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Episode 116 – A Whole New World

Head2Head Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 47m·analyzed·Nov 11, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.020

TL;DR

H2H covers Color DMD updates, JP LE arrival, new podcast launch, IFPA women's survey, and Stern circuit prize boost.

Summary

Head2Head Pinball discusses Color DMD pricing and new ultra-thin LCD models, the imminent arrival of Jurassic Park LE in Australia, the launch of the Super Awesome Pinball Podcast with Dr. Pinn as co-host, IFPA's women-in-pinball survey initiative, increased Stern Pro Circuit prize money ($10k added), and community dynamics around machine modding and secondary market valuation.

Key Claims

  • ColorDMD costs approximately $400 USD ($800 AUD) due to low volume production economies compared to mass-market TVs

    high confidence · Host discusses pricing economics: 'Maybe 500,000 of those machines versus...a couple hundred, maybe 1,000 color DMDs they sell each year'

  • Color DMD has released an ultra-thin IPS screen update with relocated controller board for Capcom game compatibility, price unchanged

    high confidence · Direct discussion of Color DMD announcement: 'relocated the controller board to allow mounting in Capcom games'

  • Jurassic Park LE is arriving in Australia this Thursday (week of broadcast) with Sydney customs clearance required before overnight courier to Melbourne

    high confidence · Host states: 'Jurassic Park...is actually coming out this Thursday. They are landing in Australia this Thursday'

  • Jurassic Park development documentation by Keith Foreman has been exceptionally transparent with public whitewoods visibility and development guides

    high confidence · Host praises: 'Keith has just been unbelievable with how he's made these guides...He's let you know that he's seen your Whitewoods'

  • Machine modifications typically recover only 50% of invested cost in secondary market sales, despite owner expectations

    medium confidence · Host explains: 'if you put those mods in...99% of people...think they're never going to sell it. But once they do...you're not going to get 100% back...Maybe 50% at best'

  • Stern Pro Circuit added $10,000 to prize pool with first place prize of $5,000 + Stern pinball machine + circuit belt; $600 entry covers IFPA fee

    high confidence · Host confirms: 'there's an extra $10,000 in prize money...first prize is $5,000 plus a Stern Pinball Inc. machine...now it's $600 just for making it'

  • OBX (Outer Banks) is one of two remaining Stern Pro Circuit qualifier events; host is choosing OBX over Freeplay Florida due to travel cost (driving vs. flying)

    medium confidence · Discussion: 'we're choosing to go to OBX instead of Freeplay Florida because we're going to drive to OBX, whereas flights to Florida are really expensive'

Notable Quotes

  • “I'll never understand how this little screen costs more than a 60-inch LCD. Why is it so expensive?”

    Joe (Host B) @ Early segment — Articulates core pricing paradox in the Color DMD market that frustrates collectors; drives broader discussion of economies of scale

  • “If you bought mods to increase the value of your machine, well, you're not going to get 100% back of what you've invested in it. No way known. Maybe 50% at best.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ Mods discussion segment — Establishes realistic secondary market expectations for customizations; frames mod purchasing as passion-driven rather than investment-driven

  • “It's obnoxious how he just is the best at everything. It's just so jelly.”

    Joe @ Jurassic Park development discussion — Expresses admiration mixed with humor about Keith Foreman's exceptional design and transparency; signals high community regard for his work

  • “Well, I don't need to hide my intel or my IP or any secrets. Here's how I did it because I'm going to be able to do another one just as good.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ Jurassic Park transparency segment — Interprets designer confidence philosophy: openness is possible when skill/ability to repeat success is assured

  • “Pinballing ain't easy. So Mr. Dr...”

    Joe @ Closing remarks — Closing joke acknowledging tension between podcast scheduling and competitive pinball obligations

Entities

Color DMDproductStern PinballcompanyKeith ForemanpersonJurassic Park (Stern)gameDr. PinnpersonChristopher FranchipersonEd Van Der VeenpersonTexas Pinball FestivaleventIFPA

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Color DMD released ultra-thin IPS screen upgrade with Capcom compatibility, signaling focus on expanding aftermarket adoption across classic game ecosystem

    high · Official announcement of ultra-thin IPS screen update with controller board relocation for Capcom games; price maintained

  • $

    market_signal: Community-wide pattern emerging where expensive machine modifications (mods costing $1000+) do not translate to proportional secondary market value recovery; buyers systematically discount modded machines 40-50%

    high · Host reports $10k modded Lord of the Rings received market pushback; Munsters with mods depreciated $3k in 6 months; hosts explain buyers negotiate down for mod-laden machines

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Monsters (Stern) experienced significant secondary market depreciation and sales friction due to accumulated negative reviews, despite being mechanically competent machine; buyers influenced by online commentary before purchase

    high · Host reports: 'people that were inquiring at that higher amp...they put it up...they're coming back saying...I've just looked at some reviews...I'm going to go with something else. That was the big problem'

  • ?

    community_signal: Emerging community friction around secondary market pricing commentary; experienced collectors criticizing overpriced listings without constructive engagement, creating toxic discourse around resales

    medium · Hosts discuss repeated pattern of negative comments on overpriced listings; hosts express frustration with 'crushing' commentary that serves no constructive purpose

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.072

0:00
Music Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 116 and surprisingly back this week, I guess, I don't know, Joe, who dis?
0:45
It's been three weeks. What on earth, man? I know! I've been having super withdrawals and I'm just like, Friday night comes and I'm just, even though I'm doing something and I can't talk to you, I just go sit there and go, I should be doing something right now. What's wrong? I'm missing something in my life. I don't know whether it's the show or whether it's me, but I'll miss you. Oh, thank you. I miss you. I missed the show. Oh, shoot.
1:20
All right. Message Ms. Pinn and Mr. Pinn, Dr. Pinn. Well, admittedly, though, the benefit is you not being on meant that we had Mrs. Pinn and Dr. Pinn on, which was hilarious. Some really, really hardcore cock talk. Yes, there really was. That Ms. Pinn, she's a dirty girl, that one. She's a dirty girl. That's hilarious. So it was good fun to do. They are. They're awesome. We've got some news to get through. The first one, for those people that are into color D&D, how many color D&Ds have you got on your machines at home?
1:59
I have currently... 100%? Yeah, 100% of them have it. And I have color reels. Reels. And I mean, not right now, but in the future, in the machines that I might own ever again. The car DMD itself is not really cheap, if I'm honest. And I think in Australia, someone said me the other day, they're probably about $800 landed. $800 Australian dollars, which is probably $600 US. I believe they're $400 the last time I knew of other people who had been purchasing Yeah, but then you've got shipping costs to Australia which is redonkadonk, right? It's literal shipping, like they put it on a ship and then you actually get the ship. Yeah, like six months later. Yeah, part of the ship. You have to literally go to the ship and go, I want container number three.

  • IFPA has launched a women-in-pinball survey to gather diversity data and understand women's participation preferences in pinball formats

    high confidence · Host describes: 'they're wanting to obviously get an understanding of diversity...how women are currently involved in pinball...what type of formats they like'

    • organization
    Stern Pro Circuitevent
    OBX Flipper Pinballevent
    Outer Bankslocation
    Lord of the Rings (Stern)game
    Munsters (Stern)game
    [name withheld pending review]game
    Batman 66 (Stern)game
    Game of Thrones (Stern)game
    Jack Dangerperson
    Head2Head Pinball Podcastmedia
    Leslieperson

    design_innovation: Stern's Keith Foreman established unprecedented industry precedent for designer transparency by publicly sharing Jurassic Park development process, whitewood documentation, and design guides

    high · Hosts praise: 'Keith has just been unbelievable with how he's made these guides...He's let you know that he's seen your Whitewoods...He's obnoxious how he just is the best'

  • ?

    product_launch: Jurassic Park LE arrival in Australia Thursday triggers multi-step logistics chain (Sydney customs → overnight courier to Melbourne) with uncertain Friday/Monday delivery window

    high · Host: 'They are landing in Australia this Thursday...they've got to be shipped down overnight via a courier company. So I may get it Friday or I may get it Monday'

  • ?

    announcement: Super Awesome Pinball Podcast officially launching Black Friday (Nov 29) as twice-monthly show featuring Christopher Franchi, Ed Van Der Veen, and Dr. Pinn; includes celebrity trivia competitions and sponsor reveals

    high · Official announcement: 'twice a month starting this Black Friday...pitting two pinball celebrities against each other in a trivia showdown'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pro Circuit increased total prize pool by $10,000; first place now $5,000 + Stern machine + belt; entry fee ($600) covers IFPA costs, reducing financial barrier for participants

    high · Official announcement: 'there's an extra $10,000 in prize money...first prize is $5,000 plus a Stern Pro Pinball machine plus the circuit belt...now it's $600 just for making it'

  • ?

    industry_signal: IFPA launched formal diversity survey targeting women pinball players; survey measures age/race/identity demographics, participation patterns, format preferences, and IFPA initiative effectiveness

    high · Host describes: 'the best way to find out what women want is to ask women what they want...first page is all about your age, your race, location'

  • ?

    event_signal: Two final Stern Pro Circuit qualifiers (OBX and Freeplay Florida) scheduled simultaneously, forcing player choice between events; travel costs driving selection (OBX favored for driving vs. Florida flights)

    high · Host explains: 'there's only two more events left...on the circuit...and you can only go to one of them, because they're on the same event...we're choosing to go to OBX instead of Freeplay Florida because...flights to Florida are really expensive'

  • ?

    product_concern: Lord of the Rings playfields exhibiting three distinct color palette variations across production run ('very green' vs 'very brown' vs Orc/Hobbiton editions), indicating potential quality control or material sourcing variance

    medium · Host reports: 'I saw Lord of the Rings...I went, hang on, that's now a third colour palette I'm seeing...it's going to be one at league finals...either it's very green or it's very brown'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Limited Edition Stern machines appearing in commercial venues (e.g., Monsters LE reported at two Australian locations near Mystic/A4), suggesting operator interest in premium tier inventory despite collector-focused positioning

    medium · Host notes: 'there is an LE Monsters...literally two LE Monsters on location near me. One in Mystic and one in A4'

