Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the flip side podcast. I'm your host retro Ralph. This is episode I think 18 and in this episode we're going to be a little bit all over the place. Yes, the thumbnail and the description is evil dead and we're going to talk about that But we're going to take voicemails from you. I have four of them, but I want more. I want more voicemails so we can hear a little bit from you and what you want. I've not reviewed any of these, so I have no idea what they say. I just figured it would be really fun to do it, like, on the fly. So let's get started with the show. But we're going to be, just a warning, this show might run a little bit longer than my normal length of the shows. But that's okay. That's okay. We've got a lot to talk about. All right. So obviously the first thing that a lot of people ask me is what I thought about Evil Dead. So if you're listening to this in Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you're not going to see what the audience is going to be seeing in the video version. But I'm going to quickly play a little bit of the gameplay trailer and then we're not going to play the whole thing. I'm just going to kind of jump through it and then I'll kind of give you some of my feedback on on what we see in the trailer. so the trailer itself obviously when it starts it shows a bunch of like really sexy shots of the pinball machine and it's beautiful the pinball machine is absolutely beautiful it's got this like dark rich blue powder coated um you know armor on it which is which is really great it has art blades it's very very detailed and it's it's just yeah it's all there in your face i mean they definitely put a lot and packed a lot into the game but the the trailer moves fast so you don't see everything but they definitely highlight a couple key features of the game like one of them is loading the shotgun and shooting the hand like that is actually very cool it's a cool mechanic and then the uh shooter lane has two lanes which which is kind of interesting and it loads a ball to represent uh one of the shotgun shells so i think what they're trying to articulate in the trailer is just how theme integrated it really is. So I'm going to mute the audio really quick. Now, I got to say, I'm not necessarily the biggest Evil Dead fan, and I'm going to talk about why. I have a little bit of maybe childhood, let's say, let's call it PTSD, childhood PTSD from this movie, and I'll tell you why. It's not my fault. So I'm letting this thing play out. There's this little flipper that's kind of tucked away in where a slingshot would typically be so that's kind of unique there's a way to get into the basement from uh these pop pops uh pop up and then after you sort of pop down all those or hit down all three of them you can get access to the basement so like i said there's a lot of really interesting theme integrated stuff and then the basement isn't isn't under you know under the the table basically play field so and under the play under the table play field or under the under you know what i mean it's underneath it's underneath the play field is the uh is like a small play field so i mean all in all i'll admit i because i'm not like the biggest fan of the movie i'm not like super i'm not like super amped up but if i was an evil dead fan i would absolutely be amped up so why am i not an evil dead fan okay so So I had two cousins, and one cousin was pretty cool, man. He was like a cool, just a cool, chill dude, right? He actually got me into computers, which got me into electronics, which got me into arcades, which got me into all sorts of things. He was like my gateway to electronics. I'll give you like a quick example. Anytime when he was older than me, so like if he got a computer, like a Commodore, and then the next model came out, And my mom didn't, nor do I think they would have had the money to buy me a computer, but he would give me his hand-me-downs. So I looked up to him. He was someone that I looked up to, and he actually is the reason I picked a career in technology because of him. So anyways, long story short, my other cousin, he was kind of a misfit, a little bit more of a misfit. And he definitely would do things like, I'm going to edit this. There was a time I remember he put me in his room, and he's like, hey, come check out. like he had a cool stereo like he would he was into like putting like subwoofers in his car and doing all that stuff i and then of course i did get into that as well so i kind of took a little bit of the pieces from each cousin but but he was into like car audio and stuff so in his room he had like one of those remember the old school stereos with like stupid like like 100 band equalizers and all this stuff it was crazy so he at the time was tapes so he puts in two live crew I'm a little kid, though. He puts in 2 Live Crew, a specific song from 2 Live Crew. I'm going to just edit it, pop that something, and then runs out of the room while that song is playing, and then tells my mom, oh my gosh, look what he's doing. He's listening to this terrible music. And I'm like, dude, what the heck? Why would you do that? And made me out that I selected that song. Come on, man. So anyways, so of course you know where I'm going with this. when Evil Dead was out this is way after though because I would have been much older because I think Evil Dead came out in like 81 so I would have been maybe like in 79 I