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American Pinball - Pinball Expo 2018 - Pinball News

Pinball News (Pinball Expo 2018)·video·33m 8s·analyzed·Oct 19, 2018
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TL;DR

American Pinball reveals Oktoberfest at Expo 2018 with carnival theme, dual multiballs, and innovative stein power-up system.

Summary

At Pinball Expo 2018, American Pinball unveiled Oktoberfest, their second original pinball machine, following Houdini. The presentation featured Mukesh Vasani (CEO of Ametron/American Pinball) discussing the company's journey from electronics contract manufacturer to pinball designer, along with designer Joe Balcer and rules programmer Joe Schober detailing Oktoberfest's game mechanics, which emphasize multi-ball modes, stein power-ups, carnival theming, and strategic depth for both casual and tournament players.

Key Claims

  • Ametron has grown from roughly $30-40 million in revenue over its nine-year journey (2009-2018)

    high confidence · Mukesh Vasani stated during his opening remarks that Ametron went from 2009 to 2018 'almost nine-year journey, we took this company to about $30 to $40 million dollar'

  • American Pinball was founded exactly three years prior to Pinball Expo 2018 (October 19, 2015)

    high confidence · Mukesh Vasani: 'we started in October 19, 2015, we started American Pinball. It's exactly three years today.'

  • Joe Schober joined American Pinball from Heighway Pinball after that company's closure

    high confidence · Josh Kugler stated: 'Joe joined us back in the spring. He was working for Heighway Pinball. He did the rules and code on Alien. And when Highway had its unfortunate demise, I waited a whole 24 hours before I called Joe about that.'

  • Oktoberfest's design philosophy incorporated input from both tournament and casual players through the Balcer-Schober collaboration

    high confidence · Josh Kugler: 'Joe's a tournament guy. He's a serious pinball guy. I'm more of an enthusiast guy. And it's really allowed us to look at the game from all of those constituents, whether it's the novice, the enthusiast, or the tournament player, to make sure that there are things in this game for everyone.'

  • Oktoberfest features 14 tent modes corresponding to the 14 major tents at the real Oktoberfest in Munich

    high confidence · Josh Kugler: 'Oktoberfest, at least in Munich, there are 14 main tents... those are the primary modes in the game.'

  • The game includes an upper flipper with player-controlled magnet capability activated by an additional flipper button

    high confidence · Josh Kugler: 'So we said, Joe, can we get an extra flipper button in the cabinet?... This extra flipper button lets you control two of the four magnets that are in the game.'

  • Oktoberfest includes a 'coma' mini-wizard mode triggered by consuming too many calories, which weakens flippers temporarily

    high confidence · Josh Kugler: 'if you consume too much calories you go into a coma and the game actually will basically shut down until you work off those calories... the flippers get a little weak, too'

Notable Quotes

  • “There's no, I'm not going to say that, there's very few companies out there that can say that they manufacture fun as a product.”

    Nomo Vasani (American Pinball Sales and Marketing)@ 11:05 — Encapsulates American Pinball's brand philosophy and differentiates pinball manufacturing as an entertainment product rather than purely industrial manufacturing.

  • “I will not be involved. You can do the video mode. I said, fine. It's not in the game yet. You'll have to wait for that.”

    Joe Schober@ 17:49 — Reveals a design philosophy disagreement: Schober's resistance to video modes reflects tournament player preferences for pure electromechanical gameplay, a common tension in modern pinball design.

  • “It was important with Oktoberfest, like it was with Houdini, that it was something that I could enjoy and that we could get behind.”

    Josh Kugler@ 14:16 — Indicates designer autonomy and personal investment in theme selection, contrasting with some manufacturer approaches to IP licensing for commercial appeal.

  • “He said, I will not be involved. He goes, I will not be involved... it was very early on in our conversations. I said, you know, I'm going to want to do a video mode. He said, no.”

    Josh Kugler@ 17:40 — Documents creative tension and negotiation between designer and rules programmer around game design philosophy.

  • “I'm not a Stooges fan, and there's no way I'm spending a year of my life with Larry, Moe, and Curly.”

    Josh Kugler@ 14:10 — Reveals designer motivation: personal enjoyment as a prerequisite for theme selection, suggesting design authenticity over market trends.

