Hello, I'm Crystal Gownick. I'm here with Jeff Teolis at Chicago Pinball Expo. Jeff, how are you today? I'm great, Crystal. It's always good to see you. Yes, you as well. So, what have you played today? A lot of classics games in the tournament, but I mean, when you come to Expo, there are so many games. I'm in love with all the homebrew games and, of course, all the new games that we're seeing here. The great vendors like Marco's Specialties and, I mean, it's just such an incredible place. I'm not surprised, 35 years strong and getting better every single year. Are you still playing right now? Still playing some classics. The playoffs are tomorrow, but it's a big grind. It's three days of qualifying, but it's certainly a lot of fun. Trent and the whole team here do a great job with the tournament, and Fred Richardson's done a bang-up job as well. Terrific, yep. Any favorites in the banks that you've been playing? Well, Future Spa is there. It's a big wide body, I mean a real super wide body. I haven't played that much, but it seems to be kind of fun. there are three inlanes on the left hand side that's incredible but you have to hit a gate over so it's a very difficult game but uh car hops a game i never get to play that's fun too again this place is the place to see games absolutely and have you spent any time anywhere else in the hall gone to see homebrews or anything like that yeah again the homebrews my buddy mark in city did a great game called nightmare before christmas based on the tim burton movie and of course uh Ghost in the Shell, Ed Owens did a great game. It's so neat to see some people. There's a great one from Michigan, too, about Detroit-themed pinball. But it's amazing to see all these people just get these creative ideas. And who knows? Maybe they'll be mass-manufactured someday. I hope so. Well, thanks very much. I appreciate you coming on. And Emoto and everybody at Marco, love what you're doing. Keep up the great work. Thanks for talking to us. Okay, thanks. Oh, we're back. Here we are. I thought we were done. I was just going to get something neat. But, I mean, when... So this room is different. I mean, the tournament used to be out in the hallway, and every day around 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, the sun would hit, and you couldn't see the machines. So the fact that they moved the games here is absolutely brilliant, and it's a lot more spacious, too, in that sense. But, I mean, the setup here with Elvira and the new game there with the House of Horrors, that was a great display area and a big stern party afterwards. And then all the new games here. I mean, I don't think I've seen every room here because there are so much. They take up every aspect of the Weston, and they're doing a great job. So I like the layout. Marco's got a nice setup right over there and the big screens everywhere. So everyone kind of knows what's going on. No matter where you look, you can see all the action. Did you get to meet Cassandra Peterson? Very briefly, yeah. I went to watch the seminar when they were talking about Elvira and the game and the five-year history of making that game, not to mention that it's the third title. and then she got inducted into the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame. So, I mean, well-deserved for Cassandra Peterson. And did you get to spend some time on the game? I played a few times. They have so many. I think I've counted about 20 games here, which is pretty incredible. 32, Emoto tells me. 32 games here for the new Elvira game. First time I've ever played it. It shoots very, very well. I'm extremely excited that Lyman Sheets is doing the code because whenever he does, it's magic. and the games are good. I think it's going to be a big seller for Stern. And it's great to see Greg Freres back again. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are so many great artists in the industry, but when it comes to Elvira, it had to be Greg. Yep. Okay, we're going to check in with the commentators now. My name is Dalton Neely. If they updated the brackets. Hi, I'm Elisa Parks. And to my right is... David Ryle from Pittsburgh. And we are waiting on the new camera for the new game. So we got Colin Urban and Escher Lufkoff playing in the winners' bracket in the four rounds. Two young guns. Let's do it. Let's do those guys. Alec has Marzek is waiting on the game between Kaylee and Elwin, right? And here we go. Looks like we're going to have some Beatles action. Fantastic. And that is not who's playing Beatles right now. So, DJ, this is recreating your game that you recently played. Yeah, I know that dude. Yeah, let's see. So we have Jared. So there was a great flip frenzy. Jared against Brian. Okay, so now we're. Here we go. All right. Here we go. No stopping Brian. He's straight on to the next one. DJ, isn't this the game that you and I played at the Pinball Profile World Tour? The flip frenzy? Yeah. Yeah, it's very possible you played me because I played it seven times. It was chosen seven times for me. Yeah, I think you played this. Interesting. A startling number of Beatles games. So, let's see. Where are we at here? Oh, boy, that's a big nudge. Oh. Ugh. We got lame, but. You know, you feel good when you make that save when it goes out. You're like, oh, come on, game. I made an incredible save. And I think he made the 100,000-point skill shot. Okay, so. Skill shots on the Beatles. 