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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 33: TPF Prep 2023

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 56m·analyzed·Mar 19, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

TPF 2023 prep discussion: hands-on impressions of Bond 60th, Scooby-Doo, Foo Fighters releases

Summary

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 33 focuses on TPF (Texas Pinball Festival) 2023 preparation, featuring guests discussing recent major manufacturer releases including Bond 60th, Scooby-Doo, and Foo Fighters. The hosts and guest Carl D'Angelo provide hands-on impressions of newly shipped games, discussing gameplay mechanics, code maturity, design innovations, and initial reception. Key themes include game difficulty balance, code development stage, and upcoming tournament availability.

Key Claims

  • Bond 60th has shipped and is in the wild; characterized as excellent and challenging with fast multiplayer experiences

    high confidence · Tom owns the game and unboxed it 1-2 days prior; described shipping status and personal experience

  • Scooby-Doo experiences quality control issues on Pinside forums but manufacturer is fine-tuning the process

    high confidence · Joel directly references Pinside discussions of QC issues and notes Spooky is adjusting/adapting

  • Carl D'Angelo looped the Scooby-Doo game on first stream, completing all available content

    high confidence · Carl and Joel directly discuss Carl's stream performance and complete game loop

  • Scooby-Doo code is more fleshed out than Bond 60th was at launch; Bond seemed bare bones initially

    medium confidence · Joel's opinion based on comparing two recent Stern releases

  • Foo Fighters has unique shots and mechanics with complete rule package designed collaboratively by Ray Day and Tanya Kleiss

    high confidence · Travis unboxed Foo Fighters at 'Pitbull Company' and played it; discussions reference Ray Day and Tanya's collaborative design approach

  • Foo Fighters requires precise machine setup/calibration; jump ramp and orbit shots rattle/reject if playfield angle is too low

    high confidence · Travis provides detailed technical account of his two plays and adjustment from 6.5 to 7-7.5 degrees affecting shot response

  • Travis is under household restriction: Monica permits only games designed by Keith Elwin; Toy Story 4 is at risk of being sold

    high confidence · Travis directly states Monica's ultimatum and reveals she is pushing him to sell Toy Story 4

  • Multiple people streaming Scooby-Doo early (including Carl) allows manufacturers to identify software improvements needed

    high confidence · Joel and Carl discuss importance of early streaming for feedback loop with developers

Notable Quotes

  • “It's excellent. It is really fun to play. Neil and I were having a fantastic time just flipping it and it kind of kicks your butt, and then you get a hold of it and you get a good score. But it's pretty tough, but it's one of those games, I feel like, where it's like I got to play it again because I know I can do better on it.”

    Tom @ early in episode — Direct player testimony of Bond 60th quality and replayability; supports design goal of challenging but engaging gameplay

  • “The bookcase is really the neatest thing in the game, I think. Apart from that, nothing stands out to me.”

    Carl D'Angelo @ Scooby-Doo section — Carl's assessment of Scooby-Doo's primary mechanical innovation; indicates limited standout features beyond bookcase

  • “She has put her foot down completely. Like any game. I didn't know that Elwin designed Toy Story 4. She's about ready to sell it, believe it or not.”

    Travis @ Foo Fighters discussion — Reveals household dynamics affecting collector behavior; demonstrates partner influence on purchasing decisions

  • “The game is absolutely stunning in person. The color, I guess just the color scheme in general, I was curious to see how that would go. but obviously them doing an alien type theme with it, you're going to have green colors, right? And it actually goes really well together. So the art is just stunning in person.”

    Travis @ Foo Fighters section — Positive aesthetic assessment of Zombie Yeti art direction on Foo Fighters

  • “So you're basically unboxed the game and put it out like did do you know if they adjusted... everything was where you know from factory settings... there's a coil there, like snapping the spring, the flipper down. It's just a spring.”

    Carl and Joel (collaborative) @ Scooby-Doo bookcase flipper analysis — Technical discussion of Scooby-Doo's spring-actuated bookcase flipper design limitation

  • “I feel like Spooky, like, Scooby-Doo is actually a pretty fleshed out game and it's only going to improve from here.”

    Joel @ Scooby-Doo closing thoughts — Comparative assessment of code maturity between manufacturers (Spooky vs Stern)

Entities

Carl D'AngelopersonTompersonTravispersonJoelpersonBond 60thgameScooby-DoogameFoo Fightersgame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Early streaming by elite players (Carl D'Angelo) provides valuable feedback loop for manufacturers to identify and fix software/code issues during development

    high · Carl and Joel: 'streams are important at the beginning stages of games because the manufacturers can actually watch and see what needs to change in the software'

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2023 expected to feature long play queues for recently released Bond 60th, Scooby-Doo, and Foo Fighters

    high · Joel emphasizes scarcity: 'these are not going to be out in the wild very much... I don't know how many opportunities you're going to have to play that'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Scooby-Doo bookcase flipper lacks sufficient power to consistently reach target shot due to spring-only actuation vs coil-driven design

    high · Joel and Carl discuss spring-vs-coil design; Carl notes insufficient flipper force to push ball into target lane; Joel suggests stronger spring replacement

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Foo Fighters uses collaborative rule design approach: Ray Day focuses on tournament/competitive rules while Tanya Kleiss focuses on novice/casual accessibility, meeting in middle

    high · Joel describes Ray Day and Tanya's collaborative process: 'he's really focusing on, like, how do I bring enjoyment to the novice and the middle ground player? And then Ray Day's starting at the other end on, like, how do I make this, like, tournament ready'

  • ?

    community_signal: Foo Fighters designed by Jack Danger; represents continued innovative single-designer approach to American Pinball releases

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.349

0:00
the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right tom are you ready present perfect travis are you present yes oh good all right well let's just do it. We're three guys like a talking ball. So we came up with a class by name. We're doing that, it's called the talking ball. And we call on our selves. Triple drink, triple drink, triple drink. We're triple, triple drink.
0:54
All right, well, what I'm realizing is now that we're doing video, So we can't hide the fact that we have a guest. So I'm sorry, Carl. You're just sitting there patiently waiting for us to do our thing. So I'll have to change that up. I'll have to throw in a, hey, Carl, are you ready too? And yeah, I don't know. That was weird. So sorry. Sorry that you had to sit there patiently. What do you want, Travis? You know what would be awesome? If we could actually hear our theme song, Joel, the two of us could be excited. Don't give me a hard time about technology, okay? I'm trying as hard as I can to get this thing to go together. All you have to do is show up. I checked my camera settings before we started. I'm making sure it is not going out. I do not want to embarrass myself in front of Carl. It's not going to happen. Well, speaking of El Gato No Signal, Carl, the fact that you added a No Gato El Signal little blurb during his in-disc playing is just, ah, Chef's Kitchen. I had to, right? I had to. I didn't even realize it happened. I came back, I had about a dozen messages just with, like, laughing emojis and everything. I thought they were just laughing at my gameplay, which they probably were, but then I found out after the fact that that was up, too. So kudos to Carl. He got me. That was pretty funny. I enjoyed that. That's good. Well, we invited Carl on here because this is our pre-TPF show. So last year we really just kind of broke – we looked at TPF and we realized a lot of people are going to be traveling. A lot of people are going to be in the car, on planes. Give them something to listen to. Let's prepare people for TPF. What is it that they're going to see or experience potentially at TPF? And this has been an absurd march. Like, you're an idiot. Travis' camera is already out. Why? She was so confident. God, Travis. Oh, man. Okay, so. This is awkward.

  • “The shots were really interesting because I think and this was kind of confirmed with my two plays I did with it that I feel like the shots are going to be very dependent upon your game setup If you have your game dialed in, I think that's the most important thing.”

    Travis @ Foo Fighters section — Critical technical observation about Foo Fighters' sensitivity to playfield calibration

  • “And this is why I think streams are important at the beginning stages of games because the manufacturers can actually watch and see what needs to change in the software.”

    Carl D'Angelo @ Scooby-Doo analysis — Industry insight about role of early streaming in code development feedback loop

    • Spooky Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Zombie Yetiperson
    Ray Dayperson
    Tanya Kleissperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    Neilperson
    Monicaperson
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    IE Pinballcompany
    Triple Drain Pinball Podcastorganization
    Ace Gogi / Ace Gaugecompany
    Pinsideorganization
    Louisville Arcade Expoevent
    Pitbull Companycompany

    medium · Joel mentions Jack's game as expected to be different; Joel references Jack's previous work (Rush, Led Zeppelin) indicating design pattern

  • ?

    product_strategy: Bond 60th designed intentionally with challenging multiplayer to prevent single-player grinding and keep turn times fast

    high · Joel references Keith's design goal: 'he wanted to make sure that the multiplayer experience was not watching one guy grind at it for an hour'

  • ?

    product_concern: Scooby-Doo exhibits design-level difficulty balancing issue: game is too easy in default settings; all shots are highly controlable and safe; drop target save is insufficient to prevent easy loops

    high · Carl: 'all the shots are controllable... can shoot up the center ramp... just shoot right back up'; Joel: 'are 98% of the owners of this game going to have that problem?... locations... opening up outlanes'

  • ?

    product_concern: Scooby-Doo multiball music loop issue: song doesn't properly loop during extended multiball, fades out then awkward silence before restarting

    high · Joel describes Carl's stream showing multiball music looping incorrectly, creating 'endless drunken karaoke night' effect

  • ?

    product_concern: Scooby-Doo experiencing multiple QC issues reported on Pinside; manufacturer adjusting production process

    high · Joel: 'some of the initial stuff that I was reading on Pinside were a lot of, like, missed QC issues. So I think they are adjusting and adapting and fixing'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Spooky Pinball's Scooby-Doo demonstrates more complete code implementation compared to Stern's Bond 60th at equivalent launch stage

    medium · Joel: 'Bond, the Cornerstone Bond, that game came out and it was, like, it just seemed bare bones. And I feel like Spooky, like, Scooby-Doo is actually a pretty fleshed out game'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Foo Fighters exhibits shot inconsistency due to playfield angle sensitivity; jump ramp and orbit shots rattle/reject if setup too low

    high · Travis detailed account: 'a lot of my shots were just rattling... slight adjustment... brought it up to about... seven to seven and a half' fixed the issue

