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Episode 56 – Scott Danesi on Game 2 + Deadpool impressions

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 38m·analyzed·Aug 13, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.022

TL;DR

Scott Danesi explains TNA's surprise 455-unit success and reveals Stern's unsuccessful pitch for the game.

Summary

Scott Danesi discusses TNA's unexpected commercial success (455 units sold at $6,000 each), explaining the game's design philosophy targeting early solid-state machine gameplay with modern hardware. He addresses positive feedback (accessibility, replay value) and negative feedback (perceived simplicity, linearity), clarifying the intentional design choices. Danesi also reveals the backstory of Stern's interest in TNA through George Gomez, explaining why he chose to partner with Spooky instead, and briefly discusses The Mafia as a competitor in the emerging single-level game genre.

Key Claims

  • TNA has sold 455 units to date

    high confidence · Scott Danesi directly states: 'But there's a trophy to be had... But, yeah, I mean, right now TNA has sold 455 units, I believe. That's the last time that I was told.'

  • TNA's design was intentionally linear to emulate early solid-state/System 11 era gameplay

    high confidence · Scott explains: 'So if you think about it like Super Mario Bros., right? It's a very linear set of levels that you have to go through, right? So basically, it just gets harder and harder as you go, almost exponentially.'

  • George Gomez and Stern were interested in producing TNA but Danesi chose Spooky instead

    high confidence · Scott states: 'George and I were talking... And I decided I'm just going with Charlie because it just makes more sense for me personally. And I honestly don't think TNA would have made a good Stern game anyway.'

  • TNA sales have slowed down recently, allowing Spooky to manage the production pipeline more honestly

    high confidence · Scott: 'So then it slowed the sales down... When the line gets too long, they're being pretty honest about how long of a wait it is when people inquire to buy the game.'

  • Spooky is running TNA and Alice Cooper side-by-side in production

    medium confidence · Scott explains: 'They're going to run Alice Cooper and TNA side by side. They have two lines set up.'

  • TNA has received code updates including co-op mode, team co-op mode, and reactor speedruns

    high confidence · Martin notes: 'You kind of, everyone thought the game was done, and then you added co-op mode, and then team co-op mode, and then reactor speedruns, reactor cooldowns.'

  • The Mafia is priced at $7,500 and targets electromechanical machine enthusiasts

    medium confidence · Martin asks about The Mafia pricing: '$7,500. Yeah, that's a lot of money.' Scott discusses genre positioning.

  • Medieval Madness secondary market prices reached $10,000 by Christmas and have remained high

Notable Quotes

  • “I put down 200 [units as a stretch goal], and I was like, thinking pretty good about that... But, yeah, I mean, right now TNA has sold 455 units, I believe. That's the last time that I was told, which is beyond what I ever thought would sell.”

    Scott Danesi @ ~06:00 — Reveals the massive gap between Danesi's expectations and actual market demand for TNA, establishing the game as a commercial surprise.

  • “I did not realize that 455 people would actually put down $6,000 of their own money to have one of those.”

    Scott Danesi @ ~06:30 — Emphasizes the psychological and financial commitment of collectors to a niche, retro-styled game.

  • “There is a market for it... But I think there is a gap in the market for the type of game that you've designed? Absolutely. And that's because it was something, well, that was the main reason why I built it.”

    Scott Danesi @ ~12:00 — Confirms intentional design to fill a perceived gap in the market for simplified, accessible pinball with modern tech.

  • “I honestly don't think TNA would have made a good Stern game anyway. It wouldn't have sold enough for Stern to actually call it a good win.”

    Scott Danesi @ ~42:00 — Justifies the decision to partner with Spooky over Stern based on commercial viability and manufacturer fit.

  • “Charlie's like, no, no, he's like, this game is special. So keep it as close to the whitewood as you can when you start productionalizing it.”

    Scott Danesi @ ~43:00 — Reveals Spooky's design philosophy of maintaining the original whitewood aesthetic and mechanics during production.

  • “I would love to have some new in the box at a show and say, take it home right now. There it is. You know? That's never really happened, right? No, not for him.”

    Scott Danesi / Martin @ ~25:00 — Illustrates Spooky's aspirational business goal of building sufficient production capacity to sell machines on-site without pre-orders.

  • “Pinball is a very difficult industry to view in as a manufacturer... Oh, for sure, and to make money, right?”

Entities

Scott DanesipersonMartinpersonRyan CpersonCharliepersonGeorge GomezpersonJack DangerpersonBen Heckperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: TNA has sold 455 units at $6,000 each, far exceeding designer's expectations of 200 units; represents breakthrough success for Spooky Pinball in boutique market segment

    high · Scott Danesi: 'right now TNA has sold 455 units, I believe... which is beyond what I ever thought would sell'

  • ?

    product_strategy: TNA deliberately designed as accessible, fast-paced entry point with linear progression (Reactor 1-9) to differentiate from complex modern ruleset games like LOTR/Pirates; fills perceived market gap

    high · Scott: 'I built it because I wanted... the early solid state machines are always what I gravitate to... I think collectors actually do that... they start going back and experience the older Williams WPC stuff'

  • $

    market_signal: TNA experiencing secondary market price escalation with waitlist buyers paying above MSRP; designer expresses concern about reaching Medieval Madness price levels ($10K+) that exclude casual buyers

    high · Scott: 'I really hope it doesn't do that just because normal people can't spend $10,000 on a pinball machine... Medieval Madnesses go... 10K every day... 10K all the time'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball running TNA and Alice Cooper on dual production lines; employing transparent wait-time communication to naturally throttle demand and prevent overcommitment; planning modest final production run (50+ units) with box-stock machines available at shows

    high · Scott: 'They're going to run Alice Cooper and TNA side by side... when they get completely caught up... run a few extra... say there's 50 more'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.106

0:00
Music You are listening to the Head2Head Pinball Podcast. Find us on Facebook. E-mail us at headpool.gmail.com or go to our website at headtoheadpool.com.
0:29
Music Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 56 and my name's Martin and with me... It's Ryan C and before we talk for three hours about our really boring impressions on Deadpool, we thought that... I mean, last time we had this guy on, we created a bit of like a, you know, a bit of a stir with Bruce Axe. So we're seeing what we can conjure up this time and what's going to become kind of famous in the pinball world another time. So Scott Dinesi, welcome again. I think you're possibly the only guest I've ever had on twice as an industry person. So welcome to the show, Scott Dinesi. Really? Oh man, thank you very much. Awesome to talk to you guys again. So really, you haven't had anyone else on twice at all? Well, we've had other people on twice, but not sort of industry people. Oh, I'm not an industry person. No, you are. You are. I'm just putting that there. You are. And, you know, also we have been dining out on the whole Roussac thing for months now. So thank you for making that a thing.
1:42
Yeah, it's still amazing. And I would love to say I didn't come up with that idea, but it was nobody was doing that. And my buddy, who has nothing to do with pinball, a long time ago bought me a Rusek when he was in, you know, Australia. And he really, like, he loves joking about, you know, testicles and, you know, toilets and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, it's just, that's just normal stuff. So, you know, he got me that and thought it was the best thing ever. Threw it on the shelf for a while. You know what? How about this? Let me just tell you my Rusex story. How about that? How I thought it was. We're just going to start it out with that. You know, people want to hear about pinball stuff, but I kind of want to talk about Rusex for just a minute. Well, my normal question is, how did you get into pinball? So I'll ask you, how did you get into Rusex? Yeah. So this is how I got into Rusex. So I started the story a little bit. My friend went to Australia. It has nothing to do with pinball. So he brought this back for me because he thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever.

medium confidence · Scott warns: 'We've seen things like Medieval Madness go, remember it was like 10K by Christmas, remember all that crap? 10K every day.'

Scott Danesi / Martin @ ~28:00 — Both speakers acknowledge the financial and operational challenges endemic to pinball manufacturing.

  • “I really hope it doesn't do that [reach $10K prices] just because normal people can't spend $10,000 on a pinball machine.”

    Scott Danesi @ ~20:00 — Expresses concern about secondary market inflation excluding ordinary enthusiasts, reflecting designer ethics vs. collector speculation.

    • Spooky Pinball
    company
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Team Pinballcompany
    TNA (Total Nuclear Annihilation)game
    The Mafiagame
    Alice Coopergame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Lord of the Ringsgame
    The Hobbitgame
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Star Trekgame
    Whirlwindgame
    P3game
    Head to Head Pinball Podcastmedia
    Pinball Expoevent
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent

    industry_signal: Stern Pinball (through George Gomez) actively pursued TNA manufacturing rights but was declined in favor of Spooky partnership; Danesi assessed TNA wouldn't generate sufficient sales volume for Stern's threshold to be considered successful

    high · Scott: 'George and I were talking... I decided I'm just going with Charlie because it just makes more sense for me personally. And I honestly don't think TNA would have made a good Stern game anyway. It wouldn't have sold enough for Stern to actually call it a good win'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Community and designers speculating whether single-level retro-styled machines represent a sustainable new genre; The Mafia entry viewed as either riding TNA's success or as legitimate market expansion

    medium · Martin: 'I'm wondering whether that is kind of riding on the coattails of the genre that TNA has established'; Scott: 'I think it opened up a little bit of a new genre to Pinball'

  • ?

    code_update: TNA received multiple substantive code updates post-launch (co-op mode, team co-op, reactor speedruns, reactor cooldowns); designer intends to continue bug fixes and performance optimizations but no major feature additions planned

    high · Scott: 'I don't think I'm going to add anything more to the software. I will continue to support the software on TNA... There are a couple people that found some little bugs... I'll just kind of leave it for now'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: TNA intentionally designed with surface-level simplicity hiding strategic depth (shot sequencing, multipliers, cashins); addresses player complaint that game appears 'simple' but actually contains non-obvious ruleset layers; linear structure intentional for predictability and social play

    high · Scott: 'If you just look at it on the surface, it looks like a very simple game... But when you do the research, there's a lot of other little nuances to it... I wanted to make something more like Mario Brothers'

  • ?

    product_concern: TNA has occasional minor video lag detected by designer but not noticeable to players; Scott plans performance optimization to OS and game code despite low urgency

    medium · Scott: 'Right now there's... sometimes there's a little bit of video lag every once in a while because I'm doing too much stuff at once... no one else really notices it but... it bugs the crap out of me'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Designer consulted with George Gomez on playfield grain orientation during development; grain direction has unstated mechanical/aesthetic impact known to legacy designers but not fully explained to modern builders

    medium · George Gomez comment on Scott's CNC photo: 'the grain is the wrong way on your playfield. You cut it 90 degrees off... the grain is supposed to be vertical away from the player'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Scott expresses uncertainty about market sustainability for additional single-level retro-style machines beyond TNA and The Mafia; concerned about new entrants appearing 'stale' given TNA's comprehensive execution of the genre concept

    medium · Scott: 'I think it opened up a little bit of a new genre to Pinball. I don't know how easy it's going to be to make another game without being too kind of stale. I thought of almost everything I could in that genre and tossed it into TNA'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Scott Danesi proposed sound design contract work with Stern while maintaining full-time employment elsewhere; George Gomez indicated openness but no finalized arrangement mentioned

    medium · Scott: 'I would love to do like a sound design thing for you guys... But I have a full time job and I won't be leaving my full time job. So it would have to be like a contract thing... He's like, OK, we'll work something out'