was born so let's just say this is much later but he duct taped me to a chair and like basically made me watch this movie and like that's pretty traumatizing as a kid as a kid to see those visuals not really understanding what's real and what's fake what's fantasy versus reality so i've never because of that from that moment forward i've never really been into those kinds of movies but you can kind of understand why so i felt like i had to tell you that story so anyways after the evil dead trailer we got the evil dead gameplay so uh bug got on the screen and uh he's got a one comment to bug is like dude you guys you guys do did such a good job with the trailer for the game like you got to get better i don't know you gotta get a better like webcam or whatever it is that you're this is this looks like a webcam this doesn't look like a dslr or something so just you know up that production quality so anyways during the gameplay i watched it a couple times i feel like i don't know it was it was like kind of interesting right and they did two streams one uh bug was not narrating it and i guess that was like carrie hardy trolled him and i guess he decided that He needed to respond to that by making mention to it. I'm never a big fan of if someone trolls you to then make mention of it. It's just whatever. Just don't even say anything. Don't even bring it up. But anyways, I guess whatever. It is what it is. So during the trailer, the gameplay looked pretty fun. For the most part, it looked fun. So it looked like a game I'd want to play. I love the shot that kind of feeds the cabin and then locks the ball with the swing. They did a lot of really cool things. I really, really like the loading of the shotgun. I think that's cool. There were times the first couple of plays he did seemed a bit boring, but then I kind of got more into it as time went on. So, you know what? I got to say, like, honestly, still, if you're an Evil Dead fan, like, there's a lot packed in here. I'm not always, like, the biggest fan of spooky games. There hasn been many spooky games that I absolutely love I will say it interesting The spooky games that I do love I don know if they be really classified as spooky games like total nuclear annihilation tna i really like that game that's i think it's scott denisi that made that game so i think i think that was brought to spooky but like spooky created games i'm just there isn't one it's almost like jersey jack for me there isn't one that stands out that i'm like oh my gosh this is the game but if i were looking at this and what they packed into it i think i'll definitely want to play it like when it goes on site i'm definitely going to be curious to play it and it might be it might end up being one of those games where even though i'm not a big fan of the theme or the movies i might enjoy playing it it wouldn't be something i'd add to my collection i think in this case you really have to be an evil dead fan to be really into it but they did some creative things and like the overall quality in the package and with franchi doing the artwork it looks really good like this is the first game of theirs i look at and i'm like man i don't know it's just i wasn't i wasn't into looney tunes i'm definitely not into texas chainsaw massacre just because of the what it is like i'm not into that just not not my thing no offense if that's what you're into that's totally cool i think if you're into the horror theme which is kind of what spooky does then you know you're a big fan of of their company probably and they'll probably have a lot more products in the future that you like i'm more into stuff like stranger things where it's not i don't know if i'd consider it horror i'd consider it more like maybe dramatic with a little bit of like i don't know i don't see i don't i don't call those horror movie i don't even know what they would classify it as like drama thriller maybe like i'm more into that so anyway i i think they're gonna have a i think they have a lot of success with this game i hope it i hope overall it's as good as it looks because it looks great and from the bug live stream or so we'd call him bug but from that live stream it looks it looks like it's going to be a fun game i think people are going to enjoy it right so i don't know the shots look fun there wasn't like a lot of bricking going on in the beginning i felt like bug was like warming up so it's kind of interesting that he left that in but i guess that's that's reality right i guess it's better that he left that in he kind of warmed up i felt like he was getting better as he played it but yeah i mean hey if you're an evil dead fan then i think you're going to be really excited all right let's move on i have some voicemails here i got i've not pre-screened these i have not listened to these so i have no idea what's going on so we're just going to go right into it this first one is from bill we'll listen to it and we'll respond this should be fun because i have no idea what bill has to say but we're going to find out right now i've got a question about building material cost um you were on a podcast recently talking about cost between pro premium le um and i think of a couple of games like cgc's pulp fiction um and their various models or the john wick uh pro premium le aside from different artwork and maybe a couple of max, you know, two to three thousand dollars of difference between those various levels. How does that cost