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May the flip be with you

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 32m·held·May 7, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Beginner's guide to learning pinball through Pinball FX digital tables on discounted Nintendo Switch.

Summary

BlahCade A A Pinball Podcast hosts Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan discuss introductory pinball strategy for new players, specifically focusing on Pinball FX digital tables on Nintendo Switch that are on sale. They cover foundational concepts including ball control, shot aiming, modes, multiball mechanics, and provide guidance on choosing beginner-friendly tables from both classic Bally/Williams and Star Wars collections. The episode emphasizes learning ball trapping, reading the DMD display, and focusing on flashing shots before attempting advanced techniques.

Key Claims

  • Star Wars Pinball tables are currently on sale on Nintendo Switch (10 dollars off, bringing Star Wars package to $20) and Steam with bundles amounting to about $20 USD total, roughly $1-1.10 per table

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discussing current promotions, with Jared noting 'star wars pinball on steam both bundles wind up amounting to about 20 bucks us'

  • The Nintendo Switch version of Pinball FX has brought in a new wave of players to digital pinball

    high confidence · Chris states: 'the Switch has indeed brought in a lot of new players' based on observations in Pinball FX Discord channel

  • All Zen Pinball tables currently available feature ramps; early 1980s Williams/Bally tables often did not

    high confidence · Jared: 'everything that you're playing in Zen is going to have a ramp. Yes. Every single thing.' Chris notes early 80s tables might have no ramps but current Zen tables do.

  • Star Wars Pinball tables rely primarily on audio lifted from movies rather than custom shot callouts, unlike Bally/Williams tables

    high confidence · Jared: 'a lot of times they're just pulling audio from the music or from them from the movies um or they don't make shot callouts' and 'all the audio is just lifted from movies and therefore there's not really any custom call outs done to highlight shots'

  • Bally/Williams pinball tables were designed with distraction (flashing lights, sounds) intentionally to encourage ball drain, while Star Wars tables are designed to prevent story advancement without earning it

    high confidence · Chris: 'With the Star Wars tables, that's not the case. It's not about draining the ball. It's kind of about preventing you from advancing the story.'

  • Ball control and trapping is the fundamental skill that precedes advanced pinball techniques like ramp shots and mode stacking

    high confidence · Chris emphasizes 'Control the ball. Learn how to catch a ball on a flipper' as 'the absolute first thing' before attempting advanced moves

  • Junkyard (a Bally/Williams pinball table) becomes exceedingly boring after beating the wizard mode because there is little new content to experience

Notable Quotes

  • “You've got to catch the ball first. Try that. Yeah. There you go. There's step number one. Control the ball.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~midway through content — Establishes the foundational skill for pinball—ball control before advanced techniques

  • “Shoot the flashing shots that's the number one rule in pinball and that rule even though we're playing digital pinball that are fantasy that rule applies to real life tables as well”

    Jared Morgan @ ~midway through content — Core pinball strategy applicable to both digital and physical machines

  • “Pinball is again completely about controlling the ball setting your own pace not letting the slope of the table or the modes or anything else dictate that pace to you.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~late in content — Articulates the philosophy of pinball mastery—player agency over game mechanics

  • “All the flashing lights, all the sound package, or anything like that, it's all designed to distract you. What you need to do is center yourself to the point where you're able to control the ball.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~late in content — Explains the psychological/design challenge of pinball—managing distraction to maintain control

  • “It's not about draining the ball. It's kind of about preventing you from advancing the story.”

    Chris Friebus @ ~late in content — Distinguishes design philosophy between classic Bally/Williams and modern Star Wars tables

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlahCade Pinball PodcastorganizationPinball FXproductNintendo SwitchproductStar Wars PinballproductBallycompanyWilliamscompanyZen Pinballproduct

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Nintendo Switch version of Pinball FX driving significant new player acquisition, evidenced by increased Discord activity and questions from newcomers about how to play

    high · Chris: 'the Switch has indeed brought in a lot of new players' based on observations in Pinball FX Discord apps channel

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball FX running aggressive discount campaign on Star Wars tables across multiple platforms (Switch, Steam) at $20 USD for full bundles (~$1.10 per table), coinciding with discussion of new player onboarding

    high · Star Wars package discounted to $20 on Nintendo Switch (down $10) and Steam; some tables on sale for up to 70% off

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Star Wars digital pinball tables employ different design philosophy than classic Bally/Williams machines—emphasis on preventing story advancement without earning it rather than encouraging ball drain through distraction

    high · Chris: 'With the Star Wars tables, that's not the case. It's not about draining the ball. It's kind of about preventing you from advancing the story.'

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade Podcast producing structured educational content targeting new pinball players, with multi-part framework (beginner table recommendations for both Bally/Williams and Star Wars collections, intermediate and expert levels to follow)

    high · Chris and Jared explicitly structuring episode to serve new players who have purchased tables during sale; planning table recommendations by difficulty tier

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Star Wars Pinball tables rely on movie audio and custom voice acting rather than Bally/Williams-style custom shot callouts; affects new player learning curve and guidance clarity

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.277

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jordan morgan from correspondence in India, yes.
0:25
Based on the quality of my internet at the moment, it looks like I'm on a video phone. Not just a video phone, but like a video phone from years ago. From maybe like one of the first camera phones that actually had a front-facing camera. It's like a Motorola Razr. Yeah, Motorola Razr, exactly. Or maybe an iPhone 1, you know. so it's incredibly pixelated and lumpy but audio quality I'm sorry Ben Alton I will not be going into pixel mode just to make things balanced too bad no Chris just did a speed test that made me incredibly sad his download and upload speeds because he's running on cable like 192 down and six up and I'm lucky at the moment with a load that's on our illustrious australian national broadband network which is a joke um to i'm lucky to get like 12 down and uh around one to two up so hence the quality of my video feed at the moment yeah also hence the reason why i host these sessions and jared doesn't yeah well that's right yeah because it's cleaner at his end i'm just a participant yeah um so hey how you doing all folks um we uh we took an extra week off just simply because there wasn't really much for us to talk about no it's not really we tend to be going for um a fortnightly at the moment because it seems to make more sense uh we're not just trying to fill fill the void with uh random stuff which you know we we are not bad at doing but it gets to the point where we we could if you wanted us to that's certainly in our wheelhouse of things that we can do but I think we're going to not that's the object here that's right it's fine now we're getting comments that my audio seems quiet and Jared's is loud we're experimenting because apparently then when Jared posted to YouTube my audio was screaming and his wasn't when I pull down the YouTube feed It's interesting. Chris's audio is like super overclocked, and I have to level it using Cakewalk. So we're trying levels to see if it actually evens out in the wash.
2:52

medium confidence · Chris: 'Junkyard, it becomes exceedingly boring after you've beaten the wizard mode because there's like nothing new to do on the table'

Tales of the Arabian Nights
game
Monster Bashgame
Junkyardgame
Hurricanegame
Medieval Madnessgame
Attack from Marsgame

high · Jared: 'a lot of times they're just pulling audio from the music or from them from the movies um or they don't make shot callouts' versus Bally Williams tables with 'audio callouts were custom made for each and every single table'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Documented progression for new pinball players: ball trapping → shot aiming → basic ramp/orbit execution → mode understanding → multiball control → wizard modes; hosts recommend ignoring advanced techniques initially

    high · Chris and Jared systematically walk through skill progression, with Chris emphasizing 'You've got to build up to the advanced techniques' and Jared noting 'you don't really need to worry about' wizard modes early

  • ?

    product_concern: Junkyard (Williams) becomes repetitive and lacks replay value after beating wizard mode, with hosts noting it 'feels very flat after getting to the wizard mode' with 'nothing new to do'

    medium · Chris: 'Junkyard, it becomes exceedingly boring after you've beaten the wizard mode because there's like nothing new to do on the table'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Some Pinball FX tables support mode stacking (running multiple modes simultaneously), which creates confusion for new players due to overlapping visual indicators and different completion requirements

    medium · Jared: 'it's very confusing for new players' regarding mode stacking where 'they're both showing their blinky lights at the same time, but they both have clearly different conclusions'

  • $

    market_signal: Star Wars Pinball tables available on Nintendo Switch, Steam, and PS4 with different pricing and discount strategies across platforms, complicating consumer choice

    medium · Chris noting Star Wars package $20 on Switch with additional 70% off deals on Steam; Jared stating he hasn't checked PS4 pricing

  • ?

    operational_signal: BlahCade Podcast operating across international connectivity constraints (Australia's NBN network providing 12 Mbps down / 1-2 Mbps up versus US 192 down / 6 up), affecting audio/video quality and requiring technical workarounds nearly 200 episodes in

    medium · Jared: 'I'm lucky at the moment with a load that's on our our illustrious australian national broadband network which is a joke um to i'm lucky to get like 12 down and uh around one to two up'; hosts still experimenting with levels and settings

