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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast February 2023 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 36m·analyzed·Mar 4, 2023
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TL;DR

Pinball Magazine/News recap: Foo Fighters, new teasers, and manufacturer prep for Texas Pinball Festival.

Summary

Jonathan Houston (Pinball Magazine) and Martin Ayo (Pinball News) recap February 2023 pinball industry announcements, focusing on major manufacturer reveals ahead of Texas Pinball Festival. Key announcements include Stern's Foo Fighters game designed by Jack Danger, American Pinball's teased Galactic Tank Force, Multimorphic's Scott Denise collaboration (codename: Carbon), and Jersey Jack's upcoming Godfather game. The hosts discuss production capacity improvements, code updates across multiple titles, and pricing strategies in a market struggling with parts availability.

Key Claims

  • Foo Fighters is limited to 1,000 units with Pro at $6,000, Premium at $9,700, and LE at $13,000

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston states official pricing and limited edition cap during Foo Fighters discussion

  • Pedretti Gaming and Pinball Brothers joint venture (Euro Pinball Company) can produce 80-120 games per month across two assembly lines

    high confidence · Martin Ayo provides facility details: 1,500 square meters, dual simultaneous production capability

  • Scooby-Doo production is limited to less than 2,000 units with approximately 1-1.5 year wait from order to delivery

    medium confidence · Jonathan Houston discusses Spooky's production timeline, noting similar Ultraman/Halloween run took just over a year

  • Multimorphic's upcoming Scott Denise game (codename: Carbon) is an original IP with TNA-style electronic music

    high confidence · Martin Ayo describes teaser video content and credits including Bowen Kerins, Michael Ocean, TJ Weaver

  • James Bond 60th Anniversary Edition is limited to 500 units and sold out immediately; Dutch Pinball Association printing A4 flyer for Spinner magazine inclusion

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston cites industry sources regarding print decision and regional flyer production

  • Foo Fighters features an upper playfield on Premium and LE models with a fourth flipper, not available on Pro

    high confidence · Martin Ayo describes playfield architecture based on Twitch stream analysis

  • This episode is the 60th anniversary PINcast, marking five years of regular monthly episodes

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston announces milestone during show retrospective

Notable Quotes

  • “If people only have a budget to buy one game I see why other manufacturers are trying to get people to not spend their money yet because they hope they want to change their opinion”

    Jonathan Houston @ early discussion — Explains competitive timing strategy for game announcements and reveals

  • “Think like Attack from Mars meets a rock band pinball, and there you have it”

    Martin Ayo @ Foo Fighters section — Concise design comparison establishing game's thematic and mechanical fusion

  • “Why did nobody else think of that before?”

    Martin Ayo @ Foo Fighters mechanics discussion — Response to innovative stand-up target placement in in-lanes

  • “It's Polish I think at this stage the basic game is there and they're polishing it up and rounding off the rough edges”

    Jonathan Houston @ Pinball Brothers/Queen discussion — Assessment of code update philosophy and post-release development maturity

  • “Just about every manufacturer out there is struggling for parts...those parts they do get are often very expensive and far more than they were originally planning”

    Martin Ayo @ Pedretti/Pinball Brothers section — Industry-wide parts availability and cost crisis affecting pricing and margins

Entities

Jonathan HoustonpersonMartin AyopersonFoo FightersgameJack DangerpersonZombie YetipersonTanya KleisspersonRaymond DavidsonpersonStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pedretti Gaming and Pinball Brothers complete facility merger into 1,500 sq meter Euro Pinball Company HQ with dual assembly line capability

    high · 80-120 games/month production capacity (20-30 per week across two lines); enables simultaneous production of different titles

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern conducting Foo Fighters reveal with dual Twitch gameplay streams (LE and Pro) same day as announcement; unprecedented speed for gameplay footage release

    high · Jack Danger held two streams; full promotional assets (flyers, videos, website details) delivered simultaneously; noted as 'rather quick for Stern'

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival positioned as major announcement venue with 4-7 new games expected; multiple manufacturer displays and seminars scheduled

    high · Last weekend of March 2023; Multimorphic Friday seminar anticipated for Carbon reveal; Spooky planning large display with Mystery Machine van

  • $

    market_signal: Industry-wide parts scarcity and cost inflation affecting all manufacturers; many companies absorbing unexpected component cost increases

    high · Martin Ayo: 'Just about every manufacturer out there is struggling for parts...those parts they do get are often very expensive and far more than they were originally planning'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern employing multi-week teaser campaign for Foo Fighters with video reveals preceding full announcement; Multimorphic and others adopting similar phased reveal strategy

    high · Jonathan Houston: 'You don't just announce a game anymore...you hype it for a couple of weeks'; teaser released morning of 28 Feb with full details midday same day

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.289

0:00
stern reveal new foo fighters game american pinball teases galactic tank force game multimorphic teases new scott denisi game and jersey jack teases the new godfather game hi I can't go really higher than that my name is Jonathan Houston I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine joined by Martin Ayo here of Editor of Pinball News and we're here to look back at all the excitement that took place in the month of February 2023 and a little bit of March as well because we're including a little bit of news that's almost breaking as we're recording this which is on the 3rd of March so we'll bring you that a little bit later but it's been a busy month I'd say you'd think February is going to be a slow month but it seems like there's quite a few manufacturers who are preparing themselves to launch games either ahead of Texas Pinball Festival or at Texas Pinball Festival which is the last weekend of March that's right Yes, and we both plan to be there, of course, for that. Yeah, if flight rates drop tremendously, like 60% or so. Yeah, it's not looking good for you. I'm glad I locked my deal in early and got my flight, so I'm definitely going to be there, but hopefully Jonathan is going to be joining me there. Oh, absolutely. So you think you know pinball quiz together? Yeah, unless you have to do it by yourself. Well, we'll be doing it on Zoom or Teams. It will be the first international, so you think you know, pinball quiz. The transatlantic edition. Exactly, yeah. But hopefully not. And, yes, as you were saying, at Texas, I think we're going to be having at least four new games there. Yeah, and possibly even six or seven. Yeah, yes, we'll come on to what some of those might be a little bit later. But we can probably start straight away. We don't want to waste too much time. We've got a lot to get through in this particular pin cast. Stern Pinball. Yes, Stern. So, well, big story from them is the release of their Foo Fighters game, which was preempted by a couple of video teasers. I mean, this seems to be the trend now. You don't just announce a game anymore. We'll hype it for a couple of days. Yeah, or at least a week, a couple of weeks in some cases. some games might actually that are being teased now from other matterbatchers might only be revealed come Texas show in three weeks time pretty much so it's worth the teasing on that subject of teasing and I know everybody is waiting for the news on Foo Fighters but apparently let's just say Foo Fighters looks like a kick ass game pardon my French I agree, yes it's got some nice design features but anyway, yes if people only have a budget to buy one game I see why other manufacturers are trying to get people to not spend their money yet because they hope they want to change their opinion on well, maybe not get Foo Fighters but get their game well, timing is critical in this, I guess but that's Sternwerfer to show their hand and as we said there were a couple of teaser videos, one of which just sort of said fighting soon and just basically revealed that the title was for you fighters the second one was actually, the second video of theirs was actually released on the day that they released details of the whole game which was a much longer video sort of setting out the storyline to the game, which is there's this alien overlord Yeah, which the Foo Fighters then assemble a fighting machine to defeat them and save the Earth by touring various venues across the US. And not to forget about saving rock and roll. Oh, that's well, yeah, because I mean, obviously that's more important than the planet. and so that was the tease and that last tease video came out on the morning of Tuesday the 28th of February with the full announcement coming out just around midday hours later American time of course so anyway it's a design by Jack Danger art by Zombietti software lead is Tanya Kleiss and I understand Raymond Davidson as well is working on that game it's quite a heavy team I didn't write down all the names but they are all featured in a special Twitch stream that Jack Danger held, I think actually he did two, one with LE, Limited Edition Gameplay that was the first one there was also one with Pro gameplay, which is actually rather quick for Stern, because usually we have to wait weeks before we get to see gameplay while the game is already being sold.
Pinball Brothers
company
Pedretti Gamingcompany
Queengame
Spooky Pinballcompany
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?game
Multimorphiccompany
Scott Deniseperson
Carbongame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
American Pinballcompany
Dutch Pinball Museumorganization
James Bond 60th Anniversary Editiongame
Cactus Canyongame
Insider Connectedproduct
Bowen Kerinsperson
TJ Weaverperson
  • $

    market_signal: Foo Fighters three-tier pricing structure ($6k/$9.7k/$13k) reflects continued premium LE positioning; James Bond 60th 500-unit scarcity indicating FOMO strategy

    high · LE limited to 1,000 units; James Bond 60th at 500 units sold out immediately; Jonathan Houston notes James Bond had 'premature release' before ready

