Journalist Tool

Kineticist

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

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 1 - Jack Danger / NYC Pinball + Sunshine Laundromat w/ Gina Collecchia

Nudgecast·podcast_episode·1h 12m·analyzed·Dec 23, 2024
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Nudgecast launches with NYC pinball venue tour and Jack Danger streaming origin story.

Summary

The inaugural Nudgecast episode features Scott Ian Jacoby and Shane Told introducing the podcast and discussing NYC pinball culture. Gina Collecchia interviews cover Sunshine Laundromat's history, operations, and role in Brooklyn's growing pinball scene. Jack Danger discusses his pioneering role in pinball streaming, his early adoption of Twitch for pinball content, and how COVID-19 accelerated the community's online engagement.

Key Claims

  • Sunshine Laundromat currently has approximately 20 pinball machines and is opening a new location at Greenpoint Beer and Ale with plans for 40+ machines

    high confidence · Gina Collecchia describing current state and expansion plans of Sunshine Laundromat

  • Eric Adams passed the Thomas Law rezoning arcades and relaxing rules around distance to schools

    high confidence · Gina Collecchia discussing NYC regulatory environment for arcades

  • Jack Danger has been streaming pinball for approximately 10 years, starting around 2014

    high confidence · Jack Danger discussing his early streaming history

  • Jack Danger was the first to establish pinball as a category on Twitch and created the original pinball channel icon

    high confidence · Jack Danger explaining his partnership with Twitch and category creation

  • Barcade is opening its biggest location in NYC with 80+ arcade machines and 20+ pinball machines

    medium confidence · Gina Collecchia citing word-of-mouth information about upcoming Barcade location

  • Jack Danger was told by Twitch partners that he would have significantly higher viewership if streaming traditional video games like Hearthstone instead of pinball

    high confidence · Jack Danger recounting feedback from Twitch partnership team in early streaming years

  • Lethal Frag was the only person streaming pinball before Jack Danger and stopped due to viewership drops when switching from other content

    high confidence · Jack Danger discussing early pinball streaming landscape and Lethal Frag's experience

  • Jack Danger's DeadFlip channel has over 33,000 Twitch followers

    high confidence · Scott Ian Jacoby introducing Jack Danger with follower count

  • Sunshine Laundromat has hosted NYC and state championship tournaments

    high confidence · Gina Collecchia describing venue's tournament history

Notable Quotes

  • “some people that play pinball can't read i don't know no that's that is the answer actually yeah 100 percent”

    Scott Ian Jacoby and Shane Told @ early — Humorous explanation for why Nudge Magazine is launching a podcast alongside print publication

  • “it's a desirable place either for a pinball night or perhaps a date or a birthday. So it attracts different kinds of customers than your typical pinball bar”

    Gina Collecchia @ mid — Describes Sunshine Laundromat's unique position as both specialist pinball venue and mainstream entertainment destination

  • “I will carry that torch. I'm going to make this huge.”

    Jack Danger @ mid — Jack Danger's commitment to building pinball streaming community after Lethal Frag stopped

  • “it could have been anything like and the partnerships told me this a lot a lot long time ago they're like jack like you're streaming pinball that's cool you your channel would probably be through the roof if you were streaming literally anything else because it's not about the game it was about the interaction”

    Jack Danger @ late — Core insight about DeadFlip's success being community-driven rather than content-driven

  • “Pinball is a third place it's where you go with your friends like i go every single day to our local arcade”

    Scott Ian Jacoby @ late — Defines the social/community value proposition of pinball beyond home gameplay

  • “when COVID dropped, I became most people's source of entertainment that were into pinball 24 seven. Like I was streaming every single day, Monday through Friday for several hours a night.”

    Jack Danger @ late — Describes pivotal role of streaming during pandemic in building community engagement

Entities

Sunshine LaundromateventScott Ian JacobypersonShane ToldpersonGina CollecchiapersonJack DangerpersonPeterpersonNudge Magazineorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Barcade and Sunshine Laundromat expansions signal investment confidence in NYC pinball market growth; major venue operators committing capital despite real estate challenges

    medium · Gina reports Barcade opening 'biggest location' with 80+ arcade and 20+ pinball machines; Sunshine converting brewery to 40+ machine space; both occurring post-COVID

  • ?

    community_signal: COVID-19 period accelerated pinball community online engagement with Jack Danger's daily streaming becoming primary entertainment source for enthusiasts; streaming became 'third place' substitute during lockdowns

    high · Jack Danger describes streaming Monday-Friday several hours nightly during COVID as 'most people's source of entertainment'; notes this accelerated channel growth significantly

  • ?

    event_signal: Nudgecast launching as podcast extension of Nudge Magazine; positioning as platform for pinball community conversations, designer interviews, and cultural exploration beyond game mechanics

    high · Scott Ian and Shane Told introduce podcast as new format for Nudge Magazine content; plan to interview designers, artists, and community members alongside coverage of local pinball scenes

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: NYC pinball scene valued as much for social/community aspects ('third place') as competitive gameplay; venues like Sunshine Laundromat and local arcades serve as central gathering spaces for regulars

    high · Scott Ian emphasizes daily local arcade visits, bartender relationships, and community building; Jack Danger's streaming explicitly modeled on third-place community dynamics; Gina notes venue appeal beyond dedicated pinball players

