you're listening to the head to head people podcast find us on facebook email us at head to head people at gmail.com Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 52, our yearly episode, Ryan. How are you? I'm good, mate. Yourself? I'm good. You've just come back from a bit of a trip? Yeah, I tried to fool everyone into thinking that I was quitting, but you kind of busted that rumor, thanks, Marnie. No worries. I didn't get any messages saying, come back, that's what I wanted. I just wanted to feel lost. No. We've got Pinberg coming up, Marty. Yes. And, yeah, we've got the Pinberg current champ with us today for the second time, I guess. We did do a little 10-minute interview with him a couple of months ago. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Colin MacAlpine. Cheers. How are you, mate? I'm doing well. I like that. You said, you know, for the second time. That would be even better if it were for the second time as a champion. Has anyone ever done it two years in a row? No. Keith Ellin has done very close to that, but he's never successfully done back-to-back. He's won it multiple times. I forget if it's three or four, but he's never done it back-to-back. Okay. What? Something's aimful. Come on. Exactly. Exactly, yes. It could. It could. The key word is impossible. So, obviously, you are the 2017 Pinberg champion. What else are you known for? What do we know about Colin? Oh, beyond that, I help to run the tournament for the Texas Pinball Festival. And I'm the proud owner of a roussac. And, yeah, I play here in Texas at the different tournaments around here. Texas is a really, really large state. and so we don't quite get out to the many tournaments and comps outside of Texas, maybe one in Oklahoma that we go to, and I've been going to Papa in Pinburgh for a few years, and every once in a while when I get the chance, with my job, it takes me overseas, and so if it happens to coincide when I have a free weekend on one of my trips, then I'll try to play in a competition wherever I'm at. So that's been nice too. I always find that with competitions there's two type of people. Either those people that have been doing competitions and tournaments for the last 20 years, or there's those people that sort of had the break and then came back into it. Which side are you on there? I never had a break from competition. I didn't discover competitive pinball until 2011 at a Tron launch party. so it was somewhat of a break in terms of it was difficult to find pins to play because I didn't own any pins until after I started playing competitively and I just played them on location so it got difficult to find pins between when I finished university and then I started to find some on location I don't know, maybe around 2006 or so, 2005 and then it really exploded when the pinball's arcade opened up here in Austin and had a lot of location, and then there's been this great renaissance of pinball. But, yeah, I had no idea there was competitive pinball. I wish I would have known a lot earlier in my life. When it was the EAD, yeah. It wasn't meant to be, but, no, it's great. It's something I enjoy doing. I've always enjoyed, you know, competing. I've never been much, you know, not surprisingly, you know, When somebody sees me, I've never been much of an athlete. So I'm good at competing at things like pinball and board games or, you know, billiards or ping pong, you know. Yeah, for sure. They're all sports. So what's the pinball scene like in Austin? It's very good. We've got a good, you know, growing base of players. A couple, well, Pinball's Arcade opened up in, I think it was 2010. was when they opened up, and they now have three locations here in Austin, and I think somewhere in the order of 200 pins on the process, three locations. The only unfortunate part there is that they, you know, I wish they would spend a little bit more time and resources on their techs because that's a lot of pins, and they don't necessarily have enough techs to keep them all really up to good condition. So, you know, at the main location that I go to every once in a while, it's across the town from me, so it's not super convenient. They have, I think, somewhere between 80 to 90 pins at that location. But I would say from my perspective, and of course I'm picky as far as pins being in a good playing condition, and I would say maybe they have, you know, less than half of that are in what I would consider a good playing condition. But still, that's 40 pins that are on site in a good playing condition. But the problem is you have to know which ones are playing well and which ones aren't. So what would you define as a good playing pin? For me, and I know I went to locations like the Pinball Hall of Fame and I've gone to Banning. And I don't necessarily need to have a pristine, clear-coated play field. But I want targets to work and I want flippers to be strong. What is it for you? The latter, what you just mentioned. I don't care about the bell of the ball from the pin. I'd rather have a pin that plays 100% and that you can make all the shots, all the features work. If there happens to be a light out here and there, if it's something that's insignificant, whatever. But when you have major features that aren't working or flippers that aren't strong enough to make ramps or they don't have the flippers adjusted correctly, you know, a whole host of things gone wrong. So, yeah, so what I play at most now is downtown in downtown Austin, a place called Buffalo Billiards, and that's where we just hosted the Bat City Open for the third straight year there. And it's a nice, you know, it's a billiards hall, you know, primarily has its name, but they also, it's a large bar with foosball tables, dart boards and they have I think up to 16 or maybe they're up to 17 pins now and the guy that manages that place does a really good job of keeping them up to speed and taking care of them so that they play well and yeah it's a good location so my two sons and I play at that we haven't played in this past season but for quite a few seasons before that we always played at the weekly league there at Sunday afternoon so it was nice because I could attend something with my two sons. Well I'm looking at your pinball IFBA page now and I mean you're ranked 15th in the world, you're rated first in the world at the moment. I mean the IFBA only counts, what is it, 20 active tournaments so to get your tournament to count towards your results you need I think 18 17 points I think at the moment which is a lot so where does the motivation come to will you still attend smaller tournaments that it's not even possible if you come first to get that many points or do you only try and attend the larger tournaments now no I'm still playing in the smaller ones I mean I still play this past month I played in a league that meets at pinballs on Tuesdays I was fortunate I had a good comeback and was able to come in first on that one. But like you just mentioned, it's actually not even on my card of 20, although it's nice. It's waiting there in the wings when one of my previous tournaments drops off. But, yeah, no, I'll still play them. It's, you know, when I, you know, for the most part, I'll probably play them if it's something where I'm going to be taking my two sons to go with me. So that way, you know, I really value that as far as trying to, you know, enjoy something with my kids and not just going out and, you know, ditching my kids and ditching my wife and family all the time to go out and do something that I want to do. I was trying to get, like many years ago, like a decade ago, I was trying to get into golf and play golf, and I was never really good at it, and that's probably why I didn't become too passionate about it. But the issue there is you go and I'd have to, you know, I'd leave, and, you know, between traveling to the golf course and playing and everything else, you know, you're gone for five hours, you know, six hours, and doing that on a weekend. So that wasn't, I decided, you know, fairly early on that that wasn't a good choice. So, yeah, that's why I do that. Now, at the same time, I will say this, especially for my Pinberg status or Pinberg, you know, memories, I have a lot of fond memories of some of the earlier Pinbergs that I went to where it was just the crew here from Austin and me and all the people we met there and friends that we made there, you know, hanging out and tailgating out in the parking lot at the old Papa facility and just enjoying that, you know, without having to have my kids there. So I enjoy that as well, but I also, you know, recognize that there's, you know, certain priorities in life, and, you know, pinball is not my top priority. So with the local comms that you've got there, and I'm curious to know, you know, like pinballs and also the big hall you're talking about, is it mainly modern machines, or do you find that you get a good mix of old and new? So Buffalo Billiards, they're all modern, although we just recently, I purchased a couple of EMs and then actually three, and Jesse purchased a few, and so we're in the process of getting those up to speed. But, you know, I'm not a good tech. Jesse is, but he's mostly comfortable with modern, so it's a learning process and working on the EM. So I think I've got some parts that we've got ordered for getting an old E-Ink called Jumping Jack up and working. And then we've got about, I think, four more that we're trying to get up and operating. So that way we'll have some additional breadth of variety there at Buffalo Billiards. And, yeah, so it's – but that's all moderns. The Thin Balls has a fairly decent variety. especially at the original location. They have a good variety of some early solid states and some late solid states. They have some EMs and actually a couple of good EMs, but they're not necessarily like the – they have a target pool, which is fun to play except there's no tilt bob in it. So you can play for quite a while on that. But they have some good variety of some early solid states, which is nice. Like they have one of my favorite early solid states of all time, Genie. they have the original Star Trek they've got a Meteor, which I also have in my collection and unfortunately theirs doesn't they don't have it playing very well because you can't really rip the spinner like you can on mine and they've got a Medusa and let's see, what are some of their early ones? Anyway, but they've got a good breadth of games the EMs, they've only got three and like I said, unfortunately a lot of times they aren't necessarily functioning fully like the captain fantastic they have there. Unfortunately, their bonus count doesn't work correctly, so it's kind of hard to play that and use that in a comp when you can't rely on the bonus to work. You've got Steven Bowden moving there now. You've got some good players already, but that should be... Is he moving close to you? I know you said that Texas is a really big state, so is where he's moving in your area? Yeah, San Antonio is actually not far at all. It's depending on which part of Austin you're talking about, which part of San Antonio, you can get to San Antonio in just over an hour's drive. So it's pretty close. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to him coming here. I've already messaged him and, you know, trying to find out when he's going to finally move down here. And so, you know, get him at the next monthly tournament that we hold at Buffalo Billiards. We'll call it, like, we'll call it Fun with Texas or something like that. Texas with bonus. Deep rooting in Texas. Oh, stop it. so what's in your collection now? so my first pin I bought actually I haven't sold any of mine I've got five and I've never sold any so the first pin I bought was Lord of the Rings which was so I just essentially went whole hog right off the bat I bought one of my favorite pins of all time and one of my favorite themes of all time and having a Lord of the Rings and after having that I realized that I was, because I needed to keep setting it up harder and harder. So, you know, similar to some of the predicament you guys have talked about in your podcast in the past, as far as, you know, getting your pin set up for a comp or, you know, to keep it, you know, to play. So it doesn't play too long, because Lord of the Rings, similar to like your Star Trek's turn, it can play too long if you don't set it up hard. Well, then it's disheartening for my kids and my wife, who doesn't hardly play pinball at all. So I needed to get another pin. So then I went out and bought Revenge from Mars, which is a nice, good, funny pin. It's got good humor in it. It's got the mirrored reflection of the CRT, and my wife and kids both still enjoy that one. So I've got that. And then once I got into playing at Pinberg and discovered how much fun classic pins could be, I started to load up on classics. So then I bought a – let's see, what did I get first? I got the Grand Prix first. So I have an electromechanical Grand Prix, which is a great rip-the-spinner game. And then I got a Joker Poker, the solid-state version, which is an excellent drop-target game. And then last, I picked up the Meteor, which is another great light and rip-the-spinner game. Yes, Grand Prix, awesome game. Yeah, you were almost going to buy one, weren't you, Ryan? Yeah, well, I did. Yeah, whatever. Fuck you, stupid guy. We can get to that story after. Can I tell you what the other machine that I bought right before I went to Japan? Colin mentioned it. So I bought one of the machines that Colin just mentioned. Meteor. Yes, that's right. Nice. Nice. And it is great. And what I like about that, everybody loves a good rip the spinner game when it's worth a lot. The great thing about Meteor, which I love, is, you know, it's not always that easy to get the max spinner lit, and then you can easily lose it by knocking down all the targets. So you've really got to just absolutely know your timing on that game. Well, and you'll knock down the targets even when you hit the spinner perfectly, and it'll come through and it'll knock down, you know, the last one or two targets you had up, and now it's back to 0 for you. That's right. So I think I've got a prototype one, because I still don't have it here. It's sitting in a different state picked up by, yeah, I'll mention the name. It's Paul Jones helping out, Australia's number one ranked player at the moment. Yeah, and he has one himself, and he's kind of put it side by side. He's like, you're missing the, I think it's called dead bumpers, the ones that look like pop bumpers that just switches to the right. Like the one that's like when you first loop it around, it's just a star rollover. So I think I've got like a prototype Playfield one. I'm sure I could convert it to another one if I just drilled a hole and stuck one in there but that's interesting yes so I guess my question to you then, particularly that kind of solid state era what do you think makes a good tournament game from that era I mean, ripping the spinner is one thing, but what else because there are some spinner games that people just don't like yeah, I mean my preference is and I've actually toyed with selling my Grand Prix because there really isn't much strategy to it. It's just rip the spinner. There's no flipper transferring skills required. If you have it on a flipper, you simply hit the spinner that's available to you from that flipper. And so to that extent, I don't necessarily like that element. I mean, the spinners feel great. I've got my spinners nice and dialed in, so you can pretty much get max bonus and one good spinner rip. but I actually prefer to have a spinner game that requires some type of, you know, skill or sequence to light the spinner that doesn't involve hitting the spinner. Kind of like Alien Star, right? Alien Star, you know, you have to get that. What is it? You hit all the drop targets down and then hit the spinner a number of times or something, and then when you're in multiple, was it Shats the Lanes? Yes, right out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the outlane? No, not the outlane, Marty. I did connect myself. So, yeah, that's a great game for learning how to shats because you need to be able to shats to get the inlane and the spinner's on a timer that you have to hit it. But once you hit the spinner, then it will continue to count. I think it's 5x or 10x. I think it's 10x value from the inlane. And, oh, man, that's such a good feeling on that one. None in Australia. Zero. It exists. We'll never pay them. Yeah. So, you know, talking about Pimberg, it's coming up in two weeks now, is it, Marty? Correct. Cool. Yep. So yesterday we had Paul Smith down. You know, the Pimberg banks were revealed in collaboration with Deeper at Pinball. and I watched the first 10 games before I went to bed Saturday at 1am and he said, we're only going to play one ball. I'm like, ah, by the time I wake up, it'll be over. Yeah, I thought five hours, for sure. Yeah, and I had a really long sleep, woke up and he was still going and he still had like 100 games to go. We had the whole day to go. Yeah, wow. It was... How much of that footage did you watch, Colin and Marty? I probably would have watched, I reckon all up maybe four hours. Yeah, I think I probably watched somewhere close to that. I watched some in the morning when it first came on, and we had a wedding we were attending of our next-door neighbor's daughter got married, and so we had a lazy morning just hanging out. So I was watching that, some in the background, and the kids were goofing around. And, yeah, it was the same thing where after the wedding was over, I got back late night and thinking, okay, they're probably done or close to done. Nope, they still had like 50 or 60 games to go. I love it. I didn't get to see it. The hilarious part was I'm watching this and I'm expecting that because they were joking about it in the morning about how when Steve was making some usual typical Steven Bowden moves of high-level skills, great out-lane saves, and they're joking about, okay, yeah, you're not going to want to make those saves later on. I think Bowen, he was on earlier in the day, and he ran a calculation at that point, and being a mathematician, you can pretty much trust that he was dead on in his estimate at the time. He said, yeah, based on this, you're going to be doing this for 19 hours. Wow. So I think that probably as the day wore on, it did probably impact both his desire and his skills, and so then he probably didn't have quite as many of the long one-ball games that he had a couple of amazing ones on like Lord of the Rings. But still, I was watching one late last night and there was, I forget which game it was, he made a fantastic out-lane save. And, you know, he's been playing for 13, 14 hours straight and he makes this magnificent save with a great nudge. And I'm thinking, man, if I would have been at that shoot, I would have just like waved goodbye to the ball. No, no, no. He was still trying all the way up to the end, but what was