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Episode 40 - Nukes and Cue Balls!

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 21m·held·Jul 31, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Stern's ghosting disclaimer sparks debate; Spooky TNA officially revealed at $5,995 with 80s aesthetic and RGB features.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast discusses Stern Pinball newly discovered warranty disclaimer in Star Wars manuals acknowledging ghosting, dimpling, and insert crazing as normal—sparking community controversy on Pinside. The hosts explore the difference between acceptable manufacturing tolerances and quality control failures, compare online vocal communities to actual buyer bases, and pivot to discussing Spooky Pinball official reveal of Total Nuclear Annihilation (TNA) at $5,995 MSRP, featuring an 80s-inspired aesthetic, RGB lighting, laser-etched side rails, and numeric score displays. The episode also covers Dennis's recent acquisition of a Sharky Shootout pinball machine after posting to local collector groups.

Key Claims

  • Stern Pinball added a warranty disclaimer in Star Wars manuals stating that playfield dimpling, insert crazing, and ghosting are normal and to be expected

    high confidence · Dennis, citing manual review from Pinside discussion

  • The ghosting issue was notably severe with Ghostbusters machines, with many players receiving replacement playfields

    high confidence · Dennis, referencing historical Ghostbusters quality issues

  • Spooky Pinball's Total Nuclear Annihilation will be priced at $5,995 MSRP

    high confidence · Dennis, citing Spooky Pinball official Facebook announcement

  • TNA features numeric score displays (not DMD), real back glass, LCD display, RGB inserts, RGB general illumination, interactive rotating beacon topper, and laser-etched side rails

    high confidence · Dennis, reviewing official art reveal and specifications

  • TNA is designed by Scott Danesi and was previously known by a different name before Spooky officially took over development

    high confidence · Dennis, referencing prior coverage of design transition

  • Dennis believes TNA will be Spooky's best-playing game to date, having tested it at Texas Pinball Festival

    medium confidence · Tony, opinion based on gameplay experience at TPF

  • Online pinball communities like Pinside represent a minority of actual machine buyers; many casual owners never update code or follow community discussions

    medium confidence · Tony and Dennis, discussing operator and casual buyer behavior patterns

Notable Quotes

  • “It just seems kind of... it's understandable but at the same time kind of petty. I guess it's definitely protection language so that they can point to something and say look we don't have to just send you a whole new playfield.”

    Tony @ ~10:00 — Articulates the core tension: Stern's legal protection vs. customer expectations after known quality issues

  • “I think a lot of people lose sight of it... the online community, the online pinball community, especially like Pinside or some of the others, is still not the mass of people who purchase.”

    Tony @ ~18:30 — Key insight about representation bias in community discourse

  • “I like the 80s feel... it's a nice combination of good art while still being kind of having that old school simplicity... The flaming pinball on the side, but it still has that little grid thing that was like Max Headroom.”

    Tony @ ~30:00 — Assessment of TNA's aesthetic design philosophy and execution

  • “This is easily, to my mind, going to be Spooky's best playing game at this point... it was my highlight from Texas Pinball Festival this year.”

    Dennis @ ~35:00 — Strong endorsement of TNA gameplay based on competitive testing

  • “I had to draw a line somewhere... they're only worth so much at some point and so I drew my line a while ago and they everyone crossed it. $5,000 is my hard line on new games.”

    Dennis @ ~45:00 — Personal pricing ceiling reflects broader market frustration with escalating MSRP

  • “A Stern Pro probably to your door is going to run you about $5,200 and this is going to be $6,000 before shipping, so it's about a thousand dollars spread and that is just too much for me.”

    Dennis @ ~46:30 — Direct price comparison between TNA and Stern baseline model, highlighting competitive positioning

  • “I don't think the LCD warrants it... I think they're doing it because the market can bear it. And that's fine. It's business.”

    Tony @ ~48:00 — Pragmatic analysis of Stern's recent pricing increases as demand-driven rather than cost-justified

Entities

Stern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyScott DanesipersonDennispersonTonypersonPinsideorganizationStar Wars (Stern)gameGhostbusters (Stern)game

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern Pinball added disclaimer language to Star Wars manuals explicitly acknowledging ghosting, dimpling, and insert crazing as normal/acceptable manufacturing tolerances. This represents legal defensive positioning following documented Ghostbusters ghosting issues.

    high · Dennis: 'On the very first page, there is a little disclaimer... notes that playfield dimpling... and insert crazing... and ghosting... are often seen on pinball machines. The pin side community in a total uproar.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pinside community reaction to Stern's ghosting disclaimer is negative, with vocal players expressing intention to avoid future Stern purchases. However, hosts note this represents small fraction of actual buyer base.

    medium · Dennis: 'This has the pin side community in a total uproar... people saying that Ghostbusters was a must-have theme... and I've seen a bunch of them already sell their machines off.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Discussion reveals gap between vocal online community (Pinside forums) and broader casual/operator buyer base. Many casual owners never update code or follow online discourse, suggesting online sentiment does not reflect market behavior.

    high · Tony: 'The online pinball community, especially like Pinside... is still not the mass of people who purchase... There are a lot more people out there that purchase than there are who are on those websites.'

  • ?

    announcement: Spooky Pinball officially announced Total Nuclear Annihilation (TNA) with complete art reveal, specifications, and MSRP of $5,995.

    high · Dennis: 'The full reveal has now happened. They have the full art reveal... the msrp which is more like msp it's not really recommended it will be sold at 59.95 so six thousand dollar machine'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.246

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, July 30th. This is episode 40. There's a hamster running in the background, so if there's a lot of squeaking, it's because he decided he's not nocturnal today because he hates me. Your recording studio. Hey, Tony, this is Dennis, and apparently your recording studio is in Hamsterville. My house is full of pets, and let me tell you how many pets I want. I want zero pets. Ten. I was very close. No, I want zero pets. I was close, though. Yes, it did have the number zero in it. So, yes, you were close. I want no pets in the household. And we have two, four, six or seven between the hamsters and the fish and the dog.
1:08
Sometimes I think I should count the five-year-old, but you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, you haven't gotten any. I guess it's time for updates since the last episode. I hope you didn't pick up a new pet since we last recorded. No.
1:22
Oh, that's good. No, they looked at a hamster, at yet another hamster, but it didn't happen. Okay. Yeah, they probably start, they probably fight. I imagine they actually operate like gremlins. I don't know. I've never had a hamster. Well, they're all in their separate cages. Each one has its own giant cage. I mean, I remember like hamsters and stuff being in little cages, like goldfish used to be in little bowls, but none of that's allowed now. Now a goldfish needs like a 60-gallon tank, and hamsters need huge cages or tanks.
1:55
In solitary. They're solitarily confined. Yeah, just because they'll destroy each other. Otherwise, they do not play well together. Hate-based life. They are hate-based life forms, yes. So what has been going on? I think you got a car. I got a car. yay for government auctions so I have the most amazing thing in the universe now air conditioning in a car I know I haven't had it in like cutting edge do you even know how to do you know how to use it yes I learned real quick that's good yeah I am a bit spoiled. I don't know how I would cope in the summers here in Kansas without AC in the vehicle. I suppose poorly. I would just cope poorly. Yeah, I always did the best I could, but that's how it is. I work outside, so that helps. Yeah, well, I haven't really done much. I did pick up a new pinball machine, but we'll talk about that in the pinball segment.
Total Nuclear Annihilation
game
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Rob Zombie (Spooky)game
[name withheld pending review]game
[name withheld pending review]game
Dialed In!game
[name withheld pending review]game
8-Ball Deluxegame
Bad Girlsgame
Silver Sluggergame
Hoopsgame
Toddperson
Jason S.person
[name withheld pending review]event
?

design_innovation: TNA features numeric score displays (non-DMD), real backglass, LCD in backbox, RGB addressable inserts, RGB general illumination throughout, and interactive rotating beacon topper—representing alternative approach to modern pinball tech stack.

high · Dennis: 'It did keep the numeric score displays... it is a real back glass... it has the lcd display in the backbox area and it has rgb inserts and rgb general illumination... has laser-etched side rails... an interactive beacon topper that rotates'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: TNA employs explicit 80s retro-futurism aesthetic (Max Headroom grid references, neon color palette, flaming pinball motif) as intentional design direction, not as literal recreation of 1980s pinball.

