you're listening to the head-to-head people podcast find us on facebook email us at head Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 84 and my name's Martin and with me, live from Long Bay Jail. It's Ryan C for real this time. It really is this time. So, rumour has it that you were actually put behind bars because you were trying to release a pinball machine and you didn't actually have the licence. Is this correct? What? No. No, it's just too many bullshit statements, Marty. How are you, Ryan? Good, man. Long time no see, except for two days ago when I saw you. Except for the fact that I've seen you like four or five times over the last couple of weeks. But besides that, it's good to have you on anyway. And what a perfect way for you to be on this week when we've actually got really fuck all to talk about. Just shit talking. Just pinball, podcast shit talking. It's what we all do, right? That's what we've done for years. Yeah, when you schedule in once a week, you've got to do it, right? You just got to talk shit. That's right. So, guys, in advance, we're going to talk for about an hour, and there'll be nothing of substance. So you're welcome, from Ryan and myself. So we'll start with something really shit. You ready? Yeah. I've got another update to Kickstarter for the book. Oh, everyone loves hearing about this, Marty. This is just riveting stuff. bottom line is they went to the pinball hall of fame no yeah the vegas pinball museum they knocked out 15 more machines so okay how many do they have to go 400 maybe no they're just doing but i think they're doing stern electronics right uh no because they're doing the 30 years of stern right? Was it the 30 years of CERN? Yeah, I think so, wasn't it? Yeah, so to go a bit like Data East. Data East. Yeah, okay. And it says, finally, you know, Jeremy Zombie Yeti has been working with us on the art for the other incentives which should be ready to send to print slash manufacture before the end of this month. Cool. Great. So, well done. Great start to the news this week. Munster's Code, Ryan. Yeah. Was this the code update that happened just before last week for the Pro Circuit final thing? Yes, correct. So it's now officially out. And look, there's two main things that I can see. One, everybody is cheering. And that is that they've added flip a cancel for all total animations. What's the total animations? Is it like the end of ball bonus? I guess so. But I'm hoping it's for that, you know, when you get into the Dragula thing and it shows all the different... That's the one. I hope you can just, like, flick it and go, here it is. Like the, you know, the book on Tobin's Spirit Guide or whatever it is on Ghostbusters. You know, you have to wait for those pages. It's like, just tell me my bonus and move it on. It's really interesting because we got Lyman Sheets who is pretty much the skip animation master except for like start of Sparky which I think he added a menu option to be able to skip that and then we have Dwight which is mostly you can't skip the stuff on early code and then eventually you can skip everything and then we have Lonnie D. Rupp who I think is the biggest perpetrator in this skip animation business because i mean you've got star trek at home marty and i mean that's that's not an lcd uh pin it's a dnd pin but do you ever sometimes like i get a whole bunch of shit happen and then drain and you have to wait like yes what seems like about 15 seconds for the end of ball bonus to happen because it's like whoa you now have this lid and double scoring is now left in a way team and it's just like no i've lost my ball so no you can zip around it say an extra ball and it's like come on move it on i get it but yeah yeah you know what's the worst one no guardians of the fucking galaxy oh my gosh you can skip a bunch of the animations but there's a whole bunch that you can't and because they're lcd animations that go for longer and to top it all off the mode timer marty does not stop so you can't if you accidentally get the ball in the scoop say in multiball right and you've got like a two balls locked in group's mouth you can't skip all this crap and like you say you have like 10 seconds left on the time you need like one more shot to hit like you're fucked just sorry i'm going to show you these these animations so it actually stops the timer shows the animation and no no no it doesn't stop the timer so your mode time is going to run out you can't get back in the mode you just have like one shot left, you just want to finish it off. Yeah, I'm not sure if they'll ever update that, because I think that they think that Guardians is finished, but it needs to be fixed, I think, for me, for Ryan. Well, we'll get to that later, because you've actually now got a Guardians of the Galaxy, so we'll hear your impressions now that you've got it as a home game. The other thing with Monsters Code is they've sort of done a rejig of Monster Madness, so they've said that they've added a new monster madness level this is a four ball multiball moved to the old monster madness level two and increased the scoring and created a new monster madness level one that is similar but simpler so there's three levels now it sounds like it doesn't it which you know when we were talking to dwight we sort of said well you've kind of got the framework to be able to do a level three i think how it was done before is I think the LCD display shows 1 and 2 but doesn't necessarily show 3. It just, level 3 is the same as level 2 and just you're in this infinite loop. Yeah, I was listening to Jeff Teolis on the Pinball Profile and he interviewed Dwight just in the past week and Dwight was kind of talking about how everyone's calling it a wizard mode and you can debate about it all day but he doesn't see the first level of monster madness as a wizard mode. It's just a multiple and an event that happens that you can get to. You know, as I said, you can sit here and argue all day of what constitutes a wizard mode, but maybe that's where a lot of the arguments have been happening. Like if you log on Pinsize, like I just did 10 minutes ago, just to see what the hot topics were, Marty. Sure. And, you know, like there's a thread saying, like, I can't remember what the title was exactly, but something along the lines of, is Munster's the biggest disappointment of pinball machines ever? Yeah, I read that. Just to be clear, yeah. Munster's my biggest letdown of the question mark, question mark, question mark. I know. And everyone's saying, you know, never in the history of pinball has there ever been more of a new machine up in the marketplace. So I don't know. But, okay, do you know what? It's similar, I guess, to, oh God, dare I mention Star Trek again, in that, you know, we talk about the fact that the end wizard mode is five-year mission, but really, you've got other wizard modes in the same way. You know what I mean? Like, in that you've got, you finish your level one modes, and then you've got Kaiboshi Maru, which everyone says is a wizard mode, then you've got Enterprise Amok, which is a wizard mode, and then you've got five-year mission, which is a wizard mode. It's just the last one. So it's kind of a similar framework. I think it's just I don't know I guess when you say monster madness level 1 and level 2 people then say hey that's bullshit man it's just the same thing but if you called it monster madness and then the second version was like monster craziness and monster like super duper wizard modes then everyone's like oh shit this bit is deep but if you just call it the same thing everyone but this is the whole thing I guess we're all sort of conditioned that in these pinball machines that come out, there's certain objectives that you get to, but there's this final, you know, hard-to-achieve wizard mode that has all the fanfare of something that separates it from all the other mini-wizard modes or multiballs, right? Yeah. I think the thing as well is that what we're finding is the Stern marketing department is a lot better now than it used to be. and because of that the hype around new pinball machines like the munsters and the artwork is good and get interviews with uh you know the team members so when the pinball releases you know like people have all the information they they seem to need um and it could almost only be downhill from there unless they screw up the release do you know what i mean like yeah i do If they screw up the release and everyone's like, hey, no, like, Daldin is a good game, like, you've got to check it out. But if everyone thinks it's the best game ever, then people can only begin to trash it after that, surely. Yeah, it's an interesting paradigm because, oh, God, I can't believe I said paradigm, but let's move forward with it. So, you know, if you hype it up, you're going to get all these massive initial sales, and then the reality, I guess, sets in, versus something like, I don't know, I guess probably even Guardians, but, you know, Deadpool, which was a bit of a slow burn. As the code got better, and as it started getting more enjoyable, and people were hyping it up, then the sales started coming through. So, I think monsters might be an inverse of that. yeah I don't think I mean obviously they're doing a lot better with code but I still feel like Munsters hasn't been completely fleshed out and you know it's the last it's the last bit of the code that makes it worthwhile in my opinion like I actually enjoy playing Deadpool now believe it or not especially the premium and the LE with like you know the disco loops and the spinners and I don't know it's fun but I guess me and you, especially Marty, we've got Pixel Alley around the corner and as soon as a new game comes out it gets shoved on site and we have to play it in a tournament and it's just not fun. Deadpool, when it came out, wasn't that great? Guardians was the worst game I've possibly ever played on UCO. The modes meant absolutely nothing. It was just shit. It was just 10% coded. But now they're better. They're not amazing like the best pinball machines ever. but that's what happens when you release a pin that the art is finalised and the layout is finalised. We