get justified for building materials? Oh, man, that is a loaded question. So, Bill, thank you for leaving the voicemail. And if you haven't left one yourself, you can do so. I'll have a link in the description of the podcast. If you're on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you'll have to jump over to Retro Ralph Live's YouTube channel and then click on the podcast there, and I'll have a link to be able to leave your own voicemail. So he's talking about build of materials and how you justify the cost. I have a little insight into this because, George, when we were over at Stern for that initial tour when we were doing the thing with John Wick, he kind of got into it a little bit. But I think what's interesting is Stern obviously has – and I'm just speaking for Stern because that's the only one I've ever had any sort of insight into. With anything, right, you've got to look at it. No matter what your company is and what they build, if they build a product that's an electronics product or whatever, you're going to have a build of materials. And what that is is it's all the things that you need to make up that thing, right? If it's a pinball machine, what are all the pieces, parts that I need to make that pinball machine? And then the company looks at the total cost of the game with all the components that you need, and then they have to factor in, okay, we have a certain profit that we want to make on this device, and we have to also factor in the fact that the distributors have to make money too, and then they kind of set that price. And I think what is the difficult part is whoever the design team is on that game at the time, they have to figure out how they work within that budget. And I don't think that Stern is that flexible with those budgets nowadays. Like, I think this is the budget, and you have to figure it out. So if you decide you want a more expensive mech in that game, then they have to cut corners somewhere else. I really think that's as rigid as it is, or at least that's how it seemed when they were explaining it to us during that tour, that the build of materials can be rather rigid, and you've got to work within your means. And obviously, the different models have slightly different cost profiles as far as how much they're able to spend. And I don't know that it goes up as – I don't know that the amount of budget goes up to meet the price we see out in the open market when we buy it. So that's a tough one, Bill. I mean that's the thing. Will we ever know what the total cost is of that build of materials and then what the delta is between Stern's cost or any of these manufacturers' costs and then what they charge us? I don't know that we'd ever know that. I think Stern and any other company is going to keep that close to the chest. It's a good question. I think all I would be able to do is speculate on what I think the build of material cost is to Stern. And so I don't think that would be fair to even say. I'm sure it's significantly less than what we pay because they have to make profit. I'm also, you know, it's interesting. I think some of these mechanisms probably do cost a lot of money to make. And so on a game where you see less mechanisms and maybe you don't see the value, that's kind of interesting, right? Because some people put value on more stuff in a game. i'm i've really as i've matured through this hobby and like evolved i think i'm more into the gameplay than i am into like too many mechanisms like i don't need if the if the game shoots really fun and there's fun shots and there's like a mech or a toy here and there that's and it's a fun one then that's enough for me i don't need to have like a bloated play field with a bunch of stuff as a matter of fact i would prefer a play field that doesn't have as much stuff on it so it just depends i mean that's the thing about pinball depends on what you really like and what you enjoy some people really like mech packed games and i think uh some are their preferences more a fun shooter so i don't think there's really a right or wrong answer i think some people try to put oh i'm not seeing the value in this and you know what i'm not really into those conversations because i feel like it is what it is it's either you see the value or you don't you know what i mean and you're either gonna buy it or you're not and uh the prices are the prices right now and And I don't think there's much that we can do to change that fact right now. And maybe if parts and pieces parts get cheaper, we'll see prices adjust. But for right now, that is what it is. It's a good question, Bill. I know I didn't fully answer it, but that's about the best answer I can give you. Okay, this next one is from Combo Chuck. Again, I haven't seen any of these, so I don't know what they are. So let's see. Hey, Ralph. This is Combo Chuck. I got into pinball about the same time as you, and like you, it failed to grab me until about a few years ago. The ball would always drain on me before I realized that shooting things did more than just score points. My question to you is what was one thing that you can attribute to to finally get you into and liking pinball For me it was taking the time to watch tutorial videos and practicing what I learned at the bar Keeping the ball in play more allowed me to see that pinball actually had progression and even story with the newer titles Anyhow, thanks, man. Keep up the fun videos and podcasts. Dude, Combo