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018 - Highlights of Pinball Expo '25

Punk Rock Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 29s·analyzed·Oct 20, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.022

TL;DR

Post-Expo '25 recap: tournaments, homebrews, Winchester Mystery House hype, and streaming challenges.

Summary

Punk Rock Pinball hosts recount their Pinball Expo 2025 experience in Downers Grove, Illinois, covering tournament participation, standout games (Monster League Hockey homebrew and Winchester Mystery House), vendor discoveries, and community connections. They discuss tournament structure improvements, the Stern Pro Series challenge-based format, and propose a streaming competition with other content creators.

Key Claims

  • 252 people competed in the main division tournament at Pinball Expo 2025

    high confidence · Hosts verified the number while reviewing tournament results on the day after Expo (Sunday)

  • Winchester Mystery House by Barrels of Fun was brand new at Expo and sold out through Flip N Out Pinball within the show

    high confidence · Both hosts directly experienced trying to purchase the game and were told it was sold out; Barrels of Fun announced it just days before Expo

  • Monster League Hockey homebrew won best homebrew award at Expo

    medium confidence · Host believes they saw this award won but is not certain; another host suggested 'Maybe' in response

  • Spooky Pinball is working on a Planet of the Apes game and a Pee Wee game after that

    medium confidence · Host states 'I heard they're working on it' regarding both games; characterizes as inside information but without direct confirmation

  • The Stern Pro Series finals on Wednesday night used a challenge-based tournament format instead of head-to-head scoring

    high confidence · Hosts watched the livestreamed event; provided specific details about the format (timed objectives, best of 11 matches)

  • A dealer in Peoria had three Winchester Mystery House allocations and sold all of them

    high confidence · Host confirmed this directly but speculation about who purchased them

  • Neil Graf (Tom Graf's son) competed against Keith Elwin in the Stern Pro Series and the match was extremely close

    medium confidence · Host watched the match but admits they may have fallen asleep during the deciding objective; unsure of final outcome

  • The Monster League Hockey homebrew builders indicated they may produce a small run if there is sufficient interest

    medium confidence · An employee at the Monster League booth told the hosts this; uncertain about production feasibility or timeline

Notable Quotes

  • “It was the highlight of any of the games I played. I mean, I also love the Winchester Mystery House, but that head to head on that pinball machine. Oh my God, that was so fun.”

    Host (Steph) @ ~8:30 — Expresses enthusiasm for Monster League Hockey as standout game experience at Expo

  • “I think they really hit just a perfect window in time for this thing because there were no other games at Expo that were brand new. So it was like the new game and it was super limited. So kudos to Barrels of Fun for picking like this release window.”

    Host (main) @ ~20:50 — Analysis of Winchester Mystery House's market timing and release strategy at Expo

  • “What if instead of a tournament, you called it a meetup? And there's a tournament that happens at the meetup that you can play in or not play.”

    Host (main) @ ~44:30 — Proposes rebranding tournaments to reduce barrier to entry for casual players

  • “I think if you're in the top 2000 is pretty fucking good. Why don't you make three different kind of classes so that there are tournaments within the main tournament?”

    Host (main) @ ~46:00 — Suggests tiered tournament structure based on IFPA ranking ranges to increase participation and competitiveness at all levels

  • “They have to hit the spinner to qualify it and then they have to hit the car like four times and hit the spinner again. So you know exactly what they're trying to shoot.”

    Host (Steph) @ ~62:00 — Explains why the Stern Pro Series challenge format is more accessible to viewers than traditional gameplay

  • “One guy did that in like 19 seconds. Oh my God. So then you're watching and it's exciting because this other player comes up and he's got to beat 19 seconds.”

    Host (main) @ ~65:00 — Describes the competitive tension created by time-based objective format in Stern Pro Series

  • “I'm pretty confident we would win. I'm pretty sure we would beat you guys if we do this.”

    Host (main) @ ~80:00 — Publicly challenges Flip N Out Pinball streamers (Joel and Jared) to a head-to-head streaming competition

Entities

Pinball Expo 2025eventBarrels of FuncompanyWinchester Mystery HousegameMonster League HockeygameFlip N Out PinballcompanyStern Pinball

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2025 drew 252 competitors in main tournament with significant community turnout; hosts noted strong representation from Central Illinois community and recognition of Punk Rock Pinball merchandise by attendees

    high · Direct attendance and tournament participation; verified tournament size; multiple community members from specific region identified as present

  • ?

    product_launch: Winchester Mystery House by Barrels of Fun executed perfect market timing by being only brand new game at Expo, creating immediate sellout of all Flip N Out allocations and significant player demand

    high · Both hosts attempted purchase and were told sold out; limited production run by design; announced just days before Expo; hosts queued extensively despite line aversion

  • ?

    community_signal: Punk Rock Pinball hosts report significant merchandise adoption and community recognition at Expo; multiple unknown attendees wearing brand merch approached them for connection

    high · Hosts repeatedly noted surprise and pleasure at seeing strangers in PRP merchandise; multiple people introduced themselves; Patrick from Madison mentioned wearing new gray shirt

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Pinball Expo 2025 used tight tilt debounce settings significantly stricter than home machines, frustrating experienced players and forcing different risk management strategies

    high · Host extensively described multiple tilts per game caused by aggressive debounce; compared unfavorably to PAPA September 2024 and home games; attributed own poor tournament performance partly to this setting

