yeah, I found out the hard way that pinball is certainly not easy but it is doable if you stick at it and that's what I've done and I have stuck at it and here I am, I'm still here. Some others have run away but I'm here and I'm making toppers that I promised people four years ago so all I can do is apologise to them and say they'll be ready soon. Right. So did your move out of China to Taiwan, does that signal the end of any further work or development on the China Zombies game?
    26:44
    We only ever completed one full finished China Zombies. It is actually ready for production. The software is written. There's no bugs that we're aware of. It's sitting in our showroom in Taiwan. We aren't going to sell it in Taiwan purely because it is basically completely simple Chinese, which is what they use in mainland China. Taiwan does not. Taiwan uses traditional Chinese, the same as Hong Kong. And it wouldn't be taken very well if we put that machine out on the streets here. And not just that. The places to put it here are pretty few and far between. I probably could cite 10 if I tried really hard. And it's just not worth it. We put that on the back burner for the moment, and it's there, it's working, you can play a game on it, And it works quite well. But I just don't see any way forward with it right now. We could make and sell them to mainland China, but again, the situation in China is not lending itself to... Yeah. ...business people.
    27:53
    And it's a lot thicker there than anybody will admit. And, you know, they're claiming huge successes and the old business has never been better, but we still talk to our ex-staff and they tell us a completely different story. They're telling us the truth of what's actually going on in the street where the government's spouting more propaganda to the world. That's all it is. Right. Okay. So basically what you're saying is now that you're based in Taiwan, it's actually very difficult to sell that machine to mainland China.
    28:28
    No, I just don't think that it would be well received at the moment. You know, anything coming from Taiwan into mainland China is not overly well received because they think they own Taiwan and there's all this nonsense that goes on. And it's just, to be honest, not worth the hassle. I'd sooner just forget about it and move on to our new machine, which I believe will interest a lot of people. And on the subject, what I can say about the new machine is when we made, well, when we decided to go with Thunderbirds originally, that was done very, very purposefully because we did not want to go, being a brand new pinball company, we did not want to go head-to-head with the likes of Stern and JJP and compete on their own turf because it was just never going to work. So we deliberately chose a theme that we felt would sell better in other markets that weren't their primary markets, such as England, England and Australia and New Zealand and Canada and so on, Commonwealth countries where Thunderbirds was quite popular and very well known. And it just wasn't very well known in America. and I knew this from day one, right from the very beginning. And so it did surprise me that suddenly some machines started making their way into America and then the comments started coming up, what's this Thunderbirds rubbish? It's a rip-off of World Police.
    29:49
    Which, of course, it is not. It's the other way around. Yes, that's right. It's just that it was never seen in America and I knew this. And so it surprised me when these machines started popping up there and I wasn't really ready for the onslaught of comments and things. And this time around, we've got a theme that's very strong in America. So, you know, let's see how we go. This time is probably all I can comment on. Okay. So you just announced that you basically contracted pinball designer Joe Bolter and graphic artist Jeff Bush. I assume they will still be working from America they're not moving to Taiwan no that's correct at the moment nobody can go anywhere really and you know I'd love to be travelling to places myself but I'm just not going to do 14 days at each end in a hotel that's just ridiculous so basically Joe is going to send in some solid works drawings or autocad drawings and you take it from there we'll throw the ideas around we've also got some design theme in Australia which we've had from right at the beginning and they're also involved we'll throw the ideas around first and then we'll have a company in America make a whitewood for us that Joe can play and take it from there we're looking strongly at maybe even having some parts made in America because it's not such a problem to bring them to Taiwan. In China, we had to make every single part because you simply can't import things into China that easily. You know, you can't even order a book from Book Depository and expect that you'll get it. It's a 50-50 thing. You might get it, you might not get it. And even for chips, and now that I'm not there, I'm able to say this, some of the ICs that we use on the boards just weren't available in China. And I had to buy them from various companies, such as RS Components and Mouser and Newark and so on, and I had them delivered to my Hong Kong office. I would go to the Hong Kong office and smuggle them back into China in my bag because they simply weren't available in China. And that's how I got some of the more difficult-to-find parts into China. I don't have that nonsense here. There's none of that rubbish. And, in fact, we can import arcade parts, as I confirmed this week, we can import arcade parts, pinball parts, if you like, into Taiwan tax-free if they are going to be used as part of a finished product. And so it's quite likely that we will now look at some of the parts that we either don't wish to make ourselves or maybe that we shouldn't be making ourselves, and that could include the playfield.
    32:41
    And they may well be imported. I don't know yet, but we're looking at it. Is it fair to say that the local supplies around your new location in Taiwan are not as sort of readily available as they would have been in China. You know, in China you could have got a lot of things made locally, and I guess in Taiwan you will actually be importing them.
    33:05
    It is a whole different situation. There's a lot of bigger businesses here rather than mum-and-dad shops. In China we were dealing mostly with mum-and-dad shops and, like, places with less than ten staff, smaller business. And that was great. They were great people. They were always good to deal with, and we had very little trouble with those. Here, the businesses are much bigger where you're talking like 50 to 100 staff. They're a lot less personal. They're a lot less interested in doing small runs and test pieces and so on. We've been very lucky. We've found a few that we can deal with and a few smaller ones and it's taken a long time to get to that point as well. That's another reason that we're still lagging a little bit for the last 12 months, just putting all those pieces of the puzzle together. but slowly slowly we're getting there we've got most of the people now we believe we need on side and if we have to we can still deal with a couple of the small businesses in China but we'd prefer not to do that we'll stick it out and get everything happening here and that's the best way forward we see So are you in a position to put a sort of time scale on when your licence is going to come out?
    34:16
    I don't have the date in front of me here I've got enough night time here. But there is quite a strict stipulation in the contract that it be available before Christmas. Oh?
    34:30
    There's an actual date which I can't recall right at the moment, but it's a month or so before Christmas. Christmas what year? This year.
    34:39
    Wow, that's going to be a lot of work to get through. In order for us to use this licence to its full benefit and potential, we've had to get other licences with other companies. And one of those other... Here's a clip, a bit of a hint that someone might get. But one of those other licence companies that we have a licence with is celebrating an anniversary this year. And it's a major milestone. And one of the conditions for us getting that licence was we needed to have this machine for them to display in their display area as part of their celebration So that kind of the tie with it all Okay But we just pretending as hard as we can to meet that deadline Right, but that could still just be a prototype, not a production machine. Well, no, the license says it's got to be for sale, so... You can sell a prototype, that's not a problem. I guess so. As long as we're screwing pieces into wood, I suppose you could class that as being built. So, right. I'm pretty comfortable that we can do it. We're pretty much okay this end. We've just really got to finalise our playfield design and precisely what mechs we're going to use where and then make a decision on what we're going to make and what we're not and just deal with all of that.
    36:03
    And, yeah, we're pretty confident that we can put out somewhere between 10 and 20 a week initially anyway until we get more organised. We've got a cabinet maker on site who can very comfortably achieve that without any trouble.
    36:18
    And when do you get cabinets a week? It's not a problem, right? Suppose the playfields is a harder issue.
    36:25
    Oh, well, not really. We can import those 30 at a time or something like that. Okay. If you... Well, I hope that that will be the case. Well, we're discussing that with DHL at the moment because that's going to be our best option. Seafright at the moment is hopeless. We sent a pallet of ballet transformers to America about, I don't know, over two months ago now, and it's still not delivered. So sea freight's just not on at the moment. It's just hopeless.
    36:55
    We will have to work out some better way to do that. And we're being quoted realistic prices from DHL based on the way we pack them and the number that's in a package. There's a few criteria we've got to meet, and I think we'll be able to do that. and it will be surprisingly inexpensive to air freight them. So that's three days delivery. That's not a big deal. So you'll be doing the assembly of the games in your factory in Taiwan.
    37:23
    Given what you just described about the sea freight issues, how will, assuming the situation is still the same come the end of the year, how will you actually get those games sent out to buyers? That's going to be the problem. They're going to have to go by sea and by container and people will just have to wait as long as it takes. There's not much we can do about that.
    37:46
    I guess we're going to ship them to our distributors. We're not selling direct. We're shipping to our distributors. I guess the distributors, once a container's loaded and on the water, they can then canvas for buyers who may wish to put a deposit on them at that point with the distributor and not with us, basically because their machine's built and on the way. and you know the rest of it the delivery time itself is pretty much beyond anybody's guess I suppose. Right yeah I guess it's the same situation for lots of buyers around the world who are buying you know American-made machines that have to be shipped. Yeah okay it's a similar problem everywhere. Right so let's hope just by the end of the year. So in terms of technical
    38:37
    or display, sorry, and a lot for worse. Now, what I'm trying to hint at is, Thunderbirds was a dot matrix machine. The Porsche game, which you built for prototypes, has actually an LCD and a dot matrix, a blue dot matrix.
    39:05
    Has there already been a decision what's your next title, the license game that you just mentioned, whether that will be a dot matrix machine or an LCD machine or both?
    39:15
    Interesting you bring that up, because as far as I'm aware, the Porsche machine would be the first in the world that has a DMD as well as a 27-inch color monitor.
    39:27
    And the benefit for us building that machine was that it enabled us to build our video interface to our board set. So that's a plus, and we're very pleased with how that works and how it turned out. And we've 99% decided that the new machine will be the same. It'll have a DMD as well as an LCD, 27-inch LCD. There's a couple of additional reasons for keeping the DMD, which I won't go into just now because then it'll give the game away about the theme. about the theme, but it will be extremely useful to have the DMD for this theme, so we've decided pretty much that we'll keep it for that. And, yeah, we'll have both. Why not?
