And now the conclusion of WAP episode 50. The next one, the next one. Oh, it's art, Tony. Art. Yeah. What? What? What? We're seeing the same ones come back up here again, you know. Obviously, King Kong had the best art. I'm kidding. Right? So we got Franchi on Evil Dead. we got the CE done by the Harry Potter artists from the books. So, I mean, there's your top two. What did you say about that book art? It was something. It wasn't what I wanted. No. I get why they did it, and I appreciate the people. It was me and Lima. They got to do it. So, like, that's awesome. What I wanted was movie characters on the CE. so I guess it's who we're judging if we're judging the CE art based aesthetically on it that's great, I think the Evil Dead art is better it's got Franchise Touch in there, for Pinball, for Bruce for fitting the theme yeah, but the theme with Harry Potter is largely the movies and then you have book art, so that's like a bit of a disconcoordinate, I see people just frothing like give it to Harry Potter you would give it to Harry Potter for best art of I'm going to stick with Evil Dead with a shout out to Winchester because Brad Brad Albright does some good stuff. Brad Brad Albright also did Portal and I do like the art on Portal. It's just not as good as what he did on Winchester. You know what, Danny? We've got Beetlejuice. Talking about Christopher Franchi. I just want to give Frenchy a shout out because like two months ago or something, we made a video, a show together with Chris from Canada's Pinball Podcast. Oh, that guy, yeah. Yeah. And I shared it on video because when we make interviews, we share it on video format also on RETROCENGO's YouTube channel. And I shared it. And, you know, that was the show when you guys made up and everything was just beautiful. And the first comment on that video with you, me, and Chris was from Christopher Franchi. And he wrote this. Can you feel the love tonight? Jesus Christ. Shout out to Franchi. Yeah. I love that guy. Also, there's not any AI art on Franchi's cabinet. Can we talk about the derpy dragon? I forgot about the play field of Harry Potter. Come on. Yeah, no way. Yeah, Evil Dead. We'll give it Evil Dead. Shout out to Beetlejuice and Winchester and Harry Potter's exterior. For me, I understand where you're coming from. But for me, games have great art, but there is something odd about Beetlejuice art. And I'm going to say why. When you look at the sides of the cabinet, you have these two skull-like old faces that are green. But it feels like there's a light behind them, so they light up. it's so weird i have never seen it before it feels like they're lit up it's it's i have never seen it before it's so good french it did something with the colorization they call they call christopher ranchi the thomas kincaid of pinball because he is the painter of light i mean he's probably throwing shit at the wall right now do you do you know what i'm have you look at those green green faces it's like they're lit up no other game has art like on the beetlejuice that's the thing i've noticed with his art in particular when you look at it because you know casually you look at it and you're like yeah that's acceptable i get it but like when you look at it and there's some nuance like look where the light sources are coming from and like he'll play with contrasting colors that don't really make sense a lot of the time so you think you would think you know there'll be a flash of like some hot pink just to contrast the dark character there and it seems to light them up without you noticing it and i think that's like what his art artistry brings that me with an ai tool can't do oh yeah yeah yeah for me it's just clear it's beetlejuice art of the year it's mind-blowing i mean i looked at the Harry Potter collector's edition. There is some game cards. There is a book or a snake or something. I don't get anything of it. I have never read the books or nothing. I don't get it. It's not on my top three, no nothing. The play field is beautiful, but it's missing the evil guy. It's just missing stuff. when you look at Beetlejuice playfield, it's amazing. When you look at the cabinet, it's amazing. backbox, next level. You look up at the topper, just next level shit for under $10,000. Don't call me a spooky shield now, but yeah, you know what I mean. All these games are getting very high marks. Yeah. Alright. Best toys! Star Wars Fist all the pez you can handle shout out to Medieval Madness although that is an older game I love that castle Jaws has the shark fin that was great Predator has nothing Harry Potter doesn't really have it's got one really good mechanism with the staircase and then I do like the wands Quidditch upper play field is an upper play field it's not really a mechanism Look, you're talking about one game with so many different toys now. Yeah. Harry Potter. Evil Dead is loaded with everything. There was one thing missing from Merlin's was, like, any kind of, like, compelling mechanism. Dune has the sandworm. I'm just going to leave anything out here. Winchester's got stuff. You have left my game toy toys out. Are you going with Beetlejuice? Dungeons and Dragons! The dragon, man! Are we talking about best mech or game with the best mechs? Not mechs. Best toy. Best toy. Okay, so singular toy. So we're putting the D&D dragon against the troll mechs from Evil Dead, with the sandworm from Dune, with the magnet in the back of the Winchester, with the dancing sandworm from Beetlejuice. So we've got two sandworms. Michael Dorn is a dragon. Which I do love. He shoots balls out of his mouth. I do love that. This is a hard one for you. This is a hard one, yeah. Because those are all good, but what's the best one? We're so lucky. So many good, man. So much goodness. Yeah. When you're thinking, you can listen to what I'm saying. Okay, just think and listen. Okay, Donnie? I said Dungeons & Dragons, the dragon. I love that toy. Beetlejuice that worm that goes up and you have targets underneath the worm, I love that one Harry Potter, that turning staircase, that's one of the coolest toys for me because it's just, every time you shoot the staircase, it just changes to something cool and the worm in Dune it grabs the ball when it goes up, it turns oh my god so all four great toys so where you at have you been thinking now well i'm thinking it's got to be interactive with the ball uh and then how many different things can it do right and i love the staircase from harry potter sending balls all over the place but it's really it's functionally just a diverter on a stepper motor or