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Episode 86 – Get Ready For Battle

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 45m·analyzed·Apr 1, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.021

TL;DR

Deep dive on Black Knight: Sword of Rage of Rage announcement with guest Jeff Rivera.

Summary

Head2Head Pinball hosts Jeff Rivera (The A A Pinball Podcast) to discuss the newly announced Black Knight: Sword of Rage of Rage. The episode covers the game's design philosophy, mechanical features (upper playfield, MagnaSave, lightning wheel), art direction, and team (Steve Ritchie designer, Tim Sexton lead coder, Scott Ian music). They also debate Stern's timing of the announcement (day after TPF) and discuss the broader pinball podcast ecosystem.

Key Claims

  • Black Knight: Sword of Rage of Rage was announced the day after Texas Pinball Festival ended

    high confidence · Martin and Jeff Rivera discussing timing of announcement

  • Tim Sexton is the lead coder for Black Knight and this is his first game as lead

    high confidence · Direct discussion of development team; Sexton confirmed as joining Stern 14 months prior

  • The MagnaSave feature moved to the apron and eliminates the need for an action button multiplier

    high confidence · Detailed mechanical discussion comparing to Game of Thrones

  • The transparent upper playfield on Premium/LE allows visibility of the pop bumper nest underneath

    high confidence · Direct mechanical feature discussion

  • Scott Ian from Anthrax is doing the music for Black Knight

    high confidence · Explicit statement in sound design section

  • Steve Ritchie will provide voice acting for the Black Knight character

    high confidence · Call-outs section discussion

  • Ed Robertson from Barenaked Ladies will do call-outs (and possibly vocals)

    high confidence · Discussed as confirmed part of project

  • The back box features an LED/LCD display with ~60 LEDs simulating fire in a castle area

    medium confidence · Jeff noting 'apparently that is an LED display or an LCD display, whatever it is, with like 60 LEDs maybe'

  • Iron Maiden announcement last year was also withheld from Texas Pinball Festival and revealed at Midwest Gaming Classic

    high confidence · Direct comparison by Jeff Rivera

  • The A A Pinball Podcast has been running since 2011 with 129 episodes across multiple hosts (Don, Jessica, Jeff Rivera)

    high confidence · Jeff Rivera's biographical information at start of episode

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm going to warn you right now, you have a professional on today, so amateur hour is over. It's going to get real, this episode. Buckle up.”

    Jeff Rivera @ early in conversation — Sets tone for the episode; establishes Jeff's self-aware confidence about his pinball expertise

  • “I think it's more so that they don't need the show to reveal a machine and sell the units that they need.”

    Jeff Rivera @ TPF announcement timing discussion — Pragmatic business perspective on why Stern might not prioritize TPF announcements

  • “If you're doing a Black Knight, which iconically has the upper playfield, I kind of think that the Pro should have had that as well.”

    Martin (host) @ Premium vs Pro discussion — Criticizes Stern's Pro/Premium split for Black Knight; suggests Pro feels 'ginked' without upper playfield

  • “Removing that upper playfield feels subtractive, whereas Game of Thrones it feels like it's being crammed in. It doesn't feel like it's adding to the game.”

    Martin @ Black Knight vs Game of Thrones comparison — Key design philosophy critique; upper playfield feels integral to Black Knight vs bolt-on for GoT

  • “I'm thinking about when a person first steps up to the machine and how they're going to enjoy it as opposed to who's going to be able to blow it up or what tournament strategies.”

    Tim Sexton @ Tim Sexton design philosophy — Describes coder's intent to balance casual accessibility with depth

  • “My biggest problem I had with it is you've got a flow layout with a stop-start rule set.”

    Martin @ Star Wars discussion — Identifies core design flaw in Ritchie's last machine; implies hope Black Knight avoids same mistake

  • “The A A Pinball Podcast has been kind of the show that won't die, right? Like it's been fun.”

    Jeff Rivera @ Podcast intro — Self-description of show longevity and perseverance through format changes

Entities

MartinpersonJeff RiverapersonSteve RitchiepersonTim SextonpersonScott IanpersonEd RobertsonpersonJerry ThompsonpersonJosh Clay

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball announced Black Knight Sword of Rage the day after Texas Pinball Festival ended, via IGN.com partnership with pre-recorded interviews and preview content.

    high · Multiple references to announcement timing and IGN reveal; Coast to Coast interviews with Tim Sexton and Steve Ritchie

  • $

    market_signal: Stern's decision to announce Black Knight outside TPF suggests preference for controlling own media cycle (possibly due to IGN partnership) over event-based announcements, despite bringing substantial machines/booth space to TPF.

    high · Discussion of TPF being 'kick in the teeth' but reasoning that Stern doesn't need show to sell units; parallel to Iron Maiden strategy year prior

  • ?

    design_innovation: Black Knight moves MagnaSave to apron and eliminates multiplier action button, simplifying control scheme while maintaining classic mechanic, addressing Game of Thrones design criticisms.

    high · Jeff: 'It means no action button nonsense because it's being used for MagnaSafe' and comparison to GoT's problematic button layout

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Tim Sexton (lead coder) prioritizing casual player accessibility and progression-based gameplay over tournament/hardcore strategies, representing potential shift from Star Wars design philosophy.

    high · Paraphrased: 'I'm thinking about when a person first steps up to the machine and how they're going to enjoy it as opposed to tournament strategies'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pro model lacking upper playfield (iconic to Black Knight lineage) creates sharp Pro/Premium differentiation; hosts debate whether this is damaging to Pro appeal.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.070

0:00
Music Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 86 and my name's Martin and with me... It's Jeff R. Does that work? No. Who are you Jeff R.? I'm Jeff Rivera of the Pinball Podcast. Now you've been doing that for a very long time. Talk to me about it. Yeah, it's been a very long time and it's like it's, I don't know, third or fourth life by now, but the Pinball Podcast has been kind of the show that won't die, right? Like it's been fun. It's been something I've been doing. We're 129 episodes in. It used to be monthly and then it became twice a month and now it's about whenever we just kind of want to do it. But it's still fun. We're still enjoying it. Yeah, we started it in 2011. Wow. Yeah, it's been around for a long time. In the history of the show, there's been three hosts. There's been me, Don, and Jessica. And Jessica and I are the two current hosts. Yeah, so you've gone through the same thing that I went through, which is a change of co-host. Yes. I still don't know what I'm going to do. I think I'm actually really enjoying having guest hosts like yourself because it's interesting for me. I have to work a new dynamic every time I record, but I'm also getting a new, fresh perspective rather than, you know, Ryan and I got into a bit of a routine. We always knew when we were going to argue and when we were going to agree.
2:08
Yeah, and I'm going to warn you right now, you have a professional on today, so amateur hour is over. It's going to get real, this episode. Buckle up. Well, this is actually really what's interesting is because I've been listening to you. You were, I think, the second podcast I started listening to. No offense, but... No, I believe it was the first. Coast to Coast is what got me into it. I went, oh, are there other podcasts? And yours was the second. So I've been listening to them for about good four years. So it's good to have you on. I mean, we've been around eight, so... Yeah, yeah. I've only really been back into pinball about four or five years, so I've got that excuse. All right. Well, Nate Shivers is a great gateway drug, so... He's fantastic. But it was kind of like when I first got back into pinball, and it's like, oh, there's more than one of these tournaments going, and there's all these people that are into it, so... That was what it was like for podcasts. There was a lot... Then there's a lot more now. And there's a lot of quality out there too. Right. At one point at TPF, I know we might talk about TPF a little bit later, but I played a four-player game on Alice Cooper with Taylor of the Slippin' podcast. I played in it as well. I was also with Charlie from Spooky Pinball and the Spooky Pinball podcast. and our Player 4, I feel like the biggest dick in the world, just getting who Player 4 was. Well done, Player 4, you're awesome. Player 4, I also know they were a podcaster.

“There's a lot of quality out there too... There is something for everyone, and I don't think we're at saturation point.”

Jeff Rivera @ Podcast ecosystem discussion — Defends proliferation of pinball podcasts; argues niches allow selectivity over quantity concerns

  • “When a person first steps up to the machine and how they're going to enjoy it... I'm thinking about everybody.”

    Tim Sexton @ Coder philosophy discussion — Captures shift away from hardcore/tournament-first design toward broader appeal

  • “It's got some of the key features that I think would have been non-negotiables, which is effectively the upper playfield... the lightning wheel... and MagnaSave.”

    Martin @ Black Knight iconic elements discussion — Identifies core design lineage; validates Stern's decision to include classic elements

    • person
    Kevin O'Connorperson
    Nate Shiversperson
    Black Knight: Sword of Ragegame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    The Pinball Podcastorganization
    Coast to Coastorganization
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Loser Kid podcastorganization
    Game of Thronesgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Star Warsgame
    IGN.comorganization
    Midwest Gaming Classicevent
    Anthraxorganization
    Barenaked Ladiesorganization

    high · Martin: 'If you're doing a Black Knight...I kind of think that the Pro should have had that as well' and 'I personally almost feel like the Pro doesn't exist to me'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Tim Sexton becomes lead coder on Black Knight after ~14 months at Stern; fresh perspective from tournament/podcast background may influence code philosophy away from Star Wars criticisms.

    high · Confirmed 14 months at Stern, joined during Iron Maiden, previously streamer/podcaster/player

  • ?

    design_innovation: Back box feature uses ~60 LEDs as LCD/LED display to simulate castle fire effect, adding dynamic visual element to backglass area.

    medium · Jeff: 'apparently that is an LED display or an LCD display...with like 60 LEDs maybe...that simulates the fire'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts discuss expanding pinball podcast ecosystem (multiple shows including Loser Kid, Wormhole, Spooky, Coast to Coast, The Pinball Podcast); no consensus on saturation; value seen in niche-targeting over unified voice.

    high · Extended discussion of podcast diversity; Jeff: 'I don't think that quantity is ever an issue' and 'find the voice you like'

  • ?

    content_signal: Stern leveraging pop culture personalities (Scott Ian/Anthrax, Ed Robertson/Barenaked Ladies) for music/voice work on Black Knight, signaling celebrity integration strategy.

    high · Scott Ian doing Anthrax-style music; Ed Robertson doing call-outs/vocals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Relief and optimism about Black Knight being Ritchie's return to form after Star Wars's polarizing reception; hope that Tim Sexton's code philosophy prevents repeat of flow/rules mismatch.

    high · Martin: 'I've got to say I'm so pleased it's this and it's not High Speed or Getaway 3' and extended Star Wars critique

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival serves as major gathering point but Stern declining to coordinate announcements; likely next public reveal at Midwest Gaming Classic with Pro units available for play ~4-5 weeks post-announcement.