  • ?

    announcement: Multimorphic teases new Scott Denise-led P3 playfield module with codename 'Carbon'; original IP with TNA-style electronic music aesthetic

    high · Teaser video released; team includes Bowen Kerins, Michael Ocean, TJ Weaver, Jonathan Bergeron; expected reveal at Texas Pinball Festival Friday seminar

  • ?

    announcement: Stern officially reveals Foo Fighters pinball game with full pricing, tier specifications, and gameplay details; three distinct art packages and upper playfield mechanics

    high · Pro $6,000 / Premium $9,700 / LE $13,000 (1,000 unit limit); designed by Jack Danger, art by Zombie Yeti, software by Tanya Kleiss and Raymond Davidson

  • ?

    product_concern: Foo Fighters features innovative playfield mechanics (in-lane stand-ups, legalized bang-back up-post feature, diverter on upper playfield) not previously seen on Stern games

    high · Martin Ayo analysis of Twitch streams: 'why did nobody else think of that before?'; compared to Pinball Circus level diverter mechanics

  • ?

    product_strategy: Multimorphic Weird Al (Museum of Natural Hilarity) still in production; Carbon module scheduled for Texas Pinball Festival reveal or display

    medium · Martin Ayo confirms Weird Al mid-production status; Carbon teaser released with expectation of Friday seminar reveal

  • ?

    product_concern: Code update quality and frequency improving; James Bond 60th emergency patch (0.87) released within 2 days of crash-causing 0.86 version

    medium · Stern responded rapidly to game-locking bugs; Queen received substantial 15 Feb update with lighting/choreography improvements

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Component availability and cost inflation forcing pricing decisions across industry; some manufacturers absorbing losses rather than passing full costs to customers

    high · Martin Ayo: 'Some companies...set a price...but have seen huge increases...and are having to swallow that...struggling in some aspects'; price increases likely coming

