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Welcome to 2017

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 11s·analyzed·Jan 8, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Blockade Podcast 2017 kickoff: digital pinball app reviews, DMD tech evolution, and industry speculation.

Summary

The Blockade Podcast's 2017 New Year episode covers weather updates, fidget cube knockoffs, gameplay impressions of Gladiator and Doctor Who pinball tables, digital pinball app updates, and Stern's new full-color video DMD technology in Aerosmith. Hosts discuss controller support issues in pinball apps, provide feedback to indie developer Noodlecake Studios, and speculate on Stern's strategy for releasing tables to the Pinball Arcade app.

Key Claims

  • Fidget Cube Kickstarter raised $6.3 million on a $16,000 goal

    medium confidence · Chris discusses Fidget Cube crowdfunding success; stated as rough recollection ('I believe')

  • Official Fidget Cube has not yet shipped to Kickstarter backers despite massive funding

    medium confidence · Chris notes uncertainty ('I'm not 100% sure on this') but cites videos of UK recipients and Chinese knockoffs using exact branding

  • Stern's Aerosmith table features full video DMD (plasma/color) rather than traditional dot-matrix

    high confidence · Chris confirms seeing video: 'their DMD, because they're now going full video DMD. Plasma. Yeah, full.'

  • Batman '66 is the first Stern table with color DMD, followed by Aerosmith

    high confidence · Chris corrects earlier assumption: 'Batman '66 is the first table with the color DMD, isn't it, from Stern'

  • Farsight is implementing cross-purchase/cross-buy for Stern Pinball Arcade tables across iOS and Android

    high confidence · Chris confirms Farsight announcement: 'It will be open for you in the game. It's already been that way on Steam, but it will be coming to iOS and Android shortly.'

  • Stern tables in Pinball Arcade app are releasing approximately one year after physical machine release

    medium confidence · Chris speculates based on current pipeline: 'I think those will probably, you'd expect those maybe a year at least, I would think.'

  • Gladiator (Gottlieb) has tuning issues with ramp angles making shots difficult to hit reliably

    high confidence · Chris reports direct gameplay experience: 'The left ramp and the right called spinner loop. I cannot hit them to save my life by aiming.'

  • Doctor Who: Masters of Time has mode name mismatch ('Fire and Rain' announced vs 'Fire and Ice' on playfield)

    medium confidence · Chris notes discrepancy with caveat about verification: 'they couldn't even link the name of the round to the name on the playfield, I think, for memory. I would have to go back and verify'

Notable Quotes

  • “It's just going to be like little peaks of buildings sticking out if you need to get into any of the ski lodges.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~1:30 — Weather segment describing 20 feet of snow at Mammoth Mountain; sets casual conversational tone

  • “China just said, oh, that looks nice. We'll just go to the Kickstarter page and totally copy that design and then sell it for $9.99.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~4:30 — Humorous but pointed commentary on counterfeit product ecosystem; relevant to manufacturing/IP concerns

  • “The left ramp – it's a late shot from the flipper, from what I remember anyway. So you do have to be quite on the tip of it to get it up there.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~14:00 — Technical gameplay feedback on Gladiator shot geometry; explains tuning challenges

  • “You can't figure out. You need to quickly glance to see what you need to do and not have to actually scan an entire 26-inch plasma or LCD and go, okay, that's what I need to do.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~42:30 — Design philosophy critique of Jersey Jack's busy display vs Stern's cleaner approach; reflects industry design debate

  • “Getting controllers to work in a game is actually really, really hard. Really hard.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~24:00 — Technical insight into game development complexity; explains multi-platform controller challenges

  • “It looks fantastic. I really, really liked it because it conveys all the information very clearly, which is my big problem with Jersey Jack's tables, is that it's just this... very busy up there.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~41:30 — Direct manufacturer comparison on display technology; competitive positioning signal

  • “But I found what they did to be a really nice evolution of a DMD screen into full plasma with full color and video and all that other jazz.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~42:00 — Positive assessment of Stern's technical innovation; marks industry evolution point

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlockade PodcastorganizationStern PinballcompanyFarsight StudioscompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyGottliebcompanyNoodlecake StudioscompanyAerosmithgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Farsight implementing cross-purchase capability for Stern Pinball Arcade tables (iOS, Android, Steam). Indicates licensing maturity and platform consolidation strategy.

    high · Chris confirms: 'Farsight...have also announced that it will be cross-purchase, cross-buy, however you want to say it, for any Stern table that you already previously owned in Pinball Arcade.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Blockade Podcast hosts actively providing technical feedback to indie developer (Noodlecake Studios) on controller standards and best practices. Community-driven quality improvement.

    high · Chris: 'I emailed them what I thought would be better and basically it was all just – why don't we go with what the standard way of doing things that Zen and The Pinball Arcade...and not what you've done.' Noodlecake responding positively.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern's full-color video DMD represents significant technical differentiation from Jersey Jack, positioning around superior information hierarchy and visual clarity for competitive play.

    medium · Chris explicitly praises Stern's approach as evolution while criticizing Jersey Jack's density: 'really nice evolution of a DMD screen...very busy up there. You can't figure out.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Doctor Who: Masters of Time has mode name/label mismatch ('Fire and Rain' announced vs 'Fire and Ice' on playfield) and voice callout system that feels random/triggered rather than cohesively scripted.

    medium · Chris notes QC failure: 'they couldn't even link the name of the round to the name on the playfield, I think, for memory.' Also: 'callouts are kind of just random' and 'triggered rather than staged.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.172

