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Episode 27: Barrels of Speculation - So Many New Pinball Machines in 2025!

The Flipside Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·51m 47s·analyzed·Mar 17, 2025
81253a99-c1ea-4072-81e3-a984b0e6b661
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Retro Ralph speculates on 2025 pinball announcements, criticizes affordable pinball startups, and hints at confirmed Venom accessory.

Summary

Retro Ralph discusses speculation around upcoming pinball releases in 2025, focusing on Barrels of Fun's rumored next titles (Dune, G.I. Joe, or Goonies), Multimorphic's Portal platform game, and alleged confirmation of a Venom topper accessory. He also critiques Wonderland Amusements' three-quarter scale pinball Kickstarter for low backer numbers and poor mechanics compared to established alternatives.

Key Claims

  • Wonderland Amusements' Kickstarter had only 549 backers despite claims of being 'wildly successful'

    high confidence · Retro Ralph checked the Kickstarter live during recording and reported the exact number

  • Barrels of Fun's next game is most likely Goonies (with Dune and G.I. Joe as alternates)

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph bases this on a pirate ship sighting at Barrels factory tour during Twippies event

  • Multimorphic's Portal is 'basically all but confirmed' and will be shown at Texas Pinball Festival

    high confidence · Retro Ralph states this directly, framing it as industry knowledge

  • A Venom topper accessory announcement/teaser is expected the week of January 17th

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph cites a 'very credible source' but declines to name them; states he is 'Papa Duke confident' about this

  • There are approximately 7-8 US-based pinball manufacturers

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph states this from memory with uncertainty ('I want to say... I think it's eight')

  • Pawlowski Pinball offered to help Wonderland Amusements but was declined

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph reports this as information from Pawlowski Pinball's video and conversations

  • Arcade1UP sold up to 4 million units total (to retail, not necessarily through to consumer)

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph cites an Arcade1UP advertisement but notes this is unconfirmed as company is not publicly traded

  • Godzilla's multiball drop lock moment is a memorable, repeatable feature that 'never gets old'

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph shares personal experience with his wife's reaction to the mechanic

Notable Quotes

  • “There are certain things that don't downsize well, right? And there's been other companies that have tried to downsize pinball, and I'd say they become come-and-go products.”

    Retro Ralph — Core critique of the Wonderland Amusements affordable pinball concept

  • “549 is a really really low number to me for a product... I just don't see how they would do this with 549 backers.”

    Retro Ralph — Skepticism about Wonderland's commercial viability

  • “I think that modern pinball manufacturers have done a really good job incorporating the LCD, the digital piece of the pinball machine, into the physical part.”

    Retro Ralph — Explanation for why Multimorphic's pure digital/physical hybrid hasn't gained traction

  • “If it's Goonies, I would love that because that movie for me... I watched the crap out of that movie.”

    Retro Ralph — Personal preference driving speculation about Barrels of Fun's next title

  • “I'm Papa Duke confident about that”

    Retro Ralph — Playful confidence metric when reporting rumored Venom topper

  • “Do I appreciate it from an engineering standpoint? Absolutely... I just think the pinball community has an... I think that pinball community hasn't really fully accepted [it].”

    Retro Ralph — Balanced assessment of Multimorphic's technical merit vs. market adoption

Entities

Retro RalphpersonBarrels of FuncompanyWonderland AmusementscompanyMultimorphiccompanyJerrypersonArcade1UPcompanyPawlowski Pinballperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Wonderland Amusements' three-quarter scale prototype ball moves too fast and doesn't mimic traditional pinball mechanics

    medium · Retro Ralph: 'the ball just, it's a smaller ball and it just seems to be going really fast. It just doesn't mimic to me the mechanics of an original'

  • $

    market_signal: Low backer numbers (549) on affordable pinball Kickstarter despite claims of widespread interest, suggesting price isn't primary barrier to entry

    high · Only 549 backers days into campaign; compared unfavorably to Arcade1UP's 10,000+ unit sales of single SKUs

  • ?

    machine_intel: Pirate ship prop observed on assembly rack at Barrels of Fun factory tour, suggesting possible Goonies-themed game in development

    medium · Retro Ralph observed pirate ship on subassembly rack during Twippies factory tour; later recognized as potential Goonies hint

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Multimorphic Portal may be the inflection point for broader acceptance of digital-physical hybrid platforms in pinball community

    low · Retro Ralph speculates Portal could be 'that turning moment he needed' for wider adoption

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Wonderland Amusements declined expertise from experienced pinball designer Pawlowski despite being new to the industry

    medium · Pawlowski Pinball offered help with geometry and parts sourcing; offer was declined by Wonderland