    • 2:55
    Thank God I checked it before. Well, I wish I could say this is a bit. I honestly checked it. I'm sorry, Carl. I'm sorry. You know, I think you know what you signed up for, but it's just, man, is he consistent. So, anyways, the idea there is TPF is coming up, and, like, pretty much every major pinball manufacturer has released a game. Like, almost everybody. There's so many games that have come out in the last month-ish, and, yeah. So the conversation is be prepared to wait in line because hopefully everybody gets an opportunity to play some of these games. And I kind of want to go down the list so we can talk about the reveal of the game, you know, what our initial thoughts were of the reveal, feelings, maybe price, all that stuff. And then what's kind of crazy is most of these games, somebody in this conversation has actually played them. So I'll be curious about your initial impressions and whatnot. So we will start at the top. The game that came out, technically that came out first, was Bond 60th. Bond 60th was announced a while ago, but they are just now shipping. They are just now shipping. They're just now getting out in the wild. And, yeah, Tom, you have one.
    4:14
    Yes. Calm down, Tom. Calm down. Charis, I mean, you and Neil, you unboxed yours, what, a day ago, two days ago? So what's your initial, what was that like? What was your, I don't know, it was a Christmas morning, and what's your initial impression of now owning this game?
    4:33
    It's actually very heavy. getting it down. Most sterns aren't that heavy because a lot of the wiring is missing because of the five or six cables, whatever they are. But this one's pretty heavy. The back box is really heavy because of those reels.
    4:52
    And my initial thoughts on the game are it's excellent. It is really fun to play. Neil and I were having a fantastic time just flipping it and it kind of kicks your butt, and then you get a hold of it and you get a good score. But it's pretty tough, but it's one of those games, I feel like, where it's like I got to play it again because I know I can do better on it. It's the same feeling I kind of had when I first got TNA,
    5:31
    and I just wanted to keep going back to it. kind of the same feeling. Yeah, that's awesome. And I know that was something that Keith said. I mean, his goal was to design a game that was hard, that was challenging, that was he wanted to make sure that the multiplayer experience was not watching one guy grind at it for an hour. You know, it's like they wanted fastball times. And I know, and we discussed this earlier, the initial stream of that game, it just seemed like everybody was having a good time. Like everybody was rooting for each other. And I don't know, have you played a co-op game yet? Like is that, how did that go? No, we haven't done that. We were just playing kind of head-to-head games. Yeah. But they are quick.
    6:16
    But, again, Neil and I were kind of fighting each other to get back on it. That's awesome. Well, that's good. Yeah. And I know. And he's mad at me right now because he can't play it because I'm doing this. Oh, because you're recording. We need it for the eye candy, Neil. Okay. Yeah. Travis, is anybody in your family arguing about your room there? Like, do they want to be in your room right now and play with your cactus trophy?
    6:40
    No. Unfortunately not. I can't fit a pinball machine in here. Joel, someday. One day. Well, hey, I have one of Carl's trophies, though. I don't know if you can see it. You probably can't from the open. No, the boom mic's in the way.
    6:54
    Why do you have that on the bottom? Yeah, you have your little, what is it, that diffuser or your little essential oil thing instead? Well, okay, so Monica's been out of the country for nearly a month now, and she's way better at putting things on the wall and actually keeping it aligned. Because if I do it, it goes at a slant. It just goes all weird, and I don't want to mess it up. So that's my excuse. I think the excuse is that you just don't use tools or power tools in your house. Like, Monica just handles it, and she does a great job. Well, yeah, yeah.
    7:27
    Perfect. I fix strange things. I put a board back on it. Oh, yeah, you need to talk about that. But, okay, so other, I mean, change-ups, though. So you did a, it was like a two-for-one swap, right? So it was like Mando went out and Beatles went out, and then Bond 60th is in. So your initial, you're not missing, right? You don't, there's no, like, feeling of regret or anything. I mean, this is, you're enjoying that 60th?
    7:53
    Oh, yeah. Because that's a two-for-one. Yeah, great. Yep. Wonderful. And then I also know you got your Elvira. You ordered an Elvira, what, like eight years ago and you finally got one? Yeah, pretty much.
    8:05
    What else are you hiding over there, Tom? It's raining names. I'm not telling. And having Elvira in the house, how is that? Like what is that game? I know it shoots well and the code is pretty awesome, but what are your thoughts on that?
    8:25
    Funny story. our ball locks weren't working and I was trying to find the connector and there's like this little slit and where the connector goes up and I took apart half the game to get at that connector and then realized the connector was like hanging halfway out so only one of the ball locks was working okay so after i took everything off i found out where it was plugged it in because i didn't exactly know where it was it wasn't like a it's not like a molex connector just it plugs into the actual opto board okay um but it's up into the play field but i couldn't see it at the time and i didn't quite know where it was but yeah i took it took like all these ramps off and stuff And the game's jam-packed with stuff, but, yeah, it wasn't a good experience at first. But it's a lot of fun. I like it. It's a little on the easier side, but there's a lot of cool mechs and things going on. Awesome. What are you playing more, Bond or Elvira? Well, I just got Bond, so I'm playing Bond.
    9:41
    Why have you played more so far? How about that? Bond. Okay. Nice. Well, dude, I'm happy for you, man. That's awesome. Travis and Carl, neither of you guys have played the 60th, right?
    9:55
    No. A bond? No. Yeah, a bond. I have not. I've seen the box to it. Pretty cool. The cardboard box? Yeah. Oh, that's right, because you have them, but somebody else bought it. Yeah. I was just staring at it. Carl, isn't it, what, Ace Goge, right? That's the place near you. They get, like, everything, right? Yeah. Are they not getting a 60th, or they are? He's got one coming. and it just hasn't arrived yet. Should be soon. Cool. Awesome, yeah. No, I'm excited. I'm excited to see pretty much nobody's streaming it. Tom, yeah, you'll have to fire up the rig at home at some point and stream it because nobody's streaming it yet. But that stream looks awesome. So I think there will be one at TPF. I would guess the line for that will be very long, and that would be the one, in my mind, that would be the one to make sure you play because these are not going to be out in the wild very much. and I don't know. I don't know how many opportunities you're going to have to play that. So I'm looking forward to it, but I don't know. Any other thoughts on Bond 60th about, like, where we're at? I mean, games took a while to come out, but they're coming out, and I don't know. They sold. It's awesome. Okay, good. We can end with that. All right.
    11:08
    So after Bond 60th, we had Scooby-Doo. Scooby-Doo's out. They are shipping them. They're out on location. People are getting them. I will say Pinside, some of the initial stuff that I was reading on Pinside were a lot of, like, missed QC issues. So I think they are adjusting and adapting and fixing, you know. I mean, they have a lot of games to build, so they're definitely fine-tuning the process. But they're out there. They're definitely out there. I have not played one. Travis, you have not played one. But Carl, you were one of the first people to stream it. But what were your initial impressions, or how was your feeling coming off of that stream?
    11:47
    I mean, the game is gorgeous. It really is. Spooky always does a fantastic job on the art, I feel. So the cabinet's great. The play field's great. Just the look and feel of the game is good.
    11:59
    It's got a long way to go on soccer still. So if you watch my stream, I pretty much loop the game, finish everything that's in it, play the multi-balls extensively. you know so yeah it's just going to take some time for them to develop the game further you know i wouldn't write it off yet i'm not going to say it's fantastic you know just just just just wait a while do you played it though i mean they basically unboxed the game and put it out like did do you know if they adjusted i mean where the post where everything was where it was shipped or do you think coming off that stream they need to adjust it in some way everything was where you know from factory settings so what i noticed were there were two holes for the inline posts to move up or down just you know one where it was at the closed setting and then there was one other setting to open it up i didn't see anything beyond that so i don't know how difficult you can make the game and that's one of my concerns with it is it does seem to be a very easy game all the shots are controllable you can shoot up the center ramp and play on the upper play field as much as you want, and if it comes down, you just shoot right back up, and even if you don't make it, you've got the drop target to save you. How was that, by the way, the drop target? Was that helpful? Do you feel like it was, because you can, like, stack those, right? So you can have, you know, multiple saves in that middle.
    13:24
    I mean, that's something that could change, right, difficulty-wise, like only having one at any, I don't know. What was your thought about the middle drop target between the flippers? Yeah, exactly. Limited, so there's only one per ball or something along those lines. But I bet that's a softer setting that they will add into the game if they haven't already.
    13:42
    I actually found that most of my balls I drained because I tried to use the save and then it went down. There wasn't enough momentum off the drop to keep it coming back to the slipper. Okay. Because, yeah, if it's going slow, it's just going to trickle right by it, basically. Knocks the drop down and straight down. Interesting. All right. But it's not, I mean, Carl, you're a pretty good player. You're like a really good player. So looping a game is not unheard of. I mean, this is, you've done that too many games of all the manufacturers. Joel, Joel, Joel. What do you want?
    14:16
    Carl's one of the best players in the world. That's a little bit better than pretty good. I, you know. I'm going to give him his due.
    14:23
    If I say, Carl, you're a pretty good player, Carl can sit there and go, okay. But if I say, Carl, you're one of the best players in the world, he's a very humble man. And he's going to be like, I don't know. I'll be as hype, man. I'm good with that. It's perfectly fine.
    14:37
    But what I'm saying, Carl, is it is not uncommon for you to buy a game or borrow a game and in the first stream just blow it up. I mean, that's not a norm. Like, this is not – having Spooky be this way is not absurd. But what I will say is when you put a player of your caliber up to a game like this, for example, the music, Like the multiball music, I don't think they expect somebody to play multiball for 10 minutes straight, you know? And that's when you realize, like, wow, we've heard this song a lot. That's when you have a spooky loop telling you to drain. Yeah.
    15:12
    It's like, can you just, yeah, can you do something? The wildest thing about that, the song didn't even loop together. It just kind of faded out and just kind of ended. And then there was that awkward silence to where Carl's like, okay, I guess we're still doing this. and then the song just fires back up again. It was just like an endless drunken karaoke night. I didn't know what was going on watching that. But, yeah, hopefully now they know at least. Like maybe try to loop that in together or something, you know? Well, yeah, but at the same time, are 98% of the owners of this game going to have that problem? The way they have it set up, I mean, in all reality, so think about this, Joel. They have default settings, right? the outlaying post or whatever you want to call them. They're basically in a position to where it's very hard to drain there. Then they have that target that comes up a lot in the middle. Very hard to drain there. All the shots come back. If you have somebody in a home setting, they're going to be playing this game a lot, and they're going to find the shots eventually, and they're going to start running into knowing where everything's at. They're going to get very comfortable with how they're playing. Now, it's going to be totally different, of course, on location, because I think from what I've heard from multiple people on location, they're opening up outlanes, and rightfully so. You've got to make it play more difficult. But, I mean, for the home user, though, I think that is something that they need to address because there's going to be some people out there still looping it. Just because if it's set that easy and they've played it so many times, it's not going to happen all the time or anything like that. But the one time that they are doing it, why not make that experience great for them?
    16:49
    Sure. That makes sense. And I don't think everything's in the game yet. Like, there's still modes that aren't in the game. Like character modes and stuff, there's stuff. So there's – you didn't see – you saw everything that's in the game now, but there's more to come. But, yeah, it's an interesting thing. I mean, what you just said about the layout, though, is you said every shot is very safe. It's very, you know, controllable. And that's something where, yeah, it'll be somewhat of a challenge to make it difficult enough for a player like you. But, you know, we'll wait and see. We'll wait and see what they do. Let the other players keep stealing bonus. That'll help. Yeah, that was pretty great. I'm assuming they've already fixed that, but if you watch Carl's stream, he, like, had this ridiculous ball. And then Shane, right, is his name, Shane, like, started and immediately caught up to, like, half your score. It's like, what happened? And it turns out he had, like, 7 million points in bonus that were applied to the other player. So it's an interesting scoring tactic, you know? Why not? Yeah. You just got to make sure you tilt your tilt if you're going to drain so nobody gets your bonus. Yeah, we had it in league at Ace Kogi, and everyone's, you know, don't double flip. Don't do it at the end of your ball. You're going to give your points to the other player. So that's what it was. That's what it is, yeah. If you cancel the bonus count on the current code, I know they've already fixed it, but on the current code, you cancel it, it gives your bonus to the next player. That's hilarious. That's awesome. Well, cool. I have not played Scooby-Doo. I know Zach has one, and I know Greg bought one. Greg Bone did, and I know they took one to the Louisville Arcade Expo, and apparently it was a big hit. Tom, though, you have played one. So do you have a hot take? Do you have any initial impressions of Scooby-Doo? I only played one game on it.
    18:43
    It's okay. I felt like I was up in the many-play field a long time, like Carl was saying. And, you know, it was easy to get back up there.
    18:55