244. There's this skill shot, which I think is about 10,000, 5,000 points. Which skill shot? Nobody can see us point. We plunge, short plunge here. Short plunge. And the ball rolls over that little circle right there. Or you can plunge up here. Plunge up here. And from this flipper, hit the loop. That will be, I think, 20,000, 25,000 points. There's also a third skill shot, and it's pretty difficult, but it is so worth it at 100,000 points where you plunge the ball right up here. What's here? And right into the pop bumpers. Uh-huh. Without magnet help, right? Without that magnet help. That is a 100,000-point skill shot, and I believe he got it. And which mode do you like to start with? tournament wise it wouldn't be bad to go with it won't be long which is the pop bumpers because all the loop shots you hit from here or there left or right it will be stopped by this center magnet up top and drop into the pop bumper so you can get some pop bumper love I like that motor hello DJ from DJ the loop frenzy is also pretty good yeah I think the pop bumper is usually the the popular strategy just because you have a little bit of extra control with it. Yeah. And also at the end of each mode when it times out, this little area behind the fab targets will be blinking for a super jackpot collect. When you drop them targets, you shoot the ball behind it and hit the target. And is that value set or does that increase? It depends on, I think, how well you do during the mode, I think. I heard it's the point value that you collected during your mode. Oh, wow. We're going right into the multiball. Okay. Prancing. Yeah. Wow. How about that? After you complete a mode, you have to drop the fab and four targets. So difficult to do. To light your next mode. And, wow, it is great for him that he got his next mode was All My Lovin', which starts out as a two-ball multiball. So the way that this game is set up, you could – Actually, I didn't play this one. So could you select it for Evolve 3? Would it allow that automatically, or did they change the settings on it? Once you get it, I believe it's done. Yeah, so by default, it'll allow you to choose that multiball mode. But you can change it in tournament settings. Can you stage the flipper? Yes, you can. Whoa. Yeah, it is possible to stage the flippers, but, of course, it's going to be pretty difficult. Well, interestingly enough, the one that we played on Wednesday, it was backwards, so you couldn't stage. Oh yeah, it'd be the upper flipper first. Wow There a 200 point jackpot The jackpot is lit when you amass a certain amount of switch hits as denoted by this switch hits remaining And he has 19 more So another thing that he could do is get that mystery lit for that addable. I don't think he's collected that yet. I think he doesn't already have that. Oh, did he get it? Yeah, he already had that. Okay. Okay, he's got the jackpot lit. The jackpot is lit up top at the center magnet. you have to hit either loop. Either loop will do it. It can be left or the right. And boom, there it is. How much? Nice shot there. 250,000 points. That is no small number. Oh, wow, look at that. Okay. Very active sling for sure. There's an extra ball in lane award. What does that give you on tournament settings? Tournament settings? Yeah, instead of extra ball in tournament settings, I think it's 100,000. Okay. If I'm not mistaken, it'd probably be more or less. So definitely something that's nice to collect on this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, 400's a lot of points. All right, there's the skill shot, 25,000. And he is looping out. He is in the drive my car is all about the loops. Don't worry, that one's coming back. Obviously he chose the right one because he is crushing some loops. Two. He's already the level four of the mode. Bam. And boom, he just completed it by getting to level five and collected the gold record for that mode. Nice. That was some impressive loop shooting. Oh, he isn't done yet. No, he's going to loop away. There's two dangers. That spinning disc will get you. Yeah, that spinning disc, that start spinning or whenever you hit that four target, when you hit the four targets, that magnet goes berserk and is very, very unpredictable. So what he's doing here is he's collecting letters for Beatlemania. So why would he want to do that? Beatlemania, I believe, is similar to a mystery award, but I think those awards are a lot better than the conventional mystery awards. Uh-huh. and he's got the super jackpot light lit behind the fab targets the targets are down what's happening Berg boogie well that was some impressive loop shooting I tell you what that was that That was some awesome loop shooting from that. And so, depending on the settings, he could still have that multiball ready to go for ball three. Yeah. Okay, let's see what... So, Brian, at this point, he's going to have to chop some wood. Brian has started two modes, as you can tell by the single flashing records or modes he's already started. The highest flashing one is the one he just chose. and it looks like it is ticket to ride, which is a spinner-based mode. You can either hit, there's a spinner here, and there's one right here. Great demonstration, Brian. Yeah, I generally like to do the spinner mode on this. Yes. The spinner's usually very nice. You can kind of get through it pretty quick. looping that loop also spins the spinner which helps true mass some points and Wow he in a blink of an