A very special Dawn Spinball Podcast 232. Let's get at it. Major news has dropped and I've got a slew of things to talk about. This is going to be a fun one. And man, today I really kind of need it because this winter thing, it's really got to go. Let's get to it. We're going to cut that stuff short and get right into it. So I want to do a show today. It's been a while. I've been looking around and there's not that many active pinball podcasts at the moment. Either that or my playlist has atrophied. If there are some new podcasts out there that have popped up in the last six months that I don't know about, let me know if you're digging them. I know Dirty Pool's got one. I know Punk Rock's got one. I got to fill up my podcatcher because like everything that I've been listening to like it's like everybody's on winter holiday or something. So I wanted to do the thing that I like to do which is insert myself firmly into the void and put some things out there. Wasn't a whole lot to talk about so I crowdsourced and then boom you guys responded. Within minutes I had tons of topics to talk about, got a whole show outlined and then a funny thing happened. I got a Patreon update from my boy Kerry Hardy. I'm going live in a little bit. And I was firmly in the middle of my work shift, busiest part of the day, so of course I say, let me fire up the old YouTube and let's watch a little old Kerry live. So we did! And apparently there was like something brand new that was about to drop from American Pinball. Jason Knapp even jumped into my little post on Facebook and said, why don't you wait an hour before you record? So I knew something was gonna happen. And I had no idea anything was coming. And then boom, we got the drop. The information was new hires, new additions to the, what's looking to be pretty awesome, epic pinball team. Now we know that J. Michael Vincent or Bryce Dallas Howard, I forget his name. I don't wanna mess it up. We know that he has purchased the company, such as it is from Ametron, but he's invaded their space that's in there. So the company's still in East Palatine, Illinois, right? VIXAR TEMPERATURE And then they made some other hires of people that, while I'm sure are fantastic, I don't really know on an intimate basis. And they've said, they've come publicly saying that they've got a product that's coming out soon, it'll be a remaster, everybody's saying Circus Voltaire, fine, whatever. So it's all been like, okay, it's kind of AP doing AP things, let me see what they have to show for it. And today they picked up two people that I do know, that I've talked to, that I've met, that I've worked with, that I think are 100% assets for American pinball. Talking about Rob Rath from the Electric Playground and Nick Neitzel, also from the Electric Playground, also the homebrew dude that made the awesome Tony Hawk's Pro Skater homebrew. First debuted, I think, at Expo a year ago and then was back again at Expo this year. Play is fantastically a great homage to THPS, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Man, the game on the PlayStation that kicked off skateboarding and pinball. I'm looking at you, Thrasher Skate and Destroy. You disappointed me. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was like miles away from that. So like the dude can make a game, the dude can make a layout. He's technically savvy. He's working with Electric Playground. Their products, this company down in St. Louis region, making aftermarket toppers for games Tim Tim Kitzrow is one of the most successful pinball companies in the world. Tim Tim Kitzrow is one of the most successful pinball companies in the world. All good, man. My boys from this company that I'm really digging the independent stuff, the DIY spirit that they have, they have now taken spots over at American Pinball. So that's awesome, man. I reached out to Robin today congratulating him, man. I think that company is so much better for being affiliated with him. I don't think that everybody is moving to Illinois, but what I think is going to happen is that now there's like a project that's going to have a direction. Nick is working on a project as well. I know this guy was working on a pinball machine. Maybe they can get the license. Maybe they can find a way to keep Stern from sniping that license away from him. And then ending up over at JJP somehow. I'm going to sit down in about a year and find out what exactly was the story with the licensing for Sonic the Hedgehog. Because, man, Sonic's been bouncing all over Northern Illinois. It's crazy. Craziness. So, like, that dropped on us. So we've got Melvin as kind of the George Gomez of AP. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. We're a team to really put some awesome projects together in the other side of that factory and warehouse and get out some fire now, man. I'm excited about it. You know, before it was like, let's wait and see what they do. Everybody talks big when they start a company. But now I'm like, like genuinely interested. So like, this is good. And I knew nothing about this. Like I didn't get any rumors about this. No one tipped me off, no media release hit my inbox. Like this was fun. Like in real time as I'm putting this fun show together about the world of pinball and how much fun we're having in it. And then boom, this drops. Like I love it. I love it. I was like, I'm getting to the end of the week. I'm on the road. Everything is getting doldrums. The sun was out the other day. It was 50 degrees in northern Maine. And then all of a sudden yesterday, boom, foot of snow. It looks like January 3rd outside. So like I needed something to lift me up. There's not a pinball machine within 60 miles of where I'm at, at least not in this country. So like I got to have something. And then look, the pinball gods deliver. And I love it. All right. And that's all the news for today. I'm going to get to the bullet list. I've got the tent ordered, I'll talk about that in a bit. Let me get to the bullet list. Ok, little news points. Little news points for everything. Predator Pinball. Remember this game? Remember the widebody that could? The game that came out and initially was just teasing us for weeks and weeks till we finally got angry with it. At least those of us that are following the hobby. Y'all classic pinball players, you're playing Space Shuttle and don't even care about any of this stuff. But we finally got to play Predator in the flesh at Pinball Expo this prior year. And it turns out that gosh darn it, the game was actually super fun to play. And we were focusing on the assets. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't in there. Of course he's not. We can't afford him and release a pinball machine and then not charge $40,000 for each one. It just, he's too expensive. It's too expensive. But you know, the game was fun anyway. Ask Retro Ralph. He got his, he's digging it, dude. I love that forum. They're only making like under 300 of these. You know, they capped it at 300 and they're like, "'Get your order in by the end of the year." And now they're here saying, "'All right, well March 31st is the last time we're making any of these. So does anybody want one? Cause we could fire up the factory right now. We'll crank you one out.'" And I gotta say, like, I'm not in a position where I can just kind of over leverage myself and just pick up a predator, though I would like to, for, you know, unknown tariffs and how much it's gonna be $16,000 or something. I just, not with what I hear is rumored to be coming, I can't dump the whole budget on a predator right now. What's this gonna do to the predator price going forward if there's only 250 of these and the game is actually fun to play and it's a wide body? And if somebody cracks the code and makes an SD card you can stick in this thing and all of a sudden Arnold is all over it, this is kind of going to be a game to have. If I was on the fence looking for one more aspect to jump into this, I think that would push me over. But I just don't have the infinite room, infinite money glitch, you know. So here I am. But I will say Predator was super fun to play. I want to play it some more. I want to go over to Ralph's house and play it. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. New in box delivered to you at some point from the factory in India, Indiana? No, Italy. Italy, I believe, is where it is. All right. Got another segment for you. One of my favorites. We're going to do a multi-morphic minute. And I won't even go and disguise my voice this time. We'll just talk about the P3. I've been having a P3 moment or a multi-morphic moment. Which is it? Which is it? I was trolling around the other day. I must have been, of course, at work with a ton of work to do. So what do I do? I head over to Pinside. And there's not really a good way to sort for just like P3 machines that are available. You have to, at least I had to go through like each different game, like click on Cannon Lagoon, what's available? Click on Weird Al, what's available? Like is there a catch all? Can somebody let me know? Can you email me? Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. And let me know if I could just click a setting or a filter and just see all the multi-morphic products that are listed on pin side so I can kind of see who's near me, who's got one, you know? I'm fascinated by it. I desperately would like to have one, but then I've got one angel on my shoulder here, my friends that have owned them before that are like really trying to discourage me from doing it. And then I've got all the shiny pictures and all the games and things that I can play. And I got like the best licenses in pinball. Princess Bride, Portal, come on, Portal. I love Weird Al, man. I've always loved Weird Al. Final Resistance is super fun to play. Like I've got those teasing me. And then you know on the other side my other shoulder where the devils are I got Drain I got Cannon Lagoon you know it like back to reality So there I am pondering you know as I do like P3 man how do I get one So I was super excited One of the reasons I was looking forward to TPF besides all the fun people that are there besides all the cool booths besides getting to play all the other new, get the new Stern, the new JDPs, whatever, like I wanted to see what the new P3 game is. I have not heard rumor one about what's coming out with them. Except for Dungeon Crawler Carl, right? So like that's the only thing I've heard that's been attributed to P3 at all. Wally Minow, Max Owens I'm kinda sad to removething this pan record thing now, but this is point where I really like what they're doing, and I'm looking forever back at the end of the year with this part, but yeah, nice to