    Yeah. Did you loop the song? No, I did not loop the song. Oh, okay. There's still a challenge there. Actually, I kind of walked away from my ball, so. Oh, no.
    19:10
    I had to go somewhere, though. Oh, okay. What were your impressions, both of you, what were your impressions of the bookcase shot? Is that, like, pretty innovative? Is that a unique thing?
    19:23
    It's clever. Okay. It's clever. I'm not sold on it because, like, there's one shot far on the right up there. You know, you've got three shots up top. Two of them are, like, just U-turns, and then the other one kind of loops around and comes back to the right flipper.
    19:40
    And really the only way to get to it is to throw it. What it seemed like to me is to throw it with the bookcase, with the upper part of the bookcase. but it just didn't seem to have enough power on the one I played to push it into that lane.
    19:54
    So what I realized by watching your stream is that all that force of the flipper going down is just a spring, right? So instead of a coil pulling the flipper up and being super snappy and powerful, all it is is a spring that's returning the flipper back to the starting position. So I don't, I mean, I know neither of you lifted up the play field or whatnot, but like there's nothing, or maybe you did, but there's nothing like, there's a coil there, like snapping the spring, the flipper down. It's just a spring. So I'm curious if they, if you replace that with a stronger spring, if it would improve that. I don't, I don't know, but I. It's a precision bookcase flipper. That's what we need, obviously. It's too heavy. Yeah. Well, the problem with that is, too, I can't remember what mode that was, but I've seen a couple people do that, and it almost just puts you in jail immediately because that was, like, the only shot to hit in the entire play field. So you had to keep going back up top, keep doing, like, the boomerang toss at it and just hope it hits it. So, like, I don't know. Obviously, I don't think they can do anything about the actual flipper itself or the mech itself. So maybe they add something in that's, I don't know, change how the mode works or maybe give something to where you can spot a shot or you could do something else because that's going to be a problem. It's just like hitting a dead end in the whole entire mode, it seemed like. Yeah, exactly. And this is why I think streams are important at the beginning stages of games because the manufacturers can actually watch and see what needs to change in the software. And that's really one of the reasons I like to stream these things early also, is to give that initial feedback and where they can improve on the software side. Yeah, for sure.
    21:43
    So, Tom, I know you didn't play much, but Carl, you did. Do you have a favorite shot? Is there a shot in there that was very satisfying or felt unique? Was there a particular shot on the layout? If it wasn't a shot, like a mech or something that they did, that really was like, okay, that's pretty neat.
    22:00
    The bookcase is really the neatest thing in the game, I think. Okay. Apart from that, nothing stands out to me.
    22:08
    All right. I agree with that. Okay, cool. Well, cool. Just to go back a step, I think that's a good question to say for each game. So, Tom, in terms of the Bond 60th, what's been your favorite shot or experience or feeling in that game?
    22:28
    Don't say all of it. All of it. No, I really like the left orbit kind of loop around shot. So left orbit does the figure eight. Yeah, the figure eight shot. And then it feeds it pretty safely back to your left flipper, doesn't it? Or is it, it's not like chaos when it comes through that, is it? The left spinner can go to the saucer, and then the upper left kind of like loops back. Nice. Have you gotten all the spinners going, all four optical spinners and the hat? Yeah, I have the Insider Connect achievement. You got the award? And how did that feel? Tell us. It's cool. It's not that hard to get, honestly. It's not that hard to get. What's hard to do is actually the main multi-ball, it's pretty tough because you have to first lock a ball. You have to hit the drop targets down, lock a ball, and then you've got to lock each ball in both saucer and then hit a jackpot shot. And it's timed. so you have to so starting the multi-ball is not hard you're saying getting the jackpot in the multi-ball is that what you're saying? oh yeah, it's tough nice, nice but when you do it, it's like, wow that was cool very cool I did something alright, anything else with Scooby-Doo? Any other thoughts or comments on Scooby-Doo? I mean, I think this is what Spooky's going to be doing for the next what, year? They're just going to be chugging away? making these games? and we'll have to see what they do with the code. But I will say, I mean, it looked like the code was pretty well fleshed out. I mean, there's definitely a playable game there. Definitely, I mean, it's not – I mean, I feel bad for saying it, but, like, Bond, the Cornerstone Bond, that game came out and it was, like, it just seemed bare bones. And I feel like Spooky, like, Scooby-Doo is actually a pretty fleshed out game and it's only going to improve from here. So, yeah, I think that's pretty cool.
    24:38
    All right, so what game came out in Foo Fighters, right? Foo Fighters was next? Yeah, I think I'm right on that. There is a game, a pinball game called Foo Fighters. I'm going through a timeline here, okay? Wait, isn't that a band?
    24:52
    Yes, Foo Fighters is a game, and all three, no, Carl, you bought an LE, Tom, you bought an LE, Travis, no. But maybe one day.
    25:03
    No, Monica would not let me get one, no. But Monica liked the pretty green one, yeah. No, she has put her foot down, and she said the only games that we're bringing in the house are designed by Keith Elwin. She has put her foot down completely. Like any game. I didn't know that Elwin designed Toy Story 4.
    25:24
    She's about ready to sell it, believe it or not. So there you go. Just a second, just a second. She just told me you can't bring in any other game unless it's designed by Elwin. She will not like any from any era. So I'm just going to get a couple other games, just sneak a bit. What if Borg did Red Hot Chili Peppers?
    25:45
    That's a great question. Yeah. I hope Stern does not make a Red Hot Chili Peppers like super LE, or I'm going to be out like 25 grand because of that. She is obsessed with Red Hot Chili Peppers. So, Tom, I know you bought Food Fighters because you are a big fan. You're a big fan of the band. Now, Carl, I don't know if you're a fandom of the band, but what was it about, what did you see in the stream or the reveal that made you pull the trigger on Foo Fighters LE? I saw a game that looked very unique, unique shots. It looked like it had a bunch of stuff in it, new ideas. You know, I was anticipating Jack's game to be something different, and different it is, for sure. So I'm just looking forward to shooting it. It looks like it shoots great after the stream. just the art was fantastic. Yeah. I, you know, I, I love zombie Yeti stuff. It, he has yet to do a bad art package. I don't think he ever will, but yeah, it just seems like a complete package. Yeah. I don't know. It's what else they could have done to make it better. Well, and I know I'm having Ray Day on the rule. I mean, Tanya, I love, I'm a fan of Deadpool. I enjoyed what he did there, but like having Ray Day and, And the way that they're describing it of having, like, Tanya, big picture, and he's really focusing on, like, how do I bring enjoyment to the novice and the middle ground player? And then Ray Day's starting at the other end on, like, how do I make this, like, tournament ready and competitive? And they're trying to, like, mash and meet in the middle. I know, I mean, I see Rush in the background. And I know you've done Led Zeppelin as well. So I'm pretty sure that Ray Day rules. Raide and Timmy, well Timmy's not on this, but like his type of rules mesh well with your type of play style.
    27:36
    And the same with obviously Tom and Travis. So I think this game really does have a complete package in that sense.
    27:44
    But yeah, neither Tom nor Carl, neither of you guys have played it, right? Right. But Travis has. Travis has. Today as a matter of fact. Yeah. So let's hear it. Let's hear it. It was a pro. you unboxed one at the Pitbull Company. And what did it feel like? Tell us everything, Travis. What it felt like to unbox it? Well, it was hard work with the box cutters. Oh, because Monica wasn't there to do it for you? Right, I had to do it. It was horrible.
    28:14
    So I'll say this. The game is absolutely stunning in person. The color, I guess just the color scheme in general, I was curious to see how that would go. but obviously them doing an alien type theme with it, you're going to have green colors, right? And it actually goes really well together. So the art is just stunning in person. It's probably, honestly, out of everything Zombie Yeti's done so far, I would probably put it right up there with probably my most favorite at this point, just looking at it. So it's pretty spectacular in person. In terms of, you know, animations and stuff like that, I mean, everybody's seen it. It's exactly what you think it is, so that's pretty dope as well. The shots Now the shots were really interesting because I think and this was kind of confirmed with my two plays I did with it that I feel like the shots are going to be very dependent upon your game setup If you have your game dialed in, I think that's the most important thing. Because watching the reveal, one of the things I told you guys off podcast that I was kind of curious about was, one, how's that jump ramp going to go to the 180? Is that going to rattle? Is it going to reject? and how's the return going to be from the right orbit when it comes all the way around and goes down that figure eight, right, and how that's going to feed back to the flipper. So on the stream, everything was flowing great, fantastic, right? So the pro, the very first game that we played, a lot of my shots were just rattling. And when I say a lot of my shots, I'm not meaning every shot. I'm meaning like just the jump ramp. If I was hitting it clean, it went up top. It'd sometimes rattle, come back. It'd get rejected a little bit. the right orbit, it would kind of do the same thing, but it would make it all the way around. It just wouldn't return back to the left flipper. So we kind of just made like a slight adjustment and brought it up to about, I want to say, seven to seven and a half, somewhere right around there. And once we did that, that really started to dial in that shot for both of those shots to where it started making more sense. So I could tell that. So you're not moving ball guides. You're literally just raising the legs. Yeah. Just to try to affect the momentum of the ball where it's going. So I might have to mess with the ball guides a little bit because I know they're right. That fixed the jump ramp to the 180. It wasn't rattling as much and it wasn't rejecting near as much. But still the orbit to the figure eight, it was still kind of just rattling around at that figure eight. It never really did come around there clean. That's probably something that we got to fix there on that on our end. But that being said, the rest of the game flowed great. I mean, there's no stopping with the ball at all unless you get to the overlord where you get that fork that comes up. And then even then, it's just momentary. There's another ball getting plunged out anyway. So that way you can hit that ball over and over and over again to start a multi-ball. But outside of that, it's just there's, I mean, we use this term all the time in pinball flow. But honestly, this game has it. It's just the center spinner shot was actually pretty amazing. I was kind of curious how that would be. And it's slightly offset. I thought it was going to be pretty close to how Jurassic Park was, but you could tell it's just a little bit different. It's slightly offset, a little bit different angle, and that feed to the upper flipper. It's quick, it's fast, and then it's just butter, though. Whenever you hit the spinner and you get around to the right upper flipper and you hit the loop or the side ramp, I mean, it's quick, and it's a lot of fun. And one of the other things that was a little bit different was the flippers themselves, they felt like that they were in a different spot than what they normally are. So that took a little bit of adjustments getting to. I think the right ramp, it's going to give some people trouble a little bit to where you've got to find it. Every shot on the right side is a lot later on the flippers than what we were anticipating, and that was with the flippers aligned where they were supposed to be. So that was one of the things that we had to adjust a little bit. But, and two, what was an interesting shot was from the left flipper. So whenever you have the drop targets up, it was actually difficult to hit that spinner shot. It wasn't impossible. I hit it a couple of times. But then most of the time I was hitting it off the drop targets. But the shot from there was still going to like that little 180 turnaround as well. So that was an interesting combo. And then the kicker that they have that faces more north, that's actually pretty cool. We hit that a few times, and sometimes it makes the ball be chaotic, but other times it's feeding the ramp. So it's something that's unique in that sense. But, yeah, I mean, overall, I think a lot of people are going to be very happy with their purchase. I don't think that there's going to be a very small amount of people that are going to buy this and be disappointed with what they got. I think most people are going to be happy. Son of a gun. Carl, you did not see this. I got the new signal. Buy your merch at Silver Ball Swap. But the spinner, though, my God, it spins forever. And we haven't put any lube on it or anything. It would legitimately be still spinning after I hit two other shots. And this is after the ball would come all the way back around to my right flipper. So at one point, I hit a spinner shot, a side ramp, a left ramp, and then ski jumped and then tried to hit the spinner again. It was still spinning. It just went for days The game's a lot of fun, I think people will be happy I think if you're a Foo Fighters fan You'll be very happy I think if you're just kind of on the fence Being a Foo Fighters fan, I think a lot of people will start Enjoying the band more because they're going to be playing this game a lot I don't foresee this game Not being around I mean, I foresee it being around For a very long time I don't think this is just going to be a flash in the pan We're talking like two or three years The cells are going to be strong for it And I think the overall demand for it will be pretty strong once it gets out in the wild. Nice. And I know from a few of the distributors that I've talked to, like, sales are absurd. Like, sales are really, really strong. So to the point where I'm pretty sure Stern has, like, moved their production schedule around because they need to fit more in. And, I mean, that's awesome. I'm excited. It looks like a fun game. I bet there will be a ton of them at TPF. I hope everybody has a chance to play them. And then, yeah, LEs, I assume, are going to be on the line soon and start that process. I think just within a couple of weeks they should be, yeah.
    34:55