    • 2:43
    And it is. I'm not going to deny that. So I got it. I put it on my mantle for a while. I was sitting there for probably two years. The wife found it and threw it away.
    2:57
    As soon as I realized it was gone, which actually took like a couple months. She didn't tell you. She didn't say this is what you're going to say. She threw it away. She got rid of it. She didn't really know that I liked it that much. For her defense, it wasn't malicious or anything. They're just like, oh, hey, clean it up some stuff. We don't need this junk. We're going to get rid of it. And she's like, I would donate it. But she's like, it's a testicle sack.
    3:24
    Well, that's why I was going to ask whether she knew that it was a testicle sack. Because when you look at them, you don't immediately realize that it is actually the scrotum that's been removed from a kangaroo. Yes, she did know what it was, absolutely. So that's why she didn't. Because usually if we're getting rid of stuff, we'll donate it or whatever, so the Goodwill or the first store here.
    3:47
    But you can't donate something like that. Can you imagine a little kid getting that and thinking it's just a little coin pouch and then the dad's looking at it and he's like, you know, it's got something stamped in it. Maybe I should read that. Oh, good Lord. Little Timmy, I'm sorry, buddy. It could have been on the Mackle Mall Surf Shop.
    4:10
    He could have been in the song as well. Anyway, continue on. So it's gone, right? Totally gone. And I find out about it. I'm a little bit upset. Why, it's like, no way, you're not really upset about that, are you? I'm like, yeah, I actually am. I actually am really upset about that. So what I did was I went online, tried to find another one. The shipping was ridiculous from Australia. I was like, they've got to be in the United States somewhere. So I looked around. I couldn't find any from the United States. They're only in Australia. So I went on eBay. I actually just bought like three of them.
    4:51
    And, you know, I'm like, because I want this. Because we've been playing these dollar games with these golden sacks, and they've been just scratching my cell phone in my pocket, you know. They fall out of your pocket and stuff. It's really annoying.
    5:03
    So I picked up some of those. I got one in. Started putting my sacks in it. Nobody thought it was funny at all of my friends. They're just like, Jesus, God, what the fuck? Oh, I'm sorry. Are we allowed to swear today? Oh, of course we can. I got to work on my swearing. Anyway, so I knew that was funny, but I kept insisting that it was the most ingenious thing ever, and as soon as the sack started getting, you know, when you keep it in your pocket for a while and you touch it a lot, it gets nice and soft. Sure. You know? He can't go very well. Except for Jack Dangers. Jack Dangers is turning, like, brown and black. He has warts on it. He's been massaging it way too much. You see the warts that are on his? Yes, I have. That's messed up. His kangaroo got around. Yes, absolutely. It did. It's gross, man. Well, anyway, I'll get the story moving here. I'm kind of BSing around. So I just kept insisting that that was funny, and pretty soon everyone started realizing that it is indeed an awesome thing to have and funny at the same time. So useful and funny. Well, it really is. And look, we were surprised by anything because, I don't know whether you know, but we are Australian. And we had never even heard of these things. They are just not something that we had. But they are now. Like, you know, it's pretty much Roussaks now. Yeah, well, to your defence, it's really only American tourists that buy those things. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. It's not enough. Get them at a souvenir store or at the airport. Yeah. That's basically, it's not like, it's not like an industry down there that's, you know, super hopping. It's just so tourist by stupid crap that they were just going to throw in the garbage anyway. Well, when I, when I came to Texas Fimble Festival, I wanted to give you something. I was giving a whole bunch of people Roo Sacks and, of course, you already have one. So, I got you that hollowed out Kanto.
    7:10
    Oh, my God. That thing is so scary, dude. Has your wife found that? She goes, what the hell is this thing? It's sitting on my desk right now, up in my office, and I think it's just going to stay there as a little souvenir. I don't know if I can, it's got a zipper on it, which I don't like.
    7:28
    So it's kind of hard to get the sacks in and out of, and it's not broken in, so I guess I should probably just try to break it in to see if it, like, you know, gets all nice and soft like this, like the loose sack. You can't put out a cane, sorry, in your pocketbook. Yeah.
    7:43
    Don't imagine pulling it out. Don't make it into anything practical, you know. Oh, no, no. That gives it value.
    7:52
    Sorry, Scott. Can you imagine going to the arcade or something like that, pulling it out, and there's like a little kid next to you, like sees that. Oh, my God.
    8:01
    Last time we talked about you, I can't remember, I think it was in December last year, so TNA had already kind of been launched, I believe it was in production. So how are TNA sales doing now? I heard it's up close to $500 or so now, $450 or anything? Yeah, so this is a little crazy.
    8:20
    We have this piece of paper at Spooky, which I wish I had the numbers for, but everybody wrote down their Price is Right style guess as how many TNAs would sell before they had to switch over and stop the run. And a bunch of people were like, hey, you know, 100 or what I put down, my stretch goal for TNA was actually 200 units. And what's really great about Spooky is, you know, if TNA sold 100 or 200 units, that's still a win. That's not a pinball failure. That is a boutique run of some weird pinball machine, right? Yeah. So I put down 200, and I was, like, thinking pretty good about that. And some people are getting crazy with it. They were, like, 300, 350. You know, one person's, like, 400. You know, we're all laughing. You know, there's just no way. But there's a trophy to be had for whoever wins this.
    9:20
    But there were some high numbers up there, just people joking around just in case. But, yeah, I mean, right now TNA has sold 455 units, I believe. That's the last time that I was told, which is beyond what I ever thought would sell. I didn't know that, I knew deep down people, there was a small group of people that would appreciate what I was trying to do with that game, but I did not realize that 455 people would actually put down $6,000 of their own money to have one of those. Okay, so then think about like it's obviously been now more than six months. What has been, I guess, the common positive feedback that you've had? And share with us some of the, I guess, the less than positive feedback that you've received. Yeah, sure thing. So the positive stuff is basically the stuff you guys have just been hearing. It's like, hey, it's fresh, it's new, it doesn't have ramps and I don't notice.
    10:29
    It's fast and furious and people keep saying, hey, it's got a good replay value. I keep walking up to it and wanting to play again and again.
    10:39
    So that's basically the good stuff. People will always tell you good stuff, even if your game isn't that great. People will tell you good stuff about it still. Also, I think the more important thing is the negative stuff people say because you have to kind of listen to that and digest it a little bit.
    10:58
    For instance, like some people were complaining early on just about the software being kind of simple, but it was most likely just people not understanding all the depth of the rules that are in there because there actually is a lot going on. And Ryan, I know you spent a bunch of time with the game itself too.
    11:21
    If you just look at it on the surface, it looks like a very simple game with very simple rules, right? But when you do the research, there's a lot of other little nuances to it. For sure. I mean, you could almost say that about any game, and people talk about it in terms of an onion. And, you know, there has to be a very basic level for people. But there definitely is kind of a lot of strategy in that game of what to shoot for, when to shoot for it, when to cash in certain things. And I guess you added a lot of that stuff as well with, you know, the jackpots and the multipliers.
    11:57
    Yeah. And I mean, it's really, I mean, it's not the deepest game. I will be the first to admit there is like a tiny, tiny fraction of code. This game is a tiny, tiny fraction of code as something like, you know, Lord of the Rings or, you know, The Hobbit, right? There is, or especially Pirates. Like that game is crazy. I played that the other day and it was, that's insane. Well, do you think that's why it's done so well in terms of what all of you guys put your number down for? Do you think that's because there is maybe there was a gap in the market for social gaming? Why do you think it's done so well? Besides, yes, the sound is amazing, the gameplay. Do you think there's a gap in the market for the type of game that you've designed? Absolutely. And that's because it was something, well, that was the main reason why I built it. So I built it because I wanted, I was sitting down and building a homebrew machine, right? I had nothing in my head yet at that point. And I said, what do I like? What do I want to see? What do I want to play? What am I usually playing when I go to friends' houses? And for me, it's like the early solid state machines are always what I gravitate to, or the System 11 machines. I've played the crap out of all the WPC games and the new Stern games I play all the time. To me, that's just, I'm reverting or regressing backward in pinball time, and I think that you'll notice a lot of collectors actually do that. But they'll come into the hobby, they'll get into the new stuff, they'll start going back and experience the older Williams WPC stuff. And then when they get sick of all that, which is, you know, I'm not saying they're all the same, but I'm saying that style of gameplay from, you know, the new things back to the old System 11 games, it starts getting a little bit more brutal and a little bit faster game times. They were really, at that era of pinball, they were really trying to get people in and out on that game and make as much coin drop as possible. And I think that is a little bit of a lost art that we're not really seeing too much in games that are coming out now or even WPC games. They were not really focused on really getting that coin drop. And I could be wrong, too. Well, no, it's funny. I was having a chat to someone and we're playing Whirlwind and it was just, the machine was set up so brutal. I couldn't start multiple. I think I had like 10 games in a row and the guy walks up to me and he's like, yeah, I used to play this back in the day and he goes, everyone hated Williams because they made the games so damn hard. But that led to two things. One, everyone got a hell of a lot better at playing pinball than they were before. And two, you could play with friends and you weren't weighing around for ages. And the 90s kind of didn't have that as much because the games weren't as brutal. So, yeah, I guess... Something key that you said there in that sentence was that you played it ten times. Yeah. Right? Yeah, exactly. That's the key. But when you think about that now, we have sort of moved, we have sort of evolved, people's expectations for a home game have evolved. And sort of going back to, I guess, probably the main negative feedback I think I've really heard is people say, oh, you know, it's really linear, you're all the way going to Reactor 9. But that just means, okay, well, it's not for you, but that's actually a positive. For those people that like the game, which I do, that's actually a positive because I know what I'm going to do. And you also mentioned the likes of Lord of the Rings and Hobbit being these really complex machines, and I did have a Hobbit. But if I really wanted to have a fun game, I would turn my Star Trek on, not my Hobbit, because I wanted to be able to get into the enjoyment straight away. And that's exactly what TNA does, right?
    15:56
    Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it gets you fired in right away. You're absolutely right. But the whole linear aspect of it was done purposely.
    16:08
    I had the ability to write any software I wanted in that thing. I had no rules, right? So I wanted to make something more like... So if you think about it like Mario Brothers, right? It's a very linear set of levels that you have to go through, right?
    16:29
    So basically, it just gets harder and harder as you go, almost exponentially. So that's kind of what I wanted to emulate in that because it's just, you know, I wanted to be a little bit predictable when you get in there so you can start working on something. So you can say, hey, I got to Reactor 5 or whatever, and then you could talk shit to your buddies. and, you know, say like, dude, well, I got the Reactor 5 all the time. It's your highest now. You know, let's go throw down. So do you think that there's now, it has established that as, I guess, its own sort of market? Or do you think TNA, that's it, it really just showed up the market. There's probably not another need for another TNA-like machine? I think it opened up a little bit of a new genre to Pinball. I don't know how easy it's going to be to make another game without being too kind of stale. I thought of almost everything I could in that genre and tossed it into TNA.
    17:38
    Oh yeah, I mean your ideas. Sorry, that's all I just wanted to about. You kind of, everyone thought the game was done, and then you added co-op mode, and then team co-op mode, and then reactor speedruns, reactor cooldowns.
    17:53
    I've been missing a couple of things, but are you saying that there's still more to come in TNA? Well, you know, I don't think I'm going to add anything more to the software. I will continue to support the software on TNA, because it's, you know, it's my first baby. There haven't been any code updates lately because I'm working on the projects, but I will come back to it and just review it. There are a couple people that found some little bugs in it that don't really concern me too much to actually hop on it immediately and fix it because it's super rare and it's in the player's advantage.
    18:29
    I decided I'll just kind of leave it for now. But, yeah, I mean, I don't know if I will add anything to TNA again in terms of, like, something like a co-op mode that, like, does something else. I probably not. But you never know. You know, if I come up with a really good idea on the next game that does make sense in TNA, I could possibly roll that back in there. One thing I do want to do for TNA though is video performance upgrades to the actual operating system and to the actual game code itself. Okay. Right now there's, I can notice this but no one else really notices it but sometimes there's a little bit of video lag every once in a while because I'm doing too much stuff at once. Yeah.
    19:19
    Yeah, I don't think anyone else has noticed it. Yeah, no, but it bugs the crap out of me, so it's one thing that needs to happen. Cool. So you were saying, like, obviously it's created this new sort of genre, and I was kind of leading, I don't know whether you've seen it or not, but, you know, a couple of weeks ago we had announced that Team Pinball is releasing The Mafia, which is another single-level game. I guess they're saying that it has been in production for some time, but I'm wondering whether that is kind of riding on the coattails of the genre that TNA has established. So I'm just curious to know whether you've seen anything about that machine.
    20:02
    I have, actually. So that machine, I took a good look at it. I don't think it's bad by any means at all. I think what they did was they tried to fit it into that genre. But I think they went a little bit too far back in time for that. Like I said, the genre that I was going for with this was more of that early Stern solid state. And what I did, though, is I put in, you know, crazy amounts of technology. And, you know, like that game is running the same exact hardware platform as that really crazy advanced P3. So that's like I mean there's there's ridiculous hardware inside that thing. But I think I don't I don't know exactly if that fits in the genre because they really they actually stripped stuff not to strip stuff out but they didn't include things that they could have included on that game like you know more flippers or more ball paths or you know you know kickback right like an F-14 kickback something you know. It looks like it's trying to emulate and trying to reach a group of people that really is into electromechanical machines and want to have something with a slightly upgraded hardware platform in it. You kind of scratch your head though when you see the price compared to something like T&A. What was the price on that? I forgot. $7,500. Yeah, that's a lot of money.
    21:42
    Well, I mean, TNAs are fetching, you know, there's still a long wait list to get a total nuclear annihilation. So does it kind of, what's your feeling about people selling their TNA to people that are waiting in line or people that don't want to wait for, you know, over what they bought it for? That's just the normal market stuff. I mean, that's what happens with the supply and demand market, you know. So there's no supply and there's a decent demand, so that means the price has to go up.
    22:13
    But I think after a while it'll balance back down once the TNA run is done. Well, do you think it might go back up then when the TNA run is done? I hope it doesn't get super crazy.
    22:29
    I don't want the game to be unreachable for people. So we've seen things like Medieval Madnesses go, remember it was like 10K by Christmas, remember all that crap?
    22:40
    10K every day. Yeah, now it's 10K all the time. I really hope it doesn't do that just because normal people can't spend $10,000 on a pinball machine. I'm sorry. What is the plan? So Charlie said originally that we'll do them in batches of 50 because that's how they order parts. So when things slow down, they say that this is the final run. So obviously you guys didn't think it's going to sell this well, so have plans changed? Or is that still, you know, is Charlie now saying, oh, hey, it's slowing down a little bit? Or is it like how slow does it have to slow down to before we do the final run? Well, I think what he's going to do for the final call on it is they're going to run Alice Cooper and TNA side by side. They have two lines set up. And I think what's going to happen is once they get completely caught up, I think Charlie's plan is to just run a few extra and then just, you know, I mean, say, hey, we'll call it quits. We'll get the last people in, you know, do like 50 or something. Say, hey, there's 50 more. Just if you want them, get them. If not, that's fine. And then when it shuts down, he's probably going to overrun it by a little bit so he can have a few extra for shows or something. And then, you know, obviously there are people that will probably try to sell their deposits or whatever, you know, to try and get out of it or something. But, you know, people always move those around. There's nothing you can do about that. But he's planning on actually, he's like, I would love to have some new in the box at a show and say, take it home right now. There it is. You know? That's never really happened, right? No, not for him. But it's like a really good goal for him because he wants to be able to have a company that's successful enough to where they're not having to take deposits to make games. He's just being very careful about how he's expanding his company and dealing with the money situations of these things because Pinball is a very difficult industry to view in as a manufacturer. Oh, for sure, and to make money, right? I mean, that's obviously, you know, I think we've probably had people come and go since we last spoke to you. And I guess probably what Ryan was saying was like, you know, whether, you know, we're sort of now seeing the tail end of the sales, like the units that are being moved or, you know, I guess how long into the future do you think that will be when they come to a time that says... Okay, yeah, so I don't really know actually because the sales have slowed down. Yeah. Like really they have and that's great because it's like this is, they're already, it's crazy. It's still way more. Well already, I mean 450 is a big line for a company like Spooky to be running, right? It is. But he doesn't want to just call it quits yet. He's kind of letting the market just, you know, kind of deal with itself. When the line gets too long, they're being pretty honest about how long of a wait it is when people inquire to buy the game. And if the person doesn't want to wait that long, then they just don't put a deposit in. And they could either try to spend more money to buy a game off someone who is earlier in line or whatever, or find one that's on the market already.