really funny was whenever he got a house ball, it was like, yep, done, move to the next one. It's the first time I've ever seen him really just absolutely not give a shit about getting a house ball. Well, because I watched the first ten games, you could tell when he'd have a really bad ball. I don't think there was any house balls for the first ten or so. He was kind of sitting there, and then the ball would go back into the shooter lane, and you could tell he just wanted to plunge again, like, come on, give me another go. Yeah, I know. But of course, at the end, he was just like, yeah, next, next. Yeah, he was reaching down underneath the right side, turning the game around. He was splitting down straight away. Well, because nothing's been done similar to that before, right? I mean, people have paid in their 24 hours at the Sanctum and Deck by Pinball in Australia, but, you know, once you finish a round, you're waiting for other people to finish so you can at least sit down and relax and this and that, Whereas this is just, what was it, like 15 hours of non-stop play pretty much, right? Yeah. The only thing I can think of that would be somewhere similar, I mean, and Jack Danger, who was on also in the morning doing a little remote commentating, he did a 24-hour stream once. And he mentioned it multiple times, both on his stream and also in person, that there were parts like a knee or a foot or whatever that he said was in pain for like two weeks afterwards. because he was standing up the whole time. I mean, I think at least with Steve, he did take a break to sit down, I think, to eat. And I think with Jax, he was specifically standing the whole time. He never sat down. But with Steve, he did at least get to sit down a couple times to grab a quick bite to eat, and maybe while they were moving the camera over long distances within the facility. But still, remarkable feat by doing all of that. And it was something else to watch. And also, I've got to give a shout-out to the other guys in the Papa TV crew that also moved all those cameras for 14, 15 hours. Doug and Fred and Jake and Petey, whoever else was doing that. Not Pinside Petey. The likable one. Yeah, exactly. And they were doing yeoman's work there of moving those cameras. Yeah, it was a really slick operation towards the end. Just move it on. Next. Switched up, play, plunge, go. Really good. Yeah. So let's talk about the Pinburgh last year then, right? So we will talk about our expectations for this year, but let's talk about 2017. And obviously, you know, spoiler, you won. We talked about that before. But tell us about what it was like and the journey you went through to get to that final stage. Well, so the journey for me started with, you know, similar to what I'll be doing this year as far as, you know, taking a nice long road trip from Austin, Texas and driving. So we actually drive as a family across the country to get to Pinburgh. And we have a couple pit stops along the way to visit some of my wife's family. So it's a family trip plus a pinball trip. You know, it's a good use of, you know, being able to justify this, right? Yeah, for sure. Hey, honey, let's go travel across the country to see your family. Yeah, that's the thing. So, yeah, so we made that trip. And then, you know, like I have the past couple years, my wife and my two sons come with me. My daughter stays with her grandmother. She likes to just hang out with her instead of coming to the festival. And, yeah, so it all started out. This is now the, I think last year was the third year that they held it in the big convention center. versus where it was held previously at the POP headquarters. So that wasn't a new thing last year. That was, you know, so it was kind of, you know, nothing unusual there, nothing to unusually expected. And, you know, the typical thing, you know, as far as, you know, going there and you've got to, you know, you're waking up fairly early in the morning that first day, and it's a long day, both Thursday and Friday. And if you, you know, qualify for finals and do well in the finals, it's Saturday. But Thursday and Friday are long days, and you have to be prepared with very comfortable shoes. I also bring a folding tripod chair. You can buy it at an outdoors sports store that you can use if you're going out camping or people that go hunting. And so that way I can sling that over my shoulder and plop that down. and the one general comment I have to most people, Steven Bowden is always be cashing. Will it Pinberg? Always be sitting. So there's tip number one, Marty. So always be sitting. And yeah, so it got started off last year fairly decently, but I knew going into it last year, I didn't have – I mean, of course, I think, okay, yeah, if I play really well, I think I can compete. I think I can contend for the whole thing. But my goal was simply I wanted to make finals again, and I wanted to not get knocked out in the first round. Because the previous year I'd made finals, I got knocked out in the first round. And that was my first time I made Pinberg finals was the two years prior or a year prior. And in previous PAPA tournaments, both when I was playing in B division and then the one time I played, I competed in A division, I've always made the finals. Which is great. I mean, that's awesome. I'm very happy with that. But every single year, I'd get knocked out in the first round. So it was a frustration point of, okay, this is not a good trend to be on and a habit to have. So my goal was simply, okay, make the finals. Don't get knocked out in the first round. So with that in mind, most people always think about the later rounds. You know, when it's like, oh, I came so close. Well, a point that you score in the first round is worth the exact same as the point you score in the last round. So right off the bat in the very first round, I'm thinking, okay, I'm highly ranked. You're going to get paired up in the Pinberg style. It's going to be more like the slaughter format in the very first round. And so I'm like, okay, I've got to get my chances in here and get some good points. And I didn't play poorly, but I didn't do as well as I would have wanted. I think I took like maybe a 7 or an 8, which is still good, but you're hoping you want to do really well that particular round. The thing about Pinburgh, which always surprised me, and it was no different last year, I think when they do this, sometimes you'll get matched up with somebody at the lowest ranking in your group, and they will have been somebody that maybe they just simply haven't played in many tournaments, and they're an outstanding player. And that was, I don't remember who it was last year, but it was my very first round. I think it was the person who was going into it when I was looking at their seating. They were seated the lowest, and yet they played really well. And it wasn't just like they were getting lucky. They were a really good pinball player. And it was just simply a matter of they just simply don't play many tournaments, or they didn't have a chance to play in many tournaments that were of high value. And so you'll get that all the time. So the lesson learned from last year is regardless of who's in your group, whether it's the first round or later rounds. It's just you're always going to have people that are good, and you're always going to have people that surprise you. And so the first round was pretty good. The second round was also good. But I wasn't really doing, I think, really well. I think it was maybe in round three that I had an exceptional round that kind of vaulted me up into the higher standings. And I knew I was playing really well when after the first, when I got to the last round, the last grouping, rather, of session five. So it's the last session. There's five sessions per day. And in the last session, you know, suddenly I had Trent Augenstein and Zach Sharp in my group. Yeah. I'm like, oh, all right. I'm playing pretty well. because up until that point I really wasn't necessarily looking at my seating. I kind of, a lot of times I'll try not to pay much attention to my seating in each particular round because I don't want to get wrapped up and then I just simply want to focus on the next ball and the next game. I don't want to get thinking about, okay, I need to do this for this particular round because at that point it's so early it's not worth it. Leading up to that, you know, are you there sort of chatting away or is it all just, it's business time? I try to find a little bit of a mix with that. Of course, it also depends on the people in your group. Some people want to chat. Some people don't. I try to, to some extent, because I just think it's fun to get to know people. I always try to remind myself that, hey, the primary goal of all of this is to have fun. Of course, I'm competitive. I like to do well. I like to win. but it's fun to meet new people and it's the same thing I tell my sons there was a point earlier on when I was playing competitive pinball where I would get overly excited when my opponents would drain or get overly upset when my opponents would do well and I realized it's not a fun way to play so I much prefer now I try to cheer on from my opponents when they do well and encourage them or commend them when they have a great ball or a great game. And I think it's just more fun that way. I think it's more fun for everybody involved. And so if other people do that when I'm playing too, I think that's just a better way to do it. And to me, that's also kind of a stress reliever. If I'm just simply focused on only playing the game, I'm going to get probably nervous or, you know, get overly worked up over something. So, yeah, it's more fun just to play the game and, you know, celebrate with other people or lament with other people when they have a ball that jumps over the slingshot and goes into the out lane. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. All the time it goes by. So, yeah, the next day, the second day, so after the first day you get assigned to a division. And so I had been playing really well throughout the first day. And that last group, I think I won, I think I had a 10-2 that last round. So I ended on a very high note of the first day, which was great. And then the second day, I just continued to play well. I just, you know, every game that I stepped up to, I didn't have a whole lot of really bad games. And so that's what I've really learned is that, you know, just try to eliminate the zeros. Try to eliminate the ones. And you don't necessarily have to win every game or win most games. Just don't do really poorly on games, and you'll end up all right. And that's how it worked out. And I did, you know, I kept chugging along. And the dinner break was interesting. I think it was after session eight, between eight and nine is a dinner break on the second day. And, you know, at that point, you know, you're going to dinner, so of course you're going to be looking at things. And when I see them, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm ranked second. You know, I'm in second seed over this whole tournament where, you know, I was going to be happy if I simply make the finals and have a chance to get out of the first round. And suddenly I'm in second place where as long as I just have some decent rounds in the last two groups, I will have at least one buy and maybe even two buys. And, you know, sure enough, and, of course, at that point when you're playing in the second to last and the very last one, you know, you're playing against the best of the best. And so, yeah, my second to last group was with Zach and Jim Belcido and Don and Steph. And I just, everybody kind of, it was just a bloodbath of a group. You know, I think it was, I think I had a six and six. I think the best person in the group had a seven, you know, and another six, another five. So we just all, you know, balanced out pretty well. And then the very last, I think, I remember having Kaylee in my very last group, and I think I took another six. So once again, it wasn't a great group. I didn't do well in terms of, you know, you don't want to just take sixes the whole time, but when you're already up in the second seed, then that was just perfectly fine. And, yeah, I coasted in essentially to the second seed with a double buy, and suddenly I'm in the finals and I already have two buys, so I've already met my goal. It's the top 40 that gets through, is that right? That's correct. Yeah, okay. And so then day three. So with day one and day two, how long has each of these days gone as far as, you know, playing pinball, start to finish? I think they go, it goes right about 12 hours. Oh, jeez. It's not, I mean, you're not playing constantly, though. No, but it's a long day. Yeah, exactly. That's why I said always be sitting, because, you know, take the chance whenever you're not playing to sit down. Unless it's a game that you simply don't know or if you want to, if there's some you know, like if there's a particular game where you're going to be going to the scoop a lot like an Addams Family and you want to see how the chair is kicking out or how the swamp is kicking out you know, watch a ball or two to get a feel for that. But after that point in time sit your butt down. Okay. You're not a head finder, are you, Colin? I'm not. I tried that very briefly a few years back and I just enjoy the whole experience of playing pinball too much. I've never been a headphones player. Sometimes I will put on my headphones if I'm between games to try to maybe calm myself down most of the time or if I need to amp myself up by listening to something with a good beat to it. But no, I don't play with headphones when I play pinball. Are you bringing your headphones, Lonnie? Yep. Absolutely. Will you do that every game, Marty? No, I don't think I will. I'm probably like you. I will do that when I'm feeling like I'm playing really bad or, you know, I'm feeling like I'm being distracted. Listening to me for music just sort of calms me down, centres me, and then I'll take them off and keep playing. I don't know. Yeah? I don't know. We'll see. I mean, to Marty's point, when you're playing in that big of a venue with roughly 300 other pins all going at the same time, it gets loud. And so you can still hear your pin that you're playing on to some different degree, depending on what type of volume is turned up on it. and you know but you definitely I mean there's something you definitely do want to hear the sounds on to you know so that way if you didn't have a chance to look up to hear that you got a danger you know but you know that also means you have to know what the danger sound is and in some cases you may not know it or may not be able to hear the danger sound very well anyway I usually find and look famously I'm known for not knowing rules right we all know that so So, and much to Ryan's anger, I'm also not a good sound person. I am more visual. So I actually find if I am listening to, if I've got music on and I'm blocking out the sound around me, I can actually focus more about what I'm seeing rather than a call out. So the payoff for me is headphones work better because I'm not listening to anything that's going on anyway. Yeah, I was talking to somebody recently and they said, I mean, because when I'm not wearing headphones, which is almost all the time, I get distracted usually by another pinball because I'm so interested in sound. If I'm next to Guardians of the Galaxy, I can be like, ah, that guy is now playing the Bobly Bobo mode and he's doing this and he's hitting that shot and it distracts me from my game. And I was talking to somebody else and he said, no, I can drown all that out because that's just kind of like, you know, I know the sounds that pinball machines are going to make. He goes, what I can't drown out is the insane reactions that people have when they swear and they drain and they stomp their feet and they get angry. He goes, that's really random and I can't block that out. So that's why I wear headphones is to protect myself against people's reactions next to me. Yeah, I could see that. There's definitely people overreacting. or, you know... Well, that's kind of what I was asking before was about, you know, how... It is the biggest event in the world, you know, each year. Some people are taking this really seriously, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And many people over-seriously. Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, when you've got a $15,000 prize money up front, you know, right there, that's something that people want. And this is what I've sort of heard, and I've only heard, I've been to Pup, I haven't been to Pimberg, is that because this is bigger, and because there's so many games that you've got to play, and it's just this engine that keeps running, that's what makes people have to focus and be more intent on what they're doing. Yeah, it can be. I mean, although at the same time, I see a lot of times where you'll have players have players that maybe have no idea what they're doing on a pin, and they're not necessarily so intense about thinking, oh, I have to absolutely do this or that. And they're just simply getting up there and playing the game and just flipping at the ball and, you know, keeping it in play, especially in some of these old, because there's such a skew towards the older games in Pinberg. and so you can get up there and simply be playing on the fly player and not worried about trying to control it and do this exact sequence of steps to maximize your score and they may end up beating the person that's really intense seven times out of ten it depends on the player in the game of course but I think there's a lot of people that they do get definitely wrapped up about it and they do get overly intense because of the gravity of the situation and the magnitude of the event, for sure, and I've been known to fall prey to that as well. But I think there's a lot of times where I think a lot of people could do themselves great good by simply relaxing. Yeah. I don't know. A couple of shots of gin. Yeah, yeah. Talking about rules, Colin, I mean, how many games are there in Pembroke? 