    How are the chats targets? So, honestly, there was no point that I ever tried to actually use chats for them because there wasn't really any reason to, per se. They're more or less there. So one of the cool things about them is it's impossible now to accidentally moonwalk. You will never moonwalk on this game because of the way that the target is. By moonwalk, you mean the ball goes up the end lane. Yeah, it goes up and out. Yeah, and all the way out. Got it. Right. You never will. My only complaint about kind of how the targets are, you have to really get used to the ball feeding your flipper because it does change up your timing a little bit. It's not natural from every other game that we play to where it feeds down. But, yeah, overall, it's just more or less like if you catch, it's going to hit it. It's going to come right back to your flipper, and then you're just sending the ball again. Now, I know that they have. I don't know if it's coded in now, but I know obviously it's going to play in some part of the code with either 2Xing a shot or helping a shot be worth more or something like that. So there's definitely things that they could do with it, But I don't really foresee any reason to necessarily try to shat for that target because it would just probably go flying past your flipper again. Because the way that it's angled, it's not like it's safe to go up the end lane. It's just where it's at. It's not up top. It's basically right there, right after you end up hitting it past your flipper anyway. So it'll be quick, yeah. All right. Do you feel like, I mean, Tom said Bond 60th is a brutal game. It's going to be quick. it's going to be fast. I mean, and then Spooky was the opposite. Scooby-Doo. What are your, I mean, just your initial playthrough, do you feel like this is, you know, something people could grind away at, like a Godzilla or Middle of the Road or what? So it's funny. I would probably put this Middle of the Road. I think if you are a casual, I think it might eat you alive just because you're just not used to a game that plays super fast. I think if you're an average player, you're going to have a lot of fun with this. It's probably going to make you a better player. overall. And I think if you're a top tier player, you're going to play for a very long time because top tier players, they know how to hit shots. They know, they know how to use. Well, the other part, the other reason why they're going to play long is because it's an upper right flipper. So it's a right hand dominant game. Right. And so even the left side, you can easily just backhand the left side to start your modes as well. So that, that ramps kind of close. Yeah. Right, but it's odd because there's no dangerous shots in the game, yet everything plays fast, if that makes sense. It just doesn't feel like that there's any super dangerous shots. But that being said, you definitely see ways that a tournament director can set up the game to be absolutely brutal. I mean, if you open up the outlanes or something like that, and you hit a post, it's going to be gone either way. But for the top-tier players that know how to navigate a play field, know how to play careful, I think it could potentially be a long playing game in that regard. You mentioned tournament, but what are your, I mean, all three of you guys are extremely great tournament players. The dead post, what are your thoughts on that? Like what, as a, first off, I know on the pro, right, there is no dead post, but I think the way they, I think the way it's coded is if you have the ball save lit, you have to raise your upper flipper. Like, you have to physically acknowledge that I'm using a ball save for it to spit out another ball. That's what I thought, too, but I still had a ball save, even with the overdrive lit. Come on, Ray, you didn't have to do that, man. There's no post. No, there's no post. Yeah. Right, but somebody had said before that you still had to lift your left flipper up to activate the ball save. Yeah, if a premium in LE you have to work to save the ball, I thought that was the thought, was even on a pro you'd have to do some action to get your ball, like save your ball. And I thought that was what it was. I mean, it is possible I just had a different ball save on there because there is a right outland ball save. But it did go down the left. I did not raise up my flipper, and the ball did go back into the shooter lane. But later on, I did start mimicking it because I was like, yeah, it's so much more fun to lift up my flipper and act like it's having a feature that's not there. So, yeah, it's Ray not doing his job very well. I mean, that's fine. We can all agree on that. But, I mean, for the LE buyers, I mean, what are your – like having a – you know, there's other games out there that either have gates or openings where you can nudge it just right to try to save your ball when it's in an out lane. But this is a unique, I don't know, method to save a ball. I don't know. Thoughts from Tom or Carl on that? I mean, is that exciting? Do you think it's going to be like, do you think there's any way you turn it off in a tournament environment? Or what are your thoughts there? No, I mean, I like it. I think it adds the element of losing your save, which I think is great. So if you don't pay attention, you're not going to get your save. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, and there was even on the stream, it was like they had a multi-ball going. The guy had balls cradled up, and he, on the right flipper, saw it happening and shot to save that one ball. I just think mentally having to think about that is pretty awesome. So, I don't know. I'm excited about that.
    40:41
    Travis, do you have a favorite shot? a favorite? Did you walk away today thinking like that was X was cooler than I thought it would be? Well, I mean, I wouldn't particularly say that there's any shot that just ended up being better than what I expected. I would say that the center spinner to the side ramp shot, that was very satisfying. I think even the right ramp shot, once you dial it in and it comes back to the left. So my favorite combo in the game is basically just going right ramp, center spinner, side ramp. Like that combo right there. I really do like that. And the game does what it has that's coded in very well with it right now, even at its early stage, is it actually feels like the game is guiding you to the next thing. It's very intuitive in terms of where the shots are going to be, what you need to do next. And none of it felt like it's overwhelming. So when you're talking about Anyo and Ray kind of coming together, meshing and figuring out from there, I actually got that feeling as I was playing it. Nothing felt like it was overwhelming, like I had no idea where I was at. Now, granted, I've watched plenty of video and figured out what the rules were ahead of time, but it wasn't as overwhelming as, say, like a rush could be where somebody's trying to figure out, okay, where's the multiplier going to be now? Where's this going to be now? and they do have multipliers in this game through the way with the foobot basically where you get like a certain you collect a certain part by doing something in the game and it rewards you with a predetermined spot on the play field like your left ramp is going to be 2x for the rest of the game or side ramp is going to be 2x so i i think something like that that's a little bit more simplistic that's easy to understand and i think that's a smart way to go and it feels like right now everything will mesh pretty well to where you know where you're supposed to go with the ball. You know when you have your center spinner lit for super spins, and then you know when the left ramp is lit for your modes, or even the Overlord part. It does a great job in letting you know, hey, here's where the final shot to a mode's at. It flashes lights to you. You definitely can figure out where the shots are, and that's what I enjoy out of a pinball game, when you don't have to look up at the LCD screen and you can just see what's on the play field and you can pretty much figure out where you're going to go next. And I'm glad they did that because the game is fast. You have to make your decisions fast because without that, if it was just spamming you with shots every which direction, like that would be a little bit tougher. Now the, like the Austin multi-ball that happens, the, I guess it's like a mini wizard mode after you complete three modes completely. Yeah. Now Now, that is kind of like, okay, there's a lot of shots to hit. There's a lot of balls going around. But luckily, that feels like it's earned. You know what I mean? Like you still have to beat three modes to get there. And none of the modes are necessarily gimmies. So you actually find yourself thinking, okay, how do I get my action button going? What shot's going to be next? And that's what the game does really great. That's very intuitive. Ooh, Tom Graff has something to say.
    43:49
    Travis, I have a question. Okay, I got an answer. What does the action button do? spots a shot. Spots a shot? Spots a shot. So one of the cool things about it, and I don't know, they may have to kind of nerf this a little bit, it was spotting the final shots to my modes and everything, and it was worth a lot of points. So I found myself holding on to it. Just intuitively, I was just like, I'm going to hold on to it, and if I drain out the left side or I drain out the right side, yep. I can see Carl just being like, oh. Well, I'm thinking, does it take into account the playfield multipliers when you use the button? Because you've got the main multipliers and you've got the foobot. Then you've got the shots targets. So you can get a big value built up. How do you light the action button?
    44:42
    I believe it's the UFO shots where you hit that captive ball. I think that's where it's at. Because that was the one thing when I started playing, I realized in the middle of the game. I completely forgot how that works, but I was hitting it a lot, and I was getting the action button lit a lot. So I'm going to go with that. I'm going to say that, and probably somebody's listening to this, and I'm like, that's totally wrong. Now, this game is in the TPF tournament, is it not?
    45:11
    It is. So everybody's – that's why Carl's mind's already – Carl's happy about that. As he's shaking his head no.
    45:21
    I will say this. I think as of right now, this is probably one of the more tournament-ready games from recent memory of something that just got released. So I did try to figure out, like, where's the exploits at? Where's this? Where's that? And the only one that I can figure out is pretty much what Carl mentioned, is setting up everything perfectly to have, you know, your 2X and this and that everywhere. but I mean, it didn't, the only thing that felt like it might be a little too much might be getting to Austin, right? Cause I saw my score just skyrocket from there. I probably got like 250 million just doing that. And then, yeah, if you do get, if you do start collecting your body parts or whatever they call it, the FUBOT parts, it does basically make, if you have like three or four of those out and you get to one of the many wizard modes or you get to a high scoring mode, like the points do pile up but it's got to be earned though so i i don't know necessarily if the game's set up hard enough if people are going to be able to get to that that point anyway since you have to complete three modes to do that so you have to be very strategic with how you get there anyways but i couldn't find any any noticeable like scoring exploits or anything like that the only thing that i realized was that certain modes are probably better to take just from this is an easier shot perspective and this is easier to finish. But I don't know necessarily if the expected value out of doing that is worth it from a points perspective or not because I didn't really focus in on that too much. Cool. Well, no, so it sounds like not only are a bunch of the tournament players going to be able to put a lot of time on it at TPF. I mean, there's going to be a bunch of these.
    47:08
    Or maybe they won't be able to. It's also a limited entry tournament, so I don't know if that's going to work all the time. You're not going to be able to really put a ton of time in another game. Oh, because I see what you mean. Yeah. Do you know what limited entry is, Joel? It means you're limited.
    47:26
    That's right. You cannot play Foo Fighters 25 times. Well, I mean, you probably can. So that's where I question putting a brand new game and an untested tournament game into a large tournament like this.
    47:40
    So what you're saying is. We don't know what the exploits are. The game hasn't been out. I mean, Travis, you're trying to find them, but not many people have had access to the game yet.
    47:50
    We haven't seen reviews. Who made this decision? Who should feel bad? Is it Colin? Who do we heckle for putting this game in the tournament? It's Colin. We blame Colin. Okay. I'll be honest. I think it's kind of cool that we have a new game that's being thrown in there. But Carl is right, though. There is a chance that there's an exploit in there that we don't know about yet. I mean, I can say this, Carl, though. I promise you. Yeah, Ray probably knows this. I promise you, the bonus did not go over to the next player.
    48:24
    We're good. Did you double flip, though? Did you double flip when your bonus was going? Because you don't know. I didn't. Yeah, you're right. Okay. I'll play test that tomorrow. Did you get a double zero? Yeah. Not in the game, Tom. Tom, I know you're pumped. I know you're a huge Foo Fighters fan. Is there anything, any thoughts since last time we discussed this game? Or I don't know. I mean, you're just getting showered with new games. I don't even know if you can look ahead this way. I almost bought the Pro instead of the LE because I was kind of scared. I don't, I'm not a huge fan of mini playfields. And when I first saw it, I was like, oh, there's a mini playfield. Great. and I just looked at the pictures real quick and I was like, I'm going to get a pro.
    49:16
    And then I kind of watched the videos and I'm like, actually, it looks kind of fun and the feed looked pretty good coming off the ramp. And then I changed my mind and went with the LE. Nice. Yeah, that upper play field, it looks like the way it's designed, if you don't have that left flipper up or aren't prepared to flip that left flipper, that ball is going to go right through it. It's just going to whiz right on through that upper play field, which I think is pretty cool just because you don't want to get stuck up there. I also really like how the area in, like, the orbit of the mini play field kind of lifts up so you can hit the target behind it. It's pretty sweet. That's pretty unique, yeah, for sure. Well, cool. No, I think, I mean, Stern is, they're the big dog. I mean, there's a gazillion orders that people put in for Foo Fighters, and it looks awesome. So I'm excited for more people to play it. Kind of the opposite of that, and I don't mean it like – what do you want, Travis? Joel, okay, no. You need an air blower? That's the way to do it. I did. I forgot about that.
    50:24