Entities

Mukesh VasanipersonJosh KuglerpersonJoe SchoberpersonJoe BalcerpersonJim SchwantzpersonNomo VasanipersonJeff Buschperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Ametron/American Pinball acquiring large new manufacturing facility in Palatine, Illinois with capacity for multiple production lines (pinball, contract manufacturing, and NPI) signaling significant growth ambitions and capital investment

    high · Mukesh Vasani: 'we acquired a big building in a fellow time, so our business model will be a couple lines for pinball machine, one or two lines for contract manufacturing only... and then one line for NPI'; Mayor Schwantz confirmed the facility transformation and job creation

  • ?

    product_launch: Public unveiling of Oktoberfest as American Pinball's second original game, exactly three years after company founding; represents significant product pipeline milestone

    high · Mukesh Vasani: 'we started in October 19, 2015, we started American Pinball. It's exactly three years today.' Game physically demonstrated at Expo 2018

  • ?

    design_innovation: Oktoberfest introduces novel mechanical features: extra flipper button controlling player-operated magnets, corkscrew ramp with three-ball spiral mechanic, and coma mini-wizard mode based on calorie accumulation

    high · Josh Kugler detailed extra flipper button controlling magnets; described corkscrew ramp skepticism ('that's never going to work') resolved in final design; animator Ish Radisi originated coma concept

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Joe Schober recruited to American Pinball as rules programmer/code developer from defunct Highway Pinball, representing acquisition of tournament-level coding talent and competitive game design philosophy

    high · Josh Kugler: 'Joe joined us back in the spring. He was working for Highway Pinball. He did the rules and code on Alien. And when Highway had its unfortunate demise, I waited a whole 24 hours before I called Joe... I was the most persuasive.'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.099

0:00
Thank you. Man, this is quite a turnout. There's also a plus one here, too. Got a little extra guy here.
1:00
So how's everyone doing tonight? You guys ready to see a new game? Well, this wouldn't be a real pinball expo if we didn't bore you to death first. So we're going to do a bit of talking, and then we'll let you see the good stuff.
1:15
So, as Gary said, I'm Nomo Vasani. I do the sales and marketing for American Pinball. and the past four months that I've been there, it's been an amazing experience because I've never worked for a company that gets to manufacture really, really cool and expensive toys. And that's basically what pinball is. It's all about entertainment. It's all about fun. But before that, we have a couple of very special guests in our audience. I'd like to thank our really good friend, Rich Davis, for coming over. and we even have the mayor of Palatine, Jim Schwantz, here, who would like to say a couple of words to everybody.
2:17
Thank you, Norma. I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak. As Norma said, I'm the mayor of Palatine. I've been the mayor of Palatine for the last nine years. Before that, I was fortunate to have had a short NFL career. I played seven years for the Chicago Bears, the Dallas Cowboys, and the San Francisco 49ers. So I know what it's like to be entertained, and I know what entertainment is all about. So I'm speaking to you today, though, as the mayor of Palatine, and what it's like to have a company as professional, as strong as AIMTRON, AIMTRON and soon to be American Pinball in our town. Palatine is a town of about 65,000 people. We have a small bit of manufacturing, light manufacturing, that we have down a street called Vermont Street. And years ago, about five, six, seven years ago, Mukesh came and had a vision of what he wanted to see down on Vermont Street. He bought a dilapidated old building that was literally gravel floors in it, and he turned it into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that anybody would be envious of. And in the village of Palatine, what it did for us, not only did it turn around our manufacturing district, but it started to spur on big-time job growth. And we've seen a tremendous increase in the jobs that have been produced by Mukesh and his vision, and we are fortunate to be able to very soon get to call American Pinball manufactured right in Palatine, right in home in Palatine. So we are excited about that opportunity, and we can't wait for that to happen.

  • Ametron's business model post-Palatine facility includes multiple production lines: pinball machines, contract manufacturing, and new product innovation (NPI)

    high confidence · Mukesh Vasani: 'our business model will be a couple lines for pinball machine, one or two lines for contract manufacturing only... and then one line for NPI'

  • “Being an engineer after that, came to Land of Opportunity in America in 1994 Christmas Eve. And that's where my journey started.”

    Mukesh Vasani (CEO, Ametron/American Pinball)@ 6:33 — Establishes founder backstory and entrepreneurial origin narrative central to American Pinball's brand identity and legitimacy.

