Episode 14: “Pinball Expo 2024 HYPE!”

The Flipside Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·32m 51s·analyzed·Oct 14, 2024

4c432375-4b16-4445-8fd2-25f456f31a89

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Pinball Expo 2024 preview with X-Men enthusiasm, Metallica remaster rumors, and affordable pinball startup analysis.

Summary

Retro Ralph discusses Pinball Expo 2024 hype, focusing on recently released games (X-Men LE, Avatar, Jaws), upcoming reveals (Metallica remaster rumor), and emerging competitors like Wonderland Amusements pursuing sub-$1,000 affordable pinball machines. He covers streaming setup improvements, praise for underrated games like John Wick and Iron Maiden, and technical features on new Jersey Jack machines.

Key Claims

X-Men LE is 'really fun' with satisfying shots and a cool sentinel head bash toy that provides accessible multiball for beginners
high confidence · Retro Ralph, direct personal experience after extended play
The initial Stern X-Men livestream featuring costumed players (Zach Sharpe and Jack Danger) made the game look harder than it actually is due to costume interference
high confidence · Retro Ralph, personal observation and analysis of stream
Metallica remaster is rumored to appear at Pinball Expo either on show floor or during factory tour, likely positioned similarly to past limited reveals
medium confidence · Retro Ralph speculation based on historical precedent with Elvira Blood Kiss edition
Wonderland Amusements targets a sub-$1,000 MSRP for affordable mechanical pinball machines, positioning at Expo with cabinet designs
high confidence · Retro Ralph, direct communication with Wonderland Amusements representatives
Wonderland Amusements' first game concept will be Alice in Wonderland-inspired but likely not licensed major IP due to cost constraints
medium confidence · Retro Ralph inference from company communication and pricing strategy
Wonderland Amusements leadership consists primarily of ex-Arcade1Up executives, raising questions about pinball passion and execution quality
high confidence · Retro Ralph research and analysis of company backing
Jersey Jack machines include Bluetooth headphone connectivity and 3.5mm jack audio options for better game audio experience
high confidence · Retro Ralph, observed at Game Room Goodies during Avatar demo
Elizabeth Gieske coded the 'Shark is Broken' mode for Jaws and is interested in creating more mini-modes for other Stern games
high confidence · Retro Ralph, direct comment from Elizabeth Gieske on his podcast/content

Notable Quotes

“I think it's gonna definitely absolutely 1000 percent steal the show at Expo.”
Retro Ralph @ ~4:30 — Emphatic endorsement of X-Men LE as the standout game at Pinball Expo 2024
“The game isn't a drain monster like people had originally thought.”
Retro Ralph @ ~5:15 — Direct rebuttal to pre-order concerns raised by Stern's costume-wearing demo stream
“I think the pinball community tends to—I wouldn't say the pinball community, but the pinball media tends to move along to the next thing so quickly.”
Retro Ralph @ ~12:00 — Self-aware critique of media attention span and desire to give older games continued coverage
“Our mission is to make high-quality, affordable pinball machines accessible to everyone, combining classic craftsmanship with modern technology.”
Wonderland Amusements @ ~27:00 — Mission statement of emerging competitor targeting sub-$1,000 market segment
“But if it's someone that's been in the pinball community for a while, they're not going to want to make that kind of compromise because they want to play pinball the way that they've always played it, right?”
Retro Ralph @ ~38:00 — Key insight on collector vs. casual buyer demographics for affordable pinball alternatives
“I'm not—it's there. Obviously, I think it's a good thing when they have products that are geared towards someone that might not be able to afford a more expensive product. I just hope that the experience is one that is a good representation of pinball.”
Retro Ralph @ ~39:30 — Balanced skepticism about market value of budget pinball vs. risk of poor representation harming hobby perception
“I'd love to do more of these like mini-modes for other games in the future.”
Elizabeth Gieske @ ~44:00 — Indicates Stern interest in ongoing software enhancement with mini-mode content
“So the fact that Jersey Jack allows you to plug in games if you're going there, or plug in headphones, if you're going there, like maybe consider bringing a pair of headphones so that if you do go up to a Jersey Jack game, you can plug it in...”

