You're listening to Don's Pinball Podcast. Thank you very much for the intro, my friend Ryan. I do appreciate that. Welcome to episode 34 of Don's Pinball Podcast. I'm coming back to you. Long time no talk, huh? It's been a crazy couple of pollen-filled days here in the Midwest, stacked with pinball quests I've been delivering, I've been picking up, moving and shaking. A lot of stuff is going on. News and rumors continue to drop and evolve. in this industry we all participate in. So I'm going to drop some knowledge for you coming up right now after the drop. So we're going to miss a little late there drop. Maybe show up earlier next time. What's up, everybody? Man, are your sinuses as hazy and consolidated as everybody else's around here? My goodness. I've been going nonstop for the last 48 hours, though, on some pin quests. I finally got some time off. Just got back from the trip. back from a week of work and finally heading headfirst into projects and they were there waiting for me man i actually let a game go surprisingly enough had a friend over we were playing you know down the arcade and then there was guns and roses my prize my jewel jjp limited edition with the holographic art blades and he's playing it new to pinball wanted to get his first machine he made me an offer and just like godfather i was not refusing that so i busted out my pin crawler shout out to the pinball place this is the stair climbing treadmaster pinball delivery dolly device that saves your back and it doesn't crack um electrically operated fantastic can't say enough great things about this 1600 stair climbing pinball delivery device uh so i took it down to him in madison we got it all set up um and man i caught the bug that was fun you know um like being my own service tech doing my white glove delivery. So my buddy Brian got his brand new guns and roses. It's looking awesome. He's now the second owner. You know, but there is a little emotional attachment to these things that we get, you know, when it's time to let it go, you know, you know, we love getting new machines, of course, love having new machines at home, whether it's one, whether it's a ton, you know, but when it comes time that, you know, there's a game in the end of the line. And it's been several weeks, you know, and we love it, but we haven't gone to it. And, you know, there would be something shiny and new we could put in that place. Yeah, that's kind of where I was with it. I mean, I love Guns N' Roses. It's great. I love the music, the lights, the modes. One of the best light shows in all of pinball. Plus, I had added the under-cabinet lighting, the back-box lighting. And so selling this game got me to thinking and kind of evaluating my games, especially when I picked up my next one, which I'll get to. I love doing the modifications, man. And there are so many things available for these machines. well from lights to shooter rods to shaker motors to tiny little toys that you can bolt in across the entire thing these are doll houses for adults i think um when it comes to adding value though that's where it comes into you know consideration some Zac Stark contrasts started to come out so when you add i think nice quality of life improvements art blade shaker motor shooter rod those sorts of things anything that improves the gameplay i think that can lead to you know an increased resale value. When it comes to other things, though, just decorations, I don't know that you get a lot of money back when you go to sell it. I don't think you command a higher price because you've got, you know, a Mothra larva 3D sculpt, you know, screwed onto an inlane. But when it comes to, like, the basic quality of life things, I think you do. One thing that does help if you've added all these mods to your game, I found, is it will help it sell faster. So you might not get more money, but you'll get a quicker sale. You know, if there's two competing machines and they're otherwise the same trim level, one of them is modded out, that may be the one to go for. So I think I'll be a little more choosy in the things that I add to my machines so I don't dump, you know, $10,000 worth of modifications and only, you know, increase my value by about $500 on the market. But we got it down there. We got it set up. And it's looking fantastic. You know, but it was time to let it go. And then, you know, I was up, I posted on my Facebook page, I was up in Rhinelander, Wisconsin for a work meeting and happened to find a Star Wars Pro, a game from Stern that I've always kind of liked, you know, especially that Hyperloop ramp. Now, most of the Star Wars that are out in location, they're going to be the pros, they're not going to have that ramp. And I think that's why it's not, you know, as celebrated. But, you know, I've always kind of still gravitated towards it. So I hit up Pinside afterwards on the way home and I found one locally for a fantastic price there. a lot of great mods it was a home use model um actually came with that r2d2 topper and i scooped that thing so you know i drove out of town with one game on