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Episode 176 – Expo Mini-VUK

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Nov 10, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Slam Tilt deep-dives Expo tournaments, game conditions, and logistics with multiple perspectives.

Summary

Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale host an Expo recap episode featuring first-time Expo attendees Zach and Steph, plus top player Raymond Davidson. The discussion covers tournament formats (main, classics, women's), specific game conditions and issues encountered during qualifying (Legends of Valhalla flipper inconsistencies, Paragon malfunction, Alien Star settings problems, Skateball flipper positioning), expo logistics (seminar pricing, wristband enforcement), and community feedback on new releases like American Pinball's Legends of Valhalla.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball sold out 500 units of Legends of Valhalla despite initially announcing 300-unit limit

    high confidence · Zach and Raymond discussing AP's booth; 'They sold out 300 so fast. It was like 325, 350. They increased it to 500, and supposedly all 500 are sold out.'

  • Legends of Valhalla runs on P-Rock platform (confirmed by Dave Brennan at show)

    high confidence · Raymond: 'I asked Dave, Mr. Brennan, who was there, and they're still using the P-Rock platform.'

  • Multiple copies of Legends of Valhalla exhibited varying flipper power and speed characteristics

    high confidence · Zach noting weak/floaty flippers on first unit vs. faster, stronger flippers on second unit; flipper hop issues on multiple copies

  • Paragon had multiple non-functional circuit components preventing gameplay

    high confidence · Zach and Raymond: Bob Matthews confirmed 'at least three or four things that just aren't working'; Zach opened schematics and found 'half the circuit's just dead'

  • Alien Star was configured with excessive extra ball settings (special awarded extra balls, plus every 400K)

    high confidence · Raymond: 'extra balls were on, special gave you extra balls, plus was it every 400K you got extra balls? Oh, my God. That was the worst playing fucking Alien Star ever.'

  • Alien Star had missing tilt bob during qualifying; one found during finals setup

    high confidence · Zach: 'in finals they had the piece of paper that said, Tilt Bob installed'; leg bolts lacked lock nuts causing increasing lean throughout weekend

  • Pinball Expo charges $60 for seminar wristbands while live-streaming all seminars online

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce discussing policy; 'they're charging $60 for, you are literally live streaming all of them'; Bruce notes other shows (TPF, Pacific Pinball, California Extreme) don't charge

  • Stern Factory Tour was virtual/remote due to COVID and later omitted from public stream

Notable Quotes

  • “They sold out 300 so fast. It was like 325, 350. They increased it to 500, and supposedly all 500 are sold out.”

    Zach or Steph (discussing Legends of Valhalla sales) @ early in Legends of Valhalla discussion — Confirms rapid sellout of American Pinball's limited edition and upward revision of production run

  • “I asked Dave, Mr. Brennan, who was there, and they're still using the P-Rock platform.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Legends of Valhalla technical discussion — Clarifies American Pinball's continued reliance on P-Rock for newly released games

  • “I literally, I played one game, I was like, that didn't seem right. And then I sat down and just opened the schematics, and I'm just like, no, that's broken. that's broken, that's broken, yep, like half the circuit's just dead.”

    Zach (on Paragon) @ Paragon discussion — Documents severe technical failures on classic game during tournament; indicates Bob Matthews acknowledged multiple non-functional components

  • “That was the worst playing fucking Alien Star ever... there was basically no tilt in the game, and it was on sliding cement.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Alien Star discussion — Describes problematic tournament game setup with extreme settings and mechanical issues

  • “They need to change that rule... the thing is, then the seminars you're charging $60 for, you are literally live streaming all of them.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Seminar pricing discussion — Highlights contradiction in Expo's revenue model—charging for seminars while publicly streaming them

  • “Why didn't other podcasters ask questions? That's another problem I have... So you think a podcaster should have came to that and all asked, what's with your play fields? Yeah. So I failed you, Bruce.”

    Bruce and Ron @ Jersey Jack seminar discussion — Self-reflective criticism of media coverage opportunity missed at Expo

  • “It's like 10% GI, you know? And like the lights were blue.”

    Raymond Davidson (on Alien Star) — Describes extreme dim/low-light configuration for classic game, making it difficult to play

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonRaymond DavidsonpersonZachpersonStephpersonGlenn WechterpersonAmerican Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball pricing for Legends of Valhalla announced ($8,400), but pricing for non-limited tiers not yet disclosed; described as problematic business communication pattern

    medium · Ron/Zach discussing: 'Is it worth $8,400?... Have we heard about the pricing for the non-LE or non-whatever-they-call-they're? No... I don't like the plan of here's the pricing for the one, and then if we sell, then we'll tell you the pricing.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Expo's inclusive tournament format guarantees all participants finals entry based on Thursday minimum play, creating A/B division structure based on qualifying scores

    high · Raymond: 'everybody made finals, which was cool... depending on how you did, if you did really well, you'd be in the A division... Or if you didn't do so well, you'd be at the bottom of B division.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Expo implemented stricter wristband enforcement for seminars this year compared to previous years under previous management

    medium · Ron: 'they checked it like every single seminar constantly. They're very checky.' Bruce corrects: 'Under previous management, they never checked the wristbands.'

  • $

    market_signal: Other major pinball events (Texas Pinball Festival, Pacific Pinball Expo, California Extreme) do not charge for seminar attendance, contrasting with Pinball Expo's $60 wristband model

    high · Bruce: 'What other show charges for seminars? TPF doesn't I don't think Pacific Pinball... California Extreme I don't believe ever charged for them.'

  • $

    market_signal: Expo charges $60 for seminar wristbands while simultaneously live-streaming all seminars publicly, undermining the perceived value of paid access

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.425

0:00
Sir, what if I told you I had an invention that could change your whole life? Something that could put a smile on your butt. Yeah, you know, just because you can't see your bunghole doesn't mean you should ignore it. Damn it, boy, that ain't nothing but a wire hanger. It's the Butt Scratcher 2000, asswipe.
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Sale Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. You wanted the best, but you got us instead. Kissed. No, no, sorry. You want the best, but they couldn't make it, so here's Guns N' Roses. I think that's one of the quotes in the game. Yes. Isn't it? So this is episode 176. Yes, there it is. and you're stuck with us. It's time for an Expo recap because no other podcast has done that. None. None, except every one of them. I don't know. All these podcasts have just talked between the people who've gone there. But we bring in people who went there from a different perspective.
1:18
Okay. Who did we bring in, Bruce? We brought in first our own Zach. Hello, Zach. Hello, Bruce. Whoa. Oh, well, that was... I see Zach all the time. That's why. It's like we hung out like eight hours yesterday together at the coop. We also have Steph. Hi.
1:41
And we also have the number one player in the world, Mr. Raymond Davidson. Hello. Hello there. And the only person that did not go to Expo is going to go put myself on mute and go get a sandwich. No, no. You are the interviewer. Question us. Oh, can I be like Gene Rayburn? I don't know who that is. You don't know who Gene Rayburn is? Is it Gene or Jane? Gene. Gene Rayburn. Let me guess. He's like an old host of something.

medium confidence · Ron: 'they cut it off right as the tour started'; treated as 'testing and stuff, getting ready for streaming everything later'

  • Expo tournament format guaranteed all participants entry to Friday finals regardless of Thursday qualifying scores

    high confidence · Raymond explaining tournament structure: 'everybody made finals, which was cool... as long as you played a game or two... you would be placed into the finals on Friday'

  • Top 250 ranked players must qualify in A Division or are excluded from tournament

    high confidence · Raymond: 'if you're ranked in the top 250, you have to qualify in A Division or you're just out of the tournament'

    • @ Alien Star setup complaints

  • “Basically, if you wanted to play in the tournament, you had to play on Thursday by midnight, and you just had to play six games would count towards how good you did, but you got 12 tries.”

    Raymond Davidson (tournament structure explanation) @ Tournament format discussion — Clarifies Expo's inclusive tournament qualification system

  • “I had to ask my first opponent what the rules were, and he just told me, and I trusted him. Then he beat me.”

    Raymond Davidson @ Tournament rules discussion — Humorous but concerning note about lack of clear rule communication at tournament

  • “The thing is, then the seminars you're charging $60 for, you are literally live streaming all of them. So unless you were paying $60 to be able to ask a question is literally what you were paying for.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Expo logistics complaint — Core critique of Expo's seminar business model contradicting value proposition

    • Legends of Valhalla
    game
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Pinball Expoevent
    Paragongame
    Alien Stargame
    Skateballgame
    Captain Fantasticgame
    Blackjackgame
    C-Raygame
    Bob Matthewsperson
    Dave Brennanperson
    Rob Burkeperson
    The Sharpsperson
    Jeff Teolisperson

    high · Bruce: 'the seminars you're charging $60 for, you are literally live streaming all of them... unless you were paying $60 to be able to ask a question is literally what you were paying for.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball's Legends of Valhalla production rapidly sold through initial 300-unit target and was expanded to 500 units, suggesting strong demand and potential supply constraints

    high · Zach: 'They sold out 300 so fast. It was like 325, 350. They increased it to 500, and supposedly all 500 are sold out.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Alien Star tournament configuration was extreme and inappropriate: minimal lighting, excessive extra ball settings, missing tilt bob during qualifying, and loose leg bolts causing progressive lean throughout weekend

    high · Raymond: 'It's like 10% GI, you know?... there was basically no tilt in the game... the leg bolts didn't have the lock nuts. And so they would loosen and develop more of a lean as people were sliding it throughout the weekend.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Paragon suffered from multiple circuit-level failures preventing normal gameplay, including constant 'game over' display and inability to reset without power cycling

    high · Zach examining schematics on-site: 'I'm just like, no, that's broken. that's broken, that's broken, yep, like half the circuit's just dead.' Raymond: 'it was always a constant state of game over over on the back glass. I don't understand how you do that.'

  • ?

    product_concern: American Pinball's Legends of Valhalla exhibited significant flipper inconsistency across multiple units at Expo, with first units having weak/floaty flippers and flipper hop issues, while later units demonstrated faster gameplay with stronger flippers

    high · Zach: 'The first one I played, the first Legends of Valhalla game I played, flippers were very weak, super floaty, and flipper hop... The second one we played, which I played with Zach, was faster than the first one. The flippers were stronger.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: American Pinball continues using P-Rock platform for newly released games, confirmed at Expo

    high · Raymond: 'I asked Dave, Mr. Brennan, who was there, and they're still using the P-Rock platform. Okay. Cool. Oh, that makes one thing still running on P-Rock.'

