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Dino-mite from Zen Studios

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·49m 38s·analyzed·Feb 11, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Blockade hosts discuss restoration techniques and celebrate Zen's Jurassic Park pinball announcement.

Summary

Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan discuss their pinball restoration projects (Star Wars and Firepower playfield work), then pivot to Zen Studios' announcement of a three-pack Jurassic Park digital pinball release for Pinball FX3 on February 20th. They speculate on licensing exclusivity implications for other digital platforms and brainstorm additional Universal-licensed pinball concepts Zen could pursue.

Key Claims

  • Zen announced a three-pack Jurassic Park pinball (Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, Jurassic Park Mayhem) releasing February 20th on Pinball FX3

    high confidence · Chris and Jared reference official announcement; Chris cites Mel Kirk's Twitter teasing 'huge information' the day before release

  • Jurassic World table features a locked ball hanging over water with a crocodile/dinosaur snapping it out

    high confidence · Video shown during announcement; Chris confirms 'you are getting your dinosaur eating a ball momentarily'

  • Zen does not have John Williams music licensing for Jurassic Park; music licensing costs are prohibitive

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'John Williams cost too much. Music in general just cost too much.'

  • Zen's license may prevent Farsight/Stern Pinball Arcade from getting Jurassic Park digital tables in the short to medium term

    medium confidence · Jared speculates licensing exclusivity similar to South Park situation; stated as educated guess rather than confirmed fact

  • Jared used 120 grit sandpaper to remove mylar adhesive from Star Wars playfield instead of chemical methods

    high confidence · Jared describes personal restoration process in detail

  • Jared accidentally applied oil-based Varathane instead of water-based version to Star Wars playfield

    high confidence · Jared states: 'I looked at the can. It was oil-based after I applied it.'

  • Jared plans to use Testors model paint (enamel) for color-matching Star Wars playfield touch-ups

    high confidence · Jared describes paint selection process and color-matching strategy

  • Chris's Eight Ball Deluxe with fresh rubber and car wax exhibited physics-defying ball behavior for several months before wax grip wore off

    high confidence · Chris describes personal experience: 'it literally just like seemed physics defying... like glass basically before'

Notable Quotes

  • “I just need to go buy all the connectors and redo them all... it kind of fixed itself by leaving it alone. Electrics don't just fix themselves. They're always broken. Sure they do. They're just in a different state of broken. No, I got reverse gremlins.”

    Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan @ ~18:00 — Humorous exchange about electrical repair philosophy; establishes community folklore around 'reverse gremlins'

  • “I really want that dinosaur to eat the ball as an homage to the Data East table... In typical Zen style, it would probably come running onto the table, will roar at you and then munch the ball and then run off the table again.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~32:00 — Establishes expectation for Zen's digital design philosophy; desire for homage to classic hardware

  • “So I'm just saying, Zen, explore your options, man. If you've got this universal license going, really go for it. That's just a massive back catalog of stuff that they could hit into.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~48:00 — Advocacy for expanded Universal-licensed digital pinball content; demonstrates host enthusiasm for Zen's direction

  • “High score? 2 billion on one ball... And then it was 1.2 billion. And then I came in third at 1.1 billion.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~62:00 — Demonstrates extreme score variance in Pinball FX3 tables; context for difficulty/balance discussion

  • “I got that score without completing the wizard mode, okay, so you can imagine that once you start actually getting all the way through the wizard mode... those scores would have just been ridiculous. Astronomical.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~64:00 — Indicates significant score potential in Marvel Women of Power table with full wizard completion

  • “You've got to join in on the weekly Zen tournament that we're doing... by the end of each week, you wind up having basically around 30 players, which is pretty good for an individual person's tournament.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~66:00 — Community engagement metric; demonstrates successful grassroots tournament participation separate from official Zen events

Entities

Zen StudioscompanyChris Freebus (Shut Your Trap)personJared MorganpersonMel KirkpersonJurassic Park (three-pack)gamePinball FX3productData East Jurassic ParkgameStar Wars (pinball machine)gameFirepower (pinball machine)game

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Chris Freebus running successful weekly Zen pinball tournament with ~30 players per week across console/Steam platforms; variable tournament formats maintaining engagement

    high · Chris: 'by the end of each week, you wind up having basically around 30 players, which is pretty good for an individual person's tournament... Every Monday is when I'm starting the new tournament'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Marvel's Women of Power table demonstrates extreme score variance (200M-2B single-ball range) indicating significant wizard mode balance or progression payoff potential

    high · Chris: 'The low score of the tournament was in the 200,000s. High score? 2 billion on one ball... I came in third at 1.1 billion' without completing wizard mode

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen Studios maintains signature design approach of integrating animated characters/creatures into digital tables while homaging classic hardware mechanics (dinosaur eating ball references Data East original)

    medium · Jared: 'this is Zen doing what Zen does, which is put your animated characters in there... they're more or less, you would think, not too far off from what Data East did... It's integrated in such a way that we're getting the benefits of digital, but it's not too far out of reality'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jurassic Park digital licensing excludes John Williams music, reflective of broader music licensing cost constraints in digital pinball

    high · Chris: 'John Williams cost too much. Music in general just cost too much.' Exception made for Star Wars music licensing