  • ~

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.208

0:00
Hi everyone, you're listening to NudgeCast, the official podcast of Nudge Magazine. That intro music you just heard was the song Entrance Theme by the band Jobber, featured on Nudge Playlist Volume 6. As always, I'm Ian Jacoby, aka Doc Monday, the editor-in-chief and publisher of Nudge Magazine. With me is my co-host, Shane Told of the band Silverstein and the podcast Lead Singer Syndrome. Hey, Shane, how's it going? What's up, Ian? Dude, we're doing it. How are you doing? Yeah, first episode ever. This is exciting. I'm doing fantastic. I'm really excited to get started with this, and we've got a great show this is gonna rule well we've already recorded it so we already know it rules but now everyone else gets to hear it and uh yeah welcome to the show so i think probably we need to answer the question first why is a magazine putting out a podcast right uh why would you ever do that and i think the answer is some people that play pinball can't read i don't know no that's that is the answer actually yeah 100 it's funny that you say that because that is the the compliment that i get most for the physical magazine of nudge and if if y'all aren't familiar go to nudge pinball.com you can check out uh we have articles online we also have a physical magazine but the the thing i hear from most of our fans is they say i love your magazine i haven't read it yet yeah like i don't know man a lot of people like to consume content in their car while they're driving i get it or going for runs or whatever and it's like hard to read a magazine while you're running, you know, it's dangerous. You shouldn't do that. Be safe while you're running. But I mean, the way that we view this, right, Shane, is this is going to be an extension of the magazine. So we nudge nudge is a pinball lifestyle magazine. So what we're doing here is we're interested in talking to, yes, your favorite pinball designers, people in the pinball community. But also we will be talking to artists, entertainers, comedians, all about sort of their history with arcades, with pinball, and sort of how that intersects with their process and what they do. For so many of us that play pinball, it's taken over our thoughts, our inner thoughts and our minds and our dreams, you know. And sure, we're as excited about the new games coming out as anybody else, but also what's going on in different cities in their pinball communities, such as New York City. And we love to pick the brains of some of the people that are playing the machines, designing the machines, you know, taking pictures of the machines, everything else. And I think that it's just a beautiful, beautiful community. And I'm excited to talk about this, man, over and over again with you. Yeah, and that's a great segue into our first guest. So one of the things that we're going to do in this podcast is we will sort of explore some of the articles that are both in the physical copy of Nudge and online stuff. And one of the main articles from issue four, I had to like double check there. Yes. Oh, it's four. Issue four is our newest issue. We talked about Sunshine Laundromat. And so I thought it would be fun to have on one of our main writers and photographers, Gina Koleckia, to talk about her experience there, the context of what Sunshine Laundromat is. New York City, baby. Yeah, New York City. So we're going to have her first, and then we will follow that up. You will hear Jack Danger interviewed about a wide variety of things, streaming. Yeah, all that. The man that should need no introduction. there's a reason that he's our first main guest on episode one because he is the absolute man but yes he is fighters designer the uncanny x-men designer streamer extraordinaire and more so just stick around don't do anything don't pick up a magazine don't start reading enjoy the nudge podcast the nudge cast if you will fasten your seat belts everybody here we go so shane we're gonna bring in one of our longtime contributors gina koleckia who has been a nudge writer and photographer since 2021 i think she started in issue one just doing a photo essay on like a really beautiful photo essay on pinball in New York City. In issue two, she wrote Lost in the Bee Sauce, which was about pin Baltimore and some of the really cool stuff they're doing there. She's done double exposure film stuff with Gene Wong. She works now for Auto-Tune. She is the author of the book Numbers and Notes. Yeah, let's welcome in Gina Koleckia. Yes. Hi, Gina. Hello. We're so happy you accepted the charges when we collect-ia called you. I know, right? I hate that. Thank you for joining us. We are excited to talk about some New York City pinball, especially one of the coolest pinball bars maybe in the world. Happens to be in New York City. Yeah, can you just tell us a little bit about, so I can say Sunshine Laundromat. People sort of have a conception of that. But maybe give us a little bit of what this spot is, and then we can talk about the history and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, it's maybe one of the few pinball spots in the country that's as well known for pinball as it is for being a speakeasy and has this, you know, multifaceted business in which pinball players and non pinball players alike know about it. And it's a desirable place either for a pinball night or perhaps a date or a birthday. So it attracts different kinds of customers than your pinball bar. We can glean this from the name, but let's just talk about that as you walk in. So it's called Sunshine Laundromat. It is a functioning laundromat, right? Not just a clever name. You literally can wash your clothes there. And they'll turn out squeaky clean. Yes. But no, I mean, there's traces of pinball. Even before they put machines back out front, there's a couple of references to pinball in the facade and neon signage. But no, you would kind of have to know what's back there, plus the discreet entrance to Sunshine through a combo washer-dryer door in the back. You took amazing pictures that are in issue four. People can check that out if they want to see it. But it didn't start off as just like a pinball place, but sort of how did it evolve that way? I know you talked to Peter Rose, not Pete Rose, who famously passed. Peter Rose is the owner of Sunshine Laundromat. Could you talk a little bit about just kind of how that evolved or why there are pinball machines there?

  • Peter, owner of Sunshine Laundromat, started collecting pinball machines with Medieval Madness and rapidly expanded to approximately 40 machines total

    high confidence · Gina Collecchia describing Peter's collecting trajectory

    • DeadFlip
    product
    Nudgecastevent
    Lethal Fragperson
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jack Barrevent
    Barcadeevent
    Greenpoint Beer and Aleevent
    Twitchorganization
    Autotuneorganization
    Jason Sudeikisperson
    David Crossperson
    Tim Heideckerperson
    Harry Stylesperson
    Olivia Wildeperson
    Bonebustersperson
    Bradperson
    The Lord of the Ringsproduct
    Judge Dreddproduct

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive sentiment toward NYC pinball scene growth post-COVID with multiple new venues opening and increased foot traffic appeal beyond dedicated enthusiasts

    high · Gina describes broader appetite for immersive experiences at bars; notes South Slope historical pinball strip expanding with Buttermilk and Rye having 7-8 machines; optimistic about future despite real estate concerns

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball streaming community (DeadFlip/Deadflip ecosystem) demonstrates high engagement and social cohesion with established inside jokes, regular audience, and interactive chat culture

    high · Scott Ian describes DeadFlip chat as distinctive, everyone knowing each other with inside jokes; Jack Danger emphasizes reading every chat line and one-on-one conversation approach; notes this interaction level drives channel success more than gameplay

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jack Barr location strategy focuses on casual/mainstream IP appeal (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Toy Story, Venom) to attract non-enthusiast foot traffic, contrasting with Sunshine Laundromat's collector-focused machine curation

    high · Gina describes Jack Barr's visible machines and IP strategy for casual appeal; Sunshine countering with rare/premium collector machines (Batman Super Limited, Attack from Mars, The Shadow)

  • ?

    event_signal: Sunshine Laundromat undergoing significant expansion with new Greenpoint location opening with 40+ machines; positioning as major Brooklyn pinball hub

    high · Gina Collecchia reports Greenpoint Beer and Ale closed November 1st with conversion to Sunshine Laundromat expansion in phases; Peter promising 40+ machines at new location

  • $

    market_signal: Location operator economics remain challenging with profit margins tight; pinball pricing ($2-5 per play) critical to venue viability; concerns about maintaining affordable pricing amid rising real estate costs

    high · Gina discusses real estate as limiting factor; notes preference for keeping pricing at 'three for two' rather than $5+ per play; mentions some locations offering less than $1 per play

  • $

    market_signal: NYC regulatory environment improving for pinball venues with Thomas Law relaxing arcade restrictions (distance to schools, borough expansion from Manhattan-only to all boroughs)

    high · Gina Collecchia credits Eric Adams' Thomas Law changes to regulatory environment; enabled Barcade expansion and Sunshine Laundromat expansion plans

  • ?

    community_signal: Jack Danger transitioned from independent streamer/animator to Stern Pinball designer role; impacting his ability to share rumors and speculation (previously allowed, now restricted)

    high · Jack Danger: 'Before I was an employee of Stern, man, I love to just rattle off rumors and all this stuff. I was making fake announcements and say, well, I can't do that crap anymore.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball streaming became established category on Twitch through Jack Danger's pioneering work; transitioned from non-existent category to organized streaming culture with multiple nightly streamers by 2024

    high · Jack Danger details creating pinball category on Twitch ~2014, initial API tricks, eventual Twitch partnership, and icon creation; describes current state with half-dozen to dozen streamers nightly