    26:17
    But they're trying to be as honest as possible about how long the wait is. So then it slows the sales down. So that's actually what's happening. So if they said, hey, you can order a machine now and have it in a week or something like that, it wouldn't slow the sales down as much. Okay, so I guess what I'm also getting with that, I'm curious to know your thoughts on this. So let's say the sales have sort of slowed and you're probably going to get to what was going to be your market for that machine. All the people that really want that style of machine, they're going to get, let's say it's 500, let's say 600 units, right? We'll just put a number out there. It's going to hit 600, right? So, again, I'm referring to Mafia as well.
    26:59
    I'm curious to know whether you think that there's now more in that genre to give people that want that, I guess, early solid state with modern component experience. You know, I think people could, you got to get really creative to be in that genre and I think there is a market for it. So, yeah, it's a tough one though. I have no idea, like trying to predict what the market will take is really strange because I didn't think people would even like TNA. I thought my friends would like it and come over and hang out.
    27:44
    It's so hard to know what's going to happen, and I don't know if there's a market for that Mafia game. I don't know what that market looks like. There could be a really big market for that.
    27:55
    Before we talk about you developing your ideas for the next game, I guess there's an untold story to be told, Because we had Ben Heck on the show a couple of weeks ago and he said that CERN was in contact with you to buy the game. And I'm not sure if that was well known in the industry but it was the first I ever heard of it. I thought it was just kind of you and Charlie. So is there a story to tell there if you want to go into it? And what's up with the Facebook post that you didn't go from the interview with CERN? All right. So this is interesting. So first of all, I'm just going to put it out there that I have a lot of friends over at Stern. I have no beef with Stern whatsoever. And it is true. I can tell the story. So how about this? Let me just back up. I'll tell the story about how TNA was kind of made. I'm going to leave out a little bit more of the Charlie side of things, but I'll talk about how Stern fits into this.
    29:05
    So early on, I had this game at Expo. I have been posting a lot of pictures on Facebook and my blog about how I've been building this thing and what I've been doing with it and all that. And it actually, like George Gomez and I are friends on Facebook, so it's like he kind of sees this stuff. And he would make comments every once in a while. One time I took a photo of me CNCing the playfield of just one of my revisions, and he commented on it and he goes, Hey, Scott, the grain is the wrong way on your playfield. You cut it 90 degrees off.
    29:45
    I'm like, what are you talking about? That's crazy. I can cut it, whatever. It doesn't matter. He goes, no, no, the grain's the wrong way. So it was, the grain is supposed to be vertical away from the player, right? So it's supposed to go long ways, right? And I cut it, like, horizontally so the grain of the wood was going the opposite way. Does that slow the ball down or something? Or what's the difference? I don't know. It doesn't slow the ball down. I still to this day don't know. I told George... It planks horizontally instead of vertically, right?
    30:17
    Yeah, I don't know the reasoning for it. But I was like, George, you and I will get a beer sometime and you can tell me. He goes, good, you got an hour? I'm like, well, all right, let's do this. Never happened, though, unfortunately. I still am curious about that, George, if you're listening to this. Very inverse vertical grain in the playfield.
    30:39
    But anyway, yeah, so, you know, he sees all that stuff. And eventually he, you know, reached out to me saying, hey, I would really like to see this game. It would be nice if we could get together and talk about it and stuff. And at that point, when George started reaching out to me, I was like, sure, let's meet up at MGC or something and talk about it. And I had also been talking to Charlie at the same time about maybe a possibility of making it. So I was like, oh, we'll see what's going on with both George and Charlie. And basically, I was speaking to Charlie a whole bunch. I think George and I just missed each other a bunch early on. And I decided I'm just going with Charlie because it just makes more sense for me personally. And I honestly don't think TNA would have made a good Stern game anyway. It wouldn't have sold enough for Stern to actually call it a good win. So, you know, and it had too much stuff in it. Like, there are things that are in the game that I left in the game which didn't need to be there. For instance, like, there's the scoop behind the drops that could have easily been converted to a $5, you know, or a $6 stand-up target. You know, and just things like that. But Charlie's like, no, no, he's like, this game is, you know, he's like, it's special. So keep it as close to the whitewood as you can when you start productionalizing it. So I did. I left every single thing in there and added some stuff.
    32:25
    So George and I were talking, and eventually I was like, hey, George, sorry, man, it didn't work out.
    32:34
    And that was basically it. And I told George, I'm like, you know, he goes, well, is there any chance in the future, Are you working with us? And I said, absolutely. But, you know, I would love to do like a sound design thing for you guys. That would be really that would be really fun for me. And, you know, and great. But, you know, at the same time, I said, George, but I have a full time job and I won't be leaving my full time job. So it would have to be like a contract thing. So he's like, OK, we'll work something out. And then that was kind of it. And then that's that's the whole story, really. I mean, other than, yeah, it's not, there's nothing really to it. It was, it was nice and George is a nice guy and we chat once in a while just on other crap and it's, you know, it's fine, so. All right. But yeah, that's the story of how that works. I thought we're near as exciting as I thought it was going to be. No, it's not exciting at all. Negotiations and you'd flown over there and then there was, you know, counter offers. Godzilla was involved somehow. Yeah.
    33:40
    He's like, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'll give you the license if you do it. No, I'm just kidding. The reason it was like they got this Godzilla license coupon that someone drew on a piece of paper and they're sliding it on the table.
    33:55
    But then someone burst in the room and said, I'll call you. No, I did not. That's an awful story, man. Ugh. Yeah. Hate that. But, yeah, so anyway, the Facebook post I put out the other day, so I, no, I didn't interview with Stern. Someone brought to my attention the other day that there was a rumor about to be leaked that I went to Stern and interviewed with them and did very poorly on the interview and didn't get hired. I was laughing at that. I'm like, oh my gosh, no, that is not the case. I wanted to be upfront about it too, so I told my current employer, Pinball Life, about that as well. So I'm like, hey, if this gets leaked, that's not true. I'm not going behind your back and interviewing with other pinball companies. Yeah. It's really slow news at the moment, mate. So people are just making shit up because, you know, that's not what the business is, right? Oh, sorry, not saying that we did it. It's fine. I get it. It's totally fine. But I had to be careful with it because that could be damaging to my professional career. It's not just a joke or something funny, like a little thing. That's actually a serious thing that could, if I wasn't careful with my current employer, I could potentially get in trouble for that kind of stuff. Yeah, sure.
    35:28
    Yeah, so anyway, it's all good. Yeah, TNA's doing well. It's all good. TNA's good. I didn't interview with Stern. I've got nothing against Stern. They're great, but I have not interviewed with them just because I am not going to be moving from my current job because I really like what I do. So, yeah, that's it.
    35:50
    TNA has no Rams. How many Rams is your new game going to have? I was thinking probably no more than, I don't know, no more, no less than 18. 18, okay. Loops. It's kind of a lot. Loops are really hot right now, Scott. Loops, okay. Iron Maiden has revolutionized the loops. It has two loops. How many loops will your game have, Scott Denecy?
    36:19
    Well, if Iron Maiden has two, I have to do at least seven. Seven. Spinners. Everyone loves spinners. The super spinner sound on TNA. It just makes my ears. So how many spinners can you add on this new game? Wait, so before I tell you how many spinners are on the new game, have you heard the spinner sound for Alice Cooper when it goes into Super Spinner?
    36:40
    I haven't. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I did all the sound effects for Alice Cooper.
    36:47
    Is that you screaming, Scott? Is that you screaming? No, it's not. But it's like, it's super creepy and it's totally insane. And you guys should go back and watch some of those clips and just listen to that sound because it's actually better than TNA. And the sound, the super spinner sound. Well, the regular Spinner sound pretty good too. That Super Spinner sound in Alice Cooper is better than TNA's Super Spinner sound. I don't know how it happened, but it's better. So anyway, getting back to my next game here. So, Spinner. You're obviously not going to tell us really what's going on, and we're not going to sort of ask that. I mean, it's going to be some time. But my question to you is really how do you transition from everything that you've put into TNA and we talked about it before but long story short, this was a game that you just built for yourself which all of a sudden is going to sell 455 units minimum. So you've got your day job at Pinball Life, you're doing that and now there's all this pressure on you to do your second game. How do you feel about that and what's your approach to your next game? Well, so I've got a lot of time to kind of do this. So I'm just going to let it, like, and Charlie said, hey, he's like, just build it. Just build it like how you want it. Build, you know, do whatever you feel like you want, you know, make it do something quirky, You take some risks, you know, put a pop-up or somewhere weird or whatever, you know, like the TNA.
    38:34
    You know, that kind of stuff. So, but basically, I'm just working on it in my spare time. I come home from work. I'll work on it for a while. I'll work on it on the weekends. As of right now, the game, and this is being serious, the game does not exist in a white wood yet. But I do have most of what I want drawn up in the computer already. and I should be cutting a whitewood pretty soon. I wanted to cut it like, you know, weeks ago, but, you know, I'm just, I'm trying not to rush it. So I want it to be as special as TNA since, you know, the timelines, you know. How do you make sure, I mean, obviously you've just been spending a couple of months on this and I'm not sure how many hours on the day you've been working on it, but how do you know if what you've designed is any good? You said you could have done it weeks ago, but obviously you've done something in the last couple of weeks.
    39:28
    Yeah, I deleted a bunch of parts of it. How do you know that doesn't work if you've never flipped it?
    39:37
    Because you can tell by the geometry I can visualize by looking at the playfield whether the geometry is right or not and whether or not the shots are in the right spot
    39:49
    So, yeah. Is that measuring angles or is that just by your eye? Like, do you get out a compass and figure it out?
    39:57
    Well, you can measure the angles, but something interesting about that is that when you have it in the computer, a shot, let's say, like shots away from the flipper are easy. You can actually measure that with a straight line. You can say, okay, there's that shot, there's that shot, okay. But the shots that people don't realize when they're designing a pinball machine are the return shots. So when a ball comes around in orbit, you can't just draw a straight line to the flipper from the orbit to know where the ball path is going to be because there is a 6.5 degree angle to that play field. There's also varying ball speeds. There's, you know, obviously gravity. There's spin on the ball, that kind of stuff. And you kind of have to just simulate in your head where that ball path is going to be, and it's a curve. It's not a straight line. So I go through, and in the computer I'm drawing the curves that I think are right where the ball paths would be, and just double-checking everything, and then I'm also trying to make... Do they curve in because of the angle? Yeah, they curve in. Yeah, they curve down. So it's like picture in orbit, right? So in orbit, you draw a straight line out of an orbit going to like the left flipper. It's actually going to be more like a curve that's going to try to hit the top of the slingshot. And that's what you don't want. Yeah, okay. So can I just go back a step when it comes to the design process? Do you go straight to CAD or are you like sketching things on paper just to sort of get some concepts in your mind? Or are you straight to digital? So I do CAD early on, but it is a waste of time if you are kind of drawing in CAD when you don't have any idea of what you're doing. Yeah. So usually what I do is I just take a blank playfield, which is the... Actually, I took the Alice Cooper playfield and deleted everything off it. Sure. And then, because I know it's the exact right size that they need. And then I just print it out on a piece of paper and start drawing some stuff on it in pencil, you know, and then, you know, scrap that one, draw again, scrap it, draw again. And I keep drawing different stuff until I really like what I've done on there. And then from there, I can then transfer that into CAD and then start tweaking things in CAD. So I'm not wasting too much time then. So are you drawing, are you, okay, because there's so many people that I speak to that, you know, They say to themselves, God, I'd love to design a pinball. It kind of almost becomes, in our world, a bit of a dream job to be able to do that, right? So are you drawing inspiration from influencers around you or are you trying to get into a blank headspace and just try to put something down that's just completely fresh and new and not inspired by anything? Well, you've got to realise that every single thing has been done in pinball already. That's right. So it's really difficult to just start with a blank slate. So what I do is I don't pull up pictures of other pinball machines of things that I like. What I do is I, in my head, I start designing things in the machine and pulling from my own memory memorable things from pinball machines that I really, really liked, like when I actually played them. So it's stuff like, I don't know, like on TNA, right, the stand-up targets in TNA in the center, those, you know, they're sort of like... Star Wars. It's like Star Wars. It's not Star Wars. It's like Dracula. It's like Bansok is Dracula. So, you know, they're kind of like right there in your face, super dangerous. But in Dracula, they weren't really, you know, you didn't really have to hit them to progress through the game, right? Yeah, you can hit the left point. But in TNA, they're critical. It forces you to shoot that dangerous shot, so you have to make a decision, right? You have to wait until your ball savers on and shoot it, or multiball or whatever. But I take little aspects like that, and I go from there. And if it sticks in my brain as something really cool, then it must have been awesome because I can't remember anything. Well, I guess, again, I'm trying to sort of also ask whether you're trying to design something that is revolutionary or, you know, like what you did with TNA, which has obviously got some new innovative sort of new takes on that kind of old sort of genre. Are you intentionally going into the saying, I've got to do something innovative, I've got to do something that stands out, or are you going for, I've just got to have something that is fun, it doesn't have to have this radical thing on it? Actually, so you do have to innovate, and by innovate I mean use things either, like if you can find something that hasn't been done in pinball yet, then first of all figure out why it hasn't been done. Does it suck? Is it not reliable? I've seen Rams got done. Don't do it. It's a trap. Yeah, I know. So, yeah, exactly. So, first of all, decide if it works, right? If it does work, then some innovative stuff in a pinball design. You know, you want it to be innovative and you want it to be fun. That's the ultimate goal. I mean, I don't want to design a pinball machine that's just like, you know, really just is boring and not really innovative. It's just, to me, that just doesn't seem worth my effort.
    45:47
    Do you think that something like TNA, yes, it has a unique hardware design, But do you think that a lot of the excitement also comes from the sound? Like, do you think you can almost rack your brain too much now in the design phase with stuff? Yeah. You can really improve and make like a big bang, a big moment that has absolutely nothing to do with the design? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, yeah, it's really tough, man. So all I can really say is for people out there designing pinball machines, try to be innovative, But make sure that the game is actually fun. And there's no scientific way to actually measure fun besides throwing your friends at it and some beers. Yeah. So who's working on this game besides you? And do you have people that are lined up to work with you? Like, do you plan on doing the art direction, the music, the rules, the coding? Or are you just the design guy now and that's it? Well, I don't want to do everything. I can't do everything that I did on TNA again because it will just wreck my life. It's just impossible to do that again, at least for me. I already have a full-time job.
    47:05
    But I told Charlie, I'm like, hey, I need help from the rest of the team. And he said, absolutely. He goes, I don't want you to do all that stuff again. That's super stressful and just crazy. So what we're going to do is right now I know that David Van Es is going to be working on the animation stuff.
    47:26
    Whether I do music or sound again, I don't know. It just depends on let's see how I'm feeling after the design is done. I would like to. I really love doing music stuff.
    47:38
    I'm going to play it by ear, but I'm not going to program it. So that's going to be good. But I will help with the direction of the rules and stuff.
    47:48
    So are you already in contact with Bowen Kieran's fundamental stuff? Oh yeah, I mean I've bounced the playfield layout off of Bowen as well. I've just gotten feedback on that too, so it's pretty cool. I mean it's neat to have a team of people that you can work with.
    48:09
    Bowen's got some great ideas for rules and stuff too. Obviously he's been in pinball forever. He's played every single machine. I mean, it's nuts.
    48:19