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. WizardAmusement.com, the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods. Easy to install, totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com, sales, restoration, customization. Happy New Year! You are listening to The Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me, as always, in the future, Jared Morgan.
0:39
Hey, hey, hey. Yes, for the future I am. It's Sunday here, and things are looking good so far. So far. You guys in the Northern Hemisphere?
0:51
Yes, we are. Southern California is... well, actually all of California is experiencing a moisture spell, which is very good for us since we are so drought ridden.
1:03
But they have said up in Northern California, the Pineapple Express has flown in. And to give you an idea, they described it as a river of rain in the sky.
1:17
A river of rain in the sky. And the major ski resort up north, Mammoth Mountain, they are expecting 20 feet of snow in less than a week.
1:35
Wow. So there's actually not going to be any buildings left up there. It's just going to be like little peaks of buildings sticking out if you need to get into any of the ski lodges. I always imagine that the ski lifts are basically going to be about five feet above the snow. yeah well that's gonna be easy you just jump off on wherever you want and just go back down the mountain again yeah it's amazing with that kind of snow dump Mammoth will be open for skiing probably all the way into July which is just insane so it'll have that much snow banked up I guess that it will be able to sustain skiers going down it for that long yes wow that seems incredible wow it's nuts absolutely nuts um so we we have only gotten drizzles here down southern california we're expecting all week though to be uh getting douses of rain so that should make driving on the freeway rather fun because we have no clue how to deal with that no no i think i've seen some snow falling in weird places i follow this account on twitter called silver ball museum but they have snow down there and that's really unusual for them so yeah very strange times indeed that's right no such thing as climate change no no it's deny deny deny there is no such thing as climate change repeated over and over and over again last time I talked about the stress cube that I had purchased and fiddled around with in my hands while doing the podcast here. We were informed, or I was informed then that that's not the original.

“If they start seeing an uptick in sales of their tables, then that would probably inspire Stern to maybe push to get these newer tables out closer to actual release.”

Chris Frebus @ ~51:00 — Speculation on Stern's app strategy tied to physical sales metrics; indicates market interdependence thinking

  • “There's a lot of good titles that are still in the backlog that they need to get into – things like Metallica and all these other ones that are still waiting to be done.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~55:00 — References Metallica as upcoming Pinball Arcade title; confirms production queue signal

  • “Which we're accustomed to doing. Yes.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~56:30 — Self-aware callback to hosts' speculation habit; meta-commentary on podcast format

    • Batman '66
    game
    Gladiatorgame
    Doctor Who: Masters of Timegame
    Snowballgame
    Ghostbustersgame
    Metallicagame
    Pinball Arcadeproduct
    WizardAmusement.comcompany
    Fidget Cubeproduct
    Stress Cubeproduct
    Hereticperson

    design_philosophy: Contrast between Stern's information-dense but scannable DMD approach vs Jersey Jack's overly busy, complex display architecture. Implications for user experience and competitive positioning.

    high · Chris: 'You can't figure out. You need to quickly glance to see what you need to do and not have to actually scan an entire 26-inch plasma or LCD.' Criticism of Jersey Jack's design clarity.

  • $

    market_signal: Stern appears to be adopting wait-and-see approach to Pinball Arcade app release cadence. Sales metrics and user feedback will inform decision to accelerate or maintain current timeline.

    medium · Chris: 'Stern is probably going to wait and see what the release of this app does for interest in their more modern tables that people can actually still get a hold of. If they start seeing an uptick in sales...'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jared Morgan functions as technical/software domain expert on podcast, providing developer-level insight into controller APIs (Moga), platform-specific constraints, and software development complexity.

    high · Jared: 'I said, so don't do that. Just go with the standard Android one.' Shows deep platform knowledge and mentoring role with indie developers.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Farsight Studios and Stern operating on ~1 year delay between physical pinball machine release and digital Pinball Arcade app availability. Strategy tied to arcade operator revenue protection.

    high · Chris speculates: 'I think those will probably, you'd expect those maybe a year at least, I would think.' Jared confirms backlog includes Metallica and others still pending app release.

  • ?

    product_concern: Gladiator (Gottlieb) has mechanical tuning issues with left ramp and spinner loop shot geometry, making consistent execution difficult. Quality control concern for manufacturer.

    high · Chris reports direct gameplay: 'The left ramp and the right called spinner loop. I cannot hit them to save my life by aiming. The ball just goes on these funky angles, and it's really highly annoying.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive reception to Farsight's Doctor Who table implementation despite issues. Community expectation set for post-launch iterative improvement and patch updates (model established by Stern).

    medium · Chris encourages: 'Farsight, don't give up on the table...Nurse it. Listen to feedback.' Earlier: 'I think they did a very commendable job. It's certainly not Ghostbusters.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Controller implementation in digital pinball apps remains problematic across platforms (Steam, Android, iOS). Varied approaches (Moga API legacy issues, button mapping limitations) create inconsistent UX.

    high · Chris and Jared discuss multiple controller issues: Judge Dredd initials entry broken on Steam but works on Android; Snowball controller scheme 'wonky' and backwards; Farsight limited to two preset modes vs Steam's full configuration.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern transitioning from traditional dot-matrix DMD to full-color video/plasma displays on new machines (Aerosmith, Batman '66). First significant hardware architecture change in cabinet design in years.

    high · Chris confirms video footage of Aerosmith: 'their DMD, because they're now going full video DMD. Plasma. Yeah, full.' Batman '66 confirmed as first implementation.