280 or... Okay, so that's, I mean, I know a decent amount of rules of like a select few pins. I mean, Marty pumps me up and says I know all the rules. I know the rules of like the games that I own. Well, not even, I don't even know the rules for ACDC and Walking Dead properly. Just the ones that I play a lot. So how is it possible that you can, you know, know all the rules and step up to a machine when there's 288 of them and somehow know what to do. I mean, some people use Pintest, but we've heard that you've got your own version of Pintest, right? Yeah, I've got my own. I've got a Google Sheet that I keep for myself of all the different notes that I've taken from playing pins and from taking the rule sheets are out there and the key parts that I feel are most important and, you know, distilling those down to something that's easy for me to understand or my personal way that I like to approach a pin. And then in some cases, you know, I started doing this really because of Pinberg and because that first time I went to Pinberg, encountering so many pins that I'd never played and didn't have any idea how to play. And at that point in time, there wasn't a Pin Tips. and so initially it was a collective effort with some of the other guys from Austin that we went to Pembroke together and so we started to collect some of these things as far as just saying okay who played this one and what do you do on this And then I took it because of the Internet and because of rule sheets that are out there and other videos on YouTube from not just tutorials. Some of these obscure ones there aren't tutorials for. but you can usually find somebody that has recorded at least some segment of video that is out there, and you can also find a lot of detail on some of these on IPDB, and whether it's a roll card as well, right? Yeah, exactly. So you'll have pictures of the, sometimes you'll have a picture that's of the roll card, or you'll have a separate file that you can download of the manual. So I've been known to spend some time looking at the manuals for older pins, not dot leads because those aren't out there. But everything else, if I didn't happen to know how to play it, I would actually go and if there's a manual, I'd pull it up and they have the exact rules laid out as far as what the rules are. And then you have to take it to the next step of then saying, okay, those are the rules, now what's the strategy? And so that's a whole other level of you have to figure those things out, and a lot of cases on your own, because the strategy I might employ might be totally different than what Marty might want to do. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, some people write little, like, hey, I figured out how to blow up Batman, and it's this, like, 70-bullet-point sequence that you have to do. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's kind of impossible. But, you know, when I look at pin tips, I mean, it's a great resource, but it's kind of like just one thing like, oh, hey, like this is how, this is a good tip in multiball, but it's like, well, you know, what I do before then and how do I qualify multiple and this, this and that. So, and then a rule sheet, like when you step up to a pin and you've got, you know, one minute to figure out how to play it, you know, you might find this really extensive rule sheet, but you can't read it and digest it all in one minute. So I guess what you have is that perfect thing. because I remember I asked you once, you know, because I had Sea Witch for a while, and I was pretty sure I was playing in the right way, but I kind of asked you to read out, you know, your guide on Sea Witch. I was like, ah, okay, I didn't know that little flashing light bit, and, you know, not to try and hit two drops at the same time, hit one because there's a delay, and I guess what you're seeing on a gold mine because... Yep, I look forward to receiving the list. Thanks. now that I'm aware of it. Thank you, Ryan. You'd help out a bro. Thanks, mate. So did you rely on that list? So going back to 2017 now, sort of into the finals, did you sort of rely on that list? Or was that when you're now, you know, top 40, you've got a couple of buys, is it now just bringing it all together and the best of the best? No, I still rely on it. I still relied on it during the finals. And I don't think there was any of the games that were in the finals last year that I hadn't already played before. But even so, it's still also always nice to just kind of go back to it and go, just to remind myself, oh yeah, like on high hand, just to remind myself as I'm stepping up to it going, oh, that's right. If it's going down the outlaying and if I've got a bunch of cards already complete, don't try to nudge it out of the outlaying. let it drain, which is very unusual. So it's just good reminders of that and just basic things. It's also, like on that game, so I guess this is where approaches can differ between different players, where some players may choose on high hand. They might decide that they want to go for the upper drops first, and they might have their reasoning behind that. For me, I want to go for the lower drops because of the geometry of the pin. If you hit one of the lower drop banks, most of the time it's going to ricochet over to the opposite side, and you're going to get two for one. So, you know, like I said, there may be other people that they want to go for the upper drops because that's a little bit safer. You don't have as much side-to-side action that might be trying to drain your balls quickly. But, you know, little things like that. Do you find the older pins or the newer pins need more, you know, you need to study them more because, you know, something that works on one version of the pin might not work on the other. Are the older pins more affected by that or the new ones? I think that, okay, so I'll break this down into two types because there's really two elements to this. So on the older pins, it is imperative that you know the thing. Because usually on older pins, there is simply a thing, you know, one thing that you need to know how to do in order to have at least a decent score on it. And in some cases, it's not obvious. And it's not obvious how to go about accomplishing it. Like, in some cases, it's very clear on an old machine like an early solid state or an EM that, oh, that has a – first off, look for a spinner. Is there a spinner? Yes. Can it be lit? Yes. Then figure out how to light it. Well, in some cases in older games, sometimes it's not obvious how to light the spinner. And if you don't know that, then you're going to be going for your first couple of balls just trying to figure that out. So there's almost like this really big stepwise change if you think, you know, of course, I'm a nerd, so I think of things in terms of functions. So there's this big step and this big cliff in the function of your success level on a pin for an early game, knowing at least something, something very basic. But then when you get to the modern pins, yeah, you have to know a lot more because you get to a lot more situational play. And the ones that you guys are probably most familiar with, like we can talk about Star Trek, you know, someone can even know not just the rules, they can even know some of the strategies of Star Trek, but based on the situation they end up in, your strategy needs to change. and so if you are first off if you're going to go like on a common strategy on Star Trek if you're going on a long play and if you are in ball one and you think you're going to hit setup relatively easily you can try to go for some of the triple stacks of going for a column like go for your Nero column go for your Destroy the Drill column and then get your 2x multipliers on your left orbit and your 2x multiplier on your warp ramp and then you can just murder save the Enterprise. But, if you start playing Star Trek, and you have two bad balls, you're probably not going to be afforded the luxury of going three deep on Nero and three deep on Destroy the Drill. So you have to shift gears. You have to change to something else. And so then you have to know situationally, okay, where am I at? And what's the best thing to do now? Okay, am I close enough to Klingon Multiball? Should I just focus on that? And then if so, what mode Do I want to bring in the Klingon multiball? Or do I want to play one more mode and then get to the second level mode to bring in the Klingon? So that's where it's – and you really can't even capture that in – like I don't have that level of detail in my notes on some of those moderns. That's really something that you almost have to know just from playing it enough and keeping some semblance of track of what to do. I mean, Pinball Banks are kind of like one modern, and then the rest are a lot older and don't have that strategy. So I guess it is mostly the older games that you have to worry about versus the newer games, do you think? Yeah, I would agree. I would say for most people, of course, there's going to be some people that if they've grown up with classics or if that's what they have or what they're used to, then maybe it's different for them. but I would say for your average pinball player in 2018, they've probably seen a lot more moderns than classics. Yeah. And the way I always see it with those is the older the machine, the less amount of maximum flips you're really going to have each ball, right? So I think then it becomes really more important to understand exactly what is going to give you the maximum amount of points within the minimum amount of shots, if you know what I mean. But the good thing, at least with those machines, you can look at the rule card and know most about what you need to do, right? Yeah, correct, most of the time. But there's also some of the worst ones I've found are some of the early wedge heads. And you know what I mean by wedge heads, correct? Yeah, I do. Okay. So the wedge heads, for any of your listeners that aren't familiar, it's the old, really old EMs. They're usually single player, and they're also usually tilt-ends game. and so a lot of those old rule cards, all it tells you how to do is earn how to earn the extra ball in the special. It doesn't matter at all. Not anymore. It makes no difference. Those are so early, you can't even set those to points. And so they're absolutely worthless. And it says how to earn the extra ball in the special and what's the replay value. You're completely lost. And usually those machines have nothing on pin tips as well. Correct. There were no tournaments back in the, was it the 50s or something? When were Wedgeheads around? 60s. Yeah, something like that, yeah. But, I mean, they still get played now, but I guess you're probably reliant on everything that's been at Papa in that facility because they're the ones that keep coming out each year. Correct, yeah. So, for instance, right now, I mean, we can, I did notice that they did finally put up an updated pin list on the ReplayFX website, but they do not have it broken down by banks yet like they did on the broadcast, and I haven't seen anybody put out a, whether from Papa or whether somebody who was being quite industrious and recording, writing down every single game and which bank they were in. Well, have you noticed many new games, Cullen? So one game I noticed, which I have no clue how to play, I've never played before, is Bounty Hunter. So that was the one that showed up late last night, I guess, right back from the wedding. and it's a Gottlieb solid state that I think is one of those weird eras of Gottliebs. I think they were intentionally making things simple, single level, not including any ramps like everybody else for that game. Yeah, that one looks interesting. I didn't even know that one existed. and so now I think I'll spend some time looking up how to play it. Get that spreadsheet out. I'm trying to find a picture of the real card, but it's just too pixelated. Yeah, I can't see that either. It's like a bonus game. Yeah, right. But I guess what we're really saying is that, you know, a lot of the machines from last year are still going to make up the majority of the machines that are there. Obviously, Iron Maiden is going to be new this year. Was TNA in it last year, or was that... Have we just missed the cut for that? We just missed the cut for it. It wasn't in it last year. Yeah, so it's in there this year. Correct. And I think that's going to be... I was looking, like, because right at the end, I think the last... It might have been the last 12 machines, maybe, would have been all the machines that are going to be up on the stage. Yeah, yeah, so they're correct. The last 12, and I think they skipped over TNA because they didn't have one there. at the facility last night. But, yeah, so I think there's the only other two, well, not only the two, two others that I've noticed that weren't there last year that are there this year are two of the ones they featured in some of the recent Papa TV live broadcasts. And so they had a Spirit of 76, which I had played before, but they didn't have that previously. and they also did a it's a Gottlieb's College State timeline. They did timeline a couple weeks ago, I think, as part of the Papa TV Live and that one they didn't have before. But I've played both of those. I played the Spirit of 76 once at a collector's tournament up in North Texas and then timeline I played for the first time actually when I was over in Denmark last year. So not many changes. I found the rule card for Bounty Hunter, by the way. Would you like to know how to play? Would you like me to explain to Colin MacAlpine how to play Bounty Hunter? Absolutely. Yeah, how do we play Bounty Hunter? Let's do it. Well, to get the barrel bonus... Wait, let me pull up the... To get the barrel bonus, right, you need to shoot the loop in the proper direction. Proper direction. The proper direction. So there's two engines that said loop. Make sure you do it in the proper direction. That increases your barrel bonus and fires bullets. Then there's something called the chamber bonus, okay, and shooting the hole lights an additional spot target number, which is yellow, and hitting the spot target when lit will light the corresponding chambers, completing the ABC lights the hole. There you go, Bounty Hunter in a nutshell. Yeah. The only other thing on there is extra ball and special. Marty's going to get a three. He'll get a three on that one. I'm as good as one Pinberg just by that, thank you. Wow. That is the most ridiculous oversized gun I've ever seen in a playfield before. Are you looking at the playfield? Yeah, I saw that. Well, hey, it is. Kingpin. Oh, no, that's on the translate, isn't it, Kingpin? Yeah. I'm keen to play this gun. For got leads of this era, I do actually quite like. Are you talking about Spirit of 76-4? I actually kind of stumbled across that. I ended up watching the, I think it was the Guardians of the Galaxy puppet tutorial, which is probably changed again because I'm changing those rules. Yeah, yeah, that's outdated already, yeah. Yeah, they started playing the Spirit of 76 right after that, just automatically started playing. And I kind of watched a little bit of it, and there's that important rule, I guess, on the last ball you can get double bonus collect or something. Is that how it works? Do you want to explain the rules for Spirit of 76 on the last ball? Yeah, sure. I think that's correct. Let me pull that one up. Marty, you're just salivating the mouth now, aren't you? Like, I need to get this right. Yeah, I really do. I mean, all I know at the moment is that there was 10,300 units of the maid. That is it. So, yeah, Spirit of 76. So the first thing you want to do is plunge for C. And I'm guessing if I know that one, I don't have that play field up in front of me, but it's probably because you can't get C from one of the lower lanes. That's right, because the lower lanes are A, B, D, and E. So the only way... Yeah, so I think... Actually, this is one of the ones that I paid attention to yesterday. So this is get the C, get everything, and then just, isn't it like, wail into the center scoop or something? Yeah. Time to subvert a bit. Well, but only after... You'll be lucky. Anybody will be lucky to survive long enough to actually have that center scoop worth anything. Yeah. So you have to, let's see, you have to hit the drops to advance bonus, or you can complete, oh, okay, you can also light the star rollovers to advance bonus. So anytime you complete an A, B, C, D, E lane, it will light one of the star rollovers, which will also advance bonus. Completing A, B, C, D, E lights 2x bonus, so you get your double bonus. if you do ABCDE, but 2x bonus is given for free on Ball 5. Oh, here's where you can blow it up, though. Okay, the drops will never come back up. Oh, here we go. If you shoot the lit saucer, when 2x bonus is qualified, either from ABCDE or Ball 5, then the lit saucer will give you 4x bonus. Yeah, that's what I watched John do on the Papa stream, and, man, it just took forever to count down. It just sat in the store for like a minute. But the funny thing was, when he got the 4x collect, it then starts your bonus back at zero and the drops don't come back up, so he couldn't really figure out how to advance the bonus further. Well, I mean, he'd already won by that stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you've gotten that, you've probably already won. Yeah, you probably don't need to be worrying about getting more bonus after that. So what game, Colin, do you see people commonly play? And I'm guessing this might be a modern game because you don't see people playing the older ones too often. But what game do you see people playing incorrectly, in your opinion? Like the wrong strategy. What's the most common game for that? Let's see. It doesn't have to be a complete strategy, but like going for a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Warzone, for example. I see so many people going for the skill shot, which just is kind of irrelevant. Yeah, no, that's not a good idea. Sure, sure. I would say, so a couple, I mean, so definitely some of the more current ones are modern ones. Well, it would take way too long to explain how to play Game of Thrones correctly. but you know sometimes you see you see people not they go into black water multiball without you know a mode and black they think oh they're getting into a multiball and for the most part I mean there are rare occasions when people can have a really good black water multiball by itself but like I said that's not the typical that's not the normal and so a black water multiball really isn't all that valuable other than getting some great mode shots in, you know, with what you stack. And typically if you want to do what I consider the best stack for that is with Greyjoy and Lannister running with it. Because even if you get to the best part, I mean, what's the best part of Blackwater Multiball? Cashing in the supers. Cashing in supers. The life blinding you in the face. So winter has come. That's winter has come, Marty. but even if you get to what's the base value of a super typically I've seen it as low as like 17 so I'm guessing like 15 or so yeah 17 is what I usually see it at as well so I think it's probably 15 and you get some accumulation of points so it's usually right about 17 where did that even come from I never know how to increase the jackpot do you know come on I think it's – I have something to do with maybe the five shots that you hit, but it never seems to change. Even if you get some decent combo multipliers into the jackpots, it still always seems to be a base value of 17. So great. So that means you're going to get 17 million on a shot that will probably only register 50% of the time because that battering ram was crap. Yep. So let's do the math then. So it's just divided by two. So now you're getting around eight and a half million