    • 7:12
    Yeah, Peter recalls that his first machine was an Addams Family. and uh given what is apparent about his like collector sort of style and side of his personality uh it was probably a fairly rapid story from 1 to 40 machines it always is yeah i mean uh i sort of heard this about like tattoos you know like don't get one like you know you'll be covered um but no he's a true collector and uh and this is evident not only in the quantity but the quality of machines, LE and premium versions of everything, but also the maintenance and the restoration of older machines that he has. What is it that allowed this place to happen? Because we kind of touched on this a bit, but the pinball scene in New York is hard, right? I think a lot of these tournaments are held at people's houses because it seems like real estate is really expensive. It's at a premium. How did it happen? Yeah, I mean, you can watch the pinball movie and some of these questions might come to light or answers as well. You know, it's one of the oldest cities in the country. So there are like laws that, you know, perhaps modernization hasn't quite hit yet. Shout out to Eric Adams, though. There was a law that he passed this past year rezoning arcades a bit and relaxing some of the rules around their distance to schools, for example. But Sunshine Lodge Mat is right next to a church. So it's had to deal with like other things pertaining to liquor licenses that have given the owners hurdles to their ultimate dreams, perhaps. I didn't think that we would get a positive Eric Adams shout out this early in the Nudge podcast. Amazing. Disgraced mirror. But it sounds like he did one good thing, at least. I mean, that sounds pretty nice. We'll take it. Yeah, we absolutely will. So it's interesting to know, though, this is it is partially economics, but a lot of it is truly the law. I mean, it's hard to to justify like kind of jumping through these hoops to start something where the margins are are quite small. So how does Peter make that work with Sunshine? It seems like it's a it's a hipster kind of place like people like to hang out there. Right. How has he kind of like built that culture, that scene?
    9:33
    Well, yeah, so the pandemic definitely affected the business. He took out a bunch of machines. You know, it was closed down as a bar for a while. And then there were other things that needed to be resolved around the building. Then the landlord decided to take this antiquated law about four machines only very seriously. So for a while, you just had four. But now we've had a resurgence of old sunshine with something like 20 machines currently there. But I mean, you know, one of the New York City pinball championships was held there as well as a state championship. It was pretty much the go to place before Jack Barr entered the chat, though. I'm not quite sure how their timelines relatively stack up, but it still has more machines than Jack Barr. I think Peter's very aware of the pinball map battle. I like this. He wants to be the best. I mean, Jack Barr is great too, but when you look at the lineup right now, I popped on there really quick to see. I mean, you've got new games like Uncanny X-Men LE. You've got a Jersey Jack Avatar. You've got a Godzilla 70th. You've got a Jaws LE. So you're talking about the newest best of the best. But you've also got super rare stuff like a Batman Super LE. So that's amazing. But then they have an original Attack from Mars. They've got The Shadow, which I know Ian loves The Shadow. So it's just an awesome, awesome, complete lineup. So Peter's putting his money where his mouth is, that's for sure, because it's pretty unbelievable. Yeah, and I mean, Jack Barr's location in Williamsburg does experience better foot traffic and visibility, obviously, because the machines are visible. So maybe, you know, Sunshine's strategy was to appeal more to the pinball and their, you know, love for those old games. because, yeah, Jack Barr for a long time did have a getaway, which was very fun. But that was taken out when a whole trove of new games sort of came in in the last couple of years. But John is very all about like putting the classics like Star Wars and, you know, things that he thinks will appeal to non-pinball players as much or just, you know, kind of more public because they're going to draw people in. Sure. It makes sense. It seems like that's always sort of a fine balance for location owners in general, is to, you know, part of it is like you want the casuals, which is what you're talking about, the people who are just going to see Star Wars, they're going to see Indiana Jones or whatever, and that's going to, you know, Terminator or whatever. But I think... Toy Story. Exactly. Toy Story is a great example, or Venom. Apparently does really well on location. Venom does really well on location, and here too. And it is one of those things that I... I mean, I made a barf face just now, and that is how I feel about it. I mean, I love Brian Eddy. We know I'm a Brian Eddy stan. That is not my, uh, we're getting off track here. Let's let, I don't want to, I don't want to go off on Venom. I'm sorry. So Peter kind of wears a lot of hats here. You talk about this in the article. He isn't just the owner of Sunshine Laundromat. He also is a tech and has some fun, uh, clientele. Could you, could you talk a little bit about, uh, that, that side of his life and, and maybe people would be interested to know, you know, kind of who, who's playing pinball and who's needing their machines repaired in New York City? Sure, yeah. Namely, one of his clients who owns a number of his machines in his home is Jason Sudeikis or Ted Lasso.
    13:07
    But I've also seen David Cross come through, Tim Heidecker. Yes. And, oh, God, Harry Styles and his wife or ex-girlfriend, I think, who's not married, was married to Ted as well. Ted, Jason, yes. Oh, that's right. Olivia Wilde. Wow. Like a love triangle happening at Sunshine Laundromat. Amazing. Broken here. These are people who love pinball. You know, you might cross paths with these comedians and actors. So with New York City and this scene, you know, especially in Brooklyn, do you see it growing over the last couple of years, kind of post-COVID? Like, is it growing? Is it getting weaker? Because I am seeing more spots coming up, maybe down more in the South area, not as much up in Greenpoint. But what's your take on kind of where we can see New York City heading? Like, hopefully it's heading in a positive direction with more and more people getting into pinball and the hobby continuing to grow. Yeah. As part of this Eric Adams law, I'll have to – I had some cool, cute little name. It was called, like, City of Fun or something. but uh but basically pinball was technically only legal in like manhattan so it like basically uh expanded it to the other boroughs i'm not quite sure this is all word of mouth but with that said uh barcade is opening a their biggest location in the fight i soon i was told this year but we'll see that will have 80 plus arcade machines and 20 plus pinball machines um sunshine is taking over Greenpoint Beer and Ale, just a few blocks north of where Sunshine Lounge currently is. It's a giant space. It'll be interesting to see how that evolves. I know that they're getting rid of all the beer making tools and equipment out of there to make room for what Peter promises to be at least like 40 machines in there. It's going to be in a few phases where there's going to be a smaller selection first, but ultimately probably his main storage of all of his machines, if not the eventual location of Sunshine Laundromat. I'm not sure. And that is moving very quickly. Greenpoint Beer and Ale closed their doors on November 1st. So that's underway. I'm in touch with them about getting sneak previews or walkthroughs when that's available. But yeah, I would say, you know, historically, at least in Brooklyn, South Slope has been more the pinball strip of bars. And so that's like South Park Slope when I say that. There's like six or seven locations down there with at least two or three machines. But Buttermilk and Rello's have like seven or eight. So we're starting to see more locations outside of South Slope, I would say. And it's kind of funny because South Slope's a pretty small neighborhood at the end of the day. It's very residential and there's not as much foot traffic as say up in Williamsburg and Manhattan. I go back and forth about whether real estate is really the ultimate bottom line. I think there's increased appetite in general in the world for immersive experiences and more of something to do at bars besides drink. Plus, we all know that it fosters amazing community. And so it's a way for newcomers or people looking for more friends to acquire them. So hopefully with the real estate issues, games don't have to be $5 or something. You know, let's like hopefully we can keep it, you know, three for two. That'd be nice. I know. I hear you. There's a few locations where it's a dollar or less or it's less than a dollar, I should say. Yeah. Oh, nice. Nice. Right on. Well, finally, New Yorkers will have some entertainment options. That is great. You know, well, thank you so much, Gina. We'll look for you in future episodes of the Nudge podcast. We really want to break down some of the other stories that you have worked on and are working on currently. and thank you for being such a great contributor and not bringing up that I owe you money whenever I do. So I really appreciate that. Oh, my pleasure. I can wait for the next one And thank you for Auto too for single giving me a career Auto is brat Let end it there Auto is brat All right. Well, nice meeting you, Shane. Let's hang again. You too, Gina. I'm sure I'll see you around. Absolutely. See you, Gina.
    17:44
    Shane, I'm really excited. Our first guest is a Twitch partner, an ambassador, and the founder of Deadflip Pinball, a stream with over 33,000 followers, which is absolutely bonkers for pinball. More recently, he's one of Stern Pinball's newest designers, with three pins now under his belt, the Jurassic Park Home pin, Foo Fighters, and the latest hotness, X-Men. As a streamer, he's without peer. As a designer, he's an innovator. And as a friend, I'd tell him to stop playing bone busters. Please welcome to the NudgeCast, Jack Danger. Hey, Jack.