    So you were saying that, you know, we know you're a music guy and we talked about it and towards the end of the last time we had you on, we started sort of going down the whole music side. And I've seen that you've now started streaming some of your music here, which is awesome. But I guess what I want to say is, is that the music element still something that you want to be pronounced in the next title? Or is it now something that just becomes a part of something bigger?
    48:51
    No, no. I want to be involved in the music, absolutely, because of just how important it is in the overall experience of the game. But do I want to write every single thing for it? Probably not. Yeah. No, I guess what I'm saying is that when you look at TNA and the first thing you hit the start button and you get just that iconic sound that starts and everybody talks about the music really in TNA just being such a major part of it. Do you want music to be as much a part of the next game as well? Absolutely. Absolutely. The answer is yes. It's a closed yes.
    49:34
    It's an absolute. Yeah, well, that's good. We hope that you do because I think what it really did, I mean, we talk about playfield layout and we talk about art, like everyone always talks about art. But TNA really was the first game where everybody really started talking about the music. I mean, probably because it was also original music, and I know that there's lots of music pins that come out that have just got tracks that already exist. But this was the first one that really highlighted the importance of good music in a game.
    50:08
    They couldn't talk about the art, because there was no art, right? It was the sharpie in a white one. Yeah, there was no art for a long time.
    50:16
    Yeah, so the music, though, and just so you guys know, it's, to me, is very, very important to a Pinball machine. The music, the sound effects, also the light shows because those are the other inputs from a pinball machine, right? So you get a lot of inputs from a machine, right? You get sound, you get visual, you get feedback from a feel from your flipper, like from the flippers and everything kind of, you know, all the coils firing in the machine while you're touching it. A shaker motor is also another really key input method. So those things you really have to focus on. That should be the top priority that all of those things work together to deliver a really good experience. And I'm going to make sure that that happens on the next game as well. All right. And so last time we spoke, Iron Maiden's come out. What are your thoughts?
    51:09
    Oh, man. Iron Maiden's great. So I've been following what Keith's been doing for a while because him and his brother built that Archer machine on the P-Rock platform. And so, I mean, it's so cool to see that thing go from, you know, dinosaurs versus monster trucks to all the way into Archer and then all the way into Iron Maiden. So it's super cool. We have an Iron Maiden at work. We play it all the time. It's great. I can't believe I'm just ecstatically happy for Keith that he did so well on this thing and it turned out so well. Well, you said that, right? Pretty much every new game you get at Pinball Life, right? So you never need to buy a new CERN because you can go into work five days a week. It's pretty great.
    51:55
    But don't get me wrong, I will buy a new CERN if I think I need it, you know, or if Terry sells it or something, you know? Yeah. So I've got nothing against that.
    52:06
    But yeah, that game is great. I gotta say I'm a little jealous though with Iron Maiden. Keith had an amazing team of people working with him to do really cool animations and had a bunch of time and to do really cool sounds and voice calls and all this really cool stuff that he just got to work with a team of people. And I really want that experience of working with more than just my own brain on something. Well, hire up and cut that whitewood and get started. I know. What I want to do is I want to cut the whitewood and then be like, here you go, Charlie, done. There you go. Let's talk about something else. I was actually going to say, well, maybe you should have interviewed better at CERN. But, you know.
    52:58
    Yeah, that's pretty great. Yeah, next time I won't. I won't swear. Don't hire me then. I'm just kidding. But anyway, yeah. So, that's that. That's the story. But that's all I really got on the new game at the moment. I am hopefully going to be cutting that soon. And, you know, I'm not going to be releasing any, like, pictures or anything of it, unfortunately, just because of just the nature of the secrecy that has to happen around it. Right. That's part of it. We know, sorry, you know, tell me just, you know, Don't answer the question if you haven't said it, but have you mentioned if it's an original title or a licensed IP, or is that not known? We actually have not talked about that yet. That's fine. Yeah. But we'll figure that out eventually. Okay. You know. Cool. Yeah, I mean, I would love an unlicensed game, though. Spooky has been, you know, obviously has all the TNA backdoors to go through 500 Alice of Cupid Nightmare castles that'll sell. So they're going to be busy for a while. So I guess you have a rough timeline of when the machine needs to be done, but it's not in the next six months or anything, is it? Oh, no, no, not that fast at all. No, I've got some time. So I'm very happy that I have the time to do that. Cool, man. Well, we look forward to seeing what you come up with. And, yeah, I don't know, invite Mr. Deadflip over again to stream as a Whitewood and see what happens. Exactly. Yeah, I was thinking it would be really hilarious to just, like, take the Whitewood and just, like, chuck it at, like, Expo or something in the Freeplay area with nothing on it. And just, like, all crappy and stuff. And, like, just to see what happens. But I'm not going to do that, just so you know. Hey Scott, you don't have your webcam on but I'm actually looking at a picture of you. You've got your NES next to your left foot. You've got a rainbow unicorn sitting there on your vinyl player. Is that right? Oh yeah. Yeah, well that's Dizzy the Unicorn.
    55:19
    How am I seeing you? You're talking in a snowball, you have some crazy analog modular system to the right, and both TNAs there. Hey, is that a TNA tubber? Oh, you know what? You know what that is? I think my wife came in and was taking pictures of me while I was talking. Honey, what are you doing? You're stalking me?
    55:40
    Yeah, she's stalking me. What is going on? She tagged us on Instagram, so I'm just kind of doing it. Yeah, that little unicorn's name is Dizzy. Whenever I do live steps and I'm not using the turntables, I put the little unicorn on there and she spins around. Hey, talking about vinyls, you know what you should do with your next game? Revolutionary Idea, you should include a vinyl and a cassette as well. I should. That's amazing. Original Idea, guys. Well, you know what? It's fine. It's really cool that Stern's actually doing that. I do question the cassette, though. I get vinyl as collectible right now, but the cassette, like, I did as a joke. Like, people, I didn't actually expect people to listen to the vinyl. I'm sorry, the cassette, not the vinyl. But, you know, I, it's just funny. Like, I don't understand, I don't understand why Stern did cassette. They should have just done vinyl for everything. Because it is a... Well, because they have different models, though. So the, you know, the top, the best of the best gets vinyl. Yeah, but you could get like a gold vinyl for like the LEs and then like regular black vinyl for everything else. You should work in marketing. You could introduce for marketing at Stern. Oh, wow.
    56:59
    No way. Zach does that. He's good at it. What's the topper on TNA there that I'm looking at? Oh, yeah, that was a Laserific topper. It was like one of the early prototype Laserific toppers.
    57:14
    And I don't know what happened to that project. I think they had to redo a bunch of the art because there was just like way too much green on it. It didn't match the back glass at all. Okay. But I think, I don't know. I guess, and then Laserific sold the company. I don't know what happened, man. I don't know what happened to that topper. Maybe I should auction that off. Limited edition cover. Yeah. One right there, man.
    57:38
    But yeah, so totally interesting. But yeah, no, I mean, I'm not upset about the concept thing at all. I'm not upset about the concept. I think it's actually quite flattering, and it's a good idea to release something on physical media because it's kind of fun. Yeah. All right, man. Thanks for chatting with us. We really appreciate it. And enjoy the rest of your Saturday afternoon. Oh, and Marty, I'll tell you what, holy crap, I am so upset that you and I didn't meet up during Pinball. I know, and... How did that happen? I don't know. How did that happen that I didn't see you at all there? I know, and there was a moment when someone said, oh, you know, I was just talking to Scott Denise and I went, what? Where is he? And I literally did a big loop all around and couldn't see you, so I'll have to be next time. Ah, it's awful. All right, yeah, next time for sure. We'll meet up there again. Yeah, for sure. Alright guys, thanks for having me on. Thanks man, always good. Yep.
    58:34
    So there you go Ryan, that was Scott Denise part 2. What did we learn this time? It was refreshing to get inside Scott Denise's head. I mean I know we didn't learn crazy amounts about his second game, but you know, they can't talk about that now. No, of course not. But, you know, him talking about like which next support and the shot lay out and the geometry, I've never heard that before. Yeah, I think when you get in the mind of the person, you can then kind of, obviously you can never tell what he's going to do next, but you can kind of at least understand what he's capable of doing. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to listen to that right after his second game is revealed, whenever they say like a year and a half, two years from now. Because obviously if we interview him then, he's not going to remember his thought process a year and a half ago. So I think it's a snapshot in time of what he's thinking right now during his design process. Another thing I learned was his expectations and I guess Spooky's expectations around TNA and what they thought they would sell and they've far exceeded what they were going to sell. And I think what's really interesting now is that, you know, 450 units we assume is not really in the scheme of what's actually being produced by Stern, not a huge amount of units. and where I'm taking this is, you know, there's a lot of opinion that people go, oh, you know, they should market this and they should sell it this and they should do this kind of stuff. And it's really coming from that person's opinion. But when you think about Spooky and what they want to achieve, they only really want 500 machines of, you know, obviously Alice Cooper, whatever they're going to make of T&A. They don't need to sell thousands of these machines to be considered a success. It's a very different business model.
    60:25
    Yeah. I mean, I was trying to push Charlie when we had him on the podcast to talk about growth and, you know, can you just hire more people to then do them easier? And, you know, and then he had his answer and I kind of pushed him again because I was waiting for him to say, like, yes, Ryan, we're going to do this. But it's very obvious that they want slow growth. I mean, you know, very, very slow. And that suits him the best. Well, they're very different businesses and I would never say that, you know, I understand a pinball company but, you know, in my business we are of a certain size. In the industry that I'm in we're considered quite boutique. I've got about 200 people that, you know, report to me.
    61:07
    Just a humble brag, just dropping that in there. Well, no, that's small. In my industry that's small. But I've also worked where I've had 2,000 people reporting to me and it is an incredibly different business model. And if you want to be a company that has 2,000 people, you have to be completely different. It's a different culture. It's a different type of business than 200. And I'm much happier now running more of a boutique business than when I was a mass market business. And that's kind of the parallel I draw with Charlie. Charlie, he's happy to be that because that's what he knows and that's what he likes versus having to become. And as I said, I went on the Stern factory tour. It is a much bigger beast compared to what he's got. So, you know, it's just where you want to be in life. Okay.
    62:05
    Shall we head to the big news of this week and pretty much the only news we're going to be talking about? And yes, this is six-day late impressions on Deadpool. We are aware, we are aware, you the listener, maybe you just listened to us, congratulations. There's a high chance that you probably listen to a whole bunch of other podcasts, YouTube shows, YouTube Corpinside.
    62:29
    I haven't listened to any podcasts on Deadpool just so I'm not repeating something that's been stuck in my head from something else somebody else has said. But now I think that's almost worked against me because I'm almost afraid that what I say is like a really basic opinion someone had. Well, it doesn't matter. It's still our opinion, whether it's fact or not, doesn't really matter. All we've really got is a short video to look at and some images of the Deadpool machine, the Pro Premium and LA. Yeah, so last week we got the, I think it's called the sizzle trailer, and it was a really cool song that played, and we saw some gameplay, and how the ramp works, and how the ball gets locked, etc, etc. Let's break it up into sections, Marty. Let's talk about the art first. What do you think about the packages? Oh, okay. So, okay. Wow. Shall we go good club back up on this? I've got really some disgusting things to say about this. No, I don't. I don't think you can go good club back up on this. I don't think you can. I think it was the biggest surprise was how the art completely transformed this game. Because what we saw with that leaked image which had some very basic art on it, I kind of looked at it and thought, how could you actually make this really interesting? And Zombie Yeti, who's done the art, yet again, has just freaking nailed it. Just killed it with the art, I reckon. Yeah, the art is very busy and that helps the play field, you know, from pictures, we haven't seen it in person, look more packed. But it makes it look more populated, doesn't it? Exactly, and it just makes me think of what could have been with Star Wars. I mean, just to see people's reaction, I'm not saying it's going to improve the gameplay or anything, but having some insane art on Star Wars or Game of Thrones, would that just make it like, oh my gosh, finally, like a good Star Wars game? Absolutely, it would. It absolutely would. The flip side of that is Guardians of the Galaxy had amazing art, and everyone's like, there's two things that were wrong with that reveal. One, it was a very familiar layout, and two, when the code was shown, it was very basic as well, and it was just screwed all day long. So I think there's many layers to the reveal, and art isn't all of it, but I think that ticked the box here with art. Absolutely. And you know what, it was the comment that we made when we were talking about Star Wars, and it was also the comment I made when I was talking about Archer versus Iron Maiden. When you look at Archer, which is effectively a whitewood, it looked fairly bare, but then when you put the art over the top of it, it looks really populated, and that's the same that's happened here. So it would have been the same with Star Wars, and the last parallel I'll draw was going back to the interview that you did with Ben Heck, where he said the one thing that he learned is art is everything.
    65:39
    Yeah, well, yes. It's not epic then, but again I think if you put an art package like this on America's Most Haunted, it would have just made it look so much more populated. Yeah, there's obviously three models, there's the Pro, the Premium, the Ali, just like every other Sturm that's been released lately.
    66:03
    You know, the Translite slash Backglass is different on some of them, but not insanely different. I guess the difference we're going to be talking about here is the cabinet art, Marty. What are your thoughts on the pro versus the other two?
    66:19
    I like the pro art. I like the LA art. Yes. I don't like the premium art. Okay. I don't love it. It's my least favourite, I will say. Yeah, this is another thing I've been thinking of. The art is kind of like, if you went back, say, five years and said, check it out, this is the new Pimball machine from the future, Deadpool, everyone would just say, this is amazing, full stop. But it's at the point now where Christopher Franchi, Zombie Eddie and Dirty Donny at CERN, they're not really competing against each other. Maybe they are internally, I don't know. But it's into the point where it's all good, so you have to kind of like kick in between them. Yeah, we are really, like, that's what I'm saying, I'm looking at it going, I don't like it. I mean, it is freaking amazing, right? But it's just my least of the favourites. And in recent times, I've really been drawn to the premium art more than most for some reason. I don't know why that is. I mean, you'd think it would be the LE, but normally it's been the premium. I guess because the premium is kind of so blue and it doesn't blend in the same way as the pro does with the playfields. I probably like the premium a little bit better than the LE and it's weird. I mean, the LE is meant to be kind of the one that you're like, yep, instant buy, I want that, but it can't be. From a marketing perspective and from a business perspective, if they keep on limiting it to 500 and they keep on including Shaker, we're getting to the hardware section here, Shaker, Backglass, the Invisiglass, better speakers, that's enough of an upgrade that people are going to say, yep, I'm going to buy this and it's going to sell it anyway. So if you have something that is so much better than everything else in the L.E., then you're going to have people saying, okay, well, I miss out on the L.E., I'm going to hold on until I can buy one, and then they lose sales. It's going to sell out anyway, so just giving people something different, which is, I guess, what this is.
    68:34
    You know, if we ever ask Zombie Eddie what his favorite is, you know, he's probably not going to tell you anyway. It's just, they're all unique, right? Yeah. I like the Pro. If I was to get one, it would be the Pro because it has Deadpool on it. As big as you can be, it looks badass.
    68:49
    Dinosaurs are cool. Massive sharks are cool. But when I think of Deadpool, because I'm not a comic guy, I don't think of that. I think of Deadpool. My favourite is the Pro cabinet art. I think that looks great. I do also like the LE and I do also like the premium as well. As you said, we're sort of nitpicking here because they are all just what we expect from art these days. I guess it's, you know, what I was really surprised about, and I said it before, I was surprised at how much of a backslip I did on this game just by looking at the art. That's, yeah, that's another thing I want to talk about.
    69:38
    Everyone's impression was this would be the filler title and it's been a long-standing thing that everyone says, yes, it used to be, oh, Stern only has one good game every couple of years, so you know, you've got to wait for that, or Stern only has one good game a year, it's been turned to. And people say that because, one, they can't spend crazy amounts of money buying every single Stern game, and two, people want to pick favorites, just like we're doing now with the art. Yes. So, this reveal, and yes, it's still early days, you haven't seen enough gameplay and sounds and things like that. All things point to it not being a shit game. Yes, I know.
    70:16
