Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

DPP #68 "INTERVIEW Rob Rath The Electric Playground"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·40m 3s·analyzed·Sep 9, 2023
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Interview with Electric Playground's Rob Wrath on premium pinball toppers and industry news.

Summary

Don's Pinball Podcast episode 68 features an interview with Rob Wrath of Electric Playground, a premium acrylic topper manufacturer. The episode covers recent pinball news including Stern's new factory and Venom production, Pinball Adventures' Elements game, Spooky Pinball's new Scooby code and rumors about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, JJP's Godfather accessory kit, and detailed discussion of Electric Playground's Twilight Zone and upcoming Godzilla toppers with integrated lighting and mechanical features.

Key Claims

  • Stern's new factory is operational and producing Venom Pros; launch parties starting as early as September 14th (next week)

    high confidence · Don Garrison, DPP host, discussing Factory Friday updates

  • Twilight Zone topper has shipped approximately 85 units from batches one and two since debut at CPF in March

    high confidence · Rob Wrath, Electric Playground founder, discussing product history

  • Twilight Zone batch three (100 units) goes on sale September 9th, split 50/50 between wait list and first-come-first-served

    high confidence · Rob Wrath, confirming launch details

  • Twilight Zone topper costs $1,629 and features motorized ball on wire form powered by gumball motor

    high confidence · Rob Wrath describing product specifications

  • Godzilla topper comes in two versions: $879 (player edition, 9.5 inches) and $979 (challenger edition with motorized UFO, 12 inches)

    high confidence · Rob Wrath outlining Godzilla topper pricing and specifications

  • Godzilla topper has 15 interaction points with the machine via light sensors and includes 150+ addressable RGB lights

    high confidence · Rob Wrath describing technical specifications

  • Godzilla topper initial run is only 30 units to gather feedback before full production

    high confidence · Rob Wrath explaining production strategy

  • Spooky Pinball may be working on dual-theme playfield with Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes references

    low confidence · Don Garrison, speculating on Bugsy's green screen image and Jason Knapp's social media post

  • JJP released Godfather accessory kit for $1,500 with topper, art blades, horse head shooter rod, and silver chrome appliques

    high confidence · Don Garrison reporting on product release

Notable Quotes

  • “pinball pressure is building up underground the pipe is ready to burst”

    Don Garrison @ Opening — Thematic hook for the episode emphasizing community excitement

  • “I'm excited for that. Even if you don't really care about Venom... What I'm excited for is to try this new code out and see how it would apply to, say, a future game, like a Pokemon release”

    Don Garrison @ Early discussion of Venom — Highlights broader interest in Stern's new progressive code system beyond the Venom theme

  • “This is easily the most exquisite plunger rod thing that I have seen”

    Don Garrison @ Discussing Elements topper — High praise for Pinball Adventures' design innovation

  • “what's the most packed machine in pinball and we've got to make sure it has most packed topper in pinball so the ball is a huge thing”

    Rob Wrath @ Twilight Zone design philosophy — Explains core design philosophy driving feature integration

  • “So we don't like wait to ship them off yet. And so like our first customers that order on this batch, I think is committed to by like December, you know, you're going to start seeing those shipping out in October.”

    Rob Wrath @ Discussing production timeline — Clarifies that most units ship early, majority coming in October rather than waiting until December deadline

  • “There's so many. I mean with the Twilight Zone topper on top of it, there's like, I think there's like 2,500 parts. It's insane.”

    Don Garrison @ Discussing manufacturing complexity — Emphasizes the engineering complexity of premium toppers

  • “It's got an external power source. So if the back glass is on, the topper is turned on.”

    Rob Wrath @ Godzilla power discussion — Key design feature addressing mod compatibility concerns

Entities

Don GarrisonpersonRob WrathpersonElectric PlaygroundcompanyStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyPinball AdventurescompanyAndrew McBainperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern's new factory is operational and actively producing Venom Pro machines with launch parties scheduled for mid-September

    high · Don reports 'Factory Friday' update showing factory in operation producing Venoms; arcade launch parties planned for September 14th onwards

  • ?

    product_launch: Electric Playground releasing Twilight Zone topper batch three (100 units) on September 9th with 50 reserved for wait list and 50 for first-come-first-served

    high · Rob Wrath confirms batch three launch details with specific timing: 12 Eastern, 9 Pacific, 11 Central, 4 GMT

  • ?

    design_innovation: Godzilla topper features 15 integration points with machine via light sensors and 150+ addressable RGB lights responding to game state

    high · Rob Wrath describes light sensor integration reading city lights, monster monitor lights, spinner, UFO saucer, Rodan mode, and destruction jackpot with custom light shows

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Electric Playground following 90-day production window model for both Twilight Zone (100 units batch 3) and Godzilla (30 units initial run)

    high · Rob Wrath explains orders taken with $100 deposit, 90-day commitment, with majority shipping earlier; Twilight Zone batch 3 targeting October shipments with December deadline