    • 3:19
    They're not the ones that did the Kickstarter. In fact, the people that did the Kickstarter, they are known as the Fidget Cube. Now, I did a little research on this. It turns out the guys that came up with this idea for the Fidget Cube, they held the Kickstarter. They were looking for something in the nature of $16,000 to fund this thing. That's not that bad. Not too bad. They got funded to the tune of, I believe, $6.3 million. Wow, that's not bad. Not bad at all. Now, obviously, what happened was, because this was so successful and got spread across all the news,
    3:57
    everybody else decided, hey, let's jump on board with that. You mean China just said, oh, that looks nice. We'll just go to the Kickstarter page and totally copy that design and then sell it for $99. Exactly, because in fact, they have not shipped out any Fidget Cube yet. You're kidding me. So they've been left at the starting post. They are still waiting to ship out to all their Kickstarter people. Now, I'm not sure if that's – I'm going to caveat this with saying I'm not 100% sure on this, because I have seen videos online of people in the UK that have gotten the official Fidget Cube, I believe. but I may not be correct about that because it turns out that there are also Chinese knockoffs that are using the exact name, Fidget Cube and backing them away I ordered one it didn't cost me $19 US, it cost me something like $10 Australian right, now here's the interesting thing Jared and we'll see how yours turns out but it turns out that the knockoffs are really really quite crappy for instance There is a ball bearing on the cube that you can push in and rotate nicely. And it turns out that on most of the Chinese knockoffs, the ball bearing does not push in at all. And it's really hard to scroll with. Also, the little combination gears, on mine it spins freely. And on some of the Chinese knockoffs, it's like click, click, click, click. It's really hard to turn. Other things are the little five-button dice. They're made of rubber, except for the Chinese knockoffs are made out of hard plastic. And whereas this one has three that click and two that make no sound, Chinese ones, all five of them click.
    5:49
    So there's apparently all sorts of little shortcuts or whatever, which made it. Oh, and the Chinese ones are made out of plastic, whereas the Fidget Cube is made out of vinyl. So interestingly enough, Stress Cube, made out of vinyl, has the rubber buttons, has all the features that seem to be with the Fidget Cube. They are also going for a patent right now, but on their website it actually says not associated with Antsy Labs, who is the one that are making the true Fidget Cube.
    6:17
    Fidget Cube is expected to start shipping out this month to Kickstarter people, and then people that have ordered pre-order are expected to be shipping out in February. So the real deal should be getting in people's hands soon. That being said, Stress Cube.
    6:35
    And now, if you go onto Amazon and type in Stress Cube, again, tons of them. Not the official Stress Cube one either. Not that we were told by the site. So you'd have to go to thestresscube.com in order to buy the one that I bought. Or you can go to ansylabs.com. They're the ones that are creating the actual Fidget Cube, the true one. So I'm kind of interested. I'd like to actually get in my hands the actual Fidget Cube and see how much different it feels from the one I had. The one issue I had with mine, the little joystick on top on my cube started sticking, so I didn't care for that.
    7:14
    For those watching the video, you can see I have it stuck in place now. It doesn't walk back like it should. So I got a hold of, I sent an email to the Stress Cube. They got back to me real quick and sent me a replacement one. That's pretty good. As opposed to what some people were saying when they tried to contact some of these knockoff companies, where they got zero response at all, and one person actually went and looked up their address that they had listed, went and visited the place, and it was an empty shell of an office.
    7:43
    Yep, that's pretty common. So buyer beware. I'm very curious to know what you purchased there, Jared.
    7:49
    Yeah. Mine was actually branded Fidget Cube, I think. It's got the little box with Fidget Cube on it. Yeah, I know. And the videos that I've seen of the Chinese mock-offs are exactly identical to that.
    8:01
    Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. I will see it. I could tell you that for what it is, I wouldn't be paying $20 US for it and then having to pay $30 to ship it over here. So if I can pay $12 for something that may work for a little bit and maybe 80% work. Yes. Don't work, but everything else works, then I'll be quite happy with saving $40 Australian on something that kind of works and I can fidget around with it. Yeah, it's definitely not worth $40. I can say that much.
    8:32
    No. We're in overtime! I finally got around to playing Gladiator and Doctor Who Masters of Time. Okay. Gladiator. Is it me, or is there something wrong with the tuning on this table? the left and right, well, the left ramp and the right called spinner loop.
    8:56
    I cannot hit them to save my life by aiming. The ball just goes on these funky angles, and it's really highly annoying because that left ramp, you've got to hit all the time. There's all sorts of times when it's being called for to hit it, and I just can't get it out of flow. It just does not go at the angle that I want. So I don't know, Jared, have you messed around with it? I did when it was under beta testing, but I didn't touch it really much after that. The left ramp, it's a late shot from the flipper, from what I remember anyhow. So you do have to be quite on the tip of it to get it up there. It's weird how they've actually got the ramp position in the play field. And it's a long ramp too. So it's a long way up to the top there. Yeah. so if you don't get it right on it will rattle back down on you so if it's doing that and you're experiencing that then that's right basically yeah on the positives in terms of a godly premiere this falls into the category of like say era wise I believe of like teed off and I say that based off of all I have to do is look at the apron and see what lights they have because they like to put those lights on multiple tables it was almost like oh we made them for one let's use them for all that's right the voice callouts the way they kind of did the callouts and some of the sound effects kind of thing it just reminded me of being from the era of Teed Off as opposed to doesn't feel anything like Victory or what was the later oh no it's definitely not Victory it's not that system no yeah it's basically the same era as Stargate and all those sort of DMD Gottlieb premieres yeah so yeah the thing I noted is that there's a mode called it's announced as Fire and Rain, but I think on the playfield it's actually Fire and Ice. So they couldn't even link the name of the round to the name on the playfield, I think, for memory. I would have to go back and verify, but I believe that's actually what it is in the game. So great, great quality checking there, guys.
    11:01
    That's about all I had time for with Gladiator, so I was like, yeah, it's forgettable. That's about all you need with Gladiator. That'll be enough. Moving on to Doctor Who Masters of Time. I want to say that, you know what, Farsight did a pretty good job with it, all things considered. It hasn't been released on Android, so I have no idea what it's like. It is not terribly, I mean, none of the shots are different. Let's put it to you that way.
    11:35