  • “It's a huge carnival. It's like a portable amusement park. And so the corkscrew is kind of internally, before he settled on the name corkscrew, we were calling it the roller coaster multiball.”

    Josh Kugler@ 18:29 — Illustrates design philosophy: theming multiballs to match the broader carnival/festival experience, not just beer, expanding the experiential scope beyond stereotypes.

    • [name withheld pending review]person
    Matt Kernperson
    American Pinballcompany
    Ametroncompany
    Heighway Pinballcompany
    Pinball Expo 2018event
    Oktoberfestgame
    Houdinigame
    Rich Davisperson
    Palatine, Illinoislocation
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Game design approach balances tournament-level strategic depth (via Joe Schober) with casual/enthusiast accessibility (via Josh Kugler), intentionally serving multiple player constituencies within single ruleset

    high · Josh Kugler: 'Joe's a tournament guy... I'm more of an enthusiast guy. And it's really allowed us to look at the game from all of those constituents, whether it's the novice, the enthusiast, or the tournament player, to make sure that there are things in this game for everyone.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Oktoberfest designed with intentional shot equity: every playfield shot has strategic purpose in competitive rules; avoids dead shots or ignored ramps common in other machines

    high · Josh Kugler: 'I always get irritated at games where it's like, well, you never really want to shoot the left ramp... And so I'm pretty sure we can say that every single shot in this game has purpose... If you're playing competitively and you want to maximize your score, every shot in the game is important.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Designer prioritizes personal thematic connection and research authenticity over commercial IP licensing trends; rejects themes (Three Stooges) the designer lacks passion for

    high · Josh Kugler: 'It was important with Oktoberfest, like it was with Houdini, that it was something that I could enjoy and that we could get behind... I'm not a Stooges fan, and there's no way I'm spending a year of my life with Larry, Moe, and Curly.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Oktoberfest includes one-handed play mode in operator settings, accommodating hold-a-beer-while-playing scenario through right-hand-play-only configuration

    high · Josh Kugler: 'In operator settings, you can set the game up for right-hand play only, and the blue button is your right button and the red button is your left flipper button... if you're drinking beer and you always have that problem of how do I drink a beer and play pinball at the same time'

  • ?

    business_signal: Ametron/American Pinball strategic diversification across government, medical, industrial, and gaming sectors to insulate pinball division from economic downturns specific to entertainment industry

    high · Mukesh Vasani: 'Ametron itself is diversification. We have a government contract, we have medical areas, we have industrial, we have gaming, so we have all around... so we don't get failed or we don't get any other, you know, wind tunnel or something happens in the economy so we can survive.'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Creative tension evident between designer (Josh Kugler) and rules programmer (Joe Schober) regarding video mode inclusion; programmer's tournament philosophy vs. designer's vision; programmer's preference prevailed in early decisions

    high · Josh Kugler: 'I said, you know, I'm going to want to do a video mode. He said, no. He goes, I will not be involved. You can do the video mode. I said, fine. It's not in the game yet.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball Expo 2018 featured live streaming of Oktoberfest gameplay; indicates growing adoption of digital broadcasting for remote community engagement during major events

    medium · Josh Kugler: 'I know Jack's going to be streaming the game live for it to all the people at home who can't be in the room... he's hard at work here trying to get that set up.'