one day took it down set it up and then i was off to the next state over minnesota to pick up this star wars so it's been two days of just running back and forth in the truck um i sold one game i made some room and it lasted not longer than 24 hours before it was filled back up but it was you know it was a great game and a great version. And this pin crawler makes it super easy. So I'm glad I did that. And then, you know, I had to fit in some time for adventure too. So I found myself in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And as one does, you go over to tilt pinball lounge, the pin bar, the preeminent pin bar in the Minneapolis area. They recently went through a name change. I guess there was somewhere else called tilt as well. Would you believe it? So they're now called lit L I T T pin bar, pinball and bar pin bar right up there in the Minneapolis neighborhoods. What a great place, right And I had heard that they had a galactic tank force on location And so far I know of no places here locally that have that So I went on by and I was around there around noon And during the weekday, they don't open until 2 p.m. So on the good news, they had the game there. On the bad news, they were closed. On the bonus news, I was able to bribe my way in with some pinball podcast merchandise. And the techs there that were working on the games, refreshing them, getting them ready for that night, were gracious enough to let me come in and put a couple of games through Galactic Tank Force Deluxe Edition. Shout out to you mad lads there. What a great bunch of guys. They even brought me a glass of water. We got to talking. They've got a great place there. So I've got not a review, but a first take play on Galactic Tank Force to get into. But I just want to highlight Lit Pin Bar. This is a great location in Minneapolis to play games. they've got their games down to 50 cents you guys and these are all like top trim level uh games you know premium version of stranger things uh they got a bond 60th there they got a rick and morty they've got godfather limited edition already if you want a good game good high trim level and you're in the minneapolis area going to the mall of america or you're connecting on a flight hit this place up these guys are great they've also passed along some news that they're going to move locations um and coming with that move will be a doubling in the size of the pinball machines what they've got like 25 there already dude they're going to like 50 of like top level machines they've got a centaur man i mean they've got a curated collection of greatness and the dudes couldn't be any nicer so um you know throw tons of money their way and i go back every time i'm in town that place is fantastic so shout out to you y'all get the air horn um so lit pinball bar hit them up uh so galactic tank man i was so excited You know, I missed out on Texas Pinball Festival at MGC. And one of the reasons was I wanted to play this new game. Now, I've played all the new games out so far except for Pulp Fiction. But this was the one. So, looking it over and, you know, putting my hands on the machine, I mean, it feels solid. So, shout out to American Pinball for building, you know, quality machines, right, as far as build, as far as mechanisms and such. Playing the game, it plays okay. You know, I wasn't rattling around any shots. you know the plastic ramps i was able to hit just fine the vertical up kickers were all firing and working um the layout was interesting you know it's kind of like has a front half and a back half because of that tank that sits in the middle now i've been listening to the other podcast i've been listening to the hot takes i've been watching the youtube carry hardy i've been watching you call out uh you know and and bringing some satire some much needed satire uh to this industry that we love. And so the 3d printed parts. Yes, sir. They are. Absolutely. I've got a 3d printer here and I know how to, you know, pick up on those resolution lines and things. And I was actually seeing more than I would expect for a commercially produced product. Um, especially with that tank in the middle. Yeah. You can see the fill lines. Um, I would have thought that they would have gone with a sculpt and a, uh, a resident plastic ejected mold, um, something that could be painted or put together with different colors of plastic. But really, right now, that metal tank, it's red. It's 3D printed all with one filament of probably PLA. I'm not sure how that's going to hold up in a pinball machine. I know I 3D print parts, but they're not on the game field or play field. They don't move. So that'll be interesting to watch. Also, some of the other spy drones or whatever that belong to the Mistress or Anoya, those are 3D printed as well. And when you do that, unless you've got a higher end printer that can print with multiple filament colors, which can slow up the process, they're all one color and they're not painted. So I would have expected, you know, sculpts to look something more like, you know, the Foo Fighters Overlord