    The rules are slightly different. They didn't alter them too much. the only difference on the play field is instead of having a two ball lock that you can see, it's the three ball lock by shooting them into the TARDIS itself. And they're virtual. So they're not, they're not held. They're just like, you would call them software controlled if it was a real game. Right. Yeah. Like attack from Mars. Yeah.
    12:04
    The thing that I love about it is that I can understand every single call out. Okay, that's good. That alone gets me playing it more than the regular Doctor Who.
    12:15
    You know, it's a poor old pre-DTS sound effects from the original Doctor Who are pretty wobbly and garbled. The bummer is that the call-outs are kind of just random.
    12:28
    You know, it's that, hey, we've got a whole bunch of voice call-outs, let's slap them in. You know, you hit a bumper and it talks about it. but it doesn't feel like you're in the middle of a mode and callouts are being called out only for that mode. Yeah. It's very sort of just triggered rather than staged. Yes. So when you hit a target, it's the same callout all over again. So that's a bummer. That's a bummer. The DMDs that Farsight did, because they did all new animations for quite a few. I mean, they did quite a few animations. Really good job. I mean, they did a really good job.
    13:03
    So I was quite pleased with that. And then the one other bummer is we don't get the Doctor Who theme. Oh, really? Yeah. And that was kind of like, oh, we couldn't pay for that. Bummer. Or we weren't just given that as part of the package, you know, with the collaboration with BBC, et cetera, et cetera. Like, come on. Really? Oh, well. So here's what I would like, fingers crossed, and I was talking to Heretic earlier today and he was really going off about it and I was like, well, mate, it ain't going to happen. But, you know what, maybe if enough of us racists think, Farsight, don't give up on the table. If you can still implement rules, if you can still maybe be more cohesive, do what Stern does. They release a table and then for the next year they keep on doing patch updates and rule changes and whatnot. Don't give up on this table. No, nurse it. Listen to feedback.
    14:05
    Roll it in. It's out, so don't feel like nobody's waiting for it and pressuring you but take your time If you come up with anything new throw it in Give us some you know it would be wonderful to have this table update and again take community feedback of what they would like to see now that they've got their hands on it and maybe implement it, maybe put it in. So that's all I'm saying. I would love to see them continue to tinker with it, but I don't think they did a terrible job at all. I think they did a very commendable job. It's certainly not Ghostbusters.
    14:41
    Fair enough. Okay, that speaks volumes. Yes. Well, hopefully at some point they'll release it. I think they couldn't get it out before Christmas because there was just too much stuff in the pipe. Right. But I think they're looking at getting it out on Android this month.
    14:59
    They're already doing a test on a Stern Pimble Arcade update in beta that's supposed to fix a fair number of issues. some of the ones that have been reported and some that have been reported haven't been fixed yet like anything in software development these days particularly games, it's an iterative process so just stand by yeah, okay good thing you touched red while it's on my head, I finally got around to actually playing that it's been, you're like what, that's been out a while, yeah well you know sometimes it takes a while so I was messing around with that and I was having a good time, and then it got to the enter your initials spot.
    15:46
    Well, so here's the thing. When most people do this, the default, when using a controller in Pinball Arcade, they have you using the trigger buttons for your flippers. Well, the triggers are not... It's a slow response. It's a long pull. I always map it to the shoulder buttons above those. Yeah, that's how I've got my controls set up. The digital on-off buttons rather than the analog. Exactly. Now, when it comes time to enter initials, you always have to use the triggers to enter your initials. The shoulder buttons don't enter the initials. Well, it turns out that on Judge Dredd, there was four buttons.
    16:30
    Yes. And Farsight likes to usually have the secondary buttons. you just flip and map them, right? Well, because I have them flipped on the map, but because whenever you normally did initial entering, it always just defaulted to the triggers, you can't enter your initials. It's impossible.
    16:56
    Using a controller, it is absolutely... It doesn't turn around the mapping, and instead it just... You can't select... You push the button to move it either or, and it just selects it. You're not even pushing the select button on your controller. It's just automatically selecting. I don't know. Something's jacked up, and I'm not the only person that has this issue because I looked it up on the forum.
    17:22
    It doesn't happen on Android. It's fine on Android. Well, that's because you're using touch. Well, no, you said you're using controller. I'm using controller. It works fine on Android. It does not work fine at all on Steam, and it was rather annoying to me. The thing is we can't map our buttons. We only have two ways of switching our controllers. So we basically got button mode A and button mode B. Button mode A sets the triggers and button mode B sets the other way around. So it basically just swaps the function on the two shoulder buttons. And that's it. So we don't have the configuration you guys do in Steam, which is why it works. because it's very locked down and it's probably for a good reason. Button mapping is fine, but I've said this before in the podcast, but getting controllers to work in a game is actually really, really hard. Really hard. So it actually cost the team at Butterscotch Shenanigans to get the controller implementation for Crashlands working. It would have taken about 50 or 60 hours to get it right. It is hard stuff to get right. It's interesting that you say that, because you were messing around with a game called Snowball on Steam. Or excuse me, not on Steam. You were messing around with it on Android.
    18:43
    Android, yeah. Yeah, Snowball's an interesting sort of take on pinball, I guess. We'll get into the what it is, but first I wanted to talk about why I got involved. so you were you inquired about whether or not they had controller support for the Android correct? correct and they did not so then they said we do have it for Steam and I was like well hey I'd be glad to you know give a sample and try it out so they sent me the code so I was able to download it and try it and yeah their controller scheme is all sorts of wonky I admit in the conversation we had to them that they kind of guessed with how it worked. And that's fine because if you're not into pinball, if you're not into digital pinball, you haven't actually played other titles, you wouldn't know how to set up and control it right. So yeah, they kind of guessed, and they got it probably about 60% right.
    19:41
    But there were some big things that went right. And what were those things, Chris? Well, for starters, everything is swapped backwards, you might say. The nudge is with your right analog stick instead of your left analog stick. That's annoying.
    19:59
    The plunger is your left analog stick, not your right analog stick. So they kind of flip-flop that. There is no navigation with the controller in the menu, so you still have to use mouse. So that's kind of a bummer. so it was little niggly things like that I emailed them what I thought would be better and basically it was all just why don't we go with what the standard way of doing things that Zen and TPA and the Ask Homer or wait it's not Ask Zacharia why don't we go with what they've all done and not what you've done but that's pretty much I think that's what they're aiming to do So I think they're actually pretty good. They're a small little studio, Noodlecake Studios, and they're pretty responsive. They're actually toying with the idea of putting control support in for Android, and I sort of said, look, give it a go, but don't be surprised if it's really quite difficult or more difficult than you'd think. Yeah. And then I showed them a bit of the lessons learned that we've seen on Farsight and the way they've chosen a particular API, which is the Moga API, which back about two or three years ago was a really popular controller,
