Siding into Thursday. It's almost the end of the week. It's the evening. Friday's coming up. What's going on? Let's pinball, y'all. It's Don's Pinball Podcast, episode 44 for you. That's all the lyrics that I wrote for my intro today. I don't think anybody needs any more of that. Is there any news going on? I got some views to get kicked with you guys. I'm going to recap some things that happened this week. I'm back on the microphone from the road. Give me a pass, there's not that much stuff going on But we're going to fill up some time Part of what I'm supposed to do with the intro is get you hyped for the episode But, you know, I've been trying to rally today and cobble together what I can find And then, you know, wouldn't you know it, let's talk about this great news break that just came out that everybody's talking about Well, nothing? We don't have anything in the can? All right, well, let's take a look around the internet. What can we find? Pinball Brothers have posted some more photos from their factory. They got this new factory now, the European Co-op Corp or whatever it is up in Italy there, between Milan and Lago di Garda up there in northern Italy. And they're cranking out games. So they posted some photos to their Facebook page. Always appreciated to see that there's something going on with these manufacturers and what they're doing. And it was interesting to get a look at all their stations and setup. It's kind of like a little mini JJP from what I see from their line, from their factory tours. What was interesting, though, was the cabinet assembly area that they were showing photos of. And they had a ton of cabinets for Alien, this game that's been out for years and years and years and years. And they have empty cabinets. They're still in production on this title. Now, recently they announced that it was Alien Day for some reason. I think they're coming up on a big anniversary for the original film. And so they announced that there was going to be a discount that amounted to nearly $500 off if you wanted an addition of Alien from a distributor. And we all took that to mean that there were unsold inventories sitting with distributors and they wanted to kind of move these along. And it was the first time that we saw a discount, like a manufacturer's discount, almost like something you would see in the new car market. But it looks like there's a ton of cabinets that are still in production. Are these for our domestic market here, or is it for their domestic, our import market in Europe? I couldn't tell. I couldn't see any coin doors that were on them to tell if, you know, if there's a single-slot European model, or if these would be destined for over here. But it was interesting to see among the multitude of queen cabinets, there's still a lot of aliens. Are people still ordering aliens new? I kind of think that there's, you know, enough out there. I haven't looked on Pinside recently to see, you know, kind of how many of these are available for sale, but they're still in production. So, you know, God bless Pinball Brothers for what they do. Now, we're having a little bit of fun on their Facebook page, as I do. You know, I just try to help out, and I try to be a helpful little chipmunk scout wherever I can. And so somebody had posted, like, hey, we're all waiting for TZ, right? And then, you know, whoever's managing the social media account there at Pinball Brothers kind of fired back, what's TZ, you know? So, and then I just kind of helped out. I was like, you know what? Everybody's kind of waiting for Twilight Zone. You know, just, you know, they're supposed to be this remake or something. And then I dropped that I would prefer to see, you know, a new licensed title. I think that's where, you know, the hotness is. The remake market is great. I appreciate it for what it is. But here the two four now, the remake market has been slow on the production end. I mean, ask anybody still waiting for their Cactus Canyon here a year later. So, you know, I'm glad that people are remaking these titles. But the rumor for Twilight Zone has been all over the place. You know, Chicago Gaming Company was the one that we all thought were going to make it. Now maybe there's some salt in the market between the license holder and the slow but very deliberate production process that CGC employs. And so maybe somebody else is looking at making these things. Pendretti Gaming is doing these remake kits. So I think people are making connections and thinking maybe this new European manufacturing hub maybe start churning out these remake games. Who knows? We don't know for sure. The Pinball Brothers social media person just denied it with a comment saying that they didn't get that memo that they were making Twilight Zone, which means absolutely nothing. They could be making it, and of course they're not ready to announce it, so they would just deny it or brush it off. Or they could actually not be making it, which is probably just as true. But they did mention, and this was the one newsworthy point, that there was an exciting announcement coming soon. So I'm hoping that that will mean new game reveal, right? I mean, we can only hope. Now, Queen is still new. I haven't seen it in a ton of locations. It is a location in Europe. I think since they have a European manufacturing hub, what they're probably doing is batch making these games into shipping containers, and then they're sending