    • 2:55
    We've often joked about that, like a while ago there was a store that you went to buy a t-shirt from and the t-shirt might have been $30 and shipping was $30. Well, actually, someone sent me a link that there was an item that was $15 and shipping was $40.
    3:10
    So it's just crazy at the moment. That's just the way shipping is. So that's why it's landed. The reason why I bring that up is, you know, like a lot of add-ons that go on machines, it's a significant investment. And depending on the machine, either it's an expensive machine, so therefore $800 on top of $14,000 is more proportion, Or it's such a machine that you love that you think $800, well, doesn't really matter. And also some mods that you put on machines these days are pretty expensive anyway. So it's what's important to you. I have a Gala DMD on my Star Trek, obviously, because favorite machine. But I don't have one on my Lord of the Rings.
    3:58
    The Lord of the Rings one is pretty good too. It's really good. The reason why it's not on my Lord of the Rings, because my Lord of the Rings isn't necessarily the best condition machine, so I don't, even though I would always want to have a Lord of the Rings in my collection, I don't know whether I'd want this one in my collection, so I don't want to spend that money on something that I might not own. Yeah, you hear that, Stern? We would like a nice Lord of the Rings.
    4:29
    Think of it as old, really old, not. Nice Lord of the Rings, really like a nice brand new one, that'd be great. Yeah, with consistent coloured artwork on the playfield would also. Yeah, yeah, imagine.
    4:45
    Again, I saw Lord of the Rings during the week and I went, hang on, that's now a third colour palette I'm seeing of Lord of the Rings playfields, they're just crazy. Anyway, really? Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be one at league finals this weekend, so I'm going to have to take a look at the play field to see if I can actually process this thing you've been talking about. Just say, well yeah, just have a look at it and go, yeah that looks familiar or, hmm, that actually looks a bit different. Either it's very green or it's very brown, I think, are the two sort of spectrums that you've got there. The other one was an Orc edition and then the other one was like a Hobbit hair edition. Oh, could have been. Hobbiton edition. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear what you're saying, but not agreeing with any of it.
    5:29
    I hope not. That would be crazy. That would be madness, right? So anyway, the reason why we're talking about Color DMD is that they've announced that there's a whole new product. Well, is it? No, it's not. So there's a new Color DMD LCD. So what they've done is they've now updated it to include an ultra-thin IPS screen.
    5:51
    So it's not really that much different. I don't know. It's probably lighter. But what it also says is it gets us out. Our LCD product line has been updated to include an ultra-thin IPS screen. We've updated all-color ROMs to support both new and older LCD screen models. We've also made some minor changes to our bracket for mounting and protection of the thin screens and relocated the controller board to allow mounting in Capcom games, which is, I guess, kind of cool. In other respects, the updated LCD product is similar in appearance and user experience to previous models And the price remains unchanged.
    6:27
    I'll never understand how this little screen costs more than a 60-inch LCD. Why is it so expensive? I mean, I guess it's maybe just the amount it made. It's economic of scale, but come on.
    6:46
    That's such a huge difference. Well, funny enough, you said that because for a team promotion or incentive that I put on this week, we actually went out and bought a 60-inch TV for $450 Australian. And it wasn't a shitty no-name brand. It was actually a well-known brand. $450 for a 60-inch 4K Ultra HD machine, right? Yeah, $450. So I think you've hit absolutely right on it. They've probably made 100, 200, maybe 500,000 of those machines versus, I don't know, a couple of hundred, maybe 1,000 color DMDs they sell each year. I don't know how many they sell. So in order for an individual to make a certain amount of money, they've got to have more margin in a low volume product. Yeah, I guess if it was half the price or a third of the price or whatever, everyone would have them.
    7:46
    So it's like, yeah, because the biggest problem I've heard from people is, I mean, almost everyone loves the way they look, but the problem is like all mods is that, okay, you add this $400 or whatever into your game, and, you know, in one case, now all of a sudden your X-Files is working. It's worth $400. Congratulations.
    8:08
    But like if it's whatever you put in your machine, it doesn't actually, in the buyers, they don't go, oh, okay, so this machine costs $1,600 and it has a color DMD, so now this game costs $2,000. No, they go, no, I don't care about the LCD, so I'm only paying you $1,600. Yep. So they're like, oh, well, you need to take it out. And like, well, I don't want to take it out. I mean, the good thing is that unless that's your one machine, then you can just easily take it out, put it in another machine, and ta-da, you're fine. That's perfect. But it's a pain in the ass, and it's just – sometimes it just adds to the value because people appreciate it, and they're sensible, and it makes sense. But sometimes, just like a lot of mods, they'll be like, oh, this has $1,000 worth of mods in it. And I'm like, well, I don't like mods, so I'm paying you $1,000 less. So you can either take them out or take my money. I'm like, you're an asshole. A while ago we actually did talk about this. I think it would have actually been when we were talking about either Pinstadiums or the mods that I put on my Wizard of Oz. And the parallel we drew was the second-hand car market where I was selling a car that had all these different upgrades to it and the buyers were like, exactly what you said. Well, I'm not really interested in them. Well, you say that because in a car, you can't actually take them out, but they actually do want them. They just want to appear that it has no value. So this is the whole thing about mods is if you're buying mods to increase the value of your machine, well, you're not going to get 100% back of what you've invested in it. No way known. Maybe 50% at best. Yeah, because most of the time, because, you know, if you put those mods in those machines, I mean, 99% of people put mods in machines because they love it and they want it and they think they're never going to sell it. But once they do sell it, you know, and if it was me who, you know, put all that work into that game and then I went to go sell it and someone was like, well, I don't want the mods. And I go, well, then you don't want my game. Bye. Well, okay. So, and I did see, I think it was actually a Lord of the Rings that went up for sale this week. And the list of mods on it was huge and it had a $10,000 asking price. And if you think... But, 10,000 Australian, right? Oh, that's right. So that's a new perspective. But the list of mods and enhancements on it was extraordinary. Like, you're talking, you know, 20 to 30 purchased mods for this particular machine. And the comments were all the same. Like, oh, you're dreaming. There's no way that's worth $10,000. It's like, well, if you added up every bit of money that went into it, there would have been an additional five grand spent on this machine. They know that they're not getting their money back, but people still don't see the value in mods. Yeah, I'll never understand why people feel the need to do shit like that. Like, oh, there's no way that's worth it. Why the fuck are you commenting on my post? Like, go away. If you don't think it's worth it, why are you here? Like, sure, I'm posting it here. You know, this is what I think it's worth. If you don't think it's worth that, then shut up and then, you know, whatever. Like, if someone wants to buy it, then sure. Then if not, then move on. Like, I don't understand why people feel the need to, like, just crush people and be like, oh, you're a freaking idiot. How could you possibly think that that's worth that? It's like, well, Joe, it's the internet. I know. It's the internet, man. Like, why are you getting frustrated at the internet? This is not a new thing. This is what people do all the time. I know. And I've lost so much faith in humanity, I guess. I know. So I do agree with you because I do see those people that do these little snarky comments. It's like, well, what was the purpose of that? Were you trying to deliberately bring that person's price down so you could sweep in and buy it? Or were you just big noting yourself as somebody in the industry that's like, well, I know it's not worth that because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they will bring in all that evidence. It's like, well, hang on. If it's overpriced, it won't sell. And my Munsters was a prime example for that. I put that up at, I don't know, 13 grand, got no bites, dropped it down to 12 and a half, got no bites, dropped it further, got a bite. The market will tell you what it's worth. You don't need people chiming in telling you that you suck. Yeah, and it's not like these people were ever going to buy it. And these are the same people who are like, Supreme, 30 grand for a Pinball, that is ridiculous. And then you just cha-ching, and you go, these same people aren't showing up going, man, I'm a fuck-up. I had no idea what I was talking about. Like, no, they don't. It's just the same thing, like, they can post about that, you steal the game, and then you want to go to each one of those individual people and be like, who's your dumbass? Who's your dumbass? Like, that's just, I don't get it. I get it, but I don't. That's right. I was just going to say, I don't like it, but I get it. Yeah, I get it, unfortunately. Okay, so, side note, and it's similar to this, and I will just do this very briefly.
    13:15
    So, it was the meme that I put up on our Facebook page about table and machine, right? Which has gone viral. Thank you, Jack Danger. Yeah, he was going to say, Jack Danger even messaged us being like, hey guys. It was exactly that point. The point I was making was, you know, people say, oh, you know, blah, blah, blah, the table. And people are like, well, it's a machine, it's not a table. It's like, okay, sure. But if I want to call it a table, can you just let me call it a table? Do you actually have to call out that it's not a table? I call it a table, I'm going to call it a table again. And do you need – anyway, we're not going to solve this problem, Joe, but it is the – I don't know, people's compulsion to be right. Yeah, because they – I don't know. They just must be so miserable in their lives. I love the fact that you posted that. I love that you posted a picture of himself eating on a table.
    14:12
    I was like, yeah, I see what you did there. That's great. It is. Anyway, let's move on from Calendine D and all the problems with social media because there's so many of them. So, Jurassic Park LA. I had another whinge about it last week, about the fact that it's taking so long. But it is actually coming out this Thursday. They are landing in Australia this Thursday, which we may be cutting it a bit fine to have on Friday because they come into Sydney and then they've got to be shipped down overnight via a courier company. So I may get it Friday or I may get it Monday. But it is certainly only a week away and I still have not played Jurassic Park since Bloomberg. Nice. Well, yeah, last week you and the pens were talking and you were seeming to be doubting your decision. And I was like yelling at the podcast going, no, you want that machine. It's going to be amazing. No, I'm not doubting my decision. I'm doubting the financial responsibility of buying that versus doing other things that that money should probably have gone to is kind of what I was doubting. But I'm going to take it anyway, whatever. Yeah, but you replaced an Ellie with an Ellie, so it's kind of like a swap in the end, isn't it? Yeah, it is, but probably that money probably could still go to more sensible and responsible things. But when has we been sensible?
    15:50
    When has anyone been sensible about anything pinball related? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, my Hobbit purchase was so sensible. Oh, yeah. I'll tell you my most... I'll talk about what I said again, and I was literally talking with Ryan this week about it because we're talking about Sight of Ashains. My Jurassic Park, my original Jurassic Park that I bought, the Data East, was such a good financial decision because I put it on site for, I don't know, maybe a year. It paid for itself with a couple of grand extra just on money that came in and then I sold it for $1,000 more than what I bought it. So that's my... Right, but that's... I don't know. I think, guys, if you've got a Data East Jurassic Park, put that on location because they don't... You don't buy them for a lot of money, but it's still Jurassic Park. It still gets coin in it, and it's got the T-Rex that comes underneath the ball, right? Whatever. It's great. But every other Pimball machine that I've bought has never been the sound financial investment. I got my money back on Ion Maiden and everything else I've lost money on. That's not sensible, is it? Well, if you think of it from a nuts-to-nuts comparison, but, I mean, you got to play on it. You know. Yeah. So, you know, apples, apples, yeah. Nuts. Well, I mean, it was just going along with your, you know, shadow play commentary, so I figured it would make sense.