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.149

0:00
this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are listening to the blockade podcast i am your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan hello chris wow, what a week it's been. Yes, and time for us to wing it like we always do.
0:35
Wing it like a chicken. Yeah. So I managed to get a bit of time this week to, well, get up to my arms in sanding, basically, because I depopulated the Star Race table and I started to sand the bejeebers out of it, basically. Getting the, from my had is I removed the mylar and what was left behind was that horrible adhesive that you know there's different schools of thought about how you should remove that some say a bit of isopropyl alcoholic flour some people say goo gone which you can't get here in Australia um some people in Australia say orange power which is like a citrus based cleaner um or umph will do it as well um but none of those things were really working for me at least to the level that I needed it to So what did I do? Get out the block and sandpaper and sand that crap off.
1:32
And it was surprisingly effective. I was actually using 120 grit, which I'm sure all the pinball restorers are going, oh, when they're listening to me do it. I was going, yeah, I've got 120 grit here. I'll just use that. And it was actually quite fine. There were a few bits where the play field has gone down to the primer, but not a lot because I actually got the feel of it.
1:57
I would say that if you're thinking of doing the sandpaper treatment to get your mylar adhesive off, go to the areas of the table up the top under the apron or under the apron or up the top where all the plastics are at the top of the play field to get your hand in and you'll be able to feel what it feels like when you sand. so I did that and got it all off and made sure that I really got it all off because you know it's very hard to see that stuff sometimes when you're sanding as you well know because you probably would have had to do a similar thing with firepower when you were doing it but yeah I managed to get it all off and to the level where I was going you know what I think it's time I think I'm going to Varathane this now so I got out the old I don't have the spray booth i don't have a spray kit i'm just working with what i have so i went and got a rattle can of verithane from bunnings and um hit the play field with it basically i went well what's what's always going to happen you know and turns out actually not that bad the the quality of the finish is is looking pretty good and it's probably going to be a thicker coat i mean i am going to probably give it a bit of a um a sand with i think i've got some 240 grit there so I'll give it a bit of a hit with that and then probably start doing touch-ups on the areas that I need to now I made a bit of an error Chris what I did is when I was buying the um the Varathane can I was going yep I know I need to get the water-based stuff because apparently the water-based stuff doesn't yellow uh like the oil-based stuff does okay um so I went on well whatever I don't probably won't have the thing long enough for me to actually worry about but it'll be someone else's problem. Right.

“So I'm really kind of like going back and playing them on my own rather than just playing in the tournament... Just one more go. I'll just have another one.”

Chris Freebus @ ~60:00 — Indicates high engagement and replay value with recent Zen tables; demonstrates genuine enjoyment beyond tournament play

  • “I think that bend of stand up targets for helping you spell Sorcerer, it sends the ball in all sorts of wacky directions. Every single target has a different angle that it shoots it off because they're all subtly different trajectories.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~75:00 — Technical analysis of Sorcerer's Lair playfield design; explains unpredictability mechanic

    • Eight Ball Deluxe
    game
    Marvel's Women of Powergame
    Sorcerer's Lairgame
    Farsight Studioscompany
    Farsight Mattperson
    Banzai Rungame
    Blockade Pinball Podcastorganization
    Universal (license)organization
    Testorscompany
    Terminator 2game
    Firepower (Data East, vintage)game

    community_signal: Pinball restoration as collaborative community activity with hosts at similar progression stages on separate machines, sharing color-matching strategies and playfield finishing methodologies

    high · Jared: 'We're sort of up to the same point in the restoration... I'm going to go to my buddy who has just a buttload of basically Testors paint, and we're going to use that to try and color match'

  • ?

    announcement: Zen Studios officially announced three-pack Jurassic Park digital pinball for Pinball FX3 releasing February 20th, including Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, and Jurassic Park Mayhem tables

    high · Mel Kirk teased announcement on Twitter day before release; confirmed multiple times by hosts with specific title names and features (crocodile eating ball in Jurassic World table)

  • ?

    product_concern: Zen Studios digital pinball production quality consistently high across recent releases; hosts express confidence in table purchasing decisions regardless of theme quality

    medium · Chris: 'the stuff they've been putting out has been really fantastic... you can just basically throw your money at the screen, and you'll have some fun... It's a pretty safe bet to buy the table packs up front'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive sentiment shift toward Zen Studios platform and content quality; hosts actively recruiting participation in community tournaments and recommending table purchases to listeners

    high · Chris: 'You've got to join in... if you haven't done it already... you've got to join in on the weekly Zen tournament' and 'I'm really digging a lot of these tables and I'm getting, I'm forming a bond with some of them'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Farsight Studios implementing technical improvements to Pinball Arcade digitization quality, including metal texture refinement and playfield cleanup demonstrated through before/after comparison

    high · Farsight Matt showed before/after comparison of Banzai Run with detailed texture improvements; Chris: 'It's just incredible like the thing, the amount of touch up... this thing looks like a new old stock playfield'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Zen Studios secured Jurassic Park digital pinball rights from Universal; hosts speculate this creates licensing exclusivity preventing Farsight/Stern Pinball Arcade access in short-to-medium term, citing South Park precedent

    medium · Jared: 'Because the odds are, and I would imagine that within this license, it's, hey, we have the Jurassic Park license to do digital pinball, and you're not going to want to have another digital pinball using Jurassic Park'

