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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 16: The TPF Guide To SUCCESS

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 14m·analyzed·Mar 21, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.040

TL;DR

Triple Drain defends honest game criticism; announces TPF lineup including Weird Al, P3, and 2.0 code releases.

Summary

Triple Drain Podcast Episode 16 discusses community feedback and criticism about pinball games, particularly addressing backlash to negative comments about Spooky's Halloween machine. The hosts clarify they are unpaid content creators offering genuine feedback, not shills. The episode then pivots to Texas Pinball Festival announcements including Weird Al, P3, multiple 2.0 code releases (Funhaus, Arabian Knights), and seminars featuring Mirko and Chicago Gaming's Cactus Canyon update.

Key Claims

  • A Pinside user accused Triple Drain of having a financial agenda with Spooky Pinball, suggesting they were paid to be positive.

    high confidence · Joel describes finding an actual Pinside thread post claiming 'it feels like you had an agenda and they must have not greased your palm enough' regarding Halloween discussion.

  • None of the three Triple Drain hosts have been paid significantly by manufacturers; Travis makes minimal YouTube revenue, Joel has invested heavily in equipment and is in the hole financially, Tom makes some streaming revenue.

    high confidence · Joel explicitly states: 'we are talking, I mean, if I add up all the equipment that I have purchased, not including pinball machines, to create media, I am still well in the hole on making money.'

  • Travis played Halloween for approximately 6 hours and discovered a repeatable exploit that could generate over 50 million points using two shots.

    high confidence · Travis: 'And so within, like, two hours, I had figured out how to score over 50 million points just with two different repeatable shots.'

  • David Dennis defended Travis in the Pinside thread about Halloween criticism.

    high confidence · Joel mentions Dennis unexpectedly coming to Travis's defense in the thread, comparing it to GI Joe/Cobra Commander teaming up.

  • Mirko (playfield manufacturer) is scheduled for a Q&A seminar at TPF on Friday, March 25th, 4-5 PM, despite past issues with clear coat on Jersey Jack Pinball's Guns N' Roses.

    high confidence · Joel provides specific seminar details and notes: 'with GNR at the very beginning there was a bunch of issues with clear coat, and everybody was saying Mirko flicks your clear coat, and no response, nothing.'

  • Chicago Gaming will present an update on completing Cactus Canyon at TPF seminars, following Lyman Sheets' death.

    high confidence · Joel: 'there's going to be Chicago Gaming. And it's labeled as completing Cactus Canyon. So I assume that they're going to give some type of update with what's going on there with Lyman's untimely passing.'

  • Funhaus 2.0 code (also called Rudy's Nightmare) has been announced and kits have started shipping.

Notable Quotes

  • “if we're not allowed to voice what we don't like in a game, then what's the point? That's feedback. That's all that is.”

    Joel @ ~10 minutes — Core argument defending honest game criticism as constructive feedback, not personal attacks.

  • “Nobody's fucking paid us.”

    Joel @ ~5 minutes — Direct rebuttal to Pinside accusation of financial impropriety; emphatic tone establishes credibility.

  • “if you have enough games put in and you have enough database built into your head that you've played enough, you've seen the shots, you've seen the different codes, you've seen the different rules, you start to see things that are very similar to other games.”

    Travis @ ~12 minutes — Justifies Travis's ability to form informed opinions on games quickly based on tournament player experience.

  • “the three of us love pinball. And we want pinball to succeed. And we want pinball to grow. That's fine. But the only way that it's going to succeed and it's going to grow is if they continue to make better and better games. And the only way that people improve is when feedback is shared.”

    Joel @ ~20 minutes — Articulates Triple Drain's mission statement and philosophical defense of constructive criticism.

  • “He's like, oh, crap. I told Monica it wasn't. She was, like, pissed. I mean, she's gotten whopper hungry.”

    Travis @ ~28 minutes — Humor moment revealing personal investment in supporting spouse's competitive pinball participation.

  • “with GNR at the very beginning there was a bunch of issues with clear coat, and everybody was saying Mirko flicks your clear coat, and no response, nothing.”

    Joel @ ~35 minutes — Sets up dramatic context for Mirko's TPF seminar appearance; notes unresolved customer relations issue.

  • “the meat and bones are basically nearly everything in it was done. He's just having to refine some things”

    Joel @ ~40 minutes — Relays information about Cactus Canyon code completion status following Lyman Sheets' death.

Entities

Triple Drain Pinball PodcastorganizationJoelpersonTompersonTravispersonSpooky PinballcompanyHalloween (Spooky Pinball game)gameDavid DennispersonBowenperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Mirko playfield manufacturer has unresolved quality issues with Jersey Jack Pinball's Guns N' Roses (clear coat problems) without customer communication/resolution.

    high · Joel: 'with GNR at the very beginning there was a bunch of issues with clear coat, and everybody was saying Mirko flicks your clear coat, and no response, nothing.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinside user accused Triple Drain of financial bias/agenda in Halloween criticism; accused them of requiring payment for positive coverage.

    high · Joel describes specific post: 'grease your palm enough to discuss them in an appropriate manner'; hosts defend their unpaid status.

  • ?

    community_signal: Women's pinball tournament at TPF required re-sanctioning after 2020 cancellation; hosts actively supporting female competitor participation.

    high · Travis: 'the women's tournament originally kind of slipped through the cracks because it was sanctioned back in 2020... I told Monica it wasn't... I was like, you know what, sweetheart? You're right. You deserve these points.'

  • ?

    community_signal: David Dennis unexpectedly defended Triple Drain against criticism in Pinside thread, demonstrating community solidarity.

    medium · Joel: 'David Dennis... came out and say something positive, I was taken aback... he was like my wife and take it back.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tournament players (Ray Day, Timmy) creating positive reception for Rush code; experienced players seeing game depth vs. casual accessibility tension.

    medium · Joel: 'the tournament players are going nuts over this game. Like Ray Day and Timmy did an amazing job coding this game. It's just not... for everybody.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.404

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. All right, Tom, you ready with that mouthful of Pepsi? I think so. Oh. Travis, your headphones are working. You ready? As he drinks his tea. I know so. Oh, wow. All right, here we go. We're, we're, we're, we're three guys who like a taunting ball. So we came up with the quote, that's our name. We're so attracted to our taunting ball. We call ourselves Triple Train, Triple Train, Triple Train. We're Triple, Triple Train. All right. Episode, what is this, 16? 16. We are, I don't know, we're moving right along, guys. We're just cruising along. And we don't even have an extra ball, Joel. Nothing. Extra balls are turned off once again. Yeah. So I do have this. Because of the tournament.
1:07
I know. I just made an awesome pun, and Joel didn't even care. Did you see that, Tom? Extra balls are turned off. I heard it. But just because I heard it. He doesn't care about us now. Just because I heard it doesn't mean I need to acknowledge it. It's just. Now, Joel knows how Tom feels now. We're just interrupting his intro this whole time. I think it's because Tom got to talk a lot last episode. Tom crushed it. Yeah, he did. Tom crushed it. He did. We talked him out. I was proud of myself. He probably slept well that night, didn't he? He went straight to bed. Yeah, yeah. No, I got to give a shout-out to my brother. I talked to him. And my brother, he likes pinball, but he doesn't follow anything pinball, nothing. But he listens to our podcast because he said he really enjoys the banter. the banter and uh and i asked him he's like yeah man i love your podcast you guys just uh he goes tom is my favorite though tom is my absolute favorite he goes i connect with tom and i was like really why is that he goes well because anytime tom talks it has weight to it it has substance like it there's there's value in what he's saying he goes travis travis is just stirring shit up that's all travis does and then joel you're just like keeping the conversation going and i was like you know that's actually a pretty good pretty good review i think of what this podcast is. It's pretty accurate based on the previous two minutes of this podcast, yes. Speaking of, is that the brother who likes Halloween?

high confidence · Joel: 'Funhaus 2.0, that's been announced. They've already started shipping kits. There's been a few people that have streamed it.'

  • Mirko has announced a 2.0 kit for Tales of the Arabian Knights coming to TPF.

    high confidence · Joel: 'Mirko they just announced that they have a 2.0 kit and that's Tales of the Arabian Knights so I think they have announced that that will be there as well.'

  • The Dennis/Pinball Profile episode of Triple Drain remains their number-one performing episode.

    high confidence · Joel: 'Dennis sent us our triple drain numbers, and Dennis is still our – the episode that Dennis was on, it's still the number one.'

  • Travis's brother strongly prefers Tom as a podcast personality because Tom's statements have 'weight' and 'substance', while Travis is seen as 'stirring shit up' and Joel as keeping conversation flowing.

    high confidence · Joel relays feedback: 'he goes tom is my favorite though tom is my absolute favorite... because anytime tom talks it has weight to it it has substance'

    • Dennis
    person
    Lyman Sheetsperson
    Josh Sharpperson
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Weird Al (Polka Preserved)game
    P3 (Pinball 3)game
    Funhaus 2.0 / Rudy's Nightmaregame
    Tales of the Arabian Knights 2.0game
    Mirkoperson
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Buffalo Pinballcompany
    Monicaperson
    Zach Minneyperson
    Ray Dayperson
    Timmyperson
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts debate whether first-impression gameplay mechanics (ramp shot success, ball flow, early mode access) should be weighted equally with late-game depth for casual location players.

    medium · Joel: 'Pinball is all about making money... most of the time it's theme... if you don't grab my interest in the first one or two games, I'm sorry.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival major announcements: Weird Al game playable, P3 digital pinball generating interest, multiple 2.0 code releases (Funhaus/Arabian Knights) debuting.

    high · Joel: 'Weird Al will be there... The P3 is going to be there... multiple 2.0 games that are coming out... Funhaus 2.0... Tales of the Arabian Knights.'

  • $

    market_signal: Hosts criticize pinball community tendency to gatekeep via rules complexity; challenge casual players who don't 'understand the code' despite valid gameplay feedback.

    medium · Travis: 'it is comical to see comments about... well, the guys are too dumb to understand how great this game is, or they don't understand the code.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Lyman Sheets' recent death impacts Cactus Canyon 2.0 code completion; Josh Sharp now handling refinement work.

    high · Joel: 'Lyman Sheets was supposed to basically finish the new Cactus Canyon code along with Josh Sharp... with Lyman's untimely passing... Josh had pointed out... the meat and bones are basically nearly everything in it was done.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Halloween playfield has accessibility/navigation issues limiting casual player engagement; secondary playfield difficult to reach; ramp management problematic.

    high · Joel: 'we're stuck in a mode and we didn't know what to do... we're stuck in a mode and we didn't know what to do'; Travis spent 6 hours but found game unenjoyable on initial plays.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Growing trend of 2.0 code releases reviving/upgrading classic pinball games with new rules, LCD displays, and code refinements rather than complete rewrites.

    high · Joel notes Rudy's Nightmare (Funhaus 2.0): 'they all have LCD displays, and, I mean, it looks like an overhaul of the rules kind of thing... like a completely new game.'