    • 2:15
    Okay, 70s music. Okay, Match Game. Okay, there you go. You realize when those things were on, even I was probably like too young to know what's going on. They had Match Game 79, so. Okay, I would have been five. Yes, I would have totally understood what was going on in the match game. Yeah, you'd be way too young to appreciate the hilarity of that game at five. Okay.
    2:40
    So Bruce is now four people younger than I am on the podcast with him. He really out of touches everything.
    2:47
    Four or more out of touch with everything. Oh, my. The interesting thing here is we have someone who's been to every Expo since 2004.
    2:57
    Who's that? That would be me. And then we have two people who have never been to Expo. So you're going to get kind of a – I mean, I think this is a good discussion.
    3:07
    Good answer. Yeah, yeah, good answer, Survey Says. Rock game, Bruce. It's Family Feud. Damn. That was part of Expo, too. I'm sure Zach can get into that. So, Bruce, what do you want to ask us? Well, why don't we just start instead of just doing – because everyone else just goes over their whole story. I'd like to do it differently. Bruce did something that he's done once before. He asked our listeners what they wanted us to talk about. And we got a lot of people asking. Yeah, we always get a lot of responses on these. We should do it more. It gives us more topics. Yes, it does. So I'm going to go first over the expo ones. Okay. And then we'll go later on to the non-expo ones. Yeah, you posted recording tomorrow. Recap of expo. What do you want here and is talk about? Yes. What? And everyone knew that. Everyone knew it was me. So it's perfect. Yes, they knew it was you, all right. Glenn Watcher, I met Ron. It was awkward. I think it was my fault. I was so excited to meet everyone, and, yeah, I just don't really read the room well. What was that all about, Ron? I don't know. I met Glenn. We said hi. It was fine. Okay. Who else did you meet while you guys were there that you were surprised to meet or were happy to see?
    4:28
    Everybody. Yeah, that. Wow, that was a great answer. Thanks, guys. Were you surprised to see people, Seth?
    4:37
    Not surprised, but happy to see. Yes. Well, don't forget, you know, this is the first big show that everyone across the whole country merged to, and went, hey, let's all... Well, except for a lot of the people I expect to see and didn't see. Like who? Like the Sharps.
    4:57
    They were COVIDing or something. Still a thing. It is still a thing. We had an outbreak in our area.
    5:06
    The funny thing is they had masks were supposedly required in this hotel. Okay. That's not what I experienced. Really? Yeah, it was very easily enforced. It didn't seem enforced much, but most people were wearing them. I was like, yeah, I'd say it was. That is true. I'd say like 85% of people are probably wearing them. I mean, 30 of those didn't have it over their nose, of course. Well, yes. But when you said lax and forced, it was not enforced. I didn't see anyone get told. Even with all the people like checking the doors when you came in for your wristbands, unlike what Lott said would happen, you know. What did I say would happen? You're always like, oh, they never check the wristbands for the seminars. and they checked it like every single seminar constantly. They're very checky. Let me rephrase that. Under previous management, they never checked the wristbands. But wasn't the same management as last year? Just last year. Well, here's the question. Why do they charge for seminars when they screen them all live anyway? It doesn't make any sense. And then you get, if you want to do a tournament and do the seminars, you end up getting screwed because the tournament comes with a non-seminar wristband. And it's like 60 bucks And the thing is What other show charges for seminars? TPF doesn't I don't think Pacific Pinball Yes Pacific Pinball uses seminars They never charge for them California Extreme I don't believe ever charged for them I know I was so sad I walked out of my Led Zeppelin Timmy and I's Led Zeppelin seminar And saw Dennis Creasel Sitting there I'm like hey Why weren't you at the seminar? It's literally right behind you Like, I didn't buy a wrist. I didn't have a seminar pass. I'm like, oh, dang. They need to change that rule. Yeah, I mean, the thing. It's kind of stupid. Especially if you're streaming it. I mean, the dumbest thing they did that they, well, they almost did, the Stern Factory Tour was virtual because of COVID, et cetera. That was at some early, early time in the morning. Did it cost money? I don't even know. Yes, it cost extra money if you were going to go on the tour. So since it was canceled, I think you could get a refund if you wanted to. Or you could attend the virtual tour, which was in the same seminar room, which was probably the most crowded the seminar room was, was for that. And then I noticed I was at the airport, and I see Pinball Expo is now streaming. I'm like, oh. It's like, are they going to stream the virtual tour? I'd be kind of pissed if I paid for it. And literally they're going to stream it. No, they didn't. Oh, they didn't? No, they cut it off right as the tour started. Which I'm like, okay. Apparently that was just like testing and stuff, getting ready for streaming everything later. But the thing is, then the seminars you're charging $60 for, you are literally live streaming all of them. So unless you were paying $60 to be able to ask a question is literally what you were paying for. Because you could have sold the whole seminar.
    8:10
    Yeah, I was watching them all online afterwards because I didn't get to go to half of them. Yeah, I actually did that. And the thing is, the same stuff. They had, like, Jersey Jack did their seminar, and they didn't really have anything new to talk about. So it was literally just a Q&A. So, you know, all these pinsiders and, you know, play field issues, et cetera. Okay, here's your chance. Like, Jack was right there. No one asked the thing. Of course not, because it's all keyboard fun. Not a single question. Hold on. Why didn't other podcasters ask questions? That's another problem I have. Okay. I'm being honest, you know. So you think a podcaster should have came to that and all asked, what's with your play fields? Yeah. So I failed you, Bruce. You did. I'm sorry. This is why Bruce doesn't come. Could you imagine that? No, I didn't come. Did Bruce come to Expo? What's his attendance rate? My attendance rate? It used to be better. I haven't been there in four or five years, but I was there for ten years straight before that. And I went to, my first one was the 10th Expo. So I went back in 1994.
    9:20
    Yes. I even have the shirt to prove it. Wow. I even have my pinball trophy from one year. Was it pinball? No, pinball, right? What's the big human trophy we have? Yes. Pinball. Yep. Next question from Daniel.
    9:39
    Give us your thoughts on those American pinball flippers. I just played at my local Antarian here, and they weren't bad. Wait a minute. What do you mean flippers? Did they release a new game? Yes. We talked about that. But Legends of Valhalla, which we talked about in the last episode. So they brought a shit ton of Legends of Valhalla to the show. And who played it? I played it. And I would say I don't know what was happening to the games, because I noticed... They kept transforming into Hot Wheels. Yes, exactly. Okay, so I wasn't the only one who noticed that. There was like a whole row of them, and then several of them started transforming into Hot Wheels and disappearing. They were dying or they were selling them? I don't know. Because they already sold out of the whole 300. Well, yeah, that's another thing. 500. Now it's 500. Oh, yeah, they said 300 limited... So have they sold out of the 300 or... Have they sold out of the 500 or are they still with the 500 left? No, no, no. They sold out 300 so fast. It was like 325, 350. They increased it to 500, and supposedly all 500 are sold out. Yeah, so what was at the show then? 501 through 520? Maybe. I don't know. But why were they disappearing? I don't know. Because they were breaking down, probably. I can confirm some things about that it is running on P-Rock still. Okay. Cool. Oh, that makes one thing still running on P-Rock. I asked Dave, Mr. Brennan, who was there, and they're still using the P-Rock platform. Okay. This is a good example of when you play one of these new games, you need to play different copies of the same game, or your opinion can get a little skewed. For example, the first one I played, the first Legends of Valhalla game I played, flippers were very weak, super floaty, and flipper hop, which I don't understand how... There was a flipper hop at the one at Interian, too, that I played the other day. Yeah, yeah. It drove me crazy. Was that one of the ones I played with you, Ron? No, no. The second one we played, which I played with Zach, was faster than the first one. The flippers were stronger than the first one. Wait, that was the faster one? Yes.
    11:55
    Yes. That was the faster one. It has a ton of shots on it, including ones I didn't even realize until Zach shot. I didn't realize there was actually – I didn't notice the arrow pointing under the upper left flipper. It's like, oh, oh, there's a shot there, too. Wow, okay. Yeah, I think I like that idea. It's almost like, it kind of reminds me of, because, like, on Whitewater, there's that gold mine that you can never really shoot into because it's so far on the left, but it's a good spot to kick the ball out at you. And so that kind of reminds me of that, where if you want to actually shoot that scoop, you do it through the flipper rather than shoot the tiny scoop. So it's kind of a cool way to add some options over there. I was hoping they'd do, like, if you actually shot the scoop, you'd get, like, an extra award or something.
    12:39
    Like a double, yeah, that'd be cool. On the right side, they had that walking dead shot that I don't think I ever actually was able to get to sync on purpose. It only ever went in there from slingshots. Whenever I aimed at it, it always rejected. So I don't know if that was just, like, the copy I was playing on, or if you noticed that, too. That one worked fine for me when I shot it. Okay, maybe I wasn't shooting it right. It is a show. It is a show. So we always got to tell you that. Yeah, and I was hearing rumors that they were dialing down the flipper power, which I never understand why you would not want to put your test foot forward.
    13:13
    Ron, what if you, like, asked a manufacturer at the show about why they dialed down the flipper power, like in a seminar or something? Yeah, why don't you ask that? I'm too chicken shit to ask anything. Like, your flippers are weak. I'm not like Bruce. Like, this seems to be really floaty and the flippers are weak. So we got to get Bruce to expose what we're saying. Next year. Oh, God. I mean, they'll probably be fantastic. Is Bruce coming to Fantastic? No, I can't because everyone else from the co-op is going to Fantastic. Oh, man. Am I right or am I wrong, Mr. Zach? I mean, I told him to close, so. Well, we couldn't close two weeks in a row. Also, I thought that people weren't going, so. No, they are. Are you guys closed in Thanksgiving weekend? We are closed Thanksgiving weekend. Makes sense. Since you're going to be closed on Thursday, might as well. Yeah, that's what we're gunning for right now. Let's see. What else about Liz's Ohio? You liked it? With the exception of the center ramp, everything was hittable. The center ramp, you could not hit on the fly. You just couldn't do it. No, you had to get creative with the center ramp. It reminded me of playing games that had been routed on location a long time, and shots you have to kind of like, you know, hop the ball over. Yes, you'd have to either ski past it and then whack it while it's in midair to get it up there, or you have to get a trap, and then you have to hit it super early. You could make it from a trap. And what was nice is the center ramp actually isn't very steep, so if you just get it anywhere in the vicinity, it usually sucks it right up. Yeah, and it's a good thing it's not steep, because it would just barely make it up. Yeah, it's no Black Widow ramp on Avengers, that's for sure. But it had, I like the side ramp shot. It's got a side ramp that goes into the, it goes into the ship, which, to be honest, because the ship is actually, the bottom of it's kind of clear,
    14:53
    so it almost looks like a Tupperware container with a top on it. I kept looking at it as like a football. Looked like a football. Well, half a football. Yeah. Did you ever have to shift work, Ron? As far as, what do you mean? It locked balls. I started a multi-ball and it spit the balls out. Didn't you spit the balls out because it got stuck and just ejected the ball for the ball search, though? That was you. I thought you did that, too. No. Like, every time I loaded a second ball in, it would just get lost. Is that kind of situation what you loaded? I think you just drained and it just sat there. and like, okay, is it going to cap the bonus? And then it spit out a ball from the ship, let it drain, and it sat there. And eventually when it spit all the balls out, then it finally did the end of ball bonus.
    15:41
    So, and I heard there were issues with it, with it losing track of balls. And I know they were doing code updates like on the fly.
    15:49
    And obviously they were, you know, they have the games there to get pounded to find the issues. So I'm sure they took down all this information. The modes were just, well, it has different tiers, and I only played some of the Tier 1 modes, which were basically, it showed the character, and then it just, it would like hit these purple shots, and then it would be like another mode, like hit these blue shots. Kind of like Star Trek. But they didn't seem to have patterns or anything either. It just seemed like just little ones of shots, and you shot them. Some of the modes had hurry-up elements to them, where the first shot would count down a value. So I think there was some slight variation, but yeah, it was hard to really tell thematic-wise. I didn't see too much connection of like, oh, this mode, you're shooting this weapon because it's this person or whatever. Yeah, sound was good. I mean, artwork was fine. Is it worth $8,400?
    16:50
    $8,400. I mean, is any game worth $8,400? Sure. It's going to be built well. It'll be supported. And if you're into the Viking stuff, which really I'm not that into, I mean, and if you love Jeff Teolis, I mean, it's a no-brainer. You have to have the game. Don't we all? I love him. Of course. It's sold out. That's why it's sold out. Have we heard about the pricing for the non-LE or non-whatever-they-call-they're? No. Yeah, that's the – nowadays, like, maybe re – like, oh, well, maybe we should maybe charge just a little bit less. Who knows what they're thinking, but I don't like the plan of here's the pricing for the one, and then if we sell, then we'll tell you the pricing or how much the lesser model is. But we have another company that had that same problem also. Let's see. What's Brian Cosner says, enjoy talking to you, Ron. Yes, Brian, enjoy talking to you. Expo was a fun event. Yes, it was. John Cosson, oh, God. His talk about almost a Bruce-ism. No, it's a totally Bruce-ism. The versus them, of course. Lots of talk about the tournament. There was a tournament there? There was a tournament there. There were three.
    18:03
    Yeah, there was a lot of tournaments there. Four. Four? There was a kids' tournament. Oh, yeah, that extra game. What was the game? Was it Turtles? Yeah, Turtles. It was like, you know what the kids should suffer with?
    18:19
    Wow. Oh, that's fucking hilarious. The views expressed here are not those of Raymond Davidson's certain employee and can be ignored completely.
    18:31
    I did it this time. Woo-hoo. This is the bracket tournament, the never-ending bracket, where the main tournament, you have to get there on Thursday,
    18:45
    and you play. Well, actually, Raymond, tell us what it is. You're the tournament guy. Was it 12 games you had to play? Basically, if you wanted to play in the tournament, you had to play on Thursday by midnight, and you just had to play six games would count towards how good you did, but you got 12 tries, so you could play each game twice or distribute it how you like. And basically, as long as you, I think, as long as you played a game or two, I don't know if there's a minimum, you would be placed into the finals on Friday. And depending on how you did, if you did really well, you'd be in the A division, you know, at the top of the A division. Or if you didn't do so well, you'd be at the bottom of B division. And then anywhere in between basically determined, you know, how high your scores were on those games. So everybody made finals, which was cool. So no matter how you did in qualifying on Friday, you got to experience some head-to-head matches. And it was a double ELIM, that's two out of three. So, you know, you play somebody, you pick a game, and then the loser picks the next game. Whoever wins two games moves on in the bracket. The loser goes to the bottom half of the loser's bracket, and so on. So it's actually a pretty straightforward tournament, and it's pretty fun. If you've never played in a finals format before, no better way to do it than guarantee yourself a finals at the Expo. The only caveat is if you're ranked in the top 250, you have to qualify in A Division or you're just out of the tournament. Which makes sense, because you wouldn't want the Ringers and the B Division just stopping everybody. I think Keith might have did that one year where he didn't even play. He just was like, put me wherever in the bracket, and he just steamrolled everybody. And you may have to wait a long time to play, depending on what goes on. Well, they at least had a few times, so if you had buys, you didn't have to check in until 2 p.m., 3 p.m., whatever. So that was nice. and the waiting actually wasn't as apocalyptic as past years. What could happen is you could be done with your match and you would have to wait for the bracket to catch up to you to figure out your next opponent, and it could be ours. That's the thing. That's the only thing about the bracket. But if you're like Raymond, you're qualified so high, I mean, you don't even have to play until when? 4 p.m. Friday? It's like 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock. Some of us are lucky. But if you're in B division, you get to get there nice and early. Well, it depends on where you are relative to that division. Yeah. Because they both started at the same time. Okay. So they had A and B going simultaneously. Yeah. But didn't they also do the thing where you could wait for any game? I think so, yeah. You could just put your name down on a list.
    21:35
    But could you wait for a specific game even if it was the same title? That was never really made clear. I suppose you could, because there wasn't really anyone policing anything. So it was kind of just... They never even, like, said the rules. They just, like... Yeah.