them off on the slow boat to the U.S. And that's why we haven't seen a ton of them roll out on location. you know, Interium hasn't gotten in Chicago yet. But even though that game is, you know, obviously in production and still moving out, could they reveal another game now? Probably it would be a little early in the process looking at the factory floor, how many empty cabinets they still have. But, you know, who knows? Maybe we'll get an announcement from Pinball Brothers soon. Pinball Brothers. Let's see. Let's take this apart. PB. Does that mean that they're making the Princess Bride pinball machine, where we can select our Capoferro mode or our Tibalt mode, you know, with Indigo Montoya and the Man in Black dueling on top of the Cliffs of Insanity. Is there going to be an Andre the Giant bash toy similar to Herman Munster or the Dead Walker? Who knows? Who knows? It probably is not going to be Princess Bride, but I would buy the RLUS Rodent 7 Usual Size Edition if they did decide to come out with that game, and hopefully there's a peanut sculpt in there somewhere. So somebody make Princess Bride. Pinball Brothers probably not making it Probably not making Twilight Zone Probably not announcing a new game this week But there it is We had fun on their social media page And it all about friendships and making connections in this industry and in this hobby Moving along, Pendretti Gaming. So Whirlwind 2.0. Total chaos. The kit is out. It costs $3,000 or some such. If you happen to have a Whirlwind kicking around and it's in playable condition and you've got $3,000 and you want to put in this silly little mod update for it, have at it. I was watching the video today. It's 17 minutes long. It went up on YouTube yesterday. It's on Pendretti Gaming's account site. And a very nice European gentleman walks us through a ton of the modes, you know, plays with the games. So it's good to see and hear kind of, you know, what this integration is like. I'm fine with the graphics. People have been saying that, you know, the graphics are absurd. The quality of the graphics is fine for pinball, fine for an LCD screen. in the back of the backbox, as far as I'm concerned, right? You know, the the the trans light that they made up, you know, it looks fine, too. I'm okay with it. I'm totally fine with it. You know, it's a little absurd and whatever. But I did like the fact that they've added new sounds and things. So when you hit the slings, I mean, you know, there's new sounds are coming out there. But I'm still thinking like, how big is the market for this? I mean, first off, you know, how many whirlwind machines are out there? You know, that still work. Now, this probably isn't something that somebody would necessarily buy and put it in their whirlwind that's still at, you know, the back of some pizza parlor somewhere. You know, if there's some place that's got kind of a curated collection or, you know, like a kind of high-end bar, pin bar, pin cade, you know, maybe they would put one of these in if they have a working whirlwind. I think it would work for there. But really there's a subset, first off, these games that are still in existence and still playable. A subset of that, you know, who is this marketed to? This is only marketed to pinball people. I mean, you know, there's not commercials, you know, on Facebook for this thing, you know, when grandmas are scrolling through to go buy a Pendretti Gaming $3,000 plug-in for a game that came out in the 90s. So for the subset of whirlwinds that exist, the subset of whirlwinds that exist that are in good condition, and then the subset of the good condition that are in the hands of people that are savvy with the pinball market, and then who would even want this thing? I don't know that that's the hugest market, but I don't hate the product itself. But it will go back to kind of what I've said before, when it comes to remakes, I think a good approach would be to, you know, secure the license for this and then build this game, reproduction this game. Reproduction this game with this module built in, so you can switch between classic mode and new whirlwind total chaos, include an extra trans light in there so you can switch it out if you want, but include the good LCD, upgraded sound, you know, upgraded flipper mechanisms and things, and all the little problems and advancements that we've had solved in the last 20 to 30 years of pinball, implement those but have, you know, otherwise what appears to be the classic machine. I think that would be best of both worlds, you know, so people that want the remake, they got a remake. I mean, World 1 is still popular. It's still a fun game. But you'd also have the option of, you know, purchasing a brand new one with this plug-in module, not something that you'd have to do a whole overhaul to bring it up to speed. and then you know in addition you could have this you know kind of uh what sounds to be a bit of a cumbersome install uh product too for people that do have a good condition whirlwind and want to put it in there that's what i would go with and then i would keep making these things i mean i i don't i don't hate it i don't think it's a bad idea i haven't played a ton of rudy's nightmare i haven't played the toad in one at all i really looked at it um you know but you know i don't hate the concept as it is so it's a 17 minute video go check it out if you want if you're into pinball streams and