    • 2:29
    No, I don't have a brother who likes Halloween. So thank you for the transition, Tom. All right, so there are goals for this podcast, and I know we had said last podcast that TPF is coming up. And so one of the things we have, something that we do on this show is called Triple Combo, where we break down a game three ways. Well, Travis had the great idea that, hey, before this show. Wait, wait, wait. I had what? You had a good idea. Yeah. No, no, no. You said great. He did say great. A reasonable idea. You can't be like my wife and take it back.
    3:05
    All right? Yeah. You're on audio. Okay. You had a great idea. All right. So, but we are going to do that. We are going to do an in-depth breakdown of all the games at TPF. So, you know, make sure you got your notepad ready. That way on the plane you can do all that. But we're not doing that right now. We're going to get to that. So there's a few other things we're going to discuss first. And so one topic that I want to bring up is I know last episode I shared my experience on some of the games at Wizard World. And so I was playing pinball with my brother, my brother-in-law, and a good friend of mine. All three of those guys are kind of novice players. And the point of me talking about that experience was to share, like, what pinball is like from the experience of, like, three novice people. What games stood out? What did they enjoy? What did they not like?
    3:57
    So, you know, a standout thing was the fact that my brother, the one that likes Tom, put $9 into big guns. That was, like, one of his favorite games. So maybe that says something about my brother's opinion on things. It's a good ACDC song. Wow. But that was the point. And I know that personally, I'm a pretty optimistic person. I like positivity. And so it's rare that I really talk negatively about anything. And I actually shared a few negative viewpoints on Halloween. And what surprised me was that in the TPN Pinside thread, there was a person that posted, they basically said, I think you guys should remove the entire Halloween conversation from your last podcast. and then went on to say it feels like you had an agenda and they must have not greased your palm enough to discuss them in an appropriate manner.
    4:53
    Was that really a post on Pinside? That was 100% legit a post on Pinside. What does that mean, grease your palm? I mean, it's true. Yeah, they did it. Yeah, I will tell you that. Spooky has not greased our palms at all. What does that mean? They haven't paid us enough. Apparently, they haven't given us enough money to talk about them in a positive way. So we have an agenda now. Nobody's fucking paid us. What?
    5:18
    Yeah. We'll just rotate. We'll just – I was going to say, wait a second. Have you two been paid? No. I need to know. So the truth is all three of us are content creators. Have we made money doing this? Sure. Travis gets a few bucks from YouTube because people clip on his videos. I make roughly $550,000 a year. I will admit it. Okay? Sorry. I'm a one-to-center. They click on his videos on YouTube. I don't know why, but they do. And then Tom, has he made a little bit of money? Yeah, he streams the heck out of these amazing tournaments, and he gets some donations, and he gets some subs and stuff from Twitch. Well-deserved. He models, too. He does model, but that's not – I get to see pinball modeling. Have I made money doing this? I do some streaming, and I have once again received some bits from that. I have some subs. But we are talking, I mean, if I add up all the equipment that I have purchased, not including pinball machines, to create media, I am still well in the hole on making money. So if anybody thinks that pinball creators are doing this for like a side income, you are comically mistaken. That is not a thing. And so the point of this conversation, the point of the three of us talking is literally just to just shoot the breeze. We're just, we're here to have a good time. We're here to talk pinball and we're here to share our experiences, what we like, what we don't like. And that's kind of the reason I bring this up is if we're not allowed to voice what we don't like in a game, then what's the point? That's feedback. That's all that is. That's criticism of this was my experience in the game. And so if you want to adjust the code to account for that or take this as something you can take into your next game, that's all it is. I did not feel anything that I shared, you know, basically saying we had trouble getting up to the secondary play field and the middle ramp kept, you know, we're stuck in a mode and we didn't know what to do. None of which I was sharing was like an attack on Spooky. That was not, I own a Spooky game, I'm a fan of Spooky, and I wish them nothing but success for everything they do. I felt triggered, Joel. Yeah, triggered, yeah. Like I was way triggered. I mean, if Spooky wants to pay us more for good press, then it's a low bar. It's a really low bar on how much we're receiving. But it was just really funny. And I have to give credit. There were multiple people in that thread that defended me before I even said it. Who was David Dennis, which you publicly said you hated? I don't know. That guy is pretty darn low on the quality people list. But for him to come out and say something positive, I was taken aback. Man, so you're saying this post was so egregious that it basically created a situation kind of like the late 80s G.I. Joe, where the Joes and the Cobra Commander get together to fight drugs? That's like you and David Dennis right now? I think that's what, yeah. I think that's it. Well, it really. To get back on Pennside. Holy crap. I mean, it came down to two parts, which is one, censorship. You know, like, first off, like, if we're considered pinball media, you need to check your sources, you know, because we are not, like, don't make any decision based on what we say. I mean, and Travis, you actually made a comment about it in the last podcast. Buy the games you enjoy. If my brother wants to go out and buy big guns, buy big guns. Buy Rush. Have a great time with it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the bottom line is, one, we regret nothing. Two, we won't apologize. Three, we're just two idiots and me with, you know, a microphone talking on a podcast.
    9:08
    Well, yeah, and I know, I mean, Zach Minney, obviously I love the guy. He's an awesome part of TPN, but he has a lot of bold statements. I mean, for example, he freaking loves Popeye. How many people in this hobby love Popeye? I know of one. It's Zach Minney. But he will stand firm on that being a good game. And so if people crap on that and say it's a garbage game, does he need to be the white knight and come fight every battle with how good Popeye is? No. It's just like people are allowed to have different opinions. That's totally – He does, Joel. We're all 30-year-old men. We're above 30. We all need something to do. Obviously, getting on the internet, typing away, that's what we're going to do. Well above 30. Oh, yeah, I forgot. So, I don't know. Tom is refined. I bring it up. Wish I was 30. Yeah, I bring it up not to be. I'm not going to call the guy out, but it's just that is, it was one of those, like, at the end of the day, hey, if I mess up your day by saying something negative about a game you like, sorry, man. I'm just sharing an experience. And if you love the game, I'm happy for you. I hope you bolt it to the floor and have nothing but joy from that thing the rest of your life. but it is comical to see comments about, you know, well, the guys are too dumb to understand how great this game is, or they don't understand the code. Well, you're probably right. I mean, the reason I say you're right. Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. They said what now? I haven't seen this post. What did they say? Well, that post was in the actual Halloween ownership. Should I find this? Which is fine. They are allowed to say what they want to say. I don't want them to say that Joel is dumb, Tom. But here's my thing. They were a burden to you, Travis. They were, yeah. They actually singled Travis out. But anyways, what I will say is I understand, but my defense is if I am not enjoying the game, I'm not going to continue to put money into it. And so do I understand the depth of the code? No, I don't. I played two games on it, and they were not enjoyable. So I walked away. I did not put more time. Now, if I would own the game and it was in my basement for two months and I spent hours and hours and hours playing it and then still didn't, then fine. Excuse me for that. But how am I supposed to know the greatness of this game if I'm saying the first little bit of it's unenjoyable? I'm sorry. That's one thing for me, somebody who enjoys pinball, but I was there with my brother-in-law who was done. He's like, nah, next game. And that happens. But Travis, on the other hand, he spent plenty of time playing this game. Big Papa is his name today, and Big Papa is raising his hand. Okay, so I was texting you guys when I was first playing it, and I was showing you videos when I was first playing it, correct? Hang on, Big Papa's got to put his hand down. Okay, there we go. And for those wondering whether or not I knew the rule set or whatever, what was the first thing that I sent you guys, or one of the first things within 30 minutes of playing it? I think the first thing you sent was a broken plastic.
    12:13
    Okay, the second thing I sent afterwards. I think you broke the game. I think you found a way, you found some sort of exploit, and you just broke the game. Right. And so within, like, two hours, I had figured out how to score over 50 million points just with two different repeatable shots.
    12:31
    And so, I mean, obviously, I don't even know if it's been fixed or not because I haven't tried it again since, I don't know, like two months ago or so, whenever is the last time I played. But the reality is is that when it comes to games and it comes to understanding what's going on, you're going to like what you like. And if you've played enough games, and any tournament player out there or anybody listening that's played pinball for a long time, and this isn't a gatekeeping statement, I'm saying if you have enough games put in and you have enough database built into your head that you've played enough, you've seen the shots, you've seen the different codes, you've seen the different rules, you start to see things that are very similar to other games. And that helps you understand a rule set even quicker because you can apply it to something else. You can bring back memory. You can, you know, you can figure it out pretty quickly. So it's definitely, to me, it's not an understanding the rule set situation for myself. You know, maybe for Joel. It might be. Not because you're Joel with that luscious beard. it's because you're Joel that played it for three games or so. It's going to be difficult to figure out a full rule set, but you are going to get an idea within those three games how you like a game shooting. You're going to know. That's just the reality of it. And sure, your first impression might change if you play it even longer. But I swear, I put six hours on it, and six hours is more than enough time to form a first impression in my opinion. I think you're moving past first impression when you're six hours in. I was moving past like just, yeah, like self-torture at that point when I reached six hours on any game, on any game. I mean, you know, that's just a lot of time to put in. I made sure, and I told you guys this specifically. I don't think I ever said this on the podcast. As soon as I got done, my first time playing it, I gave you my opinions. I said, you know what? I'm going to go back in for a second try. I'm going to verify that this is how I felt. That's what I decided to do. And I told that to a few of my chats that I have, like tournament players, other pinball enthusiasts, and everybody was just like, you're freaking crazy. What are you doing? I'm like, I'm doing it anyways. Strap in, boys. And, yeah, I mean, it is what it is. That's pinball, you know? It's just how it is. I get it. And I don't know. The only reason I'm bringing it up is, for one, thank you for anybody that said anything nice. I mean, I really appreciate that. But two, if we're going to start filtering things that we're saying, it's not like at the end of the day, the three of us love pinball. And we want pinball to succeed. And we want pinball to grow. That's fine. But the only way that it's going to succeed and it's going to grow is if they continue to make better and better games. And the only way that people improve is when feedback is shared. And that's all we're doing. And we're not here to tell people, you know, where to spend their money. We're not here to tell people that you're right or wrong if you like or don't like something. We're just sharing. What did you say? Bye, Rush. Yes. So, yes. And then, well, okay, Rush is a great example. We brought this up before. Zach let me borrow Rush. My initial experience with Rush was not positive. It wasn't. I didn't immediately fall in love with the game. And I will tell you, a buddy of mine, Mike, was over here the other weekend. And he's not a pinball guy, but he's like, let's do it. We played TNA, we played Deadpool, we played Rush, and we played Turtles. And at the end, I said, which one was your favorite? And his answer was Deadpool. And he said his second favorite was – and he said Deadpool was his favorite because he felt like he did the most. He had a chance to start a battle. He started a multi-ball. He – TNA, he had a great time because we played co-op. We went to that. He said Turtles was just hard, and he barely got anywhere, but he enjoyed Hatchery Challenge. And I've talked about Hatchery Challenge before being a great, like, ball save on introduction thing. He goes, I didn't really like Rush. And I get that. He's not a rush fan. And there wasn't, like, he didn't do anything in the game. The game's hard. The one toy in the game on a pro is the time machine right up the middle. I mean, once you see the ball grab it one time, it's like, all right. But he didn't hit it enough to get into a multi-ball, so he didn't accomplish anything. So his one game, if that would have been his money, he would have played one, and he would have walked away. Now, am I bringing that up to tell everybody, drop your orders of rush? You know, Stern made, like, a garbage game? Like, no, that's not like Tom freaking loves that game. This game, every game is different. And the tournament players are going nuts over this game. Like Ray Day and Timmy did an amazing job coding this game. It's just not, it's not for everybody. So I don't know. I, I just brought that up. And the last thing I would say is we are all for feedback. So if there's anything that we say that you agree with, shoot us an email. We read every single email. especially if you agree just save it my feelings are much too and if you disagree shoot us an email tripledrain at gmail.com and the reason I say that is if we would have got an email and just said hey I listened to your last podcast screw you Joel yeah that's all I have to say but if it would have said hey I'm sorry but I adamantly disagree with what you said about Halloween. I own the game. I'm telling you, if you would really invest more time into it, if you would learn the rules, there's something here that you're missing. Maybe explain that a little bit. That's constructive. And that's what I was trying to say. Uh-oh, Big Papa. What the dumb name? No, no, no. This is the perfect thing. All right, Joel. Yeah. I'm a concerned co-host with you. I don't feel like you've experienced enough Halloween. So my challenge to you is to play it for at least one more hour.
    18:21
    And when we go down to TPF... We're going to go find one and we're going to play one down at TPF together.
    18:31
    Actually, you're going to play it. I'm not going to play it, but I'm going to stand at the side and watch. Actually, I'll probably watch one ball and I'll walk off, but you finish the game, okay? I will absolutely, if there is one at TPF, I will absolutely play it. And I get that. I'm just bringing this up because, yes, there are. Pinball is all about making money. Like, that's how the games are designed. They're designed for on-location play. And you need to, most of the time it's theme. Theme is what attracts somebody to a table, a pinball machine, whatever term you want to use. Or it's some mech. They see some crazy mech on the game. They see it and they want to experience it. And so it's just one of those situations where if you don't grab my interest in the first one or two games, I'm sorry. Am I the idiot? Am I the dummy? Yes. Maybe. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. I think you guys have probably angered the pinball gods right now because it just started storming outside. You guys know what happens if it starts storming here. So Travis's internet's going to drop is what's going to happen. But I'll be right back if it happens. Yeah, we'll see. to you ahead of time. That way you guys don't freak out, shut down the podcast while I'm gone. God, what will Joel and I do? We'll just act like Travis and it'll be fine. Do you have a Travis soundboard? I don't have a Travis soundboard. I only use sound. Remember what you say has weight, not Travis. So I don't know. We can wrap that all up.
    20:02