    • It's all one big experiment. You'd think almost 200 episodes in, we'd have this dialed in. No. No, no, no. At least I don't feel bad, you know, because you see a lot of broadcasts right now of things that are going up on TV, and obviously they're just doing it via Skype or Zoom or whatever. And it's nice to know that even these that have technical engineers that you know are sending packets and loads of information to the people at their home to set it up properly, and stuff is still looking dicey. So I don't feel too terribly bad. Yeah. I think people are just making do with what they have at the moment.
    3:33
    I have to really laugh. You can't see this in the feed, folks, but Chris has got this auto-zoom and face-focused feature going on the camera at the moment. So all I'm seeing is this extreme close-up. It zooms in and out in pads. It's very weird. I'm torturing Jared with this. Yeah, because I have a separate camera for Jared because he can't see this camera. So I actually have a camera over here that's just for Jared, so he's not just staring at a blank screen the entire time or a heavily delayed feed that is up on Twitch. and I turned on the feature on it to auto-correct my face. So it follows me around and zooms in and it's making him laugh. Because, you know, he moves around so much when he's sitting stationary in a chair.
    4:20
    So, you know, anyhow, it's fun times. Fun times. Yeah, so I was introduced to a term this week by my wife and I was wondering if you've heard of this too, but it's... Oh, shoot, now I'm forgetting it again. quarantine meltdown have you heard of this quarantine quarantine meltdown yes well i don't know the term but i'm feeling it apparently it's everybody is going to go through this at some point it's kind of like midlife crisis that at some point you're just going to go nuts uh and rage about being quarantined and who knows how you'll act out and then you'll you know self-correct and everything will calm down again but uh oh okay for the extroverts out there it happened like within a couple of days and for the introverts even they're going to be feeling it at some point because just the isolation sucks eventually well it does it and especially for you folks over there in the u.s who you know have got some bad stuff going on um we in australia well in queensland at least we've essentially flattened the curve and we're moving on with our lives like they're starting to open things up again we got Like, we can travel this weekend 50 kilometers from our home and enjoy recreation activities. The national parks are open again. So we can actually go to the national park. I was going to ask because I know that New Zealand was announcing that they were basically saying that they're free of it now. And that I had heard something about that they were opening up to at least travel with Australia. Yes, I think that's what's happening down here, which is good. because essentially, you know, if we weren't so far apart, they'd just build a bridge between New Zealand and Australia and we'd just drive there, you know. But it's over the ocean. That makes it hard. It doesn't look that far on the maps. I mean, come on. No. It's just like a short, you know, well, it's a two-and-a-half-hour flight to get from here to New Zealand, which is actually a shorter flight than going to, say, I think Melbourne. You'll run about the same sort of distance. So I'd rather go to New Zealand, to be perfectly honest. Wait, so how long is the flight, though, from Melbourne to New Zealand? Oh, it's about the same because we're sort of on the same sort of part of the coast. We're on the east coast. So it's sort of maybe a half an hour more based on down the bottom a bit, depending on where you're flying up to. If you're flying up to the North Island or the South Island, it might be a little bit longer, but we might be talking like maximum three hours. Yeah. Hey, kids. Geography. Who knew?
    6:55
    It's one of the many services you get here at Blockade. All right. So today's focus, we haven't done this in a very long time, but I've been hanging out on the Discord apps channel for Pinball FX, and it would appear that the Switch has indeed brought in a lot of new players. Yes. and they're running a this is timely what we're doing today because we should foreshadow this with the fact that uh at the moment at the time recording you can get the um switch um package on um uh sorry the star wars package on nintendo switch for a discounted price yeah i know here in the states it's uh 10 bucks off so 20 bucks for for that and they're announcing on twitter although i don't know where this is that some of the tables were going to be up to 70 off i imagine that's going to be on steam i haven't checked my ps4 to see what the sale price is over there and that's that's some pretty steep discounts so what chris and i were figuring is that this is going to bring probably this might be the tipping point for some people who've just been holding off until the price got a little bit cheaper and because of that and because of the fact that you know chris is right there seems to be plenty of people asking oh you know where do i start how do I actually play these things well,
    8:18
    all these tables well, we thought we'd delve into that a little bit today and see if we can sort of work out where you should start your adventure in pinball land, in Star Wars pinball land. Because let's face it, we've all been there. You get all excited, and then you sit down, and you've spent money on quite a few tables, and you start playing them, and you go, I don't like that one, and nothing's happening, and I don't like this one, nothing's happening, And it's not that there's nothing happening, it's just that you aren't savvy to what to look for in the pinball world.
    8:54
    There's something else to remember too, which is all these pinball tables in the Star Wars pinball collection, right now, if you jump into the franchise, you've got them all available to you. But these were trickle-fed to pretty much everyone else who started off with Star Wars pinball when it was just in its early years of its franchise. And we only got tables delivered once every three months or so. So there was a point at which you could sort of get used to the table because it was all you had to get used to, and you could sort of learn a bit. But because you've got all these tables, like the entire collection available to you at the start, that makes it really hard to work out where to start and where to not start. So there's that too. it's kind of like when I go and I decide I want to watch a movie and I sit there and I stare in front of my collection of movies that I've got hundreds of or you go to Netflix and you look at the movie section and you spend a half an hour just going, I don't know where to start whereas when you only have like five, well boom the choice is easy, you're sitting down enjoying yourself so that's kind of what there is. Okay, hold on, we're getting notification here uh star wars pinball on steam both bundles wind up amounting to about 20 bucks us um yeah so basically you're looking at a little over a buck a table i mean like a buck and a dime um per table and that's that's you know that's not bad considering you can't go to the arcade and put your dollar in the slot at the moment you may as well buy these pinball tables and have a lot of fun at home because they're for the most part and we'll we'll go into this as we go through this little game we have today. But most of them are pretty good, and they will give you a lot of hours of enjoyment. So, yeah. Shall we begin? No, we shouldn't. We shouldn't, because we have another game here. We have yet another game, and this one is going to be requiring the participation of you fine folk that are watching us live and in the comments section. What I want you to be thinking about while we're going through all this, because a lot of you that are listening to this, you already know all these things that we're going to talk about. So this isn't necessarily for you. It's for the new people that will be watching this. But for you guys, I want you to be thinking about, this is another fun thing I did on Twitter this past week,
    11:14
    your five perfect movies. By that means it's a movie that you don't have a single complaint about, that you feel is just perfect through and through. You watch it and you have just sheer utter enjoyment out of it. I'm going to give you, I have two lists. So I'm going to give you an idea of what list one is. and then once we're all done with all the pinball talk, we're going to circle back around to the end. I'll tell everybody I'm going to want you at that point to post your stuff in the comments. So think about it for a little while. Don't post them yet. You're going to wait. But my list number one, five perfect movies. I'm not even going to go into explanation yet. But here we go. Number one. He's going to put them out there. That's right. Number one, The Fugitive. Number two, Dark City. Number three, Lethal Weapon 2. Number four, Aliens. number five Ferris Bueller's Day Off those are five perfect movies in my opinion I have another five that we'll get to on the back end and then we can maybe dive in a little bit but okay that's that I can only think of one at the moment because I'm not really into movies and that for me would be Terminator 2 okay there you go see perfect movies alright so you're brand new to pinball you just happened to stumble upon the Star Wars pack because you saw Star Wars and bought it and didn't even know what you were buying.
    12:33
    With the fleas. Ooh, Star Wars, let's have this. It's cheap, but it can't suck. It's good. Right? And lo and behold, you're playing pinball, and you're like, hey, this is kind of fun. And you're like, what else does this company do? And you look, and you find out that, hey, look at this. They've got a whole slew of tables, like 80-some, including the Star Wars tables, and including these Williams Valley ones that vaguely remind me of things that I used to play in my youth. I wonder what I should play. And so you find yourself downloading some and you're kind of flipping the ball around and you're like, boy, I must really suck. There's got to be something I'm missing. Something that I got to be doing to get my pinball game up there. Now, the question that I see a lot is people start immediately asking about advanced moves. that's not how you're going to get your score up, folks. No way. No. You've got to build up to the advanced techniques. You've got to catch the ball first. Try that. Yeah. There you go. There's step number one. Control the ball. Learn how to catch a ball on a flipper, held up, be patient, let everything calm down on the table, and then lower and flip the ball to where you want to go. That's aiming. that is the absolute first thing that you should be attempting to do um you know it's actually funny chris even though we're both pretty pretty good with playing pinball i still sometimes forget that basic rule like when i found the balls just going everywhere and i just can't get a shot i go hang on a second i need to slow down and catch the ball and i aim the ball and i shoot the ball and I go, there you go. Now we're back into it again. And the problem is sometimes you're reacting to the music and the sound effects and those are like making you panic. Yes, especially when you have hurry ups running and music that's very, very sort of has a fast speed to it. It makes you want to just go and flip wildly, particularly multi-ball and stuff like that. Right. So there is step number two. since you're playing digital, you have this option. Turn off the volume.
    14:55
    Yeah, you can. Turn off the volume, and that way all you're concentrating on is the visuals. You're not going to be distracted by everything else.
    15:05
    Trap that ball. Hold it as long as you feel like. Take a good look at the play field. See what's blinking, what's not blinking. Because those blinking indicators, it's a good idea that maybe you want to try shooting towards one of those. Now, one of the things is when you have a whole myriad of things blinking, you don't know where to shoot.