    That's the shock, right? Everyone has been as surprised as I am that this has been, I guess just from looking at pictures, I don't know whether you really say it's a killer title, that's unknown, but so many people that I've seen on social media and forums are saying, yep, I'm definitely in, I'm getting one. And that surprised me because, like you, I thought it was going to be a bit of a filler title. I mean, we know that it was originally a John Trudeau title that got completely scrapped and then George Gormais came in and did a whole new redesign. So it kind of, I don't know whether I just thought of it as, well, they've had to scramble together and put something together and it's a Deadpool, so they're just going to do something and get it out there and that's going to be it. We still don't know. It could still be, you know, as I said, Guardians of the Galaxy, amazing kind of showing besides the layout, but we don't know how this shoots. I'm sure people that have been in the industry for a long time can look at the pictures and say, wow, yes, I know exactly how this shoots and this is an amazing game. But I'm not there. Hey, Mark, did you notice on the LE, since I've got the included art blades, it gives you instructions on how to play the game, which is pretty cool. Yeah, you know how the old games tell you, like, oh, hit this to light the spinner and this, this and that. The art blades, I just noticed that now, give you instructions on how to play the game. And the artwork is very self-aware. I'm sure people have talked about it, but there's speech bubbles on the play field saying, at least it's not another movie pin. And what's the other one? The other one is something like, I like to think of it as the glass on top of a world. Yeah, something like that. And again, the other responses that I saw, like, besides everyone saying how much I loved it, the only other comment that I constantly saw that, I don't know, left an impression on me was people saying, oh, you should have got Ryan Reynolds in it. It's like, oh God. I did. Yeah. And how many times people had to chime in and say, it's not the fucking movie.
    72:26
    Like, how many times? Like, did you see that as well where everyone's like going, you should have the proper access? Yeah, I skimmed most of it. I mean, with every pin side thread, it's like two really good pages of just everyone sharing information. And then, I mean, it got to the point where people were complaining about the pixel eyes. It's not 70s, it's not 80s, it's 90s, and it's not pixel art, it's this and that, and it's this much bit processor to produce that kind of retro effect. And I'm like, oh, nerds. No, not nerds, but they weren't trying to say, oh, hey, it was in an arguing manner. Anyway, that's art.
    73:03
    Zombie Eddie, amazing job. Yeah, absolutely nailed it, I reckon. And like every single game, including certain games, the artwork somehow is a lot nicer in person than it is in pictures. So if you're impressed with it in pictures, it's just going to look amazing in real life. Yep. Cool. So what else did we talk about? Let's talk about the layout. Layout. So the layout we already kind of knew because of the leaked pictures. The Pro and the Ali are a little bit different. The difference is the stand-up, so the drop targets on the Alien Premium on the left and right side that spell Deadpool. Yes. They are stand-up targets, which will make the game a lot faster. Yep, and a lot more side-to-side action.
    73:48
    Yeah, yeah. And also, you've still got the spinners, you've still got that massive ramp, you've got the sword lock. What you're missing out on is the left orbit. So the left orbit goes all the way around into the shooter lane. And on the whiteboard I couldn't figure out how the ball got there because you just couldn't see because of the angle. It orbits all the way around into the shooter lane. A ramp slap pops down, goes into this little mechanism and feeds it back onto the right ramp. So it's a repeatable shot. How much that's going to change the game, I don't know. How long will it take to go off the ramp and divert? And I'm not sure how satisfying that shot will be. You just have to, I guess, wait to shoot. But they're the main differences.
    74:31
    Got the bobblehead on there, mate. They have got the bobblehead. So for those people that said absolutely it's not going to be in the final game, you're right. You're right. Yes, I'm right. It was absolutely in the game. Ryan is correct.
    74:50
    And just so we can say, that katana looks amazing. It does look nice. And the balls will lock in the handle. And I think I saw in the video it kind of lights up red, possibly when that happens.
    75:05
    I mean, I guess the biggest thing to talk about is, well, there's two new shots in Pinball. One is that massive orbit around on the alley in Pimim. And the other is that, I guess you'd call it the inner orbit shot that leads to the... Do you call it a right ramp? How do you say the right or is it the side ramp? I don't know. I guess let's call it the warp ramp that's entered the right hand side. Warp ramp without a flipper. What is it? What are we talking about? What was the character in Avengers? It was that, you know, the shot that everybody hated on Avengers? Black Widow. It's the Black Widow shot, effectively. And that was the giveaway that it was a game. Don't call it the Black Widow ramp. But the thing I want to talk about is, and this is pure speculation because we haven't seen gameplay yet, Death Flippy is streaming it on Wednesday in a couple of days. The thing about that shot is the geometry has to be perfect because I had America's Most Haunted and there was a similar shot on that and I'm guessing this might be maybe a bit more fine-tuned than that one, but if you hit the ball along the rails, that's when it goes up the ramp. If you hit the shot in the middle and it touches the rail and the ball guys further up, it rattles the shot. And because it's such a long shot, I don't know how deep the ramps are for it to get up. And because it's a long shot, I don't know.
    76:33
    George Gomez has a thing, Marty, where the apex of the shot is further into the shot than normal. Okay.
    76:41
    Monster Bash. How many times do you try and hit the left ramp on Monster Bash? I think you get it. It goes all the way and then it goes back.
    76:50
    Which is the same shot on Lord of the Rings, yeah. Yeah, my slippers are so powerful on Lord of the Rings that it pretty much never rejects, but it is possible. Sopranos has it. I'm not sure. I mean, I'm sure Avengers has it, but I can't play the game for more than two minutes.
    77:05
    So that's just a guess. It worked in the video, obviously. The ball does slow down and kind of trickle along that rail because it is going sideways. I hope the machine needs to be set up perfectly for that to work. Do you know what I reckon about that shot?
    77:23
    Yes. I'm correct if I'm wrong, but that could have actually done from a diverting ramp as well. What do you think of? Lifting it up and that could be like the lock shot underneath it.
    77:36
    Are you saying they should have done that instead of doing this or what are you talking about? They could have done it because effectively it looks like it is a planted ramp that doesn't move. And so that shot only does one thing, which is go up and come around. But they could have actually, you know, had a lifting ramp and that would have been interesting to have that as a lock shot or something else. Yeah, but then I guess it wouldn't feed into the Lord of the Rings style massive katana. And I give them more space as well because look at the, you know, there's three drop targets in the middle of the play field and that takes up a lot of real estate. I think it's pretty close. So, I mean, there's a lot of shots in this. We'll see. I believe that ramp is exactly the same. Like, if you look at it, Marty, look at the one that's closer to you and the one that's further away. It's the same ramp, just angled. The ramp entrance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's also the Batman ramp. So, it's that same part. Yeah, okay. There you go. So, but what do we think overall about the layout? Well, I mean, obviously, we've sort of said it is, it's very Gomez. Obviously, we've got a bit of flow with that loot shot there.
    78:47
    I don't think it's going to be a flowy game at all. I don't think it's going to be a flowy game. I mean, there'll be flow shots and yes, you can repeat a shot, but who knows? It's the one that we have to speculate too much about, and we're going to see the gameplay in a couple of days, so let's move on to the next so this doesn't last seven hours.
    79:06
    Rules, we don't know much. What George Gomez did say on Nate Shivers' podcast, I'm sure everyone has already listened to that because Nate's the man.
    79:16
    There is like an easy kind of accessible multiball to get hitting the bash toy So you drop those targets down hit the target underneath the bash toy drop targets go up and it kind of like all multi you have to hit the drop target to lock in a value
    79:35
    That reminds me of the lock mechanism in the Spider-Man Home Edition. I've never played. Yeah. The weird thing is, I mean, the ball's just going to be kind of like resting, there's probably no magnet there, so it's just going to be resting on, I'm guessing, the... The far right drop target. So how many drop targets do you need to get down you think to release the ball? Who knows? We'll find out. Yeah, we'll find out.
    80:00
    There's a boom button, Marty? Yes, there is a boom button. If you... the beautiful yellow rule card that you would have already looked at, Ryan... It kind of suits the Thinball Machine a little bit because there is so much yellow and red. I know. It's not as cool as a coloured one, but anyway. So obviously the Deadpool target spelled dead to light battle, spelled pool to light lock, spelled Deadpool to light mystery and regenerate. Boom flick boom, bottom lanes to light the boom button. Hit the boom button when lit for boom. That's a lot of booms, mate. Completely bam, top lanes to advance bonus multiplier. Yeah. I'm not going to read the whole thing, Marnie. No, but there's heroes, so you've got Dazzler, Colossus, Wolverine, blah, blah, blah. Disco mode. We'll get to the sounds in a second, but there is a disco ball on the playfields. Now, like Star Trek, Marty, with the lasers shooting out, you know how a disco ball works. You need light shining on it, you need light off to make an effect. So where is that coming from? Necessarily, because don't forget there are disco balls that have actually got lights inside them that actually project light out. So it could be one of those, I don't know. I can't see any spotlights.
    81:24
    Mystery. That's a mystery. It is a mystery. We'll find out soon enough, I'm sure. What's next? Sounds. Now, this is the really exciting bit that we don't know too much about yet, but we got a really cool song as an intro. Here comes the boom. Boom, I Shazammed it and it is an existing soundtrack thingy. It does exist but obviously not with the rapping on top so they found someone to rap over it. Very, very catchy tune. Yeah, very good. It comes to the boom. Now, I've been told that there's a lot of different styles of music. I mean, George Gomez said in the interview that people would never consider Deadpool as a music pin But it's almost like that, right? Because they did make, I think, 11 or 12 original tracks, right? Yeah, that's almost unheard of. I know Scott Denise did it with TNA, but this is, I guess, on a slightly different level because there's also lyrics to it as well. Yeah, and different styles. Yep. And so the alleys will get the LP, the premium will get it on cassette and everyone else can just download it and listen to it for free off the CERN website.
    82:45
    I'm excited, Marty. When you start the disco mode, there's going to be disco music playing, there's country and western music, there's hip-hop, R&B.
    82:53
    Marty, there will never be a hip-hop and R&B involved. This is as close as we're going to get. It doesn't suit the demographics of the Pimble Machine buyers out there. I'm not sure if there's going to be a straight out of Compton Pinball machine, but probably I'm excited. I'm excited by this because Jerry Thompson's working on it and yeah, going to get a lot of smart comments by Nolans North, who is the guy doing the, you know who Nolans North is buddy, you're a video game player.
    83:22
    Sure. Ah, fuck off man, you know who he is. Do I? Uncharted? Well, I do, I guess. I played all the Uncharted games. That's his voice, plus almost every other video game. I'm not sure if he's faded off into obscurity because I haven't played video games as much as I used to in the last four or so years, but there was a period of time where it was like literally every big video game was Nolan North, and then I think a guy called Trey something, Trey Baker, took over. Anyway, he's very talented and have you played the Deadpool video game, Marty?
    84:01
    Is there one? Yes, there is one and it's not based off the, well this is before the movie came out. Okay. I remember playing at least a couple of hours of it before I got distracted and played something else. But he does a voice for that as well, so he's not doing the voice for the first time. It already exists. You can go on YouTube, Marty, and type in Deadpool video game and just watch it for two minutes and that's the voice you're going to get. I've just literally gone to his Wikipedia page. A million games. Like a million games. Yes. That he has done.
    84:35
    Wow. Why do I know that, Marty, and you didn't know that? Oh, because I don't care about call-outs. I don't care about voices. Like I know some people do. I don't follow that kind of stuff. In video games when you're playing as, you know, Nathan Drake or whatever it is, You don't care about the guy who's talking to you for the 20 hours that you're playing the game? No, but I think that that's Nathan Drake. I don't actually care about the actor that's playing that voice. Like, I don't, because they should be good enough to be able to put on a different voice, so I don't hear the same voice all the time.
    85:07
    I just want to put it out there that I'm so glad this is not based off the movies, because that's what everyone thought they wanted, and what we've seen, it probably wouldn't have been possible at all to get anywhere near that. That's right. Art, style, music. They had so much more freedom because they didn't have to deal with some dude- Probably Bo-Bo-sit. Yeah, probably Bo-Bo-sit.
    85:32
    Yeah. Everyone loves Ryan Reynolds, but I'm sure trying to pay him to do call-outs would fucking suck. Yeah, exactly right. And that's, I guess what we're sort of, you know, alluding to with the, I think, I don't know what George Gomez was talking about with Guardians of the Galaxy, but, you know, they couldn't actually use the voices because they've then got to pay all the actors and... What is, do you know what the deal is with the Screen Actors Guild? I don't know, what does that mean? Is there like, is that like the workers' union for actors? It is like a union for actors, yeah. Yeah. And what do they have to do when you want to use someone's voice? Do they have some kind of agreement with licensing for any big screen movie or something? Well, I mean, look, I've got to look it up. Yeah, we probably should both look it up, but if you think about unions, unions are there to represent workers that don't necessarily know their rights. Maybe the screen actor field is similar in that they are a body that you can turn to to manage your rights as an actor. Okay. If that sounds intelligent, Marty, but probably so does your own. Yeah, completely. Let's just, you know, you look up with your finger and that's going to be exactly what I just said. Okay.
    86:41
    The LCD, we didn't see much, obviously, but what we can tell is that it's pixelized. Yeah, it's like a video game. It's like a video game and there's a story that's been not done by Stern, it's been done by someone else, someone famous. He's famous in a world that isn't related to Pimball, so I don't know who he is, but yes, congratulations. It's not someone else. So it's its own story and you start off by walking into the room and you're playing your own video game, your own Pinball machine. Did you see the wide body sea witch in the background, Marty? Yes. And what I like about what they've said about the use of the LCD is that when you're sort of in that game, it's all going to be the old pixelated 80s, But when Deadpool breaks the fourth wall, which we hoped he would, that'll be high-res imagery that comes through.
    87:35
    Yeah, and we haven't seen it yet. We'll see it in a couple of days. There was a ball save animation where he was riding some really weird-looking unicorn with weird eyes.
    87:46
    So, who knows? It's all different, right? You can't go play the All-Stone games at the same because every single LCD game that it has is totally different. Alright, so let's talk toys.
    87:59
    Yes. So, hmm, I mean obviously you've got the bobblehead, we talked about that, you've got the disco ball on the premium and LA's, you've got the, well, would you call the katana a toy? Yeah, sure, yeah. That's a make that. Yeah.
    88:18
    Well, actually, wait, you wouldn't, yeah, when you're talking about Lord of the Rings you wouldn't say it has a massive sword. Yeah. I just had the handle, the handles, something, right?
    88:27
    Yeah, I had to sculpt that. I had to sculpt it. Yeah, I did. But it's, look, it's got a bobblehead. Like, really, that's the toy.
    88:40
    Yep, that's what I'm saying. If you have a good reveal of your, it's Deadpool comics, like, it's not like Star Wars, and, you know, Ben Hex said that Star Wars is like a religion now, so don't piss people off because it's like you piss off, you've offended their religion. But the reason why I bring that up is that from all the feedback that I've seen, nobody's complaining about a lack of toys.
    89:01
    I'm sure some people are, but I guess after Iron Maiden, people have a hope and a trust that a game doesn't need crazy toys to have fun. I would personally rather have good shots and cool music and art than one big mech like, say, no, I can't say that. Well, it's like the Batman, the Batman 60s thing, I've said it a million times. It's a massive mech. It doesn't bring any fun to me personally. I'm sure other people love it. It turns around at different shots available, which makes it, you know, more interesting to some people, but none of it is that fun to me. Whereas a bobblehead, as cheap and as nasty as you might think it is, it's kind of funny, right? Well, yeah, I guess it's kinetic, right? It's movement. It's going to do something when you hit it and it's going to look silly. And he's going to say stuff. Yeah, people will find it quite funny. I just hope the humour in this Pinball machine kind of stays, it's very hard to stay funny forever. Yes. Very few Pinball machines can do it. I think Medieval Madness does it to me, Attack from Mars does.
    90:10
    I think Nolan North is good enough to pull it off. Well, okay, but let's just do a bit of a comparison now to Ion Maiden and go with me on this, right? Because obviously I've now got a spoiler alert for this week in Pinball, I've got my Inmaiden back home and I've been playing it. There are so many call outs in that machine. So you can play it a lot and still hear things for the first time. So if that's the standard that they're setting, they could also do it with this. And because they don't have to worry about licenses, they can have Nolan North spend 15 days in the studio doing 5,000 call-outs and just plug him in like they've actually got the ability to do that. I'm pretty sure they still have a licensor, Marty, who's Marvel, like one of the biggest companies.
    91:00
    But they're not going to worry about, you know, the intonation of the voice. They're just going to be really worried about what he's actually saying. But I think they've got a lot of freedom with this and I think they've got a lot of freedom with this because of the license itself. Because it's Deadpool, Deadpool doesn't take itself too seriously.
    91:18
    No it doesn't and Pimball I think should almost never take itself too seriously as well because it is meant to be a box of fun and when you make it too serious it can be intense. No I know. It can be fun. But that's why I think that the balance was right with Ion Maiden where it's a serious game but there are some call outs that make you smile or chuckle a bit.
    91:41
    And you know again when we had the interview with Dennis Nordman we were sort of talking about how there's not a lot of humour in games these days. Just right timing for us to actually have a machine that's going to make us laugh again. Marnie, Expo last year, Derek Munez stood up and said, we're JGP, we don't do this, we don't do that, and we don't release a game that has this.