    40:18
    Ah, okay. Well, obviously you're not going to reveal the theme, which is very understandable, of course.
    40:29
    Do you have any idea when you might be able to reveal the theme, or is that going to be a secret right up until the moment that you're ready to ship?
    40:38
    Well, I'd like to keep it under wraps as long as possible so that we've actually got something to show rather than say, hey, look at this, guys, we've got stick on a rock. And then people go, oh, well, that's exciting. Show us the playfield because that's the very next question they will ask. So if I told you that it was going to be stick on a rock, you would be inundated with people, show us the playfield. What are the stickers like? Blah, blah, blah. And it would be never ending. So there's not much point really even saying what it is until we can say, it's stick on a rock and here's the play field and this is what we intend to do with the rest of it. So at least there's something to bite into. You said it three times. We're now sticking with stick on a rock.
    41:18
    We can use that as a code. But in the meantime, while the game is in development, are you working on other products still? Are you creating new boards?
    41:31
    Or is all the effort now going into this Slocin thing? Oh, no, basically the first thing we did when we moved into the new factory, we established or re-established the board manufacture side of things because that's been steady with Home Pin right from day one. That underpins everything we've done. So we actually started that first. We've now got dedicated staff that only assemble those boards. They're not on any other project. So that's going particularly well, and we've sold a lot more than we usually would this year and I suspect that's because people are stuck at home and fixing their machines, so they're buying more. That's what I put it down to and we've expanded that range during this 12 months. We've added probably six or seven products to our range and we're always looking to expand that as well. It's a very good part of our business, a nice steady part of our business and it helps people keep older machines going, which is really what I want to see. and yeah, that will keep on going and there's no let up on that and one thing we have done though, I got asked a lot about some of the projects we were already on, one of them being the Ride the Wave ball balance game and what we did, we have a very close working relationship with an extremely large amusement company here called Ouitchi. Some people have heard of it, some people haven't. Yeah, well, they attempted to make a pinball machine themselves as well.
    42:57
    The Pong game, yes. Yes. We've got a very good relationship with them. We met them initially three, four years ago at a trade show in Guangzhou where they were exhibiting that particular machine, actually. And, yeah, we formed a good working relationship with them, and they're just a few K down the road from our factory. They're very close. and I decided that we really needed to stick to our core business and that was replacement boards and new pinball machines and try and not be too sidetracked by other things. And we'd made a couple of prototypes of the ball balance game and it was working quite well, still needed some tweaking. There was all sorts of feedback I got about the shape of the cabinet, about the colour of the cabinet and it's the same old story, you can't please everybody. You could give them a brand new Porsche Taycan and if it was black they'd turn their nose up. You know, it's either pink or purple or polka dot or something. It's always got to be something other than what's in front of them. And, you know, that's a difficult problem to get around, no matter what you're doing, because you'll never please everybody. But at the end of the day, I sort of decided it was best if we didn't pursue that, and I gave that project to Weechee because I know that they've got engineers, they've got software writers, they've got fantastic machinery, they're unbelievable. And they've now developed that machine to the point where it's just about ready for sale. So anybody out there who's interested in that machine can contact Weetie or myself, and I'll pass it on for you, and they should be ready to sell very shortly, I'm sure. And just to clarify, sorry for interrupting, just to clarify, Right The Wave is actually a similar game to what people know as ice cold beer. Yes, it is, yeah. It's basically ice cold beer play field style, but with some modernising, with better sensors, with random hole between each ball. Ice cold beer gets... It's a great game. I love it. But it gets boring really fast, because every single time it's the same holes that you've got to go for. And after two or three times, you know, I've had enough of this. Whereas with the one we developed, the hole that you need to aim for is random, and it's randomly generated each time you lose a ball. So it keeps some of the interest there, and there's a lot of other features, better music and so on. So I don't know precisely what they've done to the machine. I did tell them that that was one of the key things they needed to keep, so let's hope they have. Right. So is this a home-pinned product manufactured by Ouija, or is it just a Ouija game that you basically, you had the concept, the idea, and you passed it on to them, and now it's up to them. I passed it on to them and let them run with it, and I haven't even seen the finished product yet, so I'm sure I will in the next month or so. But, yeah, they've actually still got one of my prototypes, so they've had that to play with and get ideas from and make it. And I was able to point out to them a few things that they possibly didn't know with the speed of the bar and the size of the tool and various things that we spent quite a lot of time. We spent 18 months developing what we had and put a lot of effort into it. So I was able to explain to them a lot of little bits and pieces that was hard-won knowledge that they really needed to know. So I hope they've turned out a great product and I guess we'll see soon. And do you think there's any possibility of working with them again in the future to, I don't know, maybe manufactured games for you from your design or you to design more games for them?
    46:42
    No, every possibility. They're very easy to get on with. And like I said earlier, the factory is stunning. The machinery, it's just absolutely amazing. They have extremely high-end equipment there and cabinets and they've got all the presses and folding machines and it's just incredible. They're all brand new stuff. Oh, it sounds like they'd be a good manufacturing partner to work with to get your games made Indeed, if we get stuck making our new theme pinball and can't turn them out quick enough I might have to have a word with them Yeah, great Nice to have that facility And based on the pinball product that they tried to put out which was using ping pong balls, if I'm not mistaken and it's sort of Well, it's not something a real pinball player would consider a pinball machine. And, of course, I realized that there might be a completely new market for that type of game.
    47:41
    But the design looked like the ball couldn't travel all the way to every part of the playfield that it should actually be able to travel because mechanisms were in the way.
    47:52
    Sure, yeah. The game that they built was a doublehead thing, two-play, aimed at kids. and when I say kids I mean sort of between six and ten. So young kids, not even teenagers. That was their goal, their market. It was bubble pop I think they called it. I think they used the same design and several art packages. I think they also called it Space Invaders at one point and I've seen several iterations of it. Actually the Space Invaders was one that they built for TATO. They do quite a lot of work for TATO and that was one they built several for Taito. So they were made by Wichi in Taiwan for Taito Japan. Okay.
    48:38
    And were these redemption games? I don't really know. I didn't see redemption stuff on them anywhere, but I imagine they could have been easily fitted for tickets. I guess that was the plan, that they were designed to go into a redemption arcade because that would make more sense to me. because they certainly weren't aimed at pinball players. No, no.
    49:01
    Interestingly, in their factory they have an Aerosmith, so I thought that was... I'm not quite sure. I think they've got it to look out and play with, but, yeah, it's still there as far as I know. Right, OK.
    49:15
    I think that might be what it is. Right, so now you know where to go for your lunch break if you want to play pinball and not your own games. Yeah, get out of something different, yes. Well, you know, you certainly get tired of stick on a rock after a while.
    49:35
    I find that hard to believe. But you were saying there aren't that many locations in Taiwan. You said there's probably about ten machines into the arcade or the street locations.
    49:48
    Is that really the case? Do they not have arcades or do people in Taiwan buy games for home use? No, very rare because most people live in apartments and they don't pay for a luxury that's huge like that. It takes up the same space as a cupboard with all your clothes in it, so they just don't do that. But yes, there's plenty of arcades here, but as you know, arcades around the world aren't really arcades anymore. They're gambling den in your house. And that's the sad truth. They've just become ticket-vending venues, and they're no different here to the ones that I've seen in Australia and England and other places. It's a sad thing to see. Hopefully that will turn around again.
    50:36
    No, the places I'm thinking of where you could put them would be bars and things like that. Yeah, so you can ask barcades. Do barcades kind of exist there? Yes, there's one. I was there last Saturday, in fact, in Taipei, and it's run by an English guy, Mark. He's quite a nice guy and he's got about five, I think, machines. I helped him fix his Matahari while I was there. Oh, awesome.
    51:01
    He had a dud transistor driving a pop bumper and it had been like that for over a year. They didn't know how to fix it, so I was able to show them the right direction and took some parts with me and sorted that out. So hopefully he's happy with that. And we will obviously be putting one of our prototypes into there pretty early in the piece. But there's other parts too. I'm in Gashung, which is at the bottom of the island. It's the opposite end to Taipei, and it's more the industrial area. And the factory that we chose is, you know, in the ring, the circle of arcade machine makers and, you know, all those types of factories. So we're sort of in the middle of all of that stuff. So that's why it's, you know, we're able to find the places we need to find, like cabinet people and so on, who already make claw machine cabinets and things like that. So they're already on the job with the type of machine that we're building. so they're happy enough with that. But yeah, there are bars, but the problem is the bars here are quite small. They're not like bars that we would expect. Yeah. They're not like a Chuck E. Cheese or a Dave & Buster's, plenty of room, a huge arcade, restaurant area.
    52:09
    But most of the bars actually have an upstairs where they might have a couple of dart machines or something along those lines or a small bar for a private gathering of maybe 10, 20 people. And that's where you most certainly could put something like a pinball machine. And there's one bar that I've been known to go to a few times in Gashong. And the owner, there's two owners actually, interesting. One's English and one is South African. And when I mentioned what we were up to, because they knew that I built pinball machines and what we were doing, and when I mentioned what our new theme was to them, Stick on a Rock, they were super excited. Who couldn't be super excited about a stick on a rock?