    15:27
    Basics of any pinball table come down to, there are things called orbits. That is, you send the ball up, it's going to kind of come all the way around like a horseshoe, and come back down. That's a basic orbit. The other thing that you tend to have is ramps.
    15:41
    Ramps are obviously, basically everything that you're playing in Zen is going to have a ramp. Yes. Every single thing. Yeah, if we were playing tables that were from the early 80s, it's quite possible there'd be no ramps whatsoever, but we're not playing with those. We're playing with what is in Zen, and everything in Zen has a ramp. So ramps and orbits. Concentrate on one. Pick one, someplace on the table.
    16:06
    Something dead center is kind of dangerous, because dead center shots tend to lead to straight down the middle shots. So pick something a little bit off to the side. In Zen, that's normally not the case, because they designed the tables as such so you don't normally get too many Xander Drains. Okay. Selling them Bally Williams pinballs? Yeah. Danger zone. Okay, so yeah, that's a good point. We're going to be talking about Bally Williams tables and the Star Wars tables. We're not going to talk about any of the other Xen stuff. If you guys like this topic, let us know. We'll come back around and touch upon some of the Xen originals. Wider the selection. Yeah. Maybe the Marvel stuff. The Marvel stuff, since it's not available on Switch, we figured it's not good to touch upon at the moment. yeah um anyway so yeah if you're doing if you got yet there if you're dealing with a bally williams table don't shoot something that's straight up the middle because it's probably going to end to a center drain different case with the the star wars tables um that's not necessarily the truth but find a shot that you can make and it might be just one of those that as you're randomly flipping you tend to notice that you're always hitting a particular shot great now concentrate and see if you can do it on demand um and start just spamming that one shot over and over again when you feel that you can hit it about 70 of the time intentionally fantastic now pick another shot start doing that again don't even worry about the rules don't even worry about completing a table just get some shots in your back pocket that you know how to function with with those shots there tends to be like if you have a ramp odds are you're going to have to hit that ramp probably three or four times in order for a score or mode or something to activate um so long as it's still blinking you're still scoring points um yes right so keep on shoot the flashing shots that's the number one rule in pinball and that rule even though we're playing digital pinball that are fantasy that rule applies to real life tables as well particularly stones that's essentially how you learn how to play a stone pinball shoot the flashing thing yeah and you will not go wrong now one of the benefits of playing in zen is that the scores will actually pop up as you shoot them so if you start noticing your score going from a million points a shot down to all of a sudden 500 points a shot clearly you've maxed out you need to change what you're shooting for because that's no longer scoring your points.
    18:34
    But again, step that aside. Right now, it's concentrating on getting your shots that you can actually do. Now, go ahead. Turn back the sound on. Yeah. Now you've figured out how to hit one or two of the things that are actually on the table and you've learned how to aim with the flippers. Turn back on the sound. Now listen to what the table is telling you to do. Now,
    18:57
    the Star Wars tables are going to sound different than the Bally Williams tables. Yeah. bally williams tables these are masters of their craft they understood the value of audio callouts and all their audio callouts were custom made for each and every single table the star wars tables a lot of times they're just pulling audio from the music or from them from the movies um or they don't make shot callouts what's that yeah that they really don't have any shot callouts as such on um most of the star wars tables there are a couple that actually do take a few cues from belly williams and they do actually start to you know sort of congratulate you when you're actually shooting some shots um and that's definitely an homage to some tables um in the later 90s era that um actually do like sort of try and encourage you to keep shooting well in the game um but they're few and far between in the Star Wars collection as Chris rightly says it is very much the case of all the audio is just lifted from movies and therefore there's not really any custom call outs done to highlight shots to shoot like they don't say shoot the left ramp and then shoot the right ramp which is pretty common in a lot of pinball machines you see in arcades so you do need to you do really my tip here to add to what Chris has already said is is look at the dot matrix display on the tables because the dot matrix display when you particularly when you start modes it will tell you what to shoot for and what your sort of primary goal is in the game so once you sort of understand where the shots are on the table you can use the dmd to help guide you to where you need to be planting your shots the other tip is too that all these tables regardless of whether they're Belly Williams or Zen or... Sorry, Belly Williams or Star Wars, they all have some sort of rules reference that you can access in the game. So if you have had a bit of fun shooting around stuff and you think you're getting pretty good and you don't seem to be progressing so well on the table, it might be time to actually take a look at that rule sheet that's available in one of the menus, the pause menus in the game, or when you start the game. and just check it out and see if maybe reading how to actually play the game will give you some clues maybe. Oh, so that's what that ramp's called that they're always asking me to shoot. Oh, that makes sense now. I've done that many times. Even though I'm pretty good at playing pinball,
    21:34
    sometimes the things that they call the ramps, the names that they actually call the ramps and stuff in the game aren't super intuitive because normally in real pinball, there'd be a name on the ramp shot. there'd be like on the insert that's flashing it'll be like you know you know delta quadrant or something like that you'll know that you need to shoot that if it's calling out if it's screaming at you delta quadrant in the game you go okay i'll shoot there but there's no sort of a lot of the time there's not a lot of clues like that in the star wars tables so you do kind of need to know where your shots are to really do well in the games because i mean i'll even point out that in a table like uh hurricane which is a bally or williams i don't know which one it is probably Williams, um, Williams table, uh, it'll sit there and tell you to shoot either the cyclone ramp or the hurricane ramp. They're not actually other than in fine print labeled, which ramp is right. But if you looked down at the instruction card at the, on the apron of the table, it would pretty much clear, clearly tell you that the cyclone ramp is the middle ramp and the hurricane ramp is the right ramp. So, um, yeah, it helps to familiarize yourself a little bit with what they're calling out. I did want to point out also, but the Star Wars tables, truth be told, the audio, most of the audio, is them using their own custom voice actors which is why it confusing to me why they didn do better call but then Zen hasn really done great call until their most recent originals Instead, you just had Yoda yelling all sorts of platitudes at you, and you're like, quit telling me, you know, do or do not. There is no try. You know, whatever. And tell me, hey, dumbass, shoot this ramp over here.
    23:25
    Exactly. The lift ramp you must shoot. And we're going to get also into our picks for tables to start out on, what we consider intermediate and what we consider expert tables.
    23:41
    That's kind of coming down the line a little bit too. Okay, so you've learned how to trap a ball. You've learned how to shoot a ramp or two or an orbiter or two.
    23:53
    And you've learned how to maybe start looking at the table and figuring out what the shots are actually called.
    24:01
    So now where do you go from there? Okay, most tables are divided into two kind of categories. There are the tables that have a scoop or a mode start section that you want to shoot the ball into, that if you shoot it enough times or get it lit up in some fashion, that that will start a mode. and we'll get into what a mode is in a moment. But the other type of game, and Zen does this a lot, actually, is you shoot a ramp multiple times, and that will actually start a mode.
    24:41
    There is no particular mode scoop that you shoot into. It's just a matter of repeating a shot enough times that that will then trigger the mode start.
    24:53
    So I refer to those with a particular name. I call them spell-a-thon modes, because you're normally spelling a word when you shoot the ramp. So in my oncoming ratings for tables, if you hear me say spell-a-thon, that's what I mean.
    25:09
    Yeah, exactly. Now, the modes, the mode scoops, a lot of times take two or three shots to activate it, to even get it going. on a Bally Williams table sometimes that equates to hitting a couple of stand-ups and that'll do it sometimes it's hitting a particular lane a couple of times or spinning a spinner X amount of times to get it to light up so then when you shoot the ball in there that's what it'll start and prime example of two different tables of that fashion if you look at Tales of the Arabian Nights it's hitting the genie all the way at the top and you really have nothing to do to activate the genie other than clearing a mode and once you've cleared a mode genie's ready to go and start a new mode again compare that to say Monster Bash where it's more of the spell-a-thon nature where you've got to hit a ramp or a lane multiple times and that starts a mini-mode of sorts, but it's not the wizard mode, which actually starts by hitting the scoop when that's lit up for multiball kind of thing. So there's all sorts of different kind of methodologies that go into this.
    26:34
    What were you going to say, Jared? I was just going to say, yeah, the wizard modes are another thing altogether that, as a new player to pinball, you don't really need to worry about at this stage. Just concentrate on shooting the ramps, getting into the feel of the game, like the getting that what they call the flow of a pinball and once you do that you'll start getting towards the wizard modes just by getting better at the table yeah um so yeah that's that's all you need to do really now consider it a victory if you figure out how to start multi-ball because that is also a big point of many of the games um multi-balls are not always the easiest things to start. A lot of times they're hidden. Other tables, you almost practically start out with a multi-ball. Here's the thing. You get a multi-ball, you're all excited, and next thing you know, you've drained all the balls within 15 seconds, and you're like, well, that was stupid.
    27:30
    Again, here comes the control aspect. When you've got three balls or more, yeah, you're pretty much just trying to keep them alive, just flipping like crazy. When you get down to two balls, there becomes a thing of catch one ball and try and play one ball um you don't want to be trying to actively shooting ramps and lanes and super jackpots and everything with two balls going because again it's you're now out of control pinball is again completely about controlling the ball setting your own pace not letting the slope of the table or the modes or anything else dictate that pace to you. All the flashing lights, all the sound package, or anything like that, it's all designed to distract you. What you need to do is center yourself to the point where you're able to control the ball.