    high · Jeff: 'So the other thing to talk about really is the difference between the pro and the premium LE' and 'four or five weeks until the pros are seen in public'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Black Knight designed with overarching battle progression (skeleton armies → human armies → castle → final boss Black Knight wizard mode), using narrative structure to guide player progression rather than freeform mode selection.

    high · Discussion of 'building combos and loops and locks to see how it progresses you through this battle' and 'Sword of Rage belongs to the player'

    • 3:51
    You'll add it to the sound of good. Of course I will, I'm not going to. Because we all talked about how they were all podcasters, but what I wanted to get back to, it was kind of funny, Because when Spooky Pinball started theirs, it was just ahead of us. And there wasn't many other things going on at that time. And it's crazy to think that we're both still going. But you look and compare at what he was able to kind of leverage his show into, a full-blown pinball manufacturer and this beloved family of pinball. And I'm just kind of the same thing. So what are you going to do now? What are you going to turn your podcast into to monetize it? We made some really uncomfortable and ugly shirts. So we did that.
    4:37
    And we've done that. Well, we made what I thought were great shirts. Your shirts are great. Ryan hated the logo. When I saw you last week, I actually gave you one of our shirts. Right, right. And I've been seen in it.
    4:54
    Awesome. Just take us every time. So here's the question, though, because I'm not going to go too much on podcasts at the moment, but, you know, there's been discussions recently about the fact that there are too many podcasts. What do you think? No, actually, I don't think that that quantity is ever an issue because it lets you be extremely selective in who you want to listen to. No one's obligated to listen to all of them or even any of them. So just find the voice you like. Yeah, it's going to divide the listenership up, but what are we getting out of increased listeners anyway? We're not making money on this. It's not really that big of a deal. So the more and more podcasts they are, it just lets you be a little bit more selective and listen to the type of stuff you want to hear. So I often hear comments that ours is the sappy, make you cry at times podcast, and if that's what you want, come get it. If you want to laugh, listen to this show because you guys are hilarious. You guy, I should say. Well, yeah, he's pretty much dead to us all now. Yeah, yeah. What was it? It was Ryan. Yeah, Ryan.
    6:04
    So and then if you want like really informative stuff, this week in pinball is very, you know, bullet pointy and it just depends what you want and you can go and get that. Yeah, and look, in a couple of weeks' time, we're going to have the guys from Loser Kid podcast on as well. And what I like about that, I mean, that's come from your area, from Utah, and it really supports your community as well. So people can find whatever they want, whether they want a local community, because there's obviously the New York podcast as well and all that kind of stuff. There is something for everyone, and I don't think we're at saturation point, I think is my thoughts on it. Yeah. Do you think the others that I didn't mention feel bad that I didn't mention them? Yep. Yeah. You always, when you start hearing a list go, you kind of hope that you get called out, huh? You know what? A little bit. It is like that. My recent is, you know, there was a recap that happened from Texas Pinball Festival, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to get mentioned any second. I'm going to get mentioned. I'm going to get mentioned. Oh, no. That didn't happen. So, okay. Fair enough. Fine. Obviously didn't make that much of an impression. Guess not. Shall we get into some Pinball news? Let's do it. Has anything of note happened this week? Maybe, you know, two hours after my podcast was out last week? What do you think?
    7:29
    Yeah, like right after TPF where a lot of people travelled to go and hopefully see some large announcements, Black Knight was announced, so sort of rage. Okay, so we're going to go obviously into our impressions of the machine. What are your thoughts? Because this has been a bit of a topic besides, you know, after people, you know, got their jaws off the ground. Why do you think Stern chose not to? Besides the whole monsters thing, which there were 500 monsters there. Why do you think they chose the day after to reveal it? Because that's a bit of a kick in the teeth, I think. It is. So I don't think they were like intentionally snubbing the show. I think that there was just so many rumors leading up to it. Like, there was a chance that J.J.P. was bringing Willy Wonka. There was a chance that Spooky might be showing Scott Denise's next game or at least announcing what it is going to be.
    8:22
    That, you know, maybe even Chicago Gaming might be saying what the next remake title could be. And it's just a possibility that Stern wanted to have their own news cycle and not share that news cycle. I know it's a huge pinball event, but Stern has this partnership going on with IGN.com right now, and it could be something that just IGN doesn't want to share that as well. And so they say, hey, if we're going to do this announcement, we want it on our own day. Maybe even IGN says we want it on a Monday. I don't know. So it could be just a case that that was something Stern was backed into. Or, yeah, it could just be the fact that Stern just doesn't care about supporting the show. Because we don't know. Unless they come out and say, and I don't know how many companies do just want to come out and reveal their marketing strategies, we can grump about it. But it does feel like a big bummer because you had thousands of people in one spot. They come to the seminar and they're super excited about it. And when they're all flying home the next day is when I find out about the announcement. And it's like, ah, it's a letdown. But I don't know how much was under their control. I think saying that they don't care about the show is probably a bit too much. I think they do care because they still would have spent a lot on the space that they had allocated and all the machines that they bring. I think that it's more so that they don't need the show to reveal a machine and sell the units that they need. Sure. And they're going to have a ton of those. Is it the Midwest Gaming Classic? Is that the... Yeah, I think that's probably the next big one, isn't it? And then Pintastic is also coming up as well. Right. So there's plenty of opportunities for them. Yeah, they did this last year with Iron Maiden. That's true. They didn't have it at Texas Pinball Festival, and then they had like 30 of them at Midwest Gaming Classic that people could take home that day. So I could see that being repeated. Yeah, but again, from the end user experience, being me, where I've literally spent a crap load of money to get over there and 20 hours of flights and then sat through a Steve Ritchie seminar, you know, with people all around that could talk about it. And then the next day that happens. And obviously, you know, the reveal happened on IGN. Actually, I think I saw like a preview video of it first, just not with any gameplay, just with the logo and, you know, some animation. I'm not sure that was supposed to come out, but it came out. Well, yeah, I think, was that revealed as part of their insider program? I think that that's kind of where people first saw it. Maybe. I'm often wrong, so that could have happened. But then IGN happened. Then you had the two pre-recorded interviews that Coast to Coast did. So Nate got Tim Sexton on and also, unbeknownst to him, managed to get Steve Ritchie on the phone as well, which was pretty cool. Sure. So what do we see with the game? Well, if you just kind of like first glance at it, you think, oh, okay, it's like a brighter, flashier Evolution of Black Knight. But if you listen to the Tim Sexton interview, especially, there's going to be a lot going on there. There's a big overarching storyline of battles between skeleton armies and human armies and catapult wars and the Black Knight's a big final boss wizard mode and the Sword of Rage belongs to the player, not to the Black Knight for one thing. But it sounds like it's a really big package as far as things they're going to do with it. So yes, it looks like the Black Knight, but there's just going to be a lot more going on there than I think we're used to seeing out of that series. So I'm pretty excited. Yeah, look, obviously I am as well. The first thing that I saw when I, there was a couple of things that went through my mind when I first looked at the images. I thought, okay, great. You've taken the Black Knight, the theme, the imagery, more so Black Knight 2000 than the original Black Knight. and you've updated it and you've given Steve Ritchie good art finally. Right. Yeah. Right? He's always been on the short end of it in recent years. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, he's been the most controversial when the pictures first come out. And everyone always says, you know, when these pictures get released, you really shouldn't judge until you see it in person. I think Beatles was a really good example of that where they looked okay in pictures, but they look great. In real life, you know, Rick Road, right from Jersey Jack that was announced at TPF, looks really ordinary in pictures, but actually looks kind of good in person.
    13:12
    Yeah, I agree. So that's what I saw, was art first, looked great. Yeah, and the toy, the Black Knight toy, looks stunning. It's right in the pictures.
    13:23
    Yeah, I think it's got to look so cool in person. And it was interesting seeing the Black Knight himself be a toy. Yeah. And that's kind of interesting that you're going to be bashing on him a little bit. So I like it. I love that people were going, what is this, Mace of Rage? Because he's a mace. And you're right. You are the person that's got the sword. You're trying to beat the Black Knight. But also that mech kind of looks a bit cool. Now what I've heard about it is on one side, if you're facing it on the left side, it's got that mace that rotates. And I believe that it actually shoots it back at you as well. And then on the right side of it, so the Black Knight's left, he's actually got a shield that raises and lowers. Apparently it catches the ball behind it, sort of like a Denise-y lock or, you know, Star Trek lock that did that. But that also has the ability to shoot it back at you. Yeah, yeah. And that's all exciting stuff right up the middle because I need to look at it again. Is there a U-turn shot around him? I do not know. I haven't noticed. I need to look again. I've got to look again, and I've stared at these images so much.
    14:32
    And as per a lot of Sterns that get released where they've got very intricate slash busy art, I've kind of struggled to find where the shots go and, you know, where the angle of them goes through and where they end up and, you know, how does it get back up to the top play field, all that kind of stuff. I still find that very confusing because I can't see the shots, obviously. Right, and what I've been doing lately with pinball reveals is I'll watch the reveal video once or twice just to kind of get my general impression of it, but I don't watch it enough to where I allow myself to form too much of an impression because I just want to play it. I want to base everything on the play. I don't want to go into too many preconceptions.
    15:10
    This one, though, I'm extremely excited to play it. I think May will be my first chance to do so. It's not too far away for me, but yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, well, and if it's like their other reveals, they really are only, I don't know, four or five weeks until the pros are seen in public, so that's probably how far away it is. So the other thing to talk about really is the difference between the pro and the premium LE, which has got an upper playfield. Not like the original ones where, you know, you really only had the upper playfield and the lower playfield. This has got a transparent upper playfield in the premium and LE so you can see everything that's happening underneath it. And I think that's kind of cool because you've effectively got the room for another, you know, let's say 50% of a machine that's not taken up by an upper playfield.
    16:03
    Yeah, the pop bumper nest is underneath the upper playfield. Correct. I've got to say, my thought on this is, if you're doing a Black Knight, which iconically has the upper playfield, I kind of think that the Pro should have had that as well. Me too. I personally almost feel like the Pro doesn't exist to me. For me, if I'm interested in this, it's premium or up. But yeah, I mean, I get it. I get the whole pro premium splits, but that feels like a tough concession there. It really does. And the biggest parallel I'll give it is to Game of Thrones, right? Which, even though people actually, and I actually say, I think that the pro plays better than the premium in Ellie because I think that upper play field isn't all that fun. And this one looks fun. And when you actually look at the pro with that whole upper thing taken out, it kind of looks a bit plain. Yeah, it does. And I agree with you on Game of Thrones as well, by the way. We don't need to talk about it, but I agree.
    17:13
    Good to know. I get worked up about that upper playfield on Game of Thrones, so best to stay away. Just a chance to do it. Yep, keep going. Where I feel, yeah, so I guess what I feel is on Black Knight, removing that upper playfield feels subtractive, Whereas Game of Thrones, it feels like it's being crammed in. It doesn't feel like it's adding to the game. Yeah. Well, and this is the whole thing. If Steve Ritchie's going back to Black Knight to design this, he's thinking about that whole upper play field as being integrated as opposed to Game of Thrones, which felt like a little bit of a bolt-on, right? Right. Yeah, so that's kind of the difference and that's what this feels like is that it was meant to be part of the whole package. Taken away, I really do feel you've got a ginked machine in the Pro. Yeah, I think so.
    18:00
    So they moved the Magnus save to the apron, right? Yes, yes! Do you know why that's a big deal? Because other flippers you keep forgetting about, other flipper buttons. No, it's even bigger and better than that. It means no action button nonsense because it's being used for MagnaSafe. Oh, okay. So you're not moving any multipliers around. You're not, like, desperately cashing in some weird, I don't know, boom button or anything like that. It's just MagnaSafe. It is. And it's beautiful. It's beautifully simple. This is exactly right. And this is what I love about, you know, this Black Knight is that it does look new. It does look fresh, but it's got some of the key features that I think would have been non-negotiables, which is effectively the upper playfield. We talked about the pro.
    18:55
    The lightning wheel in the middle, you had to have that, right? Yes. So iconic from Black Knight 2000. And then MagnaSave. And as soon as I saw MagnaSave, I went, yes, that has come back. and I saw someone comment and said, oh, how come it's only got one Magna save? Well, didn't Black Knight 2000 only have one Magna save on the right? Yeah, my only worry though is the reaction time it takes to slap the action button compared to just lifting your finger just a tiny bit. Yeah. We'll see. I guess you've probably just got to get ready for it. Play better, I guess. You know what I mean? Yeah. You've got to be sure it's time to hit the action. Yeah, you've just got to be sure. Yeah, if it's going to go anywhere near the right out lane, and, you know, unless you're, you know, these professional players that are so good at being able to save them regardless, just hit your button and... Just be ready. Be ready. And I think it's the in lanes, the bottom in lanes that, you know, that are obviously, you know, selectable, that lights Magna Save. So that's kind of cool in that you've still got a very modern way of being able to activate a ball. It's effectively a ball save-ish or a VIP pass kind of thing. So there's a lot of games that recently have those bottom in lanes being able to do a ball save.
    20:15
    So yeah, so let's go. Obviously, the team is Steve Ritchie designed it. Thank you, Steve, for going.
    20:21
    I've got to say I'm so pleased it's this and it's not High Speed or Getaway 3, which was the other rumor. I'm glad he did this. Tim Sexton, we talked about him before. So Tim Sexton, this is his first game as lead. And that's not bad. I think he said he's been at Stern for 14 months. So... Yeah, yeah, he came in during the Iron Maiden cycle. Yeah, and I think he was just doing the light show apparently when he first started.
    20:50
    And again, just stopping on Tim for a second, he's a tournament player, he was a streamer, he was a podcaster, all those kinds of things. So he's going to think about the end player and the experience. And I know that was the question that was asked of him from Nate was, you know, are you thinking about the tournament players? And he was kind of saying, I'm not really, I'm thinking about when a person first steps up to the machine and how they're going to enjoy it as opposed to who's going to be able to blow it up or what tournament strategies. And that's cool that he's thinking about the everybody. Yeah, I think so. And what he was saying is that, you know, it's all about these battles. So you're trying to work your way, these armies or hordes of skeletons that are all attacking you and then you finally break down the castle walls and then get to fight the Black Knight. That's cool. Because I think if you think about, you know, obviously the first Black Knight was just, I don't know, was it just a, it wasn't even a dot matrix, it was just alphanumeric probably. then Black Knight 2000, which actually the first one was just numeric and I think the second one was alphanumeric. Now you've got this screen, the ability to tell a story. Those two other machines, yes, you've got the Black Knight and maybe you're fighting him, but you never felt really sort of immersed in a battle against the Black Knight. This sort of really does give you that sort of sense that you are. Yeah, and you kind of have to earn your way up to them a little bit more. It's going to be cool. It's going to feel like a bit of a journey to get to them, so I'm excited to see how that progression goes. I get hooked by progression in pinball, and to see that brought to this series will be a lot of fun. It'll be cool to see how, as you build combos and loops and locks, to see how it progresses you through this battle. So it's going to be really neat to see how they pull that off. Yeah, it is. And I guess, you know, with rules that we've seen, obviously the likes of Iron Maiden has been pretty fresh. I think to a certain extent Munsters is a little bit different but the building blocks of a Stern rules framework has been pretty consistent probably over the last 10-12 machines. I mean they've added some additional things I think with Game of Thrones adding houses and then Star Wars with its mega rule set but the framework of a Stern and what you were going to get was always there. I'm hoping that Tim brings something new, a whole new approach to it with some stern familiarity.
    23:26
    Yeah, I mean, anybody that comes in new is going to probably have things that they want to see done that hasn't been done before. So with him being lead, he's going to have some freedom to do some stuff that he's wanted to see. So I'm excited to see what he'll do. Yeah, exactly. And so we've got artwork and graphics, Josh Clay and Kevin O'Connor. So Kevin O'Connor, Stranger 2 Pinball art before. My understanding is that he started on it and Josh maybe completed it. That's what I'm hearing.
    23:57
    As I said, I think Playfield looks amazing. Backglass and side art, hmm, is what I'd say. They vary a little bit. They do, and it's not as consistent with the playfield is what I guess I'd say.
    24:17
    Yeah, the playfield has a bit more of a hand feel to it where the side feels a little bit more computer generated to it. I don't know if I'm the only one that feels that way, or it just feels almost just like a shift in style to some degree. Yeah. You kind of drop the classic blues, I mean oranges and stuff and shift to blues and blacks. It's just a little different. Yeah. And I guess it's one of those things where you look at the play field, you go, okay, that, it's a throwback to Black Knight and art's moved on from that style. So for it to come back to that feels really cool. And then all of the external art effectively is what you'd expect from a Stern machine. So it's not saying that it's bad, but it sort of is juxtaposed against this very iconic looking Black Knight art.
    25:09
    Right, right. I guess while you're playing it you're probably not going to notice too much, but as it's sitting there, yeah, you'll notice.
    25:18
    Well, that's right. I mean, the back glass you probably would, but for the most part, Pinball machines are part of a collection anyway, and you don't really see the side art, so it doesn't really matter that much. So, yeah. So then let's talk about sound, right? So sound design, Jerry Thompson, he's done some great work, so that's in really good hands. But he's also brought in Scott Ian from Anthrax to do the music. What are your thoughts on that and what you've heard? So, yeah, all I've really heard much is that iteration on the classic theme, but it sounds really cool. It really is. And like Anthrax isn't my type of music, but if you're going to take the Black Knight and bring it modern, I feel like that's the right way to go.
    26:02
    You're not going to want to hear like some country version of it or some hip hop version of it. Yeah, fair enough. You're going to want some Anthrax version of it. And that sounded great I don know if they going to go vocals this time or not But whatever It could work I think the phrase that I heard people say is it more metal than Iron Maiden
    26:27
    Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, but I also think that's probably because the genre metal has gotten heavier over time. And, you know, I was listening to some early Iron Maiden albums on my way to TPF, believe it or not. I don't know why I did, but I did. And back then it was metal, but now you'd look back and say it was probably hard rock. Metal these days is a lot heavier than Iron Maiden, so that's probably why it does feel more metal than Iron Maiden.
    27:00
    Does that mean the game's going to be really ultra-serious? Probably, I think, and intense. All the time? Sounds like it? I don't know. Yeah, I think so. And at first, when I very first heard the name was Sword of Rage, I thought, oh, it's going to be a little bit tongue-in-cheek and maybe a little bit silly. Because to me, the name Sword of Rage kind of sounds like a parody D&D, like Dungeons & Dragons fake thing, like, you have found a Sword of Rage. You know, and kind of like a joke, but it's serious.
    27:35
    And then if they're going more metal with it, metal, rage, yeah, it kind of lines up. I think it's going to be serious and I don't know. I think it's not going to be like goofy, self-aware cheesiness at all. I think they might have a funny thing here and there, but it's not going to be – yeah, it's not going to be a goofy, funny, happy, ha-ha. Yeah, well I guess probably like Iron Maiden which was oh so serious but if you drained in Flight of Icarus it said more like Flight of Brickarus. So there are some funny elements there obviously with a much better voice than mine. So maybe they've got those little bits and maybe a throwback to the original.
    28:19
    But because this is meant to be a battle then maybe it should be serious and intense. But what I'm hoping, and I know that his last machine, this is Steve Ritchie's last machine, Star Wars, was very polarizing, which is a nicer way of saying that the majority didn't really like it that much. And I don't care too much about the art. I think the layout's actually kind of cool. My biggest problem I had with it is you've got a flow layout with a stop-start rule set. But I'm hoping, Tim, that you just keep this in the spirit of a Steve Ritchie game and just make sure the rules are on the fly as opposed to you having to stop and work out what you're doing. And I think the removal of a multiplier button is probably the first step.
    29:07
    Yes, that was my biggest issue with Star Wars is the total mismatch code to layout. And it's just breakneck speed and you're supposed to be looking up at the screen constantly. You just can't.
    29:22
    And I would guess with this game, they will have learned their lesson. I have to think that most people recognize that that was an issue, but I don't know. I don't know what Tim's thoughts are on Star Wars. We probably could go back and find that since he wasn't a Stern employee at the time that came out. So there's probably some honest thoughts out there. I should probably try and find it and insert it into this episode. Yeah. Because obviously now that he's ever since he moved over to Stern, he hasn't done, you know, podcasts as Timballs. You know what I mean? He's obviously done an interview as part of Stern. He doesn't stream anymore. And that's that would be, you know, when you become an employee of the biggest manufacturer, you're not going to be able to get out there and give your opinions like you used to. So, but yeah, we'd just be keen to see if that was the case back then. I'll see if I can dig something up. I won't. I'm too lazy.
    30:22
    We've also got call-outs. So Steve Ritchie is going to call. He's going to be obviously the Black Knight. And we've got Ed Robertson doing some call-outs as well. Yeah. And it was funny because the first people thought that Ed was going to be the Black Knight and that didn't work for me. So knowing now that Steve's going to be the Black Knight, all is right in the world. Yeah, absolutely. So, I don't know, I think it's kind of cool, really, that Ed Robertson, who I think everybody thinks is pretty cool because he's in a rock band and plays pinball, so that's kind of our link to something that's cool.
    30:57
    That's good that he sort of like, obviously was approached to do call-outs and hopefully he does them really well, I don't know.
    31:04
    Oh, I'm sure he'll be great. Maybe there are vocals. Oh, now I see it. Okay, because someone's got to sing the theme song and there, you know what? Because there was a male vocal singing the theme song from BK2000. So, yeah, I could hear his voice kind of singing over the top of Anthrax, can you? It would be a funny mishmash there, but yeah, I'm down for that. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Okay, I honestly hadn't thought that. I just thought he would be doing call-outs, but you're right. He can sing, apparently. Still hasn't come to Australia, but sure.
    31:53
    Anyway, there you go. The other things to note, Steve was talking about it, and I've seen it in the pictures as well. Now, the sort of the back box of, you know, the back part of the playfield has got this sort of castle area, right? Right. Or it looks like a furnace type thing. So apparently that is an LED display or an LCD display, whatever it is, with like 60 LEDs maybe, and that simulates the fire, which sounds freaking cool. It does sound cool. It looks cool. Yeah, it does look cool. That whole back thing looks cool because, as we know, you are trying to battle, get to the castle, destroy the castle door and go in and battle the Black Knights. So that's kind of cool. Last one was this talk of a topper. So I kind of missed the topper talk. This is something I totally somehow slipped by me. What's going on with the topper? Well, I mean, look, we'll wait for it to be confirmed, but apparently the Topper is the Black Knight, and he moves left and right. Okay. I don't know, his probably eyes glow red or something. I don't know about that. But all I've heard is that the Topper is the Black Knight, and he moves around. Okay, so he's like R2-D2. Yes!
    33:18
    Which... If he beeps, then we know where they're using parts, but... Yeah, that R2-D2 topper, hey? Yeah, it's a topper. It's a swing and a miss.
    33:33
    Anyway, so apparently this has got a panther on the top of his helmet and everything, I don't know. I probably read that on This Week in Pinball, where I get all my information these days. It's a fine website. It really is.
    33:47
    So what else do we want to talk about with Black Knight? Anything else? Um, I don't know, I'm just, I'm really excited to play it. Like, I don't know a whole lot more to say about it, to be honest. It's just pretty. I've got one more thing to say about it, and that is I'm on the list for an LA. Oh, there we go. So that doesn't mean I've got one. It means, like, every other time that I've decided, well, every other time really isn't that many times. It's Iron Maiden and it's Munsters. Because effectively now, every week I'm now going to be updating you on whether I know I've actually got one. And then when it's coming. So I'm on the list. I think I was fortunate in that this happened when I was in the US. So that meant when it was all announced, everybody was asleep in Australia. So hopefully it means that I got my email to the distributor before everybody else did. Well, I mean, you're also a pinball celebrity, so let's not act like they're not going to take care of you. They didn't last time. They haven't before. I can imagine they would now. Anyway, so, you know, what does this mean? Because, you know, I can only have four machines. I don't know. I'll either get rid of another machine or I will be renting monsters. Well, and it's not even there yet. No, so it does arrive. I know that all the LEs are now in Australia. They arrived last week as I expected they would. And so they are now in people's homes, but obviously I had to wait to come back. So, you know, in the next couple of days, hopefully I will have my Munsters and then I can work out what I want to do with it.
    35:26
    You've got a little time to wait for that Black Knight, so it's not an immediate decision. Well, this is it. If we said before the pros are going to be four weeks, it's another two months until LEs come out, and then it's six weeks until they get on a ship and come out to Australia. So I've got three, four months easily.
    35:49
    That's one of those things. So there you go. That's my sign is that I'm down on one. Hopefully I get in on the list. That's how much I want this machine. I believe you will. I've said on the last couple of machines as well. But, you know, this is the thing, right?
    36:06
    This is the difference between a premium and an LE. An LE, you would expect, would hold its value within, you know, three months. And I was talking to somebody yesterday about this, that if we looked at Ion Maiden, for example, an LE held its value. In fact, in Australia, it went up in value, so you could actually sell it for more than what you got it. But then after about three months, that's when the prices started going down. And I think that's the time when a new machine comes out. Right.
    36:37
    But that's what I'm thinking with Munsters. We'll see how we go. I hope to be able to keep it. The code is progressing really nicely. So we'll see what that means. But, you know, Black Knight is for me. Yeah. It's just one of my all-time favorite games, both of them, the Black Knight and 2000. In fact, Black Knight, the original, was one of the machines that I had at my school, so I got to play that a lot. So I've got a lot of nostalgia when it comes to this game.
    37:05
    Yeah, I'm excited for you, man. I hope you get it. Yeah, I just wanted to say, don't stuff it up, Stoke. Okay. Make sure it's awesome. Make sure it's great.
    37:16
    Alright, so, let's talk about tournaments. Yeah, tournament talk. So, the North American Pinball Championship happened this weekend. Did you follow along?
    37:28
    I did, mostly because our state champion, Mike Lund, made a pretty good run. Yeah. So we kept close eye on it. I got to meet Mike, so I sort of had a bit of a personal connection as well. But just for those people that don't know this tournament, explain what this is. How do you qualify for this tournament? Okay, so the North American champs come from the state championship series, which is over the course of the year, your whopper points that accumulate within the state that you play in qualify you for the state finals. And in our state, that's 16 people that get to play in the state championships based on the top 16 whopper point totals at the end of the year. But the first place person then automatically gains entry into the North American Championships. They call it North American because the Canadian provinces are also included. And I believe 52 players ended up going. That's correct. Yes.
    38:35
    And then they go and they play a head-to-head style knockout tournament, best of seven rounds. And it's pretty intense. And it was held down in Las Vegas. So getting there is tough enough. It's a whole year of qualifying, essentially. And then you have to win your state tournament. And ours, again, was Mike London. He finished top eight, which was great. But running at the same time of that, they were also running the Women's World Championships. Correct. And those are based on not state tournaments. They're based on points accumulated in the women's tournaments. So it's a little bit different.
    39:15
    Yeah, and that was the one I did get to watch a lot more of, probably because the time I got to watch, and this was sort of the, what day would it have been? It would have been Thursday afternoon in the US. So I was waiting for my plane, so I got to be able to watch a few hours of it. and the streaming was done on IE Pinball and they focused a lot on the women's tournament so I got to watch a lot of it and it was freaking exciting to watch. The quality of the gameplay was exceptional and again I just love all the different machines and the different play styles and how they've changed all the machines. I'm looking at you, Sorcerer. Completely removed the lock mechanism effectively so you could never get multiple. That's genius right there. So who won the women's? I do know this because I saw it happen. The women's was won by Carrie Wing and on her path to victory in the finals she played a game of Attack from Mars that is absolutely mesmerizing to watch. This will all be archived probably already there on the IE Pinball Twitch channel. If you don't watch anything, at least just go and watch her play that Attack from Mars. It's absolutely incredible. She doesn't play the Saucers at all. She just keeps getting back into Total Annihilation. And watching her combo, like five-way combo, six-way combo, seven-way combo, on the fly between orbits and ramps is just amazing. It's just incredible play. That Attack from Mars was absolutely demolishing people all night long. I know. And then she just walks up to it and I think she was around 7 or 8 billion or something which was a monster score for the night. So check that out. Yeah, Carrie Wing won that and her play was fantastic. Yeah, and I saw a lot of her playing. They were kind of following her progression throughout the tournament and she just dominated. It was really, really great to watch. Yeah, she was definitely keyed in. So when the mains then, I think there was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, maybe 7 rounds. It started with the 52, but I think the top 12 had a bye. So the winner of the first round then battled those people that had a bye. There were some big names that got knocked out pretty early. Like Robert Gagnon, for example, got, even though it was round 2, he had a bye in round 1. So he got knocked out in his first round. It was four games to two against him. So that was, yeah, that was been interesting. Derek Price, another big player. He got knocked out the second round. So John Replical, he got bowed out really early as well. So again, when you're talking about the top 52 players in Australia, in America from each state, it's going to be fierce competition. Right.
    42:14
    You know, let's go all the way to the end effectively. So the semifinals were Zach Sharp, Will McKinney, Drew, Sedolia and Nick Mueller. And in the end, the finals then became Zach Sharp and Nick Mueller. And who won? Zach Sharp won 4-2 in the finals there. He did. And it was a long tournament. It was a long night. But yeah, he came out on top. Zach's good at pinball. Oh, very clear. I've noticed that. He is very good. He's consistently good, too. Yeah. Yeah, he took it home, representing his status well as a Stern employee and, you know, his involvement in the IFPA, so. Yeah, so, of course, as soon as you know, you know, he wins, Stern are absolutely promoting the heck out of it, so. Oh, yeah.
    43:09
    Which you would, right? This is our director of marketing or PR, whatever he is, and he won probably one of the biggest tournaments in America.
    43:19
    Yeah, and like you're saying, it's just the field is so difficult to get through, and to do it all in one day, it's pretty impressive. And on those brutal machines, all of them were set up really, really tough. Yeah. We know that. I think Josh was the one that was really putting all those machines together. He knows how to toughen up a game. Oh, interesting. The winner's brother set the machines up, huh?
    43:45
    Are people asking questions? Should they be? I think both of those things are happening. Okay. Anyway. I don't want to start anything, but... No, but you know what? We're just saying. Yeah, we're just saying. Yeah, there you go. So speaking of IFPA, something that I probably should have mentioned a couple of weeks ago when it was announced, I obviously just completely forgot, was that on March 21st it was announced that the Stern Pro Circuit Championship is having a format change for this year, effectively for the 2019 season. Are you aware of these changes? Yeah, I don't know if I have it all, but I noticed that they were reducing the number of qualifiers down. Correct. And that's going to be making every single one of those events so much more weighted.
    44:41
    So, weren't they cutting them like in half? Yeah, so it's 40 players down to 20. And not only that, the way the format of the finals works is you've got rounds of match play, And then you've got, I think it's the top 12 maybe, go into a ladder format which is, it's effectively four player, whoever comes last is out. So they're not having the match play portion of it anymore, it's just a ladder match format from the start all the way to the finish and that's for the 20 people. So I think it's been interesting because for someone like me, I couldn't give a shit. You know, it makes no difference to me because I'm only spectating this. I don't have the ability. Well, although, you know, Brisbane Masters is now a pro circuit event, I've pretty much got to win it.
    45:34
    So as a spectator, I actually really like the latter format portion of it. I think that actually, as a viewer, because it's so cutthroat, I think is actually quite interesting to watch. The feedback I think a lot of people have been given is, okay, well, if I now fly over there and I lose in the first round, that's it?
    45:54
    Yeah, that's tough. That is really tough. So I think what they would do, hopefully, and also what they're doing is they're increasing the prize pool as well. So I think what they're trying to do is, you know, if you make the top 20, $1,000 is yours. So that possibly negates feeling that you've got to put all this money into flights and accommodation to get there. But I also think that they will probably put other tournaments either before or after it as well. Yeah, I think so. I hope so. So, anyway, one thing we know about IFPA, they try new things and if it doesn't work, I don't know, they keep doing it. They admit that they're ruining Pinball and they just soldier on. And they're saying, well, yeah, that's your opinion. Thank you. Appreciate it. Go complain on Pinside. Anyway, I think people are also accusing them saying, well, you're doing this just because you want to make it more appealing to ESPN. I mean, that's a part of it. Possibly. That's not the worst thing in the world. No, that's exactly right. But if the net result is you get pinball to more people, then that's not a bad thing. Yeah. Do they not want Stephen A. Smith yelling on TV about, you know, he's the commentator that just angrily yells about all the basketball players and stuff. Just look him up. He gets memed a lot because he's loud and obnoxious. Would he have been the one, is he a TV commentator? The reason I say this is because you know obviously I was in Utah recently and we'll talk about one of my highlights which was seeing you and your pals but I got to see my very first ever basketball game and it was Jazz versus Lakers. Yes. He wouldn't announce during the game. He's one of the guys... My brain's not really firing on all cylinders right now, but he's the one, the guys who's on the sports shows, the talking head types that pretends like they know a whole lot about sports. They're usually wrong, but they're very confident in their opinion. Okay, a lot like Pimball podcasters, really. Oh, yeah, definitely. Just like us. They never apologize when they're wrong. Exactly right.
    48:23
    But anyway, I just thought I'd throw that in there because it was actually the very first sporting event that I'd ever been to in America.
    48:34
    And I mean, obviously, I don't care too much about basketball, but all I wanted was a sporting spectacular. And I was not disappointed. Okay, good. I was disappointed by the quality that the Lakers played, but they didn't have LeBron James because apparently he's either recovering from injuries or he's just at his home in a bath of diamonds. He's checked out. He doesn't need to compete anyway because apparently Lakers couldn't get into the finals anyway. Look at me, talking sport. Yeah, but you saw international superstar Joe Ingles. Yes, and, oh my God, I'm sorry to just talk about basketball for a second. But this was really exciting because Joe Ingalls is obviously, he's from Australia and played for the Jazz. But also, apparently, if I get this wrong, you know, everybody, remember that I know nothing about sport.
    49:29
    So apparently he was about to become tie with the person that's had the most number of rebounds. Right? Apparently he had one more to go and they put him on the sideline. They replaced him with three minutes to go. Okay, so it wasn't most number of rebounds. It was to get his first career triple-double. So he had at least 10 points, 10 rebounds, 10 steals or assists or something. But yeah, he needed one rebound and he's never had a triple-double and he got checked out. That's right.
    49:59
    The crowd booed. Yep. And then everyone was chanting, bring back Joe, bring back Joe. And I'm booing and I'm yelling, bring back Joe. And I don't know why I'm doing it, but this is what I love about America's sport. I mean, you know, Australia does get a bit like that, but ours is more of a long burn as opposed to a short, sharp, I'm angry about something, I'm going to yell at it, or I'm really happy about something, I'm going to stand up and yell about it. It was so good. I'm so glad I went. It was just the best. That's good. There you go. I don't know why we went into that, but we did. Oh, that's right, because you brought up that person's name who I don't know who they are. Stephen A. Smith. I'll show you later. There's a whole highlight clip of him incorrectly predicting the NBA Finals like six years in a row. It's great. Okay. Well, link it to me and we'll put it in the show notes. Maybe.
    50:56
    Okay, next one. Just a bit of a quick one, but I wanted to talk about Brian Allen. Do you know who Brian Allen is?
    51:04
    I'm going to say no to begin and then it will click in and then I will know. Okay. So Brian Allen, he is an artist. I do know who he is. Yeah. So he's got a company called Flyland Designs. And probably the first claim to fame that he had was he did the, I guess it was an alternate back glass for Aliens. And everyone just lost their shit over it because it looked amazing. I think he also did, I believe he did a re-theme, I can't remember the name of the game, but he did a re-theme of a pinball machine into Breaking Bad, which looked amazing.
    51:45
    He's now also done an alternate back glass for Monster Bash. He was making 125 of them. I believe they've actually all sold out, because I went to his site and it looks like they're all sold out. But it looks amazing. And his art style is very monster-based, but it's cartoon, but it's not campy cartoon. It's actually a little bit more, I don't know, evil than a cartoon, if that makes sense. Yeah, I saw it at TPF in a lightbox and it looked incredible. Yeah I saw it too So I often talk about a friend of the show Lucas he runs the Bayside Pinball Club here in Melbourne And a few months ago he said to me look I want to get new artwork for the club do you have anything in mind and here the logo that he has effectively the image is a pinball sort of flame type pinball coming out in a spiral type thing and I Brian had sent me some of his artwork and some of his stickers and I said oh man get in touch with Brian let him do some artwork for you And what he did, he took that theme that they already had and absolutely nailed the new artwork. So I will send a link to it because I just, what I want really from me talking about Brian Allen right now is somebody give this guy a freaking job in Pimball. Yeah. Just his, you know, I don't know whether you've had this conversation, but I have a lot of conversations about art. and it's one thing to be a good artist but to become a pinball artist there's just some different rules that you need to understand when it comes to doing a playfield art. And I've seen some great artists do some concept designs for playfields and they don't get it. They don't get how you've got to make the inserts integrate with the art.
    53:49
    Yeah, no I know exactly what you're saying. There can be great art on a pinball machine that's bad pinball art, like for sure. And we've seen that a lot.
    54:00
    It's crazy because it has to be indicative, but it also – I mean it has to be informative. But it is a crazy push-pull between all that stuff. But, man, the ones that do it well, it just is so obvious when you see it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Probably a good example of somebody that nailed it in their first go was Metallica, right, with Dirty Donny. Yes. He knew exactly what he needed to do, but I think he'd also done one previously, I think, hadn't he? He'd done a Metallica concept. Yes. And also, he's a pinball fan, so that's, I think, the difference that you have versus, I'm bringing it up again, Jeff. Mm-mm. Let me, wait, wait. Oh, missed it. Okay, can I say something positive real quick before we go? Zombie Yeti's first go with Ghostbusters is breathtakingly good. Absolutely. Right. So, the thing about Zombie Yeti, again, showing somebody that understands pinball art, is if you have a look at the inserts, there's intricate art around the inserts, if that makes sense, leading into other things. So he's incorporating inserts into the overall playfield design. That's exactly right. Obviously, Chris Franchi has nailed it as well.
    55:19
    You would have seen the black and white premium. You've probably seen it anyway before then, but at TPF, and there was an LE there as well. They get what it is with incorporating design elements and game elements into playfield art. And this is what I'll say about Star Wars is they at least understood inserts and how to put art around them to feel part of the play field. It was just everything in between that just felt a bit photoshopped in, like just copy and paste and in it goes. Does that make sense? Yeah, they don't feel art integrated. They feel experience integrated, but they don't feel art integrated for sure. Correct. So there you go. So that's what I'm saying about Brian Allen. People, manufacturers, if you are listening, please get in touch with him. Flyland Designs. Give him a job. He knows Pimball art. So there you go. Yeah, I agree. And that monster bash is just breathtaking. I wish people could have seen it in person all lit up because lit up, it just is, it's something else. Yeah, it looks amazing. And it's a perfect example of what I was saying with his style, which is, it's cartoon, but it's a little bit more sinister than the original cartoon. Yeah, yeah. It's not silly. No, that's exactly right. All right, so Pinberg, right? You're going to Pinberg this year, aren't you? I sure am. I'm in. Fantastic. I will get to see you there. Did you partake in the Trash Talk Invitational last year? I've never been to Pinberg, so I didn't. Yeah. So that's probably why I didn't see you. Yeah, I would not have been afraid to step up to this. Right, so last year we had the podcaster Bloodbath. Do you know who won it? Um, was it you? Yes.
    57:26
    Do you like how I acted like I didn't quite know for a second? Of course I knew you wanted. Yeah, of course. You actually didn't, but I like how you tried to make it look like you were intentionally pausing. Well, right. Well done. I did know. I did know because Buffalo was salty about it. I know we didn't play in it and I know this flip of podcast lost because he like Taylor wandered off or something like that so yeah. Anyway so they've decided not to do it so it's been cancelled effectively the pod and people sort of asked why has it been cancelled and they said it's not in the spirit of replay effects and Pinnball and I think that's probably because we got very loud and very The abusive, I think, is probably what happened. Yeah, I could see that. It's the trash talker imitation, I could see that. Right, like the whole thing is basically saying you need to trash talk everybody. And in some occasions, I won't mention people by name, but in some occasions, some people took a little bit too far. Yeah, yeah. That happened. We do that in pinball. Yeah, that's exactly right. And we do it in podcasts because, you know, on the surface, we're really nice. They're nice to each other, Jeff, but, you know, given the chance, oh man, I would cut a bitch. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, and that's exactly what happened. So anyway, but they are going to be doing a Trash Talker Invitational again, but this time it's for, it's a league challenge. So it's representatives of different leagues around the country, and they're expecting that that's going to be more well-behaved than the podcast is. So I like it. At the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown one year, they did what they called the Best of the West. And it wasn't leagues, but it was they gathered people by states. So we had I remember we had Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico.
    59:23
    I think even South Dakota had enough people to participate. But but yeah, we we had states represented and they formed teams. And it was a lot of fun, actually. We had a ton of fun doing that. And everybody was very well behaved. Yeah, I can't say that about the podcaster one last year. We weren't well behaved. And I think it was, well, actually, you know, here's the difference as well, right? When you've got people that are league players, if they're representing a league, they're going to be focused on being good players. Because when you're talking about podcasters, now this may shock you when I say this, Jeff, but podcasters tend to have a bit of an ego.
    60:05
    You know, I really haven't noticed, but now that you say it, it's starting to kind of come together and add up. All the signs are there. Now that I say it, you're like, oh my God, how have I not noticed this before? So if you put, and I've seen it before, like Pinball was probably the first time I saw it because it was the first time I was around a lot of podcasters, but podcasters do like the sound of their own voice. Just putting it out there. I don't like my voice. I've always said that, you know, face for radio, but voice for print. So, oh. Well, it's, okay, I'll say, let me replace it. But I know what you're saying. It's not ego, it's confidence, right? It's confidence. We're very confident people. Yeah, okay. Okay. So imagine 20 of them together.
    60:50
    Oh man, that's... That's why it happened. Yeah. Where you've got literally people, podcasters with massive egos and, you know, confidence trying to outdo one another. It's a recipe for, I would say disaster, but at the time it didn't feel like disaster. It was hilarious. Yeah, it's a lot of one-upping going on. Yeah, effectively. So, anyway, there you go. So, that's what happened. Okay, I understand. I can't argue with that decision. I get it. I'm disappointed because I don't get the opportunity to defend my name and prove to people that it wasn't a fluke. No, but it wasn't. We know.
    61:37
    Now, look, I've also got a couple of TPF-related thoughts. But before I go into them, I want to ask you, what are your thoughts on TPF overall?
    61:46
    Okay, so I had a wonderful time. I did. Have you been to a few? Yeah, yeah. I've been to a few. You're talking to a top four B division finisher. How's the respect have I been to TPF?
    62:01
    Yeah. Anyway, I really like TPF. I think it's a fantastic show for a lot of different reasons. It's huge. There's a ton of games there. But they have a really good community and it's one of those shows that you can go and you can play a disgusting amount of pinball and just not get through all the machines. Or you can play hardly any pinball and just talk and talk and have a sore voice. And that's usually what ends up happening to me. That's what happened to me. But you can get what you want out of that show. And I love TPF. And so this one, yeah, I was running around. I played a fair amount of pinball. I played in the tournament. I didn't do well this year, but I got a whole lot of selfies with a whole lot of cool people, and I had a good time. I came back exhausted, but I gained some appreciation for some games that I just thought were okay before, but now I'm kind of high on, so that's always good. Give me an example. Alice Cooper, for example. Yeah, okay, right. Last time I played it was actually TPF last year when it was very, very basic in its rule set. And also it feels like they tweaked the shots on that because it shot very well. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and playing it with Charlie and the Mystery Fourth, I really learned how to play the game. And some of those modes are so clever. The werewolf mode was one of the most cool modes I've seen in a long time in a game.
    63:28
    Boy, it was just a blast. I am tempted by that game. I agree because I played it at Pimberg last year and I walked away thinking it was a... Clunky is probably not the right word to use because clunky indicates for me that it's metal shots, you know, the ball hits metal. It was awkward, I guess, in that the shots just never felt right. But for some reason I felt this time around that whatever they've done... And I did speak to Charlie about it. I actually did say to him, do you know what? Last year it felt clunky. It doesn't this year. What have you changed? And he said, well, we didn't really change that much, but we've gone from a prototype machine into a production machine. So there's going to be some changes. And it feels so much better. It did. It felt a lot more tight just all around. And I really liked everything about it. I think the upper play field on that game is a blast. I like how it's integrated with the rules. And the animations on that game are just spectacular. I mean, it's just really cool. Yeah, absolutely great.
    64:32
    Anything, any other games that sort of won you over? I mean, probably the other one we talked about was Oktoberfest because that was in very early form before. Yep, and that would be the other one I would mention. And the thing with Oktoberfest was the shots all worked. And that was the big complaint about it is like this shot won't work, that shot won't work. I know a lot of people were having trouble getting the timing down perfect on the ramp off the upper flipper, but I was able to get that barrel multiball started twice, and I only played the game three times.
    65:04
    So it's there. You just got to hit it right. It's like the Simpsons treehouse shot. You just have to hit it just right.
    65:11
    But you also need to use that, what is it that you push the button? What are they called? The magnabs, right? You've really got to use the magnams. You've got to slow it down so then you can actually take your time to hit that shot. That's what I felt. It's like roller games. It's so much easier when it stops it for you.
    65:28
    But yeah, I thought that game was a lot of fun. And the first time around with it, it was, again, maybe clunky is not quite the right word, but just a little bit loose and squirrely. And this time it felt really tight and it was fun. They've got something going there. I think that that's going to turn out to be a pretty good game. The drunk mode was hilarious. The sober mode, that is really clever too. That's great. You know what? I saw someone playing that and I think they called over Josh and they said, look, I'm sorry, there's a malfunction with this game. Look, the flippers aren't working. And he's like, oh, that's actually intentional. Yeah. So for those who don't know, what's going on in the game is you're being cut off from Beer because they think you're drunk, so you're trying to prove you're not drunk and shooting the targets to spell sober, but you are drunk, so your flippers are delayed. So you flip and it takes just a little bit of a delay for them to actually go, and it's funny, it's fun, and it's just kind of a really cool om-theme integration, so I like that. And then the last one that surprised me, I hadn't had a chance to play it, but that was The Beatles. I thought that was quite a bit of a... Had you not played that before? Nope, that was the first time, and I liked it. Yeah, it's good, isn't it? Yeah. It's one of those things, it's good, but...
    66:54
    The price. Yeah, correct. But it still is just such a fun game to play. Yeah, it is good. It's just a good overall Pinball package. If you're not worrying about price and you're just talking about play, it's a game you're just going to step to and enjoy. It was fun. Price is a bummer. There's no getting around that and that's going to happen anytime I guess you kind of get the kapow projects because there's just an extra layer of hands reaching out for a piece of the pie. Well yeah, they're not going to do it for nothing. Yeah, it was enjoyable though. I liked it and it's a very fast C-Witch. I'm not a super big fan of the disc but it was alright. But overall I liked the game. Yeah, I think it's really good. More than I expected. Yeah, well, same. Same. When I first played it, I had to step back and go, wow, okay, that's a lot better than a rethemed Sea Witch that I thought it would be. Right.
    67:54
    But there are two other games that I forgot to mention last week when I did my recap with Ron from Stamptool Podcast. One of them was, and I don't know whether you got a chance, but did you play the four-player Cosmic Kart Racing from Multimorphic P3? I did, but I didn't have a chance to do it with four players, so... Ah, well I did. Okay, good. I got to do it once. So you talk about it. Yeah, well, I mean, I streamed it a few weeks ago and thought it was a great game, but it's a racing game. It's like, you know, Daytona or Sega Rally or all those kind of racing games. That's what it feels like where you're actually driving in a race and the shots that you do are power-ups that effectively make you go faster. Right. There's boosts, there's weapons and all that kind of stuff. So we were playing four-player where you have your game and then another person comes in and it's almost last man standing when you're doing it that way because it's not like you come first and somebody else comes second. They come first as well, but if they don't qualify, they're out. So it's a very different game. When you're then playing four-player where it is actually a race to be first, it's like the Heads Up format. I don't know if you've played Heads Up where you're playing the same machine side by side and you're very aware of the person next to you and where they are in relation to you and whether you're beating them and how far away they are. So then when you've got four people playing it, that is then magnified even more. So it was just an adrenaline rush to play this game. It was fun. Yeah, I really want to try that with four players. It's kind of like the whole NBA fast break thing where it's not going to happen often, but the times that it does, it's just going to be a really cool experience. Yeah, I think you're really only going to see it at shows because I don't know whether people are going to buy four of them and link them up. Yeah, not too often. Not too often at all. And the other one I didn't talk about, and probably because it's just early days, I don't know whether you got to flip it, was Cosmic Carnival by Suncoast Pinball. Did you? I did. Okay, so let's face it, it was flipping, but it had no interaction with any rules, effectively. That's what I saw. Right. Yeah, yeah, no rules at all. I flipped it till I hit every shot. I wasn't going to walk away till I comboed the ramps back and forth and the loops and everything. It's just obviously really hard to know because there are 3D printed ramps and everything that's in it now. But yeah, without code, you just get a feel for outflows. It looks really cool. The art's awesome on it. Yep. So that's the Dirty Dirty Art, right? Right. And even then, there's lighting in place, but it's not reactive to what's going to be going on in the game. So it was cool that they had it there and they let you kind of flip around on it. I had fun with it for a few minutes and I spent more time talking to the employee that was there. But, yeah, it was great that they brought that to the show. Yeah, look, again, I had a couple of flips of it as well. And, you know, one of the biggest, I think, criticisms that people have had of that machine is that it looks too asymmetrical and it doesn't play that way. It doesn't feel, yeah, the left and right are basically a reflection of each other. But, yeah, it doesn't feel as much when you are. For some reason the ramps feel like they're a little bit different.
    71:20
    I don't know. I don't know how exact those shots are, a reflection of left flipper, right flipper. But I don't know what it is, but there's something about the way your brain works or if you're left-hand dominant, right-hand dominant. It feels different, even though it's supposed to be the same. But I don't know. I was cool with it. I don't mind that because the rules aren't going to probably be always the same like just do it on the left or just do it on the right. So I don't know. It's not going to be that big of a deal in the end. I'm fine. So many EMs are symmetrical and doesn't bother me. I don't think it should be an issue unless the rules don't get clever to compensate for it. Yeah. And so there was one other game that I completely forgot to mention and that was that I finally got to play for the very first time. Kingpin. Did you get to play it?
    72:15
    I didn't play it this time but I played it last year and I played every year at California Extreme. I really like Kingpin. It's a game I've been able to play through to the wizard mode several times.
    72:26
    It's a lot of fun. I love the animations on that game. I love the spinners on that game on the ramps. It's just a cool game. It really is. It shoots so well. What a great layout for Mark Ritchie, right? Yeah, yeah. It is great. I always wish that that was the game that got made instead of Big Bang Bar when they did a remake. Yeah, I could imagine so. I think that there was probably more accessibility to Big Bang Bars to be able to replicate them than there were kingpins, probably. Yeah, I would guess. Or maybe the idea was that they would eventually do both, but whatever it was, Kingpin's coming, so we'll end up having both in the end. Yeah, well, from what I'd heard, the feedback I had when I was talking to people about Kingping was there really hasn't been much progression since TPF last year of the machine. So code hasn't been changed. The design and layout hasn't been changed either. So what do you think's happened in the last 12 months?
    73:31
    Life, I would guess. I didn't talk to the team. This year I just didn't have a chance to, but I meant to.
    73:41
    I think it's just interesting how these projects, very early on they tend to make a ton of progress. Their first deadline, their first show, they work their tail off to get there. But then it's really hard to keep that up after that kind of first huge hurdle. And I'm sure stuff has happened. Maybe it wasn't show ready to be integrated. I don't know, but what was there last year was still really enjoyable. So I think that it's easy early on to see huge amounts of progress, but the little bug squashing and stuff, it's not very noticeable to the end user.
    74:16
    It's like any kind of software project, really. Right. And I didn't really get to speak to them as well because it was actually the very first machine that I played when I got there was Kingpin. And I think it actually is, you know, once you get your prototype, which they really have, it probably is the quickest from, you know, pen on paper to actually showing something. I know that sounds maybe a bit counterintuitive because it's still a complicated thing, but putting a prototype machine together is very different to then putting a production machine in place. That is a much more significant undertaking is getting somebody to then replicate what you've done in a mass manufacture process. And so that's probably what they've been doing from now, from a year ago till now, is probably trying to either work out whether they can manufacture it themselves or get a contract manufacturer to do it for them. And that in itself is a long negotiation process. Oh, yeah, I can't even imagine. So I'm not going to mention what it is, but just personally on one of my stupid little side hustles, I've got some things that I've made, had made in China.
    75:31
    And they're not complicated at all like a pinball machine. They're single component things as well. And just getting those made took me months to get the back and forth and to get things done right. It takes a lot of time. Now, a pinball machine, you have hundreds of parts that have to be right and they have to be exactly right or it's disaster. So, yeah. Correct. And, you know, this is what we were saying before about Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle. You know, they had to take a prototype and put that into production and it feels different. That's just part of it. But as part of that production process, they've got to try and replicate one thing many times. And I think that was also the difference that Scott Deneese was talking about with TNA. He said the production machines don't feel anything like his prototype machines.
    76:21
    Yeah, and I was able to play the prototypes. It was there last year, actually. I wrote it a year before at TPF.
    76:31
    Do you think they feel different? A little bit, yeah. I definitely think so. And then it was back there again last year. You could play both. And there is a difference, I think so. I love the production version of TNA. I think it's absolutely perfect. But yeah, it's definitely different from what obviously he worked with all leading up into the time to when it went into production and something he had to get used to and something that people who saw it evolve had to get used to as well. Right. Well, and this is the whole thing. You've got to think about the people that are putting these prototypes together. However, they're building something based on what they know. So they may be using inefficient wiring, for example, or using too much of some component. Taking them to production, a company is going to look at that and say, well, in order for us to cut out some of the bill of materials here, we can use, daisy chain some of these boards, or we could use light boards instead of lights, that kind of stuff. And that takes longer to put into production but probably is then cheaper to produce. I'm just obviously just second guessing all this kind of stuff but that's the kind of thing that people need to consider when they're going from a prototype which you build in your basement or your backyard versus we've now got to make a thousand of these. It's just very, very different. You've almost got to completely re-engineer what you've done. Exactly. And I played Keith Ellwin's Archer. Yeah, I played that. It plays way different than an Iron Maiden but they're very similar in the layout. Right, but I remember having a company who also, whether it was on the podcast or outside of it, and I was talking about that exact same thing because someone said, oh, well, you know, it's very easy for them to make Iron Maiden because, you know, the layout's already there, like the game's pretty much done. So, well, hang on. No, no, no. First of all, it was a different layout. It was actually longer or shorter, whichever it was. But also, Keith Elwin built that based on what he knows. He's never made a Stern machine before. He's not a veteran Stern engineer. They've got to completely re-engineer Archer to become Iron Maiden. So it's more than just putting new art on it and new animations. Right Yeah And like you said it feels completely different because of that Correct Yep There you go So they were my belated thoughts about TPF Very good thoughts Thank you So then let talk about this week in Pinball what we done this week And post-TPF, there really is only one highlight for me this week. What do you think that is, Jeff?
    79:06
    Oh, it was that video you made for my friend Tracy. How did that go? Was that good? Yeah, so I sent that to her and she laughed and she wants me very clearly to state that she loves you.
    79:21
    That's awesome. Well, sorry, what he's actually referring to as well is that, you know, I was in Salt Lake or Utah for I think three or four days and decided to come down to a location in Salt Lake City and meet you. And really the Salt Lake Pinball crew, really. Yeah, the Salt Lake area pinballers or slap as we call ourselves. I like it. Yeah, we were at Keto's Brewing and we got together for some pinball and some story swapping and it was a blast. I don't know about you, but I certainly talked a lot more than I played pinball. And we also had to play some stall ball as well, that was fun.
    80:04
    Yeah, until we decided to play it on Deadpool and it never ended. Yes, that's right. But that was cool. You know, as I said, a couple of guys from the Loser Kid Pinball podcast, they also came down as well. So Scott and Josh, which they'll be on in the next couple of weeks. But one of them, Josh, he drove three hours to come down. And I think that's kind of crazy, but everyone was just sort of like, oh yeah, that's what you do. Yeah, I mean, that's what you do. Yeah, okay. Well, there you go. So, yeah, he'll drive out here for events like league nights and things like that, but... I guess if that's your only option, then you... I mean, he wouldn't have done it for Ryan. He did it for you. Yeah, no, no one would drive two hours, let alone half an hour for Ryan, but, you know, so I appreciate it. But that was just great. For me, obviously, TPF was, you know, this big highlight to go to this festival, But to then just to go to this local place and speak to local players, that was actually really fun. It was one of the highlights of the trip.
    81:06
    Oh, that's good. It was nice. It was like a little, I don't know, cherry on top of the pinball sundae, I guess. Yeah, it really was. It was great. And as I mentioned before, my only other thing is now I've actually now finally paid the balance of my Munsters LE, which means it can be delivered. So in the next two days, I will have my Munsters LE. That's exciting. It is exciting. I mean, it's, you know, new Pinball Day. I've got to put a thread out there. Isn't that what people do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to show that off. Yeah. Did you get up to anything Pinball related in your week besides TPF and seeing this douchebag from Australia?
    81:44
    Yeah, we had league night, let's see, today's Saturday, so Thursday night, and I tied for top score on that, so that was good. I was playing some decent. What's the format for that?
    81:55
    Um, so the way that we do it is you play two opponents and you play two, um, different machines and play two games against that opponent. So you end up playing four games total on two different machines, um, per opponent. And what we do is per game you take the high score and that's worth a point and then you can get a bonus point for combined scores. So there's three points per machine. You can get six points per matchup. I ended up with ten for the night. And that's just a running total, so week to week those points accumulate. And it's kind of how it works. I'm sitting upper fourth in the league right now, so I needed a good night, and I had one. And that was good. It was nice to play some good pinball because the week before I played terrible pinball. Yeah, and during that time we also were watching one of our league members play in the North American Championships, which I mentioned earlier, and it was fun watching Jessica commentate. So even with the distractions of my co-host on Pinball's biggest stage for the moment, I was still able to kill it. So I'll tell you what's really interesting is that you have League Night, which my understanding is effectively you sign up for the league and it's only those limited players that play each time, right?
    83:23
    Yeah. We don't have leagues in Australia. We literally just have, we call them comps, you know, competitions, or we have big tournaments. I don't know. Maybe we do. I just don't know them because we're probably in different states. But we just don't have these closed groups that are a league that play against each other for the year to then battle it out at the end. That just doesn't happen here. So I find that interesting.
    83:47
    Yeah, it's fun because we're all there. The entire league is there. And when you get there that night, that's when you're finding out who you're playing.
    83:54
    It's always fun. You show up, see who you're going to play, which two players you're going to play and the machines you're going to be on. And it's cool. Like I played the four machines I played last night were Terminator 2, Johnny Mnemonic, Judge Dredd, and Dirty Harry. And the only loss I took was on one game on Terminator 2. Okay. And so was that at someone's house or was that at a venue? Because they're not the machines that I remember at Keto's. No, this was in someone's house. And we rotate. So it bounces around between public locations and private locations for people in the league. Next week will also be another private location. I will be gone. I'll be in Hawaii, so I'll miss that. I'll be hosting one week, and Kido's will be our final week championship. The top four will play in a finals to decide the league. And then everybody else who's outside the top four will play in a final positioning round to determine payouts. So everybody gets paid out for any points they accumulate throughout the season and then also based on their final standing. Okay. Now, so I've also heard that when we talked about it that you've got quite the collection yourself?
    85:11
    It's all right. Yeah, it's a good pinball collection. It would be what we would call a sizable collection in Australia because obviously we don't have that many machines. And I believe people are trying to talk you into doing Flip Frenzy. What are your thoughts? I'm all for it. Yeah, I have enough machines for it and I have the space in my basement for it so bring them on. Just do it. And the game variety. It's so much fun. Yeah, well that's exactly right. You know, obviously we talked about what you've got in your collection. You've got a good collection for a Flip Frenzy and as long as you've got the space for people to run around crazy then you'll be fine. Yeah, I totally would love to do it. And we haven't had any Flip Frenzies here locally so I think it's time that we introduce We're all about doing fun experimental formats and I know Flip Frenzy is becoming a little bit more normalized, especially now that it's software supported. But that and we decided we're going to go for it. We're going to have the World Stallball Championships at the Salt Lake Gaming. That'd be awesome. Yeah, we're going to try and get a line of at least 100 people. Wow, okay. That'd be crazy. It'll be stupid. Yeah, well, but it'll be the world record, so... I guess. Until Pinnberg.
    86:32
    Awesome. Alright, so let's just... We've got some mail, right? I want to go through our mailbag, and I thought some of these were actually really good for you, because I think even though they're directed to us the email, the sort of questions that are sort of out there as far as the pinball industry goes. The first one I want to talk about, I think it's interesting because, yeah, for some reason, there was an article, I think something we were talking about previously on this episode and I cut out. But we're still going to talk about Jack Black now because he was on social media talking about Adam's family. Anyway, so Robbie has written in and said, what do you think about a Jumanji pinball machine starring the voice of Jack Black for call outs? That would look fantastic for a next license game, in my opinion. Jack is definitely someone who'd be on board and the upcoming Jumanji movie is timely. We did another jungle themed game besides Congo and infused with humor and delight. What are your thoughts on a Jumanji pinball machine? My thoughts? Sure. I like themes, but I usually am not a theme first when it comes to a pinball machine type of person. That's not a theme that would turn me off, so that's excellent. I mean, yeah, yeah. And actually, I think it would be a good idea because with Jumanji, it lends itself to a lot of creativity with what you can do with modes. I think it'd be good. And if you could get Jack Black to do it, I think his ability to ad lib would create some fun stuff that would come out in the end of the recording sessions that, I don't know, I think he's kind of onto something there, to be honest. I'd be in for it. I kind of agree. I had this really weird thought when this email came through because I thought, oh well, I haven't actually seen the sequel or reboot with Jack Black. I've only ever seen the first movie. I know they did a sequel but apparently it was terrible. I absolutely loved the original film which is why I didn't want to see the reboot because I don't know it just felt sort of weird that there were all these avatars as opposed to it being about the game. Anyway it doesn't matter. Yeah yeah. You know what I mean? The millennials. Right? G-March. Correct which is what it is. But then when you throw Jack Black into the mix, whom we know loves Pinball, all of a sudden I look at that and go, okay, you've actually got something that would actually have more mainstream appeal and could actually sell units as a result of it. And I just love the whole jungle theme and yes, modes and call outs and theme integration would be really good for this machine, I think. Yeah, I think so. So, Robbie, I wanted something there. It's not one I had thought of, but I... And they could even do like a choose your character type of thing with it. Yes, that's right. Yeah, you could.
    89:33
    See, we're going to be writing the code for this shortly. Yeah, now I desperately want it. Thanks. Yes, thanks, Robbie. You're awesome.
    89:42
    Next email, and this is another philosophical one to talk about, right? So this is from Anthony P. Thanks, Anthony, for writing. And he said, I'm curious as to why major people in my manufacturers such as Stern or Jersey Jack Do not use large stores such as Best Buy or Macy's, etc. to display and sell their machines. Best Buy sells $6,000 TVs and other expensive appliances. They also sell a repair service. Would this actually grow pinball dramatically, placing them in the mainstream, being able to finance them with a store credit card? Has it ever been tried? Thanks for the podcast. It has been tried, but it was kind of a bad attempt. But okay, so I can tell you why they don't first. One is floor space is extremely valuable in these stores.
    90:29
    These companies that are pushing products, they fight for every inch, like literally by the inch. Correct. Just a side note, my company that I work for is a sales and marketing company, and we specialize in retail marketing and merchandising. And I know directly what it is like to fight for floor space. So continue. So that's number one. Second, the warehousing space is also an issue. And if you look at the dollar amount for a pinball machine, so the cut, let's just use $6,000.
    91:04
    That's somewhere between pro and a premium. So you have a $6,000 pinball machine. Well, that takes up the space that you could have stacked up like 30 probably TVs and that's going to be like $45,000 in TV inventory. So the warehousing becomes an issue.
    91:28
    It's just they're big, they're heavy to move around. And so if they don't sell, they're constantly trying to work around them, they're taking up space.
    91:37
    They're just hard to deal with. Yes, it would help pinball. I don't think it would help the retailers out very much. Costco tried to sell Stern Pinball machines for a while. They did. So that was going to be my point because in Australia they did. Not the full machines. They were actually selling the home editions like the pin. They sold them in Costco here. Was that what they were selling over there or were they the normal machines? No, that's what they did here, and that was, I think, the wrong way to go about it because it gave the wrong idea for pinball, I think. Yeah, it was a more attractive price point, but at whatever price they were selling those at, it's only going to attract the enthusiasts. I think maybe they thought they could just attract the type of person that says, oh, yeah, I've got the rec room and I want to throw a pinball machine in the back. But the PIN was just, it just didn't work out. It didn't work anywhere they tried to sell it. And so at that point you might as well just add an extra $2,000 to the cost and have a full-on Pinball machine. I know they sold those Arcade Legends in Costco as well, and Walmart this year was selling those Arcade Machines for the holidays. Yeah, we've got them being sold in Aldi here. Yeah, but those are like kits. So even the boxes for those are pretty small compared to the final product. Where a pinball machine, they're huge. It would be great if they could do it. The way that they would have to do it is they'd have to have one pinball machine there and then they would have to say it will be delivered to you in a certain number of days. So it would be really hard to do that because a lot of people, the reason they go to retail rather than online is they want to take it home that day. And then on top of it, it's easy to take a 60-inch TV home if you've got a truck, put it in the back of it. If a pinball machine, you're going to have to bring a couple of your friends to get it in the back of your truck and then getting it into your house. So you'd have to do the in-home delivery service, and that's still different than the Best Buy employee bringing in a TV and mounting it to your wall. It's more complicated. So it's just complicated. But yes, it would be good for pinball. That's correct. It's just floor space, warehousing space, and then just the cost of everything. I don't know, even maybe warranty issues. Maybe retailers are worried about standing behind it. I don't know. It's just Pinball is a little bit more difficult. Correct. So my thoughts are similar. What I think is, if you think about it, I think, yes, TV is the best thing to compare it to because you can probably say they're at a similar price range. How many more TVs would they sell? Right? Oh, so many more. So many more and there's really good margin in TVs when it comes to retail. That I can tell you. Yes. There's not with pinball, right? Yeah. Not only that, what happens when a TV breaks?
    94:34
    Yeah, it's so much easier to... Right. They replace them. They replace them or you send them back and they'll give... Like it's so much easier for them to troubleshoot a TV than it is a pinball, right? So it's good to say, you know, they've got a repair service, But what happens when you've got a problem with your machine? Are they going to come pick it up? Are you then going to put it in your car and take it into their repair? My summary is it is too much of a hassle for these retailers to bother with the numbers that they're going to sell by having them in store. As you said, the floor space, the storage space, just the infrastructure that's required to support a machine like that. So I also work with another company that their company model is the returns process. So I've actually seen when a product goes back to their store, whether they choose to refurbish it or not. But then I've looked at the replacement, what happens in the interim. And this stuff only works when you've got a product, regardless of the price, how complicated or difficult it is to service and support. So I think the reason why it doesn't work in retail is because it's a big, cumbersome machine that's complicated that doesn't make them a lot of money. You might as well get the next iPhone or the next wearable device and use the floor space for that because you'll make a lot more money out of it. Right. And if they don't sell, it's a lot easier to ship back a bunch of unused TVs that they can sell in discount warehouses than machines. And that's right, because... Logistically. That's right. But also, if you think about what goes into a TV, you know, it may be, I don't know, I'm really dumbing this down, but it's going to be one part of, let's say, eight parts of a machine. It's either going to be the LCD screen or the tuner or the amp or this. They can just replace that mechanism within it as opposed to having to pull it apart to troubleshoot exactly what it is. So it's so much easier for them to repair, refurbish and resell. Right. So there you go. Yep. Anthony, thanks very much for writing in. That's why we think it won't happen. And they've tried it, you're right. And you're right, they still do it with arcade machines. And like TVs, it's because there's less components that goes into them and so it's easier to support. Yeah. It's a circuit board and a TV monitor, essentially. Effectively. So there you go.
    97:10
    Last piece of email. This was a follow-up from last week. So Josh from American Pinball reached out again because I think, you know, when Ron and I were talking about Oktoberfest, we were talking about the fact that you could choose juggler mode every time as one of the tent modes. Right. It's a multiball. And he's like, well, why wouldn't you just do that every time? Well, Josh wrote in and said, while you could choose not to finish juggling and keep doing it over and over, you will basically be getting very, very few points by doing so. Especially since you can't really stack that with other modes. So while on the surface it sounds like a strategy, it is only a good strategy if you play two ball multiballs and score no points. Okay, well then, they thought about that. Hmm. Because, you know, obviously there's, you know, you've got some, you know, shorter multiballs, let's say the likes of, God, what are some of the entry level multiballs? Deadpool, you know, you've got the mini Deadpool one, whatever it is. Right. Right. But that's, that's cool, but you can stack that. Right. Yeah, you can. Yeah, you can. Other ones where you've got simpler multiballs, that's fine, you can get into them, but only worth it if you're stacking them. This is a mode multiball. And what he's saying is, it's not worth it. No, and that's good. They obviously thought about that and they're not going to launch that with that exploit. So there you go. Anything else to add, Jeff? You know, I don't think so. It was fun being on, though. I enjoyed the talk. Do you do the editing of your podcast or does Jess do that?
    98:43
    Do you not edit at all? So we've gotten so good at not having to edit that we actually have our soundboard live on the show. So we press record. We do our thing. We say we're going to edit things out that we don't edit out. And then when we're done recording, I upload it immediately to the Internet and we're done. So if there were edits to be done, I would do them. It's just rare that we have to. The only reason why I say that is because I've been on a couple of other podcasts in my time and the best part of it is when you hang up. You're done. You never have to think of it again. Yeah.
    99:26
    Magically it appears in the next couple of days and the editing has been done, the graphics have been done, the show has been done. It's just done.
    99:34
    Look at Zencaster. That's what we used to record with. Yeah. It's pretty nice. Yeah. Again, if I go with Zencast, it means I've got to sort of pay for it, and that means I'm taking it too seriously. Well, maybe you should stop buying LEs and start buying premiums.
    99:52
    Or maybe I should just get more people to subscribe to Patreon and support us. Really, if you guys want us to get better sound quality, then send us some money. Jeez, that's how it works, isn't it? Yeah, podcasting's not free. No, well, it's actually a complete... Again, I was talking to people yesterday. Besides the fact that I've got these machines that I now buy, but effectively it funds the next one, so I'm renting these machines. But if I was to think about the amount of money that I have sunk into this hobby where there's no return,
    100:26
    so podcasting, hosting, streaming, tournaments, streaming gear in itself, it's just monster. There's no way you're going to recoup that money. We do this for the love. And just as a side, because nobody's gotten to the end of this podcast. They've all, you know, were born ages ago. But the twippies, right? Yeah. So I was really confident that we weren't going to win. So much so that I didn't even prepare a speech to an extent. But the outline of my speech was going to be this. All I was going to talk about was thanking all the other podcasts for what they do because it's not just a money sink. It's just an absolute time sink. And, you know, we sometimes get a bit of a bad rap where people think that we're doing it because of our egos. That's part of it. But we actually do it because we genuinely love doing it and we love talking about it and we hope that people enjoy what we do. Am I right? Yes, you're absolutely right. You can only stroke your ego for so long. Correct. And, yeah, if that's the only reason you're doing it, you're going to burn out.
    101:40
    Yeah. If it's not satisfying what's coming back at you, I mean, the listeners are amazing. They really are.
    101:47
    I had so many awesome talks with people who listened to our show at TPF that it really energized me going forward, and I'm excited to get back on the mic.
    101:59
    I'm just all in. I'm happy to do it. Well, same. And so I had actually said to Ryan when he sort of said, you know, he wasn't really going to come back and what are you going to do? And I said, you know what, I'll get to TPF and I'll see what I think after. And I genuinely thought it could have gone either way. But after speaking to so many people and them saying that they enjoy what we do, why would I stop? Yeah, you can't stop. No, I'm not going to stop. And it was good to hear feedback. And I know that you and I talked when we caught up in Salt Lake about the, you know, transitioning to podcast partners. You know, it transitions. You just go to a new world and, you know, see where it takes you and that's what we're going to do.
    102:40
    Yeah, I like it. I think bright future ahead. Awesome. Well, there you go. Jeff Rivera, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for spending a lot of time with me at TPF. I mean, I know that we probably didn't spend that much time, but I think I spent more time with you than anybody else. So it just felt like a long time. It did. But it just, because you and I, people know us. So as you're walking along, people are talking. And the only regret I had for TPF was that I felt like I wasn't having long enough conversations with people because there was just so many of them. Yeah. It's a good problem, though. It's actually a really good problem. And it kind of just, you know, gets me excited about doing it again next year. I mean, because you look at, like, Dennis from, you know, Eclectic Gamers, and nobody's talking to that guy. He's walking around with his head down and it just looks so sad. I go over and I try and talk to him a little bit, but it's just so hard to do. You try, but ultimately you realize that they're so awkward. Again, all these other podcasters, people that have been on the show or that I've spoken to, it was just great to catch up with those people. So he is joking. Eclectic are awesome. I'm not joking. All right. Well, thanks again for coming on. Thanks, everybody, for listening. If you want to check us out, please go to our Facebook page, Head2HPinball. Just look it up. Twitter is at H2HPinball. Email us at Head2HPinball at email.com. Instagram is Head2HPinball. And Jeff, where can people contact and see you? Just the pinballpodcast.com or Facebook Pinball Podcast you find us most absolute pretentious name in pinball podcasting but I don't care and I have another podcast havewemet.net check it out awesome well done yep okay thanks man thanks everybody we'll speak to you again next week I probably bet my money on the Spurs but I use the word probably because skip I'm not doing it I'm not doing it When you go up against a great team, it takes a superstar to close the deal, baby. And it is time. It is apropos. It is perfect timing for LeBron James, King James, to show that he's got some Jordan S skills.