    Once again, I appreciate all the people that supported me, but I also feel it was more of a we're here to have a good time And if something we say, like, is negative or hurts your day in some way, that's not our goal. We're not trying to do that. And feel free to share it. You know, give us the feedback. Shoot us an email. This is just for fun. And to all the Halloween owners out there, if you love your game, I genuinely can't be happier for you. Like, I really hope you love that game. And if there's people waiting on order still, if that's something, if it looks interesting to you and you've seen a few streams or you've had a chance to play it and you're excited about it, be excited about it. I want you to love the game. Pinball's fun. But, you know, take what we have to say with a grain of salt, especially Travis, especially me. But, Tom, if Tom says something, you better listen because, you know. By Rush.
    20:54
    But Tom says wait. Yeah. So there we go. That's the end of that. Does anybody, either of you have anything besides by Rush to?
    21:01
    No, I'm good. I'm ready for the next part of the podcast. Well, yeah. You've got a really calm sound clip now about Halloween. That was well thought out, Joel. It wasn't? Yeah. I mean, look, I had all these. I had nothing. I just talked. You're like the third nicest guy in pinball behind Bowden and Dinden. Bowden and Dennis? I'll take it, man. Yeah. You're the nicest?
    21:25
    Well, he's the second nicest. Second nicest, yeah. I think that's what he is, right? Sure. Dennis? Yeah, Dennis is number two. Yeah, okay. Dennis is number two. I haven't seen the rankings lately. I just, you know. Yeah, as well as your – I'm elevating you to number three just because you're Joel. I appreciate that. I don't know if I'm allowed to take that, but I appreciate that. I will say Dennis sent us our triple drain numbers, and Dennis is still our – the episode that Dennis was on, it's still the number one. Let's listen to an episode of our show. Star power of Dennis. Dennis has – he's got a gift. He's got a gift.
    22:02
    All right. Well, that's it for that. Let's go ahead and roll into TPF. So Texas Pinball Festival is coming up. The goal here is there is a tournament. I know Travis is stoked. Monica is going to do better than him. It'll be great. It'll be an awesome tournament.
    22:19
    But believe it or not, there's other things. There's other things at TPF than tournaments. I mean, I don't know if you guys know that. You guys go to these expos, and I don't think you realize there are other things than tournaments. I think you and Joel should put a wager on that statement. That I'm going to bet for Monica? Yes. Ooh.
    22:41
    That's right. I think Travis is really excited about that. Travis was really pumped up that the women's tournament was sanctioned. I was. Well, because the women's tournament originally kind of slipped through the cracks because it was sanctioned back in 2020, and when it got canceled, it never got re-sanctioned because I guess it was assumed that it was sanctioned. So we were looking at it, and I was like, oh, crap. I told Monica it wasn't. She was, like, pissed. I mean, she's gotten whopper hungry. I don't know what to do with her. Yeah, that's what I told her. I got pissed with her. I was like, you know what, sweetheart? You're right. You deserve these points right now no matter what place you get. And, yeah, that's how you sleep in the bed. So you don't tell her, but Monica, if you get the Whoppers, that means I didn't.
    23:29
    No, no, no. Hey, here's the thing. Here's the thing. You support your spouse playing pinball any way you can. Yeah, I'll give you that. Because I'll tell you straight up, yeah, I get to make some decisions. It ain't about buying pinball machines. I'll tell you that right now.
    23:46
    All right, so TPF. What's going on at TPF besides the tournament? One thing, well, for one, Weird Al. So Weird Al is going to be there. I know Kevin with Buffalo Pinball is streaming that, what is it, the 18th or 19th? It's either Friday or Saturday. It's soon, like in the next one or two days. So people are going to have an opportunity to see the game streamed, but they will be there. They will be there on site. They will be able to be played. Big Papa is telling us it's hailing outside. Oh, no. He spelled, guys, he wrote four words, and he spelled all four of them correctly. Except for Al. Well, no, I mean, that was pretty dramatic. I'm going to leave you guys behind the scenes in case I'm gone. I didn't want to interrupt you, Joel. I didn't realize you read this while you're talking. Okay. I mean, it's more just, I think we can kind of hear it in the background. But Oklahoma, man. Just Oklahoma. He's typing, guys. So we're going to keep rolling until he finishes typing. Halloween is great. Joel sucks. That's what he wrote. So if you're wondering, you know, and once again, he spelled all five of those words right. You're like Ron Burgundy. You can read anything on the teleprompter. No, I know. Believe it or not, I can read before I say the words. So I want you to get that credit because I think you think you're pretty slick. All right. So TPF. We're 25 minutes into a TPF premiere so far. All we've gotten out of this is Weird Al will be there. Yeah. All we've gotten is Halloween's Great and Joel Sucks. Okay. So Weird Al will be there. I think that will be a good chance. The P3 is going to be there. I think the P3 has more interest now than it's ever had. so I'm excited for a bunch of people to play it and experience what it is and make up their mind on whether that's a game they're going to jump on or at least they know touch the game, enjoy it I hope it's awesome, I truly hope it's awesome another thing well it's kind of a two-parter but they have announced there are now multiple 2.0 games that are coming out So I know, what is it, Funhaus? Funhaus 2.0, that's been announced. They've already started shipping kits. There's been a few people that have streamed it. Wild Dog Arcade, I know on TPN they streamed it. I'm assuming there will be at least one machine there that has that. So that will be kind of a newish game for people to play. What is it called? Rudy's Nightmare, I think, is what it's called. That is correct. So that looks pretty cool. Mirko, everybody's favorite pinball playfield manufacturer, Mirko they just announced that they have a 2.0 kit and that's Tales of the Arabian Knights so I think they have announced that that will be there as well so that's kind of a two part thing you have the game but then you also have Mirko's going to be there and not to get too deep into the drama but I said favorite pinball playfield manufacturer with sarcasm because there has been issues. There have been issues with some of the play fields that they have made, and this is somewhat surprising that he's going to present himself in a public forum with a Q&A session. Yeah, there's going to be some fireworks. Do we know when that is? Because I'm looking for the seminars right now, and I cannot find anywhere on the website. When's the Papa Duke seminar?
    27:07
    I don't think they will do one. Yeah, so I know he's there to discuss his 2.0 boards, but the real short, the real small drama with Mirko is Mirko supplies JJP playfields, and with GNR at the very beginning there was a bunch of issues with clear coat, and everybody was saying Mirko flicks your clear coat, and no response, no nothing. Uh-oh, Big Papa, here we go. I love it when you call me Big Papa. I love the name, Joel, but I promise you, you don't have to announce me every single time. Does it sound ridiculous? Does it sound really lame when I say it over and over again? It's badass. What are you talking about? All right. So on Friday, March 25th from 4 to 5 p.m. in the seminar room is when Mirko will be there. So that will be very interesting. It will. Three-year baseball bats, pitchforks. Oh, gosh. Torches. So I will say there is one seminar just kind of moving us along a little bit because I got to keep Joel and Tom just on track. I think Travis is afraid the hail is going to take his podcast. I just want to take his base point. No, I'm saying so. Another thing at the seminar room on March 25th also, after the whole Mirko thing, is going to be Chicago Gaming. And it's labeled as completing Cactus Canyon. So I assume that they're going to give some type of update with what's going on there with Lyman's untimely passing that happened. And for those that don't know, Lyman Sheets was supposed to basically finish the new Cactus Canyon code along with Josh Sharp that was added onto it. And I believe that Josh had pointed out on another podcast, I think it might have been on Final Round or was it with Jeff? It was Pinball Profile. Okay, so on Pinball Profile that the meat and bones are basically nearly everything in it was done. He's just having to refine some things to my understanding. So I'm sure we'll get an update on that if you're on board with that game. And that might be a seminar to go to. Sure. So essentially 2.0 code there. And then there, I saw the other day, I don't know if one of you looked it up, but they announced there's Whirlwind, Whirlwind 2.0 code. And I also don't know if that's going to be a TPF. But that kind of brings us to a quick conversation. Overall thoughts, the fact that some of these older games are getting revisions or add-ons to their code.
    29:28
    Travis had a strange face, kind of a, eh, kind of face. I mean, well, Tom can attest to this. It's not groundbreaking for tournament players to see this because there's been sworn ROMs and stuff like that over the years that changed game behavior to be a little bit more proper, at least for tournament play, and more enjoyment out of it. So, I mean, I still think it's pretty cool, but as long as it doesn't take away the spirit of the game, of what it is. If it fixes just the things that need to be fixed, then I'm all for it. but if it completely changes the game. This is like the Rudy's Nightmare. Like, they all have LCD displays, and, I mean, it looks like an overhaul of the rules kind of thing. Yeah. Like a completely new game, which, honestly, I don't mind.
    30:23
    But, you know, just if I had it in the home environment, I think it would be kind of cool. But maybe not in a tournament setting where I had absolutely no idea what the changes were and things like that. That's a good point. Yeah, if you walked up to a funhouse or you saw that funhouse was part of the tournament list, now is it, well, is this funhouse or is this, like, funhouse Rudy's Nightmare and we have to, you know. I get it, but I know, like, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Totem, as people refer to it, some people love this game. The toys, the mechs, the layout, everything. This game is well-loved, but the one sore point to the game that people bring up is the code. They're like, well, if you're at all a good player, you're going to be able to beat this game. You're going to be able to beat this game, and there's just not a ton of depth. So if you're going to take a game that has an amazing layout with some really cool mechs and really good toys, and then you're going to flush out even more code or add an LCD screen. I don't know if they're adding an LCD screen, but it's, you know, like Rudy's Nightmare, the Funhaus one, added a whole screen. But whatever, I'm all for it. I just think for some of these people that have these older games in their collection, and all these games have some option where when you boot up the game, you can play it the original way or you can play it the new way. So you're just giving your game more stuff. So I think it's great. I think it's an awesome idea. I think it's going to bring demand for some of these older games. Like, I think Funhouse was already a game that people wanted, but now the fact that you basically get a two-for-one and, like, that, I mean, I'm no pinball market trends, but I'm assuming that's going up. Toten was already, you know, sought after. I'm assuming the value of that just went up.
    32:09
    Whirlwind, another game that's well-liked, you know, I'm assuming that's going up. I don't know, like, I don't know what's next. What I do think is interesting is the people that are making these. Like Mirko's making one.
    32:22
    Rudy's Nightmare. I don't know. Somebody made that. It's not one company that this is the thing they're doing. It's a bunch of different people all doing this at the same time. How did that not distract you at all, Joel? Because I'm professional. You know?
    32:37
    This guy. Travis, please describe in detail what you were doing. Paint a picture for us. No. You had to be here.
    32:49
    All right. So we're going to start doing this on video. So at 8 to 9 o'clock is the Jersey Jack Pinball Seminar with Jack and you guys know the second guest? Steve Ritchie. So his first, I guess, major public appearance, at least, as a member of Jersey Jack Pinball. So what do you think we'll learn from this seminar? That the handcuffs are off. and I love it. And I've never been happier. That's what he's... They're not going to announce a title. You think it'll just be fluff? What do you think? We know for a fact that... I think they're going to announce High Speed 3. Why would they do that? I don't know. I'm just saying it, Joel. Now it going to be a rumor out there and they going to talk about it on Penn State Oh we should have told Dennis and he could have put it on Eclectic Gamers the Gamers class in the rumor corner Are you not rumor No I think it will be flawed And I don mean that in a bad way I'm still interested. I think I'll watch it. But if we know Toy Story is just around the corner, they're going to be busy for another year plus. And then Eric has to be doing another game. So did they let Steve hop in, and he's going to go between Eric and – holy crap, I can't think of – Are these seminars live? Pat Lawler. I was like, Paul? It's not a P. I don't know. You know what? I'm not sure. They live stream Chicago. I don't know if they will this. Yeah, I don't know if they will or not. But, I mean, I'm interested to hear what they have to say.
    34:19
    I am interested in that because I don't know. Maybe they might give some insight to what he could be working on. You would have to think that they're giving something because it's at a prime time hour, 8 to 9 on a Friday night, and people are going to be interested. So they have to give something. But, you know, like, he hasn't been there long enough to make a game. So he's not announcing a game. No, no, no, no way. And they're not going to announce a game that would potentially impact the sales of their next release. I just don't know why they do it. I'm not saying they're going to announce the game, but keep in mind, I think Jersey Jack's whole thing is that they want to try to get at least two games out per year. Now, obviously, under current market conditions and current supply chain conditions, That's not really possible for a lot of the manufacturers out there, not name Stern, but you'd have to think that they're bringing some value with this. So, I mean, I'm interested in it. Sure. Why not? I mean, it's not – I don't know. I don't think – Maybe they're announcing Willy Wonka 2.0, okay? Maybe that's what's happening. No, what would actually make more people happy is if they did, like, Dialed In 2.0, right, or something. You think so? Or maybe a rerun of Pirates? Wait, there's already – well, yeah. What if they announced that? Oh, man. Oh, my God. I got to sell my pirates. Right. You'd have half the people extremely happy. The other people would just be like, shit, what are we doing now? There it all goes. Yeah. You think Nick would finally sell his pirates then? I don't know. Well, why would he? I mean, there's no – if the demand for it goes down, that's the only reason he was selling it is for money. He loves the game. Why else would you sell something? For the – you just – Don't you get money out of it? Crack cocaine? Remember earlier when I said my brother's review? What are they using in Indiana?
    36:04
    Are you asking what drugs are used in Indiana? What do you use for currency? You just asked me why you would sell a game. The dollar bill. Okay, money. It's a higher. I'm not even going to explain. If I play your game and explain this, it makes me look dumber. Joel, we're going to have so much fun together at TPF. It'll be great. Yeah, because I think you're going to have a lot of free time because you're going to be out of the tournament pretty early because Monica is just going to keep cruising around. Wow.
    36:36
    Wow. I've only had my green tea right now. I'm going to bring out the fireball. I'm going to find Teolis when we're down there. I'm going to get the fireball out. It'll be great. So, okay, what else do we have at TPF? I mean, there will be some good seminars. Well, let's just go through the seminars since we have it up right here because that's basically all there is. I mean, besides what? People having boots? I'm all for you reading lists out loud because chances of you reading every word correct is very low. So let's go. All right. I'll ignore your diss. Tom, I love you. Thank you. Number 12, TPF Big Smoke. Joel, do you smoke cigars at all? I have. It's not a common thing. Do you want to have a cigar at 1130? That's a thing? Like it's a cigar. Yeah, it's a big smoke. Yeah. I didn't know it was a thing. It's let's all get together and smoke cigars. I'm telling you right now it's a thing. Okay. You're like my mom when I tell her about something, and then she's like, oh, I've never heard of that. And then so I tell her again, she's like, yeah, I've never heard of that. I'm like, I just told you. Of course you've heard of it now. I'm surprised that there is a scheduled group activity to go smoke cigars at TPF. That surprised me. You're surprised that a hobby dominated by males predominantly has a smoking section for cigars. A scheduled one? Yeah. Okay, yes. Okay. You haven't learned TPF before. Yeah, now you know. And Tom's not going to be there. Damn it, Tom.
    38:01
    Okay, good to know. All right, so anyhow, fast forward to the next day. I'll just machine gun through these real quick for us. If you guys have anything to say, just put your hands up to Big Papa and I'll stop.
    38:13
