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When Pinball Loses Its Shine

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·54m 29s·held·Oct 17, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

BlahCade hosts vent about Pinball Arcade's broken save system and ReplayFX gameplay observations.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss their frustrations with technology infrastructure, particularly Farsight Studios' Pinball Arcade data management system that wipes save files on new installations. PinballWiz45B joins to share ReplayFX event experiences, comparing real machine play to TPA simulations and discussing tournament performances.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Arcade wipes all save data and wizard goals when transferring to a new computer or doing a fresh install, even if data files are present in the directory

    high confidence · Chris Friebus describing personal experience with TPA save loss after hard drive transfer

  • The TPA data loss issue is caused by Steam cloud synchronization treating new installs as wipes, and also affects cross-device play (running on multiple computers causes data deletion on the original device)

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing investigation of TPA data management across platforms

  • Safe Cracker wizard goal (collecting 1000 tokens) uses a pure random number generator with no preset configuration, meaning the probability of getting a silver token is the same on game 1 as on game 150,000

    high confidence · PinballWiz45B citing Android forum discussion about token collection mechanics

  • Farsight said they would give something special for completing all Safecracker tokens but never followed through

    high confidence · Chris noting Farsight's unfulfilled promise about token goal completion rewards

  • ReplayFX facility was twice as large as the previous year with dedicated tournament areas housing 200-300 machines

    high confidence · PinballWiz45B describing ReplayFX attendance

  • Bride of Pinbot 1.0 on real hardware plays significantly harder than in Pinball Arcade, particularly due to ramp steepness and requires proper factory pitch to be playable

    high confidence · PinballWiz45B comparing ReplayFX machine experience to TPA version

  • Real Powerball on Twilight Zone plays much faster than in TPA, and the Powerball looks and feels larger in TPA than in real life

    high confidence · PinballWiz45B and Chris discussing Twilight Zone Powerball physics comparison

  • Farsight's monthly tournament randomizer is potentially broken because it has recently selected Black Knight, Black Knight 2000, Goin' Nuts, and Safecracker—with consecutive Black Knight variants and notoriously difficult games back-to-back

Notable Quotes

  • “Nothing kills the enjoyment of pinball like having stupid stuff like this block you.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~30:00 — Encapsulates the core frustration with user experience breaking immersion and engagement

  • “It really should be a situation where if I went over to a friend's house and he had Pinball Arcade and I said, hey, let me log in as my user, that I log in under my user that, boom, all the tables that I purchased should pop up and all my goals should pop up and all my high scores should pop up.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~28:00 — Articulates the expected standard for cloud save/cross-platform synchronization in modern gaming

  • “This is like one of the most common things that happens on Android as well as far as user management goes. It's like the Achilles heel of all the data management in Farsight at the moment.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~33:00 — Identifies systemic data management as a critical ongoing problem across Farsight's platforms

  • “You get the goal, but that's it. That's another one that you would never want to do again if you had to restore your game process.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~45:00 — Highlights the futility and poor incentive structure of Safecracker's token goal

  • “Bride of Pinbot 1.0 does not play like a pinball arcade. It is hard.”

    PinballWiz45B @ ~55:00 — Points to significant difficulty differences between TPA simulation and real hardware

  • “The Powerball is just so fast in real life. Yeah. Compared to TPA, which is basically, I can't really pick the difference.”

    PinballWiz45B @ ~70:00 — Documents physics simulation inaccuracy that affects core gameplay feel

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonPinballWiz45BpersonFarsight StudioscompanyPinball ArcadeproductReplayFXeventBlahCade PodcastorganizationTwilight ZonegameBride of Pinbotgame

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball Arcade systematically wipes wizard goal progress, high scores, and achievement data when installed on new hardware or fresh installs, with no automatic recovery from cloud backup despite Steam cloud integration

    high · Chris lost 540 hours of wizard goal progress after transferring to new hard drive; issue documented on Steam forums as occurring across multiple platforms (Android, iOS, Steam, consoles)

  • ?

    product_concern: Installing Pinball Arcade on a second device causes data wipes on the original device due to Steam cloud synchronization treating new installations as authoritative wipes

    high · Chris and Jared discussing user reports of data loss when running TPA on multiple computers; cloud sync prioritizes newest install over existing save data

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Multiple Pinball Arcade early-season tables (Bride of Pinbot 1.0, Twilight Zone) play significantly differently on real hardware vs TPA, particularly regarding ramp steepness, ball physics, and difficulty

    high · PinballWiz45B detailed comparison of ReplayFX real machine experience vs TPA versions; specific issues with ramp pitch, Powerball speed, and flipper responsiveness

  • ?

    product_concern: Farsight's monthly tournament randomizer may be malfunctioning—recent selections have included consecutive Black Knight variants and notoriously punitive games with unrealistic time constraints (Safecracker timed tournament)

    medium · Chris questioning consecutive Black Knight, Black Knight 2000, Going Nuts, and Safecracker selections in recent tournament lineups; pattern appears non-random