    92:08
    It wasn't anti-Stern really, but there was a couple of jabs at Stern and everyone was like, oh my gosh. And then Stern had their little talk and it was like B plus money equals pinball, they didn't show anything. It was kind of like a really shitty talk. It was very easy to bash on Stern at that time. And there's some people that are like, oh, look at you, all you idiots who were saying that back then, like, look at yourself now. All of that stuff was valid, because at that time, that's what Stern was, was kind of the image they were putting out there, and JGP's image was different.
    92:38
    Stand up now, Marty. I'm not saying as JGP or anything, that was just an example of what was said. Stand up now. It doesn't matter who you are. You actually want me to stand up? Well, no. Okay, I'm standing up right now. Try and bash Stern. Star Wars.
    92:57
    You wore me off slamming the top 100. I think it's very hard to. I mean, yes, they still have. They have come of age. They really have. They've got some loose ends to tie up, okay? Yeah. Fix fucking Ghostbusters codes. Yeah. Fix a couple of the old stragglers and then just... Yeah, it's just... It's so hard. I think I would... No, but we've talked about this. If you think about a development cycle for a game at Stern, it's 18 months. And once they've set their plan, they've got to execute on the plan. So they've had all these changes in mind, but there's an 18-month to two-year delay before any of these innovations or changes in strategy can come to fruition.
    93:43
    So what are the changes you've seen hiring all the new people, the fresh boys? Well, hiring the fresh blood, but also, you know, the whole LCD thing. Like, you know, everyone's like, yeah, they were the, you know, I won't say they were the last to do it because we know who the last to do it is.
    93:59
    But everyone was like, you know, why can't they do it? The technology's there. They should be able to do it. It's like, well, they can do it, but they've got to do it in a mass market situation where they've got to make thousands of these that don't break down. And then there's the development cycle they've got. Then there's the machine that needs to be right ready for that technology.
    94:23
    So, yeah. When Stern produces games that people think are average, then it leaves a gap in the market to be filled by people that want more, better, something different. The more Stern kick ass and release things that people want and don't screw up the release of their PINball machines, Because the less the gap gets shortened and it's smaller. And I think that's when everyone's like, oh, you know, when are these people, these smaller companies or anyone else, when are they going to start to feel the pinch? I think they feel the pinch when Stern doesn't fuck up. Yeah. Oh, without a doubt. And we saw that with, again, the Iron Maiden effect. You know, everybody was, you know, selling their old machines and, you know, everyone was just wanting to get an Iron Maiden because they were just absolutely on the money. And we sort of talked about this before. Nobody was really expecting that Deadpool was going to be on the money. But nobody thought Iron Maiden was going to be on the money either. Remember when we interviewed all those Ali owners? And you weren't even an Ali owner then. How many people said they really love Iron Maiden? Like one or two people, okay? People like Iron Maiden because they don't hate Iron Maiden. As a band. And the Pinball machine is awesome. And Deadpool is the same thing. It's a fairly new property in terms of people liking it in the movie world. Yes, the comic's probably been around for how many years? I don't know.
    95:51
    But I don't think anyone was saying, I really want a Deadpool Pinball machine. But if you give them something that's cool and it's a Pinball machine, it's fun. No, but I also think that people were thinking, no way Stern's going to be able to follow up after Iron Maiden. The same thing is going to happen for the Nestle machine, I think. Yeah, no, I know. You know, Monsters is rumoured to come out. Yeah, no, I know. They're just going to keep on releasing. No, I know. But what I'm saying is that I think, and you're right, it's going to take some time for people to say, oh, actually, this is the new Stern. And my point before, as I was saying, is that Stern knew this was coming two years ago. Of course. But, you know, the consumers don't because they don't show us their development cycle. That's right, because I don't think anything. That's right. No. Sorry. So, I don't think it's... Obviously, yes, Iron Maiden was a surprise to them in as many units have been sold, but I don't think it was a surprise to them how great a machine it was going to be. Of course. And, yeah. Hey, you mentioned the LCD thing before, and, you know, it was a little joke about home pens. We're not going to talk about home pens. Yeah, we're not going to talk about home pens, really. In great detail, but I just want to squeeze this in there. Their first container has been shipped. Hooray for them. Guess who it shipped to? Not the original people that ordered that money. People that ordered five years ago. I'm not sure. I have no idea. Okay, this is just my observation. I checked Facebook, saw that it's going to Canada. So the first batch is on its way to Canada.
    97:32
    It's the whole... I remember JT Jack went through a similar thing where they needed money. And, you know, new money versus old money. I'm not sure what the situation is there in China, but maybe a bit of a slap in the face for those people. I don't know. Maybe there is another container that's leaving today. So I'm not trying to cause drama or anything. Just an observation. No, I understand. Do you want to know how much of a fuck I give?
    97:58
    How many fingers are you holding up, buddy? Mm-hmm. No. Okay. Anyway, back to Deadpool. Back to a game that's enjoyable.
    98:09
    So, have we finished with toys? Because the only other thing I want to talk about, I guess, with toys is that they've actually got figurines. But weren't we hearing that George Gomeres was saying that you can actually get figurines that come in the coin box that you can put in? Were they figurines or like cutouts, like plastic cutouts or something? Yeah, I'm not sure what he was saying there, but I'm sure people can be complaining about it in some form. But, man, hey, Marty, when we did the Iron Maiden interviews, we did like four in a row. We had, you know, Zach Sharp, Keith Elwin. We had Jerry Thompson. Who else did we have? Sorry. Zombie Eddie. Yeah. We had Zombie Eddie. Yes. So my philosophy in life is that if you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards. So these are the people who are going to interview Marty. George Gormes, Tanya Klyes, Zombie Yeti, Jerry Thompson, Zach Sharp, Josh Sharp, Wason, Gary Stern, John Papaduke, Jodie Dankberg, Ryan Reynolds, Nolan North, Troy Baker, Tim Sexton, all the girls that Tim Sexton have been trying to pick up using his Stern programming status. Mike Vinical, Jack Danger, and all the people that work on the line, and even the Stern Janis. We're going to interview them all, Marty. Are you ready? Yep, go. It's going to be like 12 weeks from now. Not now. Oh, I thought you were going to join it. No, this is not some bit. I'm just saying that we're going to get everyone on. Okay, get in touch with us. Including John Papaduke. I noticed you did say that. Why did you mention his name in relation to Deadpool? Because he was in the manual for Thunderbird, so I thought he might be... Because he was an inspiration to Mike, so I thought he might be... He is such an inspirational person. Just someone, someone on that list that made the game.
    99:48
    Yeah. Yeah, anyway. What else do we need to talk about this? Did you notice these... This is just random thoughts. The side rails on the LE are the, I'm just going to talk about Home Pin non-stop, are the Home Pin style rails. Like they're not the lollipop rails that come out in like a semi-circle, they're like the straight edge thing. I wonder if Mr. Home Pin was like, oh hey, do you want 500 of them? Well, Gary did visit Home Pin, so you never know.
    100:22
    Interesting. Very good. You've got an exclusive right here on Head to Head. What's Chimichanga? Chimichanga. Oh, okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it like a food? Yeah.
    100:37
    And isn't it like a baked tortilla, like a stuffed tortilla? What's the relationship with Deadpool and there's so many Jimmy Changas on here? I don't know. Do you know the only reason why I know about Jimmy Changa? Because before we started recording tonight, I was doing Uber Eats. And I was looking at a Mexican restaurant and I had Jimmy Chang's and I went, oh, I know that's got something to do with Deadpool. So I've looked at what they were. You think you didn't order it? No. You have a lot of Uber Eats. Can you please order one for me and let me know how they are? I'm pretty sure I've had one of these before.
    101:20
    Is it like a taco? Um, let's kind of... It's embarrassing. People screaming through there like you're in their car at the moment. Like I can't believe these guys don't know what a shimmy chunga is. You know, well, mainly because, you know, we're not near Mexico, right?
    101:37
    Half our population hasn't leaked lots of water. Well, off the top of my head, I think it's a deep fried burrito that's popular in Tex-Mess, Tex-Mess Southwestern US cuisine. The dish is typically prepared by filling a flour tortilla with a wide range of ingredients. Most importantly, yes, I found it. I'm reading off the fire, Marty.
    102:03
    Ah, yes, okay. No, I have these, but I don't have them fresh. Like, sometimes I just get, like, a prepackaged freezer meal because I can't be bothered, then I've given up on life.
    102:13
    And, yeah, they're, like, sloppy, yeah, I don't like them. So, I don't know. I've read it. Apparently Deadpool hates chimichangas for some reason. Oh, he hates them. No. No, he's holding one in his hand. He loves them. No, I just saw a comic where it says, I hate chimichangas.
    102:31
    Ah, who knows. They're average, Deadpool. You know. Anyway, that's what chimichangas are. Okay. Are we done? I feel like we're missing something. You probably went for, I don't know. No, that wasn't that long. So, it's, um, look. So probably just, you know, segwaying on to the interview further that, you know, George Gomez had on Coast to Coast. Please listen to it. It is amazing.
    103:01
    The point, I mean, there's a lot of points that he made, but one of the things that sort of really stood out for me is he was deliberate in saying that this was everything to him. He didn't just take this on and it was a side project. He threw everything at this.
    103:21
    So, you know, George Gomez makes good games. He sort of also referenced, you know, some of the flack that he got from Avengers. He's not going to make those same mistakes.
    103:34
    It's quite funny that he said that he doesn't get, he doesn't always get opportunities to design games, But he designed Batman 66, the Spider-Man Home Edition, Supreme Pinball Machine and this. So he's probably designed more games than anyone else that's done in the last two years. Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, if you think about Batman 66, most of the layout was there. He had to make changes. But if you think about the rotisserie, he probably would have had to have designed that and got it working. So it would have taken up his time, but not so much had he been solely responsible for a Pimble machine. So this is what he's done. And as I said, I think he was just very careful in saying he didn't want people to think that this was just a side project where, you know, he's just done it in his spare time. He has thrown everything at this to make it as best as it could possibly be.
    104:28
    Yeah, let's see how it shoots. The thing I'm most excited about is the sounds because I think the sound will make this game fun more than the shots.
    104:39
    Because I know you don't care about sounds and the way it makes you feel with sounds and shots, but to me it's an important factor. And I think it just has the potential to be the most fun game this year if, I'm not saying the best rules and this, this and that. I don't want to offend everyone that loves Iron Maiden, including me. But, yeah, I'm just excited. So am I. Massive, massive surprise. Would you buy one, Marty? No. Why not?
    105:12
    Because I'm not in the market for one, really. I would, possibly. In typical fashion, I'll wait till the gameplay and I'll be like, oh my god, this is amazing, and it'll be sold out. Look, again, I'll do a bit of a parallel to Iron Maiden. I said that I'm not necessarily a massive Iron Maiden fan, but it was the ingredients of Iron Maiden that got me excited. It was the band, it was Keith Elwin, it was the layout that I sort of kind of knew, and it was Iron Maiden art, right? So it couldn't go wrong. So that's why I was excited and was like, yep, I've got to get my money on it. With this, it's got all the ingredients, but not the theme that I like.
    106:08
    I'm excited that it's a theme that I also don't like, but I'm still excited about the Pinball Machine, and that's the power of everything that Stern is doing at the moment, that there's plenty of themes that I don't care for, but I will still buy a Pinball Machine if, you know, I don't care about this shadow of the movie, I still like the game. I don't care about a lot of things, including Metallica, but I own a $12,000 Pinball machine that has their face on it. So make a good game and it doesn't matter. People will come. Marty, shall we move on to Gojira for the very last time because I'm fucking sick of talking about Godzilla.
    106:42
    What? The last time, Marty. Really? Godzilla. Why are you talking about Godzilla? Godzilla's awesome.
    106:47
    No, I'm just saying, I couldn't give a shit about Godzilla. Three weeks in a row. Okay, I'm only talking about it because Nate Sheeters asked George Gomez about it because obviously there's been some to and fro about stories kind of coming out and, you know, stuff's starting to get aired publicly. You know, Scott Denise, he talked about, you know, there was rumours circulating that he interviewed at Stern and didn't get a job and he wanted to come on the show to clear it up because that's, you know, you don't want those rumours kind of floating around there. He's not taking that jab at Stern. I think he handled that very professionally and said it in the best way he could. But he said he could alter his job. Anyway, my point is, this is all Nate Shivers' fault. I'm not sure if you picked up on it in the interview, Marty, but he said he had dinner with Gary Stern. And he said, Gary, you should do Godzilla. And if you do Godzilla, don't do the new one. You've got to do the old school Toho stuff. So Nate Shivers, you know, he caused all of this. You created this mess. Charlie, I hope Charlie has like a... Look at yourself. Yeah.
    107:53
    No. We're joking. But are we, Marty? But are we joking? Well, okay. So, okay. I'm not going to say I was right, Ryan. Yes. I'm going to wait for you to say that.
    108:05
    George Gomez said the exact thing that you said on the podcast. It was exact, wasn't it? Yes. It was exact. And I was listening to him and I'm going, fuck, I'm going to bring this up when I'm recording this podcast because it's exactly what I'm saying. He also said that he hasn't been listening to podcasts, Marty, so he's not regurgitating your words, Marty. You guys are just in sync. It's like you're saying menstrual cycle, Marty. It is. But, you know, as I said, there are people at Stern that will love Godzilla. And I know that even though that Sega game that came out of Godzilla is not necessarily a great game, I know that Keith Elwin loves that game.
    108:45
    Yeah, a lot of people love the game and this is the thing. Marty, what's the game that you love? You love Star Trek but you're still wanting more. Okay, Iron Maiden. If there was a story that came out that American Pinball, you know, random company, company XYZ, Zytec, wanted to make... Where the fuck is this story going? Okay, Zytec wanted to make Iron Maiden, and the guy who runs Zytec is fucking obsessed with Iron Maiden. Could you give a shit if you... if that story came out and Iron Maiden is as good as it is? Do you get what I'm trying to say or not? No, I really don't. But the answer is I wouldn't give a shit as long as I've got a good machine. Yeah, sorry, I'm phrasing this wrong. What I'm saying is that by the time the game comes out, no one will care. It's just a story. Things happen. Spooky moves on. We move on because, yes, we're still talking about this. It won't matter because Stern is on the right path now. And yes, I think there will be some games that they mess up a little bit. They can't be perfect, they're human. Yes, but they've got a good team around them at the moment.
    110:03
    Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, they've got a good formula at the moment. I don't think anyone's going to be flipping it in two years' time whenever it's going to come out saying, oh man, I wish this was done by someone else or I really feel sorry for Spooky. I don't mean to say that in an arsehole way. Yes, the things that happened and the way it transpired and the whole meeting situation, it sucks.
    110:24
    But by the time it comes out, Spooky will have had two games out by then and people will be enjoying those.
    110:31
    And yes, I don't know, I think it's also a bit, not dangerous, but making a game that you're obsessed with,
    110:39
    I'm not sure if that necessarily would lead to the best game ever because you're probably going to be making it more for yourself than for the crowd that's out there. Yeah, I know what you mean.
    110:51
    We will never know. And we will never talk about Godzilla again. And when it comes out, it's Pobbyville. Yeah, when it comes out.
    111:02
    I can't wait to see who's on the project, Marty. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait, Marty. I cannot wait to find out. I would love to know who's on the project, Marty. Okay, what should we talk about? Should we do slam the top 100, Marty? Let's do slam the top 100, and as usual, let's recap on what happened last week. So, what happened, Ryan? We both got games that we couldn't give two shits about. We didn't give a crap. The absolute perfect result, Marty, because it was a draw. It was a complete draw. We got three of those each, 50-50 for two very average games. We also did get, you know, someone wasn't happy with our commentary. Because we're noobs, Marty. We don't like Earthshaker, so we're noobs. We are absolute noobs. So, yeah, because we don't like, you know. We don't like old games. Anyway, Marty, it was a perfect result because none of them deserve to win. Shitty arguments, average people and machines. Not average, but, you know, average to our argument. Yep. Let's go for another week. Cool. Sorry, before we start, did you notice that Minimal Man is back at number one money? Is it really?
    112:17
    Yes. Attack from Mars is no longer the... Just everyone that has an attack from Mars is just letting you know to log into Pinside and give it a couple of uploads. And, you know, do what people do and go into Minimal Man is and download it just to make yourself feel better. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. Alright.
    112:40
    57. Will Capsacka. Okay. Yeah, I'll take that. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. Coming right up.
    112:52
    37. 74. Stay Spacker. Ah, Spack in, okay. No, I love this game. Yeah, sure. I did. I told you before I love this game. Okay.
    113:06
    World Cup's like a John Papaduke's cheapest game, but his best design. It doesn't make sense. Amazing call-outs, Marty. Goal!
    113:17
    Fun modes, you know. Fuck Super Spinner. You've got Ultra Spinner, Ultra Jets, Ultra everything. Ultra is a better call-out than Super, okay? Super is for noobs. You've got the spinning ball which is better than a pop bumper, creates random movement. You've got the goalie moving left and right to score goals. You've got sources as well that you can feed the ball, Marty. It's like a penalty kick. The scene integration on this is amazing. Great rules while it's still used in tournaments today. You don't really need to go in and put in alternative ROMs. It's a well-balanced game. Yes, it has inflated scoring, but it's still balanced. Walk-ups like a money. Get it in you. Get a dog out of you, money. Okay. So let's talk Save Cracker. A really interesting game by Pat Lawler.