    17:12
    The, well, it's like if you can just compare it to purchase price, purchase price, but I mean, you still got a lot of time on it and enjoyment out of it. Of course. So, you know, that has a price tag on it, too, so it's not really a loss.
    17:26
    No, I totally agree. In fact, so if my Munsters made a $3,000 loss, which I think it did, and I had that machine for six months maybe, did I get $3,000 worth? $3,000 is a lot of money. Did I get $3,000 worth of fun out of it? $3,000 maybe? It's dropped that much? Yep. That's not sensible. That game's not that bad. I don't know. No, I know. It's pretty bad timing. It's what the market is prepared. It's bad timing. It's what the market is prepared to pay. Anyway, it's also the fact that I think Monsters, and I had a lot of people that were inquiring at that higher amp, they put it up, but they're coming back saying, oh, look, I've just looked at some reviews of it and I'm going to go with something else. That was the big problem, was just a bad rap it got. Yeah, that's so unfortunate. It's not that bad. I feel bad for Dwight on that game. People just can't accept things for what they are sometimes. They just have to force it into the box that they expect it to be.
    18:28
    Yeah, agreed. It's a shame because it's a gorgeous machine. The sound's good. And even for what it is, it's good. It's just it's not, you know, it's not the deep. It's not Jurassic Park and it's not like this. Yeah, it sort of just stands out a little bit, I guess. But also this week, we did see that, as we sort of predicted last week, the making of Jurassic Park video has come out. Have you seen it, Joe? God damn it. Yeah, it popped up on my feed while I was at work, and I was like, oh yeah, we'll watch this at home so Leslie can watch it, and I completely forgot. Yeah.
    19:07
    It's good. I love those making of videos and I'm so glad that Stern does them just because, I mean, it's almost like a bit of a keepsake. It's like, oh, that's my machine and, oh, I can now delve into the history of this machine and how it came to be. And I think that's kind of exciting. Well, and like your machine has pretty much, I think, an unprecedented amount of, I don't know, development knowledge, The development process shared and interaction shared. Keith has just been unbelievable with how he's made these guides. He's made these pictures. He's let you know that he's seen your Whitewoods and all this other stuff. It's been unreal the support that Keith has done and shared with the making of this game for the community.
    19:56
    It's crazy. It's almost like he's like, well, I would never say that Keith would be the kind of person I don't know if I'm going to say, hey, I'm so good. But I think the effect is the same. He's like, well, I don't need to hide my intel or my IP or any secrets. Here's how I did it because I'm going to be able to do another one just as good. That's kind of like the vibe I get. It's obnoxious how he just is the best at everything. It's just so jelly. I know. He did such an amazing job. And I mean, at the same time, he's putting quite the bar for himself for this. Yeah, that's true. Like, after this is over and the third amazing game comes, it's just like, how are you going to do the same thing for that? So now you've set expectations and people are super fine with just, you know, not having high expectations and stuff and that you're not meeting them.
    20:52
    Right, well, and people are already talking about, well, what's the third game going to be? Which they always do. But it's not just called to the next. If you think about how good Iron Maiden was, how good Jurassic Park is, why wouldn't you want to look forward to the next one that's going to be just as good, we would hope. I think Jurassic Park is much better than Iron Maiden, so can the third be much better than Jurassic Park? That's a hard thing to fathom, but I have complete faith in Keefe. Keefer's. Well, I have avoided, as I said, I haven't played it since Pinberg, which was, I don't know, when was that, end of June, July, something like that. And I have, which is bad podcasting, I get that, but I have not watched any video, any gameplay video, any rules video, because I don't want to ruin the Discovery when I turn it on and start playing it. I think I have you covered on that sentence. I did. You've played it enough? Yeah, I've played it a ton. I mean, I put up like 1.8 billion on it last time I played it, so I mean, I can tell you anything about the game or I can talk about it on your behalf and don't be all worried about it. Well, maybe on next episode I would have had it and played it to death or will have to wait another week, but I'm looking forward to it landing.
    22:14
    Go and watch the video. If you haven't already seen it on Stern's Facebook page, we'll link it in the show notes as well. Go watch it. Yeah, I'm going to be really jealous because you get to play a premium and I'm trying really hard to find someone around here who wants to use my rewards to get a premium so then I have an ability to play a premium.
    22:34
    Just quietly, it's a limited edition, not a premium, but sure. Well, I know yours is even, I'm never going to see one of those. I mean, not all of us are that special. Well, we tend to see the premiums of machines on location in Australia, which is kind of interesting. Yes, but you said, yeah, well we get some premiums here too, but not LEs, you were just specifically talking about LEs. No, that is true. We don't tend to see those, although there is an LE Monsters. So, two of them actually, there's literally two LE Monsters on location near me. One in Mystic and one in A4. Well, the very first time I saw Batman 66 was on a Super LE that was on location. Wow, that is a good first impression. Correct, it is. So you look up and go, hey, the Bat Signal, that's amazing. Except it wasn't a great first impression because that was back when it first got released and the code was terrible. True.
    23:33
    Was that like the original next-gen Amazing Toppers? Was that the first one that started the trend of all these new Amazing Toppers? Because I think it was like that and then Game of Thrones with the moving dragon. With the Moving Dragon, I think I would put the Moving Dragon topper over Batman 66. Sure, it's got the spotlight that does the bat signal. But it was after, right? Yeah, I think so. So I'm just saying that Batman started the next level topper. Yeah, possibly. Because I know when you guys were talking about the toppers last week, and you talked about, oh, the first one was, I forget which one you said, but I was like, no, no, Game of Thrones had the first big one, really, But the first moving mechanical one for Stern at least was that dragon and then the interactive shields.
    24:24
    Yeah. Obviously I didn't remember that one for a reason. Even though I haven't, my Game of Thrones Pro had that exact top up with the dragon that moves and I completely forgot about it. Really? Yeah.
    24:39
    It came with it? Or did you, like when you bought it, buy it second hand and it came? Yeah, we bought it second hand and it came with it. That's interesting. They put that on a pro. Yeah, it was cool. Yeah. Okay, so let's move on to some other news. So, big announcement. The Super Awesome Pinball Show may get up. So when is Black Friday? I don't know when that is. Has that happened or is it this Friday coming up? May get up. What? So, the Super Awesome Pinball Show. So this is a podcast or a pinball show from the brainchild of Christopher Franchi. So it was originally going to be Christopher Franchi and Ed Van Der Veen, he of the Texas Pinball Festival, but now it's actually going to have Dr. Pinn joining the crew to be the Super Awesome Pinball Podcast twice a month starting this Black Friday. I don't know when Black Friday is. Oh my God, he's cheating on us. Black Friday is, what, Thanksgiving? It is 29th of Dermenburn. Yeah.
    25:50
    So we've got a few weeks to go. It says we've got some special features planned including pitting two pinball celebrities against each other in a trivia showdown and much, much more. Stay tuned for more details and like the Facebook page which we will link to. They're also going to be revealing a fantastic sponsor Monday night and what it means to listeners of the show. There will be prizes. and says go to the page and become the Super Awesome Pinball Army. So Dr. Penn is a co-host permanently? Correct. I think so.
    26:20
    Yeah. So I know everyone on there. Who's Vanderveen? Ed Vanderveen. He's the one that puts on Texas Pinball Festival. Like he's really cool. Oh, he's the... Oh. Cool. Yeah, that's him. Never been so new name to me. That's a cool name though. Yeah. I met him at TPF. He's a really nice guy. Excellent. And it was right in the middle of TPF where you'd imagine the person that's organising is going to be really stressed out. And he wasn't. He was just very chill. Yeah, cool. Thanks, mate. Just walking around like, mate, show is the balls. Yes he was I did this and I proud of it And I like yep yep that awesome You right Yes it is Absolutely It really is That good Now, a few weeks ago, we talked about the fact that, you know, IFPA is really starting to focus on women in pinball. They obviously had that, I can't remember what it was, like a women's board or advisory board, I think it was. And now they've actually put out a survey, which I think is a fantastic thing to do because the best way to find out what women want is to ask women what they want. And so there is a survey up which we will link and it will take you, I don't know, I mean I didn't answer all the questions because it's not for me, but I went through and saw the survey as well. I reckon it'd probably take you 10 minutes if you breeze through it, maybe half an hour if you think really deeply about it. But really what it's asking is they're wanting to obviously get an understanding of diversity. So the first page is all about your age, your race, location, how you identify yourself. And the second one is all about pinball participation. So it aims to find out how women are currently involved in pinball and how regularly, what type of formats they like. And then there's stuff about the IFPA talking about the current IFPA initiatives and what they would want to influence women in pinball. So I would say anyone that's listening that's interested in women in pinball, please fill out this survey. We will link it in the show notes. Have you say, this is how you can now make women's pinball suited to you. Yep, there's your chance. So just do it. Has Leslie done it? I don't think she knows it exists. Well, she will now. Next one, let's talk about the Stern Pro Circuit. What's that? I think you know what it is. Didn't you used to be in like the top 10 or something? Yeah, then I missed like five of them.
    29:05
    I did go and have a look at the current list of the top 10 and you're not there? Yeah, I'm 50ish. Okay, well then, isn't it like top 20? Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah. And so basically what the announcement this week was that there's an extra $10,000 in prize money that's been put onto the pool of prizes. And the first prize is $5,000 plus a Stern Pro Pinball machine plus the circuit belt. So $5,000 in a Stern Pinball machine, that's awesome. It is.
    29:42
    But I mean, the amount of pinball you have to win to get to there. I know. Oh boy. I mean, I'm hoping to go. Yeah, and we're going to, I think, or I'm going to go with Nick to OBX to try and improve my standings to try and get to the next level because, you know, the fact that they increased it, the prize pool is awesome. So now it's $600 just for making it, which is depending on, which is going to cover AFA, right? Yeah, exactly, which pays for that. So it's like, okay, well, then there's no more wash there. So then it's just a matter of you want to be as high up on that ladder as possible so you don't have to, that would really suck to play and be out in the first game. But yeah, I'm going to try. But I mean, some of the amount of tournaments some of these people have played in, they're just like, I can't compete with that. Yeah, yeah. But again, $600 to turn up means it's incentivizing people to actually just go to this final. So I think that's the purpose of it. But there's only two more events left, is that right, on the circuit caliber? And you can only go to one of them, because they're on the same event. Why is that? Oh, no way. Yeah, they are. So we're choosing to go to OBX instead of Freeplay Florida because we're going to drive to OBX, whereas flights to Florida are really expensive. Right. So I've been saying, what is OBX? Tell me about it.
    31:13