    high · Tony: 'It feels like a pen that is taking sort of an interpretation of the 80s and running with that... what did the 80s think the future would look like? Now let's make our pinball machine look like that.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Both hosts tested TNA at Texas Pinball Festival; Dennis ranks it as TPF highlight and best Spooky game to date; Tony prefers single-level playfield design and appreciates always-visible numeric score displays for multiplayer competitive play.

    high · Dennis: 'it was my highlight from Texas Pinball Festival this year'; Tony: 'This game, you know, it was my highlight from Texas Pinball Festival this year... easily, to my mind, going to be Spooky's best playing game'

  • $

    market_signal: TNA priced at $5,995 (before shipping) vs Stern Pro at ~$5,200, creating $800+ premium. Dennis maintains $5,000 hard ceiling on new machine purchases; Tony notes Stern's pricing increases (from $4,800 in 2015 to $5,200 current) reflect market capacity rather than cost justification.

    high · Dennis: 'I had to draw a line somewhere... $5,000 is my hard line on new games'; Tony: 'I don't think the LCD warrants it... I think they're doing it because the market can bear it.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Discussion reveals significant variance in operator commitment to machine maintenance; some operators never update code, never perform maintenance, and treat machines as disposable; others are dedicated. Bar/restaurant venues particularly likely to neglect upkeep.

    medium · Tony: 'I've heard of even operators who don't update code they just put machines out and they leave machines in the field... There's places like that especially when you go to certain places non pinball specific like certain bars'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Dennis acquired Sharky Shootout through Kansas City Pinball Group post after watching for machine in specific collector categories (street-level games, 8-Ball Deluxe clones). Demonstrates secondary market activation through local community networks.

    high · Dennis: 'I finally posted on the Kansas City Pinball Group these four machines that I've been watching for... I got a message from a collector who lives down in Pittsburgh... and Sharky Shootout is the game that i bought'

  • ?

    product_concern: Hosts express dissatisfaction with Rob Zombie (Spooky) layout and repetitive center ramp focus; Dennis notes layout itself may resist code improvement. Suggests inconsistency in Spooky's game design quality.

    medium · Dennis: 'I do not like Rob Zombie at all'; Tony: 'I don't think code can save that layout'

  • ?

    event_signal: Recent Pinberg tournament at Replay FX (Pittsburgh) featured multiple regional players from hosts' area, suggesting geographic distribution of competitive play and community cross-pollination between Kansas City and Pittsburgh scenes.

    medium · Dennis: 'Jason S., got in the top 16 of A... Steve H, Marion R, Mark M... Eric G got D division... Robert H was C division... Adam McKinney was A division'