per shot. Okay? I will take your butt, I will take your ass to the cleaners. And just by shooting Greyjoy on combo multipliers. The Greyjoy mode is ridiculously powerful as long as you're comboing. And it's safe. So anyway, so that's one thing. For instance, people think that, okay, I completely agree that especially early on in the game, If you can get no multiball just so you can get the feel for the shots, that can be valuable. But in terms of actually thinking that the Blackwater multiball is going to give you the end-all, be-all, it's not. The other one you see, it's not as recent of a game, but you see a lot of people messing up, is X-Men. And they play Magneto multiball before they've played enough of the heroes, the good guys. And then their Magneto multiball is virtually worthless. Okay. Yeah That's a game I really had no idea And just because There hasn't really been that many X-Men's out on site For us to play So I'm completely fucked Let's change that So let's see I think it's not This one you can get into a lot of detail But let's see if we can simplify this So Yeah so first off You can get into a multiball fairly easily by hitting the Wolverine, that big bash target. Yes. But it's even better if you can maybe get one or two hits on Wolverine and then you want to qualify a villain before you start Wolverine. And so the way you qualify a villain is by completing your inlanes or you can get inlanes spotted by shooting the scoop on the left. Okay. So depending on the kick out, right? Yeah. Depending on the thing, sometimes you can even live catch it and then backhand it back into the scoop and you're good to go. But, yeah, good luck trying to find that when you step up to a game cold that you've never played that physical copy before. But a lot of times also with Pinberg, depending upon how your group is playing and how they're playing on that particular game, you may even just be better off just simply starting your Wolverine multiball and having a decent Wolverine multiball, that may even get you the win without max point strategy. Well, that's right, because there's also that element of psyching out your opponent, particularly if you're drawn and you're up first. Sometimes it's actually quite okay to just be a little bit above so it puts pressure on people to try and beat that, and sometimes that's a good strategy as well. And that also works well back talking about Game of Thrones. Even though you talked about the Blackwater multiball not being worth that much. But if you get it on your first ball, all of a sudden you've got 300 mil, somebody's got to chase that, and that can add a bit of pressure as well. Correct. Yep. And so, yeah. And then there's, yeah, there's also some games where, some of the earlier games, you want to try to think. I don't know if they're going to have any of these there. We had a couple of them or one of them at Cactus Jacks in Oklahoma City, one of these early EM games, one of those EM games that had multiball. And so in between games, if there were balls locked, they would stay locked between players. Yeah. And so before you choose your order, you know, if it's one of those games that has the potential for having balls that are still physically locked from the prior game, you want to, you know, don't just necessarily, if you just got last on the, you got the fourth place score on the previous one, you're like, okay, I'm going to play fourth because I want to see what everybody else is doing. that may not be your best bet. I don't think there's... I don't even know if there's any of those at Papa. I don't recall. But still, you always want to be sure, you know, if there's a game like that that you choose carefully. There's not very many of them. Just back on X-Men for a second, I had a question that might be gone now, but, you know, you talked about live catching and shoving it straight back in the scoop just watching another letter. is there a timer associated with that? Because I know there's a game, I think it might be Tron, that if you get the ball back into that scoop, the arcade, too quickly, it won't reach the shot. It thinks that it might have failed the kick out and the ball went back in there. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So you have to kind of like wait a little. So does X-Men have the same thing? Because I guess they're both programmed by Lonnie, I think. I don't know. because I mean I guess if you were I don't think if you take the time to live catch it and you know and then cradle it I don't I think that's plenty of time I think I've seen that before is on Trons where if you have the if the scoop is so powerful if you're just holding the foot of it and it's simply bouncing off the platform back directly into it where that it won't register it but I don't know if I've ever seen that in X-Men Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, that's one that you play wrong. So, Marty, of the 288, there's probably a couple that you don't know what you're doing on. Hmm. Right. But then it comes down to the topic that we've talked about only very recently when we've been talking about Iron Maiden because Iron Maiden is particularly good for at least being able to look at the lights that are flashing and the inserts to know what you've got to do. but there are a lot of machines that if I don't know the rules I'm relying on what the machine is trying to tell me and sometimes... But Marty, there's pretty advanced strategies for Iron Maiden already as we can see. Colin, your Iron Maiden strategy, go. So if I... Okay, have I found the plunge skill shot yet or not? Sure, you have. Okay, do you guys know about all the different plunge skill shots now? I really know them. We don't have a date going. We don't have a date. Okay, but you only need to know one. If you can do the Congo skill shot on Iron Maiden, you'll probably win. Right, okay. It's worth 25 million points. Yeah, but, I mean, what are the chances of doing that three times in a row? Well, if you've measured out the skill shot, then you're good to go. Fair enough. Okay, so when T-Town was talking about taking pictures of the skill shots and his knuckles, I don't actually know what that means. Is he taking a, not that you know because you're not Keith Elwin, but maybe you know the answer to it. Is he taking like a bird's eye view of where the end of the plunger is with the lines rolled out, or is he doing something with his knuckles? He mentioned something about his knuckles. I don't know. That sounds kind of kinky. No. So, no, he's probably, I'm assuming he's taking a picture of where the plunger is in the measurement window. The knuckles part is probably just what he's doing to embrace the plunger, to make sure that you get a consistent plunge every time. Because you have to let go in a certain way as well. If you let go without leaving a hand on it, then there isn't enough force to do it as if you just let it go properly, right? Correct. And it gets even worse on the older games, because you'll find this a lot more in classics and older games, but you've probably noticed that the plunger, as you pull it back, you can actually wiggle it back and forth. Yeah. And so there's a technique that I use where I brace the plunger against one side. So for me, I'm usually bracing the plunger against the right side. So I'm pulling the plunger towards me, if that makes sense. Not just like pulling it out, but I'm bracing it against the cap. And so what that's doing is that in older games, if the plunger is a little bit loose or wiggly, that means that the plunger tip is now going to be on the right side of the ball. Well, you also have to rotate the plunger assembly around because someone else might have twisted it around, and if it's slightly bent to the left or the right, you're going to get a different plunge as well, right? That's true, yeah. Now you're getting into the next level stuff. Oh, man. Plunge and hope. That's my problem. No, no. Measure your plunge, Marty. It's worth it. Marty's given up already. I'm now just in my head going, yeah, I'm just going to be there to have fun. That's it. Marty, we're talking to the person who won Timber, so this is like next level stuff. There's different layers of the onion, right? Yeah, exactly. What is your Timber goal, Marty? Oh, yeah, what's your Timber goal? How many bottles of gin, Marty? Literally, how many bottles of gin people are going to give me? That is going to be my measure of success. You're going to, okay, I'm envisioning, do you know a stand-up comedian here famous in the United States named Gabriel Iglesias? Yes. Fluffy. Fluffy. Yeah, Fluffy. Anyway, he has this ongoing joke of like all the people that come to his shows and bring him chocolate cakes because in one particular show, he talked about how much he loves chocolate cakes. So I'm just envisioning this like Marty walking in with his arm full of fists Make it happen guys I will tell you I've actually got this really interesting goal And my goal is to If I ever happen to be on the stream To not do something Where people go Oh he really doesn't know the rules of this game If I can get away with that The chances are It happened at Indy. So, yeah. On which game? On that same. Just, you know. Well, I'm going to put you at ease, Marty. Yeah. So the only, at least last year. Now, they may have upgraded things, but they've made their point, I think, over a couple of times. And people have asked them this. I don't, they do not do any streaming of the qualifying rounds. Awesome. So it is all, you know, what happens at Pinburgh stays at Pinburgh. I'm going to have to message you, Marty, every one and a half hours or whatever it is. How's you doing in that round? How's you doing? And this is the thing. So Ryan knows this as well. The biggest thing I hate, if I feel that people are watching me, either playing or they're following my progress, that puts me on edge. So my phone is really off. Yeah. I need to just block out all that sort of distraction or expectations. and it's completely illogical, right? I'm just going to tell you. I'm going to give you an example where it's completely illogical. And this was, God, it was Papa last year where someone had said to me before going into the finals, she did really well on those old machines. And I went, oh, yeah, I did do well on those old machines. And because I was driving the bus, I picked all these old machines, got all these house balls and failed. And I'm like, if that person hadn't said anything, I would not have picked those machines. is completely illogical. So I just want to be completely in control of my own destiny. I don't know. I just... It's on you. It's all there. I won't message you, Marty. I won't message you. You message me. And I'll give you thumbs ups, okay? Yeah, that's all I need. No thumbs downs, just thumbs ups. So you... Makes you feel so... Sideways. So it's completely neutral. I don't know either way how you're feeling. You're going to take Marty back to his grade school days. you're going to feel like you're being jilted by a girlfriend. Don't call me, I'll call you. Do you get the same thing, Colin? Do you get people kind of like, you know, because you're one of the better players, you have people just constantly kind of, you know, how are you going? Are you going pretty good? Yeah, you've got it in the bag. Does that throw you off or are you kind of used to it by now that it doesn't affect you? Yeah, it doesn't affect me. But most people that I'm talking about how a particular round has gone or how did you go last round or what did you score or with my other friends who are there at Pinberg. And that's actually one of my favorite memories from the early Pinbergs, back when it was at the Papa facilities, is you would naturally just go out and hang out in the parking lot in between rounds to have a beer out of the, you know, we would be tailgating out of somebody's car in between rounds, swapping stories of, oh, how this pin screwed me over and I got this house balled and that house balled. Oh, but in that round I was playing with, you know, I was playing with Keith Elwin in that round. You know, all the stories of just, you know, sharing the bad beats or the amazing comebacks. And to me, that is some of my, those are some of my favorite memories of Pinberg. So here's a really dumb question that is probably really obvious to the A-hand, also people going to Pinberg. Sounds like it. Yeah. So, there's the PAPA facility in Pittsburgh, right? Yeah, outside of Pittsburgh. Yep. Okay. About 20 minutes out. Yep. And Pinberg is held elsewhere, but they use the PAPA machines? Correct. Correct. So, they haul all the machines. Why isn't it just held at the PAPA facilities? Is it not big enough? No, it's not big enough. Perhaps it's nowhere close to big enough. Yeah. Yeah, like when, I think there was, how many people were at PAPA? There might have been, you know, 350, yeah, maybe 400. And it's a big facility, but there's not really good, I guess, spectator facilities or anything outside of you playing. So I think that's why they have it at this venue, so there's more room around the tournament. I guess that's the case, Colin? Yeah, yeah, it means it's all of the above. But I think because obviously they can fit all of those pinball machines in the PAPA facility, so it's not a matter of space for the pins. It's all the other things that go along with it. You know, you don't have the spectator room. You don't have enough bathrooms. You know, you don't have enough parking. Parking out there. You don't have enough places to sit down, to have something to eat. I mean, they were bringing in food trucks, and, you know, that we would overwhelm the food trucks with the amount of people. And in particular with Pinberg, Papa is not as bad because Papa, at least everybody, is kind of taking their own breaks as they go when they're not playing because people are just constantly playing. They're getting in line and recueing and playing again, and then they get, okay, fine, I'm going to take a break now and hang out with my friends for a while or go get in somebody's car and go get something to eat. Whereas with Pinberg, you have designated slots where your facilities are going to get overwhelmed. So Papa didn't happen this year because they are trying to sell the facility that all the pinning machines are in, right? But that hasn't... That's what they announced, yes. Okay. But it hasn't sold, so they probably could have run it, right? Like, they were just thinking... No, but they... Oh, you mean the Papa World Championships? Yeah, they could have. But, I mean, think about it. If you've got something on the market, you can't anticipate... And to their credit, I mean, I think it was Doug or Elizabeth was online talking about this, they couldn't in good conscience tell people, hey, yeah, we're going to run it, and then have all these people make travel plans from around the country, around the world, take their vacation, get their vacation slots, put in with their employers, and then suddenly maybe a month or two in advance go, oh, sorry, guys, we've sold it, so now we can't hold it, but better luck next time. Yeah, absolutely. So have they got another facility, or are they just going to look for one once it sells? I have no idea. Can you imagine just that stress of finding a place for 280 plus pinball machines within a short time? And maybe it doesn't happen to everyone. Okay, everyone around Pittsburgh, you're going to house a couple of pinball machines in your garage while we sell these things. They go out on loan for a year. Well, they're really skilled at moving pinball machines now. Yeah, they'd have to be. How do they move that many pinball machines? A lot of people. They hire a company. Okay. Yeah, they hire a, I don't know which moving company they hire, but they, you know, no, absolutely, they hire a company to do a show. Legs are awful. They just leave the legs on. I think they, someone was talking about this previously. I don't remember if it was Doug or Mark Steinman or Bowen. I think they go legs on. I can't imagine them lifting up and putting the legs on that many machines. Yeah, I think they take them all legs on. So they've got a contract that they've got with some company. And, of course, they supervise, you know, obviously the loading. And, you know, I think it's probably, I'm assuming, I don't know, but I'm assuming they would use the same company. Just like in my job, you know, part of my job is I manage the procurement team. And, you know, you have, when you develop a relationship with a vendor, you know, that does things the right way, then you can continue to use that vendor. They know what their expectations are of how to treat the pins. And, of course, then I can't imagine the amount of work that goes into not just moving them, but once they get in the new place, then you have to re-level every single one. Oh, my gosh. I mean, you guys have, with your tournaments, I mean, the tournaments I've run, I mean, I think the maximum number of pins I've ever had to deal with is like in the 20s or maybe upwards of 30, and then to multiply that by 10, oh, my gosh. Well, because they have to get them all timed and get everything on a certain schedule. So, yeah, it's a big undertaking, and I guess that's why a lot of people were really upset that Pimberg sold out this year, and, you know, why can't we have more people? It's like, well, they need to make sure that it runs properly in small increments, right, versus just saying, okay, it's now 1,000 people. Correct. And they're already, but they're doing things this year in preparation for future years where they want to make it bigger. So they're intentionally bringing on, I mean, one of the people that I met when I was out at the U.S. Nationals and the Pinmasters, I think it's Tracy, she's from Arizona, and she's volunteering, and she's going to be one of the TDs, the new TDs at Pinberg. And so you have people not just from the Pittsburgh area, but people that are coming from around the country to volunteer to be a tournament director at Pinburgh. And so that's what the core team there at Pinburgh is planning ahead for the future of training up additional tournament directors and additional techs. So that way they hopefully then have the people capacity to handle a bigger event. event, and then it's just a matter of now they'll have to go and get more people to either sell to them at a nice price or to contribute and set up pins and donate them to the weekend to be able to pull that off. Do you think Houdini will be there? Do you have a strategy for Houdini going? I hope that it works. Meaning that the Houdinis I've played have both been in poor condition, sadly. Oh, really? I don't know if it's a function of the PIN or if it's a function of the tech, but one location I've been to multiple times in the Dallas area, they do a pretty reasonable job of keeping up, I think, close to 40 PINs now that they have at the location. And every time I've been there, they usually have a tech that's there that evening. and