    28:23
    And particularly in the case of a Bally Williams table, all that distraction is on purpose because they wanted you to drain the ball. With the Star Wars tables, that's not the case. It's not about draining the ball. It's kind of about preventing you from advancing the story. even though that's exactly the mode that you're supposed to be doing to advance the story, but they don't want to just give you the story on a silver platter. They want you to actually have to earn it a little bit. That's right.
    28:54
    So you figure out how to do multiball. You figure out how to start a mode. You've learned how to capture trap. You've learned how to maybe read a brief instruction card that's on the apron of a thing or in Zen going through their little instructions, instructions because their instructions that zen provides aren't much better than the instruction cards that were on the apron of an actual pinball machine but the advantage is that you actually get arrows showing you where the shot is in relation to the text correct so if it's a completely if you're going where is the mode start on this game and they go oh shoot the mode start here and then shoot this hole you go oh right so that hidden area on the table that had no idea was a mode start is actually a mode start okay good yeah so you start a mode now is where you have to be really pay attention to what is being asked of you because it's anything from i just shoot everything and knock out all the lights to you need to shoot this thing multiple times within this amount of time that we're giving you um the star wars tables love their hurry ups and love their, you've got to do this first, and then do this first, and then do this first in order to clear this movie scene.
    30:13
    And it's not always clear as a bell what to do, because on some of their tables, they're still flashing things for other things, because here's where it gets confusing. Some tables you can stack modes, meaning you can start one mode and then start another mode, and they're both running at the same time, and they're both showing their blinky lights at the same time, but they both have clearly different conclusions to how to finish them.
    30:41
    Yes, it's very confusing for new players. And so learning how to actually beat the mode that you're in is important because typically there's going to be multiple modes and when you finish all of those modes, that's when you get what's called the wizard mode. The wizard mode is kind of the grand finale of the table. And if you can meet then all the parameters of that, you essentially have beaten the game. And once you've beaten the game, it's going to reset everything and you're going to start back at square one, sometimes with added bonus points floating around the table or certain things being more difficult to activate and start. Some things, like if you play Junkyard, it becomes exceedingly boring after you've beaten the wizard mode because there's like nothing new to do on the table no it is very much it feels very flat after getting to the wizard mode on that one it's almost like great thanks you beat us let somebody else play now please yeah just let the balls drain and go so what we want to do now we've kind of given you the basics of how to kind of approach a table when you go. We want to talk about what are the best tables as a beginner to learn the basics of pinball lawn.
    32:10
    And we're going to start with the Bally Williams tables for the beginner. And I'm going to do... I've got two choices. I believe, Jared, you have two choices. I have two choices as well. All right. So I'm going to do my first choice. See if Jared matches on this one. My first choice, medieval madness.
    32:26
    No. Okay. So the reason why... The reason why I picked Medieval Madness, you can flail around on that table, and it's almost impossible not to start something.
    32:37
    Every single ramp and orbit you shoot it enough times, something happens. And the thing is, is once you've shot those, and that something, I mean, it can just be as simple as saying that, hey, you're Joust Champion, and now you can shoot the Joust thing again. But what you notice is over in the middle, towards the center of the table, there's this little saucer that captures the ball, and it's where the wizard lives.
    33:09
    And there's a couple of insert lights below it, and one of them is now lit. Now, if you shoot that and you land in there, hey, congratulations, you just started, say, Joust Multiball. But let's say you also had shot the peasant ramp four times. now you're doing joust and peasant multi-ball which gives you an extra ball for a multi-ball and each lane that you shoot is now worth a larger point total starting multi-ball on medieval mass is fairly simple on top of all of that you also have this bash toy in the middle of the game that you bash in enough times a gate opens up you can launch the ball in there you blow up the castle well that almost feels like yes i completed a mode even though it's just the build up to more modes so the reason why i picked me the lamentous is it's a challenging table to understand all the rules and the combinations however it's a really forgiving table in terms of getting anything going and it really holds your hand and makes things painfully obvious in terms of how to score good points. Like, the points aren't hidden upon you building and building and building. You can get a pretty good score even with not successfully completing everything or stacking everything that you need to stack.
    34:32
    And even when you do stack everything properly and get everything really aligned, your point total doesn't leapfrog by huge margins like it does on other tables. So anyway, that's why I pick Medieval Mana. So what's your first choice, Jared? Okay, my first choice might be surprising, but it's actually Fishtails. Okay. And the reason why it's Fishtails is that, number one, it's a good traditional layout, table layout. It's very easily accessible. It's got ramp shots so they're close to the bottom of the table so you don't have to focus on your long-range shots, which can be quite difficult for new players to line up. it is i will say this has got slightly shorter flippers than a lot of the other belly williams tables given that it was a lightning lightning flipper game you can google that if you don't know what lightning flippers are um but um they are a thing and they're annoying for new players because they're a little bit harder to play with um the other thing that is good about this one you start your modes by bashing something and you know it's this big captive ball and you you can start your modes by bashing the thing in the center um the other thing that's nice about this game once you learn about trapping and this is why it's so important that in the regular zen mode on that table so there's two types of physics if you haven't already worked this out in belly Williams there's zen physics and essentially arcade physics like they would be tuned in an arcade so if you're using the zen physics you can pretty much trap a shot on the left hand flipper after launching the ball and then shoot the lock almost repeatedly when you get good at it and it's a really fast way of starting multiple and getting some good points in the game the other thing about this era of table um is that it was designed to be played with the sound on because it um it gave you a whole pile of audio cues that you were doing the right thing as a player like if you start shooting double amps left right left right the audio builds and it gets this crescendo you know you've done something right as a new player and that was the key for these these games when they were being made they wanted to give that feedback to the player and really help you understand that yes you're doing a great job keep going so that's why fishtails for me is a good accessible table someone new so i put fishtails as my intermediate table um one that after you've gotten the basics of pinball to step into it and the only reason why i say that is because the the two middle ramps the boat ramps right there, those are a sucker's bet. They are enticing, and they're entirely meant to drain the ball. That captive ball is, man, if you miss it, it's a straight down the middle shot. And the big points are kind of a mystery as to when and how you get them. I remember the first time I ever played fishtails in real life, I had no clue. I mean, I knew how to lock the balls for multiball, but once I got multiball, I didn't understand at all where I was supposed to be shooting it to actually get the jackpot.
    37:39
    And it was one of those that I had to settle down, I had to look at, I had to focus on, to really start understanding, oh, that's what this is for, and that's what that is for. I absolutely agree. It is a classic pinball layout, and that is good to learn on. But that's why I take it a, for me, it's just one notch up from being a beginner table. it's something that hey once you've kind of gotten a little bit more of the basics hop into this you're going to be able to have a good deep dive on it and really appreciate things that way it's funny you say that because i actually put medieval madness into the move up to from starting with because the reason the thing about i'm looking at from purely an understanding the table perspective i'm not looking at it so much at the physics side of things but i'm looking at it from a new person trying to work their way around this table and understanding modes and stacking and multi balls and stuff like that fish sales is much easier to get into like you can shoot the ramps you get a quick like you get a monster score shoot up the spin lane you get like like 20 000 20 million points that's feels pretty good as a player but with medieval madness you've got so many things to do and you've got modes and yes you know shooting the drawbridge is a big massive target you can smash away and that's great but it's also risky like if on a real table that is danger that shot if you mess it up oh yeah so so just as fish tails and the captive ball is danger there's always going to be shots on the table that are danger but i'm just thinking from a person new to pinball who may not have ever played belly williams tables before medieval madness is going to feel like you felt when you walked up to twilight zone and you started playing that game compared to something with fish tails which which really has just one main goal up the middle that you need to focus on and then a few things either side basically you need to shoot for so i guess that's why i was approaching it with the way i was evaluating these tables it seems like you've done something subtly different yeah so it's funny because we basically are flip-flopped on those two tables but we both agree they're kind of there's they're still user-friendly to the newbies um that's right i've got one more table that's user-friendly to the newbie let me hear what yours is okay so i went with the getaway as my other table for newbies the reason again is it's got one big shot to go for and that's a supercharger and it feels great when you get it the first time um but here's my question to you and because i still don't actually have the answer you get it that one time how do you get it to light up again oh the stand-up targets no oh that's what it is the stand-ups yeah yeah yeah and i never am for those because those are deadly yeah oh it's it's fine if you're playing it in five minute mode or something like that or if you're playing it in um the regular zen physics mode they're forgiving if you're playing it in like you know arcade simulation mode um they are a little dangerous yes see the only reason why i don't have the getaway i don't even have that as my i would put it as an intermediate table but it's a steve richie table and steve richie tables are fast and mean to the new player. If you don't know how to control the ball, you're toast. That's all I can say. Yeah, that's true. He did know how to design a very good dollar-taking machine.