  • ?

    design_innovation: Twilight Zone topper features complex brass wire habitat trail with 21 weld points, hand-assembled, and motorized ball return mechanism using paddle wheel design

    high · Rob Wrath details custom jig for bending brass, jewelry welding for weld points, and Derek's design for paddle wheel ball return mechanism

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.120

0:00
that pinball pressure is building up underground the pipe is ready to burst it's don's pinball podcast episode number 68 we got some news we got an interview here coming up this is going to be a great episode for everybody to listen to other tidbits have dropped in it's friday afternoon man let's get ready for the weekend come on let's go Hey, guys. Hey, episode 68. Following episode 67, we are on a roll heading into the weekend with some pinball content for everybody. Well, would you look at that? It is Factory Friday, which means we get another production update from Stern from the new factory floor. There's dozens or hundreds or thousands or millions of Venom pros being put together, all to a sick M&M beat, so that was cool. So this new factory, it is up and running. Venoms are going to be coming out. I've already seen some posts from some arcades. They are planning on doing launch parties as soon as, like, the 14th, which is, like, Wednesday or something. Like next week, we're going to start seeing Venom release parties. So, so far, the only people that have been able to play this have been at New Berlin Comic Con, and then District 82 had one for a little bit. Now more and more people are going to experience this new Venom code. Now with this game, right, it's not the most packed game, not the top mechs or sculpts of a game ever. It's not a AAA title. But what it is is a good test of this new progressive kind of video game-inspired pinball code that we're seeing. log in, gain levels, progress through the entire game. I want to see if it works. I'm excited for that. Even if you don't really care about Venom, I'm, you know, C-tier on, you know, like the Marvel characters and whatever for pinball. You know, Venom, he's cool, but he's not like, you know, I don't have a Venom tattoo or anything. But what I'm excited for is to try this new code out and see how it would apply to, say, a future game, like a Pokemon release, right? Where you can really get in there and, you know, get your characters and train them up and battle them and see what that can really blow the doors off of pinball. So excited about that. We saw that from Stern. Also just dropping, since I did the last episode, Elements for Pinball Adventures is now available for pre-order. There's two versions of this. This is coming from Pinball Adventures up there in the Vancouver region of Canada. This is their second game, their follow-up to Punny Factory. And, you know, if Punny Factory was the proof of concept, this company can make a game, get it out, it's playable. This game really takes it to a next step there as far as, like, you know, ramps and mechanisms and things. From talking to Andrew McBain, I've seen pictures of the play field, but I haven't really gotten to dive into it. But, you know, one of the things he was talking about was, wait till you see what he's doing with the topper. So this guy, this pinball madman, Mr. Inventor, Mr. Innovator, has taken the LCD screen and put it up as the topper with speakers in it. And then the back glass is, like, strictly a back glass. I want to see how this all plays out. I think there's a lot of elements in this game that I still don't even know about. Case in point, take a look at the shooter rod. It looks like a ram's head sitting there with big curled horns. It looks like the kind of thing that would shred your hand by just touching it. This is easily the most exquisite plunger rod thing that I have seen. Check out the shooter rod. I'm going to post a picture of it up on the website there, or on the Facebook page. But, you know, Elements is coming out. He's doing two versions. I think his edition size is around 120 or so, and this time there's going to be 20 or 25 of what he's calling the night editions. I've got to get a text out to him to see what the difference is.

Electric Playground's Twilight Zone topper assembly takes approximately 30-45 minutes for installation

high confidence · Rob Wrath describing installation timeline

Jason Knapp
person
Bugsyperson
Alexperson
Derekperson
JRperson
Keithperson
Twilight Zonegame
Godzillagame
Venomgame
Scooby-Doogame
Elementsgame
Godfathergame
Quarter Up Arcadevenue
New Berlin Comic Conevent
District 82venue
  • ?

    code_update: Spooky Pinball released new Scooby-Doo code with final character mode for Scooby-Doo featuring 'pink milkshakes' progression

    high · Don reports Scooby stream with new code live, final character mode now available in game

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Speculation about Spooky Pinball developing dual-theme playfield with Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes references

    low · Jason Knapp's social media post about Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Looney Tunes dual theme; Bugsy's stream featured Leatherface imagery; Don cautions reading too much into it

  • ?

    product_launch: JJP released Godfather accessory kit ($1,500) including topper, art blades, horse head shooter rod, and silver chrome appliques for LE owners wanting CE features

    high · Don reports availability across all distributors, describing contents and noting silver vs gold distinction between LE and CE versions

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Stern implementing progressive video game-inspired code system with login, level progression, and character advancement in Venom as proof-of-concept for future games

    high · Don discusses Venom as test of new progressive code system, speculates on application to Pokemon theme where players train and battle characters

  • ?