    • 5:41
    Yeah, it was actually quite unusual the reveal in many ways, apart from the teasers, in that they announced the set list of the 15 music tracks from the Foo Fighters that were included in the game before the game was shown. And then they also announced a reveal timetable as well. Which went up in smoke immediately.
    6:05
    Well, it kind of did because it said that they were going to reveal the LE first and then reveal the Pro and then the Premium after that. But then later they said, well, we're going to show all of them at the start. But the timetable for streaming and doing live action of the game itself was kept to, I think. So, obviously worked it out well in advance. So good scheduling and good planning there. Oh, yeah, definitely. Also because we've seen releases from Stern where there were no flyers present or the game was revealed, but, well, no assets available, that kind of stuff. We've seen that in the past. And this time everything was spot on, everything available on the website, videos, everything, flyers as well for three different models. so good work in that department the promotion department I suppose yeah certainly a bit of a contrast to the James Bond reveal from the previous game where it was piecemeal and patchy and obviously a little rushed shall we say but I'm no doubt by the license or with the James Bond 60th anniversary celebrations going on The game was shown before it was ready and released, in fact, before it was ready. But certainly none of that with Foo Fighters. So, yeah, congratulations to everybody involved. It looks like a really good game. Some very nice and unusual playfield features. I wouldn't say unique necessarily, but features we haven't seen on Stern Games before. Yeah. And Jack Dane did a very good job with it. And zombie yeti art all over it, of course. very distinctive three different art packages for the three different models a lot of work gone into that and although interestingly I think the general consensus seems to be that the pro model has the most attractive cabinet and back glass package on it which is strange, you'd think the LE would have that but anyway the LE is limited to a thousand this time pricing on the game is basically $6,000 for the Pro, $9,700 for the Pro, $9,700 for the Premium, and $13,000 for the Limited Edition. As I say, limited to 1,000. And when it was released, well, when information was released at midday on the, sorry, it was 11 o'clock, wasn't it, on the 28th of February, then a limited number of LE machines are available to purchase through the Stern webshop for those people who are paid up or access members of Stern Insider Connect and yeah of course because there weren't very many of them and also it was only available to buyers in the US so anybody else had to go through your distributor and hope that they had their allocation if you wanted a limited edition of course Pro and Premium, not limited at all. Right. Now, if you want to get an idea for what this game is like, okay,
    9:24
    basically think like Attack from Mars meets a rock band pinball, and there you have it. In theme? Yes. Yes.
    9:34
    Yeah, sure. So you've got 15 music tracks in it. Obviously, an awful lot of buy-in from the surviving members of the band, which is good.
    9:45
    There's going to be a lot There was lots of custom speech recorded, and I think it's just, you know, and it seems to have got a good amount of assets to use video-wise, because it's not done like JJP's Guns N' Roses, where it's a concert footage. It's all cartoon-style characters on the screen, I should say, and on the playfield. so not a concert as such but a story no but Foo Fighters is an interesting band they do stuff that they are known for doing going into town with a van and hyping their concert and that kind of stuff which is a part of the game and there are videos of that kind of stuff circulating on the internet as well so it's not your traditional rock band with big egos and it doesn't seem to be like that and then there's of course the alien element in the game where you're battling against this overlord but theme aside I think Jack Danger really deserves a compliment for such a creative layout. Absolutely. I think there's some, as I said before, there's some very interesting design elements in there. Things like kicking targets, things like the stand-up targets in the in-lanes as well. That's a new thing, the dead post on the... And when you see it, you're like, why did nobody else think of that before?
    11:33
    Yeah. Well, I'm trying to remember whether I've seen that before anywhere else. I think I probably haven't, actually. Not that particular feature, not the stand-ups. I was kind of wondering what they were for. Whether they were for, you know, if you shat the in-lanes, as they call it, where you shoot the ball up the in-lane and hit the target by flipping it on the very, very, very end of the flipper, which you obviously do in a lot of older games in order to roll the ball over the in-lane lanes and light the in lanes in a safe-ish way but is it for that or does the ball hit that target when it comes down the in lane anyway and is it a replacement for the ball not if it rolls down from the top in the usual way if you catch the ball with the flipper then it rolls back so it only hits when you catch the ball and it rolls back into the in lane ok but can you nudge the game if the ball is coming down the in lane so it hits that target I don't think so. I didn't pay too much attention to it on the Twitch stream that has been available now for a couple of days.
    12:46
    But that's just one of the innovative features. And then there's this basically a bang back, but sort of legalized.
    12:56
    Yeah, as part of the gameplay now. Yeah. There's an up post which pops up on the left in lane as the ball is... Out lane. Sorry, out lane, yes. Quite right. The ball's coming down fast enough, it can hit the post. If you're holding the left flipper up, then it can roll under that and onto the right flipper in the normal sort of death save manner.
    13:16
    And it makes it part of the gameplay rather than being an outlawed feature or frowned upon, shall we say, in casual play and illegal in tournament play usually. Right. But how that's going to work in... I guess it would just be disabled or is part of the game. It's part of the game. Yeah. I mean, it's a warning point as well if you do it successfully.
    13:45
    So, yeah, no, it's part of the game. So you're supposed to do it, you know, and you don't have to drive your knee into the coin door to get out of there. Yes, that's right, or damage the game at all. So that's good. And so it has an upper playfield on the Premium and Limited Edition, not on the Pro, with a fourth flipper for those two games. And it actually looks like quite an interesting upper playfield as well. You know, it's not just a simple... It reminded me of the, I think it's the second level on Pinball Circus, the pinball ramp. Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, that has a little mini play field with a big flipper where you can make the same loop shot as you have on Foo Fighters, but you can also shoot the ball up to a ramp. Yeah, up to the next level. Yeah. Yes, I know it, yeah. Yeah, I thought it was nice to have that diverter on the upper playfield that allows you to loop it or not loop it. Right. Yeah, which is a nice thing. It's like a very flowy game, very fast, which goes well with the very energetic music of the Foo Fighters. If you're a fan of the band, upon the launch of a ball, you can select a track. not from all 15 because a few are reserved for modes and wizard modes I think there's like 9 or 11 that you can choose from and basically that's then your main music throughout the game until you select another song at the launch of a new ball and then modes have their own music and so on Okay, well that's probably covered pretty much everything within Foo Fighters that we can talk about without showing things visually so I'll move on Any other stern news?
    15:57
    There's been a few tweaks to insider connected features there's a new high game score percentile showing how your high scores on each game compare to other people's if you are into that kind of stat and your player profile stats XP meter which shows how your total experience compares to other people if you care about that so I know there are it's a very wide range of people who are really seriously into collecting all the achievements and keeping an eye on their or constantly looking at how their profile is performing and a whole bunch of other people who couldn't give a damn one way or the other about entirely connected and have no interest whatsoever, but if you are interested in it, then you have those new features added. And some new code, which John's a bit delighted about, because we know how much he loves new code. Oh, yeah. Well, it improves the game, so that's good. It does. At some point, it makes you wonder why they bothered releasing the game with the code as it came out in the first place. Well, we get back to what we were talking about earlier, about premature release, maybe, for some of these titles.
    17:13
    But James Bond 60th, anyway, that had a new code, but on February the 23rd. But it's just bug fixes, and I don't think anybody's got the game anyway, so they wouldn't really know about it. So we won't go into that.
    17:30
    The more cornerstone version of James Bond, that came out with a new update on the 9th of February, which had quite a lot of changes to various features. It was nothing too significant. Lots of bug fixes and variations in the way that some of the existing features work. But unfortunately, it didn't fix all the bugs in that 0.86. In fact, it introduced a couple which caused the game to crash. So, Stern, no, credit to them. As soon as they found out there were issues that caused the game to lock up, rushed out a quick new update, version 0.87, two days later. Seems like one of the coders got called get out of bed. Yes, that's right. You're not going home tonight until you fix this. Well, you can't have games being operated and hanging or crashing, so no, that's an emergency job to fix that. So that's 0.87 on James Bond, and Godzilla 104 on the beginning of the month, 9th of February, had quite a lot of changes. I won't go into them all because there's actually quite a few. But there's lots of nice new light shows, some secret combos added, some city combos,
    18:51
    and a new carnage bonus. There was a problem with that where it wasn't getting awarded properly. And locks, some just lighting effects on that kind of thing. And some new system updates. So anyway, just basic stuff that everyone who's got a Godzilla should upgrade to the latest version in order to get those. And that's all the code updates from Stern Pinball for February. Okay, so I have a little side note related to Stern Pinball and the James Bond 60th Anniversary Edition.
    19:26
    Stern Pinball did release a flyer digitally, but according to sources my sources within the company they haven't printed it because it's a game that's only available in 500 units and it's sold out immediately so why bother printing a flyer for that but the Dutch Pitbull Association will actually be printing that flyer albeit in A size format A4 sorry A4 and there will be included with the upcoming Spinner magazine.
    20:04
    So collectors of flyers, well, they should probably, if you want that flyer to be part of your collection, then... And it will presumably have the NFV logo on it. Yes, it will. Yes, and the paper size is slightly different. Yeah. But that's easy with that flyer because the background is back, so it's easy to... Anyway, so I just figured I'd mention that as well.