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.034

0:00
Hello. Hi. Welcome back. What episode is it? Episode 18. Episode, the post expo episode. Yeah. We're tired. Really tired. How long were we there? We got there on Thursday morning, way to get up early. Drive up to Downers Grove, Illinois to drop our dog off at Doggy Depot, the best doggy daycare. In the whole world. Yep. Yeah, we had to be there before 10 o'clock, so we had to get up early to get up there. Yeah, we left here at 7.30 a.m. Oh my god. Dropped Marshall off, got to Expo. And then we started playing. We signed in at the tournament. Yeah. Started cranking games. Yeah. The tournament was crazy. There were a lot of people there. Yeah. How many in the tournament? I'm going to pull it up. So we, um, it's Sunday, the day, the day after Expo right now when we're doing this, right? Yeah. Um, we didn't even talk about what we're going to talk about on this. So we're just going to like. Yeah, we're just ripping. It's, it's our Expo recap. Okay. We're going to recap our Expo experience. Oh my gosh. The main division in the tournament. It's, it's not going to be all about the tournament, but I'm just looking. Let's not make this all about the monitors. Don't make it about the monitors. 252 people in the main. Steph didn't play in the main. No, I decided to focus on the ladies where I just didn't even squeak over the line for the A finals. You gave it your best shot. I did. You know what? If I was going to do it all over again, I think I would have a slightly different strategy maybe. Yeah. You know what? I did what I did. And it was fun. I had a blast. It was fun. I got 194th out of 252 in the main. That's pretty good. So then I was in the B. And then it's double elimination head to head. I lost both of those. Two to one. It's best of three. I played some good games in there. Lost some real close ones. But I tried. I did have, like in qualifying, I kind of choked on some games as I tend to do.
2:30
You know, it happens. It happens. The thing about the games, compared to when we played Papa in September, these games had an extremely tight tilt.
2:41
Yeah, I think the tilt itself wasn't so tight, but the debounce? I don't even know what that means. So the tilt debounce is like how long that once you trigger a tilt, how long it's kind of still alive. So if you do a big move, it goes like dunk, dunk, dunk hitting like both sides of the deal. Mm hmm. And if the debounce is like a shorter period of time, that second hit won't trigger. You know what I mean? No, I don't. Because there's a thing, there's like circle, if you're watching on the video, and the tilt bob is this way. That doesn't look good, but it goes side to side and it goes boom and that's a hit and that's a hit. So that'd be danger, double danger, hit skin, tilt. If the D bounces fewer milliseconds, that second hit's not going to count. Oh. So on these you could do one kind of mega move and go boom, danger, double danger, tilt in one go. And I did. I did every game. At least one ball. Like you would think we, I would, I kept thinking like be a little bit smarter about this, but I think I'm so used to like jamming on these games and CJ's games and Joe and Shelly's games that it's not like that. I screwed myself a lot and I kept saying don't do that and then I couldn't play. It was just a mess. It was a mess in my head. Because you have a choice. You know, you've got a choice if the ball's coming down, especially if it's coming, it's going to drain down the middle. You've got a choice. You've got to do something. You can try to save that, risk a tilt, or you can just watch it go down the middle. You choose. I chose. I mean, if you've got a huge bonus built up, you might want to watch it go down the middle. That's so hard. Yeah. So, yeah, so that was really fun. There was a classics tournament going on that I played a couple games. I didn't even have enough like credits that I'd pay for to even like do all of the games. It was really stupid. I don't even know why I did that, but I did. But it was fun. It was so fun. That room that was off of the main expo room, I feel like we spent the majority of the time in the tournament room. Yeah, because we had a lot of our people were in there.

The main Expo tournament had extremely tight tilt debounce settings compared to PAPA September 2024

high confidence · Host experienced repeated tilts due to aggressive debounce settings and directly compared it to home games with longer debounce windows

  • Indianapolis Bells and Chimes organization is starting a pinball skill school/workshop program for beginners

    medium confidence · Host met a representative at Expo who described the program; still in workshop phase for naming and curriculum

  • “His average scores are much, much higher. Well. Much higher. That's okay, but maybe the pressure of competition gets to him?”

    Hosts @ ~85:00 — Discusses strategy to potentially handicap Josh from Loser Kid Podcast in proposed streaming challenge

  • “We got to figure out some way, because Loser Kid Pinball Podcast seem pretty into the idea, but we got to find some way to handicap him. Because he's too good.”

    Host (main) @ ~87:00 — Acknowledges skill gap and proposes handicapping system to create competitive streaming content

  • “We met some other. We met Josh from Josh or Joshua from Loser Kid. Yeah, really nice guy. So nice.”

    Host (Steph) @ ~77:30 — Community connection made at Expo with Loser Kid Podcast host

    • company
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Carl Biagiperson
    Jake Danzigperson
    Tom Eatonperson
    Josh (Loser Kid)person
    Joel and Jaredperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    Neil Grafperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Elizabeth Gieskeperson
    Patrick (Madison)person
    Joe Sharpperson
    Shelly Sharpperson
    CJperson
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Karl DeAngeloperson
    Indianapolis Bells and Chimesorganization
    Flyland Designscompany
    Mezel Modscompany

    design_innovation: Stern Pro Series finals introduced challenge-based objective format (timed single-objective completion) as alternative to traditional head-to-head scoring; hosts praise format as more spectator-friendly and educational

    high · Hosts watched and extensively discussed 8-10 hour livestream; described specific objectives and strategies; emphasized learning value and pacing benefits for non-expert viewers

  • ?

    product_strategy: Monster League Hockey homebrew builders indicated willingness to do limited production run if sufficient demand demonstrated at Expo

    medium · Employee statement to hosts; depends on interest level assessment by builders; no commitment or timeline established

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Unconfirmed insider information that Spooky Pinball is developing Planet of the Apes and Pee Wee Herman pinball machines

    low · Host states 'I heard they're working on it' for both games; no official confirmation; presented as inside information but with uncertain sourcing

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple community members identified barriers to tournament participation: intimidation by competitive format, lack of beginner skill-building infrastructure, tournament structure that doesn't allow mid-skill players to compete meaningfully

    high · Conversation with Patrick about tournament fear; Indianapolis representative workshopping skill school; hosts proposing tiered tournament structure and terminology change from 'tournament' to 'meetup'

  • ?

    content_signal: Punk Rock Pinball hosts publicly propose multiple streaming challenges with other content creators (Flip N Out streamers, Loser Kid Podcast); indicates cross-creator collaboration trend

    medium · Hosts make public challenges and proposals for streaming competitions; Loser Kid and Flip N Out described as 'pretty into the idea'; suggests emerging trend of collaborative content