where he's 3D sculpted multiple color parts. Like that seems to be the industry standard. It's a little strange to see them go with just, you know, 3D printed, you know, toys that they've put in there. And so I don't know if that's just pre-production. I don't know if that was their plan going forward. I don't remember seeing like an Oktoberfest. I don't think any of those are 3D printed parts. So was this a cost cutting measure? Yeah, I don't know. Because if you bought a bank of 3D printers, right, unless you've got, you know, a professional house making these, but they have, you know, industrial $300,000 resin printers that they can use for high end 3D printed parts. And that's kind of what I would have expected. So for doing production runs of pinball machines at the quantities that a commercial company would be going at, I would think injection molding would be cheaper than doing 3D printed, you know. And I know with Spooky Pinball uses 3D print parts, particularly when they were crafting their Halloween lift motors. And that's under the play field. That seems like it would be an adequate thing to do for that. But for, you know, a decoration that's really going to command your eye, it was a little odd for me. So that's one of my hot takes from the game. Just like the live streams I've seen, you know, these cringy videos that they made they're not overbearing and especially with uh what a dr plotnick or whoever you can skip that so um they were fun to watch the first time but i could see them getting old um playing around the game the game played fine um i didn't have any rejects or any air balls over the flippers um i was kind of uh you know i saw a missed opportunity though with those stand-up targets that are in front of the uh the maiden tank mech there i would have thought that they would have been uh you know like the ones from attack from mars or the ones from even uh pin bot where once you hit them all they would drop down below the play field then you shoot up through the tank and I think that would help because what I noticed and again I only played it twice I can give a full review but from one of the other texts we saying there um there are some stand targets in that bank of pop bumpers on the other side of the tank And there really the only way to get there is kind of from the top or you know shooting in from the side from the bottom But there's no good way to just shoot up there to try to get all those targets. Apparently, there's a multiball up there. So, the game looks good. I like the music. The dubstep didn't bother me. I like the lighting. I like that they included a Penn Stadium type, you know, illumination for the play field. I mean, the thing looked good. I mean, I'm a sucker for light shows. The music was good. The build quality felt good. There were just some questionable choices. And I'm wondering if this has something to do with how the overall project was managed. You know, who was the project manager for this? You know, you need one person that's not a creative, you know, somebody who's involved in one of these other service lines as far as, like, engineering, art, layout and design, code. You know, you need all these teams working at the top of their level. but then somebody there just to kind of corral everybody so we're all working towards like one same goal um and then i think the marketing should also be a piece of that too uh there was a podcast that was just done by uh our guy orbital al right orbit al uh from the pinball the poor man pinball network and he interviewed christopher frangie for about an hour and a half some comments on that for sure um but one of the things uh during that um when they were reviewing because christopher as Franchi did the art, that was the first time I heard anybody actually explain what the storyline for this game was and what the heck is the deal with the ice cream. So I'm gonna lay it out for you guys. So you don't have to sit through that, you know, the 90 minutes of that to get to it. You should listen to it for other reasons. But basically what the story of this is, is it starts with the moon and space cows, right? So these cows are grazed on this moon because in this situation, they make anti-gravity milk. And that anti-gravity milk is then used to make anti-gravity ice cream and there's this group called the galactic tank force and they're there as uh you know shepherds or uh you know intergalactic cowboys that are managing the herd and protecting it and then this empress anoya which i guess is related to the captain cayenne lady with the you know the the curl the red curls there um they're related somehow but they're at odds not really from a uh you know villain hero mold but just like good child bad child i don't know um but apparently she's trying to steal the cows which i think would make her like more of an evil overlord empress but she's not apparently um but she has like an army of uh villains and drones and ufos that are trying to abduct the cows for some reason so uh and then there's this professor guy which i guess he's involved in creating the ice cream and the sprinkles and you know he works for the galactic tank force i guess it's like a company or something but then he also is has a love interest with the empress anoya so like sometimes he helps support her Sometimes he helps support the herd and the ice cream. None of this was ever explained to me playing the game or watching the videos so far. So I'm glad that Christopher Frangie was able to come out and lay this out. Because at least now I know where the pieces are fitting in and who these people are. So I think, you know, it may really what we have is, you know, space galactic cowboys. And maybe that's how we should think of the tank force. Apparently the tanks are Empress Anoya's tanks and not the tank force's tanks. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that. if you get the tank cabinet who does that tank belong to i don't know so there's still a lot out there to try to understand but as far as playing the game it was fun you know i would play it again um what i did notice is that there's a couple of magnets in this game which is always a good thing i love pinball magnets but they would look like they were already getting kind of cratered and beat up so i'm wondering um you know my my first fresh hot take and i haven't enough to do a full review of it but i think with this game i think people that own this game in the home i think they're going to like it i think they're going to defend it i think people that aren't interested in it are never going to be interested in it and they'll have a lot of reasons they'll be able to tell you why they're not interested in it from talking to the techs they were showing some concerns already with how cratered these magnets were getting and some adjustments they've had to do with how balls kind of come into that upper left buck um that they think this would maybe be better suited for a home use environment where you know you may do 400 plays a year versus, you know, getting 400 plays in a weekend at a place like the pin bar. So we'll know that going forward. I mean, you know, these games don't come out and are tested in an environment for a year or two and then, you know, troubleshot and then go to commercial release. I mean, this is going to be the big first test for this game now going in the next few months. So let's revisit Galactic Tank Force six months hence, right? Around October, around the fall around the time when you know stern's next cornerstone is coming out then let's look back and see if we can kind of get a grade score on galactic tank force for my two plays that i've had on it it ranks is probably the best american pinball game that i have played um longevity wise hot wheels is probably the one that i would put in a commercial arcade but as far as like you know ingenuity and what's in it i mean there's a lot of things in this and they're not selling this game at least the deluxe model for $15,000. And I like that they put in things like the blades. I like the mirror at the back of the play field. From pictures, I was able to see that there's like a sculpt of a planet back there at the play field. Looking at it in person, that mirror finish on the back play field, you know, right up at the back of it there, reflects that, you know, semicircle planet. It makes it look three-dimensional or 360. So, you know, that was kind of nice. I like a lot of the things that they put in there. There was a lot of talent involved in this game. I don't know that it was all, you know, corralled in the right way. I think if there was just some finishing with regard to marketing and project leadership, I think this game would have entered the market a couple notches higher than where it did. And now we going to see the test for longevity You know how does this game hold up under some pretty significant play conditions you know that what we going to find out over the next few months that my wrap right now for galactic the tank of the force um orbital the pinball poor man pinball network podcast that i just listened to the other day while driving to minneapolis what a great hour and a half long uh rundown with the christopher franchi and you know his ideas i mean you know This is a guy that we don't have to wonder what's on his mind. You know, from back in the Super Awesome Pinball Show days, he was always, you know, very vocal. He had some concerns mainly regarded to feedback he gets from being in the public space. I think that is a consequence of being in the public space. You know, these people, these designers, a lot of them are fairly reclusive. You know, they're not doing interviews every week. Franchi was someone that was fairly available as far as, you know, we could hear, you know, what his thoughts are, especially with the podcast that he was making. So I think of a lot of his concerns, you know, they're valid. I don't know that there's a way to really mitigate that at all. If you put yourself out there, I think a lot of the same, you know, concerns he was having the same thoughts and things that he was hitting some, some pushback