    • 3:42
    So, you know, I applied it and I went, oh, yeah, it's really cool. And then I looked at the can. It was oil-based after I applied it.
    3:51
    So I guess I'm going to do an oil-based Varathane on this now, which means I'm going to have to use oil-based paints.
    4:03
    Okay. And, I don't know, that might actually be a good thing because I think it's an American brand, but it's a brand called Testers.
    4:12
    Testers is a model paint, and it's all enamel. And the range, of course, being model paint, it's got a lot of different pre-mixed shades to it. So I think the chances of me being able to match a colour closely enough to what I need on the playfield where the areas are rubbed off are going to be pretty high. So I just need to go to probably the Testers website and use a color matching tool and see if I can find colors that are basically what I need. And then most likely, because of the range we have down here, I'll probably have to get them from the States.
    4:47
    One thing you're going to want to test out is you're going to want to paint, and not on your play field. It's something else you're going to want to paint and then put a dash of clear over that and see what happens with the clear on top of it. Does it stay the same color? No, not if it bleeds. No, if it just stays the same color that you want it to after it's dried.
    5:13
    Oh, yeah. That's why the paints that I chose to use on my Firepower, everybody says that they didn't change color once you put the clear on. so you can match the play field with your thing and not have to worry about it all of a sudden looking different once you've sprayed the clear of the top.
    5:40
    But interestingly enough, I am going to kind of run into the same thing with you, because I needed to match my sun-weathered white that's in the planet, and I only have six colors in my kit, and I'm not able to quite get the correct faded white. Yeah. So I'm going to go to my buddy who has just a buttload of basically testers paint, and we're going to use that to try and color match. So I'm going to be kind of in the exact same. We're sort of up to the same point in the restoration. How about that? I never thought that would happen.
    6:19
    I have no doubt yours is going to be up and running before mine even remotely comes close to it. I've got a lot of mechanical work and circuit work to do on mine yet. The boards are still being done. So there's a fair way to go yet, I think, on mine. Unfortunately, I'm so far removed from when I actually played it, I don't remember exactly everything that I need to do. I think I planned on rebuilding the flippers, but I'm not quite sure now.
    6:46
    I'll have to go back and check the list of what I did. If I can even find that initial list, I don't know. I think I did like a dream list because that was back when I was naive and thought that, Oh, everything should just be a hundred percent restored. And now I realized that that's not necessarily needed. Um, watching, there's this really, really good site, um, that, uh, has a restoration of, I think, uh, it was one of those, uh, early or maybe it was an EM. Um, and it was a complete play field, respray, Varathane, like one, 1,200 grit polish, eccentric and all that sort of stuff. And look, that's great and everything, but I'm not nearly at the level of that with this play field. Like I'm going to get it to the point where it's, it's sealed and the paint is looking better than it is now. Cause there was a few, I just want to try and get the lettering right. And I want to try and like get the black circles around the inserts. And I'm not going to even begin to do any Frisket work on it. It's just, I'm doing just the whole colors here and there and anywhere that I can get a decent match on, I'll, I'll do it. So I just want to, yeah, I guess I just want to concentrate on the things that I know I can do with this one and, and leave some of the play field a little bit, you know, original just because I don't want to go for a four breaststroke on this one. I think it needs a bit of character. It's been a hard life, this table and I'm going to do a decent job of the touch up, but it's not going to be a restoration quality touch-up. I think it's in the car world. They call it leaving the patina on. It takes a lot of years for the patina to develop the way that it develops, and so long as it's not rust, then why not let it have that character and show the life that it's lived? Yeah, that's what I'm going to do with this one. You can still go all the way to the 1,200 grit polish, and I think you'll love it for that because that'll make – all that is just putting time in on sandpapering after you put the clear on. You get it to that kind of polish, man, that ball is going to fly.
    8:59
    You do that and you put the car wax on top of it, good night. Then you put the fresh rubber on, believe me, you... Shoot, I just put the fresh rubber and car wax on my 8-ball deluxe and I couldn't believe the things the ball was doing. it literally just like seemed physics defying it was like what the heck is going on here that doesn't seem possible and after a couple of months now the wax isn't quite so grippy anymore so the ball is behaving more now to what I normally would expect it to but it was like glass basically before like you were playing on glass well no no because A-Ball Deluxe I didn't do anything to the play field it was oh it's just original like mylar No, it doesn't even have any mylar on it. So it's no mylar. It's just the basic... Yeah.
    9:53
    So that's why I put the wax right on top of it, because it was just like, I'm fine. It's all good. No, when I get done with the firepower, that one's going to have, with the clear coat, glass surface, and then the wax, that one's going to probably just behave stupid. Bumpers. It's going to be ridiculous. I think if I get it right, If I even get it half right with Star Racing, do an okay job at restoring the play field. Not an amazing job, because your first one's never good. That's serious.
    10:26
    I think there's a possibility there. It's going to play pretty slick when it's done. It's going to look nice and shiny, too.
    10:35