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Significant skill gaps between casual/mid-level players (Punk Rock Pinball hosts, ~12k IFPA ranking) and high-skilled players (Josh/Loser Kid, likely top 1000) create challenges for competitive content parity

    high · Hosts compare average scores on Insider Connected and note Josh's scores are 'much, much higher'; propose multiple handicapping schemes to make competition viable; stressed about potential one-sided outcomes

  • ?

    venue_signal: Madison, Wisconsin pinball community represented by Patrick who is building similar home collection and family involvement as hosts; indicates regional dispersal of hobby participation

    medium · Patrick from Madison met at Expo; has Jaws 50th and other games; children participating; on similar journey as hosts; hosts encouraging him to engage with Madison tournament scene

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts and community members expressing concern that traditional tournament structure excludes mid-level players through intimidation and lack of competitive opportunity; suggests need for structural reform

    high · Extended discussion of tournament structure problems; proposal for tiered divisions; Patrick's expressed tournament fear; Indianapolis skill school initiative; multiple solutions proposed by different speakers

    • 5:05
    Our gang. Our gang, the punk rock pinball gang. We had a lot of people, especially the Central Illinois punk rock pinball gang. Lots of people. I don't know if you want to name them all. I don't know if I can name them all. Like it was it was crazy. I mean, oh, from our like Central Illinois crew. I mean, there were the the people from Champaign were there. So like Jenny and Luke and Tom Eaton. Tom Eaton made the A finals. Congratulations, Tom. He did really, really well. He was grinding. He started maybe Wednesday night. I think he did. Because I left like 13 entries on the table for the main. Couldn't get them in. The queues are so long. But yeah, those folks from Champaign, we had Dan Scott played the classics. From Peoria. Mike Dafforn from Peoria, he played, he did pretty good in the B division. Joe, Shelly. Congratulations to Joe and CJ. They finished up pretty high in the A. Shelly Sharp. Finished like 20-something in the ladies. Luke Pierowski made the A. Yep, and his dad Jim. His dad Jim and Josh. Josh came down. I don't know how to say his last name worth a damn. Slough White. Chad Udell was there. He wasn't in the tournament. Chris O'Brien came down. Chris O'Brien. There's a bunch. Yeah. Kat was there. And then like our Chicago friends, Erin and Lily. But yeah, so lots of friends in the tournament area. And what was really fun was as we went out into the main expo hall and just walking around, How many people were wearing punk rock pinball merch? I was totally shocked by this. It was really super awesome. Like people we didn't know until we went up and introduced ourselves or they came up to us. It was really pretty cool to see. Yeah, like we'd be standing around playing a game. I'd look to see a dude like in a punk rock pinball hoodie and look at Steph and like, you know that guy? No. We're about to. Yeah. So yeah, thank you everybody who wore your punk rock pinball stuff to Expo. Yeah, that was really super cool. It was awesome to see that. And a lot of you came up and talked to us. It was nice to meet you. But what was your, what did you like the best? Like we enjoyed the tournament, but outside of the tournament, what did you like the best? The homebrews. Which one? The Monster League pinball. Monster League hockey? Yeah. So Jake Danzig, who's in the group, he had been posting about this and we went and played it on Saturday morning and it was absolutely, I think, the highlight of any of the games I played. I mean, I also love the Winchester Mansion, but that head to head on that pinball machine. Oh, my God, that was so fun. It was real fun. It was so much fun. If you've ever seen, it's a rare machine, but if you've ever seen the Joust pinball machine, so it's just a big rectangular, it's flat because there's flippers on one end and there's flippers on the other end. And the playfield is kind of like angled, so it's up in the middle and you're trying to score goals against your opponent by draining it on their side. And we had so much fun. Yeah. Kind of yelling at each other. We were yelling at each other. We had like a crowd by the time we were done, like kind of cheering. I think we each had some fans. Because like I accidentally bonked one into my, I drained one on myself and a guy to my right is like, that's an own goal. You scored on your own goal. Like I did. It was so fun. Yeah. And the fellow who is working there, it wasn't Jake, it was somebody else, but he said if there's enough interest, they may make a small run of those, which would be awesome. That would be so fun to play. I would want to sign up to buy one. I mean, it was ridiculously fun. As long as it's not like 15,000 bucks or something. I don't know how much one of those would be. I don't know. It probably would be expensive. If it's like more or less into it than a regular pinball machine, because it's not a lot bigger. No, it's like the same size. It's not the size of a regular play field, but just flat. The top of it is flat. The top of it's flat, and there's no back glass because you're head to head. It was just so fun, and the artwork was beautiful. The sound and the call outs were amazing. I think they won an award for like the best homebrew, maybe. Maybe. I thought I saw like that. What was that one that we played that was a whirlwind re-themed? That one was The Greatest Showman. That one was. That one won something. Amazing also. Really pretty. It was gorgeous, so it was like a circus theme. That one was really fun, and the Tony Hawk one was super cool. I played also the Mass Effect one. Oh yeah, I didn't even see that. It was a Mass Effect one. I love that video game. It was on Friday or something where you were really going heavy on ladies qualifying, and I just went out there and there was no line. Did we get the flip on Hellraiser? No. We didn't. That looked cool. So the Big Trouble in Little China one looked really slick. The lines were way long. Yeah, the thing is, is that we both don't like to wait in lines. Yeah. And I was thinking that, like, oh, my God, this is so fun. But, like, I hate, hate standing in line. Me too. I got in line for Predator when you were playing. And I waited probably 20 minutes and I got to, like, there's, like, three people left in front of me. And I was just like, screw this. I'm not standing here anymore. And just left the line. Yeah, it kind of is. Anyways, we did stand in line for quite a while for the Winchester Mansion. Winchester Mystery House. That was awesome. That was really cool. I got to play two balls only because I had to go. I was in a queue for a tournament thing. Was that the one where I got my Kong that got me up much higher than I was? It might have been, but that game was just announced a few days before Expo by the Barrels of Fun, and it was definitely worth the wait. And we tried to buy it. We tried to buy it from Flippin' Out. Sold out. Gone. I think they really hit just a perfect window in time for this thing because there were no other games at Expo that were brand new. You know, Star Wars, Fall of the Empire has been announced and people are playing it at locations have it. So it's new, but it's not brand new.