Entities

Retro RalphpersonX-Men (Uncanny X-Men)gameAvatargame JawsgameMetallica (Remaster)gameJohn Wickgame Iron MaidengameAlice in Wonderland / Adventure

Signals

?
product_launch: X-Men LE shipped to collectors; Avatar and Jaws recently released with new features
high · Retro Ralph received X-Men LE delivery and streamed gameplay; Avatar observed at Game Room Goodies with Bluetooth connectivity; Jaws mini-mode content released
?
machine_intel: Metallica remaster rumored to appear at Pinball Expo 2024 via factory tour or show floor
medium · Retro Ralph speculation based on Elvira Blood Kiss precedent and strategy to avoid overshadowing X-Men; labeled as 'rumored' without official confirmation
?
product_concern: X-Men shooter rod/auto plunger has reliability issue where ball fails to complete full orbit ~50% of the time on first plunge; Stern issued code update
high · Retro Ralph personal experience on his X-Men unit; Stern addressed with code update allowing skip of standard feature
$
market_signal: Wonderland Amusements targeting sub-$1,000 affordable pinball market with mechanical machines; positioning as alternative to high-cost Stern/Jersey Jack/Spooky
high · Retro Ralph direct communication with company; booth planned at Pinball Expo 2024; cabinet design mockups to be shown; first game concept: Alice in Wonderland-inspired
?
product_strategy: Wonderland Amusements likely using non-licensed original IP themes due to cost constraints at sub-$1,000 price point
medium · Retro Ralph analysis: 'if you're going to do something for a thousand or sub-1000, then you're probably not getting a major IP because the licenses on that would be expensive'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.099