    21:50
    I had to ask my first opponent what the rules were, and he just told me, and I trusted him. Then he beat me. You made him up. Oh, fail.
    21:58
    All right. So that was the one tournament, but they also had a classic tournament, classics tournament, which was pump and dump on, oh, God, how many games? There was just five games, and you had to play all five. Who wants to play C-Ray? No, I don't want to play C-Ray. C-Ray was hilarious just because of how inconsistent it was. It was like sometimes life would work, sometimes the score would work. Yeah, that's the other thing to talk about. Sometimes nothing would work. So the main tournament was all like brand-new turns, a sternament, if you will. So you're not really, for the most part, you're not going to have a lot of issues there. These are brand-new games. It's always a tournament But the classics, you had Let's see, we had a Blackjack That played pretty good Yeah He said something about bouncing back and forth But you know That's nice for the player It had the tightest tilt of all the games which kind of bothered me Because you don't need a tight That's a quick playing game It's pretty housey sometimes Other than that, yeah, it played fine They had Captain Fantastic God, I hate that game where basically it was just, you know, you just hit it up top over and over and over. But it had this cool thing where if you went through the center lane and it closed the gate, if you drain on the right side, you know, it saves it because the gate is closed or open. I never know what I'm supposed to say. The gate's open, whatever. It saves it. The gate's supposed to close, and you're supposed to have to redo it again. But you didn't have to. It was basically broken. Although that ended up changing by the third day. The games all changed different behaviors throughout qualifying. They're alive. But then it changed back. By the very final, it was still staying closed again. Yeah, and extra balls were on for Captain Fantastic and Alien Star, which we'll get to. Yeah. Oh, and C-Ray. Weren't they on on C-Ray? Yeah. Yeah, C-Ray, this wonderful EM.
    24:00
    Paragon. I think the game actually could be okay. It could be good. It played better. Fine. Yeah. If any of it functions at all.
    24:09
    Yeah, I talked to Bob Matthews, and he's like, yeah, there's at least three or four things that just aren't working on the game right at all. That kind of prevent it from being any fun or good. Yeah, weren't we looking at the schematics during the tournament just to see what was wrong? I literally, I played one game, I was like, that didn't seem right. And then I sat down and just opened the schematics, and I'm just like, no, that's broken. that's broken, that's broken, yep, like half the circuit's just dead. Yeah, meanwhile it was always a constant state of game over on the back glass. I don't understand how you do that. That shouldn't be possible by the schematics. And then if you wanted to start a game, you had to turn it off and on because it wouldn't reset right if you didn't. Then next to that you had Alien Star. A very blue Alien Star. Blue as a star? It's like 10% GI, you know? And like the lights were blue. and that had, I never played one with this kind of settings. When I first started playing in Classics, I saw the high score on it at the time was like 5 million. So I hit a spinner, and it spun really fast for like two or three seconds, and then stopped dead. Yeah, it's like someone just put the brakes on it. So I'm like, wait a minute, how did anyone get 5 million on this thing? Well, as it turns out, what, what, a couple things. Number one, it had extra balls were on, special gave you extra balls, plus was it every 400K you got extra balls? Oh, my God. That was the worst playing fucking Alien Star ever. Well, it was still playing nasty most of the time, but then you would see people like the one game I had where I just kept getting extra balls, and I thought it was broken. And I'm like trapping up, turning around, and people are like, no, that's right. You're fine. Yeah, not to mention the fact that there was basically no tilt in the game, and it was on sliding cement. So if you were willing and able, you could have slid it, you know. Did it walk all the way across the hallway and back again? Well, I think there was no plumb bob in it. Oh, God. Right, because I did see some people trigger a tilt. Does it have a playfield tilt? Zach would remember. Does it have, like, a playfield tilt or another tilt mechanism? It should have all the normal tilts, but, like, you have to move far to trigger those. Yeah, I think it was tricky. If you gave it a forward motion, you could get it to tilt, but you could slide the thing however you wanted, and you would not have a problem. I'm still laughing about how in finals they had the piece of paper that said, Tilt Bob installed. Yeah, like we found the Tilt Bob, and we put it in there. It was still pretty lax in finals, though. You could still. We didn't adjust the tilt, Bob. We just installed it. Yeah, it actually, it ended up being okay in finals because I did a couple of saves that tilted that I was like, all right, I probably shouldn't have gotten away with that. But I also did a couple of saves that were like, ooh, okay, you can move it a little. So they actually, for finals, it was a lot better. But yeah, during qualifying. Oh, and it leaned to the left about as hard as you can imagine. And the lean got worse over the weekend as people were sliding it because the leg bolts didn't have the lock nuts. And so they would loosen and develop more of a lean as people are sliding it throughout the weekend. Yikes. And next to that, the fifth game, Skateball.
    27:28
    I mean, that actually shot okay. I mean, the left flipper was way, way up high. Oh, they fixed that. They actually fixed that. On my qualifying game, I played it as was, which was it was basically as if the flipper was engaged when it wasn't engaged and then, like, super engaged, like, when you flip. almost straight up engaged. But everything held. Your super bonus held and your bonus X held. So if you had a good ball one, it was just like party time. Party time. Excellent. And then the funny thing is that the finals for Classics were on Sunday when the organizers came in. They found they were starting to break the games down. Because they were Rob Burke's games, so his crew was breaking them down. It's like, no, no, no, we still have to do finals. So they had to reset them up. So that delayed the classics on Sunday about an hour or so from starting on time, I think. It would have been great if they wouldn't send it back up, so we just had like two games left for all the classics. No, it ran as long as it is. But the other tournament was the women's tournament. Steph, why don't you tell us about that?
    28:39
    Which part? The women's part. Because we wouldn't know anything that's going on because we're men. We're men. We weren't allowed to speak. Ben and Tice, yes. Which is hysterical, because there were people, at least a few people, that used the Women's Tournament as a shortcut to get to Skateball. Yeah, it was very not optimally positioned. Yeah, so... It was like either you walked through the Women's Tournament, or you walked through right where people are standing for the main bank of games. Yeah, the Classics and Women's Tournaments were both squished into the far end of the tournament hall. They had one small overhang blocked off for all of this. So the Classics tournament was against the back wall, the Stern games were all along these dividers, dividing side tournament area, and then the women's games were against the wall opposite that. The problem with that is that there were lights in the corners of the rooms along that wall, which would cause incredible glare on the women's games. So the women's games had to be, like, put on a weird angle. That's why they were, if you guys were wondering. Oh, I thought it was to give more room. What? I thought it was to create more room, because if you have them, like, parking spaces, if they're angled, then you have more room to walk in. It was also because they had to be pulled away from the wall to make it so that we could freaking see. Ah. There was a cheetah that wasn't. Huh? Dead cheetah. Yeah, there was a cheetah that was not turned on for the entirety of the tournament that was supposed to be the backup for the women's bank, which kind of stinks because there was a ditzy doodle that was... They died about exactly halfway through, so they had to leave the scores in, but nobody could put new scores on it. Yeah, it needed enough through qualifying, but the hood was up on that half the entire tournament. I think there were two or three even techs working on it, too. Yeah. If that came by, a different person was under there looking at stuff. Yeah, there was definitely something going on with that Dipsy Doodle, but it was pump and dump as well, same as Classics, only I think it was your best four games? Yeah, four games. Was there six in the bank or seven? Does this doodle or cheetah count?
    31:05
    Well, there was Batman. There sure was. There was the Beatles. There was the first AIQ premium I've ever played and the only AIQ premium I've ever played. There was Bobby Orr's and there was the game that I have inevitably skipped over in my mind. I'm not sure why. Oh, it was Guns N' Roses! That's why I made it go out of my mind. I thought you were throwing shit at Guns N' Roses. No, I legitimately threw shit at Guns N' Roses out of my mind. You never played that game, though. Why do you remember it?
    31:38
    Look, that Guns N' Roses, the problem was that they had the ball save off at the jump, so if you got a multi-ball, you were fine, but if you plunged wrong, you were dead. And it was kind of sort of floaty as fuck. to be completely honest. So that combination made it not fun to play. What did you say? I said, well, if it was floaty, does that mean the ball could make it up the ramps? Well, yeah, yeah. No, it was playable, thank God. Like, it was playable. It was just like, that is a recipe for just obnoxious gameplay when a game is set up way too challenging for anyone to get off the ground. I have a Guns N' Roses story. Uh-oh.
    32:27
    Well, it's just as a sidebar. In the free play area, and this is the first year at this new location, so it was an actual convention center this time, so a big-ass room with nice hard cement floors, think Pinberg. So my back was feeling it. This is the show, I'll tell you. But in the free play area, and this was nice, Jersey Jack brought, like, all their games and put them in the free play area, like, all in a row. Those were Jersey Jacks? Yeah, they were actually Jersey Jacks, supposedly. Did you see the, because the Guns N' Roses had, like, axles, Guns N' Roses or something on the plaque. And I got to play, dialed in, the excellent dialed in, played fine.
    33:12
    No one had played it up to that point, so no one could break anything. Ron was the first person to play. Fuck all you people. It's all fresh and loud. Well, Wonka must have been played then because it wasn't really hitting the rafts with authority. But it was still playable. Wonka's fun. See? Someone other, finally, another person who doesn't hate it. If it was like $4,000, I'd buy one. At the end of the Rogue, well, the Rogue games, the game next to Guns N' Roses, which was the last Jersey Jack game in the line, was Black Knight 2000. and they were both cranked up. Picture that in your head. I don't want to. Stop playing it, and it's just like, all you would hear is, Take me down to the Paradise City. You got the power. You got the money. Let's go to the queen and the girls are pretty. Get ready for battle. Beat the Black Knight. Please take me home. Oh.
    34:14
    It's like, oh, my God. I literally got a headache just from being in that. It's like, oh, Jesus, turn it down. They're, like, fighting for sonic supremacy between the two games. And who won? Nobody won. We all lost. Oh, okay. Then when I was playing Waka, it was playing songs from Chinese Democracy, and, man, some of those songs suck. Yeah. Every single song I played the entire time we were there was, like, the worst B-sides of the entire song. It was like, come on, man. We're just welcome to the jungle, paradise city. Even something for Use Your Illusion, something. I legitimately heard one of them. I was like, is this some parody song that's making fun of Axl's singing that they modded in here or something? But no, it's just a Chinese democracy album song. Yeah. You have too many songs on there. No one's going to get through all 20 in one game anyway. But, yeah, that was my – I had to share the Guns N' Roses experience.
    35:07
    So who won all the tournaments? Well, I played in Classics, Bruce. I had a plan. Usually I don play in the tournaments at all because I leave Sunday morning Sunday Sunday Sunday Well I don play in the main tournament because of the bracket thing and I just don want to be sitting around waiting to play when there might be a seminar I want to go to or something The Classics, the finals are Sunday, and I leave in the morning, and I know the Classics are going to go late, which they did. Yeah, Steph and Zach had a 9 p.m. flight, which we would think would be perfectly fine, and they had to actually leave before Classics finished in order to catch that flight. Yeah, our Ray Uber ended up having to be replaced by a real Uber. Wow, Ray Uber should get a fucking mark against them. And, like, Kaylee had to leave while he was still alive. Like, he eliminated his opponent and then had to leave. So then the next person got a buy. Like, it was crazy that it was running so, so far behind. That extra hour and a half really killed it for a lot of people, I guess. my plan was like you know what i'm gonna play in this and i want to like just miss out on the finals just so i can get whopper points well it was harder than i thought to miss out on the finals the scores were pretty low almost all weekend i was amazed i was still qualified like top 10 and i had like two games that were in the like 40s i was like i was surprised how high up i was I was in the middle and then dropped out Friday night. So Saturday, I only played, I think, 15 entries total.
    36:49
    And I just wanted, I had two games. I wanted a better game of Sea Ray, and I wanted at least 100K or more on Captain Fantastic. Those were my goals. So I had three entries, and I did it like on the first two entries.
    37:04
    Then the third entry was I just, whatever I played was shit. I think it ended up being a void. So then I'm in the middle.
    37:11
    And I know it's not going to last because I'm going to drop out. But I basically let it drop out. I didn't put any more in. That was in the morning. And I never played again. And I end up, what was I, 36, 37, something like that. Top 32 qualify. So you just missed out on those. So my plan was successful.
    37:30
    Congratulations, Ron. You did it. I did it. You failed in a planned manner. Yep. You finished 37th in qualifying. Yay!
    37:42
    Of course, there's no guarantee I could have put, like, 10 more entries in, and every score could have sucked. But, I mean, I was in one of those positions. When you're about that level, if you could just play one game and jump up, like, six or seven spots. If you just played captain a couple times.
    37:58
    It got, like, 200K. Boom, you're in. If you were in it, you would have been top 16. You were in it, but not the winning. Exactly. I was in it for the Whoppers, baby. Technically, Ron, you actually got fifth. Because you could have gotten 33rd, but you got 37th.
    38:16
    You got fifth in the Ron tournament. In the Ron tournament. So I know what else was playing. And who won the women's tournament?
    38:24
    Carrie Wing did. Very cool. She killed it. She got high in, like, all three tournaments, right? She's good.
    38:34
    And who won the... I'm not going to ask the children, because I bet you guys don't know that. The children? No, I don't think anyone advertised that. Before you go on, we should say Steph was fourth. Oh. Yeah, did we want to talk about each of our tournaments real quick? So, like, Steph in women's finals, what time did that start? Four or six? Six-thirty, because qualifying stopped at four, But then there was an hour for the scorekeepers to qualify. Oh, boy. I bet you were sweating that. Honestly, at that point, I saw how stressed all the tournament keepers were, and I just, like, had them show me how to use the iPad and score kept for them. And at that point, I had not expected to qualify. I ended up getting in on, like, a last-minute good game of Beatles. so I was already just like kind of resigned to the fact that I was probably going to get blown out of the water immediately. So you would have taken it, if you were writing down taking people's scores on Beatles, you know, another 5 million, 6 million, you would have taken it and smiled and been like, yeah. Are you kidding? Someone came like within a couple hundred thousand of beating my score and I was just like, girl, you just killed it. Nice. Like I felt better about helping out. Aw, that's so nice. Yeah, they really did need the helpers, too, so that was really... Yeah, I feel bad that I didn't step up earlier, honestly. Didn't you say you didn't remember Guns N' Roses? Didn't you, like, have a huge Guns N' Roses game to get into the finals? Am I misremembering that? Not to get into the finals. That was one of the rounds.
    40:11
    Yeah, I thought... Went through multiple games we blew up. Here, let's pull up the match play. I blew up Guns N' Roses at least one time. I think two or three times. I only remember the one time because that was like the last time before my brain started the descent into sleep-deprived madness. Because that time was like 1 a.m. already. Yeah. And we were still in like the semifinals. Yeah, and then I rode the semifinals on a high of satisfaction of having kicked Guns N' Roses ass. And then for the finals, I was so loopy. I was like the Duke of Bourbon, but from sleep deprivation. I think you were fourth in Beatles. then you got 600 million in Batman 66 but finished third oh yeah which is like one of my better games on Batman but two people got a billion so I got outplayed and I don't know what the third game was I have the final level there was an AIQ game and for that point again I was reaching the ball is so funny It goes in directions level. Yeah, it definitely got pretty loopy at the end there. They wrapped up at 3 a.m. The AIQ game started at like 2.30. Yeah, but the Guns N' Roses blow up was, I thought I was going to go out of the tournament. This was like round one or round two. So this was the quarterfinals. And I was so mad at Guns N' Roses that I just like, I managed to start the game, the song, and I was just like, all right, fuck this game. And I just vaguely remember Rage playing it and being very satisfied by the fact that I was scoring well on it. Then I got a song jackpot for six million, and I was like, yeah, fuck you, Guns N' Roses. You played all the way through Welcome to the Jungle. Yeah, it was really on core. I'm pretty sure you encored Welcome to the Jungle on the next song for like six million points. Yeah, it was incredible. That was, you played Bobby Orr, that got second, and then Batman, unfortunately, you had a close fourth place. It was almost third. Oh, that was, well. So that's what triggered your Guns N' Roses rage. Yeah, that was part of it, I think. Yeah, that was where Guns N' Roses, I lost my place by, like, less than a million. Whereas in the round right before that, I had gotten a place and proceeded by less than a million. Yeah, so in the first round, Batman 66, I think you squeaked by, like, less than a million. Yeah, and then on the next round, it flip-flopped on you, and you were like, well, I guess that's fair, but now I'm going to take it out on Guns N' Roses. The player field was incredibly strong, so pretty much every round I thought that I was going to get, I thought it was it for me because there were a lot of incredibly strong players. There was a lot of 8s, 9s, and 10s. One person in each group was just crushing every round. Like, Jane got 9 in the round that you moved on. Sammy got a 10 in the quarterfinal. There was just so much good. Perry got a 12 in the semis. That's right. She crushed all three of her games. So there was a lot of great play. So who were the top four? Kerry Wings won, I think. Crap. Was it Anna or Jane who was in second? It was... I want to say it was Anna. Yeah. Anna Neal from Hot Nudge. And then also from Hot Nudge. Jane, is it for Vice or is it for Weiss? Or for Weiss?