watching that. Or if you're just a fan of Whirlwind, I didn't get to scroll through there and see if he got to the Suey versus the grandmas modes. But you know, I didn't, I didn't hate the animations. I think it's got more hate than it's, than it warranted, you know, whatever it's up there, go check it out. Also in European news, this is like the European episode, Hexa Pinball, this new company that just came on the market. Who are these people? Where are they from? We don't know. Well, they're from France, obviously. So in the South of France, just north of the Pyrenees Mountains, near the border with Spain there for you geography disinclined folks. There's going to be a pinball expo. Flippers sued west. Southwest flippers. Flippers being a European word for pinball. There's going to be an expo there June 10th, June 11th, over that weekend. And they're going to be revealing, it sounds like, Space Hunt, this new game from this new company, Hexa Pinball. So they've been doing some teasers. They released this recent picture. I shared it on the Facebook page of Don's Pinball Podcast. and it showed a kind of a cabinet art from the side and I didn't hate the art. It's kind of cool. It's got the space theme. I guess the concept, you know, or the thesis statement for this game is that you're playing as the dang pinball, right? Or you're a pinball person. Okay, I'm reserving judgment until I see it. I don't hate the art that I've seen so far. So I'm looking for an interesting layout. Have you guys seen Super Hoop? Have you guys watched a video of Super Hoop playing? Now that company's factory burnt down. So we haven't seen a whole lot of these games on location. I don't know if any have been made. I don't know if they're still being made or still coming out with them, but it looked like what I initially dismissed as like, you know, who's this, you know, if they, you know, third tier, you know, pinball company I've never heard of, but the game actually looked kind of fun. There was some good magnet integration and things. So I'm hopeful that there may be something interesting with this game, you know, you know, so something to kind of counterbalance and palette cleanse what we've seen with Galactic Tank Force, you know, and the Punny Factory, like, let's see what, what other, you know, fresh new ideas somebody had. Somebody had the idea to put together a pinball company with which, you know, you got to have some some solid stones on you to decide to just run into this market because it's just fraught with with with so many problems. I mean, you know, you could start up a video game company, get a game, get it on, you know, the Nintendo Switch store, PlayStation Network, Xbox, and then, you know, be done or make a cell phone game or something and just turn it around. But it's like almost infinitely harder to put together a successful pinball layout, implement it get it built get it shipped So bless them for taking the leap to that And so anybody that willing to do that leap is either insane or insane in a bad way or they got a really cool concept that they want to bring to the market. So that's kind of what I'm hoping this is. Now, from what I've been seeing through my time in this hobby, the European market is much different than the US market here domestically where I'm located because there's a lot of import duties and things. There's an extreme value-added tax cost that's added to games that are imported out to Europe, you know, if it's gone through the proper channels. So I think there is room for these European manufacturers to make games domestically that won't incur such huge import fees, right? Something that if you were in the Netherlands, you know, you could just drive over to Belgium and pick up a game from a factory, you know, or vice versa. Suburbs of Paris, you know, drive on up to Bury there in the Netherlands and pick up, you know, Lebowski or whatever their next game is. So I'd like to, I think that's probably the impetus of what's pushing these people to go into the market. Pinball is very popular there. There's a huge, uh, uh, you know, pinball tournament going on in Germany, uh, next month. I'm going to be in Germany. I'm not going to the tournament though. I'll be doing other things, but you know, there's obviously a big market there. So I'm thinking companies like Hexa, that's what they're using for the motivation to get into this industry. Um, as tough as it is because they have a huge, uh, untapped domestic market of their own. So we'll go ahead and see what comes from that. In other related news, I got to join my brand new friend, Orbital Owl, up there on the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast Network. And we did an episode the other night. It was fantastic. I got to join him remotely from here. We connected through some sort of undersea cable technology across the border into Canada and to the northern frontiers. And we recorded an hour and a half of us having a great conversation. So be sure to check that out and give that guy some support. He's been doing like 500 episodes, man. You know, I'm here at Lumber 44, so I am humbled that I was invited to join in there. We had a great conversation. It was fun. I will do it again anytime. And, you know, it's got me thinking, you know, can I, you know, strong arm anybody to come on here? Maybe we can have a conversation on the Don's Pinball Podcast Network. Moving on. What else do we