whatever it's good it's good um the dragon is complicated it stores balls inside it blows them out at you It can move and block shots. It's a bash toy. So is the Sandworm. The Sandworm, though, is more passive in the fact that you can only shoot balls into it. It's not like firing back. But the Sandworm is so cool, Donnie. I'm going to give it to the Sandworm, and it's for this reason, because there's a mode where you're battling the Sandworm, and you have to get him beat down and lowered so that you can bash him in the face. And so as you're playing, you have to be hitting the action button, and every time you do, he comes down a little bit lower, a little bit lower. So as you're trying to keep the balls in play, you're bringing him down so you can bash him in the face. Then he resets and you do it again. Like, you can't control the staircase. You can't control the dragon. But doing this, you can control the sandworm on Beetlejuice. And so because it's ball interactive and player interactive, I'll give it to that. You said sandworm and Beetlejuice? You mean sandworm and Dune? No, sandworm and Beetlejuice. You can't control that Beetlejuice. In Dune, the player can't control the worm, even though it's a bash toy, a magnet. a ball trapping sucked down into a lower play field. It's a huge, complicated mech, so it should be in the conversation too. But for the fact that the player can control to some extent, I'll give it the edge. And I don't love to have the targets under the sandworm on Beetlejuice. Yeah, when I miss the Demogorgon, I don't get anything. I get a hit registered, but there's not, like, targets down there, you know. And I can't control what the Demogorgon's doing, But having some direct player control of the mechanism, that's cool. And I don't even think they realized how cool that is yet. But I still want to say the dragon on Dungeons & Dragons. Love it. It's such a big hit there. It moves. It talks. It throws flame balls at you. I love it. I love it. More toys, man. I wish it was more integrated with the code because it really only does one thing. You know, dragon multiball, other than that, it's not talking to you. It's not being an adversary. I wanted to ask you about that. Has there been a code update where they integrate the dragon some more? No, not at all. No, he's just kind of there until you're doing dragon multiball. When I'm on a quest or I'm in a dungeon, I want to make a wrong turn, and I end up at the dragon. Now I'm in a dragon battle in the dungeon. That has never happened yet. He doesn't randomly come into your quests and fuck shit up. You're never on a path to another village, and then all of a sudden randomly dragon attack. And then you have to smash him a couple times to beat him off to continue to get to Gantleburg or whatever. Or Gronto Grime. He just kind of sits there. And you've got Michael Dorn doing the voice, and he's only used for one thing. And that's sad. So I hope someone's listening and they do some more dragon attack modes and get some more use out of that dragon. Bring him into the game more, man. Yeah, absolutely. But again, we're so lucky. so many great, great toys. Cool. I want to ask you, best innovation? Okay. All right. You ready for this one? I got some. I got some hot takes. And they're focusing a lot on Portal. All right. The Portal's got that faith ramp, right? I don't think we've seen that before. We've seen balls get thrown around the play field before, but never like kinetically in the direction you're firing, and then it like boosts and launches like a Hollywood stuntman jumping through a flame. where it launches the ball at the back of the cabinet. Now, you may say it launches the ball back. That's cool, but so what? And I will say, point taken. But I think that's some cool innovation that's there. I like how they have the companion cube disappear through a portal and reappear on the other side of the play field. That's fun. That's innovative. I don't see a lot of that. We saw portals in Rick and Morty where you would shoot a ball and then a staged ball would then come out. I love whenever there's staged balls that do that, so the ball can jump around the play field. I like the fast locks in Venom for the same reason. So I'll say there's a lot of innovation packed into Portal. It's just all packed into only one-third of a play field. Those staged balls came out back in 1993. Do you know that? Oh, you lost your head. Wait. Wait, wait, people. Wait, wait, wait. I knocked my headphones off. I was gesticulating so much. Yeah, it's okay. Okay. Okay, can you hear me now? Absolutely, man. Okay, I said those stage balls were already out back in 1993, patent pending, which starts like Next Generation. So it was out there, man. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. It was fun there too. I love that. But what I'm saying is, though, like the actual companion cube would, like, move out of one portal and appear on the other side. So that was the first time there was, like, a stage mechanism like that that I can think of. where something would disappear and reappear somewhere else. For me, Donnie, innovation, I think Harry Potter staircase is very innovative. Yeah, it's fast too. Yeah, I love it. But for me, wait, there's more. Dune worm dash the screen with the explosion on the screen and the worm everything. Very cool. But the best innovation for me is… Beetlejuice Spooky Speak. I forgot about Spooky Speak. Yeah, come on, man. Let me not forget. I didn't even work down my list yet. Winchester's Peppers Go screen with interactive ball effects is amazing. When that ball gets stopped on the magnet back there and the spider webs just instantly go, so it's like they grabbed your ball. Also, the turntable on Winchester. The turntable, yeah. Great innovation also. What am I talking about Portal's faith ramp for? I forgot about the turntable back there. I mean, that's like Gilligan's Island technology that's back now. Okay. A lot of innovation in 2025. We love it. Please, companies, keep on innovation. Keep on innovating. We love it. What a great year, man. Okay. This one, I have a winner. Best topper Harry Potter CE Stop it Stop it Okay Yeah Let me hear your best topper So we got Evil Dead and Beetlejuice, right? Which one's better? I have the same down here. Evil Dead and Beetlejuice. Well, D&D doesn't have a topper. Portal has a plastic topper. Merlin's Arcade has a very plastic topper. Dune, no topper. King Kong, please. Harry Potter's topper. While cool, I wish it had more depth to it. I wish it had more projections. I wish it had fiber optic