    That's right. Okay, go ahead. Tom, are you going to raise your hand? No. You don't need to raise your hand. I'll be good. Okay. No, Tom's like the dwarfs, the hobbits at the end of the third Lord of the Rings movie where he bows to no one. So Tom never has to raise his hand. You know what? I told Tom earlier today that Fawlty Tom is my third favorite Tom. And he was like, what's your top two?
    38:39
    So I told him number two was Neil's dad. And shit, Tom, what was number one? I don't know. I have to look it up. Number four was Pinball Camp Tom because he lets me stay at his house underneath his pinball machines when I'm up there. It's more like Landlord Tom.
    38:56
    Yeah, I forgot the first one. Anyhow, okay. He's just your favorite. It's fine. Yeah, he's just my favorite, just Tom. So he's everybody's favorite. That's how it is. He carries the show, clearly. What a bunch of bullshit.
    39:09
    All right. I'm ready for the machine gun of all the events. This is one of these episodes where we're supposed to be getting through TPF stuff, and we just keep tripping over each other. No, what's bad is there's going to be people that download this because they see it's titled, like, TPF whatever I call it, and they're like, oh, great, I'll listen to that on the plane. I'll download it. And then they're going to be stuck in the middle and be like, I don't have anything else to listen to. They won't be. We'll have a fix for this. At the very beginning, you'll come on there, Joel, and you'll let them know when we actually start talking about TPF and when we actually start talking about Turing. Screw that. It's not happening. See, listeners, I was here for you guys. Remember. Yeah, coming from the guy that doesn't do the editing. Yeah. Don't read it. You're a freaking bad listener. That's fair. Buckle up. Yeah. Here we go. You're in for a three-hour podcast.
    39:58
    All right, Greg. Now we'll get hate mail about that, too. Read us a list. Your podcast is too long. It's too short. I don't like the intro. I hate Joel. I hate Travis. I love Tom. Why don't you guys do more each week? Okay. These are just everything we hear every day. Okay. We love it. PM to 1 PM on March 26th on a Saturday, how to find, buy, and own your first pinball machine from Nick Greenup. And that's Nick from Solid State Pinball out at Kansas City, Missouri. And he's a great guy. I've hung out at Solid State before, and he's come and picked up a machine from me before. So he knows his stuff. So I think if you're into possibly buying a new pinball machine, that would be a good one to go to. Are machine guns in Oklahoma like single-shot pistols? What?
    40:42
    You said you were machine gunning this list, and we're, bam. All right, sorry. Okay, let me go quicker then. American Pinball, one to two, where are they going to talk about? I don't know. All right, two to three, Q&A. Sylvester McCoy, a.k.a. the seventh doctor. Who is that? I don't know. I'm in my mid-30s. I have no clue. All right, two-thirty to fourth, what? I don't, I really, I'm so confused. Like, there's a seminar of somebody that nobody knows who he is? Q&A? I said, I don't know. I don't speak for everybody. I don't even see this on the page. Sidebar, American Pinball, do either of you think they're going to announce anything, or are they just going to be talking about Legends of Valhalla?
    41:19
    They need to announce something. Yeah, okay. I mean, so I was talking about this with somebody the other day. I wasn't even sure if Legends of Valhalla was on the line and coming out to a lot of people. Like, I've seen some out there, but I haven't seen much, so. Yeah. And the way that they made it sound before that they sold out their first 300 very quick. So I'm like, I don't know. Maybe they're just not getting out because they can't get it manufactured, or maybe somehow these 300 people, just nobody wants to show it off. Like I've seen it trickled out, but there's none around here. So I actually am excited about playing that down in Texas because I think that there was one at Freeplay Florida, right, Tom? I think.
    42:03
    What? A Legend of Valhalla. Yeah. A Legend of Valhalla, yes. I don't know if it was there. I don't remember it. Memorable. Yeah, memorable is what I'm hearing now. I'm old, Travis. It had to have been there because Bowden was there too. The reality is we would hope this would be a great time to announce a game. I only won the free play area once. This would be a really good time to announce a new game though, right? I mean, Stern is not doing anything. Oh, absolutely. If the American Pinball. Yes. Yeah, if they could announce a game and at the same time say, guess what? They're here. It's for sale. It's here. There it is. Oh, my God. Yeah. That would be awesome. Boom moment. Get Levy in here. Boom!
    42:47
    You just held him on the mic. Nailed it. All right, so the machine gun jammed. I jammed it. But keep going. All right, three to four is Multimorphic Weird Al, which we've already talked about that, so we know what's coming with that. Four to five is Inside Connected Pinball with Jack Danger, Scott Denisey, and Jay Adelson. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. I don't know what that is. Yeah, so it literally says Insider Connected Pinball with Jack Danger, Scott Denisey, and Jay Adelson. Jay Adelson works with Scorbit. Well, they have the Scorbit picture up there, too, so I guess they're talking about all of it, which is interesting because I thought George Gomez was the one that really spearheaded the whole Insider Connect thing. And it's just interesting that they're calling it Insider Connected, which is what CERN uses. So I'm assuming that's just all that they're talking about, right? Because they're all connected to pinball. We're all connected. We all love this. No, I'm not, but you guys are. That's true. So let's see what else. So if you're into restorations and re-themes, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. will be Pimp Your Pinball with Ken Head and Jeff Miller. So there you go. If you want to pimp your pinball, Tom.
    44:02
    Autograph session with special guests. I don't know who's giving out autographs. Are they talking about people in pinball? Are they talking about Doctor Who, number seven? Tom, if you want to send me some of your autograph headshots, I'll pass them out. I'm fine with that. That would be badass. And then, of course, the one thing that I guess most people are excited about, I know Canada's probably very excited about this, the 2021 Quippy Awards. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. You sound super excited, Joel. No, I'm genuinely looking forward to that. That should be a good time. Are you going to that? I know Fox City. Why would I not go to that? Okay. Can you do us a favor, Joel? Yeah.
    44:43
    Well, Tom is nominated twice. Yeah. So he's obviously going to win at least once. I think Neil will probably win the other one. Probably. Oh, yeah. I know for sure I'm not going to take last again on YouTube, but I'm probably going to win this year. Okay. So can you please get all three of our trophies? Yes. I 100% guarantee that if either of you win, I will happily walk on stage and accept your trophy, and now I'll make it all of you. There's no ifs. Win. I'm the 10th best streamer. Hey, top 10 is still better than everybody else. All right. Yeah, I'm right. And then, Tom, you guys, District 82 were also nominated for location, right? That is correct. Yeah. So there you go.
    45:29
    Eric, right? He's the owner of District 82? Yes. He'll be there, I assume. It's called a Whopper Farm. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's all you do. I like Tom's face when he says that. It's called a Whopper Farm. Yeah. All right. So that's Twippy. And then there's the Twippy's After Party, I know, which will be great. They do? Yeah, I saw that announced that there's a Twippies after party. It'll be awesome. We'll FaceTime him. Featured by Marco's Specialties, Pinball Life, and the Texas Pinball Fest. Oh. Yeah. Did you say we're going to FaceTime it? I said we'll FaceTime Tom. He'll be at the party. It'll be great. I'll be asleep. I know. I'll be in the tournament grinding, Joel. I ain't got no time for award shows. If you're not, if you just happen to not be in the tournament, come find me. We'll hang out. It'll be great. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. All right. So that is Saturday. Yeah, and that's it. Sunday, there's nothing else. The tournament, I guess, the Best in Show Award. So Sunday is just hanging out. Sunday will be a good time. Sunday is literally a mad dash come the afternoon just to get your pins out of there. And it's just total chaos. Yeah. No, I'm flying out Sunday evening. So Sunday will just be, you know, grab some breakfast, hang out with some people, and that'll be that. When are you actually getting in? I fly in Friday morning. Oh, okay. See, I fly. Oh, I don't fly. I drive in Thursday morning. But I think, yeah, I got to help set up a game and then just, I guess, hang out. Without Joel there. So, yeah, I'll just have to hang out with my wife. Try to have a good time. But Friday. We'll get there Friday. Josh from Loser Kid is going to be with me Thursday night. So, yeah. There you go. Yeah. It's a party. We might just replace you, Jack. Yeah. No, we're going to start our own podcast, Joel. Yeah. We've already talked about this.
    47:17
    Good luck. You're supposed to fight for me, Joel. No, at this point, it's just a waste. Okay, so that's TPF. That's TPF, everything but the tournament. Yes? Did we miss anything?
    47:31
    Yeah, that's basically everything. So if somebody's listening to this and you've never been to TPF before, obviously you still don't have a clear picture of what the hell is going on based off this podcast, but there will be plenty of games for free play or set on free play, of course. It's not technically free because you're paying the show to get in. But that being said, they usually have 400-plus games in the convention hall. There's a ton of vendors out there that you can buy just whatever it is you can think of, pinball machines, parts to pins, posters, little trinkets. That would be great. Yeah, beer. There's plenty of beer. Beer is awesome. And there's usually food trucks out in the parking lot too, which is pretty cool. Nice. Yeah, there's a TPN booth. So I'll be, I don't know, my whole point is just to hang out with people and have a good time. Be a good opportunity to punch Joel in the face, Halloween owners. Oh, wow. Thanks, Tom.
    48:25
    Let's just go ahead and put that out there. Find me, come say hey. Don't do that. We'll get kicked out of the show.
    48:34
    Tom, you've had way too much Pepsi. You're way too lit right now. I'm just stoked that he's going to not be there and just wait. He's a dentist. He doesn't have much sugar. Now he's down like two Pepsis. He's just flying off the walls. I'm drunk. I'm Pepsi. He reminds me of the cousin from Home Alone that's like, oh, no, is he going to wet the bed? You know, the guy that's drinking the Pepsi?
    48:55
    Anyways, Tom just reminds me of who I'm talking about. Tom, keep your Pepsi in, bro. Yeah, so if you see Travis, feel free to refer to him as Big Papa. That's just what he's into.
    49:09
    Tom almost just spit out his Pepsi. He's dying over there. Okay, this is the perfect time to do a Tom's Talks, is it not?
    49:18
    It's a pretty good time. Pretty good time. We'll save that for the end. Everybody's favorite segment. That's true. But for real, though, if you see Joel or I, come up and say hi. Yes, please do. Yeah, we enjoy talking to people. We enjoy meeting people. And, yeah, that's by far one of my favorite parts to these shows is getting to meet people and getting to hear about their experience with pinball and what they're into and what games they have and so on and so forth. What's funny is the few people that I've met that have done that, that have come up to me and said, hey, you know, you talk to them, and after talking to them for about 10 seconds, they have this smile on their face, and they're like, it's weird because I feel like we've had a conversation before because I recognize your voice so much, but we've actually never talked. And I just think that's funny because that's exactly what I said the first time that I met Zach Minney when I went down to pick up a game was I said that. I was like, this is odd. I feel like we've had conversations for hours, but we've never actually met. So I just think it's a funny, you know, side thing from podcasting or streaming. I thought you were just going to say it's odd because you met him above or right by his above-ground pool for the first time. It would have been odd if I walked, you know, went to pick up a game and he was, like, chilling in his hot tub, you know. He was in the pool. Yeah, first time I met Zach, he was shirtless and, yeah.
    50:34
    All right, so here we go. Once again, if you're on the plane, listen to this on the way down. I'm sorry. I hope this was everything you wanted it to be. But this is the moment. For all you tournament people, if you're not a tournament person, feel free to tune out. We'll see you at TPF. Thanks for listening. If you are, wow.
    50:51
    That was incredibly loud. Where the hell did that come from? Where did that come from? Tom's pushing this. Is that Tom? Yeah. Here you go, Tom. Go get you another Pepsi. I like this, Tom. You're quickly moving up to number one, buddy. drunk on Pepsi Tom alright so we are going to get into triple combo everybody's favorite segment now to give you to tell you the truth we're not breaking it down three ways we're going to break down we got a lot of games to get through and we're only breaking them down one way but this is easily the best jingle that we have so here we go welcome to triple burger how can I help you Yeah, can I get the combo, please? Did you want the single, the double, or the triple? I think I'll have the triple combo.
    51:43
    Yeah. Are you done? Yep. Pull ahead, please. God, I love that. I love that one so much. So this is Travis's time to shine, okay? So we got a list here of the games, and he's just going to give – he's – what is it? you're letting people see behind the curtain. You know, you're spilling the beans. You're giving them a taste of, are you frozen? Okay, he's just holding a pose. I thought he was frozen for a second because of the Oklahoma hailstorm. No, that was impressive. Oh, now he's dying. All right. So this will be.
    52:19
    Wrong button. I was just trying to say, Tom's here also. He's ranked higher than me. He knows his tournament pins as well. True. I'm saying I'm going to let you take the lead, and then, Tom, you can add some fluff there on the end, and I'm just here to keep it moving. No, you will be here to also give us your point of view, too. Because there might be somebody there that it's their first tournament. You've never played a tournament before, so this would be your first one as well. So I still value your opinion just as much, Joel. I appreciate that. Thank you. You're welcome. So let's dive in. So it looks like there are two tournaments, or the two that we're going to address. You have a Wizards tournament, and then you have a Classics tournament. So let's just dive into Wizards. And here we go. We're going to start. This is listed somewhere. You can find this online. I don't know where, but it's online. So I know that's helpful. If you go to tiltforums.com, you'll see it. There we go. That's where it is. Exactly what I said. Yep. So we'll start at the beginning. EMs, Electromechanical Machines. I know what that means. I got it. Well, Joel, we have to tell them the format first before we dive in. I taught them that. What, EMs? The EM. Oh.
    53:40
    Yeah, when you were gone, he's like, what is this? What is this wizard thing? EMs? He's probably like, what's all E? What is that? All right, Travis. Okay. Take it away. Are we going to talk about the wizards first or the classic first? You take the lead. I know you're not used to it, but it's yours. Which one did you announce? I said Wizards. Okay, so we're going with the main first. If you look just directly to your right, there's a list of games in our notes section. Start at the top. That's how people normally read. Big Papa. Yes, I see your hand is raised.
    54:13
    All right, I'm going to move on now. Okay, so the Wizards Tournament, which is the main tournament, And, yes, I'm pronouncing it tournament because I have no idea how people pronounce it, tournament or whatever, because that's just really weird. But, yeah, let's go. Tour. Tournament. Yeah, there you go, Dalton. Tournament. There you go. Okay. So the first tournament is limited entry qualifying for this year. In order for it to be IFPA certified, you're going to get 25 plays across 15 pins spanning three different eras. So that's where you get your EMs, your solid states, your moderns. You'll take your best scores on 12 different pins with a minimum of three pins from each era. Does that make sense so far? I'm with you. Perfect. Top 24 players make finals. Pop a style of four-player matches, three-game finals with one game from each era. Got it. Cool? Okay. So which game are we starting on first, Joel? Once again, there's a list. Try the top. Aztec. There you go, Tom. Thank you. I wish you could hold his hand more sometimes. Tom, have you ever played Aztec before? I have. You have? Okay. So, Tom, what is your general strategy on Aztec? Go train. Got it. Next ten. Get the ball up top. Try to plunge that middle lane for the lit spinner and go to town on that lit spinner. So, basically, spinner all day and when in doubt, go to the right and collect that, what do you call that, that little horseshoe that goes into the Aztec thing? Yeah, that's basically you collect all the Aztec letters, I believe. And I think it lights the double bonus, too. Possibly because I know there's ZNT targets at the bottom or something like that where you've got to hit those targets in order to light it. That's correct. Is that what it is? Okay.