    I was at a kid's birthday party yesterday. and we had the people that had the birthday party, it was at this laser tag place and last year I had gone to this exact same birthday party and that was when I was talking to the dad and mentioned pinball and he's the one that mentioned that he had a pinball machine himself and it's from there that that's how I wound up getting 8 Ball Deluxe. But anyway, at this place they had a one lone pinball machine and that is, it was Terminator 2. so I was kind of like oh hey maybe I'll play some T2 when I go there this time went there T2 ain't powered up it's there but it's not powered up so then I was kind of like going well I wonder if it's really down or if somebody just forgot to turn it on so I reached under the machine to go and turn it on it would have been taped over I was like clearly there's something going on here and I kind of took a look at the play field and there was a ball locked in the cannon and I was like, okay. So in my head though, I'm thinking like, okay, so they've had this machine in this location for over a year, obviously. And now I'm wondering, how long has this machine been down? And then I'm like, I wonder if I can make an offer. And then it struck me again. Oh yeah, you don't have money to buy a pinball machine. Whoops.
    12:02
    Yeah, that's a problem. Oh, but that'd be so cool. And I kind of took a look and I mean, the playfield looks fine. There's some cracked plastics here and there and stuff. But it was just one of those things where I'm like, I wonder if I can get something for a bargain. It's like, don't even ask. Don even ask because you can afford it No You got to get your other machines fixed first mate before you can go put offers in other machines I know I know My wife will never let me until I get these two running It's like, oh, really? You're going to have a third? I mean, actually, my 8-Ball Deluxe was giving me some weird behavior when I knocked down all the drop targets. And I just fired it up these last two weeks to kind of test out. And I'm not getting that behavior anymore. So I don't know if it's settled somehow that the connection that was going bonkers. It's still a case where I just need to go buy all the connectors and redo them all. Yeah, I think you just need to refresh the connectors. But it is one of those things where it's like, hey, it kind of fixed itself by leaving it alone.
    13:05
    Electrics don't just fix themselves. They're always broken. Sure they do. They're just in a different state of broken. No, I got reverse gremlins. They don't break my machines. They fix them. Gee, I wish every pinball machine owner wishes they had those reverse buttons. I tell you.
    13:21
    They're the best. Yeah. Okay. Enough about real pinball. Let's talk about digital pinball. So, Pinball FX3, Zen, they've announced that for release on February 20th, which is just in time for my birthday, by the way. Ooh. they have announced a three-pack of Jurassic Park pinball.
    13:46
    Very nice. What a great license to get. Oh, God, yeah. And this is one of those that you just kind of go, all right, this is Zen doing what Zen does, which is put your animated characters in there, but they're more or less, you would think, not too far off from what Data East did with their Jurassic Park table or with the toys.
    14:11
    Yes. You just kind of figure that it's going to be integrated in such a way that we're getting the benefits of digital, but it's not too far out of reality. Yeah. I really want that dinosaur to eat the ball as an homage to the Dutter Eats table because they do that. They love to play homage to the real tables. Yeah. And I would just love to see a T-Rex munching away on a ball. But in typical Zen style, it would probably come running onto the table, will roar at you and then munch the ball and then run off the table again. That would be cool. I'd be happy with that. They do have, and let me just run through what the three tables are. You have the Jurassic Park table. You have Jurassic World table. And then you have Jurassic Park mayhem.
    14:53
    Mayhem. So what is the mayhem? I'm pretty okay with the other two because they'll just be based around movie themes. Right. Mayhem, I imagine, is them not having to abide by any of the movies. you're not going to be having direct quote polls. They'll probably get that god-awful voiceover actress.
    15:15
    Let's hope not. But I think it kind of allows them the freedom to explore the world the way they want to. Yeah, to put whatever dinosaur they want to have in there and do whatever they want to do with it without having to tie it in.
    15:32
    But in the Jurassic world, table. They showed an image from the movie, but basically, you have a locked ball hanging over a pool of water, and that crocodile comes out and snaps it out. So, yes, you are getting your dinosaur eating a ball momentarily. So, there you go. Tick, we can ship that one. That's fine. I know you want the T-Rex to eat your ball, but... No, I'm happy with that big water dinosaur. It's pretty wicked. It looked really good in the video. Oh, yeah, it's cool. Yeah, and this is, I mean, it is one of those just kind of perfect licenses that you can kind of go nuts with. Oh, yeah. Geez. I was following Mel Kirk on Twitter. He's, I think, one of the product managers there at Zen. And just the day before, he said, I'm sitting on such huge information that it's going to be dropping in about six hours, which is midnight. and I went like huge enough that Black Eyed is going to need to do an impromptu recording to cover this and he didn't respond but yeah after it was released I just went wow I could see why you're pretty excited about this franchise that would have been fun to put into realization and once again we're not going to get licensed music which again at this point oh well John Williams cost too much music in general just cost too much it's one of those things too where it's like, hey, we got the Star Wars music, so I'm happy with that. Yeah, that's like, you can't not have that.
    17:08
    If you're going to spend all the money on music licensing, that's the place to do it, for sure. Yeah.
    17:16
    So there's that ding on it. The other question that kind of comes into is, so my guess is that Farsight with Pinball Arcade or Stern Pinball Arcade, they're not going to be getting their Jurassic Park table anytime soon, are they?
    17:34
    Because the odds are, and I would imagine that within this license, it's, hey, we have the Jurassic Park license to do digital pinball, and you're not going to want to have another digital pinball using Jurassic Park to confuse or dilute your market share, basically, as far as universalism goes. Maybe not for the short to medium term.
    17:55
    Well, because I believe, if I'm not mistaken, taken that that was kind of the death nail for Farsight being able to do a South Park table, was when Zen got the rights to South Park.
    18:10
    Now, however, Zen no longer has the rights to South Park, therefore it could become one of those things where it's like, okay, now you can do it again. But there's going to be a moratorium. I would imagine there's at least a year-long moratorium on anything you can do. But you definitely shouldn't waste your time on South Park because it's actually not that good. Well, that's true too.