    Uh, honestly, we haven't... What does OBX stand for? Like, I don't even know. Uh, something extreme, probably. Good questions. I honestly don't know. We looked at the schedule, saw where it was, looked at what the format is, it's pump and dump, and, uh, after that, we're not really sure, let's see, OBX, it's like Flipper or something, OBX Flipper, Pinball.
    31:43
    It stands for... That flippers. Yeah. It does not explain what OBX actually stands for. It just suits on saying OBX.
    31:57
    Someone explained to me what... Maybe it doesn't stand for anything. Maybe it's just... That's just what it is. Fall Pinball... Fall Pinball Bash, but that is not OBX. I don't know. It's odd that they just keep on... You'd think that once you got there, you'd see that it's spelled out of what it actually means, and that OBX is just the easy way to say it. No, it appears that they're just going to leave you wondering what OBX stands for.
    32:21
    Outer Banks? Potentially, because it says R is located just outside of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. So Outer Banks could be OBX.
    32:36
    Yeah. Name Banks. Could be. Out of Banks, Extreme. Yeah, so I think we're going to drive down there and see how that goes.
    32:50
    Okay. Yeah, cool. Well, good luck. Yeah. Everyone's going to Play Florida, so I don't know how many people are actually going to OBX or you might be the only ones there. At least of the people who are actually going for circuit points it seems. We'll see. Fair enough. So in advance, it's going to be a hard weekend to record on again. Oh my God. Because we're driving down Thursday night and then it starts Friday at 3. I will try my best, but you know, the life of a high-end pinball player. We mentioned it last week. We sort of gave you a bit of an excuse. We said, well, what do you expect? With somebody that's trying to maintain their ranking, that's what's going to happen.
    33:41
    Pinballing ain't easy. So Mr. Dr. and Mrs. Penn, in two weeks. Yes. Don't make any plans. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if they're going to go to OBX. No. Well, yeah, true. I doubt that. But if you're available, consider yourself booked because every time you're amazing. So you want to be my replacement. And don't take that back. Jeff was amazing too. So Jeff, don't go there. Jeff Bartham was amazing. He was great. Next bit of news. So again, something that we talked about a while ago is a new game that's coming out called Flipper Mechanic. And the official trailer was released during the week and it's going to come to like Nintendo Switch. So it's actually going to be, you know, a mainstream release. And this game, you can't see my inverted commas, is effectively, I wouldn't say teaching because I'm unteachable when it comes to this kind of stuff. But the premise of the game is that you are repairing pinball machines. And they say there's sort of like 300 parts in each machine that you need to understand how to fix. And you fix the machines and then you can put them on location, you can sell them and you try to get a profit. It's very cool. Have a look at the trailer, everybody, because it kind of looks very interesting. I think the way they've done the graphics looks very cool. It's kind of semi-realistic.
    35:09
    What was really interesting is that the game that they used, which was Haunted House, I think it's actually called Dark House. I'm watching the trailer now. I'm like, it's a haunted house. I'm like, wait a minute. What is that first part? Dark House. And I thought, well, maybe all the other machines are like that. But when they actually put them into the bank, it's right next to a Centigrade 37. So there may be something to like, this is Dark House. It does look like that is a Dracula. I paused it and it looks like that is a Dracula. And the next one is some kind of a racing thing. Maybe that's full speed. I don't know what it is. Anyway, guys, watch the trailer. I'm obviously, I'm going to buy this game because you know what I'm like when it comes to it. And I don't think I'm going to learn anything, but I might have an appreciation of what goes into repairing machines. So, I don't know what it aims to do. That is definitely Dracula. You can see the back glass and it is the same back glass with the same name. And the racing game next to it looks like it's called Full Stop. Okay. Which I don't know what that means. And then there's some kind of a space invaders theme. Yeah. I can't believe this is a game.
    36:29
    I know. Okay. It's interesting that this is something that people are going to want to do in their free time. Yeah, I know. I don't think it's quite a niche, I don't know, it's a niche thing, so I don't know whether it's going to break any records when it comes to pinball. I mean, it's cool it exists and it's good for pinball. If I have like X amount of time every night, it's like, hmm, do I go play, you know, Batman Arkham City or do I play some pinball mechanic? Yeah! Let's fix some pinball machines. I don't know. You can definitely see the younger generation getting all in that. Yeah. As a side note, have I told you that I've been playing Batman Arkham Knight? You have? I'm like, when we finish recording and after I then go to a birthday party, tonight we'll be playing Arkham Knight. It's great. You didn't start there, right? You played the other... I did. Nope, that's my first game. It's the best video game series that's ever existed. Yeah. Amazing. And then they went telltale and they sort of lost it. But anyway, so. I didn't play that one, so it doesn't count. Speaking of breaking records, did you see how I planted that seed a few sentences ago? That was pretty good. Very, very subtle. I missed the amount of butter that he's come with. It's so smooth. So last week it was announced, well, it's been going for a while, A gentleman called Ryan Clancy was going to attempt to break the world record for the longest time playing pinball. And the previous record was 30 hours and 10 minutes. And it was actually done by a gentleman called Wayne Johns. And what was really interesting about this is that Wayne Johns said he only did, I say only, only did 30 hours and 10 minutes because he didn't want to set it too long so others could break it to use for fundraising, which is very cool, right? That's a really nice thing to do.
    38:39
    What Wayne Johns had said as well is that the actual playing of the game for 30 hours is the easy part. The hard part is getting Dennis Booker Records on board with it and the restrictions and rules they put on you to be able to do this attempt. You're going to pay a lot of money to get them to show up. Really? You have to pay them. Oh, yeah. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah, I've heard about various different things. Yeah, they won't just show up for free. You've got to pay them to come. Okay. Well, the two main rules that I know of are, first of all, you can only have a five-minute break per hour. And the other rule I know of is that you can have one machine and you can have a backup machine if the main machine breaks down. And if you have to swap in the reserve machine, which is exactly the same machine, and if that machine breaks down, Then it's over. You can't swap back and you can't put another machine in. You literally get one chance to back it up and that's it. So the guy had to get two Swords of Rages. Yeah, pretty much. But that seems like such a silly rule. Playing pinball for 30 whatever hours, why does it matter if you're playing different pinball machines? Do you just want the person to be bored the entire time? Hmm. Like, Guinness. Guinness Book of Records. Who understands them? But that's the restrictions they put on to be able to make it official. Yeah, they're, it's not one of the most outstanding organizations. But do they, well, have you seen all the, I mean, I'm just throwing out the people, well, what they've done with dictatorships around the world and records and it's bad stuff. But the real question everyone's wondering is that you can get five minutes per hour. Can you add those together? Because what if you get a poof?
    40:43
    So then what do you do? Well, I think... No, no, no, no, no, no. No, that is actually true. So I believe that you are allowed five minutes each hour, but you can accumulate that. So if you don't take a break, well, then you'll get 10 minutes after, you know, in the next hour. So my understanding is, I don't know whether it was with Ryan Clancy's attempt or whether it was Wayne Johns, but because he hadn't actually taken all the five minute breaks on each hour, I think he sort of banked it up and someone came in and repaired the machine in that time.
    41:21
    What basically we're saying is for every hour, you get five minutes where you don't have to be playing. It's a break.
    41:27
    Gotcha. Yeah. So I could not play a sort of rage for that long. Well, OK. What we haven't talked about is, did he actually break the record? That's what everybody's asking. I mean, obviously he did or else we wouldn't be talking about it, right?
    41:44
    Well, maybe we could have said, oh, sorry. Your second sort of rage came in and it broke down. No, he actually did in 32 hours and two minutes and it was on a Black Knight sort of rage. So congratulations, Ryan. Well done. That's a pretty big effort. So, you know, and standing for 32 hours is pretty full up. Can you just sit on a chair or a stool while doing this?
    42:15
    Thanks for asking the question that I was hoping you wouldn't ask. I don't think you can sit and play. I think you have to stand. But anyway, write in please if we haven't got it completely right. I would be keen to know. But anyway, congratulations Ryan. I think that's well done. And also, you know, he was raising money for a charity. So the Children's Wisconsin was formerly the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. So that's, you know, fantastic. Congratulations. You're in the Guinness Book of Records. But raising a lot of money for a children's charity is freaking awesome. So, yes, that's always a good thing. Social media watch.
    43:03
    It's a good thing you didn't screw me over this time because last time you were like, oh, you did it a couple of times earlier and then we got to the real meet and you didn't play it. I was like, what?
    43:14
    You've got to get snippets. You've got to get the whole thing in there. You got the whole thing in his time. I'm not going to skimp on you this week. So a couple of things that came up in social media. In fact, there were a lot of things that came up in social media, but I'm not going to mention them all.
    43:28
    Hold it on, man. The main one really was that, you know, Stern showed their distributor in Thailand.
    43:39
    Soon to be pinball land. Could be. Sort of Asia, because it's so close to Australia. That's where we tend to go to holiday more than we would, let's say, America. Because America is 14-hour flight to your west coast, 23 hours to your east coast. So that's a big deal. Whereas pretty much a lot of these Asian countries are 6 to 10 hours flight time to get to there. So I've been to Thailand. I've been to about 5 or 6 different countries throughout Asia. And there was just no pinball there at all. So I just thought it was really interesting to see that Stern had posted that there in Thailand. Thailand? If I lived over there, I'd just be in New Zealand all the time. I'd be in Hobbiton and all the various things walking around going, oh my god, that's where that scene was. Oh my god. That's on my bucket list. I have to visit Hobbiton. Okay. Not on what we're talking about, but I don't know why that made me think of New Zealand. Because you're talking about places near you that you vacation. Yeah, you don't need to justify why you're obsessed with that. It's true. I know. The audience is like, oh my god. Stern, we know Joe, you like Lord of the Rings, and Marty, we know you like Star Trek. Blah, blah, blah, whatever. Well, the only way to shut me up is for them to make a new one, and then I won't talk about it anymore.
    44:58
    Okay, really, really. If Stern make a new Lord of the Rings, you won't talk about it. Is that what you're saying? I'll stop talking about the fact that they need to make one. Does that count? Yeah. It's like, I'm going to stop talking about the fact that it's taking so long for my Jurassic Park to get here when my Jurassic Park gets here. Exactly. But then I'll just be talking, giving them so much free advertising about how amazeballs it is when they eventually do it. Exactly.
    45:29
    So there you go. So the other thing that really happened in social media was Stern released their Stern of the Union. And, you know, one thing I like about it, it talks about the Stern Army updates, right? And you look at all these names and you go, oh, whatever. But it's just really good to see so many people sort of get on board with this program. And I'm going to do some shout-outs to some Australians because they have just been promoted from private to private first class. And we're talking Lyndon Carter of the Australian Pinball Museum, John Cosson, Dr. John, up in Brisbane, and Ryan C. So he also just got promoted. I wouldn't do that because we'd be here for 20 minutes, me reading off all the people here. So I'm going to spare the listeners.