    20:36
    So, now we can move on to Pinball Brothers, I suppose. Okay, well... Before we do that, you pointed out something to me which you completely have forgotten to mention to our listeners. Have I? Oh, yes, you're right. Yes, now I was just going... because I upload all these pincasts to the Pinball News website as I believe you do to the Pinball Magazine one. Yeah, whenever I get to it. Well, exactly, yeah. I try and do it as quickly as possible. But if you don't get them from our normal supply, then you can always get them from our respective websites. But in doing that, I was counting back and wondering how many of these particular Pincasts we've done, excluding our special bonus ones, which tend to be interviews with various Pinball personalities, luminaries, and famous people. and I noticed that this is our 60th anniversary pin cost. This is number 60. So we've been doing this for five years as of today.
    21:40
    I know. Five years wasted. Yeah, we've only recorded them. If anyone's been listening for five years, I think they definitely deserve some kind of medal or psychiatric treatment or something.
    21:53
    Well, then what do we give Gary Flower who has been trying to get on our show for five years now. You're right, he has. Well, I'll tell you what we should do. We should definitely make sure he gets on this episode. Okay, well, Gary, if you're listening,
    22:10
    call in now and we'll get you on the show. Straight on air. Whatever we're doing at the time, we will stop and bring you into the pin cast straight away. Okay, so there's the offer. I'm sure he will call in at some point during the program but you will know when it happens because we will bring him to you balls automatically whatever we are talking about absolutely right and thank you for reminding me I had forgotten about I'd forgotten how good is that but you were saying we're just moving on to Pinball Brothers so Gary if you want to call in now it would be a good time so okay so uh well looking at the okay so i'm looking at a screen with uh martin and i are both looking at the same screen on different computers of course we're on in different countries actually actually as we record this yes isn't technology wonderful yes it is so um pinball runs queen pinball is uh their latest games uh they've been uh shipping that out it's available from various european distributors i would say and they did the first live stream of queen from the dutch pinball museum in rotterdam which was made possible by rs pinball from austria and i believe that game is also now at least for the upcoming weeks or months part of the permanent collection of the Dutch Pinball Museum. So get that out of the way and if you happen to be in the Netherlands and you want to play a Queen game you can play it there I believe Pinball Universe in Germany also has a model in their shop available to play And while that game is being built by Pedretti
    24:14
    I understood and I'm not sure whether we understood it correctly, I thought that Pedretti and Pimble Brothers, who are sort of merging, already moved into their new facility. according to a post earlier last month, February, they are in the midst of moving, so there's still work to be done, apparently.
    24:38
    Yes. There's some details on that new building. Do you mind sharing these with us? Well, 1,500 square meters, apparently. This is the Euro Pinball Company headquarters, which is the joint venture between Pedretti Gaming and Pimble Brothers. And they say it will give them increased factory space, and they say the production capacity you have all been waiting for. Well, there you go. We've all been waiting for it. I wasn't aware I was waiting for it. Well, it's so much bigger you didn't even know you were waiting for it. but now you'll see that they'll be able to increase the amount of space and manpower in order to produce between 80 and 120 games a month. So what's that? It's around about 20 to 30 games a week, I suppose. Okay. Well, that's not bad. That's pretty good. So they have two assembly lines. I know of other manufacturers who take an example of that. Well, yes. Yes, that's right. You've got two assembly lines, which seems to be a good number to have. They can run simultaneously to allow two different titles. So they could be doing Alien and Queen at the same time, or Queen and whatever the next title they're going to produce is. And they say, stay tuned for lots of exciting things to come from our partnership.
    26:08
    Okay. And they're just getting settled in at the moment and should be fully up to speed before too much longer. Although, I don't want to put words in their mouth, because I don't know their particular situation, but I think it's still the case that just about every manufacturer out there is struggling for parts. Right.
    26:33
    None of them are running at the capacity that they could be running at, or want to be running at. They're still waiting for particularly electronic parts to come in. and those parts they do get are often very expensive and far more than they were originally planning. So there are a few companies, I think, and I don't want to name any of them in particular, who set a price for their games and are building them, but have seen huge increases in the price of the components and are having to swallow that and maybe a little struggling in some aspects, But we will see price increases happening, I'm sure, and we may get onto that a little bit later in this particular pin cast. In the meantime, we talk about Queen. So there's certainly been some new code for them that came out on the 15th of February. I was waiting for that. Yeah, I bet you were. Yeah. Yeah, quite a lot of changes, actually. And too many to go through all at once. But there are many improvements to the lighting effects throughout the game. better end of ball burners choreography quite a lot of bugs fixed and many effects sound effects and fanfares improved and some changes to rules for multi-ball and various modes so anyway, won't go through them all because it's too much sounds like a lot of choreography changes yeah, it's polish I think at this stage the basic game is there and they're polishing it up and rounding off the rough edges to the game, which, you know, fair enough. When you make changes to these things, you're bound to encounter a few issues, which I don't know, and I'm sure owners of the game have been feeding back things that they would like to see changed or tweaked in the game, and I'm sure People Brothers are keen to make the game the best it can be, and there will be more updates coming soon. Yeah, and speaking of updates, Alien also received a code update, 3.2, which changed video installation to address the black screen issue on Power Up. I had no idea it was there, but apparently it was. Yes, I've seen that before, yeah. You turn the game on and the playful monitor over the lock doesn't come up. Okay, well it's been fixed Good, let's hope it has Yeah I think that wraps it up for Spooky For Pedretti No, try again, Pinball Brothers Pinball Brothers, third time the charm So Let's move on Immediately to at least No Gary, come on Hurry up So I say let's move on To Spooky Pinball I think that's a good idea, yes Obviously, Scooby-Doo was announced last month, so we covered that in some depth. And now they have been busy building them, and the game is out there, really. It's been delivered to buyers already. So congratulations to Spooky and to those people who were quick off the mark in ordering the game when it was announced or when it went on sale, I should say. They are going to have a big display, they say, at the Texas Pinball Festival with lots of Scooby games and also an actual Mystery Machine van will be there.
    30:05
    But before that, they will be at the Louisville Arcade Expo, which is taking place next weekend on the 10th through 11th, I think. And they'll be there with a big bunch of Scooby games as well. So if you haven't had a chance to play the game yet, and I suspect most people haven't, and you are available to go to the Louisville Arcade Expo, then that's the place to get your fill of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Right. And in the meantime, while you were saying this, I checked the Spooky Pinball Shop. Oh.
    30:43
    Scooby-Doo apparently is still not sold out, so if you're interested in the game, you might still be able to get one. Oh, okay. What was it limited to? Was it $1,500? No, no, no. Oh, it's 1967 or something. Yeah, something like that, yes. That's right, the year that it premiered. The cartoon, yeah.
    31:06
    But, yeah, so understandably that they are bringing the game to shows. And if you like the game, you might still be able to buy one, which is different than with a lot of previous spooky games. So I'm trying to turn a negative into a positive here. Yeah, I wonder how long the wait will be from placing an order now to actually getting your game.
    31:32
    Yeah, that's a good one. I don't recall seeing any estimates, although I do have to say Spooky, they did the run for Halloween and Ultraman in a little over a year, I'd say. So if you're late ordering the game, then you might be waiting a year. but with the production limited to less than 2000 unless something bad happens the production might stall but from the way that it looks now maybe a year and a half well I mean a one year wait is not unusual these days and some people have been waiting significantly longer particularly the Cactus Canyon limited edition for instance Yeah, which has partly to do with parts not being available. Yeah, exactly, as I was saying earlier. Yeah. So, but, yeah, no, up and running, spooky pinball, and, well, good luck promoting the game, and we hope to see them at the Texas Pinball Festival, of course. Absolutely. Well, it sounds like they're going to have a big display there and go large on Scooby, so I look forward to seeing that. and they've also got some other things for sale as well, apart from games. Is that right?
    32:57
    I understand there's some playfields that might be up for sale. Oh, right. I'm not sure if they still have any left, but I understood that there are some seconds playfields, which are basically they have a few minor scratches or stuff like that, and they were selling these in their spooky shop. and not sure whether they sold out yet didn't keep an eye on it was early February I think head on over to spookypinball.com and have a look in their webshop see if they've got a bargain make sure that you have the right website because I think there's still two floating around the new one and the old one oh really still ok anyway so but we're talking about a big display at the Texas Pinball Festival Well, one company always known to do so is Multimorphic. That's right, yes. Well, their home show, pretty much, you know, based down towards Austin at Round Rock. And they've traditionally had a very impressive display of, well, starting off with homebrew games before Multimorphics restarted making much of their own P3 games. But since P3 has been out there, I think every year their display has been getting bigger and better. And the number of machines, I think, was at least eight, maybe ten machines. Some years they have the Texas show, including some head-to-head games. I remember the CCR, Cosmic Kart Racing game, for instance, head-to-head games. They're looking very impressive. Yeah, they're connected through Internet games. Yeah, that's right. And now, of course, they've got a large repertoire of playfield modules for the P3, and games go with them, and they have been teasing their next one as well. Yes. So we're still in the middle of production of Weird Al, Museum of Natural Hilarity, in case you were wondering. That's right. But there's a teaser out there for an upcoming playfield module and game that goes with it. With Scott Denise, who everybody loves for Total Nuclear Annihilation and Rick and Morty.