    18:26
    Jack. Thank you. Jackie boy. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Honored to be here. This is, I don't know what to expect. Neither do we. Let's get this ball rolling. No, we really don't. This is going to be a probing interview where we get into all kinds of stuff that you can't talk about. Can't wait. But no, I think this is actually great to establish this right off the bat. So for our listeners, if you are not familiar with Jack Danger, he is sort of like part of the new guard that is helping to shape pinball. But one of the things that we really want to start with is I think, Jack, like a lot of us, a lot of people my age and a little bit younger, when we were first coming to the Aquabats. OK, Aquabats. Oh, we're getting into that. We'll get that out of the way early. You know, we already played the Aquabats before you came on. like you know that's gotta be the intro super rad's gotta be in there we played yeah no no it's all good so i i think a lot of us like our age and like maybe a little bit younger when we are coming to pinball you know we're looking for streaming and stuff your stream is the one that a lot of people come across first it's sort of a lot of people's introduction to not just like pinball but like the culture of pinball i guess could you talk a little because you've been streaming for forever, like before pinball was a category on Twitch. Yeah, buddy. Can you just talk a little bit about your early years kind of streaming and how that started? Yeah, totally. So a little over 10 years ago, I owned an animation studio in the West Loop of Chicago and some gentlemen that worked with me went on an adventure to Seattle or something. I don't know where they were. And they came back to like, Jack, guess what? We have a new freaking hobby. You're going I freaking love it. It's like this giant box of lights. It's amazing. I'm like, that's great. Cool. Pinball, whatever. I'm hopelessly addicted to World of Warcraft at the time. And so one of them, one of those gentlemen, his name's Brad. He bought a pinball machine. It was a Lord of the Rings. And he's like, I don't have anywhere to put this. Can I leave it in your studio?
    20:24
    And I was like, sure. Not knowing really the size of one of these things. So we bring it in. We have a cool freight elevator. Get it in there. Set it up. I play it a little bit. I'm like, I don't know what the hell this is. Whatever. This is whatever. Like Lord of the Rings is like a phenomenal machine. At the time, I'm like, I don't give a frick what this is. It's like this giant piece of furniture that I have to hold for now until he has room for it.
    20:48
    And so like a week later, he's like, hey, I bought another pinball machine. I'm like, if you don't have room for this freaking thing, please stop buying these. And it was a Judge Dredd. Nice. And when we set that thing up, it had the topper on it, all that stuff. We lift the head up, lock it into place, set it up. The second I hit start and start jamming on this, like the humor and the shots and just the presence of like the dead world and stuff, I was like, this actually is pretty freaking cool. And so like I ran over to the computer. I'm like, how do you beat the Judge Dredd pinball machine? And the Internet's like, you don't beat a pinball machine. Well, frick, okay. And then fell down a rabbit hole of, you know, Bowen Cairns' like Papa videos. And those were hugely inspirational and like invaluable to learn how to play these games. At the time, I got a like an alpha invite to Hearthstone, if you're familiar with Hearthstone, the video game. For sure. So I get this and I'm playing it. And one of the animators is like, you should stream that on Twitch. I'm like, I don't know what that is. Go to Twitch. I'm like, why the frick would anyone watch people play video games? This is like the dumbest shit. Can I swear? It's like the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Like, why would anyone watch this? And this guy's like, well, people watch folks play football. Why? You know, that doesn't mean you can't go out and play it if you want to. But like, it just is what it is. I'm like, I guess that kind of makes sense. So I started doing that for a little bit. And then I was like, you know, this might translate well to this whole pinball thing because I couldn't find anything on it. So we set up the cameras and we did find someone that was streaming pinball. He was like the only person that had any sort of live pinball content out there. His name's Lethal Frag. And Lethal Frag is the only streamer on Twitch to earn a Lifetime Achievement Award. They like gave it to him and then stopped. The dude's like amazing.
    22:44
    But he was streaming pinball on occasion. Him and I developed a relationship. Like I was coming up with new techniques on how to stream stuff. leaning on some of the ideas that he had. And he stopped streaming pinball. It was sort of short-lived because it was ruining his channel. Like the viewership, it would be like at this number, when he had switched to pinball, most people would leave. They're like, we don't know what this is. We want nothing to do with it. And I was like, I will carry that torch. I'm going to make this huge. What year was that? Oh, like 10 years ago. So like 2014, maybe? Okay. Because Twitch wasn't even that big at that point, really. No, it was large, but it wasn't like the monster that it is today. So at the time, there was no pinball category, like you said. There was, I don't know if you're familiar with Nintendo. The NES had a pinball game. The picture of it was like Mario holding a steel girder and you would like bounce a ball. So I would like stream under that and then I would get kicked off the platform. So like you're breaking the TOS rules or something. And then I was able to figure out how to trick the API where it would generate a category for a brief period of time. And then I got kicked off again because I was breaking some more rules. And then after getting some attention from the technicians and some of the partnership people at Twitch, they took me out to San Francisco where I got to sit down and talk to them. And I was like, hey, this is the thing I'm doing. And they partnered me on the spot. They're like, hey, you're introducing something to this platform that wasn't just video games. You're real. You're a real person in this room playing a real thing. This is awesome.
    24:25
    We don't have anything like this. So they partnered me. They let me make the icon for the pinball channel or the pinball section of Twitch, which is that low-poly looking thing. It's kind of terrible, but that was the style at the time. So I was just trying to fit in. I don't know. I just wanted to record myself and my friends playing so we could show people what we were learning. Like at the time, Zach Sharp took me under his wing to show me how to play pinball. So I was trying to share that information. But also we wanted to record ourselves playing to see where we were absolutely messing up and try to get better at that. And slowly, you know, one person here, two people there slowly started coming in and the rest is history. that's the fun part about your stream is a lot of it was like i i remember not quite that era but even a little bit after is like you're sort of learning a game with your audience that's a little bit different you talked about bone and i love bones videos too oh yeah bone is an absolute genius i got to stream the finals with him for houston arcade expo and it was so great because i could just like say funny stuff and he knew all not only all the rules he like knows the strats and everything but i think it was it's really fun that's a bit different from your classic streams because a lot of times you're sort of exploring code exploring those things alongside the audience um which i think is another fun part about twitch as opposed to like a youtube video or something like that is we're watching we're watching you learn at the same time um and you you did that like both playing and with design and and that kind of stuff yeah and how many times does the chat tell you something too where you're like oh i didn't even know that about the game oh it happened every single night yeah if right if they were like bringing something to me or if i'm like man i don't know how to like finish this mode and just seeing like people recommend stuff in chat and learning how to read a live chat out of the corner of my eye while playing was an awesome skill to develop sure um but honestly it's the the reason the channel i feel took off is like it could have been anything like and the partnerships told me this a lot a long time ago they're like jack like you're streaming pinball that's cool you your channel would probably be through the roof if you were streaming literally anything else because it's not about the game deadflip was about the interaction like if you tuned in i wanted you to feel like you were having an actual one-to-one conversation with me and i read every freaking line of text that showed up in my chat. Unless it was something terrible, then I'd read the first half and then go, oh, I probably shouldn't have read that. If you stuck with real video games, you'd have way more money right now, is what you're saying. Yes. I was told within the first year or two, they're like, yeah, if you would have stuck with Hearthstone, you'd be doing pretty well for yourself.
    27:20