    18:33
    And probably don't worry about that so much. That's a license you can leave alone. Which is why it's a shame because I think Zen did do a good job on their two tables.
    18:43
    I'd rather have the Zen tables come back and not have the Sega table. Yes. Yeah, I'd be totally fine with that.
    18:53
    But it's also, it was like, you know what, Zen? good job with your universal license. And it made me... Making good value out of that, aren't they? Yeah, it made me though go, okay, so what else can we do that would be a universal license? And so I came up with a three-pack that would be your car mayhem pack. And that is, you do a Fast and Furious table. It's begging for it, basically. Basically, and you've got eight movies worth to pull from, and obviously it's a very popular series even to this day. There's not been a pinball machine made of it by Jersey Jack or by anyone.
    19:36
    So have at it, Sen. Come on. That could be some good times. So you do that. You do a Smokey and the Bandit table, which again, come on. Ramps and jumps and barriers to crash through? Makes a lot of sense. That would be beautiful. And then you would have to buy the music rights to Eastbound and Down. I'm sorry. You need that playing when multiball starts.
    20:05
    But, yeah, that would be sweet. And then to top it all off, I'd want a Blues Brothers table. And with that, you want a zillion balls on the table, smashing everything in sight. And plus it's so quote-worthy that, you know, I mean, come on, Mission from God multiball or something? You know, that'd be beautiful.
    20:27
    Yeah, there's plenty of fun to be had with that license, for sure. Plenty of fun to be had. And then, last but not least, I decided also, just because I was trying to think of popular Universal title movies, Animal House.
    20:40
    Food fight, multi-ball. Just begs to be done. And you've got the road trip aspect, and your modes could be assembling a party, and I don't know. There's just all sorts of wackiness that I think you could be done with that. So I'm just saying, Zen, explore your options, man. If you've got this universal license going, really go for it. That's just a massive back catalog of stuff that they could hit into. Jeez. I mean, that Fast and Furious table, that alone would really probably change the landscape for Zen because that would bring a whole new demographic into pinball. Well, Zen could do a super Zen-type table, but if you did, say, Backdraft, where you've got fire and smoke and water on a table, you could do that kind of thing. You could do...
    21:36
    It completely just slipped my mind. I'm going to come back to it for another title. Oh, I remember. Universal Monsters. Oh. Now, honestly, you can't do Monster Bash with the music. I mean you can't do the music but you can certainly do tables featuring all the various monsters yeah and they could do their own version of Monster Bash basically they could basically call it Monster Crush and do their own version of Monster Bash I don't know that I would want them to try and duplicate I mean I don't know there's something about Monster Bash with the music that it does and the silliness of having them be a band I think that's what sells it It's not the monsters, it's the situation that sells it.
    22:21
    And all you have to do is look at what Gottlieb tried to do with Class of 1812 and go, eh, wrong. I don't even know what that was supposed to be. I played that again the other day in the tournament that they ran at the moment. I just went, what am I doing here? I don't know. So that's why I say I wouldn't want them to do that, but certainly have at it with making monster tables. and if you want to do your own Avengers.
    22:50
    You could do a Frankenstein table, you could do a Dracula table, and then you could do the... and all the other monsters table with it all mixed in in one. I don't know. I think that you could really hit upon some good stuff there.
    23:04
    Yeah, it sounds like they're... Wow. I wonder how they... I wouldn't mind having Mel on the show, actually, if you'd be willing to come on and have a chat to us about just the process that's involved in making it. maybe they couldn't even tell us. I don't know. I was going to say, I don't know if they would necessarily spill the beans on, Oh, we've got some good stuff, you know, how their licensing or anything else like that. I'd just be looking for, how do you actually go about doing that? Like what's involved from like the whole product cycle to get a table from, I have an idea to here it is. Yeah. That would be fascinating for me to learn. No, I don't know.
    23:40
    But yeah. Yeah. That's all strict. I know they keep their cards pretty close to their chest. Yeah. for obvious reasons because they have very valuable licenses. Yeah. The other thing that I'm just stoked about is, my God, three more tables in a mere matter of months since the launch of this platform. I guarantee there would be like about two bucks each, depending on where you live.
    24:08
    Well, it's going to be sold as a table pack, so I guarantee it's going to be $9.99 for the table pack. Oh, it's a table pack, is it? Okay. Because they sold the other ones individually, I think. like the carnival one yeah the what was it the carnival thing and the god of war carnival and legends yeah carnival and legends yeah they were all separate as well so yeah they were table themed but you could buy each table separately oh see I didn't realize that I just thought it was sold as the pack which means probably for Jurassic you looking at a table or something I don know Like I said sold as three I sure it going to be basically That's $10. Yeah. That'll be fine. Jeez, that's well worth it, as it always is with Xen. I don't really think, even if the tables aren't great, the thing is they're not producing Pasha and Rome and things like that anymore. Not anymore. No, the stuff they've been putting out has been really fantastic. Yeah. So really, you can just basically throw your money at the screen, and you'll have some fun with your $2.99. Let's be serious. So it's a pretty safe bet to buy the table packs up front. And I'm starting to... I've got to tell you, folks, if you haven't done it already, if you're on console or on Steam, I'm sorry for you that are on mobile, but eventually maybe you'll be able to join in. You've got to join in. Yeah, I know, like Jared. You've got to join in on the weekly Zen tournament that we're doing because we've got a good core of people. that are repeatedly showing up and playing and performing just bonkers in terms of scores that are being posted.