    35:23
    Where he has been appointed creative director, sound designer and music composer. So it's going to sound like TNA, but the creative director.
    35:38
    In a recent video, I think it was Stephen Silver who said that they don't really have playfield designers at Multimorphic because, well, two-thirds of the playfield is already designed, and that's the same for every game. that's the bottom two-third of the playfield. It's only the playfield module that can be designed, and that's where all the creativity has to take place. Well, there is the potential to put some things over the lower part of the playfield. We've seen that before with cross-playfield. And also extra flippers as well down there. Yeah, true, true. But, of course, Scott Denise is not working alone on this game. is helped a lot by Bowen Cairns for rules Michael Ocean doing the programming of the game Rory Kermuda or Sir Muda I'm not sure how you say it Sir Muda I believe yeah okay video graphics TJ Weaver who is a very popular mechanical engineer yeah works on pretty much all the games I think yeah and Jonathan Bergeron is the artist for the game so he does the artwork for, I suppose, play field and display.
    37:05
    Yeah, and also the cabinet panels, the magnetic panels they can put on the side as well. I remember watching the teaser video which had some TNA style of music, I would say, typical scottish electronic music under it so that's what's coming the only other thing that we know about this teaser video is that the game has a code name which is Carbon and it's an original theme it's not licensed and of course with Texas Pinball Festival coming up we're expecting this game at least to be available and possibly be reviewed ahead of Texas Pinball Festival. Yes, I think Multimorphic have a seminar slot on Friday night.
    38:02
    So that's the point at which we would expect it to be revealed, if it hasn't been done before. But I'm just saying they are teasing various aspects of it, as everybody is now. So whether the whole game will be revealed before Texas, and that will be their first chance to play it, or whether the whole thing will be revealed there, we don't know. But that does seem to be a popular place to reveal your games, as we will talk about in a few minutes. Right. In the meantime, I'm trying to look up the events for Texas Pillow Festival to see who else are doing 7 Hours on Friday. Well, I know one company who certainly is, who we are going to talk about a little bit later. We can talk about them now, if you like. And that is American Pinball, who had a 5 p.m. slot on Friday, which was not saying they've taken it from anybody else, but that used to be our slot, didn't it? Or was it at 6 o'clock on Friday? No, it used to be at 6. You're right. It used to be the first of the seminars. Yeah, we used to open, basically open the show. Yeah, in the bar, which is the best place to open it, to be honest. But now there are so many seminars going on that the American Pinball are before that at 5 o'clock, which is the same time, I think, as the hall opened to the public. Yes, that is correct. So I suspect American Pinball will be revealing a game during those seminars. They haven't already revealed it by that stage. And then when the hall opens, people will be able to play it. I think what happened before is they've shown a game, and then once it's been shown in the seminar, then it gets rolled out to their stand within the main hall, and then people can play it. Right. So it seems like a good way of doing it. But, no, this is not confirmed. But anyway, talking about games, we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Well, they have been teasing a new game that started with a teaser image followed by a video. The teaser image also contained a new logo for American Pinball, which on their website has not been incorporated yet. No, I understand that this new logo is designed by Christopher Franchi, who is doing the artwork on this new game. I mean I don't think he didn't do the animations and somebody else did the animation of it but it's certainly his design it's well it's typically American it's a nice sort of badge design I think it works well and it was it took up I'd say at least as much time in the first teaser as the actual information about the game which didn't really say anything very much Yeah, well, okay, I'll let you discuss what it said. That was the first tease, but then there was a second tease, which was more informative about the game and revealed which actors would be appearing in it.
    41:18
    Now, it's interesting that American Pinball just say Game 5. They don't refer to the title of the game at that point. At that point, yes. And they go through and say, we're revealing Game 5, and then they list four actors who are taking part in it. And then at the end, they say it's all fun for all the family and all that kind of stuff.
    41:44
    And then at the very end, it's just a copyright line which says, trademark Galactic Tank Force. Right. American Pinball. okay so you've revealed the title why didn't you put it in the teaser rather than saying game 5 so from now on we can refer to it as Galactic Tank Force which is interesting because well you and I have visited Dennis Nordman years ago at his home and at that point he already was working on a tank game Yes, he and Paul Reno together were working in Dennis' garage on a couple of games, one of which went on to be the baseball game, which was produced by Valley Dynamo briefly. Right. And the other one of which was this tank game, which he was just talking about. And that seems to be what, or a version of that has ended up as American Pinball now. A new iteration, yes, which will have a non-standard cabinet, let's call it that. Well, it will have, I'm not sure how non-standard it will be, whether it will be an add-on to a standard cabinet to make it more tanky, which is the idea.
    43:14
    When we went to see it, the idea was that when the back box was folded down, it looked like a tank. Right. it kind of had a turret shape for the back box and a well a general sort of tank shape to it but how often is the back box folded down on a game when you're shipping it and that's about it but then you put the game on its back anyway so it's an upright tank which doesn't make sense but anyway we'll see we will wait to see exactly how it turns out but it does seem to have side panels on the cabinet, which look more like the sort of tracks that would be on a tank. So it has more of a tank profile to it, but I'm not sure whether that's going to be on every game, whether it's going to be on the higher-end games or available as an add-on, if that's what you wish to purchase, almost like a top-up and a cider, if you like. Anyway, we do know the game is designed by Dennis Nordman.
    44:16
    Yes, we do, with artwork by Christopher French. by Christopher Frenchy indeed I don't know who's doing video interestingly Josh Coogler mentioned on Pinside that he has although he hasn't been working for American Pinball for almost a year now he was very involved in the development of the game up to the point where he was let go sounds to me like he's still not too pleased that he is no longer part of that company or the game design team yeah surprising yeah but it he was very positive about the galactic tank force game design and yeah I'm trying to look up in my notes in the meantime I can't do two things at the same time you know how that goes Yeah, well, the interesting thing I thought was in the tease, the most recent tease, there was, as I said before, a list of four actors who were appearing in the game. And I assumed that they would be voice actors.
    45:31
    But having put that in my original article on the Pinball News site, I was contacted by American Pinball and said, they're not just voice actors. so after a little back and forth it turns out they are actually doing live action character acting within the game which to me as far as I can remember is a first I can't think of a game where you've actually got video assets of original characters being played by actors and basically playing out the story on the screen for you Okay, well, that's interesting indeed.
    46:12
    Not as cartoon or treated versions or motion capture, but actually videoed characters. Right. Videoed actors, I should say. Or is this actors with sensors on their body and moving in a certain way that... No, it's not motion capture. Okay. No, they are actually acting. So I think to me that's interesting. I remember certain video games that have been like that. There was sort of like a holographic game where you had characters or actors in a sort of very sort of circular arena playing out roles, which I think was done with a laser disc back then. This is going back into the, I don't know, the early 90s, I suppose, or maybe the late 80s.
    47:01
    But, well, I mean, we haven't had video screens in pinball for that long. but this seems like a new development I'll be very interested to see how it plays out and make sure it doesn't get old that's all there's a very good reason why this is a new element this is an original theme so there's no footage available so you have to be creative and think of how can you get footage to put on a screen and this is one way to do it yeah well that's one of the big challenges of having an original theme is to actually build up some characters within it that you feel attached to or care about and want to interact with. So hopefully they will be suitably engaging, shall I say. And you feel as if you're part of the story rather than you're watching a play being played out in front of you. Right, okay. Well, it depends on how good you can play, of course. Well, yeah, that's true, how fast you get. but certainly plenty of options and as you've seen before, you know when or I should say what we heard before when people record voice calls for games they tend to do the same types of calls in multiple different ways so it doesn get boring They're repeating the same, yeah, you know, say, extra ball, extra ball, extra ball, you know, all that kind of stuff. Extra ball! Exactly. Well, not like that, maybe. But they always tend to do things in multiple different ways, so they can do different versions of it all the way through, but you have to do all that in acting as well. You wonder whether that, particularly if you're interacting with another character, if you're doing two people in a scene, it's a lot harder to do the same kind of scene multiple different ways. But anyway, we'll see what they come up with, because this is going to be a groundbreaking game, I think. But we'll probably have to wait. Yeah. Well, not too long, because apparently there is a teaser scheduled for this Saturday, which is today. So, well, we haven't seen it yet, of course, because we're ahead in Europe of American Hours, and this podcast will be released before the teaser becomes available. But there will be a new teaser today. I'm not sure it's going to be a video, though. I think it might be more informational. Sounds like you know more. Well, no, I've just been told that it may not be a video. I think, but when I was told, I'm not sure I'm just referring to it as a teaser Yes, absolutely Anything All the rage these days Putting out teasers Keep an eye on the American Pinball Facebook and Instagram and all that kind of stuff You'll find out soon enough I suppose Absolutely, if not already there So that was, I think that's pretty much Covered everything from American Pinball We did jump around a little bit because we were talking about reveals at Texas Show. Yeah. So, yeah, so they are there at, they will be there at 5 o'clock on Friday, I believe. So, I think, oh, no, moving on to Jersey Jack Pinball. Aha, yes. In the meantime, I'm checking my phone to see if Gary, but I have no missed calls. My phone is on. No. So, Gary, we're ready for you any time you want to call.