    There you go. Okay. While we're on stern, I got to make sure, because there might be some people on the fence. You've seen it out there that apparently Stern's going to rerun Stranger Things and all this and that, or they might. Stern does not have the license to Stranger Things. I can say that publicly. There's not a plan to rerun anytime soon. They have to get the license. So if you're sitting on the fence that you're hoping for one, like by this summer, as far as I understand, they don't have the license right now. So you can get off the fence. You can get your Foo Fighters. Travis, I'll have value doing this. And so I was going to make it do this. Travis, let's be clear to all the listeners. Travis owns a Stranger Things. So if we see it on the for sale market, Monica's going to try to keep that one game. That one is not for sale. I forgot about that. Yeah. No, that's not for sale. But just in case, because there's so many different options out there, and I know there's probably a lot of people that want to get a Stranger Things, and they're sitting there waiting, just waiting for an announcement. But as far as we know, they do not have the license, and therefore if you don't have the license, you can't produce the games. Now, that's not to say it will never happen. I'm just saying, like, right now, like, something would have to happen within the next couple of weeks for theirs to all of a sudden be out there. Interesting. Just to make sure that that's cleared up because it's been going around that apparently that they have it, things are happening, but just don't want people to have misinformation out there. So the listener can either listen to Travis Murray, if you want, with all of his credentials, or you can listen to George Gomez, who said on the Free Play Pinball podcast that you might, the chances that you'll see Stranger Things again are likely, I think it's something along, the word likely was used.
    52:20
    I'm just saying. I will do you one. I'm looking directly at an email with a Stern pinball logo that has this information. Oh. I'm not going to tell you what all I have in it. You simply include the Stern logo in your emails, right? I mean, most people do. No, you don't. It's just my job as somebody who works for a pinball company that sells pinball machines.
    52:46
    So, I mean, if you want me to, I can tell all you guys, yeah, just sit on the sidelines and don't get any of these kick-ass games that are coming out. But it literally says that rumors are circulating, and they're not true. Which is funny because George Gomez is the guy who's been saying the rumor. Nobody else made this up. I don't know, but like you said, I think the way Gomez said it is they might. There's a big difference. Yeah, well, yeah, of course they want to rerun it. They want to get a hold of the license. It's like Jack's saying for years that they might rerun Pirates. Okay. Which has been said by him over and over again. A lot of times, yeah. Exactly. All right. There's a big difference between might, will likely do it. I mean, yeah, I will likely, like, yeah, it's like I'll likely make Harry Potter, like, with my business right here behind me.
    53:45
    Well, the monitor, the LCD screen is going to turn off about every eight minutes. But I just want to be crystal clear Just to like Just to bust that myth because I know that there's people Going to TPF that are hoping And I'm not saying like there all of a sudden wouldn't be Like an out and left field announcement That's just the information we have and what I would Prefer is for the consumer to be Properly they would know the information So that way people can go to TPF There's so many different options for games out there Yeah Go get a game You're going to look really stupid when they announce it at TPF That would be hilarious if it's all a misdirection to all of us. They're like, psych, it was true. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we suckered Travis into looking. Why? We barely had a try. No. Well, thank you, Travis. You're welcome. So the next game that was officially released was, it was Multimorphics.
    54:40
    It was, what is it, Final Resistance. So the Scott Denise game, the Scott Denise module, Looks like they got a lot of really good Johnny Craps on art. I know Bowens on rules. Scott did all the design. And then I actually interviewed him on Flippin' Out with Friends, and he was awesome. He said how much fun it was to, like, work with a team, to, like, really have a team that was built supporting this. And he's pumped about this module. They haven't streamed it yet. They're going to stream it tomorrow, actually, which will be the 17th. but I know Multimorphic usually has a huge, like this is their show, basically. They go all out. There will be like seven or eight games. So if you haven't played a P3 Multimorphic system or Multimorphic P3 system, it's unlike anything else. It's definitely worth putting your hands on and giving it a shot. Carl, you've had one. You borrowed one. You had one in your possession. What are your thoughts overall? And, I mean, is this module, like, exciting to you? Or, I don't know. You have the most experience of all of us, yeah. The module looks great. I think the game looks like a lot of fun, just based on the tiny bit of video we've seen. But Scott puts out a great game, I think. He knows how to work the choreography on the game, how to bring his theme together into it. You know, you've got TNA. You love TNA. It's just going to be another version of that, you know, amped up it looks like this time. with the tank firing at you. I also love that they put, it's like a traditional play field with inserts.
    56:17
    It's not the standard P3 where you've got the arrows that show up when the shot is available, but you always have them there. I think that's a spectacular idea that they needed to do. So do you think, I mean, I know Scott's view was like, I want this module to truly feel like a good crossover between a real pinball machine and, you know, the digital whatever, third or two-thirds of a P3 machine. And having those inserts or having, you know, the in-lane and out-lane inserts always there, you know, having part of the images that are static, you know, to make it feel that way. I mean Weird Al is the biggest theme they've had by far but I'm curious if this type of game will actually draw more pinball people into the system just because of the familiarity to it I'm excited I'm a fan of Scott Tom you have Rick and Morty sitting right next to you I know you enjoy that Carl you own to Rick and Morty as well so that'll be exciting that's definitely one of those that I'm very excited But like every P3 release, I'm nervous because one of these games, if I, I don't know, I'm in trouble. Because I know if. Joel, just do it. Just get the damn game, all right? Yeah.
    57:38
    Do it now, too, because you've got a long wait for the platform. You've got a year plus of waiting. Get your CGC game, get this, and then as you're waiting, play your CGC game, sell it, and then get 15 modules for the piece. All the modules. Yeah, and that's what is really cool, though, is there will be people that will go to TPF. They'll play whatever. Let say Heist is what draws them in and they like I in But then the reality is like you can add that and that and that for three grand more apiece and boom you just got like a huge collection in one order So it's really cool. I will say if you are thinking about getting into the P3, Joel, now might be the great time to do it because they seem to be trending the right direction with their game choices, with their design choices, with everything. I mean, it definitely seems like you're going to buy in. People doing the rules. Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. Now would be the time to buy into it. I think that they're going the right direction, and I think it's a dramatic difference compared to when we first talked about Multimorphic and the P3 and what we felt about, you know, the platform and everything just from a few years ago. But currently right now, it just feels like that they are trending the right direction. I just hope that their manufacturing cadence just kind of gets a little bit tighter, that they can get games out quicker. Obviously, it's hard to expand on that. But, you know, I think that that's just the only thing really truly holding them back right now from getting a bigger piece of the pie. Because the games look interesting, and they're getting the right pieces. Designing, doing rules, doing sound. I mean, it seems like a very interesting package that they're producing right now. Yeah, 100%. And I told myself I'm trying to show a little bit of, you know, control, a little restraint. I know. Try it, Joel. I said, well, I'm not making any pinball changes until after DPS. Since Spitter Joel was gone, I don't understand. I want to go play pinball. I want to touch all these games, have a good time, and then see if it's time to shake things up. We'll see. What would you get rid of for P3?
    59:44
    I mean, right now the only game in my collection I would get rid of is Deadpool, which is really sad, really sad to me. Wow, we just lost Gomez. Okay. I just, but my other two games that I would keep 100% are Godzilla and TNA. Like I'm kind of locked in on that. But all right. So that would be Multimorphic. So then the next announcement was Godfather. Godfather was announced. This was a theme that I was not excited about at all. I just didn't see it. But I will tell you that reveal came out. The reveal, the trailer was awesome. Zach was straight down the middle, did an amazing featurette. You know, it showed it off really well. 28 shots is insane. and I know a ton of diverters and it was just like, what is going on? And then Carl, it was like, what, 24 hours later it seemed like, or 48 hours later, you had the opportunity to stream it. So you definitely have the most experience on the game. And spoiler alert, you streamed it, you liked it, and you placed an order for one. So what was it once you touched the game that, I mean, I don't know, it passed the Carl approval? I mean, just like you, I was underwhelmed with the theme when we knew it was Godfather. You know, I had no interest in it, really. And then once the reveal came, that's when, ooh, this looks interesting. The shots look like they flow together. A lot of unique ball paths.
    61:13
    And then once I played it and saw it in person, the art was phenomenal. The cabinet looked fantastic. I mean, Franchi did a spectacular job, as always. but something about it in person was so much better than online. Yeah. And then shooting it, it shot really well. The shots flowed. It kept me on my toes with all the diverters. And, yeah, they say 28 ball pass or whatever it is. Mm-hmm.
    61:43
    You know, it's a little bit of marketing there, of course, because, like, the mag grabs it up at the upper left, I think it is, and it comes out, and then it can shoot in three different ways. Sure. That's fine. But the fact that you never really know where the ball is going to go, I couldn't figure it out, at least, to figure out when. Like, when I shot the right ramp, when was it going to fly down the left ramp? You shot the right ramp, the verter dropped the ramp down, and it just screamed past that upper flipper, which is fantastic and frustrating, but I think it was more on the fantastic side for me, at least. and then finding out that the modes were like a cash out system like GNR that caught me right there because I love the risk reward I love you know pushing it as far as possible so combine all that and just the package I was worried about the audio after Toy Story because I saw that the company it was Unlock Audio that did the audio package again but I wasn't disappointed it this time. So just once I saw that and played it for two hours, I'm like, sure, I'll give it a shot. Grab one and see how long it lasts. Because you've put a substantial amount of time in both Pirates and GNR. I know you've had both. And so those are both Eric games.
    63:04
    But, I mean, it looks like this one just shot extremely well. But those rules, I mean, my struggle with a JGP game is there's just so much. Like, just stepping up to it, like how in the world, Travis is gone again. I'm just going to stay like this. Just keep going, Joel. Yep. Like where do you even start? That's the thing of like where do I even start? And then the idea of like I'm hitting shots and I don't even know where the ball is going to come out. Or, hey, I hit that shot and it went this way this time, and then I hit it again and now it went another way. Like how, I mean, is it easy to like kind of try to digest this game? Or is it, I don't know. I mean, there's just, it seems like there's so much going on. Yeah, there's so much, and it was a little difficult to find what I was supposed to be shooting at, and I needed to look up at the screen a bit more to see the directions as to what my next shot was, because I did notice that a couple times. Yeah. But the thing was, and this is something that really surprised me, was Pirates, Toy Story, and Guns N' Roses all had a secondary monitor that basically was a dedicated monitor to always tell you what to do. And this is the first game that they've released that doesn't have a secondary monitor. So there's nothing there on the play field that's, like, holding your hand, correct? Right, right. But you said, I mean, you just have to look up higher is what you're saying. Yeah, so look up a little higher, follow the colored light. That's one thing I hadn't quite figured out at the first half of the stream is, like, there's blue and orange lights, and I didn't know what they meant. I still don't really know what all of them mean. I was actually watching the stream again to try and figure out the rules a bit more because they're a bit more complex than most games. Now, there was like a one-and-a-half-minute kind of leaked video the day after it was announced, and unfortunately that minute and a half was a lot of, it almost sounded kind of carnival-like music, a lot of clarinet again, and then it was a lot of rainbow. But what I'm coming to see is after watching your stream, it just seemed like it just happened to be that mode. It was kind of an unfortunate mode they happened to record. But overall, you're saying lighting, you weren't having those issues when you actually streamed it for one, two hours. Yeah, not at all. In person, the hot rails aren't overwhelming like they are on a stream. I mean, on a stream, you're looking straight down at the lights, and you see every single light up and down the entire hot rail. In person, you don't really because there's always something that's blocking. So it's just giving an ambiance to the game. And how was the – that wire form that feeds the right flipper looks like that ball is – I mean, it's straight. It is straight, and it looks like that ball is flying down the play field. And then it actually has – they have that in-line target, just like Foo Fighters. That's hilarious. I mean, nobody's done that in forever, and yet two games within a few weeks of each other, they both have them, or one. But that ball then swoops up, hits that target, and then comes right down toward your flipper. I mean, it looks like it's fast. I don't know. Did that take you by surprise, or what's your thought on that? I mean, it's fast, but at the same time, you can catch it sometimes. So there was no consistent pattern because of just, you know, physics. It's going to bounce off the target different every time. So you don't know if you have to shoot it on the fly or if you can trap it with that ball or if it's just going to go crazy. Interesting. Okay.
    66:25