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.155

0:00
The Flipside Podcast is produced by Retro Ralph.com Hey Guys! Welcome back to another episode of The Flipside Podcast. I'm your host, Retro Ralph. I'm pouring myself a drink right now so sorry I'm a bit distracted. This is episode 27. I can't believe we're on episode 27 already. Again, I couldn't be more happy with the way that the podcast is being received. We won a Twippy award. All right. Breakout creator of the year. The Twippy is going to go to Retro Ralph. Oh my gosh. Retro Ralph. No way. Let's pass that trophy over. Oh my goodness. Oh, that's so cool. For best breakout content creator, which I think is really cool considering the podcast is probably coming up on a year old, so it's not quite a year. But man, it's been such a great year and we're going to talk about the new year we're in right now because there's so much speculation on new products coming out. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. We actually have a ton of topics to talk about. But as always, before we get into all of that, a quick word from our sponsor, Flippin' Out Pinball. Are you looking for a new pinball machine, a used pinball machine, or to trade in your old pinball machine for something new? Look no further than Flippin' Out Pinball. They can handle all your pinball needs, they ship anywhere in the United States, and they will give you the best experience in the business. Check out the link to Flippin' Out Pinball in the video description for more information. Now, back to the video. Alright, let's get into it. So, the first topic I want to cover, obviously the title of this podcast was Barrels of Speculation and we're going to get to Barrels of Fun really quickly here. But, before I do that, I want to talk about something that has come up. I get this a lot and I think it's because, for those of you that don't know, I started YouTube covering a product by a company called Arcade1up. That was sort of how I started YouTube. Now, prior to that, I was big in the arcade space. As far as like my interest in that hobby, I had full-size arcade games. I had emulation devices. I had been messing with maim and emulation since around like 99. So when this product came to market, it was all those things where I was like, man, you know, this is this could be kind of interesting and I had been in the hobby of collecting arcade hardware, but I didn't actually have any full-size arcade games at that time. So anyways, I got into I got excited about these products because it was so I think really, those products were really cheaply made at the time, but it seemed exciting at the time because there wasn't anybody that was really doing that kind of thing to try to like downscale an arcade game to put into your house. important facemask of the month It really didn't meet the expectations that I had at least and I know a lot of other people as well. So then they started modifyingifying them and doing all that stuff. But why I bring this up is that ultimately the thing might have looked aesthetically okay, but the parts that made it up were not of good quality, right? So everyone would really like modify them anyway. So now you'd, but at the time those things were a lot less expensive than they are now. And then they were all just made in China, right? They're made in China as cheap as possible to maximize the profit margins of Arcade1UP. So fast forward to current times, what Arcade1UP did for arcade gaming, if you want to call it that, or the arcade game hobby, this company Wonderland Amusements is trying to do for pinball. So they're trying to bring a smaller version of a pinball machine. Now, I don't, I am one that tries to be reasonable with my criticisms, But my instant reaction to this was just that there are certain things that don't downsize well, right? And there's been other companies that have tried to downsize pinball, and I'd say they become come-and-go products. Like, people get them, they realize, eh, this isn't really what I want, and I know there's that argument of, well, not everyone can afford a brand new pinball machine. And I can fully get on board with that argument, but here's the thing, though. There are people that buy these smaller arcade one up three quarter scale ones and fill rooms with them, right? So they spend, they end up spending thousands of dollars, thousands upon thousands of dollars. And then if you count the amount of money they put into modifyingifying them, it ends up being quite a bit. So at the end of the day, they could have maybe bought or built their own really higher quality DIY arcade kit or something like that, or bought a multi-cade or the polycade, this which is on the wall back here. So, you know, people might not look at it that way, or they just don't know those other áveis Eve Lake keeps Gadducks eksist, départENNEVELEBEBEbestickmejo시면ewaknevesmm Jesús deućie аough, can't bíf25 Crystal,medic, theme carrier J officer
Flip N Out Pinball
company
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Twippiesevent
HomePincompany
Deep Root Pinballcompany
Portalgame
Labyrinthgame
Godzillagame
VP Cabscompany
Dungeons and Dragonsgame
Rocketmangame
Kimperson
Flip N Out Pinballcompany

design_philosophy: Modern pinball success depends on memorable, repeatable 'moments' that blend physical and digital elements seamlessly

medium · Retro Ralph notes Godzilla multiball moment as example of feature that 'never gets old'; contrasts with Labyrinth's potential lack of marquee moment

  • ?

    product_strategy: Multimorphic's modular swappable artwork system at ~$3,500 per module attempts to reduce upgrade costs vs. full machine purchase

    high · Retro Ralph describes system: 'magnetic artwork so you take it off, put the new artwork on' to swap themes

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Venom topper accessory teaser expected week of January 17th from unspecified source/manufacturer

    medium · Retro Ralph: 'I believe this week we will have finally a teaser video or something with the Venom topper' with 'Papa Duke confident' sourcing

  • ?

    business_signal: Wonderland Amusements has raised ~$560,000 but unclear if sufficient to reach profitability with small team and manufacturing overhead

    medium · Retro Ralph: 'they haven't even raised a million dollars, it's $560,000... I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get paid or make money'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Multiple premium glass options emerging: Invisiglass (JJP/Multimorphic), HD Glass (Stern), Voodoo, PDI, Pin Glass; price ~$2.49

    high · Retro Ralph discusses glass options and potential Texas Pinball Festival discount availability

  • ?

    industry_signal: Approximately 7-8 US-based pinball manufacturers currently active, down from historical peaks

    low · Retro Ralph: 'right now I want to say what we have like eight of them... I think it's eight. I can't remember'

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival will feature Multimorphic's Portal game and new glass product options

    high · Retro Ralph: 'I think at Texas Pinball Festival, it'll be there' and predicts glass sales/demo opportunity