this last time I was there just a week ago the first time they had to promise Houdini the curtain mech started smoking and that wasn't part of the show in this episode Houdini will make the smoke start to rise then shoot the ramp twice and then shoot through the smoke to score jackpots So, yeah, this past time I was there, and the curtain mech wasn't working at all. And sadly, the software was not well designed enough yet or in its evolution yet to compensate for it. So most of the pins, the nice thing about a lot of these pins is that when something breaks down, the pin is smart enough, they've designed it well enough that, okay, the drawbridge, for instance, on Medieval Madness isn't working, let's say. Well, they've designed it so that way if you just continue hitting that shot, it will give you the credit for making progress, even though the drawbridge hasn't come down and you can't hit the gate. Or I've played other ones where the drawbridge is down permanently, and so then you'll be bashing the gate and you'll only be getting credit for moat shots until it's gotten to that point in the software where now you're hitting the gate. Well, in this case, I was bashing the curtain like crazy and nothing's happening. And so I walked away. Because I'm not going to, there's no point in playing the game if you can't, you know, Well, we know that Josh is listening to the podcast. So, Josh, let us know whether you've now compensated for the curtain not working. Might be an old term, man. Colin, do they disable certain mechs that are known for issues like that? Like every single Walking Dead that I've ever played, and now that I got one myself I mean that you know when the doors open up on the barn if you touch with your finger that zombie the switch is super sensitive But for some reason, if you hit the ball in the corner, kind of like between the face and the barn, it's this weird dead spot on all the walk of the desert I play that it doesn't register the shot. So for my competition, I just close the, you know, just disable the barn and it just uses the opto, and it works perfectly 100% of the time. Do they do that on any of the Pimberg games, or is it just as it is? You know, this is the game. This is how you play it. I don't know if I've played Papa's Walking Dead. I didn't play it last year in qualifying, so I don't know if they do that or not. They would absolutely close it. From what I've noticed of them, anything that has a bit too much of a randomizer, They'll try to make it as consistent as possible, right? Well, except that they have Riverboat Gambler as one of their travel agents. Well, that is also true. Yeah. Colin, are you ready to play a new age legend cracker on an awesome puzzle? Are we doing this? Yes. Yes. Although I have a problem. Well, Marty, you'll win, Marty, because Colin will have to look up his spreadsheet every single time. It'll give you like a 15-second buffer, right? That's still going to be better than what I like. Amati, your call-out is? Go for the wall. Cullen? Brickorus. Brickorus? Yes. Do you want to tell us the story behind that, Cullen, quickly? Oh, sure. It's my fun little claim to fame on Iron Maiden. That was a couple, maybe last week or whatever, right when the 1.02 code came out that Keith Elwin messaged me and said, hey, were you the one that said Flight of Brickris when they were streaming from the Stern factory? And you said, yeah, yeah, that was, yeah, I forget who was playing, but they had the Icarus mode and they were bricking left and right. They couldn't hit their either ramp shot. And so I put that in the text chat on Twitch, and so now that's been incorporated into the latest code. I still haven't heard it yet because I haven't had a chance to play Iron Maiden on 1.02 yet. so I'm looking forward to bricking all my Icarus shots so I can hear the content of the call out that I helped create so that's awesome alright so Brickareth and Go For The Wall 10 questions worth 1 point each here we go number 1 in medieval manners we were just talking about there's a hurry up in the middle how many hurry ups do you need to get the extra ball Brickareth 10 correct Number two. Marty, come on. Come on, Marty. Iron Maiden. How many inserts on the playfield does Iron Maiden have? This is a multiple choice. 43, 56, or above 62. Go for the wall. I'm going to say middle 66. No, it's above 62. Oh, Brickrist, above 62. No. Okay, this one's really dumb. Okay. How many letters do you need to change on Star Trek to convert it into Shrek? What? You can convert Family Guy into Shrek. If you want to convert Star Trek, the name, into Shrek, how many letters do you need to change? Oh, gosh. Come on, guys. Guys, let's change this. Colin, Colin got in first. Yes, Colin. You have to change four. No. Five? Wait. No, four. Yeah, four. You're right. Yes, four. Horrible question. Guys, come on. It was a late notice. Terrible. Terrible. Okay. Okay. In The Walking Dead, Hey, let's talk about all these things. This is good. In The Walking Dead, what is the name of the mode where you visit the Center for Disease Control? Brickrush. Yes, go on. CDC. CDC. Yes. That was a softball for you, Marty. Yeah, I know. You're bloody quick on the buzzer, though. Jeez. He's competitive, Marty. Yeah, I can see you. He's right. It's because, well, Marty, it's because it's middle of the day for you, so you haven't had any gin yet, and yet I've already had my Imperial IPA. Exactly. Okay. On Total Nuclear Annihilation, there's this brilliant part of the software where if you hit the mystery award, and it's cycling through all of the mysteries, it will only show up or award you the mystery after it's shown it to you. And a lot of games don't do that. A lot of the games like Simpsons, for example, you hit the garage and you see the extra ball light in your inlanes and then it goes, oh, you know, mystery, what's it going to be? Extra ball. Okay, so name a Keith P. Johnson game that does the same thing as Tone of the Animation where it awards it to you after it shows it to you and not before. I'm going to say Lord of the Rings only because we played it last night. Is there a mystery? Oh, yeah, no, there is a mystery. It's not the one I'm thinking of. It might be right, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be wrong. This is what I'm thinking about that I want you to answer. Colin, do you have a bric-a-ris world poker tour? I don't know. I don't know. That's a complete yes. I have no idea. What I'm looking for is Wizard of Oz, okay? That's what I'm looking for. It might be another game. You guys both might be right, but I just wanted to say, okay. Well done. So, wait, so Wizard of Oz, it shows you that you've already earned the extra ball even before it gives you the extra ball? No, no, it's the same as TNA. So you get into the wizard scoop, and it'll say something like, character spotted, and then the character will be spotted. It doesn't spot the character and then say, oh, you know, what's it going to be? Oh, okay, got it, got it. It's not a mystery if it gives it to you before, you know, if it's on the, you know, something. Anyway, just a little idea. Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, okay? two different pinball machines, but with the recent update, there is now a mode that is shared between them, the name. There and back again. Oh, Marty. Good job. Very good. Here's another little-or-little-dangerous question, Marty, that you might be able to answer. Hey, Marty, how's your first play of There and Back Again going with your Hobbit pin? Well, you know what? It would be the same if I actually had it. Non-existent. Wouldn't it be up there? 2D modes. How many two-way combos do you need in Kill the Witch King to finish the modes? Brick Rizzle. Yes, Colin. Three. Yes. Bonus, bonus. How many times did Ryan brick the last shot to finish that mode last night? I think it was, I think three times, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, but you finished it? No. I hit two combos in a row and then hit that last... I'd have like 20 seconds to do the last shot and continue. Last question. Which top-ranked player last year traveled to Osaka, Japan and won the monthly competition at the Silver Bowl Planet against all the Japanese players? I'll let you have it, Marty. No, break a wrench. It was you, Colin. It was you. How did you enjoy your trip to Japan last year, and what can you tell us about the Silver Bowl Planet in Osaka? It was great. I was there. We have two plants in the Osaka, Japan area, and so I was there having meetings, and I thankfully was able to get off work in time to be able to go enjoy a little bit of the Silver Bowl Planet because they close really early in the evening. So early. Like 8 o'clock, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was able to go there at least one evening, and then it was, I forget when it was, if it was 2016 or one of the last times I was there. I was actually over there over a weekend, and they had the monthly tournament the weekend I was there. So I played. And I messaged you this, Ryan, as well, but they are some of the most hospitable people in the world and the players there. They were just amazingly hospitable. Half of them, you know, more than half maybe couldn't speak English. Of course, I can't speak Japanese other than, you know, saying ohio gozaimasu. I don't know Japanese. But they're just incredibly hospitable, very nice people. They were also, it was a neat phenomenon. I've only seen it in Japan. But as we're playing in the finals, I think it was, I don't remember which game. It was a modern game where you can get multiball. But wasn't there like a modern Stern where they sometimes hand out multi-balls like candy? And so maybe it was something like a game like Tommy, where it takes some effort to get multiball. But still, there's a multiball that's available for everybody on Ball 3. And everybody that's watching, as soon as you start multiball, everybody starts clapping and cheering. And it's like, oh, this is it. So I really hope that pinball around the world, not just in Osaka, Japan, can evolve to where we have more audience participation and people cheering on the players when they start multi-malls. And not sitting behind them and cussing them and whining. Yeah. I'm going to spend an hour there, but just the people that I kind of interacted with there were just some of the nicest pinball people. I mean, pinball people are nice regardless, but you add the Japanese factor and it's niceness overloads. But, Colin, we've run out of time because Marty... I've got to head out, so really do appreciate you coming on. And, of course, we get to continue this conversation in a couple of weeks. Yeah, absolutely. I get to see you there. Like I said, the only problem with trying to find somebody in Pinburg is that it's a big, huge hall with lots of games. Find my friends on iPhone, right? Find my friends? Yeah. Yeah, so if I happen to be around, you know, then feel free to come over and ask me, what the heck do I do on Hang Glider? So, look, you've got two options. Either I'm going to interrupt you every time I'm going to a game, or you can send me your list. Up to you. You're the one. You're the truth. Bride-in money. It's a lot of work. You've got to offer him some money for it. Come on. No, you can have a head-to-head t-shirt. There you go. That's all I got. It's a super limited edition. We appreciate you taking your time out of your day to talk to us. And good luck at Pimberg. And we hope to see you up on the stage to maybe do it two times in a row. Yeah. I hope so. I hope so, too. That would be just good to be up on the stage again. And, yeah, it'll be fun to meet you, Marty. I met Ryan at TPF, so now I can meet the other head. That's awesome. Look forward to it, man. See you then. See you. See you, Benny. So that was Colin MacAlpine, and let me tell you what I've learned, right? You're fucked. I knew you were going to say that. It's exactly the summary of just what came out from that is there's a lot of thinking that goes into this tournament, right? And I don't know. I just don't have the patience for it, really, is what I'm getting at. So I'm just going to go for the flashing lights. Isn't that funny how, like, the top players, they kind of study pinball and, you know, if you're going for a job interview, Marty, you would study what the company was about. If you were doing anything in life that you really wanted to do, you would do it. But when it comes to pinball... Yeah, well, I'm not interviewing for 288 jobs. It's a little bit different, isn't it? Well, what I'm trying to say is that, well, I mean, like maths, and you learn maths at school, like you have to do it. But I think it's because people think of it as a hobby. They don't want to study it. They want to be naturally good at it. But as you kind of found out with Colin and also with Keith taking, you know, all the pictures of his knuckles and, I mean, everyone, Bowen, Josh, all the good players I've had on our podcast, they kind of study the rules, right? And they play an insane amount of pinball. So, I don't know, if you want to be good, you have to put in the hours, right? Yeah, you know, again, I don't know whether I want to get that into it. I kind of want to enjoy it. I don't want to take it too seriously. As soon as I take it too seriously and I get defeated, I get down and, you know, I'd rather it just be more of an enjoyable experience. And I guess the difference is that I'm travelling halfway around the world. So, you know, I want it to be overall an enjoyable experience. And after Pinberg, I've then got a week of travelling around America. So I don't want to have some bad memories of when I completely fucked up a shot. Or as I think I'm going to do, someone's going to come up to me and say, You know you had multiball lit? I'm like, sure. Where? I don't know. I don't know these games. I enjoyed listening to the podcast without me on it. Stacey did a really good job, Marty. Yes, thank you, Stacey, for coming on. That was great. Lots of good feedback. While I was away, I did pick up a new sponsor, Marty. Yeah? Who's that? It will mean you are now recording in the Four Brothers Pale Ale Studio, because two brothers aren't enough. No, that's right. Four brothers. Four sisters. Yes. As well. Oh. We don't want to be sexist. No. We're sponsored by Four Pillars. Oh, Four Pillars. Yeah, that's the tanned ale instead of pale ale? No. No. It's something. It's my tuna choice, so. So... There's nothing that goes down better while playing pinball than Four Pillars Gin, right, Marty? That's exactly right. You can't enjoy yourself unless you're drinking Four Pillars Gin. Okay. Four Pillars Gin. Yes. Fantastic. Amazing. Okay. I just wanted to get that in there. Okay. Cool. Good. That sounds good. I listen to a lot of podcasts when I was, you know, travelling around on the plane and waiting in line and stuff, so there is a great new podcast that I was just making fun of. Special win list. Social Analyst Podcast, yeah, they go pretty good. They interviewed Dwight Sullivan. It was a really great interview with him. I'm glad. You know, he was pretty open about a lot of stuff. He did mention kind of like drop some kind of hints on what he's working on next, and it seems like he might be working on the monsters, I think. He didn't say that, obviously. And, yeah, we'll link that in the show notes. People can have a listen. Okay. Yeah, awesome. Well done, guys. But anyone that wants to do what we do and others like us, good on you. Because more content is better. Different perspectives on this hobby is also a great thing. Talking about different, that's a good segue, different perspectives. The Joe Kaminkow interview, I don't think you talked about that much last week. No. It's going to be one of our most polarizing podcasts yet because the amount of kind of feedback and conversation that was created because of that podcast was kind of unparalleled, right? Yeah, it was certainly on all the different forums that we frequent. Each one of them just stirred up a conversation, whether it was about, you know, the license that's coming up. It's the Beatles, you know. Well, you know, and it was like, oh, I wonder what it is. He's like, guys, he's talking about this great license, and then all of a sudden started talking about Paul McCartney. Well, it was one of those things that people were like, well, it can't be that obvious, right? Yes, it was that obvious. I guess the difference, yeah, I don't know. I had a lot of people saying it was the best interview we've ever done, you know, Joe's the boss, this, this, and that. I had a lot of people saying, well, I don't like what he's kind of, you know, his message about we're going to make it limited, like it's all about collecting and not about the quality of the game and this, this and that. But, I mean, this is the thing that, you know, you take a bit of a step back from pinball as I have over the last, you know, literally only like a week, right? But, hey, this is the difference. When I went to America and Canada, I was like surrounded by pinballers hanging out with pinball people. That was not a break from pinball. That was just a break from Australia, right? When I went to Japan, like, the pinball was nowhere. There's no one there that, like, gives a shit about pinball. So you take a little bit of a step back and you realize, like, I don't know, it doesn't matter. Like, it doesn't matter if a machine that is released, if you think it's the biggest piece of crap ever, it doesn't matter as long as somebody else wants to buy it, right? If they release the Beatles and it costs $20,000 and, you know, I mean, one of the hints that he dropped was that it's very classic pinball. Now, what does that mean, Marty? Very classic pinball. Well, look, I know that's a loaded question because you and I have spoken about it. And it's about whether this is going to be like a Wonele or a Pabst Cancrasher where it's a flat play field or a TNA where it's not going to be ramps and mega rules. It's going to be sort of old school. Is that kind of what we're thinking? Yeah. When you listen back to it, you put an emphasis on classic. Like, that was, like, a very important thing that he could tell us. So, I mean, when I think classic, I think pre-DMD. Now, I don't think they're going to release something that doesn't have an LCD, but as you said, the playfield may represent something that isn't modern. So maybe that was part of the license. Who knows? I mean, we'll see, like, next year. It's still pretty far away. But I just know that when it comes out, there's just going to be, like, just the meltdown is going to happen, right? The Pinside Meltdown, Pinside PD. Yeah, look, and I think really what... It was polarising because I think one of the comments he said was, every pinball person wants this thing. And everyone's like, well, I don't want Beatles, so therefore it's not. Well, yeah, okay, fair enough. It's in sales, it's in marketing. He wants to sell it. And if you're making a pinball machine, Marty, would you say, yeah, I think this will cater to 2% of the pinball market? I think it's an okay theme. Yeah. People probably won't like it, but some will like it. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, when it comes out, people will say this is the worst thing ever. People say it's the best thing ever. It doesn't matter. As long as some people want it, then it's fine. Well, it's got to come down to the art, first of all, because the first thing that we see with these things is how it looks. So as long as the art, you know, stacks up, so... Is that it? No, it's art. No pressure. No pressure on the app. No, you know, what people will do is they'll look at the app and they'll go, oh, I hate it, or, oh, I love it. Then they'll go, oh, let's look at the play field. It looks just like ACDC, or it looks just like whatever, you know, because people like to see familiarity in things that are new. So that's what's going to happen. Okay, if it's emulating an older machine, right, a classic pinball, then, I mean, what do people say about TNA? hey, I'll buy it for four grand, because that's what no ramps gives me. So the same thing is going to happen if that is. We're just speculating here. It's like, hey, if I'm buying a machine with no ramps or something, or no LCD, then why does it cost $12,000? It should cost $3,000. Yeah, I kind of understand that to a degree. But the thing about TNA is not that it's flat and doesn't have ramps. It's the fact that it's got an incredible light show. You know, everything that you touch is actually... I'm not trying to speak logically here. I'm just saying... No, I know. The meltdown. This is what the meltdown is going to be. I know. But what I'm saying is that if people look at a simple play field and it doesn't have the bells and whistles and the gimmicks, dare I say, if it's a bit like the Jetsons, then people will reject it and say, well, I'm not going to pay $20,000, $25,000 for the Super Limited Edition? Yes, I got to play last week. Did you play the Jetsons? I played the Jetsons. Okay. So can we quickly... I know it's going to be this week in Bimble, but I'm really keen to know what you played at the Silver Bowl Planet because you went to Osaka in Japan and you did a video on our Facebook page of all the machines that were there. And there was really two games that really... Well, three games that stood out that I really wanted to know. And you know, you absolutely know the number one game I want to know to be back on. Yes. What is it? The Rolling Stones. Well, Marty, I'm very disappointed, Marty. You said you've got a list of average games that you want as your fourth pin, as the rotating door pin. Yes. And a super cheap Rolling Stones came up, and it's literally 10 minutes away from us. Yeah. And you didn't even call, nothing. No, because it's a terrible game. But I want to know what you thought of it. Okay. Well, keep in mind, this is after about a week or over a week of not seeing or playing any pinball machine. And that is the longest... You're setting me up because you probably enjoyed it. Okay. There hasn't been a week that I haven't played pinball in, like, four years, right? Like, it just hasn't, right? So, almost every pinball was a good pinball there, except for Gottlieb's Mario Brothers. Oh, yeah. I walked away. When I got an extra ball, I got upset. Like, I don't want an extra ball. I want to play shit. I've got one hour to play as many machines as I can, and you're taking up too much of my time. That's how bad a game is, when you get the shits when you get an extra ball. It was on my first ball. I got an extra ball. I'm like, nah, I've spent two minutes on a machine. No, it's a terrible game. It's awful. Anyway, so Rolling Stones. This was, I believe... Have you ever seen... Of course you haven't because you don't go through the menus and stuff. Have you ever seen the option, I think it's on Sam and White Star Machines, it's like a UK novelty post, enabled or disabled? Sure. Yes? No. So I think in the UK or some countries, it's like illegal to sell pinball machines without the ability to save the ball in the outlanes. Do you know about this, Marty? No. So some machines that get exported have holes drilled in, like, the start of the outlaying, and there's an extra button next to the flipper, and you can press it, and it's a post that goes up for a split second and then goes down. And you can do it as many times as you want, right? It's like unlimited ball sex. Right. And this machine had it, and I had so much fun. No. I had so much fun saving my ball. The actual game, I mean, I got into Album Multiwall, and I don't know. I played two or three games on it. I got a couple of free games. I don't know enough about it to say that it's shit, because I just look at that, and I look at, like, Avatar, which you love. And I'm like, well, it has an extra ramp that Avatar doesn't have, right? Yes, it has that stupid neck on a stick. You know, he moves too fast. That's what it is. He moves fast, and it looks cheap, right? And he gets in the way of every shot that you're going for. Well, I was kind of going for him to start Alvin Maltz. Right, okay. Right? Well, if you're going to go for him, you're going to hit him, because that's what happens. But if you're going for anything else... The call-outs were okay. I'm sure it's a turn of the game, but, like, I wasn't disgusted by it. Okay, I guess we probably had really... Like, you know when some things get overhyped? I think we'd overhyped how bad this is. so you were expecting it to be absolutely the worst so anything's going to be better than that okay if you hated Avatar then I would say yeah it's a piece of crap but you love Avatar so much and I'm like well put this side by side with Avatar and is one really that much worse than the other so maybe a little bit right if you dive deep into it maybe Avatar's a better game like you know a 6 versus a 5 out of 10 but it's not like Avatar's a 9 and this is a 2 No, so what I think about Rolling Stones is I actually quite like the layout. I don't mind the art. I don't mind the sound. I don't, like, the rule's pretty simple of its time. But as I said, like, remember, I went to Papa and I played this, and my God, there are two of these in Pinberg. Two of them. Just let that sink in. Of the 288 machines that are going to be at Pinberg, two of them are Rolling Stones. and I played them a lot. I just, I played it so much because I wanted to enjoy the game and there is a game there somewhere but that mic on a stick just kept getting in the way of everything that I was trying to do. So, I should ring that guy and ask him if it's still available. I'm going to ring him right now. Okay. This is not a set up bit. I messaged you last night for you and I actually asked if my things were available. This is the wrong one. He's not going to answer his phone. This is a great podcast. He's not going to answer his phone. Hi, the person you have called is not available. All right. Hi. When I play Stargazer, amazing game just the most gorgeous game to look at in person that's what I was talking about before so because there was two other games that I never played before that I wanted to know that you played one was Jetsons and the other another spooky pinball was Domino's ah okay I played Domino's previously at Expo 2016 and it was code back then and I walked away from that because of the sounds that the slings were making or something just irritated me so much I walked away and Pabst Gamecrusher so I didn't want to I literally had you didn't have much time right this is the thing I was in a cycle for two days and the first day I thought they closed at like ten so I was like okay after the kids go to sleep I'll head down I don't want to kind of come into family time and then I realised that they close in an hour sorry in an hour and a half it's going to take me half an hour to get there I was like no I'll do it tomorrow after it's universal because you know the kids would be conked out by like 2pm when it opens the kids just had the best time ever at Universal Studios and by the time I got back to the hotel I had the exact same amount of time an hour and a half you know to get there so it took me half an hour to get there I spent an hour there six minutes you know making that stupid video two minutes playing you know Mario so yeah I was like running around like a headless chook I was just like what do I pay what do I pay I'm like maybe he'll stay open a little bit longer like maybe it's a it's a soft close at 8, but if it's really pumping, you know, he'll stay up longer. Literally, at like, you know, 8 on the dot, he comes up to me and says like, closing, closing. And I looked around and everyone had left. Like, there were so many people in there before, and Japanese people are so respectful, they're just like, alright, it's closing time, let's get out of here. At, you know, 30 seconds past 8, the shutter doors were down and all the machines were off. And I was like, oh, stop saying that. Anyway, Jetsons. I think I played two or three games on the Jetsons, and it wasn't set up right. The orbits, which is what you want to get to get orbity or whatever it is, if you hit the orbit really well, the middle bracket, that middle guide, was angled so that it would literally go straight down the middle. So you couldn't... I couldn't shoot it. I mean, it shoots well, but it's so fast. It's almost like... I don't know. This has been said before. about the machine and people play a couple games on it. It's meant for a kind of newbie audience, but it's set up extremely kind of fast and brutal. Like, they've got the same, like, power flippers as there is on, like, you know, AMH and Bobby Rob Zombie, where they're very, very strong. So, blink and the ball is gone. You know, the shots are okay. I just, you know, I don't know much about the software or anything, how deep it is. How much did you learn about a game in five minutes, Marty? Not much. No, I mean, as you know, I know bugger all about a game that I've been playing for hours. So five minutes, nothing. Five hours, yeah. I probably spent half an hour of that hour on Stargazer. Yeah, okay. I don't know what the fuck I was looking for, but it's got three spinners, Marty. Three spinners. Three spinners. How many spinners has it got? It's blue, Marty. My favourite colour. I hate green. I love blue. My favourite colour. How's that quicksand we're going? I keep on forgetting that I have that, Marty. I need No Good Ghosts is Gone so that I can bring it in my house. But there's another thing coming, Marty, but we'll talk about that later. Yeah. So we get back to the news, a bit of a detour. Hey, you know how we were teasing the Monster Bash remake exclusive features? Yes. I want to tell people what it is. So Dwight Sullivan has got a side job at CGC. And you know how the phantom flip, like, doesn't work very well? It's the number one complaint about most of that, right? Yeah. So they've got phantom flip working so well, they don't want it to be just two shots per phantom flip. So you can stack it, and you can kind of, like, use up a button. You know, there's a button on the lockdown bar. You can get up to 40x phantom flip. and when you set that up, Marty, the machine just plays itself. You set up 40x Phantom Flip, you let it go and you pretty much get into wizard mode that way. There you go. Headset exclusive. There it is, guys. Yes. Three out of ten. That joke is three out of ten. Yeah. Is that actually what's happening or are you just making that up? Of course I'm not. I'm just fucking around. There's no news, Marty. There's no news, okay? No, well, Well, you know, the subtlety of it is code's been worked on, surely, with Monster Bash, right? Yeah, so he doesn't understand anything. But, you know, again, it's one of those things where, you know, we read out when we get emails where people give us a bit of a paragraph and obviously when they tell us how amazing we are, that's going to get read out. But that comment as well got so many people sending in messages, either directly or via email saying, what is it that they're changing on Monster Bash? So it's, you know, there's a lot of... It's probably, what I heard is probably absolute bullshit. So, you know, I don't want to say it because I don't want to ruin your face. You know, obviously you missed last week's speculation, but, you know, speaking of bullshit that we get told. So, you know, we can laugh about it and then all of a sudden, you know, A message from, you know, wherever Stern is saying, we now can do all these machines. You just never know. Marty, Comic-Con in the US, when is it happening? Not soon. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know when Comic-Con in Australia is happening, let alone the US. Yeah, I don't know the date, but apparently people are speculating that that would be a good time to release Deadpool, since Deadpool is a comic, and it's Comic-Con, Comic-Con convention. Let's see what Comic-Con is about now, yep. So, where's the main Comic-Con? Is it in San Diego? I have no idea. Would you like me to look it up right now? I'm going to the website now. Yeah, let's do it. Fuck it. San Diego? Yeah. Loading. It is loading. Jeez. Fuck it. If I had a website with a massive event, the date of the event would just be in a big font. Okay, here we go. July 19th to 22nd. That's this weekend. It's like this weekend. Okay. Do you think Deadpool... Nah. Is it too soon? I don't know. I don't know either, but, I mean, we're due for an announcement. Well, when was it that they announced on the stream that the name of the next machine was Iron Maiden? How long ago was that? Surely that was three months ago. Well, we figured it out. Well, I posted it on Pinterest. I can't remember what it was. But we're pretty much right in the middle now, if they were to announce, you know, the speculated monsters at Expo. But I think they're going to... I think Joe Kaminkow said their next machine is after Expo, probably. I don't think Stern even know when they're going to release certain machines. All their dates are floating anyway, so... Yeah, it's got to be when it's revealable, right? And if they're going to reveal something at Comic-Con, they've got to have the machines actually there. and also to do with their you know if they're making a crap load of Iron Maidens they wouldn't you know they wouldn't announce Deadpool but if they're not selling a lot of Deadpools they might announce the next machine earlier as well right they want to make the maximum amount of Deadpool machines every year yep absolutely shall we head to the like the only bit of news this week really the Dutch launch the hilarious news is what you're talking about so funny so funny It just, it is, it is, just, I've got to tell you, I've gone from being really, really indifferent about Dutch pinball. Like, really indifferent. Couldn't give a shit. Yeah, Lucas, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I just, I couldn't give a shit. I played it. So, whatever. Not bothered. Make it, don't make it. Could not give a shit, Ryan. could not finish it. So indifferent. Oh, I, I, oh. They shit me to fucking tears now. They really do. And this Seattle 7, just... Who are these Seattle 7, Marty? Why aren't they... It's Barry and Yarp, come on. It's fucking Barry and Yarp. It's... It's comical. Like, Comic-Con. They, they need to go to Comic-Con. Just go, by the way, it was all a big joke. It's just a freaking comic. No, it's a comedy. So we did post up a video on our Facebook page that's been announced. So this is really the precursor. It's been removed, Marty. It's been removed. Yep, had copyright content on there. They can't do that shit. Oh, really? I hope someone saves it. So this was really much the... So the Seattle 7 put a video together where they pretty much took lots of clips from the Big Lebowski film and it was really talking about the GoFundMe campaign. How much money are they wanting to raise, Ryan? About $350? $350 what? $3.50? How about $350,000 money? Would that be enough? $300,000 and really what it was? It was $500,000, half a million euro. Right. That's how much they want. Hero. So, as I said, going from indifference to now, let's call it mild hatred at this stage. But remember we sort of, you mentioned it as well, about, you know, why do they have to keep coming back to the pinball community to bail them out? And all this video did was talk about, oh, these poor guys, they were the heroes. They were doing this for you and for me and these nasty bad people. Oh, they're bad. Oh, angry fists. They are bad people. These are good people. A massive injustice has happened to them and only you can right this wrong by giving us money. Might as well be a fucking evangelist. Give us the million dollars, you're going to go to heaven. That was kind of the final example. Why don't we set up a GoFundMe? I already have a set up a GoFundMe. That's what I'm going to set up. Don't fuck me. You can give me money and I'll just go fuck me. Oh, oh. I mean, it made me laugh. You think we could raise enough money to fly us over to the Netherlands and just slap Barry up in the face with like a glove? Just like, good day, sir, and just slap him in the face. That's what we need to do. It'd be like, you guys will set up a GoFundMe. You can give us money. and all we're going to go, we're going to get off the plane. We're going to have leather gloves, right? So what we're going to do is we're going to take off our leather gloves and then we're just going to slap them across the face and go... We'll buy a rug, right? We'll set up the rug. I'm like, hey, look, it's a big Lebowski rug. It's hilarious. It ties the room together. Stand on the fucking rug, guys. You do Barry, I'll do Yarp. And that's the end of the saga. That's how it's going to end. That's it. We're just going to go... Just back off. Half a million... Half a million euro money. If it was half a million Vietnamese dong, That's 29 Australian dollars. I'd give it to them. Yeah, you'd give them done. I'd give them done. I would not give them my... I would not destroy their ring. I don't know what else there is to say about this, except it's just past the point of... It's insulting. No, you know, it's insulting. It's insulting because it was put up, and as I said, it was this, these guys, you know, they had a dream. oh a dream and these nasty people it's like no they didn't pay for their fucking machines so it's okay and I think if you donate 20 euro which I don't even know where they put that there because you know how many people do you need at 20 euros to get to half a million euro GoFundMe but I believe you know the GoFundMe's work like if you raise like one dollar you will still get that one dollar unlike Kickstarter where if you don't reach your goal you don't get anything right yeah so that half, what is it, half a thousand, 500 bucks, they will get that. The funny thing is they, in there, you know, as the independent group, you're Seattle 7, it says, oh, hey, if you don't have a credit card and you have PayPal, you can just send your donations to, like, Dutch at DutchPinball.com or donations at whatever it is, PayPal at DutchPinball.com, which is, like, the Dutch Pinball PayPal address. So You know If it's not them Then who is it It's them I don't know But Oh dear I just want to go back to a place where I don't care So what I do want to tell you I don't know whether you've looked but So far In three days Of their 500,000 euros Do you know how much they've raised Was it that 500 euros? 