    12:04
    Dune was there. That's not brand new. Jersey Jack has nothing brand new. So it was like the new game and it was super limited.
    12:14
    So kudos to Barrels of Fun for picking like this release window. That's just perfect. If you not familiar Winchester Mystery House is designed by Carl D probably one of the best pinball players on the planet Beautiful game They got featurette videos and stuff of it online I would suggest watching them even though you can buy one now because it sold out But if you can find one to play do it Yeah, definitely do it. And I hope maybe a person or two that we know was able to snag one so we can jam on it. I really just want to play that one in a dark basement. Yeah, I'd love to be able to see it really and hear it. Mm-hmm. Because there's a dealer in Peoria that had three of them, allocation for three, and they've sold them. So who is that? Yeah, who bought those?
    13:11
    Probably somebody from around Peoria. Who is it? It's not Joe and Shelly, and it's not us. It's not CJ. Is it Rob?
    13:19
    Rob said he didn't want to own one. Well, what the heck? So if you know who this was, there's three people. Can we be friends? Somewhere around Peoria need to reveal themselves. Oh my gosh. We, let's see. We also did a little shopping at Expo. Yeah. And there were a few booths that were, I thought, super cool. So this, I'm going to show you some of the things that I got. So this is from Flyland Designs. This guy is, I got a couple posters from him too. This is just like a cool tote bag with this cool artwork on it. I got a couple posters from him too that I'm going to hang up and maybe hang in a special place in the future. We're working on a special place. So that's kind of cool. And then there was this woodworker guy who had some pinball themed things, but I thought this was really fun. I mean, peewee. Why isn't there a peewee pinball? That's an excellent question. That'd be a spooky. I mean, perfect for Spooky. After they do Planet of the Apes. After they do Planet of the Apes, I heard they're working on it. They're working on it. So after they do that, they're going to do Pee Wee, I hear. So I'm pretty excited about that. But this is just awesome. I love the three-dimensional stuff and Pee Wee riding that sick bike. That is really super cool. It's great. It's going to look great in a special place. And then this is cool. We got the Sea Witch 3D shadow box. It's a shadow box. And it's heavy. It's got to be like seven or eight pounds. But this guy had all kinds of cool old Stern, Bally, Williams stuff. Everything was licensed. It's all officially licensed. You see there on the back. And we got the sexy Sea Witch. And the sexy devil. Gorgar. Gorgar's in the car still. Yeah. Gorgars in the car. Yeah. So, um, these are cool. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. So there were some cool, um, people selling some cool stuff, lots of parts. I ordered a, a mod for John Wick. Oh yeah. What was it? From Mezzle Mods. It's that, I don't know what you call it. It's that building in the back that shows how many balls are locked. Yeah. It's like a kind of a 3D thing for that. It's not the Continental. No. It's on the other side. It's on the back left. Okay. Yeah, that's gonna be cool. That'll be coming. They make them to order, I guess. I also got this little John Wick's dog, the Beagle. Oh, yeah, we got the dog. We should have brought him down. I know. He's in my bag. He just goes by the shooter lane, I think? Just his little dog in a water dish or a food dish? I mean, he's the reason why it all happened. So, I mean, the dog needed to be more prominent, I think, in the John Wick. And I don't think that game's going anywhere for us. I mean, the dogs are on the sling covers. We got a 3D dog. Yeah, we got a 3D dog. I almost bought some Munsters mods too from the Mezzle mods. I had some Munsters ones. What'd they have? They had a car, a better looking car thing, which would be cool because I broke the car on ours, or I broke one of the bats on ours. Oh, that was an add-on. Like an air ball broke those. But you know where the... Oh, yeah. That one ramp goes into the back of the game? There's like a thing that makes that look like a tunnel.
    16:43
    That's cool. Almost bought that. I mean, I could order it online today. You could. If we wanted to. Just like that. So that was cool. We met Patrick from Madison. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He was so nice. And while we were talking to Patrick... And he was wearing the gray Punk Rock Pinball shirt, new one, so he had just ordered that recently. Thanks, Patrick. And Patrick sent me a note today. He picked up a game on the way home. What'd he get? Hang on, I'll tell you. I told him to post a picture about it, but he picked up an old EM. Okay.
    17:21
    Abracadabra. I can't wait to see it. That leads me to thinking something, but we can finish this train of thought. Oh, well, I was just going to say it was really cool to spend some time with Patrick and he brought his kids. He is kind of on a similar journey as us, but just up in Madison. So he's got the Jaws 50th and a couple other games and his family's having a blast with it. I think he's only done one tournament. There's an awesome scene in Madison, so you got to get plugged into it, Patrick. Yeah, go out there, Patrick, get in the tournaments. There's probably a league. Get in there. You know what I think? This just hit me just as you said that. Yeah.
    18:04
    Because tournaments sound scary. Yeah. Tournaments sound scary. I know. We were scared. I was scared. What if instead of a tournament, you called it a meetup?
    18:17
    Okay. And there's a tournament that happens at the meetup that you can play in or not play. That seems weird. But it's like the monthly meetup, not a tournament. But tournament. But it is. But you just call it a meetup? Because people hear tournament and they're like, oh my gosh, not good enough for a tournament. You probably are. Everybody is. I mean, I play, am I not that good? Yeah, we're not that good. We're not that good and we keep entering ourselves into these tournaments with all of these world ranked players. We don't win. No, there needs to also be a different way. We were talking about this last night. You got this expo tournament, right? There's nearly 260 people in it, all of which have IFPA rankings. International Flipper Pinball Association. Many of these people are in the top 20. Yeah, they're incredible players. So how about, we all can qualify in the same group so those top guys can harvest our points for beating us. Because that's why you need a bunch of players. But why don't you also break it down, because we all have rankings, so why don't you make three different kind of classes so that there are tournaments within the main tournament And that say the C or D or whatever one you call it is anybody ranked like 10,000th and below as an IFPA. I don't know what I'm ranked probably 12,000 or 14. And then you have a middle range where you're ranked anywhere from like, you know, 2,500 or 3,000 to 10,000. And then that's the middle and then like top 2000 and up because anybody in the top 2000 is pretty fucking good. Yeah. Excuse my language. But then you could compete and say like, well, I'm 150th place, but I'm the top of the of the C group, you know? Yeah. And I know they do have the B Finals, which everybody qualified for the B Finals, but there's still people in those B Finals that are in the top.