    52:54
    They can't wait to get hold of one and put it upstairs next to the dart machine. So, again, that's probably, you know, there's probably more of those style bars around than I've been privy to find, not having had much time to pub crawl. So there's probably more around than I think. Maybe there's lots of locations that, you know, with a bit of effort, you could put pinball into.
    53:17
    Good. Right. Okay, so about Stick on a Rock and Joe Balser designing that game. Since you're in Taiwan and you're testing the game in Taiwan with an audience that is not very familiar with pinball, does that mean that Joe is going to design a game that's easy to understand for people who have never played pinball before? or is he going for a game that's like the deepest rule set like everybody else is trying to do?
    53:52
    We certainly aren't going for a Fathom-style rule set that's deep as the ocean. We're not trying to do that. We're trying to make a game that's light and fun and happy. And I've made it clear to the entire team, and I haven't quite sent the email out yet, but it's ready to go to every member of the team that says every single step of the way this must be fun and light and happy. I personally don't like drawings and artwork of skulls and death and blood and gore. It just makes my skin crawl. I just can't stand that type of artwork and I've made it exceptionally clear, particularly with this theme, that it lends itself to humour and fun and happy and light and that's basically what we're all about.
    54:44
    And that's going to be the push for this game. It's fun and happy. Fun and happy, stick on a rock. That's it, not death and gore and, you know, whatever. Shoot them up and kill them dead and House of Horrors sort of stuff. No, I understand. Okay, so I guess we can rule out Mortal Kombat. I don't know if somebody was doing that. Was it Gottlieb or somebody?
    55:13
    Is it fair to say that you're aiming this game at the entire world? It's not targeted at a particular market?
    55:22
    No, it's not targeted at a market. The theme is worldwide appeal. There's no doubt about that. Although it's not known in the Asian market, but that's not a surprise. because they know very little about our Western ways in the Asian market. They just have never heard of things. They've never heard of songs that you and I take for granted. They've never heard of Dire Straits, for example. And I shake my head and say, you're joking, aren't you? You must have heard of Dire Straits. What's that? No idea. They've heard of Aerosmith. You go up on the street and you'll get the same answer from 20 people in the street. They've never heard of it.
    55:58
    So they've never heard of Stick on a Rock. and so it won't be a big hit here, of course, but in the West, and I mean anywhere in the West, it's very well known, yes.
    56:10
    Okay. Now, while it will be interesting, let the guessing begin. And that's the problem. The guessing will begin and that's why I don't particularly want anybody to know what it is because I'd rather have something ready to show and say, ta-da, this is what we've got and this is where we're at with it, you know. and let people get excited or disappointed at that stage. Okay, so stick on a rock. We're trying to work to the right past the stick.
    56:42
    It's not that you're playing pinball with a rock, are you? Could be a pinball, a golfing game. Oh, my gosh.
    56:51
    Unlikely. No, it tends not to do so well as a theme, golf. Well, you know, maybe 30 years ago it was okay because you could get away with nearly anything. When pinball was popular and they kept bringing out nearly everything and that's what people keep saying to me. Oh, why don't you make this? Why don't you make that? Well, yeah, 30 years ago you could have done that. You could have made Stick on a Rock and probably got away with it. But these days people expect Batman and all this type of stuff. They expect it to be, you know, fantastic and the latest and greatest and whizziest or something like Haggis is doing with a remake of a famous and popular older machine. That's what I expect. And what a great idea. Good luck to them. I hope they do very well. Right. So, okay.
    57:39
    One aspect we haven't discussed, and I'm not sure whether you're at liberty to talk about it, but do you already know anything about pricing of the game? Or is that something that you have to look at at a later stage because obviously, as I understand, COVID is affecting production all over the world.
    58:00
    Materials are becoming more and more expensive. So that could actually affect, if you would name a pricing point today, that might not be relevant anymore or feasible six months from now. Sure. Look, I'm with you there. It's just remarkable what has gone up and how much it's gone up. And every time we look around, it's just crazy. We got a quote for a particular item from someone about a month back and rang up and said, okay, we're ready to order a couple of hundred of those. Oh, no, wait on, wait on. I told you it was 10. It's now 15. Like, what? That's a month ago. And we said, wait. No, no, that's the price. Take it or leave it. It's just every single thing you look at is just gone. And not gone up 5%, gone up 50%. It's just absolutely ridiculous the amount that everything's gone up. so yeah I haven't even been game to look at a bill of materials just yet even though we don't completely know what the finished product will be but even just the basics of a cabinet and so on I'm not even game to add that up just at the moment because it's just an unknown and I think that's something we'll have to visit the month before we have it ready to go I think that's about where it's going to come at but you can see the pricing structure on haggis's fathom i mean that's that shocked a lot of people the price of it i don't see that we can be much different to that to be honest but it's an unknown at the moment i wouldn't like to say yes or no because it's just too variable at the moment things may well settle down and come back a little bit let's hope so right and is the chip shortage affecting you as well you're building all these uh these circuit boards are you finding difficult to find semiconductors and things like that? Very interesting. The stuff that we generally use for old pinball boards is pretty easy to get. There's been a couple of hiccups, but we've managed to find most of it. We do a bit of contract work for an Australian company, Hankin.
    60:03
    We'll know who Hankin is. We do a contract assembly for them for the products that they make, and they are using modern state-of-the-art chips and so on, and we had a huge job. We just made another batch for them, and we had a huge job getting some of the parts for that. So it's not so much the regular TTL 744400 that we use for boards. That's still fairly easy, because most people have got lots of stock of that stuff, and it doesn't exactly fly out the door. It's only fools like us that use it. And so, you know, most other people are buying newer stuff, and that's what's in supply, because they just can't keep up with the demand. and a huge chunk of that stuff is actually made in Taiwan and they're running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year here making chips and they just can't make enough. It's crazy. I'm not quite sure. I think it's the lockdown thing. People are stuck at home. They've been buying new computers and phones and goodness knows what and I think that's just gobbled up all the world's inventory of bits and pieces.
    61:10
    Right. Okay. So, anything else you'd like to address while we're still talking? Or did we cover everything that you wanted to discuss?
    61:21
    I'm pretty right. How about you guys? You got any other questions? Well, no. Could you describe to us how long the stick is or how heavy the rock is? Right.
    61:34
    Is it a multi-rock game? That's what we want to know. Ah, that's a good question. Or a multi-stick game. Oh, my goodness.
    61:44
    Sticks on rocks. I don't know where that came from. It came out of thin air, so there you go. Okay. Well, I think we can thank you very much indeed, Mike, for taking time out on your Saturday evening, as it is there, and Saturday lunchtime as it is here, to update us on all the latest developments at Homepin. And we look forward to hearing more about Stick on Rock and as and when you're in a position to give more details. Right. And best of luck with the design.
    62:18
    Yeah, Martin and Jonathan, thank you very much for having me and I'm glad to be able to say that Home Pin is back on the map and back in business full time and back with a vengeance. I'm hoping later this year we'll probably surprise quite a few people when they find out what Stick on a Rock actually is. Amazing. Well, by the end of the year, obviously, So, as you said, you can catch me if you require it. Yeah, great. Yeah, that's right. Yep. Well, there you have it. Mike Kalinowski of HomePin announcing he hires Joe Bolzer and Jeff Bush to help out on the yet-to-be-revealed licensed game that will be coming out later this year. Yeah, yes. American Pinball team there. Right. So congrats to Mike And we look forward to seeing how things are developing Yeah And it was interesting Well a few takeaways from there That they're not going to be building the China Zombies game after all There's just the one machine in the factory that they've got And don't plan to go any further with that Which is kind of a shame We'd like to see that What they're going to do with it Even if they're more simplified again than we're used to, it would have been good for the Chinese market, I'm sure. But as he said, trying to get that from Taiwan into China is a whole different load of pain. So better to avoid all that and get on with their licensed title. Right. Which they have to get done by the end of the year, as he said, in order to meet the licensor requirements. So plenty of work to be done there by Jeff and Joe and the whole team at Homepin. Yeah, it will be interesting to see how this collaboration will turn out for all parties involved. Obviously, Joe and Jeff working remotely, I suppose that's different than, I mean, with Jersey Jack, we've seen how difficult it is to have a factory in one state and a design team in another. Here we're talking completely different continents.
    64:32
    Yeah, well, Mike said that they basically had to find somebody in America to make a whitewood for Joe from his design so he knows how the game actually works. Right. It's a little odd, but it's far from unique. That's been done many times now with design teams spread around the world. and I don't think that's as big an obstacle as it once was. Particularly with all these people working from home now, I think we're all getting used to Zoom calls and meeting calls and video conferencing and collaboration, sharing screens, all that kind of stuff. So it's a different world now to how it would have been, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago.
    65:19
    Right. Okay. Well, best of luck to Mike, Joe, Jeff, and everybody else involved in that project. Yeah. And look forward to seeing Stick on a Rock develop. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Although Mike did mention that they're also building boards at the same time. So they're not focusing entirely. They've got a separate team working on the boards. And I think one of the most recent products they're just bringing out is a whole new batch of getaway supercharger drivers. Yes. Which is one of those things which, you know, high-powered balls, they can tend to burn up if they go badly wrong. Right. So the coils get, or the driver transistors get latched on, there's a lot of power going through there to fling that ball around the supercharger. So those balls will be available from HomePin either now or very, very soon. Right. And if you were waiting for your Thunderbird stopper, that should be coming out anytime soon as well. That's right, although no more Thunderbirds. Yeah. That's number one and done. Yeah, I'm not sure whether that's a bad thing. But it's a learning process. Yeah. So, moving on to Multimorphic, the company founded by Jerry Stellenberg in Austin, Texas.
