Toy Story 4 launched. Escape from the Megaverse game revealed. This is Spinal Tap to premiere at Pinfest in Melbourne in September. Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine. And I'm joined by... Hi, I'm Martin Hebb and I'm the editor of Pinball News and we are here, as we are every month, to look back on all the events in the pinball world from the previous month, which in this case means what happened in June 2022. Right, and it's been an exciting month, but also a very slow month. Yeah, I think that's fair It kind of It kind of had something The reveal we knew was going to happen But we didn't know when exactly it was going to happen But it did And we have, as you will have heard From our headlines An unexpected reveal And That was kind of about it The rest of it was fairly slow But there is plenty to keep us interested though So we will go through everything that was worth reporting on over the next few minutes. Well, quite a lot of minutes, I'd imagine. At long, long last, we've been talking about when it's going to be revealed, the biggest unkept secret in the industry, but... Not entirely true, because there was actually a little bit of... Okay, so we're talking about everybody was expecting Jersey Jack Pimble to announce Toy Story. Yes. And then it turned out to be Toy Story 4. Indeed, yes. So entirely based on just the fourth of the movies, not the first three. But obviously there's a huge amount of crossover. The characters are largely the same. The focus is different on Toy Story 4. And there's some extra characters introduced in that particular version of the franchise. Right. But we don't know quite why it was Toy Story 4 as opposed to the first three. I don't think I'm giving anything away. This license was signed a long time ago, which would have been before Toy Story 4 even came out. So I don't think then it would have been for Toy Story 4. I think it would have been for the first three movies as a package. but you know these are corporate marketing experts and the game was obviously came out later than we anticipated and I believe and I've got no evidence for it but I've been told it a few times that the original design for Toy Story because the game was delayed that ended up being modified into Willy Wonka and the Toy Story 4 design that we've got from Pat Lawler now is a new design which was created when the license became Toy Story 4 rather than the first three. But why it was delayed, we don't know. But as I said, it's a Pat Lawler design, John Yelsey and Disney artwork. And interestingly, well, there's a lot of interesting factors about this game, actually. the sounds are not by anyone that we're familiar with from the industry so far it's not a David Thiel job and it's not Chris Granham or anything like that it's done by a company called Unlock Audio who produce a lot of audio for video games ok and the other most interesting thing the other interesting aspect about it is that there are only two editions of this. There's only a collector's edition, which will be limited to 1,000 machines, and there is a limited edition, which is limited to 5,000 machines. So there is no standard edition at all, which is an unlimited version. So there will only ever be a maximum, unless they bring out another edition, which is not unknown, there will only be a maximum of 6,000 Toy Story 4 machines, 1,000 collector editions 5,000 limited editions right and of course well Jersey Jack tends to have a setting the tone when it comes to price increases although that's a negative way to say it but their games usually are in the for the more wealthier pinball enthusiasts, let's call it that. They do push the boundaries. Yes. And they did again this time with the collector's edition costing $15,000 and the limited edition games going for $12,000. Which sorry I have an eBay auction ending, so I'm doing two things at the same time. Why don't you tell the people? Yes, okay. I'll take over while you go and bid on your translate on eBay. Yes. So, as Jonathan said, $15,000 for the 1,000 collectors of edition machines. And, of course, they sold out almost immediately upon announcement, which was at midday Central Time, I think it was Eastern Time, maybe it was Eastern Time, in the US on the 14th of June. So of those 1,000, there were 900 which were allocated to distributors and 100 which were direct sales through the Jersey Jack and Ball website. Now, I think anybody who either hesitated over buying one of the 100 ones on the website or had any kind of problems processing their payment would have missed out. so those sold out almost immediately 900 went to distributors I heard various stories about whether people who had pre-ordered through their distributors and got had paid or had been allocated a machine once they found out it was a Toy Story 4 game and maybe when they saw what was or wasn't on the playfield might have backed out of that purchase and there were some distributors who were ringing around trying to find people who would be interested in picking up a corrective digital machine. But I think that was a very, very short-lived event and all 1,000 are allocated now and were allocated very, very quickly, really, after the announcement. And then there's the 5,000 limited edition machines. I don't think they've sold out. No, actually, I did receive a text from Jeff the day after the reveal of the game, indicating that the company received orders for over $30 million worth of Toy Story games. And if you start doing the math on that, well, that's $15 million for the collector's editions, which leaves another 15,000, which sort of equals to, or well, it actually equals to 1,250 limited edition machines. So that's by far not the 5,000 that they are allowed to make. So if you're looking for a Tor Story 4 limited edition game, that shouldn't be a problem. No, and one of the other interesting features of this launch was that they did have a large number of limited edition machines pre-made and shipped or about to ship to distributors and locations. Yes. So the very next day, I think, it may have even been the same day, but certainly the very next day they appeared in a number of locations. Yeah, even internationally. Yes, and I think at the, I can never remember exactly how you pronounce the place, but I don't want to say entertainium but it's not it's one that used to be level 257 in Schaumburg in Illinois they had it either the same day or the next day and people were streaming gameplay videos from there so it we said I think last month's pin cast that people weren't able to tour the Jersey Jack pinball factory because they had Toy Story