    25:54
    And by the end of each week, we wind up having basically around 30 players, which is pretty good for an individual person's tournament. You know, Zen obviously attracts a lot of people with their official tournaments, but for individual people tournaments, I think we're collecting a lot more users than everybody else. If you just did a random game, not to mention most of the random games are sorcerer's lair because that's the free table. But yeah, I'm, I'm really digging a lot of these tables and I'm getting, I'm forming a bond with some of them to where I'm like, okay, this is pretty cool. I mean, I'm really, I'm kind of like going back and playing them on my own rather than just playing in the tournament. You know, after the tournament's done. So, you know, this week we played, what is it, Marvel's Women of Power and was the champions table. You'll know that. It's the one that has Squirrel Girl on it and has the most ridiculous storyline with Captain or Miss Marvel trying to fund her coffee shop. it's the lamest of storylines ever but once I got past that it's a fun table that kicks your butt at first and doesn't let you score and then all of a sudden you kind of unlock the key and you get some ridiculous score and then you try and do it again and it just works you over for not letting you do it again and I mean it's one of those tables that you just kind of go well I can do better than that this next time and so you go for it again. Just one more go. I'll just have another one. So we did a one-ball tournament.
    27:44
    And thank God we only did one ball. Because the low score of the tournament was in the 200,000s. High score? 2 billion on one ball. Jeez. Yeah, 2 billion. That's quite a score disparity. Jeez. And then it was 1.2 billion. And then I came in third at 1.1 billion. and I will tell you this I got that score without completing the wizard mode okay so you can imagine that once you start actually getting all the way through the wizard mode and earning all your bonuses that way and even more to the point I think about god if we had played a three ball game where your bonuses hold over or you can get them to hold over to the next ball man those scores would have just been ridiculous. Astronomical, yeah.
    28:40
    And who knew? I had no idea that it was going to be this way. That's a crazy thing. Like I said, you guys got to make an effort, try and join. It doesn't matter if you're on Xbox, if you're on PlayStation, or if you're playing in Steam. I still don't believe that Switch is able to join us, but I'm not 100% on that. But basically, every Monday is when I'm starting the new tournament. Just search Shut Your Trap in the tournament filter, and you'll see whatever we're playing for that week or five days, however you want. And it varies what kind of game we play, whether we're playing one ball, three ball, survival, which I rarely do, five-minute tournament.
    29:23
    Sometimes I say you can't use any of the upgrades. Sometimes I say it's your choice. Sometimes I pick the upgrades myself. So just trying to vary up. You're always going to get a varied game.
    29:32
    Yeah, yeah. And fortunately, we're not always having the same people be the leaders. There's a couple of guys that are usually right up there, but it's not like the same person is dominating every single week and kind of making everybody go, ah, screw you. I don't want to play this anymore.
    29:47
    That's good. So there's a bit of movement at the top. A bit of movement at the top, yes. Well, I mean, shoot, I look at myself. There have been times when I've gotten eighth place and times I've gotten first place. So have you had much of a chance between all your Zen exploits to be playing TPA?
    30:06
    I have been playing quite a bit of Sorcerer. And the funny thing is I'm playing it on my phone. Because when I'm at my computer, I'd rather play Zen. But I'm out and about, you know, taking my kid to karate or whatever, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, ah, what the hell, I'll play it on my phone. It's a fun table. It is a fun table. And it's kind of mean. It's very mean.
    30:33
    What's interesting is, to me, I kind of put it in that same time period as Gorgar and Firepower, even though I know it's in the time period of Space Shuttle. Space Shuttle, yeah. Yeah, but it's so much more enjoyable than any of those tables. and I don't know if it's because of it's a fast table it has seemingly easy shots but that actually not that easy well I think that bend of stand up targets for helping you spell sorcerer it sends the ball in all sorts of wacky directions every single target has a different angle that it shoots it off because they're all subtly different trajectories and it makes the ball wild when you're shooting that. It's fun. Very unpredictable.
    31:29
    So yeah, and I noticed, I think you had mentioned it last time, but I noticed that fake dynamic lighting where it blinks at you. I didn't notice that when it first got released. So I don't know if that was a new addition to iOS or if I just wasn't paying attention all along. Maybe not. But yeah, I love it. It looks so convincing.
    31:55
    Probably not if you've got DX11 and you're used to that, but on mobile, that's the most realistic-looking table from a lighting and effects perspective. Anything helps. Anything helps to sell the illusion. I know that, which we'll give a little more prompt shouts, maybe we can just roll it right into this, but one of the guys that works up there at Farsight and posts on the forum a lot lately. Farsight Matt is how he's known. He was talking about he was going to be fixing or just dropped in new metal textures for Sorcerer.
    32:33
    He's got an Ask Me Anything thread right now on PimpleArcadeFans.com and has been really kind of opening the doors, if you will, to what goes on there, what he can fix, what he's not able to just based off of his own position but most recently he showed what the before and after if you will of Bonsai Run for what it looked like, how they photographed it and what it looks like in the game to see all the cleanup that they wind up doing It's just incredible like the thing the amount of touch up even the square, like the whites in the square as a checkerboard like they just I don't know, like it is like you really have to see it to appreciate it like he released a gif of the old one and then transitioning into the new one with the same aspect and perspective and it's just like wow, this thing looks like a new old stock play field the way they've been able to touch it up, it's just incredible so it really goes to show just what effort is involved in getting these tables to good fit state for digital reproduction. Yeah. And yeah, I was really quite blown away.