    21:21
    hardware controller that had its own integration layer. And I think it's actually causing more troubles than it was worth rather than just going with the default Android API for controllers. But I said, so don't do that. Just go with the standard Android one and you're basic in the game. So navigating menus won't be hard for them to wire in. and the game itself, very simple controls. Yeah, very simple controls. I don't think they're going to have a lot of trouble doing it on Android, but I'm not sure if it's actually going to be something that happens. It's just something we've told them about, so they can do with it what they like. We're happy to help them out.
    21:59
    Yeah, if you're wondering what kind of pinball it is, the closest that I can come to relating it is, hey, do you remember Space Cadet?
    22:12
    It's kind of like that. Yeah. I probably recount it quite a bit. Like if you've ever played a Game Boy game called Revenge of the Gator and you enjoyed that game, chances are you're probably going to enjoy this.
    22:26
    Instead of being split over multiple screens because of the limitations of the Game Boy, it's basically one massive play field. You can see it all times. And the ball, even the gameplay and the physics and everything reminds me a little bit of Revenge of the Gator in the way it is. It's certainly not super realistic physics. So if you want that, this is not the title for you.
    22:49
    But if you just want something to flip around on the train when you're going to work or you just want something casual to play and you're not really wanting to get deep into anything, then get this a go. It's not that expensive to pick up. And, yeah, it's a fun distraction.
    23:05
    It's a distraction, and it's got music that all I could think of was the Peanuts gang. he's got this piano music no worries in Android you can switch between music on and sound off sound on music off and music off and likewise it just toggles through so if you don't like it you can turn it off and put on some thrash metal instead hey Farsight has been updating the Stern Pinball app the controller support on Steam has gotten better it's still not 100% but it has gotten better. Good news! You can now enter your initials. You weren't able to do that prior.
    23:49
    They have also announced that it will be cross-purchase, cross-buy, however you want to say it, for any Stern table that you already previously owned in Pinball Arcade. It will be open for you in the game. It's already been that way on Steam, but it will be coming to iOS and Android shortly. They made an announcement of that. yes I saw that as well which is good to see one thing that's a little disturbing is that on Android they're actually doing what I feared they would do the last time we spoke about the fact that they had opened up the device list quite wide I think what they're actually doing now is they're actually tightening that device list so that may bite them in the bum but that will remain to be seen Other things pinball related. Jared, did you happen to see Stern's Aerosmith table?
    24:45
    Yeah, I did have a little squiz at the pictures. Did you see video of it, though? Looks. No, a very, very short one, not extended gameplay. I saw video of it, and not so much the gameplay itself that I cared about, but their DMD, because they're now going full video DMD. plasma. Yeah, full.
    25:08
    And I gotta say, it looks fantastic. I really, really liked it because it conveys all the information very clearly, which is my big problem with Jersey Jack's tables, is that it's just this... Yeah, it's very busy up there. You can't figure out.
    25:25
    You need to quickly glance to see what you need to do and not have to actually scan an entire 26-inch plasma or LCD and go, okay, that's what I need to do. And by that time, your ball's drained. Yeah, but I found what they did to be a really nice evolution of a DMD screen into full plasma with full color and video and all that other jazz. But some people were going, oh, I wonder what this means for Stern Pimple Lap. I was like, you know what? It doesn't really mean hardly anything else because it's not a – the DMD does not take up the entire back box like Jersey Jacks does. so it's just a larger DMD kind of on the lines of what Frankenstein has. Yeah, you'll notice that with Frankenstein it's slightly bigger but you'll notice that the dot grouping is a lot tighter so it looks a little bit crisper and that's I think all we would see in the app. It would only just be a little bit crisper which is going to be really interesting to see performance wise how they get around that because adding another color screen layer with emulation on top of that, wow, that's going to be fun times.
    26:36
    We will see. Indeed, see, the first one that they have it on is Ghostbusters, isn't it? Oh, no, Batman 66 is the first table with the colour DMD, isn't it, from Stern. So it'll be that one and then Aerosmith.
    26:55
    So we'll see how it goes. I think those will probably, you'd expect those maybe a year at least, I would think.
    27:02
    Have a look at the titles they're releasing now. Yeah. Have a look at the titles they're releasing now. Or they're just announcing now. Like we're talking Ghostbusters is a future title.
    27:13
    And that will probably be out for about a year by the time they get around to doing it. Woyne Alley as well. Woyne Alley's been out for a while, but that won't be a big challenge for them, I don't think.
    27:28
    But, you know, I think it seems that in these early stages it looks like they're about a year behind which is fine release which it's not great though because it's i don't know you might look at it as like the the relationship that movie theaters and home video had where they wouldn't release it for a certain amount of months after because they needed the studios to get and the cinemas to get the most sort of gameplay out of it. And arguably, you could say the same about this app and a physical pinball table and the fact that you want the arcade owners to get maximum coin drops into it while it's new.
    28:06
    But, you know, there's an opportunity here to actually have the app as a companion to the pinball machine. So a lot of locations might not actually have their machines in the same place for a year. So, you know, you might be down your pub for a year and then it finally comes out on Pinball IK and you can, like, learn the rules and really get into it better. and then it goes. So, you know, you don really have a chance to exploit it anymore or like you really get into it Well here what I would say So there that as well I would say that Stern is probably going to wait and see what the release of this app does for interest in their more modern tables that people can actually still get a hold of. If they start seeing an uptick in sales of their tables, then that would probably inspire Stern to maybe push to get these newer tables out closer to actual release. Um, the idea of eventually, I believe that they had mentioned, uh, Stern mentioned not Farsight, um, was that if you could get it out in beta form out to the public, then they could test their code, um, with real users rather than wait for it to hit the market and then tweak the code.
    29:23