0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the flip side podcast. I'm your host retro Ralph. This is episode 14. Believe it or not crazy. I am loving every minute of this. And today we're going to talk a lot about pinball expo. But also a couple of little interesting things that have happened leading up to Pinball Expo. So anyways, we're going to get right into it like we always do. I try to be aware of the time of these things, right? Because you guys only have limited time, and I don't want to waste your time with unnecessary stuff. I want you to come in, get some information, have a little bit of fun, and then get the heck out, right? Not that I want you to leave. I obviously want you to stay. But here we go. So we're going to roll right into it. obviously the biggest piece of news is x-men right i mean avatar and x-men both came out but i got a x-men le and i'm freaking loving it i am absolutely loving the game i got a chance to spend more time on it i did stream it the thing is and i know you guys are going to think this is an excuse but when i streamed it the problem i have shoot my mic my mic is a little high hold on let me lower it down a little bit all right that's probably better i don't want to be clipping um i got a lot more time on it and i did stream it my only problem is i i really i'm really into like if you've known me for a while or been around the channel for a while quality means a lot to me i want good video quality i want good audio quality that's always been a big focus of the channel and i'm always trying to figure out ways to make that even better so when i was thinking about building the pinball streaming rig i wanted to have a condenser microphone like this one right like right there and the problem with that is it was a good idea but um a bad idea because it's really hard to play pinball with that like a microphone because i have this like microphone in my face and it's kind of like i have to sort of shift the way i play and i just don't play very well i mean i'm not the best player but i've gotten a lot better and i just feel like that stream i did the other night wasn't really a good representation of my gameplay but hopefully you saw a little bit about the game we went through a couple of the modes i think we defeated a couple of the characters so we did we did we did okay but um but then of course when i take the streaming rig away and i have more room to play i play a lot better so i implemented a wireless microphone system now that i'm going to use when i do my next stream and my next pinball live stream will be this weekend i'm going to focus on jaws the shark is broken mode but uh but i'll get back to that in a second so i've been loving x-men my initial thoughts right now for you guys just because I've had more time with it, is it's really fun. The shots are really, really fun and satisfying. The sentinel head is super cool. I am curious to see how the pro is going to be, knowing that the sentinel head is sort of fixed and it doesn't go up and down. I love that it goes up and down. It's a really cool bash toy. It does provide, at least in the code today, an easy way for a beginner to get multiball by kind of just bashing the sentinel head. So there's some, like, cool things in there that I think in the code today make it easy for someone that's first starting out the game isn't a drain monster like people had originally thought i just think that that initial stern stream when they were wearing costumes it was it was getting in the way because zach sharp's an awesome pinball player same with jack danger i think the costumes were just affecting the gameplay uh probably wasn't a good idea for them to i know they were just having fun but for those that did have the game on pre-order it was kind of one of those things i was like oh man it did make me think twice although i'm so glad I didn't change my pre-order because I'm loving the game. Like I said, shots are really fun. Most of them are pretty, I would say there's like the most difficult one for me is the far right ramp. Everything else I've been able to like somewhat consistently hit. The danger room is really cool, especially during multi-ball. Cause you're like, where do I focus my time? Like, I don't want to, I don't want that ball to drain, but I have like three or more others in play here. So do I want to sacrifice that one to keep these in play? It's, it's, it's really fun. it's really really fun i think i think it's gonna definitely absolutely 1000 steal the show at expo uh but there's gonna be some other fun really fun games there to play like avatar i think avatar will be fun to play i have some curiosity in playing alice in wonderland or adventure i don't even know what the whole title of the name name of the game is called like i watched a little bit of the coverage i want to play it but i'm not like super excited about it i think that's because it's not as accessible to people, right? They're only making 500, so to really put too much emphasis on it, I don't know, because not many people are going to probably be able to play it, unless you're a homebuyer. I don't know how many of these will actually be on location, if any. Maybe there'll be a few across the country. So, anyway, I'll be interested to play it, to see if it's a fun game to play. It does look really pretty, so we'll see. But Expo will be exciting, because you're going to have Avatar, you're going to have Alice in Wonderland, you're