    40:57
    You know, one that would fleece you of your money very quickly. So those were my two basics. The only other one that I've got in a move up to is actually Theory of Magic. It's another fan and it's very fast though. I think it's faster than fishtails. So for a new player, that level of quickness the ball travels around the table may be a bit tricky for new folks to actually get into initially. The other thing about that game is it's got an interesting shot that you don't see a lot on other tables, and that's that cellar shot where you have the pop-up shoot in the middle of the table. And I think for some new players, that's going to be a really challenging shot to get because there's nothing around it to channel your ball into it. You've really got to be a sharpshooter to get that shot. And it's fairly close to the flippers. So it's not, I mean, it's like if you're off, it's gone. It's gone. That's right. So that's a tricky one. That's a good one to move up to. And it's also a good one to understand the importance of combos on as well because it does combos really nicely on that table. It's very nice to get a good flow going. So that was my other move up to table. What was yours? So my other beginner table was, not surprisingly, because it's very similar to Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars. Because again, just whatever the heck you shoot, you're scoring points on. And the big points aren't particularly hidden. Because again, you destroy a saucer, you get massive amounts of points. You do. And the stacking of things is not quite so important as it is in Medieval Madness. But again, it's really easy to get things going. So to me, it's very similar to Medieval Madness in that respect. My other move-up table, though, was Tales of the Arabian Nights. And I say that one because it has a fairly traditional pinball layout. it's fairly easy to figure out what you need to be shooting at but what you think would be where the points are isn't necessarily where the points are that's true you know you want to constantly you think that it's oh i want to hit the genie i want to start a mode and that's where i'm going to get my points from and it's like actually you want to be spinning the lightning or the lamp and get lightning mode on and then hit over to the bazaar and make it hit triple and then just spam that lightning thing. So it's kind of deceptive, and there's all sorts of other tricks on that table, but it's deceptive where the points necessarily are. But as far as story and advancing the story, it's not the most difficult table in the world to deal with, and you can actually get through the wizard mode as a fairly new pinball player. That's true. It is, once you understand where to shoot for you can get up to the wizard mode quite easily on that table it's almost like it's um it's a modern dmd table with to an extent system 11 rules when i say system 11 rules we're talking about the same sort of rule structure as something like the getaway and um not so much getaway but you know fishtails and that sort of early dmd era had very like start the mode and then shoot it and complete it and get multiple really are your goals in that in that table um to sort of have any fun on it really um all right so you've now played you you practice on the beginner table you feel comfortable you've gotten up to an intermediate table you're like okay i'm starting to understand uh that points can be hidden that there's stackables um but you know things are like that now there's a difference between a table that's just plain mean and hard and not necessarily fun, and a table that is deep. And when I say deep, that means there's the surface layer of playing it, and then there's how to really mine it, and the difference between somebody that is able to play it on the surface level and somebody that knows where all the points are, we're talking the difference between scoring $200 million and scoring $1 billion between the two players. So my first choice, and I know some people think of it, should be in the easy category, but for me, this is in your advanced expert category is monster bash.
    45:20
    And the reason why I say that with monster bash shots are relatively easy to get going, but what you got to understand about the rules of this is it's not just about collecting each of the characters, but once you collect the characters, now you have to hit shots in a hurry up mode in order to collect their instrument. And if you can get all the characters and all their instruments and then start the multiball, huge, ginormous points come flooding your way. That's a really good point. But if you just collected the characters to start multiball, it's a good amount of points, but it's not massive. And it took me so long to be able to then start strategizing how best to collect the instruments because they again hurry up modes and a hurry up mode is basically where you have a limited amount of time to make a shot a certain amount of times or even one time if need be And on Monster Bash,
    46:20
    typically it's about 30 seconds you get per shot. So, like, let's say you light up Bride. There's two ramps that you shoot three times. Once you've done those both three times, you now are collecting the Bride, and now you're trying to get her instrument. In order to do that, you need to shoot the ramps again. I'm not quite sure how many times you have to hit those ramps in order to collect her, she's a singer I believe, to collect her microphone.
    46:46
    Well, what you soon realize is if you can get her primed and be one shot away from starting her mode and then you can get, say, the Wolfman, who's the Orbitz, get his shots primed and ready to go and then you can get Frankenstein to be lifted up to get his ready to go then what you start doing is okay i'm gonna fire the bride off get her mode going i'm gonna fire the wolfman get his mode going on hey maybe dracula's going too now i'm gonna shoot frankenstein that's gonna start multi-ball and now i'm gonna be hitting all these things just by randomly flipping maybe potentially collecting the instruments which is much easier than if i was doing it one by one on a single ball yeah so again interesting point you raised about doing it in like multi-ball versus single ball because in single ball you actually have more control you can trap and shoot and you probably have more chance of getting those instruments in that mode but I would agree in the fact that if you have more balls available and potentially that ball save you get at the beginning of the multi-ball you could actually start to get some flailing lucky shots and start to get some of those points up I just say that because I know that when push comes to shove and when i'm challenged to suddenly have to hit the bride or hit an orbit on command on that table i choke yeah so it's brick city right brick city so when you smash a smash the stand-up target or smash like go for a shot and completely miss it because you hit one of the rubber posts next to it and it flies off someone usually goes down the drain it's called bricking yeah so so i have found that in multiball i will randomly hit these things more often than not. And I can collect a couple of the instruments in the process. So anyway, that's why I have Monster Bash as an expert table because, again, it's one of those that you can do a nice deep dive on how to really maximize points. And it pays off that way. What's your first expert table? So I tossed up between these two, and it might surprise you, but I actually think that the Champion Pub is an expert table. the reason being and this is my justification for it looks easy enough but to really do well in the game you have to actually be able to hit shots repeatedly and accurately like for example when you climb the stairs which is like one of the big ramps in the game to build up the jackpot score you got to keep hitting that ramp over and over and over again to build up the jackpot and that takes a lot of skill and you you can choke really easily even good players will choke easily trying to shoot that shot over and over again um the other thing is that you need to understand the importance of the video-based skill shots in that game you need to be looking at things depending on where you are in the game about collecting smart punches so you have a bit of a more easier chance in the boxing fights and you need to also think about when and how you use the double the purse awards um when you're actually wanting to get the double the purse and and if you essentially have enough smart punches and you've got a chance of winning a fight then you use double the purse to double the score essentially so this is the the same thing that chris was talking about stacking things and learning how to actually exploit the game's features to your advantage the other thing about that game too is you can stack multi balls as well there is a way of doing it and that becomes very very lucrative as well not to mention you actually get an extra ball save when you trigger the other multi-ball within a multi-ball you kill your balls back usually more balls actually but you get essentially two chances of scoring and you get both multi-ball scoring opportunities in the one game essentially so well i was going to say that even in terms of the purse, it took me a long time to realize that you can build up the purse quite significantly before ever starting the fight. And if you happen to be able to time your locking of balls, where you can then double the purse that's currently collected, it's the difference between having your first fight be worth 900,000 points and being worth 32 million points. yeah it's massive if you get it right so yeah it's i haven't actually gone down that path exploring that but i remember you doing it when you were doing some of the tournaments and it blew my mind just how many points you can get yeah just by one fight and i agree complete with you that that is a uh a good expert uh level table the other one my other expert level table is whitewater well yeah that's definitely a tough one but it's not my choice but you go Tell us all about white water. White water is a table that you... It's not easy in the least to know how to score or what is even being asked of you. Not to mention the fact that it is a center drain monster. You make any errors with your shots, center drain. If you start getting the ball going sideways, side drains. It is a table that you really have to master the art of control on and you have to understand what it is you're shooting for and how to multiply and stack those points and get them up because it's going to take you a while of shooting and collecting things to build up the point values before they actually start paying off. And it is just a nasty table. That being said, it is so rewarding.
    52:26