    20:44
    I think if you're in the top certain part, you can be in the B Finals, but I think you could do three tournaments within that tournament.
    20:52
    And the larger ones, and these larger tournaments. At the big, like at our local Bloomington and Peoria tournaments, there's not enough players, but when you have. Hundreds. Close to 300 people. And if there, if it was set up that way, I bet you would get 300 people. Maybe more. Because there's probably a lot of people of comparable skill to us that are going to be like, I'm not going to get in that. Like, what's the point? Because you're not going to win if you're not one of the top 150 players in the world. You've got no shot. Well, we do. We enter. Yeah. And we have no shot. I know. And we know that. But it would be fun if you had a shot to win your flight. At golf clubs, they call it A flight, B flight, C flight in those tournaments. And I'm not going to beat an A flight guy, but I might win the C flight. Yeah, well, maybe we should talk to somebody. We should talk to somebody. I love that idea. I also love, I met a gal from the Indianapolis Bells and Chimes. I forgot her name, but I took a picture of her name so we could be Facebook friends. I don't know why I did that and not just find her on Facebook. But anyways, she's starting kind of like a skill school. I don't know, she's working on, she's workshopping the names of it. But basically, like, bring in a group of people who are pinball curious, but maybe intimidating. I'm intimidated to jump into a tournament and teach them how to build up their skills and how to focus on a game, on strategy for a game, or just how the game works and the modes and learning one, which I think is really cool. And then they can kind of graduate into going into a tournament. That's great. I think that's awesome. Yeah. There should be more of that. And I think there's there probably should be more content like YouTube content that does that where it's like.
    22:53
    There's there are great videos for people that are good players to learn the ins and outs of like a new machine. Like you can watch Carl DeAngelo stream and rip up a game for 20 billion and he kind of talks through what he's doing.
    23:08
    But that's going to go way over the head of somebody new or you have like Travis Murray does his. Usually like launch tournament kind of quick hit tutorials on a new game. Still way above the head of like a total noob. I feel like I really like his Travis Murry's videos. I feel like still over my head because even on his Jaws launch strategy, which I've probably watched bits and parts of it like 20 times. Sometimes I don't even know what he's talking about. And I played that game thousands of times, literally. But I do enjoy that. But speaking of which, just the skill thing, the Stern Pro Series did a thing on Wednesday night that was maybe the coolest tournament style I have seen. Yeah, did anybody watch that? The Stern Pro Circuit finals? It's on YouTube still. They live-streamed it. It was awesome. So they did challenge-based. Instead of going after who was head-to-head, it wasn't who gets the biggest score. It was timed for an objective who can complete the objective in the shortest amount of time. It was really, really cool. So they had to, it was kind of like chess where they had to start a timer and then turn to the machine and do the objective. And it might, I think like on Kong, it was start the Kong multiball. And so they had to do it and then stop the timer. And it was, well, one, I learned a lot more about the games that we watched. I watched the whole thing. I fell asleep. But it was really, really cool. Yeah, because the whole thing is like 10 hours long or something. Was it really? It's eight or 10 hours long. Oh my gosh. Because it was head-to-head matches. And these are like the top players in the world. And it was the best out of 11. So you had to win six objectives. And one of the matches we watched was, I think the kid's name is Neil Graf. Mm-hmm. Tom Graf's son was against Keith Elwin. Mm-hmm. And I think the kid beat him. Pretty sure the kid beat him. Or maybe Keith beat him. It was neck and neck. It was like five to five and I might have fallen asleep on the deciding But the kid was beating Elwin on some King Kong objectives It was just like how cool would that feel Yeah Just beat the guy that like designed the game So awesome. It was, it was really, really fun to watch because I think part of it was, it was one objective. So you're focused in learning how they're doing their strategy to get that objective. And you're not watching a 45 minute game, like ball, someone playing a ball for 45 minutes. It was just, I liked the speed of it. I liked learning about the games a little bit better and seeing how these guys were approaching because it was like one to two minutes per ball. Yeah. Some of those objectives, like Metallica, it was like, get the Sparky multiple. And one guy did that in like 19 seconds. Oh my God. So then you're watching and it's exciting because this other player comes up and he's got to beat 19 seconds. So it's kind of riveting because when you watch the top players go head-to-head on a regular game, they're doing stuff. And I understand most of these games to a degree, but I get lost with what they're trying to do. And it's way easier for a mid-level or a novice to be like, oh, they're playing John Wick. They have to get the car multiball. And then it was Jack Danger was hosting and what's the... Elizabeth Gieske. Elizabeth, who works at Stern.
    26:39