    43:39
    No one knows. Excellent. I was waiting for Ron to say dead silence. Dead silence. Anyway, good job. Congrats, Steph. Congratulations, definitely. And then the main tournament. That was won by Escher Lefkoff again. He won it belly to belly, back to back. See if I'm describing this right. He somehow ended up in the loser's bracket, which from what I saw when he was playing, I don't know how that was even possible. But who did he lose to? I'm not sure what, I think Escher lost a close game against Zach, which then meant that Zach's picks would, you know, because the way it works is when you play the game and you lose, the loser gets to pick the next game, and the highest seed gets to pick the first game. So basically, Zach was able to break serve on him, and essentially, because Zach beat him on one of Escher's games, the next game, you know, Zach had two chances to play him on a game, and Zach was crushing Stranger Things all weekend. So Zach McCarthy is this kid from Colorado who actually plays against Ezra quite often. And I think he's only like 16, 17 years old. And he had Stranger Things on lockdown. He knocked me out with Stranger Things as well. Yes, Raymond. You were the oldest person in the five or four. Just so you know, you're done. You're past your prime. It's over. Welcome to the Over the Hill Gang.
    45:02
    Yeah, I know. It's true. The top six players, I was the oldest one. By a lot, too. Yeah. For a person who's not even 30. Yeah. But it was pretty fun to watch, pretty good competition. And Dalton almost took out Escher, but $50 million on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle wasn't enough to Escher's $60. And Escher was putting billions on Godzilla. It was just huge gains left and right. It was kind of unusual. like most tournaments they usually make the games hard so that those kind of games don't happen but expo is like you said just a bunch of sterns out of the box on slidey cement floors and you have at it and it's just kind of the wild west and you get to see crazy games and it's kind of fun to have one tournament like that a year where it's just no like no limit hold up like anything is anything can happen you just see these huge scores yeah what i saw i saw your match and these are all two out of three, so it went down to the third game between you and Escher. Yep. Which you were trying to come back on ball three. Yeah, I was on Iron Maiden. I was on my way, and I just, I got distracted by how it would be that name, and I was getting frustrated because I kept missing the captain ball, but if I would have just paused and thought about it, I only needed two ramps to light Cyborg, so if I would have just collected myself a little bit and kind of re-centered, but Escher got it. He put up, you know, he was consistent the whole weekend, and it was a really good match. And right before that, I almost got eliminated, but I had the most amazing Beatles ball three to come back against Escher. That was awesome. We both got the wizard mode or the halfway there wizard mode. And then I think he played Alexander Kismarchik. No. Who was it? Help me here. It could have been Zach. I don't know. No, no. He beat three people in a row, and I think it was 2-0, all of them. Was it Jared August?
    47:01
    I think he was in there. When I saw, he beat, like, I think it was Alex Herkis-Martin 2-0, Jared August 2-0. Then he's in the, I might have had that in the wrong order, but then he was in the finals versus Zach, and it's the deal where he's in the loser's bracket, so he has to beat Zach twice. Now, Zach, I don't think had had a game in a while, like hours. Yeah. And I think that hurt him because Escher was just playing straight through. And I think Escher beat him 2-0 and 2-0. Someone can correct me on that, but I think at his last eight or nine consecutive games, he won. And then he won, and then he left. He disappeared. That was the last chance to take out Escher. And once I failed to do so, there was no stopping the train. Like, it had left the station. Then we have classics, which went on for a long, long, long time. It's been such a long time.
    47:55
    I think I should be going to my flight. They needed someone to move it along because people were taking their sweet time because they had this thing where it was like you couldn't wait past one on a game. So if someone was already waiting for a game, you couldn't wait on that game. But then people would just kind of, like, wander around, go to the bathroom, and then, like, oh, hey, it's free.
    48:19
    They're like, oh, look, that game's open now. Like, it was just so slow as molasses. And oftentimes you'd see only one game being played out of six. And you'd be like, what's going on? Why is not more happening? And it ended up, like I said, it ended up running until, like, 7.30 p.m. And who won? DJ. Also a returning champion. DJ Real from Pittsburgh. He had his, well, I had my rematch, I guess, because last Expo, it was me and DJ in the finals. And this Expo, it was me and DJ in the finals. And DJ just, he kind of steamrolled me. I mean, I had, I think I took a game off of him, but he was so consistent on that blackjack. And also, on Skateball, too, he was just on fire. El Fuego. Yeah, I got to watch the finals from my home in Albany because it was still going on when I got home.
    49:09
    I think I ate dinner, too. and just thought, oh, they're still playing. Look at that. The best part of the tournament for me, honestly, was after the main tournament finished late, late Saturday night. Actually, it wasn't that late. But at some point, all the tournament people, like they kind of, a lot of them came back and just they turned the games on and started playing. So that's where I got to play the most Godzilla.
    49:33
    Godzilla. Yeah, you and Zach were playing the crap out of that game all Saturday night. I mean we had until 3am because we were waiting for women's finals so we played Godzilla for like 3 hours I could not last, I don't think Zach lasted either he eventually left the room because it was too hot or too noisy or something I think I went back to free play for a bit trying to get some last games I never played before in lucky you yeah sorry I didn't get to the finals of a tournament you know like something like that ok now that we lost everyone for the tournament well let's see was lack of vendors an issue We're still in John Cosson's. I know. Was lack of vendors an issue? Lack of vendor hours was a fucking issue. Ooh, strong take. It's always been that way. It was horrible, yeah. It was like, right when I wanted to go to the vendor hall, it was closed. Every time. It's always been that way. Every year. It's 2 p.m. on a Friday. Oh, nope. Nope, can't go. You gotta wait till 6 or 5. It doesn't open next day until 4 p.m. It's 10.30 on a Saturday night. Nope.
    50:33
    It's literally like, the hours were like 6 to 10. Yeah. Yeah, well, closing at 10 p.m. on a Saturday.
    50:41
    Really? I don't know. There were a lot of vendors, though. Like, the vendor hall was pretty packed, I'd say. Yeah, packed with all the stuff. Although half of that was just, like, Stern's giant collection of games. Stern's collection, JJP's collection, and other people selling games there. So, you know, it was not really, like, the halls of old. Well, the vendor hall is where you wanted to be. because the free play section... That was dead. That was something. Yeah. What? Well? Talk to me, Goose. It's like EMs. It was a great place to be. I was sad that way, too, because they're all broken. There you go. If you like to look at EMs, it was great. There we go. Yeah, if you like to look at EMs, it was a great place. My camera and I were very happy. So I walked around. It's probably been Friday, Friday night. I walked around and I counted 179 pinball machines. I'm not counting video games. In the free play area. Wait, there was 179? It felt like there was like 30. No, no. I can't believe that either. No, I counted them all. 179. Wow. It's a huge convention center, too. In 39, we're working.
    51:57
    When you went through the games, they would have a card on it. Well, most of them did. Of whose game it was. 120 of them were owned by the same person. Mr. Burke. That is correct. Yep. So that left like 59 that weren't, although I did hear later that his name was getting put on some other games that weren't actually his when they were putting the cards on. It's not on every single game. It's probably right, typically. Well, you, now, Zach, you have some insight because you talked to one of the techs. Yep. Now, what did he say about, like, when they brought the games there? I thought this was interesting. I don't know where... These weren't stored in, like, the warehouse on end. Like, they're in his collection somewhere. But, like, they just, like, threw 100 games in the back of some moving vans and carted them over, and then the guys said they basically had, like, only a few hours to try to fix them all from, like, the travel and stuff and set them all up before the show started. So it's a typical Burke thing, because he did the same thing for the show at Allentown when he brought games there. Let's just say, if you wanted to play level games, you might have an issue. Or working games, you might have an issue. They were more level than the tournament area. Really? You didn't play the ones I played then? I have bad luck with the level things.
    53:15
    There was Iron Man there that had some other... It wasn't a Robert game. It had someone else's name on it. The Iron Man wasn't on free play. Exactly. It's in the free play area, and it was never on fucking free play, so I turned it off. I don't think anybody could play a single game of it unless you wanted to fork over 50 minutes. I mean, to be fair, the guy did have his number on there, but I wasn't going to call it. But what are you going to do, call it? Like, yo, dude, because he had a price on it. It was a home use only Iron Man, so I guess he was trying to sell it. But it's like, you're going to put your game on free play, being it's in the free play area? Well, then it wouldn't be home use anymore if Randos could have played it all weekend. No, if you put 50 cents in it, you're done with the home use only also. Oh, you're right. Yeah.
    54:01
    Biggest game. Did Rob have to bring that many games because he couldn't get other people to bring games? I told you what the problem is with all these tournaments. It's hard for people to want to take their games out of... Tournaments, you mean shows. Shows, I mean, or anything. Even tournaments. Like, say, trying to get people to, you know, bring games to a big tournament like New York, the New York Pinball Championship, that kind of stuff. They always, you know, they luckily had a good core there. Well, they had pop at the second year. They're not going to have that anymore. No, they're not. But you don't have that core of people. It's hard. It's the hardest thing to get people to say, gee, I'm going to bring a game out. And then, as me and Zach have also talked about, they know Zach has many games. So Zach's like, I'm going to bring two games, one for me and one for my dad. And they all look and like, why can't you bring more? That's all the room I have to bring. Do you want to bring a truck? Come on, grab some more. You know, that's the problem. They did have some higher ends. They had like Phoebe was there. She's an expo mainstay. She brought the Varkon, the Starlight, the only one I've ever seen, the Joust head-to-head, which I beat Zach on, by the way. Hey, they had a Starlight at Indus in the tournament bank one year. The Rat Race. Yep. And she usually brings some high-end, like, stern that's been all pimped out. But she did, and I can't remember which one it was.
    55:23
    There was a nice Baywatch there, which sold immediately, but it was still there the entire weekend. So that was nice.
    55:30
    So those people who brought working games, thank you. Yeah, that's a great thing. Thanks to, what are they called, Galapagos Arcade. They brought a bunch of video games, which to some people, like,
    55:42
    I thought it was cool. because they all actually worked. And it had a, the rarest game that was at the show was not a pinball machine. It was a Beavis and Butthead prototype video game that was there. What? Yeah, there was a Beavis and Butthead. You didn't see it? Was it like a custom or did it? No, no, no, no, no, no. It's production news. It's an Atari. I got it, the picture right here. I took a picture of the serial number off it. Atari, showcase number 25, proto number 9, ATE trade show, right on the back. Yep. So that was cool. I played some bump and jumps in Galaga. That was nice. Yeah, that was a very cool thing. That was a very nice addition. I don't want to just rag on, but the games, you get all these weird European games you've never seen before. Oh, cool, and then you can't play them because they don't start. They don't have credits, or they don't work. They had Odin. Yeah, they did. Yeah, I couldn't play it. I tried to play it. I couldn't play it. It wouldn't start a game. Of course not. There was Terror on the Lake or some kind of thing where... That worked. That was sure a game. I flipped it like twice, but the whole game just sucked anyway, so even if it worked, I didn't want to play it. The one where the naked women are riding dinosaur creatures? That worked? Not when I tried it. It worked and then it didn't work. Actually, when you were with me, it didn't work. There were a couple of valleys with the cool angular 50s, 60s cabs that I don't think I ever saw them on or when I did see them on, I couldn't play them. And then when I went back, they were off. Because I was not in the free play slash vendor area a lot. Please see tournament. Yeah, basically, by like four hours into the first day, a quarter of the games had been turned off, and they just never got back on the whole time. They seem to be open on the next day, only to be unturned. No, like all those old EMs and all the... Well, they're on, but they weren't working, like all the foreign games. A lot of them worked first thing, first day, and then they died. and then it's like... Was there anything to do Thursday from like 10, 30 a.m. to like 6 p.m.? Seminars. Seminars or sleep in?
    57:53
    Or play in the theater. They had the Stern virtual tour at like 9 and then the free play didn't open until 6. Was there stuff in between? Yeah, seminars. Oh, okay. I didn't know there were Thursday seminars. Or qualifying for the... Yeah, that's where I was at. But that's the way they've always done it. That's always been that way. I noticed By Saturday, late afternoon, early evening, they started taking the people who actually, the other people who brought games were taking them out. So it was getting less and less games.
    58:25
    I know it's tough to have all these games working and stuff, but man, I appreciate bringing all the games, but so many of them just don't work.
    58:34
    It's kind of a bittersweet thing because it's super cool, but then it gets to be a little frustrating. as understandable as it is because, again, maintaining that many games is hard. I mean, he does have multiple techs, though.
    58:46
    I don't know. I worry about some young person might come in there that would be into it and they go to play and, oh, this game doesn't start. This game doesn't start. Oh, this thing doesn't work. Why did I spend $25 or $35 for a single game? Yeah, like maybe the one game that looked cool to them, like, oh, this looks cool, and they can't start. Yeah. It may be the fact the vendor hall hours were so short, a bigger deal. Like, if you had an absolutely killer free play area with, you know, 179 games that all, like, worked awesomely, you'd be in heaven. Because it was so big, I mean, you could get on anything you wanted to immediately. Yeah, although there would have been a little bit of induced demand, right? If they were all playable games, then people would be on them. So it's kind of a... Well, if they were all playable... If they were all playable EMs, no one would care, unfortunately. Now, I have a question now, guys. Now, TPF, how many games are usually there? playable in the free play area and that kind of stuff. Most all of them are playable in the free play area. It's like 3-400, I've heard. And that's the thing. I would like to see them almost switch. I'd like to see TPF with this kind of space. Because TPF right now, where they are, is way too fucking small.
    59:58
    Although they make a good job of making it look big because you get lost trying to go anywhere because it's like a giant labyrinth. Yeah, and you also have times where you can't get from one end to the room to the other because there's so many people. Yes. And that's not cool. I'd love to see them in, like, the kind of room that this was in. You'd lose your carpet, though. Yeah, you'd lose the atmosphere. The atmosphere was definitely different. But, I don't know, maybe they need more incentives for people to bring games, too. I think at Espo, you just get a ticket. That's it. Yeah. At CPF, you get entered into stuff where you can win shit. Yeah, free prizes. Yeah. There's two types of shows. There's, like, the Pinfest Expo. Bring a game. We'll give you free entry. And then there's Texas or, like, Pintastic or shows where they're actually, like, thousands of dollars of prizes and stuff that they're giving away. Yeah, I'm trying to remember. Which show was it? There was a show that addressed the issue you said, Bruce, where we have – Oh, MGC. MGC did. Yeah. You tell us if you've got, like, five games. you just wrap them up and we will pick them up and bring them to the show and you can set them up. Have fun. Yeah, the Northwest show in Tacoma has transportation. I donated my games there before when I was living in Everett. All I had to do was say, I have three games and that was the minimum and then they would schedule a time for a truck to come by and pick them up right from your house.
