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Tribe Multiball with Rachel and Tim, Episode 31: The Tribe Juggler!

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Aug 29, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Tribe Multiball hosts discuss tournament play, psychology, and competitive pinball strategy with guest Ian Harrower.

Summary

Rachel Risto and Tim Lee host Tribe Multiball podcast episode 31, welcoming guest Ian Harrower. The episode covers tournament experiences (Tim's A-Finals run in Pittsburgh, Rachel's ladies' flip tournaments and Summer Pinball Classic struggles), personal summer activities, and deep discussion of competitive play psychology, including mental strategies, managing tilt, and maintaining fun while playing seriously.

Key Claims

  • Tim finished 6th overall at a 25-30 person Pittsburgh-area tournament with top-ranked players, qualifying 8th and making A-Finals

    high confidence · Tim Lee describing his tournament results directly

  • Tim unintentionally shakes pinball machines during competitive play, causing tilt issues he wasn't aware of

    high confidence · Tim Lee and Gary (fellow player) identified during tournament; confirmed when Tim played again solo

  • Toy Story 4 (Jersey Jack) is overpriced at $12,000 despite being fun, not worth the cost

    high confidence · Tim Lee's direct opinion after playing 2 hours across multiple locations

  • Rachel is currently ranked 17th in women's competitive standings and needs to place in top 16 for women's championship qualification

    high confidence · Rachel Risto discussing her WPPR ranking and tournament goals

  • Ian describes using specific songs (Seek and Destroy by Metallica, Orinoco Flow by Enya) to manage competitive play psychology

    high confidence · Ian Harrower explaining his music strategy in detail during guest appearance

  • Rachel had a Multimorphic game arrive (referenced as 'the new multi-morphic game'), which Tim had been waiting for to have Ian on the podcast

    medium confidence · Tim explaining podcast booking decision around Multimorphic game release; specific game title not mentioned in content

  • Stern Pinball filmed a documentary-style video package at Helicon Brewing featuring Tim Lee and his family

    high confidence · Rachel and Tim discussing Stern video content filmed at Helicon; Drew confirmed Tim was in footage drinking beer not playing

  • Rachel hosted/won a Summer Flip Frenzy tournament in Racine; placed second with nearly two-foot trophy

    medium confidence · Rachel describing Daryl VanLight's tournament; she mentions 'I took second' but earlier says Michael won first—some clarity needed on exact results

Notable Quotes

  • “if DJ gets to pick the game, he's going to pick Godzilla... his first ball was 1 billion points, or his first ball. And my first ball was 250,000 points. So I thought, oh, I'm doomed.”

    Tim Lee @ early-mid episode — Illustrates tournament anxiety and competitive pressure Tim experiences against top-ranked players

  • “I had the jackpot lit that I wanted lit and I'm like I'm going to win if I get this jackpot so I'm staring the jackpot down and what I didn't notice is my ball was still rolling on the flipper and rolled right down the drain”

    Tim Lee @ mid-episode — Critical mistake during tournament play showing concentration lapses under pressure

  • “when you're playing, my hands just shake the game the whole time... you're constantly giving vibration to the game... double warning right away”

    Gary (fellow tournament player) @ mid-episode — Key moment where Tim discovers involuntary tilt-inducing behavior affecting his play

  • “I would have been in E division, but it was restricted... I had basically given up and said, I'm going to have fun. It is time to have fun.”

    Ian Harrower @ late episode — Core philosophy shift that Ian credits to improving his competitive play and mental state

  • “I don't want to play the game where I'm rooting for my opponent to lose... I changed my mindset to always cheer for my opponents, to always congratulate them”

    Ian Harrower @ late episode — Defining moment where Ian reframes competitive psychology from zero-sum to collaborative fun

  • “One I play Seek and Destroy by Metallica because Metallica is one of my favorite pinball games... I'd always choose Seek and Destroy because I wanted consistency. And then I just started playing Seek and Destroy on other games because I wanted to get back to that feeling of playing Metallica.”

    Ian Harrower @ late episode — Demonstrates psychological association between music, game familiarity, and confidence-building strategy

  • “Choose the flavor of the song that will get you into the mood you want to be in... if you need to slow yourself down for an EM, put on something slow... always play one song on repeat”

Entities

Rachel RistopersonTim LeepersonIan HarrowerpersonGlennpersonDaryl VanLightpersonDan DonnellpersonAlec KismarchikpersonGaryperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Tim actively attending competitive tournaments at higher skill levels; Rachel organizing and hosting multiple tournaments (Ladies Flip series, Summer Flip Frenzy); both engaging with structured competitive play

    high · Tim's Pittsburgh tournament participation, Rachel hosting September 24th Ladies Flip in Racine, multiple tournament reports throughout episode

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tim showing measurable improvement competing against top-ranked players; mentorship from Glenn creating positive feedback loop for skill development

    high · Tim qualified 8th at competitive tournament, made A-Finals, 6th overall finish; Glenn providing real-time strategy coaching during tournament

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Tim's involuntary aggressive flipper/body movement causing unwanted machine tilt during high-stress multiball sequences; common in competitive scenes when players become emotionally invested

    high · Gary identified pattern: 'when you play, you shake the game the whole time... double warning right away'; Tim confirmed behavior in solo play afterward

  • ?

    content_signal: Stern Pinball filmed documentary-style video content at Helicon Brewing with local tournament, featuring player interviews and gameplay (Tim Lee family in footage)

    high · Rachel and Tim discussing Stern video package; Drew noted Tim appeared drinking/socializing rather than playing; video accessible on Stern Pinball page

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Ian Harrower employing sophisticated psychological techniques for competitive play: intentional song selection for mood management, active opponent cheerleading, mindfulness breaks (bubble-blowing), streaming narration as focus tool

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.332

0:00
Hey, Format Tribe and listeners, this is Glennie Rogers, and you're listening to the Tribe Baltimore Podcast with Rachel and Tim. Format Tribe's the thing that is who we are. They're not in this thing, so how could it go wrong? Flip away with us to an old barcade, and then we'll learn about each other. Uh-huh. From two babies to another. Uh-huh.
0:35
Rachel and Tim, who do we have on the show today? Hello, friends. Welcome to Try Multiball, a pinball podcast that focuses on a dynamic group of folks that are in the pinball hobby, sport, and just love pinball. I'm here, Rachel Risto, along with my co-host. Tim Lee. That was a little bit of a rough out, don't you think?
0:59
It's been a while. It's been a while, Tim Lee. I'm happy to see you, even though you're kind of sitting in the dark today, but I'm also always happy to hear your voice. Oh, it's great to hear your voice and see you as well. Yeah, it's been a while. I know. I apologize to our fans. We were just about to do an episode and I got sick for two weeks, so we had to delay past the mid-August timeline that we promised, so sorry. Oh, I wasn't even thinking about apologizing.
1:30
No, I'm glad that you're feeling better, though, for real. It's been a great summer for me, and I think you've had a good summer vacation too, right? I have, yeah, yeah. I haven't played a ton of pinball, but I went to an amusement park, Cedar Point, with my family, so that was kind of cool, pretty awesome. Did you puke after any of the rides? No, no, I don't ride the spinny rides. I ride the roller coaster. So we were all good. If I went to an amusement park, do you want to know what I would ride the whole day long? What would you ride? The carousel.

Ian Harrower (referencing Bowen advice) @ late episode — Actionable mental performance technique applicable across competitive play

  • “I wouldn't pay that much for it. I apologize to all the Toy Story fans, but it is way overpriced. But I admit, it's a fun game.”

    Tim Lee @ mid-episode — Candid opinion on JJP pricing vs. gameplay value; reflects operator/player perspective on current market rates

  • “sometimes it's still sitting in the back of my head when I'm playing and I don't think that's necessarily what happened this summer classic... I think what really happened there was just such an endurance weekend that it was really hard to manage that.”

    Rachel Risto @ mid-late episode — Shows self-awareness about competitive pressure affecting performance at home venue (District 82)

  • “I need to play songs that relax me or amp me up... if you need to play a really fast-playing game, put on something high tempo... and always play one song on repeat because the last thing you want to do is be halfway through a game and in [cut off]”

    Ian Harrower @ late episode — Practical competitive play technique emphasizing intentional mood management and song consistency

    • DJ
    person
    Chris Myersperson
    Michaelperson
    [name withheld pending review]organization
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Helicon Brewingvenue
    District 82venue
    Plymouth Hallvenue
    Wizards Worldvenue
    Toy Story 4game
    Metallicagame
    Godzillagame
    Stranger Thingsgame
    Playboygame

    high · Ian's extended discussion of Seek and Destroy/Orinoco Flow strategy, Pimberg tournament psychological shift story, music tempo matching to game speed

  • $

    market_signal: Location/casual player perception that Jersey Jack Toy Story 4 at $12,000+ is overpriced despite fun gameplay; operator/collector hesitation on premium tier pricing

    high · Tim: 'I wouldn't pay that much for it... it is way overpriced. But I admit, it's a fun game... not enough in it to pay $12,000'

  • ?

    product_concern: Jersey Jack games (longer playing) create scheduling challenges for tournament venues; Tim notes concern about extended event durations (staying until 2am at District 82)

    medium · Tim discussing Toy Story 4 and JJP games in context of tournament viability; mentions District 82 tournament running very late

  • ?

    venue_signal: Multiple regional pinball communities active and welcoming: Louisville (Dan Donnell's Kickback tournament), Racine (Daryl VanLight tournaments), Pittsburgh (competitive tournament scene), Fort Wayne (women's tournament weekend)

    high · Rachel visiting Louisville for tournament, Racine Summer Flip Frenzy success, Pittsburgh tournament with top-20 players, Wizards World women's weekend

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ian Harrower added as recurring guest/contributor to Tribe Multiball; Tim had been strategically timing his appearance around Multimorphic game release for content relevance

    high · Rachel mentions Tim delayed Ian's appearance multiple times; Tim confirms: 'whenever the new multi-morphic game comes out, we'll have Ian on because he'll stream it'; Ian now guest on episode 31

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift in competitive pinball community toward emphasis on fun/social aspects over pure winning; Ian's philosophy change at Pimberg (stop rooting for opponents to lose) gaining traction as mental health strategy

    medium · Ian's extended discussion of moving from competitive anxiety to collaborative fun mindset; Rachel adopting similar philosophy ('I want everyone to have a good game'); both actively managing tournament stress

  • ?

    operational_signal: Rachel Risto actively building ladies-only pinball tournament infrastructure: Ladies Flip series (paused May-Sept, resuming Sept 24), women's championship pathway (top-16 qualification system)

    high · Rachel scheduling next Ladies Flip for Sept 24 at Daryl/Amanda's Racine home, tracking WPPR women's rankings (17th place), discussing women's championship qualification (top 16 required)

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Multimorphic new game released/delivered in timeframe consistent with year-long Tim expectations; Tim repeatedly told Rachel 'next month' for release across multiple months

    medium · Tim: 'I kept telling Rachel, whenever the new multi-morphic game comes out... that was a year ago... It's finally released and you finally got yours'