    66:44
    Yeah, well, certainly near Austin. Yeah, at Round Rock, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Originally they were, I think, in Austin, and he moved a long time ago, yeah. Yeah, founded it at his home, in fact, which I have the honour of visiting and seeing the early days of Multimorphic, the boards that he had for the original P-Rock, running various games, including the demos in Man on Steroids, which, of course, came from your country, but the software. Absolutely, yeah. Anyway, so their latest and greatest game is Heist from Steven Silver. Yes. And a new version of the code, version 1.0.1.3, for those keeping count,
    67:34
    has just been released and includes a new feature, a multiple. A record-breaking 15-ball multiball. Absolutely, which exceeds, I guess, what was the previous record of number of balls, which was 13 in Apollo 13. Right. So that's claiming the record for that. We're not including games like Hyrule Ball, Raccoon Fire, which don't have flippers. You get a lot more than 13 or 15 balls on the playfield of that. And the entire one were made by pinball companies, but not pinball, not full-size balls either. So, yeah, so, well, I guess congratulations to Jerry Stephen and the team at Multimorphic in setting the new record of 15-ball multiball. Right. I'm not sure exactly how it will play, you know, how practical it is to flip 15 balls, but you probably have to let, you know, about the first 10 of them drain to actually be able to do anything useful. Yeah, I'm not sure either. The funny thing is, I think even already with Lexi Lightbeat, the P3 game itself is already carrying...
    68:49
    Oh, it's certainly capable of carrying that many balls. I don't think there were that many... I think there may have only been 10 balls installed. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure, but I know there is, underneath the playfield, there's various... Yeah, the trough itself is capable of holding many more balls. I think it's up to something like 19 balls. could fit in the trough, which doesn't sit at the front of the game, it sits at the back of the game on the P3, and has multiple up-kickers around it through various tubes. But, yeah, it's been designed ever since, from the very beginning, to be able to cope with a large number of balls. And now, finally, there's a game there in Heist, which is capable of utilising that feature. So, well, great. Very interesting to see how it works. Right, yeah, can't wait to play it. And I'm curious whether it will be a mode that is easily accessible, or whether you really have to get to the wizard mode, which might not be that easy. Yeah.
    69:54
    But then again, it's still record-breaking, so... Yeah, let's hope it's promoted heavily on the display to tell you that this thing exists, and it's not something which only a few people will even know is there. Right. Well, the difference with Apollo 13, of course, is that with Apollo 13, you can actually see the balls for the 13-ball multi-ball being stacked up on the ramp on the left, I believe.
    70:21
    So that's sort of a tease that you know that it could be coming, you know. Yeah, and they also had a huge great topper on that game that said 13-ball multi-ball. So it was advertising it, and it was on the display as well. and yeah it was as well publicised as that existed Getting to it was harder depending on where the previous player had left the game You know, you had to spell out... I forget what it was, you had to spell out on it, but you had to spell out letters in order to start the multi-ball and it carried over from ball to ball by default. So it may have been left in a really easy state for users to make almost one shot and start it straight away. Right. Anyway, the designer of the Heist game, which we were actually talking about, Tevin Silver, was also a guest on the Flippin' and Mashin' podcast where he discussed the game and the new multiple and all that. So if you want to find out more, check out the Flippin' and Mashin' podcast as well. Excellent. Okay. So, that's our multimorphic news over for this month. Right. Now, let's move on to more traditional territory, which we often start with, but have been pushed well down the list of companies this month, and that's Stern Pinball. Yeah, well, they have been busy, but there's not that much news, I would say. Not yet. No.
    71:57
    There is a big rumor going around that Stern is actually very likely to announce a new game next week.
    72:08
    Possibly on May the 4th. And it could be Star Wars related. Well, obviously May the 4th being Star Wars Day. That scene being rumored is The Mandalorian.
    72:21
    Yeah. And the good news is that's going to be another game I don't need to buy. Yeah, same here. I've no idea what it's about. It seems to be getting a little bit esoteric these days, picking the themes from TV shows which are on marginal TV networks and not readily available to most people, unless you pay a subscription.
    72:48
    We've had that with Stranger Things as well, which neither of us had been watching. But it goes back a while, doesn't it? I guess we don't watch that much TV, do we? So we don't get to see most of these things Yeah, we have actually busy lives And fun lives So we don't watch that much TV No, I was thinking of Walking Dead even back then I just started watching Walking Dead myself Yeah I thought I heard you're snoozing Yeah What's going on?
    73:19
    It's, yeah Yeah, it's probably not going to be a long-term watch for me. I mean, I got through one and a half seasons, and I think I've given it a good shot. Well, you know, I felt a duty to it.
    73:33
    But, yeah, it's kind of lost me at that point. You really sinked your teeth into that. Oh, very good. Yeah.
    73:42
    But anyway, okay, so The Mandalorian is a Star Wars spin-off, I suppose you can call it. Yeah. Yes. On the Disney Plus channel Yeah And apparently Some people find it very entertaining If it is a Star Wars Spin-off And Stern would actually Be going after this Title then I would Probably I feel we're getting a bit of Star Wars overkill Yeah I agree and It seems that every time they do a Star Wars game there's always all these stories come out about what a nightmare it was to try and work with lucasfilm on this and with disney in order to get the assets that they need and um try to get approval on all this stuff and have to keep going back and it's just and they say no never again we're going to do a star wars game and then and that comes the next star wars game apparently they saw well yeah Well, there are people who buy games based on theme alone, that you are seeing them, and there are people who wait to see whether they're actually any fun to play. And I think if you pick a Star Wars theme, then it's heavily skewed to the former group. You can guarantee a minimum number of sales of the machine, no matter how it turns out. Right, okay. Now, what's interesting is, one of my sources tells me that Stern actually, has two titles ready to go, and either they already decided, but I don't know yet, or they still have to decide which title is going to be. That other rumored title supposedly is Godzilla, designed by Keith Elwin. Well, we knew about that from ages ago when Spooky were trying to get that theme. Well they actually had that theme Yes And Stern basically offered more money And took it from them Not in the sense that they took it from Spooky They basically offered more money To the licensor And the licensor took it away from Spooky Because they went after the money Well as Mike himself said When it comes to licensing They're an interesting one thing really And that's The cash So yeah You wave enough notes or build under their nose, that will get you the license.
    76:16
    Right. And in all fairness, to make the rumors about the Mandalorian complete, that game is supposedly designed by Brian Eddy, who did Stranger Things for Stern. But you might also know him from Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness. Yeah, and The Shadow as well. Right, yeah. And so it's either going to be, apparently, according to the rumor mill, the Mandalorian or Godzilla. And Godzilla will be the Toho version, I believe, which is the...
    76:53
    The original Japanese. Yeah, I'm not sure whether it's the actual original, but at least one of the classic Japanese Godzilla iterations, I would say. Right, okay. So, presumably not much in the way of voice assets to be taken from that. Oh, well, so it's a cheap game then. Yeah, exactly. Well, they can't be accused of not paying for the voice actors.
    77:22
    Right. And people being disappointed because they have sound-alikes or have a sort of very generic running commentary on the game. So that would be a good move. It kind of follows their trend of doing cartoon versions of things, like Deadpool and Souls as well, and Spider-Man too. So it gives them a lot more leeway to skew the storyline towards a more pinball-appropriate one rather than having to follow a movie,
    77:58
    which is always, you know... With Godzilla, you know, there's a lot you can do with the Godzilla, and I'm sure that that's exactly what they've done with the original theme. Yeah, so Godzilla, of course, fairly recently also used in a Godzilla vs. King Kong movie. That's right, yeah. although that's not the theme of the game but still it's on people's minds I suppose it is at least but ok so those are just that's the rumor mill but there's actually also stuff that is actually factual for Scrum Vimal so let's talk about that they did collaborate with I'm not sure whether the company is called Nika or there is a sort of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles merchandise box which is for sale for $49.96 at selected Walmart stores the box itself contains artwork by Zombie Yeti and in there is I believe a t-shirt, a beanie a pizza magnet which is in various slices Yes, that's right Probably a couple of stickers And some other stuff as well There's a keychain And I guess the Oh, and there's a big shredder Well, that's the biggest element, really The most valuable element, I think, of the whole box Is this shredder action figure Right Which is in its own box Which also looks quite attractive I don't know whether the artwork on that box is done by Jeremy or not But the overall box Certainly does follow the Design of the pinball game And Well the artwork of the pinball game Yes So if you're into that Usually we don't pay that much Attention to merchandise and so on But I thought this was interesting to mention Yeah it seemed to sell out very Quickly I was having a look To see where it was available And everyone was complaining that they missed out on the opportunity to buy it, and one or two people said they walked into a store and were amazed to find that they still had one on the shelf. So, well, it's $50, and I'm sure if you're a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan, then that would be something that you'd want to have in your collection. It's probably a cheaper topper than the...