750 euros Ah, it's gone up There's more people We're contributing to them donating Marty, did you know that every 20 euro donation Has a chance at winning one of the 15 news cars Or one of 10 translates Or winning a real Big Lebowski pinball machine That probably doesn't exist What I can tell you is that 11 people have donated and only one person has put their name to it. Well, let's not name and shame. No, we're not. Hey, you can do whatever you want with your money. No, that's exactly right. We're not going to shame people. Probably not very smart. That is fine. But as I said the thing that I took umbrage yes I said it umbrage with is that it was pulling at the heartstrings of all the pimple people and you know haven they done enough Have they just not done enough, Ryan? That's the worst thing about it, that's really our only news piece of the whole week. It does feel more being dickheads. You know Well I was very keen to know About you know Your You know Trip to Japan Ah hey Yeah I can keep on going on that We'll do that in this week In pinball Yep I'll talk for an hour About Japan How about that Okay That would be amazing Okay So Shall we then Just do our slam The top 100 Yep Ran out of time To do it with Colin Sorry Colin How'd you go last week With Stacey Yeah I absolutely killed him Slaughtered him Not really What did Colin say in the interview? I like what he said. I'll take you out for... What did he say? Like, when you're playing Game of Thrones, if you do this, if you, like, play multiball and you're seeking to beat me, I will something. It sounded really condescending. I fucking loved it. I want to do it again. I can't remember. That interview was hours ago. So, anyway, so, yes, I did get 55% of the vote. Ah, huge margin. It was obviously not. But, you know, Twilight Zone versus Theatre of Magic, what you've got is, you've actually got a game that, like with Twilight Zone, a lot of people love Twilight Zone, and then there's a portion of people that hate Twilight Zone and really not much in between. And with Theatre of Magic, it's actually a very well-loved game all round. I own a Twilight Zone money. I owned it for a lot longer than I had Theatre of Magic. Theatre of Magic, it shoots amazing. I was a wizard mode hunter back then, and that's all I did, just get to the wizard mode and that's it. And when you get to the wizard mode on Theater of Magic, it's just crap. So I was like, okay, this machine sucks, and I solved it. But I played it again a year later because there aren't many around in Melbourne, and it's just a fun game. It just shoots like a dream. It's just fun. Great call-outs. The rope is breaking. All right. So we should do it this week? Yes, we should. Okay. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. Coming right up. This is my number. 33. The Hobbit. I know. Nice. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. All right. One. Oh, you fuck. Attack from Mars is now number one. Have we done Attack from Mars yet? I'm just looking now through our list. No, we haven't. I give up. I give up. Oh, come on. Nothing can go up against Attack from Mars. Right. All right, let's do it. You have to go first, Marty. Okay. Just get over and done with, all right? All right. Should I really put everything into this, or should I just be really blasé because, to try and even it out? I'm going to slam it. I know this is a shame, but I'm going to slam the horrible artwork. Okay. But it doesn't have horrible artwork. Attack from Mars has got... Okay, I'm going to start. Attack from Mars has got amazing artwork. I'll tell you what it is about Attack from Mars. It is the best of everything. It has got a really, really good layout It's got fantastic art It's got amazing call-outs One of the best things that it's really got going for it is fantastic humour It's got a great light show It's got an amazing rule set And it's one of these games where it's a great home game And it's also a great tournament game So good, in fact, that they decided to remake it so good in fact that it is now currently number one on the pin slide top 100 why don't you own it Marty if it's so good because it's so expensive you just bought an Iron Maiden Marty it's even more expensive come on Marty stop lying to all the people out there no I do love it of all those games of the belly winners of that era I absolutely love love love love Attack from the Mouth alright The Hobbit Keith P. Johnson's follow up to one of the greatest games of all time Lord of the Rings What can you say about it? It's a wide body. If you set it up wrong, you can say, Oh, it's floaty. Oh, this game sucks. Float body sucks. Just track up the legs, you dickheads, okay? It's an amazing game, okay? You like Mable Madness 2 Trolls? Bam. Double it. Four trolls, okay? Double it. You like the Fishtails Ramps? Bam. Get rid of that plastic shit. Beautiful, steel, you know, laser engraved. Ramps. You like the saving magnet that can't hold the ball when you hit it really fast? I got it for you. You like Smug talking to you? And, oh, my God, Smug's voice, Marty. I will show you, what did you say, revenge. It's so good, Marty. How many modes does it have? 31. More modes than you can poke your stick at. They're all amazing modes, especially the one ring, where you hit that one shot for the one ring. The bait, oh, the bait is so good. You get two trolls that pop up that block the shots. You have to hit the opposite shot, and then, you know, it's like a hurry-up, and it's just an amazing game. You've got three Arkenstone modes. Those Arkenstone modes, Marty, each one of them are more detailed, and the cinematic series... Surely a minute has been done. Like, how long do I actually have to live with this shit? We don't... You bought it, Marty. I sold it The Cinematic Experience Mining those modes And there's three of them Is better than Almost all the other wizard modes Combined Okay I give you the Hobbit Great Thank you So I'm actually not going to Bag out the Hobbit too much Because I actually really do like the game And I'll tell you The good things about it The artwork is stunning To look at The game is amazing The callouts are fantastic The roar of that voice is fantastic. But Attack from Mars is just a much, much better game in so many ways. Fast, snappy gameplay with shots that are just so incredibly satisfying. And so many of them. It's challenging. There's a lot of risk-reward. There's video mode. Come on. And there's those little Martians. Attack from Mars. Best game ever. It sounds like you're getting deep rid of money. Okay. Attack from Mars. One of the worst artwork on the play field of the 90s, Dali Williams era. Number one. Yep. Boring fan layout. Two orbits, two ramps, and a center shot. Wow. Really creative. Brian Eddy. really just... Oh, God. Just hit up the centre. That's all you need to do, mate. Just hit up the centre and you get a shitload of points. There's no risk-reward. It's a poor man... You know, Lion and Chiefs followed up with Navel of Madness, which is incredibly superior, you know, to Attack from Mars with better artwork, better call-outs and better rules. I'm actually just going to let you go now. Just keep going. I actually want you to go as long as you can. So, you know how, like, John Borg makes, like, Kiss, and he's like, ah, shit, I fucked that up. I'm going to make Aerosmith and make it even better. That's what Attack from Mars is. Attack from Mars is Brian Eddy's mistake. So why is it number one? Because it's now number one, so it's obviously that... It's just a big circle jerk. It's just everyone's just like, it's Medieval Man is just, it's not as good as Attack from Mars. Attack from Mars is the better one because, you know, Medieval Man is, you can always shoot the centre. with Attack from Mars. You can't always shoot center. That's fine. Okay. Let's say Medieval Madness is a better game. Yes. Let's talk about The Hobbit. That's what you're comparing it is. This isn't a straw man argument. You are now talking about The Hobbit versus Attack from Mars. Let's bring it back to that. Keith P. Johnson versus Lime and Sheets. Keith always wins, alright? Keith. I know you're listening, Keith. I've got your back. The Hobbit. Give us a free penny. Thanks. I don't think he's in charge of that, but he hasn't voted in any one of our teeth. If you're listening out there, please log into Facebook and vote for Lime. And Lime can vote for... No, it's not going to happen. I've got to try, Marty. I've got to try. No, you've got to try. And you know what? That's why I actually don't think I said really anything bad about The Hobbit. I actually loved the game when I had it. I've got to say I don't miss it because I know Iron Maiden is coming. but... You could go play mine on site, Marty, for just $2 a pop. Yeah. There you go. Because it's on site, I know I can play it when I need to. I've got to update it. Update happened when I was overseas. Anyway. So there you go. So what else can we talk about, Ryan? Well, shall we do This Week in Pinball? When are we doing the contest, Marty? After This Week in Pinball. Okay. What did you get up to this week, Marty, in Pinball? Really not much. Except last night, Last night, I had a moment. Okay. Where something I didn't understand, I then understood. Oh, gosh. You really didn't understand it. Is this the gifts from the elves? This is Lord of the Rings. Like, the entire game... I mean, okay. It's not like I'm going to be even more shameful by saying this. because I just, I say that I don't know rules because I just don't have the patience. I just, I've got ADHD. I've just got to, where's the flashy light? And I'm in there, like, you know, when you talk to me and you're trying to explain things to me, I'm tuning you out going, can't you just shut up? I just want to start the game and play it. When I bought my car, the car that went into the ditch, the woman said to me, I need to go through and tell you about the safety features. And I just went, sorry, I actually just want to drive my car away. And so I did. And then two weeks later, a warning light came up and I rang her and she said, yeah, that's what I was going to tell you about. I'm that kind of person that could not give a shit. So I really didn't know much about the warning light. What was the warning light? You can't just, what was the warning light? I can't, I honestly can't remember. It was so many years ago. You said again, you still don't care about it. No, I still don't care. Like, I'm the guy that drove a BMW into a ditch. Do you think I give a shit? Okay. And even that was... If you do look back to that moment, you realise it's because I just didn't have any attention span at all. Yeah. So, what I'm going to tell you... I'm going to tell you something even worse than the fact that I didn't know about the gift of the elves. Okay. What was that, Marnie? I didn't know about modes What the fuck Marty? I know how to get to three multiballs That's it Okay But In my defence As I've said many times I've really not played Lord of the Rings all that much But there's a big insert that says Modes start And you pick up the middle and it starts Yeah Okay I never saw that Okay Well anyway Do you like Lord of the Rings Marty? I mean this is Like let's transport our podcast back to 2000 and whatever when it came out. Let's review Lord of the Rings. But I always thought that I would like to have played Lord of the Rings more because I felt that there was this amazing game that I just didn't get. And I got it last night. It's everything. I want this game. You can borrow mine if you want. Okay. Deliver it tomorrow. Well, you're going overseas, so no. Right. Which I'm not, potential burglar. Wink, wink. No, no. You've been mentioning it for like forever and things. That's why I didn't tell you about TPF. I was just like, yeah, I'm going to TPF for like six months straight. No one knew I was going to Japan, but nobody, nobody. That's right. I was going to get rid of all my machines and I thought, no, I've actually got somebody mine in my house. They've got two machines here. They can play with those. so back to Lord of the Rings yes love it I love I just love the depth of it I know yes obviously getting to Valinor is really difficult but getting to see a lot of cool stuff is really accessible cool stuff along the way like it's a long journey Marty like oh like yeah like you're delivering a ring to something to a mountain they should have just jumped on those eagles and just fucking flew over yeah I know Or someone just could have used fucking transporter magic. Boom, we're there, you know. What's transporter magic? Is that, that exists in the, uh... It's like Star Trek, Star Trek magic, yep. Ah, okay. Does it exist in the Lord of the Rings world? I don't know. Maybe they haven't learned it yet. This is not Harry, this is not Harry Potter, Marty. Oh, I'm thinking the Flew Network, yeah, of course, right, yep. Um, the sounds, the sounds are so freaking good on Lord of the Rings. Yep. I destroy the witch thing, like how nervous it was getting me when I was on that third combo. Man, I love it. If I could just play like that one mode, I know it's just like a stupid, one stupid mode, but it's just done perfectly. Like each mode is just done really well. That's what we're saying. What it actually really does, it does light and shade. There, I've said it. A contrast. Because you can then, it's been the pleasant music and you're doing all kinds of stuff, but as soon as something happens the music just starts elevating and getting louder and more urgent and that's what puts you off playing the game because you get all of a sudden your heart rate's going it's like this music's going pumping and it's like yeah just like destroy the ring you know how I told you how easy it was and then we got in there and we failed the first four times and it's just like melting the witch the first time you do it it makes you so nervous for no reason because it's like it wants you to get nervous that's right and I guess they kept saying to you like is this timed and you're like no but it makes it sound like it's timed. Yeah. So, hilarious. And my question to Keith P. Johnson that I forgot to ask him on the podcast is, when you're in multiple, you have no idea what's going on in mode because there's only one insert. So, was that a conversation that you had with George Gomez when you were creating the machine, or was it just something that you had to go with because George didn't put an extra insert in there? the other, you know, because the whole that covers that has the mode insert and the jackpot insert, right? The insert in the scrolls and then the pointy arrow. And the other one is that, how come there's only six inserts for the gifts of the hours when you need more than that to enter Valinor? Why didn't he just make it six? I guess maybe in the... Have you read the Lord of the Rings books, Marty? No, I've seen the movies. Okay. I don't remember the gifts from the hours in the movie. Must be something to do with the book. elves. So maybe they had gifts. Three gifts. Frankenstein. Yep. And the other one. Yep. Yeah. Something. Frankenstein. Mm-hmm. So that was pretty much it. Except that I obviously have been told that I am getting my Iron Maiden and it's being delivered tomorrow. Oh, Marty, can I come over to your house and play it? No, you can't, Ryan. But can we go over to your place and play it? What? I get a free Iron Maiden. You're the fucking best, Marty. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. This is how freaking amazing I am. Because I am having them ship my Iron Maiden Ellie directly to your house so you can play it while I'm away. Oh my God, I'm amazing. Thank you very much, Marty. I owe you a Lord of the Rings for that. No, but it was one of those things where I just, honestly, I just thought if it was just sitting at my home doing nothing, then that's, you know, depriving people that could be enjoying it. So there you go. Thank you. I will look after it. I will play it a lot. I will make sure I don't break it. And we'll stream it as well. Yes, I think tomorrow we go, if it arrives tomorrow, because TNT aren't always the most reliable with their estimates. We're going to film an unboxing because unboxings are just super, super interesting. Taking stuff out of a box. People have been asking for them. And for those people, I know people listen that wanted to come along to the unboxing. If it was happening at my house, you would all be welcome. But somebody else's house, sick child. So, you know, it's, you know, just minimizing it. So when I come back, I'll have everybody over. Cool. Marty, this week I tried to buy a Grand Prix. Yes. I was in Japan when I was talking to the guy, and he was being really nice, and I was kind of asking for pictures and a bit of wear, and I said, can you do it for this price? He's like, no, but pay this price, and it's yours. That was his words. I'm like, okay, I'm cool with that price. I'll pick it up tomorrow. I was back in Australia. next day and then he said oh you know um can you pick it up on saturday um you know a bit busy tomorrow and then he relisted the thing up wanting full price i'm guessing and uh i borrowed a friend to you with through the cash and was literally about to drive there like 10 minutes away from leaving and he messaged me and he was really upset saying you know how dare you blah blah blah you know like you should be paying full price for it because that's how much it's worth and this this and that, I'm like, hey, dude, you're the one who offered me for this price. It was a bit of to and fro. If I said, hey, I'll pay the price for it, I could have just went and got it, but it was more of a, you know, I don't know, when someone says, hey, Marty, would you want an Iron Maiden for $10,000? Oh, wait a second, no, it's $15,000. You can't buy that for 15 grand. It just doesn't make sense. So, yeah, he sold it to somebody else and that was Grand Prix. So I could have bought an EM this week, but, Marty, I don't need any more fucking pinball machines. I don't know what I'm doing. I just, you know... Anyway. You're addicted, obviously. Yes, I've got a problem. I've got a problem. Okay. Yep. I went to Japan this week, Marnie. Yeah. And last week, yep. It was really fun. I'm not going to sit there and detail what I've done on each day of the trip. It'd be super boring. But I would like to talk about Japan for a little bit. And this is pretty much not pinball related, but, you know, it's interesting. Have you been? No, I haven't. I've really wanted to go. Okay. Let's see