watch. I knew that otra.... I knew... Oh... ..what are you talking about ambiente, Some of the coolest licenses in pinball. I think Barrels of Fun is going to give them a run for their money. These esoteric titles that Stern wouldn't do, JJP wouldn't do, you know, Princess Bride, like who would do that game? Who would do that game? Multimorphic did it. Barrels of Fun might've done it. Barrels of Fun might've done it. You know, uh, Final Resistance, of course, you know, Spooky, somebody would have done that. Um, Weird Al, who would take a chance on Weird Al? You know, like these kind of, you know, they're not, they're not like lighting the world on fire. Right. Jason S doomed bullet dizzy and the flashcards are stroll on the mapiliz Nano T Amazing Quick The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. The only fun about not being committed to one of these things is I still can go back and forth and fantasize like, let's pretend I'm going to spend all the family's money on this device. And then how do I feel about it? And then I can walk it back and get it out of my system. It's a way to play and flirt with FOMO without, you know, actually costing any money. You guys want to talk about Pokemon? I want to talk about Pokemon. So in between finding other reasons not to be productive at work, I've been trolling the Facebook pages and I've been seeing locations now have their Pikachu pros on location and they were having some issues. Some issues with Straight Down the Middle drains coming off of the left orbit. The orbit being that shot that wraps around the whole back of the game, man. We love orbits. We name our friends after orbits. What's up orbital Albert, the Pokemon wizard himself. And so the exit to the right orbit, yeah, the left orbit, you shoot the right, when it comes around to the left, it was slanging right between the flippers, right down the drain, which is unfair, especially to a game that's going to be attracting people that wouldn't typically play pinball and want to get into it. And then when they manage to hit a satisfying shot, boom, your ball is gone. And you know, that's probably your ball three, now you're done. And it's like, what a jip, what a piece of crap game. What is this crap? I'm not playing this again. I'm going to go back to claw games or whatever. Standing at the back of the за свидание Santos Stadium, what a sight to see! A time of immense necklace.. Uno de los esc승es tan calurosos foram destruidos por ven quiсetres итat nobre, Next decade's decision to use a tool used to eyelashes to write或 disappear الك---- Menge Mus . Against American Ap bromuni, silvered top lateral red standards. funky concept' HERO3 So what people have had to do is remove two of these hex-headed screws, bend that wire guide back about a quarter of an inch, and then just go straight through the existing hole in the wire form or in the ball guide, but then drill a new hole in your playfield, which like that just gives me the cringe, man. I've only drilled Stern playfields one time, and it was to add a metal apron to my Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. Any playfield? Is that going to upset my value? Like, what the heck is going on? Well, thankfully, Ulex Store was also one of the people posting this. And somebody in there tagged George Gomez, like, basically saying, George, what the heck is this, man? What's happening? And to his credit, dude responded. Like, he was right in there. Like, as soon as we found out about that, we have a fix. So I don't know what that means. I don't know if that means that, you know, what the playfields are already made. We got a stack of them. They're going into the LEs. Or if they've taken all those LE populated playfields, put them in the back porch, they'll throw them in a premium later, and then they're going to go ahead and run a new one. I think that's what they should do. But fix this ball guide, fix the press, and fix the dimpling, and fix this so I don't have to fix it myself. And all the LE owners don't have to fix it themselves. Thank God they ran the location pros first this time, because this is the kind of stuff that somehow slipped through testing. Now, when they're designing these games and they make these games to show off on the streams and the reveal videos and everything, these are like, you know, one of maybe four games that have been made and they're kind of handcrafted. You know, they weren't made on the assembly line. Eventually they do a production sample, which is like, okay, this one was made through the line, but it's still not one of the rank and file, you know, cranking them out 500 a day or whatever machines. So now that they're doing that, hopefully this was something that they found and there's not something else waiting, so then they can go ahead and run these LEs and not have this issue in there. Because man, can you imagine, you know, and think about this, some people are using Pokemon, this pinball machine, as a pinvestment, right? They're planning on getting this game, maybe they had multiple that they purchased, and they're gonna keep this guy in a box and keep him minty fresh somewhere in a storage locker that's climate controlled. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I don't even know why. I've never cared about a Pokemon card in my damn life. Now I'm over at Barnes & Noble like, oh, they don't have the Diamond Phoenix Violet version Tropical Fiesta Quest expansion packs available. Well, that kind of sucks. What the hell was I going to do with them anyway? I'm going to have a stack of cards at home the dog's going to eat. But like, I'm getting caught up watching videos on YouTube, watching people rip packs. Ooh, he got a foil Charizard. Isn't that amazing? The World Man Man Pinball Such a Gateway Drug Is Amazing What Else Do We Got Hexa Pinball Three Musketeers Saw A Little Teaser Come Out Of Course They Had The Whole Game Blacked Out Couldn See It But This Is Gonna Be The One Number One Confirmed Absolutely Gonna Be There Brand New Game At TPF This Thing Is Going To Be The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I didn't know this was coming, but can you believe that these guys are dumping even more content into their absolutely sold out Beetlejuice game? Like the heaviest hitter they've ever released. The game's amazing. 50 or so have cleared the line now. I think they're shipping here soon to go down to Texas. I'm not even sure exactly what the final count is, and it's been a week since I've been in the factory, so I can't really report back exact numbers. But these guys managed to license the song that was heretofore unlicensable due to cost, jumping the line. The Sonora song. The song, the swan song of the movie, right? The movie Beetlejuice at the end. Shake, shake, shake, Sonora. These guys got it. They got it and it's going into the game. So like, I'm gonna give them one of them. Because holy crap, dude. Like, I've been talking to them about them and of course I've asked like, hey, is this song in there? And they're like, you know, Don, we got some soundalike stuff. Brady Hearn is amazing. He'll do something that recreates a lot of the Calypso feel of it. But like, you just can't get that song. It's like, it's like a hundred times better. The Valley Company Subsidiary of Walter Kidde Co Inc Mirco Playfields Tim Tim Kitzrow Scott Danesi Except like all the time So I don know how they did it I don know I don know the details yet I hoping someday we sit down around the fire They fill me in on exactly what the hell went down But yeah they have the rights to use this song in the game now. That's a huge get. That's a huge packed in value too for customers that have already purchased this game. That got up at midnight and came to my damn house just to get one. And now they've got even more fantastic awesomeness in there. So I try to ask them like, Do you have an idea already for this? Like last I had heard, this was like, it's not gonna happen. And so now it's like, well, now that you have it, you can go create a mode for it or whatever. Apparently it's gonna be a wizard mode that's in there. I hope they do the same thing with the coding. I'm gonna push for this. I hope they do the same thing with the coding that they did with Evil Dead, where as you play, if you have a particularly good game and hit some achievement level achievement, you get some tokens and you can use those tokens to spend to play the wizard modes of the game. That's super fun. I try, I mean, you've seen the live streams. Like, I struggle to get to wizard modes. It happens occasionally, but it's not as frequent as I would like. So what I would like to do is earn some Beetlejuice tokens or roaches or whatever that I could use to pay to play these fun wizard modes in the game. I, they've done it before with Evil Dead. I don't know why they couldn't do it with Beetlejuice. I think it could be kind of fun, man. It could be kind of fun. So I'm hoping for that. But Sonora, I won't play the song because I'll get demonetized. I don't know, banned from Spotify, but dang it, The song is in the game. They didn't even need it. We were already happy. Now it's like spooky. Oh, you can, you could, I was gonna say date my daughter, but like that literally could, no, I'm not gonna say that. But like, like, uh, yeah, I will subscribe to your newsletter for sure. How amazing is that, man? Jumping the line is there. American Pinball was up next. And, uh, you know, I didn't have a juicy rumor up until this morning about American Pinball to report. Actually, all we got is news. I still don't have any rumors. Circus Voltaire, there's a rumor. So I do what all responsible, journalistic-minded podcasters do, and I made up a rumor about American Pinball, and I was just going to share that. Let's share a made-up rumor. Maybe we can will something into existence. So the rumor is that the Bally Williams remastering game that they're going to do is not Circus Voltaire, but is actually The Addams Family. Pause for effect. Can you imagine the uproar if American Pinball announced like we got it, we're rerunning the Addams Family, get on a dealer's list now or buy direct. But you want to sell 2000 games right now? I think that's how you would do it. You know, all that build up demand for medieval madness has now been satiated. You know, we got our monster bash. We got our attack from Mars. There's still a pent up demand for Addams Family. And some people will say that there's other Bally Williams games that definitely play better than it. The game is not really that great. You know what? The game would still sell 2,000 units immediately if you could redo it and have all the assets and everything, a better LCD screen, more modern components. I mean, come on. People are paying $15,000, $25,000 to have plus the cost of a donor game just to get these games remade with a brand new playfield, brand new components. People are out there doing it, you know, but they have to like one-off all these parts and everything. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. He lives in Washington State. He knows who he is. Shout out, brother. Solidarity. He actually kicked me this rumor. And, of course, it's completely absurd. I've heard it from nobody else. And I wanted to repeat it again because I thought that'd be super fun. Can you imagine, though? What would happen if, like, America Pinball, you know, they're going for the scraps of what's left, Bally Williams that hasn't been licensed, that Pedretti hasn't already eaten up, that Chicago Gaming Company's not over there sitting on, and they, like, come out so I think, you know, at a certain point in time, very popular. We can see, you know, Medieval Madness comes out, a thousand, sells out. Medieval Madness comes out, another thousand, boom, sells out. Another thousand, eh, sells okay. I think there's some still available. But like, Attack from Mars, loved. Monster Badge, why don't they run that one again? They want to sell a thousand or something. And then we get to Cactus Canyon. And Cactus Canyon, let me remind you, Cactus Canyon was debuted, the remake, from CGC, The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I missed out on Monster Bash. I'm not missing this one. I'm going to be on the CGC train. And then you finally get your game a year later. And then a year after that, you're still waiting for this code update. You're bored of the game. There's other stuff coming out. I'm sure there's tons of people that were very enthusiastic about this title, had it, got bored of it, got sick of waiting, finally sold it before this awesome code even came out. So I think that did a little bit to tarnish the shine of the remakes. And then we got Funhaus, right, from Padretti. Who else was making some of those 2.0 kits? That one that came out for Whirlwind was just looked like hot dog water. I mean, I get that it was, it's probably fun to play because there's actual modes and things in Whirlwind, but my God, Sui and the Grannies, like the corn boys, what the hell, dude? What the hell? So like that was lackluster. There was a 2.0 kit for Bright Up Pinbot. There was a 2.0 kit for Totan at some point. You know, and then we get Funhaus from Prodretti and it's just made with Pinball Brothers parts. And it's like, this looks like it was made from someone's leftover alien. And then to switch back and forth between the Rudy's Nightmare Code and the classic game, you have to basically reset the game each time, even on location, which is the first place that I played one of these. And I mean, it's Funhaus, it plays okay. You know, so it was dialed in. I'm not excited about it. You know, it plays okay. You know, so what do I do when I walk up to the machine? The same thing that everybody does when they walk up to a machine, you coin up. You put in your four quarters and then, okay, I want to play the new Rudy's Nightmare. Well, I couldn't because it was already loaded into the original one. So then I hit the button to switch over to Rudy's and now there's no credits. What the heck? I didn't lose my credit. It was just tied to the original code. So it's like you have to pick which one you're going to play, get the game to reset, then coin up and then you can, it's like, come on, man, who's going to do this? Who made it this way? You mean to tell me there's no way that you can put in one board system and have it play two sets of code? It's like they put in the original board system and then they put in like a separate one or found a way to hijack it just to run this Rudy's Nightmare and it's like that's so messy man. You know when I walk up to Evil Dead I push start and then it's like do I want to play Evil Dead 1, Evil Dead 2, I pick one and off to the races I go. That. Give me that. So I think each of these little points, Cactus Canyon being late, the code dump being late, Pedretti's game feeling like yeah it's not the quality that we want from a remake. All these things I think it's kind of soured people on the remakes in general. So now you're gonna drop a Circus Voltaire Okay, I'm just not excited about it. I'm not gonna rush out and get one that when there's other stuff coming, you know But then so I was a little sad about American pinball's position earlier today and then boom this happens I don't know Rob and crew are gonna set this this the ship, right man. I think we got some good minds here I think this speaks to good leadership and good ownership if you can get top talent and leverage their abilities David David Van Es & Jones The Tour replay part Subscribe to DIY for free at în We make tackle play of tackle, tackle, tackle, tackle. Iforoом, we make tackle play of tackle, tackle, tackle. So, why can't you just tackle play the game, tackle, tackle? Um, they, you know, Ninja Eclipse was all original, you know, competent. I liked the art. It didn't, like, you know, turn my cockles in the way that I would have wanted in order to purchase one. But I liked what he was doing, wanted to see what his follow-up was. Merlin came out with a lot of stand-up targets and exactly one ramp. And I'm kind of a ramp