going to have X-Men, And then you're going to have potentially other surprises around the show. And we're going to talk about one that I kind of teased in the thumbnail. Okay, I can't believe I forgot to mention this. So the other surprise I think you could potentially see either on the show floor or during the factory tour is the Metallica remastered version. So that is supposed to be rumored. I don't know if they're going to put that, though, on the floor or show people in the factory. Like the year that they did the Elvira Blood Kiss edition, which I can't remember if that was last year or not. I can't even remember. It's been so long. But that game they showed to the people during the factory tour, but they didn't have it on the show floor. I'm going to guess they're going to do that same thing. And the only reason why I think they're going to do it that way is to not draw too much attention away from the Uncanny X-Men, which obviously is the new cornerstone game by Jack Danger. So I don't know. We'll see. This is kind of like my guess. and we'll see what ends up coming to fruition. But I do think we're going to see it to some extent during Expo, but I'm not sure if it's going to be on the show floor or during the factory tour. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Now back to the normal scheduled podcast. I'm not necessarily someone that really wanted to cover that, but I will tell you because there's some interesting things about it. So other news this week, the Making of John Wick pinball video just came out. Man, I feel like this game is so underrated. I know that now everyone's moved on, right? It's like, oh, John Wick what? And Jaws what? Even those games are awesome. I think the pinball community tends to, I wouldn't say the pinball community, but the pinball media tends to move along to the next thing so quickly. I'm going to try not to do that here because I'm still enjoying those games. I'm still trying to master those games. So even though the new games are coming out and everyone's excited about them, like there's a lot to do and learn and explore on these games that I'm calling old that literally came out earlier this year. But getting back to John Wick for just a moment, I think Elliot Eisman did a really good job on his first game. I really do. And I feel kind of bad a little bit for Elliot because I think the game seems to be doing well on location, and I don't know what affected the home sales. I really don't. I don't know what event happened. I don't know if it was the gun gate thing or anything. Or, you know, when too many people have a negative sentiment towards something, even if they didn't experience it but just sort of they keep repeating it, it puts in people's minds that something might not be good. I think the game is awesome. It's very challenging. It's not easy. If you're a beginner, it's going to challenge you. Even if you're a really good player, it's going to challenge you. But to me, that's what's fun about it, right? And in the beginning, you might be bricking a little bit, but once you kind of get a rhythm and you realize like, okay, that right ramp shot, the left ramp shot, that center, which is a little bit difficult, you start to figure it out and learn. And it's fun. My only negative I would say about John Wick is I think the code still needs to evolve more. And Tim Sexton had said he's committed to that. So if you see, you know what, if you see Elliot at Pinball Expo, if you're going, go and tell him like about the game. And if you like it, you know, or if you have some feedback for him, too. But that guy really did a good job with that game I feel And the soundtrack cool Like everything about that game is really cool So definitely just if you see him and you like the game I think he really appreciate it if you go and give him some props It's his first game. He was a mechanical engineer at Stern for a really long time. But Elliot, if you by chance happen to listen to this, and I did talk to you at Southern Fried Gaming Expo, and I made it a point to go over and say how much I enjoyed the game, good job, bud, and keep it up, and don't let any of the negativity get you down. All right, so John Wick. Also, there was a John Wick short that got published by Stern, and I was surprised. I was watching it, and my wife was in the room, and she's like, that's your voice. And I was like, no way. So they used a little clip in there where I had said something somewhere. Maybe it was a short that I published. I don't remember. But I was talking about John Wick, so I thought that was kind of cool to get some love from Stern. That was pretty neat. Oh, my God, it's John Wick. So I've put enough games on the John Wick pinball machine to be pretty confident when I say it's a good game. The layout feels fresh, it's got some combo shots, it just feels incredibly kinetically satisfying to hit. It's fast, it's fun, it's got a killer soundtrack to keep you hyped. Tons of audio and video footage from the films. It is an incredibly deep game that there's a lot of modes, there's a lot to get through. There is things that Stern is doing that is changing the way we play pinball. And it also will offer up rewards and it will offer up challenges. And I'm really starting to see Stern starting to make the most of that technology with this particular game. Let me tell you, this game, it is an all out battle. If you have an opportunity to play John Wick, please, by all means, go do it.