    80:39
    Anything is a cheaper topper. Okay, so anyway. It was also interesting to note, Stern is advertising, obviously they're always looking for publicity for their games, as you know, and they like to brag about all the press that they got with new releases and so on, but they're also advertising their games. one of the magazines that they are actually advertising stranger things in with a small banner at the bottom of a crossword page crossword puzzle page, sorry is American Way, the magazine of American Airlines and I suppose another occasion I'm receiving the daily inter-game newsletter Intergame is a publication for operators and people in the coin-op industry.
    81:42
    And in that daily newsletter, they also have a small banner, which is rotating their latest titles, basically.
    81:54
    So Led Zeppelin is in there, Avengers is in there, Stranger Things. And those are rotating every second or every half second or something like that. And that's fairly present at the top of the newsletter Well, it's not exactly at the top, but right under the headlines So a lot of people get to see that So potentially that's increasing their sales amongst readers of Intergame newsletter, I would say So I figured I'd just mention that so you know that Stern is active in that area as well Yeah, they're probably busy advertising elsewhere. We just don't get to see it necessarily. Well, no, obviously not seeing everything. No, we only know what they put on their social media feeds and all happen to pick up ourselves. But, yes, I'm looking at the American Way advert right now, and it's a bottom-of-the-page script with three shots of Stranger Things machines.
    82:58
    Not a lot of space for the huge amount of detail in there, but it's for people who are bored and are sitting on an airplane and nothing else to read, or doing the crossword, which is the New York Times crossword. Then right at the bottom of the page is a Stern pinball ad. So it's a reminder. It's not that if you solve the crossword puzzle, you can win a strange things pinball machine, but okay, it's there. Now, speaking of being bored, what about code updates from Stern? Well, how can that possibly be boring? I mean, Stern's code updates, well, anyone's Stern updates are... It's very exciting, but just going over the list of what they all improved, I'd rather just play the game instead of missing whatever they enhanced or improved. Well, you want to know what it is and how it's changed. You might miss out on these things if you've got an old version. Well, I doubt I'm going to be able to do that But, yeah, okay Led Zeppelin's had a couple of code updates in April Version 1.01 on the 6th And 1.02 on the 14th Actually, I have to Sort of make an apology, I would say Because when Led Zeppelin came out I made a comment on this podcast Where I said It's probably going to take another year Before the code update would be to get to the level of 1.0.
    84:29
    And it's only been five, six months, and we're already at 1.02. Yeah. Well, I think credit is due to Stern and a lot of companies as well. They've already been making a big push on getting their code updates out. So not just on Led Zeppelin, but also on other titles like Avengers and Stranger Things as well.
    84:56
    But yeah, okay, point taken. So congratulations to Stern getting past that 1.0 mark, as they did, I think, back in March, I believe? Yeah, probably. Or maybe in February, but March, I think. But this month, yeah, the last version was a few bug fixes, version 1.0. But earlier in April, there was 1.01, which actually had a large number of changes and bug fixes and quite a lot of changes, including the addition of the band boost feature, which uses the action button to advance various features depending on where you are in the game or what's running at the time. It also has a whole bunch more speech, and something that's interesting that sort of leapt out at me I said that there was an increase in the number of keyed sound effects. Now, keyed sound effects are ones which actually match the key of the song that's being played at the time. Right. So I thought that was quite clever. Well, quite clever. I think if you want to give credit where credit is due, then we have to look at Guns N' Roses where that's been a feature from day one, where Slash and Duff and the other guy recorded musical parts and sound effects in the key of the song that could be playing.
    86:30
    So it's not something new, but I think it's the first time that Stern is addressing it as the sound effects being keyed, which makes sense in a music pin, because obviously what you don't want is a sound effect that's in a different key than the song clashing with basically the song that's playing. No, it just makes me wonder what happens if there's a key change halfway or partway through the song. Do the sound effects all shift accordingly?
    87:03
    Is there a marker that goes along with the soundtrack to tell you what key it's currently in? Right. Well, unless there is a key shift, usually even if multiple chords are being used, it's still in the same key of whatever key it goes. But then again, with the Zeppelin, some of those songs are rather complex. They are, yeah. Yeah, who knows. But anyway, that was just one of the things that leapt out at me. There's some other things that we'll pick up on a little bit later. Also in the latest version of Led Zeppelin is something that was introduced in the latest version of Avengers Infinity Quest as well 1.01 on the 8th of April and along with a bunch of bug fixes and scoring balance changes they also now allow you to update the software from a NTFS formatted USB stick previously it just needed to be FAT formatted I can see how enthused you are by the prospect of not having to reformat your USB stick were you to ever buy any of these games, Jonathan but there you are, you see Oh, sorry, yeah Are we done with the code?
    88:21
    No, no, just getting started Oh! Sorry about that No, that's about the end of it So, Avengers Infinity Quest and Led Zeppelin, the code updates Both can now be updated with NTFS formatted USB 6 So that's exciting Johnny good Yeah I can hear the excitement in your voice Yeah it really made my day So Moving on One block further away Dirty Jack Pinball Still producing Guns N' Roses Which I expect they will be doing for quite some time And Well what Is there actually any news? Because obviously they are working on Guns N' Roses. They have not revealed a new title. So what news is there? Well, good question. That's why we're here.
    89:14
    I guess the news is that a couple of key staff members from the company have retired in the past month. Oh, that can't be good. Well, good for them.
    89:27
    Wally Welsh, who I think is quite well known. Fernando Hurtado maybe less well known, at least to me anyway, but they both left the company and retired and a nice little retirement. Right. Do you know whether Fernando Hurtado is related to Rob Hurtado?
    89:47
    I couldn't give a an answer to that one, I'm afraid. Okay. I remember Rob Hurtado working at Capcom in the mid-90s. Oh, okay. Well, Well remembered. But anyway, neither of them are working at Jersey Jack Pinball anymore. So we just wish them both long and happy retirements. Right. And I understand that Jersey Jack Pinball have also been using their social media feeds to show some of the prototype mechs from their games. Yes. You must know more about that than I do. Well, yeah, I think they showed how the Godstopper plunger was made, or the toy. There's a special mold for that. They showed some pictures of that. And they also showed the original prototype for the spinning house in The Wizard of Oz. A couple of pictures. Oh, yes, I remember that, yeah. Yeah, quite a few versions of that were produced by Dennis. Right, as normal as it is Yeah Yeah, well Tying in with these retirements Obviously it's not that easy to find good personnel these days Because I understood Jersey Jack is looking for personnel They are indeed They got, or had, ten job vacancies going at the company Some of those may have been filled by the time you hear this So if you think of applying then And I'd probably still be interested in hearing from you. But, yeah, looking for a buyer, prototype model maker, going back to the Wizard of Oz,
    91:30
    director of production, which is an interesting position, which I think was probably what Jim Patler was originally going to be doing when he went to interview, wasn't he? Yeah, and then he became COO. Yeah, exactly. So that's probably the bacon. Yeah. A logistics specialist, a bill of materials specialist, as everyone always stresses how important the bill of materials is in production of any game. Right. A mechanical design engineer, quality control specialist, a warehouse associate, production support associate, and another warehouse associate.
    92:11
    The last four are hourly rates. The others seem to be very well-paid jobs from what I can see. It depends of course on what your life standard is and what you're used to. Yeah, well, mechanical design engineers, they're quoting $70,000 to $80,000 a year for that.
    92:32
    A buyer, $60,000 to $70,000, the same for a prototype model maker. You could have gone to school. Yeah, you could have gone to learn, I don't know, model making I suppose, and been any good at it. Director of Production, £80,000 to £90,000 if that fits in with your skill set. I can tell you they've got some budgets. Yeah, there's a lot of money being spent on pinball by the looks of it. But those were the jobs that were available in April.
    93:02
    They may have been filled or may have drawn up a short list of candidates by now. But either way, it's interesting to see that Jersey Jack Pinball have still got all these vacancies. and I was expanding the company in big ways despite those few retirements that we mentioned. It's interesting. There's two retirements, ten job vacancies. I mean, those people really leave a gap. Yeah, they're doing the job of five people.
    93:29
    Right, okay. So I suppose there's also code updates from Jersey Jack. Oh, you bet. I can get my pillow. I can hear the excitement in your voice just even mentioning it. Yeah. Yeah, what about Willy Wonka and Guns N' Roses? Get the code updates this month. Both have had two updates. Both of their secondary updates were just minor bug fixes to fix the same fault that was introduced in the first update for both of them. But we won't go into exactly what all the details are because I'm sure if you want to know all that, you can go to the website and find out for yourself. But they have introduced this beta testing channel for the game software, which means that if you want to, you can sign up to be a beta tester, or beta tester, as they say in America, and you will get pre-release versions of the software for you to install and report back on any bugs or issues that you find. Oh, that sounds very interesting. I'd sign up right away. Does that come with a free game? Sadly not, no. I think it's the other way around. You need to have the game first, and then you can sign up to be a tester.
    94:46
    Ah, too bad. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't quite work that way normally. Although, in software it sometimes does. But this is... Software? Well, it's software testing on a hardware platform, which you have to already own. So, the idea is that if you want to get involved with that, you contact Jersey Jack Pinball or you can email beta or beta at jerseyjackpinball.com. They prefer you to use the Telegram messaging system to send your reports in so you can communicate with them and give them feedback direct one-to-one. And they can sort of come back to you and say, well, can you try this? What about if that happens? And that kind of thing. There's no standard software support available for this. So if something breaks, they don't guarantee to fix it in the beta. It's always good to know that you're a $12,000 machine. You ruined it yourself by testing our premature software, and screw you. Yeah, maybe it's bursting to flames as they forgot to do something. I don't know. But hopefully it won't be like that.