    • 3:10
    I've played a few video games, but I haven't really made any major progress in anything so yeah but i got some stuff for the video game segment we got stuff we got plenty of stuff to talk about it's been two weeks we got we got lots of stuff so i guess we should go ahead and roll on into it a lot of this stuff gets to be more theoretical which is which is great we don't we don't have to go through and listen to a whole bunch of legal stuff there were some slight updates uh involving like the skitby predator stuff i'm not going into any of it. It wasn't meaty enough. I need a spicy meatball. I can't work with these little tiny ground beef bits. So I'm going to wait for some good juicy steak to come along before we slam the listeners with the latest on all of that. What I thought we should open with, actually, was one I just saw yesterday. Apparently, someone went online and was looking at the LE and premium manual that comes with Stern Pinball's Star Wars pinball machine. And on the very first page, there is a little disclaimer. The disclaimer notes several things, three of which I thought were interesting, and one of which in particular interesting. One was that it notes that playfields are not perfectly flat.
    4:25
    And it also notes that dimpling of the playfield is normal. And the third thing I noted was it said that insert crazing, which is when the plastics on the inserts get stress cracks, and a very famous term, ghosting, in this case referring to the cloudy areas around insert edges, are often seen on pinball machines. This, of course, has the pin side community in a total uproar because now there is basically a disclaimer in the manual with Stern Pinball saying that if you see ghosting on your inserts, that's common. so and before you know as you as you may recall we we never really dived really deep into ghosting because i don't really know anyone who's spoken to me who had that problem but it was really famous with ghostbusters that a lot of people after you know 50 plays or so were seeing this cloudy area start to show up around the edges of the insert sometimes spreading all the way across the insert and there were a lot of people who got replacement play fields there were other people who got repair kits, which I think provided some clear coat they could inject into the insert or some sandpaper where they could just, you know, recoat with clear on top. I didn't follow it super closely, but it was a big point of discussion because it was seen as a major quality control failing of Stern.
    5:51
    Tony, I'm curious what your thoughts are about this sort of legalese disclaimer in basically their warranty section saying that some ghosting is to be expected. It's really, it's one of those things that I understand. And I understand that some ghosting is to be expected. I mean, things happen. Machines aren't perfect. There's always going to be little bits of something somewhere. But after they had such a large issue for them to suddenly have this added in just as a CYA, a protection to themselves so they don't have to go, well, we don't have to send you anything back now because we told you it could happen. it just seems kind of it's understandable but at the same time kind of petty I guess yeah it's I don't really know what to make of it in part I agree it's definitely protection language so that they can point to something and say look we don't have to just send you a whole new play field because things aren't as perfect as you think they should be and in a I do get it. I've seen online. The thing with one of the first items I noted, which to me had never been surprising or controversial, I guess it was my second bullet point I kind of provided, was the dimpling, dimpling on the playfield. I have seen people freak out about dimpling online, and it absolutely flabbergasts me that they seem to have been under the impression that dimpling didn't ever happen in the past. Now, as time goes by, you get so many strikes on those playfields that you can't really see the dimples because the whole playfield is basically pressed more compressed than it once was when it was new. And, you know, the older machines you don't really see new examples of very often. but yeah dimpling you know i have dimpling all over my star trek when i got it you i could see the strikes coming in anytime the ball lands anywhere dimples it because it's a steel ball on wood yeah i've wondered if i mean the phrasing and i did put it in the in the parenthesis their definition of the ghosting that they used in their write-up in the manual indicates cloudy areas around insert edges. So I'm curious if this, and I agree that I think this is probably a PR mistake. It's probably why they just sort of slipped it into the warranty section rather than make an announcement or anything. But my takeaway on that was that they don't want people calling them up just because there's a little bit of a cloudy area between where the insert meets the play field. And there was additional language in there as well about trying to explain it in the sense that saying you're taking a piece of plastic, the insert, and you're sticking it in a hole that's technically too small for it. So there's a lot of force going on. There's a lot of pressure. So it provided a bit of an explanation, not that that satisfied anyone. But I'm curious if this is very specific to the, if you see a little bit of ghosting around the edges, and there was a separate thread before this was seen where someone showed some photos of Star Wars, which they noted there was ghosting. I couldn't see it.
    9:22
    I probably should have zoomed in on the photos but I didn't care enough to zoom in. I just looked and I thought because I saw the thread and I thought oh gosh, this is going to be like the Ghostbusters ones where half the insert is cloudy. And I looked at it and I was like where's the ghosting at? I'm not seeing it. Maybe I'm not trying very hard. I don't know.
    9:41
    But I wondered if they've gotten a lot of people who are just like oh, I see any bit of cloudiness. Give me a new play field. I think that's probably what it is. Because, I mean, I've seen pictures of some of the Ghostbusters clouding and stuff where it was, I mean, it was huge and it was very obvious and it was a major issue. But then I've seen others where people are showing the pictures, like you said, where you can't see it or you could barely see it. It's like, are you hunting? How hard did you have to look to even see this? Because I didn't notice it until you drew a red circle around it on the picture. But I think this is all something that it comes from. Nothing is ever manufactured 100% perfect. Nothing is ever manufactured where every single item is identical.
    10:33
    That's just not how manufacturing works. We don't have that level of perfection. So there's going to be little flaws. There's going to be little things. if it's something really big if it's something that that is very very distracting i can see the the want to return it and the little stuff it's just like okay yeah but you know your car has stuff that's not exactly perfect when you get it or i mean you don't you don't return a shirt when you buy a shirt and it's got a thread hanging that's not a reason to return a shirt but I think this is just one of those things that comes in it's A the price of pinball with how much a machine costs everyone expects everything to be 100% perfect and I don't have a problem with that because I know if I had major issues I'd be really upset but like the dimpling issues it's like it's gonna happen I mean it's metal and wood like you said the ghosting if it's huge yeah if it's just a little tiny bit on the edges I can see it's like more likely than not, if you replace this play field, besides all that hassle and all this and that, you're still going to have something like that or something like that's going to happen, or there could be something else. You never know. Yeah. I mean, I guess my overall takeaway from this is I believe that it'll blow over, depending. If Stern still, if there are cases where there is full ghosting or near full ghosting, where a significant percentage of the insert or inserts has this cloudiness to it. I think if Stern continues to replace playfields in those instances, people will be like, okay, that's fine. This was clearly to deal with the obsessive compulsive types that are complaining about every little minuscule flaw and it'll pass. I'm sure Stern isn't going to talk publicly about the new warranty thing. They've had bigger crises come up in their face and have been reluctant to say anything publicly. So I highly doubt a criticism of their warranty provisions is really going to warrant it in their view.
    12:40
    But it will, at least on Penn's side, it will create a bit of a buzz for a while, which is why we're basically preemptively covering it now. I don't know if any other podcast is recorded yet on Pinball that's tackled it. Maybe, I don't listen to them all. But even that is interesting because the discussion was like wildfire in terms of the number of people posting. But of course you saw the usual stuff with the, well, I'm not going to buy another Stern new inbox again. which is fine, and people can protest that way. But there were also those that were saying things like, after Star Wars, I'm not going to buy another new-in-box Stern. It's like, every time you make an exception like that, you're not really voting with your wallet. You're pretending you're going to vote with your wallet, and then you can't actually bring yourself to do it. These are the same people that will break when they see Guardians of the Galaxy, and they'll be like, oh, I got to own that theme. I love Guardians of the Galaxy, and then there'll be something else. It's just like the rumors only go out so far, So maybe they're not interested in the next two machines, but Stern's the one getting all the good themes. And some people, as we have discussed repeatedly on this podcast, are completely theme-driven, it seems, when it comes to making purchase decisions. It's the same thing with Ghostbusters. There are all sorts of people saying that Ghostbusters was a must-have theme, and I've seen a bunch of them already sell their machines off. And that machine came out last year.
    14:00
    It's just how it is. So, yeah, I don't think this is actually going to have this big impact on Stern's business model in terms of the number of machines they sell, because we're going to basically end up hitting on it here in our next segment. But the bottom line is when it comes to a full functioning, full featured pinball machine, there is no competition at the pro price point with Stern. No one's selling as cheap as Stern does. So for a lot of people, it's the only new in box they can afford. Right, and the other thing you have to remember also is that the online community, the online pinball community, especially like Pinside or some of the others, is still not the mass of people who purchase.
    14:49