on the line we reckon that probably about about eight weeks before the launch they've been producing limited edition games now the collector edition games aren't going to be available or aren't going to be built until what they so the fall so the autumn of this year no exact definition of when that is but um it may be that they're going to make all the limited edition orders that they they got up until that point then do the collector edition and then go back and do some more limited edition games after that Right. Interestingly... You know exactly. Sorry? Go ahead. Interestingly. No, I was going to say, we don't know exactly when they're going to be starting on the collector edition games. No. But it's going to be in the autumn. Right. And the autumn is, of course, three months long, so it could be any point between September, October, November. Yeah. Now, you made an interesting calculation calculation that if they would make or build 50 games a week, that's 100 weeks of orders if all sold. So that's basically two years. But based on the sales numbers of the first day, what if they're not all sold? Basically that means other designers have to hurry up their game and get it on the line because because if the game doesn't sell all 5,000 limited editions, that basically means someone else is up earlier than expected. Well, I'm not sure if it's earlier. I think it's been mooted in the past that Jersey Jet people would announce two games this year. Right. American Pinball has done the same thing and suggested that. So if they produce or release or announce another game just prior to the holiday season, that could fit in well with their production schedule. But one of the good things about Toy Story 4 being, I don't want to say delayed, but being moved back into the schedule to follow Guns N' Roses, and obviously Guns N' Roses is a big success for Jersey Jack and more, so probably more than you're expecting. With $30 million worth of sales on day one, I think we can say Toy Story 4 is a success as well. Well, just to clarify, that's $30 million worth of orders. Right. It doesn't mean we've actually got $30 million worth of income at this point, because most of that will be from distributors, which will all have their own arrangements. But yes, it's certainly a huge sales coup for Jersey Jet Pinball. Congratulations to them on that. But what I was saying was with Toy Story 4 being moved back in the schedule, it meant that the software team had a lot more time to work on the game. And when it came out on the 14th of June, I think we can say that it was almost complete code in that time. Yeah, we've seen a few code updates in a sense. We have, but they're very minor. Yes. It's a fully functioning, fully featured game when it was announced, with 400 or so units in stock, ready to ship, or about to ship, which is basically where Jack has said over the years he wants to be. He wants to be at that point where he's got games for sale, straight away, ready to ship, with full little code. so congratulations Jack and Steve were at the Pintastic show just before our podcast actually last weekend where they held a very good seminar and that will be available a bit later on the Pintastic New Robert Englunds YouTube channel along with all the other seminars that held over the Pintastic and there were a lot of them and from the topics they certainly seem to be particularly interesting subjects. The people at Rogers Sharp taking part, talking about how the pinball industry might have been different had Williams not quit it. And there's also Dave Fix, I think, American Pinball was there as well. Also talking about what's happening at the company there and what's happening with Ryan and the spin ball game from the license issues which we talked about before with him so yeah keep an eye on YouTube and the Pintastic New Robert Englunds channel there I don't think there's anything much there at the moment I know Todd Tucky has released the presentation he put together for that show so you can catch up on his latest news but there will be more coming right so and closing off on the Toy Story 4 topic both Martin and I wrote our articles on the reveal of Toy Story 4 actually this time I was able to publish way ahead before Martin because you were on holiday it wasn't great timing for me it was the announcement came on the day of my partner's birthday. Congratulations. Well, thank you. We had a lovely time. We were in Northumberland on the English Scottish border. Nobody knows where that is. No, I'm not sure I even know where it is. I might have been there. But it was lovely, and we did a lot of cycling and walking. And on the very day that the announcement took place, we were cycling around a huge lake there in beautiful, glorious, bright sunshine, nice warm Carl Weathers. And it's kind of hard to think. I really wish I was back at my desk, sat in front of my computer, waiting for the announcement of Toy Story 4. Or I could be here in the forest on this lovely track, sitting outside drinking a nice cold cider in the bright sunshine and listening to the birds. Right. So anyway, what I was trying to say, if you want to read the articles that were published on the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine website, then either go to pinball-magazine.com or go to pinballnews.com where you find lots of pictures and all the details about the game. So if you want to take a closer look, that's where you should go. and of course don't forget the Jersey Jack pinball Facebook page and other social media outlets that they are using for more info on the game yeah although I think you and I actually have more in the way of marketing materials in our reports than the Jersey Jack website because I noticed that once a game is sold out on the Jersey Jack website you can't click on it anymore, you can't get any details of that game, you can't look at the fly You can't look at what the price was. You can't see what features are on the collector edition or the limited edition or if they had them on the standard edition. It seems kind of a shame because it's a good reference material. Right. Speaking of promotional materials, I do have an interesting tidbit of news for those who collect pinball flyers. of course there are several flyers available in digital format for Toy Story 4 but Jersey Jack didn't print any of them and so far it seems like they don't have to neither did they for Guns and Roses but the Dutch Pinball Association has decided to include a Toy Story 4 flyer with their Spinner magazine the upcoming issue that should be and John Paul DeWin who is the art director