    50:42
    Yeah, don't leave it that long, though, because we tend to rush through this stuff, believe it or not, although we've probably been going for about half an hour already. But we'll keep saying we're going to rush. So let's rush. Yeah, as you say, Jersey Jack Pinball. No, it's not rush. Rush is a stern title. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Jersey Jack Pinball.
    50:59
    Very good. Okay. let's amble along then to Jersey Jack Pinball and yes just today in fact just as we were coming minutes before we started recording this pin cast Jersey Jack confirmed after teasing already a little bit with photos of Eric Meunier and the underside of a playfield which I'll let you talk about in a second they confirmed that their upcoming title will be The Godfather 50 Years. Yeah, they had two teasers already saying, take your place at the table, originally, which made people wonder whether it was a Harry Potter theme or not, because obviously the dining hall there at Hogwarts is a major part of activity in those movies and books. But no, I think people then came it probably is the Godfather, and then we saw one saying take your place at the table on the 3rd of, on the 7th, I should say, 7th of March, including American dates, of course, 3rd of the 7th, 23. Yeah, and in the meantime, it's been confirmed that the review will be at noon Eastern Standard Time. yep that's right on Tuesday March the 7th so that will be Eastern time that will be 6pm European time 5pm UK time for those keeping track and the good news it's free no it's not free but apparently they have been building the game already in the factory there will be units available immediately for purchase upon launch. Yeah, games and boxes, ready to ship. It's going to be an amazing day, they say. Are you ready to join the family?
    53:04
    Which is very appropriate, and it's interesting. Of course, The Godfather is a mafia-themed franchise, I'd say. Yeah. But, and well, if you look at the repertoire of games that Jersey Jack has done, they always said that they are family oriented yes that's right but what's more family oriented than mafia it's the family yes exactly yes one big family so yeah it would be interesting to see the treatment they give of that because obviously with games like Guns and Roses they went a little more away from that family friendly well what's interesting is in the teaser video that confirmed Godfather is where the main melody of the theme music was actually played on an electric guitar, which is different than it is in the movies. So, it's a little pepper, spicy version of the theme. What did make you wonder whether it was Slash playing it? Oh, well, it might very well be. It was quite a raunchy electric guitar, and I did wonder, you know, Obviously, Slash has got Slash and Eric, Eric Mugler, who's designing it, I guess.
    54:26
    Good relationship. Did he do some music for this game? Could be. Very interesting. Very interesting observation, Martin. Thank you for that. It's pure speculation at the moment, but that's what we like. No, we don't. We're more about the facts. But anyway, yes, you mentioned about the picture of Eric next to an upside-down playfield. and I saw that and I immediately looked at that and thought, oh my God, the sheer amount of cables under that playfield is just, well, it's awful really. If you had to try and fault find or try and find a wire that's off or change a solenoid or change a light or anything under that, good luck to you because I don't fancy that. It's a real rat's nest of cables under there. I'm comparing that to games like Queen and what we've seen underneath the playfield on that. And there's just a few circuit boards or Catcher's Canyon. It might have been a prototype playfield. We don't know that. Well, it looks like it was one that was on the production line. And I think a little bit later on, there was another picture of Eric standing next to a whole series of those playfields on their rotisseries. and there's still a huge amount of wiring on those games, maybe not as much, but there is a lot. Well, we're still in progress of adding more wire. We probably are, yes. Yeah, I thought, wow, I wouldn't fancy working on that and that must add to the weight of the game as well. I think the Facebook page of Jersey Jack Pimble also mentioned that this game has like 4,501 different parts in it. Right. Is that a good thing?
    56:12
    I'm not sure why they... Well, it keeps the workers busy on the line, I suppose. Well, as I say, it's the one part you haven't got that's the most important part of the game. So if you've got 4,500 in one of them and you've only got 4,500 parts in stock, the game doesn't get made. I wonder if there's going to be any special promotions if you want to buy the game.
    56:38
    What, at a show? No, I'm waiting for an offer. Oh, very good. Yes. Oh. Oh, dear. It's come to that. Right. Well, okay, I guess all that happens after 60 of these have been cast. Yeah. Still no Gary, by the way. No. Oh, okay. Well, he obviously found a better offer then.
    57:06
    But obviously we were an offer he could refuse. anyway moving on yeah okay so I'm scrolling up back to the top of the list smaller companies now not so much news but we'll tackle them one by one Chicago Gaming ah yes well we're permanently talking about rumours with them I hear they're still having production problems with the Captain's Candidate limited edition and they're still very slow at producing those no inside information as to why that is or what's likely to change about it but it seems to be some parts that they are unable to or finding difficulty in sourcing we'll put it that way so that's a shame because a lot of people bought the game and a lot of people want the game but it's a great game anticipation is also a present I suppose It is, but how long do you wait? You're waiting two years for a game since ordering it. All these other games come and go. It's nothing. I've been waiting eight years for a game and I still haven't got it. That's true. On the plus side, like you, your price was locked in at the time that you ordered it. True. So when it actually does arrive, it will probably be a bargain.
    58:31
    By the time it arrives, it's probably at least worth double what I paid for it. Yeah, there you go. So it's an appreciating asset, even though it doesn't actually exist yet. Yeah. So anyway, so we don't discuss rumors, but here's one.
    58:48
    This is actually the same rumor that was already going around when we had Pinball Expo in October. Yeah. Chicago Gaming is supposedly the contract manufacturer for Raw Thrills, who designed a Pulp Fiction-themed pinball machine, which was apparently supposed to be revealed at Pinball Expo. Nothing happened. And now we had the same thing for Texas Pinball Festival. I think we almost covered this last time as well, didn't we? We were speculating on Mark Ritchie's professional relationship with Ed Van Levene and the fact they've done games before, prototype games or sample games. Yeah, conflict games. Yes, in the past. And Texas would be a good place to reveal that. But we've got no confirmation of that yet. And if Chicago Gaming are struggling for parts for their own games, maybe they're not in a position to be making games for other people yet but there is a relationship between Raw Thrills and Chicago Gaming as Raw Thrills is of course designing arcade video games which are usually manufactured or at least the cabinets are manufactured by Chicago Gaming yeah or Churchill Cabinets I don't know which particular company of theirs actually does it But the good news is that in our next pin cast, our 61st, which we'll look back at the month of March, which we're currently in, we will be able to tell you whether or not Pulp Fiction was indeed revealed at the Texas Pinball Show. Right. Festival. And what we do know is people have seen photos of the game. It's a single-level game by demand of Quentin Tarantino. you know. Yeah. It has to look like an 80s type pinball machine.
    61:00
    So. Yeah, although there were obviously multi-level games in the 80s, but anyway. Yeah, well, so. Yeah. Oh, well. Let's not get into that. It is what it is, and hopefully we'll get to see it before too much longer. Right. Tune in next month and find out whether or not it was revealed or not. Yeah. So now talking about things we'd like to see, let's switch on to a home pin. Oh yeah. I won. Yeah.
    61:29
    Because one thing that we haven't seen for quite some time is this is spinal tap. And in our previous pin cast, our 59th, I quoted Mike Kalinowski, who responded to me after questions I asked about how come we haven't seen this Spinal Tap. But since then, we've had Chinese New Year. We had a big holiday there, didn't we, where people stopped working for a long time. Yeah, so the only news that we got is a couple of pictures of drop target brackets and the new soldering extraction system. at the Home Pin Factory in Taiwan, but actually nothing about Spinal Tap Game, about its availability, whether it's back in production,
    62:22
    when it will be in production, or when we'll be able to play it. It's still at the Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame. If you're headed that way or going to be over there, that will give you a chance to play it. But as far as I know, that's probably about the only place we can play it publicly. outside of any specific shows, and we don't know of any more shows where it's going to be appearing yet. Although I would suggest the Texas Pinball Festival. Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But if there are no games, then is it going to be there? If the only games there are any built to, then we know there were two in Australia for the Pinfest show. Well, that one game got to the Pinball Hall of Fame, so there might be more. Well, let's not speculate, but it would be nice to be able to see one at the Texas show or indeed at the Midwest Gaming Classic the following weekend, which will be around about the same time we'll be doing our next Pincast.
    63:28
    Now, speaking of timing, as we were earlier on, I mean, it's not a stab or anything, but if you're this is Spinal Tap and you're up against Foo Fighters,
    63:44
    I'm not sure I like the position of Spinal Tap at this point. It'll still be a fun game. Different music, different band.
    63:57