    • 2:01
    Especially the double-decker carousel. That's all I want the whole time because I don't do roller coaster rides. I like Roller Coaster Tycoon, though. I do like that game. So, anyway. That's a fun game. Yeah. Mr. Sand and I both love roller coasters, so. Oh, okay. Thrilling. And, you know, we took the boys and we went to an amusement park. My daughter went to Florida with my brother. She hates roller coasters, so. I might be with your daughter and go to Florida, too.
    2:29
    How about you? Good. I'm doing great. I had a great, great summer. Did a lot of, you know, kayaking and wandering around outside on different trails. I got lost recently on a trail. That was fun. But just figured I'd help us because the sun sets west and I'll be okay. And I was fine. I've had a really enjoyable time I didn't do a lot of pinball planning of stuff but I did do some pinball playing but before I get into that I would like to welcome into our show we're going to try this thing again where we bring in our guests a little bit earlier but I would like to welcome to our show somebody that we've wanted to have on the show for quite some time but Tim Lee kept telling me no, no, no, we have to wait and I'm like, okay he's like, no, no, no, we still have to wait A couple months goes by, and I'm like, what about this guy? He's like, no, we have to wait. So finally, poor Ian. Oh, I spoiled it.
    3:24
    Poor tribe member number four had to wait forever to come on to our podcast, and we're really happy to have you here. Ian Harrower, welcome to the show. Hey, welcome, Ian. Thank you, Rachel. Tim, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here, excited to talk pinball. and, you know, get to talking about Weird Al. It's been a long time. Yes. That was an absolute true story. Ian was on the initial list, and I kept telling Rachel, whenever the new multi-morphic game comes out, we'll have Ian on because he'll stream it and, you know, it'll be fresh. And that was a year ago. And she's like, what about Ian? I'm like, I feel like they're going to release the game next month. It's finally released and you finally got yours, so that'll be exciting to talk about. So here we are. Tim, let's start with your pinball news. Besides vacation and being sick, I actually played in a tournament, and it was a tournament with some decent players. You and Glenn have been kind of challenging me to go play with some decent players. Not that I don't play with decent players now, but there was a gentleman, and I'll probably mess up his name. Ian might know it. It's Alec Kismarchik, I believe. They call him AK.
    4:42
    Sorry, AK, if I got the name wrong. But he had a tournament at his family's business in the Pittsburgh area. So I talked my buddy into going down. It wasn't a huge tournament, 25 to 30 folks. But the thing was is I think half of those folks were in the top 1,000 that played, and then the other half were in, like, the top 2,000. and there was me, Mr. 11,200. So it was neat. I'll say this. It was one of the tournaments where you have to buy the cards, and you got to play seven games, and then they scored your top seven, and, you know, you know how it works. A pumping zone. Yep, yep. Whoever gets the highest score, you know, gets so many points, et cetera, and that's how they, you know, the top 12 went on to the A finals, and then they had a B finals. and perfect for me because I love to socialize. So it was all day qualifying, and I apologize to everybody there, but I think I talked to everyone. And I had a good time, and what was really nice is I could text you and Glenn and get tips on the games. And there was one game I played whodunit, and I'm like, I sent Glenn a message. I'm like, tell me what to do, and then he called me. And then I walked up to the game, and I think I ended up, like, taking the third place, like the third highest standing on that game. But it was fun. That kind of tournament is good for me because you play by yourself, and I'm very confident that I can blow up one out of every ten games, and it's pretty much how it went. I sucked for nine, and like on the tenth game, I had a great game. I was up and down, and I think I ended up qualifying eighth, and I made the A finals. Nothing out of the ordinary happened in qualifying just besides me just constantly talking to people. They probably wanted to get rid of me. Qualified for the A-Finals, and I ended up drawing in the first round. There was a guy they call DJ. I think he was top 20 in IFPA. A guy that they told me was one of the top two or three in the Pittsburgh Pinball League, and another gentleman who's, I forget his name, but he was like 600th or 700th IFPA in me. And I kept thinking, if DJ gets to pick the game, he's going to pick Godzilla. And I got a shot because I played Godzilla kind of consistent all weekend. And DJ picked Godzilla. And I kind of figured he would because he blew it up every time he played. Well, his first game was 1 billion points, or his first ball. And my first ball was 250,000 points. So I thought, oh, I'm doomed. And then the other two gentlemen, they didn't have very good balls either. but I had a really good second and third ball, so I finished second. Good. And then we played whodunit, and I finished second. So I'm, like, feeling really good. And then I'm thinking, if they pick Stranger Things, I'm going to win. And he picked Stranger Things. And I was very, very confident that I was going to finish in first in Stranger Things. If not, I was going to burn Amy's game when I got home.
    7:54
    I didn't win, but I finished second. So, yeah, I had a pretty good game. DJ had the best game, and I finished right behind him, and so I moved on to the next round. And the next round, I went kind of fast. I was very proud of myself. I'm like, wow, I made it one round with some good players. But the next round, the first game we played, and everybody was even better. We played Playboy, and the first two balls by every player was horrendous. there was one guy, real nice guy I think his name was Gray DeFalco he had said that was kind of embarrassing for eight finals first eight balls and nobody really had a good third ball but you'll get a kick out of this so I had the jackpot lit that I wanted lit and I'm like I'm going to win if I get this jackpot so I'm staring the jackpot down and what I didn't notice is my ball was still rolling on the flipper and rolled right down the drain and I lost and then we played Avatar and I had a terrible first ball and I had a decent second ball and a really good third ball but I finished third there and I was really embarrassed I'm like man I'm playing terrible but then we played Ripley's and I had a really good game on Ripley's and I finished second and the guy that won he just beat me on the bonus He got the skill shot. I thought I was going to win and go on to the next round. If I would have beat him, we would have had a playoff. But he beat me on the last ball, and I didn't make it. But I was kind of happy with my results, and it was a lot of fun. I really appreciate you and Glenn kind of giving me some tips real time. And didn't do as bad as I thought. Overall, I finished sixth. and then that Friday, my buddy Chris Myers from Helicon said they were having like a mini documentary series that they were doing for Stern, like a five to ten minute video for Stern Pinball and I went down and I had four or five beers and he was like, hey, we're going to have a tournament and I'm like, what? I can't have a tournament. And all the same people walked in. So it was like I played the same people. I didn't do as well as that one. And you'll get a kick out of this. Oh, I was going to say, maybe I was going to spoil it, but I want to make sure that you include the very special thing happened about the Helicon Stern event that happened there. You're now famous-er. Oh, yeah. Yeah, my whole family was in there. Yeah. Yeah, I think they probably tripled the amount of views they would have got on that video just because I was in there. And the Strim Pinball, they shot like a little package at Helicon Brewing. Yeah. And Tim Lee and his whole family is in it, so you've got to go check it out on the Strim Pinball page. And I want to make sure that everybody heard that because that was just really cool. And then also I want to say I'm really glad that you are getting out there and playing different players. It's great to play higher-ranked players because that pushes you to be better, to play better, and you learn more from them. the better people you play, the better you become. True story. Yeah, they all know the rules way better than me. I play okay. But the Helicon video was kind of cool. Drew brought up that at no time on the video was I playing pinball. I was drinking beer and talking to everyone. True story.
    11:30
    Which is kind of what I do. Great feed footage. Yeah, I was in the top half there, but I didn't do really well. But you'll appreciate this. I had everything set up that I wanted on Godzilla.
    11:42
    I had like a five ball multi-ball going. I'm like, I am going to win. I was playing a really good player. I had everything set up. I was stacked. I had the two times play field scoring. I had two of the allies. And I tilted.
    12:02
    And I didn't even realize I was like shaking the game. So I'm like, okay. I got another shot at it. Third ball. Same thing. I'm blowing it up, and I tilted.
    12:14
    And my buddy Gary said, I don't think you realize this, but when you play, you shake the game the whole time. I'm like, I do? So I went and played a couple of games after we were done, and sure enough, when I'm playing, my hands just shake the game. So I tilted out of a tournament there. You're constantly giving vibration to the game is what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah, he said, I can't hear anything. He's like, you had double warning right away. He's like, right off the bat. And I'm like, really? So, I don't know. It was like how I play. It was a good time. Very common in competitive scenes when people get into that multiball, they get really amped up. They get excited. They don't even notice it. They start hitting the flipper buttons a lot harder. They start moving around. and it just ends up being like everything's going on, you don't notice the danger, and then all of a sudden you're like, I barely touched it. And everyone else is like, no, you were shoving it for five minutes.
    13:14
    That's exactly what happened because I'm like, I didn't even touch this thing. I was yelling at my buddy Chris that owned the machine. I'm like, hey, there's something wrong with your machine. And everybody was like, no, no, you're constantly shaking the game. So I caught myself. I went and played it again when everybody was done playing. I'm like, sure enough. I just don't realize it. I was shaking the game. Yeah. The only other thing I did, Rachel, is I finally played Toy Story. Toy Story 4. How did you feel about Toy Story 4? I will say this. I enjoyed the game. Yes, me too. I played probably for, I probably had about two hours on it total with my family at various locations. and I wouldn't pay that much for it. I apologize to all the Toy Story fans, but it is way overpriced. But I admit, it's a fun game. Rather enjoyed it. I wouldn't buy it, but they probably got a good $50 from me, you know, between the two locations just putting dollar bills into it. Fun game. Liked it. Just not enough in it to pay $12,000 for me. Yeah. Good job. Yeah, to everyone who has their own opinion, right? I thought the game was really fun, and I could see that it would be a lot of fun in a home-use only setting. If you've got a family, you've got three kids, and you want to bring something else into the environment, other than like video games, or I don't even know what kids play with these days. I have no idea. I'm still out of touch. Do they even go to the park anymore? I don't know. But, you know, if you want to bring it in that environment, I could see it being, you know, a fun time, It may be worth the value over time, but, like, as me, to me, the content and the cost and all that just equal what I'm looking for. So that's why I'm looking for it. I thought it was a real fun thing to play. Yeah, a lot of young kids were playing it at Helicon, I noticed. I think it would be, and maybe it would be a good location game, but I guess what I'm saying, I don't think it would be a great tournament game. Because, I'm sorry, I love Jersey Jack games, but they're longer playing games, and it's harder. You don't want to be at District 82 until 2 in the morning playing, you know, pinball, but that did recently just happen anyway.
    15:39
    Anyway. That's all I got. Okay. Yeah. How about you? I got off on a tangent there. Well, I have a lot to report on. Even though I said I was taking a break from pinball, I did. I haven't finally. I still played some. You know how I am. a first out of the gate is I have to talk about that our buddy Glenn came to Wisconsin and on his 40th birthday I spent time with him and his son at Plymouth Half in Plymouth Wisconsin as well as some of his family that came and it was really fun we got to play a couple of games together we played big buck hunter and we had a couple of drinks and I love you Glenn thanks for being such a good panel, especially the last couple of days, we actually messaged a bit about some ideas I've had, other pinball projects I'm working on, and he's also so great with the rules. He's also given me so much encouragement as a flow player as to, and helping me find other flow players and their videos in order for me to kind of study them so I can become a better player that way. So Glenn, that was so much fun spending time with you. I don't know why I'm talking to the camera like I'm talking to you, but I... Glenn, she reached her hands out like she was going to hug you. I am. Rachel, they say when you're interviewing, even if you're on a phone interview, you should dress in the outfit you would wear to an in-person interview. It's like you're talking to Glenn with him being there can be heard through the mic. People can hear that. Oh. So it matters. That's sweet. Thank you. Well, today I'm wearing a shirt that says, take me to paradise. Oh. I don't know if that's about our podcast.