    • 3:53
    Mukesh has built himself a very strong American-made business, and it's one thing for mayors to be able to stand up and say we've got a very strong manufacturing, we've got very strong. It's another thing to be able to stand up. We manufacture really cool things like pinball machines. So we're excited about that. We can't wait for the opportunity to have American pinball in Palatine. And on behalf of myself, the Village of Palatine, our staff, our residents, I want to thank Mukesh Nirmal and all the people over at Ametron and American Pinball. And at this time, it's my pleasure to introduce the man we're here to see, the principal, the CEO and the founder of Ametron and American Pinball, Mr. Mukesh Vasani.
    4:44
    Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Good evening, everybody. Thank you, Honorable Mayor. my dear friends, business friends, pinball community, and our design team who made this miracle. You know, Ametron design team and American Pinball Design Team, especially we call J&J Group. You know, we have five Jacks. One, two, three, four, five. You know, Jim, John, Josh, another Josh, and Jeff. And we have a lot of staff members, but, you know, So we have five jacks, that's why we are winning. Again, welcome and thank you for your time and support for another amazing milestone mark for American Pinball. We are, we all are excited to see the miracle made by our design team. So I won't take much time. And already, Honorable Mayor already explained a lot of things about AIMTRON and myself, so I don't have to introduce anymore. But one thing, while walking on the floor, a lot of questions came up. Who is American Pinball? What is the relation with AIMTRON? Who is AIMTRON? And that was kind of murmuring, so that's what I would like to, take you for a couple seconds for my journey. Born and brought up in a small village of 500, and being an engineer after that, came to Land of Opportunity in America in 1994 Christmas Eve. And that's where my journey started. Even though construction business owner in India, I came here and changed 180 degree, and I went to DeVry and started electronics business in 1996.
    6:55
    First decade, our main client base was gaming industries, WMS, Williams, and a lot of other gaming industries. So we have a passion for gaming and amusement since day one.
    7:08
    It was a partnership journey. In 2007, partner retired, and we started Aimtron as a newborn company in 2009.
    7:18
    In 2009 to 2018, almost nine-year journey, we took this company to about $30 to $40 million. dollar and now thanks to Dawa he helped me to raise this company but now it's time to start our own product line. So Dawa came an idea, let's start Finvol. I said why not? Because this is something that is giving us a gaming presence, an amusement. So that's That's where we started in October 19, 2015, we started American Pinball. It's exactly three years today. That's where American Pinball came in picture. In Ametron Group, we have five, six companies, but nothing is right now. We are not here to talk about Ametron. I would like to invite and come to visit the facility and we will sell a lot of things over there And again today I would like to just give you a glimpse where American Pinball came from
    8:22
    And the last, but not least, as Mayor said, we acquired a big building in a fellow time, so our business model will be a couple lines for pinball machine, one or two lines for contract manufacturing only, because that's our forte, and then one line for NPI. So that's where we will have a big fortune in amusement. Not only one pinball industry, but other, riddimson game and a couple other areas, we're going to diversify. Because Ametron itself is diversification. We have a government contract, we have medical areas, we have industrial, we have gaming, so we have all around. So that's where, in amusement industry, we're going to make a long path so we don't get failed or we don't get any other, you know, wind tunnel or something happens in the economy so we can survive. So that's about, you know, Amtron journey and American pinball journey. And I would like to say thank you to Daval to take the lead on this. And thanks to Nirmal, he just joined on this journey. And I'm going to have new millennium, new thought process in pinball industries come in the picture. So, again, thank you for your time. I don't want to take much time. I would like to, again, one more time thank you to our design team, Joe, Jim, Josh, Jeff, and another Joe, Paul, Brian, Barry, Leslie on the back. So there is a lot of our staff members that work day and night. So within one year, we got a second strong machine, and I rest assure that there will be a quality. Make sure quality is number one for all American pinball machines. Again, thank you for your time, and we are here to support. We are in my assurance the last long commitment to support pinball community. Thank you so much.
    10:18
    Thank you for that. Thank you for that very insightful history on kind of how American Pinball came from Ametron's desire to really support the gaming amusement community that's really been supporting us for the past couple of decades.
    10:42
    One thing that people always ask is, if there's not much money in it, why did you choose pinball? And the main reason for it is, as Jim referred to, it creates a lot of jobs. It's a great employment opportunity and it's a great way to manufacture fun. There's no, I'm not going to say that, there's very few companies out there that can say that they manufacture fun as a product.
    11:16