    Don't get me wrong. I don't want to knock down Disco Spinal Tap, but it looks like Stern went all out with Foo Fighters, and I'm not sure whether that's the case with Disco Spinal Tap. Disco Spinal Tap is obviously a very different type of theme, music-based. It's a band pin, but it's also more about the humor, I would like to think, in the game. and we don't know i would think um foo fighters would have quite a lot of humor in it as well but of different different type more cartoony type humor whereas um as we know uh spinal tap is more is based on the film so it's going to be like actors and clips from the film whereas um foo fighters is all uh all custom made animations for the game so uh yeah a different feel but uh And, of course, we don't know what the prices are going to be either. Oh, yeah, that might be very competitive. Yeah, when Thunderbirds came out, that was a very competitive price on the game. Not a great game. I don't think anybody's going to suggest it was. But it was good value. And is Spinal Tap going to be similar or not? That's what we'll wait to see. Prices have gone up globally since then. how much will that be impacted on home things and their products so my phone lit up but no Gary any minute now in the meantime Pinball Adventures Canada talking about a company that might be looking for a spot to launch their game how about the Texas Pinball Festival I don't believe they have seminar booked, but that may change. And it's not exactly their closest show, either, being in Vancouver.
    65:58
    But you think Midwest Gaming Classic would be more appropriate for that. Or even Expo. Right. But we've been waiting and waiting and waiting for Pully Factory to make an appearance. I've been waiting for a game like you.
    66:19
    Yes. Well, all we get is more Instagram pictures and videos. And this time we've got more this month, including a video showing the instruction card for Bunny Factory. So if you want to know how to play the game, if you ever do get to see one, then you can go to Instagram, search for Pimple Adventures, and you will be able to watch their video. You will be able to watch the video of Andrew as well, revealing that he has six children, apparently. And a dog. And a dog, yeah. And no pinballs, we would say. Yeah. And then it still looks like the playfields are being put together in the offices.
    67:03
    Yeah. I don't want to be all negative about it because there's some good news because I get to see the playfield for Elements. Which is the second game. if we ever get the first one.
    67:19
    It may end up being the first game, I don't know. I'm sure Polly Factory will get made, but I suspect it will be in very limited quantities. Elements looks like a much more interesting playfield and has a lot more potential for interesting rules and features on the playfield. I'll say no more at the moment because I don't want to pre-empt how it might end up turning out. but that would be my best bet for Pinball Adventures. I think it's probably one of the better games and I was also surprised to see that they are, I think they're still going ahead with, is it Sushi Factory? Is that one of their games? Sushi Mania. Sushi Mania, correct, yeah. I thought that had been canned, as it were, been dropped because of... Canned sushi, that's pretty good. I know, because of stereotypical racial overtones to the artwork or the theme. Oh, come on. Those are the funniest. Well, maybe. Once. I mean, I don't want to sound like a racist, but...
    68:27
    Too late. If certain type of people have certain characteristics in their appearance, I'm not saying you should make fun of it, but there is... It's not necessarily stereotypical. It would just be a character. it doesn't necessarily imply that all people of that race had the same characteristics no exactly so thank god we're not all like us no there's already too many yes yes definitely anyway so it appears to be going ahead I thought it had been dropped I didn't think it was on the list of upcoming titles but there is a playbill for it Okay, great, but let's first see whether we get to see the first two games. Yes, I know.
    69:30
    But that's not my planning ahead. Yeah, okay. So, from one small company to another, Pedretti Gaming, although they merged with Pinball Brothers, you have some news on that as well. Yes, I think I can safely say that the next 2.0 game is going to be announced within the next week or two. Probably two weeks. To explain to our listeners, 2.0 game, we mean a new version of a Williams System 11 title with a new display panel, display, speakers, upgrade kits. So you still have the same play fields, but complete new ruleset for such game. Yeah, as we know, Pedretti brought out a Funhaus 2.0 kit called Rudy's Nightmare, and this is their second such kit. The first one included a playfield monitor, which replaced the mirror that was on the Funhaus, as well as a new speaker panel with an LCD display, back glass various decals I think cabinet artwork things like that and so the and a topper of course came out for that as well afterwards so there's a new version a new game getting the 2.0 treatment and I expect that to be available at the Texas Pinball Festival which you mean? well that we'll have to wait and see but the details of it should be announced I think in next week or two I think subject to I think they want to have a clear gap where nobody else is announcing games at the same time well it is now that Josie Jackham just announced they're going to be announcing their Godfather game or revealing their Godfather game on the 7th and the Texas show starts on the 23rd, so I'm guessing a couple of weeks' time. Yeah. Okay, well, there's still a couple of days left that nobody's announcing. So far, yeah. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows, yeah. We've still got to see whether Multimorphic are going to announce their game as well, so there's a lot going on.
    72:03
    Exciting times. Yeah, it is. It is very exciting, and it's a bit of a rush. I can remember having this kind of sheer number of different game announcements within a space of a few weeks Everybody seems to be hurried to get them ready for the Texas show In the 80s this was common industry In the sense that it was very normal, but we didn't cover the pinball industry like we do now, back then. True, yeah.
    72:34
    But how many manufacturers were there back then? Well, we had Belly, we had Williams, we had Gottlieb, we had smaller ones like Gameplan,
    72:47
    Yeah, I suppose those launches would have been more around industry events rather than collector shows. But they were doing like four, five, six games a year, some of them. Some were, yeah. That's true. Yeah. And then, I mean, if Belly was doing five games a year and Williams was doing, that's already ten games a year. And then Gottlieb did two or three. and then the smaller ones had at least one?
    73:19
    Yeah, I don't think, I don't know for sure, but I suspect they didn't have the same kind of, make the same kind of fuss about the reveals that they did because they were more to the industry than they were to the collectors. So they would have been in the trade magazines and newspapers and things like that and through distributed promotions rather than, you know, big internet launches, which was, as that didn't exist. Right. so anyway getting back to Pedretti that's right I think we've pretty much oh yes we were we could talk about something we mentioned before which is about Big Bang Bar remake actually we didn't mention that before but we mentioned it I think we mentioned it in more vague terms but I think it's sort of firming up now that Pedretti might be the company that would be involved in making that game if it were to be remade now I know no information that it's any more likely to be made now than it has been in the past year but it's I don't think from what I've heard that there's going to be any movement on that any time soon I think it's a bit locked down in sorting out the detail shall we say and until then everything seems to be on hold so don't expect that to be revealed imminently that's all I would say about that right okay do you have anything to add about that? I hear lots of things Yeah. Good. Talking about hearing lots of things. Any phone lighting up or anything yet? No. Okay. Gary, any time is good. You know, we're waiting for you. Well, it's 60. Actually, we're stalling here to get you on. Well, don't make it too obvious. Yes. Okay. Well, let's not stop stalling and move on to Dutch Pinball and some news from them. yeah good news is it well that depends on the way you look at it apparently the price for a new Big Lebowski has increased by $500 so the game now costs $13,500 I think someone should go how much what that's more your realm of responsibility yeah exactly I'm glad I was able to at least buy the illusion of ever owning one yeah 13,000 that's a lot of money but it is considered one of the best games of the past decade I would say hmm okay well it's got stiff competition now oh yeah absolutely no argument there but that's actually the only news from Dutch Pinball. I didn't get a chance to reach out to Barry, so I don't know whether he would have any news. If there is, then I'll make sure to note it down in the Pinball Magazine newsletter. Yes, we're waiting for that. It will be coming out shortly, covering six weeks of Pinball news. Wow, it'll be more like a book. okay well i'm gonna summarize a lot of it so it's not gonna be uh that that that lengthy of a read okay um well talking of sagas um let's just touch on the deep root pinball um story which um nothing much is happening with that as uh tends to be the case these days but uh There is a civil case against Robert Mueller, owner of the whole Deep Root family of companies. That's coming to court in October or scheduled to come to court in October, whether it will or not. These legal procedures can easily be pushed back.
    77:47
    There's a new fraud specialist that's been brought in by the SEC in the case against Robert to advise them. apparently somebody who's had a lot of good results in similar cases.
    78:04
    But is he going to be in Robert's corner or the SEC's corner? No, definitely the SEC's corner to help them in their case against him. Okay.
    78:20
    And I think I mentioned, maybe it was last month or it was not the month before, about how the bankruptcy attorney had been, or in fact, yeah, I think it was the bankruptcy attorney, had been going after some of the advisors who had been selling deep root funds, or at least one particular company, in order to get some money back from them, and they'd been forced to repay a significant amount. Well, apparently they're going after any financial advisors who sold investments in deep root funds in order to recover the commission that they were paid. as part of the bankruptcy settlement so that those who are owed money can get that back.
    79:01
    So that's about all the news I have from Deep Root Pinball this month. So we should probably move on to, well, I don't know. There's not an awful lot more news around. Well, we listed all the companies. We have Bitronic in Spain, who are not very communicative, I would say, regarding the production of their Super Hoop game, or Tokyo Perfect Drift, for that matter, which is supposed to follow up the Super Hoop game.
    79:33
    SDR Pinball, I don't think we should even mention anymore, because they used to be a contract manufacturer, and they only built like half a game, and that was it.
    79:43
    Quetzal Pinball, well, still related to Bitron, I can say, but no news there. you have some news from Haggis Pinball well there was a bit of a concern I should say that people weren't getting their games at all for a while and that maybe there were bigger problems with the company but it's good news that people are still getting their games albeit very slowly I think they too as we've seen from other companies are having problems with the supply of electronics and very large increases in the price of some of the components. I know quite a lot of the circuit boards, if you can get them, have doubled or tripled in price,