    17:24
    But that's so sweet, Ian. Thank you very much. Let's see. I also played my buddy Daryl VanLight's Summer Flip Frenzy down in Racine. Drew came out for that. That was fun. I had to beat him on a couple games, which also felt good. Nice. The last time there was a Flipper Frenzy, Drew won that. Actually took another friend of mine, Michael, down to, that's a Green Bay player. He came down, we drove down to Racine together, and we played. He took first, and I took second. And now I have this gigantic, like, almost two-foot frickin' trophy. Daryl went all out. And I have, like, this almost two-foot second-place trophy in my office. Nice. Because it's, like, it's ridiculous. I'll have to show it to you at some point or post a picture of it. So that was so much fun. I love Daryl. He and, like I said, I haven't been tournament planning, but I finally did set a date for my next ladies' flip. As you know, there's been none since May 14th, I think was my last one, just taking the time off from that, enjoying my summer and doing other things. But I did set my next tournament to be hosted by him and Amanda at their home in Racine on September 24th. So all the information will be coming out soon, so I'm excited about that. Oh, nice. I also, I know it's a lot. I'm going to try to get through it. I know a lot of people that listen to our podcast, and I feel like if I meet them and I don't shout them out, I'm going to feel bad. You know, because it makes me feel sad because I'm like, I love all the people that I get to meet and when they say nice things about our podcast. Or I get to go play their cool collections and stuff. I want to make sure I mention that. Because that's what a treat it is. So, okay. So then I also went down to go visit another tribe member this summer. I went down to Louisville to visit Dan Donnell at the Louisville kickback tournament he does. It was so cool. This is a tournament where he has friends for about a week. They show up and drop off games at his house. And so I didn't know. And then he's got his own games in his basement. But he and Maggie's lovely wife, they host this tournament, a Saturday night, Saturday tournament where it's like a qualifying and then you have playoffs. I had so much fun being there. The Louisville folks that are in that pinball community are so warm and welcoming. And I went down there knowing him and knowing Wayne and Mady. And that was it. And I'm like, okay. And I just met a bunch of all sorts of other really cool people. I think Dan was trying to get me drunk. The worst he's had me is bourbon. But I did push him for that bourbon after all. But, Dan, thanks so much for being a great host. and also for sending me back my thermal mug and my phone charger. And then he also sent me a very – I'm mentioning it because he also sent me a very special book. He thought that I might need the book Fifty Shades of Grey. So that was also included in that care package. So thanks so much for that. And then, let's see, I played – and then after that I played the Summer Pinball Classic at District 82. played it played around on stream I have been riding the struggle bus this summer a bit in terms of playing but I really kind of don't care I do and I don't and it'll take your perspective on this too because like you know I'm I'm working I'm working well the goal is is I really want to play women's championship you know at the end of the year and I'm sitting at 17th and I'm kind of stuck and I gotta be in the top 16 and I could really use a big weekend where I have like 20 25 points that would like really help help bump me up I'm only going to lose about six points towards the end of the year because if they become that uh invalid or zero zero percent after three years or whatever so I know I'm going there's a lot of ladies actually on that list that are going to experience that but anyways I'm struggling because sometimes it's still sitting in the back of my head when I'm playing and I don't think that's necessarily what happened this summer classic at district 82 I think what really happened there was just such an endurance weekend that it was really hard to manage that. I don't know. I'm all over the board about it, trying to figure out, not that I played terrible, I didn't come in last or anything, but it was definitely not my best playing, and, like, that's my house, that's where I play the most. I don't know. Give me some advice, Ian. There's sort of two things that I find, like, in my own personal play that can make me a better player at times. So one is just realizing that I have good days and bad days. there are days when I go when everything feels right, where the flippers feel like they're half an inch bigger and no ball can go down the middle. And when I have those days, those are the days I have to get my wins in. But I also know there's days when the flippers feel like they're two inches long and there's nothing I can do. And I'm a streaky player like that. And knowing, like not trying to dig out of that, like this isn't going well. I'll try to do things to change my mood. I'll play music. I'll do all kinds of things. But I just accept that some days I'm just not going to feel it. And other days are going to be great days. And just accept that and live with it. The other big thing, and I'd say this is one of the biggest psychological changes in my play that I had a few years ago. It was at Pimberg. It's probably the Pimberg where Tim got kicked out twice in Jams for Life. I was at Pimberg. Actually, it was probably the year before that. So I was at Pimberg, and day one, I was playing terrible. And I was really angry, and every single game, I was worrying about what happened before. I was like, in the back of my mind, I was doing that thing where I was cheering for my opponents to drain because I wanted a win, I wanted some points, and I wasn't getting anything going my way. I'd watch them get an in-lane, and I'd be getting into the state of like, how come they're getting an in-lane? and every single one of my balls was bouncing out. And, like, I just got, like, so in my head. And I ended up in C division that year. And the next day I just decided I don't care. And, actually, I would have been in E division, but it was restricted. So I was really far down in C division. But the first group, I was with one of my good friends, Julie Dorsters, from London. I was with two other people.
    23:55
    And I had basically given up and said, I'm going to have fun. It is time to have fun. And they were also having, like, a great time. And we were joking. We were, like, coming up with puns that were coming back and forth. At one point, Jay, one of the other guys in the group, he was playing roller games, and he cradled up, and he turned to us, and we're like, oh, no, what's wrong? What's broken on the machine? And he was like, we were talking about T-shirt ideas earlier, and he was like, Lock Me Amadeus. And we have this guy laughing. He took the time in the middle of his game.
    24:34
    A t-shirt idea that he had. And, you know, we were cheering each other on and high-fiving. And that is what I want pinball to be. And it came to the realization that that's what I want to play. I don't want to play the game where I'm rooting for my opponent to lose. And I changed my mindset to always cheer for my opponents, to always congratulate them, you know, fist bumps, high fives, you know, and that gets me in a much better state. That feels like I'm in a bar, feels like I'm in a bar playing with my friends, even though we trash talk each other and do all of that. I try to get into that frame of mind and that mood when I play. That's really helpful.
    25:12
    When I'm not playing well, what I did that weekend is when I wasn't playing well, I went outside, got fresh air, I also blew bubbles. That's been something that I'm using. That's a therapy, believe it or not. I'm using a different issue with my life as I blow bubbles. And so I thought maybe I could try that too. I'm playing bad at District 82. I'm playing just like bad. I'm playing when I have a house fall kind of game, that kind of thing. But, you know, realizing that, oh, my gosh, Rachel, your rating is that you can't be consistent all the time. And I need to cut myself a break and just say, it's okay to have good and bad days and just accept that. And I didn't spiral at all because I thought about some of the stuff that Raymond had said to me previously about kind of ways to avoid that, especially during the gameplay. And another thing I want to say is every single person that I play pinball with, competitively or just for fun or whatever, I always say good luck and have fun. And when the game is over, the person that won, I usually say that was a great game and other people because if it wasn't a great game I will say it was fun playing with you maybe we'll play again or good luck the rest of the weekend or something but I'm right there with you Ian because like doing that also like you know I want everyone to have a good game do I want to play a little bit better yes but at the same time I still want them I want it to be fun so I'm going to go play at Wizards World there is a women's tournament this coming weekend and Indiana at Fort Wayne. I can't wait. That's a really cool, fun location. And it is a women's weekend with three tournaments. And I thought, man, if there's ever a weekend where I need to, because it's been so much tough, competitive in the head pinball, hanging out with the ladies and playing pinball is such a different vibe. I'm thinking that's going to regenerate me in terms of like bringing that fun factor forward. I just don't drink much. So it's like, I wish I could have, like, a drink and then play. I can't do both. Like, the drinking and the playing together, it doesn't work for me. But I like the idea of it being, like, a bar setting and, like, being relaxed like that. Yeah, other things people I know, other, like, so I stream. Yeah. And so sometimes I will narrate my game I will speak to my audience my chat while I playing to change my frame of mind from that perspective Oh, okay. I like that. It feels more like I'm playing on stream at home as opposed to in a tournament. But music is the big one to me. And I usually use headphones with noise cancelling just to deaden everything around me because I get very distracted very easily. But strangely, I have two songs, really three songs, but mostly two songs that are all I ever play while I'm playing pinball. And they get me in two different moods, and one of them was based on a joke that somehow I just started doing. But, like, one I play Seek and Destroy by Metallica because Metallica is one of my favorite pinball games. It was always the game that, if I was to play anyone, I felt I had the best chance. Like, it is my style of game. And I'd always choose Seek and Destroy because I wanted consistency. And then I just started playing Seek and Destroy on other games because I wanted to get back to that feeling of playing Metallica. Like, I'll be playing F-14 Tomcat, and I want to feel like I'm playing Metallica, so I'll put Seek and Destroy on. That's so smart. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Smart. The other song I play is Orinoco Flow by Enya. And that is completely just based on a joke that me and Jack Tadman had where we would talk about, like, you know, when we were trying to calm down, wanting to get into, like, that Orinoco Flow. And we kept saying this. And so one day I just decided to throw on some Orinoco Flow, listen to some Enya, just to get in that Enya vibe when you want to calm yourself down and slow down. Like, you want to play an EM, you've got to slow yourself down, throw on some Enya. Nice. This is great. This is sick. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty solid advice. I'll tell you something. When I was playing Godzilla and Tilted, I said that my buddy Gary, who we've become friends, he's played in four or five tournaments, I said he gave me advice. But there was kind of a moment between there where I gave him a fist pump, and I walked away because I was really upset. And I never get upset, Rachel, you know. But I was really upset that I tilted. And I went outside, and I picked on the owner a little bit, and I thought, you know what, I didn't want to just, I didn't storm off. It wasn't anything dramatic. But I actually felt the need to go back in and say, Gary, sorry, I was just kind of upset that I tilted, and I wasn't mad at you or anything. He's like, no, no, no. And that's when he grabbed me and said, let me tell you what you do when you play. So there was a little bit, you know, and I didn't have fun that game, but all the other games I have fun, so that's pretty solid advice because when you don't have fun, it's not fun. As dumb as that sounds, right? A little. That makes total sense. And the thing is, is I don't even realize that I'm not, quote, unquote, having fun because I'm really focused. I really enjoy it, and I'm focused on what I'm doing. And because I have a bad game doesn't mean I'm not having fun. You know, it's like, it's just, like, usually now it's just like, ugh, whatever, wash our hands and we watch the next game, you know. That's all really, that's fascinating, those songs that you choose there. That's fascinating. I feel like when I get suggestions for pinball songs, it's like The Ocean by Led Zepp, or it is something by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Tuesday's Gone? Is that what it is? Anyway, it's very long. People choose really long songs that you play for a really long time. No, no, no, no. I need to play songs that relax me or amp me up. You've got the key there, Ian. That's what Bowen gave advice once. Choose the flavor of the song that will get you into the mood you want to be in. So if you need to slow yourself down for an EM, put on something slow, slow tempo. If you need to play a really fast-playing game, put on something high tempo. and always play one song on repeat because the last thing you want to do is be halfway through a game and in the middle of a ball and have the flavor of the song change on you partway through. Yes, I totally understand what you mean there. The flavor of the song to match the game. I'm going to give you a high ten. Here we go. Give me a high ten.