    I mean, there are a lot more people out there that purchase than there are who are on those websites. Yep, good point, really good point. I think a lot of people lose sight of it. I lose sight of that. And it can be very easy to think that that forum represents the bulk of a hobby just because it's the most active, largest pinball forum. Right. And that is where the most vocal people are. That's where the largest gathering of vocal people are. but I think there's a lot of people who want a machine and they see a machine and they buy a machine and they play a machine I mean how often have you heard of somebody going over someone's house who has a machine and it's still on you know the version one code it's like it's like oh yeah I've had this machine for six years oh there's code updates I didn't even know and I mean I've seen well I haven't personally seen but I've heard of even operators who don't update code they just put machines out and they leave machines in the field and then they pull the machines and put a new machine in it's place I mean there's places like that especially when you go to certain places non pinball specific like certain bars where they're like oh yeah we have a machine or like I've got a restaurant bar and grill near me who always has a single pinball machine, and it's always in terrible shape, and it's just, you can tell that it's just there because they're like, oh, yeah, we want a pinball machine there to go along with our three golden tee machines and our jukebox. So people just pile it, they just put it in, and an operator just puts it in with everything else. They don't take care of it. They don't pay attention to it. Yep. If it gets coin dropped, then it's doing its job. So, you know, why need to care? We are pretty spoiled because we do have a few locations around here that are serviced by operators that care about the machines, which is great for us. But, yep, there are a lot of operators that never had to do it that way and still are able to turn some sort of profit without doing so now. So, you know, that's just what it is. Well, let's move on then from our ghosting to a different sort of ghost, Spooky Pinball. And the announcement, finally, we knew that Scott Denise's design, Total Annihilation, renamed a little while ago to Total Nuclear Annihilation, was going to actually be developed and sold by Spooky Pinball.
    17:32
    And we'll have a link to their Facebook announcement in the show notes, but basically the full reveal has now happened. They have the full art reveal, which the link will show you. the msrp which is more like msp it's not really recommended it will be sold at 59.95 so six thousand dollar machine you lucked out yeah and i trust me my numbers i picked were designed very much to be safe but we can explore that a bit uh but uh it had a whole list of key features some of the ones i noted just because they're a bit atypical compared to what you might normally expect from a pinball machine possibly was it did keep the numeric score displays they're different than they're in different location than they were on the prototype they're down beneath the back glass now it is a real back glass they didn't run with a trans light it does have the lcd display that in the back box area and it has rgb inserts and rgb general illumination so you have the color-changing bulbs throughout the machine. And they kind of reminiscent to me of the Getaway. There's an interactive beacon topper that rotates around and obviously it's interactive, so it does something while the game is playing. Also has laser-etched side rails on the two sides of the cab, which say Total Nuclear Annihilation in sort of a pink colored lettering. So, you've seen the pictures, Tony. I've seen the pictures. We've got that to talk about. We've got, obviously, the pricing, the features. So let's go ahead and start with the art because that was the big thing. Other than the back glass, no one really knew what the game was going to look like. What are your thoughts? Well, I like the 80s feel. This is an interesting thing to me because there's like this whole 80s artistic thing that's kind of popped up this last year or so. like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 did a real 80s thing with their trailer.
    19:32
    The new Thor movie is doing a real 80s thing with their trailer and their logo and stuff. And I've seen several other things where the kind of old 80s type feels have been popping up again in videos and such. And they did this on this machine. And to be fair, this machine is supposed to be a throwback type machine. And I just, I think it looks good. I like how it looks. I really, it is a nice combination of good art while still being, kind of having that old school simplicity. Like the flaming pinball on the side, but it still has that little grid thing that was like Max Headroom grid in the background. Kind of going on. And it's got a feel that I just really like. Yeah, it's very bright. Which feels a lot different than most of the machines we see lately where and that may be a bit unfair I just you know I kind of stereotype to a lot of browns a lot of blues are used Game of Thrones actually was a fairly light coloring on the play field by and large But this with its more flamboyant color scheme feels very, very different. It doesn't feel like an 80s pen. It feels like a pen that is taking sort of an interpretation of the 80s and running with that. I mean, if you were to go back and look at 1980s pinball machines, I don't think there are any that look like this. But going with that whole, what did the 80s think the future would look like? Now let's make our pinball machine look like that. Yeah, I think it pulls it off.
    21:04
    Let's see. I don't do much with art in and of itself. I suppose if I want to be critical, and I guess I might as well be while I'm looking at it, I wouldn't have done the pinball on the side cab. side cab, I'd probably done a, just sort of a very simple sketch of a cooling tower for a nuclear reactor or something and kept it with the theme. I don't think you need to show a pinball there. You already have it in the back glass and it's obviously a pinball machine. So, but you know, again, it's a side, it's a side art. I, it's so, it's so hard for me to care exactly. I do think that the laser etching looks really cool, uh, with the, with the name of the game there. Uh, I don't actually, I've never replaced my side rails with laser etched anything. So to me, it just was like, oh, wow, neat. They do that. I remember reading that places do that. I just, I've never pursued it. And I like the, I like the play field look overall. Obviously it's, I had no idea what to expect because we'd always seen the whitewood. I see kind of where the, you know, there used to be that little, like, I always called it the Sharpie doodle, where I guess it's the numbers for all the reactors, which is more, I guess it's supposed to be topographic. from the way it's kind of looking to me. And, you know, that's probably my least favorite part of the play field. But, you know, color-wise, I like it. And it looks pretty clear to understand what to do. But, you know, I really like single-level play fields. So it already appealed to me without any art on it. So it didn't really have to do much. But, yeah, it looks really good. So I like that. And they kept all the key features that everyone was wanting, those numeric score displays. I just thought that I guess I'm not I don't want to say I'm surprised that other companies don't do it. But from, you know, when we play competitively, I always get a little frustrated with a lot of DMD games, because especially if you go into something like multiball, they don't show the other player scores anymore.
    22:59
    And so I like the idea of having the scores somewhere at all times. I don't care if they're segregated out like this where they're actually on their own numeric displays or you want to just guarantee that they're going to show up on an LCD somewhere no matter what. But as long as they're always there, this, of course, guarantees that with the nature of those displays. And it helps with the throwback feel. So I thought that's pretty cool. I'm glad they kept that.
    23:24
    What do you think of the price? I guess that's really the only other major thing to talk about. Well, the price is, as you said, it's right in line with what we would expect. It's in line with Spooky's new generalized pricing. So I'd hoped for lower, but I always hope for lower. I always hope everything's lower.
    23:45
    I wouldn't have a problem spending the money on it if I had the money. I enjoyed this game a lot. I will say that I would say that this is easily, to my mind, going to be Spooky's best playing game at this point. Yeah, obviously, without having tried Alice Cooper, I can't weigh in on the latest that they're working on. And I never got an opportunity. I had an opportunity, but I didn't take it, to try Domino's. So I can't say how Domino's played. I did try Jetsons. I've played America's Most Haunted a couple times, and I've played Rob Zombie numerous times. I do not like Rob Zombie at all. No, I don't either. It's such a disappointment to me. I have not tried it with the new code, but I just don't know if code can save that layout. But, I mean, it could probably make it less repetitive than it last was for competition purposes, but I just don't like playing it. To do something other than shoot the center ramp? Yeah, that would be a good start. But this game, you know, it was my highlight from Texas Pinball Festival this year. Mine, yeah. That was my favorite game. And I liked Dialed In, but I liked this more. So, yeah, definitely I think it's very, very impressive. I'm not surprised at the price point. I thought Spooky was actually taking steps to temper expectations that the game would somehow be cheaper. they had reveals and stuff showing it was just like what the wiring looks like underneath that play field obviously if you're doing rgb leds everywhere the leds are not expensive so and not that they said they were leds are not expensive even rgb leds they are cheap but you have to control all of them so it's not like running it looks like you have with a typical lamp socket we have a couple of wires going to supply power you it's like a four wire setup per led if i recall because you've got the rgb modes that have to be controlled plus your your ground or whatnot so so given this the sheer number of wires that are required to manipulate all that because even the gi is in rgb mode you had all of that versus what you saved money on not needing to vacuum form a couple of ramps sort of thing so from a parts perspective i totally get the argument about why this doesn't really warrant being a lower price than any other pinball machine that might be coming out but it's too much for me not because of what it is it's just that 5 000 is my hard line on new games at this point i can't probably get anything at 5 000 so yeah all new games are out it's just i i had to draw a line somewhere for me saying pinball machines are not worth more than this period it's not necessarily an issue that i couldn't come up with the funds but i had to draw i had to say they're only worth so much at some point and so i drew my line a while ago and they everyone crossed it this is still more than a stern pro i know it's getting compared a lot to a stern pro but a stern pro probably to your door is going to run you about 5200 and this is going to be 6 000 before the shipping so it's about a thousand dollars spread and that is just too much for me. But it's really cool.
    27:14
    I know we were communicating with one of our area collectors, Todd, and it sounds like he's going to get one. So I will play someone else's and enjoy myself that way as I am wont to do. So I will get my kicks on it. And again, I totally expected it to be priced at around $6,000 mark. And I think when we last talked about the pricing on it, I think I mentioned I consider it if it was down to five and that i i'd basically guarantee i'd get it if it was down to four fully assured that there was no way they were gonna take it down that low four thousand for a game with an lcd in it there yeah sure definitely i felt pretty comfortable that i wasn't backing myself into any sort of corner there with that i don't know what year stern moved up past four thousand because they had to go along for probably longer than they should have selling machines at $3,500. But lately, that they moved up from $4,800 in 2015 to $5,200 this year, I don't think the LCD warrants it. I'm getting back on Stern here. I think they're doing it because the market can bear it. And that's fine. It's business. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. That was my line in the sand. Maybe I'd redefine my line in the sand if I got a big raise at work or something. But for the time being, the line stays where the line is. Anyway, it looks really cool. I don't know if we're going to get any on locations or not yet. I'm going to guess we will. Probably. 403, I imagine, we'll see this at some point. But even if not, it's nice to know one of the area collectors also really loved it from Texas Pinball Festival, and it sounds like he is making his plans to acquire one. So yay, us vicariously. That's it for total nuclear annihilation. I guess this will be the part in the podcast where I'll go ahead and insert what I referenced in the intro, that I actually did acquire a new pinball machine below my $5,000 threshold. Otherwise, I wouldn't have acquired it. As has been noted in the past, there have been a few machines that I've been looking for, and they just don't come up very much. so I think the main ones that we've always heard me mention were Silver Slugger which is one of the Gottlieb street level games and I've also been watching for Hoops which is another street level game that I've heard I've probably heard better things about Hoops but I know they've made more Silver Sluggers and I personally like the Silver Slugger layout more from the look of it but I think I would, you see I have to guess because I can't try these anywhere, I don't know anywhere that has them that's nearby So I had those, which are kind of my street-level category. And then there's the category I call the 8-Ball Deluxe Clone category, where it needs to have a layout that's kind of like 8-Ball Deluxe, or be 8-Ball Deluxe. But the problem is, I think 8-Ball Deluxe is too expensive.