    American Pinball's journey has been fairly short to date, but when we first started, it was strictly as a contract manufacturer back in 2015. Never in our wildest dreams were we going to create our own product like Houdini. And that all changed when we met Joe Balser. And it is my firm belief that the Vasani family meeting Joe was nothing short of destiny.
    11:46
    So thank you for that. Now, with that, I really don't want to take much more of your time. I'm going to hand it off to Josh Kugler and Joe Schober who's kind of sneak slash ninja hiding over in the corner over there and they will explain a bit about the game, what it's about a bit about the rule set and stuff like that so the software team everyone applause okay let's rock and roll Joe Schober, I'm dragging him up here because he was my collaborator in the rules and the code on this game. I first want to talk about our design team hiding in the back. There was a debate about who should present. I guess we drew straws. I got the short straw, or at least that's what they told me. I wasn't there that day. So I'm going to be up here. They're all hiding in the back, but I do want to first recognize Jeff Bush, our artist. Jeff, do you want to just wave over? Okay. Ish Radisi, our animator.
    12:56
    Matt Kern, our sound guy, who did some amazing new compositions for Oktoberfest. And of course, in case you want to say it, the legendary Joe Balser. Thank you. when we were working on we're still working on Houdini when we started thinking about what our next game should be and Joe said it was always in his desire to do Oktoberfest and I looked at Joe and I said what the Oktoberfest and that's probably the same reaction many of you had when you first heard it because I thought, okay, Oktoberfest, that's about beer and beautiful women and beer and beautiful women. So I did a little research on it and found out, no, that's not what Oktoberfest is. Oktoberfest is a huge festival. It's a huge celebration. It's about food and family and music and beer and rides and games. And I got really excited about it once I knew more about it because a lot of people have asked me about themes we could do. and one I get all the time is people say, you guys should do the Three Stooges. And I say, it's never going to happen. And they're like, oh, it's a great theme. It fits the pinball market. I said, I'm not a Stooges fan, and there's no way I'm spending a year of my life with Larry, Moe, and Curly.
    14:16
    So it was important with Oktoberfest, like it was with Houdini, that it was something that I could enjoy and that we could get behind.
    14:26
    This is Joe Schober for people who don't know. Joe joined us. Joe joined us back in the spring. He was working for Highway Pinball. He did the rules and code on Alien. And when Highway had its unfortunate demise, I waited a whole 24 hours before I called Joe about that. I was not the first to call him, as it turns out. However, I was the most persuasive.
    14:56
    Either that or he was just so lacking sleep when we talked, he wasn't thinking clearly, and convinced him to come on board and work on Oktoberfest with us. And it's been great having him on the team. It's really great for me to have a collaborator to work with, to debate things, throw ideas against. And I think what we're bringing in Oktoberfest really shows that collaboration we've had together. Joe's a tournament guy. He's a serious pinball guy. I'm more of an enthusiast guy. And it's really allowed us to look at the game from all of those constituents, whether it's the novice, the enthusiast, or the tournament player, to make sure that there are things in this game for everyone. That for the people who really love strategy, who really want to focus on multipliers and power-ups and accelerators, that stuff is there. For people who just want to try and get through modes and experience the game, that stuff is there. I'm going to go through a couple of real slides, a few slides. We're going to try and go through this quick. Joe's going to add some color commentary as I go. and then we're going to show you the game and give you a chance to play it. I know Jack's going to be streaming the game live for it to all the people at home who can't be in the room and maybe we'll be able to get it up on this screen. I don't know. We'll try that. But he's hard at work here trying to get that set up. So you're going to get to see a few sneak peeks and some photos in here as we go through, but not too much. So let's see if this will work here. All right, come on.
    16:25
    Ooh, our fancy logo. There we go All right pinball on tap As I said it not just about food or about beer rather It food music rides games Quick shot of the game. As you can see, it's a very different look than Houdini. Jeff, it was amazing to me that he could shift gears and create something. These pictures don't do justice. You're going to see in a few minutes how bright and colorful and alive the game is. As you see, it's crazy with wire forms. One of the things Joe really wanted to do in capturing the The ride side of the game was to really do that. So we're going to move through this quickly.
    17:04
    Oktoberfest, at least in Munich, there are 14 main tents. I got that right? Right, 14 main tents. Actually, if you've experienced the Oktoberfest in Munich, the original Oktoberfest from 1850, whatever, there's 14 major tents there. And we figured, hey, well, that's the highlight of Oktoberfest, so we're going to make that the highlight of our game. There are, so those are the primary modes in the game. There's a couple of multi-balls in there. There is a video mode in there. Joe has told me he absolutely refuses to work on the video mode. He's anti-video mode. It was very early on in our conversations. I said, you know, I'm going to want to do a video mode. He said, no. He goes, I will not be involved. He says, you can do the video mode. I said, fine. It's not in the game yet. You'll have to wait for that. So, because he won't help me, so I have to do it myself. There are two primary multiballs, so there are some multiballs in the tent modes. There are two primary ones, which is beer barrel multiball and corkscrew multiball. We're going to hit on some of those rules in a minute.