    Um, because again, it's virtual, it's all digital. And by nature of being digital, you have Farsight build it. then you give it to your engineers at Stern. Now they're able to actually play it, not Whitewood, but play a digital version with your code and see how it goes. You can make all sorts of tweaks then digitally. Hey, here's a new CAD file. Let's try this and see how it functions. So I'm not concerned right now because I think that Stern is very much in a wait-and-see approach, and Farsight obviously needs to get in a rhythm and know how to produce these tables so that they could be truthful with Stern about saying, hey, we can turn around a table once you give us all the files in X amount of time and then maybe it can be worked into the pipeline that way. But for now, I think something being a year out is not terrible. No, there's a lot of good titles that are still in the backlog that they need to get into, things like Metallica and all these other ones that are still waiting to be done. There's a lot of meat that they can get into there. Let them cut their teeth on those ones and then at least you say after they get accustomed to how delivery works and the quality levels that Stern require as the client in the app, then I guess they'll be in a better position to then estimate how long it's going to take them to do this. But of course, that's just us speculating, which is our favorite thing to do.
    30:55
    Which we're accustomed to doing. Yes. If you expected things to change in 2017 for the Blockade podcast, you are sorely mistaken. Speaking of sorely disappointed, have you checked out our t-shirts yet? Yeah.
    31:10
    Yeah, that's right. The point is that nobody's buying them. But, hey, if you want to buy them, you can go ahead and go to represent.com slash blockade-shirt, and then you'll be able to purchase one. And as usual, you can check out the show notes at our website, blockadepinball.com. That's where any of the links that we talk about in the show get posted so that you don't have to write them down while you're listening.
    31:36
    Why don't you check us out on Twitter? We are at Blockade for the show proper, but if you want to hear more personal musings, then you can go at Jared Morgs and see what the convict down under enjoys talking about. Most of it has to do with dock writing.
    31:55
    Yep, technical writing and pinball and funny things that developers do. Yes. Program related stuff. So another prop for me, if you like really cool tropical storm pictures, any that roll over North Lakes, I take photos of. and they're normally pretty impressive. So if you don't live in an area with big tropical storms, that's another reason to follow my Twitter. Otherwise, get stuff. If your bag is more in line with movies and entertainment, then why don't you go ahead and follow me at ShutYourTraps on Twitter. You can also email us. We do appreciate the emails. We enjoy seeing if you have any show topics that you'd like us to touch upon. We've got a rather large list that we'll start getting into next week. but you can email us blahblahblockade at gmail.com Hey, we really do appreciate you listening to us and we enjoy doing this.
    32:51
    Get ready for a full year more of our nonsense and blathering and if you're interested in hearing more about the movies that I saw in 2016 and actually looking forward to some movies in 2017 then I want you to download the Blockade Backroom that'll be coming up presently. Alright, Jared. Until next week, adios. Adios, amigos.
    33:20
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    33:51
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to. We can't prove unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and place it in goal.
    34:08
    Warning. The following contains little to no actual talk about pinball. It's the new year, and every new year I go about doing my annual list of movies that I saw in 2016.
    34:27
    Hooray! This is Jared's favorite segment because I bet Jared has seen maybe 10% of anything that I list. And that's being generous. Well, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Because, you know, on the flight over, you know, Euro trip extravaganza, they actually had a lot of movies that basically hadn't even been released here in Australia. Or some that had just been, like, finished their season here in Australia. So I did actually catch up with quite a few movies on the plane. So there might be a little bit of overlap here. You never know. Well, we'll see. But this year I saw, new to me, 99 movies. 99. Yes, in the year 2016.
    35:14
    New to you, 99. Okay, so that's not 99 actual releases that were released in 2016. Right, because it's one of those things where I can't possibly keep up with movies in the theater.
    35:25
    So this year I only actually saw 14 movies in the movie theater. Everything else was on Netflix or rentals. That's how I catch up with most stuff. And obviously movies that come out in December, which are your awards movie bait, those I don't see them in the theater in December right at Christmas time or whatever because most of them don't even get wide release until January and so those are the ones I'd catch later on but anyway what I'm going to do here is I'm going to rattle through my best, my better than average my worst and then what we're going to do is save the rest of the conversation for a back room blockade. That way we can actually get to pinball talk.
    36:15
    So, this being a rather sucky year for movies... It hasn't been super great, has it? No, it was rather depressing. My best list doesn't even come to ten movies, and three of them were from 2015.
    36:35
    Yeah, okay. That's short. It is short. Topping out my favorite of the year, Deadpool, which if you had asked me in February, that would have been my favorite of the year. I would have laughed because I enjoyed the hell out of it. There's a whole bunch of movies that were coming out that I was like, oh, surely those are going to be better. Nope, not so much.
    36:58
    Then rounding out the rest in no particular order, Captain America Civil War, Steve Jobs, which has fantastic writing.
    37:10
    The Big Short, which totally explained the housing market crash here in America and just really hit me because it turns out that I was one of those people that bought while this whole sequence of events was happening.
    37:27
    I remember seeing The Big Short. It was awesome. It was harrowing. The movie itself. The dude who predicted it and had to hold out until it actually happened, he had balls of steel. All the investors just going, sell, sell, give me my money back. He was just going, nope, it's going to happen, just chill. You really wouldn't think that a movie about mortgages would be the least bit interesting.
    37:55
    It is a fantastic movie. Ocean's Eleven. Yeah, it is. an amazing bit of cinema. Just the story it tells and just how terrible the mortgage market is in America for it to happen like that.
    38:14
    Then I got Ghostbusters, the extended cut for the 2016 version. That really is on here purely because it's absolutely stunning 3D.
    38:25
    Even if you're watching it 2D, it's a fantastic presentation. one of the best disc presentations of a movie I've seen in a long time. And so it gets on this list purely for that. I did enjoy the movie, though.
    38:39
    I saw it on the plane, so it wasn't any sort of good quality, like super Blu-ray quality or anything because it was on a plane system. But it had the right balance of humor. It was silly. It was great. It was pretty much Ghostbusters, what Ghostbusters needed to be. and it was good to see how they incorporated the original actors back into the movie again.
    39:03
    Yes. In different, completely parallel universe roles, which I thought was really cool. I also saw Creed, and put that on my best. Now, that is the, you might call it the Rocky reboot. Okay.