    30:04
    So that leaves 8-Ball Deluxe Limited Edition, which is ugly, and thus worth a lot less than the regular 8-Ball Deluxe, but they didn't make a whole bunch of them. and then there were a couple other play play fields that are a similar layout the bad girls is one that i've mentioned numerous times which was one gottlieb did where they mirrored they mirrored the layout but it's almost identical otherwise and then another one that i found out about later which had some ramps and such incorporated but still follow the basic layout was sharky shootout sharky shootout is the game that i bought and what had happened was i finally posted on the Kansas City Pinball Group these four machines that I've been watching for. Because I thought, okay, I've told some of the main collectors that I know that I want these. And they'll keep their eye out, and that's great. But I was also thinking, you know, maybe someone has one, and they just want to get rid of it finally. Because these just don't, they're not a whole ton of demand for these games. So I just put out that announcement, and I didn't really expect anything to come of it, but I got a message from a collector who lives down in Pittsburgh, not Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Replay FX has been going on, just wrapped up, I believe, or at least the tournament, Pinberg, just wrapped up. Incidentally, I'm digressing a bit, but I saw one of our area players, Jason S., got in the top 16 of A, so that was pretty cool.
    31:31
    And a bunch of the players, Tony and I play, I think Steve H, Marion R, Mark M They were all in A division I believe I think Eric G got D division going on And then I think Robert H was C division I think there was another C division as well Adam McKinney was A division He's out in Missouri But he comes to some of our big stuff to take all our money So yeah a lot of names that we know from this area So that was pretty cool I haven't seen the program yet I think we put an ad in that because we couldn't get out there this year, but we wanted to offer some support. And nothing says support like money. So anyway, so while that's been going on, but there's a Pittsburgh here in Kansas down in the sort of the southeast-ish area of the state. So a guy down there contacts me and says, hey, there's an operator. He's got a Sharky's, and I tried to buy it from him about a month ago. but we could not come to an arrangement and so i'm like oh tell me more and then he started to tell me more and i started to get concerned because he was like he was explaining he's like well overall it's in pretty good it's in pretty good shape but the guy's really hard to deal with i was thinking okay i don't like dealing with difficult people because i it's just it's so draining so i'm hearing more and more about this and it's like i don't even know if i want to try and pursue it but on the same time i'm thinking there aren't a ton of sharky shootouts out there who knows where i'll have another opportunity we don't even know if it's available though so let me try and find out so i had the guy's name the operator's name but i didn't have any contact information for him but i had the location the bar where the machine was at supposedly had been there and turned off for a long, long time. All the machines are turned off. He doesn't really operate them anymore, but he's allowed to keep them at the bar.
    33:33
    So I call the bar and ask if they still have the machine. And apparently the operator was there at the time, so they passed me off to the operator, and he did still have it. And he's like, yeah, I'll sell it to you. And I was like, great. And so we agreed on a price, because I knew he was... The last person who informed me of this was having a problem over... There had been battery acid that had leaked on the boards.
    34:00
    And the guy had... I mean, the operator just left the batteries in, which had upset the collector. And he wasn't sure if there was board damage or not. So I went in expecting, okay, it's probably got board damage. But that's okay. At the price, I'm okay with that. I'll figure it out. so I tried to arrange a day to go get it he had to cancel on me because he wasn't feeling well so a couple days later I was able to get it arranged go down there pick up the machine got it back into my garage so got that all dealt with the actual purchase part went really really quick uh he was just he just wanted it gone and the only other thing he had a couple other machines down there he had a demo I think his I think it was his demolition man I didn't ask for a price on it because you know it's a wide body even if that is the greatest wide body ever made and uh there was a pitch and bat yes yeah hey hey uh and there was a pitch and bat i did ask him about that because i knew someone who's been looking for a pitch and bat or i heard from someone someone wanted one but he just told me he would want a lot for it so i didn't get a number and he had some arcade buck hunter 2 game he wanted to sell desperately oh incidentally tony if you would like a buck hunter 2 he wants he wants to sell it for 500 really really bad so FYI. Oh, no. No, I'm good. Okay. I'm just saying. I think it was right there by the Sharky shootout. But anyway, so I get it back. Take it apart. Playfield looked pretty good. There's one wear spot from where a ball fires from a scoop. So I've patched that with some epoxy. So anyway, this whole past week has been me. I haven't been able to play it yet. It's all been troubleshooting and trying to figure out what's going wrong with it. Because there were maybe a half dozen features that wouldn't fire, like the auto launch wouldn't fire, you know, some major stuff. Most of those things seem to relate to just some corrosion on some pins. So I got most of those back up last night. And then it looks like my dad brought his troubleshooting gear over today and we went through and maybe one or two transistors that need to be replaced. Looks like there's one chip on a board, which is at least one of the pins of the chip isn't properly sending the right voltage through. So it's like a $2 chip. So let's just replace the chip. So getting some of that stuff out of the way. The strangest thing that the operator, the one thing the operator admitted to me did not work with this machine when I was getting it. He's like, there's one thing that doesn't work. It was really like eight things. But there's one thing. The slings didn't work. and what he indicated was that he thought i needed to replace the bridge rectifiers which handle the power conversion and they're not super expensive it's like under 20 bucks for a rectifier if i recall so he's like i'm pretty sure that's what you need to do to fix that but there are people up in kansas city that can fix that stuff and i was like i i'm not worried about it let's just close out on this deal before someone buys this out from under me even though i don't think it was advertised anywhere but the issue had nothing to do with the rectifiers rectifiers are fine here as a as a minor story here is what happened with this the game was missing its interlock switch which is a switch down by the coin door and what it's designed to do is if the coin doors open it turns off some of the high voltage so you don't fry yourself while sticking your hand in the machine so it's designed to turn off the 50 volt connection and the 20 volt connection and people bypass these all the time because the back in ye old days the games did not have these protections and you might want to have the coin door open in the play field up and test stuff and you need the voltages working so it's either hold the switch in clamp it down or you bypass the interlock switch. So, and I did find the interlock switch in the bottom of the cab after figuring out what the problem was. So here's the thing. He took off the interlock switch.
    38:06
    He took the 50 volt connection and twisted it together. It wasn't even soldered. It was twisted together. And I think it had a little piece of electrical tape around it. Maybe. I don't recall, but the 20 volt line was not connected. It never had been connected. the prongs to hook it onto the interlock switch were still in place. So there was never an attempt to link them together, unless you wanted to take like a double male piece and link it in, which there was none in either wire. So he just didn't connect the 20-volt line back when he took off the switch. Well, the 20-volt line did a whole lot of stuff, including make the slings work. It also powered all the flashers. It powered, I think, the motor in the Magic 8-Ball. So I could see, oh, it handled the post saves, and I could see him as an operator not caring if the post saves worked or not. I think you could even turn those off in settings. But surely he would have noticed the moment he took it off with one game plunge off the balls that the slings weren't firing. But anyway, they weren't, and that was why. He just couldn't be bothered to clip the two wires and twist them together. Well, there's definitely, I mean, at least that was an easy fix on your side. I mean, not easy enough that you've actually been able to play the game, but an easy enough fix that you returned a bunch of it. I didn't start thinking, let's look at the interlock switch. We started with the boards, and it's like, oh, look, the 20-volt light's not on. Let's check the fuses. And then after the fuses aren't there, okay, let's check the connections in the board. Okay, now let's trace the wire. Okay. And then it's like, you know, maybe someone with more experience would have immediately gone, you should check the interlock switch. People screw that up all the time. It wasn't a long – I mean, we got that figured out the first day, but it was just like, bleh. I was just flabbergasted that someone who was operating this to make money would ever want their slings not to work, but that alone – because what causes most of the drains to the outlines is the slings. So you want – surely he'd want the slings to work so he could take more people's money.
    40:18
    I don't – I mean, just for him to think, oh, it must be the bridge rectifiers. Maybe it was the switch you just took your wire cutters to or unplugged, and you twisted the 50-volt back so that the flipper still worked but didn't bother to fix the slingshots. I don't know. It was weird.
    40:37