hoe. I kind of want more of those. When I have a physical ball lock, I want to watch the balls lock into something instead of just going into a subway. So it was like, I like it. I want to play it some more, but like I couldn't get excited enough to purchase one of these, but I think he's positioned great right now to release a banger. Everybody's talking about Whitewater 2. I think this is the place where it should have ended up. I want to see this into fruition. I want plastic roller coaster ramps. I want a giant Yeti up there that doesn't look like Dennis Nordman or whoever. Um, that, yeah, I want boulder bashing, uh, pop bumpers. This is better than just remaking Whitewater. Make a new game with everything that made Whitewater amazing. I'm there for it. Like, you know, remember the original High Speed and then High Speed 2? Like you don want to go back You know remember uh uh Comet and then Hurricane came out you know or maybe I have those backwards You know but when there like a sequel to the game um Elvira Scared Stiff was a lot All of these starters have been turned away So if somebody brings me a Yukon Yeti, I'm gonna partake, man. I'm very, very interested in that. I hope that's true. I hope that's true. If not, I hope it's another banger, man. Bring us another banger. Barrels of Fun. Rumors are all over the place. Barrels of Fun is doing Big Trouble in Little China. Didn't you hear? Didn't you hear? They're doing Dungeon Crawler Carl, but it's not next. They're doing The Neverending Story. And at first, you know, I'm thinking like, I don't know. When I don't know what's coming out, and I don't, they haven't told me anything. These are just rumors people are saying. When I don't know what's coming out, I can kind of fantasize about some things that I'd like to see from them, you know? And then once I hear a solid rumor a bunch of times from different people, I'm like, it becomes like settled, you know? So I heard NeverEnding Story and I'm like, oh, like cringy fantasy 80 movie again, we just had Labyrinth, like, and Winchester came out, it was super cool, like, I want something unexpected and that's like NeverEnding Story. The more I think about it though, and like thinking back on this film that I watched a million times as a kid, oh this is son of a crap. If I swear to God, if P3 is doing the NeverEnding Story, and they've got like another one of my childhood, I'm gonna have to get one. I'm gonna have to get one. I'm gonna have to order it under a different name, so I don't know what's for me. Otherwise I'll probably spit on it. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. But like I'm kind of like Childlike Empress, The Rockbiter. Did you know this about the never-ending story? Do you remember in the Willy Wonka movie, the Tim Burton one, the really super creepy one? Remember like the one dude that they cloned to be the Oompa Loompas? You know, it was like one actor and they just digitally made a bunch of them. Do you know that that actor was in the never-ending story? And you'll never guess who he was. Remember the guy with the racing snail? It was like him and the bat? Well, the dude that was piloting the racing snail is the same dude that was the Oompa The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. Would you please do Willow too? Let's just make a trilogy. Labyrinth, Neverending Story, Willow. We'll have the Fantasy Children terrifying film corner of the play area contained. I'm hoping for that. So supposedly they're doing that. And then supposedly they're doing Dungeon Crawler Carl. I'm getting further and further in the book. I'm having a good time. Princess Donut is definitely a thing. Look, if you think Dungeon Crawler Carl is stupid because you've never heard of it, like me, like I never heard of it. I thought it was stupid too. Go Google Princess Donut and hit Google Image Search and look at all this stuff. People are making so much stuff. Action figures, 3D prints, T-shirts, stickers. It's nuts. All this Princess Donut stuff. It's the cat from the book. Cat talks. Cat's got a tiara. Apparently, cat rides a velociraptor. I haven't even got to that part yet, but there's all these stickers of Princess Donut riding a dinosaur. I guess his name's Harold or something. I haven't gotten that far in the book yet. Spoilers, sticker makers, okay? Okay? But I want to play this game so bad now. Like I'm all in on the Dungeon Crawler Carl train. This is super fun. I'm reading a book for the first time, like a book for pleasure, and the first time in like 20 years because of pinball, because of rumors, because of barrels of fun. Dude, the heck is going on? Now, we've heard also, this is like three degrees deep into rumor town, but we've heard the Dungeon Crawler Carl, if it's coming out, is not next. And what I'm hearing on, it's not even next, next. Like supposedly it's NeverEnding Story, then it's something else, and then the Dungeon Crawler Carl with the donut. And so that's what I'm hearing. That's what I'm hearing. So what are we going to see for the rest of the year? We're going to see them building Winchesters, trying to get caught up on the Dunes. They're telling me that by the summer they want to be done with both of those titles. That seems ambitious. That seems ambitious. I mean, I've seen the factory and I've seen what it's like with people that actually build pinball