    product_launch: Pinball Adventures announcing Elements game with pre-orders at $500 deposit, featuring innovative LCD topper integration and custom ram's head shooter rod

    high · Don reports Elements available for pre-order through Pinball Adventures, ~120 standard + 20-25 night editions, playable at Pinball Expo

  • $

    market_signal: Electric Playground establishing premium topper market with $1,629 Twilight Zone and $879-$979 Godzilla offerings; ~10% of customers display toppers without owning featured machines

    high · Rob Wrath reports 10% of Twilight Zone customers are non-owners, mentions Switzerland example, hints at future Le Bowski topper development

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Electric Playground assembled four-person assembly team including father, former pro player JR, relative Keith, and programmer Alex for topper manufacturing

    high · Rob Wrath describes team composition with specific roles and backgrounds for assembly and programming work

    • 3:53
    Conversations I had with him before, he was planning on doing engraved cabinets going forward on this one, I thought, but then there is a side art, so we'll see more about that. But, dear listener, if you want to go in on Elements and get yourself something different, $500 non-refundable deposit to Pinball Adventures will get your space in line. And we know this game will be at Pinball Expo next month to play. So more fun stuff coming from our buddies over there at Pinball Adventures. They're cooking up some interesting takes on pinball, which can only help the hobby, you know, despite what you might think of their individual machines. What else have we got? Spooky did a stream last night. I mean, I did too, but I did like the hour before they started with Big Lebowski, and then they did their Scooby stream. Now, they did a Scooby stream because there's new Scooby code. The final character mode is in the game now. Scooby-Doo's own character mode. Something about going around and getting pink milkshakes or something. I didn't have a chance to check that stream because I'm out here working. I'm going to watch it again later. But when I get home, I'm going to download that new code. It's live right now. Now, these guys, these master trolls, right? So, you know, Buggy's got himself a green screen so he can put, like, a cool graphic behind him while he's doing his live streams. and the image that he picked was Scooby-Doo and the gang running away from what looks like a Scooby-Doo cartoon version of Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now, this has been a title that's been rumored for them, you know, just like Friday the 13th and Evil Dead and Nash vs. whatever,
    5:21
    the Army of Darkness and all that have been rumors with Spooky Pinball. So they're lighthearted guys. They like to poke fun at this sort of stuff and rile up the community. So maybe that was all it is and we don't need to read too much into it. or the competing conspiracy rumor is that spooky pinball is going back to the idea of doing, um, you one play field for two different themes. And one of them is going to be the Texas chainsaw massacre. And the other one is going to be a Looney Tunes inspired theme. Now I don't know what their next theme is. I haven't pressed them on it. And even if they leaked it around me, I'm so dense that I don't pick up on subtle clues like that. Just ask my wife. Right. Um, so who knows, take that for what it's worth. Jason Nat posted this. He's the one that broke it. I'm giving him the credit because I didn't think of them doing this. I've heard the Looney Tunes rumor, and I've heard Texas Chainsaw Massacre forever. I've heard this other rumor that there's going to be some kind of cabin sculpt midfield somewhere. But, I mean, read into that whatever you want. But that's coming out from Spooky. So Scooby-Doo has new code. New rumors are flowing. I still think that we won't see a new game at Expo from Spooky Pinball. but Texas Pinball Festival I think may be in play and that goes back to where they are in the production line of Scooby and they're in the later half now and maybe even getting close to the later half of the later half potentially so sooner than later we will see something but it's probably not going to be until the spring so go check out their stream, I need to go watch it I'll be watching that later today while I eat some Little Debbies in a couch and feel sorry for myself what else do we have? JJP Accessories for Godzilla Not Godzilla, Godfather, the other green nasty lizard. Godfather accessory kit was released. Now, $1,500 will get you an accessory kit for your limited edition. It comes with a topper, which is fairly stripped down from the collector's edition topper. You do get some art blades. You also get the horse head shooter rod. It looks to be the same one from the collector's edition. But here's the cool kicker, man. You can also get the gold appliques for the machine. They go on the front legs, the things that look like they would totally shred your shins, plus the button surround for the action button, only they're in silver chrome color, not the gold color. So the LE is the silver edition and the CE is the gold edition. So if you want your LE to look somewhat like the CE, $1,500 will get you there. Now, if you were going to go buy an LE, I think $1,500 may actually get you a new inbox CE with all the gold anyway. But be that as it may, they're available everywhere. Everybody's posting this right now. Like, this is breaking right now. $1,500 for the JJP topper with the art blades and the appliques and the shooter rod. If you're into Godfather, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'd probably go on it. Now, I did reach out to a distributor to see if I can just get the silver chrome leg appliques, I guess they're called. And I was thinking, like, what game do I have that I could put these things on that would make sense, right? Star Wars, I don't think that would work. You know, Godzilla, Scooby-Doo, I don't think it would work. Iron Maiden, Foo Fighters. But what about Elvira? My Elvira cheap 40th anniversary edition knockoff that I've made? What if I took these things, spray painted them purple, and then stuck them on the legs to complete the look and just aggravate the haters? What do you think? I posted on the Facebook page, and I'm getting, I would say I'm getting a mixed response, but everybody generally thinks it's a terrible idea. So this is a good thought exercise, I guess, for me and everything. All right, what do we else have coming up next? All right, listeners, next up I've got something amazing. I've got Rob Rath here from the Electric Playground, maker of top-shelf premium acrylic pinball toppers here. Rob, what's going on, man? Hey, Don. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. Thanks for coming on the podcast. And I know you've got some products that have come out and some that are about to finally get delivered after they've been revealed. So you're here to talk a little bit more about them and kind of get into your process a bit. So how's everything been going? Yeah. Good. It's been a crazy week for you guys. a ton of news going out. We've got Twilight Zone, our next batch, batch three for sale starting tomorrow, so I'll talk a little bit about that. And then we've also got a major update on our Godzilla topper that we're going to be putting on sale during Expo on October 21st. So lots of news and lots of good stuff coming. Yeah, of course. I think most people are familiar with you because of that Twilight Zone topper right that kind of acrylic topper that came out with just references to tons of things from the play field Plus it got that winking eye right in the middle of the pyramid And then the motorized ball on the wire form that wraps around the topper. Like this is, as far as I know, the only topper with a wire form and a ball in it. So that's amazing. Yeah. When we, you know, I can get into our company origins, but, you know, when we started brainstorming that topper, it was like what's the most packed machine in pinball and and we've got to make sure it has most packed topper in pinball so the ball is a huge thing um it was a lot of fun to build and the eyeball the nice touch it's always running there's tons of cool lights on it um very very very proud of that product and universal praise from the community on that um so we've We've shipped about 85 of those to date from batch one and two since debuting at CPF just this last March. And we're just now opening up our next 100 units. So we've got 50 going out to our wait list. We kind of do our wait list uniquely in that we do half of every batch goes to the wait list and half goes to like a first-come, first-served sale. So that will be tomorrow at 12 Eastern, 50 of those will be available to the community on our website. Perfect. September 9th. Yeah, so they'll be available. If you're not on the wait list, you can go ahead and get one. So, I mean, looking at this thing, you know, I see, like, you know, the printed acrylics and everything that are stacked in there. But then, you know, you went ahead and made a wire form, too. Like, you know, how do you design something like that? Like, is this thing welded? And then I saw a picture of an oven, like it's powder coated or something. You know, like how do you actually fabricate something like this?
    11:41
    Yeah, you're digging deep on our Instagram. I love it. Yeah, so my partner Alex, he owns Twilight Zone, and he just put rad cows on it. He's, like, you know, taking it to the top in every way. And he's a big part of the design process, and he kind of challenged me early on to do this habit trail. And I'm like, oh, my God, like, I don't even know how I would go about doing that. I mean, my background has been developing toys, and I've done a lot of, like, prototyping for toys, specifically using laser cutters and a little bit of 3d printer um but the habit trail was like how are we going to do this so we decided early on to use brass because it's easier to bend whereas normally it's steel and you don't have balls flying around up there you know so it's not like it needs to be super durable and basically built this jig which is just like kind of complex bending rig for bending the brass so you bend the two rails and then you just create crossbars just like cutting it with you know snips um and i and i actually went to a commercial welder and the stuff we got back just looked like crap like it was just like real lot of glob and goop you know around the weld points as you can imagine um so i ended up finding here in san luis uh this amazing guy named who is a jewelry welder or a jeweler let's just use a jeweler and i use jewelry welding equipment to weld that together um so we do those in batches of five um he is about three hours of work for him to weld that because he has 21 weld points and then uh we powder coat uh those ourselves and um
    13:23
    there's a couple 3d printed parts on the ends of the ramp that's connected to a pathway in the back but none of that's really exposed, you know, on the front of the topper. So it's only half the ramp. It doesn't actually, like, continue onto the back in the metal form. But it is quite a complex piece, and definitely the hardest part of the topper. Yeah, and then it looks like you engineered a 3D Ferris wheel kind of mechanism to deliver the ball back up after it runs the course.
    13:53