    They'll tell you what they're trying to do. So they have to hit the spinner to qualify it and then they have to hit the car like four times and hit the spinner again. So you know exactly what they're trying to shoot. You're watching how they work to manipulate the flippers to get the ball where they need it to be. I think it's way more compelling entertainment than just watching two guys shoot four billion on a game. Which is interesting anyways, but as a newbie, yeah, definitely like the pace is good. Yeah. You're learning stuff. So that's fun. Yeah, I think that might be the ticket, like the answer to how do you make pinball like entertaining to watch, like a pinball competition. Mm-hmm. Because otherwise the game is so long and like if you're just watching you don't know the rules of the game you don't know what they're doing like they're making shots you know when they're just going for a big score. Yeah. So there was a whole bank of games that they did these on so definitely maybe if I remember I'll put a link to it in the description. Mental note I don't know if I'll retain that mental note but I'll try to put a link to that YouTube thing because it was definitely worth it. And if there's a game that you like, you can kind of, you know, fast forward through the video and find a game or a guy that you like. Yeah, that was, yeah, it was super fun to watch. I'll probably watch more of it tonight because we didn't watch it all. No, we didn't. What was your favorite part?
    28:07
    Hmm. I mean, I really did. I enjoyed that. Like the most fun moment was probably when we played the Monster League hockey for me. Like that was just really fun. I would want one of those. I had a lot of fun at the tournament. I did enjoy my two balls on the Winchester Mystery House. The third ball, I let the guys that we were playing with, I let their buddy play. And he did way better than me. Well, I think you had a lot of stuff set up. I think we all had a lot of stuff set up because we ended up... He cashed in. He cashed in on your work. But I think I won. Good job. I have to double check that. I didn't have much of a score going. And then you showed me the scores like, oh, yeah, he did pretty good. I like seeing all the people. I like to see all the people. We met some other. We met Josh from Josh or Joshua from Loser Kid. Yeah, really nice guy. So nice. And we met Joel and Jared from the Flippin' Out stream guys. They're tall and big. Like intimidating. Because I'm about six feet tall. And like they towered over me. They're imposing figures. But very nice. Very nice guys. But I looked at them like, holy cow, you guys are big. Yeah. I was like, you guys are tall. And they're like, yeah, we are. But they're really nice. So they're from the Indianapolis area. So maybe we might be able to meet up with them sometime. That'd be real cool. I proposed to them and to Loserkid that we do some sort of challenge, like a streaming challenge of sorts. I put this out there to them. And I'm putting it out there now. Like, for Joel and Jared, like, pick a game we both have. And like me and Steph stream it for an hour, we see how high of a score we can shoot. And then Joel and Jared have to then would Play theirs for an hour and try to beat that score. Maybe flip a coin to see who has to go first. Against Jill and Jared, I'm pretty confident we would win. I'm pretty sure we would beat you guys if we do this. Now, with Loserkid, we're going to have to find him a partner. I can't. What's this guy on his podcast? His name, the other guy on the Loserkid podcast. I'm sorry. I don't remember. So it's with a C. Because Josh from Loserkid is too good. He's very good. Because I feel like we could combine our scores and not beat him. So maybe he gets one ball. So Josh, me and Steph will combine our scores, you get one ball on Jaws and see if you can beat our scores in one ball. He probably could. But Joel and Jared, I think we could beat you. Oh, all right. Challenge. It's out there. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. I think if it's a best of five, I think we win three. Okay. Yeah. Well... You pick the game. Doesn't matter. We also talked about maybe doing like a streaming thing, meeting up somewhere, location TBD, and maybe doing like a joint streaming thing. That could be the, that could be probably the easiest way. Mm-hmm. Because our rig's pretty little. Yeah. Like, it's just little cameras and I just plug it into a laptop. Throw it in the back of the car. Just throw it in the back of the truck and... God, I keep bunking this. Throw it in the back of the truck and go. Mm-hmm. I'm not guaranteeing victory against those guys, but if I'm playing on my game versus them playing on theirs, I think we'll beat them. Even on location, I think we'll beat them. All right. That stresses me out. It stresses me out, too. This is to try to instigate them to be like, oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well... Because I think we can hang with them. I think we'll win. Josh, we got to figure out some way, because Loser Kids seem pretty into the idea, but we got to find some way to handicap him. Okay. Because he's too good. Okay. Or we could just do it and he could kick our ass and that's fine. I mean, that's fine, but I think he would like a challenge. Yeah. There's got to be a way to make it challenging.
    32:22
    Because I looked at, Josh and I were comparing like average scores on Insider Connected. His are much, much higher. Well. Much higher. That's okay. But maybe, I don't know, maybe the pressure of competition gets to him? Yeah, maybe. I'm not sure. But his average scores are much higher than ours. Well, that's okay, because it just takes one ball. It just takes one ball. Because it would suck to be like, yeah, we're going to stream for an hour and establish a score, and Josh is going to stream for an hour and try to beat it, and he beats it in 15 minutes. Then what? Then what do you do? And he's going to shoot some score that we're not going to be able to catch. Unless we could bring in a ringer or something. But then it's, so a 3v3? No, but if it's like, maybe we stream and maybe we have like Joe Sharp as part of our stream. Got it. And it's whoever shoots the highest and then Josh would have to try to beat like Joe's score. Well, loser kid, let us know what you think. Yeah. How do you want to do it? Because you're better than us. Flipping out boys, let us know what you think. I think. Yeah. We'll beat you guys. We're not beating Josh. You might be taller than us. Yeah. I wanted to challenge- You might be younger than us. I wanted to challenge like Ralph and Rudy too because we'd beat them as well. Yeah. Like Retro Ralph and Rudy, like pick a game. Well, they were- Ralph was floating around. We didn't get a chance to connect up with him. I saw him across the way and I was talking to someone else, but- I was talking with Jamie from the podcast that he does with Ralph. Ralph and Kale. I forgot what it's called. The Pinball Roundtable or something like that. Something like that. But Jamie was super duper nice. I had a good time chatting with him for quite a while. And Ralph was over there, but then we all just, I don't know, I think you were jamming on your games when I was eating ice cream with everybody. Yeah, you were doing ice cream. I had to do that King Kong and I wanted to thank this fella, Gable Sylvian. Oh, this is the guy? Yeah, because I saw his wife and I said, what's your husband's name? Because the cutoff to play your last qualifying game was like midnight on whatever night, Thursday. If you weren't on the game by midnight, it's