    39:19
    And if one of those films were, you know, Rocky movies are really, really, really, really, really good when you see them in a movie theater because you feed off the crowd. And this one I saw at home, and it was still just really, really good because it really comes full circle on Rocky's story, even though he's not the star of the movie. He winds up being the trainer. But if you were to watch the original Rocky, I would say watch Rocky III and then watch Rocky Balboa and then this. You would have the total summation of the Rocky story.
    40:03
    Okay. With Rocky III being kind of the cheese of any of them. But Rocky Balboa and Creed are very much played straight.
    40:12
    But I can't recommend Rocky movies and not have Rocky III. So anyway, last of my best for 2016 that I saw, The Shallows. That's the one with Blake Lively. The Shock.
    40:25
    The Shock. Yep. That was terrible. Absolutely terrible. I know. On the trans. I just hated it. I know. I really thought, oh, this is going to be just complete cheese. And you know what? It's going to be like Shock Bay or something terrible like that. Right, because it's one of those things where you're like, why in the hell is the shark hanging around? What, has it got a vendetta? You wouldn't buy any of this, right? Well, here's the thing. There's a whale that died out in the shallows. And so a shark is feeding off this thing.
    40:59
    And so that's why it's sticking around because this is a huge food source for it. But it can't help when there's active swimmers in the water, go after them too. Because why not? Fresh meat.
    41:13
    But it's really played out quite interesting, and it's one of these things where it's, in a lot of ways, think of it as a movie where somebody is trapped and air is escaping the room. The oxygen is escaping. It's that same kind of feel, except for here you're not talking about oxygen. It's the water is rising on this tide. The tide is rising, and soon she's going to be shark meat or shark bait. So it's a suspenseful, it's not really horror, but it's like suspense. Suspense. Thriller. And it plays out fairly realistically for the most part, and I found the conclusion of it exceedingly satisfying. So it just was, a lot of times things that make my best list are make it purely for the fact that they stick with me, and I can still recall many sequences in them.
    42:04
    Okay. I might add that one to my wish list thing, because it's available now on Google Play. Yeah. So I might rent it and give it a go. Yeah, like I said, I really didn't have high expectations for it. Maybe that's the other thing. I didn't have high expectations and it exceeded what expectations I did. But I really enjoyed it. Moving on to my better than average that I saw. These are films that I thought were – I had a really good time watching them. I would recommend them to anybody. But I didn't like them enough that I would be like, yeah, that was the best of the year. Amazing. And like I said, this year has been so just, eh.
    42:44
    Yeah. You sort of had to go back into the back catalog to sort of get anything you want to really watch right Yeah Yeah Now interestingly enough some of these better than average I actually did purchase because I can help it and you figure out which ones I did So here we go Better Than Average, and these are listed in the order that I actually saw them throughout the year. So, first one is Chef. That's the Jon Favreau runs a food truck.
    43:10
    Yeah, that was awesome. Love that movie. Yep, that was pretty good. Straight Outta Compton, which is really, really solid. is biography?
    43:20
    No. NWA's. NWA. Not in my nature would be a RAB group. That'd be a different tale completely. Zootopia.
    43:34
    Yep. Which was the animated movie. Yeah, it's fun. The Hateful Eight. Look, I pretty much love anything Tarantino, and although it wasn't as good as Django Unchained or Inglourious Basterds, his recent stuff, I still am a sucker for his writing. That's one of those that I purchased.
    43:55
    In the Heart of the Sea, which is the Moby Dick retelling, Ron Howard movie. The Revenant, just a brutal film.
    44:06
    Yeah, I remember you talking about The Revenant when it was released, just how brutal it was, I think, at some point. Yeah. I don't think I'd want to go and see that one. that's not really something I dig.
    44:18
    It's not exactly described as like brutality porn or something like that. Someone had a name for it. Yeah. And it was just, yeah, not really my idea of a fun romp in the cinema. Movies like that are though I like watching them because I sit there and I go holy crap I would die in about 10 minutes back in those times. I can't imagine what people had to go through to live through that sort of hardship it's incredible X-Men Apocalypse I found it disappointing for what I hoped it would be but I love X-Men movies so it still ranks better than average for me I think I watched it on the plane I think it was I forget it was that good I forgot I don't know what's on the plane I mean, it's certainly not one of the better X-Men movies. But again, apart from X-Men The Last Stand, I love all of them. So, you know, I'm a sucker for them, what can I say?
    45:30
    A movie called Man Up. This is a British rom-com. It stars Simon Pegg and I'm going to blank on the gal's name. she's on Children's Hospital Blake Lake Bell, that's who it is no idea and I normally don't watch rom-coms, this thing pretty much went through every romantic comedy trope and flipped it on its head and found a really original way of telling a dating story so I rather enjoyed it for that the side story that I thought was hilarious is, like Belle, she's American, but she didn't bother telling anybody that when she went and made the movie over in Britain. She had a British accent that she never, ever dropped the entire time she was there, and everybody thought she was British.
    46:23
    And at the end of... The movie is kind of about a gal that takes somebody else's identity by mistake, you might say, and gets paired up with somebody else for a blind date. And at the very end at the wrap party, she was like, you know, I just want to say, you know, this movie is about, you know, taking other people's identity and then she went into her American accent and she got booed. Everybody was deeply... She got booed? Yes, by the crew. Everybody was deeply offended that she had fooled them this entire time. Oh well. Sucks to be them. They should have picked it.
    46:57
    Moving quickly through here. Let's see. Finding Dory. Nothing wrong with that. Very serviceable Pixar movie. There was a lot of completely unbelievable crap in there, but yeah, whatever. Let's go along with the story, shall we? Exactly. Doctor Strange, which I thought was a pretty damn good Marvel movie also. Haven't seen that yet. I think it's probably something we're going to try and see at some point, probably like three years from now. It's got to do with all the Marvel movies. These next two, everybody went gaga for, or at least a lot of my friends did, and I just kind of went, well, it was enjoyable, but I didn't go like, oh my gosh! First one, Hell or High Water.
    47:36
    A couple of crooks in Texas robbing banks because the bank is trying to rob them. And the other one is Arrival, which is aliens. Oh, yeah, I saw that. Yeah, aliens come down, and we try and learn how to communicate with them. Again, I enjoyed it. Boring as hell. You found it boring? I thought it was boring as hell. See, that director, he plays everything very neutral. He doesn't try and put you on a roller coaster. He doesn't try and push your emotional buttons. He just kind of lets the story tell its story.
    48:09
    And fortunately, there are certain key elements in there that I like, but I know people that just went nuts for it.