eye he's already completed the mode all five levels whoo that was close Oh and was that off the disc I think this caught it and shot it down didn't it that disc is not I mean you can ask just about anybody's hey what is the The worst part about Beatles, they're going to say, that dadgum disc. It's like the fireball. Yep. Oh, man. Well, that fireball one. Yeah, you think fireball, you think whirlwind, you think twister, a spinny disc in the middle of the play field, and, of course, you got the Beatles. And it does look like Jared has the option to select the all-my-loving multiball. Well, you know he'll definitely be going that way. Of course he's going to go for that. multiball. There we go. Got the loop skill shot. 50,000 points. So basically, once you're in here, you need to hit a certain number of switches to light that jackpot. Spinner is the quickest way to go. And boom. Oh, that didn't register. Oh, and he did the add-a-ball already. He hit the add-a-ball and it didn't register. Oh, that one registered. Yeah, just a little slow because of all the stuff that happened at one time. And also, during multiball, it's also double scoring. It is double scoring during multiball, too. so that's nothing to sneeze at. Oh, what a shot that was. All right, he's got his jackpot lit for $250,000 if he loops it up to the top. Oof. Oh, boy. One more shot. Did he get it in time? Yes, he did. Grace period, quarter mil. Wow. Great shot on Jared's part. And you notice that he actually paused for a second and made sure he had his shot lined up and took it. Okay. A lot of people will just take that right away trying to get that. They take a bad shot, hit that post. Let's take a breather. All right, he completed the Fab Four targets, and he's got another mode lit up at the top. He's also trying to get that. Oh. He thought it was going to bounce to the other clipper. Yeah, yeah. He was trying to go for that Super Jack. I think he wanted that for sure. Behind those Fab targets, of course. I would have been going for that too. That would have probably been about, that would have been a huge, it would have probably been at least almost a million points if he would have hit that. All right. Well, 600,000 is not an easy thing to get. And Brian's already used his multiball, so Jared can fall back on that. Brian is not going to enter this ball three with his multiball because he already used it. It looks like it's flashing on the left. Nice. He hit the 100,000-point skill shot. He hit the 100,000-point skill shot. But it looks like he's going to drive a car. And just about a 400,000 point differential between the scores at this moment. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh. What a run, though, at the beginning there. We're on the edge of our seat to see who. Yeah. But that was some impressive loot shooting for the both of them. Not enough work there to make the multipliers give you anything there. What was the final score? Jared took that one. Jared took that one. Pretty close. It was about 3.9 million to 3.6, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. All right, so we're on Star Wars. Oh, boy. This is an interesting pick. This Star Wars, although it is pretty fair, pretty level playing. Yeah, I felt like it was pretty fair. I think they took the ball save off now. Oh, now it ain't fair. Now it ain't fair. Without that ball save. I mean, Star Wars has the notoriety of draining immediately on the plunge from bad ricochets. It's the only bad design on this game. Otherwise, there's just so much to do on this game. It's so much fun. Yeah. Awesome. And Brian is in the Hawk multiball. What he wants to do. Yeah, he started as Han, right? Hey, yes, his character is Han. Han's a good character to go with because for three planets, Han only needs one mission to complete to light that multiball. Yep. And you get to start with a Hoth multiball pretty quick. All you got to do is do the video mode. Hyperspace hurry up is lit at the rapid flashing yellow arrow It a great one to pick if you trying to get a feel There his hyperspace 87 million points for that hyperspace hurry up That was also a multiplied shot One thing you can see is whether he has an addable on the back or not Alright, there's his TIE fighter and now he's just going to tap that button really, really fast. That's also very tricky to maintain control while you're pressing the O. While you're pressing that button. Okay, see it already uses that as well. Yeah, but a lot of the points on Star Wars revolves around the shot multiplier arrows, which are those three green arrows right in the middle of the play field. And you build up, you can actually build up the value. See, it starts out as 2x, but when you hit this three bank of targets right here, it bumps it up one. And when you amass a certain value, the number of arrows decreases to two, and eventually you only have just one multiply shot arrow. And I think on tournament they made the maximum multiplier, base multiplier at 10. Okay. And the double multiplier doubler from completing the force targets four times will make it 20x. Yep. And you better make sure that you use all of that because the next time you start your ball, you're going to be stuck in the fight invader mode. He's got Tatooine multiball. Here we go. But during any multiball, I believe, during the plan, if you spell the force targets, hit the force targets five times, not the whole bank, just five times any