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.163

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap, joining me as always from Australia, Jared Morgan.
0:42
G'day. How's it going, Chris? I'm in a mood. You're in a mood? Do you have a mood? I have a mood. It's just one of those things. We'll get into it in a little bit, but yeah. Technology is working against me at the moment. That's frustrating. Even from the start of us getting this podcast going today, which, by the way, no, you did not miss the podcast last week. We just were not here. I was up at Australia Zoo looking at crocodiles, which is fun.
1:17
And they're rather large crocodiles at the Australia Zoo, too. They're huge. Yeah, really, really big. Is Bindi and her mom running that place still? or? Yep, they are. They weren't there when we went there, but they certainly are, yeah. But it's huge now.
1:36
In case people are kind of going, what? Australia? I'm not sure. Australia Zoo, that's the zoo that Steve Erwin had set up with all of his crocodiles and when I went there, what was that? Almost 15 years ago, it was a huge place and pretty awesome.
1:54
But it sounds like they've done massive amounts of work since then, too. Huge amounts. They've got where you would have seen the crocodile show being done. They've actually got a stadium built now for that. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so it's not just like a little set of pools with some really small seating there. It's like a full-on stadium with speakers and audiovisual and everything. Wow. It's amazing. They've got like a whole Africa exhibit now, so you can see giraffes and rhinos and zebras and all that sort of stuff. We went by. They had this snake. I don't know if it was a – it was probably a boa constrictor. big yellow boa.

medium confidence · Chris questioning the randomness of Farsight's tournament game selection

Safe Cracker
game
Black Knightgame
Goin' Nutsgame
Johnny Modicaperson
Farzadperson
Keith Elwinperson

product_concern: Safecracker wizard goal (1000 token collection) uses pure RNG with no preset drops, making completion equally unlikely on any game; reward for completion never materialized despite Farsight's initial promise

high · PinballWiz45B citing Android forum documentation of token mechanics; Chris noting unfulfilled promise of special reward for goal completion

  • ?

    event_signal: ReplayFX doubled facility size year-over-year with dedicated tournament areas containing 200-300 pinball machines and separate arcade/vendor zones

    high · PinballWiz45B direct observation of ReplayFX 2024 scale relative to prior year

  • ?

    design_innovation: Pinball Arcade's rendering and physics engine creates persistent visual and mechanical differences from real hardware, particularly with ball appearance, ramp angles, and shot timing

    high · Extended discussion of Powerball visual size differences, ceramic vs silver ball appearance due to background blending, and loop shot achievability differences in Indy 500

  • ?

    community_signal: User frustration with Pinball Arcade data management issues is widespread enough to be documented in community forums and Steam discussions; represents ongoing barrier to engagement

    high · Chris discovering multiple existing workaround guides on first Google search; evidence of repeated reports suggesting systemic, known problem

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Real pinball machines exhibit significantly higher difficulty than TPA simulations, particularly on ramp shots, ball control, and physics-dependent challenges; skill transfer between digital and real is limited

    high · PinballWiz45B struggling on real hardware after success in TPA on multiple tables (Bride of Pinbot, Twilight Zone, High Speed); noted year-long absence from real machines as factor

  • ?

    content_signal: PinballWiz45B maintaining blog with detailed ReplayFX event notes and machine-by-machine play analysis; community knowledge base for real vs digital pinball comparison

    medium · Chris referencing PinballWiz45B's blog post about machines played at ReplayFX; indicates ongoing documentation effort

  • ?

    operational_signal: Farsight's timed tournament format for Safecracker is inherently problematic—game is already time-limited, making 10-minute tournament window artificially constrictive and penalizing slower, more methodical players

    high · Chris and Jared discussing the absurdity of timed Safecracker tournament given game's pre-existing time pressure mechanic