    Tom, why have you not bought this game yet? Mainly because of the theme I want to play it first And make a decision Based on playing it Kind of like Carl did Honestly Because you've had Pirates You still have GNR I don't think you never bought Toy Story Unlike Travis But yeah I don't know I'm curious I do feel like this is a game that would fit I do like Eric's game so I mean it's definitely on the radar let's put it that way but I do want to play it first because you know I mean I've seen the Godfather movies I actually really like them and from what I saw it's based off the movies but not necessarily like you're playing a movie kind of thing. Sure. More mafia than Godfather. Yeah. I'll give you that. Yeah, but no, I figure I'm going to TPF. I'll try it there and make a decision. And plus, you know, these games are getting expensive too. So it's not like money grows on trees like I thought it did when I was eight. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, hopefully Zach lets me borrow something soon. I mean, I will be streaming something soon. I don't know what yet. There's so many games coming out. But if it's Godfather. You're streaming Godzilla next, aren't you? I do. I'm still waiting on you and Zach. Yeah. When Zach comes up to do the swap, which Cactus Canyon, this is his LE, will be swapping for something. We are going to do a pin clash attempt. Sorry for the diversions. No, I'm looking forward to it, but I also am terrified of it. Do you have your outlaying post, like, all the way down? I have it. Whoever bans it, everything? And this is an interesting thing. This is actually a question. This is a good – I'm glad you brought it up, Carl. But aid flips. Aid flips over in, I think, Germany. He has submitted a run where he has precision flippers on the game. Do you have a – you don't care. That's fine. A-okay. All right. Yeah, because for some people it's going to help. For other people it's going to make it more difficult because the flippers are more powerful, so you're going to hit those targets faster, and the ball is going to ricochet back towards you faster. So it's up to you.
    69:01
    Yeah, I think it's crazy because you're saying you can close up your out lanes, you can set the ball save to, like, you are being generous, but even with a generous setup. You can't put rubber bands over the out lane. Well, yeah. Yes. Tom. I was hoping he'd actually do it. That would have been hilarious.
    69:19
    I mean, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It should be a good time. Pin Clash, I can't wait. I can't wait for the event. You always do such a great job with that, Carl. But anyway, so what I was going to say about a J.J.P. game, if he lets me borrow a Godfather, I know that I need to prepare mentally to digest this game. And J.J.P. games, more than any other games, you really have to have it in the home to really be able to dive into what that game is. And I know when I had GNR, like I was talking to Travis because he had one at a time. How do I do this? And Carl, I was watching a bunch of your streams, seeing stuff. I was picking your brain. What's your thoughts on patches? Chat is talking to me about all these things. And, man, like if you get into that, if you get into really having just this crazy choose-your-own-adventure type of game. JGP games, most of them do that extremely well. And I actually went over to a buddy's house earlier this week, and he just got a GNR. They've had it like two weeks. But he says he loves it. He's like, oh, I'm loving this game. Come to find out he had no idea how to play it. I mean, the idea of getting to a song, he didn't realize, yeah, you have to hit the seven band members. Here they are. This is how you qualify them. No idea what the individual multiballs were, the four ones. patches, zero concept of the patches, you know, and it's just like, that's somebody who had owned the game for two weeks, and even playing the game almost on a daily basis wasn't learning the game, you know, so that's my thing, where I appreciate that there are very smart people like Tom and Carl that can figure this out and explain the game to the rest of us because... Did you notice that, Travis? Yeah, I left you out there. I left you out on purpose. Okay, I thought I noticed that. Yeah, yeah. But so I don't know. I'm Carl. Go ahead and do the rim shot, please. So here we go. Oh, man. Calm timing. Yeah. You did hit a good point, though, Joel, in your in your all your dialogue there.
    71:26
    Pretty much. So what JJP does that's interesting is that they do something that gets the casual involved. Where with like Guns N' Roses, there's basically what feels like a lot of Bozo multiballs that are available, like easy to get multiballs without really knowing how you got them. But if you want to know how you got them, well, then it starts making a little bit more sense. And you actually have incentive to get those multiballs because they add to the value of future modes and everything like that. So, yeah, I do like how the system goes with that. So that that makes sense. of what I'm curious of, and Carl, you might know a little bit about this now. With Godfather, did you get that sense that they were kind of leaning more into that a little bit more? Did it feel like they dialed that back a little bit? Because you mentioned the risk-reward, but does it feel like the game would be super approachable for just a casual to where it's just raining down multiballs and everything, or does it feel like that's a little bit more dialed back a little bit? Well, no. The big complaint from my stream was I'd plunge into a multiball in, what, the first 10 seconds or whatever. You know, there are plenty of easy-to-reach multiballs, and I think JGP does that for the casuals, absolutely. Right, right.
    72:42
    Is it a good thing, bad thing? I don't know. Some people really hate it for some reason. I don't get the hate. I really don't.
    72:50
    Did you play any of those multiballs for 10 minutes straight and did the audio loop the entire time?
    73:00
    No? I will tell you, I will say this. Here's what bothered me about it on GNR, Carl, is that it felt like with that layout, the endless multiball didn't feel like it meshed well with that particular layout, just the way that it was. But when I look at the layout of Godfather, I feel like there is a lot more flow to that game. And there is a lot more to shoot at in which it's exciting to shoot at. So I almost feel like having multiball with this game may not feel as daunting or may not feel as chaotic at times, if that makes sense. So that's what I'm curious if somebody has already played it, that has played GNR very extensively, is very familiar with that game, how that kind of came over. If it felt like kind of more of the same or if it felt like an evolution of GNR in that sense. It's an evolution for sure. It's not endless multiballs. It isn't. And it's really a combination of Pirates and Guns N' Roses, I feel.
    74:00
    They flesh out the modes in Godfather a lot more, so they actually feel like modes and not just Pirates where you're just shooting shots.
    74:09
    And after the first multiball, you have to work to get to the next multiball. So all you need to do is, if you really care about that, is bump the difficulty up in the softer settings.
    74:18
    But there's that steep learning curve, which is why I assume the multi-balls are easy to get to at the beginning. What I would love to see a manufacturer be brave enough to do is to build a tutorial mode into a game. I'm not just talking like a video on the screen. I'm talking, you know, I want to learn the game. Okay, you're going to walk me through the shots. Okay, this is how you start compound multi-ball. The game tells you to shoot here, and you shoot there, and you keep trying until you start compound multi-ball. Because I feel the association between playing the game to learn it runs deeper than just watching a video. You know, you actually learn the rules to the game when you play it. I don't know if any of you. 100%. Yeah, when you're watching, it just goes out the window, right? And when you're playing it, that's when it. They have a flowchart. They have a flowchart, yes. They have a flowchart, Carl. They do, which is nice. No, the flowchart's great. It really is.
    75:13
    It's better than nothing. Oh, I mean, the flow chart is so helpful in that regard. And spoiler alert, when we get to Pulp Fiction, the rules guide that they made for Pulp Fiction is incredible. Like, I don't know if you guys have seen that PDF, but it explains things incredibly well. But anyways, no, I like what you're saying. I mean, I'm all for it. That's – I watch – anytime I know of a certain game that I'm getting, I'm trying to watch streams, but nothing really clicks until you're the one that's actually, you know, hitting the shots. and, oh, that's what they mean, and, yeah, you're totally right.
    75:48
    When you streamed Scooby-Doo, you looped it. How far, because JJP has said that Godfather is essentially a complete game. Everything that's in the game is in the game. They're just going to tweak it. How much of that game do you feel like you saw? Do you feel like you progressed through a lot of it? I was on the precipice of a couple of the requirements for, I think it's Kiss the Ring is the final wizard mode. So there's five requirements on there. And I know one is finishing all the stained glass items. And I was pretty close on one of the games to finishing the stained glass. But beyond that, I don't actually know what the rules are to get all five of those items to get to that wizard mode.
    76:29
    And luckily, that game, because of the risk-reward, even if you do, you know, when you do get that into your house, you will see the end of the game. But the fact that every single step along the way has risk-reward, you could push that or extend it. Same thing with Godzilla. Like you've seen the end of the game, but every single thing that you do, you can push it further and, and, and lengthen your play time even more if you want, just because you're going to maximize the game. So that's exciting. I'm happy for you. If I'm going to predict, I do think there will be one in Tom's basement at some point. That's my prediction early. Just cause I think, I don't know. Travis is agreeing. Yeah. Yeah. But not in your basement, Travis, because Elwynn didn't design it. I mean, so this game I'm so torn on, and I'm tempted to override Monica on some things, and hopefully you guys have a couch available for me afterwards. Oh, yeah. So I'm so torn with this game because for me it feels disjointed. Like the theme doesn't speak to me. I've seen the movie. The movie's great. But in terms of a pinball theme, it doesn't really speak to me, right? and yet all the lights that goes off and everything that doesn't really speak to me either but when I see the layout that does like if I look at the layout as if it's just a white wood like it actually excites me seeing the different shots and opportunity and after watching Carl's stream I'm like okay there seems like there's a lot to do here and just like you guys alluded to a second ago the code is very much fleshed out already and so having the idea of having a game in here. My main complaint about Toy Story is it's not much depth to it. What you see is what you get. I mean, it's a fair game. If you want a casual game, it is what it is. But I would love to be able to have a game also that is super deep to where you can attack it from very different angles all the time. You don't have to take the same path all the time because that's what helps with replaying a game over and over again. So that right there, I don't know. That interests me. And I'm starting to look at it from the standpoint, okay, are the shots interesting to me? Yes. Is the potential of how the rules and code interesting to me? Yes. And so those two things are major parts for me. So that's kind of causing me to overlook the theme itself. And also, you know, some of the artwork choices as well. It's like, I love the look at the cabinet, right? The cabinet looks fantastic. And then I look at the play field and I don't know, It just feels different to me. I don't know what the deal is with the art package or if they had somebody else do it. It just doesn't feel like a spreadsheet when I look. There are two artists. There is. OK, so then it's not my mind going crazy because I'm looking at I'm just like this doesn't something seems off to me. So that's what I might be nitpicking. I don't know. But maybe if I see it in person, I'll be singing a different tune. But the cabinet to me looks fantastic. I think it would look great in a game lineup at the house. and, you know, people see it. And, I mean, even Toy Story, the art package on there, on the cabinet, is fantastic as well. So I fully expect that just to visually be awesome. So I don't know. I'm kind of worried if I play it down at TPF, which I'm going to try to. But, you know, I just, for the price where it's at, I don't know. That's the thing. And it's tough because at the prices it's at, it's not like you're going to see it on location all the time either. I mean, there might be around here, I think maybe CP Pinball might get it. I don't know. There's a few locations around here. But I don't know. At the same time, though, with the code that deep, you almost don't want to play it on location. You want to just play it at home. You want to experience it in that form. So I don't know. Maybe if I can convince her to move out Toy Story, I don't know. Even trade, right? Should I convince you to move out? Yeah. Even trade. Yeah. I don't know what to talk about. No money lost on Toy Story at all. No.
    80:28
    Carl, last two questions then would be, I'm curious about the mech, the mobster mech. There's a spinning disc, and apparently there's a point where you can control it with your flippers. What's that like? And then what was your favorite shot, or what was your favorite, I don't know, feeling that you got in the game? So the bad guy, the spinning disc wasn't terribly special to me, I'll be honest there. It just, you know, I think it's a lot like Attack from Mars where it's a center shot that people can shoot, casuals can go up and shoot over and over again. And at some point when you get deeper in the bad guys, you do have to shoot it quite a few times or you have to go around the backside. And I kept missing, you know, again, those diverters. It would come around the back, but I didn't know that it was going into there for the garage. And then I'm done and it's coming out. Oh, I missed my shot to, you know, use the flippers to spin it around. I don't think I was using the flippers right to spin it. I think I watched a bit of the stream with Eric playing it and saw that he was hitting one flipper to spin it around in one way, and I was trying to go both directions, which I think – so I wasn't getting a lot of action.
    81:35
    Okay. And then what was your favorite – I don't know, like what was the most satisfying thing you did or feeling in that – or was there any particular shot or combo that wowed you or surprised you? There was one mode where I was able to just, it was like building, after I finished two of the modes, there was a mode in the middle, I forget what they are, like the smaller windows on the stained glass. There was a mode that was just building things, and it was hitting two shots over and over again.
    82:04
    And, sorry, I lost the difference. Travis just turned, like, physically turned off his camera. What? I was just getting ahead of it. I didn't mean to interrupt you guys. Okay.
    82:17
    Sorry, Paul. Shooting these two shots over and over again felt really good to build the value up and then to cash it out on the scoop, I think it was. It might have been a different shot. I can't remember, but there was a cash-out shot at the end of it. But it wasn't a typical mode shot. And they were telling me to hit the button to build the multiplier, and I hadn't followed that yet. I didn't see where it said what my multiplier was. Interesting. So much to learn in the game. But, yeah, shooting those two shots over and over felt really good to do. Cool. Well, good. Well, that's Godfather. Obviously, make sure you play it. There's two more games. There's two more games, believe it or not, that people can touch at Pinball Expo. Not Pinball Expo, Texas Pinball Expo. Texas Pinball Festival. Yeah, I caught it. Isn't that if it's going to end up in Nebraska or something? You're probably going to be in the right spot. The next game that was announced, which is another one we've known about a long time, but it was finally just announced, was Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction, CGC is manufacturing it. It's Play Mechanics. They're the ones that designed it. Mark Ritchie game, Josh Sharp on rules, so probably second best rules this year. I mean, that's where he just stays, right, is number two. That's how that works. I didn't say it.