effects. I don't know how they didn't do that. Predator, no topper. Jaws 50th, get out of here. Medieval Madness, it's fine. Fall of the Empire doesn't have one. Get out of here. Winchester doesn't have one. The Walking Dead is a box of zombie heads that we've seen. Beetlejuice. Fucking cool. Beetlejuice. We were all teasing that the Beetlejuice topper was cool, and then when you saw it, were you disappointed? The Beetlejuice topper? Yeah. I was like, this is spooky. I mean, my reaction, you have it on video. I'm like, whoa. That's a scary looking back and forth. Yeah, and like the lighting effect and the rattle that's right there. Yeah, it's animated so good. Yeah, and then in the trailer, it cuts to the actual film where it was like claymation, and people were thinking that that was the actual topper because of how closely it matched. Yeah. Oh, can I say, Zach, that spooky trailer? That was great. Thumbs up, buddy. Yeah, I mean, he is the best in the industry. Hell yeah. I love. Hell yeah. I love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to Zach Mignone. That was cool. Zach, that was great. And Zach and team, because I know everybody came out. Yeah, Zach and team. I'm sorry. Greg and Ken were also out there. Hopefully next time they can crash on my floor. That would be fun. Yeah, absolutely. Every time Spooky launches a game, I'm just, yeah, of course I'm excited about the game, But I'm excited about Zack's trailer. Yeah. It's just magical for me. And it all started with Texas Chainsaw. He just did something. He touched something in me. And I love it. Yeah. So shout out to Mr. Mini and team. All right. All right. Cool. For me, best offer, it's something between Evil Dead and Beetlejuice. Now you know. All right. This one. Best theme. Oh. All right. So we're going to. Not integration. Not integration. Theme of 2025. Yeah. Let me hear. Yeah, because, you know, because Winchester is not the best theme in the world, you know, by far. You know, it's like Star Wars is a great theme, not a great game. Jaws, phenomenal theme. Predator, phenomenal. Harry Potter. Dune and Portal, I'm going to skip. Evil Dead, I'll skip as, like, a strong, like, strongest theme. Beetlejuice. All right, so we got Beetlejuice, Star Wars, Jaws, Predator, Harry Potter. If you never saw these games, which one would you be most excited that your favorite pinball company was making? I mean, for me, Predator. No matter what. Okay, wait, wait, wait. For me, while you're thinking, everybody should say best theme of 2025 should be one game only, Star Wars. that's the best theme right that's Jaws objective best theme of the year we're not going off of integration but we're going off of but it's best theme for pinball and I think because there's been so much Star Wars I don't think Star Wars would be the best theme for pinball right now because it's been done so many times but like Jaws has never been done Harry Potter's never been done Predator's never been done Beetlejuice has never been done so I think for my consideration, I would say that's the top four there. And so does Harry Potter... Which theme park land would I want to walk into? Harry Potter for sure. Jaws. What dark ride would I want to go on? Harry Potter probably. Then Jaws. So I think I'm going to say Harry Potter is the best theme. I think you're so wrong. I think it's Predator. If they come with another Predator next This year, no matter what game, Predator is the best team unless they make another Arnold movie, Commando, Conan, Terminator or something. But Predator, oh, my God. I know you're an Arnold guy. I think I know why I'm a Stallone guy because I watched First Blood again the other night, and it's just so good. Oh, yes. I love it. So good. It's like a good film, man. So good. When I was a kid, I loved the action scenes. But now as a grown-up man, the start of the movie, he just walks into the town, peaceful, gets fucked up by the police. The first 20 minutes, you hate those cops so much. Yes. And then the rest of the movie is retribution. And it's like, yes. They deserve it. All of it. Oh, my God. All of it. I love Rambo. Rambo is so cool. Would that work as a game, do you think? Yes. The modes in First Blood? coming to the town. So many great stuff. They could include Rambo 2, Rambo 3 with the Russian helicopter on the back glass. If it was like Evil Dead where you can pick Rambo 1 modes, Rambo 2 modes, and that was the game, I think that would be fine. I would be happy with just First Blood, just in the town of Hope, British Columbia, all the mountains, the snow, the river, the mine, the Quonset Hut, blowing up the town at the end. Oh, PTSD flashbacks? I would just buy it. I don't care. 100%. Who makes it? 100%. I'm sending Jeff money today just as a deposit in case somebody ever makes it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Jeff, put me on that list. Hey, look at my T-shirt. What does it say? Mad Pinball. Do you need to get a game? Mad Pinball, baby. Call Mad Pinball. Info at madpinball.com is the new e-mail address. I-N-F-O dot madpinball.com. Use code WAP. Get some free stuff from us just for ordering. Through the boys at MAD. Corbin, the whole Angeli family over there. Can't wait to help you out and get a game directly to your door. Yeah. Get on the list right now. Just contact Matt Pinball. Get on the list on all the great upcoming games. But, yeah, free shipping on all starting games, right? Awesome T-shirt. And when we said on T-shirt, we also sent up some goodies there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people should just contact Matt Pinball when they buy new games. But just remember to use the code WAP. Or if you talk on the phone, just say WAP to Matt Pinball, right? Why not get some free stuff, man? Get some free stuff. Yeah, why not? And support this little show over here. All right. I understand. I understand. You say best theme, Harry Potter. But for me, Predator. And it's a given, right? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. All right. All right. Hey, I've been in contact with Pinball Brothers. Yeah. How is the Pinball Brother doing? I'm going to share everything on the next show. It's really cool. We're great. Let's talk about that later. Okay. Best theme integration. This is something else. Yeah, this is where Spooky is going to take a step over everybody else. Although, I don't know how you could theme integrated more Winchester Mystery House into Winchester Mystery House than they did. It's cool. Jaws, we'll get it from Stern for sure. I don't feel it with King Kong. I guess Dune has a lot of theme integration. I'm just not that familiar with it. Fucking Evil Dead is theme integrated. Dungeons and Dragons is theme integrated. Harry Potter. I can't decide, man. Do you want to hear mine? It's Predator. No. What? No. My number one best theme integration is Evil Dead. Yeah. I was just looking at that. Seriously. Those inner art blades, it's just Evil Dead no matter where you look. You're putting balls into the cabin. They're hanging out on the porch right there. Yes, yes. That hand, the shotgun, shells, everything is just so well integrated. What from Evil Dead didn't make it into the game? And I think that's how you could do this. You could find things in Harry Potter that didn't make it in. Things in Jaws that didn't make it in. Things in Star Wars didn't make it in. But I'm not thinking of much in Evil Dead that's not representative of that game. The yellow car should be in the play field. I think it is. It's on a plastic. It's on a plastic. Yeah, but it should be the real car. I know. You know, at the beginning of the movie, it drives over this little wooden bridge. Yeah, where the wood is. It should be there, man. Yeah. They should do a super collectives edition with the car. I said it. I'm going to say it again. Yeah, for me, it's Evil Dead. Honorable mention, Beetlejuice. Are you freaking kidding me? Like, every scene of the movie, it's in the game. Every mechanism, the sounds. It's in the game. Yeah, the Deo song when your flippers get possessed. Like, there's another innovation that we missed. Like, during that scene. I'm going to drink. Don't let me laugh, okay? When the music's playing, like, your flippers are possessed in time with the music. And it's done in a fun way because you can still override it. you still have control of your flippers. But if you're trying to trap up, they might fuck you up. Or if you're trying to dead bounce, they might pop in there and mess it up for you. So it keeps you on your toes in an interesting way. I love it. So what do you pick? Best theme integration? I'll go Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, yeah. I don't think there's anything in that movie I didn't see in there somewhere. Okay, next one is interesting. Best rules of 2025. Oh, okay. This is fun. So not shoot the two white shots and then pick a mode? Not that? Just all. So just. Tommy. My favorite rule is looking at all these games, and, of course, I don't have the same play on all of them, but I have played them all. I'm kind of leaning towards Jaws. I think that the rules on Jaws are just kind of like organic. They're in there. It's not, okay, hit these two shots. Hit the scoop now. Pick a mode. Pick a battle. And then, you know, everything is just tied in there. You know, you're closing beaches. You've stacked the bounty hunts on top of there. You can pick which bounty you want to hunt, and they're all done different ways. Everything stacks nicely where it doesn't feel like a mode starts and now you're locked out of your progress. Like, it all kind of works and flows together. I love the team behind it. Elizabeth did some great stuff on that game. You always have the shark there, too, to advance. And every shot is, like, a different mode. I like, you know, it's not hit the scoop once it's qualified and pick your mode. It's, you know, each ramp is a different mode, and it's like more theme integrated. Yeah, they do the same thing on Star Wars, but it seems so basic on Star Wars where it's more part of the theme on Jaws with a much better layout. Cripes. Yeah. Now, a listener or two would say, Jaws, why is Jaws included here? It's because of Jaws 50th. It came out this year, right? And it will sell to the end of the December. Yeah. And George got some great code updates this year. What Elizabeth did. Also, the 8-bit gameplay code stuff. Oh, God, yeah. Come on, come on. Now, if for some reason you're saying that's a last year game, I'd probably go D&D for rules. So how do you feel about that? No, no, it's included. You can't pick it. But my pick is something in that area also. because my pick for best rules is actually the Walking Dead remastered. Okay. I mean, I love the basic rules of that game. Love it. And now it's getting upgraded. On top of that, you can go in and pick 2014 classic mode or the new upgraded mode. That's true. Okay. So for me, I mean, it's just so magical. Rest in peace, Lime and Sheets. But, yeah, for me, that's number one. But coming in at number two, I really enjoy Harry Potter code. I understand Harry Potter code. But for me, it was King Kong on number two. Wow. Yeah, I like the code on that game. It's simple to understand. It's cool. Have you played it deeply? I have. Absolutely. So there is a lot that's going on simultaneously there too. I think Jaws does it better. But, you know, you can always be advancing your climbing that's on the building that's there. You can always sweep the drop targets on the left for modes. It does have a bit of that, you know, qualify and then, okay, pick which one you're going to do. But I think they did handle it better than it's not like this is just the spinner mode, this is just the ramp mode. This is like you're crossing the chasm back and forth. Always doing something like in Godzilla, right? Yeah, and it made sense given the layout. When you're crossing the chasm, you're passing back and forth between the two upper flippers through that little area. So it fits. So, yeah, I'd give it hard marks too. Fair, fair. Okay. The next one. This is maybe the most important one. Okay. Shots and layout. Shots and layout. Oh, I know what I'm going to choose. hmm it's shots on layout I mean it's more fun to go through and exclude things I think the games that really had innovative layouts, King Kong Dune Portal I guess Harry Potter, yeah absolutely feels great, every shot feels smooth and just engineered and precise I loved the shots and layout on Predator when I played it, I felt there was a lot that's in there especially looping off the upper flipper. There's multiple ways you can go, multiple spinners. I'm going to give some shout-outs to Predator here. I like Predator's layout. I love Predator's layout, man. It's so fun, and it's a wide body. I love it. There's a lot that's going on there. You know, Evil Dead is still very much an orbit shot, an orbit shot, a couple of ramps. Everything's satisfying and fun to do. It's innovative because of the mech integration that's there and the shotgun shells, but Predator is definitely... Everybody calls everything a fan layout. Predator is not Predator is an awesome shotgun layout