    Amazing. Yeah, but I mean, who knows if you would have had like Tater Salad and the rest of the crew that you've met through pinball. So it's like that That is your army of cool dudes. I love it. I think that chat for a dead flip stream is just a little bit different because kind of everyone knows each other. There's a lot of in-jokes. You're right in that it's as much about the interactivity with you and the community as it is sort of about the pit. It's not just like, oh, we're going to watch him speed run whatever. Right, right, right. It is much more about the journey rather than the outcome. There were also definitely nights where I'm like, hey, we're going to play Turtles. And I don't think I'd get to gameplay like in the first hour of the stream because I'd just be chatting with people. And then the rest of it would be maybe the games on stream on screen. But I'm also like obliterated, drunk out of my mind, dancing to Robin or something. I love Robin. Well, and honestly, this is a really good thing to talk about because this is emulating a part of pinball that is really important for a lot of us. is like pinball is a third place it's where you go with your friends like i go every day to our local arcade and i will see our bartenders and i'll talk crap with them i'll like you know like i totally get like people have pinball in their basement and they can play it whenever they want but for me one of the strengths of pinball is that community that is built up just by virtue of the fact that it's like a like you talked about it's like you see one in real life it's huge you're not you just are gonna run out of space in your own house so it's like you got to get out there and find stuff. And I think this was like the online version of that. We felt like we're all kind of like coming in and like being a part of it. So totally. And I started streaming at a good time because I was building up an audience for a few years there. And then when COVID dropped, I became most people's source of entertainment that were into pinball 24 seven. Like I was streaming every single day, Monday through Friday for several hours a night. And you could just expect like your favorite TV show that when you sat down at like seven 20 or something, there's Jack being an idiot, doing whatever, showing off a new game, talking about upcoming titles. You know, before I was an employee of Stern, man, I love to just rattle off rumors and all this stuff. I was making fake announcements and say, well, I can't do that crap anymore.
    29:41
    But yeah, it was, it was, it was like a perfect storm to build everything up to where it was. And then, you know, it really took off during those couple of years of COVID. It really has exploded. I mean, you talked about it is a category on Twitch now. We see, I mean, every night you can go in there and you can find a half dozen to a dozen people streaming live pinball every single night. It's cool. And I guess this is one thing that I did want to ask, because as you were talking about sort of building your rig, like you're OK, you don't like all these like superlatives. So I'm not going to give you like a bunch of them, but you are like a pioneer of streaming pinball and you kind of give out free advice for building a rig on the dead flip website. Who so you you mentioned that the first guy who was like streaming pinball, like what was that process like as you were evolving it? I mean, you're moving maybe you obviously didn't have like six cameras, right, or whatever that you're using. So what was that like? Or what is your even advice to people who are just starting out? They want to do this, but maybe they don't want to spend half a million dollars on a crazy rig. Yeah, absolutely. When I got started, because of the industry I was in, we had cameras laying around because I was doing motion graphics or commercials and stuff. So we just had lots of gear laying around. So if I'd fire up a camera and I'm like, I want to zhuzh it up a little bit. oh, you've got that automatic pivoting dolly thing we can put a camera on to add some fun stuff to it, or taping a webcam to the ceiling so you get a really cool view of the player and the game and all that stuff. Just trying different stuff almost every night to see really what hit, what didn't.
    31:25
    And up until the day I, in air quotes, retired, still trying brand new things to try to get different angles, different shots. and what's cool is now that when you go to the pinball category there's always someone streaming like back in the day you know that was it was a wasteland there was no one there but everyone's trying new stuff like if you look at a manu from mpt3k that guy's got his whole screen is this most interactive wild thing you i couldn't even wrap my head around half of the stuff that was happening there um but really just try to make it your own try new things if something doesn't land for you, then try something else. If something doesn't land for the audience, but you like it, you know, the right people will come in and appreciate it. Um, but you don't need much to get started. Yeah. So if you find some guard, like two garbage webcams and like a snowball mic, you have everything you need. Like if you go look at my very early streams, they still looked and sounded great. Uh, and I was using the most budget, budget, budget stuff you could find. And what's cool about the webcams nowadays is they're still pretty cheap. They have microphones built into them now. Yeah. And yours doesn't have to look like cinematic quality right out of the gate because I've seen plenty of people invest a ton of money into doing this, and then their flame burns out. And now they're just sitting on all this gear. So let it happen organically. If you're feeling it and you want to spend a little bit more money on another camera, do the thing. But yeah, I wouldn't say jump in with both feet and buy all this stuff. Just use what's around. I love that so much. I tell people for nudge all the time. I'm like, I can teach you how to take pictures. I can teach you how to write. But honestly, I can't teach you how to give a shit. So like if you give a shit, you're going to do it and you're going to get better at it. So jump in. You will figure it out. It's going to suck the first time you do it and you'll get better. Like that is what happens. So yeah, I love that. There's really only one piece of advice I would give to anyone starting a stream or if you've been streaming for a little bit and maybe you're not seeing those numbers go up. And this is from talking to streamers in every category, like going to TwitchCon, like having drinks with partnership people at night. And just my own experiences as well is Twitch is live. People are watching it live. People are there with you. You have to engage with them. Yeah. So if I type something in a chat and it goes unnoticed but stays in that little window for 30 seconds a minute and it has not been recognized, that might as well be prerecorded content and I'm going to go somewhere else. so just acknowledge the folks that are there it doesn't have to be all the time you just like look over and give a nod maybe say their name respond to something uh but you have to let people know that you know we're all here together you're live with me we're we're doing this together if you want to retain an audience absolutely i mean anytime you go on any twitch stream and you just type something and that person goes hey your name it doesn matter how famous you are you feel something Totally You best freaking friends at that point It really is the recipe I agree I got a question for you though So you talk about the Lord of the Rings game entering your life and then the Judge Dredd machine captivating you. Do you have any memories of being a kid playing pinball at all, like birthday parties or anything like that? Any arcade memories of pinball?
    35:03
    I have zero connection to pinball up until that point, except for after streaming for a while and really thinking about it, I remembered that. So I didn't go to college. I went very, very briefly to some art college. And I was already making a living as a 3D animator, web designer, crap like that. But I was like, I'm going to go to college, get an actual degree, because maybe I need it, and I'm going to learn 3D crap. So I go to this and my first semester finals are due. And some guy catches me in the hallway like the day before. He's like, hey, like you got your your video done for like the video editing class. And I was like, I haven't done anything for that. No, I don't. So that night I was dating somebody that was going to Columbia College here in Chicago. I was like, what the frick am I going to do? You got a video camera. Awesome. in the main hall of Columbia College. They had a whirlwind pinball machine. Okay. And I have no memory of pinball before it and not for a long time after it. But I was like, okay, this is great. What are we going to do? I took off all my clothes completely naked. I was like, you're going to record me playing this pinball machine from different angles. And so I'm playing it. I'm not even playing it. I'm pretending to freaking play this thing. And it's like close-ups of the coin door and just like butt and genitalia and arms and the whole body, like the whole thing, right?
    36:31
    And so I get this. I was like, this is perfect. And then I start cutting it up, and I was like, this is weird. So I put like a cobalt blue filter over it, so it just felt very cold. I like that you got to the editing process before. You're like, this is weird. Yeah, right. After the fact. um so i i take that back to class the next day my friends like cool like what music did you put on it i was like frick i don't have music and i'm just going through the hall i'm like what do you got what do you got and some dude had like a stabbing westward cd and i was like all right okay cool and so i i put this like very i can't even remember the name of the song some popular stabbing what do i have to do was it that song no it was uh i can't even save myself oh yeah I can't save myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Yep. I can't even save myself. Save my ball.
    37:29
    I give it to the teacher. Like, I finished this like 20 minutes before. Give it to the teacher. We turn off all the lights. We start playing people's videos. He plays my video, right? It's just, oh, freaking awful. And, you know, if anyone could find this video, I will pay so much money because I want to share it with you all, but I don't know where it is.
    37:49
    So he plays it, and mine was like the second to the last video, but he gives critiques in between each one. And when mine is over, he's like, you can really feel the cold man versus machine nature of what's going on here and stuff. I was like, I fucking hate art college. I'm leaving immediately.
    38:09