    32:06
    Yeah, man, that's brilliant. I'm glad that I complained and whined a little bit about my playing there because that's helpful. And, like, when I talk to other competitive players, some folks are real open about that, what works for them. But it just, I really, I just really appreciate that. I mean, like, there's a lot of, like, this is a sport. Yes. Whatever you want to think about it. But the things people have learned from sports psychology in every other sport apply here. Like, a lot of what we're doing is we have the physical skills. We can play the game. when you're playing in competition, it really comes down to mental discipline that a lot of us haven't experienced a lot of. It's like, even if you haven't been in that competitive scene, everyone has had that experience where you make it to the wizard mode for the first time on a game. I remember I was playing, one of the first games that I played a lot of was Stern Spider-Man. And the very first time I made it to superhero on that, I drained out of that mode in like 30 seconds. because I was so excited and so amped up to make it to this new place I've never been to before. I was so confused. I had no idea what was going on, and I completely blew it. And I think everyone's had that experience. When you're playing in competition, you're, like, going through all these things. You have to get over yourself to succeed. And so, like, you know, visualization techniques, techniques around routines, and when you step up to the game, always going through the same routine. These are things that baseball players and that will do. It puts you in that mood. I always wear my headphones, whether I have anything on them or not. Putting on my headphones is a transition from the I'm playing casually to the I'm playing competitively. And so there's things like that that remind yourself of how to perform and how you practice. You can read, a lot of people recommend, and I've read, The Inner Game of Tennis, which is a great sports psychology book that's been used everywhere. There's a lot of this stuff. Even just visualizing, flipping the, like, what shots are you going to do as you step up to this machine? This is the sequence I'm going to do. Actually, it's like the throwing free throws. They say if you practice visualizing throwing free throws, you will perform better than someone who didn't do anything. It's almost as good as practicing actually throwing free throws. You can do that in pinball as well. Yes. Thank you for all that encouragement for me to look at it from that perspective. That helps. That helps to unlock some keys, hopefully. Really. Yeah. To that note, Ian, when I don't go first, it kind of bothers me. Like, everybody seems to want to go last. I want to go first. And somebody asked me at that tournament, why do you keep picking first? I said, because I want to play my game. That was my exact words. I don't want to go forth and try to do what the three folks in front of me did or them to get up and me change my strategy because I don't have a good enough memory to have more than one strategy. So I just want to play my game. And when I don't go first, when I go last, it gets in my head. I agree with that in a lot of circumstances. And I will do that almost always on electromechanical machines. on games where there is no, where I don't feel there is going to be any variance in my approach to the game. I want to go first, and I don't want to be influenced by what other people are doing, and I don't want to be nervous about trying to chase their score. And I potentially want to, like, chill them, like, set the pace, and they have to reach my score, and they have to deal with that. So there's huge advantages to going first. There's also games where going first helps, but that's, like, subtler rules knowledge. Music-wise, I don't listen to music when I play, but any time I go play hockey with my kids, we played in an adult kickball league, and on the way to tournaments when they went to play in the tournament with me, I always listen to that Phil Collins in the air just to annoy them because they're like, Dad, what is this song? But it got to be like tradition. So now every time we go, I put on that song, and they're like, Dad, what is this song? And I'm like, that's my jam. We're getting amped up, buddy. Yeah. What's my name? Yeah. I hear you. Okay, so to make our long way back around, the only other thing I have to say about playing at the pinball summer classic at District 82, a couple things. One, all the volunteers and people that make that place work, including Eric Thorne, are amazing human beings. Two, please go like Fox City's pinball and go check out his stream. He does an amazing job. Ian hung out on stream a little bit. It was great. He was correcting me on stream, giving me the right information when I was wrong, cheering me on. It's just always so lovely. And three, I want to say a big thank you to Josh Sharp, of all people. I had something happen, and very interesting, in that tournament. We were playing Fireball Classic, which is a new to District 82 game, and we were playing it in a round, and in the middle of the game, I noticed that he got the skill shot. I asked him for the skill shot. I said, you know, will you give me the skill shot after a game's done? And he's like, oh, no, I'll show it to you right now. So we went up right then and there, and he showed me where the skill shot was in the middle of the game, and I proceeded to go get it. I didn't win the game, but I took second on it. He won the game. But it was really cool playing pinball with him. That was really nice. I played, yeah, I played, like, I don't know, three or four games.
    37:47
    Also beat me just in bonus on pool sharks. It was a crushing. This is how hard the people I'm playing against are as well. and that round on pool sharks i was playing against him carrie wing and travis murray so those are all people that are fairly highly you know ranked players and have been playing for such a long time that i was just you know it's almost like i feel honored to even be in that group and it was my own fault that if would have flipped the in lanes on top i would have gotten a better bonus and i probably would have beat him but whatever that's pinball baby yeah so that's it for me and my news So now, so now, we finally get to the main course here. Ian, my friend, what are you doing in your pinball world right now? We are very excited to hear. I know Tim Lee is especially about Weird Al. And tell me about all the stuff. All the stuff. Yeah, so, like, most recently, I got my Weird Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity play field module. I got it a few weeks ago.
    38:52
    and I've been playing a bunch of that, streaming a bunch of that. You know, I've... Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, hey! I most... The newest additions to my collection are Weird Al, my Kelts, which I got earlier this summer, and a Kongo, which I recently finished doing a full strip down and cleaning of. So those are sort of the newest games in my collection. and my fathom should be getting in a box like any day now. Oh, nice. Hopefully this week. Hopefully next week it'll get in a box and then figure out shipping. But, yeah, so I'm playing a lot of Weird Al. I'm also, one of the things I've been spending a lot of my free time on is development for the P3 system. So I'm doing some pretty development, which we can get into a bit. But I've been doing that. I've done some streams of myself writing code, which is really weird. and a very different experience. But, yeah, I've been doing some of that, and I'm currently, I'll give you a world exclusive, world exclusive that I am this week expecting to publish a new tutorial for the game I've been working on. So I'll be releasing a tutorial so that anyone can follow along and build a simplified version of the current project I'm working on, which is called Birdwatcher. Shut up. Okay, so Birdwatcher. I thought it was Birdwatching, but Birdwatcher. So I randomly, on like a Saturday or Sunday morning, I think it was, it was a really random time, I happened to see that you were streaming, and I tune in, and I'm like, what is this? And I can see that you're coding, and I'm trying to figure out what's going on here. And you told me that it was a game about birdwatching called Birdwatcher, and I think I laughed for about two minutes straight. but it's really because it's like such a random and it's such a wonderful i love nature right so to me it's such a beautiful idea for a theme and content but i was just like i was kind of blown away and i had to chuckle a little bit because can you provide the premise of what you're doing in the game sure um so my idea i'll back up a bit so i've done i've sort of partially done about four games on the P3 right now. That's bonkers. And I haven't finished any of them. Any Rotor Coat? Congratulations. Yeah, well, that's the first thing I'm going to actually complete. But this is a purpose that is meaningful in getting to the Birdwatcher part of it. So I started with something that has no name. It's called Gamma Goat Sample App. That's what I call it. and it was inspired, like the inspiration of it was, one of the complaints everyone has about the P3 is they don't like the display. They're like, ah, the display's too busy. Ah, it's so weird. It's not pinball. And so one of the things I was trying to do with my own thing was to say, well, what would it be like if that was actually a static play field?
    42:02
    And so I actually wanted to develop a game that was actually like an EM. And so it has a static play field with inserts, and all of the information that's displayed to the user is by turning on and off lights on that virtual static display. So I'm not using any of the advanced features of the platform, although I am, to make it look like it's not advanced. You know, I take the back box to play and turn it into score reels, much like Beatles does.
    42:29
    Kind of like a reversal of pinball, right? kind of going yeah well it's just sort of like saying like how can you deconstruct it and de-evolve it it's deconstructed i'm doing this hand backwards hand motion but it's like deconstructed that's fascinating okay okay so i was working on that game and actually like i had a concept for a game that this would have been part of um there's a video game called Evoland. I don't know if you've ever heard of Evoland, but it is a RPG-type game that evolves your character as it levels through the game, evolves from like an 8-bit console era through like 16-bit to like a PS 1 era-type game. And so it keeps enhancing the graphics and changing the world around you as you move through it. I've never actually played it, I just know the concept of it. And so I had this concept of playing a pinball machine where you had, almost like Time Machine, the Data East Time Machine, where you move through different eras within the game, where you would actually move through different time periods. And it would represent Ocean City, which is the heist playfield module, in the 60s and in the 80s and in the 2000s. So you'd move through time and have different playfield elements that work during each of those time periods. but I didn't get very far in that. Anyway, so that was my first game. Never finished it, abandoned it. I'll probably never go back to it, but maybe I will. The second thing I did, I did over a weekend, and that was Buffalo Pinball was running a competition for doing a cover song of their theme song. My entry was to write a game. So if you know the theme song to their, the thing it sort of talks about a bunch of shots, like I need a ramp, I need a scoop, the targets I can hit. I need the loop. And so I actually wrote a game where as you hit the different play field elements, it would sing lyrics to the song. Nice. And then recorded myself and surprised myself that I managed to perform the lyrics of the song on the first take, actually playing the game, hitting the play field elements in the correct order, and submitted that to their contest. And that was sort of the second thing I did, which was this double super jackpot game. Great song. And I remember seeing that. That was a great entry. So then the third game, which is actually, I spent a very long time on it, and this one I will go back to, and I'm trying to actually get this to a finished state, but it's a long way from getting there, is a, this is going to sound like just a random stream of words, but it's actually really meaningful. So it is a roguelite customizable card game pinball RPG. so the idea, it's sort of a deck building game if you've ever played Slay the Spire or Grifflands or various other games like that the idea is you will play through the game, you have to fight different enemies, you do this by playing cards and you're playing your cards by shooting shots in the playfield and as you advance, you level up, you unlock more cards the first few times you play the game it will be very hard because you won't have unlocked powerful things so you have to play the game over and over again and each time you play it, you'll slowly progress. You'll unlock more things, more things to do in the game. And so the state sort of maintains and stays every time you play the pinball machine. So it's keeping your progress. Yes, it's definitely stateful.
    46:03
    That's crazy. Something I really want to develop out further. And I've got quite a lot of a game, but it's very far from being done. So there's a lot of backstory to get to Birdwatcher. So the idea behind Birdwatcher was to come up with a concept that I could finish, that I could actually get a completed project as opposed to half-finished projects. And I am strangely a huge fan of Barnyard on the P3. I, like, would never have guessed that I would be a fan of Barnyard.