Chuck, you're speaking to me, man. 1,000% I am on the same page as you. I think at the beginning, I really thought of pinball. And keep in mind, really didn't. I played a couple of games when I was little, probably had minimal interaction with pinball. Most of my interactions with anything that was like an electronic game was really consoles and arcade games. That was what I was into. And granted, there were some pinball machines at my local arcade. It just wasn't front and center like arcade games were because pinball had kind of like fallen out of favor for some period of time. So I'd say I really thought of pinball as like, oh, I'm going up there and I'm just trying to keep the ball in play. And like you, it wasn't until I started watching like, like Joel, right? Started watching Flip N Out Pinball, started watching some of these other podcasters or content creators explain how to play the games. And then it got really fun to me because I was like, wow, there's so much more to this. And then you started appreciating the little bits and pieces of the code. But it wasn't also until I got better at playing, like understanding ball control, being able to keep the ball under control, not just like flipping all the time, And I still fall victim to that where I'm flipping too much. It's like you really can enjoy pinball once you learn a little bit more of the common strategies and just like skills to be able to keep the ball more under control. And I think that's when you – first step is keeping the ball more under control. Then when you learn the rules and you get better accuracy with your shots, you can have so much fun with it. So I got to admit, like it really for me wasn't until the last like probably couple years that I really got. I really advanced my skill set. I do play every day right now. I'm on a 90 day streak with Stern Insider Connected. By the way, I got two of those days where cheats because I had a buddy of mine log in because I was I wanted my 90 day badge. So I'll wait till it's 92 days to say it's officially 90 for me. But man, yeah, dude, combo Chuck. Awesome question. And hopefully that gives you some perspective as to where I'm at. Very similar place to you. All right, the next one is Jason WFD. Let's listen to him. And I'll take one more, and then we'll kind of wrap up this show because I don't want it to be too long because, God, everyone's trying to get out of the house and get with family for Thanksgiving. So depending on when I publish this, I'd like to publish it before Thanksgiving, or maybe I'll publish it on Thanksgiving. I don't know how many people are going to listen to it on Thanksgiving. But, hey, maybe you're sick of your family and you want to listen to something. You know, after a while, everyone's got their threshold, right? Or someone you're sitting at dinner table and they're like, let's talk politics. And you're like, oh, no. So that can always go downhill fast. Don't talk politics at a family dinner. Unless you know everyone's on the same page. You don't want to fight during the holidays. Or sports teams. You can kind of have some eat. Anyway, all right. Let's listen to Jason WFD. But thank you, Combo Chuck. That was a great question. Hey, Retro Ralph. This is Jason WFD. Listen to your podcast a few times now. Really liking it. It's good stuff. And you were asking for questions. So I came up with one that I thought is pretty cool. Okay. Now, I know you've said that before you got into pinball, you were doing stuff about retro video games. Mm-hmm. So let's combine those two hobbies together. if you could have one new pin come out that was based on a video game what would you like to see now for example there's already a super mario brothers pinball machine right so why not like a legend of zelda right for example um so yeah what classic or modern whatever well what video game uh series franchise whatever what video game would you like to see come out with a new pinball um and bonus question which company would you prefer uh to have them make the game thanks a lot russia ralph have a good one oh jason that's such a good question it's so hard to answer so okay damn well i don't want it to be unfit well you know i'm going to say stern pinball if everyone's like oh he's gonna say stern i probably will but hey uh hey you guys know me well enough to know i'd probably say i'd want stern to make it i'd only want stern to make it because of accessibility like stern can get you the games fast uh but you know let me let me let me let me try to be unbiased on that because everyone knows i kind of favor stern so let's see how do i how do i be unbiased well what game first of all you know i had heard the rumor and i don't remember who had the license about halo now i did i wouldn't say like i'm a little nostalgic for Halo because when the first Xbox came out, that was the game. I mean, that was like the blow your mind game. But do I think that Halo would be a good pinball machine? I don't know. I'm like kind of on the fence on that. But what I do think would be a good pinball machine, I'm going to have two here because I think they both would tend to be good machines. I know there was a Sonic the Hedgehog and I can't remember who made it. It's like the guy that I think works for American Pinball now. And I don't even think he's, you know, I don't know if he has if there's any plans for American Pinball to actually bring that to life. But I never played