    114:05
    You love Pat Lawler, don't you, Money? You know what? I don't love Pat Lawler. I've said that I've got a record. I have said previously on this podcast that I really like Save Cracker. I went to someone's house, they had 20 machines, all like the top 20 machines of every freaking machine, and then Slave Cracker and I kept coming back to this game. There's something about it. It's charming. It's a mini pinball-ish type thing. It's got really interesting rules. It's got this countdown. You know, if you do certain objectives or, you know, get targets down, it increases the timer so you've got more time. So you're racing against the clock, like literally. And then you've got this game in the back, which is a bit, kind of a bit like a Monopoly game type thing where you roll the dice and it moves to certain things and there's a guard chasing you and you're trying to cut the wires and get through to the end and effectively just crack the space. And when you do, Ryan, what happens? One of the most amazing things in pinball. A real token drops from the back glass to the front of the game and you get a token. And then you never ever fucking play the game again. You never play the game again.
    115:25
    Okay, so you're done so I can do my bit. I'm done. You're done. Okay. Yes, Safecracker is amazing because of all that stuff you said, Marty. Except when you get the token, that's it. You never want to play the game again because, yes, there's a Pinball machine under the glass and the rules are pretty cool. I like it. I like the way it flips. It is a mini Pinball machine. It was created, Marty, to sell beer. It was trying to dance around the rules in Europe because certain redemption machines were banned in certain areas and this was a way around it. So it was never created to be a real Pimball machine. I agree. Cool Pimball machine. As soon as you get up the top, Marty, it's not a Pimball machine anymore. And if there was skill involved in it, you know, with the slow roll and the fast roll, sure, okay, I'll give it a thumbs up. There's no skill. It lets you win when it wants you to win. It's an operator setting, right? So it's total bullshit. That's not a Pinball machine. That's just saying, you know, okay, I want this many people to win a beer. I want this many people to not win a beer. So that just ruins the entire thing for me. And, yep, I had an absolute blast playing it the first time I played it, and then on the second game I got two tokens, put one token in there and played that cool multiball, and I've never felt like playing it again.
    116:52
    Okay. Well, I have. I have. I played it multiple times after getting that because I just loved it. Look, let me talk about World Cup Soccer.
    117:03
    And really, the thing I'm going to talk about is Striker, the World Cup pup. Which is the shittiest, shittiest mascot you could ever have for any sporting or event, just any event in general. And that who is on the back glass of this machine. You cannot get away from it. You cannot get away from the fact that this is a shit theme. And I'll tell you why it's a shit theme. No, no, no, it's a shit theme. Because what you've got is you've got John Papaduke's creative genius where he's got flowing, swirly ramps and rails and then you've got a fucking soccer theme. Are you fucking kidding me? That's why I worked it out, my team. Let me speak. Those things just do not mix. There's something not quite right about the design of the layout and the fact that it's a soccer game. And you mentioned it. It has got the most terrible call-outs when you score a goal. And it's got one of the most underutilised features of a pinball ever. The Magna Save, mate. The Magna Save. Yeah. No one remembers that it's there. It might as well not be there. And it's got that stupid soccer ball in it. What a terrible game. Striker, the World Cup pup. Do you like how the referee has her arse showing money? She has under arse showing. Yeah, so, you know, hashtag.
    118:44
    Me too. Yeah, that's what you're trying to say, right? No. I don really care because I going to win this one Space Space Crack is not going to beat WCS Everyone loves it and it a cheap pinball machine as well which means that it affordable for the average Joe The average Joe doesn need to spend to get a very cool game It also made by John Popadook Yep and he made the world designer creative genius now working at Deep Root going to crash Stern with his ideas Yep Yep John Popadook So should we get him on the show Marty Thank you we on the show We said so many mean things about him I don mean any of them I just doing them to make people laugh No I know he's at his expense, which is basically bullying. So, segue moving away from that, we're going to put it up on Facebook, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, speaking of which, the agenda for Pinball Expo 2018 has come out. Oh my gosh. And, did Rob Berkley include, I did message him, say I'm going to fly down, did he, do I have a seminar, Marty? No, you don't, unfortunately. No, they didn't invite us. But, J-pop will be there.
    120:01
    How do you feel about that, Ryan? I think that pinball people, when you put them in a big room, are pussies, basically. They're not pussies, but they're two kinds. We say that it's the kindest little thing.
    120:18
    When American Pinball came to the Expo in 2016, there was a lot of questions to be asked by them, and none of them were asked. The first one was, where the hell is John Popper do? He's already being replaced by Joe Belser.
    120:31
    I don't think anyone's going to say, where's my money and where's this and where's that? Because, I mean, there's going to be Dennis Olman there, there's going to be John Norris. Hey, John Norris, right? I don't know too much about him, right? He posted, I've got him on Facebook, he posted a video. Have you got him on Facebook, Marty? Yeah, probably. Probably.
    120:50
    Holy shit. I might try and link this topic video in the show notes. He started playing, sorry, Steve, front of the bonus. He posted it up, I think, as well. He was playing Kiss Mighty, and it was like a five, six minute game, and he was just tap passing the entire time. I'm not talking about the belly kiss. No, I can see it. I can see it. It was on the 10th of August. Ah, you're watching it now. Okay. Yeah, just insane flipper skills. And I think it was Transed Lob Shot, which is basically like an extended tap pass. I just want to check that in there. Most designers, besides Keith Allen and some other people, they're proud of the fact that they're average pinball players. This guy is clearly not an average pinball player. He's above average. Okay, that's really interesting. So back to Pinball Expo. So some of the highlights. So this runs from October 17th, I think, which is a Wednesday, to Sunday, October 21st. Highlights include Meet Team Pinball, Designers of the Mafia. Would you go to that one, Ryan? I could not show my face to them after what I said. Exactly. You wouldn't be allowed in. No.
    122:06
    There's other stuff. That's a high fault. We flipped the coin. I got bad coffee, you got good coffee. I couldn't tell you what happened.
    122:13
    No. Todd Tucky, he's going to be there talking about his books, no doubt. Oh my gosh. So American Pinball, so Joe Boucher, Jim Thornton, Trish Coogler, Jeff Bush. Might be seeing their next game there. Sorry? Maybe. Might be seeing their next game there. Oh, I hope so. That's what Josh said during the interview. Okay.
    122:37
    What else is there? The making of Spinal Tap Pinball Machine. So, Devin and Jason Durham, they're there. I played that. Pimball Hall of Fame is moving uptown, so Tim Arnold's going to talk about Pimball Hall of Fame.
    122:50
    So, this week in Pimball and straight down the middle, a Pimball show are going to be having a seminar. So Jeff Madison, Zach and Greg, they didn't invite us for that one obviously.
    123:01
    So that's a bit disappointing. I mean, can't help but feel hurt by that. You idiot, mate. Scott from Pins Stadium is going to be there.
    123:14
    Where are we going? Pat Lawler is doing a seminar. Are you dialed in? Future World. Do you think, wait, some of these ones are fake.
    123:24
    Right? Like if there's a new, like American Pinball obviously they're saying we're all going to be there and if they have a new Pinball machine to show they're going to be showing it, if they don't they don't. Sure. If someone was revealing a new Pinball machine they wouldn't say, like American Pinball wouldn't say the reveal of Oktoberfest. Right. So do you really think Pat Lawler is going to be sitting there talking about Dialed In which was shown two years previous? Well I don't know, the title of your seminar is Are You Dialed In? That's what I'm saying. Is that fake? Will he be talking about dialed in if they don't have anything else to show? Or will there be another game designed by Pat Lawler? Do not know, mate. I do not know. You're saying it's a bit of a ruse and he's going to basically be releasing Toy Story?
    124:11
    I don't think so. Pirates of the Caribbean hasn't even shipped yet. Yeah, it won't happen. Very weird of them to do it, but I'm just letting people know that there are fake ones on that little schedule. Well, so I don't know, the one that we saw, the one that I sent you is different to the one that I'm looking at at the moment. I've actually gone to pinballexpo.net. That is pinballexpo.net. Because then you've got Future Worlds with Deep Root Pinball. Okay. Barry Alsler, Dennis Nordman, John Papaduke, John Norris. What's it called, sorry? Future Worlds with Deep Root Pinball. The one you sent me. No, I know. That's what I was saying. It's changed, right? What was it called before, Marty? Wasn't it like the last word or something? The last words, yeah. Yeah.
    124:57
    Moderator, so John Norris and Quinn Johnson, moderator Robert Mueller. Okay. And then you've also got an evening with Jersey Jack Pinball, so Jack Ranieri and stuff.
    125:09
    And then you've got Lloyd Olsen, LTG. He's going to be there. What else? Scott Deney, he's going to be talking about total nuclear annihilation.
    125:20
    Keith Elt, he's doing a seminar on the road to game design. Steve Ritchie, George Gomez. It's just the who's who of pinball. So much drama at the start of the year. Now it's back to being an extremely big pinball event. And there's a couple of tournaments. So there's a flip-out tournament. Over $10,000 in cash and prices. There's an American pinball tournament, so you can win a Houdini pinball machine. And I've heard, just as a side note, the next code update on Houdini pinball is going to be amazing.
    125:55
    Revolutionary money? It's going to change that machine completely, is what I've heard. Better theme integration? Like, better... Yeah, I think so. Overall, your experience is going to be enhanced as a result of it. Cool. I don't know how you have this inside information. Oh, I just know a lot of things, Ryan. Just people tell myself. I just don't share them with you.
    126:21
    Oh, sorry. Sorry. Censor that out. Censor. It just came out. Censor. You are going to censor that out, right? I don't want an email from Alex.
    126:33
    Shall we go to this week in pinball, Marty? Let's go to this week in pinball. Who's going first? Marty, I mean, you talked about your trip a lot, but just before we talk about this week, you visited so many different places when you were in North America. Yes. What was the single highlight of your trip? I know you said it was Keith Allen, but that was about Pindberg, about the entire trip. Well, look, I went to four different places. Let me give you the highlights of each of the different places. So, Toronto.
    127:04
    Just say Toronto. I can't say Toronto. It's not the right way of saying Toronto. And I've been saying when I'm back in Australia, I'm going, oh yeah, I went to Toronto. And people are like, what? I'm like, well, that's how you say it. You're allowed to because you're not from there, Marty. No, I know. It's okay for an American person to say Melbourne instead of Melbourne. Okay. So honestly, and I sort of said the best part of my trip was the people and it really was. So Toronto, Toronto, was getting up with Jeff Teolis. Hadn't seen him for a while. Caught up with him and his wife. Went out for dinner and then we went to Tilt Arcade for a drink. It was just the best night. It was just really good, great meal, great company, best part of Toronto.
    127:48
    And Jeff Ellis' wife left the entire country when I went to see Jeff's shirt. I was coming, she just left.
    127:55
    So then obviously Pittsburgh was Pimberg because it was really the only thing that I did there, right? Yep.
    128:04
    Chicago. Two main things I did. I did the architectural boat tour, which is amazing. Everyone had recommended. I also had the deep dish pizza, which was amazing. But the flip frenzy at Logan Arcade was the best. Yep. And San Francisco was catching up with Gene X Wong and his partner for some amazing cocktails. Cool. So really the highlight wasn't going to these cities and seeing sites and attractions.
    128:35
    From Toronto down to Pittsburgh I saw the Niagara Falls and I literally looked at the falls and went, there they are, got back in the car.
    128:47
    You know what I mean? Do you even go down to do the Maiden of the Mist? No, I couldn't give a shit. It's just a fucking waterfall. It's the power and the energy that you're getting close to. No, it's a freaking waterfall, man. And I'm not, I'm just not that kind of guy. You can't say that about anything. Oh, it's just pizza, man. Deep dish is just pizza, man. No, I don't know. You can say it's just something, man. So, honestly, Zach Sharp recommended, well, he recommended two things. He recommended that I do the Architecture Boat Tour, which was freaking amazing. It sounds really boring, but it's not. It's amazing. And he also recommended... Did you really not see Deadpool there? I still don't believe you that you didn't see Deadpool. What? Like, surely it was on the line when you were there.
    129:29
    No, I did not see Deadpool at all. And can I tell you, I was fucking scouting around. Like, Zach talking to me, saying, you know, talking about the assembly line, I'm looking over his shoulder trying to scound around and see if I can find Deadpool. Didn't see it anywhere.
    129:49
    But he also recommended that I go to Lou Malnati's for Deep Dish Pizza. And it was just bonkers amazing. Yeah. So how many slices did you eat before you gave up? Two. Two, yeah. Out of three. Yeah. They tell you that when we went there where they were like, you can't eat more than, like, you know, most people can only eat this much no matter how big they are. And, like, we think, like, two slices? Like, let's get, like, four each or something. It was something crazy. And we ate half of our food. Yeah. It was amazing. So there you go. The highlight of my trip really was just all the people that I met.
    130:26
    Marty, you also got your Iron Maiden Pimball themed. Finally. And, man, talk about taking a Pimball machine for granted.
    130:35
    I've been busy and I haven't played it crazy amounts compared to other Pimball like Dalton. I've put so many more games on that because I wasn't as busy. 200 games is still a lot.
    130:45
    You've forced me at gunpoint to stream and take a lot of games. Jordan Shredder came over. He's a horrible player. He only plays like one game every minute.
    130:55
    But I mean, it was part of my... I didn't realise that it came because of my daily routine. And today I got up and I was like, okay, I'm going to have a five-minute break or a ten-minute break. And I walked into the room and there's no I-Maiden there. I'm like, oh, I don't want to play any of my other games. And I was just like, oh, I was just starting to really get into it, you know.
    131:12
    It's amazing. I mean, it's still fresh, Marty, and I'm not sure if you want to give your opinions on one day, so why don't we cut to someone who has had a lot more time on it than you, Marty. For sure.
    131:29
    You get a BP? Yeah, sorry. Okay, Valentine, you've just played some Iron Maiden. What do you think about the machine? Talk about the art. Well, I think it's scary. Do you remember what that guy's called on the... No, I don't remember what his name is. His name's Eddie. And can you count how many times you can see Eddie? One, four, five... He's here, here, here, here, here. Oh, I'm a cat. He's only at least a hundred times. He's like hexagons. What do you think about the layout? You think it's a good layout? What do you mean layout? Like you think it has a cool shot? Hmm, yeah, a little bit. What do you think about the rules? Great rules? What do you... What is that rules? You've got to battle the beasts. Hmm, where is he? The beast is here. Oh, no, I think it's scary. Scary. It needs more rainbows, right? What? Do you think this is more rainbows? Yeah. Do you like the colours of the lights? No. Do you like the world under the glass? What do you mean the world? Like, this is the glass and underneath is like a different world. Yeah? I mean, no, no, no. You don't like the world under the glass? Well, I try to do a little bit in the middle. In the middle. Okay, the middle has good world under the glass. What do you think about the call-outs? Ready? Oh. I like them. Yeah? Do you want to hear this music?
    132:48
    No. No? Do you hear what he says? Welcome to my world on the glass. So, overall, what do you give it out of ten?
    132:56
    Maybe three out of ten. Three out of ten? This is the greatest game of all time, I was like. Yeah, do you know how much money this costs? No. Just guess. $150,000. Oh, that's a bit expensive. $13,000. Oh, yeah, it's close. Do you know how many there are in the world? No. Only 500 in the world. That's much. That's not much? No, it is a lot. It is a lot? Do you have anything to say to Keith Elwin? He's the guy who made this machine. Um, I don't really like the Pimball machine. Give him some theme ideas. What do you think he should make next? I think he should make next. He wants to make a machine called Golden Girls. It's about a bunch of old grandmas that hang out with each other. Oh, wait, wait. So I read a book and it's called Grandmas from Mars. I think you could do that. Instead of the grandmas, they still, um, the grandpas and then an alien grandpa comes and says, Oh my gosh, you know what that sounds like? That sounds like Attack from Mars. Yeah, it is. He should redo Attack from Mars, but instead of the green aliens, it should be grandmas going la la la la la la. Yeah, it's like alien grandmas. Okay, and just as a reference, because you gave this 3 out of 10, what would you give Attack from Mars out of 10? I know. I like it a lot. What would you give it out of 10? 10 out of 10. Okay, what would you give No Good Gophers out of 10, Valentine? No.
    134:21
    4 out of 10. Confirmed. No Good Gophers is better than Iron Maiden. Better than Iron Maiden. See ya. Bye. There you go. There he is. So, there you go. Yes. Go No Good Gophers is better than Iron Maiden. Oh, fucking hell. It is unbelievable because, yeah. How do you get kids into Pinball? Fucking no good girls.
    134:46
    It's funny because it left and I walk in today and my three-year-old said, where's the scary Pinball?
    134:53
    I'm like, do I have any other scary Pinballs? And they just literally pointed at, oh, fucking, Attack from Mars, Walking Dead, Metallica. And then she started pointing to the shadow. I'm like, it's Alex Paul? What's so scary about The Shadow? It's like, it's scary! Anyway, Marty, impressions after streaming it for one day?
    135:12