9:48

Other things that happened this week that I want to talk about is my buddy Rudy. He bought. So this was funny. I'll tell the story real quick. So X-Men came in to my local distributor, Game Room Goodies. Right. And I'm like, oh, man, I wish I could go get it, but I don't have a truck. I have a Jeep, but you could probably put a game in a Jeep. It would probably make it work. But I'm like, eh, I'll just wait. So I contact Game Room Goodies. I'm like, hey, when can you guys deliver it? And they're like, oh, we had a problem with our delivery truck, so it's going to be a couple days. It's going to be Thursday. So it would have been this Thursday of this week if you're listening to this, and it's the 12th of October. So it's going to be this week. uh and i'm like oh man and i always ask my buddy rudy for for help with things so i feel bad because i feel like sometimes he does more for me than i do for him even though i try to return the favor as much as possible even though he doesn't he's not saying that i should but out of my heart i kind of feel like uh i don't want it to feel like this one-way street because we're good friends right so anyway so i'm like hey rudy uh he knows right away because usually it's like hey i need help picking up this arcade cabinet or whatever i'm always asking him to come on some crazy adventure so i'm like hey man uh you would you be busy right now and he's like would you do like that's what he said it's always would you do and i'm like hey man i just wanted to go get x-men down at game room goodies and i know you know i if it's short notice but if you can't you can't he goes well i haven't told you but i sold my mandalorian and i'm picking up iron maiden down of game room goodies i'm like what the heck so he's like so i could go down there and pick up iron maiden at the same time so i'm like perfect so him and i go down there we get the x-men and we get the iron maiden we set up the the x-men at my house and then we went right to his house i didn't even play it i set it up i had it doing the code update and then we ran over to his house set up his iron maiden iron maiden's freaking awesome by the way and so uh yesterday i was like dude we got a pinwoofer we gotta put the pinwoofer power wave amp in this iron maiden and upgrade the speakers because it's a music pin and holy crap dude first of all the shake between the shaker and the pinwoofer upgrade it was amazing like it makes that game so fun it's uh you know it's obviously a keith elwynn game that game is freaking fun if you've never played iron maiden even if you don't like the band it's just a really fun game to shoot so rudy's freaking stoked uh he's everyone's happy i messaged dan over at pinwoofer i'm like dude iron maiden is so awesome with your with your upgrade and he's like oh that's so cool so we were all super stoked on that and uh if you if you've never played iron maiden before you gotta play it it's just a such it's such a fun game there's really fun the call outs are awesome the animations are really neat and and generally speaking the game has things in it i think that make it easy for a beginner too like you could play that game as a beginner and have fun but also play it as an advanced player and i think have a good time too i don't know maybe that's a key thing because i feel like keith elwynn did a really good job when it came to to godzilla that way too like my wife likes godzilla but my wife's not necessarily the biggest fan of john wick and i think that's maybe because you really do have to like focus on becoming better to play john wick i think like you can't really be a beginner player and enjoy that game as much i feel or those games are just so much shorter because some of the shots are challenging and it gets very chaotic very fast like the ball starts hitting the slingshots and it's going crazy um also like the red circle club if the target is up and you hit it it's coming right back to you super fast so i think that game becomes a little challenging for like a new a new player and uh yeah maybe maybe keith i don't know if keith thinks about that i've never watched an interview where maybe he said that but he i think he does a good job kind of keeping that balance between i need it to be interesting for someone that's uh you know probably a more seasoned player but i also want to keep it interesting for someone that's a beginner that this experience is that they're not going to walk away and be disappointed so that leads me to my next topic i'm jumping around a little bit so i don't know if you guys know that there's this guy out in the community and uh his name is i don't actually i don't know his name but the company that he has is called palowski pinball and he's been out in the market for years, I think. And his whole mission is he built this designer software so you can kind of like create a pinball design and then see how it functions before you build it. But he also has been trying to go down this path of building a mechanical pinball machine that's affordable, you know, that's kind of affordable for everyone. And I think his target price is, I don't know exactly. I want to say he's been trying to play in this like $2,000, like sub $3,000 range. And I think he's, he's seems like he's, he's able to achieve that he hasn't built anything yet other than prototypes, but I got to say, he's really committed to the cause and he's interesting. He's really interesting to listen to his content is longer form. And he talked, but he talks a lot about the process about purchasing thing, you know, where you go to purchase, uh, let's say coils for, for instance, like he's like, look, if I'm