done. And I only had 10 of 11 games played. And I'm just standing there waiting. And this fellow walks up to me and he knew my name. Introduce himself and he's like, you're in queue for Kong. I'm like, yeah, he's like, I'm in front of you. I'm going to take myself out of the queue so you can get in. I mean, how nice is that? I'd never met him. So thank you very much, Gable, if you watch the show. King Kong was my highest point total game for qualifying, which meant that in the B's, I was the top seed in both of my matches in the B. I lost both. But it gave me the edge. It should have given me an edge. I failed. I'm sorry, Gable, that I failed to convert. That was super nice. Did he play in the finals too? I think he was in the B. His wife might have been in the A. She's a good player. She was on Kong before me. Okay. I'm not sure where she finished, but thank you, Gable. I didn't even know him. I didn't ask anybody to get out of the queue. I was just standing there. He was just like a guardian angel? Yeah. And he's like, yeah, my wife's more into this. She's a better player. And I think he had already had played all 11 games. So I really I needed that to like I think I gained like 11 spots on that Kong score. Well, I have to say, pinball people are really good people. They are. Because like just random people. I was playing one of my matches in B. Just some random dude sitting kind of watching. I was getting smoked on Deadpool going into ball three and my competitor's playing and this guy's sitting there and looks at me and he's like, do you know how to play this? I'm like, not really. He's like, here's what you want to do. He's like, you want to do this, this, this, and this. And then I went up and did that. I still lost the game, but I shot like 115 million points on that ball and it was like this close. And that's cool. It's just some random dude telling me like, oh, well, you've got like that lit and that lit, so you need to hit like these shots to do this thing. I don't even remember what it was, but just because he's, he must have watched me and thought, he doesn't know how to play this game.
    37:06
    He probably saw what I was doing, I was like, I don't think he knows how to play this. He's just playing like a monkey. Yeah, so he told me how to play it. That's pretty awesome. And then like Luke Pierowski, like I was about to be up on the old Star Wars and Luke told me all what to do on that. I did not execute, but Luke gave me a plan. I went in with the plan. Yeah, Luke and his dad Jim gave me a plan on Deadpool, which I think I kind of came back and did okay on. I was not, yeah, and yours was on Deadpool too that the guy gave you? Yeah, we need to play that a little bit more. I don't know if you want to get a Deadpool. You know, Joe Sharp, I know you're kind of done with it. You should just send it over. We trade something What do you want for Deadpool Joe Yeah But I think I really like the Luke Pierowski tutorials Because he keeps it simple We should have Luke come and stream with us. Luke, will you come stream with us? Because the Luke, I find I ingest a Luke tutorial better than any of the good players that we know. Like the Luke tutorial is the best one. He breaks it down. It's probably because his five-year-old son, he has to explain it to his five-year-old son, who is a really good player. So that's probably why. He explains it to a five-year-old, which is kind of how our brains work. Yeah, Luke, we need you. Oh, this is a funny story that just hit me from, I was in the bathroom washing my hands and Champagne Luke, how do you say his last name? She-Han. She-Han or something. He was in there with his son who's probably, I don't know, six or seven or eight. Yeah, he's cute. And I was washing my hands, I'm like, you still in? He's like, I'm out. And I'm like, me too. And I'm like, yeah, it's a tough crowd. And I hear them walking out and his little boy goes, yeah, there's lots of good guys here. I just hear him saying that as they're walking out the door. There's lots of good guys. Mm-hmm. But he's a good little player too. Oh, is he? Yeah. I didn't see him play when we were in Champaign. Yeah, I've seen him play a couple games. He's good. And Luke Pierowski's little dude is good. Mm-hmm. So that is probably why Luke is good because he explains it to me like he would his five-year-old. Well, I bet Champagne Luke is also good at explaining because he's probably do it for his son, too. Maybe we can get Luke and Luke over and like learning with the Lukes. Learning with the Lukes stream. I mean, yeah. And then they can teach us how to play all these games that we own. That would be great. Because they're both really good. Very, like exceptional players. Uh-huh. And they both have small children. They can explain the games to us as though we're their small children. I love this idea. Explain it to me like I'm your five-year-old son. Yeah, it was cool. It was fun. Oh, and we, yeah, it was just really cool to like meet and chat a bunch of people too. And I was running around putting our punk rock pinball magnets on the machines. We don't have any over here. No. And who was it that said?
    40:22
    Oh, was it? Sleigh Maker. Yeah. David Sleigh Maker. He said he heard somebody say, these punk rock pinball people, they're putting stickers on everything. And he just walked up. He's so dry, like dry. And it was like, it's a magnet.
    40:40
    So that just fueled me to do it more. Yeah, we didn't put stickers on any games. No, we put magnets. They're magnets. Chill out. Sleigh Maker got, um, his picture was on, uh, like the Kineticist. Oh! Where it's like, area pinball player, like, shreds Winchester Mystery House. Didn't say shreds, but something along those lines. And it was Sleigh Maker sitting there playing the game with Carl DeAngelo watching. Yeah, and somebody, one of his friends commented, like, this is awesome. He is now area guy, or area man. Area guy. Oh my god. Sleigh's the Winchester Mystery House. Yeah, lots of laughs. I can't wait to do it again next year. Now that we have one expo under the belt, what would you do different next year? I think the thing is next year we'd get a table. And I'm not talking about pinball tables. I'm talking about tables. I think we'll get a table. There was so much of our merch there.
    41:45