    • 2:30
    Giant lump in it. And we kind of asked, we're like, oh, what do you feed this thing? They're like, pigs.
    2:35
    Pigs. Okay. Well. I didn't see the huge boa constrictor, the pig-eating boa constrictor I was there, but Yeah, it was massive. And then, of course, they had the turtles, or the tortoises, I should say. Yeah, the huge tortoises. They were cool. Very cool, actually. And when you find out how old those things are and you find out that, yeah, Charles Darwin brought those over. Yeah. It's like, oh, okay.
    3:05
    Yeah. They're massive, massive creatures. And the thing I found most fascinating about that session, I really didn't sort of think it would be that fascinating, but I didn't realize that the shells, they're made of keratin, which is the same stuff that our fingernails are made out of. And they're actually, I didn't think they could feel through their shells, but they can. So they have full sensory perception through their shells. So if you rub their shells, they can feel it. And these two big, big tortoises, they loved a good scratch and a good shell rub. So they would actually, they'd be sitting there munching away on their food, and then the handlers will go up and actually give their legs a rub or their shell a rub, and they sort of push up off the ground like a cat does. Right, right. And you're scratching their tummy. They go, oh, yeah, just give me more of the lift.
    4:01
    They're great. They're really cool little, not little, they're huge tortoises, but they're really cool to watch. I really would say if you find yourself in Jared's neck of the woods in Brisbane, it's probably about what an hour drive in though from Brisbane proper right if you're coming from Brisbane CBD yeah it's about an hour if you're coming from where I live in North Lakes you'd probably get there about 35 minutes so if you were like me yeah if you were like me and being a tourist and you got plunked right down the middle of Brisbane in the city portion what you will it took about an hour but it's totally worth it It's really, really awesome, and I couldn't even come close to getting tired of watching the handlers getting the pens with the crocodiles and dangling meat in front of them and hearing those jaws snap shut. I mean, you wouldn't find me hopping over the fence. No, thank you. The croc that they had out on the day was in a bit of a cranky mood, too, so it was a little bit feisty. I was fortunate we were fortunate enough to be there when Steve was still alive and he was actually at the park that day feeding so we actually got to see him do his thing so yeah it was pretty awesome yeah so yeah the technology shift or the technology is pissing me off many of you have known that Blab went away which was a very easy one click and we were active kind of venture we had been using Google Hangouts prior to that Google Hangouts is kind of a maze to walk through to get into it keeps on popping up other windows and you're like well wait which window is what am I broadcasting, what am I looking at what am I doing but it wasn't terrible it just was kind of difficult but then after Blab went down and we went to go back to Google Hangouts well Google Hangouts was not doing what it was doing anymore and now we're doing this YouTube live which actually is using Google Hangouts. I don't know. It's all confusing to me but I was not able for the life of me to get this thing to pop up and give me a video. Yeah, we had to completely recreate the session and the funny thing is that the one that we created, we couldn't actually delete it. I tried deleting it but it was saying not error, try again or something like that. So it's like it was a corrupted session or something like that. And I don't know if any of this has to do with the fact that, Jared, I finally got my computer, the data that was frozen on my RAID array of hard drives, we were finally able to get that transferred over to another hard drive. Oh, wow, you actually managed to get it. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I wasn't holding out much hope. It was making my buddy really pull his hair out. What we decided to do was go ahead and get a, I got a two terabyte internal hard drive. We got that. He found a program that was able to kind of do a cloning of hard drives. And so we thought that was going to be really simple. But then it was a problem of it still not wanting to recognize the drives. and he had to God, he pulled up this laundry list of instructions on the web for how to make this work and I was like, yeah, so I'm going to leave now because it was massive and he was able to Cool story, bro.
    7:30
    I'll just let you do that yourself. That's fine. He was able to get it to recognize the drives, get it to copy them over and the problem with that was since they were striped, it was like, well, how do you get it to recognize and pull over all the information? Somehow he managed to do that.
    7:46
    I'm on the new hard drive. I'm testing it all out. I only got it. I literally got it last night. Oh, right. Today I've been just opening up programs and seeing if they function and making sure everything's cool. Then it's like, oh, podcast. In my head, I'm like, oh, that's no problem. It's just my cameras and my microphone.
    8:09
    I don't need to update anything with that. Plug those in, no problem. I open up YouTube Live, and that's when it was like telling me I need a new encoder and not recognizing what's going on. I'm like, oh, man, what, did it lose the information or what? I don't know.
    8:28
    So Jared came to the rescue, logged in under our Blockade account, and hooked us up. Made it work. Handed it back to me. There we go. So the whole reason why I was really, really jonesing for having this transfer go over, because we actually got all of our save files transferred over to a – well, I had all those transferred over to a removable hard drive. Okay. But the one thing I didn't get was the TPA save files. Oh, the data. The data.
    9:01
    And so I was really hoping that, okay, hey, once we get this all transferred and copied over, boom I'll have them back and so I everything got transferred over I open up tp8 this morning I look and nope not a single goal is saved I'm like what the heck so I did a quick search and so if you I haven't really been playing much pinball because I didn't want to be playing pinball arcade not having my wizard goals saved or any of my data saved because I knew that I'd just be starting over again. And I was like, well, no, I got all this other saved data. So I haven't been playing with that. I've been working the past month, so I haven't had a chance to really play pinball in general on that front. You've been playing Zen as well. And what I have and has been playing Zen, but even then I'm not having much time. Instead, it's one of those things where I'm getting home from work and I'm just like, okay, I've got two hours of being awake. What would I rather do? Play some pinball, watch some TV. I'm going to TV right now. TV, yeah. But so I was really all excited, though. I was like, oh, finally I'll have Pinball Arcade back up and running with all my save. I'll be happy. That'll ease my mind or whatever. Well, it turns out that any time you, basically, if you're transferring to a new computer or any time you load TPA, do a new install, it wipes all your previous data. Oh, right. So even the stuff that was in the directory that you had synced over, and it was there, ready, happily sitting there,