    • 6:32
    I'm going to look it up right here. And, you know, I just, I just don't feel like it's going to be possible to come up with something that's really all that great. So I'm going to look it up right now because I want to see where they're at as far as like how many people have backed it. Underland Amusements. So we're looking it up right now just so I can get a live view of where it's at. Because I, people were saying this was like a wildly successful Kickstarter and I didn't really feel that way when I saw it. So right now it's up to, so we're days into this now and it's only up to 549 backers. I don't feel like that's a lot. Like if you think about it, right? I'll just and I'm and we're going to jump to the topic at hand here for a minute, but it's relevant. So this is this is these guys Wonderland Amusements are trying to make pinball affordable for everybody, right? I think I like that effort. That's very cool. You know, it's a cool idea. It's a cool concept because I do think that pinball should be I don't think that pinball isn't accessible to everybody. There are tons of on location places where you can play pinball. And if I didn't, or if I wasn't in the market to own games, or I wasn't Qu AutoCentral,
    8:21
    Quaze sama Indy R tomb flipped The CAM My memoriam MY How To To Find New Actions creatives настasius If you really think about this, right? I'm comparing it to the arcade one-up space because that's something I know a lot about.
    8:53
    So they were selling at the heyday. They were easily selling 10,000 of a single game, right? So let's just say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They could sell 10,000 of those. And they've sold up to I think I think they've advertised. I don't know. There's no way to confirm this because arcade one-up is not a publicly traded company. But they I think they've said something like they've total total sold was like 4,000 units I keep in mind sold means sold to retail partners So it doesn't necessarily mean sold through to the consumer so that could mean that a lot of these are sitting in warehouses and stuff which I bet there are but 549 is a really really low number to me for a product that all of these people that already buy all these that that to me is probably representative of the I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not a fan of pinball, but I do know that there are some pinball companies that are probably a lot of the consumers that were already buying those ¾ scale products diving in, but it's shocking to me how low that number is. 549 is low. And the thing is, we've seen companies like Deep Root come and go. There's been a lot of pinball, traditional pinball companies that have not been able to make it successful for various reasons. Bad business practices, you know, whatever it might be. Parts availability. So, you guys, I don't know, I just don't have the size and scale to produce the units. A 549 is just so low if you really think about the entire hobby. I mean, I don't know. Call me crazy and please put it in the YouTube comments. That seems extremely low for something where there were people buying up 10,000 of these three-quarter scale arcade games in 2018 and they can't even get to 1,000. They're not going to get to 1,000. There's no way. There's no way at... if you watch any Kickstarter, and I hope they do, but I'm just saying any Kickstarter like this, you watch these, it's a ramp up real quick in the beginning, and then it falls off a cliff, and then every now and then you get a little bump at the end, but I don't think you're going to get another 500 or 450 units. I just don't see it happening. So to me, I don't know what it takes to start a pinball company. And granted, they're using factories in Hong Kong, Trini di Lombardi, John Papadiuk, Black Water, translitedragon, But I'm sorry, I thought my mike was a little hot there, so I apologize if I sounded a little loud, I just load it for everyone. And to say it's fully funded in two minutes is kind of not true being truthful because the fully funded to me would mean, alright we've we we're starting this pinball company with $100,000. I just that's not a practical goal. There's no way. So there's a video out there. I'd love for you guys to go watch. There's this guy his his YouTube channel is Palowski Pinball. He's been making this pinball since the early 90s. I've been trying to make a smaller scale pinball machine for a long time, but he also, he writes software to design pinball machines and things like that. He's a really smart guy. And I really appreciate some of the points he brought up. I would suggest going to watch his video. He kind of shows like, how do you, how are you profitable? They have like five big executives running this company at the, at what the amount of money they've raised right now, unless they have outside investment that they're not talking about. I don't see how at all, this is a profitable endeavor, especially at $500. As says
    12:33
    дорог business curve, Today i will teach you how to!.. 小 People are just less interested or they going alternative routes They like wow I poured so much money into this when I could just have a single polycade or I could just have some other DIY So anyways we see where this goes I gonna have a link to Pawlowski Pinball in In this video or the podcast so you guys can check it out. But it was just interesting his take on it because he, he, now granted he's much smaller scale. He is trying to make a smaller scale pinball machine. That project has been put a little bit on hold, I think. I think but it is something he still has aspirations to do. As a matter of fact, I've talked to him a couple times and he offered to help Wonderland Amusements with their pinball machine and they declined. So it's kind of interesting because they're building pinball machines with really very little to no knowledge about building a pinball machine which is also kind of a concern. And he's got a lot of experience in sourcing the parts and building the machines and making sure the geometry is correct. All things that are really important. When I watch back that Wonderland Amusements video, the thing that mainly concerns me is the ball just, it's a smaller ball and it just seems to be going really fast. It just doesn't mimic to me the mechanics of an original, you know, a, what we would consider a traditional pinball machine. So, I don't know, I don't wish them ill will, I don't wish them bad luck, I just think that everyone's saying this is uber successful and I look at it and go, they haven't even raised a million dollars, it's $560,000 and they haven't even raised a million dollars. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get paid or make money. I just don't see how they would do this with 549 backers. So I don't know. And I think it's kind of come to a standstill. So anyway, that's my take on that. But one thing I will add to is you compare them to someone like Home Pin. So Home Pin is a pinball company out of China. Their stuff, I've seen some videos on it. I've never actually experienced one in real life. I don't know. Maybe there's been some at, I've never, I don't know. Maybe I've just never paid attention to it. I don't know if there's ever been one at Pinball Expo. Maybe they're there every year and I just don't notice them or I don't think that company comes but maybe someone brings one. The Blues Brothers is the latest one that they released. Their stuff seems a little cheap at their prices and I want to say their price is more like $4,500. I can't remember exactly. So we'll see where it goes but let's jump to the topic at hand. We have a couple more topics we're going to cover. So barrels of Fun. What the hell are they doing? We went on the tour during the Twippies and I felt like, first of all, I have nothing but amazing things to say about Barrels of Fun. They are just like class act, top quality. I have no doubts in their ability to make a great machine. I think Labyrinth was very successful for a first game that they released. Granted, Labyrinth is a little niche. I enjoyed that movie as a kid, but I know that some people just don't I'm a fan of the movie, I really loved it, I think that genre of sort of fantasy movies in the 80s was really popular and I also think it was just creative, like there was a lot of creative things going on at that time. Now it's just funny because whenever you watch literally anything that has about Labyrinth, there's always a comment on David Bowie's private area, but whatever. I don't know, they always bring that up. As a kid, I didn't fixate or notice that at all. But I think as an adult, you kind of do because you're like, oh, okay. Maybe you could have wore something under the tights. I don't know. But anyways, this is a family show, so let's not go too far down that direction. So let's see, what are the things, the strongest rumors for Barrels of Thawne? Are really these three. Dune, G.I. Joe, and the Goonies. And we covered this on another podcast. I'm a fan of the Dune 2, but I don't really like, I don't have, and I think they made more modern ones. I wasn't like this, this hardcore Dune fan. However, I was a really big fan of Dune 2, the computer game. So, and I can always remember like, Shhh, Harkonnen units deployed. Like that, that game was very cool. And it blew my mind at the time because sound cards in computers could only do so much. And at the time they were I'm a fan of the pinball machine. I've been exploiting a lot of great, great, the soundtrack on the game was good, the audio, all the voice acting was good. So I loved Dune 2, the computer game. But I don't necessarily have a lot of nostalgia for Dune and I don't know if people... Here's the weird thing about nostalgia. Because nostalgia obviously is a great way to sell a pinball machine. I mean obviously. Like that is an obvious thing that these companies exploit. PINBALL PINBALL PINBALL PINBALL I'm super interested in now if if that is the game they make, I will definitely want to play it because they make a high quality game. So I think that could be it could be interesting, but it would be less interesting to me. GI Joe. Obviously, I watched the cartoons growing up as a kid, I had the toys, not all the toys, obviously, but I had some of the toys. I think I said this on a prior podcast episode, I had a friend that had like the the whole base and the aircraft carrier and all that stuff. I didn't have all that. I got to play with it at his house, but I didn't have all that. So G.I. Joe is just one of those ones, yes, absolutely, I think you could do amazing things with that property. But the one that I'm most interested in, and this one only came to fruition because there was some weird stuff, and I honestly don't know who put it there. I don't know if they put it there to mess with us, I don't know if they put it there to throw us off the scent, but at the Barrels of Fun Factory, on one of the sub-assembly racks, Subassemblies are like basically these components that go into a pinball machine as a separately built unit that gets put in. So where the subassemblies were being put together, there was a pirate ship on top of a rack. And I was like, okay, that's weird. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but then after when I was looking back at some of my pictures, I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then someone, I don't know if they did it or if Colin at Kinetisys did it, but the skeleton key We did guess it, but we're giving our hand to the But if it's Goonies, I would love that because that movie for me, I don't remember the year Goonies came out. Maybe it was 1985, I think. I'm not sure. But I watched the crap out of that movie. My sister too. Now, interesting enough, my sister is six years older than me. So I'm saying like I, like I, like I say that sliding scale of nostalgia can kind of go. It's like, I don't know, it can go five years. It can go 10, especially with like, I have friends that are in their forties. I'm not like, oh my gosh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that is a property I enjoy, but it was more for the movies, like not the toys. Like I didn't play with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys, right? But I did see the movies like go Ninja, go Ninja, go, you know, Ninja, Ninja, crap, like all that stuff. That was kind of cringy. But anyways, whatever, Vanilla Ice, drop that zero. We got it. I'm going to get with the hero. If you know that movie, if you know that movie, that was the movie. I said that to a girl once. It didn't, it didn't at all result in anything positive, but I was, I was such a big Vanilla Ice fan. I think it was in like sixth grade. There was this girl, Megan. I really liked her, but she liked the bad boys and I wasn't really a bad boy back then, you know? I mean, it's not like I'm a bad boy now. I'm never really a bad boy, but, uh, uh, she was dating this guy and I, I busted out and I'm like in the hallway, I'm going to bust it out. I'm going to say it. I'm gonna see what happens. I'm gonna let this fly. Oh yeah, Kat! Words of wisdom. Drop that zero and get with the hero. Hey, Megan. Drop that zero and get with the hero. And it didn't work. I think she just laughed at me and walked away. But it worked for Vanilla Ice. So, hey, what do you know? I don't know. So anyways, where the hell am I going with this? We're all over the map now. What was I talking about? Oh, Goonies. So, I mean, I