can judge it on that, but you can't judge on the code straight away, and that's what usually lets these pins down on release, except for Beatles, of course. Well, yeah, of course. God, that was a big surprise. Everyone really enjoys Beatles. It's every person's comment on Beatles. Ah, yeah, Beatles, yeah. It's good fun, but, you know, the price. and I really enjoy it, but you know, like the price, dude, the price. I'm like, yeah, but it's still fun, but yeah. But the price. So what do you think they could do then? What do you, if you could try and really define it, what do you think is missing from Munster's code? Because obviously the code's come out and they've sort of added Munster Madness and they've done some adjustments, they've fixed this, they've, you know, done all that kind of stuff. What do you think's missing from it? Because the layout's great. You spoke to me The layout is great to shoot. I don't want to play it too much because I've got one coming and I don't want to have had my fill of monsters before my machine arrives. So I'm definitely not out there playing it. I know that it shoots well, but what's missing from the code? Yeah, I haven't put insane amounts of time into it, but the games that I've had, I just don't feel connected to any of the modes or anything that's going on. Like, it's just hit the shot during the mode and you'll get 200,000 to 300,000 points. And if you keep on going, you'll get more and more. More shots will open up. But I don't know. There just seems to be, at the moment, like a disconnect between – I'm not sure if it's the fanfare or the scoring. and maybe I'm not hitting enough shots to increase that but I'll bring it back to something like Walking Dead where like barn mode is such a dumb mode when you say it out loud, you shoot left loop over and over again but it just feels amazing and I don't know why. I tried to get Lyman to explain it and I was just like, why does this mode feel good? I think his answer was something to do with it's the points that it gives you. I don't know if it's the sound I don't know I just don't feel like connected to the pinball machine it doesn't make me want to have sex with it you knew I was going to bring that up as soon as I'm not connected to the code I'm like do you want to fuck the code maybe it's also that the thing is like you know as I said a lot of people watch monsters as a kid and it makes them happy they get that sweet nostalgic feeling I don't have any of that at all so to me it might as well be an original theme but it's not. What I read somewhere and I think it was on that thread on Pinside about the worst experience or whatever it is was that it seems that all you're really doing in the machine is trying to have the most optimal scoring strategy as opposed to it being about what you're shooting on the playfield yeah i mean Josh Sharpe kind of famously said on our show and you know pins right now i shoot the flashing shot versus like adam's family which is you know shoot the chair and shoot the tunnel and you know he kind of like it kind of made it like you're inside the Addams Family mansion versus... Well, I mean, the playbook does look nice. It does look like you're kind of in their house, you know, with the stairs and everything, but I don't know. It still just doesn't feel like anything that you do is important, if that makes sense. Jackpots don't feel important. I don't know. I sort of call it the light and shade or the contrast effect. Everything is there. Everything is all happening at once, so you kind of lose the subtlety between not doing anything and something special happening. It all just seems to be happening at once. Yeah. You know, Iron Maiden, we talked about that as well with Iron Maiden. You know, it's a really epic pin, but it's just always epic. It never kind of really comes down. It's kind of like on edge. So, you know, it's hard to ramp up to that. And that's what the 90s games, as much as people go through, like, love-hate relationships with them, some people love them forever. Some people say, nah, they're overrated. But what they got right, I think, is just the way they made you feel when you play them. They ramp up at the right time. They don't have too many sounds kind of like blurring your face. And they celebrate you. They celebrate you really well. Yeah. It's almost like it's like the choreography, right? the way that they make it visually and orally sound is the art in itself, as opposed to what we know when you hit a jackpot, flash everything. We know when you get a multiplier, do this. Do you think it maybe has become a bit formulaic? Yeah, I mean, you know, just before I took a break, we talked about, you know, Steve Ritchie and Pat Lawler, and they kind of like supersede everyone when they design a pinball machine. But when I play Getaway, because so many of Steve Ritchie's games feel so good, I'm kind of used to that now, but that game to me is White Sullivan because the super jackpot payoff and everything is just such an epic moment in pinball. And what equivalent do you have in Munsters? You've got the super jackpot, but it just doesn't feel the same. I know it should feel good when the jackpot's building up and then it goes bang on the screen, but compare that to Getaway. It flashes the super jackpot letters and they go ding! And the game just goes off. How come they can't choreograph stuff like that now like they did in the 90s? What's changed? Is it because there's more jackpots and every shot is a jackpot? Will we see something epic like that with Steve Ritchie's original game where they have the freedom to do anything they want. Yeah, maybe. And I mean, look, I'll sort of go back to Walking Dead, right? So, because Walking Dead's a prime example of a game that had all the elements there, but nothing. But then when Lyman came in and did the final polish, it wasn't just making the rules, you know, really exciting. he also added whoever it was that's doing the coding for the choreography also made those special moments so the reason why barn is exciting is because that light is flashing you know exactly what it is and the game's always dangerous so that just becomes this moment of safety you know when you nail that barn shot even though it's going around to the pops and you're back in danger for that moment you just feel good because the game is just giving you that sensation that something exciting is happening and you know when the when the the prison's about to it it's all starts flashing i think that they built sound and like choreography to enhance the sensation like you know your senses as you're playing yeah that happened later on in the code development that could be the same thing that happens with this yeah that's also like you know walking dead is like a horror theme come on machine and monsters is this kind of like family friendly cheesy kind of thing i don't like batman we've talked about that before like you know i like the batman rules now what i understand of it um you know the layout is the layout it's it's not bad to shoot it's not my favorite pin but when i get jackpots i don't feel that excitement either because it's like phew like tiff it doesn't you know i mean it's just you know i feel like i'm i'm playing something for kids I don't know. Yeah, no, I get that. And we obviously, you know, we streamed that game a lot at the Australian Championship Series. And I kind of got that feeling as well. It was great and it was colourful, but it was always on. Yeah, versus like when they played the final game of World Cup Soccer and Richard Rhodes said, like, you know, scoring goals and beating all the countries. It was just like, oh, like, you know that he's winning. Versus you don't know when you're winning. and this is what we talked about as well with multipliers, you know, there is a preset value of jackpots in older games and they can be increased. Like on Indie 500, every time you do a loop, you can increase it by 2 million or something. But it still starts at like a high value versus the newer games where it can be anything from, you know, 100,000 to 50 million, you know. And they haven't added choreography for the different amounts. it's just it'll make a sound and display the amount on the screen so you can't get excited and maybe that's what it is it's like you have trust issues with with the newer pinball machines like yeah do you know what i mean certain sounds are so important because they trigger emotions when you're playing pinball machines a light show and sounds and animations trigger emotions now if it's the same everything for 100,000 or 50 million super jackpot, then how do I get excited until I see the number? They're missing with our expectations of what we believe a rule and choreography framework should do to get us excited. Yeah, and it's not just Stern, you know. JTP, Pirates of the Caribbean, has a lot of multipliers and stuff, and it's a hard thing. I mean, when I play Quicksilver and I hit the spinner and it's not lit, it'll make a sound. When it's lit for 2,000 a spin, it'll make a different sound. And that's all there is to that, you know. So it's very simple for the program, that lit or not lit. Whereas, you know, with games these days, you've got like Pirates of the Caribbean, you have six multiballs going on. It does the best that it can do, but I think it might be just impossible to give you that fanfare. Yeah, because it doesn't know the difference. Well, it knows the difference, because it has to score. It's just the stacking. You can't have six different jackpot callouts go out on the same shot. Yeah, well, and that's probably right. Like, you know, if each mode has got its own sort of different callouts then how do you then have a variation on so many different variations of the situation that it could be So that where a game like in particular Pirates of the Caribbean, because it is so complicated, so many different variants can lead to a particular event, and then you're supposed to have a different call-out for each of those? That gets really complicated. And it's kind of like that, I guess, with Munsters. in that game is very situational. You are trying to create combinations of all these things which are then leading you to the super jackpot. So that super jackpot could be worth 2 million or it could be worth, I think, 48 million was the one that I got. And you're right, you get the same sort of call-out. Yeah, like in Monster Madness, not Monster Madness, Medieval Madness, when you get like multiball for two ball, you know, for the Madnesses, you know, one through five, There's three different types of multiple introduction sounds, I think, based on how many you stack. And that's why I'm in love with the Beatles so much, because that game doesn't trick you. There's different levels for each mode, and it makes a sound when you advance the level. So without looking up at the screen, I know, okay, well, now I'm on level two, now I'm on level three, this is worth more, this is worth more. And then when it's finished, you've got the super jackpot shot that you can either choose to cash in or press your luck. And I know when I hit that, I'm going to get a pretty fat score because it works on a formula of how well I've done in the modes. And I know how well I've done in the mode because it's the more complex games are just the harder this is. And maybe the coders haven't all figured it out yet. But we're talking about pretty advanced, picky opinions versus... We really are. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? Imagine if someone goes in and puts a dollar into the Munsters and plays and has fun and they listen to this podcast and they just hear us. Do you know what I mean? Like wheezing about Munsters. Okay, but no, what we're really doing is we're trying to give an opinion that, you know, hopefully some of the people that are responsible for this are listening to it going, yeah, you know what, you make a valid point. Maybe, you know, when we've got these complicated rule sets, we've got to be thinking about how we can make some of these moments really jump out at people. Yeah. And easier said than done when we're just sitting here talking shit versus actually... Yeah, of course. How's that pinball machine that you coded? Yeah. It's great. Well, this is exactly it. And we just... Don't reveal that I did the code for Thunderbirds. No. That's why you're in jail. Guilty of coding Thunderbirds. yeah oh gosh I'm going to sue Lock away the key if that's the case he didn't mention me in the credits but you know he did write me a nice email so thanks for ruining my company oh god it's horrible oh funny what else is used Matty speaking of making a pinball right did you know that Jack Danger is making a pinball machine is he yeah and I think it is actually like a dead flip themed pinball or maybe a Jack Danger like he's actually a character in the machine as well and it looks like I mean he's been he's been working on this for a while some of his streaming that he's been done has been showing him doing CAD work and designing it and he's now got a white wood that's that's flipping um and I don't know whether you've seen video footage of it but it kind of looks cool like it's a single level you know throwback old school you know beatles mafia tna style game with a very interesting layout what would be what are your thoughts i don't really have any thoughts please elaborate on those non-thoughts yeah i mean since i've had a break i just like there's so much pinball news that it sounds horrible but like i i care about but i don't care about like it's it's cool that he's making a pinball machine but i don't get to play it so like i've seen some videos and it's amazing what he's doing because i think he's you know he's cut along everything for um you know people to kind of like well that's the main reason why he's doing it right he's not trying to sell it to somebody or get it made into a pinball machine he just wants everyone to know that they have the ability to make pinball it's not that hard um if you i don't know have the right tools and the ability to to cut Whitewoods down. Fair enough. I don't know. I just think it's cool that, you know, it's not somebody that's out there promising the world. He's just like, you know what? I've got some time. I'm going to explore this and I'm going to do it. And he's got the means to do it. As I said, it kind of looked interesting, some of the trajectory of the ball and how it sort of arcs around, you know. But will he celebrate the player in the right way, mate? That's what I'm... Well, Jack, if you're listening, which I know he listens every single week, think about the choreography, man, and how you are going to translate something special to the player. He's got to have a jack-fucking-pot in there, or maybe one level up from there, like, you know, a super jack-fucking-pot, I don't know. Shouldn't he have, like, a donate-to-kids wizard mode? Do you think he'll do flipper codes for someone else, since it's not, like, you know, he can't do flipper codes for himself. No, that's true. for some other streamers, like Al Anonymous or something? He could do, or Melbourne Silverball League, you know, one of his favourite streamers. Yeah, yeah. Which they're not. I don't think he's ever watched. No, he's actually watched a couple of streams. There are a lot of people making pinball machines in my meetings and saying, I think I mentioned to you the other day that just in the last couple of weeks, there's been a bunch of people that have told me they're working on pinball machines in secret and, you know, their intentions kind of aren't known whether they are doing this to, you know, sell it to somebody, either design or make the pinball machine to sell. But, yeah, I mean, like, this is just in Australia as well. So I can't imagine how many people, like, we've got, you know, the Great Lakes Pinball and, you know, the Valhalla. There's just so many. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so many of them. The people that got Donny Gillies (Dirty Donny), kind of all something. Yeah, and I think it was, I don't know, what was it, Pinball Adventures? Oh, my gosh. Did you hear about that one? Yes. What the fuck? Why? Is he just full trolling now, or does he actually – there's no one left. I mean, if this was a couple of years ago and Deep Root hadn't hired everyone, you'd be like, okay, well, he's got money behind him and he wants to make pinball machines. but who's left now? Like, who's he hiring? Is he just doing himself? Is he just doing a drag-and-drop-the-pump-bubbles-into-the-play-for-style situation? I don't know. So, Pinball Adventures, this was the people that were doing the book, right? Yeah, the book that failed and fucked up. Correct. And now they're planning to make three pinball machines in the coming years. I'm reading this literally word for word from This Week in Pinball. Please, everybody go to thisweekinpinball.com. But actually, what it says here, This Week in Pinball recently learned the titles they plan to release. They are the following original themes. Now, I'm not sure whether you know these, but I'm going to say them. The first one is called Punny Factory. Like P-H? No, P-U-N-N-Y. P-U-N-N-Y. As in like a pun, like to make puns on like a joke. Is that how you spell pun? Yeah, P-U-W, pun. So this is called Punny Factory. The next one is called Sushi Mania. That sounds like a mobile phone game. And the third one is called First Class. Like, like, like the airplane stuff? Sure. Just like about the 99, like the 1%ers? Yep. Yeah, could be. But we joke as much as we want, they'll probably be as successful as their books. But it's just highlighting that so many people just want to get into this. And do you know what? I don't know about you, but when I get really obsessed thinking about pinball, I do think to myself, you know what? I'd love to be able to be a manufacturer of pinball machines. I would absolutely love to. and do you know what stops me from doing it it's fucking hard common fucking sense is all it is that stops me that says just keep it as a dream enjoy that dream when you think about it go to your happy place and think about it picture yourself like as if you were in the you know the mirror I've ever said in Harry Potter which of course you would know about now wouldn't you you know the mirror that he lives in and you say Oh, yeah, yeah. Right, right. That's what I would be. If I was looking into that mirror, I would be seeing me there, and I'm captain of the Quidditch team, and I'm head boy, and I'm also the manufacturer of a pinball company. What's your company called, mate? Marty's Adventures. Pinball Adventures. No one has ever gone on an adventure with a pinball machine, mate. maybe John Rook I think those people that have invested in Magic Girl and Predator and Highway I think they all went on a pinball adventure yeah of just raging on pin size correct those people waiting on their Lebowski and following these bullshit court cases like hi Lucas he's on a pinball adventure pinball adventures suck dick man doesn't that sound like fun no one said they're good pinball adventures but you could still categorize it as an adventure we should we should make if we make a pinball machine it should be called pinball adventures and it just should be about all these failed fucking companies yeah you know this shot is your 2x lawsuit case this one's your like partying in vegas instead of making a fucking book shot right like this should be a mode for the for the 30th anniversary book and it's just about partying in vegas with like hot chicks for that guy pre-order wizard mode like i totally can see it writing itself now yeah it's basically a switch frenzy the more switches you hit the more money you suck it without doing your actual score goes down so you actually start the game you the thing you've got to choose is pre-order and you put down some money and as soon as you start playing the game the score's just going down you lose it all yeah yeah you start the machine powers up points yeah that's what it is that's what it is actually the more you play things actually start breaking like pop bumpers will just pop off and the flippers will stop working and until the game's completely non-functioning and that's how you win but everyone losers yeah we we joke and