time, the action button will be blinking orange, and that means your add-a-ball is ready. If it's blinking orange, you have an add-a-ball, and you hold the action button down, but he just used it, and he's got an add-a-ball. and that will be three of them coming at him. That's a good tip. I didn't know that one. Yeah, I don't think a lot of people recognized or knew about that. I didn't. I believe in the instant info. You can hold the flipper for the instant info, and it will show you like a little key of what colors the action button is and what each color does. And when it's blinking orange, it will say add a ball during multiball. Alright, he's got an extra ball of wood. Oh, he backhands the right ramp for the hyperspace chance. So what would you go for now? Definitely the hyperspace. What's his multiplier at? It's back down to 2. Ah, okay. Yeah, it is. Still a decent value, but man. You could see if he had that 10x on there. The action button also toggles the multiplier arrows on and off, and while they're off, you can move them with the flipper buttons anywhere you want. However, there's a timer on those shot X arrows when the multiplier's about to run out, and you want to keep that time alive by hitting that TIE Fighter 3 bank. and yeah that's really crucial on this game that you continue to keep those multipliers up especially when you have something big coming up and Jared's stepping up thinking about going with Han yeah see this is it the comment about so much work with 365 that's the problem with going with Han you get some easy multi balls but they are some choppy wood multi balls I think indoor is probably the easiest to play planet multiball. And there's his hurry up. Now he's just blasting away at the tight fire. He's rapidly hitting that button. Yeah, but indoor is probably the hardest mode to complete out of the multiballs or out of the indoors. You have to hit the four main shots. You have to hit both ramps and both inner loops behind that left ramp. And after you do it the first time, you gotta do it again. You gotta do it again. You gotta do it again. And during the indoor multiball, the Battle of the Indoor, there's only three shots you have to make to light the final shot at the Death Star. It's just the left ramp, the right ramp, and the right inner loop. However, there is a time limit on that that you need to watch out for, but you can build it up with a three bank of, a TIE fighter three bank. bank. There's Jared, who's leaving the building. It's like, well, you know what, maybe I'm trying to take a break and not watch this for the moment. How old is Jared? How old is Jared? I believe he's 16. 16, wow. There's a lot of young competition in this tournament that is exceptionally well. It's pretty cool. We have Alexander Kashmarshik, we have Escher Lefkoff, Colin Urban, Jared, Zachary Parks, and Zachary Parks. And we've got the video mode going on. And let's see how much that is. 44 million. That is not a bad video mode. However, I've had many times I've played Star Wars, I've had a 40X video mode. and it's just such a satisfying feeling when you get through that video mode with a 40x and seeing it at astronomical numbers. I believe it was second level video mode with a 40x. I completed it perfect. It was almost 1.1 billion. That's insane. Anna Neal had an amazing multiplier in her video mode last night to win. Oh, boy. Now, these tournament games are set to maxing at 10x, double the 20x. Yeah. Which you could still do quite a nice video mode. You could still blow it up. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anyone actually complete it without hitting an asteroid, ever. It's pretty difficult, but the action button during the video mode activates the hyperspace, which speeds up the Millennium Falcon and also makes the turns quicker too. That's also something to look out for when you're in the video mode. Mm-hmm. So where are we at here? Is this ball two or ball three? That is hard for me to tell. I want to say this is ball three. So he's short plunging. Would you do that too? Yeah. Especially with the ball saver off. Oh, boy. That's a big move. Only one danger from that big move. Wow. A D-mouse. All right. It looks like we're going to Hoth. And for Han, it's the video mode, which is some safe points. And here we go. Ducking, dodging, bobbing, and weaving. Look at that, Astro. Street, street, street. Oh. Video modes are a nice little break from the action. It's sometimes... It's fine. And I like the fact that it's not, there's no pattern to it. Oh, yeah, it's all random. That Astro feel is all random. But there have been some very fun video modes in Pinball Machine, like the Indy 500 video mode driving through the track. That's a fun one. The high-speed to the getaway where you're dodging in the way of cars. Yep. Ghostbusters, of course. Ghostbusters. Fun video modes. Don't cross the streams. And probably one of the best ones I've ever seen is the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Oh, yeah. Where you beat the guy up. It's always fun. And at the end, if you do actually complete, this is a fun fact, if you do complete the Creature from the Black Lagoon video mode when it says knockout if you keep hitting the flipper buttons you knock his head clean off like Mortal Kombat style It super hilarious I don know if there any bonus points to it but you get the satisfaction Oh, wow, he backhands that hyperspace hurdy-gurdy. But what's