mean, there's so many cool moments in Goonies. There's so many good moments in that. There's so many great, the soundtrack, Cindy Lauper, like if they can get all the audio, if they can get all the audio licensed and for use within the game, holy crap, man. I just think there could be such a great, like incorporating one eyed Willie incorporating the, the imagine the back glass showing the scene of, um, like, uh, remember when they're sliding down the water slide and then they, they, caught a cop last seven plus all in through in the backlash like beauty's all the way on this one like it is good he's unlock is not a arrange and that is that got a terrific read for them being in U? type that kinda faith in barrels of fun today would do new news just Duska that I think they did fabranteços I'm a fan of Pinball Justice. The only thing I'd like to see a little bit more from Barrels of Fun that I don't think I saw in Labyrinth, there aren't like mega moments like Stern in Jersey Jack, like if you look at like Jersey Jack, like Rocketman, Multiball, like in Elton, you know, like there's I'm talking about modern machines right now. But like if you can code in really fun, memorable pinball moments, that's where they can like grab you. Like my wife Kim, even though she's not a big pinball player, if we're playing Godzilla, and she's pretty good actually, I'd say like if she really wanted to, if she really wanted to, she's good without having understanding skills of playing pinball. But she's naturally become better over time where she's not like double hitting the flippers and like, you know what I mean, the stuff that you do in the beginning when you don't know what you're doing, you know, so she has a sense of control, but she can almost always consistently damage the building get it to drop lock the three balls and get the multi ball and when that happens Like her face lights up like it's it's a moment You know it's something in pinball where she's it's memorable to her and even what's cool is I've always said that that moment in Godzilla is one that
    24:05
    It never gets old it doesn't like I think that's why Godzilla is one of those like bolt-to-the-floor games because that moment doesn't get old It's like always a fun moment every time it happens I don't think I find that and maybe I just haven't played it enough but I I don't feel like there's a major moment in labyrinth and maybe there is if you're listening to this and I have not obviously gone all the way through the code on labyrinth so I haven't seen the whole game so maybe there's something in there that uh that does have that moment but anyways so I hope it's Goonies that's my pick even though I was always sticking with G.I. Joe I don't think I think I might be wrong on that I think it might be Goonies I think G.I. Joe would come from them though because it makes sense to me that I'm not sure if you're familiar with the G.I. Joe fan group, but I think it's Bob. I can't remember the guy's name over there. His involvement with the G.I. Joe fan groups and stuff, it just makes that rumor completely make sense that they would do it at some point. So that's my final final on Barrels of Fun. I think it's going to be Goonies. So please let me know if you think that's exciting because I think that's very very exciting. So the next piece of information I want to talk about really fast is Multimorphic. So Multimorphic, for those of you that don't know, I covered this if you're If you knew my life prior to getting so much into pinball, I did a lot of arcade stuff. I had several other podcasts. And I did a, I can't find it though. I was trying to find it. I did a podcast about virtual pinball. And in that podcast, and this is like five years ago or something, probably close to five, maybe four. And in that podcast, I was talking about VP Cabs. So VP Cabs was one that was featured on Shark Tank. And they were kind of one of the first that sort of came out with legit licensed I think I believe they worked with steam or I can remember not steam sorry with uh zen studios I don I don know the legalities of it But when you bought the machine you were able to download steam games So they were they were doing it in a legal way right They weren just like giving you pinball code that they didn have that they didn have the rights to write It wasn like you were getting free games or anything like that So so there was I think there was some obviously like they were doing it above board But anyways I had bought one of those And and I enjoyed it But also I wasn I'm a fan of pinball, so it was kind of one of those things where it's like, oh, this would be cool if it's in the collection, but I didn't play it that much.
    26:24
    But, you know, when I was covering that and getting more into virtual pinball at the time, I was like, well, what's this thing, Multimorphic? Because I thought in my mind it was like kind of a hybrid. It was like part digital and part physical. So it had like digital and analog aspects to it, which I think is pretty cool. But it goes a step further. So if you don't if you're not familiar with it, Multimorphic is a platform. Grr. If you want to change it from Princess Bride to Weird Al, you buy the Weird Al module. I think these things go for like $3,500 or something like that. They're not very cheap, but they're cheaper than a brand new pinball machine. And you can have them get you the artwork. The artwork is magnetic, so you take the artwork off, put the new artwork on. So it's kind of cool. Like, it's a cool concept, but I just feel like as a whole, the pinball community just hasn't really like fully accepted. Like, there isn't like wide scale acceptance of this. So I don't think they have a big fan base. Like, I just don't. Do I appreciate it from an engineering standpoint? Absolutely. I got a chance to meet Jerry, the owner, and I believe the original creator of it. Very nice guy. And I think he has, he's very much married to this vision that he has. And there are some definitely some innovative things. They go above and beyond with a lot of the devices they build and everything. So they build quality. It's not like they build junky stuff. And it's a very, it's conceptually very cool. I just think the pinball community has an So, how do you think that came to be? I think that Pinball Podcast was a good initiative. Maybe not all Pinball Podcasts were as successful as they thought they would have been. I think that Pinball Podcasts were a good Initiative, and I think that that was the reason why Pinball Podcasts were so successful. And I kind of feel like this is my reason why I think they haven't. I think they haven't because most modern pinball manufacturers have done a really good job incorporating the