shit money but we were joking about deep root and from what i've heard they they you know kind of have their shit together now and that you know from what they've uh you know everyone they've hired and all the machines they're doing and their release schedule so yeah yeah we we will joke about it until we see if in one machine well so so that's kind of a bit of a segue into you know talking about um texas people festival i don't know whether you're aware but i'm going to Texas Pinball Festival. It's a very well-kept secret, right? When are you leaving? I'm leaving in two days. So Wednesday morning, I'll be on a plane. I'm going to LA for a couple of days, and then I'm going to Dallas, and then Frisco. Wait, wait, wait. How can you be in LA for a couple of days if you're leaving? Ah, wait, because of the time. Because of the magic of time travel. Ah, that's right. I leave Wednesday morning, I'm on a plane for 20 hours, and I arrive Wednesday morning. I know. Yeah, except for when you come back and you lose. And then I lose, yeah. It never happens. You're like, oh, my gosh. I actually leave Thursday night, and I arrive Saturday afternoon. Like, it's crazy. But the reason why I'm bringing that up is what I really want to do, what I'm looking forward to is, okay, I'll use Deep Root as an example. So Deep Root's got it. plan and what I actually really like, I've got to admit about DeepRoot is there's no leaks, right? There's absolutely, well very little that we know, leaks I've seen all their 10 more machines Yes, I know You know, yeah, just computer So and also people don't want to put things in writing, right? So if there's somebody that we know that works for them they're not going to say anything because everybody knows nobody can be trusted we can't be trusted we can't be trusted but you know that you don't say anything because then it can't go anywhere so what I really like about the Deep Root you know the community and the company is solidarity they are not sharing information so nothing's been leaked but I'm keen to have kind of what you just said conversations with these people not that I want them to reveal their secrets but I want them to just tell me enough that I know it's all good and we've got something to look forward to later in the year. What? It's all good. I mean, they'll tell you that. Yeah, it's all good, Marty, and, you know, you'd be amazed. But unless, you know, there's like the thing, you know, what's the thing? And we've talked to people in private before, kind of, you know, after interviewing them, and they've given us what they've heard about what Deep Roots' thing is, like that sets them apart from everyone else. And, you know, it's so simple. And how can they not think of it before? whether or not that is actually what it is, is I guess, you know, we're never going to get confirmation of that until we see the actual promote machine, right? Yeah. But as I said, I'm just looking forward to, you know, speaking to these people, hearing their confidence, because that's all we've really got. Outside of that, we've just got Pinside to reference whether Deep Root's going to be successful or not. And would you take that as your gauge? No. And, I mean, obviously manufacturing is the biggest hurdle. But, you know, they've got people that worked in the 90s era making all the pinball machines that a lot of the collector community loves. You've got Robert himself who loves the 90s era pinball machines. That's like basically how he got into pinball. He just bought someone's collection and it's all 90s stuff. and then you have a guy like Steven Bowden who out of everyone, he's the guy that I trust that isn't going to put stupid crap in there and he gets upset about things like on Star Wars and you get two tilt warnings and the first tilt warning is the same sound as the second tilt warning and it's like, well, why did they do that? It's just so simple to fix and do you know what I mean? And I know that doesn't make a pinball machine if it has proper tilt warnings but do you know what I mean? That's the... It's in the hands of good people, is what you're saying. If you think about the team that they've assembled, you've got really good people that we've respected, not just what they've been able to achieve, but in a way, by looking at all the different machines that they've either coded or they've designed, you kind of get an essence of what their approach is to designing a game. And you kind of expect that that's going to have the same sort of DNA in these new machines. And if that's the case, great. And, you know, you talk about Dennis Dordman. Dennis Dordman, for you, he's one of your favourite designers, am I right? Yeah. Well, not every game, but... No, no, no, no. But some of your favourites, because I think what you've said before is you like the way he approaches flow in that it's flow, but it's not obvious in-your-face flow, right? Yeah, it's not savoury flow. No, that's right. it's actually kind of clever flow, that sort of really downplays Steve Ritchie but he will give you flow that's not necessarily a fan layout Jon Norris is the one that I have no idea I've played a couple of his Gottlieb games but from all indications he was under extreme pressure but he couldn't do what he wanted to do at Premier and Gottlieb So it's interesting to see what he can come up with. Well, this is the thing as well. If you think about Jon Norris' games in the premier Gottlieb days, they don't review well and they haven't stood the test of time. But the layouts he's actually designed have actually been quite good layouts. The problem with those games were the obvious, the flippers. the flippers ruined just about every game that they produced through the era and the rules were really odd and and still to this day really odd like they just do weird unbalanced random stuff that just doesn't make sense in the world of rules frameworks right i wonder if people cared back then? I wonder if... I know Williams kind of ruled the co-op kind of... sorry, the coin drop. But did people care back then when they were putting money on games on-site versus what they do now? Now everything's under a microscope, with podcasts and Pinside and people talking. But back then, did they care? Did people walk up to the World Challenge sucker and say this game sucks like you know this isn't balanced and this this and that they just not care um well i look i i was there back in the day when those machines were actually being released so you know i've sort of told this story that you know when i used to play almost every day uh for about three years and it was at the heyday of when all these machines were being released so you know usually once a month a new machine would come out and it was just the most exciting time to walk into an arcade and see a brand new pinball machine. Is there World Challenge Soccer there? Yeah, look, I don't even actually remember World Challenge Soccer back in the day. I must have missed that one. But, look, one of the ones that I played probably the most was Cubeball Wizard. Another one was Nightmare on Elm Street. You know, the Freddy one. Data Race games, I mean, I don't like them too much but I feel like they're easily better than the Bally Williams games in terms of making players feel good because they just make you feel like you're doing stuff that you're not actually doing. Here you go, he's multiple. Well, this is the whole thing, right? So I've always said that back in the day, Data East were every bit as good as Bally Williams. I know people are going to kill me for saying that. The problem is, as our ideas and what we expected from machines have grown, It really has shown that some of the games that Bally Williams did probably were maybe not as understood back then as they are now, and they've matured well. The problem with Data East machines is they weren't really all that deep. They were a little bit obvious, so they just haven't aged well. Yeah, Data East games is like the hot model. There's no substance there. It's just you can see what you can see, and that's it. Whereas, no, that's really it. Yeah, no, that's really bad. No, but going back to, you know, the third company at the time, which was Gottlieb Premier, the problem wasn't necessarily the rules because, and this is just for me, and I don't know other people's experiences as well, but, you know, it wasn't like I was going to the arcade with a group of 10 people or in a tournament and dissecting the rules. When you were there playing these games, it was, how do I get extra ball? how do I get a free game, how do I get a score that's just going to be enough, and how do I get a high score? You weren't really thinking about whether the rules were imbalanced and whether you'd get these really weird mystery awards. That was just sort of part of what you expected. The biggest problem with those games was they just felt crap compared to the other machines. Like even Data Reefs had a much better flipper feel than Gottlieb's. They just felt weird. And also the rules just kind of felt like you were just constantly chopping wood and not really achieving much. And it was just get into a multiball and score in your multiball, and that was it. And modes and anything else would just, you know, filler to get you there. All right, let's talk about TPF, Marty. What have we got planned? You've got a Jersey Jack panel at 7 p.m. Do we expect anything from them, Marty? well I was sort of I did sort of say they say if you maybe this week some say you'll hear me on another podcast where we talk about this kind of stuff as well so Jersey Deck I really am hoping that they do reveal Willy Wonka I really hope they do I don know I really have no information I don know whether you do but that what I hope is that they reveal Willy Wonka What do you think is going to happen I think Wonka will be after TPF and I'm guessing they might show the Yellow Brick Road edition of Wizard of Oz that has been long rumoured. And I'm not sure what people are expecting with the Wizard of Oz, but I heard that some things were getting taken out. so maybe it is a low cost model maybe which almost doesn't make sense because there's