    46:18
    Please do, because literally the other 500 names are all from America. But I'm calling out the Aussies right there. Oh, that made me think. Another person who got promoted, a certain Mitch Curtis.
    46:32
    Flat Top Johnnies. Are you happy? He's been bugging me so much about, why don't you mention Five Top Chinese? Like, what? You mention you play there, but you don't actually mention the plays? What the fuck? Yeah, well, there you go. Five Top Chinese, leave me alone. If not the best pinball plays in Massachusetts is what I've heard. Yeah, exactly. Well done. There you go. Great.
    46:59
    Most recently famous because he finally fixed the flipper hop on Attack from Mars. A year and a half later. Little victories. Yeah, absolutely. And look, the other thing that was in there, there was also, I saw, just in relation to, you know, Stern being global, they were also at a Brazil game show as well. So, remember it was reported ages ago that I think Stern were going to start producing out of South America?
    47:32
    Yes, really. That was a while ago. So we haven't really heard much. And then a couple of things, code updates. So Elvira's just had, you know, .86, we talked about that. Jurassic Park's going to have new code. Well, of course it is. And Batman 66 has new code in the works. New code just came out for Batman 66. Well, there you go. It's not big, but put it on the new system and some bug fixes that seemed like they were rather serious. So what's obviously really interesting now is there's no mention now of Ghostbusters code, right? Because it's come out, people aren't talking about it. Like, you know, every time Sturb would say, okay, there's new code, people would go, oh, what about Ghostbusters? What are those people going to do with themselves? Is it going to be like when the topper comes out? Like, what is that topper guy going to do? Like, is he just going to be like, my life has no meaning anymore? He has no meaning. It's just him staring at the post, sound of silence playing in the background, just like, I don't know.
    48:37
    Yeah. So the reason why I'm saying that is what would be the next code that everybody should just rally together to force Stern to do, besides monsters?
    48:51
    Yeah, because that's not going to happen. Dwight has said so, so don't even start there, people. He said it's not going to happen. Let's see. Okay. Damn it, I just had the page open and I was going to look at the titles that Stern has. Da-da-da-da, Stern Pinball. Because I'm sure once I look at it... Is that the new thing song? Yeah, da-da-da-da, Stern Pinball.
    49:15
    Nothing jumps out, which is a good thing. Like, that's, uh... Um... Hmm. Yeah, I don't know, really. Yeah, well, I'm looking at it. I'm in deep need of it. Star Wars could use a Ghostbusters-like ball save.
    49:34
    Okay. Dwight, that's the only thing that jumps out. Oh, from the right scoop? No, from the plunge. Like, multiple ball saves from the plunge. Oh, I see what you mean. Like on Ghostbusters. I see what you mean. No, because the right scoop already has that, just nobody turns it on, but it's there. Well, so if you do look at the games section on Scudan's website, they effectively have a list of what's, I believe, what is in production. Because then if you want to look at the archive, you click on View Archive. So they've still got Star Trek there on current.
    50:11
    Yeah, because they've vaulted it recently. They did build it, but I thought they said that they did their last special pro model, whatever it was, the Voyage Edition, I can't remember what it was called. Final Voyage. Yeah, of course, I would love Star Trek to get new code because its rule set is really okay. Well, you know what I'd love to see is that, you know, I don't remember, I'm pretty sure I remember this correctly, but if I remember correctly, when that game was being developed, The premium LE, the left scoop, the original concept for that was supposed to be that, you know, it would, if it was part of a combo, it would act the way it currently does. And if it wasn't part of a combo, it would act the way a pro does. And instead of that thing moving over, it'd kick it back out. Have we ever heard of why that never came to fruition? It still moves. Like, what? Just clean it there. Right, okay. Okay, so in the five years that I've had my Star Trek, and obviously I've got the limited edition, so it's got the scoop that moves and puts it to a vertical up kicker instead of spitting it out. In that time that I played it, and I would have played it thousands of times, I reckon two, maybe three times playing that game, the ball has actually spat out like a pro. What are the circumstances? I think that's a mess up. I don't think that's a feature. Yeah, you reckon it's a bug? Yeah, or just it misfired or didn't move or something. Because I thought that that was the original concept was that if, you know, it's part of a combo, it continues the combo. But if it's just you starting a mode and you've had it trapped up, then it kicks it back out, you know, in the same way of a pro. Because if the thing doesn't move over, that's what would happen. It kicks it, it flies back out just like a pro. So that seems like, I don't know why maybe there was some physical problems with that, but it seems like that should be the way it should act because that also removes some safety and it makes that game a little harder. And you could, maybe in tournament, you could just have it always kick out front so that it's not so safe or something. Like, it seems like that would be something that they would, they could do. I'd love to hear why that never happened because I'm pretty sure, am I wrong with remembering that, that they talked about that originally? They did. I think it was one of those things where they couldn't maybe get it reliably to work, so they removed it, or maybe it was unfinished. I don't know. But what I want to do is I'm going to go through the website now. This is going to be a quick scattergun question and answer of you, Joe. So, and this is, and I'll try to, I don't know how far back we'll go, but my question is whether you think that it needs new code and whether it needs new code because a bit of polish would be nice or whether it really needs some fundamental changes to the code. Okay, you ready? Are you just starting in the archive or are you starting with current? I'm starting with current, but I'm not starting with Jurassic Park, Elvira or Star Wars because I'm going with anything that's got 1.0 code. Gotcha. Black Knight, Sword of Rage. I don't think that the pro needs too much. I'm curious how they're going to fix the premium with all of the crapture that was going on with that in competition. No, that's a no. You don't think it needs code at this stage? Monsters. Does it need code Yes or no And if so is it a polish or does it need a fundamental change I don think it needs code because I don think that they not going to redo the entire game No forget about what they want to do I asking you do you think it needs it I haven't gotten that deep in the game to know. Well, yes, the answer is yes. The answer is yes, it needs new code because it fundamentally needs new code to improve the machine. Beatles. Someone sounds salty.
    54:09
    Beatles. I think it's pretty good where it is. I mean, I've gotten to the end of it multiple times, but I don't know where it is too. Yeah, I don't think it needs more. Deadpool. I think that that's pretty damn good where it is too.
    54:26
    Iron Maiden. Probably fine. I wish it wasn't so linear. Okay. Guardians of the Galaxy. I think Guardians is pretty good. I haven't had a ton of a time on it, but when I play it, I'm going to do it. I streamed it this week, so I'll talk about that later.
    54:42
    Star Wars, you already mentioned. Star Trek we mentioned. I think that it needs, it's somewhere in between needs a bit of an overhaul and needs polish. I just think that the level one modes could be more interesting. Even though I know you've got the away missions, I don't know, there's just something about it where it all just becomes a bit famey, hit the flashing shot. There could be something that could be done to it. That's an issue with the game, period. That's systemic.
    55:16
    And then Batman, well, they said they're doing an update, so that's coming anyway. What about Aerospace? Now we're going into the archives.
    55:25
    I think Aerospace is in a really good place too. Metallica? I think that is also in a really good place.
    55:34
    I'll say that the only things for all of the music pins, which would be cool, It's cool as if they vaulted them with the Connect connectivity and maybe you could turn them more into a jukebox of wanting to have other Metallica songs in there or something like that. That'd be cool. Right, yeah. I'll put that in there for all of the music pins. Yep, okay. So Ghostbusters, it is what it is at the moment. I think it's going to get new code. Yeah, it is. So Lyman has said that he did give it a bit of a big code update, I don't know how many months ago it was, like six, eight months ago. Which has a lot of bugs in it. Right, but it's still not his vision of where it needs to be. No, I know he wants to put it in a middle wizard mode, and right now, oy frenzy doesn't work.
    56:28
    Right. It's definitely going to get new code. When, who knows. Spider-Man. Maybe they can change the, maybe they can vault it back to the movie version.
    56:42
    I don't like the new version. Yeah, but as far as rules go or framework of rules or anything, it's... It is what it is. They've been on a change at this point. The dock-awking and the way that this game is structured, I just... Once I learn to be able to do that, I learn to not like the game. The fact that it becomes Doc Ock all day.
    57:08
    Game of Thrones, obviously it got an update recently. I still haven't played the latest Game of Thrones code. It's good. That game is great.
    57:19
    I would say it'd be awesome if there was more theme added to the game, but I know that's not going to happen. Okay.
    57:25
    And I'm only going to go probably three more, maybe five more machines back. KISS. No, I think Kiss is in a really good spot. I think it would be really cool if they vaulted it as a better band.
    57:43
    Where's Ron and his vault? That's just stupid. Everyone wants Kiss. Speaking of vaulting with a different theme, what about WrestleMania?
    57:54
    Wow, you skipped one. What happened there? Um, uh, WrestleMania, no, I don't think that, uh, I don't think they're going to code update it, and I don't think they're going to vault it, because what are you going to do with that playfield? No, I think they're just going to forget it exists. Well, I mean, they could make it, like, uh, MMA, or something, maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all to the bottom, UFC, all that kind of stuff. But I think they've kind of decided they're washing their hands with that designer. Um, Walking Dead.
    58:24
    Uh, I think Walking Dead could use some polish. There's some weird things that go on where I think the status could be way more useful in the way that the priorities and stuff work. Like if you start Prison, the Prison phase before you start Prison Multiball and then you start Wellwalker, the game will not tell you at all what your progress on Wellwalker is. It has some other weird, like, status doesn't help you with a lot of the game state, and there's some weird things with interactions between stuff. So I think that there could probably be another, and especially with more, the premium too could have some things, because sometimes you're not sure what's going on. So I think Walking Dead could use one last polish.
    59:11
    Alright, one last. Iron Man. It's fine. I'd be to wish it was deeper. Yeah, I think it's one of those ones where we kind of, again, it is what it is. If you were going to go to the code, if you did some score balancing or something, you'd only do minor tweaks. The only other option is to overhaul the code, and I think people like it the way it is. Yeah, I mean, I would, you know, add a couple layers to it would be fine. And then like, I know we're stopping short, but like Mustang, I think, just begging to be faulted because it's an amazing game. Just put a different theme on there, an actual license, you know, make it Fast and the Furious or make it, I don't know, High Speed 3 or something like. It's a great layout and it has, it's underappreciated because it's Mustang. And then... Agreed. Yeah. We had it in the Melbourne Super Bowl Championship. I put it in the bank just because it hadn't been seen for some time. And it was one of the favourites. People just hadn't played it for a while and it's just a fun game. And one of the players almost got to the wizard mode and it was just this majestic game to watch. It was Stu Thornton and he just blew it up and it was just so much fun to watch and commentate it. Yeah, and then some of the other titles, I'm one of the closet fans of Avengers, I do like Avengers. It's not perfect, but it's fun for what it is.
    60:43