    10:40
    it just toasts it. It goes, oh, it's a new install, therefore I'm wiping all the data. Wow. Yep. Genius. Thanks, Farsight.
    10:49
    Great. Because that didn't happen with Xen. That doesn't happen with any other games. They all go, hey, we're all cool. Because I guess it's some weird thing where stuff is saving to the Steam cloud. But then when it becomes on a new hard drive, it goes, nope, this is new. Or a new install, it goes, nope, this is new.
    11:09
    And what I was reading was some people were installing on another computer. So they have their regular computer. Then they were installing the game on another computer. They ran the game. When they got back home to their other computer, all data gone. Oh, so it's synchronizing it. So it's synchronizing the install stage. Synchronizing wipes.
    11:29
    Oh, so it even kills your cloud backup as well. Yeah. that's a terrible bug far side that's a terrible bug ding dong fix this crap that is terrible wow now I'm trying to I still haven't deleted my old hard drive and so I gotta get into that I gotta try and backup save which now I'm in territory I have no clue what I'm doing and because the instructions that I was reading was like well first you gotta open up the new install then you gotta go to the old install and then you've got to start up and then you've got to put this in it. I'm like, what the hell do you mean old install, new install? It's like, I've only got the one install on my computer right now, which I guess would technically be the new install? I don't know. The new install, yeah.
    12:17
    But it's like... You would think it's just something... Yeah, it's documented. That's where I was finding it on Steam chat room. I mean, I just did a basic Google search of what I type in. I put Pinball Arcade save file. and this information popped up.
    12:36
    And so, yeah, you would think that it's just a simple matter of, well, here's my old data. Let me just copy and paste and dump it in. But apparently you have to do some other preventative measure so that it doesn't go. No, I don't want that information, though. And then I came across a weird thing where it was basically going into your user data and then selecting your username. name? Well, I had my Shut Your Trap user, which is what I log in and all my gameplay is done. And then I also had one that said Chris Freebus, and I thought, well, that's interesting. So I double-click on the Shut Your Trap, look at that user information, and it's got info from 2015 on it. I click on the Chris Freebus, and that one's got the brand new install. I'm like, well, why is it going to that? So I'm almost wondering if this is Steam. At some point, Steam had me change like it knows what my username is but also knows what my real name is and then somehow it and so it made a new thing there yeah And I tried just my simplicity, I tried copying and pasting the Shut Your Trump stuff into that folder, and it didn't do a thing. Right, yeah. Yeah, to say the least, nothing kills the enjoyment of pinball like having stupid stuff like this block you. Yeah, that's right. it is frustrating although there could be a silver line to this I found that when I had the same problem on Android because of this wacky way they do backups on Android as well it is kind of cool to see all those goals popping up again maybe not the really tough ones like Lime and Zanon and all those ones but that's the thing I've already been through this is what happened when I had yeah I'd already met all the goals on PlayStation 3 for seasons 1 and 2 and then that's when I transferred over to the PC and on Steam and I was like, well, I've got to go get all those goals again.
    14:37
    It's a daunting task. You're not kidding. There's those goals that you never, ever want to see again. Yeah. The 250,000 on Genie or something, isn't it? 3 million on Genie. It's 250,000 on Big Shot. There's that stupid hidden goal on a secret passage on a scared stiff that might be doable on a real machine, but on the way Farsight has their railroading of where the ball goes, you only get it by sheer accident. There is no shooting for it. Usually a multi-goal when balls collide and have a Which is how I got it, but then here's the thing. I got it because it set it on the game, but at the same time there was other audio going on too and so Farsight's system didn't recognize it. Yeah, because it's looking for the audio call and not the DMD probably because it does have a DMD. No, the audio call was, but there was also other audio calls going on at the same time because it was multiball. So I don't think it didn't recognize it. So I'm like, I got it! I heard it say, you know, specifically and nope, and so I still had to play for it some more. I know, guys, I think PinballWiz45B still has not gotten that goal. Oh, really? Jeez, that's a telling tale. Right?
    16:02
    Fortunately, I never got that stupid TX sector goal of getting the two balls in the shooter lane. That's retarded. I would be very, very angry if I had to try and get that one back.
    16:14
    But on top of that, though, you lose all your high scores. All your locals. That's really annoying, too. so there's it certainly takes the luster off of a game it really does and that's a terrible we talk about how what the user experiences all the time I tend to because it's the job I'm in but as an end user experience that's pretty that's like the worst losing data as a losing your achievements or your game save data is like the worst thing you can probably do to a user they've spent a lot of time getting this information up a lot of time I've put in 540 hours on this game I did the entire time we were doing table of the week it was entirely those weeks I would focus on getting the wizard goals that's right and that took a year and a half that's right so yeah I'm gonna I think I'm gonna try and like I said I'll try and find that data and then once I know where it is I think it'll be time to contact Farsight and be like first you're walking me through this and second why don't you fix this is annoying really annoying like I would have thought you would have done a post on it or someone probably would have beaten you to it because it sounds like it's happened before so yeah has anyone like have you contacted Farsight about it and told them how terrible it is no because I literally discovered this three hours ago he found it I guess so someone else has already documented the process for doing it so that means they would have found it as well and they would have worked around the solution so somebody figured it out on Steam it was posted in a Steam forum not on Pinball Arcade fans I mean I haven't done a deep dive I mean, literally, this was page one of Google search. Right. So I haven't gone deeper or tried different phrasing to see what anybody has come up with. But I don't have the time to do that. And like I said, I'm just going to throw it in Farsight's lap and be like, yeah. Because it really should be a situation where if I went over to a friend's house and he had Pinball Arcade and I said, hey, let me log in as my user, that I log in under my user that, boom, all the tables that I purchased should pop up and all my goals should pop up and all my high scores should pop up. That's how it should be. Yeah, and it should be tied to your FastSight account and not any other system because if you are