have here? Let's go back to American pinball, our domestic pinball brothers. Did you guys see this? All right. Listen up. I'm fighter first class Blue Justice. We're assigned to deliver the 411 on how to succeed as the newest member of the Galactic Tank Force. Write that down. Blue Justice. The moon of Lumina has come under attack from Empress Anoya. Who is Blue Justice? We will mobilize tanks and UFOs to steal our cows and drive us off the moon. Have you guys seen this video? Our mission is simple. Protect the cows. The new Galactic Tank Force explaining kind of the rules and gameplay video. Man, wouldn't this have been cool to see like nine months ago? Blue Justice I'm just going to live stream this thing on here In my recorded podcast like a weirdo Let's see I got a couple of time stamps I want to talk about What do we got Oh man pop bumper nuclear reactors Triggering a meltdown So these colors really remind me of Total Nuclear Annihilation Which is not a bad thing And, you know, that game's great. The sound's great. The lights are great. Blue Justice. Oh, this part was a little bit cringy. I'm going to pause for just a second. Okay, Cowabunga. When I was watching the Deadflip livestream, that cracked me the crap up when I was watching the back screen or the LCD screen. And, you know, I'm trying to get my mind around this game because at that point we still had no idea like what the story of this game even was but we were watching uh you know this live stream with jack danger um and then all of a sudden i see like i look up and there's just four twerking cows on the backlash so i'm like what the world is this game and so that's cowabongo mode that's cowabongo so if you hit the uh the the bovine that's got a noose around its neck hanging underneath the uh the the ufo on a stick it goes into cowabongo mode man there's so much more to discover in this game is this game still early code is there more of this to come this is like the gift that keeps on giving this game i want to go play it some more my mine goodness what else do we got do i have another time stamps yeah they talked more about like battling the tank um and how that works so that made a little more sense let's see if i can fast forward to it here it's about the five minute mark hit the ufo target to visit the pasture Thank you encounter will have some unwell the Dennis Nordman robot one of a noyes robot crew will try to challenge you by offering a dynamic target The robot can only be destroyed by hitting the moving red target So there's those five stand-up targets the notoriously ones that bend and then just like catapult and yeet the ball over the flippers, right? But there's five inserts survive LED inserts on the ground or on the play field in front of the targets And so in the mode he's talking about where the robot actually comes up, that 3D printed robot, you got to hit the target with the moving light and line that up to make the shot. Otherwise, there's different colors in there. So like, you know, if it's a solid red, if you hit that, you do the most damage. That's usually like the middle stand up. And then there's like an orange and then a yellow and they do decreasing amounts of damage. So that kind of makes sense because when I was playing it, you know, I was hitting these things and I mean, they're all lit up. I thought maybe they would, you know, the lights would go off as I hit them. So I know what remains. but it looks like you basically have a an energy bar that you're trying to um you know exhaust and that destroys the tank right so um you know aim for the middle i guess is the take-home point there they talked a little bit about those inlanes finally so if you activate basically it's like a different kind of ball save rather than just be an out lane uh there's a ball save that second chance thing that underneath the flipper the problem is um you know when balls like fly down through the middle they don usually go on a trajectory that would go underneath the flipper so it like you almost have to like intentionally get it under there Or if you know you missed a shot then there was that atomic save that popped up that could bounce it down that little rolling lane underneath the flipper, I suppose. You know, but that was interesting seeing that they showed the standup targets that you have to hit to activate the lock. And then that activates the magnet and then drops the balls into the buck that goes up into plot next lab so uh they did a good job explaining you know actually what the point of the game is uh i don't i don't know why it's it's happening now i wish this would have happened a lot earlier also did you see those ghostbuster outfits that they're wearing there there are they're cute i think for the signature edition they should have included one of those outfits those jumpsuits for the 16 000 the 17 000 15 000 whatever their uh you call for price for the signature edition and i still i still don't understand that man this game is the game that keeps giving like every time we I look at it there's like more and more to discover I can't wait to see what else is absurd in this game I I'm I'm a bit fixated on it I I don't even know that I have an opinion on the game like sometimes I really really want it other times I really just don't understand it um I don't know sometimes I want the tank tread sometimes I don't sometimes I want to go crawl into my foo fighters box and just run around