    When you get the flow going on that table, there's nothing quite like it. is just amazing to play. Yeah. So Whitewater, it looks appealing to a new player, but it'll eat a new player alive. It eats me alive to this day. Yeah, me too. It destroys me, that table. Yeah. So what was your final choice? My final choice is Roadshow. The reason why Roadshow is one that you should do when you're a little bit more advanced is it's a wide body and wide bodies have a slightly different geometry than the standard width tables which will change the way you play shots a little bit longer and a little bit harder to get to because they're a little bit further away the other thing about wide bodies is that well sorry the other thing with roadshow in particular is there is a way a good way to progress through your modes modes are represented as lights on the map of the us and you can use the pop bumpers to change which lights are lit and depending on your path through the um the great state the great states of the us will determine what mode you hit and how you should prepare for those modes i'm thinking in particular of the trading post which is one of the the modes in the uh the game where if you have diligently bought all of the um the the crappy souvenirs that Ted loves to buy during the game, you can trade them in at the trading post for a phenomenal amount of points, particularly if you have a lot in your collection. And the only way you can get to that particular mode is to actually select the mode with the pop bumpers and then start the mode at a particular point in the game. So you really need to almost plan out how you want to progress across the map. And you kind of almost need to have advanced knowledge of what each of those modes will give you. and that will only come to you after playing the game for a fair amount of time. So it's a tricky one. It's got a few hidden features on it that will also help you out through the game, which are just not intuitive as well. So it's a game that requires a little bit of extra practice before you move into it, I think. I'll give you a perfect example because I played a lot of it because it's a Pat Lawler table and I love that he's my favorite designer. But the very first city choice that you go into is either going to be New York or Miami. If you go into New York, you're going up against a taxi cab, and basically you're shooting the ball, constantly hitting Ted in his mouth, and that gives you points. The problem is that is a center drain shot. Oh, it's horrible. It will kill you every single time. Yeah, but spring break is amazing. You're bashing about, I think, five times is what you can get. If you hit it enough times, you're basically coming out of there, I don't know, 30, 35 million points from it. Something's out of order. But I'll tell you what, spring break. If you do Miami. Oh, Miami spring break. Spring break, great. You're shooting an orbit that leads into the pop bumpers. Every time you hit a pop bumper, it increases the value of any points hit on the table. You shoot that three times, let's say, before the ball comes down. And then you go and you shoot into Bob's bunker. when the ball releases from Bob's bunker. You don't flip at all. You let it hit a little stand-up target that hits there, and it's worth two times the amount of whatever the current value is. I have gotten 169 million points out of that mode countless times. Yep. That is the secret that I was talking about in that game, that little hidden target that is so unintuitive to hit because you always want to flip that flipper. You just let it rest, and you let it hit that target, and you just sit back and watch the points flow in. This is one of the things. It has got lots of little hidden nuances, that game, and you need to know the rules for it. So go to it once you're familiar with the other tables. Okay. So those are the Ballywilliam tables. Now, the reason why we did those first is because, again, the new people, you probably already bought the Star Wars tables. And you got excited, and you hear what everybody else is talking about. And so you're like, well, I don't know which Ballywilliams table. I'm not familiar with any of these. I don't have any nostalgic connection to them. I wasn't even born when they were out, that kind of thing. That's right. So let's move into the Star Wars tables, though. concentrate a little bit on which ones you probably want to focus on because there are some dud star wars tables there are some tables and when i say dud i mean like tables that i plain will not play it's not that they're hard it's just they're stupid um i've i've ranked those like to be fair i've ranked those as a void until you are better but it's often just a void yes so let's let's go through these real quick um basically last night i sat down And I played one game on every single one of the Star Wars tables. I haven't touched them in a while. So many of them are not familiar with all the nuances anymore that I've learned at one point. So I figured this is a fair analysis of doing it. And on some tables, I drained the ball really quickly and didn't get anything started. And on others, I was playing for 10 minutes straight and actually turned it off. Because I was like, okay, I know enough about this. So Jared, why don't we start with you? What are your beginner tables in Star Wars? What I've done, conveniently, if you have a look at the Switch app listing for Star Wars, it actually groups tables into the following categories. Movie adaptions, then it groups them into TV adaptions, characters, locations, and themes. So what I did is I stuck to those categories to make it easy. So let's start with the movie adaptions first. so for episode four i went with that's a table you should start with um the modes are really easy to start on that table and multiple doesn't seem to be that hard to get i played so i did it a little bit differently to um chris i used the five minute mode to actually evaluate all these tables last night so they were really fresh in my mind so i used that five minute mode to see how far i could get in the table and i got to multi-ball within five minutes on this table it was nice and easy to start and it really gets you pumped. The molecules are great in this table and they make you want to actually play it more. So I think episode 4 is a good one to start with. What do you think about that, Chris? I had marked it as a beginner to intermediate table.
    58:54
    Much for the same reason, it's a fairly intuitive and easy table to understand. My only gripe about it is there's not a lot of shot variety.
    59:05
    Yeah, it's true. And on that aspect I was kind of judging on, well, what tables do I have more fun on beyond that? But I agree. It's a fairly safe choice for a beginner table. I'm going to go with my first choice, and I'll stick with the movie theme, would be Force Awakens. I think it's hands down a great table for beginners to get into. It offers absolutely everything that Xen likes to throw at you, whether it be hurry-up modes, good video modes, secondary pinball screens that pop up, creatures that you bash, so bash toys, combo shots. It's kind of got the gamut, but it's easily understood, as opposed to some of their other movie tables that also run the gamut. For instance, Return of the Jedi runs the gamut. It is not an easy table at all to understand what you're supposed to do on. So that's why I picked Force Awakens. That's interesting because I went for Episode 6, Return of the Jedi, I actually went with that's a start with table. The reason why I chose that as a start with table is because the mode start hole is an easy reach of the flippers, and you just go for that and get your ball started. um you as far as the ball being fed back to the flippers the on the left hand side if you shoot the jabber very target it feeds it right back into the in lane every single time and that makes it easy to trap and then select your shot again um this one is also an interesting one to start with because you can actually get um a good combo training opportunities in this um so you can train yourself to shoot ramps and actually get your combo skills built up and get that flow shot thing built up you've got long and short combo ramps in that one too so ones that are close to the flippers and ones a bit further away so you've got good shot variety in it and i think from a training and getting started perspective it actually isn't a bad one to go with first so i i did want to say one thing about that one particularly stuck out in my mind i don't know were you playing these in a portrait mode jared oh yes yeah i was so the only way to oh my Oh my god, so much of the table, or the ramps just go off the side of the table in portrait mode. They do, but you don't need it. Yeah, you don't really need them, though, because you know where they're going to return. But yes, they do. And I noticed this with a lot of Star Wars tables.
    61:37
    When it goes into one of these, sometimes these special viewing things, they never fixed it for being in portrait. so it's like in your face giant and you have no clue what you're supposed to be aiming at because you're not seeing because it was intended for a 16 by 9 screen not rotated on its side so that is kind of uh one caveat interesting now i do really like jedi as a table i i do think it is a good table um and all the movie tables deep is the one that did them and by and large i like deep work so it's funny you know that as as i went through these i could tell which ones were released first and which ones were released later just by the bounciness of the rubber oh yeah because there are some that are lead and there are some that are medium bounce and there are some that are like almost like signature deep bouncy bouncy bounce yeah you know and uh i'd like to say that empire uh sorry episode five um i've ranked that as a start with as well and the reason you can call it empire that's what i call it empire yeah so empire table i've done as a as a start with because and this is actually interesting because it's less bouncy than the other tables and because that rubber is a little bit deader that's a good one to start off with because the ball's not going to be wild as much and you can sort of get control of it easier um so that's something to consider the it's got a very easy mode start hole just shoot it up the middle all the time and until you get sick of it and you'll start modes like i was starting mode upon mode upon mode in this game just shoot that thing you'll get it i actually have empire as intermediate for the sole reason that yes starting modes easy completing any of the modes holy crap are they tough yeah i didn't really well again i was playing in five minute mode oh okay yeah when you're when you're dealing with not draining the ball and trying to hit the shots and so much of the modes are hurry up uh it's hurry up and do this and there's like three different parts of it in order to even advance the modes on empire are brutal as far as i'm concerned um which is why i have it as my intermediate choice uh yeah i did make my choice i would i would put it as like okay with that being said i agree that there are some harder aspects to it i would probably rank that as a Start with, but once you're very accustomed to playing pinball, the basics. So my other beginner table is Clone Wars. It is a combo fiesta.
    64:15
    Yep. Pretty much anywhere you shoot the ball is going and doing something. And the modes are fairly easily labeled because it tends to be just like, okay, now you need to shoot over here, here, and here. but what I like about it is that each mode has a different area that you need to shoot different patterns and sometimes you need to shoot them in a particular order it's that's one of those tables that anytime I go and play on it I can play for a really long time and as I'm playing in the long time I start remembering oh this is what I'm supposed to do so it's pretty generous with not draining the ball and letting you actually progress the story. The only downfall is Yoda talks and talks and talks and talks. Oh, he doesn't shut up. Oh, dude. I know, but I agree. The Clone Wars, the first sentence that I put down in my notes was great for getting the concept of combos. It will really help you there. The other thing about this mode is that in some of the Star Wars tables, it's a bit hard to tell sometimes, but in this particular one, the Spellathon ramps are actually a good thing because they show you exactly where you are at the point of getting to the thing that's on that ramp.
    65:33