if I can make you want to go and not want to go. So the entire country, the entire country, Martin, because I went everywhere, is super-duper clean. But you never see any bins. When you have a piece of rubbish in your hand and you're trying to find a bin, it is so frustrating. I mean, if it was a super-dirty place, you're just like, yeah, more dirt. But littering there is like, you just never ever do it. Not that I do it normally, but bins are hard to find. Okay. Japanese people, Marty, they like to wrap everything in plastic. Everything. Okay. They're obsessed with wrapping stuff. If you buy a Happy Meal, Marty, at McDonald's, they will get the Happy Meal box, okay? They will put it inside. They kind of fold up the box, wrap it in plastic, okay? Then they put the cheeseburger outside of the box. They put that in a McDonald's bag, and they give you a plastic bag on top of that to carry your McDonald's bag. Why? I don't fucking know. Yeah, why? There is no reason for that. They're obsessed. We got our laundry done at a hotel and they wrapped, I accidentally left the headband in there and they wrapped the headband around and put a rubber band around it as well, like double wrapped it. It's bizarre. The public transport there is amazing. If you catch a taxi, you've got to be a millionaire. It's just trains and stuff everywhere. if you miss a train you're waiting like three minute stops for the next train so no one's running for trains there are Japanese school girls Marty everywhere but not many Japanese school boys where are all the Japanese school boys Marty that's what I want to know and just a little side story which the Japanese school girls remind me of this have you ever watched like a crazy Japanese show where all the Japanese people are going crazy and they're like ah they just scream Japanese obscenities and then, like, you know, like, zooming in and out and it's just, like, meant to be stupid on purpose? Um, no. I can honestly say I've never seen anything like that. Okay. I went to Universal Studios and they had this thing called the Minions Snow Fight and it was literally, like, you know, like, blue versus red and, you know, you sit in the middle of it and it's, like, these Minion people and I felt like I was in a Japanese movie because they were going absolutely insane, playing like crazy music, but it lasted for like five minutes, and they're having a water fight and a snow fight. And after it finished, I looked around me, and everyone was soaking wet, and half of them were Japanese schoolgirls. I'm sorry. It was a very weird and surreal moment in my life. I'm like, where am I? Like, what just happened? Was I in a TV show? And why are they... Anyway, seeing an overweight Japanese person, Marty, is like spotting a unicorn. They don't exist. Besides sumo wrestlers, obviously, which I didn't get to see any. They walk everywhere and their food is like not fatty. It's just all carbs. I don't know. Impossible to see. Japanese shop attendants, if you have OCD like me, Japanese shop attendants kick all the boxes because the way they hand you things and place things in like plastic bags and hand you back money, it's like they go to school for a year to do it money. And this might sound stupid, but once you go there, you'll know what I mean. Okay. There are no benches to sit on in Japan, Marty. I don't know when you're going to get up to the bit where I'm going to enjoy and want to go to Japan, because it sounds awful so far. Really? Yeah. It's quirky. Okay, there's no benches. I'll give you a good one. Where am I going to put my chewy? Yeah. You know? That's all. Like, you stopped me there. I'm like, I'm panicking now. I'm thinking, I've just got this chewy, and you know when a chewy gets to that stage where it's lost all its flavour and... It's there, and you're thinking, I've got to get this out of my mouth, but I can't. Can't find a bin. There's no bin. Can't find a, there's no benches. I'm not going to a country like that. Okay, I know where you can stick it, Marty. On a Japanese person, anywhere on their face. You can even make it obvious, and you won't get in trouble, Marty, because Japanese people are the most unconfrontational people in the fucking world, Marty. Really? Like, you can do anything. I could walk up to a police officer, spit and punch him in the face, and he would apologize to me. that's how non-confrontational they are, Marty. They are just insanely nice. Just beyond nice. They're so nice, they make you feel like a piece of shit, Marty. They're too nice. They're kids, right? You know, we talk about arrest development and Buster going to the Milford Academy. You know, kids can not be seen or heard. That's every single Japanese kid. I don't know what kind of childhood they have. I'm not sure if they're happy. but the kids like never muck around. Like you never see a kid, like their mum telling off a kid and smacking them or something. You see that in Australia like every single time you go out, you see like a mum just hating their life. Japanese kids, they're just, they're like adults. My kids were running rampant and I was like, man, do you like the Japanese more? Look at them. Anyway, I went to a couple of arcades in Japan, Marty. Yes. like 90% claw machines. That's all they care about. Mostly claw machines. There's a back section. Remember back, I don't know, before people had phones, how girls could go and take pictures in those photo booths? Yeah. That's still really big in Japan, and I have no idea why. And there's a really big arcade I went to. There was like six of these machines, and they needed six because there was just like 50 Japanese schoolgirls outside Like, doing makeup before they get in, right, then they get in and they do their little, like, hey, can you do pictures, right? And then it, like, Photoshop their face to be even, like, you know, more makeup. And they put black hearts on it. And then what happens is they get out and they take a picture of these small, tiny, like, they haven't improved. These aren't, like, big A4 pieces of paper it prints out. They're, like, tiny, tiny little, like, you know, as big as a five-cent piece pictures. And then they take a picture of it with their mobile phone and post it on Instagram. it's like doesn't don't you have an app on your phone that does that I'm thinking I'm like why are you fucking wasting your time you could do this at home with Snapchat or like any of the other programs what are you doing it doesn't make sense Marty alright this will make you want to go to Japan Marty yeah toilets there right pretty advanced sure right yeah you sit in there you know I love the toilet right so already I'm like I'm back in the room oh okay if you're talking toilets shit I'm going to go to this country that's got great toilets why are you talking to me about Japanese toilets? Well, they've got lots of buttons, Marty. And, you know, they... They sting you. Don't they make like a little chime or a little melody or something? Well, they've got a button that says front or rear. Sure. So you press the rear and it'll spray really nice hot water on where the poop came out of, Marty. Your ring hole, right? Story. Right. Good story. Yep. and if you press front, I think that's for your vagina. I don't have a vagina, so it just sprays water on your balls. It doesn't feel as good as that on your ass, though. You know what the weirdest thing is, Harkin? You think that it would clean your bum? It doesn't. It doesn't clean your bum, it just makes your your poo all anyway there's a button after that there's a button after that that says I really want to know about the third button there's a button after that that's called dryer so it it wets your bum it wants to dry your bum but you know what it does like the entire room is smelling like hot poo maybe I'm doing it wrong it's like a man this is what it smells like like you microwave your shit So for those people that have been listening for a year To this podcast You've got the gold right there That's the fucking gold standard Talking about warm shit Japanese fatty foods suck Marty Dr John Marty Do you know Dr John? No I don't know Dr John I know Emily I just happened to walk into Tokyo Disneyland Hilton Resort and who was there just sitting on the couch there? Dr. John and his wife and his family so they just happened to go to Japan at the same time as me happened to be at the same hotel at the same time as me so he actually saved my trip so a big shout out to Dr. John because one of my kids got sick and my wife was freaking out about the medicine that the Japanese doctor gave her and she thought it was going to cause my kid to, you know, have this fit and die and all this kind of stuff, and Dr. John calmed her down. So thank you, Dr. John. Japanese people, Marnie, they are the most introverted introverts you could ever think of. They won't talk to you unless you talk to them. They won't look at you. They won't touch you. Like, nothing. If you want to be an introvert, and you get, like, you get anxiety when people talk to you in an elevator and stuff, go to Japan. No one No one talks to anyone there, Marty. No one touches you. A Japanese lady touched my hand, like, by accident. And I was like, oh, shit. Is that what it feels like for a Japanese person to touch you? It took me a week to make physical contact with a Japanese person, Marty. Does that make you want to go less or more? No, it just doesn't. Like, you know, you just ruined the whole thing for me. What else? I was never going to go back. I'm still too obsessed with America. I'm going to go back to America every year. Whilst there's pinball tournaments, I'm there. There's a civil war museum You can go there and hang with them It's an amazing country Marty It's so different than anything You go to America, you're pretty much going to an upgraded version of Australia Right? Australia's trying to catch up all the time to America That's all you're going to, you're just going to the future Thank you, sold it, thank you You go to Japan Marty, you get an out of world You can reflect on your life Marty And everything just, you know You will go to Japan Marty, you will go I will at some stage but... It's only nine hours away, Marty. Sure. America's like, is it 14, 15? Yeah. And that's somewhere else. This pinball thing, maybe. Alright. Anyway, that's Japan. There you go. Wow. Shall we talk about the competition? Sure. As you go. How many entries did you get, Marty? We actually got a lot of entries. I think we got just over 40 entries. Okay. And probably just over half got it right. Okay. So, let me go through what the differences were. So, for those people listening for the first time, sorry, you missed a really awesome competition. So, there was an image of Ryan and myself next to each other and then there was a number of things that were changed in the second image. I'd hate to tell it to people, but there was nine changes. So if anyone said that there was seven or eight, or someone said that there was three, no, there was actually nine. So the changes were, let's go clockwise, top right. So there is a hexagon pattern on one of the vents. The glasses on me have changed their lenses to blue. That was a bit of an obvious one. The supreme sticker on my jacket has been changed to saying Super Ellie Nice There's also a little red-headed kid also known as Pinside Peegy Bonus points to everyone that said Pinside Peegy instead of Little Red-Headed Kid Yep, correct There's also a cross through the hexagon So instead of saying I love or I hexagon Christopher Franchi your shirt now says I don't hexagon Christianity. So that was a bit special. Ryan has also now got a moustache and beard and there's now a Twippy trophy in the chandelier. Bonus points to people that said Twippy instead of an award or an angel. Or an angel. And they were the easy ones. Then there was two harder ones that a lot of people didn't get. And one was that Ryan's thumb is missing on his left hand. And the other is the cord to the background Just to the left of Ryan That's also disappeared And that That's the power of my superior Photoshop work That's how good it was Thank you So A lot of people got it right 24 people in fact Got it right Right? So what we've now got to do We've got to give away Three t-shirts And so what we're going to do is we are going to do our good friend Google random number up to 24. Let's go, Ryan, and then I'll tell you the name of who's won. Whilst you're doing that, I'll tell you Danielson, Eric, Melbourne Minty, Jacob, David, JD, Lewis, Jared, Dejan, Rob, Mick, Ben, Todd, John, Joseph, Colin, Crystal, Michael, James, Nima, Anthony, Jason, Riff Bear, and Andrew Clark. You all got it right. Well done. Is that the order money? Yep. Please generate a number from 0 to 24 Alright 21 21 Anthony Whitby Oh my gosh He lives so far away He lives in Box Hill The postage is going to be through the roof In fact, I work with somebody that runs with him Someone that doesn't live five minutes away from us has to win money. Yep, okay. Otherwise, people are going to start asking questions. Let's pick another number. Please generate a number from 0 to 24. Okay. Nine. That is DJan. So, I don't know where DJan is, but I would say he's not in Australia. So, there you go. We'll find out where he lives. We'll find out where he lives. and then we'll know. Please generate a number from 0 to 24. All right. 16. 16? Colin, who's Alpine? Oh, my God. Double T-shirts for Colin. That'll surely give us... I didn't see the entry. Surely that'll give us the spreadsheet money. Double. Colin MacAlpine, you now need to hand that bloody spreadsheet over, man. I've known about that spreadsheet for a while, and I actually think about it. Do you, like, dream about it? I don't dream about it. Every time I'm sitting down to a pinball machine, I'm like, fuck, I really could use that spreadsheet, because, like, if I was to try and create my own one, it would take hundreds and hundreds of hours. How much money do I have to give to Colin MacAlpine to get this? And we didn't even have to rig this. So, you know, there you go. So, well done. Well done, Anthony, Colin and Dijan. I'm probably saying your name wrong, Dijan, but, you know. How do you spell it, mate? D-E-G-A-N. So, there you go. All right, mate. Are we done? We got a really nice lot of messages from people sending their entries through. Just a couple I wanted to note as well. So, actually, it was Dijan who actually wrote as well and said, Hey, hey, first of all, you guys rock. Thank you. I was planning to send this email for months but I always find an excuse however not anymore I'm listening to both of you since the first episode I'm definitely having fun most of the time I work from home so it's a great way to laugh and work at the same time also when I go overseas I save some episodes for the flight and it works perfectly even if there's some crazy turbulence I keep laughing like there's no tomorrow so there you go Jason not only did you write to us you also won nice and the other thing we just wanted to say a special mention to Jeff Rivera for his entrant. Didn't get any of them right. So there's that. Also, we did get a message. We got an entrance from, I think, the seven-year-old, maybe. And they sent a special note to us. So this is from Lewis. And maybe we can post this because it's just hilarious. This is a handwritten note from this seven-year-old saying, Ryan has funny eyebrows and a weird pose. Martin looks smart and nice. See, what you get from a seven-year-old is innocence, purity and the truth. Whereas from Melbourne Minty He said The attractive but chubbier chap Doing up his fly Has got a little ginger fellow next to his hands He also said Tubby looks somehow less like an accountant Thanks to purple shades Who was that? Thank you Melbourne Minty You are fucking awesome I haven't heard that word since primary school Tubby Tubby Taylor I'm an attractive but chubbier chap. Oh, wait. Did you say chubby or tubby? Well, the first one was chubbier chap. The second comment he said was tubby looks somehow less like an accountant. Tubby is way better than chubby. I know. I think that's hilarious. The point is, everybody will look chubby next to you. I'm a buff. Dude, shut the fuck up. I gain like four kilos in Japan. I'm just like eating absolute trash. and I was so close, like a fingertip away from ordering an Nutella pizza right before we started recording. Because I'm just, after a week in Japan, I'm just craving fatty foods because it's just, the food is so unsatisfying. I'm not sold on Japan, I'm just telling you. Okay, I'll send you some pictures of the wet Japanese. All right. Surely we're done. Should I sing you out, Marty? Please sing me out. What are you going to sing me out with? Well, I heard you on the Eclectic Gamers podcast, Marty. Yes. And I just heard you talk so passionately about video games. Like, you like video games more than pinball, Marty. What's going on? No, no, no. That is not true. I've always loved pinball more than video games, but pinball wasn't as accessible as video games. Okay. And I went to Japan. So I'm trying to combine... So Japanese plus video games, I'm going to combine... You are going to sing the theme from Space Channel 5. No, I don't know what Space Channel 5 is. This is the game that was responsible for me... I played this in Japan as an exchange student, right, when I was like 15 years old or something. and my exchange family bought it for me as a present on the way back. Of course, I had no way of playing it on my PS1 when I got home because it was regional, but I got that sorted out and this is the song, Marty. Here we go. Cute punch. It's all in the mind. It's Parappa the Rapper. Oh, come on already. Oh, my God. Do you know what? When I said Space Channel 5, I went, no, I should have said Parappa the Rapper. one of my favourite games keep going kick punch it's all in the mind if you want to test me I'm sure you'll find the things I teach ya if you want to beat ya nevertheless I'm going to get less inflation now kick punch chop block one more time now don't get cocky it's going to get rocky oh man I love that game I fucked that up oh my god one of the best games ever love it so Space Channel 5 which I talked about is a spiritual successor to Parappa the Rapper. It's a rhythm action game. Okay. Is it... Has it had cool songs where you learn how to drive or learn how to cook? No. You learn how to dance and your dancing destroys aliens. You play so many Japanese games. You've got to go to Japan to be around people. I know. They won't touch you, buddy. They won't touch you. Sure. That's one. That's going. Thank you everybody. We will do this all again next week. Maybe less of the talking about water and hot air spraying up your bum. Okay. We might have less of that next week, guys. Yeah. Yeah! Kick, punch, it's all in the mind If you wanna test me, I'll do your finding The things I'll teach you, it's all a feature Nevertheless, together let's continue So now kick, punch, jump, knock Once more now kick, punch, jump, and drop Outro Music