    So anyway, so yeah, still haven't played it yet. I need to replace one drop target that's flat-out busted out, and I'm still in the process of shopping it out. it been a bit of a nightmare because they got double layered plastics everywhere and so it just takes me a while to take off enough stuff to actually change the rubbers out I got most of it done now Most of the bulbs changed and such But anyway, I got a few pieces on order. But some of my electronic components I don't buy through the pinball suppliers. I order them from China. And so I will wait for my Hong Kong orders to come. So I might not get all the parts until the end of August. But anyway, I might have it ready by the next week. But look how much money you save. How much money do I save ordering from China? Yeah A lot Well no no that's what I'm saying It might take until the end of August But you save so much money Yeah yeah the thing is weird Because a lot of times you go on eBay And you just do buy it now And the shipping is embedded And you can It's weird where you can spend like $2.50 And you're like how can they even get it to me for $2.50 But I'll tell you how Slowly That's how It's the slow boat So let's see I think I'm up in the next game night in September, so I might actually have it ready by then. I hope so. It's probably playable at this stage. It wouldn't be enjoyable because the mystery eight-ball feature doesn't work right yet. That's one of the major features of the game. It would kind of suck, but it'll score and all that. Anyway, work in progress. but uh i thought i'd go ahead and just segue that off into in honor of the now famous sharky shootout i've wanted to do uh we haven't done a poll in a while we haven't done one of our contests one of our tournaments so i have a link to a poll in the show notes where i'm using a little bit different poll software probably the only time i'm going to use this one incidentally but it let me log in through our our account on google so it was at least integrated and it is to rank the solid state era and later pool themed as in billiards themed pinball machines i was going to do all the machines em and solid state together but the list was massive so just sticking with like 1977 and beyond still resulted in a list of 10 and it does like a heat map um breakout we'll close it off just before the next podcast is my plan so we're not going to run it forever it's not gonna be round after round you just go in and you drag and drop them and into the order you want the thing i don't like is unfortunately this software it's so rudimentary and how it handles things that it does not let you not rank games that you don't know so obviously the lower down the list you get for a person the more likely it's not necessarily that they hate the machine it's probably just that they don't know it but anyway yeah that's a little annoying very annoying but I'd already created the poll and it was like it was that it was so much work it was I had to keep retyping these names there's no way to edit the polls once you create them on this thing either so I had to redo it three times and I like to whine so yes it was lots of work and I like the heat mapping that it would do but the main thing was it also just integrated right into the Google account so I didn't have to create a new account with SurveyMonkey or whatever And this one won't whine to me about a limit on the number of people that can answer. So anyway, just real quick, I thought we could talk about this, obviously, before we'll go over the results next time. But the games alphabetically are Bad Girls, which is that Gottlieb game I mentioned, 1988. Break Shot is a Capcom game from 96. Q-Ball Wizard, Gottlieb 92 game. 8-Ball from Bally 77. 8-Ball Champ, which is Bally 85, the third in the series. and then 8-Ball Deluxe, which was Bally's 1980 middle game of that series.
    44:43
    9-Ball, which was Stern Electronics, did that in 1980. There's Pinball Pool, which was Gottlieb's 79. Pool Sharks, Bally 1990. And Sharky Shootout, which is Stern Pinball 2000. Not Pinball 2000, but Stern Pinball versus Stern Electronics. Some people just say Stern Pinball. I didn't realize Sharky's was so new. It's the newest, yeah. So I guess I thought, as a brief little discussion here,
    45:11
    how would you rank these? I'm guessing you probably haven't played them all. I've played 8-Ball, 8-Ball Deluxe, and Q-Ball Wizard. Those are the only ones I can recall playing.
    45:24
    Okay, well, I guess out of those, how would you rank them? 8-Ball Deluxe, 8-Ball, Q-Ball Wizard. okay you know what uh those would be my uh close to my order i actually let's see i did jot mine down here i don't know if i want to delve into it all super detailed but basically because i went ahead and already cast my vote uh since i built the voting thing uh i did eight ball deluxe is my number one because i think it's got the best layout uh and it gets it gets kudos for creating that layout and then i i follow up the rest of it with the other eight ball clone so bad girls number two because it's basically just a mirrored layout. They got rid of the stand-up multiplier drops that you know from 8-Ball Deluxe, but instead they use a Vera Target, which based off of the force hit, I believe, sets the multiplier, so it's a similar concept. Then I put Sharky's at three. 8-Ball Deluxe cloned, but it doesn't have the inline at all. I'm not even sure exactly how the multiplier works in Sharky's, so I put it below the other two because I don't think it has as good of a multiplier as I could tell. So Break Shot is an interesting game from Capcom. I can't say if I've played it or not. I've seen footage of it, though, and I think it looks pretty good. Then I'd probably do Nineball from Stern. I've played some of the other classic Sterns. And it's one of those games where the spinner is one of the major features to go for. So I like that.
    46:53
    I'd actually put 8-Ball Champ up after that because I think it's got a decent idea in terms of it's like a twist on 8-Ball Deluxe. They put the drop targets around the play field instead. So I'd put that there. My seventh would be cue ball wizard. I don't really like the layout of cue ball wizard. I think that ramp just takes up way too much space and it's real easy to hit and all the video modes suck. So actually, I don't really like that game at all. Scores and balance. But the layout's at least clever.
    47:23
    And so I just think it could have probably with better rules, it would be all right. But I would put it above 8-ball, which has a very EM feel, but I just don't think the rules – nothing about the rules really impressed me. And then I'd probably follow that up with pinball pool and finally pool sharks. The thing with pool sharks, I haven't played pool sharks, so I'm obviously criticizing without playing it, but pool sharks is from 1990, and it doesn't have a multi-ball. I just don't get it. That is a little weird. That is like the most ridiculous decision I can imagine a pinball manufacturer making. And it was Bally, too. So maybe, you know, they just didn't. I don't know. It was weird.
    48:04
    Anyway, enough about the pool-themed pinballs. Only one more pinball topic. I wanted to briefly touch on Star Wars again. Have you had a chance to get to play it? No, I was planning on going up there because I'm on call this weekend and on call throughout the whole week. So normally we're required to take a day off during the week to make up for the fact that we have to work the weekend. And that got waived due to a whole bunch of people being on vacation. So I didn't get my chance to go up and play it like I planned on. And I'm not complaining because that just means I get more overtime. Yeah, overtime.
    48:40
    I did go and play it last week. And so I wanted just to give a little bit of a fresher way in now that I had a chance to play the pro model. First, one of our area players, Jake, who had told us that it was a lot like the Velociraptor shots when dealing with the quickly hit the button to destroy the TIE Fighters mode. That was actually very accurate. The ball is still in play during that. It appears that the video mode that the insert is for is not yet programmed into the game. Or if it is, I didn't get to it. But let's be fair. I didn't get to a multi-ball, and I played like 10 games. so so uh it is really fast i the horseshoe shot is a lot of fun uh i thought the scoop on the far end was challenging kind of like how it's challenging they've got a scoop on the far right which like the mystery hole uh kind of like how on star trek you know that mission select scoop hole on the far left can be real challenge to hit unless you trap up and you wait and get it to the end of the flipper and all that it's kind of like that is what it felt like um i i you The rules completely flabbergasted me. I had no idea what I was doing. I realized that the screen was saying after the fact, right when I was about done and getting ready to leave, that there was a thing with the multiplier. And I've learned more since then. The button on the lock bar is glowing a lot. and apparently as you play the game you earn a shot multiplier you have to hit that button to lock in what shot you want to multiply your flipper buttons are controlling while you are playing which shot can be chosen then you hit that button lock it in and i guess within a certain period of time hit that shot and you get you get your shot multiplied and as i understand the code to stand right now it does not matter how often you really do that you can just keep doing it over and over so you might as well try and multiply everything but it's requiring you to constantly keep going back and hitting that button in addition to hitting those two flipper buttons well that's an interesting little mechanic it's way different than any other pinball machine i've played i mean obviously with star trek i'm used to having to you know do some creative stuff sometimes if I want to use my torpedoes on the vengeance, like when I'm invent, you know, like if I'm trapped up, do I can either trap up on one flipper and then, and then hit away or, you know, use the old chin technique where you're smashing your face into the lock bar, just fire your photon torpedo. But that's like in one mode and that's it. And you don't even necessarily have to do it that way. It just depends. I mean, if you're doing a split flip or trap up is the only reason you'd need to this is like holy cow from everything i've seen since then i should be hitting that button all the time like all the time this is not really a disincentive to hit it so it's not like everything resets when you make the shot so as things stand that also explains why no matter how good i did i didn't break 300 million and some people have billions of points. They're taking advantage of their multipliers. I was not multiplying at all. I was using simple math. So I probably had a good score for simple math. So you've got to start doing the old forehead to the button.
    52:00
    Smack, smack, smack. I'm just going to get a concussion. It's going to be sad. Everyone's going to feel bad for me. But that or they need to tweak the rules again. Much like some of the more recent games, this is yet another game which appears to also be fairly heavy on bonus maybe too heavy on but i've not seen anything more ridiculous on bonus than batman 66 was which just seemed like csi levels of ridiculous but i think this probably needs some additional tweet at least um maybe more risk or reward with the multiplier i don't know again i wasn't actually using the multiplier but i saw it told me about it and i wasn't paying attention i went and did research after the fact i was like holy cow that was like the most major thing in the game and i of course being ridiculous didn't do anything with it anyway that's my star wars update yay star wars i really want to play i do that was my whole plan for my day off this week and then when i wasn't required to take it i didn't so he'll probably have it there for a little while maybe maybe a week or two maybe a week all right well let's go to video games um tony do you have any video games you want to talk about i i have a little list here but i i yeah i know i did terrible about updating the list. I mean, even for me, I'm normally not real good, but I did really terrible this time. Um, I have been playing the little $12 game I picked up off of Steam called Nivalia, N-A-V-A-L-I-A. Um, it's just a little, what's the, kind of a space combat thing. basically what it amounts to is it's an overhead view you get to design your own ships as in you're given a grid and you put points down to out do the outline of your ship and then you drop weapons and engines and armor and shields and power supplies and stuff into the ship and then you go and blow up swarms of bad guys with it it's not like anything amazing it has zero depth but it's kind of fun I've been playing it a lot as a game that I play while I'm also watching like Netflix or something because it's just kind of fun to especially go into like the sandbox mode and make a massive really strong enemy fleet and just see well let's see how light of a unit how few units can I make that I can actually hold this fight so it's been it's interesting. I said, I don't think it's anything I would throw out there as, oh, you gotta have this. This is the next up-and-coming game. This is the most amazing. It's none of those things. It's just kind of a fun little, almost mindless game that is basically just watching swarms of stuff die to you.