    And the one ramp you need to get to to start modes in that one is the Council mode, which is the right ramp. And it's easy to get, and you can see where you're up to, and then you can start modes in there. There's also a left Council ramp. So there's two Council ramps. Two Council ramps, yeah, there you go. I only see the one as low as possible to the flippers because it's super easy. but yeah there you go so you got two opportunities to get them um the other thing is the rubbers are a little bit more dead on that table as well so again nice introduction for new players um but as far as because of the dead rubbers you can't really like do flipper tricks and you know post-passing and stuff because there's just no reaction there yeah so it's more for practicing on combos and and getting a getting used to how modes work in most of these star wars tables i think that's a good one to go start with uh the one i think um i was going to say the other one in the tv adaptations one um is the star wars rebels um table and that one i've actually ranked as a a start with as well the thing is with that table all the rounds are actually pretty wide and you can usually get to them pretty easy um for getting those um combo wins um it's another fan layout for the most part with a few variations on it granted but um most of the time also the ball returns to the in lanes after you shoot a shot so that again makes it a lot easier to control trap and reshoot again my only problem with rebels is that uh when you're in a mode it's often hard to understand what it is they want you to do yeah it was one of the era of that is a valid point it was one of the era of Star Wars tables where they didn't, they didn't structure how they actually tell you what to do after you start the mode in the DMD. Now, normally a lot of tables go, you know, Hey, shoot the loops and this, and that they will have an animation playing, but also the instructions very abbreviated. But once you lose those instructions on the introduction to the scene, you've got no chance of working out what to do unless you remember them. And that's a real, that's, we've said this before, like improving the way DMDs are actually presented to the user would be a really big advantage for some of these tables so my other uh intermediate table is droids now droids is extremely generous with extra balls i mean ridiculously generous with extra balls so that's good.
    68:05
    The shots are interesting and there's kind of two it's a bit of a spell-a-thon on the rants, but that's just to do a final hurry-up, but that's not how you start modes. Modes is a matter of hitting three stand-up targets and then shooting the hole and then doing the mode that way. And then the modes, what I liked about the modes, it really varies up what you need to do for your shots. That's true. There's a lot of trickier aspects on the table, but they're not so out of reach, again, because it's so generous with the extra balls, that it's a good way of introducing yourself to what a deeper table would be without worrying about only being able to do it on three balls. Yeah, true. Droids is, it's definitely, it's got flow as well to it, but you don't get a lot of playfield feedback from the game. When I say playfield feedback, I mean things like what lights to shoot. There's a lot of lights on the table, but they all have the same visual weight Yes And a lot of the other tables they will have larger inserts You notice that on a lot of the real pinball tables like Belly Williams the size of the insert dictates the importance of the shot as well And that's something that a lot of these Star Wars designs don't have in them. They don't have the weighted inserts showing you which ones are the more lucrative or important shots.
    69:32
    So the other thing with this game is you need to use your headphones or have it turned up loud because the music actually plays a pretty big part in telling you that you need to do something quickly. Like after you've done the spell upon ramp, you need to then shoot a ramp to get the jackpot. And it's not really that obvious what one you need to shoot sometimes. All right. Did you have another intermediate table?
    69:53
    Yeah, I had a lot of intermediates actually. Pick one. I went and ranked each one, but I'll try and like go through and pick one that I feel is good. Okay, so I went intermediate would probably be Force Awakens for me. Okay. So kind of for the same reason that I went with. It's a rather deep table, has lots of stuff in it.
    70:22
    Yes, and for those reasons as well as a few of the little, the way the ball moves in the game. So for new players, the ball pops out in weird places. Oh, that is true. It just appears randomly and you go, whoa, okay. And it appears right near the flippers as well. So unless you've really, it's caught me a couple of times, even as a good player, where you just go, oh, I wasn't expecting to pop out there. Okay, sure.
    70:44
    But it's fun. It's got a good layout, another really nice fan. It's really fast, though, and really bouncy. So, like, super bouncy, I think, actually. Thanks, Steve. So, yeah, it's good. Bouncy is good, but not for new players. It will freak you out, and it will be a little bit hard to trap the ball. But once you get used to it, and you get into the flow of that table, boy you're gonna have a fun time because it's a good table that one all right let's move on to what we feel are the expert level star wars tables so um again oh actually i've got one more sorry if i might just an honorable mention for move up to is rogue one so rogue one is it's an odd layout and the the way you shoot ramps and the way the ball moves around the players is really strange compared to the other Star Wars tables. And it's going to frustrate you as a new player if you're inaccurate or you rattle the ball up a ramp because it won't make it. And it'll just take ages to get off that little center loopy bit where the ball drops into the void and then pops back out of the insert. So it's not easy to start modes on that one either. You've got to shoot up the back of the table, get the force targets lit, and it's a long shot all the way at the back of the table and it's hard to start modes. So there's fun to be had in it, but you really need to move up to that one. And it's sort of towards the back end of the intermediate tables. So do that one before you move up to the wait until you're really better. I had started mode on that, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it wanted me to do. Is that that mode where you've got to shoot the paddle, like the robot, the black robot that appears in the back? No, it was one of the characters, the blind character with his stick. and apparently you were trying to hit it so that it could spin, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out where to hit him or if I was indeed supposed to be hitting him or if I was supposed to be... Because that's one of those tables that while that mode is lit, there's still other things that are lit. And you're like, well, what am I supposed to be shooting at? Exactly. It's a tough... It was almost a wait until better table, that one, but I decided to downgrade it just a little bit. But let's go into the... Expert. Yeah, expert or wait until you're really good table. Okay, so here I'm going to just rattle off my two choices, and they're both kind of in the same category for the same reason.
    73:02
    Choice number one is the Lando Calrissian Chronicles, or whatever it's called. Lando, the Lando table. Lando, yes, I agree. And the other one is the Boba Fett table. Yes. Both of those tables are fun to shoot around with, and they're kind of easy to look at in terms of it looks like a pinball table, right? It looks like what you would walk up to on a pinball table. However, figuring out where the heck the points are, especially on Boba Fett, is a nightmare. It is just like, where is anything? Now, once you deep dive and you go and look at the, read all the rules and you start understanding where they are, they become really rewarding tables. But you have to take that extra step. It's never going to just give it up on a plate to you with a whole bunch of playing. You can play that thing without ever reading the rules for days and have no clue still what to do, even though you can nail shots repeatedly, but you're not going to know it. And then all of a sudden you read the rules and you go, oh, you mean I was supposed to do this one and this one, and that's how, oh, duh. Yeah, exactly. Both of those are kind of the exact same way. What I like about Lando particularly, though, is once you start a mode, there are a lot of checkpoint progressions so that if you fail on it and you get the ball going again, boom, mode is still active, and you just start up right where you left off. So it's kind of nice on that end. Yeah, that one I also ranked accordingly with you as well.
    74:38
    But again, it's one of those ones that if you start on this table and you're used to playing regular pinball and you look to start mode, you'll shoot that mode start hole, it'll pop out, and nothing will happen. You'll go, well, what am I supposed to do here? I shot the mode start hole. It's one of those ones where you've got to shoot it four times. to start a mode, which is really silly. It shouldn't be flashing as available if it's not available. Like it should be like an arrow saying shoot here and then the mode start mode flashing to give you that feedback. It's just one of those design things that I just don't like in some of these Star Wars tables. But for me, even as an experienced player, the shots you need to make on that one just don't make sense. Everything has the same visual weight as the inserts. There's nothing to actually call out to you pull you into a shot. All the shots flash the same. There's no flashes versus regular lights. There's just nothing to actually give you a clue about what you need to shoot. And that's just not fun.
    75:37
    I think Boba Fett definitely is one that's hard. It's not easy to start modes, I found on that one either. You have to know where to shoot. And the ball is the heaviest ball in all of the tables. There's a good reason for that. like because it's not deep well it's not deep and it's not cross tom's cross uh that one's a table and for the most part i it's and zoltan very then there's two zoltans that send um i don't like the majority of zoltans tables we're going to get into no kind of the the what we don't like thing but i'm going to ask the people that are posting right now go ahead now your five perfect movies start throwing them up in the comment section because we're getting to that real quick um yeah the the the other one i think that zoltan likes a leaden ball he also likes a half table and when i say true when i say half table i mean the top half of the table is like nothing but a giant toy or like a wide open space for the ball yes to be and it's just like what is going on you know and everything is just it's a half table all your shots are just really close to the flipper and down low and the upper half is just kind of a wasteland of god knows what and i'm thinking particularly if you look at the solo table where there's just this gigantic millennium falcon blocking everything and there's no point in shooting up there yeah i definitely rank that one as a wait until better that one for me the comments where this one doesn't really have any flow and the way you start missions isn't really that clear the dmd instructions aren't the best either which makes it hard to work out what you need to do uh that one is one you really need to look at the game rules to understand what the hell you need to shoot yeah it's a it's a rough one the other one that i had as um avoid until better was darth vader um there's some odd odd shots on that one that really aren't natural in pinball but there's a flipper that like only travels just a little bit it's just a little teeny tiny flip and that's you'll never see a flipper do that in a real game and it changes the way the flipper dynamics work um the the mode starts are easy enough to get going but the combos you really need to be good at combos to do okay in that game as well my note on my note on vader was uh easy to keep the ball alive but very hard to figure out what to do yeah exactly right because i mean the my where the ball travels a lot of times it's completely the wrong spot for what you need to travel to in order to hit the target that it's asking you to but because god forbid you flipped one of those upper flippers you're now on this whole other roller coaster of this nowhere near being able to make the shot