    Um, it is everything. Yep. It is, it is everything. And I think that the, I think the content thing, so I had Paul R.J. and Stacey Borg over as well. Um, and I think possibly the best compliment I can give it is, I cannot find a fault with it. Where are the toys, Marty? Where are all the big necks? I don't care about toys. Where's the medieval madness castle? Come on. I'm not interested in that. I mean, you know, Star Trek up until now was my favourite game and it's got that one freaking stupid bloody vengeance ship that, you know, looks crap anyway. So, I'm not into toys. So, it is absolutely everything. It has just got this layout. I could just shoot loop jackpots. Iron Maiden all day. I went back last night because I didn't have Iron Main playing my house. I'm like, what can I do? I didn't want to play other Pinball machines. I went back and watched the New York City Pinball Championships. I just want to see how everyone played it differently because it was Keith, Bowen, Steve Bowden, and John, the guy, I can't say his last name, Repugly. Yep. Sorry. I'm just a sick. Anyway, amazing game and I realise that when you hit enough loops, it likes a loop jackpot. It then diverts to the mini flipper and I always try and hit a shot, which is pointless because I can't hit that little mini flipper to me is the impossible shot. I can't hit the loop jackpot and I can't hit the super jackpot. I've tried so many times and I just can't get the timing right and I'm not smart enough to adjust my shot. So, Keeith Elwin, when we're not diverse for the flipper, he just lets it drain because the loop jackpots, the time doesn't start until you hit your first shot. So, he lets it drain back down to his lower right flipper and then hits that inner orbit and then goes for normal loop jackpots. So, I was like, oh, I can go into the other room now and try that. No, it's at your house now. It's your machine and I didn't buy a nine, Maiden.
    137:22
    I keep on thinking that it's there and it's not. Do you honestly, do you actually regret not getting one?
    137:31
    Right now, yes. I mean, when I had it, I totally took it for granted because I don't know. I just haven't been into Pinball as much as I normally have in the last two months. I don't know that people will laugh at that because I, you know, did watch that. You bought two machines in that time? Yes, I'm still buying machines. I'm still talking about Pinball. I'm still going to meets. I'm still running competitions, I'm still going to competitions, but the main part of me getting to Pinball was me playing Pinball at home, and I haven't been doing that that much. And, yeah, so it doesn't matter. You've got it. I can go over whenever you invite me over to play Ion Maiden. I can go to anywhere, yeah, if I'm allowed. And, yeah, I can go and play on site. Yeah, no, I guess what I'm asking is, is it worthy of you wanting your own one? Or you actually think, well, there's a lot of people that you know that's got it that you'll still be able to get a fix. It's weird because there's three pinball machines that I've had in my house that don't belong to me and have never belonged to me that I played and I absolutely loved, but I'm not like clamoring and going and saying buying and that's dialed in, absolutely amazing game, TNA, absolutely amazing game in a totally different way, and Iron Maiden. And those three Pinball machines are better than all the machines in my collection. But for some reason I don't, you know, someone offered me, it has to be like a deal or something. I don't have that insane, I need to buy it right now. Unless there's a reason, unless no one else has it and it's my only way of playing it.
    139:07
    Yeah, okay. Fair enough. Yeah. It's a winner, man. It's still like ridiculously high praise from you. Yeah, not that you need it, not that anyone else needs it because I'm just an average player and just a guy with OCD but it's an amazing pinball machine. No, but let's just lay by that point because you are somebody with OCD when it comes to pinball and you will find the most minute flaw and it's a big deal for you but you haven't complained about this machine at all. There's only one thing that I'm not sure how it can be fixed and if it can be fixed. I don't like not getting credit for shots. Yeah, you're talking about the loop shot. Yeah, and when I went back and watched that New York City thing, someone hit two mini loop jackpots, one loop jackpots was lit, and it didn't pay any of them. And I'm not sure if it was that thing, because I remember Keith was on, you know, Coaster Coaster, he was doing his first interview, and I think it was then, he was talking about the issues they had with not being able to fit the right amount of switches and stuff. They just didn't have space, so they had to use the spinner, I believe, as a switch kind of thing, for locks and to know. It was good with the timing. And I'm not sure if that's what's off or if the ball's jumping over the opto, So, but I don't know why the bigger loop would not register because there's three switches I believe that get hit. There's the first opto and then it kind of jumps over. There's a second opto and then there's a switch. So surely if it jumps over the second opto, which is probably what's happening, it would hit the second switch and it would still count as a shot. So it doesn't happen often, but I'm the kind of player that it won't ruin my ball, but... It affects me because I'm not good enough to hit that ten times in a row because I can't adjust the speed. And because it's not going up and down a ramp, the better you hit the shot, the faster it's going to come. So you can't get into a rhythm. The rhythm depends on how well you hit the shot. So when I get the shot ripped off and it doesn't register, I can't, you know, I get affected by it more than anyone else. Fair enough. I'm sure a good player would just say, oh, okay, whatever. Just hit it again and get it the next time. Yeah, but I can't hit it again because I'm not good enough and Ion Maiden is a type of pinball machine that will make you a better player because yes, you can have fluky games like you can in Walking Dead where stuff just happens, you get some massive power jackpot and you didn't really know what was going on. But to progress through modes and to progress through multiballs, you can't really fluke it that much. You can fluke a couple of little things but you can't fluke getting soul shards. No one's ever going to accidentally finish a mode. In Iron Man.
    142:05
    Have you thought about Iron Man enough? Yeah. I think we have. That was my week. That was it. Good to have it back. Have it your week. Marley, we haven't ripped off a podcast in a while, so I would like to rip off two podcasts in one and combine two of their segments. And this is not a weekly segment because this is just going to happen when Ryan buys a Pimball machine. So Tony and Dennis from the Collected Gamers podcast had this really cool segment where it was like 20 guesses or something, or 15 guesses, I can't remember exactly how much it is, where they just say, hey, you've played this Pinball machine before, you get to ask a certain amount of questions, and then you have to guess what the Pinball machine is. Bruce and Ron from the Slam Selt Podcast, the favourite podcast that we've brought content from, he was playing a game where he just bought a pinball machine and they were guessing what it was. So let's combine those two. I have bought two pinball machines this week. I haven't told you what they were.
    143:04
    So how many guesses do you think it'll take to guess these pinball machines? Yes or no questions. You can't say who manufactured it. It has to be a yes or no. You get five guesses once you've asked all the questions you want to ask. So, you know, how big is your ego? Do you think you can ask five questions, ten questions? It could be anything more machine money. Do I have to lock in how many questions I can ask you?
    143:29
    Well, I would say five and then five guesses. That's probably not enough. So, do you want ten? Okay, give me ten. Is it ten per machine? Yep, yep, yep. Two different machines. This is going to require a lot of editing because the one on the one on the one on the one on the game this podcast he was just asking question after question but they said after that that took like 10 minutes because he was looking up. Okay, so thank you. You're giving me your editing to do with my thing. I'm not editing anymore so I don't give a fuck. That's right, you don't give a shit because it's now me that's editing again. Okay, alright, you ready? Okay, first one. Go for it. Is it a Bally Williams game?
    144:07
    Yes. Is it a wide body? No. Is it a John Papadook game? No. How many questions do you want? Ten. Ah, you're pretty deep in already. I think you're going to get it before then.
    144:34
    I just don't know because I just don't know your taste in games. You can open up my Pinside profile because none of these games are games that I've owned before or own now. So that'll help because I've owned a lot of the Ballywins games. Hmm. Okay.
    144:57
    Well, I'll just go through the designers and is it a Steve Ritchie game? No. Pat Lawler. Yes. That's five games. Patlover game that isn't a wide body, Rani.
    145:11
    Okay. This just got interesting. Okay. You can have five guesses now. Really? But I just don't know his game.
    145:29
    Internet pinball database. That's exactly what I'm doing. Okay. Okay, so you can have up to ten questions and five guesses.
    145:42
    Okay, perhaps. No, so that's your first guess. You're locked in now, so you can't ask any more questions. Okay, well, no, that's two guesses. I'm just making up the rules as we go along. You've got three more guesses, Marty.
    145:57
    Well, it's not no good go-through because you've already got that, because it's a narrow body and it's about a relance. You look and get Earthshake and you're like, fuck, does he really like Earthshake or is that all just a ruse?
    146:09
    So I've said Funhouse and I've said Whirlwind. You've had Adam's family before. Or have you? No, that would be too rich for your blood. It's my Pinside profile.
    146:27
    So, Bonzo Run, no. Was that a guess, Marty? No. Well, there's only two, really two left. Okay. Unless you talk about Adam's Family. So, Bonsai Run. No. Earthshaker. No. Well, what have I missed? You've got one more game, Marty. Adam's Family. Yes, I bought an Adam's Family. Why would you buy an Adam's Family? Because it's the only fucking, it's the only game that I had as a kid that I haven't re-bought, okay? And I bought that one last year that the guy refunded me because he realized he thought it was too cheap. One came up, had a brand new playfield, not installed, okay, it's a very players-conditioned Pinball machine, but I thought I'd play it and put a new playfield in and see how I feel if I want to keep it or sell it. Why not? Adam's family is going through the roof. I doubt they're going to remake it, so it's a safe bet for me. Honestly, it was the last one I would have picked you getting. Why? You don't know me after 56 weeks, Marty? No, I just thought that you would have had it before. No. Check my Pinside profile, bitch. Okay. Alright. This is going really well. Really riveting stuff. I hope you're editing it well, Marty. The next one is going to be harder, Marty. Alright. Go. Ask your questions. You have to 10 questions. Go, go, go. Okay, is it from the 80s?
    147:57
    No. That was a long no because I had to think about it, so that might be a hint. Is it a Williams? No. Bally?
    148:11
    No. Stern? Yes. Okay. Let's go back to IPDB. Hey, Stern. So it's going to be a solid state of some kind.
    148:28
    Mmm. It's a lot of them. Yeah. 38. But not in the 80s, so. One, two, three. It's a lot of them. Is it stars? Yes. It certainly wouldn't have been Nugent. Yeah, one popped up on Gumtree. It was like some person that basically had an entire kind of warehouse full of X-stops they used to fill up houses with, like display homes. and they had four Pinball machines that they put out to say, hey, this can be your man cave. Here's like a cheap Pinball machine so we don't have to pay for a new CERN or something. And I saw it, contacted the person and like, yep, I'll sell it to you. As soon as I locked in the sale, and of course you can never really lock in a sale these days. People just outbid you in this, this and that.
    149:28
    Like a million other people wanted it. The stars have just gone bananas here. Um, and I got Dr. John, good friend of the show, Dr. John, to go pick it up. I didn't have the gut to say, by the way, I'm in Melbourne, I'm going to get a friend to come pick it up, because I didn't want to, like, do anything to tamper with the sale. Sure. So I just pretended that I was going to come pick it up, and it was the last minute, Dr. John kind of messaged and went and picked it up. As soon as he went there, a whole bunch of other people came and just took the other three, and they would have taken stars as well. What were the other machines? A Cleopatra, a Dracula, but not a BSC Dracula, like the older Dracula, and I can't remember the other one, but nothing that I wanted. Okay, but just in future, just think about me and whether I would have wanted one of them. Really, Marty? Yeah, Cleopatra, I don't know why, it was one of these early memories that I have of playing your pinball machine. Okay, sorry, Marty. It's gone somewhere in Queensland. Yeah, that was $1,000.
    150:32
    Marty, I actually now transport this Pinball machine to Victoria when it's my time to do it. Oh, Ryan, that is so expensive.
    150:41
    It is, unless you win a competition to get free career deliveries for a Pinball machine anywhere down the east goes, What's up?
    150:51
    Did you win that competition? Certainly not by soliciting people's votes. What's wrong with soliciting votes, Manny? Mm-hmm.
    151:04
    Yeah. No, everyone else that wanted to win was doing it as well. I just happen to know more people than everyone else because I spend my life talking to more people. Anyway, it all worked out in the end because I can talk about this company and he was doing it for promotion of his business and I used this guy to career my media. So this guy is called Mark. He runs a company called Need Courier and the rates were exactly the same as what Prowler were. And he seems to be invoicing his pay online. He includes GFPs and no cash in hand stuff. And he did an amazing job. So I will look forward to getting that machine whenever... I told Dr. John he can just hold on to it until he's sick of it. He hasn't done a Dr. John and Emily stream for a while, right? Have you been waiting for them like I have? Yeah. I want him to have one minute games on S.A.R.S. So I'm not going to accept it back until he does that. So that was cool, Marty. That was cool. Well won. Completely fair.
    152:07
    It was a good picture where you're making it sound like it was a shit picture. The picture was, the competition was, take a picture of your kid. Sorry, your kid. Take a picture of a Pimmel machine with a drink in front of it. So I had a cardboard cutout, Marty, of your head. I got my kid to wear it and sit on your animated camo machine and pretend to skull alcoholic beverages. Yeah, she was regal. Yes. I don't have any gin, Marty, okay? I know that. I know the theme integration wasn't on point, okay? It worked. Anyway, my competition, my competition, my tournament, Marty.
    152:46
    Did you go to my tournament? No, you didn't. No, I didn't. Yes. It went really well. Luckily, I was a bit stressed out about there being too many people there because of all the Facebook invite accepts. There was 33 people, which was kind of perfect.
    153:04
    Maybe a couple more people would have been too cramped. I'm going to move some film machines downstairs to get some more room so it can support Mothil in the future. The format, Marty, of 0-1-1-2 Strikes Tournament went really well. I never told you the full story of how this happened, and I'll go through it now really quickly. I was looking for a new format to try out. I asked Luke. He said, I said, I really love the strikes format. I know some people don't like it because, you know, you can be out quickly and this, this and that. I like it because it keeps me interested in the competition all the time. And the more strikes you have, the more nervous you get. And I like that nervous excitement.
    153:40
    Yes, match play is the best, but it's really just kind of like building up points. Anyway, I asked Luke. He said, oh, hey, Keith Johnson has this really cool way of doing it. And I emailed Andreas, who runs Matchplay, and I said, oh, hey, have you heard about this new scoring system for knockout tournaments? Can you support this scoring structure? And he said, not really. I can't just kind of like, it's not just a matter of plugging in numbers and it's done in five minutes. It's like hours and hours of work and I can't add it just for you. And I kind of like was like, oh, shit. You know, I asked again. He's like, no. So a week before the competition, I ran a simulation and I manually edited all the results money. Like every single game that was played, I did a progressive strikes tournament and I altered the people that came third and fourth to one and two. And it totally broke match play because apparently it was a bug and you can't edit too many results. You can edit one or two and it works out fine. If you edit 60 different things, it just makes Match Break die. Right. Like the whole site or just your version, your little tournament that you created? Well, I'm pretty sure it's just the tournament, 100% that breaks. But when I was doing it, the website also went down, which is probably unrelated. I haven't asked Andreas. Anyway, I emailed Andreas. I'm like, oh, hey, just letting you know. So, and he, like, he got not upset or anything, but that motivated him to add the format. Oh, really? So he added the format just because I fucked up his whole website. So, yeah, and people, I kind of went on the Tilt Forum's thread and I kind of announced that it's now a format on his behalf. And people used it before me. Like, people are running tournaments all the time and they're just kind of like, okay, let's try this this time. And people love it. Keith Johnson even wrote, I'm not sure if you saw it, because I did my simulation run and yes, running one simulation doesn't give you accurate results because ours went to 10 rounds. He wrote a program that will simulate how many rounds this will go for and on average how many people will be in each round. And you can run the simulation like to 10,000 times if you want or 1,000 times to make it super-duper accurate. And there's a 0.6% chance that it goes to 10 rounds and that's what happened the other day. This is literally for like 1% of our listeners, for the people that run tournaments. Point way.
    156:15
    How many people are interested in chimichangas, Marty? Anyway, I'll link it in the show notes. It was really well done. If you're in Melbourne on the 22nd, which is in a week and a half, I'll be running one again at the same location.
    156:31
    Will you be there, Marty? I will try to be there. I heard it was a fantastic night. So, well done. The really cool thing, Marty, there were people that were new there. They'd never played a Pinball tournament before. That's always exciting.
    156:47
    I always, like, when those people were at my, you know, rage tilt at Rises, I felt a bit crap because they didn't do too well. I didn't get to talk to them and then they're out of the competition. They leave. I don't get to say goodbye or anything. Everything. Everyone was representing Pinball really well and people that were in the group with these five new people were talking to them, they were having beers, having laughs, explaining rules. It was like, if they don't come back, then there's literally nothing you can do to convince people to come back. Yeah, exactly. I was so proud of everyone that, yeah, they've got to come back. Awesome. Forgot what I'm trying to say. Okay. Are we done? I think we're done. Mailbag, Marty? No, I've got to do editing as well. I'm so glad I don't have to edit. We'll do the mailbag next week. I did ask a question and people did respond, so just a question again. No, actually, I can't believe it. If you want to send us an email, we'll read it out next week. Yeah, for sure. Alright. Thank you everybody for listening. We will speak to you again next week.
    157:58
    See ya. Bye. Deadpool, Deadpool, Deadpool, Deadpool, Deadpool with my name, watch me break, ain't, I'm the Merc, with the mouth, I got my own gang, but first I gotta be known in the room, on your mark, get set, ready for the move, watch me, get on the move, Deadpool is in the middle of the world, yeah, get on the move.