    And there was also such a lack of merchandise vendors. Yes, there was like a lot of AI bullshit. There are some people with shirts with like a bunch of AI designs. Like I'm not into that, man. No. Not into it. You can keep it. Like I want designs by humans. Mm-hmm. So if I walked by and like stickers and buttons and shirts with like AI shit, like no. I just walk right back. I walk right past. Right past. Yeah. So I think we get a table, Punk Rock Pinball and Anxious and Angry. We have a nice line of Punk Rock Pinball merch there and we can have some Anxious and Angry stuff with like some Off With Their Heads and Naked Ray Gun and Dillinger 4 and Smoking Popes and Sincere Engineer merch there. Mm hmm. I think there would be a market for that because there's nobody selling cool merch there. No, there was no... Like, Jersey Jack and Stern had their stuff, which is cool. But then outside of them, there was like, nobody with like, cool shirts. I wanted to... Just a bunch of AI junk. Well, I mean, I think I said it on the last episode. Whoa, what was that? Uncanny X-Men has been like, rebooting itself once in a while. Jack Danger, what is up? Jack Danger, Mark the Knife, what's the deal with that? Anybody know? Huh, that's weird. Yeah, go ahead. Well, you know I wanted to spend some money there and it was like a little hard for me to find things that I was like, that is cool. I mean, I found some cool stuff. But I thought there was going to be more cool stuff where it was going to be like hard decisions, like decisions were going to have to be made. Yeah, because in terms of stuff that's not like pinball parts, right? The two folks you bought this stuff from, those are like just the best by far and there were very few in the three. Like real, like real art. Like I feel like real artists doing things like taking like a vault like this. The guy with the shadow boxes didn't want to call himself an artist, but like there's an art to doing what he did. Yes. And well, and this guy, he I mean, he does he does pinball art like on play fields. And he just had some really cool interpretations of like old ones. And then this guy, I'm pretty sure he is the guy who actually did the art. I could be wrong, so maybe I'm starting a rumor here, but the guy who did this, Albright, I think he's the guy who did the front apron of the Winchester Mystery House. Hmm. Because he had like cool buttons. He had a little button that was the little Ouija thing. The oracle. Or whatever, planchette. I don't know what you call it. I think it's called a planchette. I don't screw with Ouija boards, so. No, we don't do that. No way. Creepy man. So I think he did that, but he was a talented person too, but most of it was just kind of like... There was a lot, like on the outskirts, anybody that had, not anybody, but a lot of people that had like shirts and stuff. It's just AI junk. Like, not my deal. I don't like it. I don't care for it. I don't want it. Maybe the Texas Pinball Festival. I feel like they probably have cool stuff. That one's way bigger, I think, than Expo. Yeah. I thought there would be more... I didn't see a lot of cool art blade-y things. Nope. I thought there'd be more art blades to get. I mean, there were a couple people selling art blades, but it didn't scratch the itch for me. The Mezzel Mod stuff is cool. They were there, so that's why I bought the Wick thing. I'm like, I'll buy that. Yeah. I think a lot of it's 3D printed, but most mod things are 3D printed. But yeah, so next year, that's what you would do different? We'll have a table. And also, because if you've got like a bag or something, there's nowhere to put your bag. We have a table there. I can just put my bag by our table. And I have a little cooler with some Cokes. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So I want to sit down. Yeah. And I would go a day earlier so I could start getting my qualifying games in on Wednesday. Well, we would have to- If you want to play a main tournament, you've got to start earlier to get all your games in. Well, if you want to have a booth at the Expo, you've got to be there a day early to set up. Yeah. So we'll be there a day early. Because, yeah, I thought we could just go Thursday and it'd be fine, but the queues were so long I didn't get to get all my games in. All right. I could have qualified in 189th instead of 194th, you know. Yeah, you could have just moved up a couple spots. A couple spots. Because I had to roll with the frickin' 4.4 million Metallica score in there. Just burned. On my deal, 4.4 million on Metallica. Mike, you're better than that. And like 30 million on Bond. That's awful. That's worse than 4 million on Metallica in a way. Sort of, for me. Yeah, playing Bond, it really made me miss it. Bond is great. I miss Bond. And I foolishly chose it as my final match in my last head-to-head one. And after, like, in my previous match, I just smoked a dude on Mandalorian.
    47:23
    And then I'm tied one to one in my second deal. Mando's there open. I'm like, yeah, let's go to Bond, even though I had played twice on that Bond and sucked.
    47:35
    And then I sucked yet again. I should have just, I was in the groove on Mando. Should have just chose that, beat that guy on Mando. Wow. And then I would still be in the tournament right now. You'd still be going. I am just tired. I'm really tired. I think what I would do differently next year is I would make sure we get a hotel room at the place. Yeah. Not that like, I mean, we were like seven minutes away, but it would just be nice to like be able to walk to your room, take a nap if you want. Yeah, to be able, if you could just go up in the middle of the day to take a nap, like I'm gonna go up and lay down for an hour. That would have been helpful. Yeah. So that, that would be my one thing I would do different. Get the room at the Renaissance. Is that what it is? I think so. Yeah. Something like that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I would also get the sandwich at Rosie's a second day. That's a good sandwich. Yeah. Rosie's, what's it called? It's over in Schaumburg, Illinois. I mean, it's called Rosie's Lunchbox or something. It's this weird sandwich place in a office building, like a little mid-rise office building on the other side of Gulf Road from the mall, from Interium. If you ever go to Interium, go grab a sandwich at Rosie's because they are amazing. Really good. Rosie's Sidekick Sandwich Shop. So good. Just in an office building, but you can go in there. You don't have to work in one of the offices. Really delicious sandwiches. Yeah, I had a prosciutto burrata and sun-dried tomato with this balsamic glaze on it. I mean, I'm dreaming about it. Real good. I bought all this stuff so I could make it. That's why I have that little French bread up there. Okay. Yeah, really good bread there. So I don't think we need to do it like a dream theme today and all that. No. We'll do that next time. Yeah. Do that next time. Yeah. This is a big one. And then we got to get this wrapped up and I got to mix it so you can edit it and get it out tomorrow. Yeah, because we missed a week. Yeah. Sorry we missed last week. I was traveling for work. Yeah. And then I came home and we left for Schaumburg. It was a busy week. I think that's why we're so tired. Yeah, it was a big week.
    49:59
    But I'd do it all again, but we'll have a table next time. Do it all again with a table. Anyways, thank you guys all for listening. Thank you all for participating in the Facebook group. And I feel like we're a little low energy today. That's just fine. All right. I think it was fine. We'll punch it up a notch for the next one. Yeah. Well, I think it was fine anyway. All right. Yeah. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Toodaloo. Bye.