that you need to make yeah exactly okay i think it's probably time that we go to the ones that if we had a choice we probably wouldn't play that much i know i know the one that both you and i definitely agree on shall we say it at the same time it is masters of the force there we go that's the one that you should not play hands down mostly ever hate it hate it I think it's one of those ones that, while it really is inaccessible for most people when they first look at it, if you take the time, if you really take the time to get into it, you can crack the nut that is Masters of the Force, and it does have some good aspects to it, but it is really hard to draw them out when you're actually playing it for the first time. It's also just, it's a weird combination of shots that you have to do to activate things and they're not intuitive in the least and the only way that you even figure out what you're supposed to do is by accidentally doing it yeah it's true especially if you're shooting on the on the left half side which is the dark side of the table that side of the table is just like what is going on do you know what it reminds me of it reminds me of and this is a zoltan isn't it yes it is yeah so this one it's like zoltan cut two tables in half and stuck them together so the two tables he cut in half on the left hand side was no good gophers with the jump ramp that jumps the ball up the top and on the right hand side it was cedar magic with the rotating cube that you've got to shoot and he's literally cut those two tables down the middle and relayed them out and it's a bit of a disaster so um yeah i i'm not my favorite table um the other one that i i really ranked as uh avoid until better is how i ranked it is i actually i i did actually rank um calrissian chronicles table is that um it's it really because of the fact it doesn't tell you what to do like that one for me is like a hard pass. Well, it's not avoid because it's bad. It's just avoid because it's not intuitive. Yeah. Okay. Well, I wasn't super distinctive when I actually reclassified these.
    80:53
    That was the only one that really stuck out to me as one that you really shouldn't touch for the most part. The other ones, you know, a solo, I classify that as wait until you're better. So avoid it until you're better.
    81:15
    It's not a bad table. It's certainly not a Masters of the Force, but it's got its challenges. What did you think of, because I know my other one that I kind of avoid is the Octo Island.
    81:27
    Octo, you know what? That one, I ranked as a start here. Really? Yeah, and the reason being is that it has it's only got a few modes you need to start um and they they are simple they're simple objectives um but you do need to have combos the rules are pretty straightforward for each of those modes for me um and it's sort of um it's pardon the pun it's actually got a quite a zen like nature to it like there's no real music to it it's very atmospheric and that might actually be good for some players who are a little bit stressed out, they can go to Octo and chill out a little bit and just shoot the ball around. See, my note for Octo was, huh?
    82:14
    See, I can get the table. I sort of, like the first time I played that, when I had FX2 on mobile, I finished the table in the first five plays. Like, to me, I was able to get through those modes real fast and finish the game, basically. So to me, it was really easy to access. Like, you just keep on shooting things around, and you just get points, and it's good. So, yeah, it's weird. Interesting. So there you go. Is that it? Yeah, that's it for those. I mean, hopefully, folks, if you're, again, new to pinball, this has helped guide you a little bit. If you start learning, this is a big key thing, too, with pinball.
    82:57
    If there's a table or two that you like a lot, find out who the designer was. If you can find out who the designer was, odds are you might like some of their other tables. And that's going to give you a much stronger base of your skill level because you're going to be able to really accelerate on those tables and then take those skills over to other ones. So, like I said, I'm a huge Pat Lawler fan. his designs really helped me understand modes.
    83:32
    And when it comes to Zen, I really like, again, I like Thomas Croft's tables and I like Deep's tables a lot. I tend to not like any of Zoltan's tables.
    83:43
    And it's just because of this is how I, as a pinball player, react to the table itself. I know plenty of people that love those tables, tables that Zoltan has made. So it's about finding what connects with you.
    84:00
    And if you're trying to figure out what to buy next, then figure out who's responsible for these. It's real easy for the Zen designers. Just Google Zen pinball designers, and there's a list of all the tables and who designed what. That's a heck of a way to cut through the masses and figure out which tables you're actually going to purchase if you're going to be selective about what you purchase.
    84:28
    So there's one other comment, and this is a notable exclusion, just because it sort of didn't really fit in anywhere. But Jay William asked, you missed out Starfighter Assault. And Starfighter Assault for me is a start with table.
    84:46
    I'd already burned my budget on all the start with tables. I didn't mention it. But yeah, look, it's a good one to start with, I think. Easy to start mode. The ball is magnetized and halts for you, so it pauses it for you deliberately so you can make those tight shots up the top of the table and then shoot the mode start hole at the top. So actually, it forces you to stop the ball and take the shot, and that's good from that perspective, I think. I have that as an intermediate table, but it's mainly because it's a very busy table visually. It is busy. There is just stuff. There's a lot of animated stuff happening. Tons of animated stuff, and it can get really confusing as to where the ball goes. In a similar vein, I'm trying to figure out where... Oh, Might of the First Order, I believe. Yeah. It was a move up, too, for me. It's another one where it's an interesting table to play, but there's a lot visually that is confusing, because that's the one that has the sunken play field. and yeah i made a note that thing that mini play is going to trip you out oh in your first playing this table like it even does it to me now i flipped early on that table even though i played it countless number of times i mean i really wish that that lower play field just darkened until you were actually yes and then it would light oh it really it does it needs it so badly because it really is distracting um but apart from that it's it's fun like you know there's There's some fun things to do on that table. Yeah. All right, let's go with... It's definitely... It's got a whole lot of hurry-up modes in it, which makes it hard, though. Yep. Let's go over to my movie section here to finish out this lovely podcast. We had... Well... Pinball is just put Kung Fury as a perfect movie.
    86:40
    Okay. I don't even know what that movie is. So I think Pinball was an eye identifier, similarly with movies. We're not really into them. I don't think Kung Fury was even a full feature-length movie that was in movie theaters. I think it was a YouTube movie, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, right. Well, there you go. But then Jay Willen, he posted Lord of the Rings trilogy as perfect.
    87:08
    I'll let it slide, despite the fact that there's about a half an hour too much of endings on Return of the King.
    87:14
    And then he put Star Trek First Contact, which isn't that the Borg movie? I think, I'm not sure. Sixth Sense, yeah, I can see that. Terminal and The Sting, interesting choices. Then Pinball Whiz wrote Venom Says Hi.
    87:34
    Oh, maybe he's talking, what are you talking, I hope you're not talking movies, because Venom's not a great movie at all. No.
    87:41
    I think he's referring to something pinball related. I would think that, yeah. Yeah. Oh, Venom the Pinball Table. We were not talking about Marvel Tables today, buddy. Sorry. That'll be for another day.
    87:58
    I'm going to rattle off my other perfect movies that I had, the other five. That would be The Matrix, the first one.
    88:06
    Mad Max Fury Road. Iron Man. Heat. And Kill Bill. I don't have a complaint about any of those that's right they're all solid solid choices I would actually say you're going to have to help me out here I think it is the movie that was all in black and white Sin City is pretty good there's no doubt about it I don't know that I would call it a well I know for me perfect movies are those which every single time I watch them, I get the same feeling at the end. So I get excited at the same points. I feel the same satisfaction at the same points.
    88:51
    That's why, like, with J. Willem listing Sixth Sense, perfect the first time I viewed it. Second time I viewed it, it's pretty dang interesting because you're viewing it with a new set of eyes. But anytime you do it after that, it's kind of like the trick is done. so that's why I don't have that sense on that one believe it or not if we're talking Tarantino movies and I can't do the entire movie unfortunately which is Grindhouse his particular one which was Death Proof first half of the movie, eh, whatever I mean it's fine but it's not perfect but the car chase and the way that movie ends is perfection to a T I cannot recommend the last 25 minutes of that movie enough. It is absolutely my jam.
    89:44
    There you go. Interesting. Anyway, all right. Hey, thanks, everybody, for playing along with us. If you guys enjoyed this at all, if you want us to do this kind of discussion again about other Zen tables, like I said, we got all the Zen originals, whether they're the unlicensed versions, and there's the licensed versions of Zen originals, and there's all the marble tables that we can go through. If you want us to do that, please, I'm going to do what I hate doing. I hate watching YouTube and seeing this. But, hey, leave a comment.
    90:16
    Or send us an email or tweet us or send us a carrier preaching with a note on it or whatever. Yeah, you guys know where to reach us. I mean, for God's sake, right down there has been the old Twitter handle for us personal the entire time. Otherwise, just at Blockade works really well too. if you need the email it's blahblahblockade at gmail.com and then there's our website where all this stuff is there anyway which is blockadepinball.com slash episodes and there of course you can just find all the other previous links to our podcast that we've done if you want the audio versions otherwise head over to YouTube why don't you subscribe to our Blockade channel there where we always post you can go ahead and follow us here on Twitch TV so you don't miss out when we go live. And, hey, I'm wearing my Blockade t-shirt. Why aren't you wearing yours? Because you haven't gone over to... Where are we doing these at now? Redbubble, right? Redbubble, yeah. Yeah, redbubble.com, search Blockade. Go and print yourself up one of them. Yep, you get to pick the colors. You get to pick the style of the shirt. You can even put it on mugs. I think Jay Willen actually bought a mug. I think he posted it at one time. tasting coffee around on the internet at the moment. That's right. And that kind of thing actually supports us because then we can pay we use that money to pay for our web hosting fees. Domain renewals, etc. That's right. Alright. So, that being said, we went way longer than I ever would have thought that we could have on this particular podcast. This is what happens when we this is why we started doing a weekly podcast, Jared, to keep our To keep the episode length down. Yes. because we get so excited when we ask you you're doing a podcast then we cram too much information in but that's okay because the next time we do a podcast there's going to be plenty of this stuff and things our favorite alright folks thanks again buh bye see you later