    And then looking at this a little less, I still think that Rolling Stones could be vaulted as something else. And I still feel that Avatar, if they vaulted Avatar, to either include the sequels or even just an LCD version of Avatar with improvements and everything, I think that with some real changes, I think it's a good game. Yeah. Well, so really the only other one that people have talked about over time about really needing to be finished is Wheel of Fortune, but it's one of those games where it's now so old, nobody really cares enough about it. And it was at the time, I don't think it was that many of them made anyway. Yes, not a lot of them. Yeah, I don't think they're going to bother with it. There you go. I'll just probably go through that because I'm just curious to know what's the next, where's the code? Yeah, so it's fun just looking back at some of these games because some of them are good, some of them are definitely not. But the, even Sopranos, like that's, is that a Ritchie game? No, that was George Gomes. Really? Gomes did Sopranos? Yeah. I guess it's such a good game. Like it's a great play field, it's a good game. Terrible art. Yeah, I can picture that as being something else too. Yeah, agreed.
    62:04
    The rules were of its era. It's a fun game. I like it. Yeah, I can picture that being, I mean, I'm not up to date with what other, I mean, if you want to keep it a crime theme, you could probably come up with something. I don't think they'll... What I think is, even though it is a great layout, it's not a legendary layout that you'd be screaming to do something with. It was good of its time. Move it on. Yeah. Okay. So, it's time for Joe Tips the Top 100. Are you ready, Joe? I was born ready. Were you, though? No.
    62:48
    Funny. So, here we go. Hey Google, pick a number between 1 and 100. 16. Tales of the Arabian Nights. Whoa. Look at this list. Look who's on top. Jurassic Park is number 1. Holy shit. By a lot, too. Yeah. Huh. I mean, it is really, really good, but that's interesting. Yeah, it is. With Lord of the Rings?
    63:23
    7.006. Come on! I mean, I can't. It's hard to argue with Pirates because Pirates is so amazing, but no. No, no, no. Still. Anyway. All right. Let's see here. Talk to me about Tales of the Arabian Nights. Well, I'll start with just some general comments while I hear you clicking in the background trying to get screenshots and maybe some rule sheets and all that. I like to look at the play field while I talk.
    63:58
    Tales of the Arabian Nights is an interesting game in that it sort of came out of, you know, they refer to it as one of the cookie cutter games of that sort of era. Really? Yeah, it's considered one of those, just when they started banging out these great games all at the same time. So it's kind of in that same, you know, Theatre of Magic, Monster Bash, Medieval Madness, Attack on Mars, that sort of era where they were all just great games and had different rules but a similar sort of framework to the rules. That's kind of, yeah. This game definitely should not be in the same sentence as any of this games. Do you not like it that much? No. I mean, the play field is fine, but the code is bad, I think. Okay. Yeah. It's an interesting one. I like this game. I like the layout.
    64:55
    I am not all that fussed with the rules, as you said as well. But obviously it's number 16 for a reason. Because it's pretty. That's why. It is pretty. I don't know. There's much more to say about it than that. Yeah, I mean, this game goes for like eight grand, nine grand sometimes. It was like a perfect version. It's like, I think mainly because it's an art piece. I mean, the gameplay is, the main thing in the game is not worth doing.
    65:28
    But look, so it's a John Popajic game and you just take one look at it and you go, Okay, it's a John Pumptu game. You just know that it is. The art was Pat McMahon and the art is beautiful. It really is a pretty game. I think it's got great call-outs and sounds as well. So as far as an overall experience, it's very good. It lets you know when something important's happening. It's got the spinning lightning wheel in the middle which can get in the way but when you absolutely nail that and rip it and when it's lit and it slashes, It's a great experience. They knew how to make... Yeah, that's right, with the post spikes that come up as well. It's very cool. So, how do you play it, Joe? There's a skill shot when you enter the play field in one of the three baskets. If you hit the one that has the snake, it goes in there, you get a skill shot of 50k. That's right, 50k. And then you can get a super skill shot by hitting the ramp after you've collected it for 150. 60K.
    66:37
    Like some of the things. Big points. Yeah, it's just the scoring balance in this game is unreal. So after you do that, I mean, you can do that. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of the game. It's not going to decide whether you win or lose or do well or anything, but it's something to do. So, I mean, mainly there's two strategies in the game.
    66:57
    Probably the way you should start the game is go for multiball, which means hitting the genie, spelling genie, Gigi, which then lights locks. And mattering how the game is set up, if it's set on hard, I think it's because it's set on hard, the locks do not hold from ball to ball. So you spell Genie lights the locks on the orbits plus the shot to the right of the lamp. It's like the hidden passage or something like that. And then you lock three balls and you start multiball. So recently when I've been playing it, I don't know if it's a settings thing or it's always been that way, But if you lock two balls and then you lose the ball, you have to lock those two balls again on the next ball.
    67:39
    So I'm not sure if that's always the case or if that's a hard setting or not. And then once you get into the multiball, you hit the genie for a jackpot, which are millions of points. And then you hit the orbit to relight the genie and you just do that as much as you can. So that's a lot of points. And then the other strategy is just going bonus because the bonus in this game is ridiculously valuable.
    68:06
    So, and the way that works is that at any given time one of the orbs are lit for a multiplier and that's your captive balls on the left or the right. That will give you multipliers. So mainly what you're trying to do is you're trying to get multipliers and you're trying to spin the lamp. So every spin of the lamp is worth value in your bonus, and then that being multiplied, you're talking millions and millions of points in bonus when the modes in the game score like 50s of thousands of points. So you shouldn't play modes at all. They're not worth anything at all unless you get to save the genie. So don't waste your time doing that. And the big thing is that when you, there's a bazaar award, which can be good. Normally it's just like 250 points, 250k normally, or sometimes it can be random, whether it's in tournament or not. But then you have the Make-A-Wish, which I'm not 100% sure how that's lit. I think it's lit via Lampspins. But some key things to know is that once you've started, you hit the lamp enough and you spell or you get the blue triangles in the middle of the playfield. Once you fill them up, it turns into lightning lamp and then it starts being worth like 100k a span or something like that. And then if that's running and you put it in to make a wish, you can then enable 3X Lightning Lamp, which is hugely valuable, and that all goes into your bonus. And then you could be playing, you drop the ball, you end the ball, you have 2 million points or something like that, and then you get your bonus and you have like 12 million.
    69:59
    So it can be a huge amount of points just by going Lamp and Bonus X. And those are really the only two strategies in the game.
    70:10
    Probably the other one that I know people go for is harem multiball. True. Mainly because, I'd say mainly because it's relatively easy to get into. Effectively, you hold it on the right flipper, wait for a few seconds because I think, I can't remember what it is, but there's a tiger loops. You wait for that to die down and then Harem is lit on the left orbit and spell Harem and you start Harem Multiple. And this game can be set up very brutally so if you want a really safe strategy to get points. Because again, I've seen this being blown up to the 200, 300 million score just via the super mega lightning lamp strategy. But you're hitting that lightning, the lamp, right in the middle, which is just danger, right? It just is. But if you can get it on the right flipper and just hit the left orbit to spell harem, then that's a safer way of at least being able to get into a multiball and get some points. Yeah, it just matters how that kickout is because that has a similar kickout to like on World Cup Soccer or that thing flies out of. Yes. Which sometimes if it, you know, sometimes on a nice one it might bounce, dead bounce off the left and then it goes back to the right as a trap. Hooray. Other ones it might go right off the sling and you know where that's going. So, yeah, and that's like you mentioned. It's very, to do that you have to be patient. It's one of those weird things which, again, I don't, it's a weird rule decision where it's like, okay, you're going to hit the multiball thing and then you have to sit there because you can't keep hitting it because you're not going to get credit for it because it's going to give you tiger loops which are useless. So it's like, ooh. So then you just sit there, trap up, wait, wait, okay, harem's lit again. Then you hit it again, and then you trap up and wait, wait.
    72:02
    Yeah. And another thing is that you can get credit towards that if you can get into the sneak-in. There's a sneak-in I know you can get for harem. I think if you come off the genie ramp and you fall back in there, you get harem's sneak-in, I think, which can happen a lot with weak flippers if the rape flipper is weak.
    72:25
    The only other thing, I know you talked about the Make-A-Wish thing. So if you are going to, for the battle, the genie, which is not the final wizard mode, is it? Because I think you've got to complete all the modes to do all that kind of stuff. But to rescue the princess. Yeah, rescue the princess. So when you do that Make-A-Wish, you've got a choice of either picking gems for the sword or the award, is that right? Yeah. And then it can be 3x if you're in the middle of Fireball, which is if you hit the left ramp it lights Fireball, and you could keep hitting it to build up the value and then you collect it at the genie. So if you're in the middle of that and you get Make-A-Wish, you can pick 3x Fireball. You can do 3x Loops, Tiger Loops, I think, 3x Lightning. I'm trying to think of what other ones are in there. But yeah, it's normally like Jewels or that. I would say if you're playing for funsies, then you would get the jewels. If you're playing for score, get everything else. Yeah, pretty much. If you're in competition, you really don't want to be going for jewels unless you're just... I mean, maybe you can get some jewels if you have a huge bonus built up, because jewels do go into bonus. So if you have a huge X, you know, and you've done, you know, you've played your one multiball, maybe you've played your one harem, and, you know, then they get harder to get. Then at which point maybe you want to just go for some jewels for your bonus to get bigger. And probably during Harem, I don't think Harem has the very good jackpot values, so I think even during Harem you're just lamping as much as you can. It's been so long since I've gotten into Harem, because most of the copies I've played, the feat is death. That's the nature of this game. If it's set up brutal, which doesn't take much, the ball is wild. Yeah, and like you mentioned, the game is fun to shoot, it's gorgeous, it has good sound, it's just the rules need to be fixed. This is when people talk about if this has been one of the rumors ones that they're going to do, which I hear and I go, no. So unless they're going to at some point decide that they're going to update and fix some game's code, I don't think that this would be a good vault because it really needs some code balancing in this thing if they decide to vault it to make it actually be that expensive of a game to justify that.
    74:58
    The point of them vaulting, I don't necessarily know whether it's about whether it's got a good rule set or not. I mean, Monster Bash has quite a limited rule set. Admittedly, they're good and they're fun rules, but it's not very deep. It really is how much these machines go for at the moment. And Tars of the Ravion Nights goes for a lot of money. And they only made 3,000 of these games. So they're relatively rare, you would say.
    75:24
    And if there's only been 3,000 of them made, let's say 300 of them have been junked over time. Let's say there's 2,500 of them left. That's not a lot of them. So there would be a market for these. And I think it would probably be a wise thing for them to vault it. Even with the flawed code that it's got. Yeah, I guess I just look at that as just a missed opportunity where they could really turn it into a real gem.
    75:51