LCD, the digital piece of the pinball machine, into the physical part. And so there's like this cohesiveness between, hey, I'm going to do a video—like they've evolved video modes to do a video, or at least a video mode. They've evolved video modes to do a lot more where it's interacting with the ball, with the things on the back glass. Like I'll take Dungeons and Dragons for instance. The dungeon crawl, on the Dungeon Craw feature, the dungeon pops up. You shoot the ball and it closes. Now all of a sudden, the back glass shows you're in the dungeon. Now you have to shoot your first shot to move forward. You hit the spinner directly in front of you and all of a sudden the LCD does this cool like fast motion forward. So it's like a cool blend between the two. And I think that's where, because the modern, excuse me, because the modern pinball manufacturers have done that so well, and they keep evolving that, I think people are happy with that. And they don't want what P3 offers. Now that just from the blend of like sort of this virtual and physical world.
    29:19
    Now do I think, he's been at it for a while, But the new game that is definitely highly rumored and it's basically all but confirmed at this point is Portal. I never played that. Gaming, I really like stayed in the retro world. I never really, and I guess maybe Portal would even be considered retro at this point. I don't know how old that game is. But I just, there was a period of time where I sort of just stuck with retro and I didn't really adopt anything more modern. I don't really play modern console gaming. So, and at this point, really all I play is pinball and I play that on a daily basis. So that's kind of my world. I don't, I only have so much time in a day, so I have to pick one. I can't do all of it. Right. And for me, it was just modern. Just never was that interesting to me. It just, I don't know. I kind of, I just never gravitated toward just continuing that on. But, uh, but I think portal has some cool concepts in it, knowing a little bit about it that could translate really well. And the rumors are that he's really done a good job on this game, but will this. Beatrice
    30:47
    Still, I do want to clear up some things. If you use a the zoning are S Dj Mashla letting So, I just, I don't know. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited. I think at Texas Pinball Festival, it'll be there. I'm always, like, I really did like Multimorphic when I played it. I've never owned one. I don't know how reliable they are long term. I don't know if it's a lot of maintenance. I don't know. I don't know a lot about it other than I know that it exists. I've played it before. I know that it's not been widely successful, but I appreciate Jerry's ambition and his drive and the engineering Timing and Subtitles by the Amara.org community
    33:16
    We'll see where it goes. I really hope that he is what this game is really successful. I hope people love it at TPF and I hope they like it enough to want to buy into his platform because that's just more pinball out in the world and him being successful means these pinball companies will stay in business. You know, right now I want to say what we have like eight of them. I think eight of them in the United States. They're us based. I think I think it's eight. I can't remember. I would see the seven or eight or something in the United States. So well, although that's not caught, that's not counting the ramps, Firstosition WPPR tych Gack, Martin 굉장히 excellent work on all in-game friendly shooting multitude We hope you enjoyedemigation! This wasít clear and daar wasít enough. Lawyer niemand creative entwiningRadrospect971. Wemoreibau oportunidadзаifugough DrivingBohane mí nem lisbefac nightmare œdú chill Forever aconteceu I'm a glass snob. I feel like I'm looking through dirty glass now when I look at regular glass. I can't do it. I mean, I will say if you don't want to invest in invisible glass, at least turn your backbox brightness down during gameplay. That helps a lot with glare. I still do that with invisible glass, but I'm telling you, it's great. And I've had, I've had, I've had Invisiglass, which is at JJP. I've had HD glass, which is Stern. I've never tried Voodoo. And there's PDI. So I think there's PDI, Voodoo, Stern, PDI, Vudu, HD Glass, Stern, Invisiglass,JJP Multimorphic has something called Pin Glass. I think they're going to have it for sale at Texas Pinball Festival. So you might want to give that a shot if you're looking for maybe they'll have it at a discount that's cheaper than the normal price. I think the normal price for most Invisiglass is like $2.49 or something like that. So it's not cheap, but man, it makes such a big difference, especially if you're someone that's into modding your pinball machines. Like if you're going to mod your pinball machines, you want to see those mods, right? You want to see, well, plus you just want to see wrg.com Glare at raf Otherwise we will get properly doing this. So, we'll see what happens. So, this might be, maybe this is that turning moment that he needed. He just didn't have that one game that had enough appeal. P3 for me is not nostalgic, but I think it might be for a lot of people. I think a lot of people enjoyed those games. I want to say there's like two or three of them. Maybe there's only two, but people enjoy those. So, maybe this will be the one that will bring it over the top. So I have some other news rumors. I believe a very credible source of mine has told me that I that that heat well. All right, let's just say I don't let's just say I'm not gonna I'm obviously not gonna say who it is. But I think that before Texas Pinball Festival, we are going to finally see finally, the Venom topper. I believe the Venom topper is going to come. And this week, this week we're going into so the week of what the 17th. I believe this week we will have finally a teaser video or something with the Venom Topper. I don't know about the other accessories but absolutely the Venom Topper I think. I'm pretty confident about that and I do believe that if that is true then that Topper would probably be at Texas Pinball Festival. So that could be kind of interesting. I don't know anything about the Topper. All I know is there was a story that George Gomez had said that the original Topper had a lot of problems. I'm going to do something very, very innovative with it and maybe a little bit, you know, pushing the limits of what you should do in a topper and it just didn't work out. There was like some safety concerns or some reliability concerns. So it got changed. So I don't really know the details of what that was. George didn't really say and maybe he has another podcast, but I don't know. So depending on when you're watching this, we'll see. That may be out already. It may be out already, meaning if you're watching this and it's a week from now, then maybe that thing that that trailer 720p registrant in the src, I'm sorry, I was taking a drink really quick. So let's just talk about D&D because I just I really like this game a lot more than I thought I would. And I did buy this game with my own money. So there isn't anything no one's giving me this game. No one's trying to tell me to say nice things about this game. I