    33:54
    So that'll be one of those too, that it's like with all the new things that they've been doing to these tables with their art style and everything, just the little subtleties that they've been trying to add in should be quite interesting. I'm most anxious to see what they do for that vertical play field, what the transition will be like. Because I watched some video of... There was a question about, well, during multi-ball, how's that going to work with the lower playfield and upper playfield? And I was like, I don't think that's possible for the upper to be engaged while there's a ball down the lower. And sure enough, in the video, the way they do multi-ball,
    34:35
    if you made a shot into the upper, it would drop immediately right back down until you lock one of the balls and I'm not sure where on the playfield it is, but you lock it and then all of a sudden you're able to shoot to the upper. You can complete the upper when the ball drops back down, then both balls are released and you're back to multi-ball. But what I'm most curious about is the speed from which the ball exits the upper playfield and then drops down a habit trail and back onto the lower playfield. It's really quick. but the thing is visually if you're following the ball your eyes going from the upper play field to the bottom of the upper play field the ball drops and now it's at the top but your eyes are doing a one fail swoop down the table if they do this where it's a cut if you will from upper play field to lower your ball is basically going to be down at the bottom of the screen and then all of a sudden magically jump to the top of the screen as it hits the lower and that's going to be kind of confusing. So I'm hoping that they wind up doing a quick camera pan so that your iPod does the same thing. Yep, they're going to have to do that. I actually remember that FastUp Matt was saying, yeah, it's certainly been causing the developers a lot of fun in this table, but he said in the art department we've had to do some pretty interesting gimbal rotations on the flippers to get them to look right in the upper play field, which, yeah, that was interesting to see that they have to do that type of thing to actually get things working. So it's going to be an interesting table to play this one. Very interesting. Yeah. And for me, it's very subjective as a beta tester because I've never touched it. So I will have zero opinion on how it should play. So it's going to be... Well, the one thing to remember, this was Pat Lawler's first table for Williams. I don't know if he had done anything before that. But for Williams, this was his first table. so apply pat lawler logic to two things which means obviously there's a midfield uh flipper and there's going to be certain shots and flow that are very lawler-esque so i think that at least in terms of feel you'll be able to kind of apply that kind of knowledge obviously you're not going to know what the sounds are you're not going to know what the graphics are um you know that kind of thing so yeah right it's going to be fun i'm looking forward to it me too and who knows maybe we'll be within this next week or maybe by the end of the week the beta will be in our hands maybe it is a short month and it is is February is not a good month for developers who are doing monthly DLC
    37:20
    Particularly for something like this, which is also introducing technical complexity in the way the emulation works.
    37:27
    But fortunately, it's the last table of the season. If they do indeed do a gap month after this, there's no pressure for whatever the next table is. so maybe they spill over a week I don't know maybe I hope they give it the time it deserves oh absolutely if you're going to go for it give it to us right I want that dynamic lighting I want to see that dynamic lighting in this game like for sure that's now a standard unfortunately guys you've set yourself a high bar to continue that's now a standard from everything that I've seen I don't think that that's out of the question for them no I don't think so yeah it's going to be fun well that's the time already sorry I had that happen you know sometimes you're able to just muse about whatever's going on stuff and things alright folks so yeah that is our time we always appreciate you listening to our show hey have you gone and checked out the redesigned site of ours. If not, why don't you go over to pinball arcade.
    38:36
    Damn it! Don't do this last two weeks. You need to go to blockadepinball.com slash episodes. There you will find all of our past episodes as well as all these movie reviews I've been writing and Jared has been posting here and there a couple of other additional things, but I'm sure he'll be loading in some more soon. Basically, we want it to be a website that you don't go to just for our articles, but you go for the general pinball talk that we do weekly here, sometimes in written form, if you will. Yeah. I'd like to interject there if I may, Chris, that if you haven't tried using the Medium platform to interact with us, give it a go. Sign up. Create an account. It's easy. If you've got Twitter, it's Twitter, and they even have Facebook authentication as well so um you pretty much got yourself covered with social sign up and go and have a go like give it give us some applause on the articles because those those um claps that you give on um the articles will organically change how our articles are ranked on medium so if you don't want to donate or you don't want to support the show financially you can do a lot for us by actually going in and applauding the articles and sharing them from medium and all that sort of stuff. It all makes a difference. Even leave comments on them, good or bad. We don't care. We always say we like to engage with our listeners, and another way that you can engage with us is via Twitter. The show is at Blockade. I am at ShutYourTrap, and Jared is at JaredMorgz. Also, you can always drop us an email at blahblahblockade at gmail.com Alright. I think that about covers all of our bases. So, until next week,
    40:32
    that's all. Yeah. Bye-bye. WizardAmusement.com The site to visit for custom pinball shooter bugs. Easy to install, totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization.
    40:53
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that BlackAid is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.
    41:08
    Yeah, it's, I don't know, there's been a little bit of a pinball news, but beyond that, it's been one of those just kind of quiet weeks in terms of my activity, other than the fact that I found out. So rehashing what we all know from previous episodes, I had had an accident at work, at which point I completely severed my patellar tendon in my knee.