nice about that is... That wasn't a bad Hoth multiball. Oh, there's TIE Fighter, okay. We're going to TIE Fighter multiball now. So during TIE Fighter multiball, all shots are lit for red for jackpots. He didn't want to start that yet though. He really wanted to take a modem with that so he could clear it out. Yeah, of course. Modes with multi-balls is the way to go, but... But at the same time, you know, it's not a hugely critical mode, but if you're looking at... Where is he at? 180? I mean you could kind of grind a little bit out, nah. It would be pretty tough. You had the 10x going so. Oh wow, he just, he needs to move that multiplier over to the video mode. There we go. Boom. Alright, let's see what we can do here. 10x video mode coming your way. Let's do this. Oh! Ow. He turned a little light. A little light. Ow. Go to the side. It don't matter how many times he gets hits, it just slows you down. There's no way he can blow up. Just keep going. Press that blue button. Go all the way over. Press it, press it, press it. Go all the way over. Thank you. Speed it up, speed it up. There we go. There you go. Nice and smoothly through the asteroids. 99. Look at that. That's nice. All that asteroid hits and he got almost 100 million in video mode. Yeah, that 10x going. That 10x. Multiply arrows. He's still got a lot of ground to do here. But is this ball three or is this ball two? I'm having a hard time reading that. This is ball two. It is ball two. Okay. Yep. Well, then. Nice and easy. Four shots times two. See, I tell you, one of the things I liked about the Star Wars was the fact that that hyperspace loop did not seem dangerous. It always seemed nice and clean. In some of these games... Here comes another hyperspace carry-up. I think if he hits this hyperspace area, he'll have the hyperspace multi-fall. Nice backhand. No. Oh, they had another one earlier. He might not have, or maybe tournament settings. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Let it breathe, buddy. Let it breathe. I think that's number two. Nice. Nice. I like that. All right. Now he needs four more green arrows. There's one. There's two. Oh, boy. That was some flipper rubber hopping. Oh, man. That was a big nudge. Great nudge. There's three. One more at the left inner loop. Nice. Nails it. Like nothing. And here we go. All right. And we are ready for indoor multiball. All right. This could be nice. This is probably the quickest way to victory multiball, so that is going well for him. So he's going for force targets first there. He wants to get that out of the ball. There you go. He has. No. No, this is ball two. Ball two. With the doubler, with the 20X. Oh, man. Get this shot. Get this shot. Hit that Death Star and we'll have enough time. Well, he got an extra ball and one. I think the extra ball awards are 25 million points on Star Wars, I believe. Not multiplied, though, right? Oh, it would be insane if it was. 10x, 25 million, 250 million. Oh, there's the fail. Just a bummer that he couldn't get that super with that 20x one. yeah but funny story so what are you going to do now well he could go for Tatooine or Death Star Death Star is a safer route kind of because Tatooine that scoop is not friendly yeah and Death Star is much more lucrative alright that was a great ball great ball for Jerry And here steps Brian. Look, he is still in his indoor mission. He needs all the four green arrows here. It don't work. Well, there we go. A little squiggly. Here we go. One, two, three, and four. Those four shots he needs to complete to light the second phase of it. And once he completes all those shots, he has to do it again. Didn't really get a nice graph on that. Yeah, in normal gameplay settings, you need to hit 35 TIE Fighters for the TIE Fighter multiball. But on tournament settings, I believe that number is increased to 50. Yep, that's correct. Up. Oh, boy. Up. Oh, that was a beautiful dead foot. All right, let that sit and let that breathe. Which you can do. Yeah. He's ready to start. Flip the flipper. Battle above Endor. Yeah, time it out. Here we go. We're ready for multiball. Here we go. Now, during Endor multiball, there's three main shots. You only need three. both ramps and the right interloop. However, it is also on a timer at this little screen right here. There's a timer. It can be also increased the time by hitting that three bank of targets. The key is going to be watching. He does have an add-a-ball. He's bringing in his add-a-ball. Watching that multiplier. That's going to be critical to making this a really big. All right, here comes one of them's coming back. That's good. Extra ball. Oh, it's great because it'll hold that ball for you. Get that right ramp. That's 10x but Endor is done. We'll call it there. Oh, well, let's say 10x hyperspace if he nails plugs there. That would be huge. It is also backhandable from a cradle. Oh, what a save. It's back to 2x now. Back in it, back in it, back in it. A little early. I think I would have tried to have taken a shot at the three target bank to see if I could get that 10x back up. How much power does he need? Well... That would have been the difference between like 20 and 200. The only modes he can go for now are Death Star. All right, and that's it. And then Jared won. Congratulations to Jared for that win on Star Wars. We'll be rotating out. It's been wonderful hanging out with all of you. Yes, absolutely. Let's go play some Aces and Kings.