    Yeah, yeah. Shout out to Derek on that one. He bought an MMR from me a couple years back and threw me an idea for how that would work. It's basically like a paddle wheel or like a water wheel. And there's four paddles in there and it grabs the ball and lifts it up to the top and kicks it back out. And there's some like interesting ways that we use convex and concave pathways inside that wheel to keep the ball in place. And he's got a little standard, you know, motor in there that's at the top. Yeah, it looks like an elegantly simple mechanism. I would have thought of using like a VUCC or something, like throwing balls up in the air behind there. Yeah, you know, I think that we just kind of decided that we wanted something that, well, part of it is it runs off the gumball motor. So like when the gumball motor is running, it's running. Ah, that's awesome. The nice thing about it is it's actually timed from an RPM, revolution per minute perspective, to kind of be specific to that. We ended up using the same motor for the clock. So a lot of times we get asked from people, like, hey, will the clock stay in sync with the time of the machine? And unfortunately, RPMs are not right for that. So the clock is not in sync, but it does spin forward and backwards with the clock on the machine. Yeah, I mean, a lot of aftermarket people make light-up acrylic plastic toppers and things, but having it integrated with the game, I mean, that's the one thing that separates most aftermarket parts from officially licensed parts. So the fact that you're able to tie that in, I mean, it's beyond my ability to kind of develop on my own. So bow down to you guys for that. When you build something like this, are you assembling all these at your own workshop, or are these assembled off-site and shipped out? How does that process work? it's all it's all done uh in-house so to speak um we have a team of uh four amazing guys uh that come from various parts of my life one of them is my father but he's obviously very involved um we've got uh jr who's actually a former number one player in the world uh part of our team uh amazing football player uh we've got keith uh who's uh a relative of mine and then alex house with this employee and then we have alex who does all the programming uh specifically for the godzilla topper because the godzilla topper is like next level when it comes to like integration with the machine and also like the computer interaction and the light shows it's got uh over uh 150 addressable rgb lighting in there that we're actually customizing so we're really we're really uh excited and proud to build this here uh in our shop we've got everything here we of course get parts from all sorts of sources all over the world. But everything is hand-assembled, cut, and printed here locally at our shop. All right, yeah. And, you know, I've seen people have even taken these toppers that don't have a Twilight Zone machine and just display it just because it's so cool.
    16:59
    Yeah, you know, we've got about, I would say about 10% of our customers are in that situation. A lot of them are former Twilight Zone owners. we just got some amazing photos from a guy in Switzerland where he got it set up right there next to a Lebowski and it just looks amazing. So we're really excited to see that happening. Oh, man, I've got a Lebowski sitting behind me right now. I'm just, my wheels are turning. All right.
    17:23
    I have a Lebowski, too. It's a great machine. It needs a topper. You know, I've noticed that. There are some commercially ones available, but I think they could be stepped up a bit. Okay, okay, we'll foreshadow that. so you're satisfying your wait list with this plus there's going to be 50 available soon right tomorrow I'll give the times 9 Pacific 11 Central 12 Eastern and 4 GMT so I have 50 available they go quick the last few were gone in like less than 2 minutes those were like 25 instead of 50 so this one might stick around a little bit longer.
    18:08
    But yeah, definitely get ready. Yeah, and what do you charge for something like this? It's got to be $5,000, $6,000, right?
    18:15
    No, the bargain basement price is $1,629. So it's not a cheap topper, not a $2,000 topper, but it's not a $1,000 topper either. But everybody that's got it is universally in love with it, and And you'll definitely be happy if you're fortunate enough to be able to make the investment in something like this. Yeah, I was actually able to see one at Quarter Up Arcade. There's one sitting on top of their Twilight Zone right now in Akron, Ohio. So, yeah, and I watched the eye wink at me. It was fantastic. I had a good time with it.
    18:50
    Yeah, we got to see that ourselves. We were in Ohio recently. A lot of the video you might see of our guy, George, from the trip we did down there. It's Corbin's machine. So awesome to see him have that out in public. That's pretty great. Yeah, yeah, that was great. So now coming to this green lizard guy, you've got a new topper you're about to release.
    19:12
    And we've seen photos posted of this and the work in progress, but it's finally coming to fruition. People are going to be able to get this.
    19:19
    Totally, totally, yeah. It's a little more polarizing in terms of the feedback in Twilight Zone, but that's part of the process because there's a lot of options for Godzilla, so everyone certainly has a right to have an opinion about it yeah the history on this one so so alec and i uh got our godzillas on the same day i guess you might maybe it was like two years ago and uh you know we his godzilla is completely different from mine like his godzilla has got all the amazing like three model pieces and mine mine's pretty stock i've got a few things in there but what I really wanted was like a copper that you know paid homage to you know the style and the artwork of the machine So we did a one topper that a few people out there ended up getting their hands on And it's often busy or people love that. That was kind of like the beginning of our company where we started to kind of learn about how to make toppers, whether we could do it and whether there was a market out there that could bear it. and as soon as we got done with Twilight Zone we were like we're stuck on back to we both got this machine we want a topper and we also developed our knowledge of like how the scoring worked you know over that time and I really wanted to do something where it leaned in with some monster monitors because it's really critical to like complete those monster monitors and capture that bonus before you make a city change so I wanted to build something that kind of captured that so this topper is also a lot more price-friendly. There's two models, one's $879, one's $979. But it's got, it actually has like 15 interaction points with the machine, primarily done through light sensors. It's got this board that kind of embeds under those lights during the playfield, and it's got lots of different light shows that I can get into as we go. Sure, sure. Now, so I know You guys have the laser gravers or laser cutters, routers, whatever you want to call them. But to cut out the actual acrylic pieces there. But then you've got some sort of component boards in these things. There's electronics in here. You know, like, who's ingenuity is behind designing a board? Or is this an off-the-shelf board that you program? Like, how do you get those light shows programmed in there?