    Ah, see what you did there. You like that? Real jewel, maybe. Yes, correct. But yeah, because if it was literally just about find most expensive game, vault that game, I haven't done Big Bang Bar yet, which is ridiculously overpriced.
    76:09
    Which, again, is another game that's not good. I don't mind it. I think, yeah, rules-wise, it's a bit funny. It's got fun sound, and it's certainly got a lot of things that wouldn't fly nowadays.
    76:23
    Yeah, that is also true. But, I mean, it always seems that the most expensive games are the ones that don't deserve it the most, it seems. I've heard that, like, I haven't played it, but I've heard Kingpin's a good game, and that's an expensive game. But to you, you don't think it's worth it? There's a lot of people that play these games and think, oh my god, this is such a coveted game, I love it.
    76:44
    True. Are those the people who would spend $15,000 for them? Probably. I guess. If you can drop $15,000 on a machine. Well, because, again, I'll draw that parallel back to Monster Bash. There was rumours that they were going to do new code, and they didn't. So I think... If they could, they would have. Yeah, but I mean, Monster Bash still has good code. Like, there's no... The only... It's not even bad because it's the same argument with monsters. It's like, yeah, it's shallow, but what's there is good, and it all works, and it's all balanced and valid and stuff like that. So it's like, that's still a good game. It might be shallow, but it's still a good game. Like, Attack from Mars isn't that deep either, but it's still a great game for what it is. Whereas this one, I think that it's just, even to a lesser extent, it's like Theater Magic. Theater Magic is really good for what it is too, but there's some really big flaws in that thing too. That could easily just be with a couple value changes and all of a sudden the game is much better. Whereas this one, I think, has a lot more of the Papa Duke games. I think this one has the most systemic issues or the most issues when it comes to rules versus, you know, I think Theater of Magic a couple adjustments, and then I think Circus Voltaire is, I think, probably his best game with World Cup Soccer. I mean, of the three of this trilogy, it goes, for me, Circus Voltaire is by far the best, and then it goes through. I mean, for game, for the gameplay and the rules, Circus Voltaire is the best. Theater of Magic has the best theme for me, and I think that has the second best rules, and I think that Arabians comes last, for me at least. And funny enough, it's an opposite order of price.
    78:31
    So Arabian is ridiculously priced, and then theaters go for like seven grand now too, and then Circus Voltaire's are the cheapest of them, which is still really expensive, which is funny, when that thing came out, they couldn't get rid of them, and they were like, hey, this is new in box, will you please pay me $1,000 for this? Yeah, I think in order of gameplay, I think World Cup Soccer is my favourite Papa Dick game. Oh, I was just talking about this trilogy because I know that this was like a... Well, it was because they were kind of like a bit of a fantasy sort of interesting sort of thing. But if you're talking about those three, Theatre of Magic, Tales and Circus Voltaire, Theatre of Magic is my favourite. Then I would say Tales and then I would say Circus. Oh, you really don't like Circus? Well, it's not ones and zeros, Joe. Doesn't mean I hate it. It just means that I don't like it as much as the others. And the thing that really, I guess irritates me about Circus Voltaire is it really comes down to hit the ringmaster, hit the ringmaster, hit the ringmaster and hit the ringmaster. The other thing that really annoys me is the flipper area with that ball, that little sort of plastic ball on the left that randomizes things. It's interesting. The outlines, I just, because they're so unconventional, I don't know which way I'm meant to be nudging the machine to keep the ball in play. Oh yeah, no, that area is definitely mean for sure. But I mean, at least that there's, you have Ringmaster, you have Highwire, you even have Lado Spark, Lado Arc, and then Juggler. And then, I mean, the wizard mode in that, which is by far better than any of the other two, the wizard mode in Cirque du Vlterra is really, really cool. Especially for the era, like, those levels of completion, it's kind of like, almost like, you know, the god mode in Ghostbusters, which it's got these levels and stuff like that, which is a really cool concept considering that, like, back then, you know, wizard modes weren't doing that kind of stuff, especially when you compare it to other ones. Theater magic is literally hit spell shots spell theater or whatever you spelling get half a billion That it And then you know even Arabians is more interesting than theatres because at least you're battling and have to get the skeletons and blah, blah, blah. So that's different strokes, different folks. Correct. So anyone, if you've got an opinion on this, guys, please write in to headtoheadpinball at gmail.com. We'll keep the discussion going. It's quite an interesting era of games and, yeah, people have got their different favourites. That's what I was trying to explain about Tars of the Carybe Nights. You're going, oh, brr, brr, brr, which were your exact words. Brr, brr, brr.
    81:20
    A lot of people absolutely love this game. Yeah. And, you know, these games are exactly why I'm excited to see what Papadooka's doing now. and what a good magic girl looks like because I think magic girl will be epic. He can't run a company but damn it he can design a play field and do some really cool shit with toys. Alright so let's talk about a week in Pinball and really the main thing that I really want to hear about from you was how 24 hours at the Sanctum went.
    81:58
    It went through the point I'm happy with where I finished. The journey there was stressful and difficult. It was a combination of playing poorly and just having the worst luck and just getting screwed over with weird things. I can just think of some of them. I was winning on Dragon Fist, going into Ball 3, and I just needed... Actually, no, I wasn't winning. It was Ball 3, I had the left orbit completely maxed. I was 30k behind one person and then like 70k behind the other person. I'm trapped up on the right and I'm getting ready to shoot the left orbit which is all set and ready to go. And then I noticed that the flipper button was getting a little stuck. The flipper was going up while I was playing so I was trapped up. And then I'm so I had it trapped and I'm just playing with the flipper button and the game just shuts off.
    82:56
    I was like what? What? And it's just like the flipper, there was something going on, so we had to replay the game. So then I got a compensation ball on a new game, and that went poorly. So then I did poorly on that one. Another one, it was going into, we were almost exactly the same score, going on Alice Cooper, which, oh my god, that game's a mess. So we go in ball three, I get into a monster, I'm doing good, I beat the monster, I'm trapped up on the right, and I'm looking at the timer. Two, one, here's the hurry up. The timer goes away and I hear the sound. I literally get ready to drop the flipper to take the shot and the game freezes. And if the flippers go dead, the ball goes, and it's just stuck in the hurry up. A memory leak happened? So it just, so then that whole thing, the whole game got restarted. So I was like, ah! I was like, I just had put up like 20-something million. It was about to hit a huge R. So then we restart the game. So then I get, I start, well, I find a monster in the first ball. I find the monster that's hiding that you have to hide the ball. So you hit the, at the beginning of the monster, you hit it and you find it. It's worth 1.5 million, right? So I do that and then I die. So then I look up after my ball's over, goes to bonus, I have 700k. I'm like, what the heck was that? It was 1.5 million. So then, like we're talking about within the players and they're like, yeah, I saw that, that was weird. So then another player, I think it was player two or player three, the same thing, she got to the same monster, hit the same shot, 1.5 million, she ends, she didn't get the points. So then come player four is Chuck, and Chuck goes up there, the same monster, and he finds the monster and immediately gets like 7 million for finding the same monster. So seemingly the game kept our scores, all the points we found for finding the monster, and then just gave it to him when he did it. So, yeah. Well, as long as someone got it. Yeah, as long as someone got it. But, yeah, that was just, oh, that game was just such a mess. And I guess it was on old code and we were playing next to Bowen and Bowen was like, yeah, yeah, that's a known issue and blah, blah, blah. It was great. So, yeah. I remember when we were recording last week. I don't know, I think you might have been maybe halfway through and I'd looked at your ranking where you were and you were like maybe, I don't know, 16th or something? And you were kind of like, yeah, I'm not having a great time. But you did manage to claw your way back. Yeah, I think at my lowest, when I was looking at my chart, my lowest was close to 50 for like, I was just, like I said, it was just, I wasn't playing the best and I kept on. I was having such weird issues with games and weird stuff was happening when I was up. So I wasn't getting helped and I wasn't playing well, so the combination of the two was just so frustrating.
    86:16
    Which is weird because it seems like that always is. You'd think that I would be playing the best when I'm fresh and I'm awake and everything. And I wasn't playing well and the longer the tournament went, the better I started playing. And I would imagine if it went a little longer, I probably could have gotten into the top group. But I ended up sixth, which is two places higher than I did last year. So, you know, and my final group, I was with Phil Birnbaum and Trent Augustine and Al Perdo. So and I came in, I think, tied for second in that group. So I can't take that's fine with that. So, here's a funny question to ask, but, you know, last week when we were talking about whether we were going to record or not, you were saying, you know what, maybe we can record in between rounds and all that kind of stuff. So, how would that have gone, do you think? Oh, that would have been great content. It would have been so typical for you. So much to bitch about.
    87:20
    And how did you hold up after? It was fine. We drove home and then we power napped, I think, for like half an hour and then we had friends over to play board games. And then we played board games until late and then I was stuck up watching the Patriots get their ass kicked and then went to bed. So I went to bed around 9 or 10 and slept really well. Well, but because that's we figured out that if the best way to do it is to just make yourself stay up so that because if you sleep during the day after you're done, then you've completely screwed your sleep schedule because then you go to sleep at night and you're not tired. So then you're just screwed. So we just like, well, we'll stay up during the day. And then we always try to schedule board gaming so that we have friends over to hang out with and keep us aware so that we can actually go to bed at a normal time. We tend to do a little earlier than normal, which would have been if the Patriots weren't on.
    88:27
    And then that's a lot better way of doing it. Because I think one year we came home and slept and then it was terrible. It took multiple days to get back to normal. So you'll do it again next year? Oh, definitely. Yes, definitely. As long as I can get in, I've been there every year, so gotta try.
    88:46
    Awesome. Well, let me tell you about my week of pinball, and I'm only really going to talk about some games that I've played this week, just because it's been somewhat interesting with the streaming that I've done. So someone had requested that we streamed Guardians of the Galaxy, so we did, and I hadn't played this for some time, and I've really come away really, really loving Guardians of the Galaxy. I think it's a very, I think it's now a great rule set. What I think's really interesting is that I've played obviously a lot of Stern machines and there's something very sterny about Stern machines. You know, they just feel. Something about the name on them or something. Yeah. But it's something that they always feel just very similar and they do things. Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't. I think it's actually quite interesting in the way the geometry is. Even though everyone says, you know, it's Metallica or Iron Man, they have a very similar layout. It's just not. It plays and feels very different to all the other Stern machines of this sort of modern era. But it is just such an amazing game. So I went from Guardians, a recent Stern, to a couple of very old Sterns when I streamed at Ryan C, his place on Wednesday night, and we streamed Stern Electronics, Stars and Sea Witch. And what's really interesting is that Stars, you and I played, we played Stars at Pindall. In a terrible tournament. At that tournament we played the Pindall beforehand that was a really horrible experience, all told. and I've never really liked Stars and I kind of came away with a bit of an appreciation for it. It's simple and it's brutal. It's really brutal. Stars doesn't like anybody either. No, that's right. What's really interesting is that it's a solid state but it's got a chime box or, you know, Ryan kept referring to it as the bell, but it's got a chime box so it's ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, even though it's a solid state. So it's kind of this weird sort of crossover period. It might as well be an EM just with a digital display. That's really all it is. But it's actually quite a fun game. But then we went to Sea Witch and... Nope.