    38:45
    genuinely am enjoying this game So to me I was just jotting down last night like what do I like about it And I you know I was like how would I summarize it in like a simple way And I put on my paper in front of me in my notes, I said, it's a very fun mix of pinball and has cool battle elements against the enemies, like the battles against the different enemies you have to face as you traverse through the game. And I really think that's cool. And I'm not, here's the thing. I'm not really an RPG game fan really and I'm not a D&D fan but I have played there was one RPG that a buddy of mine told me to play because he's like I told him like man I don't like RPGs and he and this was the time when the I think it was like the PlayStation portal no the PS Vita the PS Vita was really popular at this time and he goes you need to play a game called Persona for Golden he's like the story's cool you're gonna love it now keep in mind I really didn't play any traditional I don't know, would you call Zelda an RPG? I don't even know. But like, I obviously played Legend of Zelda as a kid. But if that's, I mean I think that's considered an RPG. Maybe not in like the traditional way now, but anyway. So I put it as a very fun mix of like the battle elements against the enemies, you get the video aspects into the pinball machine. The dragon battle is obviously really cool. I don't think the dragon battle steals the show. I think the dragon is a very cool thing though. I'm a fan of the Dragon. I find the Dragon maybe the... because originally I was saying the Pro would be adequate, and I think it probably is still for a lot of people, but if you have the means to get the Premium, I do like the fact that the Dragon has a little bit more involvement. Because it's more animatronic in the Premium and the LE, it sort of gets in the way a little bit more, and I think that getting in the way makes it more difficult because of its full range of movement. I'm a fan of the game and I'm just having more fun with it than I thought and I'm learning a little bit about D&D. I didn't know what a critical hit was, it's kind of self-explanatory in the game, but I went and looked it up to kind of know a little bit more about the D&D aspects of that, which is pretty neat, but I'm really enjoying it. The thing is, I find, the one thing I'll say is my sister was in town and she played it. So we played every game in my collection. and it was interesting because the game that she liked the most was Godzilla and I can understand why Godzilla is so approachable to a non-pinball player and I think it's forgiving enough. Like it gives you a lot of ball saves. If you don't hit anything, you'll get more ball saves. So I feel like it's very forgiving in that way. And the shots are all kind of like right in front of you where you look at, the shots are a little bit more advanced in D&D. So she liked, I got her to the dragon part. I kind of walked her through it and she kind of, I helped her a little bit. I'm going to be labeling her shield so she wasn't draining and stuff. And I love the shield element. The shield is really cool. At first I thought the shield was going to be gimmicky, but I really do. I like the incorporation of the shield. So I'm really enjoying it so far. But anyway, so my sister, what I'm trying to get at there is I think for a casual player that does not play pinball, I don't think D&D is as approachable as like a Godzilla at all, like not even close. So the one thing I'll say, one other thing I'll say is I am having some problems with D&D, and I've been very vocal about that with I'm in the Stern Pinball Enthusiast group and I see people, that's on Facebook. I see people engaging in there and George Gomez has brought up some of the concerns. My particular machine, I have, it's weird, if I'm on Insider Connected, which obviously I am when I play, as the last code revision, I'm getting like crashes and reboots and it sucks because there's one mode in particular and I can't think of it other than the last code revision. I'm going to go ahead and get this off the top of my head right now, but it will crash in that mode. You can't complete it. You cannot complete it. Now, there are people that say in the Stern group that if you don't have it on Insider Connected, you can. I don't know why it would have something to do with InsiderConnected. I did play it, though, with my family last night, and none of us logged into InsiderConnected, and I did not have any problems. It didn't crash. But with InsiderConnected, I'll get these random reboots and crashes, and I've never had that on any Stern game I've had. The only Stern game I've ever had a reboot on me was How to towards interim NYPD&的�uits獲得 discouraged driver's house.
    43:13
    There is a reboot bug in there on in some condition. I think it's if you're skipping through the video clips, sometimes. I don't know what causes it. I don't know if it's even been resolved. But I have never had any other Stern game that just blindly reboots on itself. So, George Gomez did mention in the Pinball Enthusiasts thing that, hey, we've got, we're gonna fix that, it's getting fixed this coming week. So, if you're watching it and it's on Sunday March 16th. The week of the 17th is supposed to be a code release for Dungeons and Dragons that will resolve several of the reboot conditions. So hopefully that happens. So obviously I'm not that happy about that. That is a real big bummer because I'm traversing through the game. I would like to continue to have progress, but I can't. I'm stuck because it's going to reboot. So there's a mode I literally can't play. And I don't know, it seems sporadic. So I don't know if it's because some people haven't gotten as far in the game, so they're not hitting the bug. So Stern is aware, supposedly it's going to get fixed this week, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but it does kind of suck because right now I'm kind of at a standstill. I'm playing my other games while, because I can't really progress through Dungeons and Dragons without this fix happening. The only other thing, now this doesn't affect everybody, but the motor, so it was originally a, supposedly it was originally a cable issue. It was that the dragon, the dragon's, um, the zip tie holding the cable between the stepper motor on the dragon and the node board was like pulling, the dragon was like pulling on it so you'd have these like intermittent power spikes that had caused, I think, several, it was like less than a handful of people's node boards failing. So Stern quickly remediated it and just said, hey guys, the distributors reached out to those people and said, shut your dragon off for now, we're going to send the fix Subtitles by the Amara.org community