But for me okay i okay predator fair it was it also on my top three my number three was predator i love it my number two and this this is amazing my number two is harry potter shots on layout oh my god donnie every time you flip you hit something Harry Potter is so magical to play If you're newer into pinball Buy a Harry Potter Just contact Contact Jeff at MadPinball Buy a Harry Potter Quidditch is fun to play up there It's so good And you know the modes You play modes on top of modes There's something going on all the time The ball stops Sometimes so you can choose Do you want the mode from movie number 2 Movie number 4 That's the only time it stops. Other than that, that staircase, it just turns and everything is so fun to shoot. Love shots on layout of that game. I want to know what your number one is. My number one, shots on layout, and I mean this. This is amazing. King Kong shots on layout. War Flippers. You have got that Quicksilver drop-down target. It works on Quicksilver. It works on King Kong. It's just so freaking fun to shoot that game. And I have only unboxed and played the pro version. And it's ill and good. I don't think there's any – there's not really any shot that's missing on the pro. You don't get the physical ball lock with the diverter up the top, but that's – that's not like a flowing shot. You don't get the train. but you still get the little diverter that pops up for the log and the water there you get all the flippers are in the game all the ball paths are in there, the back and forth the biplane ramp is the same oh it's so good yeah that's you have to get King Kong, shots on layout it's good though if the theme was better, like if it was movie clips and it was Jack Black call outs that would be the game I think, yeah. It's like there's just missing, like, personality. Like, it looks great, but, like, it's like when you have a conversation with it, there's not much that's there. It just keeps saying the same four things. You know, save Anne, cross the bridge, you know. And so over time, like, it's like, okay, I've seen everything. There's no, like, where's the humor, the random call-outs coming, you know. That's what I'm not getting from it. And sometimes on the display they show something in black and white. And I want to throw the game out of the window. I hate everything black and white. I keep pulling my headphones off, man. I'm sorry. All right. Are you okay? I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Man, we're an hour and a half into this. People are going to be upset. I'm sorry. We talked about 30-minute fast show. Okay. I'm going to speed up now. Speed up. All right. The next one. I have two games here, but it's hard. But, okay. I want to hear your first. Best Game Launch of 2025. Oh, fucking Beetlejuice. Get out of here. Come on. It sold out before it even released. Party at my house. None of these other games had a party at my house. All right? What can I say? Yeah, literally. So for the convenience portion alone, this was my favorite game launch. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I love we were a part of this. When we made the Beetlejuice interview, listen to what – guys, you have to listen to this because on the video format, Donnie, I edited in at the beginning of the video where we see that Buck and Luke, they write show games on their knuckles and everything. And people have been asking me, where are you? We can see Don in there. Where are you? So guys, listen to this. Give me one minute. We started recording. I have bought Fibernet internet. I have the fastest internet in the world. As soon as we started recording, something happened with my internet. these guys froze i couldn't hear nothing so i had to reset everything and all that recess stuff it took like 20 minutes and while all this was happening i was offline donnie buck and spooky were talking the thing is zencaster was recording everything when i was offline so when i went in and downloaded the video i saw every all the shit they said about me i could see it and hear it No, no, no. There was nothing. These guys were so awesome. But the way we recorded, when I came back, I pressed record, and two seconds later, it was so fun, but they froze for me. So Spooky Luke, he says something, and his mouth is open, and he froze. I don't hear nothing. It's just frozen. Oh, no. But I tried not to show it. but the end result the end product when people are watching it they're like oh my god this is so good Spooky Luke hit me up and he said wow man the video format was so good and i was like sitting there okay you should see what i was going through i couldn't hear what donnie said donnie was just frozen for me so it was a chaos show for me but it was that lunch was amazing yeah Yeah, absolutely. But I have an honorable mention. I agree with you. Predator. Beetlejuice. Wait. That was awful. I want to say Predator, 14 days before the launch, when I hyped it up, people loved it. But, yeah, you know what the team did afterwards? It had nothing to do with me. I'm sorry. But I want to say, game launch of the year, yes, Beetlejuice, but you just need to consider one other game launch, and that's Winchester. That game launch, interviews, and everything, it was just so well done. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Sold out, 24 hours, bam. I like when a game can launch and then they're like, all right, here's our trailer, here's our in-depth trailer, here's our gameplay trailer, and like here's all the information you need to know to make a decision, yes or no. And the interviews, here you go, and gameplay came. Yeah. Carl D'Python Anghelo with the awesome game, 12-minute video, all of a sudden, bam, bam, bam. It was so good. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. Interviews and everything, wow. Unless you have the luxury of selling out before you even announce, then that's the next best thing to do is to have all of the materials ready to go at launch. Absolutely. And David was here. He was like, yeah, and then we had the – what was the show called? The show, was it – it wasn't Texas. What was it? Oh, it was Expo. Expo, yeah. So he was at Expo, but all the games were sold out. What the heck. So well done, man. Well done at – yeah. Hell yeah. At Barrels of Fun also. Yeah. Okay, this one, Donnie. Yeah. Best accessories. Off 2025. Probably Evil Dead if you're counting the topper, if you're counting the blaster shooter rod. Harry Potter had a great shooter rod. Jaws' topper was okay. And a lot of these games, like D&D still doesn't have accessories yet. What's going on? Dune doesn't have accessories yet. It's got that shooter rod, but we still haven't seen the topper. Venom doesn't have accessories yet. Oh, Venom has accessories. Those came out at TPL. Do we have Venom topper? Yeah, yeah. It's got like the LCD screen with the little liquid Venom guy going around, a bunch of plastic characters. And you get – Oh, I thought that was something fan-made. Is that from Stern? That's from Stern, yeah. And the shooter rod that looks like a swollen black testicle, that's the shooter rod. That's official. Yeah, it's official. Yeah, that was the joke, man. And then I made the matching testicles to hang under the game that matched the shooter rod. Remember with the blue vein on them? I thought that was fan-made stuff. No, no, that was real, dude. That was real. And you get Ghost Rider as an unlockable character, yeah. What? Okay, okay, yeah. So you say the topper for Evil Dead? Evil Dead. I think that's the only game we have where we have full, everything came out that we can judge it. You know, D&D might be better, but it hasn't come out. Portal Accessories only had a topper. Dune, we haven't seen the topper. King Kong. We've seen the King Kong accessories. I just don't think they're that impressive. Harry Potter had the next best stuff with the Quidditch shooter rod and their big topper was cool with the projection with the dark mark. I like the shooter rod. Yeah, so I would say ED number one and Harry Potter number two on accessories. Okay, fair. For me, best accessories for 2025, I don't care. Next one. I don't care. That was unfair. Next one, best surprise of 2025. Wow. Yeah, that was Winchester. Out of nowhere, came and sold out. Nobody was expecting it. Nobody's ready for it. Like, we were hyped for Beetlejuice. We were hyped for Harry Potter. You know, we were hyped for all these games. But, like, for Winchester to come out and just shock everybody, drain wallets, sell out, and then it's done. Yeah. Yeah, that was a big surprise. And while they're in Dune mode, and all of a sudden this drops out? Yeah, yeah. Damn. Whoa, respect. I love it. So I said Winchester also. Clearly, number one, best surprise. But I want to say an honorable mention and a very easy number two. And when I tell this, you will agree with me. So we saw Queen, ABBA. We saw games like that and all of a sudden Predator, when it came out and you played it for the first time, weren't you surprised? And it was actually good. Yeah. There we go. Bam. Predator. Perfect. Yeah. When I saw it first, I was like, whoa. I was the light show and everything. I was surprised. So that's on my number two. Absolutely. So Predator coming at number two. Cool. Okay. Let's speed up. Oh, this is easy. Best high-end product. Harry Potter. Which pinball machine feels like a high-end product? Yeah, Harry Potter. It's heavy, lighting, projections. Yeah, every movie is in there, every asset. Yeah, come on. Yeah. How about Beetlejuice? It's on my number two. Yeah. I mean, it really feels like everything is in there on Beetlejuice. Especially for the price, too. You have to consider the price. Harry Potter feels like a premium product. It also has a premium price of $15,000. Beetlejuice with butter cabinet, ghost glass, and topper is going to be approaching that as well. But damn. Yeah, but how does it feel as a total? Do I feel like I got ripped off when I have it, or do I feel like I really got it all in there? Yeah, exactly. Okay, I haven't seen it. And my number three as a high-end product, really, Winchester. Yeah, yeah. Evergloss decals, Horizon lighting package, Pepper's Ghost. Yeah, I don't feel they didn't cheap out. They did the radcals. They got good artists. I like Brad Brad Albright's art on there. I didn't think he phoned it in. Yeah, I like it all. Yeah. Okay. Good lineup. Oh, this one. I have two answers for this one. I'm going to hear your most improved from last year. Oh, okay. Oh, there's two. I have two, and they're probably the same two. And I think we're looking at Pinball Brothers, and we're looking at Barrels of Fun. I said Pinball Brothers as my number two because what a jump Pinball Brothers got. What a fucking jump. What a jump. Yeah. For ABBA to this. Fastboard system. Bally Williams flipper system. They just up there. When I unboxed Predator, it just worked. Everything worked on Predator. So thumbs up to Pinball Brothers. But for me, something magical has been happening with Spooky Man. Yeah. This year with games from last year to Beetlejuice and Evil Death, they have upped their games like crazy. It's amazing. If we're talking about, like, Evil Dead and Beetlejuice from TCM Looney Tunes, then, yeah, I can see it. I don't think it's as big of a chump as what Pinball Brothers did. I know what you mean. As far as, like, how big of a gap that was to jump, but, like, as far as, like, how far they have come since when they've started, then absolutely spooky. Yeah. Yeah. Although I think the one-year jump between ABBA to Predator is probably bigger than going Evil Dead to Beetlejuice for sure. It's amazing. But do not underestimate what Spooky has done because, yeah, I understand what you're saying with Predator, and I agree. But what Spooky has done with selling out completely and doubling in value, that's – I mean, has Texas Chainsaw – I don't think Texas Chainsaw – They haven't. They're still available. Although they're selling every week, though. Every week they're making more of them. So people are still buying them. Yeah, it's just a slow burn now. But I think TCM is, like, picking up, though. People are catching on now, finally, that it's great. Plus they can't get a Beetlejuice or an Evil Dead. Before we talk about the last thing, overall best game of Tone25, the last game, first of all, we need to say thank you for our Patreon supporters because we love those guys, right? We have high-level supporters on 50-box level like Enzo Ferrari. We love some Enzo. We love some Enzo. He wants to be on the show again. We got to bring Enzo on. Absolutely. Love you, brother. We have got Anthony Marua on high level. Love you, brother. What a guy, man. I want to talk about him. What a guy, yeah. I love him. I just got friends with him on Facebook. Love me some Anthony Yeah But I want to talk about one guy and that is Josh Cox JC JC man Unlimited edition The velvet Steve man. Yeah. He was there at the Beetlejuice party. He gives us like $250 or something, but I want to tell a story because behind the scene, I've been talking with him. We have got this trifecta, you, me, and a third person with a lot of guys, right? But