    I was going to say, as a guy who is overly educated, has his MFA, that is the most like freaking college that you're like yeah i don't know i was really panicked and just needed a video so it was naked in front of a pinball machine he's like man versus himself man versus machine uh i did it i did it i played myself um and and so yeah that that was my first interaction that i can remember with pinball and then it wasn't until lord of the rings showed up in my studio many, many years after.
    38:40
    That's amazing. That story sounds more like a bad dream than a... It truly does. It's, yeah, like when you dream about high school or something, you're like... And then I was naked. Exactly. In front of a pit bull machine. That actually happened to me in high school. We had a, like, I don't know why, we were like overnight in our high school, and usually we would be like out camping in the courtyard. This sounds so bootleg for our high school, but I grew up in Wisconsin. But it was raining that night, so we had to sleep in the hallways. And I remember waking up late in my underwear, and I was where all the freshman classes are, and I was a senior. And I literally was just standing up in my underwear as people are walking in full clothes around me. It was like a nightmare, but it was true. And it was only really a nightmare for them. I was pretty cool with it because I was a senior at that point. Yeah, I'm chilling, man. The breeze is good. I have zero naked in school stories to share. Okay, that's good. Zero. Oh, no. I feel so left out. Yeah. It's too late to create some, so we're moving on. Unless I want to get arrested, yeah. Well, no, you could be like a non-traditional student somewhere. I don't know, like in every sense of that word. But let's move on from naked stories. So, Jack, one of the things that you did on your stream, and this still lives on on YouTube. People can check this out. was you did a dead flip homebrew and you worked with like Ed Owens. And that seems a bit like maybe that was your introduction to pinball design. Is that sort of how you took an interest in it? Is that how like Stern kind of you got on Stern's radar for design? Or yeah, I guess talk about doing those early homebrews. Sure. So on the stream, if I wasn't feeling like playing pinball, I was using my design skills in Photoshop. I would sit down, fire up the cameras, and be like, guys, we're going to just dream up what we think would be a cool pinball machine. And just ask the chat, be like, what's your name of favorite part of any game? Oh, you like the bull ram from Diner, okay? Oh, you like the crossbow from Walking Dead, okay? You want this, that, and the other. And then literally taking those parts in Photoshop, mixing them together, drawing all over them, stuff like that. So I'm creating this stuff, and I was like, I think we could do this. I know enough people to help me. I don't know anything about electronic CNC, whatever. So I was just like, I'm just going to rip the Band-Aid off. I was friends with Scott Denisey, who had just made Total Nuclear Annihilation, and started laying this thing out.
    41:08
    And then Scott had a – he has, like, this very small CNC machine in his garage. He's like, yeah, if you, like, draw stuff up in Illustrator, we could convert that into something that the CNC knows how to do. And he cut it for me. And I live-streamed all of this. Like absolutely every stage of putting this thing together, like cutting it, wiring it, you name it. I did it all. I did it primarily for content. That was it because that was my job. I was paying my rent with, you know, the generosity of the Internet, and I wanted to create more cool stuff for them to look at. And so just through the help of, you know, the folks at Mission Pinball Framework or the Scott Denise at Owen. But, I mean, there's too many, Joe, there's an army of people to thank. And it was through creating this game and getting it to a point that I already had kind of a small relationship with Stern because I had kicked off the idea of streaming brand new games as they came out. And obviously that's the thing to do now, which is freaking awesome. Yeah. But I had a nice personal relationship with a lot of people over there. And so I shared this with them. and you know cool cool cool whatever like that's great that you're making your own game but i think behind the scenes they're like okay this guy has this wealth of knowledge from playing pinball every single day for like six seven years that can be translated into like he maybe he kind of knows something of what's going on there so they decided to give me a chance with that jurassic park home game it's like that was the ultimate test of like can you design because you're very limited on scope like i only got one core node which limited how many switches i could use how many coils i could use this that and the other but yeah becoming a pinball designer wasn't my trajectory uh but that is where i'm at and i freaking love it and i think that's maybe what they were looking for like i wasn't trying hard to do this i was just showing that i had a passion for something it's the kind of job that doesn't grow on trees you know like there's so few people And the people that work at Stern, you know, the Brian Eddies, the John Borgs, George Gomez's, like they've been there forever and they're still making great games. So for you to get your foot in the door, that's just that's wild. But I mean, that obviously speaks to you, both your skills and your character, too. And it seems like George Gomez feels like he's really interested in fostering like the new generation of pinball designers as well. I think, I mean, you, you tell me Jack, but I think like George seems like, I mean, he's even very giving to like a schmo like me when I talk to him. So, um, I can, I can just imagine that he's a very, like, he's a great guy to have in that role. Oh yeah. And he, he wants to make sure that Stern's in good hands when, you know, the old guard in quotation marks, it has moved on, not dead. We're just not making him anymore. Although as a designer, you kind of die in this job, right? I will probably be making pinball machines until I can't move my body anymore. We hope so. Yeah. I appreciate it. While we're on the topic of Jurassic Park, obviously there's been the Costco new home edition and all that. I went down to my local Costco and I played it. That's kind of cool. I love it. You're kind of getting this game into – obviously it's the attempt to get new people involved, and it's your game. It's your first game too. Is it weird that it's kind of coming out again now when maybe at the time you probably didn't have as much, definitely not as much knowledge as you have now? I think it's cool to see it get a second life because when it was introduced and it's like this entry level or home game, the market for that seemed like the scope was much smaller. And maybe there was really kind of no chance of you ever encountering one of those in the wild. but now that it's at Costco, people get to see my first effort, which many, many people, even folks that are like into pinball, like really into pinball, never had an opportunity to see this thing. Uh, I hear about like stall ball tournaments being held at Costco's now, and they have to like Costco's removing plunger rods. Cause they're like, you guys can't do this in here. Like you've got, you've got to go somewhere else. Yeah. I love it. Uh, and I, I have one here and I play it as often as I can. And honestly, I wouldn't change a thing on that game i love that the engineer i worked with his name's rob blakeman he really took me under his wing because i it wasn't until i was like done with foo and moving on to x-men that i i still didn't really know how to use a ruler so communicating because i'm an artist by trade i was for many decades so communicating with an engineer when i'm like hey this ramp uh it's a little clunky i just need it to move over like a hair like you see my fingernail here like i need it that much over and uh he was very patient with me and just learning how that process works between the designer and the engineer was invaluable and um yeah i there isn't a thing i would i would change on that game the robocop jump ramp i can't believe george let me do that it was awesome hell yeah when i came on your stream like when you had me and eric on there that was what we played and i had a blast i've i was like my friends are like dude you're hitting that ramp over and over again And I'm like, yeah, it's not really me. It's the game, thankfully. But actually, this is like a good transition here because I don't know if you remember this, but we came out with an article that was like, our game's too easy right now. And you privately messaged me and were like, I'm working on a hard shooter right now. I think that's all you said. You were just like, I'm working on a hard shooter. X-Men is really interesting. I want to talk about it a little bit because to me, and you just tell me if I'm way off base on this or not, But what's so cool about it to me is having this insane lower third that is like an impossible riddle to solve. Anything can go wrong in it at any time. Mixed with the top of it is like it's not exactly like a fan layout, but it lends itself to sort of combos. And so talk about sort of balancing this like flow idea with this super chaotic like lower third. I just haven't seen that before. So can you kind of talk about that a little? Yeah, totally. Yeah, the hard aspect being the trying to manage the ball that's in main play. And if you're in a multi-ball and you have something in that danger room, good freaking luck trying to split your eyes to get it both to work out. You're sort of crossing your fingers hoping you can get out of there.
    47:38