of Jersey Jack and in charge of their LCD animations and all that kind of stuff was kind enough to actually adapt the original design of the limited edition flyer for the in the Netherlands used A4 paper format So it a slightly modified flyer to fit that paper size Thank you, Jean-Paul, for that. Does it also have the NFV logo on it? Yes. Right. We'll have the Dutch Pimple Association logo on there as well. So it's easily identifiable as such. so if there are any flyer collectors that's probably a flyer that you want to be looking for could well be the only physical flyer for that game unless somebody decides to print it themselves if people are interested send me an email editor at pinball-magazine.com and I'll look into what I can do just to add to that there are three versions of the flyer There's the collector edition, there's the limited edition, and there's the joint version with both models featured. Right. And they're double-sided as well. Yes. And, well, technically, that's the original flyers. There's three original flyers, and now there's a fourth one with a different size for the limited edition. edition. Yes. Okay. Great. Okay. As you mentioned, there have been a couple of code updates for Toy Story 4 since it came out. I think it came out pretty much with version 1.04 on it, on all boxed machines, since when there's been 105, 106, and 107, all released during the month of June. And probably during our podcast 108. You're probably right. Yeah, at least one away. Yeah, it might jump straight to 1.10. You never know. But we used to say that, no, once we beat version one, it's fully featured. Well, we're way above that already at release. So that sort of underlines what I was saying about having complete code at launch time. Right. So those updates, it's just feature changes and a few bug fixes, nothing much. I'm just curious whether, of course, people have played the game and everybody has opinions, which we won't get into. But I'm just curious whether Jersey Jack will take some of those opinions and maybe improve the game further, considering certain comments are being made a lot by some people. and maybe there's some areas where the game can be upgraded to be enjoyed more without it costing too much. Do you want to expand on the sort of areas you're talking about? Apparently, the audio company... I've heard several people complain about that the audio of the game isn't anything that is particularly wowing them. the main theme is mostly playing all the time and the sound effect sounds like a slot machine. That's not a nice compliment, I suppose. But those are things that could easily be adjusted in software. So if another sound package becomes available, that might actually benefit the game. But that's just pure speculation on my end. I'm just wondering if they would be taking something like that into consideration. Yeah, sort of that sound, I mean, that was quite unusual, I think. That was one of the differences between the collector edition and the limited edition, was that there were additional call-outs by the Bo Peep character for the collector's edition, which are not available in the limited edition. Seems, I don't know, it's something which probably could be added by people who knew what they were doing, if they cared that much about it. they can obviously download the software from the Jersey Jack People website it's also actually worth mentioning that if you did get one of the very first release games on version I think 104 then that did not include the ability to update the game over WiFi so your very first update has to be done with a USB stick and that then adds the ability and beyond that you can then get automatic updates or manual updates over Wi-Fi. And it won't need a USB stick after that. Surprised me. I thought Wi-Fi updating would be built in from the very start. But apparently it came a bit later. So there you go. I think we really covered everything there is to say about the game at this point. Aside from people's opinions. Best is to play the game yourself. And the good news is there's already plenty on location so you might not have to travel that far to find one. So go ahead and play the game and form your own opinion. Oh, who's that? Hi, guys. Oh, we're joined in person on the Pinkast by Gary Flower. Hello, Gary. Hi there. I've just got to pop down to the shop. I'll be back in a minute. Okay, no problem. Take care. Right. so we'll have Gary joining us a bit later right so let's move on from the event at Jersey Jack Pinball and see what's happening at their neighbour Stern Pinball and there has been a new game it's an announcement more of a sort of leak really and it's not from Stern themselves either can you give us some details of that well I tried to look into it it was a rather was surprising to a lot of people the game is called Escape from the Megaverse and it appears to be a project by the ape community a project featuring 100 bored apes mutants BAKC dogs and codas if that rings a bell with you. Of course it rings a bell with you, I just heard it. Yeah, I'm not sure what that was. You mean outbid? No, no, no, I got that I got that auction and I won that. But apparently there was a special launch party which I think was June the 20th and which was at a bar in New York and then a few days later the game was also available a couple of days at Apefest. I think that lasted for four days. Whatever that is. I think it was positioned at the OX Polygon Lounge and it apparently contains an NFC dispenser. we don't know what that is do we? let's own up and say we don't understand virtual currencies but apparently it's giving out some sort of virtual token or coin or something not an NFT which we do understand yes but in a similar fashion I suppose yeah and well it could be a code or a QR code or some kind of code on the screen then you collect it it doesn't appear to be any kind of physical dispenser which I suppose would tie in with it being a virtual project now about the game itself it appears to be a re-theme of the layout that we have seen on previous games such as the Spider-Man Home Edition the Star Wars pin model Supreme and then there was the Heavy Metal game so this appears to be the fifth iteration of that layout but with complete new artwork no word on who did it also interestingly it has a full display full LCD display. Which is not something we've seen before on these games. No. Either a smaller display or an LED display. So this is almost like a standard speaker panel or display panel. And so the layout is similar I would say to the heavy metal one. Which leads me to believe, also based on what I