going to build 2000 of these, how can I get coils at an affordable cost? Or how can I get flippers or whatever it his slingshots, whatever it might be. And so it's really interesting to listen to him. But the reason why I bring him up is I messaged him the other day. I was like, hey, have you heard of this new company that's going to come out called Wonderland Amusements? And they're going to be at Pinball Expo. And their whole mission, and I'll read it from their website, it says, welcome to Wonderland Amusements, where we reimagine the pinball experience for the home. Our mission is to make high-quality, affordable pinball machines accessible to everyone, combining classic craftsmanship with modern technology. So this company had reached out to me a few weeks ago. They didn't say there was any reason to not talk about what they're doing or anything. So they didn't say anything under any kind of NDA or embargo or anything. So I had just messaged Palowski, and I was like, hey, man, this might be something you're interested in because it looks like they're trying to do something similar to you where they're trying to build an affordable mechanical pinball device, like a standard traditional pinball machine. The thing is when I started messaging back and forth with this Wonderland Amusements company, the reason why they got in touch with me is because they wanted to see if I was interested in looking at some of the ideas and concepts they have for this product. Supposedly at Expo, they're going to have a cabinet design. So they going to have what their cabinet looks like Now keep in mind when I messaged him about this I asked what his target MSRP price point is and he said So I like wow it can be a full machine at $1,000. At least I don't believe that would be possible. So we'll see what they have there. They said they're not going to have a playfield. It's just going to be the cabinet. So they're in the early stages, but I guess if you book an appointment with them, which I did, they'll share with you some of the conceptual designs and supposedly this first machine which is kind of funny and a little ironic is actually going to be alice in wonderland um like inspired so my guess is that if you're going to do something for a thousand or sub 1000 then you're probably not getting a major ip because the licenses on that would be expensive so i think these are going to be original original ips that might be influenced by other things or other properties but they're not going to go and spend the amount of money so they might you know i'll just i'll just for instance like they might make a monster themed game where it's supposed to be a jurassic park but they can't call it jurassic park you know i mean stuff like that uh i think there's other companies that have made like digital versions of pinball machines that are pinball games that don't necessarily have the ip but they're represented they're sort of representing something but not not not like a carbon copy so it's obvious but it's inspired by right so anyway so i'm interested to see what this is all about my only hesitation on this is this a lot of the executives that are that are part of this company one of them is actually and i don't want to deep dive this because it's it's if you're not in this scene or haven't explored this scene then a lot of this is going to be like who are these people but there's a company the company arcade one up that made sort of these arcade, they tried to recreate arcade games in like this cheaper form factor, shorter, smaller, you know, no CRT, obviously, LCD screens and things like that, you know, basic controls. They really get a lot of credit for what they did, but it wasn't really them for the most part. It was this guy, Jerry, over at a company called ThinkUp. So that company was really making the design. So Arcade 1-Up would come up with a concept, hey, we want to make this game, And then they'd go over to the design team, ThinkUp, and ThinkUp would make a mock-up and say, how does this look? They'd go back and forth. They'd settle on a design, and then Arcade 1-Up would put that design into production. So the guys that are backing this company are mostly guys that are from that ex-Arcade 1-Up group. And I just don't know if they're going to put the kind of passion and attention to detail into a pinball machine that will make it truly a experience that is going to, I don't know, be a good representation of a physical pinball machine. I don't know. Like, it'll be interesting. I hope it does, you know. But that's the one thing where I struggle is if you're going to recreate something, there's going to be a new generation of people that might experience that thing. And if that's their first experience, is it a true enough experience to what pinball really is, like how we know pinball and how we've experienced pinball, that it's going to be a positive? Because the positive side I see of this is if this is an affordable product, it may get people into the hobby, and then they may over time go, I'm going to save up money and get myself a full-size stern or a full-size jersey jack or a spooky or whatever or barrels of fun, whatever. Pick your company. So that's positive, right? But also what's kind of interesting and where my head is at, I'm really trying to promote people. Obviously, I want people to buy games for their home. Absolutely. Like, that's awesome. But, you know, full-size games for their home. But that's not affordable for everybody. And when it's not, I'm kind of more promoting people to go out and play and be social and be outside of their homes. So this is just another thing to keep people inside your home.