    61:24
    It's got to be a pretty good return rate if you just rent a big U-Haul and just get a few people just drive around all day just like grabbing stuff. Yep. Instead of just criticizing, I'd like to, you know, present possible solutions. Yeah, and what you would think is what they can do is like, I know I heard that Stern gave away a ton of stuff at one of their things, one of their talks, one of the seminars. The family feud? It was the family feud that Zach went to. They gave away a ton of shit there. That was a lot of, I heard, cool stuff that got given away. maybe they should get it so like if you brought a game you would get some of this cool stuff because I heard some people got CAD drawings that were signed by teams you know from the loser kids got and that would be great to be able to have that chance if I brought something, a game that would maybe incentivize make more people want to bring some stuff if they got some cool stuff yeah any amount of payback for bringing a game will always help Exactly, and it seems like there's none for this show. It's actually, I think, worse than it was when it was the previous.
    62:33
    Previous management? Yes. I'm going to be honest. Well, you know, it's just Burke alone now. Before it was Burke and Mike. Before, wasn't it just whatever Mike wanted to pay you? Yeah, well. And then people would be searching for him on the last day, trying to get money from him. Yeah. Yes. Well, that was two years, and then he finally owned up at the end. But at least it's something. Now it's just you get entry. Really?
    62:59
    There's nothing to, you know, make people want to take their games out. So would you, if you were in Chicago, would you bring a game out to Expo? See, the thing is, usually when I would bring a game out, I usually bring it for the tournament.
    63:13
    True. But Zach has brought a game to, you know, Allentown, which is four hours away from him, and it takes a lot longer because he has to go from Rochester to Albany to Allentown. I mean, I used to try to bring them to sell, and they never sold at all. Then I thought I could bring them for the tournament, and then I'm like, okay, that works.
    63:33
    If I lived close to Expo, I'd be happy to give some games to the classics if they need them. I don't know if I'd bother bringing one just for free play. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, and that's the problem. There's no incentive for you to do it. The reason I always do tournament is because if I bring a game and something breaks on it and it's like flying around the playfield, a lot of people They're just like, oh, look at that, and they'll try to hit it with the ball and just keep playing. Or if it's, you know, smelling burning, they'll just ignore it and everything else. If you bring a game to a tournament, those players, this immediately will be, oh, this is broken. There's a problem here. This is broken. This isn't working.
    64:08
    I want a comp ball. Yeah, I want a comp ball. But at least they'll notice it. They won't just, like, be batting this broken piece all around the play field. It goes, oh, this is fun. Whee! Yes, I agree. Which is funny because it's usually when you hear people, they say the opposite. I don't want to bring games to the tournament area. They abused them. It's like, well, as long as your plumb bob works, they will not abuse your game.
    64:30
    So, yes, you did the family feud. Feud without the family was run by Dwight Sullivan, one of Bruce's favorite programmers.
    64:40
    Dead. Silence. So go ahead, Zach. He sent surveys out and, like, posted them in, like, Pinside stuff a few months earlier with all the different feud survey questions to see what people would send back.
    64:54
    And then he collated them all together into ten family feud questions. And we got everyone in the seminar room and he got ten Frisbees numbered one through five for each team. And he just chucked them out in the audience and see who caught them. And those are the families for the two sides of each round, which was pretty funny to watch. And then you played family feud, whatever the questions were. and then they had one table of cool prizes and one table of less cool prizes and the winning family got to choose from one table. You know, the other team got to choose another table. And it was fun. You know, like the late night winding down end of expo type of stuff to do. Wait, wait, wait. Did you just say something was fun? I heard it too. This has now been, we recorded this. Oh my God. And this is record, hold on. I got to mark that on where that is. That's the new title. Zach thought something was fun I thought a Dwight game was fun Oh I know but I had to say that for Bruce Although predictably they couldn't get the projectors to work or anything somehow So we couldn't actually see the screen So you're all out of luck on that The prizes were pretty cool You got a freaking Mechagodzilla Oh yeah they had a giant case of like Mechagodzilla scopes from Godzilla, which they didn't use for some reason. I don't know. They were given out. They had a big pile of full banners for launch parties and stuff, but everyone just took those, so they were all gone within two rounds, so I never got a chance with that, but that would have been cool, too. They had big piles of swag. And all of the other Stern, like Elwynn's seminar and Dwight's seminar, if you ask a question, we'll give you some swag, too. So Stern must have come with a giant pallet full of swag and just was trying to get rid of all of it.
    66:45
    All right, see, to continue John Constance's question, wow, this is going to take a while. More detail about the late-night corridor confrontation with he who shall not be named would be juicy.
    66:56
    I don't know what that means. Wait, what? Was there tea? Was there a late-night corridor confrontation with he who shall not, I don't know what that means.
    67:06
    To be honest, I have an idea what maybe he's talking about. There was a certain podcasting personality that I saw around, actually in the tournament area at one point, too, which was interesting. Are you sure that wasn't a different person that looked kind of like him that was also wearing a Viva La Raza shirt? Because there was someone in the tournament who was not said podcaster. The person I saw was said podcaster.
    67:31
    Okay. I mean, sorry, what? So I don't know if that – I mean, I know there was a ridiculous question asked during the, what was it, the virtual seminar, the virtual Stern tour seminar, because there was like a Q&A after the seminar, and Gary Stern was there, and yeah, there was like a very interesting question asked. I'll just say that. So next we have a question from Albert Agar. Orby. The homebrew games and tourney results. Well, we definitely did the tourney results. Homebrew games. Oh, my God, yes. Let's talk about them. I think I played all of them. I didn't. I tried to, but I couldn't get in time because they were in the vendor hall that had the short hours. And then they turned off the game while she was playing. Oh, that was so not cool. Oh, they turned off the game while you were playing it? Basically, while we were playing a four-player game of Stonic, you know, chatting with everybody. Late on Friday night? Yeah, I think it was late Friday night. And it was close to vendor closing hours, and it was a four-player game, I was the lowest-ranked player on that game by far. So, you know, it was going some time. But it wasn't like our games lasting a while. People still playing all the homebrew games. There's still lines for most of them. Yeah, yeah. And we don't know if it was intentional or not, but suddenly the power strip holding all those games went boop, and all the games were turned off in one fell swoop. and if that was intentional, that was beyond a shitty move. I think it's the same guy that turned off all the power at Allentown. Or the same guy who flickered the lights during Finals 2 at the tournament. Oh, no, no, no. That was because, that's apparently, like, policy of that hotel is every five minutes they flicker the lights for the last hour to show that the space is going to be closing. so when that started happening, Kate motored off in heels, in wedges, to go find someone and be like, could you not be kind of doing the thing? Oh, okay. So, like, she was able to get that resolved as soon as we figured out what was happening, but that was not cool. It's just one of those things, like, they need better hours for all the stuff. Come on. Yeah. Well, the thing is, how much are you guys getting charged for going to Expo? How much is the entry fee for the whole weekend?
    69:58
    $300? $150? They go up out of it, right? Or just saying the entry. There's like $150 for tournament entry, which included expo entry too, right? Yeah. Okay, so $150 times, how many people were there probably? Much at expo. Yeah, this year. What do you think? Much. Thousands. Okay, so there's a lot of money. You should hire a couple people maybe or pay a couple people local or, you know, volunteers that get extra benefits also. Mike did that. Mike had a lot of people for that.
    70:28
    So back to the homebrew games. What did we think of them? I played Sonic. Shot good. Yeah, Sonic was great. It had a lot of loops, flow, flowy flow. The Sonic, if you a Sonic fan it will make your heart happy It had a lot of great theme integration for sure Like it felt like someone who loved Sonic made the game which Oh yeah It reminded me of the same theme level that like Godzilla has People who like Godzilla made this game, which is always nice to see. So, yeah, Sonic... Very... The best one, I'd say. Sonic was the best game there, though. Mostly Sleek. Well, unfortunately, the only game I got to play... I wanted to play the Greek Gods with Steph, and we were waiting, and then it broke in front of us. It blew the screen and then we had to scuttle back, or I had to scuttle back because tournament.
    71:18
    It's interesting seeing some games that seem like they're trying to make a production game. And then some seem very much like I'm having fun. I'm doing creative stuff. Greek Gods really had the I'm having fun because it was the guy and his daughter, right? Yeah, and it has a knee button so you can flip with your knee or something at one point. It did something with the power, yeah. Yeah, it transferred the power from your flippers to the pop bumper slingshot, so if you wanted more pop action. Think of WrestleMania. Like at WrestleMania, the two little kickers, basically imagine if you had to hit a button with your knee to activate those, and it killed your flipper power when you did it too, so you had to make sure you got your knee off the button if you wanted to use the flippers again. That's basically what it was. That was pretty cool. Yeah, I'm really sad that I didn't get to see the Underworld play field. I got to see the top play field and I think we talked with the creator even and it was like the amount of passion in that game was just like you could feel it and it was I'm really bummed that I didn't get to play it. It was one of the more technically impressive games because it had a screen that you couldn't see the underworld play field you didn't even know it was there until you activated it and then all of a sudden you could see it somehow opaque screen I mean I think it's like an LCD screen about like the backlight or anything behind it you know, so there's no, if the pixels are off, you can see through it. So once you got to the lower play field, it would turn off the main part of the screen and just show like little animations, overlays on it, while you were flipping down there. Let's see, Castlevania, they had a Castlevania game, which, is that the one that you hit a shot on the left to light the scoop for a multiball, and then you hit the scoop and got multiball? Yeah, they didn't have like any rules to that at all, basically. That was basically the game. We thought it had a Star Wars, a Stern Star Wars ramp and like a, I think the other one was Austin Powers left ramp. The game looked like very like cleanly done because they were able to repurpose regular machine ramps to do the shots and stuff. That was interesting, different construction method to see. And there was a Metroid. Oh, yeah. From Jersey Jack. No. No, that's all. I never got to see Metroid actually working, because that was a game that, when they turned off the power, it did not like getting turned off. No, I think also what happened is, like, at some point, someone had maybe rage-tilted it, maybe shaken it a bit too hard to try and get a ball off, and Marquez had to, like, rejigger the system somehow, restart it. Yeah, it got all lost after, like, a ball was stuck, and then, like, lots of tilting happened to free it, because no one was around at the time or something. shenanigans were... Almost every time I tried to play the game, it was down for some reason. But I played it in Pentastic, though, before, so... There's, like, a really steep ramp on the right of it that... And on the left. All the ramps are super tall. But, like, the one that feels almost vertical, it feels so intimidating, but when you hit it, it is so satisfying.
    74:24
    The one with the upper flipper? Yeah. Yeah, that has to be the upper flipper one. I don't know if that would be a Pentastic since he's moved now, but it would be cool if it did manage to get back to Fintastic. It would be a lot of driving. Yeah. What other ones were there? I'm trying to remember. There was like a Detroit one. Yeah, the Night at the Roxbury or whatever. Yeah, Night at the Roxbury one I heard also. Or was that Boys Night Out? It was Boys Night Out. There was a Ghost in the Shell one. And there was the Black Knight one where someone built a black knight from scratch with no reference besides pictures. Oh, is that what that was? That's apparently what that was. It was just like, I want a Black Knight. I can't find a Black Knight. He got some playfield scans, and he just made a playfield from scratch and, like, fend all the ball guys himself and stuff for it all. You can look at it and you see, like, no, that's not a Stock Williams part. That's not a Stock Williams part. You know, like... It played great, though, actually. So it must have had, you know, 50-volt coils or whatnot. I couldn't make the ramps when I played it. Oh, really? Oh, wow.
    75:26
    I'm still on Albert's question. And who won the Drunk Award? I don't know what that means. Who was the drunkest one you saw? The drunkest? The oldest was pounding fireball shots at the end of the women's tournament. Oh, yeah. Yes, the oldest was. He gets the honorary mention. Yeah, he gets the mention. He was fired up.
    75:45
    He's actually the only person I talked to that I could tell was an Ebridge, yes. Okay, so congratulations. Congratulations, Jeff. You're our winner in our book. Mike asks, Cactus Canyon 2.0 rule possibilities. and Steve Bouton to AP. Well, congratulations, Steve. That was very cool. That was a great pick. That was one I was glad to see at Expo. Yeah, it's cool finding a game to play with him again, too. Yeah. You know how we have the no hug rule? Yeah. I threw away the no hug rule for Steve. See? He warrants an exception. Come on. He was the happiest guy I saw at Expo. He was always all smiles. Yeah, he was great.
    76:25
    Cactus Canyon 2.0 rule possibilities. I don't know. I'm not smart enough for rules. We'll wait and see, but, you know. It's going to have rules. I played the, well, the reveal was just weird.
    76:39
    Yes. I guess the dude was, like, super late getting there, and then they just, like, kind of rolled it in and here it is. And then I saw pictures up from the vendor hall, like they're setting up the Cactus Canyons right now, which you could see them, like, oh. I played it. It was just a brighter, blingier Cactus Canyon with a cool topper. Yes. which is not even yet. Well, that's another. Yeah. So what was it? The first thing is bad marketing, bad marketing all the way around. I played it, and it did have like it has a match sequence now, and all the graphics have been updated. Yes. They look really cool. It has the big screen stuff. Like the AFM upgraded graphics, that kind of stuff, that's what it looks like. Yes. Yeah, it's a pretty color DMV with multiple shades. Yes. It's got, you know, full RGB lighting. fortunately it also has strobe flasher type stuff going on where I just was like oh god but that's the way it is now so fine whatever they hired Dwight too not just Lemons the original thing was what was it $82.50 for a standard edition I think they call it and then $9 $92.50 $9500 whatever it was for the LE which has a super cool topper. It's got Bart, which he draws. He actually draws his gun.
    78:04
    And soon after Expo, they announced that we're going to do a standard edition plus which will basically cost the same as the LE did and I'll have the topper on it.
    78:21
    Dead silence. I mean, it's an option And if someone really wants the topper, they can show up. Yeah, because they sold out of the LEs, supposedly. The 1250 sold out right away. That day. I was hearing at the show they were already sold out. Yeah. And now, you know, you can buy it now without the extra sculpts, an extra wood arch, and everything like that. Because I know I visited the Flippin' Out Pinball Network area in the vendor hall several times, just trying to see if, like, Zach Minney was there, and I never saw him the entire show. because I guess he was just taking orders most of the show. I never saw him either, yeah. I saw lots of other TPN members, though. Yeah, I never saw Dennis. Dennis Greasel, never saw him. I did see – I saw Hi to Dennis.
    79:03
    So next is Bowen. Bowen no longer with Spooky. What's next for him? Yeah, this was weird because – Off the cuff. It was off the cuff. Because this was in the Halloween thread on Pinstype where they were talking about the game And his name came up that he was going to contribute to the game because Charlie had said that. They had said that in print and I think in at least one podcast that he was going to be consulting or going to be consulting, whatever, on Halloween. And Bowen basically said, first time I saw Halloween is when you saw it. So I gave them some – Criticism and nothing else. Well, no, he gave them some ideas, like some things I would change. And as far as we know, they didn't really listen to him, and he's no longer with Spooky.
    79:52
    Yeah. So there you go. What's next for him, if anything? I mean, isn't he still a full-time math textbook writer? Yeah, he's a full-time, yeah. And he's not going to leave that. He's not going to try. He's not going to move to Chicago to work for a pinball company. So whatever it is, it's going to have to be like a part-time consultant gig. Part-time, yes. I mean, it would be cool if he just did the same thing for American Pinball or something. Yeah, or CGC, more cuts, whatever. That would be nice because, I mean, I liked – I still think Alice Cooper is the best spooky game. I think I might agree with that. And I have no issues with the rules on Rick and Morty. It's just the play field.