    21:42
    Totally, yeah. So the acrylics, I mean, there's actually quite a bit of depth. to this topper and i know some of the photos or videos might not let you see that we're also um currently working with some mod makers to do some some actually like resin cast buildings for the for the for the four buildings there um so the acrylics are they look great i mean i can't wait to get to see this at expo um i think you're really going to love it inside the topper there There are two main 72 high-density RGB strips. They're addressable RGB, which means the computer can tell each individual light what to do, which you obviously see more and more in modern pinball machines. And then there's some general illumination lighting. So there's a board on the back. It's like four by four inches, roughly. It's got an Arduino computer chip in there. that talks to another board that is mounted underneath your play field and then from that board there are basically like 16 or maybe it's like 14 wires they go to different places on the machine so eight of them are kind of pre-assembled for you there's just like a simple like place that you're installing uh onto the bottom of the play field and it's reading the four city lights and the four monster monitor lights and we're lighting those up in the copper when those are activated so the buildings catch on fire whenever you're in the city and then the monster monitors the tank and the Tesla power and whatnot light up they indicate you know that progress we're also illuminating the copper and blue when you hit the center spinner so we're going to have to do the spinner we're raising a mechanical mech UFO whenever the UFO saucer is lit. And then when you have a Rodan, the 2X active, the topper does this like strobing purple effect. And then finally during the destruction jackpot, the entire topper basically like looks like it's catching on fire. So all that's kind of like interpreted by the central processing unit, the CPU, and lighting up the topper kind of based on what's going on. Okay. Yeah. I saw the video trailer for the Twilight Zone topper. Do you have a trailer for the Godzilla one yet that shows off the functionality and everything? Yeah. So if you hit our YouTube channel, you can search the Electric Playground or Tepkinball, T-U-P-K-I-N-B-A-L-L, or just Tepkinball.com. There's a video we just sent out on Godzilla. I mentioned in Ohio, we actually set three locations and we did it. We had three toppers at one location and one topper at two other locations. And there's a bunch of video on there. of people playing the game and interacting with it. And you can see everything that I just described, at least from a light show perspective, on that video. All right. Then we were talking earlier about the Godzilla toppers. There's actually two different versions that you can order. Is it the motorized UFO that rises, and that's the difference between the two? Yes.
    24:46
    So without the UFO, the topper is nine and a half inches tall, which is the same height as most stern toppers. that one does not have the mechanical UFO that races up and down so you're going to want that one if you know you only want $900 but you can add you can add the UFO at any point and there's other mods that are coming out for this copper which I can talk about but that UFO we call it the UFO mothership can be added that takes it up to 12 inches and that one is 979 so our what we call a player edition, the base model is $879, and then the challenger edition is $975. Okay, so for you low ceiling folks, that would be the option, you know, measure it or play your game without legs. That's also an option. Then you can have a four-foot topper if you want. That sounds kind of fun, actually. We'll just get up the carpet pillows. We'll sit down and we'll play pinball on the ground. Yeah, yeah. So, okay. I got to have young kids. Yeah. So I order one of these things, right? How long is it going to take average person to install this and get it hooked up and running?
    25:57
    Yeah, so this one's probably going to be, so the time I go and we claim is 30 to 45 minutes. There's just been a few people that have taken longer, but we've had some people that say like 30 minutes is no problem. This one's probably going to be more in the 45-minute range just because it doesn't have like 14 hookups, but it's got like four or five because one of them is like bundled into eight. So it's going to take a little bit. Now, I know there's a ton of mods out there for Godzilla, and there's some concerns about this competing with power constraints on your mod. This thing doesn't source any of its core power from the machine. So if you've got Diddy's Tesla powers or you've got a bunch of stuff from Stumbler, there's going to be wires running, don't get me wrong. It's going to get a little bit messier, but you're not going to be competing too much for that. So yeah, you're looking at probably like 45 minutes per hour, worst case. And then your topper has an external power source, like a plug to plug it in separate? Yeah, it's got an external power source. It's going to, the topper is going to light up, so some of the guys on toppers out there don't necessarily turn on and off of your machine. This one will, so basically there's going to be like a relay in there that's like just sending a light on the back glass. So if the back glass is on, the topper is turned on. Nice, nice. Well, that's exciting.
    27:24