found on Twitter on this project that the game is not going to be sold by Stern themselves but rather through this Bored Ape community which is on Twitter and apparently is something that's happening in New York City I hadn't heard of it before no when I was looking into it it said it was made by Stern but for replay labs in Tampa and Florida. And so whether they're the distributors for the game on behalf of the eighth project, I don't know. And Stern haven't made any announcement about it at all, if I was unaware. Yeah, no announcement from Stern in that area, although Ways and Chang was available at the launch event or one of the events where the game was being showcased. So far, as we know, there is only one game available. And it looks like on the website that I was able to find, you can subscribe to a newsletter that will give you information on availability and pricing of the game and so on. So it appears to be a prototype to generate interest and see how many people would be interested in buying such a game, which sort of is similar to the heavy metal game, where you're basically testing the water, how many people would be interested in buying one before actually building them. Yeah, you say no details on price or availability, but I think the general opinion is it's going to be a bijou or bespoke project, and if it is to become available, it's not going to be cheap. But if you do want to find out more, and as Jonathan mentioned, you can sign up for an update by going to gm.megiversepinball.com forward slash early. And I think that will get you there. If you just go to megiversepinball.com, nothing. Okay? It exists, but there's no page there. So you won't get details. So you have to go gpm.megaversepinball.com forward slash early, and then you'll be able to sign up for the updates. So, and interestingly, I just addressed flyer collectors. There appears to be a paper flyer for this game, which was distributed at 8Fest. So that could be a sort of, much sought after item after all. Is it in English? Yeah, that's for me. That's close enough. Okay, good. Sorry, it's not my native language, people. No. But yes, it's certainly got some very nice stylized artwork on it. No idea what Megaverse is, but I'm sure if you Google it, you'll find some details of all the various creatures which seem to inhabit it. Including very heavy on apes and dogs. Apes and skinless apes and... Oh, well. Sounds scary, but it looks nice. Anyway, if you're into that kind of... I'm curious how the code developed for that game, if it's the same or is it changed or whatever. So... Oh, well, congratulations on the board, the board, ape community, and the entire project team behind this game. Absolutely, yeah. And more congratulations are due to three people who have been taken on by Stern Pinball as part of their team. So we have two members of the Chicago Bells and Chimes Pinball organization. we have we have Rebecca Hinsdale who has joined Stern Pimple as customer service and sales manager for parts and accessories and merchandise so they're very much a customer facing role so what happened to Debbie? what happened to Debbie? well isn't that the question that's on everyone's lips I suppose I guess we may find out. We'll get Gary on to Gary Stern, of course, that is, to tell us. Further congratulations to Taylor Bancroft, who has been taken on as a technical producer for the Insider Connected whatever, yeah, brand or... Yeah, liaison between internal and external development teams. So there you go. So if you were looking to develop some kind of interface, so use the Insider Connect API to do some cunning stuff with your games, then I think Taylor is the one to speak to. And finally, we can also send out congratulations to Alexa Sievert, who is the new logistics manager working with Shelley Sachs as well. And we have to I hope they don't have any Amazon hardware around the place and people calling out, hey, Alexa, to her, because it could get very confusing. But, so anyway, she's got exceptional experience in the coin op industry, having worked at Namco and Bandai, Bandai Namco, and Spee's one pair repair shop service at Namco. So, yeah, congratulations to the three of them. their new roles at Stern Pinball. Right okay so was that all the news from Stern Pinball or? Oh no no there's lots more because this is the month when Stern launched then a new feature for their insider connected, well a couple of new features actually I suppose, one of them is that they've added the leaderboard functionality to all professional accounts. That means that if you are signed up to their subscription service for Interline Connected, which is the one where you pay money in order to have it at your location, then you can set up your own location-based or event-based leaderboards. We've seen this happen at various shows, trade shows. Wow, yeah. collector shows around the country and around the world, in fact, where you go to a show and there'll be a leaderboard just for that one show and the game's played there. Well, you can do the same kind of thing, which is in your location. Displayed on a large LCD. Yes. Yeah, or it's probably on their website as well, if you want to go and check it on your phone. I don't know if it's on the app yet. I don't know if they've actually even got an app yet, but they're certainly planning to. and the other thing they've added now is they've done the very first of the worldwide leaderboards, which is for all entirely connected games of a particular title. So you can challenge or you can try and get your name on the leaderboard for the whole world on, at the moment, Godzilla. That was the launch title. So it's obviously a bit suspect because they're all going to be set up differently. But if you want to have a go at playing a Godzilla pinball machine with your Inter-ID connected account, if you log in first and then play your game, your score will be added to the global leaderboard. And you can see what kind of scores you have to beat. Right. Okay. So, and I believe you just set up a game at the show to incorporate Insider Connected. How was your experience with that? It was mixed. What did you mix it with? It was in a bar, so there were plenty of mixers there. But it was okay. The password for this particular Wi in the location is quite long It like 20 characters long and it a mix of uppercase lowercase numbers So it a pain to navigate around the screen It would be much better if you could just plug a keyboard in to be honest and type the code in But also, it says on the screen that you're trying to enter this code, press the feature button on the log bar, and