    83:36
    That's just what I've heard. I've never met Josh. I just, that's what I've heard. Okay.
    83:42
    He's a real hard ass. You got to be careful, Joel. Be careful. There's no, Joel. This was another game that I was just like, I don't care. Like, I don't care about Pulp Fiction, but I will tell you that I am really impressed, really impressed with what I'm seeing. That game looks really fun. They got a gazillion call outs. I mean, it's a single level game, but yet has a subway, has a buck.
    84:05
    There's some exciting stuff there and nobody's played it. Nobody's played it. unless apparently it's been in Josh Sharp's basement for like two years, unless somebody snuck down there. This kid did, and he got all the slurs.
    84:19
    Yeah. Tom, you are in on one of these. I am. What did you see about it that made you pull the trigger? uh basically the uniqueness of the layout as far as um just being a a modern game kind of with the classics throwback um yeah i i like the uh i like what was going on and i want to check it out so if you would have known if we would walked up to you two years ago and said, hey, guess what? In two years, you're going to buy two single-level playfield games. I would have told you you're crazy. Yeah. Who needs ramps? I don't know. I mean, you guys, as tournament players, you guys play games of all eras, and so a lot of this is a callback to pinball that before I got into this or that I'm really that familiar with. Is there any particular shot or anything about this layout that excites you or that is the callback that excites you, if that makes sense?
    85:34
    I don't know. I like the saucer. I like the saucer up top. Well, that part's interesting because it kind of brings up to Harlem Globetrotters or something like that. If I'm going to have a saucer, I'd rather have it on an old school game. I much more prefer that. I like the callback to kind of like an Indiana Jones type thing with the drop targets in the middle. You've got to hit those out.
    85:58
    Yeah, and then of course it has a hallmark, spinners on both sides. I mean, the game, when you look at the game, it looks like it's going to play brutal. It does not look like it's going to be an easy game, which for me, as a competitive player, that's exciting. We want a challenge. We don't want something that's just going to last forever and just drone on. So, yeah, I mean, the shots, they look fantastic. Like, I don't think, or as long as Mark Ritchie's been on the sidelines, he certainly did not skip a beat. It looks like a lot of fun. Yeah, and what I think's crazy is, well, one, apparently kind of the right side is remnants of fishtails and that ball lock, and then there's a taxi target. Well, it's the hold passengers, the carry passengers target and taxi. That's the, there's a character or something. So it's like he kind of has a callback to a bunch of his greatest hits. But what I do think is interesting, day, Loser Kid actually just recently interviewed Mark Ritchie, and he said his initial layout was a wide body with a lot, like LCD screen, ramps, like all of this. Sent it off to Quentin Tarantino, and he said no.
    87:03
    I'm willing to bet he turned that down. He turned it down because he wanted a retro game So it crazy that he had a whole other you know huge a completely different concept you know all the bells and whistles and then you know kind of so I don know I excited This thing looks awesome This is another game that's going to look incredible in a collection, especially, I mean, the Ellie with the topper, just oof.
    87:27
    I don't know. Any other thoughts? I mean, we're in the week. Yeah, when's Kill Bill coming out? When's the next one? Yeah. Josh did say there is a 0% chance that they are going to come out with another game next year. So this was in the making for years, apparently. I mean, it's exciting. It's exciting that kind of a new company is coming, you know, taking a chance on this, and it looks like they're crushing it. I mean, this game looks awesome, and it sold really well in the first few days. And they're not making them for, I mean, it's going to be like Q3 or later until they actually start making games. So that'll be cool. I don't know. Carl, what the heck? Why didn't you stream it 48 hours later? I mean, just that's your thing now, right? Give me one. Give him some time. Geez. No, two days is all he gets now. I mean, he's on it. There's supposed to be one coming my way at some point. So for a stream challenge, Josh mentioned that on the Loser Kid, so I can at least say that. Oh, I was going to say, did you learn about it on Loser Kid, or you knew about this at the time? No, I knew it.
    88:30
    That's awesome. And then the last game that we can really talk about is, which they haven't announced, but last night on Flippin' Out with Friends, Chris Franchi was in chat, and he said this game will be announced within seven days. So hopefully by the time this is out, it's either been announced or will be announced very soon. But Galactic Tank Force, there is the trailer that's out there right now is showing that the cabinet is a tank with treads and all. I think, I mean, we the three of us have been hyping this game because we just wanted them to go nuts, we wanted like I mean, GGF, right? I mean like I know Carl's pumped, he can hardly sleep at night just go all in, drink your Kool-Aid come on Carl it was on my list of potential purchases, it was, but Godfather unfortunately, because I enjoyed it so much that took the slot even if I do really enjoy this game, I don't have the funds to purchase it It looks insane. What if you could actually ride it, though, like a little kid? Ride it? Ooh.
    89:36
    It looks insane. And I love that they went campy in Godzilla. I love that Elvira's campy. I mean, they are going all in on just this absurd, crazy theme. They're talking about ice cream. It's like this galactic battle. There's cows on the play field. saving cows and ice cream. I mean, it just sounds insane. But I'm still hyped for it. I will tell you right now, Franchi did reveal on stream that there are going to be Galactic Tank Force lunchboxes for sale at TPS. So I'm all over that. I feel like you willed that into existence.
    90:19
    Hey, they said, and there's a thermos inside. I hope they didn't make I hope they didn't order like 50 and they just sell out. Like, I am in. I am all over that one. Please reserve one for Joel or we'll never hear from you.
    90:37
    I'm all over it. But another Franchi art package, and this is another nugget, but he did say, I told him, he popped into chat and I just said, hey, man, congrats, this year has been insane between Godfather and then this art package with Black Tank Force.
    90:53
    I mean, what polar opposites. I mean, crazy, crazy the differences between the two games. But he said he has a third R package coming out in Q3. So let's do some quick thinking there. I don't think he works with Stern, and they've already said that the next Stern game is Zambietti.
    91:09
    Then what do we got? Is American Pinball going to come out with another game? I don't know. JJP's said they're shooting for two games a year, so maybe. But Q3, that's not that far away. I know. Oh, you know? Yeah, Deep Root. Oh, right, right, right, right. Aren't they Turner Pinball now? Turner, yeah. Turner Pinball. Something like that?
    91:35
    I mean, that's a whole other thing. They're going to have a Whitewood there, that guy. But I don't know. I mean, that's a whole other, like, what is this? What is going on? So we'll have to wait and see on that one. All that matters, we're all going to turn the games into tanks. We're going to take it out into the parking lot. there probably will be beer involved like last year we'll have a brand old time I cannot wait it is a really good time to be a pinball enthusiast it's a really bad time to be a pinball collector yes the fact that I mean like Carl's has multiple games coming Tom you have every game coming just like not every but like look at how many games you have on order you kind of do Tom Yeah. But what's – Oh, shut up. What's crazy, though, is, I mean, there are people that are still waiting on Cactus Canyon. There are people still waiting on Weird Al. There's people still waiting on Fathoms. They're, you know – I don't have that in order.
    92:34
    Okay, true. It's just – there are so many amazing games that you can buy right now. I don't know. I think it's pretty incredible. But that's – I mean, when it comes to the games, that's – be ready to wait in line for everything that I just mentioned. Um, not to mention there, I mean, there will be games that other people haven't had an opportunity to play yet. Um, whether it's, you know, a Toy Story or a Rush or Bond, um, you know, Cornerstone, any of that, um, that all should be a really good time. Now for you three and many others, cause there's a wait list. There is the TPS, the TPF tournament. Um, I don't know, thoughts on that. Are there any, um, any particular games that stand out? I know Foo Fighters is going to be one in the lineup, but is there any other game in lineup that you're scratching your head or excited for? Is there going to be a darling like Mystery Castle that's going to just wow us all?
    93:31
    No. Any tournament director that does not put Mystery Castle in the tournament, I'm already disappointed in them.
    93:38
    Carl, were you prepared for that game to be loved the way it is now? I mean, Jim had the right idea of putting it in. He loves that game, and we knew it was going to take off.
    93:51
    Especially with the audio. I mean, you can't be in the Indus call without hearing that game, right? You need to find some, like, reach out to Johnny Crapper, somebody, somebody that has that artistic ability to take the artistic style of Mystery Castle and make it bring your Indus logo into that. Are you saying there should be a Mystery Castle remake with an updated art package? No, I'm not saying that. Because I think it would actually sell. Oh. I think it would actually sell. Yeah, I do. They really love CD screens that never show the score. It's great. They love that. I mean, yeah, it is what it is. But what I hope is is that that game will never leave in-disc. I hope it's just a staple. Every year? Yeah, it just stays in there. It's got to. Like, the moment, I'm telling you, Carl, the moment you guys take Mystery Castle out, you're probably going to lose, like, 90% of us. We're all just going to stay home. But Pimber had high end, so we're going to have Mystery Castle, right? That's what you're saying? Yeah. I mean, we don't come out there for the World Championship. We come out there for Mystery Castle. And to not disturb you as well. We come out there for that as well. I still think do not disturb Carl t-shirts need to happen, just in general. Not just a one-off for you and Carl. Those signs were not working. I was watching it off to the side, and just everybody kept coming up. And Carl, he was just a saint. He was so patient with it, but you could tell he was just straight up ready to murk somebody eventually because there's so much going on. So, Carl, do people – sorry, Joel, can I interrupt you for a minute? Do people just grab your rig and start moving it around on you?
    95:32
    On occasion, yes, on occasion. but then they'll find me running up to them and going, I'll take care of it stop! yeah, I'm sure what I was going to say is shortly after we did this Joel, I have to interrupt here because this is important Joel, this is important everybody out there I'll even look into the camera for this one everybody out there if you are at the Carl D'Angelo tournament and he's streaming if you're at a Tom Graff tournament, he's streaming Do not touch the rig. Do not look at the rig. Do not think about the rig. You stay away from the rig. Okay, Joel, public service announcement over. Uh-oh, Carl's touching his rig.
    96:18
    No, what I was going to say is we had Neil. We had, holy crap, why can I not? Neil McCray? Yeah, McCray. I was thinking like Neil Tyson. I was like, no. Yeah, we don't know him.
    96:32
    Neil McCray. We had him shortly after, and obviously he was at InDisc, and he told me that your streaming rig, like, died or, like, was on the fritz during InDisc. It was your computer, right? Yeah, my computer was having just a horrible time. In fact, when I brought it home the day after InDisc, it wouldn't turn on. So I feel so fortunate that it made it to that last day. Yeah. Yeah, but we were having frame skipping issues, and it frustrated me. the hell out of it. It drives the hell. It's on the recording too, which is unfortunate. I need to still upload those things, but yeah, there's a lot of frame skipping. It's not where I want the stream to be. Carl, I will help you figure out your camera issues. Don't worry about it. I can help. Carl, I mean, there was only like, what, 15,000 people watching? Yeah. Barely anybody. Did you figure out what the issue was? I reformatted Windows, and that's been taken care of. Okay. I think it was actually a, if you want to get technical, it was a PCIe lane issue. I had too many devices connected.
    97:47
    So I had added another M2 SSD, and I think that was too much. Okay. So. You got that, Tom? Do not. I almost added one to my old computer.
    98:05
    Travis, this is just a foreign language to you, isn't it? I mean, I'm following along a little bit. When I got my brand new computer, I was having all tons of issues. And it looked similar to Carl's. and I just assumed it was my capture card or like a cable issue or a transmitter issue, but it was a brand new graphics card that was just going to crap.
    98:39
    And Andy Bagwell and I, we were like up for like five hours every night troubleshooting the whole computer, and it finally came down to like it's either the CPU or the video card. and I ran out, got a new video card, and I haven't had a problem since. Good. Wow. So maybe this is an interesting question, but, I mean, Tom, you just came off of what, like last weekend, streaming for 40-plus hours. I mean, it's just – Yes, it's exhausting. Yes. You guys are both – and, Carl, you stream a lot as well. I mean, is there something – as a tournament streamer, is there something that just the general public that we watch, like we just don't understand, or is there any behind-the-scenes goodness that you want to share or share your turmoil with us? Or I don't know, why are you guys crazy enough to do it? I just, I don't know. The soapbox is yours if you want to take it. I just do it because I want everybody to see what's going on, I mean, and spread the competitive pinball scene. Yeah, exactly. It's always been to grow pinball. It's nothing for personal gain or anything like that. It's just to grow the local scene at first, then just to grow streaming and get more eyeballs on pinball. Yeah, and I will say watching the Indus stream and when it showed up on the Twitch front page, because you are partnered now and that happened, to see the number of people that came into stream like, pinball? I didn't, you know, and just like you could tell how many viewers were like so taken back by it. Like, what is this? And not realizing that they're watching, you know, the top of the top. You got Elwin. You got Escher. You got, what was the other guy that was in that? I don't remember. But it was Travis. Me. Me, Joel. And Jason Zoller. I'm aware, Joel, one person did not look right in that situation. I'm fully aware of that. Thank you. But for all these just novice people showing up and like, what is this? And then I will say the chat was awesome. The pinball people that were there were super supportive and encouraging and putting them in the right. It was awesome. It was so cool to see. So very, very cool to see. But, yeah, I'm hoping, I mean, with this tournament, obviously it will be streamed. The TPS tournament will be streamed. I don't know. I just, is there anything else about the tournament that you guys want to talk about or curious of? We're not going to give away what games we want to play, Joel. Okay. Hey, last year you went, like, game by game. Oh, yeah, we told people how to play them. Well, I will say the game I'm excited to see, well, yeah, because I got ass kicked in the first round. But that's neither here nor there. But, no, I'll say, like, I'm excited to see The Walking Dead in a tournament. Like, any time that that game's in, I'm very happy. Like, I love the code. I love Lyman Code, so I'm happy I'll see that. I don't know. After walking into his stream last night, I'm not too excited to have that game in the tournament anymore.