    80:31
    which obviously puts a bit of a squeeze on your margins when you're selling, or you price your game at a certain level when you first sell it, and then suddenly find that halfway through, or even 10% through your run, the price of all your components has doubled. then suddenly you haven't got the money or you're not making any money on your games anymore. Right. Well, that's the tricky part of having a production run that lasts like a year or a year and a half. Or not having the sufficient funds to buy all your parts up front should be the other way of hedging against that or having some kind of insurance. But I think this is a fairly small-scale production and they're not really into doing that at this stage. But hopefully lessons learned and hopefully it hasn't impacted so badly on them that they're unable to continue. But as I say, people do seem to be getting their games, albeit very slowly. So congratulations to those people who have been getting their Fathom games. Oh, yeah, it's a beautiful game if you get one. Yeah, everybody who seems to get them or gets them seem to be overwhelmed by the quality of the build. So all power to Haggis. Hope they keep pumping out games. hope they can pick up speed and good luck to those people who have ordered right oh I thought you were pausing because your phone was ringing no it's still on by the way and it's not like it no no it hasn't crashed or doing an update or anything we've had that happen in the past we've had the weird stuff happen well there you go I'm sure we will in the future as well.
    82:12
    We can do a special episode on that. We can do a highlight or lowlights. I don't know what it will be.
    82:18
    So we haven't mentioned about Circus Maximus yet. I think you found some news there. Well, apparently, Circus Maximus is apparently working or is working on the remake of Kingpin. the only news that surfaced on NAP Arcade kudos to them for finding this out by doing a search on trademarks is that a Dutch person apparently filed a trademark for the term kingpin for the use on pinball and clothing and that's about all we know hmm, ok I mean you and I both heard I think it's fair to say that I don't want to call them rumours but suggestions that Circus Maximus actually don't have the right to make the Kingpin game they don't have the licence for it well the licence it's a Capcom title and apparently when Capcom stopped their pinball division lots of things were lost including records of who owns what so that means many people can claim that they have rights and I'm not sure whether that is going to make things easier or difficult well I think it makes things more difficult because you have to cover all your bases here to make sure that if you do sell this game, that somebody's not going to come after you later and say, hang on, I had the rights to that, and I'm going to sue you. Because, you know, even if they haven't, the fact that they sue you means you've got to put up a defense and pay lawyers and all that kind of stuff, and who wants to go through all that? You know, we're basically getting back to the whole Big Bang Bar situation again. You know, if it's all unclear who owns what, the easiest and the best thing to do is nothing. isn't it? Because if you do anything, you're going to put yourself in the firing line for a lawsuit from someone.
    84:39
    So, unfortunately... In this case, regarding to Kingpin, you might be better off calling the game Pinking.
    84:47
    Yeah, you get sued by whoever thinks they own the rights to the playfield design, although it's claimed you can't copyright a playfield design. apparently not so yeah I mean it's you always get to the point where you wonder whether it's worth pursuing all these old titles and just move on design new stuff you know yeah well things have changed technology has moved on you can have a lot more assets in the game than you could back then do you want to keep making stuff from the past although it seems to be doing pretty well for Chicago there is definitely a market so There is. And if you're a startup company, you don't have to invent the wheel yourself entirely, although it's quite a process to actually get an existing game in production, especially if you have to start from zero.
    85:45
    Yeah, okay. I don't know. Let's move on anyway. So other news. I've got some other news. Yes, other news. I got an email from Cardona Pinball Designs. Oh, plural. I like that. Yeah.
    86:02
    And you might be familiar with a re-theme of No Good Gophers from a couple of years ago, which was called Battle for the Green. and it had an LCD with some animations with a beer and... Oh, God, yes. As far as I recall, they were pretty ropey animations at the time.
    86:34
    Maybe that was a prototype of a concept game. It wasn't production quality then. Yeah. Anyway, so the battle for the green kits apparently are now for sale with planetary pinball oh ok so it's been licensed I suppose so yes and I have no idea how they managed to do that but I don't need to know and there is a website you can go to which is cardonapinball.com which has the game for sale or the kit I should say and the kit includes a speaker panel with two 4 inch speakers and an industrial 15.6 inch monitor LCD that is I suppose with the associated cabling a fast interface controller board, which needs to be installed at the location of the CPU of the game, which is going to be replaced.
    87:58
    A CPU panel that includes a fast audio and accessory controller and associated cabling to be installed in the removed audio video board locations. so basically you're ending up with taking out your board set and replacing it with the fast pinball system which is mandatory now I think for version 2.0 games you also get a power supply and a fuse block with associated cabling and last but not least a full set of apron instruction cards I think that's probably the least yeah okay so and there's a note as well if you're in Europe and you think oh that's cool or Australia for that matter apparently the kit can only be sold in the United States due to the 110 volts power that this kit needs to run on it doesn't run on 220 volts apparently oh right well presumably I guess you could install a step-down transformer within the game somewhere.
    89:13
    I think it plugs into the service outlet, which obviously wasn't a standard feature on all games. But if it uses mains power, it could be wired in. I'm sure it can.
    89:28
    There are plenty of ways of getting 110 or 120 volts supplies to power this kind of thing. So, but if you do that kind of thing, I suppose it probably won't be covered under any kind of warranty. But, so how much does this thing cost?
    89:47
    Minus $1, $2,000. Oh, what's that? $1,999. So, yeah, and for me, it's been too long since I watched the video of this kit. But it's out there on YouTube. It's actually also on the Cardona Pinball website. So if you're interested, take a look at that if you want to upgrade your No Good Govers game. Okay, that's interesting.
    90:16
    Now, Cardona, that sounds a little bit Italian. Oh, that's a bit of a stretch. But go on. I don't want to sound too racist, but I have some news from Italy. There is actually a new pinball museum opening in Italy. There is? Yes. And one of the people behind it is Alessio Cristantemi from Gioco News, who has a printed publication, which is more for the amusement industry, I would say. And gaming. And gaming, yes. he's very enthusiastic about pinball still whenever he's in Europe or whenever he's doing a trade show outside of Italy he's always asking whether I'm coming as well very nice person absolutely yeah we always get on well with Alessio and he was at the EAG show as well his publication had a stand there and as I understand it this new museum is a sort of combination of pinball museum and modern art museum too. So I think it's in what was previously a school building and I think they've probably got about 30 machines in there at the moment. They're going to have big plans for what it is. I was talking to Alessio about it and says they're going to be doing a lot of educational programs there. They have a teaching classroom they are going to every game has a QR code on it where you can scan it and find out a lot more information about it and yes I think they're certainly doing a sort of community reach into schools and colleges there to teach them all about the science, technology and mathematics elements of pinball and the history of them and their relevance to popular culture at the time so I think Yeah, it's a nice start, and I think they do have big plans for what they want to do with it. So the question, of course, is whereabouts initially is it? Oh, yeah, I was hoping you would agree.
    92:38
    Ah, right. Okay. Well, I will then have to have a look at my emails and tell you that it is in Turnley in Umbrio, which is not too far from Rome. Ah. Okay, so that's the middle of Italy. It's in a splendid tourist resort characterized by the Marmora Falls, which is a unique place. And it's been done in collaboration with the local municipality and the Umbria region and the Italian Ministry of Culture. So it's got good backing and hopefully it'll be a big success. So if you're in the Umbria region and want to go and see the museum, it's in turny T-E-R-N-I so then the pinball and modern art museum good luck to them ok yeah exactly good luck to them ok so I have one last note is that something you want to cover yes I think we mentioned it before that former pinball designer John Trudeau was due to be up for a parole hearing in, I think, October or November of this year. Apparently it happened earlier and he's been granted parole and has been moved to a halfway house in preparation for full release. So more than that, we don't know. But he is out of prison at the moment. Good for him. Well, fingers crossed. He keeps his nose clean, as they say, and can move on. as indeed we all can right, ok I suppose that rounds it up for our 60th episode it does, with no Gary, still no Gary still no Gary, well ok you know what's going to happen don't you as soon as we say goodbye the phone's going to ring you just know it and I'm going to let it ring sorry it's half past one night and my alarm is going at 8am so we'll have to get on so anyway thank you anyway Jonathan and thank you to everybody for listening to this 60th anniversary pincast from Pinball Magazine it's not our anniversary we've done it for 60 years it feels like 60 years but no I think 60 pincasts is worth celebrating so any gifts or drinks will be gratefully received.
    95:27
    You can also bring them to Texas Pinball Festival where we hope to be in person. Absolutely. Well, I certainly will be and I hope you will be there with me as well. So, if we don't get to see you there, we will see you or speak to you again at the beginning of April where we'll be looking back at that show and all the things that happened in the pinball world throughout this month of March. It's looking like it's going to be a really packed I was going to say, this is going to be a very exciting month. It is, yeah. So join us for that if we don't get to see you before then. So until then, from me, Martin Erwin, Pinball News, I will wish you a very enjoyable March.
    96:03
    And from me, Jonathan Houston, editor of Pinball Magazine as well. Okay, so we'll see you next time. Until then, bye-bye. Thank you, bye. Bye.
    96:18
    Is that Gary? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha