You know, but people seem to be divided and split on this. I still don't feel like we have enough information. That being said, eight months ago, when I saw a long-sleeved Dungeons & Dragons shirt at Walmart, I went ahead and scooped and picked that up in anticipation of this game finally coming, so I could at least have it because I thought that would be fun. So I don't know that I'll be doing a live unboxing anytime soon for this game, though. My New Year's resolution, here we are on New Year's Eve, is to try my best to not purchase a new unboxed game this year. Now, asterisk, you know, Evil Dead and Avatar are coming. Those were purchased in 24, right? 25 will be a new year. So we'll just see. I was going through my list of games that I have that are still not code complete, and I think this is why I'm thinking along these lines. So right now, games I have that are still having maturing code in my collection are Texas Chainsaw Massacre, right? Looney Tunes, John Wick, and X-Men, right? I had Jaws, got it at release, was very happy to get it. The premiums were in short supply initially due to parts or something. I managed to get myself one, had a blast on the game, one of the best ones of 2024 for sure. And then, you know, it came time to sell the game to get the next whatever came out. And then I missed out on the video modes that were added later and some of the other code polish and things. And now over at Enzo's, I got to play a contemporary Jaws premium, fully updated of newest code. And, like, it's a fantastic, it's even better than it was. And so, like, I'm missing out on that now because I was early adopter on it. So I think I do want a Dungeons & Dragons pinball machine, of course, right? Code's going to be cool. It's going to have stuff to shoot up the middle. I kind of dig that kind of stuff. You know, keep the gameplay layout simple, but keep the code complex. I love that. Elvira is a great example of that. Stranger Things is a good example of that. Like, I can understand the code, and the layout's not overly complicated. So, like, that's, I dig that. You know, Venom is absolutely not complicated and absolutely has some fun code to play through the first 500 times or so. So I'm okay with that. But I think I want to own a Dungeons & Dragons about 8 to 12 months post-release when the code is really rocking, like, where it should be. So I don't think I'm missing anything by letting this one release. Get to the people. Let other people have a chance to unbox the thing. I don't need to have it right out of the factory. Pick one up down the road. We'll work a trade deal. We'll do something. That's where my mind's at right now. That being said, that's no fun without a challenge. So I want to spice this up. So I was just doing some thinking in the bathroom, you weirdos. And if this game, I want to come up with like some reason like I would purchase this game. So if this game has some kind of dice mechanism, a 20-sided captive die that can bounce around freely, and then land on a number and affect gameplay or something, I think then I'll go ahead and get this game if they can do that. I don't think Stern will do that with Dungeons & Dragons. I think it will have a dice rolling mechanism, absolutely, probably several in the game's code and gameplay, but I think it will be up on the screen, right? The dice will go across the screen, and that's how you get your bonuses. That's how you get your plus one modifiers to your weapons when you get them. That's where you get your spell of protection, all that business. Maybe it'll be on a playfield screen Similar to what we saw with Star Wars With that little screen there where you'd bash the TIE Fighters That would be cool to be like on the gameplay Somewhere and the dice will roll on it Maybe even across the playfield even But they would be virtual If there's a physical dice make If I see that then you gotta sail stern Sign me up for a premium LFG right let's Let's effing go Short of that though I'm gonna try to hold as best as I can To my no-name box and that is only because of this gamble right every time you purchase a game or you put down a deposit you are betting you are wagering that the game that you're going to get hopefully in a couple of weeks maybe a couple of months hopefully not a year hopefully about two years will be better than anything that's going to release in the next six months or so you know there'll always be something better in six months right so don't wait forever you know get a pinball machine enjoy it six months later something new comes out you know trade it in sell it off i think that's fine but like to get this right and then have your money tied up in a game and then in march we get harry potter or we get king kong or then you know in august we get uh pokemon or something amazing or like somebody comes out of the woodwork with a goonies that just looks amazing or like a ghostbusters uh remaster drops and it's like ah i got all my money tied up with alice's adventures in Amsterdam, and now I don't have pin funds for this new game. So that's kind of what's leading me to this. Not that I want to dry up or quit getting new in-box. My collection's been dwindling a bit. It feels good. It feels empowering. I kind of dig that. I'm going to keep that going. But I will say, if there's a rolling dice mechanism, that's pretty freaking cool. And I may just renege a bit if that happens. Otherwise, if John Wick and X-Men sell in the next week Then all bets are off, let's go Alright, those are kind of my thoughts My thoughts with that So, if we get a T-Rex mechanism I'm okay with that New Inbox Challenge, Rolling Dice, Code Complete Games Talked about all of those Mad Pinball's already out soliciting orders If you are interested in this game Go ahead and email jeff at madpinball.com Get yourself on the list, man And then get yourself one And look, I'm not going to judge you Right Just because I not looking to buy one new in box I not saying you shouldn or anybody else should not go out there and get it Alice Adventures in Wonderland looked fantastic Love what Lior did Love what Stumbler did The gameplay was okay It wasn terrible I didn hate it but it just didn rise to the level where everything came together for me to be worth the new in-box purchase price. So I missed it. I'm happy about that. But if you're getting one and you're hype on it, I'm happy for you, man. Go get that game. Invite me over. Let's go play it. For me, it didn't tick enough on my boxes, but your boxes are different. Either way, Jeff's got games if y'all want them. This was so fun to follow today. Today was very exciting. In and out of consciousness, I see the leaks and the drops, and we see, okay, fine. First thing in the morning, NAP was like, we didn't hear anything in 2024. Maybe we'll get it in 2025. And then, boom, teaser comes out. And that's quickly followed up with Jersey Jack posting this photo of Jack. I think it was when he was at Warner Brothers, and there's several Warner Brothers properties on the side of a building in big banners, right? There was Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka, and then a big Ron Weasley corner of like a Harry Potter billboard. And then this tagline of like, looking forward to 2025, dreams do come true or some such. And it was like such a great like volley back into Stern. Like Stern is like, okay, our new cornerstone for the first quarter of the year just got dropped, or a teaser for it anyway. And Jersey Jack is like, hang on, man. Maybe have someone hold your beard just for a second. What that was was just a reminder that Hey, Harry Potter's a real rumor Harry Potter, I think, is a reality And I'm hearing that March is That's way sooner than I thought this thing would come out You know, tell me you want everybody to forget about Avatar Release Harry Potter in March But, like, I think that was a You know, don't go blowing your wad all at once You know, just trying to ease off the hype Keep some of that pinball money in the pinball folks' pockets Because early on in the year Maybe March, they may have a brand new game And it might be freaking Harry Potter, right? One of the grail pins as far as, like, the new rumored ones that are coming out, right? Pokemon, Harry Potter, like the two hugest ones. I haven't heard much about this Harry Potter game other than I think it exists. I think Eric is spearheading this one. I think he wants to come back a little bit from some of the criticisms from Guns N' Roses and Godfather. And, man, fine. Fit and finish, light shows. I think Jersey Jack's got them. Gameplay wise I think Avatar is kind of the best one I've played I like it a little better than Elton John does shoot well but then so does Star Trek So why is that you know whatever They're on an upper trend for sure Elton John kind of changed the course Let's see where Eric can land And I mean people talk right And I don't have anything to really hang on So all of this is just rumors and speculation It's all over the place with Harry Potter I've heard you know they got your wallet go in, sight unseen, as soon as it's available, just get it in there. This is going to be the game. You're going to want to have this game. I've heard this game is going to only come out at $25,000 or something. I heard that it was like $5 million for the license, right? I don't know any of that if it's true or not. You know, it's not been corroborated from everybody. I heard recently that this game is going to disappoint people. And, like, that's the whole spectrum, right? Buy it, sight unseen, new in box, and save your money, you're going to be disappointed. and just about everything in between. What's real? Who knows until the magical boy who lived game actually gets revealed, right? Here's what I think. So as far as being disappointed with a franchise like Harry Potter, you're building, if you're only building, I think there's enough for three machines here as far as like code, layout, and eras, and lore, and all that business, right? So if you're building one game on the Harry Potter franchise, There's no way you're going to be able to include absolutely everything. That's if it's based on the movies. If it's based on the books, there's even less of a chance that everything everybody wants to see in their Harry Potter machine is going to be there for sure. They'd have to come out with one machine and have like three different versions and different eras or something of that machine. It's crazy. I think they can get close. I think you can have an absolutely compelling game with this license no matter how you slice it. But however you slice it, something's going to be missing. and somebody's going to be disappointed. And there's just no way to avoid that without making like three complete games. And even then, there's probably some expanded universe stuff that will be left out. It's like, you know, you got the wrong voice for Weasley or his freckle is on the wrong part of his butt cheek or something was missing, right? So I don't know. All the grains of salt. I don't know if there's a Poliwag potion for that or something. But that's very anticipatory. So it was so fun to see J.J.P. be a little playful just volleying back today. And then it kept going, like Pedretti even got in on the action. Happy 2025, we got magic coming. And there's this, you know, like elaborate looking golden frame, and there's fireworks in the distance, there's circus tents down below. And then look off to the left side of that image that they posted. There's like a hot dog with a sparkler or something. What the hell does all this mean? Of course, this is another remake that they're looking at doing. Are they teasing Theater of Magic? This is a game people love. people love spinny boxes and uh what is it a tiger with a buzzsaw blade through them or something getting log split whatever um you know but maybe it's pinball magic instead uh either way um you know i'm glad they're doing remakes there was some talk about this let's dwell on this for a moment uh so uh there was nothing but arguments online so the argument was are the cgc remakes better or are the pedretti remakes better you know are some remakes okay are they only okay if cgc does them and if Pedretti does them, they suck. And so here's my thought on it, just because why not add my perspective? I dig these remakes, right? When I got into pinball, the first game I was looking at getting, naively as it was, was Medieval Madness, right? It was a game that I really locked onto in the virtual pinball arcade game that was on PlayStation. It's available basically in every system, although they seem to like come and go with the licenses and when you can download which game or whatever. But Medieval Madness was a game I played the heck out of virtually. I got what I thought was really good at it, and then that led me to go to a free-play arcade that had one so I could go play a real one, at which point it handed me my own ass on a plate. Because, you know, transitioning from virtual pinball PlayStation controller to an actual machine with no trained nudging skills? Like, I couldn't make the ball do what I was doing at home.