    80:31
    But I have no – I mean, they did that really well. They did that really well. I mean, it is what it is. Yeah, I think you just wait and see. Yeah. It's not going to be like, you know, somebody going – you'll find out if he gets another gig with somebody else when they announce it. I think his track record is good with those two games, so someone should give him a call. Yeah, if you were smart. Let's see. Daniel, who did you hang out with, the people on this call?
    81:00
    Even Bruce. Well, no, I didn't hang out with Bruce. Actually, I wasn't the popular Ron Hallett at the show. That was my dad. Yeah, I heard. The single most heard line. At least five people said this same line to me. Oh, Ron, I just talked to your dad. Oh, Ron, I was just talking to your dad. Oh, Ron, I was just talking to your dad at the bar. All right. You know, he hooked up with his best buddy, Steve Ritchie, again. You know, he was all over the place. Joe Katz from Jersey Jack comes up to me. Oh, hey, Ron, I was just talking to your dad.
    81:32
    Where are these guys? Zach, Steph. Yeah, these guys left me alone. Yeah, you guys got to hang out with a lot of cool people. I ended up somehow, despite doing badly in two of the three tournaments and, well, in only one, I somehow managed to have my entire weekend taken up by tournaments, and I'm not sure how that happens. It's easy. Apparently. What do you get up at noon? Oh!
    81:58
    Oh! Hey, that's not true. We went out to that Kuma's Corner. That was fun. That was a nice dinner. That was a cool place. I got a burger that had French toast. That's right. So we hung out with Azure Last Pop. Describe your burger, Raymond. It had slices of French toast sticks. It had a fried chicken patty. It had the burger, Phil, and had... Maple syrup? Yeah, syrup. That sounds really good. I'm in. I had to basically take off the bun, eat the French toast sticks, eat the chicken thing by itself, and then have a burger afterward. No! You eat it all. It's got to go in the same place anyway. It's too big to fit in your mouth. Well, you have a big mouth. I got a chicken sandwich with no toppings, and I still cannot fit in my mouth. Like, there's so much chicken in there. You guys are going to take me there next year. Yeah, it's basically if Rock Fantasy was running a gourmet burger bar, because there's heavy metal music in the background the whole time. It's amazing. But next time we'll get reservations. Yeah. It wasn't that bad. It was like 35, 40 minutes wait. Ron ate burgers. The first day, and that was it. Then the rest of the time, I think I just had apples and candy bars from the vending machine. And then I had pizza the one day.
    83:17
    Wow. Sorry. Yeah, the one day we finally tracked you down, I'm like, do you want food? Yeah, and I was like, yes. Yes, please. Richard asked, Steve Ritchie's next game. I don't know. Don't know. I'm not a mind reader three years in the future. We don't have Ron Halep Sr. on. We can't expect him. Yeah, we can't. Yeah, he talked to him. Maybe I should, yeah. I mean, I was at the first part of the Jersey VX seminar until it became obvious that there was no announcements and it was just basically going to be Q&A and it was a bunch of stuff I'd already heard on like a zillion different places. But was there pizza? No. I don't think they're doing that anymore, so I'm not going to expect that to happen. Fail. Sorry, what did Steph ask? It was their pizza. Yeah, because that used to be a thing. The Jersey VX seminar would always have pizza. There also could have been a deal bringing all that pizza in. Maybe the hotel wasn't very into that. Yeah. I know even the Westin wasn't too into that because we used to do a morning tournament, and they would get pissed when donuts would get brought in. It was great. The tournament room, you could bring in. They had tables. People, you could bring in whatever food you wanted. Yep. And if you left the food there, people would eat it. Yeah. Because our pizza disappeared when we came back. Wow. Yeah.
    84:29
    Aaron, best and worst of Expo and a comparison of shows. I think we kind of covered a lot of that. Yeah, TPF is always going to be the best, I think. Yeah, TBR versus Expo versus Allentown. They're all different kind of shows. Allentown's not different. Allentown's like a flea market. I mean, TPF is a game. Let me try that again. TPF is a show where it's a flex show. People want to bring their games in. They want to bring their high-end shit and show you how awesome it is. Yeah, they have, like, contests, right? Yeah. Yes. To show you stuff or doing stuff good. Expo is like a pinball get-together with some pins attached. Yeah. Yeah, TPF, it's like, look at my awesome game. Look at these. Look at this topper. Look at these pin stadiums. Look at this game. Look how awesome it is. I will have to say, though, Stern's presence at Expo was pretty darn cool. It was cool. And so, you know, all of them actually stepped it up this year. They did. I will say Stern, they brought carpet in, which was nice. So they had carpet in their area. They had a merchandise table. They had a stage where they did interviews, which is weird. And the cosplay contest, which, did you see Rebecca Hintzell's Black Knight costume? It was freaking incredible. Which was cool because Halloween was Sunday, so it played into that. And they brought all their latest and greatest games, and everything was insider connected. You could get achievement. Not everything. You couldn't get achievements outside of Expo because it hasn't been released yet. So you could get Led Zeppelin achievements. You could get Aerosmith achievements. You could get, you know, all the new games achievements. And you also got a special badge on your profile if you played at least one game saying that you played at Stern Connected Expo. You were saying, Zach, not all of them? Yeah, some of them just had signs saying, like, this would be connected or something. I was looking around. Oh, really? You know one game they had a lot of? Godzilla? They had a ton of Godzilla. They had like 30 of them, right? So we'll get into that. This is the person who works for Stern, ladies and gentlemen. He's asking. I don't know. How many did they have, Raymond? I thought it was like 15 pros and 15 cream hands. It might have been even 20 of each. They had a shit ton. You had no issues getting... I mean, they were all in use, but it was like one deep. Like you could just stand behind a person and if they weren't a dick and restarted the game, you could play. Or if they didn't have an issue. And I noticed this. If you scan your code in for the Insider Connected thing, you had to remember to log out, and certain people didn't log out. Like the first game of Godzilla I ever played, I was playing under somebody's name. I was getting achievements, which confused me at first. Like I hear the achievement sound. What? I didn't swipe in. Why am I getting achievements? And I realized there was some dude's name on the game. But also, if you had swiped in, and you can move your player, like say I want to be player four. If you hit start once, it's a four-player game. So if the person was player four and it wasn't logged out, if you walked up and you hit start, you're now in a four-player game. Yeah. So now people are going to think you're an asshole. Look at this asshole. He started a four-player game.
    87:42
    I was at our local location today playing the Godzilla that's connected there, the pro. After your game, it basically counts down 20 seconds or something. Yes, 30 seconds. Where if you just hit start or put in more credits, it'll remember your players. Yes. Which works fine at, like, a medium traffic location, but if people are waiting in line, then they're just going to be jumping on your name. What they should do is do it like the flippers. Like, if you hit the flipper faster. Yeah, if you hold the left or right flipper, it'll count down faster. It goes down faster. Yeah, but you have to know to do that. Yeah, you have to know to do that. Probably better if it's, like, a five second, then, like, if you flip, it'll stop counting or something. Yeah, I played a lot of Godzilla. Let's do Godzilla last. Elvira, the 40th Elvira was there. Elvira 40th. Yeah. 40 years of Elvira. Or $40,000.
    88:30
    Jesus fucking Christ. Well, I heard it was selling for $25,000. $25,000 to $26,000, yes. Okay, so not quite that much. I was hearing that it was... 199 of them. Well, I was also hearing distributors, at least one thing I heard, it was like $15,000. That's what it was for the distributors. And they were told they could set their own price. So there you go. It's basically, it's the same game, but purple trim, some updated art that says 40, like 40 years of Elvira. You don't get a piece of the couch.
    89:03
    You should get the whole couch with this. You should get the whole fucking couch, yes. Elvira had sex on his couch. There you go. Holy shit. And then you get the shooter rod, the special custom. And did they sell out? Oh, yeah. Well, there you go. Then it was a fine decision. Would you pay $26,000 for an Elvira? No. If I really wanted an Elvira, I'd just get the regular one. Thank you. It says 40 on it. It has purple trim and a shooter rod. Does it have, like, a real back glass, too, I would assume? Something like that. Does it have a topper? Yeah, I don't even think it has a topper. I'm trying to remember. Look, I was right there. I never played it, but I saw it. I don't think it had a topper. I mean, it had the cool, like, sparkly, I don't know what it's called. side art that sparkles. The thing they use on Batman 66, like the original Super Ellie's or whatever. What else? I played the Jurassic Park home game. That played fine. Yeah, I heard a lot of people said it played really good. That sweet Robocop jump ramp. They should put a coin door in it. That would be a cheaper option for people to put on location, honestly. Nothing about it seemed like a home model, other than the fact it didn't have a coin door and a lockdown bar. It has, like, the plastic edge things on there that I know I would have an issue with. I'd probably end up breaking them. Yeah, the lockdown bar is not comfortable. No. But, I mean, it has the freaking head as the ball. It spits out the ball. That's more than the Pro does. Mm-hmm. Played fine. I did notice it had, let's see, who knows this term. It had a B-N-O-D that had fallen off and got stuck in the in lane. A blue nub of death. Very good. He knew it, yes. One of the blue nubs of death fell off. And it was funny. It just parked its way in the in lane and two balls got stuck behind it. Those are the little foam dividers they have between shots, right? It's rubber. It's like hard rubber. rubber, and it's like, instead of using a mini post or having a stand-up, if you have, like, two ball guys that come together, you just wedge this thing in between, so it just hits them. Like Lord of the Rings, Left Orbit. I think Gomez was one of the first to use it a lot. Yes, he was. He was. Let's see, so, I think that's all the games, so let's get the Godzilla.
    91:31
    Oh, no. There goes Tokyo. Go, go, Godzilla! You know, that'd be cool if they played it during multi-ball or a game over. Will Ron sell his Jurassic Park and get a Godzilla? Yes, Scott asked, will Ron sell his Jurassic Park and get a Godzilla? I don't know if I'll sell my Jurassic Park. But he is getting a Godzilla. But I'm getting a Godzilla. Won't be until next year. Premium? Yes. Yes, he needs the expo. It has to be a moving building. Got to have the moving dinosaur, got to have the moving building. Well, the moving building, it's not just because of the shots are different. It differs in different spots depending on where it goes. And I was watching a multiplayer game. I didn't realize they did this. Like, person locked the ball on the roof. Then they drained out. Next person was up. When their lock was lit, the building actually went up. So it goes through. So it's coordinating, you know, the lock situation. It would suck to catch the one to shoot those ramps, though. The building only diverts when lock is lit. That's the only time you can ever loop the ramps. And then if someone else locks the ball, well, you don't even get that. So Zach can get the pro.
    92:37
    Zach didn't hate it, so that's a positive. Okay, hold on. You can do some advanced strategy techniques where you light lock, and now your right ramp goes back to your left flipper. And since the right ramp is one of the easier shots, usually, you can start jet fighter, and jet fighter kind of moves in, like, arc across the play field, so you can do three right ramps in a row real quick. Get some huge jet fighters. I always get some big jet fighters by looping the side flipper shot as well, which is really satisfying. Zach, is it fun? Is it fun, Zach?
    93:10
    Jury's out. Oh my god, come on! So you played it for like an hour and a half? Yeah, exactly. You know what Mom says about the floors of the building of whether he likes the game or not? There's like different levels that a game needs to give for you. Oh, yes. Oh, you weren't talking about the mech, okay. No.
    93:31
    First it's got to shoot good or it just doesn't ascend to the next level. Yeah, so, like, it's gotten at least two levels for me, you know, but I don't know if they'll have the third level. The only shot I see an issue with is that left ramp, that 180 ramp. And it seems to be game-dependent, too, because I played a pro. I played multiple pros, but the second pro I played in the vendor area, every time it was making it beautiful, super smooth. Other ones, it was like you had to be absolutely perfect or you would get clunk city and it wouldn't make it up. So to me, that means it's just something you can adjust. It's just going to be, you're going to have to play with it. And I think that's a lot of Ellen's games. You have to play with shit because he makes stuff like that. If you're going to make stuff that shoots cool, sometimes you're going to have to tweak it a lot to get it to work. But, yeah, I loved everything about it. It's everything I thought it would be. I like the game a lot. I think it's a fun shooter. I'm into the theme. So, everything, monster battles, all that. Oh, I like that part. We got tanks. We got the music. Death fighters, everything else. I like that part. The guy's voice that I wasn't into for the trailer, but once you hear it in the game, it's like, oh. I had a voice like this. I know those things. I'm turning back.
    94:54
    Good golly. It's here. Good golly, Miss Molly. Jackpot. I love that one. Yeah. I don't believe it. A giant robot. in the shape of Godzilla. Or, that bridge is really taking a pounding. I love when you're shooting loops and it shows the guy's head spinning. Yeah. Yes. Or Jet Jaguar spinning around. The Magna Grab, which is from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, where he makes himself magnetic. The things like come to Godzilla, stick on him. Or when you, the ball save, he kicks Minya, his son. Like, get back in there. Put me back in the action. Oh, and it's only going to get better. Who put it out there? That's Orbit. The magnet concerns me, too, still. Yeah, the magnet was kind of mean on location for me. He was saying in the seminar, they basically hadn't fully coded the magnet logic still. They quickly just found a certain pulse setting that happened to work most of the time for flinging it around and doing the... But if your game isn't that game, or if the power is weird or something, and then, like, the magnet just stops grabbing the ball sometimes, you know, like, and they'll throw it all over the place. Like down the middle. Theoretically, they should have, you know, they have the entry switch for the building and they have the exit switch before the magnet. They can know exactly how fast the ball is going. Like, theoretically, you could time it all perfectly and adjust on the fly to that. So hopefully that will get better with the code. It is super cool when it works, though. It's like the most satisfying whoosh, just like swing, and then drops it and it comes back down. Yeah, but the fact that last couple of code updates, they've had a lot of magnet-specific things in there, tells me that they are aware of the situation. Yeah, they are, definitely. Hence the reason I don't get it now. I always think of the Stranger Things scenario, the fact that if you got the early one, you had the backboard thing that didn't work right. What else? You had the pop-up thing that would just come right out, the ramp thing that didn't work right. So then they had the ramp upgrade kit. They had all this stuff they came out with later, these fixes. I don't think they've run a premium run since then that would have, but I would assume if they ever do. But your strategy wouldn't have worked on Stranger Things. Yeah, because they didn't come out with another premium run. So I would assume if they did another premium run, it would have the fixed ramp. All the fixes they came up with would just be in that one. That's kind of why I like to wait, especially with, like, a premium. We've got that much crap. because the one thing I noticed about the building that I've seen in a couple of Godzillas is you lock the balls, the building comes down, all three balls go right down the middle. Boom, boom, boom. I've seen that in multiple Godzillas now. But I've seen other ones where they all hit the left flipper fine and had no problem. So it's one of those things.
    97:48
    Yeah, like you were talking earlier about the adjustments and stuff. Is that a new designer thing? where, like, I feel like Steve Ritchie is the longest active designer. He's been going since 1980. The 77, actually. 77? Yeah, Airborne Avenger.
    98:05
    Maybe not in his early games as much, but, like, I feel like by the end, he wouldn't design a shot that didn't work a lot, that already did lots of tweaking. You know, maybe that means, like, sometimes he put on less cool shots, potentially, but, like, he definitely, like, knew how to make the game where all the shots would function well. That's a possibility, because supposedly there's some kind of thing you can adjust in Maiden to make the loop shot faster or slower, but it's not really in a manual or anything or tells you to do it. Yeah, I had a similar problem on my Avengers of just, like, the right orbit. Really tight, narrow shot, and, like, it just didn't work sometimes. And you had to, like, there's, like, five different places you could try to tweak it to improve it. And I'm, like, I tried to get it better. It got somewhat better, but I'm, like, maybe this is just the shot's flawed. Are you accusing Keith Owen of making a flawed shot? Maybe one flawed shot in four games We'll give him that Pousers Raymond had to defend That is your go for great Did you miss David Dennis? David Dennis, how much you missed me Yes Actually, it would have been nice to him to be there Because I still never met him in person Even though we've been podcasting for quite a while now Yes, I've never met David Dennis. Well, he's from Canada. Hey. My podcast mate from the excellent Silver Ball Chronicles podcast, which can be heard on the Pinball Network. Has anyone actually met David Dennis? I have not, no. Is it possible he's actually just Ron in a wig or something crazy like that? You know, I know it sounds far-fetched. No, that could never happen. With a fake accent? Nah. Maybe I'm David Dennis. No, there's no way Ron could pull off other accents. I just can't. Speaking of accents, was Stu McVicker at Expo? Oh, I'm glad you brought him up. I had him on my list here. Stu has contacted me. Did he get deported? No, he did not get deported. He needs to be bailed out of jail.