    95:55
    So that's available anyway. And if you want to be part of that and get a first look at new ideas and new features before they go into the mainstream, then you can join up for that channel and test out the new software. Okay, well, that's kind of exciting, I suppose, if you have a game.
    96:13
    So, oh, well. I'll also add there's one new little thing that tweaked my interest, just like the keyed sound effects did. In the version 1.36 of Willy Wonka software, there's a note in there that says that they've added a shaker motor option to the matrix switches test.
    96:36
    So the switches, obviously, are the things on the playfield that detect where the ball is, and there's a test in there where you can press the switches and see whether the game registers them correctly. Sometimes those switches can get a bit flaky or a bit maladjusted and start activating just if you sort of thump the playfield.
    97:00
    The note in 1.36 of software for Willy Wonka says, add in a shaker motor option to make it switch switches test to help find flaky switches without having to pound on the playfield,
    97:14
    which is the traditional way of finding a switch which is registering when it shouldn't do. You thump the playfield, but now you can use the shaker motor to shake the game instead. Actually, I'm surprised nobody has thought of that before, because obviously this is a common problem.
    97:34
    And, okay, good for them for thinking of that. I think it's very clever. Yeah, me too. So I thought I'd pick it out and add it to our otherwise unexciting software code updates. Well, thank you for that, for making code updates more exciting. I try. Right, okay. I suppose that rounds it up for Jersey Jack Pinball I think it does So let's head a little bit nearer to your home And see what's been going on with Barry and co. Over at Dutch Pinball Right, okay So, well, I mentioned earlier I was talking to Barry last night And Last month The earlier announced code update for Big Lebowski Yes, I know, I'm guilty of code updates Discussing it myself I realise that very well That was finally released If you want to know what's in it Then look it up on the internet But it does include extra ball opportunities Bonus multipliers, nihilist showdowns Addable New callouts, more bugfix Debug information, better compensation For a faulty bowling mechanism Lots of bugfixes and much more Okay, so But it's a big update So if you Are one of the lucky owners Of a big Lebowski game and it's definitely recommended to get the latest update.
    98:55
    The game is obviously, the Big Lebowski that is, is still in production, but the company is suffering from supply chain issues, as are many companies at the moment. As we heard from Mike earlier. Yeah.
    99:09
    There's a chip shortage. Yep. Which is affecting Dutch Pinball slightly. And getting anything shipped over in containers takes a lot longer and it's a lot more expensive. Yeah, exactly. And hopefully, Barry is expecting the supply chain issues to be over by mid-June. I can only hope so, but it could also be wishful thinking. Well, it's not really in his gift to say that, is it? It's just however long it takes for the rest of the world to catch up. Yeah, the biggest problem is right now, obviously everybody is trying to source parts, and basically his full-time job right now is sourcing parts to keep the production going.
    100:02
    But there's also some news that hasn't been announced yet, and so we have a little scoop, and that relates to the Bride of Pinbot. Sorry for that. The Bride of Pinbot upgrade kit. If you remember, that was one of the first products that Dutch Pinball put out, where you can actually install an LCD display instead of the alphanumeric display for your Bride of Pinbot with completely updated code and what have you. And converts it to a P-Rock game, I think. Yes. Yeah. Correct. So they are going to be running a new batch of Bridal Pinball kits, and it's going to be the final batch of Bridal Pinball kits that they will be manufacturing. So after these are done, then it's no more Bridal Pinball kits. And these kits are pretty comprehensive as far as what they contain. They've got a whole computer and the display, and all the new code, the version 2.0 code right there as well. Now, it's funny that you mention the computer because actually that's the one part that Dutch Pimble is currently still looking for, finding a suitable mini PC to run this kit on, because apparently due to the chip shortage, it's very difficult to find that right mini PC. and oh well so they are looking into that and I'm sure they figure out how to do it or get it working in a different way but as we said it's a P-Rock based system so it runs from a PC over USB and yeah it does need a moderately capable PC but not hugely powerful but it's got to drive the display from that and I don't think it's going to be impacted by the shortage of graphics cards which is currently hitting the world and pushing prices way up into ridiculous levels because I think it's probably sufficiently undemanding on these graphics requirements that it can use built in graphics but yeah as you say all processors these days are quite difficult to come by Right, so, and in case you're wondering, well, if they're still building the Big Lebowski and they're going to be building these kits, how are they going to do that? And Barry explained to me that the plan is that they will be building the Big Lebowski during the week and the Bridal Pimmel kits will be built during the weekends by a different team. Oh, right, so a seven-day-a-week operation. There's a weekend shift And those will be building the bridal pinball kits Right, okay And that's about all the news from Dutch Pinball I can share Okay, very good Like Rob just mentioned There were actually two software updates To the code in April Right But the main one Version 0.54 Which came out at the beginning of April and then 0.55 came out a bit later.
    103:24
    The first one was fairly minor, but then the second one was the major one, which everybody is excited about and was the one you were talking about before. So 0.55 is the current. Right, okay. So let's... Moving on to Spooky Pinball. Yeah. We're constantly updating you on their expansion plans. The last time we talked about that, They're getting a new larger premises or extending their existing premises. And with that means they need more people, which is a consequence of becoming a larger company. And although they're still building the Rick and Morty games, they've got to be coming towards reasonably close towards the end of that run, I'd have thought. Yeah. No, actually that's true, because Ben Heck mentioned that he's testing a new driver board for the game that will be following Rick and Morty.
    104:29
    But you don't know what it is yet? We don't know what it is. The only thing we know about it is something that Charlie revealed on a podcast. I can't remember which one. Sorry for that. but that game will have habit rails which are manufactured by a company in a nearby town and if there aren't any habit rails on Rick and Morty that means it's for their upcoming game because they're not rerunning any older games and Ben Heck mentioned that the new game should go into production in June which means that the production run of Rick and Morty is almost finished Right, well if you imagine going into production in June, then either they're going to announce it this month or next So we should expect an announcement from Spooky Pinball fairly soon as to what the next title is going to be Right, and if you're interested in buying that title, you should know that in order to be able to order it you should be a Spooky Pinball Fan Club member. And that's an annual subscription, which basically gets renewed every year with a new,
    105:48
    how do you call it, a special sort of merchandise package that you get for your subscription. And once you a member then you enabled to order a new game Yes you get advanced options on ordering it I don think it true On some games, I think with Amorti, you had to be a member, didn't you, in order to order? Yes. Unless you were buying from a distributor, of course, in which case you can buy it from the distributor.
    106:19
    That wasn't a requirement. But if you wanted to order it directly from Spooky, you had to. Right. But then what happened to Drake and Morty They sold 750 games in 4 hours While they basically had originally A 2 week window for fan club members to order the game And after that A lot of people could order it Well, we never got that far No, that's true And that may well be the case As we were talking earlier About the same situation with Haggis Gimbal You had to be a Haggis clan member in order to get in that two-day pre-order window. Right. And maybe, I don't know, maybe all the Mermaid editions sold out in that time. I don't know. Right. Now, the interesting thing about the upcoming game is that they're Charlie Express.
    107:14
    It's not a one-designer type of game, but there's actually input from a lot of people working at Spooky Pinball. And apparently, while that can work against the game, in this case it actually worked for it. So the game kept getting better and better with everybody chiming in with suggestions.
    107:37
    Making it a game that's apparently very different and it's making me very curious to see what it is. Yeah, what the theme is.
    107:47
    Yeah. Right. You mentioned the fan club earlier. Well, I think they've made the late Bela Lugosi, who died in 1956, is the posthumous fan club president. Right. Well, at least his family has agreed to give him that particular honour of president role in the club. I don't think death is necessarily a restriction on being a president. No, for a spooky company, it doesn't have to be, no.
    108:24
    No, well, he's probably going to hold that position for the immediate future anyway. So, well, Bill Adegosi is featured on the artwork, on some of the elements of the fan club merchandise, whatever you want to call it. So that makes sense, I suppose. And presumably somebody's done the artwork for that. Yeah, and I got that written here. Bill Rood did the artwork. Ah, okay. Not a name I'm familiar with, but... I have all his records.
    109:02
    And if he wants them back, he can contact me. Hey! Anyway, some jokes never get tired. That's a very So Slightly related I'm jumping To Chicago Gaming Oh hang on We have We've got a code update Oh my god You can't just skip those Oh my god It's the most important Part of the show Oh god Well Alright It's a part of the show Anyway Yeah Rick and Morty Of course The current game Next thing you know You're going to want a special jingle For an actual code update Now that's a good idea Yeah if you can come up with something That's sort of digital sounding And sounds like a computer code running Or an updating message That would be great Nothing from hell in 2001 Yeah so Brick and Morty build 2021-04-05 Adds A whole new adventure Goodbye Moonmen adds a new, what they call a vanity high score which is not a high score of anything really but it's one of those achievement things which is the most jerry and several changes, I think there have been a few issues with the flippers on Rick and Morty and the fact that when the ball hits them hard the flipper can fall down or what they call a knockdown while they've tried to do a number of different software improvements to try to prevent or to overcome that issue. And there are some extra power settings which you can dial in if you suffer from that, or your game suffers from that. But there is danger that you can generate a lot of heat because the flipper is held on high power for longer than is normally the case. So you can set that up, but they advise don't do it unless you particularly have this problem because too much heat might be generated. which is always a problem with coils people think they can just drive them drive them, drive them, there'll be no issues but yeah I got a flashback of Marsa play at EAG with their new Canessa game new Canessa, yeah where they had to replace the playfield midday because the coil was fried no end of stroke switch or anything like that and the people just pushed a button for 10 seconds and smoke came out of the playfield. It was held on high power the entire time. Yeah.