    46:39
    Okay. I own Barnyard because at the time I bought the P3, Barnyard came bundled with the pack of games that I could buy at the time. Because I was very early adopter. I pre-ordered, like, I ordered it the first opportunity that they opened up sales at the Texas Funeral Festival. So I got the Lexi module along with the Cannon Lagoon module, Rocks, Barnyard, Secret Agent Showdown, and maybe that's it. And there's like a bunch of games. So Barnyard, it's a very simple game. It's a timed game. These animals walk across the screen, and you hit them with the ball.
    47:20
    There's a really secret deep technique towards the game, which most, like, deep rules knowledge. So this is the rules knowledge portion of Barnyard. If you hit a shot, like a ramp, a loop, one of the main shots in the game, that will actually cause more animals to spawn. So it's not actually about hitting animals that are on the screen. It's about hitting major shots as quickly as possible to spawn more animals onto the screen. If you can hit major shots while crossing the animals that are on the screen, you can score a lot of points. And this really simple technique, like this really simple game, ends up being really fun to try to score a chase for really advanced players. It takes a lot of skill to do well at this.
    48:02
    And so I actually really enjoy Barnyard. and so I asked myself, can I make something that's barnyard-like? And then someone was talking about a popular franchise where people collect small animals that I'm not going to be first to by name and I'm totally not copying, where you're trying to collect a book of these small pocket animals or pocket monsters into your book. And I said, I could build a game like that. And I could build it like Banya. And so my concept was to actually build a game where you were trying to collect photos of birds. Yes. And where there will be a large number of birds. There's about 15 birds in the game. And it's going to have a similar concept to my other game where if you're logged into your profile, it will save your state in your book across multiple attempts.
    48:55
    And you will try to fill out this bird book. But the game itself is very simple in that there's five bushes on the play field, and if you shoot a ramp, two of the bushes will shake, and a bird will fly out of one of those bushes, one of the two. And if you hit it with the ball, you'll take a photo of it and save that into your photo book. Yes. And also, birds spawn randomly in, like, a Poisson process,
    49:23
    like, just sort of randomly throughout time, and you can hit those as well. And then I have lots of ideas of where I can go with it, but I'm trying to actually just finish this and get it out. And the tutorial which I've written is basically this complete game, but without all of the flash and visual presentation around it. Just like the how would you implement what I just described. Spawning birds, doing light shows around that, and various things like that. And I hope to have that tutorial out like this week. Well, that's the nuts and bolts. And that's what people need. Tim, take it away so there's a lot of things there but first I have to say you don't know this Rachel but Amy Lee is a bird watcher her and my friend Rob love to watch birds and one thing they both told me that there are certain birds that you always hear but you never see like they're like oh you've probably heard this bird a thousand times but you probably never saw one because you know they They avoid humans. So Amy would like that. But I actually like the concept, the building on top of everything. And similar to one of the questions I asked Raymond, I have a little bit of software engineering experience. How did you build this? How did you build the concept? Once you decided you wanted to do it, did you just wing it? Did you build out like, you know, as a software engineer, did you build like epics with stories? Did you do a Glenn where you flow charted everything? How did you take it from a simple concept to actually building out some of the roles? Yeah, so for like Birdwatcher, for example, which is very simple, the tutorial version of it, I mostly had the concept of the flow of how I could do it. You're starting from the SDK that Multimorphic has provided. and it has an example application within it. And the way things are structured, it's very, like, you have a mode class.
    51:33
    You have scenes. A scene is, like, could be a mode in the game, but it's sort of like a visual view of the world. It's something in the GUI layer. Okay. And then you build modes on top of that. You can activate various modes, and modes can do anything you want. Like, there's a, I have a basic scoring mode. Basic scoring mode doesn't do anything but listen for hits to targets, ramps, loops, slingshots, side targets, and it assigns point values. It will just increase your score by 10 when you hit a slingshot.
    52:09
    And it has a priority, and it listens to those events, and that sort of runs. and then I build on top of that like there's a basic what I call the bird ramp mode and the bird ramp mode's job is that when you shoot the ramp and then the ball goes through the inlay it spawns the bird on the screen that's it's job that's what it does and so I sort of had a concept of how to break down the class structure it's like this is the components I'm going to need and then I sort of just wing it and start moving parts and getting things working and then generally hit a spot where i'm like oops my source of truth is in the wrong spot or i'm not sending the right data back and forth between these two things and then i go back rework it and sort of evolve it that way and i think like i am like rachel was asking me earlier when we came on here she's like if you want to send like show notes an outline of what you want to talk about i'm like no i like to just wing it and that's how i approach like a lot of things and i've been a professional engineer like software engineer for 15 years. But I am not an organized person. I am a inspiration-based person. I sort of have, like through university, when I wanted to solve a problem, I would juggle and just hope that the answer came to me. And it generally did, because that's the way my brain works. And I generally approach my programming the same way. I just kind of wing it and make fixes when I need to. And if I have to completely rewrite and restructure things, that's how I do it. So I'm not like an engineer engineer. I'm very much a hacky engineer. I love it. Yeah, we have something in common.
    53:46
    I'm a hacky engineer as well. But I know other people who have written complete scripts, and they have complete storyboards of how everything's going to go, and they have completely written out all of their rules. That's just not me. I'm like, let's try this and see what happens. And there was a recent interview. I'm trying to remember. I think it was with Mike Vinacore. Oh, yeah. It was actually from Louisville Arcade Expo. It was on Broken Token. And so there's a – I think it's with Dwight and Mike, Dwight Sullivan and Mike Vinacore. And one of them was talking about, like, this – Mike was talking about one of the modes that him and Lonnie had developed. And they were really excited about it. And it was like – they were like, this is going to be a great mode. And then they, like, implemented it. And they tried it the next day. and they're like, yeah, no, this doesn't work. We're throwing it out. Because, like, your ideas don't always translate into something that's fun in the machine. So I'd rather prototype and try something and see what works and throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Yeah, you could spend days just coming up with stories, and like you said, you put them on the machine, and they're like, eh, that's really not that fun. Now, just to confirm, which Playfield module are you building this on? So Birdwatcher, much like Barnyard, is playfield module independent. So it actually works on all of the playfield modules. Oh, okay. So the platform itself has a really interesting, like, each module has a configuration and in real time, your program can read that configuration and respond to it So it gives you a description of all of the lights that are available in the game where the lights are within the game So in the tutorial one of the effects I do is when you hit the bird it does a flash, a camera flash, which is centered around the bird and does a horizontal sweep outwards of all of the lights in the playfield, all of the lights in the playfield module from that point. and you can kind of write those things such that they work on all of the playfield modules and all future playfield modules. Are you doing the art or the video, I should say? Yeah, for Birdwatcher, I am. I don't know if it's going to be good, but I'm doing sort of a very low-poly bird that I'm modeling in Blender. So it's got a very low-poly style. For my other games, I've actually bought assets for them. I think that's all really incredible and amazing and I really love your big brain there Ian because those are just and yours too Tim and Raymond yours too anybody that's able to do that kind of stuff because to me that just blows me away to like take this idea and just make it happen and just do the thing with your big pot and stir the pot and throw some magic fairy dust in there and you do this thing and bringing that kind of content is unbelievable. I'm just excited about it. I can't wait to play it. I am a hobbyist. I'm a hobbyist who is doing something. I am by no means claiming to be anywhere near where Raymond or Tim or Oh, listen, but it doesn't matter because we have the passion and that's what I'm talking about. It's just like because I can't because for me, that's like a deficit. For me, my brain doesn't work in that way. I would never be able to do that. So no matter what your level of skill is, I still think it's a super rad thing because it's something I can't do, you know? Or my brain doesn't work out. Like, your brain may not, like, you may not have the skill set, the knowledge right now to going and write a game. Right. But I think that there is, like, there's a future world where you can contribute your ideas, where your ideas can be materialized within the game. And I think that there is ways to get there. And some of the Homebrew frameworks, and I don't know a lot about them, but I think if you look at, like, Mission Pinball framework, it is a much more friendly entry point toward describing what you want in more of a, like, what I'm writing in, like, I'm writing C Sharp, I'm using Unity, and I'm writing in C Sharp. And I could, you know, that's the easier interface for me. But I think Mission Pinball framework gives you the ability to, like, write modes in much more of a configuration-like way. where you don't have to actually learn programming languages.
    58:22
    And if you, like, getting, ignoring all of the fraud and bullshit and crap that happened with Deep Root, if you think about what they were describing in their attempts to build, and I guess what Turner was building for their way to build out code sets for games, they were describing much more of, like, a visual programming type interface where you didn't have to program to do this. And I think there is a future where we get there. Like even my, one of my, like the card-based project, actually the vast majority of my modes, I just write in a config language. I wrote a config language. I can write modes that are like, okay, hit this, hit this shot, this shot, this shot, just as a configuration language, because that's what I wanted to be able to do. And so you can do these sorts of things, or people can write tools that one day you'll be able to do these things. Well, I hope for that day, because I'd love to design a game at some point down the road. I think that it would be fun. You know, just not right now. I've got other projects. I've got my fingers in a lot of different pinball projects right now, I think. That's really fascinating. One other question that I did not ask yet is, what are you drinking tonight? What am I drinking? Yes, we did not start with what I'm drinking. Yes.
    59:37
    I am drinking a Partake Brewing Hazy IPA non-alcoholic beer. Ooh, that sounds refreshing. Well, it is bursting with flavor and low on bitterness. It's generously dry hopped with notes of ripe apricots, sweet mango, and juicy berries. This hazy IPA is juicy, smooth, and fit for everyday enjoyment. Sounds fantastic.
    60:02
    Should I read my beer? Is that the new thing? I'm drinking a lime and kugel's summer shandy, liced beer with natural lemonade flavor. Mmm. What about you, Tim Lee? And it's a tall boy. I'm having one. It's a tall boy. What about you, Tim Lee? I'm drinking water.
    60:22
    Very boring today. I apologize. You're still recovering. Yeah, it was a rough couple of weeks. So just high-quality H2O. Yes. We waited months and months for Weird Al to come out. So let's talk about Weird Al. Yes. I was sitting here thinking I really want to talk about Weird Al, But actually, I could sit and talk about development and coding of games for a very long time. I have a game in my noggin when I get my P3 in September that I'm going to hopefully develop very simple. But, yeah, let's talk about Weird Al. So really simple question to start. Do you like it? For real. I mean, is it everything you expected? So I'll say I like it. I like it a lot. I don't yet know whether I like it more than Heist.
    61:14