    56:09
    So do those things, get a high bonus, and you will be successful at that game. So what I heard, kind of paying attention to what you're saying, is plunge the middle lane, rip spinner. Yeah, it's literally just plunge for A, rip spinner. The ZNT targets on the sides will light your double bonus sensor, and then the upper, I guess, the upper target or whatever, that little horseshoe will award a double bonus is what it is. Are we assuming that the posts are going to be removed on the sides for the outlanes? I don't think Aztec has any posts. Yeah, there are. Are you talking about the posts at the top of the outlane? Is it going to be really evil, or is it going to be playable? We'll just assume it's all evil, right? Yeah. Well, I'd have to assume that because there is 160 players in the Wizards and 240 in Classics. So I assume everything's going to be set up fairly evil to keep things moving along. Okay. All right. Sounds great. Buccaneer. All right. So Joel is taking over. All right. So Buccaneer. We got, like, if we do, like, two or three minutes of pin, we still got a lot of time. Yeah, yeah. Here we go. We got this. All right. So, Buccaneer. Tom, have you played Buccaneer ever?
    57:27
    I don't think so. You don't think so? Okay. So, basically, all Buccaneer, what I like to do is just go straight up the middle through the spinner. The whole entire time, there's three pops at the top with five roll, or I guess rollovers is what you want to call them, or in-lane rollovers up top, and the ball has to feed over one of those anyways to get to the pop. So every time I get on the flipper, I just prefer just to go back up the middle through the spinner, build up my bonus, get some pop action, and that's basically my entire meta for that game. You know, I have played this game, but it's called Ship's Ahoy.
    58:05
    Ship Ahoy, excuse me. Isn't Ship's Ahoy, that's a chip, isn't it? Yeah, that's a chip, isn't it? It's delicious. Delicious. I'm a fan already. Okay. But, yeah, the ship ahoy, that's the add-a-ball version. Okay. And then I have to assume on Buccaneer, most likely, the one plunge would be the best one to plunge for, like the one lane up top. Yes. So I forget what that does, though, but usually, historically, on games like this, if you have something, if you have five lanes up top, the middle is usually super important. That's a useful nugget Didn't know that one It is, so it'll do something I don't remember what it does So we're back to the same thing as Aztec Try to plunge the middle lane And rip spinner Yes, that's the way a lot of these old games are made Got it Travis, do you think the inlanes are shatsable?
    59:07
    On Buccaneer? Yeah For me, they've always been tough Okay Because it says one lit for 5,000. I'm thinking like, oh, that looks kind of juicy.
    59:19
    Yeah, that or even if you're paying attention, you could get 5,000 off an outlane drain as well. Oh, yeah. Okay. So for all the non-tournament players that are listening, here you go. Shats means you wait super long for that ball on the flipper, like really, really late, and you flip, and the ball actually rolls up the in lane of the other flipper. It's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool move. It's very hard. It's very scary because you almost have to let the ball drain to do it. Yeah. And, like, as it's draining off your flipper, you flip it. Yeah. It's really cool to watch the people streaming it, yeah. But fast draw. Fast draw is next. All right. So fast draw, it's actually a unique layout to me. It's kind of like a reverse Jungle Princess or Jungle Queen nearly because it still has your drop targets on the left and right-hand side at nearly a 45-degree angle. It's 30 degrees or whatever. And then both of the end lanes are double end lanes. So you have the double Borg going on with your A, B, and B and C lanes. And then you have two saucers that aren't all the way up top, but they're actually right above the targets, drop targets, with three pop bumpers up top. So that gives you guys an idea if you don't know what it looks like. But ideally on this game, once again, you have ABC rollovers or top lanes up top. You want to go over, what do you think, Joel? Which one do you think you want to plunge for? Me, right in the middle. Yep. Or just for me. Yep, yep. There you go. So you want to do that. And then, of course, A and C are just as important because I imagine on this, I have to assume that probably lights a double bonus on it sometime. But I know that the drop targets could be fairly dangerous. So typically on this game, I like to just go back up top. If I happen to hit a drop target, awesome. But you have to actually drop all 10 drop targets. So there's five on each side. You have to drop all 10 in order for the drop targets to pop back up and then be worth 5,000 per target. So your first one is worth, I think, 1,000, which sounds like a lot, but it's just very dangerous to do on this type of pin. So I don't know if I would advise it to kind of go at your own risk on something like that. And I usually typically – go ahead, Tom. No, I was going to say, yeah, I totally agree with that. So the whole point of this game is to plunge up top in the middle, and then when the ball comes down to the flipper, you want to shoot it right back up top and just try to complete your lanes at the top over and over and over again? That's going to be my strategy in general because what's going to happen is, and some people will have a different strategy. This isn't play it exactly like this. This is just how I'm going to play it or how I would approach these games. And when it comes to drop targets that are at that angle, with these older games, you have no ball save. So it gets super dangerous doing something like that to where you have to be careful with what you're aiming for. So ideally, there's going to be a lot of times anyways, you're going to be kind of plunging and swatting just to get back under control. So you're going to end up hitting some drop targets down anyways. And so I just find that on this particular game, it may you might be better off just getting it back up top, hoping it lands in a saucer, get some pop bumper action. And then whatever happens down below happens basically. All right. Okay, so that was fast draw So space mission Space mission Tom, have you played space mission before? I have, it's been a while But I have played it So do you remember the basic meta to it? I gotta look at the picture real quick, sorry No, that's alright I'm gonna guess it involves Plunging the middle lane You would I'm not looking at the picture You'd be kinda correct Damn pictures in this thing Oh yeah that game Yeah Space Mission All bonus Yeah it's all bonus So it's a little bit different game because you have the I guess you would call them Saucer I don't know if you call these Saucer kickouts that are by the flippers Down below Yeah right in the middle Yeah it's really weird Oh, and then the slingshot kickers kind of thing.
    63:39
    Right. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I don't even know what you would call them because there's no in lane. There's just an out lane. And so you can basically try to cradle the ball and let it go in to this kicker that will score you either 50 or 500 points, and it will kick it back out to a roving target that's in the middle of the play field. So it can be a little bit dangerous, so it's kind of like go at your own risk on that. but you also have saucers on both the left and right-hand side that you might hit too. But I know that there's a left spinner on this that can get lit for a thousand to spin. And we have to assume that that spinner will be very lit because we know Colin loves his lit spinner. So I think if something like that gets lit, obviously you're going for it. I forget exactly how you light that. Cause I remember the last time I played it, it just kind of seemed like it would just randomly light up. So I don't recall that. I wish I did. But, yeah, that's pretty much the whole game that I can remember. It's just send it back up top, build up your bonus, get control, be sure and nudge whenever it is getting into the kickers just to try to get the ball to avoid going to outlanes. And that's basically the whole game, just basically just keeping your feeds under control. All right. Nice. And then the last EM is Spanish Eyes. I know Tom knows this one. I've never played it. Bullshit, Tom. You played it. Yeah.
    65:11
    Yes. Take it away, Tom. What's your trick? I like to get as many of the stars lit as possible. So the stars are the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 targets. and then I like to pretty much go for the saucer then or go for the horseshoe. But a lot of times the horseshoe aims right at the drain or the pop bumper that's in the middle and that is a very, very dangerous area. So if the ball goes in that area by that pop bumper, you want to give the game some nudges to get it out of there. let the pop bumper help you. That's correct. And so there's a couple other things to it too. So one, it's very important that you plunge over the rollover button because the rollover button, if you don't hit that, your three pops are going to only be worth 10 points each. But if you hit that rollover button, the pops are going to be worth 100 each. So if you get a lot of action there, that's really good. And then also down below, wherever the flippers are, there's no rail or anything underneath the flipper so if you go underneath a flipper it's going to drain out it's kind of like it's kind of yeah it's a weird layout and then like tom said that horseshoe i mean some people like to aim for it i personally go for it because it's worth 5 000 per hit and it's the stars that build up your saucer value so i mean if i do hit a saucer it's basically by accident but i like to try to get it up top early on just because i want to try to get all five of my lanes up up top because if you do if extra balls are turned on you're allowed to play it if you can get your a through e lanes you get an extra ball also so the only thing i like about the saucer is that it it seems to always feed the right flipper nice so right that that's the reason whereas the horseshoe even though i mean it is worth a lot of points it can be pretty dangerous Right So you know it just depends on how the game playing and everything
    67:26
    Cool. So that would be the EM section. So theoretically, you're saying out of, you have 25 games to play, but, like, you don't have to play the EMs, right? I mean, you're going to probably have to play them if you get into the top 24, but you have to play at least three. Okay. All right. You have to have three from every single era. Gotcha. All right. So we're going to move into modern, modern. We're going to start with Creature from the Black Lagoon, which I've played, if you're wondering. Ooh. Well, Joel, what would you do on it? I have no idea. I do own that game. Ooh. Okay, Tom. That's all you, man. How do you score the big points in Creature? I forget. No, I'm just kidding.
    68:08
    Two strategies. The main one is usually just go up the middle all day long. Move your car. The other is just basically like multi-ball and getting a multi-ball and try to score jackpot.
    68:28
    So they're multi-ball or one shot over and over and over again. Yeah. Yeah, but a lot of times in tournaments, it's set up where that middle shot is made a lot harder to hit. so it might be a tighter shot depending on the setup. So I guess keep that in mind.
    68:48
    Okay. Yeah, but spelling film will get your multiball ready, and then you just have to hit one of the scoops.
    68:57
    What do you think, Travis? It depends how the game's set up. So one of the things, if you're plunging and you plunge all the way around, it will spot your kiss letters if you didn't realize that. So what the kiss letters are, it's for the left saucer. So once you spell kiss, that's what will light your F in film, and your whole goal for this game is to light F-I-L-M in order to light your multiball on the left or right-hand side. And it won't give you all your kiss letters. It's actually a time shot. It, like, roves. Right, yes, yeah, good point. So you've got to make sure you know the timing of that. the thing that I like to do to get points quick is, and this is kind of like a bell out thing is if you hit that right ramp four times, it'll light a 20 million hurry up at the snack bar. So if you know that you have three right ramp shots completed, consider doing a fourth one and know that you're about the one time into the snack bar for a 20 million collect. So those are points that are there.
    69:59
    Other than that, I actually, I do sometimes play the modes if I'm given the opportunity, if it happens to be there and I just end up getting there. So I think in four shots to the right ramp is the hurry up that we talked about. And then after that, I think eight does the video mode. And I think 12 is like super scoring or something like that for snack bar. I really don't remember too much about that, but I know at some point though, or the, in the saucer, you get what the menu targets, which is worth 5 million a piece. Yep. And then you can do the playground award, which is, I think it's like some random award that could be like unlimited millions to the left ramp for 3 million, I think, or the jet, jet bumpers are like, what is it? A million or 2 million per? I think it's a million per for like 15 seconds, something like that. Yeah. And then you have big millions to the right ramp, which is your 5 million, 10 million, 15 million. You have 10 seconds to complete that. So you could, in theory, do something like that. But really the main meta is to get into multiball. You want to save the girl by shooting into one of the shots that are lit, and then eventually you'll find her, hopefully. But you can use that left ramp too to build up your multiplier for your jackpot total. I forget what it maxes out at because it's been a little while, but you can get it up there pretty big. So if you need to put up a halfway decent score, that might be something to consider there. Because you also can kind of stir the cup, kind of leading back to the right flipper by spelling out creature. So that's another thing you can do, too. And this game has the Trudeau gap, usually. So watch out for that.
    71:47
    There is that. Like Ghostbusters. Well, there's another thing, too, and I assume that they have this patched. If they don't, it would be hilarious. But there's a bug in it to where you can actually score. I think it's like 9.99 billion hurry up. So when you're in snack attack, which is the four right ramps, and then while it's running, you start a multi-ball. If you let one ball drain while it's still going instead of restarting, right, the multi-ball, which is what's supposed to happen, instead there's actually a 9.99 billion hurry up that shows up at the snack bar. So that's a cool little party trick. But I'm sure that they'll have that patch. Yeah, you would hope. I would hope. If not, I'm going to be number one with the $9.99 billion. I'm going for it, yeah. All right, so that was Creature. Next one is Dialed In. I haven't played Dialed In since Indisc 2020.
    72:49
    That's when I played it, too. That's when Raymond picked it, and he just destroyed all of them. He loves that game. Yeah, he really likes that game. Yeah. Oh, gosh. It's been a long time since I've played this. I think if I remember right, usually what I like to do is I get my mode started, which is that the – Charge the phone, hit the phone. Right, yeah. And the mode that I really like is I think it's Meteor or whatever because that's the targets. So I like that one just because I think it's easy to complete. I don't feel like it's super dangerous either because you can kind of go up the middle, and just the way that the angles are. If you hit it off to the side, you're generally safe. But you can also go into multi-ball eventually and play that mode, and it kind of works itself out. But the other thing to do is just keep welling away at the big bang target, which is towards the middle to the left above the scoop, and eventually that will light something to where once big bang is lit, you can hit that and complete your entire mode at your end. Plus, it lights your SIM card, which is very, very important. If you can get a SIM card at that scoop on ball one, you're going to be sitting pretty because it basically multiplies or gives a multiplier to other modes that you do throughout the game for the rest of the game. And that SIM card is usually hit with the upper flipper, and it's usually a hard shot. Right. The scoop is kind of behind the left ramp, the main ramp in the game, and it's not the easiest scoop to hit in the world.
    74:21
    No. It is not, and I wish that I could get more info on this, but it's just been so long since I've played it because I think that there's a way that you can cancel out your multiball too with the flippers, and it's not really shown too well. But once you lock your first ball and you begin to start multiball, you can cancel it out real quick and bring in another ball after you start another mode. I think you put your ball in the scoop and then you just kind of hit both of the flippers. Is that right? Yeah, I think so, if I'm remembering right. I guess we'll find out here pretty soon. All right. This next one, it's all you, Tom. Rush Premium.
    75:02