    111:43
    They live and learn. Well, they didn't learn for very long because they're not making any more games, but not making more of those games anyway, that's for sure. Yeah, sorry, carry on. Let's move. Yeah, so Chicago Gaming is slightly related as they are working on a Ben Heck game together with Spooky Pinball. And speaking of which, Ben Heck indicated that there are two other games, one remake game and one original design, original title, that are going to be in front of his game. And that they are still tweaking his game design as far as the upper playfield goes. They're still seeing some changes. So it's going to take some time before that game actually will hit the production run. But at least, although Chicago Gaming didn't have or announce any news themselves, we now know that they are at least working on a remake title and an original title. Yeah, I think we discussed some of this in last month's podcast as well. Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, it was mixed in with minor information between all the code updates, I think. Oh, God, yes, definitely. Yeah, so you may have nodded off at that point. But, yeah, I think the interesting takeaway from that is that Ben's game has an upper playfield for a start, which we didn't know before, and it's still in development. I think we were discussing when it was likely to hit the line based on the fact it was number three after the remake and the original title, neither of which have been announced. Originally, yes. Yeah, or look like they're going to be announced anytime soon.
    113:36
    Right, okay. So, well, that wraps it up for Chicago Gaming for now. Yeah, let's head on over to the Pinball Brothers and see how they're doing, because they have actually been producing games in the same way that Chicago Gaming have. And, well, in fact, everyone that we've mentioned so far has been producing games.
    113:58
    There are very few companies out there who aren't. The Pimple Brothers have been, well, as you know, they contracted Pedretti in Italy to build the Alien games. And well, it seems like Pedretti have been going at it full tilt And have been churning out games Yes, we've seen a couple of teases I would say First there was a photo showing six games altogether And that was followed by a photo of 12 games built and being tested If I'm not mistaken That's correct Yeah, but in addition to that, we know that there have actually been shipping games, and some of them have been turning up at buyers' homes. So the games are out there, and I was watching a video, and I think you were as well, on YouTube, from RetroSango. Yes. Yeah, they've done a nice job of sort of unboxing two videos, in fact, of the Alien game, the new version. and he has both games. He has the original version and the new version. So you can compare them. I have to say the new version looks a lot better than the Highway version. You think so? Yeah, I think so. The Highway version has that green frame around the playfield.
    115:32
    And I think the new version doesn't have that and that really opens it up a lot more, making it look a lot more attractive.
    115:41
    Well, the green presumably is the limited edition version, yes? On the old version. Right. Well, on the other one, it's just a metallic frame, I suppose, but still. Yeah, well, the original one did have this sort of much wider, much larger cassette that held the glass and was the frame for the side rails as well. So that was a thicker edge And more prominent than the new one Which has the steel Side rails That we're very familiar with And are less obtrusive But Yeah it was interesting to watch There's obviously some teething troubles With the game In Retro Sengo's video There were Two cable switch Two audio cable switch Yeah, I still don't think he got them right way around in the end Having looked at it Because one of the interesting things I did spot from all that Is that Pimble Brothers have on their website Schematics for a lot of their stuff So you can see all the wiring You can see the boards You can see the computer boards You can see the driver boards You can see the display The back box, the cabinet wiring It's all there to have a look at So you can build one yourself? Well, in theory. It doesn't tell you what's actually inside some of those boxes. But on the display thing where he was, in the YouTube video, he was replugging speakers because the subwoofer wasn't being fed from the correct output. They'd been plugged into the wrong output, I think, when it was built. I think he still had left and right the wrong way around, according to that, because you would naturally assume that the leftmost connector goes to the left speaker and the rightmost connector goes to the right speaker. That depends on which way you look at it. Well, looking at it from the front rather than from inside the back box. But either way, it's not that way round, according to the diagram. Anyway, on the website, the left is on the right and the right's on the left. Only you would look that up. Well, yeah, I was interested in that because I'd seen it on the video and he was plugging it up and saying, well, this one must go to that and that one must go to that, because you can't see it because there are no labels and you can hardly get to it either because it's right underneath the display panel. But he was very enthusiastic about when he got the subwoofer working And that made the game really come alive But I think judging by that We've still got left and right speakers reversed But anyway All that stuff is available on the Pinball Brothers website If you're interested in seeing how the game is put together Okay, cool So Well, we were talking about companies delivering games and the next company is actually not doing so at the moment, Deep Root Pinball. Yeah, well, we weren't expecting any more news because Robert in his last update newsletter did say they wouldn't be doing a first of the month update or end of the previous month update and would wait until mid-May until they updated buyers on the progress of Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland. And true to his word, this time, there has been no update. So hopefully in the middle of this month There will be one And in our podcast at the start of June When we look back at May We'll be able to bring you the latest news from Deep Reap Pinball And how much closer they are to getting those Razor games To the people who've ordered them Right, okay So American Pinball Well, exciting news from American Pinball Didn't come out this month So there wasn't any Okay Pinball Adventures See you above I'd say Really For them No update yet On the Pony Factory Or any of the other Pinball Adventure titles That are in the Pipeline Okay I suppose That rounds up The Pinball Industry News Yeah The companies At least But we have Plenty of other news Regarding the Pinball Business And the hobby Do you want to start off with some of that?
    119:58
    Yeah, I suppose I'm not that Well, this one is interesting Susan Ciani Who we all know as the voice of Xenon And a female pioneer in the world of synthesizers Has been featured in a new movie called Sisters with Transistors Yeah It was released on the 23rd of April A day after my birthday Well, almost in homage to you then, I'm sure They obviously moved it a day, they didn't want to clash Very kind of them, yes Yeah, I heard about this I was driving into work and I heard on the radio That they were doing a programme about Female pioneers of electronic music Unfortunately, the programme wasn't on when I was in the car It was on when I was on the underground and couldn't listen to it. But I did hear about it, and it was all to tie in with this movie, with Transistors, which, according to the information about the programme, says that the movie is all about unsung female pioneers of electronic music and features women like Clara Rockmore, Suzanne Chiani, and Delia Derbyshire of the Doctor Who theme fame. and is narrated by Laurie Anderson, who is obviously well-known as well as a musician. She celebrates the achievements of women whose male counterparts took centre stage in historical narrative around groundbreaking electronic composition. Right. So, unsung heroes. Yes. So, good for Susan Ciani to be featured in a film once again. Yeah. the first time that she's featured in a movie. No, we haven't seen it yet, have we? Either of us. I haven't seen the... This is with Francis. There is a... On YouTube, there is a recording of a Zoom meeting with the maker of the movie and Susan Ciani being interviewed. Ah, okay. Which you can watch for free. So that's one thing. And I think if you want to watch the movie, you can basically buy a stream for $10.
    122:24
    Okay, great. Well, let's do that, and look forward to hearing all about female pioneers of electronic music. Right. So, yeah, but good for Susan and Sian. You obviously did a lot more than just doing the sound for Xenon. Yes. But that's, in our community, what she's most known for. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that was some good news. Some sad news, though, is next, with the reports of the death of Chris Walsh, who was, well, one of the key organizers of the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show in Tacoma, or in Seattle, back when it first started.
    123:10
    Chris, great guy. I think we've both met him, haven't we? Yeah, I've only been to the show once Obviously I met him there Very, very nice guy Very What's the word?
    123:28
    Well, it's funny He was incredibly helpful And passionate about the show And in helping Helping get the word out And also in helping to raise funds For the show's charitable Donations which was a key part of that show. And every time I've ever spoken to Chris, I've always sort of seen him and said, you know, he's OK if I set up a laptop here so I can write reports. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, no problem. Yeah, you set up there, let me know if you need anything, you've got power, you know, you've got internet, and all that stuff. Yeah, very helpful guy. Absolutely, yeah. And so sad to hear of his passing, which was as a result, really, of having contracted COVID, not in the way that we were talking about contracting things before but he got Covid and thought he was recovered and was about to go home and then he had a heart attack which ultimately killed him and I think everyone who ever met him will be so saddened to hear about that and I'll never forget the cans of almond rocker which he used to distribute around the show particularly on the Sunday, the last day of the show, as it was getting towards closing time, as a sort of thank you. So here's to you, Chris. Yeah, my sympathies as well to his families and condolences, of course. Absolutely. Yeah.
    124:53
    So moving south a little bit, the Las Vegas Pimble Hall of Fame has held their soft opening at their new location, for which they created a minor sign at the front of the building. Yeah, easily missed.
    125:17
    Basically, the entire front of the building has the word pinball painted on it, and that's probably one of the largest billboards, non-electronic billboards you will find in Las Vegas, I suppose. but they are open at a new location they have about 500 games set up and they're open daily from 11am to 9pm the official opening is scheduled for July 1st and I suppose the idea is to get to 700 games inside the building so they're still moving games in and setting up and so on. But you can already attend if you're curious. Yeah, I think in order to get in for the soft opening, you need to buy a $20 T-shirt from the merchandise desk, which is straight there as you go in the building.