    And that's both from a game standpoint and a playfield standpoint. I'm not sure yet. It's going to take a little while to form that opinion. I really like Heist. I really like the Heist playfield, the geometry. I think Weird Al is the left ramp on Weird Al is very easy and very safe. And as a result, being the tournament player in me, I gravitate towards doing the easy repeatable thing. And so I find that within the game, I spend a lot of time shooting the left ramp. and I tend not to like it when I'm spending all of my time in one spot. That may change, but that's sort of like one of my initial criticisms of it. But it's really fun. The immersion, the modes, the variety that's there, it's got this, it's a point-pushing type game where you can push and push and push those modes and some of them are really, really rewarding and really fun from that perspective. Others, not so much. Some of them are very hard, but they're sort of developing through the code. And they haven't quite finished everything yet, so I don't want to pass judgment before the full game's there. But it's a ton of fun. So, I don't know. That's a long-winded answer to say yes, it's good. No, no. You know, I have some of the, you know, kind of the same thoughts as well. I thought the left ramp was really easy. I cannot hit that spiral ramp. I just struggle with it, mainly because, and don't take this as a criticism. This is just something I have to figure out when I get it. I can't see the left top flipper, so I miss the shot a lot. I mean, but it doesn't bother me. I mean, there are people jumping off the roof, oh, my God, you can't see the flipper. But I'll just learn it, right? I got to spend more time on it, but I can't hit that shot. That one's a struggle for me. Well, I'll say two things to the you can't see the flipper thing. So one, when you get your game, you can optionally not put the plastic over top of it. Yeah. So if you don't put the Weird Al plastic on, you can see the flipper. It's just there. Like there's a clear, clear Lexan cover and it's fully exposed. So if you want to do that, you can do that in your game.
    63:44
    The other thing is, I actually think you can see the flipper. Like, perfect. I think that if you actually look and you say, can I see the flipper? Your answer would be yes. I think unless you're doing something really weird, like shifting your body completely to the left to watch the ball come down the lane, then you could get yourself into a view where you can't see it. But you probably actually can see it, and you're just using that as an excuse. That's my belief. Because I've sat there, and I've looked at it, and I'm like, yep, it's there. unless you're like massively taller than me and have a different view on the world but I actually think that most people are probably tricking themselves into saying that they can't see it I think Rachel I think Ian just called me out you're not playing it the right way is what I think what he's telling you there yeah I need to get better I'll be clear like You can't see the entirety of the flipper, but you can see the flipper rubber.
    64:52
    Yeah, it's just something that it doesn't bother me at all. I was just kind of picking on folks that are really bothered by it, but it's just something I've got to learn, right? It's just a new thing in a pinball machine that I haven't really done before, and I only play it at Justin's. I probably have. I haven't played it in a while. I did look at his plastic, and I'm like, I think I could take that off, but I think I'm going to try to learn it, you know, before I start altering the game. But, man, when you hit it, such a satisfying shot. Yes. So, Tim, have you had a chance to attempt to drink from the fire hose yet on the newer code? No, and the plan was for me to get out to Justin's, and then I got sick. I wanted to go and try to drink from the fire hose before this interview, but I managed to be sick for two full weeks, so, no, I haven't gotten out there yet. So Drink from the Firehose is a new feature that's been added to the game. You can earn a ticket to drink from the Firehose. You can also get it as a reward from the mystery. And it's very similar to the million-dollar shot in NBA Fastbreak or Oxygen Destroyer in Godzilla,
    66:05
    where when you drain out of your ball, you're given a mini-game to try to earn your right to keep playing. And so it will feed 10 balls to that upper left flipper, and you have to hit three upper spiral ramp shots out of those 10 balls to continue to play. And it's quite fun, and the shot becomes much harder when you have the pressure of trying to save your ball, and it's really fun, and it's enjoyable. And everybody loves Craig from the Firehose because it was such a great moment, and the mode has great music. Best got to DC.
    66:43
    Yeah. So I hope you get a chance to try it sometime soon. Yeah, it'll be soon. They said September. I just saw it on stream. It looks really cool. Were you a Weird Al fan before the game? Not really. You know, I think I'm the typical, I appreciate Weird Al, but Weird Al isn't really something I've followed heavily through recent times. So, like, in the sort of Michael Jackson parody era with Edith and that, you know, it was very big and very prominent, sort of got a lot of radio play, and I certainly enjoyed his music in that kind of time frame. And I had some exposure to it in some of the, like, 90s, 2000s stuff, but not all that heavy. So a bunch of the music and that within the game is very new to me, but I actually appreciate it a ton now. Like Mission Statement is probably my favorite song in the game. I'd never heard that before. It's a great song. Hardware Store is a banging song.
    67:59
    So I like a lot more. Harvey is a great song for the, like, 15 seconds that the song is or whatever it is. So yeah, I have much more appreciation for the music. I think that as a license, this has introduced me to more Weird Al. It is doing the thing a license is supposed to do. Yeah, that's why I was just going to ask you, did you start to like the music or not? And it sounds like it is yes. So what's your favorite mode in the game?
    68:29
    Mission statement, I believe, is my favorite mode. So it is a song and mode, gotcha. Yeah, it's really interesting. So the way the mode works, like Rachel, I don't know if you've seen much of this. I've only played it once. Yeah, so Mission Statement is one of the modes that progresses with the song. So it's a time-based mode. It changes throughout it as the song changes, and the video assets are actually in the music video. So it's all kind of synchronized to the lyrics and the music from that perspective. and it goes through, it alternates through phases of building your stock value where you have to hit the left ramp or the right ramp or the spiral ramp to build your stock price. And then it will transition to a phase where the scoop, one of the scoops will pop up and you shoot the ball in there to sell your stock. And then it will feed a new ball and your scoop will pop up and you have like 10 seconds of selling. And then it goes back to a build phase. and it's just this great risk reward where like it just really builds and builds and builds and then you want to stack in a multi-ball because if you add multi-balls then modes don't end and there's actually a moment where you get a stock split which thematically makes sense and it actually adds a ball and that becomes a two ball mode um if you manage to do a stock split and it's just a really nice like how high can i build this yeah point pushing type game and that mode I really enjoy the build and sell process of that so you're looking for that risk over reward you like pushing the risk yeah when I play I'm actually generally not super excited about point pushing games tend not to be my favorite they tend to be much more of a progress towards objectives and goals one of the reasons I sold ACDC despite ACDC being a really, really great game. And I love it in competition. But I got pretty bored of just trying to build my song jackpots to the point where I could beat my previous high score. Like, I don't know. Do I really want to do this right now? Like, it's not so much fun. And I'd play it to try to get to encore, but it got kind of boring from that perspective. because we're not typically in a point-pushing kind of mode, but there's something about the fact that in Weird Al, there's that early exit, and behind the drop target, once you've made a few shots in the mode, that will actually, if you drop the drop target and go behind it, you'll exit the mode. Okay. And avoiding that, you have to actually actively avoid that, and so many times I'll save a ball, and it'll go straight into that mode exit and I'll be so angry. It's like, no, I didn't want to exit this mode. And I was talking to Jerry and Jerry's like, that's his favorite point when anyone's playing the game, where they're like angry because they hit the shot and exited the mode. And so like little things like that change it a little bit. And like they add this, like strategically thinking about where you want to shoot on the play field to make sure that you're not accidentally exiting out and various things like that is pretty interesting. Right, instead of hitting the right ramp, you hit the right loop, you know? Like, I understand. And I actually love the idea that you could exit out of a mode like that, but I can also understand how frustrating that would be too, especially if you're chapped up and you're like, I just have to hit the one thing one more time, and then you miss, and you hit the exit. Crap.
    72:10
    I mean, right? It's like a big old pile of crap. That's actually fascinating. I've only had an opportunity. I need to go down to Ryan Kuyper's. congratulations on his little baby that they had. Yeah, congrats, Ryan. Yeah, another tribe member. But I need to get down there and play his Weird Al. I did get a chance to play one at Neo Skywalker's tournament that he had a month or two months ago. Two months ago, maybe? Anyway, and it was a lot of fun, but I didn't get a chance to explore most of the modes, but I'm pretty sure I didn't play that one. I really want to get more time on it. It sounds like so much fun. Yeah. The interesting thing is you would think that there's not a lot on a module that's only, what, a third of the play field. Right. But there's so many, like, holes in, like, places that the ball can disappear, especially in that, you know, that back orbit, that it's kind of fascinating.
    73:02
    I'm really excited. Like I said, September is when mine's supposed to come in. I am excited. I will probably be sending you a lot of messages. I'm already messaging Ryan Kuyper. he was crazy enough to give me his phone number so I'm constantly texting him things and how do you like it? what are you doing? give me some tips I didn't watch your stream live I was watching the rerun of your stream and I'm just excited I haven't been this excited about a game in a while I have all the time I've put on it at Justin's house Justin would let me but you just don't want to go to somebody's house and be like can I stay here for four hours and play your game? so I'm stoked to get it now on the heist concept I really like heists I was taken back by how fun that game is you know that kind of I never really played it until it you know Justin got it and went out to play Weird Al and I ended up playing quite a lot of heists you know as well so just two fantastic games and I've only played a few of the other modules but heists is the real deal Well, one of the things with heist for me is, like, as I said, I love the geometry of heist. I have spent hours and hours and hours flipping heist with my completely doing nothing code on it, where I'm essentially just flipping on heist as a whitewood.
    74:35
    And it is, I just enjoy, I can have code that does nothing. And I just enjoy flipping that geometry. It is just really satisfying for me, and I just really like it. I think Silver Falls, which is Nick Baldrige's game, which plays on the Heist Playfield module, kind of takes advantage of that. Like you're kind of just shooting stuff and building stuff, and then you move into a mode where you have to, like, move into modes where you have to hit specific things. But it kind of takes advantage of the fact that it's just really fun to shoot. And so, put on top of that the fact that the heist code is stellar, it tells a story, the characters are interesting, I feel like attachment to these characters. I feel like I know them. Like, they have personalities, and I feel like I'm talking to them, and they're a diverse representative group, and everything about this game just really clicks with me personally. yeah it it clicked with me as well and to all those folks that really don't like the integration of the play field well you're missing out you know give it a second third fourth chance yeah a lot of fun it's really such a unique really unique table yeah it's cool now i'm going to change the subject here really quick rachel i didn't tell you this but we have a listener question for Ian. Oh, amazing. I may have let it slip to one of the Tribe members who was going to be on next, and Tribe multi-ball superfan Glenn Wechter has asked, and you had mentioned this earlier, Ian, he wants to know the juggling origin story. The juggling origin story? Yeah, he had reminded me that you were into juggling, And maybe, did you do yo-yos as well? Or was it just juggling? Yeah, I have done yo-yos. I do a lot of, or did do a lot of manipulation.
    76:36
    So, like, so yeah. What is my juggling origin story? I juggled as a child. Okay. You know, I remember in grade school, I would juggle tennis balls.
    76:50
    You know, we would play Muffet, I think we called it. it was a game where we played this a lot in grade school a game where you threw a tennis ball against the wall and you had to catch the tennis ball and if you dropped the tennis ball you were out we played a lot of this but one of the things that happened when you played this game is you would roof it occasionally you threw the ball and it would land on the roof and you would lose your tennis ball and you wouldn't be able to play Muffet anymore and we had a rule that if you roofed someone's tennis ball, you had to replace their tennis ball with two tennis balls.
    77:34