playing cross-platform and you want to actually replicate your goals consistently across all your platforms, you should have the ability to do that with a single sign-on system. And let's face it, Fireside have this authentication system that they use to track purchases and stuff like that for Kickstarters. They have a whole lot of data going into it. They need to transfer the store-specific or the ecosystem-specific goal tracking systems away from that and plug it directly into their own ID system. Because this is not the first time it's happened. This is like one of the most common things that happens on Android as well as far as user management goes. It's like the Achilles heel of all the data management in Farsight at the moment. And they really need to overhaul it. Well, again, it makes me wonder if, okay, so you went and you went and purchased the latest iPhone or the latest Android phone, and you download, you know, you obviously get it back on. Yeah, you do it. It doesn't work the same as Steam. Does it actually wipe your data? I don't think so, because Game Center handles all the achievements. Okay. And Game Center, because it's an Apple product, it knows that, oh, look, this is a new device, therefore let us restore your progress to it rather than let us wipe your progress and then stuff. What about Google Play? Google Play is providing you have a saved game, providing you've actually gone, hey, look, I'll actually make the distinction to go and make a physical backup using the in-game system because it's not automatic. You have to actually create your local save file that you were talking about that you lost. is in a similar sort of position where you've got to actually manually back it up. It doesn't, for some reason, Farsight have opted to make it not automatic, which I've told them a number of times is a stupid move. Yeah.
    20:46
    And, yeah, so if you've done that and you've got that backup, you can restore it to your device and it doesn't, like, I guess that's the thing. Maybe that's why they've done it. So it's a manual backup process rather than, like, an automatic restore. But the thing is, I've got other games like Sky Force Reloaded that if you put that onto another device and you go, hey, look, this is a new install on this device. When you activate Google Play Games, it goes, oh, that's right. You've got all the status here. Let me just synchronize that over to this device for you because you have no record. So I think there's either a bug with the Steam system or a bug with how Farsight have implemented the way data gets restored in Steam. well it's also one of those things where pinball arcade is the only one that stores it's the data in this user file none of my other steam games store there everything else is you click steam and then within that folder but not pinball arcade it's in a different folder and it's like why are you doing that be like everybody else please That's right, be consistent.
    21:59
    Yeah, it is frustrating, and they need to fix it across all platforms. Probably not the consoles, because they're probably constricted about how they do it on consoles. Yeah. But certainly on things like iOS, Android, and Steam, they need to make some changes. Probably at Wii as well on Android.
    22:18
    And then Farsight ran their monthly tournament. Now, they always say that they pick the games randomly. they need to work on their randomizer Black Knight and Going Nuts again? come on it's not even just that it was Black Knight and Black Knight 2000 thanks you know and then Going Nuts and then we had Safecracker which is a terrible game to have a timed tournament with well yeah because it's already timed yeah so So, yeah.
    22:57
    So you only have 10 minutes to compete on this game. How? Technically, if you're playing standard mode, yeah, you probably could play for 10 minutes if you're really good. But it's tough to actually keep a ball live for 10 minutes on that game.
    23:12
    Well, and then once you have it getting live for that amount of time, though, it's how many people are really able to just at will make themselves get up to the vault and then get themselves in? and I don't know. It's hard. It's very difficult. I used to play that game all the time when it was in the arcade and it's a tough game in the arcade and they really have replicated that in people like that. I have a really tough time getting into the vault. Like I always get kicked out or I get dogged or I get zapped or like the freaking teller gives me a letter bomb and a money bomb and I go, screw you. Yeah, I hate that game. I sort of love-hate that game. I saw someone on the subject of Safecracker, someone in, I think it was Android Forum, has got 1,000 tokens now. And what happens when you get 1,000?
    24:04
    Oh yeah, they are. They're missing the silver. They actually worked out that there isn't actually a set configuration of tokens in the virtual token tube. It is purely a random number generator that triggers for every time you play a game. So you have just as much chance of getting a silver token on your first game than you do on your 150,000th game,
    24:29
    which is pretty terrible as it's a wizard goal. Like that's a stupid wizard goal. I seriously wonder, has anybody completed it?
    24:39
    Some people have. They've got the full set. Do they have the full set? And did they get anything special for completing it?
    24:45
    No. They didn't get anything special. Because initially, Farsight said they were going to give something special if you actually managed to get all the tokens.
    24:59
    So that's why I was very curious to know if that was going to happen or not. You get the goal, but that's it. That's another one that you would never want to do again if you had to restore your game process. That's a zero one. Oh my god, you just kill yourself. So, yeah, that was, I don't know, when I heard the tables listed for tournament this time around, I was just like, nope, nope, nope, nope, because I'm not even going to think about torturing myself with going nuts any way, shape, or form, and Black Knight, until they fix it, I will not play it.
    25:31
    This is a really good tournament for me to test out the manual downgrading process that we were talking about a couple of episodes back. So what I've done is I've just played, I basically plunged the ball and let it go down the hole, like on all tables.
    25:47
    According to, I think it was, it was the only requirement was to start one game in the tournament. And that was enough to say, yes, you have joined the tournament by completing that game. So I could have done that and then just not posted a score on any of the others. But I figured that just basically house balling all the tables will be enough for me to get ungraded from gold to silver.
    26:10
    So that's the theory. I'll report back after the tournament's finished. We'll see what happens. Look forward to seeing it. Hey, Jared, we have somebody joining us here that we have not heard from in forever.
    26:23
    Oh, okay. Because of our new recording time, it just plain doesn't work out for him. But he's been eager to get on. He has things he wants to talk about. Yes, everybody, it's PinballWiz45B. Hey, guys. Howdy. How's it going? It's going all right. bit of a shame that Blab went down after I went over to ReplayFX. And that's sad to resort to Google Hangouts and the convenience of the time frame. Yeah. Usually basically between 5.30 and 6.30.