it toggles between lowercase and uppercase. Well, on Rush, it doesn't. I can tell you that. So you actually have to keep going over to the toggle between upper and lower case every time you want to go between those two. And if every other letter is alternating between upper case and lower case, it's a pain to have to do that. So it took the best part of five minutes, which would have taken like 20 seconds, really. Right. But if they can get that feature working, it would have been a lot quicker. Fortunately, though, once I put it in, it seemed to connect fine and did the test to check the network, and it seemed to work fine. and a colleague of mine scanned the QR code, which you can get out of it, to set up another machine with the same settings, the same network settings. He tried to do it on Godzilla and it didn't work. He wouldn't recognise the QR code. So maybe that was because of the way his camera was adjusted on his phone. Maybe it was a bit sort of burnt out or blurry or whatever. It didn't quite work as easy as it should have been. so he had to type the code in the same way I did. Okay. Anyway, we are now very familiar. Yeah, we are very familiar with how you go in uppercase and lowercase on certain Insider Connect. But they are now set up, and, yeah, it's been a nice feature, I think, for the weekend, a nice extra feature for everybody who comes along and plays. Right, okay. Now, speaking of Insider Connected, I believe, upgrade kits are available in the Stern webshop. Yeah, previously only from distributors, I think, but now you can order them directly yourself. Right, and these are the kits that, if your game is not already equipped with Stern Insider Connected, then these are the kits that you put in yourself to connect your game to the... Yeah, replacement aprons, really. Yes, yeah, okay. Okay, cool. Okay, yes, you can order those. Now, we were talking about Godzilla just now. There's been a new version of code for that, which actually has quite a nice new feature, the Oxygen Destroyer Outland Ball Save. I was waiting for that. Which is available on the last ball. Yeah, it's a bit like on Bat Night 2000, where you have last chance option. And it's seen on other games as well, where if the ball drains down the out lane, then you have the opportunity, it's relaunched, and you have to make a particular shot within 12 seconds, in this case you have to shoot it through the building, in order to save the game and carry on playing. If you don't do that, then the flippers die and the ball drains, and it really is game over. but make that shot and pressure shot and you can carry on playing so yeah nice feature and of course there's some other bug fixes and a few feature adjustments as well in person 0.97 of course which was released on the 23rd of June right so Stern has been in attendance of a couple of pinball shows as well but also at the Bowl Expo in Las Vegas which was held June 29th and the 30th and they were actually located in the booth of Moss Distributing now the interesting thing is at least I think it's interesting pinball machines especially in America used to be frequently found in bowling alleys which I think is this expo is all about so it's an interesting development to see that Stern is actually trying to get back into bowling at least I suppose and it's curious I'm curious to see if that effort will pay off but it's definitely worth mentioning that they attended this international bowl expo Yeah, bowling seems to be one of those pastimes which, although you often think it's something that's about to die, having been overtaken by things like Wii, bowling and things like that, they still seem to hang in there and seem to be great places for families to go and, or even youngsters to hang out and spend their time in a constructive way. so yeah I think it makes sense for that to be a good pinball location as well certainly I've been to a few bowling places where pinball is at least as popular as the bowling right so at the bowl expo Stern took the Mandalorian and Deadpool pinball machines with them to showcase which if I'm not mistaking are also games that were on the line the past month. So... Well, I won't get into any delays with production on current titles, but at least Mandalorian and Deadpool have been built and if you have one on order, you probably can expect it soon. Good news. Okay, I think that's everything from Stern Pinball for the month of June, unless I'm mistaken, in which case let's move on to a... We spoke about game releases. Let's talk about a game which is having probably the slowest or softest release we've seen, really, which is Homepin's upcoming title for... which is This Is Final Tap. Now, we've talked about it, we've seen various bits of it over the previous months, and I almost want to say years, but months and it still hasn't officially launched yet but the good news is that we do actually have a date when it is going to be officially launched and that is on the 17th and 18th of September at Club Macquarie in Arlington in Newcastle in Australia and that will be announced by Highway Entertainment. Highway Entertainment who are working in conjunction with Homepin Factory to launch the game. Now Homepin have said that they are not going to be doing the promotional work for this, they are the manufacturer, they are reliant on their distributors to actually put together promotional events and launch events and so that's exactly what Huawei Entertainment are doing. And I think we mentioned last month that this is Spinal SpinalTapPinball.com was a website, or even a company, I think, set up by Huawei Entertainment, Spinal Tap Pinball, to market and sell. This is Spinal Tap from Home Pin. So now we know when it's going to be officially launched, and that'll be the 11th Pinfest tournament. So if you're lucky enough to be in Newcastle on 17th and 18th September, you'll have a chance to play. Right, so I did reach out to Mike Kalinowski, the owner of HomePin, to see if there's any news that he could comment on. He was very brief in his answer and he basically said we're building away and expect to ship out two games for Newcastle Pinfest within a week or so. Okay, that's from Taiwan. yes and I assume they are being shipped by boat so that's a couple of weeks that they will be travelling overseas to reach Australia mainland and then being transported to Newcastle I suppose so who knows you might even see images of the game prior to that once the distributor gets their hands on them yeah there needs to be somewhere in those intervening weeks until we reach the 17th of September. So, yeah, Highway Entertainment