I have got two, two, my, thing going on with Josh Cox. So, finally, he gets his evil dead. Yes. And this guy is a huge, huge spooky fan. And he said that all his pinball happiness, pinball friendship, pinball stuff, a lot of it is coming through the WAP team, right? He's a WAP guy, right? Josh Cox. So, we were talking, he has a lot of cool games, a lot of stern games. He has got his spooky games. But he tells me he was on his way home, so he got his evil debt. And he has been like, come on, do something. I want my evil debt. He gets it. But he got a new home, and he takes the game to his new place. He has nothing there. It's a brand new place, right? So nothing, just his new home. He puts off the game. He's alone, new home and everything, new game. And he's so excited. He's Donnie plus me plus 30. So excited he is. And then Spooky Luke packs the game with missing one ball. So he cannot start a new game. No, Spooky, no. It must have fell out of the box or something. What a pain in the butt. And, like, he didn't have, like, just some pinball guy nearby that he could just run over and grab a ball from? He's isolated out there, and he's like, he's alone, everything, new home, new game. Oh, and he has been talking about this for a year, and one ball missing, he cannot. If it was in his own home, he could just, you know, start a new, take a ball from his jaws or something, you know. Oh, man, Spooky Luke. What the heck, buddy? Man, somebody got slapped for doing that. Oh, yeah. When he said that, I was like, I want to jump in a plane and I want to fly there and give him back with 100 balls in there. Somebody overnight the sky a pinball. Yeah. So give it. Yeah, it's a shout out for Josh because we're feeling you, buddy. Yeah, he's such a sweetheart. You know what? When Josh was on his way to the game launch with Beetlejuice on the way over to you, so he hits me up and he's like, you know what, Cengiz, I love everything Don is doing, and I'm so grateful that he got picked with, was it 20 guys or 30 guys? It was 20, yeah. 20 guys, yeah. And he was so happy. And he was like, you know, Donnie, I want to give him a gift. Do you have any idea what I should give him? And I was like, do you know what, Josh? Instead of giving Donnie a gift, buy something for his daughter, Emma. Buy something for his daughter. I mean, just make her happy. She's doing a great sacrifice moving from her school to another school and everything. So he said, okay, great idea. What did you get? What did you get? Oh, the girls got gift cards. They were super happy. Oh, man, Josh Cox. Give him an air horn, man. What a guy. What a guy. Hell yeah. Yeah, baby. hell yes okay all right the last one yeah overall best game of 2025 this is a hard one to pick one because you know what do we got that's like absolutely tops harry potter for sure uh evil dead and beetlejuice and winchester yeah um that's one two three four so which one's the best i my creditor on that list i love it yeah okay so there's there's our five and as much as you I laud Portal and Merlin's Arcade, and King Kong was great, and Jaws is just phenomenal. Walking Dead is great also, Donnie. I know. I haven't played the remaster yet. Why haven't we talked about Star Wars? It's the theme of the year. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. You know what? I didn't pick a game of 2025 because it's hard, man. I think the game that wins 2025 is the friends we made along the way. That's the biggest game of all. Now, people want to hear Harry Potter. Yes, yes. But for some people, it's Harry Potter. For a lot of people, it's probably Harry Potter. I think for a lot of people, it's Beetlejuice. For a lot of people, it's Winchester. For you, it's Predator. And I think we can leave it at that. Is that a cop-out? Is that a cop-out? No, I just want to say thank you for all these companies. They're all making great games. And as I mentioned, still Walking Dead. I know it's not ready yet, but what a great game to remaster. I love that game. So, oh, my God, all the companies, I love you guys. So thank you. So many great games. I'm looking so much forward to 2026. I recently listened to a Saturday show with Chris, and he mentioned one of the upcoming games from Bears. And I thought this was not information we could share. I was in shock because he said that Bears of Fun was working on the circus game. Yeah. And I watched the show like the day after, and I was like, whoa, that's a secret. Don't share it. And he shared it. And people at the comment section, they wrote, oh, Don told this for a long time ago. And I was like, don't tell us. Don did not tell that. I don't know where that's coming from. I have not told that. You didn't say that to me. Now, there was a live stream that Cary Hardy did at Barrels of Fun where it was kind of pretty much revealed that that's what was over there. and then I may have covered what was already publicly available and said through that live stream, and people may have construed that as me confirming it. Okay. But, yeah, I heard that too. The circus game is over there. I don't know how much we can talk about it because, like, 10 years ago, my bro over here was about to buy that circus game, and I was like, that with the elephant and everything? He was like, yeah, it's cool. I was like, no, don't buy it. So, yeah. So now what if you could get it for like $10,000 or something, and it would be a working edition with actual code and was actually a game, and it will be made in limited numbers? Is that something for like the collector that has everything would probably like to have that as well? Maybe for the location that has everything would like to have that working where people could come play it? I think for that reason it should probably exist. If Beryl does that with 300 games, locations want them. But also, we have a lot of old, you know, 90s Billy Williams collectors. For the history pinball collectors, they will also love to buy this one. But it has to be limited. It would be 100% limited, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like I would not buy Winchester and get this instead. but if I already had everything and I wanted something that would command attention in a room and take up less space than a traditional pinball machine it's fun for what it is so I just want to end the show with so we actually all of a sudden when we had this trifecta with you, me and Chris you shared some cool pictures from this warehouse with all the pinball machines and Chris was like let's do a show Let's talk about it. We talked about it on the Patreon. And the