    100:01
    He has been practicing constantly since his horrific performance in Rochester. Dan, how's it going? He knows that Raymond Davidson will be in the area, fantastic weekend, and he wants to challenge Raymond to an IFPA-style four-out-of-seven battle at level zero. Ooh, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday? Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! On Sunday. So we'll have to figure out what time, but only if you accept. He's not sure you'll accept or not, you know. Cowardly. Yeah.
    100:34
    I'll do it. So he'll do it. Okay. So I'll let him know. He doesn't listen to the podcast. I'll have to make sure I come out for that one, maybe. Maybe we'll just come out Sunday. I could be the announcer. Won't Ron be announcing? It's his place. No, because... I'm sure he wants to see this. He would love to, but he usually walks out because he cannot stand stew. I might tack, but I definitely will not. I will not announce. No, there will be a random chocolate pie upstairs, and then Ron will disappear. Yep. And then when Ron reappears, the chocolate pie will have disappeared. Yep, that's supposed to. And chocolate stains on his shirt. now I want to make a chocolate pie that does sound good that will be on the Slamtail Podcast Twitch stream on Sunday announcements will be forthcoming that's on two weeks from today yeah, I wonder what games Stu would pick two weeks, the 21st I wonder what games Stu would pick yeah, well Stu also he had a note here Ray cannot pick any games he's worked on ah So let's see. Have you worked on Deadpool?
    101:41
    I did. Oh, okay. That's out. Well, on Jurassic Park, I added the fossil award, Top Paleontologist. That's out. I didn't actually submit any code for Deadpool, but I did suggest a couple things to Tanya that he said yes and put in the next release. So I guess I kind of worked on Deadpool. Okay. How about Star Wars? No. Wait. Oh, I did ask. I told Dwight that he should probably put in that second ball save.
    102:09
    Everyone said that. I don't know if that counts. It doesn't count. I will do a rule. That does not count. Wow. Bruce is going to keep Star Wars in something. That's amazing in itself.
    102:22
    Why not play it? Play along. By the time it's done, he'll have gotten here from Rochester. Yeah, exactly. Thanks for that. I had it on my list. Stu could pick Deadpool if he wants to. Yeah, he could. Or he could just pick all older games, because that's what he likes because he is old, as we know. He's been the 1978 Playboy Launch Party champion. He's actually older than me. Is there a Playboy at level zero? No, I would never have that game. That game sucks. I would have Kiss before I would have Playboy.
    102:52
    Which one? The original one. Right, Gene? That's right. The greatest games ever made, Kiss, followed by the other Kiss. Let's go to the ball bag Oh my So we have a message from Dan Hi Dan Hi fellas, love love love your show Wish it was weekly but I digress I know these are hard to find But figured I would reach out to the classic Sternmasters I badly need a spinner for big game Any leads?
    103:29
    Yeah, that's the hardest That's one of the hardest ones that and Sea Witch are the two hardest spinners to find. Is it because they're really wide? No, they're custom.
    103:39
    They're only for that game. As opposed to just like an S or something? Yes, or the colored S or like that, yes. Sea Witch is white with the girl in front and then there's like a couple stars on the back side of Sea Witch. I thought it was a wave. Yes.
    103:57
    You can't get like a decal for it? Well, you can, but it doesn't... Well, big game is worse because the greener – it's greener. Let me try again. It's green. It's green on the side. It's got the lion's head in the front, and then it almost does what Kiss does. It's just the little tongue on the backside of it, like the little face, like the red face of his mouth. That's all it does, so it flips. So what would you suggest he do? Look for eBay. Go to shows. Try to find a used play field. I can look at my used – I don't think I have spinners on mine, I used payfield I just grabbed. I was digging through stuff in my bins of parts, and I found two Stern spinners just sitting there. Well, Bruce will look through his parts and get back to you if he finds anything. If I find it. Otherwise, I would say, like, maybe eBay or try to get out just some shows that have. Yeah, they're the two rarest ones. Yeah, like a flea market, and maybe there's an old playfield. It would suck to buy a whole play field just for that, but it would be good to get the parts off it, too. I mean, Bruce will buy the rest of the play field from you afterwards. Yes, I would buy the rest.
    105:08
    Also, a pin side want ad can't hurt. I've gotten some weird parts off that. Definitely a good idea. I got a meteor spinner off that. Nice. Okay, so that's Dan. Thank you.
    105:21
    John. Hi, John. John asks, hey, guys, I have a question. When Bally Williams developed the Fliptronic system, what problems specifically were they trying to solve with the existing Flipper systems for System 11? Well, number one was that Stern had the other system.
    105:40
    I had to get rid of that. Without even bragging about the solid-state Flipper, you know, they're losing sales, so they had to do something. Yeah. As a player, I prefer the Flippers in the System 11 games, so I figure there must be a reason for developing Fliptronic from the operators or designers, and any insight is appreciated. Well, there's two systems.
    105:59
    There's Flipronics for one game, and then there's Flipronics 2. Yeah but they work and play the same Yeah they do yes Flipronics is the only one yes Although it also whether it optos or switches Exactly Also so you have As far as trying to solve I honestly think it was just continuing the technology. They wanted to be able to control the flippers and flip them automatically.
    106:25
    Honestly, the only thing that really feels different is the fact that if you go from leaf switches to optos, that's when they start to feel a little different. Or like when they change the coil stomps. Early on in System 11. Yes, that's true, too. And the coil springs. Yeah, they went to extension springs at some point. That would change the seal. Yes. I mean, as far as trying to solve, I mean, they were just trying to add what, like you said, Data East had, and they advertised it, solid-state flippers. So, Williams has got to keep up with that. More flexibility. They wanted to have, you know, a newer thing that was easier to control. Plus, you can control the flipper. Plus, you can prevent the coil from overheating. Yeah, the end of stroke switch. Because the end of stroke switch, they still use it, but they have code in there that if it doesn't go off in a certain time, they're still going to cut to the low power winding. So the coil isn't overheating. So you don't have that with the old one. I mean, if the EOS switch isn't working properly, if the EOS switch on a System 11 isn't opening at the end like it's supposed to, you're going to burn the coil up. Yeah, you're all popped. Some of the early flyers that are at Easter, they even had a guarantee from Gary, Like, you'll never be able to use another flipper coil. Yeah, one year. Up to one year. They're not going to smoke anymore because we fixed it. Yeah. Is this 11A? This is 11? Until they went to no EOS switches anymore and went to computer-controlled and RoboCop, and that's what really fucked it all up. Well, none of the early days. Is that why RoboCop sometimes, if a fast-moving ball will, like, trampoline the flipper, there's no EOS on that? There's no EOS. Yeah, from the beginning of the solid state until, like, Jurassic Park, I think, is where it started. When they started doing the kickers that throw it back at you, they put the EOS switches back in. Yes. So there you go. I think that answers the question.
    108:14
    Passing over that email we can't discuss, but thank you, Mr. Johnson. I'll just say that. Sean says, Bruce sounded like a young Barnaby Jones in the case of the pinball punks at the piano factory. Keep up the great work. Oh.
    108:31
    We did have the pinball punks. and we are at the piano factory. Young Barnaby Jones. I don't think he was ever young. Wasn't he always old? He was born old. He was old in everything. He was old in Beverly Hillbillies. He was old in Barnaby. He's always old. I remember seeing him in a 50s movie.
    108:53
    It's almost like it was a knockoff of Creature from the Black Lagoon. And he was old. He was old still, that.
    109:02
    What's his name? God damn it. Woo, doggy. Buddy Epson. Jesus Christ. Okay. Pulled that right out of my ass. That was a pull right out of my ass. I can't believe you remembered something. Holy shit. I got one more. It's not from the ball bag. This was actually sent to our... Yes, our Facebook. Facebook Messenger. I have that right here. Well, go ahead. You read it. Trex Gold. Hi, Trex. Hello, excellent, entertaining podcast. I listen to all the episodes. Do you help the listeners with technical issues? I've got a pinball machine, but not 100%. My issue is with World Cup soccer, it scores goals and registers striker a hideout at random times, even without the ball going into the goal. Opto issue. Yeah. Other times, a ball will go into the goal and won't register. I took an opto out of the goal trough, cleaned it with a Q-tip, put it back in. Now it's even worse. I checked the 10 switch and the 7 switch opto boards, and they look good. But you can't really go by looks. I still think it's the opto. Yeah, I think it's opto. I think you'd replace both optos. I mean, it's either the opto or the opto board, right? Yeah, but if you go into SwitchTest, any of you who registered once, it's not the opto board. It's like bad shutter joints or something. Yeah. So I would actually replace both optos.
    110:19
    Do ones with the post, you know, with the holder. By optos, you mean the receiver and the sender. Yes, yes, both receiver and the sender. And make sure they align. so you've got to make sure you actually are getting your signal when you do it. And make sure it's not being blocked by the metal thing that's behind. Exactly.
    110:37
    Aren't there two optos in there? I don't remember. Well, there's one for like if it goes in the scoop because it needs to know if you shoot the ball in there, but then there's one for if you made a goal before it enters the scoop because it rolls down. Yes, there's two. It's interesting that they're both doing it. Is there an opto in the scoop or is it like an up kicker where it just presses down? It is an opto. It is an opto because it goes down and there's two optos, one on each side of the scoop side. And there's also one in the pathway. When it goes through a goal, it goes through the pathway. The thing is that there was an issue with the opto and the up kicker. Wouldn't it fire a lot? It's saying it's just giving false goals and stuff. Yeah, which is the other opto, which is the goal opto. It's another that doesn't fire when it goes in the scoop.
    111:18
    Other times, ball will go into the goal. It won't register. but it sometimes registers strike or hideout without the ball going in. Yeah, so it's got to be both that are flaky. Yeah, I would replace all four. They're so cheap. Just do it. So you put that connected on the switch matrix? Well, not the switch matrix. It actually goes to the first. It goes to the 10 or the 7 switch up the board. The only thing it could be if it is a flaky IC chip on those. When it says strike or hideout, is it giving him an advance towards lock? because if not, it could just be the first striker award. You can choose the goal when it's not lit and it'll count as a random striker's hideout mystery award. It's possible that's programmed where it doesn't even care if you hit the VUK switch and it's just, oh, you got a goal and goal wasn't lit. Let's give you the striker hideout award. Whereas if the VUK switch is faulty, you'd like multiball instantly because that shot is always lit to advance your multiball. I thought it turned off after you shot it once or twice each time. The center one's always lit. No, it's not always lit. No, it's not. Really? No, you have to actually shoot both ramps. No, I think that center one is always lit on any difficulty. Ron, can you go test your striker extreme? My striker extreme? What? Your World Cup soccer. Live World Cup soccer testing. What about it? Can you go shoot the striker hole repeatedly and see if you light multi-wall after five shots? Is that supposed to happen? I don't think so. I think it does. I mean, when it's lit, you get a strike reward. When it's not, it just shows, like, striker kicking the ball. Striker kicking the ball, yeah. Well, yeah, you can't choose the goal over and over again. No, no, we're not saying the goal. We're saying striker. Yeah. I'm pretty sure there's always a Bill Block arrow lit on that. Bill Delphi, here we go. I'm just reading it right now. Striker award goals. If you have it set for no, it doesn't give a striker award goal from a goal. If you have it yes, it gives a striker award from an unlit goal. If it says first awards, it says only gives the first striker award from an unlit goal. Yeah, that's the default setting. That's the mystery award. Yes. Okay, what Raymond's saying is that the bill of luck is always lit on the thing. So if you just don't hit anything else other than it, if you hit it five times, you're going to get it. I don't know, because I think when you hit it, I thought it goes off and other shots light. So you can't just hit the same thing over and over. Yeah, I thought that too. Who has a World Cup soccer? Ron does. I do. It's right there. It's not right there. I'm in a completely different room. He's upstairs in his house. I'm upstairs.
    113:51
    All right, well, after the podcast, you should... Yeah, you're going to give us answers. Yeah, one of us doesn't have to drive several hours to go see the series. Maybe Stu will pick it against you, and then you can check out his theory. Ooh, snap! But that's a newer game. Stu doesn't like those. So that's... I think he likes Bally Williams. I think he likes him. Okay. That's all for the mail ball bag. Okay. Hey, Zach. What? Whoa, whoa. That's way too much enthusiasm.
    114:20
    I want you to put some knowledge on us about sucky flippers. You have some theories. I have theories. I don't have any knowledge. I know. I want to hear theories. I want our listeners to hear your theories so they can come back and say, like, no, it ain't that. No, you're wrong. Is this schoolhouse rock? Schoolhouse rocking. I guess not. I don't get it. You had some theories about the different manufacturers and why their flippers are not optimal.
    114:47
    Half of them use switching power supplies. Okay, why is this a problem? I don't know if it's a problem, but it's different, and different is bad. You know, because they're all using Williams-Max, right? Yep. The ones we talk about, when we're talking about, like, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Spooky, they all use Williams-Max. Everyone accepts Stern. Yes. and Williams designed their fliptronics board, you know, with the coil and the transformer and everything and it works great. Everyone loves them. And then, like, every single manufacturer now that uses Williams next, their flippers all suck by comparison, right? At least not as good as the Williams. Actually, the best one is Alice Cooper. Yeah. Jackie probably has the best, but yeah. Yeah, because every place has the parts of Williams. I know, but I'm saying, at least Alice Cooper has the most consistent feel compared to every other Spooky. And also, Alice Cooper is the only game that actually uses dual-round coils and has end-of-stroke switches by Spooky. Thank you. Yeah, their new ones don't, right? Rick and Morty doesn't. Rick and Morty has end-of-stroke switch, but single-round coil. Yeah, single-round instead of double-round. Why? Well, don't they have the switch, but they didn't use it? No, they did use it, Rick and Morty, because they had a bunch of problems. They switched to single-round. On TNA, they had a dual-round coil, but they only used one of the windings. They ignored the other one. but the other one somehow made it still work just from physics crap that I don't understand. Every single spooky game has a different flipper set up. Yes, no consistency. Even Alice Cooper, it still only uses one winding, it just has the end of stroke switch still so it can flip it and stuff. Unlike TNA, which doesn't even have the end of stroke switch, so when it launches the ball at high speed, the flipper drops. I know. Hi, Jurassic Park. Yeah, so they're doing that, and every time you use the single-wound coil, it's complicated, because you're doing all these pulse-width modulation, PBM stuff, to try to keep the flipper up without overpowering your coil. And I've stuck a Stern game under a oscilloscope and looked at the readings, and they've got, like, this super-fine pattern that they're doing on the pulsing to make it work good that no one else does. If you're any other person using a single-wound coil, you can't make it work as good as a Stern, because Stern has been working on this for decades. You know, like, they've got it down. But in the beginning, they didn't either.
    117:10
    Yeah, it took them a while. Eventually, they got it. It took them a while. How about the dual-wound people? Jersey Jack. Jersey Jack and American Pinball, they use transformers like Williams did. They don't use a switching power supply. And the thing with the switching power supply is, if you look at, like, the scope on a Williams game, it's just AC that's rectified. So it's still, it's like a sine wave. which is basically pulsing. So they're not building up heat as quickly because they're pulsing it so this little 60 hertz a second there's tiny bits of cool down time in the coil. But on a switching power supply because a switching power supply can't deliver all the amps you need right away it's not designed for that sort of thing so they stick giant capacitors on there to build up extra charge to supply the big pulse you need to fire the coils.
    117:56
    But that capacitor also means that it fills in all those little gaps in the AC ripple so the coils heat up faster. So wait a minute, that's with a switching power supply. Yes, but for some reason Jersey Jack and American Pinball also have big caps on their transformer. And I was chatting with some of their homebrew designers and someone mentioned that it's possible that they have smaller transformers with lower current capacities because they're cheaper and they're trying to cover up for that by putting a big capacitor on there. Which will take away the AC ripple which means... But I can't confirm that because I don't know the current ratings of their Transformers offhand. You can probably find that out through UL. Maybe. They have to. They test for it. They have to. That I know. Trust me. I heard the Deep Root Games just passed the UL certification finally.
    118:48
    But, I mean, that's one of the things they do test for is cycles for everything on the Transformers. and we had to go for 240 and 120 and we had to go for a 208 test also. Meanwhile, you've got Chicago Coin whose flippers work pretty good. Is it Chicago Coin or Chicago Gaming? Chicago Gaming, yep. Besides from like the Medieval Madness people thought there was lag and stuff. The flippers are still strong, right? They work pretty much like a Williams. That's like an AFM. An AFM just went to shit. An AFM, they just are weird. They're in different spots for some reason. Yeah, they were flopping things too. Yeah. There's other factors, but they use a transformer and they don't put a cap on it. So I'm betting that they're actually using the same spec transformer that Williams does. But that's all unsubstantiated.
    119:37
    That's been your five minutes with Zach Flipper ranting. I think those are UL also, so you can check the readings on those also. Check back next week to find out I'm wrong about everything and get updates. Two weeks. Well, maybe three now. There should be a tournament on Sunday. so you can't, we're not going to, yeah, it's going to be, wow. I'll be on the next weekend, though, so maybe five weeks. Because Thanksgiving, too. Check back eventually for an update. No, Ron doesn't really celebrate Thanksgiving, and I'll be back Sunday night, so maybe that night weekend. Yeah, but I celebrate Thanksgiving. That's on a Thursday, though. Yeah.
    120:10
    Yeah, when is the next episode? Because in two weeks, it's fantastic. Yes, I know it's not going to be that. It'll be probably three, I'm thinking the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Maybe just you and me, you know, all the time. Just you and me. And then two weeks after that, we have another tournament, right? Yes, we do. You do? What tournament would that be?
    120:30
    Godzilla. Call the one you're not going to be at. I'm actually missing League and Godzilla. Oh, my God. Wait, League is that Sunday? League is that Sunday. That's both. So is this a public, what tournament is this? What date is this? The 11th of December. A Godzilla launch party at the world-famous Rochester Pinball Collective? Godzilla. And it's going to be, we don't go no stinking pro. We don't even go no stinking premium. You don't even go one stinking elite. We go two, baby. They are in Rochester. So they'll be coming to, in the back, hopefully, back room area maybe, or I think they're going to go to the people's houses for the first week or two, and then we have to move them on up. I just say to come right to the co-op. Where is this co-op? It's at 349. 49 West Commercial Street, Nice, Rochester, suite number 2965.
    121:28
    What's the date of that? That is December 11th, sir. When you guys are getting ready for the tournament, I'll be in Florida, sipping hopefully a big drink. Ron will be there. I'll be there. Steph will be there. Two weeks after Thanksgiving. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe, Ray. Maybe we'll get there. She might not be there. Well, it looks like Time is a lie But you should be at Rochester Pimmo Collective You should be there When can I go there regularly? What are your regular hours, Bruce? Thursday from 5pm to 10pm Pay one price $20 And for the bigger bonus and the best deal of all You can come Saturday From 3 to 11 And it's also $20 to get in there. You can come and go as you please for each one of those days when you pay. Pay one price, play all the games. I don't know. I mean, how many games do you have there? Oh, three or four. No, we have 47 right now. But if you mention the podcast, it'll let you into the secret back room. Yes, it will, and we have at least 15 more in the back.
    122:42
    That's Bruce for the full tour. Yes. I don't know. I tend to like older games and newer games. I need different varieties of games to be satisfied, and most places just don't do that. We have everything from the 50s on up. 50s on up? You mean to modern, recent times? Yes. Holy shit. This place is incredible. We're the only place in upstate New York that has EMs on location. Are there any in New York City? Upstate New York, there's only one. He had one. There was only one at Moon... Moon River? Moonwalker. They only had one. It was Delta Queen. I don't know if they still have that. Oh, that's right. I remember Delta Queen. That was your game. I remember getting... being banned from the Upstate Finals when I went down just to play it. It's going to be my go-to game. Wait, what? My first ever Upstate Finals was there. I was like, oh, they've got 1 EM. I'll just play that every round. If I get there, like, why not put that one in? Yeah, that was... I'm like... I knew that was when I met you. I knew that it wasn't going to hold up. I remember Delta Queen was not in that tournament. Oh, my God. You would have killed it if they'd let you. Dude, Delta Queen looks cool.
    123:56
    It's a better bow and arrow. Oh, that's kind of what it looks like, yeah. We have EMs. We have early solid states. We have your System 11s. We have your Spookys. We have your Jersey Jacks. We have your new Sterns. we have it all. You have old Sterns. Lots of old Sterns. So many. On UHS, right? We got it all on UHS. That's the city.
    124:24
    We got it all at our PC. Yeah, see? I do. I get right with that one. Always got to have a including the latest streaming equipment. Yes. Donated generously by Ron Howlett. So, alright. Let's see. Plugs. Well, that was one long plug there.
    124:45
    Oh, my. The Slamtail Podcast, you can reach us at slamtailpodcast at gmail.com. You can also check out our website, www.slamtailpodcast.com. All our links are in the upper right-hand corner, and we're working last I checked. Thank you for all the comments and questions for this week's show. That was very nice. Hopefully we got to everything. Expo was a long show.
    125:14
    Not long enough. Next will be Pentastic. Need more vendor hours. In two weeks, I will be at Pentastic. I'd like to go, but I cannot. Unless there's a game for sale, then I can just run out there one day and get it. And he will. He will do that. Actually, I might go the other way. I might go west. Might go west? I might go west. Go west, young man. I did go west. I did go east this past two weeks. Oh, yeah, you picked up some games. Yes, I did. What did you pick? Oh, rack them up. Rack them up. Gottlieb. Mm-hmm. When you're actually picking up Gottliebs, we know something is just wrong with the universe. I actually like that game. I like that game a lot. Wow. All right, Bruce. Are you sure you're Bruce? Bruce, would you say it's the best pool-themed pinball machine? Hmm. No. No, no, it has a spinner. It doesn't have multiball. And I do like multi-ball. What pool game is multi-ball? There's two. Bad Girls. And Sharky Shootout. Bad Girls or Rack Em Up, Bruce? What would you rather have?
    126:25
    Rack Em Up. Rack Em Up or 8-Ball Champ. So you just have to give Zach the Bad Girls. No, but 8-Ball Champ doesn't multi-ball either, so it's already easier. It's already easier. Rack Em Up or 8-Ball Champ?
    126:36
    Rack Em Up. Really? It gets old. The reason why is that the upper shot gets old after a while. The fathom shot. Rack'em up doesn't have the one shot. It's got all the shots. Yes. Okay. Now, if you said Rack'em up or Sharky Shootout, I have to go Sharky Shootout because at least it is the eight ball deluxe play field with multi-ball. But that's bad girls. No, no, no. But you have DMD also. You get some humor in there also. I actually have never seen Rack'em up before. I'm just looking at a picture of it. This is definitely different than any other pool game I've seen. Well, come to the RPC. And you'll be able to play it. Wait, you guys just get one? We got one. I just went out to Maine and got it. Wow. Wait, you went to freaking Maine for that? Yes. Oh, how do you like that 10,000 spinner? That looks juicy. It is very juicy, and it's very cool. And the only problem with it, of course, what spinner is it? Oh, is it a plastic one? No, it's the silver one. Oh, it's the silver one. Okay. But it's still, you know, we've got to get Ron on it. Ron will make it tweak. How do you light it for 10,000 a spin?
    127:45
    There's a couple. I think it's in lane. It almost does the same rules like it does for TX Sector. Rack him up or cue ball wizard?
    127:55
    Rowdy ramp, Rowdy. Rowdy ramp. Sure need that ramp shot. I forgot about that game, and that's just terrible. You sure need that ramp shot. I might have to go. How about that ramp? I'm going to see Raymond in a couple weeks. That's all I'm going to say.
    128:13
    Are we plugging, or do we still have one more bit to do? Oh, we do? We're like two and a half hours in. You're killing me. Guys, one more bit? One more bit. Okay. There you go. What's our favorite thing we do at this show? Talk shit. Would you? Claire. It's old-fashioned. Well, that's a typical thing. That's every time.
    128:37
    Would you or would you not buy that? I have one, two, three. I got four. I got four things. Only four. Okay. So go to eBay, folks, and look up these numbers he's about to say. Yep. First number is 384-485-471-922.
    129:04
    It's a Valley 8-Ball pinball machine, and it's upside down. It is upside down. Is there a glassless picture? No. There's a pixel-less picture.
    129:18
    Valley 8-Ball pinball machine has keys and electrical paperwork. may need board work. Okay, so it doesn't work. But played the last time it was plugged in. Define played. Missing legs. What?
    129:31
    Okay, there are multiple pictures. There's weird cropping going on. He does not want you to see what's around the game. But, like, some of the pictures, the same picture there twice, and one's cropped and one's not. Yeah. Yeah, and then the one clearly shows the other stuff. I don't understand. It's got a little bit of wear. It's got a fuck ton of wear.
    129:52
    I saw this thing. I was like, oh, my God. The back glass is really weird, too. If you look at the top, it looks like it's peeling from the top down. Yeah. Yeah, that's like water has been running down the inside of that thing. Yeah. But, Bruce, it's only $913. Yeah.
    130:10
    Starting bid. And it's in Arizona, Flagstaff. Would you or would you not buy this? Nope. I would not. 100% positive feedback. I know. For two listings. Probably neither of them are games.
    130:25
    Let's see. No, they're for buyer feedback. No, they're seller feedback from people he's bought shit from. Okay. So no on that one. No. Okay.
    130:38
    Ticket number 154-656-597-477. Atari pinball Hercules top piece so I might like to believe it's only in the back box only it looks like okay does it have boards in it? we don't know rare top piece for Hercules world's largest pinball machine not working but all components are in there might be getting bottom half as well If so, we can discuss price. Last one sold for $10K.
    131:21
    Museum of Pinball? Yeah, yeah, I think so. He wanted $3,000 for the head. Yeah. No offers accepted. I can tell you, instead of the head, I can just give him the finger.
    131:35
    Wow. $3,000. No. He's on crack. He is on crack. I have to agree. I saw that and I was like, oh wow, Hercules What the F is going on here? I love like, well a head is like 30% of a game, right? So it's 30% of the value I mean, the back of this looks fine Because it's plexiglass It's plexiglass, yeah Wait, Mac, doesn't your homebrew need a head? There you go Holy shit, that would be a big head That would be the biggest head Jack's Homebrew Pinball Looking for sponsors Accepting one Hercules head You make it a TV. By the way, Zach's homebrew will be at the Pintastic show. It will be. Please, play it. Give him your feedback. Break it. Tell him he needs a back box head. He does. Give him a name for his... You'll have the only homebrew that has no name. It has a name. No, it doesn't. Zach's pin. Yeah.
    132:39
    Zach's homebrew is literally the name. Zach's pin. You'd know what the name was if it was written on the back glass.
    132:46
    But it's not. That's why I can't put the back glass on, because you'd know what the name is. It's a secret. Zach's keeping the name close to his chest. It's kind of like a poker move. Zachy Poole. I like Zach's Poole. It's his fun part. Zach's Bluff is the name of the game. There you go. Okay. How about the Headless Poors Man?
    133:09
    Because you get poor from losing all your poker money, and it has no head. I tried. Okay, next one. 1-3-3 3-3-8 7-3-7 9-9-3 Whoa! Look at all these coils. 36 pieces of new pinball machine coil. Yeah, machine coin stern pinball. I can't tell if that's a good deal or not, because I've never had to buy a coil. A coil costs $15, Raymond. Yes. Do your deal math. 15 times 36 is not $600.
    133:53
    And especially when you have... It's close, though. 12 of the main coil, which is their Bally Williams coils on the most... They're different coils. No, no, but saying that the 12 in the beginning, the first picture, has 12 of the same AQ26-600s, which are... Oh, I see. It's a variety pack. Yes. Well, they're not all... No, some are... One is this AF25-500 right in the corner. They're not all the same. Oh, yeah, there is. Oh, yeah, they're all the same. Okay. Yeah, I don't think I'd buy this. I think he needs to maybe cut his price in half before... Yeah, I think so, too. But shipping is only $4.
    134:32
    Wow, that actually is a good deal. It's a cargo, Raymond. You can pick these up for us. But he says if you buy them in separate pieces, it would cost approximately $719.64. So he went through looking at prices.
    134:45
    But half these coils are not good coils. That's charging $19.99 per. Yeah, and half these coils are not common coils that anyone would be going, hey, I need this coil. That makes them rarer, Bruce. They're limited edition. Yeah, it's got to be it. That's why they're so much more is because they're uncommon. Not going to lie, but, like, I need all those coils in the second picture, though, so. Okay, so then you need to. Are you tempted? No. Thank God. Are you sure you can make an offer? You can make an offer you can't refuse. Make an offer for whatever you calculated. Try making an offer for just the ones you need and see what happens. There you go. Yes, there you go. So no buy on that one? Not me. Okay. Another strike.
    135:24
    Number? 353-758-246-888. Eight. Oh, again. What the fuck? This is a Raymond trademark. Whenever Raymond's on, he has to find some, like, totally. Because of the bunghole crane, isn't it? Yes, it is. Now we have the Novel Tone Vintage Original Condom Vending Machine.
    135:53
    It's the pecker stretcher. If you have any doubts about yourself, try one. I swear to God. For the man who has little. or the man who has little. It's slim and discreet. The pecker stretcher. Oh my god, look at that artwork. That is, uh... Yeah, that's very risque. Yeah. I thought they, like, put the name over, like, her lower half, but still she's topless. Yes, exactly. And she could have, like, held the ruler so that there was no nip, but there's no... Exactly. Of course not, though.
    136:30
    Would you pay $90 for this sign? It's just for the decal. It's just a sticker. It's not even the actual, it's not for an actual condom vending machine. It's for a decal for a condom vending machine. The front of it, that you would buy your decal, you would buy your condoms. No.
    136:49
    No. Okay. Okay, so I struck out this time. So, anything else? Anyone want to plug anything? Here's your chance, Raymond. You can say great things about Stern Pinball. Yeah, go play Godzilla and get insider connected. There you go. You're all in the center. It is fun. I'm connected now. This podcast will now be Zach Sharp approved. Definitely. 100%. Well, thanks, everybody. Thank you guys for coming on. Steph, thank you. Zach. Hi, Steve Bowden. Hi, Zach. Hi, Raymond. Thanks to you, too. Oh, you're here. Yeah, great. Coming on. Bye, everybody. Do or die pinball. Do or die. Right, which he doesn't have to do now because he already said it all. I'm sure that's what he's thinking. Yeah. You have something else to edit it instead of him. Just edit that part out and just post it on your podcast afterwards. All I said was I played a game against Escher and DJ. So what I'm hearing is we need a full synopsis. There you go. On your podcast. What is your podcast, Raymond? It's called Do or Die Pinball Podcast. And I also stream on Twitch, RayDayPinball. I'm actually going to stream right after this call. Oh, exciting. What are you going to stream? Beatles.
    138:08
    Beatles. All right. We'll see how much trouble I get in with the Twitch people. Yeah. Yes, this has been episode 176. Thanks to everyone out there. We'll be back.
    138:20
    Maybe three weeks. We'll see. This is good. This is a long one, so this ought to tide you over. Listen to it slowly over time. Take your time with this one, boys and girls. Almost a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour. A WPC game I'd never buy. It does have a cool toy, though. It does. But the game really sucks bad. Which game? Gilligan's Island. Oh, God. Jedi games. Ugh. Well, wait a minute. Zach, do you like Gilligan's Island? I like the center shot. Okay. Is that the one through the toy? Or is that just a... No. That's one of the targets of both sides. You've got to bounce back and forth to light the mystery board. Okay. That's a cool idea. I want more of that. Do you like targets that you can't hit directly? No, you can't hit them, but it's, like, right in the middle, so you can, like, bounce between them, like, ricochet back and forth as you go up the shot. So kind of like the Black Rose 3-bank ricochet? Yeah, but really compressed down to, like, one and a half inches wide. All right. You've heard it here. Pinball manufacturers, get on that.
    139:22
    Dead silence. Yeah. Well, you haven't listened to us, so. All right. Thanks, everybody. Until next time, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye. Bye, John Peters.
    140:01
    Oh my. Thank you. Alright, voice test. So I'm Ron. Hello. Steph. Hello. Steph has gotten distracted and somehow spent four minutes in the living room without getting a chair. This is a chair right here. That's a stool. How's a chair? You just put down a stool for two hours? Ew, that's gonna hurt. It's a Steph stool. I mean, it's up to you. It's a Steph stool. Oh no, the Steph stool is somewhere else. That's my car.