machines. I'm gonna pick up some extra shifts, I guess, because I'm gonna end up with a damn never-ending story. I know it. I know myself. I know what's gonna happen. So we'll probably see that from barrels this year and then probably nothing else until the following year. Maybe we'll see Carl towards the end of 2027 when the, I don't know, 19th book comes out. Who else we got? Spooky Pinball. We all know what's next from them. And that brings us to Stern Pinball. All right, Stern's rumors pretty much strong on Transformers being a Generation 1 cartoon machine. No rumors at all about the play field or mechanisms or anything in it other than it's supposed to have, let's see if I can quote, the greatest mech that Stern's ever put in a pinball machine. I'll need to see that. What is the best mech that Stern's put in a pinball machine? The Bell on ACDC was kind of cool. The entire house from House of Horrors with Elvira was cool. The building from Godzilla I guess is probably like the most comprehensive mech. Wasn't that thing amazing? Like it dropped two different levels, it stored balls on top, it was a physical ball lock, it crumbled and then you had a multiball. And then the ramp wire forms also crisscrossed through there and dropping a level acted as a diverter as well. What a cool, clever mechanism. So if you're telling me you've got something better than that in Transformers, I'm interested. When are we going to see it? Probably soon. Let's see. The January release became a February release, which has happened before with Stern. I believe Foo Fighters are the same pattern. Jaws then reverted to coming out in January. James Bond was kind of a January release, but stumbled a bit because of licensing and then finally came out. So that brings us to, I don't know, April, May for another Stern game. That's crazy. Like, that in May, which will be here before we know it, there may be another title from Stern, and like, we're still just like on the Pokemon train, man. They could just release like a dumpster in May and still be busy with Pokemon all the way until the fall release. Whatever. Whatever. I'm cool with it. I'm cool with it. What else? A Fallout, I guess? I don't know, man. We'll see two more games from Stern this year, plus a remake. I wonder what the remake is. I wonder if that's settled science. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I think they're still cooking with Harry Potter. It's like if you still have people waiting for Harry Potter at full price, $15,000 CE, like just make those for those people. Don't make those people wait. Don't make those people wait. If you release a game, like say they still have like 110 orders for CEs of $15,000 for Harry Potter and then it's June and they're like, well, we want to release this game. Well, then you're gonna get to get a ton of orders for the new game, especially if the rumors are true and it's that red-shoed, blue-rat-bastard Sonic game from Steve Ritchie. It's gonna be amazing. I'm gonna have to have it. I want to have the good version. It's gonna have cool effects on the cabinet, apparently. You know, but then you're gonna get a deluge of orders, and then that's gonna make those last 110 Harry Potter people have to wait. Don't make them wait. Just make it. I'll be just as excited to waste all the family's money on a Sonic the Hedgehog in June as I will be in September. What if they have never already started? What if they had Dungeon Crawler, Karl? Gosh darn it, they're gonna grab up my licenses that I want made. I hate that, I hate that. Okay, we'll end with this, we'll end with this. We already talked about Hexa. Let's talk about everybody's favorite Florida pinball company, the Ramps Corporation, LLC, I think is what they're called. Their next game was apparently not Ramps Road Trip. Played it at the first pinball at the beach. It's now been a complete year, and it's been absolute radio silence on Ramps Road Trip. A game that, I mean, had some potential to be a game that released, probably wouldn't be a great seller, had some interesting ideas, had a rotisserie mechanism that essentially looks like Winchester stole it and approved on it. I'm sure they didn't, they were just made in parallel, but what are the odds that you bring back a Gilligan's Island-style turntable to a pinball machine and two companies do it serendipitously all at the same time? Ridiculous, ridiculous. Well, I think, I think they're working on something. I think they're doing some private label work. And I think what ramps road trip, I mean, the ramps corporation of Florida LLC is going to come out with is none other than pinball homebrew lover's own Monster League Hockey. And I'll be here for it, man. I want to see that game. I'm on a list to get one. I'm on a list to get everything. What's new, Don? Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. Get at me! What other podcasts are you listening to? I gotta refresh my list. Also, let me know what you think. Follow the Facebook page and the Discord. Patreon.com backslash Don's Pinball Podcast. Thanks to all the friends that interact with me. Keep me sane during these long holidays of work that I spend far away from the family, far away from Benton. Guys are over there doing deals for songs for Beetlejuice. I'm over here. I can't even play any pinball. That's it. Alright, be cool guys. I'll talk at you.