enough second hand ones on the market but I guess if you want something that's new out of the box that's also a bit cheaper then this could be it well okay that's a really good point I'd not heard that but if you think about Wizard of Oz what's great about Wizard of Oz just off the top your head, number one, what's great about Wizard of Oz pinball machine? There isn't one thing. It's like everything. Everything's great about it. It's just like everything's in there. Everything's going on. But everything's a premium. Right? Yeah. Everything's a premium. Look, I'll give you an example. That spinning house, right? Yeah. Spoiler alert for those people that haven't played it, but when you complete that mode, the munchkin mode, and the house stops spinning, the door opens and you see that it's smashed the crushed the witch right now how many people have noticed that i've had people that have been over my house like 20 times and only noticed it once yeah like you know the 20th time i i had the machine for probably six months before i realized it and i got and i was streaming it and i looked and went oh my god and it's because i actually had i had a house cam i had the camera just focusing on the house and i saw that it did that and I went, oh my god, I missed that. So, remove it. It's not needed and you're going to save yourself some money, right? Yeah. What else could they take away? I don't know. I mean, maybe the monkey. After we've got the monkey that flaps his wings, the other monkey is just kind of a plastic monkey. So, if the ball can be kind of shoved up there in the castle or if it was a virtual lock or something, you know. Like, stern remove physical kickbacks just to save whatever a coil and a a coil and a bracket cost to you know like have like the revive on Iron Maiden and Aerosmith and Guardians like it's just you know so I don't think people are going to be like oh my god you don't have this anymore this game's cheaper now I don't know they've got so much leeway right right that's exactly right well as you know like I was having some problems with my my Wizard of Oz and the monkey stopped working so I turned that onto Virtual Locks make no difference to the game. Yeah, yeah. I bought it dialed in, spoiler alert, for later on when I tell you how many Pimble Kings I bought. Oh my God, guys. And I was having just a little bit of issues with the trapdoor and I fixed it, but I was like, hey, if I disable this trapdoor, how's it going to change the experience of the game? And I'm like, it doesn't. You shoot the left orbit, the ball disappears, which is like people maybe people like that people like balls disappearing like twilight zone as a kid i was amazed by the twilight zone so i'm like where the fuck is the ball and where's it going to come out of and it just i loved it until you know when i bought the machine i was like okay well this is how it works because i just looked under the playfields but you know it kind of like remains an issue when you're a kid you know like i shot the ball here and it came out of here but when you disable the trapdoor it just it orbits around but it still awards you what you've what you've done it still takes a while for the ball to come back to your your flipper uh so i don't know like all this stuff like custom stuff that's expensive like does it need to be in there the witch going up and down does she need to go up and down uh well if she didn't go up and down then how do you know okay yeah no you don't because yeah you hit the panel and it could just be the witch is always there and yeah and she like she flashes when you're in the mode you obviously know because of the LCD animations and stuff. They could take so much stuff out of the game and it would still be packed, right? Right. But if they then say, hey, you've now got this ultra-exclusive Yellow Brick Road edition, but it's all stripped down, how do you think people would feel about that? Well, that's what I'm kind of questioning now. If they're taking... If they are, this is all just rumours, guys, but if they are taking some stuff out of there, then wouldn't it make more sense to make it a slightly lower cost model? Then I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. As I said, like the magic of Wizard of Oz is, is all that stuff combined. Like it is the monkey and the witch going up and down and it's the house spinning and the legs being crushed and all that kind of stuff. But really the magic of Wizard of Oz is its layout and its rule set. right? That's actually what makes it enjoyable. Well, that's what it is to us, but I mean, the reason why Wizard of Oz has legs and why it's still selling five plus years on is because all the wives and the noobs love buying it as their first pin. What other machine would you rather have in the house? But are they going to care that there's not a monkey in it now? I don't know. I can't put myself into the mind of a new... I'm too deep into the hobby money no i guess you're way too way too invested but my my guess is that people wouldn't mind if they're buying it for the first time and if it was a thousand or two thousand dollars cheaper even better they wouldn't that's a lot of money but yeah um well talking about wonka i mean the reason why i kind of talked about this low cost version is that you know there are i've been listening to many pinball podcast money so i'm not sure if people have kind of mentioned this but there are rumors that Wonka might have a slightly lower cost model. Now, don't get excited and think, oh, my gosh, a Jersey Jack pinball machine at Stern Pro prices. No, not that low. No, but maybe just lower than what it's gone up to, because there's obviously been a bunch of increases and Pirates of the Caribbean. That was like Wizard of Oz 2.0 in terms of how much stuff is visible on that Timber Machine. You know, with two ships on there, it's just insane. So I think Wizard of Wonka will have a slightly lower cost model. Well, now, other models have had an entry level from Jersey Jack, and from what I've heard, it is infinitely the lowest selling model that people get from a Jersey Jack. Yeah, that's, I guess, what stopped him from taking more stuff out, is that he knows, especially with Wizard of Oz, if the machine is good, there's a bunch of premium buyers out there. The problem is, when Wizard of Oz came out, it was the only premium pinball machine out there, and he was selling it for $6,000 or $6,500. Now they're, what, $9,500 or so for Pirates of the Caribbean. So I think almost every pinball machine they've bought out have sold less and less because, well, because of a bunch of things. But Stern has caught on and made these premium, in air quotes, pinball machines to compete with them. And people can just buy them straight away versus Pirates of the Caribbean, which was a year. So I think they've finally figured out that they have to do a better model to sell these pinball machines. We'll see. I can confirm exclusively here Marty that it is not the Willy Wonka that you like, the Johnny Depp one it is that the good one so you know the inferior Willy Wonka is going to be released is what you're saying the one with all the good quotes have you watched Willy Wonka recently? it's pretty much just about shit parents and child torture and child torture that's really what it is it's just him punishing these children for being horrible yeah but they're not horrible because they're horrible they're horrible because their parents are shit so it's literally punishing the parents for having making shit kids yeah fair enough who's to blame the mother and the father it's in the lyrics of the songs mate it's all there is there actually a song that's that okay yeah the Oompa Loompa song the Oompa Loompa song literally there's the lyrics who's to blame the mother and the father okay Violet Beauregard chewing chewing gum how rude let's turn her into an apple and pie anyway so after the Jersey Jack panel we've got the Steve Ritchie seminar and you would have heard us talk about this on the podcast before saying that he says that he's going to be having secrets revealed do you think he's going to reveal any secrets? I don't know maybe they're doing that just in case Jersey Jack reveals something they want to kind of maybe steal a bit of thunder but I'm 99% sure it's not going to be shown there. So why? I don't think Stern does that anymore. I don't think they're going to reveal the pinball machine and then show it a couple of weeks later. But you never know. It is an original theme, so they're not under any obligations to match the release schedule with whatever Iron Maiden was doing and all that mess. So they can do whatever they want. Yeah, I guess so. And, yeah, look, I think one of the reasons people, these manufacturers say that they, you know, don't like to do this is because they don't want to have it to impact their current sales of machines. And I don't know whether it makes a difference. Yeah, we don't know what's happening behind the scenes with Munster sales. And I think Zach Sharp has mentioned in our podcast before that they're pretty flexible with releasing pins. Like, they release pins when they want to. I'm not sure if they have an exact date until they're ready to do it. Maybe he's going to announce that he is actually officially retiring. That's his big secret. Who knows? I don't know. I don't expect much from that as far as secrets go. Would you sell? I mean, you don't have your Munster's Alley yet. If you see the pinball machine, you know, don't get to play it, but you get to see it and it really excites you, mate. It really gets you up. Would you cancel your Munster's order to get a Steve Ritchie original? If you could just do a direct swap or something? Well, no. No, I don't know. The reason why I don't know is I'm still Star Wars burnt. Star Wars burnt? Yep. Meaning? I would want more than it being revealed. I'd want to play it. Okay. What happened with Star Wars? Well, you saw it and you were amazed by it and then you played it and you didn't like it. Correct. What did you like about Star Wars when you saw it? Well, I liked the fact that it was a Steve Ritchie layout, right? Looked at it and a flow. The problem I had was, and I've said this so many times, it's a flow layout with a stop-start rule set. There's a massive disconnect for me. So I want to be able to... This is what I want from Steve Ritchie. And I've said so many times on record that Steve Ritchie is my favourite designer. And he will remain so until somebody surpasses that. But it needs to have great art. And I know that's not that important, but I want it to have great art. I want it to be quintessential Steve Ritchie, meaning fast flow with a fast flow rule set. Okay. Do you mean adversity bubble? Yeah. It's not like Dirty Donnie or the other guys, Christopher Franchi and Zombie Yeti doing the artwork on it. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. I mean, but it's original, so it can still have good art, right? It's not like the other Star Wars licensing constraints. surely it'll have the best call-outs of any modern set besides Iron Maiden which has amazing call-outs because Steve Ritchie has to do his own call-outs right? Yeah of course and if this is his swan song then he will make sure that they are epic What else we got? We got the Big Smoke Are you a smoker Marty? Are you going to do the Big Smoke? Smoke some cigars with Ed and Barry I'm not going to announce that on the podcast with Roy Smoke No I don't Ryan Shut up Okay you can also have an adult beverage or two well i can well that that i will i'm not gonna announce my smoke but i fucking loved it oh we will get through our weekly pinball shortly that was one of the funnest nights i've had in a long time anyway so then saturday i mean don't forget like on friday you know you've also got the tournaments that start first thing in the morning and they go all the way through but we're not focusing on tournaments here we're just talking on um the seminars so saturday at 1 p.m the haggis pinball haggis served raw what do you think's going to happen in that seminar ryan what's haggis again what's like it's obviously a play on words for the actual haggis is that is haggis the blood one a scottish dish consisting of sheep It's like a blood sausage, isn't it? Okay. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's black pudding is what I'm thinking. That's black pudding. Yeah. Traditionally, it's made out of animal stomach. Delicious. Got to get me some haggis. So, yeah. Yeah, well, I actually just, I've played the White Woods, and I was around the corner from him today, and I dropped in again right before EJET sets off tomorrow. So I've seen what he's bringing. It's not going to be like a complete pinball machine. Spoiler alert. So like lower your expectations. Think more of like, when I compare it to Scott Denisey. TNA Whitewood. TNA Whitewood, but without sounds. And I'm not sure if he's going to have a head box. It's he, he pivoted because they were going to make Wraith and now they're making counts and it's not like they had that kind of already made up, they pretty much like mid January or so I think like they started so it's only been two months and the level they've got it to is amazing but you know how far can you go in two months Marty? This is the thing right so I've mentioned this before but this will be a Q&A so I will be emceeing this session asking him questions and I think what we've got to really remember about haggis pinball is we don't really know what their end game is so right now what their their their end game right now is to show everybody step by step the journey of showing a pinball machine so what they're going to show us is a certain stage in the pinball journey or pinball adventure if you will you know what i mean like they're just saying he'll probably just talk about everything that's led up to the process gone into and you know when you're at this stage this is what it looks like this is how it flips this is what the next steps are going to be that's my assumption yeah exactly and um yeah i mean obviously people you know since since Steve Ritchie's not showing his game and sincerely want because I'm not going to be there. Like, what's the TPF? I know. I feel so bad for Ed because he's pretty much built slowly over the years the world's best pinball show and, you know, the big companies aren't revealing anything there, right? And it's the year that I'm going. Yeah, he chose the wrong year, mate. That's the only reason why I'm not going. I just knew it deeply pulled out and I was like, it's all... That's probably a disappointment for me, yeah. Yeah, I believe you'll be able to flip it. I flipped it. But just don't think that it's going to be... He's not taking orders or anything. As I said, it's what stage he's at. He's an extremely nice guy. I'm dubbing him the Australian Charlie Emery. I've spoken to him. He really is so freaking nice. Just a good guy. The reason why he's brilliant... I was kind of having a conversation with him. Why don't you just go there and have fun and you can still do your talk. And he's like, well, I said I was going to bring the game, so I'm bringing the game. And he's a man of his word. So hopefully he gets brownie points for that, for being a man of his word and people enjoy and like what they see and, you know, maybe even offer to help him out in certain things because there's so much knowledge in the pinball world, Marty, about what works and what doesn't work. and you always have to do it by trial and error if you don't hire someone like John Papadiuk. That's something I've done before. Exactly. So there you go. So that's Haggis, followed by Multimorphic, the P3, and why pinball needs innovation. Cool. We've got the Kids Bunker win playoffs. We've got Making the Munsters with John Ball, Christopher Franchi, Dwight Sullivan, and Jerry Thompson. We know how they made it. Everyone's been interviewed, Marty. Yeah. Well, we've had three of them. foron, John Borg, we need you on this podcast. He doesn't do podcasts, Marty. I know he doesn't. So maybe I can just do a Vox Pop. I'll just stick a phone and a microphone in his face and say, right, answer these questions. He doesn't do that either. Well, I'm going to make him do it. I don't know what Ken Cromwell did to him, but he must have slipped in 100 or something. Yeah. Screw you, Ken Cromwell. That was the exact many. Three Rings of Circus Maximus? the three rings three rings so if we can talk about the two rings first one being the pimple circus yeah second one being i've i've got this the other day as well kingpin yeah maybe there's a third one that they're going to announce or just make one like and actually make it that's what we're after it's just here are all the people machines we would never make Yeah, I know What's happened with Kingpin? It just kind of fell off the face of the earth I know making pinball machines is hard What do you mean what's happened with Kingpin? What's happened with Time Shock? Is that by them or is that somebody else? No, that's by somebody else, but remember someone said that they were going to make a Time Shock pinball machine? Not really Do you know Time Shock pinball? The video game pinball of Time Shock? No? No it's freaking awesome of all those kinds of virtual pins it is spectacular years ago someone said yep we're going to make a real one are you really the problem Marnie is that these people just do it in their spare time do you know what I mean like as much as much as you can bag Mike he packed up his shit and moved to China he had to do it right he's not doing it in his spare time but a lot of people just doing this their time and then when they hit roadblocks they're like alright well I guess I'll just concentrate on my 9 to 5 job right now because that's exactly right I get it I'm just sort of saying where is it because you know Kingpin we're probably going to get a bit of an update I mean that's why these guys have got a seminar but it was just kind of like where is time shock because that was announced a while ago and I've not heard anything since we should have interviewed that guy because it's one person we didn't interview 5pm American Pinball Talks Oktoberfest hey I got to play Oktoberfest the other day for the first time, but it was. Yeah, it was the show floor model. Oh, the prototype, yeah. Yeah, which, yeah, no, I mean, it looks nice in, like you can look at the artwork in, you know, a computer screen, doesn't look that great. Well, I mean, it didn't look bad, but you can kind of like pick it this, pick it that, but it looks awesome in real life. Yeah, thank you. Because you thought I was mad when I was saying that it looks good. Yeah, did I? Yes. The, yeah, I said it was a prototype, So I saw all the flaws that people kind of talked about with that scoop. Yep. That is apparently now fixed. Yeah, that was kind of frustrating, but it's cool, man. I love original themes, and you can say that's not original, it's based off something, but just the freedom to do whatever they want. Exciting. Yeah, monkeys, moustaches. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Anyway, what else we got? Pinball tutorial of, okay, yeah, Bowen Kerins is going to try and blow up Alice Cooper Cool, autograph session I'll bring my pens with me so if anyone wants an autograph I'll be there because it does say industry celebrities and special guests I'm sure there's one of those No? Nothing? No? Pickets? No. Do you have any translights to bring? What can you bring? You can bring Lord of the Rings if you want and get Do you think Keith P. Johnson would sign that? Maybe I've got my Monsters Translite that I won I could bring that Ah yes yes yes Wait do you go into that VIP event for it I can't remember No I'm not Me and Franchi we're pretty tight I'll get the VIP Franchi experience Okay In your hotel later on Correct And then we got the Tupi Awards Ooh ooh Tupis I love Tupis buddy I not sure if you discussed that last night Let's not bring that one up again. But I will say, I'm actually presenting an award at the Tupis. So that's enough to tell you how much I really love the Tupis. You love it, Jeff. And Jeff Patterson and I are best buddies. So that's what's going to happen. And for those... I'm not going to give it away, but the particular category that I am announcing is hilarious. Okay. And if you know me, you'll know why it's hilarious. Okay. I actually don't know what it is. Are we doing social media watch? Yeah. What have you got? Nothing. I just logged into Facebook and just got on John Borg's account because he's basically the funniest guy on social media at the moment. Was it about Silverchair again? okay so there's a post on the 16th of march it just says driven under i don't know what that means but this is a social media post i love you that's from someone else i think just everything if you're not friends with john borg on facebook you're missing out he's the greatest personality on because he just his posts have no rum like you don't know what he's going to do is that it could be about silver chair it could be about bnx it could be about the munsters he's just the fun loving like uncle is like a box of chocolates you don't know what you're gonna get yeah so this like last month and a half over long i've been away on social media it's just me just looking at john box posts all right there you go so that was social media well besides the fact that you know if you look at This Week in Pinball's website, they also had a post about Joe Jonas on his film clip for his song, also playing pinball in it. But, you know, Joe Jonas sucks, so it doesn't matter. Although, actually, you know what? Is Joe Jonas one of the Jonas Brothers? Yeah. And I think he's the one, Joe Jonas, he might be the one that's a judge on the Australian voice. And he actually seems really quite nice. He's quite nice, but he also sucks. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I was like, I shouldn't really be mean to him because it actually seems quite nice. But, and again, so did Delta Goodrum until I met her. Oh, what a bitch. She's not very nice. Not very nice? Marty, how many pinball machines have you bought recently? Well, one, but that was months ago. I still haven't received it yet. How about you, Ryan? How many pinball machines, since you were last on this show even, how many pinball machines have you bought? Five. Fuck me. what are they? let me see if I can guess alright so so you, Guardians of the Galaxy yeah bought a premium Guardians of the Galaxy and you also got dialed in yes which I just shoved I just didn't have room for it so I just shoved it straight on site for now but I'll bring it home soonish did you get like a cheater or something? yeah I bought a stern cheater right I bought it not working and it was literally just the fuse, Martin. You know how people joke about it. It's just a fuse. It was just a fuse. Thank you to the guy who didn't know how to change a fuse over. Was the Harlem Globetrotters yours? Yes. Yes, I bought a Harlem. Was that the one that we played in the tournament? Yes, that's the one that you played, Manny. Okay, so the Playfield is obviously shit-ass, but it played really well. Yeah, yeah. You know, when I saw the photos, Marty, I just thought it was dust. I was like, oh, he hasn't cleaned the glass, and there's just dirt on the glass. But that dirt is literally the Mylar turning brown, like poo color. Yep. Yeah. But, yeah, everything works. It plays well. It was fun. And I like Harlem. It's like Paragon, but not wine. Yep. It's good. It's a great game. So that's four. That's four. I don't know the fifth. What's the fifth game? Yeah, the fifth one was not really, yeah. Well, I bought a Kongo and then I got a refund because I didn't like the... I just wasn't confident in the condition it was in. And I've got all these other games to fix up and I didn't go through with it. But someone has promised me to lend them their Kongo. So kind of... No, not really. Four. I bought four pinball machines. I've sold pinball machines. I've sold a couple as well. What have you sold? I sold Twilight Zone, but I'm not sure if that was what we did in the podcast. I sold Doctor Who and I'm about to sell The Hobbit because I took that off-site and I'll give it a good clean and put it on the marketplace. Okay, cool. Yeah. That's a lot of buying and selling. Yeah, Cheetah's fun, Harlem's fun, Guardians is a lot more fun to play. Well, yeah, tell me about Darling. Now I want to know what you think about Guardians as it's a home machine. it's a lot more fun to play in tournaments when you don't have it at home if that makes sense because there was almost like this like i felt like i didn't know the game properly and then you kind of get it at home and you're like relaxed and you play a couple games like ah i do know the game and like that's it it's just yeah it's ah it's uh we've had this conversation before where you know like hey which pinball machine am i describing, you get to choose a mode before you get to punch the ball. Like seven games recently. Yeah, you hit the scoop to upgrade the mode, and it's worth more, and the shots change a bit. You know, like five thermal machines. The main jackpot, the main, sorry, multiball is, every shot is for a jackpot. Once you get, hit all the shots once, not in any particular order, you get a super jackpot, and then you hit them all again, and you get like the double super and then like the triple super that's like that's aerosmith that's star trek that's kiss that's guardians see what i'm getting at like like something like pirates of the caribbean would be right up my alley if it wasn't so expensive because it's just it's so unique that i can get lost in the female machine and have fun but every like guardians is so familiar once you remove that layer on top of that. It was, you know, this layer of mystery that, you know, like, wow, this game's so cool. But it is literally just the same game, just with different names for the modes. I still think it shoots great. I love the theme. The sounds are an absolute mess. You know, talk about, like, rewarding a player for hitting shots and stuff. It just makes the same sound every shot you make. It doesn't ramp up or anything. But yeah, I'll play it and probably in a couple of months. I was going to say, it'll be out of there in four weeks. This is the thing though. If I compare it to Metallica, I will kind of have more fun playing Guardians than Metallica, but I know there's like, there's a level of Metallica. Do you have a connection with Metallica? No, no, no. As a theme, I hate Metallica and I loved Guardians. But I know there are moments in Metallica that I want to get to that make me feel good when I play. And I want to hit that fucking piston shot. I want to hit the piston shot and then hit the scoop to finish crank it up. That is just an amazing thing that you can do in pinball, right? Whereas when I hit the yondu shot and hit the scoop, what am I doing? I'm finishing yondu too and I'm starting a new mode. Even when Groot's mouth is going up and down and you get in his mouth, when I shove that ball in his mouth... That should be when you've completely transferred your load into his mouth. Yep. It just doesn't feel good, Marty. I don't know why. No. But we've already talked about that. So, yeah, we've been running tournaments. I've won two tournaments recently. and I've become really crap in some of them. This week we played, Marty. We did the Reality Games March match play. We did indeed. How did you go? And by you, how did I go? You won, Marty. You fucking absolutely destroyed it. I don't know why, Marty, because it's like you were just switched on from the word go. You put your fucking headphones in and you can't play with them. Both fucking headphones. It was my headphones. I could focus. This is the point. Yeah. What am I like? When I'm organising this, like, tournament, and I'm organising, like, you know, four divisions, and this, you know, like, getting ready. Yeah, the first three rounds, like, it was, like, last, last, and third. I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm the worst player in the world. And then I had a deep breath, and I calmed down, and then it was, like, first, first, first. And in the last game, I needed to come first, Marty, to get into the A division, and I came second on the Hobbit by, like, 3,000 points. And I was like, ah, B division. I know. Might as well be D division. So look, I was pleased, I think I came What did I come in the top 8 Seconds Was I second? Yeah, Jared came first, you came second That's right, I did And then I didn't do so well I actually only got in to the final 4 By 1 point So 5 points versus 4 points So I was really lucky to get in And again, it was on this one game where I just had to beat One other person And luckily I did and then we got to play. And one of the interesting highlights was, well, obviously, Harlem Globetrotters was a highlight. I freaking love that game, and God, I hope you keep that and you do something with the play field, because... Yeah, I'm waiting for a hard top. There's no hard top for it. I don't know why, but I would love to just strip it down and put a hard top on there and clear coat it. Okay, so you're understanding what I mean, Bally versus Stern. Anyway, let's move on from that argument. But I tell you what was really interesting was that, you know, it's probably coming up to a year, I guess. No, actually, probably about nine months ago, I sold my Hobbit, right? My special edition, small gold edition. And this was my machine. This is the one that I sold nine months ago, was here at this tournament. and even though you had brutalized all the games which sidebar i'm starting to really enjoy the fact that you are brutalized in these games because it makes everybody laugh people just now just throw their arms up in the air and have a chuckle about how tough these machines are rather than getting really frustrated it's actually you turn full circle that's all i'm saying it's not it's not full circle for everyone but yeah people are coming around to the fact that they can play you know 13 rounds of pinball in four and a half hours versus three games or four games in four i think i think the way that you brutalized the games is fine i think the most frustration i saw people have was around the tilt sensitivity but you know people will just learn not to tilt so high but anyway the point is i've got to play this hobbit and it was so