for, I think, you know, anybody else would have those same positions and concerns. But if you don't put yourself out there, you don't really see them. You know, it's, it's more of like how the sausage is made, you know, it's made in the back. You have the product, you know, you have your feedback for it, but you're not involved in that process. And his process was a little more upfront, you know, you're watching him make the sausage. So I think that just leaves him open to some liability there. He says that this was the last podcast appearance he's ever going to do. And, you know, I don't know if I can, I don't know if I'll buy that. I think this guy known as personality from what I've heard of him. I don't know if he's been able to stay away, you know, and, and I think more voices are welcome. You know, I think if we meet each other at a level of, you know, kindness, with that being our goal, I think in this community, we'll do pretty well. I don't mean to ramble on about it, but it was fun to listen to that. If you guys are a fan of my boy Kaneda, Chris Kaneda's podcast, number one Twippy winning podcast. If you're into his character, his ego, his id on display, he was in rare form on a live stream to retort this. So I'm just going to put that out there. 11 minutes that I had to listen to, I think, twice yesterday. Just because, you know, whatever your opinions of the guy are, he was very much on display. So if that's something you want to participate or witness, it's out there. So that was entertaining for me, for sure. What else do I have to get to? Little news and rumors. Franchi did say that the rumored Batman 89 is false. It's not coming out, or it's not being worked on. he has insider knowledge or it's not coming from Dutch pinball. It's a rumor. Who knows? But I think the core of that rumor, though, did bring up the idea of Batman 89 being revisited for a brand new game that I don't want to die. You know, so maybe Dutch pinball is not working on that. Maybe no pinball company is working on that. But I think I think I would like it if a pinball company worked on that. You know, the old Michael Keaton movie with just him and Joker, a Tim Burton movie. I think really any Tim Burton movie I would be okay with as a pinball theme. So I don't want to let the rumor die. So I'm going to propagate it, but I'm going to pump the brakes a bit on, you know, getting ready for a deposit for Dutch pinball the next month or two, um, and, and see what they have coming. So that was one rumor I wanted to address. Um, when I've been playing Foo Fighters, I know I was saying that I'd ordered the premium. I wanted to wait and not play any version at all until it showed up in my house in a couple of weeks, but I was out on location. I was out at a tournament at district one. um they are planning the foo fighters release party for may 10th i believe may 10th or 11th double check but district one in um uh cedar rapids no uh stevens point wisconsin uh we'll be doing a foo fighters release party next month um so i was able to play the pro i played it down at blue moon shout out to those guys bad lads down there great burgers um also played it at district one for the tournament the same day two locations this game is great it's flowy i love it I echo what everybody else is saying about it. You know, it's hard to call something a Godzilla killer, but that's fine. As long as it's Godzilla adjacent, I'm down for it. So, and one thing I noted with the Pro, you know, they have those, you know, just kind of flat plastics instead of the 3D sculpts for the different toys in the game. So, the Overlord, you know, he's got these two fists he's got out in front of him. And I thought I had seen that one of the fists had a middle finger on it. And then the other one didn't. So, I wasn't sure if I was just seeing stuff. but then it was at uh tilt now lit the uh yesterday and i noticed the middle finger was there so i asked the tech and apparently a middle finger comes in the kit um you know when you when you unbox the game it's the two fists or whatever or maybe just a finger pointing but you can switch that out for a middle finger if you want a little more edge there so that's fun uh jd jack danger ultimate mad lad i love that i have the option to have this uh you know alien skeletor inspired overlord guy and I can flip out a middle finger for him. So that's fantastic. I think I've covered just about everything. I hope I'm not coming across too congested, um, but I'm hopped up on the Claritin. I think I want to end this now with that. Um, we're going to get in some more, uh, reviews and news. I'm sure throughout the weekend, um, you know, I'll be following all the sources and everything. Where's my outro button. Sorry for the four day delay, man. I've been going hard for 48 hours straight, delivering games, doing my white glove pickup drop-off. Hit me with news and reviews, man, or any comments, Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. I'm going to keep posting content up there. I need a nap and some more antihistamines, you guys. Later.