    Oh. And I sort of, one of my friends was actually like a tennis, he played tennis competitively. His dad was a tennis coach. They had lots of tennis balls. And so I just sort of started building up tennis balls. And I learned to juggle those tennis balls when I was very young. So I could juggle four, probably in grade, like, four or five. Oh, wow. Something like that. But then I didn't really, like, keep up with it or do much about it or didn't really realize there was much about juggling until I got to university. And in university, one of my roommates juggled. And he didn't just, like, juggle. He, like, performed. He knew tricks. He knew all kinds of stuff. And it's very much like that moment when people realize that pinball machines have rules. They're like, wait, pinball machines have rules? I thought you just flipped the flippers and random stuff happened. And I'm like, wait, you can actually do more with juggling than just a cascade and a fountain? I didn't know what a cascade and a fountain were at the time. But those are your basic pattern. With even number of balls, you do fountains. With odd number of balls, you do a cascade. but so he showed me things like a pattern which is called mill's mess which is very simple but showy pattern where your arms cross and uncross as you juggle the balls you know various things like four four one which is completely meaningless probably to you but it's a sight swap there's a thing called sight swap which is a way of describing juggling tricks It's very cool math behind it. But anyways, 4-4-1 is like a simple three ball trick where you throw one ball up on the outside, throw another ball up on the outside, and then pass one ball across from the bottom. You can repeat that pattern indefinitely. So I started learning these tricks. I joined the University Juggling Club, started to learn to juggle clubs, pass clubs, do various things like that. I started running the University of Waterloo Juggling Club, learned to run a unicycle. learned to do flair bartending learned to do yo-yo tricks cigar boxes complex balances tried to do a little bit of slack robe it's never very good at that but sort of like every type of manipulation that was out there i wanted to be able to do more than the average person on so like i do like four yo-yo tricks that will impress you um i can do some kendama tricks i can do like Just enough with everything. So that if someone was like, can you do something with this? I'm like, yes, I can impress you with this, but I can't do much more than that.
    80:16
    I sort of learned to juggle. I could juggle six balls okay. I was trying to learn to get to seven. I could almost juggle five clubs. I could pass seven, pass eight sometimes, do a bunch of tricks. And sort of through university, this is what I did. I juggled. It was like that was my everything I did in my free time. Well, hold up. You kind of slipped this in there. You rode the unicycle? And flair bartending? Yeah. Like you just kind of said those nonchalantly. Me too.
    80:53
    This is the question then. Can you juggle while riding a unicycle on a slack rope, or can you do flair bartending while predicting a card trick while, I don't know, bodyboarding? I don't know, crowd surfing? I love that, Ian. That's awesome.
    81:12
    Yeah, I was okay at unicycling. Unicycling was much like all the other things. I was okay at unicycling. I could ride around town. I couldn't idle. So idling is when you stay in one spot by moving forward and backward. I never learned to idle I could stay in one spot by hopping so I could stop and I could hop in one spot because that was much easier so I learned to do that and I could sort of get around from that standpoint I learned a few like trick mounts which I don't some of these things were I don't know why I thought these things were good ideas but like They are important life skills because, let me tell you, when we are at a tribe meetup, I'm going to hand you a couple of bottles and a shaker glass, and I'm going to have you do some flair bartending for me. I don't even care about the juggly. I'm much more focused on that because I'm thinking cocktail, you know, like the movie. I'm thinking I can't wait to see Ian like that, just these things, you know, flip the bottle around his head and stuff. I learned a little bit of flair. um so there was a a local a local company um called flare co like local to ontario that built practice bottles um and i got to know the owners of that because we invited them to the juggling festival that came out um so i learned a bunch of stuff i enjoyed certain aspects of the flare bartending stuff like i enjoyed bounces and stalls um i had learned juggling the juggling version of shaker cups which they're they're not like bartending ones um they allow you to do a lot of like they separate very easily they weighted to flip in certain ways the jugglers do tricks and so then I wanted to learn like the real thing And it much much harder And there a one of the interesting things between flair bartenders and jugglers is that flair bartenders don drop Jugglers drop. They push themselves to the limit. You always end in failure. It's much like pinball. The ball always goes down at the end of the day. so like performers will learn to do a trick until they can like make sure that they're going to be able to perform it um in their show consistently but just casual jugglers learning a trick you're failing you're dropping it's like if you can hit that trick one time at 10 you're like this is awesome i can show people this is super fun uh fly bartenders learn to do what they're doing with glass and they don't drop. So they have to learn to not drop. And when they do drop, they also have to learn to jump away because the glass, when it shatters, will shoot into your shins and things like that. So it's a very different world from that perspective.
    84:07
    I learned a little bit, like enough to be able to do a couple things. But, like, I could – and I don't know how to make strings. So it was only, like, sort of part of that. That's the best thing. You don't mix it in. Yeah, Rachel, you'll be entertained, but your drink is going to stink. That's why I love that.
    84:31
    I love that. I love learning about just cool things that people get into. And, like, you know, it's like you take a little peek, a little corner, a little piece of paper, you peek underneath it, and you get to find out all these cool things about people. Thank you for sharing that. That's a great question, Glenn, because I had no idea about the juggling. No clue. That is part of my extended origin story for pinball. Okay.
    84:59
    I do want to get to your origin story about pinball, because I did do a little creeping on you. And you've been playing for some time. So take us away on that journey. Well, so, like, as I said, I was super into juggling. juggling puts you into this sort of think I think researchers call it like a state of flow you have this you're in a very soft focus kind of world like you're following five objects in the air you know you can't look at any of them but you need to see all of them and it puts me into this really relaxed state I really enjoyed it and I did that all through university when I left grad school and started working, I stopped juggling. Like, I didn't have time to do it on a regular basis, and I got really frustrated at getting bad at it. So, I would be trying to learn something, and if I wasn't doing it three times a week, I would just be regressing and regressing and regressing, and I couldn't learn new tricks, I couldn't learn new skills, and I wasn't really enjoying it as much. At work, I started to get into playing foosball rock band and when we moved to our new office we bought a pinball machine or they bought a pinball machine they bought a Stern Spiderman one of the people who worked there was like we should get a machine he owned some machines at his house he's like the only good designers are Steve Ritchie and Pat Lawler so we should get Spiderman because it's a Steve Ritchie machine he didn't know any other designers but he owned a Twilight Zone and Adam's family and this is what his opinion was. So we got the Spider-Man machine and the foosball table line was too big because too many people wanted to play foosball. Okay. And so I'm like, I'll give this pinball thing a try. And I was playing it and the friend who had sort of like organized buying it, he was very rough on the machine. He would death save and bang back and do all kinds of stuff like that. And I was like, wait a minute, you can do that?
    87:14
    And I got this kind of like instant, once I realized the physicality and nudging and all of that aspect of the game, as opposed to like I'm pressing these buttons and missing these shots and nothing is happening, that kind of changed my mind on things. And I seemed to immediately have a talent for it. So I played very well. And my pinball skills were very much like my juggling skills. As a juggler, I tend to think of jugglers as two types of people. There's people who throw very consistently, and therefore catching is very easy for them. And then there are people who suck at throwing, but can catch the ball wherever it is. And I'm very much the type of person who can catch the ball wherever it is. And my pinball is very similar in that I am horribly inaccurate, but I can keep the ball alive. So I recover play very well. Okay. And I kind of got hooked because it gave me that same feeling, you know, playing multi-ball. It got me into the soft focus kind of feel. It was very similar to the juggling feeling. Yeah. And except it had, like, points and bells and whistles. Well, not literally bells. But it had, like, sounds and lights and all this stuff. Yeah. And it gave me the same feeling as juggling, but with better feedback and not actually as much requirement skill-wise to continue to maintain a certain level to have fun.
    88:46
    And I probably played that game, well, every work day plus some weekends where I would go into the office and that for like a year. like almost every day for a year I played that game. And I sort of asked them, I'm like, how much did this thing cost? This must have cost like $6,500 or something like that. And they were like, no, this was only $4,500. That's how much it cost. Canadian for that machine. And I'm like, huh, well, I could buy one of these for my house. and so I immediately started looking around and at that time Wizard of Oz was coming out in theory very soon and so I'm like huh, well I could afford one of these and it was not a $4,500 machine it was a bunch more than that but I put myself on a list for a standard edition Wizard of Oz and then eventually I got that and you know what it's like when you get a machine They start to grow, and I found a league locally. There was actually, I'd looked for a league, and I'd saw some postings about a local league, but I couldn't really find any contacts of where it was happening. And then one day I found out that in town there was this thing called the Total Man Show, and as part of the Total Man Show, someone was bringing pinball machines, and they were going to run a pinball tournament. I'm like, I can play pinball. So I went out and I knew no one. I didn't know what I was doing. And I went to this sports dome where there was this really strange total man show, which had like kickboxing and a pinball tournament. And I entered this pinball tournament. I spent two days there and did okay. Met some people. A bunch of them were from the league, joined the league, sort of started competing. you know we had a really unusual fortunate circumstance with like this league that I was in and I didn't realize it at the time like the first night I went out to I went to someone's house and I came first on one of the games that we played and I was like oh this game's really fun and I did really well on it and that game was Stargazer it's like oh yeah just like you know just a Stargazer that's all it's like yeah like everyone's got one of those. So yeah, playing like a bunch of really cool, interesting basement collections. And after I came back from playing that League night, I'm like, huh.
    91:37