20:12

I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how it is. if you go to pinball expo the i don't know i'm guessing they're going to have their own booth but it's wonderland amusements it is kind of interesting we'll see but if it but if it's done in the quality of an arcade one-up then i think it's going to turn off a lot of people so we'll see but if you're doing under a thousand i don't know how you like how do you do a wood play field at a thousand it's probably going to be made of mdf now keep in mind stern's home pins the um the the original version of star wars and jurassic park those were mdf the new one that they put in costco the new jurassic park they did do would so we'll see we'll see where that goes but i think that is an interesting thing that's going to be at pinball expo and it'll be interesting because to me pinball expo is or has been at least for the years i've gone it's a hardcore pinball show and that's what i love about it it's all these pinheads now will the standard pinhead be interested in something like this i think i'm thinking not i'm thinking they want to see it they're going to be interested to see it but i don't think that they're the buyer for this maybe the buyer for this is that home arcade community that already has accepted these like products into their home and they they kind of the reality of there's such a price delta between them like i'll i'll take the compromise but i think if it's someone that's been in the pinball community for a while, they're not going to want to make that kind of compromise because they want to play pinball the way that they've always played it. Right. So hopefully it doesn't come off weird. I'm not it's there. Obviously, I think it's a good thing when they have products that are geared towards someone that might might not be able to afford a more expensive product. I just hope that the experience is one that is a good representation of pinball. And I don't know if I look at the people that are behind this product, they're mostly business people. And Pulaski pinball is a guy that really is passionate about pinball although he did he does talk about how he kind of got into the got into it but the things he's putting in his game are pretty creative so he's shown a couple prototypes and they're really cool so anyways that's that topic i think that's kind of interesting i want to circle back to something i'm going to be doing soon soon i'm going to be doing a live stream on the shark is broken mode for uh jaws it's really cool i did a um what did I do? Oh, I put it on. Actually, it wasn't a live stream. I sort of pre-recorded myself playing it and I put it on my Facebook group, which is, or my Facebook page, which is just Retro Ralph on Facebook. There's just a group that you can, that you can follow. And what was interesting is, wait, where did I put that? Oh no, I'm sorry. I did that. And I talked about it on the last, on the last podcast and Elizabeth, all right, Gieske. I don't want to get her name wrong. Elizabeth Gieske is the one that coded that. And she's, she's really cool. And she actually commented on that video and she's like or on my podcast and she's like oh i'm glad you enjoyed it you like did it justice by explaining you know sort of the motivation and some of the inspiration behind it so uh by the way i had to ask my buddy ian at nudge magazine how to say her last name because i was like i'm not butchering her last name because if she hears this and i call and i butcher her last name but it's like so i spelt it in front of me as geese key like k-e-y but that's not how it's spelled but anyway she's super cool so i am going to do a live stream on that on retro ralph i'm probably going to do that this weekend i just think it's a really cool mode it does require the topper so if you don't have a jaws topper you can't play it but uh but i just think that's that's awesome just more cool stuff that stern is doing to like enhance the game experience for someone and and she said she even made a comment like i'd love to do more of these like mini modes uh for other games in the future so i think that's really cool the other thing i'll say is if you are going to Pinball Expo, one thing I discovered that I didn't know, and I guess you wouldn't really notice it if you didn't pay a lot of attention to a certain manufacturer, but when I went and played Avatar at Game Room Goodies, he was showing me, he was like popping the hood and stuff like that. So I got to see, I didn't realize that they have sort of something that leaves the balls in the trough. So the ball, like you don't have to take the balls out when you raise the play field. I thought that was kind of cool. But then I noticed in the bottom left-hand corner, there's an area where you can either add bluetooth headphones to play the game or plug in like a 3 millimeter jack and i like dude that actually really cool for two reasons one i use that functionality all the time at home but i have to go buy the Stern kit and install it in my pinball machine but theirs doesn have Bluetooth So I think that really cool that they have a Bluetooth function And the other reason why I think that's cool is when you're going to a place like Pinball Expo or any expo for that matter, and you're experiencing a game, it's really hard to get the full idea of that game because it's so loud and there's so many more games around. And a lot of times the volume, even though it's cranked up, the other games like drown it out. So you don't get the full effect. And to me, pinball is a multimedia experience. There's a lot going on. It's the call outs. It's the music. It's the animations on the LCD. It's all the things going on in the play field. You do get the play experience, but sometimes you're not hearing the call outs or you're not hearing the music as much. So it's hard to like, even though it's a fun place to go play a bunch of games, it's hard to get that real perspective