    27:02
    Yeah, unfortunately Jared has such a limited window that coincides with our window that it makes it rather time zones are hard let just put it that way yeah yeah halfway across the world Yeah go figure So you went to ReplayFX You been dying to mention some things about it Talk to us.
    27:22
    All right. The facility was twice as large as last year. There were areas specifically for the pinball tournament, which was 200, 300 machines and one designated arcade area. yes wow there was a whole stage and there was a crowd gathered around it for like 10 pinball machines but still quite a large gathering and there's another area for all the arcade games the console area and the different vendors and guys that came over to visit including Farzad. Some of my highlights,
    28:13
    let's start with the machines that I sucked on, because just quite a few of them, based on the blog post I've written. Bride of Pinbot 1.0 does not play like a pinball arcade. It is hard. It is. Yeah. It's terribly hard. That ramp is a killer. that being left ramp all day it just didn't quite cut it for me I didn't even get a chance for multi ball that and it was somehow pitched like every other proper game out there super steep and the thing is that game really does need to be set at a regular pitch like the factory pitch because that ramp is so steep and the hook is all the early season one tables I feel like they should have a go at it again because it's just not the same they absolutely do need to have a go at them again I mean there's no two ways about it I got killed by Twilight Zone again that's how it should be it was over at Farsight's first and there were a few problems like the lower left flipper is kind of a bit wonky than it rests all the way down.
    29:40
    It's interesting because I mentioned this, that I do think that Farsight did a fairly good job at Twilight Zone in that it taught me the ramp combos. Like I can hit them fairly consistently.
    29:55
    I remember when Sean had done his Lost in the Zone about Twilight Zone was like, oh, you'll never be able to do that in real life. I'm like, no, actually, I do it pretty consistently. Hit the piano is a little bit tricky for me. Yeah, the piano is tricky. I think the power is much easier on TPA than in real life. No doubt about that. Absolutely. And I do think that the Powerball plays a lot differently in real life than it actually does. Absolutely. So fast in real life. Yeah. Compared to TPA, which is basically, I can't really pick the difference. Yeah. There's no physical difference except for the color. You need to get that ball back into the gumball machine at your earliest convenience. Right, as opposed to what you do in TPA where you're like, quit yelling at me, I'm going to play with this ball for a while. Yeah, totally. It just looks, in TPA, it actually looks and feels bigger for some reason as well.
    30:50
    It looks just strange. Well, I think that has to do with how, Sometimes the silver ball, like on Victory, it looks incredibly small. Yes. And it has to do with the background of what you're playing with and what the edges of the pinball are, and they're blending in. And with the ceramic ball, it's just this white ball, and so it looks gigantic. It's not just tapered edges. Yeah, it's not just fading into the play field at all. That's right.
    31:18
    Phantom of the Opera and ND500, those two tables, when I played them, they were fast yes I mean just compared to Pinball Arcade yeah Indy 500 is pretty fast game but I think it's slightly slower in TPA certainly the loop shot to the turbo is pretty achievable whereas if you try and do it on Indy 500 it's like whoa and it's down to focus. You need to be really accurate on that. Yeah.
    32:00
    Terminator 2 and, let's see, High Speed, I did well at last year. This year, I kind of sucked at them.
    32:10
    Oh. Why do you think that was? Well, I'm not really sure. I guess the fact that I played them, I haven't played them for one year. Well, that'll do it, yeah. That will do it, yeah. And plus, I don't really have access to many machines around where I live. Right. Some machines I did fairly decent on.
    32:34
    Demolition Man, I got to, like, first or close to the second multiball. But the first multiball, I usually got a super jackpot out of.
    32:43
    And it was on a different machine as well. Okay. So World Cup 94, I got the multiball. I got a few jackpots off of them. you know what annoys me about world cup when you're playing tournament with somebody else yeah they can steal your ball exactly so i had this happened the last time i was in tournament a month and a half ago i guess and i had two balls locked i just needed the third ball and then i drained and one of the three players after me wound up getting multi-ball and bam, now you're back to no balls locked and like, You can switch that off though if you want in the settings.
    33:29
    High speed too. I got to, I played video mode twice in one game. I got close to Redline Mania. It's not easy though, eh? At least it was somewhat forgiving.
    33:46
    Because it's normally, the ones that I've played everywhere, they've always been right drain monsters, and certainly the left drain is a killer as well, but the right drain it seems to be really, really risky when it comes back down off the supercharger Yeah You better have your wits about you and get ready to nudge it like a boss, otherwise it's going down Good luck on that, yeah It's funny because obviously we're comparing what it's like to play real table versus playing it in TPA, and our experience is always we can just go for much, much longer on TPA than we've ever achieved on a real table. What's weird is when you watch somebody abuse a real table like it is pinball arcade.
    34:28
    It was the same player too. He's top 100 ranked in the world. Keith Outwood? No, he's not in our league. It's Johnny Modica.
    34:41
    He abused Indiana Jones to the point that he wizarded it. Wow. That's pretty good. And, yeah. And I think that was only on ball two. Oh, jeez. And then I watched him do it on Game of Thrones. Oh. Are you kidding? And now he didn't, he was one dragon shy of the, of completing the table, basically. But it was like, when you watch somebody playing for 20 minutes on one ball.
    35:16
    It's like, wow, okay, I've got a bit of catching up to do. I mean, talk about just a motivation drain. I mean.
    35:28
    You get on the table, plunge a ball, you get a housey, and you go, oh, great, thanks. Hooray, I lasted 45 seconds. Yeah. Enjoy the table for the next half an hour. Yeah, exactly. I'll be over here at the bar. Hey, did they have any of the new machines there? Because I happen to be staring at one right now on the web that's coming from Jersey Jack. But tell me. Yes.
    35:55
    It was August when I went, obviously, or late July. Right. I saw The Hobbit and Wizard of Oz, which I didn't get to play.
    36:08
    I saw Ghostbusters Pro. I got to play that one it was hard but I almost completed the set of missions on the ramp oh nice very good yeah the flipper gap you won't really believe it it's like an old EM basically is it it's like the one from creature I believe oh jeez yeah that's pretty brutal let's see I also saw Game of Thrones I played Star Trek Pro that was one of my highlights it was at one of the tournament banks for Pembroke I managed to get a high score on that 85 million that's pretty good on that game that's a tough score that one let's see America's Most Haunted I got 54 million on that one that's pretty good as well that's a pretty low score as well, isn't it? Yeah.