general understanding from a lot of people is it's a myth. It doesn't exist. But it do exist, right? There is a warehouse. Yeah. It's like it's right near O'Hare. It's less than a mile away. It's just north of there in like a big trucking facility. There's warehouse space. And it's sizable, you know. And, you know, companies like Stern are making games. They're loading moving trucks and stuff is going out, right? They don't let me just pull up in my pickup truck and pick up my game from the factory. We have to pay a team like $100 or something to load the games in there when they're available and then take them, you know, a couple miles up the street to this warehouse, drop them off there, and then I can go and pick up from that warehouse. So it's more like a distribution center. So if you are an out-of-state distributor and most of the companies are in Chicago, you can have all of the games in your order from various manufacturers warehoused at the same spot, and then they can ship independently out there to customers rather than shipping directly from the Jersey Jack dock or directly from the Stern dock if it's just like a one-off game. Or, you know, I've seen Haggis games come in before and be stored there. I've seen Elvira's there. I saw CGC's games there. And there's also like there's far more like casino machines and other redemption things going than there are pinball machines. And every time I go in there, it's something different. So it's not like Ark of the Covenant, like here's all the unsold John Wicks, you know, and unsold Venom Pros stacked to the ceiling or anything. It's just a warehouse space that a bunch of different distributors will use as like their own distribution warehouse in Chicago. It's just it's largely pinball and redemption machines, so it's a lot of the same companies using it, if that makes sense. So I heard Carol Hardy, he asked George Gomez, he said, do we have a warehouse with 15,000 games? Oh, so that's the rumored Stern warehouse space, which probably absolutely exists. And that's, you know, because, you know, they only have so much space on the floor to store their games. So if they're going, if they're unsold, they need to go somewhere. They have to have somewhere to put them. So there probably is a warehouse somewhere stacked floor to ceiling with unsold Venom Pros out there. But not 15,000. No, I don't think so. Probably not. I was over at JJP and I saw about 80 or so unsold Elton Johns one time, and they were all just kind of in the corner of the factory. So if they get overburdened and they need space, they have to have some place to put those games off at. And he did say that we do have a warehouse that says Georgia's personal games are kept there. So I'm sure they have some warehouse space. I don't know where that one is. I don't know that anybody will ever see it. But do they have a facility in the Arizona desert where games can just sit and not rot? Maybe. I don't know. But as far as the distribution warehouse, I know where that's at. You shared pictures where there were a lot of game boxes in the background. Well, it's fun for me when I go in there and there's a bunch of stuff. I want to take selfies of myself with it all. So cool. So cool, and I love you for it. So if you should say just in the ballpark, how many boxes of games would you – Is it 500? Is it 1,000 games? It ebbs and flows. Sometimes I go there and there's not much. Other times, like, shipments just came in and there's tons of stuff. The other thing is when games hit this warehouse, a lot of times the customer or whoever is picking it up is there the next day to take it. So things aren't, like, stored there long term. You know, it's just usually long enough until they're going to somewhere. So I've been there when there's been 50 games before, and I've been there when there's been, like, 10 or less. You know, it just depends. Is this the load? No. People are talking about drop ship purchases. Is this the place where you buy a game and it just gets drop shipped from there to the customer? Right, yeah. So I think directly from like Jersey Jack, they may drop ship from there. Or it may be like, hey, distributor, your five games are ready in your order. Come get them. Send a truck. And then if you're out of state, you'll send a crew over there to go pick up your order, take it over, drop it off at the warehouse, and they get a couple hundred bucks for that. And then you can have things shipped directly from that distribution warehouse because there's a guy that works there in a forklift. And if you're shipping it out to a customer, the trucking company will come up and he'll load that order and get it out. Okay. So, guys, to round it up, it's not a myth. It exists. It's there. It's all right. The thing that I am shocked about is the warehouse that Mike from Automated has. When Chris and Todd Turkey went into his warehouse and showed like 150 new in-box Guns N' Roses and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Venoms. And he had so many unsold brand new in-box games. that was, I thought that was a myth, but I saw it with my own eyes. That was amazing, man. Yeah, that's the cash, man. That guy's got... And it's old games, Donnie. Old, brand new in-box games, man. Can you imagine like an old South Park or a Simpsons pinball party or something just new in-box back there? Oh, that's something else. If you go that long back, absolutely, Donnie. Okay, our 30 minutes ended up being two hours, so So, yeah. Do we do this in a month again or maybe before? No, no, no. We'll be back before then. We'll be back before then, of course. But, no, this was fun. That return to form for the Wobsters and the Wob people. Thanks for Patreon for hanging out with us. We'll do bonus content as it comes up. I think we'll do some more of that because that could be spur of the moment, man. Let's just talk some trash on the Internet and get it out there to people that are hungry to pay for it. Are you good? Yeah, baby. Let's go. All right. Three, two, one. Welcome to We Are Pinball. This was Don and Cengiz sharing our hearts with you and our love for the pinball and the silver game. We promise never to send you a game missing a ball if we can help it. Otherwise, email us at wearepinball69 at gmail.com. That's how to get at us. Patreon.com backslash wearepinball is the source for the most. Cengiz, give us some final words, homie. Guys, I have missed this. I have missed everybody and I'm so so happy every time you write we need more WAP in our lives so here we go and I'll see you on the next one very very soon peace