    The greatest game ever made? Yeah. How do you score all the points in Rush Premium? What's your tournament strat? So my tournament strat is to try to get Far Cry multiball ready and then start a mode. And ideally, you want to either bring the Big Money in or Working Man, because those, I've found, have been worth the most points. So Working Man is orange records. Yep. Big Money is pink records. Correct. Got it. Orange and pink. And both those modes are basically most of the shots, I believe, are lit, and you want to keep hitting them and then hit the time machine and stuff, especially big money. You want to hit as many shots as you can, kind of multiplies the values, and then hit the time machine. So is Far Cry, is that where you have to hit the two stand-up targets on the right ramp? That is the light at the scoops, right? That is correct. Now, it sounds like the code might be changing a bit from what I heard. So a lot of the multiballs might be changed from, like, three-ball multiballs to two-ball multiballs. So that might be something that's going to change in the code that's going to be released from what I heard. are you because we've talked about this before to start a mode you have to hit two records but every record that you hit beyond that before you start the mode the mode is then worth more so is that something that you are actively trying to build before you start or you're just in a tournament setting are you just going to get in and yeah i guess i guess it depends i mean it would be nice to increase the value of the modes if you can but you know if the game's set up really hard I might just take the mode. Yeah, get in and get some points. And then you also have your time machine multiballs, which you have to repeatedly hit the time machine to start, which can be important. And you also have your drop targets will increase instruments and bonuses. And, you know, if you do the walking dead kind of thing where you light all the lights on those instruments, you can start free will multiball. So there's a lot of options to keep the ball going.
    77:29
    Nice. Yeah. Keep the ball alive. All right. So any other – Travis, did you have anything else to say on Rush? No, that's perfect. I'm actually not too familiar with the general tournament strategy, so I've just been doing drum bonus the whole time and getting billions off that, but I know that's been – They're nerfing it, yeah. Yep, it's nuke to oblivion, so that meta's gone. Just whatever you see Raymond or Timmy doing, do that. They know it best. Yeah, that makes sense. That's true. Another game, Stranger Things Premium.
    78:04
    Joel, what would you do on this game? If you had to get a lot of points, what would you do? I actually don't know because, unfortunately, when I borrowed the game, I love the game, but when I borrowed it from Zach, that was before they added the ability to save a ball. You know, you could, like, release the ball. It was before tickets. So they did a lot of code changes before it was out of my hands. Yeah, I don't even know how that works. Yeah, I've never played. Well, I take that back. I've played the premium three times without realizing I played the premium until the middle of the game because I just don't pay attention. So the projector isn't playing. For me, the projector did nothing. Like, I didn't notice it at all. I know Joel. Wow. I know for Joel it was, like, the best thing ever. But for me, I just never – I didn't realize it. The Stranger Things premium is like one of the biggest visual differences between a pro and premium. And somehow Travis is oblivious to it. Oh, wow. There's video on the play field. Sorry. I need to look at the pretty video instead of the ball. Apologies. Don't all machines have that?
    79:10
    I don't know. I don't know the – go ahead, Travis. Well, the exact thing that I like to do – so there's two different things that you can do. If there's a ball save, a lot of people like the short plunge because it does not validate the play field. And then from there, they'll take pot shots at the left ramp because it has two targets, stand-up targets right there, that will light your locks at that same left ramp. But the other thing that you could do that I personally prefer doing is just getting the ball to a flipper and then immediately going for drop targets or even just plunging it into the drop targets. And the reason being is because I want to get to my first Demogorgon ASAP. because once I start that, I can hit the Tealist button and immediately it's the mode. Yeah, that was added after I had it, but yeah, easy points. Right. Well, it's easy points, and then it sets you up for some good value the second time you go through that. Which is a multi-ball. Which is a two-ball multi-ball, yes, which I highly advise you do not start your second Demogorgon until you have a mode going because you cannot start a mode while that's running, and you'll lose out a lot of value that way. This guy knows what he's talking about. Hell yeah.
    80:25
    I love Paul. I think Travis prepared for this, and I'm glad you did. This conversation would be a lot weirder.
    80:32
    But the other thing you can do on this game is basically, so a lot of people don't understand really how the upside-down modes really start. So it's based off switch hits, and the switch hits are essentially unknown because it doesn't show you on the LCD screen. But if you're wanting to get into that, what I like to do is just go to the right orbit because it immediately feeds into the pops. It'll just keep hitting the pops over and over again. And that's a good way to get some value out of it as well. But for me personally, the first upside down isn't really worth going for in terms of once you start it, just because it lights your drop targets, which at that point are very dangerous to hit for the points. I just prefer playing out my mode. But what happens is if you start the upside down while you're in a mode, the upside down lights and everything will supersede what's going on with your mode. So you need to know where you're at, what you're aiming for. Does that make sense? So you want to do that. But the second upside down is worth pretty good points because then it lights your orbits and your ramp. So that's worth going for and worth stacking onto a mode or something like that. All right. And then the other thing you could do is hit the little right horseshoe type thing that just – it's on the right-hand side of the drop targets, the burn it back, and it'll just bring it back around to your left flipper, and eventually that'll light your 2X scoring at the left saucer right there. So that's something you can do. If you do happen to hit the left saucer and you're in single ball, just be ready to control it. Be ready to nudge. Be ready to get it back on a flipper because it is kind of a weird kick out. It doesn't really send it sends into no man's land. Yeah. Basically, it's pretty dangerous at times. So that's what I like to do. I mean, I don't want to bore everybody with what modes to pick and anything like that. Just hit your shots. Thank you. Yeah.
    82:22
    Last modern game, Twilight Zone. You own a Twilight Zone, don't you? Yes. How would you play it? Very carefully. I got him. Yeah. There you go. That was quite a load. Let's move on to Salt State.
    82:41
    No, I'd probably try to get in a multi-ball as quickly as possible while starting some loads, just like any other game, I guess. But power ball is very important. You get that power ball. Don't play with your food. Just put it right back in the come ball machine and start your multi-ball.
    83:02
    You know, you got your piano shot, upper right scoop. that's how you start your modes uh ramp left ramp i believe relights them and then uh yeah so left left ramp right ramp up top uh lights your locks uh right right to the right ramp is a little kind of horseshoe shot that you shoot lock your balls start multi ball on the left ramp and, yeah, just go to town. Have fun. Have fun with it. There you go. So the thing that I like doing on the game is I never short plunge for a skill shot just because if you do that, the ball is going to be sent into the pops. Yes. And that left out lane is super dangerous, so I would personally advise just the full plunge because the full plunge, it's coming back out of your little scoop area to the right flipper. And from there, you're basically going to have to watch it and decide whether or not you're going to dead bounce or try to live catch it. A lot of people try different ways. I prefer dead bouncing if possible, so that's how I like starting it out. And from there, like Tom said, I'll hit ramp so that way I can light my lock. I'll try to get in a multi-ball as fast as possible. And I know that there's a way to build up the jackpot also. I think it's if you lock two – okay, I remember this. If you lock two balls, right? Yep. You've got to lock. Before starting it. Yeah. If you do that, your jackpots are worth $40 million instead of $50 million, right? Yep. So that's important. Yeah. So instead of, you can just lock one ball and go right to the left ramp to start the multi-ball, but if you can lock two, like you just said, it'll, yeah, the points, $40 million for the jackpots. Right. And so that'll kind of just pile up. So once you hit a jackpot, then you've got to relight it at the camera, which is underneath the mini flipper up top or whichever flipper that is on the left-hand side. So you go from right upper flipper below the left upper flipper. That'll be your camera shot, and that'll relight your jackpots while you're in multiball. Yeah, the first thing I always look for is where's the powerball, and if I don't see it, I either assume it's coming out. it's going to be released when you hit the gumball machine when it's lit to get the powerball or it's in the trough. So you kind of got to be mindful where that is because that multiball can be worth a lot of points.
    85:44
    No, go ahead. No, I think you were going to say, isn't there a way that they can change that around to where it's like every other ball or something like that? Yeah, I think. Is it powerball? I think sometimes I take out a ball if memory serves me right. I think that's what it is. It's been a long time since I've played Twilight Zone. But I normally keep mine factory, so.
    86:09
    You like your Power Balls, don't you, Tom? They're good. All right. So Twilight Zone. Cool. So that was Modern. So now we're getting into Solid State, and I will preface here. There are two games that are in the solid state section that I think are funny. But one being Beatles. Who would have thought that Beatles is considered a solid state game? It is in Texas, Joel. It is if you ignore the LCD screen, right? Yeah. So I know both of you guys played a Beatles at Freeplay Florida. You loved it. And you both bought one.
    86:41
    And it's still kicking me in the balls ever since. There you go. Travis, take it away, man. What's the goal of Beatles? I got a couple of different strategies that I like to do, but if there's no ball save, I like to choose spinners first and just start ripping the left spinner, build up my levels as quick as possible on any Beatles, pretty much after five or six different rips, you'll be at level five. So that's what I like to do. And then whatever the second mode is, I'll take whatever it is on ball one. But if I have the choice, I'll go ahead and usually do the pop bumpers. I know some people like to go loops. I've seen that done before, but my preference is just pop bumpers. Now, if you have a ball save, drop targets is actually a pretty good mode to bring in, just because you can usually typically you can get through at least three levels with the ball save still on. And so that's some decent points right there. And you have the protection of the ball save. And then, of course, once you get to ball three, just always pick the far left mode. I can't, for whatever reason, I'm drawing a complete blank which mode it is, but it's your one that's the two ball. Two ball. Yeah, all my loving, that's what it's called. Yeah, you do the two ball, multi ball. And what I like to do on that, once I do pick that, I will short plunge. I will do my best not to validate too much because if I can get onto a right flipper, you can actually rip the left spinner and get your first jackpot ready to go really, really quick before that second ball even kicks out. So that's kind of like a little tip there for everybody. And then the other thing you want to do, too, is hit the question marks because it will light your mystery. The question mark stand-up targets that are around the play field because it will light your mystery to the left right below your fab targets, those three drop targets right there, and that will be your add-a-ball when you're in All My Lovin'. Nice. And that's pretty much the meta, just short and sweet, that I like to do. All right.
    88:40
    Next game. I like to go for loops and spinners or pops, depending on if I can hit the loop shatter. But, yeah, pretty much the same strat. Yeah, some people actually loop out as often as they can because in comp, and it might be like this on default, but the first time you spell Beatlemania by just looping over and over again, it'll light 2x spinners. So your spinners will be worth a lot more. And then the other thing that we didn't go over, the FAB4 targets that are there, So there's fab on the left or in the middle. So it's just like see which basically you have to hit after you finish the mode, you have to hit all those targets down in order to light your next mode up top on that magnet. The other thing, though, with that, there's a nuance to this that if you drop down your fab targets or any of those targets, it lights a target behind it or that targets already lit. That's your jackpot for that song to where you collect a certain amount of value of the song that you just played. or you could even keep that value and basically play with house money and try to get another mode done and then double the value, I think, is what it is, what happens. So that's kind of like the risk-reward right there of Beatles. That makes it so much fun.
    89:58
    Is that what you would do, Joel? Yep, I would do all that. Exactly. I was about to say it. It's like, oh, nope, he knows exactly what I was going to do. You just keep getting your super jackpot just way up? Okay. Just cashing in, man. Yeah. There you go. All right. Next game. This is a game I didn't even know was a game. Bounty Hunter. I'm looking at the picture of it. It kind of looks like Ali at the top. So you haven't played it, Tom? I have never played one, no. Okay. I think I've played one once, and I still forget exactly what to do. I remember it has a U-turn in the upper left-hand side, and basically the only way to access the left-hand side is through the upper flipper on the right-hand side. And I know that U-turn is actually super important because I think it goes back and forth which way you can go in terms of getting points or setting up something. Because I know that there's a drop target in the lower left-hand side that pops up, like a fast draw type drop target from Cactus Canyon. It's worth 50,000 points, I think. Okay. But, and then the way that you feed the right flipper is basically hitting a saucer that gives you bullets or something like that. and then it feeds it back to the upper flipper. But other than that, I wish I could say I know more about it, but I know next to nothing. I tried to learn it about five minutes before the podcast, and, yeah, I kind of forgot everything the past 90 minutes. So just watch the person in front of you and see what they do. That's what I'm hearing? Yeah, it's, yeah, basically. I mean, I know, of course, you want to plunge for, I guess, a middle lane up top. I would assume that just by looking at it and they have drops in there, or not drops, they have stand up targets in there too but I'm not quite sure what they do exactly I don't know if it's for bonus I don't know if it's just to build up the quick draw guy coming out, I don't know if it's to build up some type of collect so that's unknown, Bounty Hunter is the one game that I have no clue what's going on so basically what we're saying here is good luck Good luck with Founding Honey everybody You guys got this Alright Flash Gordon Josh Sorry Do you not know what that's from? I do not It's from Flash Gordon That's what it's from Sign me up for more of that Alright so what's the trick? What are we doing?
    92:33
    Travis So you want me to take this? Yeah, go ahead. Go for it. And I'll just fill in the gaps. Okay. There's no gaps. Tom's going to crush it. Here we go. That's true. I'm going to crush it. Okay. So stop laughing at me. So Flash Gordon, a couple strats. One is to increase your bonus multiplier. And you want to do that by first hitting the inline targets on the right-hand side down. until you get the 3x lit. Then you want to go up top, hit the drop target bank down on the upper play field for 4x, and then finally the lower drop targets for 5x. But you have to do that in sequence.
    93:22
    So if you only hit one drop target in line, you've got to start all over again kind of thing until you light the multiplier.
    93:33
    So that's one strat. Another strat is to increase your spinner values, and you do that by hitting the lower left floor bank drop targets down. The first time we'll light the left spinner, and the second time we'll light the right spinner.
    93:54
    You want to take the rest, Travis? You're doing really good. I agree with everything you're saying. Oh, thank you.
    94:03