    I only have new machines. I'm on an old machine now. So I went out and got a Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Started to play a bunch of old machines. And things grew and went from there. And I don't know, I'm rambling. So I'll shut up. No, it's a good reason. No, no, keep on going. Yeah. I like the ramble. I guess my question is, when did you start streaming? How far into your pinball journey were you like, ah, there's this streaming thing, I better be doing that? I started streaming after, and you could fact check that I actually like looking at my stream, but who knows, I don't know these things. That's okay. You can make it up. The same Texas Pinball Festival, where I, it's the only one I've been to, where I sort of saw the P3 for the first time and ordered it. I was playing the Wizards tournament there, and Jack Danger had come to stream that tournament. And I had sort of seen a bit of streaming, and it was fairly early in my competitive play. But I saw what Jack was doing to stream the games, and I'm like, this seems feasible. This seems like something I would like to be able to do. I'd like to be able to stream tournament play. But I also kind of figured I started streaming because I was playing anyway at home, and occasionally something really cool might happen. And if I do something really cool or something really weird happens on the game, it'd be nice to have a record of it. I basically just started streaming for myself, and I would say I still just stream for myself. You know, I appreciate everyone who comes in. I enjoy chatting with chat. But I actually don't play that much outside of my streaming right now. it's sort of like an excuse for me to actually stream for a while to show off games and try to get somewhere on them and so I really enjoy that aspect of it but yeah it was really just seeing that this was like within reach and feasible and I started exploring it and moving from there IFPA says that was in 2016 by the way there's your fact check I did fact checking during that 2016 you went to Texas Pinball Fest. That's interesting. I like the idea that you're streaming it to record your own game. It's about other people, people coming in the chat and so forth. But also because you can learn from that, from watching your own, what you're doing. Yeah, I told myself that at the beginning. I would go back, I would watch the recordings of myself. I would see where I made mistakes. I would try to improve. My very early streams, actually The concept that I did for my streams was I would play against myself in two-player games, and I would take the games that I would have, and I would apply two competing strategies on the games and see which one would win more consistently throughout the night. Okay. That's interesting. So, like, on an older game like Prospector that I own, I would take the gold strategy versus the spinner strategy, and I would do exclusively spinner all day versus exclusively trying to collect gold bonus and see which one would win more. You know, in modern games like, say, Star Trek, a stern Star Trek, I would take the three deep strategy versus the play the first level bowed strategy and I would play those two strategies against each other and see which one ended up being more beneficial for my play style. Which one is more beneficial? Because I had a big game on stream over. Did you see that, Ian? I don't know if you saw that, because I know you're watching Fox News all over that summer classic series, but I did have a really big game on Star Trek on stream. It's my best game of the weekend, but I'm curious about what strategy do you actually take on there? So it depends on how it's playing, really. Like, I don't actually do exclusively one or the other. Imagine there's no ball save, and that the game plays, you know, it's competition, install, and it plays kind of mean. I mean, like, as long as, like, I will, in a match play type situation, I'm going to be trying to get towards multi-ball and stacking my modes, and I will probably try to get to super ramps and not expect that I can get to Kobayashi. And so I will probably just try to do space jump, prime directive, and save the enterprise to get my super ramps and get my two multi-balls going and hope that that's enough. That's kind of my approach that I'm going to take. And I'm going to probably play Space Jump first, which a lot of people disagree with. But I'll start with Space Jump. And I'll actually try to progress through Space Jump. I like the sequence of shots on Space Jump. I find them to be fairly easy. And if I accidentally make progress towards having my multi-ball close to being ready during Space Jump, I can use the away team to do a fast exit out of space jump by doing the away team in the shot up the middle to then be able to switch my mode more quickly without having to wait through the entire timer so that I can stack it with the next mode with the multiball. Okay. I'm always interested to see what people actually choose to do there because there are, again, there are different ways to play a game. So I like the idea of using stream time too to figure out what strategy is actually better and what's better for me as a player. I don't care about how the other people's games are, but what's better with my style of playing. So I dig that a lot. Yeah, like I think Star Trek's a great example of a game where a lot of players know all, like the first level modes aren't that complicated. They're all time-based, but people generally know the shot sequence. But even high-end tournament players, a lot of them don't know what any of the second level modes or third level modes are like. There are times when I believe strategically the correct thing in that game to do is to play Klingon 2. Klingon 2 is a really valuable, really easy mode where all you have to do is hit the left ramp. And if you're on a game where you can backhand the left ramp, it's similar to Nero 3 but easier, you can just backhand the left ramp and get through Klingon 2. you don't necessarily have to play Klingon 3 is actually pretty tough but there's a lot of points in there you could use this as a maybe you're getting close to Kobayashi and it's ball 2 and you want to push it a little deeper do a Klingon 2 maybe you're a few points away and you're chasing someone Klingon 2 might be much safer to get those points than taking a Save the Enterprise or a Prime Directive I appreciate that perspective I'm going to try that next time we get a chance to play it Tim, you still with us? I'm still here I got a little note. Ian, you actually were the first stream on Twitch I've ever watched. I don't remember what you were streaming. I just remember, I think it might have been Glenn that said, hey, Ian's on. And I signed up for Twitch. And I wish I could remember what you were streaming that day. But you're the first stream I ever watched. Was it when Brad was streaming with me? No. but it wasn't Glenn it was Brad who told me to watch you I thought it was Glenn but no it was Brad Hopkins yeah but it was around that timeline so that's all I have another question about your origin story I know that currently you're not doing a lot of competitive playing and I respect that my question though is what was your highest ranking So I think, I'm not sure what IFPA will say because they snapshot at the end of the month for the history page. But I think my highest was around 98th. That's awesome. Wow. And that would have been right after the three years ago New York City Pinball Championships where I got second place in Classics. Wow. And that was my biggest point win at that point. and I've consistently done well at InDisc, and I've had some other good tournaments in there, but that was like a 70-point tournament or something like that. Wow, that's just bonkers.
    100:04
    No, I was curious about that because it came up on the show previously about who is the highest-ranked tribe member, and I totally selfishly said that I am.
    100:17
    And I'm going to next day through my head as I'm listening to the edit of the show, I'm like, oh, I wanted to ask that because being in the top 100, that ain't no joke, my friend. That's super impressive. So I can't wait for you and I to play a game together at some point down the road. So you can totally fool me or vice versa. You know, I think it'd be a good time and I am I have my good days and I have my bad days. I believe if I can win any game, but I can also really lose any game at any time. Preach. Preach that or you stupid finger fumble at the end and you have it all stacked and ready to go and your multi-ball's sitting there and you try to take the shot, you trap up the ball and try to take the shot and you brick and drain. And that is the story of my life sometimes too, my friend. And that's just what happens. That's just how pinball is. Plus I have three years of machines that I haven't played. so like all of the modern games that have come out I barely know how to play any of them well then he just messaged Glenn Wechter because he'll give you all the rules he keeps up on all that I'm not kidding you just go straight to Godzilla and I'm going to be honest I'm a little upset Rachel you didn't invite me to this game because I think I can beat you both this guy who didn't see his ball roll right off the flipper that was strapped up that might be the worst way to drain your ball might be the absolute worst way i really need i've been there and i'm like oh i can just give it a little flick um that didn't quite work so i think that brings us full circle to the final question are you nervous? you should be he looks nervous, yeah the most difficult question my friend Ian how did you get to become part of the tribe of the poor man's pinball podcast so I think that I got added to the tribe before they figured out what the tribe was you are number four but it was very much about I and Brad and Albert to a degree, although Albert was very much at that point that was when he was going through his phase of not liking the poor men because they swore every three seconds.
    102:50
    The three of us played in league together. We knew each other quite well. I started doing what I do with everyone, which is pedantically correcting people when they make mistakes. and drowning in make a lot of mistakes. So I communicated with them quite regularly.
    103:10
    That's the mothership of mistakes right there, right? But it really came down to, so I was the first listener to submit a listener love letter. Okay. So when they asked for listener love letters, mine is not dirty and raunchy. to very much of a degree at all, but it told my story of how I started listening to Poor Man's Pinball Podcast and how it was kind of a dirty, secret thing that was slightly embarrassing that I was listening to this. But I told the origin story of why I started listening and submitted a love letter, and I think that's really the thing that cemented me getting into the tribe. Okay. I remember that love letter. The show does, it feels so good, yet it's so dirty.
    104:07
    So for people who hadn't heard what I wrote there, the reason I started listening to Poor Man's Pinball Podcast was I had seen Steve Bowden share their first episode, and that sort of stuck in my mind to some degree, but I didn't listen. And then I started hearing a lot of buzz about this really great new podcast, And I'd listened to an episode of Head to Head, Martin Robbins interviewing these two guys from this new podcast and talking about how great their podcast was, how polished it was and well edited, encouraging them to continue to move forward with their podcast. And their podcast had this weird name that I couldn't really remember. It really didn't stick out in my head. And then I was watching MGC and got the Wonka reveal. And these two dopey looking guys walk up to the machine with their poor man's pinball podcast shirts on and proceed to like play six balls in about 30 seconds. I'm not sure they even touched the ball. It's given a poor man's pinball podcast. That's that show that everyone's been saying is so great. And it's so polished. and I went and I downloaded it and I listened to it and I'm like, there's no way in hell this is the podcast everyone's been talking about as being so great and so polished and of course that podcast was Loser Kid um everyone was talking about Loser Kid with these two guys wearing these polo and cymbal shirt but what I liked about it was that it was very authentic, like that they were really authentic. They were really real, and it was entertaining. That's hilarious. I started to speculate.
    106:01
    Oh, my gosh. I love that. That's amazing. Ian and Drew gave you a nice visual cue as to, you know, this other podcast you should be listening to as well. That's so funny. A couple of things I want to make sure we mention is that Pinball Nerds Podcast is now on the Poor Man's Pinball Network. So let's welcome him. Yeah. I think that's amazing that he's in front of us now, too. Great first episode. Yeah. Really good, yep. I got halfway through the second one today. I just wanted to mention that. And there was something else about that, about your tribe story, and it just flew right out of my head. That's why I should probably write down notes after I've had one beer. Anyway. Ian, I'd actually like to thank you. I know you listen to every one of our episodes. Now, you haven't corrected us a lot, so we must be doing a really good job. But, no, you said some things to us where I could tell you listened to every episode, and we really appreciate it. And I apologize for taking over a year to get you on, but I swear that my goal all along was when the next P3 module comes out, you were going to be on the show. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate being on the show. It's a unique and interesting experience because I've never heard you at 1.0 speed before. This is the first episode that I've heard with you talking at normal speed. So that's a new experience. Tim Lee talks pretty slow in comparison to me. So if you listen to us at, what, two times speed? I listen at 1.8. Are you able to still understand me because I do realize that I just clicked along in my Midwestern accent? Oh, no, it's easy. Okay. The brain is very good at them. I actually have a lot of trouble listening to people at real time because I've trained myself. Yes, you've mentioned before that you do that. I think in a comment post or something that I've tried, and actually I do that now because I get through episodes quicker, And I'm like, I still can process it, but not quite that fast. I recall the other thing I wanted to say is I also wanted to mention that I will be going to Pinball Expo. No, Tim Lee is not. But the Loser Kids are headed up Flip the Script on autism, which is going to be, I believe, a 12-hour charity stream. And so I'm going to be involved in that on that Thursday of Expo. So I just wanted to mention that because you also mentioned Loser Kids, and that's pretty cool that that is coming up. I think they're either auctioning off or you're able to purchase very specific Expo-only merchandise that's being provided by all sorts of pinball manufacturers and all the other fans of pinball people. So it's going to be a really cool event. Just wanted to make sure I finally had an opportunity to mention that as well. So thanks for telling us about the Really Polished Pinball Podcast. The punchline, the end of that story was great because I was sitting here thinking, like, did he, did he, people really call them polished? I mean, I.
    109:10
    No, the answer's no. Yeah. That's it for me, friends. That's it for me. Yeah, that's a great way to end it. Thank you. Thank you, Ethan. Thank you, Rachel. Thanks, guys. It's a really fun evening chit-chatting with you. It's always my favorite. All right. Well, that wraps it up. Drew sucks at pinball. And so do you, Tim Lee. Happy flipping.
    109:53
    Thank you. All right.