    So when you, I guess for the people that order these, do you have the Twilight Zone toppers, I guess, which are the ones that go on sale tomorrow, do you have some ready to ship? Are they already put together? Are you going to take orders first and then build? No. So we don't, we're not fortunate enough to have our, you know, manufacturing process worked out where everything's ready to ship. There's typically a 90, up to a 90-day wait period. So we take a hundred dollar deposit on our product just to pay a tax commitment.
    27:53
    And that's non-refundable, it's transferable. Okay. And then we have a very firm ship by date. So you will receive your tracking code by the date that's given. And the majority of them come out much earlier, right? So we don't like wait to ship them off yet. And so like our first customers that order on this batch, I think is committed to by like December, you know, you're going to start seeing those shipping out in October. And then, and then it's all based on like when the order was placed. So same thing for Godzilla.
    28:26
    We are going to be getting five or six in people's hands, like before the show, just so that we have, you know, some of that feedback, but we'll start shipping them in that same manner over a 90 day period, starting on October 21st. Okay, perfect. So you've, you've got a hundred Twilight zones to make. half and half for the wait list and half for the other creatures out there that want to buy one. And then what's your initial run for the Godzilla topper?
    28:51
    We're going to do 30. And the reason it's small is, you know, partly because we're still working on commitments for Twilight Zone. We also like to just, like, get that feedback from the first customers in terms of, like, the installation process and any issues they run into. There's so many. I mean with the silo on top of it, there's like, I think there's like 2,500 parts. It's insane. And Godzilla is going to be at least half that.
    29:19
    And there's a lot of tweaks that can be made to both like improve the experience of the customer and also just improve like our manufacturing process. So it's first batch is, you know, an opportunity for us to kind of figure out how to make it better. It doesn't change the visual qualities of the product or the quality of the product in general. it's just like some of the minutia around how it's built.
    29:41
    Perfect, yeah. And then the 30 editions for Godzilla is inclusive of both versions, so altogether total there'll be 30? There is, yeah. So people are basically just going to kind of pick which one they want. And again, you can always add the UFO later if you want. Yeah, so that's exciting. So now we getting mods for pinball mods I love it It like robots birthing robots right Yeah I mean for first Cabot Trail and Topper maybe first Modible Topper I mean that comes from a couple places Like one it's like, you know, you've got Godzilla, you know, arguably the number one machine on whatever contest you want to evaluate that on, but there's so many different variations of it that people own, and they've gone different directions with things, but part of it was like, we wanted you to be able to kind of make it your own, and the way we want to do that is like really be inclusive of other mod makers to make stuff for this so like we're not we're going to happen to any kind of revenue share on this is just like know what you want we'll promote it you sell it and one of the things being developed is a replacement for the four acrylic monuments you got the big band you got the Eiffel Tower you got the Tokyo Tower and you've got Statue of Liberty. There's photos on our Instagram, or maybe it's on our FinSci channel. I think I should get it out on Instagram. These amazing resident cast models that he didn't want me to reveal his name yet. He doesn't want to get fucked up quite yet. But it's somebody that many of you know, especially if you own Godzilla. And super excited about that. And then we've got some people doing some stuff with acrylics that are going to do a couple of new things, like throw a mothra up there. We've actually got extra ports on the back of the top with the light. So, like, if you want to make a mod or you want to buy a mod with the light, like, you're going to be able to do that. You're even going to be able to place a sensor underneath the play field. So if you want to, like, put a sensor on the mopper in lane or out lane and light up a mopper acrylic or a mopper statue that you buy off of Amazon, you know, that's totally within your power. That's awesome. So I see this as a net gain for the community as a whole, and I'll tell you why.
    31:56
    We've seen Stern now just kind of be unfettered, raising prices to $1,000 and $2,000 for toppers that seem to be just, in some cases, fairly simple acrylics. And so by you offering some competition, that will put pressure on them to step up their game as well. And so we can see hopefully less of just the plain flat-print acrylics and something with more integration. I mean, that habit trail with the ball, I mean, I'm blue-skying right here, but can you imagine, like, an Indiana Jones topper with, like, that Raiders of the Lost Ark stone ball rolling across the top of your machine? I mean, that would be fantastic. Totally. Yeah, I mean, that idea has actually come up a few times. We're doing an annual expo called, like, Topper Talk. Alec and I are actually going to take a vote on a topper to brainstorm with the community. So, yeah, I mean, like, we're all about making pinball better, and I love that that's a thing because like I have the bond topper and I have a bond I love that machine and I have an amazing idea for a topper for bond uh but I love the topper in it and it's like it seems like with toppers you know until you see it you don't really know what you got and that's an example of one where it's like everybody was cuckooing that topper until you see it, and it just fits the scene so well. Right. So, yeah, I agree, though. I'd love to see more stuff going on with it.
    33:23
    There was a machine review yesterday that said the display is on the popper, so I guess we're not going to be building that. Pinball Adventures. Elements, taking deposits right now for that 9th edition. $500 a man, yeah.