    You're welcome. Thanks. This is a first. You're welcome once again. Why do we even have Joel on this podcast? That's a great question. I don't, you know, sometimes I wonder myself. But, Tom, you got it. Okay. So you also have your playfield multipliers on the lower playfield. You light that by hitting basically all the targets down. you hit the two targets on the right you hit your left bank on the left but you have to light all the inserts so the inserts will kind of flash and as you hit you got to hit the target while it's lit and then you also have to do your in lanes so if you get all those lit it'll light I believe the 2x at the scoop, and then you also have to do the 1, 2, 3 at the top to light your 3x playfield multiplier. Does that sound right, Travis? Yeah, that's pretty good, and then the other thing to consider, too, is right above the upper mini flipper that's on the upper playfield, there's going to be a drop target there, too, so if you knock down that drop target, you can go back up there again back into the shooter lane for your super bonus. Correct. Also, which is basically collecting your bonus. And the bonus stays there, too, for you at the end of the ball. So that's pretty powerful as well. And I would highly recommend if you're plunging, don't full plunge because you want to try to have it somewhat under control to try to use the upper flipper to hit into the three drop targets up top because that advances your bonus and will eventually, I think, isn't that what lights the saucer, too, for a playfield multiplier eventually? Yes. I forget. Yeah, the top targets. Okay. And that's basically the whole thing, pretty much. Yep. And the cool thing about the saucer is it has a two-way kicker in it. So the first time it falls in the saucer, it's going to launch it back on the lower play field. And then the second time, it'll go to the upper play field. So it kind of flip-flops, which I think is really cool. Nice.
    96:24
    All right. Now I'm pumped about this game. You know, it's a solid thing that everybody loves. We're going to be – I'm muting my mic. I'm muting too. Go for it, Joel. That's not fair to everybody listening. TNA, if I – yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Travis, he can't hear us now. Jeez, I'll pee. All right, this is – okay. All I know is with TNA is TNA, your play field multiplier is based off of the number of balls you have in play. So anything you want to do, you want to do it in multi-ball. If you want to score big points, you want to – So if you're going for a reactor, you want to make sure you're in multi-ball. When you destroy it, it's three times the value. You can also increase the value of your reactor by completing the one, two, three targets in the upper section. If you complete those before you destroy the reactor, you get more points. And then another crazy strat, which I am terrible at, is when you're in multi-ball, if you drop the three inline drops again, you can get a fourth ball in play, and now your whole play field is four times. and so that is how you can score some stupid big points if you can accomplish that, but that is not particularly easy to do. So that's what I know are ways you can score points, but I'll tell you right now when I play TNA I don't focus on points. I'm just trying to get through the game. I got a thumbs up from Tom. Is that what I missed? Do I got gaps there, Travis? No, you did great. Tom, do you have something on your soundboard with hand claps? Oh, boy. Thank you. You literally just described pretty much what to do on the game. I mean, because TNA is so straightforward, basically, on what to do. I mean, the only thing is that if you are playing it in a tournament, that whenever you destroy a reactor, I like to use my multi-ball, too, to get the reactor ready to go, to hit those tank targets or stand-up targets up front. The keypad, yep. Right. And then I also like whenever I do destroy a reactor, you have, what is it, like an eight-second ball save or something like that? It's less than that. But you get a ball save and then you go for the keypad again. Right. That's exactly like that's the whole entire meta. I mean, Joel said it. So, I mean, that's it. That's perfect. Do you think they'll have a ball save on?
    98:50
    They probably will on TNA. Yeah, during multiball they will. Plunging, I think they will for TNA. Because TNA is a little bit more difficult game to control. But I would say you've got to make a decision whether or not you're going to short plunge to your right flipper and then backhand the inline targets in order to start locking your multiballs. Or I've seen some people play with their food and actually go into the core up top and try to do something like that. And then I've seen some that are just completely psychotic and just power plunge all the way around and just one-time it, which I've seen people swear by that. I can't do it, but I know there's a lot of people that do it. I forgot about that. So skill shots, one, if you plunge, so if you set your lane and you plunge into that lane without flipping around, or I think you, yeah, without flipping around. Yeah, hands-free skill shot. It'll automatically light your keypad, and then the ball's going to drain into the scoop, so you just started the reactor. So that's super valuable. There's another skill shot where I think if you move the lane at the top, it'll light your outlane ball save, which you can move. So that's useful. Or if you want to try it, if you don't touch the flippers at all, plunge all the way around, let the ball hit the left flipper, bounce over to the right flipper, and then if you backhand with the right flipper and you lock a ball, it's like 150,000 points. I mean, it's really good points, but it is not easy to do.
    100:16
    So, yeah, if you want to risk it, go for that. Hey, guys, TNA is a good game. TNA is a great game. All right. Why do you not play tournaments, Joel? You just described the game perfectly. You told us exactly what we needed to do. Yeah, I don't know. It's in every one of my home tournaments, and I don't do well. So, no, that's good.
    100:39
    Last game. So last game in the Wizards tournaments is Whirlwind. And I'm assuming it's the 1.0. 2.0 has been announced, but I doubt they're going to have 2.0 on the game. They better not have 2.0. They better not.
    100:52
    All right Tom what do you like to do on this Well I was going to just ask you a question Travis Do you like going for the skill shot on the drop targets or do you avoid that and try not to hit it Or whirlwind? Yeah. I prefer short plunging. Okay. I just like to get a ball and a flipper. Yeah, I tend to go for the drop targets, but that can be dangerous because if it goes down the middle on you or something, you get some points, but obviously your ball's over.
    101:25
    Isn't there some sort of like, I don't know if it's a super skill shot or whatever, but can't you do some type of sweep on it from your flipper if you haven't validated? Yes. I forget. Yeah, so you could short plunge and basically sweep the targets, and I believe it's worth $600,000. Is it $600,000? I believe so. Because I know the targets range from what, $100,000 to $300,000? $100,000 to $300,000. So I think you get the full value. Yeah. You sweep it. That sounds about right. Yeah.
    101:58
    Then you got your scoop on the right, which gives you your door values. On the speaker panel, there's the rewards, basically. One of them's a quick multi-ball. One of them is a light million, light your pop bumpers, that sort of thing. But you can relight that by either going down the right in lane or hitting the side ramp up top with the upper flipper.
    102:39
    But main strategies on the game are either go for those awards or hit basically the lit shots to award your locks, and you lock the ball up on the ramp on the right-hand side and try to get in the multi-ball.
    103:03
    That pretty much sums it up. Yeah, because you have the, what is it, eight compass shots around the play field, and then you get those done. I think it's like the northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast, I think is what it is. So you hit down those. And when I say you hit down those, they're stand-up targets. So you hit those, they'll light your lock, go into that. And then if you happen to not get a jackpot, your far left scoop will relight your multiball or restart your multiball. So you've only got so much time to do something like that. Right. Now, important question, and I bet Zach many wants this asked, but there's a really good topper on the top of Whirlwind. Do they typically keep the fan enabled during tournament play, or do they still turn that off? They do at District 82. I know that. Yeah, I've played it at different tournaments, and it's always been on.
    103:58
    So toppers, we should just add toppers to all tournaments. Of course. There you go. Yes, that just blow wind right in your face. Perfect. It should blow sand.
    104:08
    What? Like tell us when there may be a night? Yeah, yeah. Just blow sand at you. Blow sand in your eyes on the play field glass. That would be great. Well, there you go. See, now we just gave Spooky a great idea. You know, whenever you start hitting shots with a competition. Jay Brand, if you're listening, that would be great for the pinball Olympics. Blow sand at you.
    104:32
    Awesome. Well, yeah. So that was all 15 games for the Wizards Tournament. So at this point, if anybody's still listening, I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy it, feel free to email us at tripledrain.gmail.com and say, hey, that was super helpful, thank you, or say, please don't ever do that again.
    104:49
    Speaking of which, there's more. We have more games. So there's also a classics section. There's also a classics tournament that's going on on the side. So there's only eight games here. so maybe we can blow through these pretty quick. You think we can keep it under two hours? What is Grand Tour? Grand, yeah. No, actually, I want, Travis, can you tell us what the first EM game is?
    105:16
    Grand Tour. Tour, yeah, good. Winning, winning. Grand Tour. Yes, okay. So Classics is actually going to be Grand Tour. It's going to be super tough this year. So if you're flying to TPF, you're driving, you're listening to this, you're playing classics, good luck. Because it's 240 players with only eight plays. This is literally going to be a ratings killer for a lot of players out there. You only get eight plays. That's it. 240 people. People care about their ratings?
    105:51
    Well, somebody might. I don't know. Yeah. But if you care about your rating, you better make sure you qualify. because if you don't, ratings going to go.
    106:02
    That was me whistling. Point it down, guys. Thank you. There you go. It's really easy to hear on the podcast. I tried whistling, Joel, and I couldn't whistle. My mouth is dry because I'm all out of green tea. Joel, there's 240 people in this tournament, and there's still like 30 people on the wait list.
    106:20
    That's insane. Yeah, even their main has 160 people with 123 on the wait list. What in the world? That's a lot of people. So anyways, Grand Tour? Is that what we're... No, you say you do your man. Grand Tour.
    106:37
    Is that what we want to do? Okay, so Grand Tour is... It's an old game that is mini flippers. So basically, all you want to do is try to plunge in the middle. And then from there, you have your four mushrooms that are basically right in front of you. You've got two directly in front of you and one on each side on your right and the left. And basically, I think they might have yellow lights in front of them. That's what the play field says. So you knock down three of those, it opens up your tour gate, which is pretty awesome. Tour.
    107:12
    Tour. I'm going with it. You told me to go with that. Your tour gate, yep. Open that tour gate. And then all four will open the free ball gate on the right-hand side, which basically means the ball just speeds back to the shooter lane is what it does. So what I'm confused on, because I haven't seen this game played before, there is a gate on that right-hand side on that right orbit. So it's saying that the three yellow lights open it. So I don't know. The way that it looks with the geometry of this, it just means that you can actually shoot into it, and then it goes back up into the shooter lane. That's what it appears. So this game, I don't know why anybody would try to play a mini-flipper game with only eight plays to go. You're kind of, I don't know, it's like a strategy thing. How many scores do you submit? You only get eight. So it's your top four, I think. Yeah. Your best four scores with eight plays. So you can light the free ball gate, but does the tour gate go back to the shooter lane as well? Yeah. That's what it appears it does. Yeah, it does. And I think it might be worth 100 points if you shoot it up there into that. Okay. Nice. Interesting. All right. I'm just curious at this point. So, Travis, can you go ahead and try pronouncing the next game too?
    108:30
    Moulin Rouge. Is that right? I think so. Gitche, gitche, ya, ya, ya. Is it Moulin? I would assume it's Moulin Rouge, but I'm seeing Moulin Rouge. I don't know. Whatever. I'm trying to make fun of you. Oh, it does. It's Moulin. It's Moulin, but I don't... It's not Moulin? I mean, typically I pronounce an I-N, not Moulin. Well, that game, whatever that is, it's going to be there.
    108:56
    No, okay, Moulin Rouge, like the movie that I've always pronounced Moulin Rouge, whatever. We're probably all saying it wrong. It's Moulin Rouge. Yeah, you're having like a Mandela moment right now.
    109:11
    Get to the gameplay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I need the strats. What are the strats? This also looks very interesting.
    109:23
    This game, again, is a mini flipper game. Joel, are you checking your phone to see what this game looks like? No, I'm actually looking at how to say Moulin or Moulin Rouge. Oh, great. There we go. Keep going. There we go. Okay, so basically it's one of those things, again, where you want to plunge the top lane. It's very, very important. Plunge that. Again, many flippers, so you're basically just swatting away, hoping for the best. There is no in lanes either. So there's actually two pairs or, yeah, that would be right. There's two pairs of out lanes. So you've got to be aware of that.
    109:59
    I mean, pretty much, of course, it has the little rollovers that are worth, what, probably 10 points each. They're in the middle of play field. And it has, I think, three saucers in the middle too. And it looks like the metal one could be lit for 200, 300, or 400 points. Right. Correct. But I have no idea how to do that. No idea. I wonder. I imagine it's hitting stuff. I think it's, I'm going to imagine it's the targets up top, like lighting those targets will advance the value.
    110:29
    That sounds about right. But I don't know. I think that's probably going to be correct. Again, this is going to be a game that I haven't paid much attention to because I'm just not going to mess with the mini flippers in qualifying. So you don't have to submit an EM score?
    110:48
    Like you can score? Yeah, you can score both these games. Yeah, no, you got – yeah, they're basically all considered the same. So you basically get eight total plays but only four count. So my strategy is just going to be picking the four pins I want to play, and I'm going to play them both twice.
    111:05
    That's what I'm going to do. All right. Great. So basically what we're saying is nobody play those bins. Got it. So ignore Grand Tour and ignore. But is there a chance, though? Wait, wait, wait. Yeah, I was going to say, if nobody plays it, wouldn't you be number one in the qualifying? Right, right. So there is going to be a strategy to this. It's like, you know, if you feel comfortable in the mini flippers, like, go right on ahead. Plunge and swat. Go for it. see what happens because I imagine that the queues aren't going to be near as long for those compared to the others. Those could be rescue nine one, one games.
    111:45
    I don't know. No, I remember you said rescue nine one was like, that was the, yeah, you, you were the, the odd guy out that that was the meta. Yeah. Yep. All right. So what do we, those are two. So now we're on to Ali. Isn't it? Who is it? Isn't it? Jeff.
    112:03
    Jeff. He either loves or hates. I forget. No, he loves it. He bought the one from Papa. He beat somebody on it. That was a big deal. Yep. Yep. All right. How do you win that one?
    112:15
    Well, what you want to do is up top, there's technically three saucers that you'll plunge up into, and sometimes they'll go in there, sometimes they won't, but your saucers basically will increase No, they'll spell Ali is what they'll do, which helps out I think with bonus, if I remember right? Is that what it is? The saucers? Yeah, I believe so. The last time I played this was in Masters 2020, two years ago. So bear with me, everybody. So the other thing is basically you go for the upper drop targets that has the horseshoe behind it. That'll advance your bonus X. And what's very important is on this game, bonus X carries over ball to ball. So building up bonus X is super important. Another thing that you could do on the right-hand side, there is a saucer there that will collect your bonus, including whenever there's a bonus X with it. So if you get your bonus built up to a certain point, the whole meta turns into just peppering that right saucer. And if the feed is great, that's all you're going to do until your hands fall off. So that's pretty much what I like to do on this game is I hit down drop targets up top. If I happen to hit the drop targets that are on the left-hand side, that's just pretty much by accident because the ball is hit off the pops or whatever. But typically, I like building up my bonus as much as I can. And then once it's to a certain amount, then I'll start collecting on the saucer to the right-hand side. Nice. That was perfect.
    113:44
    Thank you. Well done. There's probably somebody screaming in the airplane right now. Probably better than you'll lay it.
    113:51