seems to be the place to keep an eye on in the next couple of months. Yeah, in the meantime, well, there were a couple of updates on the production of the games on the Home Pin Factory social media channel, which saw a bunch of playfields, blank playfields with prints on them for the underside. Yeah, I thought that was quite revealing. yeah and well some other posts of people assembling cabinets or putting decals on cabinets and so on so it's yeah they're working on it and hopefully it will be a fun game looking at the underside of the playfield I think I could do a little bit of investigation on exactly what's going to be in the game some of the things are going to be in the game obviously there is a volume control which goes up to 10 and then you can turn it up to 11 right in the middle in a sort of like supercharger style position from getaway which sort of ruins the joke but ok well I don't know I think we're all in on it by now there is a subway as well so you can, I mean not somewhere you can buy a bread sandwich but somewhere the ball can disappear underneath the playfield and reappear at another point there is a ramp and it seems to have a motor in order to lift it up so you can shoot underneath it as well. It looks like it's a two-flipper game rather than three or four and although we can't see whether there's an upper playfield on it or not, I believe there is an upper playfield of some kind. At least that's where the upper stage kind of area where the drums are positioned. Not sure the ball can reach that stage. Yeah, but it makes sense if the ball goes up past it for it to do something when it's up there. And look at the rollover lanes, both for the top rollovers and the in-lane out-lanes. It looks like they use opto switches for those. So the ones which you've seen before in other manufacturers games where you have an LED that shines and when the ball rolls over it, it reflects it back into the receiver. So rather than being physical switches, they are optical switches. So that's an interesting little feature of that and that seems to be something they're using throughout the game. It should be pretty reliable unless they get dirty of course. But there's not much to come out of it. It takes a couple of years of intensive playing. It should be easy to clean anyway and the whole won't get stuck on a roll over wire or anything like that, so it makes sense from that point of view. Yeah, more details to be revealed anyway, and I also noticed, glad to point out, I think I pointed out last time, that they did finally get the Union Jack flag right, or correct, on the cabinet. Okay. And that's your microphone. That is my microphone falling off the little stand, so I apologise for that. Yes, it was... They're missing the diagonal. stripes on it before and now they've been added. So it's good to see it correct. Right. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Moving on to, I suppose, well, let's see what happens in the land of deep root pinball. Yes. Well, not much, I'm afraid, is the answer to that. The only thing really I think that's happened in the past month is that the company who's managing the bankruptcy of the Deep Root Group of Companies, which is a management company. They have applied for their expenses to be paid, which amounted to $255,000, and that's been granted by the court. So that's been taken out of the money that's been recovered so far from the sale of the life insurance policies and all the equipment that was in the Deep Root Pinball factories in San Antonio. So, yeah, they've got their money. It's a shame that a lot of other people won't, but they are busy working away on recovering as much as they can. So good luck to them, and that's the only news I've got so far from Deep Root Pinball's story this month. Right. From one startup company that didn't make it over to another startup company that hopefully will make it. Pinball Adventures. Yes, indeed. Yes, we've had some... Well, it's been a long story. It's been a long and slow progress for their very first title. They're battling with home pin to see who can do the slowest reveal, I suppose. Yes, although I suppose neither company have actually put their games up for sale yet. So I suppose you have to give them credit for that. But, yeah, Plenty Factory from Pinball Adventures, they've been showing bits and pieces over the past, I won't say years now, because it is years. And since we've been following it, from the early design days at Team Pinball in Cardiff to what Andrew's been doing in Vancouver with actually putting the games together and getting the parts in. So the latest news is he's been showing some more display animations on their Instagram feed. He said the code is done, but when I looked at it, there was various bits of text that were kind of running off the side of the display or very badly laid out, like the kerning on the text looked really bad and that extra ball looked like it had no space between the extra and ball, but had spaces between other characters. So it looked weird. Player one, I was running off the side, it just said layer one. So I don't know whether that's a code issue or whether that's a positioning of the monitor within the back glass. But you would have thought that if you're doing the display work, you would allow a certain amount of latitude on where you position things, not put anything right up to the very edge, because then it's asking for trouble. So anyway, maybe the code is done in the sense that all the rules and features are added, but maybe something this way needs a little tweak, put it that way. Now, he did also say that they will be making, his word, they will be making 120 plenipactory machines, which is quite a bold claim but I took that to mean they were making up to 120 polyfactory machines because I haven't actually made any of them yet so it's early days to say that I don't think they've been taking any orders either so we have to see what comes in but he does, he shows some pictures of the metal powder coated parts which had come back from the powder coating company. And it seemed to include a very large frame which fits on the bottom of the playfield, sort of side rails, and also a frame for mounting like circuit boards or other mechs onto. It certainly looked very solid, very robust, and it's powder coated as well, so it should look very attractive. So good work on the detail there. Yeah, and you little Sherlock Holmes that you are, you also discovered a new title which is actually a title that was advertised already earlier on but apparently the name changed yeah one of his earlier titles but