    18:09
    But that already, just having those two multiballs as kind of the key multiballs of the game, kind of gives a glimpse already of the philosophy we had around the entire game, which was it's not just beer. Beer is kind of the most well-known part of Oktoberfest. It's what a lot of people think of. but it's a huge carnival. It's like a portable amusement park. And so the corkscrew is kind of internally, before he settled on the name corkscrew, we were calling it the roller coaster multiball. So besides beer, one of the major features of the game is this big roller coaster.
    18:42
    We have something in the game called Stein Boosters. Early on, I had the thought of that you'd be purchasing beers and they would give you capabilities and powers. And Joe jumped on that idea and expanded it a little bit. And so it's a key part of the game is there's a bartender in the game. And when you bash him, the bar opens up. And you're able to purchase a stein of beer that gives you different powers and capabilities that help you. So it really introduces a layer of strategy around how you want to approach the game. And Joe and I will be happy when you're playing the game to give you some insights around that. If you want heavy-duty strategy, talk to Joe. If you want basic strategy, talk to me.
    19:20
    Food is a huge part of Oktoberfest. So there's a series of modes tied to the food stand. These are uber scoring modes. I think we'll hit on that in a minute. We have something called MAGNAB, player controlled magnets, and Dux, Dux, Dux. And we're going to talk more about that in a moment as well.
    19:36
    So the tent modes, there's a scoop. You've all seen those before. Spell tent at the lower lanes, shoot the scoop. All the modes have a way to win. The timer continues to go and you have basically the concept of like victory laps. we were able to continue to score points, right? Anything there I missed? No, exactly right.
    19:56
    We, for the tournament players out there, I think we talked about this here maybe in the next slide, but I'll jump ahead possibly. So just as with the Oktoberfest in Munich, those 14 tents are all sponsored by major breweries and stuff like that. And we're like, well, that's a big part of it. How can we bring that into the game? And so what we settled up on was that every tent, every mode, is sponsored by, associated with a stein. So as you collect those steins, it multiplies the value of its associated tent feature, and you can stack those. And the steins do other things, which I'm sure we'll be talking about here in a second. I will tell you right now, the best stein by far is the Sloshed Rosh Lager. Frosty Ferret.
    20:44
    Sloshed Rosh Lager. Frosty Ferret. I highly recommend it. Very good. Modes can be done more than once if you haven't won, and it continues where you've left off, so you have that chance to get all the way through it.
    20:57
    Quarkscrew multiball. I'm not sure how long it took Joe to come up with this ramp. I watched him go through a few iterations of it. When I saw the first sketch of it, I basically said to Joe, that's never going to work, and he's like, oh, it'll work. and it's pretty wild to watch and the first time they hooked it up and after we get through the presentation we're just going to throw a slide show up that shows some stuff behind the scenes along the way and the first time he hooked it up it was pretty crazy to see that in action. What's a shame is this video doesn't show when all three balls are spiraling around that ramp. It looks really cool.
    21:37
    So you spell, you'll see on the game, the game has I think it's 27 stand-up targets so lots to shoot at. There's a bank that spells October, another bank that spells Fest. Completing either bank will lower a ramp to shoot up into the roller coaster staging area, complete the other bank, it lights the other two locks, lock your balls, and then off you go.
    22:02
    Beer barrel multi-ball, why don't you take this one? Sure, so there's actually two distinct lock metacognisms and two completely different multi-balls in the game. The beer barrel multi-ball is triggered by there's five stand-ups front and center, so they're pretty newbie-friendly, casual player-friendly. You don't have to have any crazy angle shots to make the post targets, and that qualifies locks on the beer barrel, which is a gigantic beer barrel, as you can see there in the thing. It's pretty cool. Once you lock three balls up there, they come pouring out of the tap. One fun part about the beer barrel multi-ball is you can, in multiplayer games, you can steal someone else's beer. You can steal their ball locks, which gives a little extra bit of fun and strategy to the game. And the beer barrel shot is just really fun. It's kind of an upper flipper steep tight ramp shot. It's fun to make, really satisfying when you whack it around there.
    23:08