    37:10
    It's good for me considering I've never played it before. It's still fairly new to basically most pinball players. Yeah. Because of its availability, there's not many people actually have it on location. So unless you know one, know someone, you can't really play it. Right.
    37:32
    And let's see. I think that was it. What do you guys think of inflated scores? I don't like them. Well, here's the thing. When I played Wizard of Oz, I hated the score.
    37:45
    Because it's such a low-scoring table. It scores in the 50s and 100s. It doesn't score in the 1000s and 10,000s. It's like EM scoring. I can see where you're getting at, but just multiply by 10 if you really want to get that feeling. and what's interesting though is that I feel the same way about something like Theater of Magic where I'm like oh my god the scores are stupid yeah they're so ridiculously high and you can do the same thing though where you're like well just subtract you know subtract a zero move a decimal point but why is it that there's a psychological thing where there is a sweet spot where you feel like you don't learn good yeah where like where you brag where all of a sudden if you do brag oh yeah I earned 25 million and people go, oh, that's really nice. And you feel like $25 million was good, but on Wizard of Oz that just would have been $25,000. Yeah. For the same amount of gameplay, for the same amount of modes that you went through, but the Wizard of Oz doesn't feel at all satisfactory at that. So it's a weird brain thing. I guess it's the point that it scares you, Jack, for one. Well, but I'm not specifically saying, I'm not saying that it's... There's just so much... I'm using that as an example because there are some tables that score exceedingly low. There are other tables that score just bonkers high.
    39:11
    And I'm kind of one of those that I fall more into – well, it's the System 11 scoring for me. I like the way those work. I was going to say System 11. Where a replay was 7 million.
    39:25
    It's a really nice balance with System 11. You go, yeah, if you get, say, 10 million on Dynar or something like that, You go, wow, that was an awesome game. And you actually feel like you've earned that score. But when you plunge a ball and you get 500,000, you've got to go, what?
    39:44
    What's that? Yeah, that's right. So I don't know. So like I said, Jersey Jack, they just announced this past week, Dialed In, which is their collaboration with Pat Lawler. And two things strike me right off the bat. one, oh my god, it's not a licensed table. No, it's not. It's so shocking to me. I mean, it's almost like with Wonelly, where you're like, wow, it's not an unlicensed? Interesting.
    40:17
    The second thing that strikes me is when looking at the photo of it, and maybe I'm just not in the lawler, and what he did for Stern while he worked for there. But, I mean, apart from the mid-flipper, it doesn't have a typical Lawler layout to me. I don't know if... And I mainly say that because it looks like it's got its orbits, it's got the... The upper list, upper rod, I mean. Yeah but it not There no bumpers bumper heaven which to me is kind of a mainstay of Lawler No more like bumpers near the middle of the field as opposed to at the very top You know, it's – It's different. It's different, and it is a good thing. I'm very – I'll be very curious to see how it plays, you know, if I ever get my hands on it. But the weird thing is is it's got a cell phone on the table. It's got a cell phone on it. It's got Bluetooth connectivity, so you can connect your phone up to it. It's even got a webcam on it. So there's something you can do with your phone. Like during one of the frangie modes, it takes pictures of you as each switch was being hit. Okay. Yeah. Now, why is it Bluetooth? What's it doing with the Bluetooth? If you can connect your phone with the game, if you can turn one of the game's multiple modes, you can use your phone to connect with the flippers oh that's weird use your phone to connect with the flippers so you basically to sound like pinball arcade but so it makes it like a controller so your phone turns into a controller yes wow okay that's very sort of like demolition man oh with the triggers that's going to be really hard to tilt though when you're using your phone it is optional though yeah it's very optional like being completely disconnected from a physical pinball machine that's a very interesting concept this also doesn't look to be a wide body it looks like it's a standard size which again breaking the trend of what Jersey Jack's been doing so I'm glad that they're venturing out on that especially after I read an article that was once again claiming that Stern is 99.9% of all pinball right now and is a monopoly. I'm sitting there thinking, well, Jersey Jack. They mentioned Jersey Jack, but like what they said, they said in six years they have three tables. They go, we're releasing three tables a year.
    42:56
    Our output is obviously much, much higher. They gave a brief mention to Highway, which I should also point out.
    43:03
    They just released a video of the Alien table. The sound package on it is ridiculous. You love it? it's amazing I mean as much as I love the Zen one sound package it's just as good if not better it's got a really really good sound going on the only thing with all the sound clips they played I didn't hear Ripley and I don't believe they have her oh licensing problems well I don't know if it's licensing it's more like you know getting a hold of Sigourney and having her sign off on it.
    43:44
    True. Something noticed on the alien pinball machine, the giant alien head, it can grab the ball magnetized and drop it down. Something magnetized in it with Jurassic Park. It's a pretty cool toy there. They did do exactly what Zen did with the pop bumpers being eggs. Yeah. I mean, it's such an obvious thing. Yeah, it does make sense. I don't know what the... They have a queen's chamber, where it's an alien queen in a chamber that spins around. I don't know what the deal is, particularly with that. Sort of like theatermatic. Is that what it is? I think it is a bit of a playfield toy, that's all. It's probably just a playfield toy. I'm not quite sure what it does.
    44:31
    And it looks like it has ramps that go into the back of the machine, you know, hidden, and then pops back out, kind of like what Party Zone. But I'm not 100% on that. And Black Rose as well does a good job at that.
    44:50
    So it's good that new pinball is dropping rapidly. There's something new coming up from Spooky as well, but that's not Domino's because that's like a bespoke game made on behalf. They're contracting that out for Domino's. Yeah, that's right.
    45:15
    That's right. But this is a different one that they're thinking of announcing at the next show they're going to go to or announcing the name of it. And then if you're already on the spooky mailing list, you'll get more information about it apparently. So, yeah.
    45:32
    And then last thing to mention on new info that's dropping with Pinball, and that is with Pimble Arcade. Well, I shouldn't say Pimble Arcade. Stern Pimble Arcade.
    45:44