    48:17
    They got a huge, like, when I decided to rent it, and said, oh, this has got amazing reviews. We should watch it. Like, it had, like, a 90 or something like that on Rotten Tomatoes. And I've since found out that Rotten Tomatoes seems to be a terribly poor judge of an enjoyable film. because there's been a couple of other 90s ranked things. I think Sausage Party was one I saw the other day. It had a score of 83 or 85. It was ridiculous. It was mildly amusing and the end scene, which I won't spoil for you if you haven't seen it, but it was just Seth doing all the things that he wanted to do in a movie and couldn't because in a live action movie, so he made an animated movie brain. And just Blastie's mind vomited all over the screen. See, I'm not a huge Seth Rogen fan at all. I kind of find him annoying, so that's why I haven't watched that one. Maybe just get this one out as a rental and switch your brain off and go along with the party. There's some funny elements in it, but it's... Yeah.
    49:22
    Jon Favreau makes another appearance on the Better In Average list as a director with the Jungle Book, the live-action version.
    49:29
    Not brilliant. found it just completely enjoyable. I'm not usually a fan of these taking something animated Disney and live actioning it because too often it's just like, why didn't I just watch the cartoon?
    49:43
    But I thought it was really, really well done, especially since there ain't a single creature or jungle that was actually real. The entire thing was filmed in downtown LA at a soundstage.
    49:56
    On the subject of that, I actually managed to go and see Rogue One on the weekend. There's plenty of uncanny valley in there, isn't there? I didn't have a problem with it, and actually Rogue One made my better than average list. It didn't bother me in the least, truth be told.
    50:14
    I was going, something's just not right here. Some people I won't spoil the... By now it's got to be spoiled for how many people have seen it, but one of the people, they brought back General Tarkin, or Grand Moff Tarkin, and they did it through CGI and actor and all that. It didn't bother me, in the least. I think I was just kind of engrossed in the fact that he was there and telling the story, so I wasn't bothered by it. I know some people are.
    50:48
    My problem with Rogue One... My problem with Rogue One was the first half of the movie, where it's basically them assembling the group of rebels that's going to go steal the plans. I didn't find the assembly of the troop all that interesting. Now, part of the reason also might have been I saw it at 10.45 at night and I was fighting off sleep.
    51:10
    Yeah, so I saw it during the day and I didn't really have a problem with that. I sort of took it as more like establishing for the end, the big end scene. It's a build up to it. But it's also one of those things where I don't, apart from Jyn, I couldn't tell you a single character name. The names were impossibly difficult.
    51:28
    None of it rolled off the tongue, and so that kind of bugged me. What I really did like, though, was the whole end sequence, because I'm not a Return of the Jedi hater. I have no problem with the Ewoks. As a matter of fact, I absolutely love the Ewok battle. I love the space battle. I could care less about Luke battling the Emperor and Darth Vader. So I always would fast-forward through the lightsaber battle and just go to the space and Ewok battle. And what I love about Rogue One? No lightsaber battle, but we had a space battle we had a ground battle going on at the same time. I was like, woohoo, you cut out the fat. It was pretty good. It was great. Space and that were both really great. The battles and just the sequence of events in those both those things, they felt like they actually really did feel like a war. I think sometimes you see the big, like the massive scenes and stuff like the Clone Wars and something like that, you know. It was just too much but I think in this particular movie they got the balance right. It was believable, I think. Believable from a science fiction perspective. It was a battle. I definitely need to give it another shake, whether I see it in the theater again, or I'll definitely buy it once it comes out on Blu-ray. But anyway, moving on. The accountant, Ben Affleck, slightly autistic. He's an assassin. Sounds completely stupid.
    52:50
    And yet it was pretty dang good. All right. In a B-movie sort of way, it was way better than it should have been. Let's put it to you that way.
    53:00
    Not as good as I thought The Shallows was, but it's that same kind of where you saw the trailers and you're like, what? Oh, come on.
    53:07
    I gave it a shake, and I enjoyed it. Bloodfather. You may be going, what the heck is that? Mel Gibson. No idea. Mel Gibson, ex-con, daughter gets in trouble, and he tries to get her out of trouble and trouble tries to get him and he shows him what for. So it's Mel going crazy, which I love.
    53:30
    Nobody does crazy like us. Yeah, it's true. Really, I mean, it was, it might have had like a two-week release in the theaters and then it went straight to digital download, which a lot of times you sit there and you go, uh-oh, that's a bad sign. Yeah, that's a bad sign. You know what? Absolutely give it a shake. I really thought it was much better than what you would think.
    53:58
    And again, if you're a fan of Mel just getting angry, then you'll have a good time. And then the last one that I saw on this list for the year is called Green Room.
    54:08
    Green Room is about a punk band that goes and does a gig at what winds up being a white supremacist clubhouse. that is owned by Patrick Stewart.
    54:22
    Things go bad and they need to escape and get out. It is a brutal, brutal movie that is absolutely a thriller and quite good.
    54:40
    It's very enjoyable. That's all I'll tell you about the movie. But, yeah, like I said, punk band playing in a white supremacist clubhouse that's headed by Patrick Stewart.
    54:54
    Yeah, that would have been an interesting pitch to the studio. Yeah, my worst for the year, Need for Speed. I believe we talked about this in a former podcast. Hot Tub Time Machine 2. I believe we talked about that one being just every bit as terrible as the first one was good. Right.
    55:17
    The Vacation remake, which just made me very, very sad. Right. Poltergeist reboot. When you can't even do a single thing slightly better than the original, just give up.
    55:36
    Yeah, totally. one that is nowhere near from 2015 as a matter of fact it's from the early 90s but there was a director's cut that I finally got around to seeing and that is Nightbreed wow what a terrible piece of crap movie that was it's a Clive Barker film alright and it's one of those that I kind of went wait there was a time I actually liked this movie and thinking and the director's cut was supposed to fix any of the problems that were with the original and instead I came away just going who read this and went yeah, green like that. Because I've read the actual story, the book that he wrote about it and the book was pretty good. The movie, absolutely terrible.
    56:22
    And then last but not least why couldn't I have this on my worst list when everybody else did Mordecai which was that Johnny Depp movie with his mustache and Gwyneth Paltrow was in it and it's dreadful and I pretty much watched it all the way through because I couldn't turn away from the train wreck.
    56:41
    You hate-watched it. Pretty much. Yeah. So anyway, that's my annual movie list. Again, I can go into more because there's many more like all my special awards that we can get to later. Yes, in a blockade back room. Let's get into some pinball, shall we? Yeah, let's do that.
    57:06
    Okay. First things first. Okay.