    54:57
    Yeah. Well, sometimes those are the best sort of games to play. I actually have one I'm going to mention that I did start a while ago. But before I get to that, I thought I'd bring up have you had a chance to play Doomfist now that he's been officially released in Overwatch? No.
    55:12
    Okay, I've played him once, so I don't have much to say either. He is out now, out of the PTR. He is out. I've played a couple times since he came out, but at no point have I ever actually played him. So it's just kind of how it's ended up. Because I tend to play the random hero thing, and it doesn't always work out. Yeah, that's all. I played Mystery Hero. I got him one time in all my mystery matches. I tried to punch someone, and then I got killed. Mei was ready.
    55:44
    Mei. That monster. She ruins everything. Let's see. I did play a little bit more Dishonored 2 last weekend. I got through at least one more chapter. I've kicked it down to easy. I'm just going to play through the story at this point. I'm spending too long on it. It still sometimes crashes and upsets me too much. I've also gone full murder bot. I'm not being merciful, except to the bosses. I do try and take them out in the less direct ways, but other than that, no, everyone gets to die. High chaos, that's fine. Rats eating bodies in the street, whatever. They just have to go. So basically, you're treating it like a Hitman game. Like how I used to play the Hitman games, yes.
    56:27
    I'll have you know the last two Hitman games, I have gotten a lot better about not just going in with the M16. but sometimes I still get tempted I've been there a bunch of times at Hitman where it's like you know what I'm just going to load up and I'm just going to walk through and if there's anybody left alive well hopefully they're not the people I was supposed to kill yeah one of the as I've mentioned before I have a staff role on the website True Achievements and what I do is genre assignments and we do a multi-genre system now we started earlier in the year and someone submitted and was like I think that Hitman should not just be tagged as stealth, but should be tagged as third-person shooter. And I just looked and go, yep, click.
    57:09
    And everyone else, I've had a lot of people going, that's not right. And I'm like, no, it's right. Trust me. It's right. Trust me. It is right.
    57:19
    So a little bit of Dishonored. The game that I was going to kind of compare to your Nevalia one is a game called Reigns, R-E-I-G-N-S. I mean, it's not at all like your game. Other than that, it's definitely something that you can watch TV or do something else while going. It's a card game, basically. It was originally a phone game, as I understand it. And what happens is you're running a kingdom, and these cards keep coming up. And basically, you have two choices on almost all of these cards. Like, what do you want to do? The water is low here. We should build a dam, yes or no. And these things can have repercussions even hundreds of years later as you play. You do rain after rain after rain. Eventually you die, and then you become the heir, and you move on. And it's really silly, and it's far more challenging than I thought it would be. Because when I started, I see these meters. There's the church, there's the people, there's the military, and there's your money. And I thought, okay, you just can't let these things get to zero. because if you let the money get to zero, then the bankers and everyone take over because you had no funds.
    58:30
    You can't let them get all the way to the top either. So if the people get all the way to the top, they take over because they love you, but they've decided that it's time for a revolution. If it gets all the way to the bottom, then famine and disease wipes out everyone, including yourself. So you actually have to balance them all. You can't let them get too high or too low. and so it's far more difficult than i realized i think the longest every with some exceptions every card is essentially one year of your reign and i think i've gotten near 50 years i i believe there are steam achievements for getting up over a hundred but it's rough so anyway uh that's my kind of uh mind killer game where it requires some strategy but there's no i mean the cards turn you can go at whatever speed is very very basic so it's something you can do while watching movies and whatnot yeah i looked at the trailer i called up the trailer while you were talking about it i have to say i actually just added this to my wish list because vacuum looks like it could be exactly as you said a nice little and it's cheap oh yeah yeah and i i got it during the steam sale i think and i finally got around to putting more time in it i've i've put hours into it i've it's my most played it's all right it's not as high as binding of isaac but it's higher than anything else I acquired during all those sales. So yeah, I've been enjoying it. So it's a fun little time killer. I did get in a little bit of that Crypt of the Necrodancer. We talked about that last time and what you thought it was is correct. You're basically supposed to be using your keyboard and moving your character to the beat and the enemies have certain patterns and they telegraph them and you fight like that and do that. I've gotten a few stages into level one but I've not been able to clear level one yet. so it's okay i don't i don't love it the music's fun and catchy but you know i after i die i have to decide do i really want to restart and work my way down and as with you know roguelikes by and large is sort of most of the time i guess my answer is no binding of isaac so far has been the best one to bring me in but i haven't gotten ftl or anything yet like you've recommended and uh the only other game i thought i'd mention is one you told me about because it was free was Jotun? Jotun.
    60:47
    Have you played Jotun? I haven't played it yet. I got it, but I've got a test coming up, so I've been doing mainly studying and stuff. I haven't really been going hardcore on any gaming of any type. Okay. I've only played it once. I think I got through two bosses, and the art style is really cool. It's got nice music, but it's the art style that really stands out. The combat is meh, It's meh, but it looks cool. And hey, for free. I ain't going to complain.
    61:17
    So that my video game stuff Did you have any other video games you wanted to talk about Yeah I actually added a couple of games to my wish list one of which is not out yet that I thought I would mention because I know we used to watch the show all the time. There is a Battlestar Galactica game coming out. It's called Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. It's due out sometime this summer, supposedly. It is a 3D tactical turn-based space combat game. where you're commanding the colonial fleet during the first Cylon War. So it's the older ships and the old Cylons. And they've got some gameplay videos available out there on the net that I found that I'll throw in the link thing so we can have the links for them for you to watch. but it looks like an interesting little game with a nice throwback feel and just lets you play in Battlestar Galactica some.
    62:24
    Cool. And you have another one too, you saw, right? Yeah, and another game I've actually not. I need to buy this game. I've already decided that this game is going to be bought. I just haven't bought it yet because I don't have the time to play it, but I've watched several let's plays of it lately. And that is cold waters, which is, I don't know. Did you ever play the old red storm rising game?
    62:55
    I, yeah, I can't remember. Cause I, every time I hear red, I think red alert three. So, which I did play, but I'm going to say, no, I don't think so. I think I just know the name. Well, what it is, is it is a, Cold War era submarine combat simulator.
    63:18
    You can run a couple campaigns. You can run a 1984 campaign and there's a 1963 campaign and you are in command of an American hunter killer submarine and there's a war on and you're completing missions. It's basically like playing the Hunt for Red October. and i thought you had this no i just i talked to you you just watch let's plays and talk about it yeah i haven't bought it yet i keep meaning to and i just keep sitting here going i i don't have the time to play this game yet it's terrible i feel horrible about it then i talk about this last episode i don't know anymore you may have just mentioned it to me off air but but i you spoke, wherever it was, you spoke with enough depth on it that I thought you owned it. No! I don't own it. I have, I should own it, but I've literally just watched like Let's Plays and stuff of this game, but every time it's like, this game looks really good. I need to go buy this game and play this game. It's like,
    64:29
    oh, it's $40. That's right. Oh, well, at $40, I can understand your delay if you don't have the time for it. Right, and I mean, that's the big thing, is I don't have the time right now. I don't have time to play the games I do own right now. Not until next month. So, summers are busy, man. Yeah, okay, well, no, I don't recall us covering it on the last episode, so I've looked it up here, and I was like, okay, it makes more sense. And no, I did not play Red Storm Rising. I don't know if I've ever actually played any nuclear submarine style or any submarine style game since maybe the NES era. You know, actually, nuclear level, I don't think I have. I played Red Storm Rising a little bit back in the day. I played a ton of Harpoon back in the day.
    65:26
    I played Harpoon for years and years and years. I played it pretty hardcore. But nothing recent. this type of game. And I think that's part of it. I think it's kind of a nostalgia button, and it's just a fun look thing. So, yeah, that's something I've definitely been looking into. I just haven't hit yet. I just, I don't, I mean, I can do, I've got so much stuff that I do while I've, you know, I can have a show running in the background. It's like, oh, I'm going to kick out a quick little, play this game for, you know, half an hour before I go do something else. But I just haven't had the time to sit down and play, play in like for the entire month of july i haven't really played a whole lot of anything i mean i finished mordor i did a couple other things but for the most part i've just been too busy to actually play games and i just said that i'm an adult i'm old i'm old dennis oh yeah so so broken, so feeble. Just wait for a Steam sale, I suppose, and then get it and can sit until you have time, if you ever do. Like everything else I've bought at Steam sales. Yes, exactly.
    66:43
    I still have a couple things I bought that I still haven't started. I normally try really hard just to start them so I don't let them sit, but I also feel bad about starting games and never getting back to them, so it's kind of a double-edged sword.
    66:55
    Yeah, I can see that. I'm really bad about buying games and then just never I was going through my list the other day and I found a game from like 2014 that I've never even installed so it's like hmm yeah I was looking through the Steam library and I saw games from 2014 and I was like I don't even remember buying these maybe I didn't maybe they were gifts sometimes my brother-in-law sends me games entirely possible as part of my being old thing. My Xbox 360 is hooked up to a TV and playable now in the oldest daughter's room. I have no consoles anymore. So we'll see how long that lasts. I've thought about getting a PlayStation 4 or an Xbox One at some point, just because there's a few games that are not available on PC that I'd really like to play, but most of those are on the PlayStation 4. So That's probably the direction I would go. I just haven't been able to decide if I actually want to break down and get a console. It seems dirty.