    They've announced the next tables that are going to be dropping with that. One of them is Wonelli, which I was kind of disappointed. I'd rather it be the Pabst. I want it to be the Pabst Blue Ribbon table.
    45:56
    I don't know. I think Wonelli's going to be great. Well, I mean, they're exactly the same play field and everything, but I don't know. I just, I don't know. For some reason, I really like the look of the play field that they did for Pabst. Especially since it's done by the Dirty Donny, who did Metallica. So I'm sorry. I like that better than the double entendreville that is Wonelly. That's pinball. That is totally pinball. It's what it's all about, double entendres. And then, help me out here. Mustang. Was it? Mustang. Oh, Mustang's the next one. Okay.
    46:36
    Yeah, interesting. I found a Stern Pinball Arcade website and it looks like they updated a video for it oh yeah so they've already got a vision of it they have, let's see Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera Ripley's Believe It or Not Mustang, Harley Davidson, Last Action Hero Starship Troopers, High Roller Casino ACDC and Star Trek oh okay so they've added quite a few yeah they have, okay so they're obviously backporting all the ones that they got from TPA using the new CAD assets that they have access to over to the new platform, that'll be good because that will eventually trickle back through into Pimble Arcade as well yeah it's really nice though if they can finally start promoting this game? Because it's so interesting. I don't hear anything about the Storm Pinball app on the VR.
    47:41
    And you think about it, so few people have it. And I don't know if a lot of that has to do too with maybe they had big plans with that Samsung phone that's blowing everybody's head off.
    47:54
    Well, yeah, potentially. Maybe the Oculus VR might have been a good fit for that. It works perfectly fine with the Galaxy S7, which is the phone that you can use in the Oculus VR platform at the moment.
    48:12
    But that's the one that they just pulled. No, they pulled the Note. You can still buy the Galaxy S7. That's fine. That's not blowing up. It's just the Note. They've got dodgy components in the battery that just die.
    48:25
    But meanwhile, because they haven't been able to mention anything other than we think it'll come out in the fall, which at this point we're assuming right before December 21st.
    48:39
    You would think that it would totally be Christmas, right? You would hope, but it's like, come on, guys, we're dying for some...
    48:48
    We want to get hyped for something, and we're not getting hyped for Bonebusters. Even in beta form, we haven't heard anything about the new Doctor Who, which I think they're now calling Masters of Time. Is that correct? That's right. They gave a little teaser bit and it was like, don't show me more! But no, you're not showing me anymore. It's like, give us something, please.
    49:17
    I've actually got a feeling that we won't be seeing two tables this month. I'm suspecting not now either. Yeah, which is a shame.
    49:26
    What it might be saved for. They always, around Christmas time, have an issue with everybody going on vacation. Yeah.
    49:35
    So this might be one of those things where it's like, you know what? We've got this. It's mostly done. Why don't we go ahead and we'll tinker on it up until that point, and then that'll be our cushion. We won't be into crunch time at Christmas. Well, yeah.
    49:49
    That's presuming they actually give an adequate beta testing time before Christmas, so the fix is going to be rolled in. Especially considering head-to-head still does not seem to be ready for primetime. And until they get that going, that soccer table ain't happening. So, that's... We're sitting there at the studio, not doing anything. Yeah, pretty much.
    50:09
    Yeah. So, yeah, that's really going to be interesting. That one, oh, look. I hope they got it cheap. They didn't have to buy it expensively, because I'm going, geez, we need this game to put into production. We have to buy it at whatever cost. Surely it wouldn't be that expensive, though. Like, it's an Elven G. I don't think they go for that much money but here's my thing hey if you can't do that soccer game there's always World Cup soccer there's another one let's get that one in come on season of sports hey FIFA do you reckon you could make licensing easy on that one and just get it in yeah that'd be great yeah well I think we've successfully managed to knock off another podcast We're going to go let Jared do a whole bunch of household chores.
    50:59
    Yes, I'm going to go and clean all the bathrooms and also fix up a whole lot of edging in the garden today. Me, I'm going to enjoy my – I had all this last week off of work, which was really wonderful, so now I'm going to go back to the kids' show for the next four weeks. So I'm going to watch the new Ghostbusters tonight, see if that's any good. Oh, cool. Which I was, which here's a side note. So I heard that it was excellent 3d. Oh, okay. It was doing all sorts of dimensional poking out deep, deep focus in that was one of the better 3d, uh, movies to go see in the theater. I didn't get a chance to go see it that way. Um, so I was looking forward to it coming out on video. I have a video store near me that carries 3d blu-rays. So it was like, cool, sweet. We'll have this. Well, wonderful. Sony decided that, Hey, you know where we'll package the three, will package it with the 4K disc.
    51:56
    Oh. So it's 4K packaging, and then it also has the Blu-ray 3D version of the disc. Unfortunately, the video store that I go to that's carrying all these, they don't buy the 4K packaging. So I'm not able to watch it in 3D. So now I'm like, okay, I need to watch it to see if it's even worthy of my purchasing, which I highly doubt it will be. I'm not that optimistic about it, but one of those things. I'll just wait until I find one secondhand and then get one secondhand, and that way it'll save you money.
    52:33
    Yeah, well, I don't know. It's a brand-new disc, so it'll be a while for a secondhand. And the problem with the 3D discs is they don't tend to go cheaper. They tend to go up in price. Oh, okay. If you don't buy that first week and get them on sale. Oh, right, okay.
    52:47
    Yeah. so hey why don't you check us out on our website at blockadepinball.com and you can download any of our shows there you can also hit us up on twitter I am at shutyourtraps he is at jaredmorgs pinballwiz what's yours at pinballwiz45p there you go you can hit him up too or you can of course hit up the site's main thread which is at blockade beyond that go buy a t-shirt you can find all that information in the show notes once you go on to Lootcrate you can find that in the show notes too support the show or you can just send a paypal.me payment to BlackAid and whatever you think is right for the show just give it and that may I think they have a limit of $1 per transaction but see what you think alright good times hey folks that's it for this session we will talk to you all again next week in the blockade bye bye take care wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter modes easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales, restoration, customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to. You can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening, play some Pingol.