    101:34
    Oh, really? So he streamed, what, Walking Dead the other day? Yeah, Walking Dead, yeah. Oh, let me guess. Yeah, you know what the game is. Let me guess. He did Crossbow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He probably did that. He probably figured that out. Yeah. Well, I mean, okay. So let's just pretend Escher is not going to TPF, which he is.
    101:53
    Yeah, you're right. Shit. We need to take it out. Colin, if you're listening to this, please remove Walking Dead. I'm no longer excited about it. At least there's Foo Fighters. I've never played that. There's a Twister, too. That means we get to orbit all day long. That really shocked me that he put that in there after what happened at Indus with that, just that orbit all day long strat. Carl, I guarantee there's going to be casuals there. They're going to completely forget about that, and they're going to go for a multi-ball the whole time. That doesn't matter. Well, yeah. As long as we hear the best call-out in 10-ball, yeah.
    102:31
    Going to happen. Look at Joel. Joel's like, I don't know what it is. Joel's about to go to sleep. It's when you miss your super jackpot, Joel. You actually get a call out. He screams, oh, no, you lost your super jackpot.
    102:44
    That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. It is. You would hear it a lot if you were on this game. So you need to join the tournament, Joel. Usually to get to a super jackpot, you have to hit other shots to, like, get to that point. It just kind of happens for you. Don't worry about it. Oh, okay. Okay. There's a few EMs, though. I like the EM setup. There's some that I'm like, okay, I'm excited to play these. And then there's others. It's like, okay, those are complete grenades. I'm going to avoid those completely. You know what I mean? That's what TPF usually does, though. They usually have some of the games with the small, like, two-inch flippers or two-and-a-half-inch flippers. And then, you know, I'm excited to see, like, Volley in there. I guess there's Atlantis. I actually really like that EM, Centigrade 37. I think I'm saying that right. I like how that plays. So, I mean, those games I'm excited to see. And there's a few solid states in there, too. They're pretty cool. I mean, I like Gorgar just because of the ability to shat and then try to hit, I guess, I forget the name of the shot. I even own the game. I can't remember the shot. The magnet shot at the top. You collect everything. It wasn't just on the game.
    103:46
    No, you didn't. I bought it before. I don't listen. Oh, new games. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Yeah, new games, new games. So I don't know. I mean, truth be told, I've halfway thought about dropping out of the main tournament. What?
    104:00
    Just because there's so much going on on the floor with all these new games. You'll be fine. I know. Come join the party. Just skip the bar for a change.
    104:12
    It's going to be tough. It's going to be so tough down in Texas. It's going to be so tough. I don't know. I've never been to Texas Pinball Festival. Can you carry a bear around with you?
    104:22
    You can carry like five around with you if you want to. I kind of figured. Yeah, yeah. No, it's a lot of fun. The people down there are nice. I mean, it's cool. I don't know. So with the tournament, though, I don't really like limited entry per se. because I don't know. But it's good that they had that because if they didn't, we'd have the same debacle as what happened, I think it was like three years ago now. And I think you were there for this one, Carl, in 2019 where Classics was like a three-hour wait for Fathom or two-hour wait, something like that. Right. Classics were unlimited at that point. And it was just pure insanity. So, I mean, I understand why they did the limited part. But I don't know. I mean, the tournament's fun. But with the event there, like, there's just so much else going on. Because everybody's there. There's so many different games going on. You got the Twippies. You got everything else. I mean, you got Joel walking around doing his thing. So, I mean, yeah. Just, you know, walking around. Yeah. What are you doing at TPF this year? Do you have a TPN? Do we not have a TPN, like, booth this year? We don't have a TPN booth as far as I know. We don't. So, I'm just going to be there. and I'll tell you right now all four of us are going to be there so if you anybody listening come say hi that's really I yeah we're I'm just there for the people I'm there to play a bunch of new games and I can't wait it's going to be good you're just going for the twippy I don't think that's going to happen I've already told you we won Joel right right right right right okay okay keep telling you this well so have you at least looked at the show events that's going on No, I haven't. I do know that there's pretty much every manufacturer does a thing. Franchi did say in the stream last night, big surprise, big surprise happening during the AP event. I don't know what that means, but big surprise. So when is the AP event? I don't know.
    106:18
    You don't have this up in front of you? I mean, during turn of the finals. Oh, I did. That's right. You mentioned this earlier. Oh, great. Here we go. Oh, no. It totally ruins all the cameras. Nope, can't do it. All right, so for anybody listening, it is Friday, that Friday from 5 to 6, American Pinball TPF Seminar Room. So I'm assuming, obviously, GTF will be shown, and hopefully they will let that thing in. It's going to be revealed before seven days. That's it. There will be a reveal before that. I want it revealed right then and there to where they have, like, Norman, like, actually on top of the tank and David's, like, pushing it. Riding it in. Like, to show it. They're going to be shooting lunchboxes out at people. Shoosh!
    107:02
    Just lunchboxes. Boo! Doo! Yeah. It's going to be great. So something else, though, like six to seven is Jersey Jack Seminar Room, so Godfather. So I don't know. Maybe we might see a Carl demonstration. Maybe that would be nice to see somebody actually playing the game. Like, awesome. That would be fun. And then I think the most popular thing that night will be the special screening of the pinball movie with Roger Sharp. So that's from 8 to 10 in the seminar room. And I'm pretty sure that will be jam-packed. So if you're wanting to go there, I don't know how you make sure you're in there. I don't know if you've got to get in line before everybody else or what. But that seems to be the main things going on on Friday. So is anyone else concerned about the attendance level? That this may be the most packed TPS ever?
    107:50
    Yeah, it's going to be nuts. insane because there's never been any reveals like this before, you know, this many new good games coming out.
    108:03
    That's a good point. I hadn't thought about it until right now, but I am curious. I don't know how many people, like, I know I've been wanting to go for months. Like, even when there weren't reveals, I was going to go. But I don't know how many people are like, oh, I'm going now. Now that I know I can touch GTF, I'm in.
    108:25
    It'll be busy. There's no way. I will just come out and say I think it's going to be an absolute madhouse everywhere. Because even if you look at the tournament, there's 170 players right now on the wait list. And that's what some players already filtered through to the tournament. So if that's any indication of people that know that they're going to be there, I mean, this is usually a busy time anyways, but I think having every single major manufacturer there and even having smaller manufacturers there, having people tout games being released that we don't even know about, having Whitewoods there. Like, I got a feeling it's just going to be just an absolute madhouse that week. So, I mean, I guess you're going to have to wait in line for games. So, I mean, hopefully we'll make sure Joel's not just everybody doesn't come out and bug Joel to death. So we'll make sure. We'll keep everybody away from you, Joel. Don't worry about it. One Godfather, two Foo Fighters. Should be a good time. I can say I looked at the games that were going to be there, and I could have swore I counted like 25 Foo Fighters. Yeah. I think there's going to be a lot there. Yeah.
    109:35
    I don't know. But even with JJP, the picture that they showed earlier of all the godfathers, I think there might have been like eight to 12. I didn't put their account, but it's somewhere right around there. But I don't know. It's just hopefully people that are in line are at least respectful. They get done with their game. Like, cool, I can talk about it and then move off to the side. It's the person that has 25 people behind them that starts a four-player game, and then they play all four players. That might drive people insane. So, but, you know, it is what it is. Well, I don't, I mean, is there anything else TPF related? Hopefully this is, I mean, we're looking at two hours. Hopefully this is, if you're on a plane, train, or automobile, you know, making your way to TPF. Hopefully this was going to pump you up a little bit. Do we think there could possibly be another game revealed there?
    110:26
    From another company? I mean, sure. If so, let's do it. Why not? But, I mean, it is an interesting thing. Like, Pulp Fiction was announced now, and I don't know if it's like, hey, we don't want to be left out. But, I mean, it was announced now, even though they're not building the games for six, seven months. So, is this a great time to reveal a new game? Or should you wait four months once, you know, the dust settles a tiny bit? Well, I mean, I would. I mean, look at everybody else is revealing a game. Why not?
    111:00
    Okay. I mean, if you believe in your product and you want to compete in the marketplace, I think you have to. If somebody's going to reveal a game, it's somebody we don't know, right? I mean, that's every manufacturer that we know has.
    111:17
    That would be awesome, though, if American Pinball's other big announcement is all of a sudden they have another game. A second game.
    111:26
    This whole cycle is so wacky, it would not surprise me. If somebody turns around and does something like that, it would not surprise me at all.
    111:35
    I'm going to be surprised. You're going to be surprised. You should be there for the Simpsons. Do you hear about that? No. Yeah, they're – Cary Hardy is hosting it. To where they're opening up. Like, it's still in the box.
    111:51
    Oh, they have a new in-box Simpsons, Stern Simpsons game? Pinball party. Yeah. Wow. Interesting. rave. That's probably legitimately a $20,000 game right there. I know another one. If you could sell the 20K, I'm sure they'd be interested.
    112:12
    What are you saying? I know some friends of mine have a new in-box Simpsons that they've just held on to. They've just never opened it. I don't ask. I don't understand. Yeah. It's like a piece of furniture in their living room. In their living room? It's in their house with all the other games. Yeah. But it's just in the box. It happens, Joel. Yeah. There was somebody I knew about, and this was just last year. They still had a Magic Girl in the box. They just never took it out at all. Because it couldn't play it. Yeah. They ended up selling it for a lot of money. I'm sure. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. You shouldn't have unboxed it at 60th. mom thing. Nah. He's a little bit. Is what it is. All right. Well, let's go ahead and wrap it up then. We'll plug it up.
    113:07
    Yeah. Travis, plug away, man. Yeah. You guys can find me on this podcast or I'll go ahead and say this. I'm on Facebook also. You guys just look me up. If you don't look like a creeper, I might friend you. I know you.
    113:20
    Simple as that. I'll talk pinball. It's fine. You can find me on Discord too. I'm not fishing for friends. I get friend requests. So I'm just saying, hey, yeah, that's cool. Like, if you see us at TPF, feel free to come up and say hello. We love talking to people. We love meeting people. And, you know, we won't big league you like Joel does where he just turns around and just walks off. No. I'm literally flying across the U.S. just to talk to pinball people. I can't wait. I'm stoked. But, Carl, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you, as always. If you want to plug all the stuff you do, go for it, man. On Twitch as IE Pinball. That's pretty much all that's going on right now. We'll be having tournaments coming up again next year for Indus. We don't have the dates yet, but we're looking for some time in February if you want to start looking around the calendar. And Pin Class. See, I've forgotten everything I do. Pin Class coming up May. Yeah, I've forgotten the date. Go to pinclassjourney.com.
    114:19
    Qualifications end in like two and a half weeks, I believe. Shoot. Beginning of April. So, yeah, that's why you're seeing Godzilla a lot on Twitch, if you didn't know already. Yeah. No, it's exciting. It'll be cool. Yeah, I need to get around. I just want to get – I just need to complete it once. I just need to have a valid entry, you know, and we'll see. And, yes, we, as in Triple Drain, we sponsored Pin Clash, and we have the You Are Average Award. So whatever the literal middle-of-the-pack submitted score is getting, $150 from us and a comfy from Travis. So can't wait, man. Can't wait to see who that is to reward those average, you know. There's plenty of us out there. And right now, middle is above the cut, I believe, too. So it could actually be in the finals.
    115:12
    Okay. We will see. Well, once again, Carl, thanks for being here. Tom, plug it up, man. Fox City's Pinball on Twitch and YouTube and Facebook, Instagram. We have a tournament, kind of what Carl does, a heads-up tournament this weekend coming up. So you'll probably see it later because it'll be after this is released. Awesome. Okay. Very cool.
    115:40
    And, yeah, I am Joel. I do the Flippin' Out Pinball stream every Wednesday from 10 to midnight, and then we usually do chatting streams versus pinball streams on and off. So check us out on YouTube and then, yeah, we do this. But, hey, I appreciate you guys. This was fun. Hopefully I'm looking forward to seeing you guys in person at TPF. Should be a good time. Yes, please come say hi to us if you see us. And, yeah, like always, Tom, you get the last words. Go get some barbecue.