    68:08
    Yeah, then don't. Just don't. No Event Zero Dawn or whatever it's called for you. Yeah, Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the major games that I want. I keep trying to turn that into Event Horizon. I do it every time. I feel bad. A movie I originally didn't like, and now I really don't. Baby Bear. Mama Bear, open the door. We'd quote more, but unfortunately, we're a clean podcast, and that is a very R-rated movie. It is a very good movie, though. I do sometimes still tell people when something happens, and they say they can't see something. I say, where we're going, we don't need eyes to see. They don't know what I'm referencing, but I know. And if they knew, they would be very upset, because it's very bleak. but okay well any other video games that you haven't played that you want to talk about no there are well i mean there's lots and lots and lots of video games that i haven't played but none that i really want to talk about at this time we'll save them for the next episode hopefully i'll get some of them play well we'll see we'll see the month we will be done with this month at least we're almost done now but uh tabletop we do have a tabletop topic we uh got a chance to play Munchkin, which you'd played before and I had not. Yeah, I actually own original Munchkin. Me and my wife have it from before we had kids and we've played it. Could you give a synopsis of what the game is for the listeners? Munchkin is from Steve Jackson Games and there's a whole lot of different flavors of it at this point in time. I mean, Wizard of Boz Munchkin, which is what we played, and there's Space Munchkin and Vampire Munchkin, and basically any flavor you want it, it's got. But the only actual rule, or not the only actual rules, but the way all the games work is you and your friends are in a dungeon. You are killing monsters and trying to advance yourself to level 10. And when your character becomes level 10, you win.
    70:20
    And the thing is, is you can ask for help from your friends, or your friends can try and screw you and stab you in the back. And it's just one of those screw-your-neighbor type games that, I mean, some people like, some people hate, because they don't like such a direct play against your opponents. but I mean, when we played it, and we'll talk about when we played it, but it is a game that if you like that type of game, it is pretty much the quintessential version of the kind of screw your neighbor type game. Yeah, I found the setup to be pretty easy to understand as we were going along. Of all of us playing, I think there was only one who seemed to be sort of continually confused, but when your four glasses of wine in, she might not have been able to have learned Cards Against Humanity had she not already known it. It was more than four. I'm being kind. I'm being extremely kind.
    71:24
    So, yeah, I mean, overall, it was a really good summation of role-playing games, and I guess the name is sort of a play on that notion of immature role-player types that play to win by having the most powerful character versus trying to role play it up. We've actually met some people that maybe would have fit in the term of munchkin at CanCon before, like last year's CanCon. Yes, we have. I remember there were a couple of people, and they were really obsessed with their stats for a one-off game. I was very confused. They didn't role play at all. They were just really, really trying to min-max that stuff. I like crunchy stuff, too, on occasion. But, yeah, and I don't know how long our game went, maybe 90 minutes or so, which I think is pretty standard. Yeah, I mean, it might have been. I mean, we were a little slower because, you know, we were having fun and we kept having to deal with kids and learning the game. The startup's always slow and the first round was real slow.
    72:22
    Yeah, and one of the more experienced players, she was in constant potential to win for a very long time. So a lot of the rest of the table started working to stop her, which, of course, allowed Tony to ramp up his abilities and steal the victory. Yeah, I did kind of get a lot of good gear and a lot of good specials. And I was able to to to build myself up as a kind of silent juggernaut off to the side as we're dumping everything to stop her. It's like, oh, we got to stop her. She's at nine. And I was at like five at that time. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, one of you two was going to win because we did have to spend. It wasn't like we were overkilling to stop her. We had to spend everything we were spending.
    73:12
    When you're at nine, she just needs one more win, one more level. We'll give her victory. We had to do what we could. We had to. And then you exploited that. You exploited our trust.
    73:24
    Yeah. Ruined it. Ruined. But anyway, yeah, it was enjoyable That was our, that was the one Well, no, we did that and then we did do Cards Against Humanity That night as well, which is only notable In the fact that I think it's the first time I've ever won Not by a lot It actually was a really close game Everyone, we had I don't remember how many people we had around the table It was full and everyone had cards Yeah, it was Way more balanced than normal I mean, there were Probably the best balanced I can think of any cards against you in any game I've ever played.
    73:59
    There were nine of us, I think. I think so. I think there were nine of us playing, and it was the most valid. Because normally, you know, it's like, oh, I've got no cards, I've got no cards, I've got one, I've got two, I've got ten. No, everybody had like three cards. I don't think anybody had less than three cards. Right, right. It was like three, there were a couple fours. I won with five, so I only barely won. Yeah. So that was a lot of fun, too. I liked it being balanced. We need to get more people who like to be cruel but with differing senses of humor in terms of their debauchery.
    74:39
    That's the secret. Keep it secret. Keep it safe. Yes. Anyway, that's all I had in terms of new stuff from Tabletop. I was impressed that we had more after CanCon, but we did. I know. I have one thing in tabletop as well. It actually happened before CantCon, but I didn't have much of a chance to talk about it then. Oh, your Kickstarter. I finally received my Planet Mercenary Kickstarter.
    75:10
    It's the tabletop RPG game based on the Schlock Mercenary universe. And I've been kind of going through the book. and I have completely gone through the I got the version that came with a copy of the in universe they have a thing called the 70 maxims of maximally effective mercenaries which are just bits of wisdom for mercenaries or any other type of group and this is actually a printed out copy of it that's annotated by various different characters in the comic strip.
    75:51
    So for a fan of the comic, it's a really awesome thing. Um, Oh, you shared a picture of this on social media. I did put a picture of this up on the social media. I don't remember which social media it was, but I remember putting it up, but, um, it, but it and the game is looking really, the game looks good. I've played this game, not this year, but last year at can't con, uh, There was a game of it available using the beta rules. And going through this, I've been pretty happy with how everything looks. And I look forward to giving this game a play at some time, which just translates to just like every other RPG that I have and want to play, it'll happen at some point, maybe, hopefully.
    76:38
    Surely. We'll see. Yeah, surely. Definitely. Yeah. when I get to a point where I can sit down and put together an adventure and find enough people to play with me. Yep. That's all it takes. Just a few people. And time. And time. Time is the hard part. Yes. I've just so many calls on my time currently that it is a issue when it comes to doing anything. Yes, it's a burden. Master carries heavy burden. so but that is everything i've got going uh like i said this is one of those games i backed a while ago it's not very far behind for a kickstarter game on its release schedule so i'm not like upset about it's not like my my robotech thing which is just money thrown away even though they've started a whole new, they've hired a new social media guy who's talking and telling us how everything is going to happen and how we're moving forward. And Wave 2, which has a big chunk of the stuff, will be happening sometime probably next year, supposedly. But they've been telling us this for years and years and years and years. So, whatever. Yep, talk is cheap. Rocking is expensive. We'll see what happens with it. I mean, that's a game that I got all of my Wave 1 stuff, and I've never even assembled it because there were issues with it.
    78:20
    There's a lot of parts, and I never got around to put it together. It's a lot of stuff to put together, and there were a bunch of issues with the game at first, so it just kind of sank and then things kept getting worse and worse and worse. So I'm just like, well, why should I bother to put all this together and play this game that isn't going to be well? There's not many people to play with and there's nothing really going on and there's no real support at this time for it. I mean, the game is basically dead. I don't know anybody in the area who plays it. I've talked to a bunch of people and I don't know anybody who plays it. and looking online, most of the people who got it have either sold their stuff off or they're like me, it's just sitting off to the side gathering dust. It's definitely my biggest Kickstarter fail and the worst thing that I've kickstarted.
    79:16
    Yeah, but on the plus side, every time you've talked about your worst Kickstarter fail, it has always just been this one. Yeah, no, I haven't had any other major fails. I mean, I've had minor things where things have been late. Oh, and that's the other, yet one another Kickstarter thing.
    79:33
    We had the interview last year with the, about the, oh, why did it just leave my head? The Threadbear, the Threadbear Kickstarter. It's that RPG game where everybody plays toys that have come to life and there's no humans around anymore and this and that. And it's kind of that weird. Yeah, I remember that interview. Yeah. it will be shipping by mid to late August is what it's looking like they're doing the final they just went through the final or what do you call it I'm being terrible right now it's the final check of layout and proofing and once those have been issues have been corrected they will be going to print so I'll be getting that here pretty quick too which will leave my only outstanding Kickstarters as Robotech, which is never going to happen, and the Battletech game, which is in beta and still doing really well. There haven't been any big updates or changes, but everything is cranking along pretty good on that. Plushie or Plastic, mate? I'm going to go with Plushie. Okay. I think that was their intro line from their Kickstarter. I was doing a little throwback there.
    80:54
    Well, I don't have anything else to add, so I guess we can wrap it up with our information. People, you can email us. That email address would be eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. We are also available on a variety of social media platforms, such as facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're available on Twitter and Instagram at eclectic underscore gamers. We're also available on Twitch as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in two weeks, probably with more games to talk about that we haven't had a chance to play. Until then, maybe. Hopefully it'll be better. My test is Friday. So hopefully once my test is done, I will be able to play games again. Yay, games.
    81:44
    Well, until then, I'm going to say I'm Dennis. And I'm Tony. So long, everyone.