on, do I enjoy the full package of this game, the music, the sound, everything I'm talking about. So the fact that Jersey Jack allows you to plug in games, if you're going there or plug in headphones, if you're going there, like maybe consider bringing a pair of headphones so that if you do go up to a Jersey Jack game, you can plug it in, like go play Avatar with the headphones on or play Elton John with the headphones on and get, get the full effect. Cause it'll drown out the sound in, um, you know, in the, in the hall. Cause the hall can get so loud. The other thing too, is pin sound is typically there. And a lot of times the games, I don't know if it's like, I can't remember. Every year I've gone, there's usually a slew of games that have headphones connected to them. They're not usually the newest games, though. So just take advantage of that, especially if you're looking to buy a certain game. When you hear it all, it's a lot easier to kind of come to a conclusion whether it's a game you like or not. Anyway, so I think that was it. There was one other thing I wanted to mention, and I forget. Oh, on X-Men, there is a current issue on X-Men. It's the issue with the shooter rod and the auto plunger. Now, the issue is when you first plunge the game, like you go and you do your first plunge, the ball is supposed to go all the way around that, like, orbit in the back. It only does it, I don't know, maybe 50% of the time. It depends. Maybe people are having different experiences. I'd say about mine, about half the time it makes it all the way around. Now, Stern did a code update, and they allowed you to, even though this is a standard feature, usually, I guess they hadn't had it in the code yet, to adjust the power of the auto launcher. Well, the power's all the way up by default in the new code, and it's still not making it around consistently. So just know, I did a little fix that Kale over at Electric Bat told me. He's like, hey, this is like a weird operator trick. You might want to just try it. And he's like, take the rubber tip off the shooter rod, put a sort of a nut. So I put like a nut that would hold like a post on in the top of the tip and then put the tip back on. Now it goes around that orbit a little more consistently, but I got to really rip the plunger. Like I got to rip the crap out of it, but it does make it, it does make it all the way around more consistently after doing that. So thank you, Kale. I was like, dude, that worked. He's like, awesome little operator tricks of the trade. The other thing he told me, I haven't done this yet as he was like, Hey, consider. So there's like the fork, like the tongs on the auto shooter that hit the ball. He's like, take a pair of pliers and gently squeeze them in little by little, and that might help. I haven't tried that yet. If that does fix the auto plunger, I'll let you guys know either on my Facebook page or somewhere. But these are the kind of cool things like being friends with operators. I'm like, hey, have you seen this before? What can I do? So I'll try it. But I'm not saying that these things are permanent fixes, but it is something out there. The only other thing that I – this is driving me nuts. It's a small thing. I don't want to make a big deal out of it. But I noticed it when I was playing, and I'm like, I don't know why this bothers me. Maybe because I'm OCD. But when my room is dimly lit, my game room downstairs, and I'm playing X-Men. Now, the apron that goes around the bottom of the game, typically your flippers are in the same position on a Stern game, right? They're not offset like it is on X-Men. Well, there's two LED lights that are kind of illuminating the trough area and the flippers. Well, those LEDs are in the same place, even though the flippers are offset to the right. So you get this weird shadowing around the flipper area because they didn't put like a third LED on or think about shifting the LEDs. I don't know why it bothers me. It does. It's not like it affects my gameplay or anything, but I'm kind of weird and a little OCD. So that does bother me. The one thing I will say, the flippers being offset does not bother me at all. it you you kind of just don't even notice that they are once you start playing and it doesn't even really bother me like the danger room and everything that's super fun but it's weird because this game doesn't have like a traditional left out lane like most like most games do but i'm loving the game these are some minor criticisms of them i don't know maybe maybe some mod company will come up with like a way to just sort of like add an extra led to kind of illuminate that trough area a little bit better but anyway that's kind of that's kind of all i really had i did want to mention one last thing about pinball expo i'm just excited to go and hang out with friends like that's kind of what that show is all about for me i have a lot of friends that have consistently gone over the years so there's some old friends that are going to be there and then there's some new friends like i've gotten pretty close with ann over at nudge over the last like year or so and so him and i the last time we got a chance to really spend some time together was at that Stern Factory Tour, so I'm really looking forward to spending a little bit more time with him. And just everyone, like anybody that's at the show, please come up and say hi, and we'll chat about pinball or whatever. I'm excited about that. I love meeting new people and just hanging out with some of the people that I've been friends with for a while. And as I've gotten deeper into the pinball hobby, I've made more extended friends in the network of people that have, you know, some content creators that have been doing this for a really long time in the space. so it's fun to sort of get a chance to sync up with them as well. The only thing I'm wondering is should I play in a tournament while I'm there? That's the thing I don't know.