bizarre because it just felt like I'd only played that exact game a week ago and I just dominated on it because I just knew how to nudge it, how to flip, how to do everything on that game. It just felt so right. It's your machine. We talk about it all the time. It's almost a disadvantage to have a game at home and then to play a different one in a tournament because your flipper, like our Star Treks, play completely different. the flippers just feel different even when i revealed the flippers they feel different something is different with our star treks um but yeah that that's your hobbit and i've changed a bunch of software settings but it's still the same machine yep and it felt it was just it was this really weird profound moment it's like i i am so connected with this machine because i played it so much. It felt, it just felt like coming home. Yeah. So I'm doing match play at Film All Paradise on Wednesday. I do that every month. I keep on tweaking the rules mighty every couple of months. So this time we are aiming for 100% TGP on a work night, which the way we're doing it is we're going to play when it gets to finals. I don't like it currently because there's only five games of qualifying and then finals. And I prefer if it was more qualifying, but I don't want to make people pay $25 for a tournament. It has to be capped at $15, I think, for a monthly. Sure. So, yeah, because I have to feed the machines. They're $2 each, by the way, not $1. Yeah, I'm going to make the A division play four games at once. So the top two seeds will get to choose their bank of four in a row, and they play their first ball and then they play their first ball on machine number two, the first ball on machine number three. No way. So I'm testing it out. People might actually hate it and I'm flexible. If people hate it, then we will just change it back. But it's just a way of squeezing in more games and I guess it's going to be very hard strategy-wise to keep your head in the game, right? Because you're going to be stepping up to a game on your second ball and not have kind of watched what someone else has been doing because you've been playing your other balls. So apparently I talked to Luke Marburg and a bunch of places have been doing it and people have been enjoying it. So I will see how it goes and I think we'll enjoy it. I'll keep it if they don't. I'll go back to the normal way. Okay. Oh, well. Interesting. It is interesting. It sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah. There you go. That's all. Did you see Christopher? You talked about Christopher Franchi. his rules, Marty. Whenever he says something, Marty, just about pinball podcast rules, he has everyone in the palm of their hand. I knew when I saw that post that every single podcast was going to talk about it. Everyone. So I've got Ryan's two rules of podcasts. Are you ready? Yep. One, we are better than Eclectic Gamers Podcast because we have more episodes than them now. Take that. That is true. Take that, Dennis. And Tony. Because that's because theirs is 83, we've now released 84. Yep, that's right. 84 is better than 83. Got it. And we're coming for you, Slamtilt, because we'll eventually catch up to them. Yeah, eventually. The other thing, okay, if I want to just mention something that is irking me a little bit, podcasts that swear a lot but censor it all out. I feel like you should either stop swearing so much or stop censoring because I don't think people listening to this with their kids, and even if they are listening with their kids, Marty, surely kids are smart enough to understand what's going on behind the censoring. It's just annoying. We swear a decent amount. Do we? Yeah. I mean, some podcasts, they swear a lot, but they censor everything. Play this to your kids, guys, and, Marty, you can censor it out and see if people can figure it out. Last night, I pulled down my ****. I saw my big, fat ****, Marty. And I had a big old... And I just... all over the... You know, the... everywhere. Just censor that out, Marty, and please play it to your kids. Are you making me edit the beeps in? Yeah, edit the beeps in, and I want the people that like censored podcasts to play that to their kids and see if it's appropriate. It's not. You're still swearing, right? I should tell you a funny story. This is from... Hey, you better beep that in. I will beep it, otherwise the whole joke's lost. But I will tell you, he's a really good friend of the show, Daniel. Hi, Daniel. He was telling me that he was... I can't remember the full details, but it wasn't like he was playing in front of his kids. Like, he knows not to play. He's got very young kids, and he knows not to play the podcast in front of his kids. So he doesn't. But he was just playing it in the house. No one was in the house. He had it on speaker, on really loud, just because he's running around the house doing his things, the podcast there. All of a sudden, a tradie walks into his house as I'm talking about the jizz all over Quicksilver Pinball and he's like quickly running over to his phone trying to turn it off going, I'm sorry, mate. Anyway. There you go. So why haven't I been podcasting, Marnie? Should I quickly run through it so people can stop messaging me and have a good time? Stop messaging me. Yes, please. Yes. Okay. Well, I mean, there's a lot of reasons. There isn't just one. But as I've talked to you about it, Marty, podcasting, for me, takes a lot of my time. And the time isn't recording the podcast. It's more about mentally thinking about it, either planning a guest or associating news that I read about the podcast. and a lot of the stuff in the pinball world I don't necessarily care about. Today is fine. Everything we talk about today is fine, but going on Pinside and reading through stuff just to get news, we don't get it off this week in pinball. So it's kind of like mentally draining. And life is all about balance, as I've been experiencing more and more as I grow older and wiser. And if I have to kind of like choose between playing pinball and talking or just thinking about pinball, then like playing pinball at the moment is where my head's at. And that kind of always wins out. So there's that. A bunch of my family members, like my uncle and my grandma, got really sick. One of them's basically in an induced coma. The other one's pretty much on a deathbed. that kind of like hit all in in the space of like two days. I experienced a bit of depression, Marty. I know guys don't like to talk about depression because, you know, hey, I'm a big manly man and, you know, it shows you that I'm weak if I'm depressed. But it happens, man. I've never felt that way before. And I know you donated all of the money that head-to-head won. I say head-to-head because I somehow feel involved in the Trash Talker and you donated it to Beyond Blue, which is basically just about men being able to talk to someone about being depressed. Because, as I said, it's a big problem in society where men can't, or don't feel like they can express their feelings as much as women do, because it's just like a stigma of society. Yeah, built into us to be able to express our emotions. Yeah, but it's really important. so I just want to thank everyone that's kind of reached out to me and kind of queried, you know, why I've been gone and I'm not going to mention any names but I've, you know, just been talking to a bunch of people overseas and sometimes it's almost like better to talk to someone who doesn't know you as well so there's no, you know, they kind of give you like general advice versus like, oh, well, I know you and I know your situation so this is my advice so there's been a lot of people that I never would have thought I would have connected with. And, yeah, I just want to thank them for reaching out. It's been really important to me. And the rest, yeah. I mean, when you're going through all of this stuff, and I think, like, the last episode that I did besides the Richard RGR one was, like, you know, which I thought was hilarious that we got Christopher Franchi to come on the show at, like, 4 a.m. And it was just to make everyone laugh. And it really kind of annoys me when someone tells me that I'm someone that I'm not. People are like, you love drama, Ryan, and you got Christopher Franci on just to create drama. Intentionally, yeah. And we know we didn't. Yeah, especially when you know and you just can't... Yeah, I've been learning about what's controllable and what's not controllable in life and you absolutely cannot... You can try and influence but you cannot control what people think about you. So you really just have to not give a fuck, right? Yeah, absolutely. Like when that person on the forum says, you know, I like drama. I'm like, okay, well, I know I don't like drama because books, I don't myself. And like, I don't watch any reality TV show at all. Like I kind of despise it almost. You know, when somebody tells me that I'm someone that I'm not, I know that's bullshit as well. It's just, yeah. So, yeah, I'm not going to be coming back on the show regularly. I have no problems with coming on the podcast. It's just not something that I want to do week by week. But I have nothing – I have fun doing the podcast. I just – I have to balance life out at the moment. And, yeah, I'm just choosing to do other things at the moment instead of the podcast every single week. And, you know, we have said so many times, if it stops being fun, don't do it. That's the problem, though. It is fun. It's just – But it's not fun during the week as well. Yeah, during the week. It's fun to record. Yeah. Yeah, and it's more about me. It's like if my personality was different, then it would be fine, but my personality is such that, you know, it's all in or it's not. Things have to be getting better all the time. My tournaments have to be getting better. They have to be worth more. More people have to come. And, you know what I mean? Like, I know, I know you. I kind of like, not give up, but I lose interest, right? No, I know you so well. You can only obsess about a certain amount of things. You can't obsess about being the best tournament director and be the best podcaster. Yeah.