it. Well, actually, no, that's not true. I played it, but it was when I wasn't as into pinball. So I didn't appreciate it, I don't think. But I'm now thinking about it. I feel like Sonic the Hedgehog would make a really good pinball machine. I just do. And I think you could have taken the concept that – I can't remember his name, and I apologize for that. Someone in the comments will have to bring that up. I just feel like you could do something really cool. now if I wanted the other thing too is and I know this game has been done I feel like a fighting game could be cool as a pinball machine you know Street Fighter just has so much nostalgia for so many people and I gotta think if you made a Street Fighter a new one now I don't I don't know the old one I think they wanted it to be a certain way I don't know they tried it was like uh you know that meme with the Bart Simpson where he has the cake and it says uh at least you tried he throws it in the trash that's how i feel about that pinball machine i don't feel like it's that good i feel like it could have been a lot better so anyways so i would love to see someone try to do a street fighter in 2025 like something really epic because i feel like you could do something really cool with that but on the flip side of that another franchise that's very popular is mortal combat i think with mortal combat you could do something very cool as well like think about it in those games you have to progress through characters and and keep keep winning i feel like you could do something really cool with the modes of each character and really bring you into the world of that character because now street fighter and mortal kombat have expanded quite a bit that universe so you could definitely tell some cool stories around that so i know maybe that wasn't what you'd expect me to say i there's a bunch i like so many video games like but no one's gonna want a sinistar pinball machine maybe in the 80s that would have been really cool but now I think that universe is really shallow there isn't really much to it so you'd have to build a cool story around it and I don't know that there's enough there to build something now being super selfish if you wanted me to say like what game would I want I would love to have a streets of rage pinball machine but again I don know that that universe is expansive enough to really do that and I don think there be the I don know I just don think there be enough of an audience for it So to answer your question I say Sonic the Hedgehog but really do it well uh or a Street Fighter or a Mortal Kombat like a fighting game Cause I think a fighting game and those, and those universes are pretty expansive. So I think you could actually do a lot of cool stuff with that. So that would be my answer. And then who's going to make it? Ah, you know, it'd be really cool for Jersey Jack to make something like that, because I feel like they really, their attention to detail is there. I just, man, I'll tell you this. I'm going to go off on a tangent. I was at Electric Bat last night for another tournament. I'm going to try to really keep this to 30 minutes. I don't want to go over that time. But I was at Electric Bat. You guys know if you watched the prior podcast. If you didn't, go back and give it a listen. But I talked about how I won the tournament. It was the first week of the tournament I won it. So I had to miss a week because I was traveling for work. That was when my buddy logged in for Insider Connected for those two days to help me out. And then, where was I going with this? Shoot. I hate when this happens. I hate when I brain fart. What was I talking about? Oh, Jersey Jack. Okay, so I'm at Electric Bat. After the tournament was over, I was mid in this tournament. I think I got second place, second place, third place, fourth place, second place. So not great. I was in the middle of the road. There was like 105 or 109 people-ish. I think I landed somewhere in the middle. So not terrible. I had a really good time, though. My buddy Rudy came, and we had a good time. And I got a chance to talk to Kale for a while and Rachel for a little bit and catch up with some friends I haven't seen in a while. So we got a chance to play Avatar more. I don't know. The more I play it, the more I don't like it. That's actually the thing is, like, I'm just finding it's just not that fun. Although I did want to keep playing it because I wasn't scoring well. Like, I wasn't doing well. I don't know all the rules. but there's just like i really thought i liked the under play field until i really played it again and i was like man that first lower play field is just boring and i don't like i don't know it yeah you kind of it just feels like you're not really controlling what you're controlling so and then the crab thing really isn't that cool either i kind of i don't know like it's just i i i want to like it though that's the thing i really feel like there's some good people at Jersey Jack. I want to like it. I just feel like Avatar was going to be, Avatar was bad for me from the start because I don't really care for the movies. Like I just, I'm not, I shouldn't say I don't care for them. It's not like I have all this nostalgia for them. I watched them once and my life moved on. I wasn't like, I need to watch that again. Like movie, and maybe that's just because I'm an, I'm older now and something has to really wow me. But when I watched Terminator 2, I watched that almost