    They got the tasers on them. but no so but in order to advance your your multiplier though it's just dropping down those top drop targets it's over and over again so your first time is 2x second time is 3x third times 4x fourth time is 5x that's why those are so important up there counting to five in a row nice job no i so i would i would say after listening to two of you guys go through all these games, I'm thoroughly impressed with, one, your memory, but two, you guys actually know the value of all these shots by heart. I can't tell you. I mean, I can't tell you any of the values. Because we're weird. It's pretty impressive. Speaking of weird, Andromeda. Andromeda is the next game, and I know I have played this game, and the layout of this game is nuts. It's a really cool game. Yeah.
    114:47
    Yes. what's the meta here you want to hit the drop target down on the left and lock lock a ball and the saucer behind it and then uh hit the yellow target lower yellow target on the left hand side to uh start multi-ball right that'll release your lock ball but if you knock down all the drop targets, doesn't that light your spinner? I believe. Yeah, I believe. It's there in a while.
    115:19
    And then you rip it. It's worth a lot of points. Yeah, because the drop target bank increases the spinner value as well. So once you get that spinner value up there, it's just basically clear the targets, rip spinner. That's something you could do. And then what's unique about this layout, if nobody has seen this layout before, On the left-hand side, it's literally just a pop bumper on the lower left-hand side. So there's no in lane. There's no out lane. It's kind of like all you got is a pop and a flipper. And when it's in that pop, you better have that left flipper ready. I typically like to just hold it up. So that way it'll at least skip over to the right-hand side and try to keep the ball under control as much as possible. Nice. It's a cool game. It's a very cool game. Yeah, this was also at Pitmasters 2020. Yep. And then the upper lanes also will do your bonus multiplier. And I believe you have to use your right flipper only to switch the lane. Okay. I think that's what it is. Cool.
    116:25
    Very cool. Very cool, Joel. Very cool. It's a cool game. That's a game that I remember seeing. I was like, I got to play this. I would love to have it in my collection. It's a unique game. Very unique. It's a lot of fun.
    116:39
    All right. Frontier. Frontier is next. I love this game. Crusher of dreams. With crickets and everything.
    116:49
    All right, Tom, how do you play this one? Very bonus-heavy game, wouldn't you say? I would say. With all the Den of Predator bonus and everything, yeah. It's worth a lot, right? Yep. So to get your predators, you want to either go down the lanes on the top, which are safe, and then you have your targets, your three targets that also correspond to the predators, which you can hit. But I don't advise going for the middle one because that is very dangerous, depending on game setup, of course. you hit your first inline target on the left hand side that'll let your spinner and it also opens up the falls up top for your frontier bonus those left in lane inline targets excuse me that increases your multiplier also as you hit them not the first one that only lights the spinner that goes to 2x, 3x, and then there's a target behind them which will light 4x.
    118:08
    The bank on the right will increase your bonus multiplier for your den of predators, 2x, 3x, 4x, hitting bank down.
    118:21
    That's pretty much it, isn't it, Travis? Yeah, and I mean, if you can get a lot of predators too. I think if you complete the whole grid, it's 45,000 that will carry over ball to ball. And that's your super bonus. And then the other thing that you want to do is if you're playing this game,
    118:41
    be sure and watch the person in front of you because you need to know how that feed is from the first inline target. On some of the frontiers out there, it's a death sentence to hit that first target because sometimes it'll just come right down the middle and there's nothing you can do about it. So be looking at the feeds there. If it's friendly, then I would say, for me, I would just tap pass from the left-hand side, the right-hand side, shout out to Dalton, and then try to hit all those in-line targets down to build up my bonus multiplier. Do a tap pass. Right, exactly. But if the in-line targets aren't cooperating very well, you could always go from right to left, and assuming that spinner's lit, just keep ripping and getting it back up top all day long. maybe finish your ABC lanes and then get your dinner predators even more. Because I think each lane lights another one, right? Yeah. Okay. And the frontier bonus actually corresponds to the predators too. Excuse me. If you get a row of predators, it increases the value by like 10,000. But if you have the multiplier on it, it's huge. So it's almost like you get a double bonus when your ball drains. Right. Yeah, which is really unique for this era game. It's pretty – I love it. It's awesome. Yeah. It can get pretty big. I'm looking at a picture of it, and the artwork on this is insane. It's awesome. Oh, yeah. I mean, a shirtless guy trying to fight a bear with a knife? I mean, come on. Oh, yeah.
    120:19
    Move over, Zombie Yeti. No, it's awesome. I hope somebody remakes this game someday because it would sell a lot. Yeah. It's a pretty sweet game. Frontier 2.0. Oh, gosh. You're going to need to change it. I love the rules. Oh, no. I was kidding. Did you play the one at InDesk, Tom? Yeah, the one you could throw around? Right. Not only could you throw it around, that feed from the first target was so nice. You could just rinse and repeat. Tap passes were there. So hopefully Frontier down at TPF is like that. If it is, you're going to have some scores that are going to be 800 to over a million. But if it's mean, you might have some scores that are probably around 400 to 500. Somewhere around there would probably be a good qualifying score if it's playing Super Meat. I think I was the only person at Indus that actually found out that there was a Tilt Bob in the game. Well done. Good job, Tommy. Proud of you. Thank you. I think Keith Elwin had a custom Frontier t-shirt on. He did. At District 82, didn't he? Yes. Yeah. That art is sick. It's pretty sweet. That art is sick. It's a great game. All right. So there's some fun games in here. Solar Ride. I haven't played this one since Pemburg.
    121:40
    Oh. Was it when you won the finals? Did you play it then? No. I just played it in one of the rounds. And how did that go for you? I think it went okay. I might have took like a second. Well, that's good enough. So how do we play it then? I don't know. I don't remember.
    122:00
    Yeah, I honestly don't. Obviously. Go ahead, Travis. So if I remember right in the upper part, you're basically always going to plunge over the top lanes no matter what. And whichever one's lit, I think that's what will advance your bonus X. I think if I remember right that if you make the first one I think the second one might even light a 3x or something like that or maybe it adds to your bonus even more I forget it's been way too long but anyway so there's a saucer in the upper left hand side in which you can collect bonus right there it maxes out at 20,000 so you have that I think that the saucers also will reset the bank drop target that's on the left-hand side, I believe. And so every single time that you knock down all these targets, that'll advance your bonus X and also light the collect saucer. So that's kind of how you're able to reset those targets. So if you knock them all down, you're just like, oh, they're not coming back up. Hit the saucer, they'll come back up. So that's, I mean, that's pretty much the whole thing. You have split flippers on the left-hand side, so be careful right there. But typically, you're just trying to stay under control as much as you can, but just swatting away when you need to. I mean, that's pretty much all you can do. It's just the goal is you don't want to drain down the middle because outlanes will advance by three on bonus. So that's very important as well. Nice. Sound good? Joe, what do you do?
    123:35
    Don't drain down the middle. Keep the ball in play. That's it. Oh, yeah. There we go. I'm over here looking up the price of a frontier because, man, have the artwork in that. It's so good. You better be ready to pay out several thousand dollars nowadays. I actually bought one right when the pandemic started. Oh my gosh. So you have one? Did you get it for under five? Yes. Oh my god. Lucky. Yeah, Pinside had it listed at $2,400 to $2,800. They have it listed for what? $2,400 to $2,800. For like what? One leg of Frontier? That's what it's listed as. No, that game's easily, or it's worth easily over $5,000. It's such a great game. It's hard to find, too. That's awesome. Yeah, they didn't make many of them.
    124:28
    Rolling Stones, Valley Edition. They're a good band. They're no rush, you know. That's true. All right, Tom, do you remember playing this at Freeplay Florida? I do, but I don't remember. I know you want to build the bonus up. there's that drop target on the left, and basically you want to spell rock, right?
    124:51
    Yep. That is correct. Keep going up top. Is spelling rock the multiplier? I believe so, yes, at top, yeah. And then your four drop targets on the right-hand side will keep advancing bonus, and then on the left-hand side it'll collect. And the reason why the left-hand side of that saucer gets important, that's behind that drop target is because it'll send it back up into the upper lanes. And so to enable you to spell rock. But there's also like these two horseshoe shots that look like candy canes nearly on the left and right hand side. Yes. I would advise avoiding those completely. Like if you're shooting them, it's by accident. Other than that, it's just knocking down drop targets. If you're on the left hand side, if you're on the right hand side, you're trying to get into that saucer collect. And then once it's built up so high, if it doesn't reset, I think most copies, if not all of them, don't reset. So it's basically from the left hand, you tap pass over to the right, you hit into the saucer to collect. And that's the entire game pretty much.
    125:52
    All right. Well done. Hey, Joel, that's easy. That easy. And we're going to finish it off with Nick the Pensomniac's favorite game, Xenon.
    126:03
    Xenon. Tom, you know this game. Yes. Go in the two strats, go in the saucer three times, lock a ball on the right ramp. Well, the only ramp in the game. And then go back in the saucer three times. That'll light your spinner and start multi-ball. The other strat is just basically to spam the ramp. But that's pretty much Zenon right there. I don't normally go for the drops Right You just kind of luck into those Go ahead Can you do a few of the call outs real quick From Xenon That's perfect Well keep in mind too if you hit the right ramp If that's going to be your strategy You've got to be aware of the kick out So there's a little saucer that will kick it out Sometimes it's very friendly And if it is guess what We're doing right ramp all day. But if it's not friendly, kind of go at your own risk. If you're good at nudging, it might work for you. I know some players swear by it, and others swear by just going back up top through the spinner and hitting the saucer as often as possible. And that's Xenon. That's basically the entire game right there.
    127:22
    Wake up, everybody listening. We did it. So I think, how long did that? I don't even know. That was a lot of value for people that are going to TTF. I think if you're in the car or if you, I guarantee this was useful for all the people going. Could you imagine somebody, like, turns this podcast on after the tournament and they're like, shit. Yeah.
    127:47
    I'm just glad Joel is telling them after them hanging out for us for two hours, hey, the podcast you just listened to is useful for you. It's almost as good as you plugging this podcast. It's not, we're not just about bashing Halloween. No, everybody feels good about listening to this podcast for two hours. Hey, I, you know, I hope somebody in a tournament is going to be, they're going to step up to, because these games, so maybe that's, Travis, out of those eight classic games, you're saying you're going to play your four favorite twice. Do you want to, do you want to divulge what four you're planning on playing? No. Okay. So. No, I'll tell you, I'm joking, Joel. Nobody's going to. So I'm going to go with Ali, Andromeda, Frontier, Rolling Stones. Okay. That's my plan. And you're going to play those twice. But theoretically, so you're ignoring the other four games. But if you make finals, there's a good chance you're going to have to play the other four games. Hey, don't pick them against me because I'll crush them then. I'm telling you guys now. All right. Unless it's mini flippers and I'm screwed, which is two of them. So, yeah. You're going to make the finals and have to play Grand Tour. what's Monica going to pick? the other four I don't think she'll pick the mini flipper ones I think she'll pick Ali because she actually liked that one at Pinmasters she'll pick Frontier just because she likes the guy without the shirt you might as well be entertained while you're playing and then she'll probably pick Solar Ride because she likes the split flip games too I bet she picks that very cool Well, I think that's it for the TPN tournament talk Yeah, we're not going to talk about the kids, Bank Sorry You're on your own Figure it out And the backup games No, the games will be great You won't have to play the backup game So we will end this with the Here it is, right here Todd, it's the best It's the best song. So refreshing. What? I forgot we were even still doing a triple combo. We crushed it. We crushed that triple combo. Well, overall, I think this is officially our longest episode.
    130:06
    What's the longest pinball podcast ever, Joel? I don't know. Hopefully it's this one. We need to start creating some records. Is there like a Guinness Book of World Records for that? I'm amazed Tom's still awake. Me too. Yeah, this is... We're supposed to be turning up Pepsi every... Yeah, two of them. You're going to wet the bed tonight, Tom. I'm telling you. No, so if anybody's still listening, thank you for listening. I hope that was super useful to the people in the tournament. If not, you may have learned something, as in Travis doesn't know how to play this game, so I'm going to pick it against Travis and actually show him the right strategy. So either way, yeah, you learned something. It's something helpful.
    130:46
    But, no, this was good. This was a good podcast. And like I said earlier, Travis and I will be at TPF, so please come and say hi.
    130:56
    Oh, Big Pop has got his hands. What do you got, Travis? Oh, no, I was just dancing. Sorry. I accidentally misclicked.
    131:04
    I'm just hoping somebody goes up to Travis like, hey, thanks for the tips. I was glad I could beat you on this game. Yeah, I have no idea how to play this game until you told me how to in your podcast. I am an open book. Perfect. I'm an open book. Knowledge is power. Yeah. Are you going to tell Monica, hey, Monica, you should probably listen to this? You know, just, I'm just, because she doesn't ask you for chips. She doesn't listen to me at all.
    131:30
    Her chip has sailed so long ago. Like, even if we're at an event like this, the only thing I ask her is, hey, what type of beer you want me to bring back? That's where it begins and ends. Or you were her bear boy at District 82, that tournament. Yeah, that's the two things. It's like, Elwin's not here. What beer do you want? Those are the two things I got to say to him. Perfect. All right. Well, we'll close it up here. So, plugs. Tom, you want to go first? Yes. I stream occasionally on Fox City's Pinball. I do a lot of tournament streams. Actually, District 82 is going to be having registration for the big triple flip open this coming Saturday at 9 a.m. So if you are interested in that, you might want to F5 on that event page.
    132:29
    So, yeah. Well, shoot, now I have pressure to get this edited before Saturday. And if you're hearing this after this, blame Joel or Zach Money. My bad.
    132:43
    My bad. All right. Thank you, Tom. You're welcome. Get on the wait list. Get on the wait list right now. Get on the wait list. You're probably hearing this next week. Get on the wait list.
    132:55
    Go for it, Travis. Yeah, I'm here on Triple Drain Podcast. And sometimes on YouTube. I haven't done a show in a while, but I need to do a show pretty soon. And, yeah, that's all I got. Well done. Appreciate you guys listening. I'll see you guys down at TPF. Say hi. We'll have a beer together. If you're buying.
    133:16
    I'm just saying that because I'm carrying a beer with me the whole time, anytime I'm not in the tournament room. Well done. Perfect. There you go. Hey, guys, and I'm Joel.
    133:24
    Every Wednesday I do the Pinball Network. I stream that. And then every other Thursday I stream for Flippin' Out on that channel. And last Thursday I actually had an awesome opportunity to play Billy Madison. Billy Madison was a custom overhaul. They took a party animal pinball machine and rethemed it to Billy Madison, and I streamed that with Brian and Jeff. Super nice, guys. They will have Billy Madison at TPF, so definitely go give it a shot, play it, have a few laughs, and, yeah, the recording of that stream is on Flippin' Out on the YouTube.
    133:59
    So search Flippin' Out Pinball, and you'll see the Billy Madison stream for that. So I'll do another podcast, just another pinball podcast. So, yeah, feel free to listen to that as well. But that is it. We'll be at CPF. Come say hi.
    134:16
    Yeah, hopefully this was useful. If it was, let us know. Feel free to email us, good or bad, tripledrain at gmail.com. And like always, Tom, you get to close us out. Stay in school, kids.