    126:17
    Finally, they have a merchandise desk. Yes, I know. Yeah, they're getting their act together. And that then allows you to come in for the soft opening. and as I understand it they are constantly moving games in from both the old location and also from storage and I've also sort of been told that the old location is pretty sort of denuded of games these days so if you were wanting to go to the Hall of Fame it may not really be worth going to the old location not that it costs anything to go in of course anyway so you can always go in and have a look and see where they were. But the new location is where all the games are heading now, and hopefully it won't be long before, like I said, the 1st of July is the planned opening party, the official opening party for the new location. But, yeah, you can go in and have a look at it. There are various bits they still need to do, in particular getting the projections on the walls, which is one of the exciting new features of the new location, as if there aren't enough, along with the restrooms and everything else in there. So it's still a work in progress, hence the fact it's not a hard opening. It is still soft and there will be people moving around, setting up games while you're there until the 1st of July. But, yeah, it's exciting times. And again, we have to congratulate all those involved in both the fundraising and in the building and the move from the old location to the new one.
    127:59
    That sign is really something. I've still got to put the sign up actually on the street. I haven't seen that yet, which is going to be something as well. Very, very sort of in keeping with the Welcome to Las Vegas sign that's just down the street. Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas Let's get that right I'm so curious whether they would Are going to light up The front of the building That says pinball I mean obviously Having this huge sign Is one thing but it's If it goes dark I mean it's very easy To put some hashtags around it And spell out the word pinball Oh, just light the whole front of the building with floodlights at night Well, that could work too, but it's Las Vegas, you know, so come on True, true But then again, obviously the Pimple Hall of Fame or Tim Arnold is known for not wasting any money on stuff that you don't need I think they're going maybe a step beyond that these days with the new place to try and... I think what they do now is spend the money once because it's part of the initial build cost and then try to go for things that don't cost a lot of money to maintain. Okay. Now, speaking of pinball museums... Yeah, I guess the Hall of Fame is a museum of sorts, but the Museum of Pinball, which is across in, well, in California. Banning, California, yeah. Yeah, currently in Banning, is mooting a move to a more central location in Palm Springs. Yeah.
    129:52
    It's not that far away, is it? It's not, no. I don't know exactly how far it is, because I always come to Banning from Los Angeles side rather than from Palm Springs. Right. So I've never actually been to Palm Springs. Well, despite having gone to Banning many times.
    130:09
    But everyone was saying that Palm Springs would be a much better location for it. But, of course, with being a city, it's going to have a lot more expense compared to being out in the middle of the desert where Banning is. Right. Well, the problem with Banning is that the museum is only allowed to be open a couple of days a year.
    130:30
    And if you want to run a museum, you probably want to be open all year round. Yeah. That's right, yeah, it just opens for a few specific events, probably like, I don't know, four times a year.
    130:44
    Yeah, something like that, yeah. Which is such a waste, really, for such an amazing collection, although, obviously, the more you're open, the more maintenance you have to do, as we've seen with the Las Vegas People Hall of Fame. Right.
    130:59
    But, yeah, they're looking to move to Palm Springs. So what are the details? What can you tell us? Well, the plan is, although this hasn't been confirmed yet, there's an old newspaper building, the Desert Sun, which is at 750 North Dean Orkley Trail in Palm Springs, which I'm sure you're very familiar with. Oh, yeah. And it's been for sale since October.
    131:26
    Now, the plan isn't for John Weeks, who owns the museum, to actually buy it because there's a list price of $7.5 million on that building. But another company called Industrial Royalty Group, they are planning to build it, or build it, buy it, and then the museum would be a tenant of that. Okay. And if it goes ahead as planned, then the new museum would be 77,000 square feet compared to the current 44,000 square feet in the Banning location. Almost twice the size. It is, yeah. And the plan is to have 1,900 pinball and arcade games on display.
    132:13
    That would probably be the largest collection on the planet, I would say. I think it would have to be. And also, and this is probably the key thing, to be open every day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and that would involve a staff of 60 people, some volunteers, some employees,
    132:32
    and it would be, well, it would be awesome to have all that. It would obviously involve an awful lot more maintenance, as we were saying earlier, compared to opening four times a year, because if you only open once every three months, then you've got the best part of three months to get the games back into working condition. If you're open from 11am to 8pm every day, you've only got 15 hours between closing and reopening again to get everything sorted. Right.
    133:04
    Okay. Yeah. Let's just see how things develop in Berlin slash Pomskrings. Yeah. Well, they haven't bought industrial realty, haven't bought the building yet. and John hasn't got his space within the building either yet, so there's still a few steps to go. But it's a positive move to get into. I mean, we've been there, well, we've both been there several times and Banning is, well, it's not really anything very much, is it? It's not much of a place. It's what people would often refer to as a bump in the road, virtually. you know it's still a very important city I mean all the lekkers to make phonograph records are being made there really there's only two factories in the world that make them there's one in Japan and the other is in Benning California there was a fire last year causing making lekkers much more scarce these days so Well, I know that. Well, okay. A little sidetracking, but... Oh, interesting. I don't know that about banning. Let's check that out next time I'm passing through.
    134:26
    Right. Hmm. But I agree with you that, obviously, it's not a... No one's going to California to say, like, hey, I'm going to visit banning. Although I have. Yeah. Well, hopefully the new location will have accommodation a little closer to the museum, because where it's now, you literally have to, you can't, unless you're actually parking or camping on site, which I don't think has been available recently, then it's easily a 10, 15-minute drive from the nearest accommodation to the hotel, which would be nice if they had a walk there and walk back. One of the advantages, probably, of Palm Springs is that Palm Springs has an airport that's easily accessible from LAX and other airports. Yeah, I think Southwest fly into Palm Springs, amongst other airlines. So, yeah, they have quite a big network. So it wouldn't be that expensive to get there. Right. Okay. So, well, I suppose that's all the news for now on the Museum of Pinball possibly moving. Yeah. Then there was this little bit of a sort of hiccup in some people's lives, where Pinside shut down for a week, not because they wanted to, but due to a fire at their hosting company, resulting in, I suppose, water damage or something else. I think it took Robin a week or something like that to get the website running again. Yeah.
    136:13
    Certainly raised a few eyebrows there about a fire at a website hosting company and then the suggestion that there was water damage. You would think if you've got whole racks and racks of servers there, The last thing you want to do is introduce water Even if there's a fire They normally have gas solutions In order to Starve a fire of any oxygen But Who knows That was the claim from the hosting company And I'm sure Robin was just passing on the details But anyway He got it back as soon as he reasonably could And in the meantime People had to come up with their own Opinions rather than read other people's. Right. Okay. But now we're back to normal and you can base your opinion on the opinion of others. Yeah. Normality is restored. Right. And then you had a sort of last news item of Led Zeppelin machines being stolen. Yeah. A real surprise. But amusement machine distributors in Australia, AMD, as they are well known down there, amdcoinop.com for the website, put out a notice alerting the pinball community, really, and coin-op operators, that five of their Led Zeppelin limited edition games had been stolen in transit. They were in Melbourne. This was actually over the Easter long weekend, so the start of last month. And the incident was captured on CCTV and police were notified. And, of course, there's a criminal investigation taking place because they're not cheap machines. And, of course, they are all serialized and have serial numbers all over them. So if you see any of these following numbers, and they're all limited edition, so they're all individually numbered. So if you see machines numbered 455, 255, 266, 154 or 153 being offered for sale... Bingo. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, then you've won the lottery. No, you could end up in trouble if you were to buy one because they are stolen property as of the moment. So until they're recovered and available for sale legally by AMD, then they are still missing and considered stolen. So those numbers again, 455, 255, 266, 154 and 53. Keep an eye out for those.
    138:54
    Right. Okay. So, I feel a bit strange. You are a bit strange. Well, yeah, that's... No argument. No, normally we would have been interrupted by... Oh, right. Gary Flower calling in. Yeah. How could we do... He must have known we were doing our podcast. Yeah. He wouldn't have called when we were talking to Mike, would he?
    139:19
    Well, let me... Or he would have left a message, or... Yeah. When was it? Was it like an hour or something? Yeah. Oh, at least.
    139:29
    He left a voice message on my... What? Oh. Yeah. He already has to say hi. We'll call him back then.
    139:39
    Hold on. Let me see what... Yeah. What did he say? Hi, Jonathan. I've got some really exciting news. Please call me back as soon as you can. I'm going to be around for about half an hour. then I'm going to be tied up probably for the rest of the day. So hope to talk to you soon. Best wishes. Bye-bye. Oh, half an hour. Half an hour, yeah. This came in like an hour and a half ago. Oh, dear.
    140:05
    Oh, well, never mind. We'll call him back and if there's anything really important, we'll, well, I guess if it's that important, we'll do a special podcast.
    140:16
    Else we'll just point it out next week or next month. Yeah, that's right. We'll include it. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get there. Sorry about that. Sorry I've missed it.
    140:25
    Oh, well. At least we've got Gary on in some sense. I suppose we do, yes. Yeah. Okay, well. On that note.
    140:36
    Yeah, for our recap of the pinball industry news of April 2021. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, hope you enjoyed it. Hope you had a good month, and looking forward to things getting back to a slightly more normal situation with location pinball opening up and shows and other events taking place and tournaments. Yeah. Okay. So make sure to catch us at the beginning of next month with our recap of May 2021. Yeah. So until then, we wish you a great month and we'll speak to you in a month's time. Okay. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
    141:18
    you