annually. I watch it almost every year. Back to the Future. I watched that probably multiple times a year. They're Ghostbusters. They're movies from my childhood that I revisit often, and they're still good today. Avatar was, like, really cool and really exciting when I saw it, and then I didn't care anymore. Maybe the characters just didn't connect with me. I don't know what it was. But it's just, like, back to the future. You wanted to be frickin' Marty McFly. This guy is cool as hell. Like, this guy is awesome, you know? And it was, like, all these cool, like, he's skateboarding. skateboarding like it's just he was kind of a badass of the 80s right even though nowadays he probably doesn't look like a badass like i don't mean now meaning his age i mean if you if a kid watches it now i don't know if they would think marty's as cool now as we thought right like holy crap he's got plutonium he has this cool doctor friend doc who's all into electronics like i love this guy i want to go hang out with doc you know which is weird too because you're like a little kid and you're wanting to hang out with this old guy who's got all his gadgets and stuff but i don't nowadays that they'd somehow figure out a way to make that weird but anyway what the hell are we talking about anyways that's that's that's what we're that's what we're talking about so so yeah i i guess it'd be really cool i'd love to see just because i want to see a win for jersey jack it'd be really cool for jersey jack to make something cool i just it just haven't made something to date that i'm just super excited about i did play pirates of the caribbean at expo and i really did like that but again you're at expo it's loud you can't really hear it as good I don't know. Maybe one day I'll be able to play that in a more controlled environment, and maybe that game would blow me away. But Guns N' Roses, I like the music, don't like that game. Dialed In, meh. Godfather, I feel like it's kind of boring. Yeah, they don't have a lot of wins for me. Hobbit is kind of cool. I did like Hobbit. I liked Hobbit, but yeah, I want to like a Jersey Jack game. I'm hoping they eventually do a theme. A theme I'd like to see Jersey Jack do, and I think this rumor is squashed at this point is I was very excited at the idea of the matrix and you wonder why I was like holy crap you're in the matrix you got to get out and go to the phone booth like imagine like a mechanism where like the phone booth is there and you got to get the ball in it you know what I mean and like I don't know just there's so many cool there's so many things you could do in that game that would be cool like Mr. Anderson there's just so many so many cool things so hopefully maybe we'll see that one day I just feel like it would make an amazing pinball machine and it'd be great for Jersey Jack to make something that everybody wants. I feel like they have not had that title that everyone just goes, holy crap, I need this game. I think they'll get it eventually. Eventually they'll do it. It just hasn't happened yet, at least for me. And I think a lot of people actually have that same sentiment towards Jersey Jack. But I don't think anybody wants to see, everyone wants that. They want to see Jersey Jack make that one game. It's going to be like, holy crap, I need it. Like, I got to get it. And I hope it happens because they're good people over there and they build a they build a quality machine anyways i expected to go a little bit longer on this episode i had one more voicemail but it's getting too long so we'll do that voicemail next time but i hopefully you guys like that but guys i that this whole interaction piece is exciting so let's keep this going please there's gonna be a link in the description go check it out i'd love to you know i'd love to get more of these voicemails you guys left some great questions. So I got to thank you guys once again. Thank you to Bill. Thank you to Combo Chuck. And thank you to Jason WFD. Awesome questions. And actually, why don't you guys answer the questions as well? What game would you guys want to see that's based on a video game as a pinball machine that hasn't been made before? What would that be to you? What would your favorite one be? I think that's a cool question. If you're watching it on YouTube, you can definitely leave it in the comment section. I appreciate every single one of you. I hope everyone has an awesome Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for you guys as listeners. I'm grateful that this year I got to meet a lot of you guys at Pinball Expo. And I'm grateful that you guys have come along. Some of you have come along this journey with me. And I have introduced you into something you didn't even know that you'd like as much as I do. Right. And I think that's pretty cool. I think it's cool to get some of these like people that grew up in the same era I did where they didn't they were not surrounded by pinball and now they're discovering and realizing how cool it is you know combo chuck's comment kind of reminds me of that right he's like after i learned and really dove in i liked it more so give it a chance i think it's one of those things if you warm up to it you'll really enjoy it anyways we've hit the 30 minute mark thank you guys so much best listeners ever if you like the video let me know in the comments or like the podcast and we will see you on the flip side Take care, guys. Happy Thanksgiving. That's a wrap.