    I love flow above all else. genuinely if i can make a game that just makes the ball move in a really cool way in lieu of mechanisms i'll do that um obviously you want mechs in a game but i want that ball to do stuff where you're just like how the frick did that just happen why did it happen or looking at shots going like how do i get here i gotta wait i gotta shoot over here to make it go down under i love that so much game is full of them i mean the the first time i hit the the danger room shot you know that goes all the way around the machine it was like magical and the figure eight shot is sick too yeah i i hate that danger room i just want to get out when i'm in there you know i know i'm trying to build my danger room up but it's like oh no we're gonna try to make that thing as absolutely lucrative as possible so like you are torn out of control whether or not you want to stay in there or not right but can you talk about just designing that bottom third and and i know like you've you've been on record as like you know gary always wants the italian bottom and For those non-pinball freaks who are listening to this, an Italian bottom is like a standard setup that you've seen a million times. It's like an out lane, an in lane, a sling, a sling, an in lane, an out lane with like two flippers basically. In our bottom, there's only one slingshot, three flippers, no out lanes, two center drains.
    49:01
    Yeah, it's very strange. How did – like were you just messing around like throwing stuff out there being like this could work? because the control on this game is totally different. I love it. I'm addicted to playing this game because trying to trap up with a left flipper and having it sort of use the C shape, it'll slingshot around and back to the other flipper.
    49:21
    It's a totally different sort of skill set than a traditional Italian bottom. So what are you looking at when you're developing that bottom third?
    49:30
    I'm constantly inspired by a lot of the weird stuff that has been done before me, whether it worked or not. I'm unapologetically a fan of like a lot of the Gottliebs that people are like, why the frick are you playing that game? Because like it's so weird and you never see this. Like if you play a traditional bottom on a pinball machine, you know, if the ball comes through the in lane, you could trap up or ski pass or whatever. You know, it's like the same stuff. And then the rest of the game is up top. But I wanted the whole thing to feel like a new, unique engagement with with this title. the the bottom of that game very familiar to a game that i don't know if you heard it go off but i have a gold wings behind me where that that left area is reminiscent of that but i wanted mine to be a lot more playable than the just like one and done thing that they do in there um so creating like its own mini play field but it's still right there in front of you and one of the biggest problems with more than two flippers on a pinball machine and gary will hammer this into your head is if you're not a huge pinball fan,
    50:36
    you don't know that there's more than two flippers on a game, even if there is two flippers. Yes. So if there's an upper flipper anywhere, they don't freaking use it. My wife, I've been married to for many, many years, and she's been into pinball with me or around pinball for many years. I will still see her absolutely forget that there is another flipper on Foo Fighters.
    50:56
    That's what it is. newer players are so scared to drain that they're just focused on those two bottom ones and they don't know to look up. What's cool about this is we've taken that upper flipper or upper playfield concept and put it in your periphery down there at the bottom. So if you're looking down, it's still right there. So introducing a new type of bottom to Gary was curious. I remember when I drew it up and I showed it to George, he's like, I don't know, man. Like, we got to get this past Gary. But also, you need to prototype this freaking right now so we know to pull the plug on it right now. But, you know, we'll let you prove out this concept. So from that original drawing that you showed to George and Gary, how much did the game end up changing? Very little, if at all. The way I showed Gary was him and I were riding motorcycles up to a Foo Fighters concert in Milwaukee And I was like this is it This is the time I going to show him I going to get his approval But I got to get some drinks in him first So we had a few beers And I was like, Gary, oh, man, I'm having a great time. By the way, look at this thing on my phone real quick.
    52:09
    Here's my next game. And he's looking at it. And he's like, if George says it's OK. And I was like, OK. And then I built it and finally got Gary to play on it. And he was giggling, man. when he would like the danger room is his favorite part of that game but it goes against all of these like rules that he had that had to be in place for like a pinball machine to be a pinball machine and you need you need those rules because i think you're someone who's like understanding why you're breaking them and then so it's like an interesting choice right like it wasn't that you are ignorant of an italian bottom being a good shooter it's like no of course they are but also like I have played Gold Wings. I've done all these things. This actually leads to another question I had. What are some designers or titles from the 80s and 90s that either are interesting to you or you can say Bone Busters. I'm going to be pissed, but if there's anything else and for people who don't know, there's a recurring joke. I don't know that I truly hate Bone Busters. I just hate how much Jack and Kyle Spiteri, who is another Stern employee, love Bone Busters so much um but yeah what are what are kind of some games from that era either got leaves or anything that that are inspirational to you or that you think people should just check out yeah man so uh what ray tanzer was a designer at got leave he actually did bone busters um he works at stern now and handles a lot of what's happening with the building and i keep trying like every other day i'm like dude i'm gonna before you retire i'm gonna make you design another pinball machine because I want to see what the frick is trapped in your head. Go play Bonebusters and tell me that you understand what's going on in that game. It is wild. He has a flipper as a diverter. He's got like the slingshots are actually kicking targets. Everything's all shaped. It's amazing. Anyway, two of my biggest inspirations in designing, one is Dan Langlois. I'm sure if you've seen any of my social media, I even have a shirt that says Dan Langlois Fan Club. He made games like Radical. Gilligan's Island, Heavy Metal Meltdown. He's made a lot of really awesome games, and a lot of games where you're like, how was this made? How did they let this out the door? Because it's so weird. And I love that, and I'm learning how to exercise that a little bit. Make it weird, but it has to be refined enough that it actually makes sense. Again, going back to Gold Wings, that left area was like, there's a flipper there and a couple targets, and then you're out of there. but actually using it and making it a real thing, a playable area. Yeah, Dan Langlois is such a great reference point for people, too, because he is sort of a forgotten genius in pinball, I would say. He died very young and pumped out a bunch of awesome games while he was around. But with his games especially, and I can draw a parallel between you and even Keith, is like you see young excitement in those games. We're willing to try some stuff. And so I think that is like a really a strength of his games for sure. And I mean, I love I love radicals. So that's so good.
    55:16
    And you're speaking my language. There's a lot of merit to like the recipe of like a traditionally successful pinball machine. Like, I don't want to dismiss that at all. Like, there's absolutely so many frickin amazing pinball machines out there that follow sort of this like, you know, you got to have the traditional bottom. Got to throw some drops in there, but like make that as cool as possible. And there's a million amazing games out there. like that i'm just like so hardwired for this like weird crap another uh great designer ward pemberton who's actually was a firefighter here in the chicagoland area made games like dungeons and dragons or bmx hard body the things that he created too like split level but then those flex saves in the in lanes or using those like uh ball eater mechs on dnd just i love when stuff is weird but it still plays correct. It's not weird for weird's sake. It's weird as a feature of the rest of the game. Yeah, it's like a Radiohead song. You're like, I don't know how this works out, but it just kind of does, you know? We only have you for a little bit longer here. I got a couple more questions for you, but I did want to make sure we get to you. You are on record, and this is a tough beat for some people. You are a Ska fan. Yeah, I am. That's a hard thing for people to wrap their mind. Did you ever play in a Ska band? I never played in a ska band. I know a little bit of every instrument enough to when I go to a friend's house and we would jam, I could participate. If I need to play a trumpet archaically and loudly, keyboards, any of that stuff, I know a little bit of everything. I even know plenty of rules on banjo. But there's something about how happy ska makes you feel. I mean, the America's Funniest Home Videos theme song is like the most banging ska song, period.
    57:07
    It's up there. Well, let me say this. Can you guess the name of my terrible ska band from high school? Do you want to throw a guess out there?
    57:18
    Skanoodling the Doodles. That's pretty good. We wanted it to be Ska Skank Redemption. Unfortunately, that was taken. That's good. We went with say when, which is when you're pouring a glass of milk or something. Oh, pouring a glass of milk, yes. But the problem was, right, when you play in a ska band and no one likes you, people are screaming when halfway through your first song. Oh, boo. Yeah, I know. They're like, when? When? Right now? When? Get off the stage. Okay, so I'm going to have you right now rank these ska bands in order, and you cannot do the Aquabats. I took the Aquabats out of here because you're on record. Rank these ska bands in order of how good a pinball machine theme they might make. We're not saying this is going to be something. We're just saying hypothetically. So we have Mighty Mighty Boss Tones, of course. Real Big Fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Less Than Jake. And Mustard Plug. So please put those in order. In order that I would want them would be Real Big Fish. Yes.
    58:23
    Let's see. Aquabats keeps bouncing around in my head. What else did you say? Mighty Mighty Boss Tones, Less Than Jake, Mustard Plug. So Real Big Fish, Less Than Jake,
    58:34
    Boss Tones, and Mustard Plug. Now, I understand if you're a Sky fan, you might be wondering why Mustard Plug is so far down there at the bottom. Honestly, didn't listen to them that much. That's okay. That's okay. You're more an MU-330 guy. That's cool. I get it. I was also like, I started my Sky journey on the early two-tone stuff. The Specials was my absolute and still one of my favorite bands to date. But yeah, listen, with Less Than Jake, you've got to have a drum set that's on fire.
    59:03
    Boss Tones would have a mech of the Boss Tone just dancing in the background as you're hitting stuff. That would be amazing, yes. I'm imagining, sorry, this is from another company, but on the new Avatar, there is the mech of the suit. Yeah, you could have that hooked up to a pop bumper where it's a guy skating. That would be really fun. I do like that. So you're saying you're going to get Gary drunk and you're going to make the specials for Pinball Machine. That's what's going to happen? No, listen, guys, I don't mean to keep coming back to the Aquabats, but it would sell dozens. And I need to buy dozens.
    59:41
    I would as well, actually, to be honest. I mean, just the graphic design alone on that pin would be so vibey. Dude, the colors would be amazing. They have such a great story. I mean, the back commander, the lead singer, helped make Yo Gabba Gabba. Totally. And you got Travis Barker got his career started as Baron Von Zemo, the drummer in the Aquabats. And they did that Kickstarter not too long ago where Jack Black was an Aquabat. All these people. It's such a great band. Go listen to it immediately. It's such a great band. I saw them play in 98. They opened for Blink. Actually, they opened for Primus, and Blink was on the show. And the first time I saw, I was like, this drummer is incredible. I didn't know who he was. He had a costume on. Yeah. I bought the CD, and it said, yeah, the Baron Von Tito or whatever his name is. Oh, Tito, yeah. Did I say Zemo? I'm thinking of Marvel Universe. I told all my friends that the best drummer in punk rock and ska was the Baron Von Tito from The Aquaman. And then, like, a year later, he takes off his mask, and he's in Blink-182, and that's Travis Barker. Dude, that's so good.
    60:49
    Have you ever played with the Aquabats, Shane? Have you ever shared a bill with the Aquabats? We've done Warped Tours and, yeah, some festivals with them. And I love the band so much in the 90s.
    61:01
    It's like a kaiju wrestling battle happening live on stage in front of you while there's, like, ska music playing. It's so good. Let me ask you this, though, Jack. While we're on the topic of music, I mean, you did the Foo Fighters game, obviously, which I own on LE. I love the game so much. Hell yeah. And that's probably the closest to punk we've had of a modern pinball game. Do you think there's a punk band that would work? Some people have thrown around Green Day, could be a Machine, or maybe Blank Windy 2. Has that ever been something that you've talked about? I know you kind of grew up in the music scene and stuff.
    61:41
    Yeah, I would say maybe Rancid and more of an Op Ivy guy. Rancid, yeah. it's that's tough because like you have to it's like what do you want to make but actually like what's going to sell so when you work for a big company there's a lot of mouths you got to feed right so like it it has to make sense in both hands right we really love this license also it's going to sell very well we sort of struck gold with foo fighters because we were able to create what we would refer to internally as an original IP game. Like it's this cartoon about people traveling the country and fighting an alien, stuff like that. It just happens to have Foo Fighters music in the background. So we were able to like trick that a little bit. So people that weren't even into Foo Fighters are like, actually, you know, I love how this looks and the story behind it. My guess is if you were going to integrate like punk rock, ska, stuff like that into a pin, I don't know if it's going to be one band. it would have to be something like a a bunch yeah so uh creating a soundtrack for a game yeah exactly totally warm tour pinball for sure yeah so like how uh guardians of the galaxy has several different musicians on it to create a soundtrack for that game uh like tony hawk pro skater would be freaking phenomenal like that whole first game with their their music would just be absolutely insane yeah and you saw you saw nick's homebrew i mean i saw you playing that oh yeah we uh george uh ethan i went over there to go jam on it so for the audience there actually is a tony hawk homebrew that exists right now and they have put all the music i think from the first two home tony hawk games into it so uh i totally hear you with that like we love punk and so we're like oh yeah like everyone loves it but it does truly have to be sort of these like cornerstone big IPs that are instantly recognizable to mom and dads and kids and all these things. Yeah, you're not going to go to Chuck E. Cheese and be like, oh, there's an exploited pinball machine over there. It's just not going to happen, right? Well, Shane, that'll be good. You can make your descendants homebrew and that's going to be very popular finally. So that's great. So when you're working on a game like Foo Fighters, I assume you're working hand in hand with the management and the band itself. and then when you're working with something like x-men that's a whole company that's a whole like is that a big difference when you're working with just a handful of people i assume that are kind of controlling the ip versus like a huge corporation and is is one kind of easier than the other every game i've done so far has been a completely different journey foo fighters was awesome because they said fuck yeah cool to anything we threw at them they didn't give a what it was the only thing they ever turned down was when we built the foobot that we called it growl bot they're like no no no it's got to be about the whole band we're like all right fuck it it's a foobot and that was like the only change like they were like they're in a van they're going to be jamming and there's like this katamari ball of like instruments and shit they're like fuck yeah that sounds that sounds great nice um yeah so they were open to whatever we were exploring things also got a little dark when uh taylor died so communication there was a little rough but we pushed through and then when they came back to communicating like we were still very much good to go uh marvel uh definitely is its own beast but because we've worked with them on so many titles already that was a pretty smooth process um because a lot of marvel's um input comes from their your interpretation of their characters right i can have a shot that does like some loopy whatever thing they don't care about that they're like does wolverine have three claws good because it's not four, right? And because Jeremy is their go-to guy for anything pinball with Marvel, it was smooth. It's not to say there wasn't a lot of... Back and forth. Yeah, sure. There was a lot of back and forth, but all of it was pretty freaking smooth. Jurassic Park was easy-peasy the home game because it was part of a package for the Cornerstone. So when they pitched it, they're like, hey, you're going to get a pro-premium in LE from us, and then there's going to be a home game, right? So they gave me the home game to do, but I was able to leverage pre-existing assets that were made so we didn't have to get anything approved, pre-existing call-outs so that didn't have to get approved. So far, everything I've worked on has been pretty chill. Fingers crossed it stays that way. Yeah, for real. Well, Jack, thank you so much, man. Anything else to tell the people before we let you go?
    66:23
    Just go play. If you feel like you suck at pinball, you just got to keep playing. That's how you get better at anything. And I know that sucks to hear, but there are some shortcuts you can take in order to get better. You just got to message me privately and I'll tell you what those are.
    66:39
    Jump in the DM. That's right. We're all doing it. All right. Thanks, Jack. Thank you. So there it is with Jack Danger coming on the program. our first ever guest. That was a lot of fun. Ian, how do you feel after our first ever podcast episode of NudgeCast? I feel good. I mean, we have new friends now. I mean, me and you, me and Jack, you and Jack, Gina, we're all friends. Yeah. It's like the community continues to build and I'm just like so excited to get started. We're going to have episode two up Real soon? Yep. We're working on more and more stuff. And thank you for having me, Ian. I love the magazine so much. What you've done in the first four issues of Nudge has been incredible. I can't wait for more. What's the website so people can check it out if they're just stumbling upon this podcast and now they want to actually have a physical magazine? Yeah, absolutely. I would say go to NudgePinball.com. You can read our articles there. You could sign up for our email list. It also has a link to our Instagram, which I would recommend as a follow. And Shane, where can people find you?
    67:57
    Oh, you can find me, silversteinmusic.com, for upcoming shows that my band's doing. We've got a very busy 2025, a couple albums and lots of touring. Actually, if you want to find me, if I'm playing that city and there's a lot of pinball machines in the vicinity, that's where I'm going to be all day, right? So you can probably hunt me down and play pinball with me if I'm in your city. Dude, I cannot wait till you're in my neck of the woods, till you're in the Minneapolis area. And we can hit up Lit. We can hit up SS Billiards. I mean, you won't play good shows in Minneapolis because I'm going to tire you out, bud.
    68:34
    I know you're going to take me to school with your billion on Godzilla or whatever you're routinely getting these days. I can't wait, man. But this is so exciting. And thank you, everybody, for tuning into this. Spread the word. Tell people that there's a new podcast in town, and we can't wait for more and more of this. That's right. Thanks, guys. We'll see you soon. See you next week.