    33:37
    Let's talk about that for about 20 minutes. I'm excited to experience that. Did you see the shooter rod on that? Oh, my God. No, I got to dig into it more. I was doing my best to stay off of Facebook yesterday. Yeah.
    33:53
    Alex was dealing with the masses. But we're past that now, so I have to dig into my element. All right, man. All right. So, yeah, so this is going live starting tomorrow with Twilight Zone and then the Saturday of Expo, the Godzilla Topper, the first run if you want to get in on it. Can people get in on the waiting list now for Godzilla? or is that closed? Yeah, there's a waiting list on our website. It's stepinball.com slash TV or click on our store and you'll get there. Just drop your email in there. We're doing them in order, but like, you know, people, not everybody, not everyone follows through. So like, you know, we might get you through anything. And then there is one other mod that we're building for the Godzilla Topper that I should probably address because I know a lot of people are excited about it. All right, let's go. Do we have the time? We have time, sir.
    34:44
    We have time. We can go all day, baby. So the Conqueror upgrade, our original stream, we did a stream, Alex and I, like a recorded stream, and then we did a live stream with Gary Hardy. And I think we talked about this in both of those streams. So if you want to dig into Gary's video with us or whatever, you can probably find the original conversation around that.
    35:15
    But basically the plan and the way that this topper is being built is that the entire front of the console of the topper will be removable and replaced by a 3d 3d console that has four, two inch, maybe one and a half inch digital displays. Okay. Right. And basically the board is being built so that we can kind of play different things on those. So like they'll actually like kind of like turn on whatever certain thing has happened in the game.
    35:55
    And maybe whatever you actually reach Planet X, maybe like it has X on all four screens in red or something like that. So that's a pretty major undertaking for us. We don't have any kind of timeline around that. Obviously, you know, we've made a commitment to build that.
    36:13
    We're building our coppers and platforms for the coppers. So like a lot of the tech that we're building in the Godzilla, we'll apply to other coppers. This tech that we're talking about here is going to apply, you know, to other coppers as well. Don't have a price point on it. You know, obviously it's going to be not exactly cheap, but like, you know, all in, and I've said this on the inside, I'd love to see the ultimate version of Topper be around $15 million. So that's kind of what we're trying to do is give people kind of like a $900,000, whatever price point to get into this Topper based on what they want to see. Yeah, I like how you mentioned that this is really a platform. And so even if you don't have an idea that's ready for right now, you can still support it aftermarket, later after the launch.
    36:59
    Yeah, totally. So this is a platform for the Godzilla topper. And just on a business level, I guess, it's a platform for other toppers for us. And it's all based on sensing light. So it's not something to where you're going to get it and then deal with a situation where a code update disabled it. So we've got that high level of interactivity without, you know, the risk of, like, you, you, you know, this thing not working anymore. All right. Well, perfect. Well, I'm up here at teppinball.com. And you have your order banks are up here. You can email to get on the wait list. Twilight Zone is going up tomorrow. And then Expo Saturday will be Godzilla. Yeah. Anything else you wanted to hit?
    37:46
    Well, we hope to see if you're here in Expo. We'll have both toppers on display. We've got one other new product that we've got coming out at Expo that we're going to be reviewing.
    37:59
    It's pinball machine agnostic, so it's going to be something that, you know, essentially all pinball owners could use, and it's going to be very much focused on utility in your pinball space, but also, like, carry that high quality of material and build and maybe some electric in there somewhere. So I can't wait for people to see that. Yeah, I'm really excited to see you. I think you guys are off to a great start here. And are you willing to come back on when you're ready to announce the next offer?
    38:32
    Yeah, we've got, you know, just like all the pinball companies, I'd say they've got a bunch of stuff in the works, BD2, of course. And I'd love to share more with that with everybody, but I don't want to get the ball rolling on anything we're not ready to do too soon. But we're definitely going to have a new top for next year. We'll probably be talking more about that as the months come along, and I'd love to share that with you. Heck, yes. Well, see, now I get to speculate until then, and that's one of my favorite hobbies. So, Rob, thanks so much for joining us here.
    39:05
    Yeah, thank you. I hope you have a great weekend, and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Awesome, man. Thanks. oh man i want to thank rob for joining us for a fire interview man toppers are blowing up you don't like that jjp one we'll just wait a little bit and see what the the pinball electric pinball company's coming out with um everybody else thank you again for joining me be sure to email me at don's pinball podcast and give me your feedback that's how i grow that's how we bond as a community that's how you get cool stuff sent to your house from me also like and follow please on the Facebook page. We are building. We're surging past 500 people that are following. Once it gets to 1,000, it unlocks a whole bunch of other new benefits and algorithms and things for me. So we'd love to do that. Also, follow on YouTube, putting content up there, live streaming like crazy. And at some point, I've got to do another Friday night live stream, right? Or am I doing Saturday? Who knows, man? Take care. Keep flipping.