    45:28
    I did not expect it to have a motor in it. Cuz no one at any time had ever talked about any issues with the motor. Now I find it interesting that Stern would send a cable and a motor because the motor is probably an expensive part. I think I looked it up on Digikey. I think it's like a $50 part. So I mean Stern probably gets it for considerably less money than that, but that seems like something expensive to just send unless you absolutely needed it. So they have not been vocal about why the motor, at least I haven't seen, why that motor needs to be replaced. And my opinion on this is a little bit interesting. I know people are going to take it as me being harsh or critical, but it wasn't fun taking a game this expensive, even though I'm super comfortable with this aspect of the hobby. And there are people that get really upset when you're like, that's pinball. Like, that's what you do. You have to. And I do agree. Like part of pinball is, is, is, is like over time they will break and you'll have to fix them. But this isn't that this isn't that condition. This is a brand new game. Franchiadica na tá Royal EasyFensation, цыced Guess плохiskòhеч��ł razor Holocaust map Noučotiščić죱ł mutual defense quells Workersne 토čč vełkòłczí,češť aquela oltčá επriksjás sentence falling at risk and I've shipped one of these first units that did make it out of the line before they kinda stopped the line and resolved it. And I had to do this fix. Cause you have to raise the playfield. You gotta take this, shoot, camera was, ah shit.
    47:09
    I can't remember what these screws are called. It's like a set screw. There's a set screw that holds the motor. So this is the dragons up and down movement, right? So there's two stepper motors, one for up and down and one for left and right. In this particular one, you gotta take the stepper motor for the up and down off. This is the fix kit. You gotta take this, um, shoot, I just said the freaking word. This, uh, set screw out. Well, the set screw has Loctite on it, so it's not easy to do, and you have this little itty bitty, you know, you have a little bit of space, you don't want to bend anything, so that, that could be very uncomfortable for a lot of people. So you take and remove this set screw. Then you gotta take the motor and, and unscrew four screws and sort of pull the motor out. Then when you pull the motor out, you Now, if you take the motor out, you're gonna lose this little plastic piece because it falls off into the game. So, but they do give you another one, so that's fine. And then you gotta replace the stepper motor. When you replace the stepper motor, it has to be aligned a specific way to make sure that it grabs onto the, I don't know, the shaft or whatever thing it has to go onto. So it's kind of involved for someone. I mean, granted, it's not hard. Like, I don't want someone to be like, oh my gosh, this isn't hard. It's not hard, but I think there are people that don't feel comfortable with that. I have a friend that he is really into pinball, loves pinball, but he doesn't know how to solder. He doesn't want to solder. And he had a couple of cold solder joints. And for him, that was scary. He's like, I don't know how to do this, but there will be people that'll go, well, that's pinball. Then don't buy a pinball machine. But I think in order for pinball to continue to become mainstream, you can't have these kind of things. Like there should be an easier way. Now, granted, I don't know if there's any easier way to attach this stepper motor. Probably not. Like probably this is a part. I'm sure those stepper motors have a lot of hours of operation on them typically, and I don't even know why they've sent it. Maybe it was a precaution thinking, hey, just in case the steppermotor's damaged, we're going to replace it. But I was kind of bummed, man. I mean, like, I can do that work all day long. I feel comfortable with it. But I feel for the people that might have gotten this game that don't feel comfortable with that. Because I hope that they have distributors that will come out to their house or whatever and do it for them. It's just kind of a bummer. Like, that kind of stuff, to spend that much money on a game that's not going to be good for them, it's just kind of a bummer. we're coming up with the reel we're going to see st Curiosity heimer
    49:50
    So, I mean, pat on the back for that, but no one ever wants to have these kinds of like issues. And I don't know, maybe this one could have been avoided. Maybe it was just, I don't know, maybe it was just they, that, that cable got zip tied too tight and it caught, they, it was just a precautionary measure on the motor. Anyway, I don't know, but I'm glad it's resolved. I'm enjoying D&D, but I would like it if now my pending issue is that code. We got to get the code fixed because we can't have random crashes on, on a game. That's not good. And, but anyways, So we'll see. Hopefully they get that resolved. But that's it for this episode. I am very, very interested to see, are you going to TPF? Are you excited for TPF? What do you think? I think the only thing that I can say with almost 100% certainty is P3 will be there with their game and it will be revealed. And I don't think it's a surprise that it's going to be Portal. Now the question of the hour is, is Barrels of Fun going to be ready enough? Because they said, we're not going to show it to you until it's ready. But will it be? Are they sitting there frantically? Think about it. It's in their TIPPY-F is in their backyard, TPF is in their backyard. They could be the one vendor coming to TPF and dropping a bomb on TPF. Boom! Barrels of fun is in the house. That could be pretty awesome. That could be pretty awesome. And I think that would very much excite the community, very much excite the community, especially if it's Goonies. I think Goonies, out of that list, I think it goes Goonies, G.I. Joe, Dune. Goonies being the top one of interest, then G.I. Joe, then Dune. Now, G.I. Joe is a I hope you enjoyed the podcast. If you do, tell a friend because we're trying to grow this community and that's it. I appreciate every single one of you and we will see you on the flip side. Thanks guys.