when he announced titles on his website alongside elements and sushi something or other was one called That's Whack, which always seemed a bit of a strange title and didn't really tell you very much about what the game was about. Well, that seems to have disappeared and been replaced by a game called Voltz Electric, V-O-L-T-Z, Electric, which on the website it's kind of almost entirely replaced, but the page title still says That's Whack, so that's obviously what used to be there. And so far it a bit unclear exactly what it about but some kind of electric company We haven had a game about an electric company for a while have we We have a pilot factory, so one factory, electric company. I do sense a pattern, I suppose. Well, the slightly strange thing here, and it's something we've seen before on promotional material, is that it seems to have a bunch of celebrity impersonated characters in the game, including people like Rod Sterling, Doc Brown from Back to the Future, Captain Kirk, Jay Leno, and the dude, Louis Grabowski. Each one of those on the website has a little audio clip underneath, which you can click on and hear some really not very good impersonation voices on the website. I'll just put it out here because I know that Andrew sometimes listens to what we have to say, but I will mention that the website is unprotected in that you can type in the URL of various directories on his website and look at all the files that are within it. Yeah, well, I've done plenty of that. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there, different versions. Some of it is on the website, some of it's not on the website. It might be development stuff. But, well, I'd say, you know, most websites would have that. If you try and just go to a directory, it would either give you a not allowed or would take you to some kind of holding page or information page. But he's a web designer. No, not quite. But that's kind of very basic stuff. So it's probably worth protecting that if you're listening, Andrew, to stop people poking around your website and pulling out various assets from your artwork, which could be used in unflattering ways. So we don't want that. We want to let people know that they're good. Then again, we still want to be able to access your file, so please give us the code to log in properly. Yes, sorry, we've already downloaded everything already. No, we haven't really. So, yes, we still haven't got an exact detail of when the games are going to be ready. Or in what way, or whether they will be launched at a pinball show or something like that. Andrew, you say they'll be manufacturing some this weekend. So, I don't know. I don't know who they are or whether he's got a manufacturing team, a company to make it for a contract manufacturer or what the deal is. But so far, nothing is available for sale. And since it is, I don't know any more details of the games. We will let you know right here. Right. Okay. So moving back to America, to the Chicago area, Chicago Gaming are apparently looking for a new accountant. Obviously, you need an accountant to make sure that you pay your people so you can manufacture pinball machines and so on. I'm not sure whether you want me to go over all the qualifications that someone needs to apply. No, I don't think so. I think if you are interested, then email your resume and your contact details to Kathy, C-A-T-H-Y, at Chicago-Gaming.com. and you can find more information about that. I'm sure if you just contact Cathy. But, yes, certainly they are looking for a new accountant, and it's an on-site full-time position five days a week, Monday to Friday. But they are open to people who need flexibility in their schedules. So, you know, if you're an accountant and certainly interested in gaming and pinball, maybe Chicago Gaming is the place for you. If only I would be living in Chicago. And an accountant. Wow, yeah, that too. Yeah, well, you're almost made for the job, yes. Yes. Apart from those two minor features. Okay, talking about making pinball, Pinball Brothers, we will return to them, they are continuing to make their alien games. On a post on Facebook, they said, you've been wondering about our progress. we're about to crack the 500 mark, so 500 machines made for standard versions and limited versions combined so that's nearly 500 people brother alien games out in the world which is actually quite an accomplishment I have to say for a small company as they are and congratulations to Pedretti Gaming as well for building these games Yeah, the Pimple Brothers say they are sending out between 15 and 20 games a week. So I guess they've been ramping up to that kind of level because they've been making them more than 25 weeks, I'd have thought. So I guess they started off slow and now they're up to 20 games a week. I can only hope for certain companies to get to that level. Yes, indeed. Yeah, well, even one a week would be good for some at the moment. So anyway, congratulations, Pimple Brothers, on reaching the 500 mark for the Alien games. And we look forward to seeing many more out there. And more titles as well. Yeah, exactly. and now we enter a well maybe we should record a no news tune I think we should have a distinct one we should play yeah no that's not fair no no there's quite a few companies that have did not report any news but that doesn't mean that's a bad thing because as far as we can see they're all building games. Yeah, they're all too busy building them in order to report any additional news. So that would be Spooky Pinball, American Pinball, Dutch Pinball, even New York. Building games, nothing special to report. Multimorphic, yeah, building away on Weird Al. Yeah, and full games. machines as well. And the Hacker's been built in Australia. Yeah, with Fathom Revisited. So they've all got games that they're all building, and they're just busy doing it. All power to you guys. Keep going. And we don't need any news until you've got something to announce. Just keep the business going. Right. And then there's the other news section. Other news! Yeah, we definitely need some audio talent on this show, don't we? Yeah. I'll see what I can do. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so is there any other news? Well, you already mentioned that the seminars from Pintastic should become available on the Pintastic New Robert Englunds YouTube channel. Yeah, that's right. Josie Jack and Steve Ritchie American Pinball, Roger Sharp and more there's an interesting announcement made on Pinside by John Greatwich who we know as a supplier or manufacturer for playfields and backglasses mostly for Stern Electronic Games that he used to do. So he's certainly known in the pinball world and capable of producing goods, if you want to call it that. He's been quite vocal on the deep root drama, if you want to call it that. Yeah, that's true. But basically he indicated that he's looking for an investor to get a prototype built for a license-themed pinball machine that he has either in his head or already partly developed but not built yet. and apparently once a prototype is built it should be you could either interest a manufacturing party to take it into production or manufacture it yourself and with the current pinball prices that could be interesting for some parties I suppose as people are willing to pay a lot of money but so far the response on this announcement so to speak is far from hopeful I would say. Yeah there's no detail of what this supposed license is no detail on how progressed the design is either yet and no information about a projected way of, well he's talking about selling it to an existing manufacturer as the only way but also says if that doesn't happen then the whole thing dies so it doesn't sound too encouraging but Ed's a pintastic he apparently talked to David Fix of American Pinball as well as to Jack Warnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball who knows something might happen you know yeah I really like John I've known John for many years I can highly recommend drinking a beer with John oh I've done that plenty of times yes thinking of you'll have a great time absolutely I know John had a hard time recently with a personal bankruptcy and retiring from his work as well but this has now given him the opportunity to focus entirely on doing what he really likes doing, which is creating pinball stuff. So he's hugely enthusiastic. He is actually very knowledgeable. He doesn't come across that way unless you know him pretty well, I'd say. But he does know what he's talking about, and he's produced some great products in the past. And even when he ran into trouble and had some outstanding orders for products, he got them all fulfilled by whoever took over the rights to his projects so I don't think anybody's lost out from his work and a lot of great games have been salvaged from as well, been saved from being thrown in the dumpster by getting new playfields new ink printing techniques directed to wood I should say, over the years as well, so yeah Valtteri Giorno is a very nice guy and a very knowledgeable guy, and hugely enthusiastic, and somebody who turns the phone through, and what is it they're going to do? Right. Okay, and then moving on, two more items, I suppose. First, the Dutch Pinball Open Expo has been announced for this year, and it will be held the second weekend of November at the Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Yes, it's being expanded, isn't it? From its current size, they're adding some extra floors to put the new games in, which is exciting news. I've got my hotel room booked, I've got my flight booked. I'm planning to be there. It should be a great show, and I should be reaching out to some Pimble Industry VIPs, let's call them that. people that... Oh, I'll stand by and wait for you to be in Tuxedo. Yeah, okay, sure. And... Are we going to do our quiz there, do you think? Oh, I'm positive that we will, yes. Okay, so look forward to the So You Think You Know Pinball quiz, prize quiz, at that Dutch Pinball Open Expo in Dutch Pinball Museum in Rotterdam. Yes, and prior to that, Pinball Expo is also taking place in Schoenberg. And Rob Burke recently visited the Netherlands, also the Dutch Pinball Museum, and he's shifting gears upwards, I would say, into the promotion of Pinball Expo. Hopefully, I will be able to attend this year. and just indicating that we're likely to see more Pinball Expo teasers and so on in the coming months. Yeah, I'm sure we'll have Rob on our pincast here to give us the latest updates on what people can expect who want to go to the 38th annual show this year. Exactly, the longest running pinball show on earth. Yeah, well we both plan to be there and exactly what's going to happen there we don't quite know yet but we will find out more and bring you all the details as soon as we know them. I think there will be a Stern factory tour that's already been confirmed. Yeah, a physical one this year. I was actually hoping that some other manufacturer might be doing tours as well, but no confirmation on that yet, or maybe just speculation on my end. But anyway... I thought that American Pinball were doing a factory tour on the Wednesday, is it? Before, you know, the first day of the show. I don't know. I thought I read that somewhere. Okay, well, we'll have to look into that and see if there's any truth to that. Yeah, I mean, all these things are liable to change anyway, up until we actually get to the point where things are confirmed by Rob and his team. I'm trying to reach out to David Fix to get some more details on that as well, because I don't know what's happening about seminars, streaming, and what's going to be available and who's doing what, but we'll try and get that sorted out over the coming months and we'll let you know as soon as we know so at least well that's for the end of the year two big shows coming up one in Europe one in in the Chicago area Schaumburg to be more precise so exciting times if you're looking to attend then make sure to attend yep and we will be there yeah also So, yeah, and reporting from there as well. That's right. And I'm no doubt bringing you some bonus interviews as well from some of the important people behind the industry. So, yeah, it benefits everyone. Right. So I suppose that rounds it up for this episode of our monthly review of all the important things in the pinball industry. Yeah, I'm sorry Gary didn't come back He did say he was going to be here But before the end of the show He had some interesting And important news to bring us But unfortunately I don't know where he's got to He isn't here quite yet I don't know what happened But one month we actually have him here in person And he disappears and doesn't come back But Oh well, never mind Next time So, on behalf of me, Jonathan Houston, the editor of Pinball Magazine, I'm saying goodbye and I hope to talk to you again next month. And from me, Martin Ayer, the editor of Pinball News, we will both be back next month to the start of August to look back on the events in the pinball world of July 2022. But for this look back of June, we wish you a very goodbye and have a great month. Thank you. Bye-bye. Can you have me in? I've left my key in the room. Can you have me in?