the the house and that pretending it's a tank this game's got my milk scrambled man I'm gonna go into cowabunga mode here pretty soon but um I don't even know where I was going with that. I've got tank brain. I'm going to go play it some more. I'm going to go find some more tank signature edition. Sorry. Stay on topic. The signature edition is $6,000 more than their limited edition. And there's 150 of them. And all of the things that it comes with don't make any dang sense to me. Uh, there's a back glass. Uh, I think there's different art on the sides. Um, otherwise that's about it, except for you get, you know, all the stuff from their gift shop, the banner, the, the lunchbox, you get the exclusive thermos that you don't get if you just buy the standalone lunchbox. You get a pint glass, you know, really, you know, $6,000, you're going to give me a pint glass. Now, you know, the people from the company have signed the game. I don't put a whole lot of value on that, you know, but for an extra six grand, I still don't understand. I still say, and I stand by this, what they should have done was said, okay, we've got a limited edition. It's $11,999 or whatever the price of it is. The first 150 people to go ahead and put down their deposits and go and follow through and buy it. You get all of these extra things. You get the extra, the extra special backlash. You get the extra special thermos as our thank you to you for being an early adopter. That's how I would have done this. Not, you know, call for price. Give me an extra five to $7,000 for these things that don't look like they're worth that. So, you know, they're not going to release their numbers. I guess we'll just wait and see like how many of these show up, but I've, I've yet to see any, uh, unboxings, uh, going on though. People do have some tank additions. I think they may have picked them up from the trade shows. We'll go ahead and see. What else did I want to talk about? Final topic. I've been reflecting back on a recent Stern release. One is about five years old or so, and I'm having a renewed interest in it. Do you guys know these guys? Get on track, working down beneath the sea. Eye of the storm, it's here again. You're never far, you're forever far. I'm starting to fall into a little infatuation with Iron Maiden again. You know, I've played this game, you know, on locations and things, and I've always had, you know, my eyes on Godzilla. You know, I've had my eyes on Foo Fighters, some of the other Stern Stranger Things that's taken precedence. But now, for whatever reason, I'm having a renewed interest in Iron frickin' Maiden, right? They're still on the production line. They're still making these. I believe flipping out. Got a couple extra allotments of some pros that are coming out. And so I think at some point I may go along and want to have one of these. I'm not rushing out to get one right now. it's not a must have must buy thing right now, but you know, looking at it, I think this is a game that I haven't given proper love and attention to. And I think it's probably time to do that. I was driving around the convertible, uh, earlier today and yesterday, and I was blasting the iron maiden through the speakers. And I was just like having a moment. I was having a 40 year old guy pinball moment. And, uh, so I'm thinking at some point I'm gonna try to hunt down one of these and just for fun, went on the pin side, looking at the limited editions and, and my gosh, these things are going for $15,000 to $16,000. The only one listed now that's not pending is $16,500, and it looks bone stock. There's one with a topper that was pretty heavily modded out that was a $16,000 or best offer, and it's got pending on it, and I believe it was from Wisconsin. So say what you will, these Stern limited editions are holding this inflated value, at least from on the market when I'm looking. Even Mandalorian is at or above MSRP, so I don't think you can really go wrong with the limited edition, or if you can, we haven't seen it yet. It looks like even the Iron Maiden Pros are trading at or above new in box prices right now. So if you want to go in on one of these, I don't think you would lose any money on resale picking up an Iron Maiden, even the Pro. And if you throw in a shaker and some art blades and an aftermarket topper or something, I think you could easily increase your money over what you paid for it. So whoever's out there that's got like a solid premium Iron Maiden and you're really loving it and you baby your machine, you take care of it, but you know that in the next six to eight months, maybe it'll be time to move it on. Maybe you're moving. Maybe you have a new relationship. Maybe you're getting a new game and the room is a problem. Just reach out to me because I may be interested at that point in picking up a kick-ass Iron Maiden. So I think that's all I have for you tonight. Let's go ahead and wrap this guy up like a chimichanga. Dropping content. Thank you, everybody, that's joined the Patreon page. I've been putting content up there, you know, on the low, low. Images, live stream videos I've done, other podcasts. Not that I've taken anything away from this to put behind a paywall, but just to go in a little bit deeper and maybe more some personal things that I don't tend to share as much on the actual show. So check it out. Patreon.com backslash Don's Pinball Podcast. You will not be let down by doing that.