    41:37
    And I'm verging, I'm coming up really close on the six-month mark for when that happened. Has it been six months already? Jeez, it doesn't feel like it. To you, it may not.
    41:50
    I bet you it's here. um so yeah that happened at the end of september and i'm about to go head into my appointment to the doctor at which point he's probably going to clear me for being able to resume work now here's the thing i can now walk pretty like normal um there's i have a slight limp that i notice if I look in the mirror while I walk.
    42:16
    But otherwise, it's fairly normal. And I can go up and down stairs carefully, but I'm not hobbling doing it. Running and jumping? Well, yeah. I asked my physical therapist when I might be able to do those two things, and he says not for another four to six months probably, which is just insane to me. It's just because, again, you start feeling normal walking about, and then all of a sudden your brain forgets.
    42:52
    Let's say you need to react suddenly or you kind of lose your balance, so you do a quick sidestep or whatever, and then you're reminded you can't do that.
    43:02
    Your body goes, nope, nope. The next thing you know, you're falling over against a wall, and you're like, what the heck happened there? so we'll see hopefully i'm i'm i don't know i have mixed feelings in terms of because the other things that i'm worried about if they clear me for work does that mean they stop paying for physical therapy because the physical therapy is definitely what's improving me and it's like well guys don't y'all hear the ideas um but it's like don't stop me now when i need it the most just because I can get by. Don't you want me to be back?
    43:43
    Like 100%? Yeah. So anyway. Well, just raise your hands with the physician and say, look, I don't want to go back when I'm nearly okay. I want to go back when I'm okay and I can do everything.
    43:55
    Well, clearly they're not going to keep me on this for the year that it would take to get me back to this, but I definitely want to be sure that I'm – I'd like there to be some provision that allows me to continue therapy. It's one of those things that if you can't actually do the job the way you need to before, you'll be cutting things like cases and stuff around. That's not easy. You'll be going up and down ladders. I remember you being up in the gantry ways in some sense. Yeah, I'd be declining that now. yeah so you're gonna have to go on like some sort of reduced duties thing probably anyhow and maybe if they did that that might be all right but i mean the it's the physio that's that's giving you the benefit so yeah um yeah let's hope let's hope they make the right decision and not the right decision for them as the health care provider i was gonna say remember this is insurance company that winds up uh determining a lot of these factors so you're at the whims of them not wanting to pay anymore. Well that's right because it wasn't like it was through your health cover and you opted to go and do physio, it was like work cover. Yes.
    45:11
    So they want to, because they've been I've been getting a check from them every two weeks and they would very much like to stop giving me that check.
    45:21
    Yes. So you know well I hope all that goes well I do too in the meantime I've been using my movie pass card and just seeing a buttload of movies and doing a buttload of reviews on likeagameball.com yeah I'm even behind I'm one review behind that I really should get to posting but let me just say folks that movies that get nominated for best picture.
    45:59
    I don't know what they're all smoking, but these ain't the best pictures of the year. I'm sorry. I just wonder if it's not what they're smoking, but it's what they're getting in their pockets. No, it's not what they're getting in their pockets. Honestly, I think it's one of those things where it's... Let me give you the example here. I don't know if you've seen it yet or not now, but Blade Runner 2049. I hope I'm going to see it. lot of things. However, it did not get a Best Picture nomination. It got some other award, technical award nominations, but didn't get Best Picture, which makes me go, well, why the heck not if it got such universally glowing reviews? Well, it tanked at the box office. Now, if you look at these other Best Picture nominations, they didn't exactly do good in the box office either. They're not knocking down large quantities of money, but they cost significantly less, like they're probably maybe in the $15 to $30 million range. Blade Runner was $150 million. And I think that is it right there, that the voters all of a sudden go, oh, well, look, they spent all this money and the audience didn't show up. But look at these other movies. They didn't spend much money. They deserve an audience, so let's raise them up instead. Let's give them a bit of a one-off. Yeah, and that's the kind of thinking that just drives me mad. They have such an aversion to large quantities of money as if that's what makes a movie quality. It's like, no, there's plenty of movies that spend large quantities of money and are absolute garbage.
    48:05
    So, yeah, it really rubs me the wrong way, and it's rubbed me that way since I was a kid. I remember the years when it was like Chariots of Fire and Out of Africa and The Last Emperor. And I, as a kid, was just like, who the hell wants to watch this? And so I'd always get excited if it was actually something that I had, A, heard of, and B, had seen or wanted to see and enjoyed. And there are so few and far between. But, yeah, all I know is Black Panther is coming out this next week, and I will be probably seeing that many times.
    48:42
    Yeah, another one of the many Marvel franchises that I'm yet to catch up on. You need to do it well. I'll just add it to the backlog, shall I? I'm currently, me and my son, every weekend, we've been watching one Marvel movie a weekend because he hasn't seen them all. And so I've been watching them in order, trying to catch him up so that by the time Infinity Wars is out, that he's all up to snuff on everything that has happened. And it's kind of fun going through them and knowing what is now and seeing the movies back when they didn't quite know where they were going to go and seeing how they've kind of retconned and made everything work, it's quite genius. All right. That's pretty cool.
    49:28
    Yeah. Speaking of franchises. Hang on. Before you go into that, I've got some stuff that I've been doing as well.
    49:36
    Yes.