    As you can see from the picture, it kind of goes up and around our auto, who's our bartender, who takes care of all your needs. The shack goes up and around and into the barrel, and it's kind of fun when you make it. All right. We talked a little bit about the food stand. So at the back of the game, there's a drop target protecting a buck, the spinner, and drop target, eventually get the food stand open, some Uber modes around ramps and pop bumpers, get some nice food stuff going on. Ultimately, those give you calories, which help you with beer barrel multiball, right? With both multiballs, in fact. Both multiballs are boosted by calories. And one of the fun things about this, the spinner was actually something I asked Joe Balser to put in, because you've got to have a spinner in a game. It's an awesome element. And just in general, the way the rules are set up in the game, every shot is important for something. You know, I always get irritated at games where it's like, well, you never really want to shoot the left ramp. You never really want to shoot the right orbit from a strategic point of view, a gameplay point of view. And so I'm pretty sure we can say that every single shot in this game has purpose and the rules. If you're playing competitively and you want to maximize your score, every shot in the game is important. So that includes the food stand. and it forces you to spread the shots around the play field. Otherwise, you can go ahead and start multivolving. It just ain't going to be worth that much. So as we said, you accumulate calories. We were talking through the rules one day, and Ish, our animator, said, so if you eat too many calories, do you go into a coma? And I said, that's a great idea. So that actually the mini wizard mode for the food stand is if you consume too much calories you go into a coma and the game actually will basically shut down until you work off those calories and then the game will resume again And actually, the flippers get a little weak, too, because, you know, you're a little weak, and then you've got to hit the spinner a few times to get that strength back up, get rid of a few of those calories, and then you're able to resume your game. And so if you don't like that, you can blame Ish. If you do like it, then we're happy to take credit for that. When we looked at the layout, Joe and I, there's an upper right flipper in the game. There's a lot of shots off that flipper, so it's pretty critical. Four different shots, right? I think there's four distinct shots off the upper flipper, which is pretty fun. And so we wanted to make sure that you could use that flipper a lot and get the ball up there. And Joe had put a magnet right above it, so he was already kind of anticipating that. And we thought, boy, it would be nice to be able to have more control over that. So we said, Joe, can we get an extra flipper button in the cabinet? And at first I thought Joe was going to say, we're not putting that in. We were already prepared. He had done it previously. And he was like, sure, we can do that. He loved the idea. So this extra flipper button lets you control two of the four magnets that are in the game. You can earn what are called magnavs during gameplay. And when you have those, you control when that flipper fires. There's also times where the game will do it automatically to help you. There is also an option in operator settings for those of you guys who like to have fun at home and you're drinking beer and you always have that problem of how do I drink a beer and play pinball at the same time. In operator settings, you can set the game up for right-hand play only, and the blue button is your right button and the red button is your left flipper button.
    26:32
    And so if we have a chance, probably maybe late on Saturday, if the lines aren't too long, we'll set up one of the games you can play that way. I've played a few times that way. It's actually very intriguing.
    26:45
    Now, you have to obviously hold a beer is part of the key to playing this. You can't hold a table or whatever else it is. It's not as hard as you would think. All right. We had thoughts of doing a mode based on that, but we actually have some different ideas now for the mode we were going to use this for. So we might use it in a mode, we might not. But it's always there for you late night with your friends. Flip it over, play one-handed. Oh.
    27:11
    We talked a little bit about Stein power-ups. We'll tell you more about that when you're playing the game and you want to learn more about how to boost the game, because we want to move through this. Ducks, ducks, and more ducks. So early on we were thinking about, you have to have your mystery award. Every game has to have it. We all expect it to be there. And since there's such a carnival aspect that's such a big part, we talked about, oh, we should just have the, we pull the duck out and there's a prize on the bottom. Oh, that's a great idea. And I think Joe started Googling ducks. And it turns out that there's this thing I called Oktoberfest ducks, that people collect these little ducks dressed in Oktoberfest clothing and stuff. So it sort of turned out to be like, hey, that's perfect. It works well. We actually have ducks using a variety in the game. I will just tell you collecting ducks is a good thing. It's a good thing if you're an Oktoberfest fan. It's a good thing if you want to score a lot of points. It accelerates points. It helps you with your bonus. So go for the ducks. the bonus is the best part. Get someone to crank the volume when you play. The bonus count of ducks is awesome.
    28:14
    Okay. That concludes the presentation part. I think it's time to show the game. So before I let Joe and Josh unveil the two games,
    28:36
    Or I guess it's too late for that. Before everyone runs up to play the game, it would be really cool if we could get kind of everyone in the room somehow situated near it so that we can get one huge group picture. What do you guys think?
    28:55
    You guys ready to do this? All right. Let's try it. Would you like to coordinate? First, just the company.
    29:36
    Thank you. One, two, three. Thank you. you