    91:07
    Yes. I love Sea Witch. Really? Yeah, I really do. I think that there's a lot of satisfaction with the shots. There's obviously lots of targets. When you nail those shots, it is such a fun game. Did you actually hit the loop on that one? No. Yeah, which is literally... Literally, half the playfield is this loop that you can't even shoot. No, you can get it by the right side, but obviously not the left, and you cannot do consecutive loops. There's just no way. It did happen, though. We did do it a couple of times, but it's not a consistent thing. Yeah, the Beatles is such a massive improvement over Sea Witch. I think it's... Yeah. Well, and you can tell why they did tweak it and they have made it so much more playable. And that's why Beatles is a fun game. Yes, of course, the price. We hear you guys. But for them to have taken that layout, it's so good. And we mentioned last week that there's a rumor that they're going to do Quicksilver rethemed. I wonder if they'll do the same sort of magic or whether they will leave it as is, Because I think Quicksilver doesn't have as many flaws layout-wise as C-Witch does. No, but I think that there's a lot that can be, I think, that you could tweak with that layout to make it better similarly like you did with C-Witch. You could tweak it so that you could add an orbit instead of the spinner just going into the pop bumpers, which generally speaking is useless. Why put it into the pop bumpers like that? You could have that continue around as an orbit.
    92:45
    Put a post up there so you can change it. Yeah, if you're in something where you need pop umbers, it'll divert it in there or it can go up top. There's a lot of things that you could just do. Similarly, underneath those plastics, you could throw in a Super Jackpot. There's a lot of cool stuff that they could do with that that I think would make it good and some nice tweaks. Because Quicksilver doesn't need as much improvement as Sea Witch does. That's what I was saying, yeah. But there's definitely still room for improvement that you could add there, I think. Yeah, correct. I would love for them to do that. I just hope it's not Led Zeppelin. Because that would... Yeah, I know. But that's mostly what happened. I saw them live and just Journey blew them off the stage.
    93:36
    And they're fine. But I wish, just like you guys were talking, please can we get some new bands please? Yeah, some modern bands would be great. Yeah. There you go. That's all that's really happened in my week. Probably the last thing, just, I put it under mailbag, but it's not really mailbag. This was a comment that was made on Tilt Forums.
    93:59
    And so the old pinball player said that I had mentioned that I like electronic music. And he said you should check out Laserhawk. He's a local pinhead.
    94:09
    And yeah, so I did. I checked out Laserhawk and I really like the sound. It has that sort of, you know, that retro wave outrun sound that's been popular probably for the last two, three years. And the other thing I was saying, I mentioned this before to you, Joe, just, I don't know, so we can talk electronic music. The vocal style and the sound of it reminded me of two other bands that are favourite bands of mine of recent years. One of them is called VHS Collection. You laughed at me when I mentioned that they're called VHS Collection, but check them out. They're a band out of New York, believe it or not. Fantastic band. But also The Sound of Arrows is another band that this kind of sound, the vocal style, really reminded me of.
    94:52
    So that was just letting you know I have actually listened to Laserhawk. I'm going to link their Bandcamp page in show notes. Check them out, guys. Really, really cool. Yeah, then you mentioned that Sound of Arrows sounds similar to Darren, so that's enough for me to check it out. Yeah, so I think Garrett Hayes is the guy that's behind all that, so. Another Hayes, geez. Yeah, there you go. And to jump back for another thing that I remember from last week's collection, I mean, episode when you were talking about themes and music, I think it was Miss Pinn that mentioned, like, oh, can we get some, like, hip-hop or something like that in there? And when I was thinking of what would make a good band like that, the thing that came to mind is, do you know Gorillaz? Yes, I love Gorillaz. Like, that would be an amazing pin. Because not only do they have good music. Visually, you've got a bit, right? Like those characters. And, I mean, that would be, that just seems like of any of those, the visual style of that, it just writes itself. Like the art, the video assets. Absolutely spot on. Gorillaz would be amazing. I think it's Damon Albarn. I think he was from, oh God, I can't remember the name of the group that's on Parklife and Boys and Girls.
    96:14
    They have a lot of great music and visually it's awesome too. Somebody please look at that. That would make a great name. Blur. Blur was the band. So he's the vocalist on Gorillaz. Yeah, I would absolutely agree. You can just visually see it right now. You could absolutely nail the art on a pinball and the music also, the lyrics of each of their songs has a theme to each of the songs. So modes would then write themselves. Just look at the videos, the videos of the songs. The video assets you've got are amazing. Each of them are their own characters and they all have their own stories. If you're going to do a hip-hop type band, I can't think of a better one that is popular and has the knock-it-out-of-the-park visual style that would just easily make its way into a pinball machine. So whilst we're on that, as you were talking about that, it reminded me of something else that I think would make an amazing pinball theme. A lot of people will disagree with me. And this is Interstellar 5555, which is Interstellar, the story of the secret star system. Have you ever seen this? What is it? I know Interstellar the movie, which is like science porn.
    97:37
    So this is, so there was a, so Dark Punk released an album called Discovery. and they then made a movie over the top of it called Interstellar, the story of the secret star system. So if you remember, I think One More Time was the big song and the film clip to it was this sort of animated band that got kidnapped and got turned into aliens and all this kind of stuff. I've seen pictures. Yeah, like this movie, I've got this on DVD, I bought it like the box set, the limited edition. And it's just one of my favourite, favourite albums and movies. They also had a song called Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, which I think then got sampled by Kanye, maybe? Kanye West? Yep, correct. May of Action. Yeah, right. So that movie would enter the art style on that. If you're going to make an electronic game, Daft Punk is an obvious choice. Yep. And that album, you could make that conceptually, that machine or table, just about that particular movie. Don't start it. Which one are you? Are you a cat or are you the screaming lady? I am both. That is why I said hashtag can't we both be right.
    98:53
    I don't know where that meme came from but I love it. I do know exactly where that meme came from because I looked up knowyourmeme.com. So it's actually two memes that have been joined together. One is a woman that was on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the other one was just a cat that was called Confused Cat. who was put in front of a bowl of vegetables and looked confused and then somehow somebody all of a sudden put those two things together and said, here's your new meme and we have been better off as a result. I thought that cat was just like, so done with your shit, cat. My face is like, nah, I'm like, nah, no, this is like, nah, it is, sorry, move it on.
    99:33
    So I guess as part of this week in pinball, I got to play my first Flipper Frenzy, which we haven't talked since then. Oh, how did you go? It was good. It was really fun. The standings was hidden, which I really loved, which I'm sure you loved because I used talking to you as to keep track of my record.
    99:56
    That's what you did too. Yeah. While you were sleeping, I'm just like, two in one. Two in two. You were just messaging me. Yep, I know, the whole time. I'm like, oh, he's going to love it when he wakes up. He's going to be like, oh, 25 messages. What is it? Oh, look at you. I saw the first couple and I was like, why is he making, oh yes, he's using this to write his tally. Yep, I got it. I thought that that was cool and yeah, I really, it was really interesting, I liked it. And so much that I run, we're having one in December. Okay. So, we'll see how that goes. It'll be the first one that we're running, we're kind of putting it underneath the Pinmaster's envelope, something with Critical Hit. They're also doing that too, so. So where did you end up in the flip frenzy? I came in second to Phil Frenbach. Or was it just the right at the end?
    100:49
    No, there was finals, which ironically I finished right behind him in the regular standing, so it would have been the same either way. But no, it was head-to-head, best two out of three. And then you get the games, and Phil got the best of me. That guy.
    101:09
    Which I've now started talking, calling him the Canadian Belsito because he just puts on these comebacks against me and I'm just like, what the, where'd you come from? Like he put up like, at the 24 hour in the final round, he put up like 100k on flip-flop on ball five to beat me. I was like, oh.
    101:29
    And he did the same thing with it, like he came back and beat me at flip frenzy on both games, he came back and beat me. I was just like, ah, damn it. But you understand the frenetic nature of it and how it is very strategic about whether you go the long game or you settle where you are just so you can move on to the next game. Yeah, I mean, I didn't really deal with that much. Like, I played every game as if, you know, it was just its own thing. I played to win and I didn't, like, quit on any of the games. He definitely made sure that you couldn't just bow out of the game. You had to at least plunge. And I only had one person bow out against me.
    102:15
    But, yeah, because it seemed that still winning, since it's head-to-head, even if you have a big game and the other person you're playing against has a big game, it doesn't hurt you too bad in the long run. Because if you're still winning, then it still wins over losses. So it's still, as long as you just don't lose or you don't lose as much, it's still equivalent. You can play half the games, but if you just, you know, you've only lost a couple times, then it's still equivalent. That is true.
    102:47
    That is true. But yeah, I mean, I don't remember if it happened, but I'm sure there would be a point where if I feel that, you know, oh, this person can't continue this, then I'd just plunge my ball. But I've gotten burned in the past for not giving enough respect to thinking that someone can catch me, and they can. So I just always go as hard as I can, assuming. And people are like, oh, yeah, keep going. Yeah, I'm still going to catch that score. I'm like, no. It's funny because people will get pissed off that they think they're running up the score. And it's like, okay, but you realize by me doing this, it's because I have respect that you can come back and beat me. So it's like, it's not, like, if you want to concede, then I will stop, for sure. But, like, you know, I'm doing this because I'm scared you'll beat me. So it's because I have respect for you as a player. So it's like, I don't know why people get offended by that. I'm like, well, it should be the opposite. They should be like, wow.
    103:45
    Yeah, no, I know. But I think everyone's realizing that it's also a race. So, yeah. Well, I'm sorry, that wasn't in Flipper Frenzy. That was just other tournaments. Right, okay. They'll just be like, oh, geez, Joe, why do you have to put up such a big score? I'm like, well, I know.
    104:01
    TeeDaw's like, well, it's pinball, that's what you're supposed to do, but at the same time, I'm not assuming that I'm going to beat you. So, but yeah, I thought it was fun. So, it'll be interesting because that collection had a decent mix of, I mean, it was mostly middle games, older games. There were a couple new games. Like, they had an Iron Maiden that they just made as hard as possible because it plays so long. But, like, where we're going to be hosting it is at Chris Burnett's house, and he has all moderns with, like, one or two old ones. And, like, the old ones is an 8-Ball Deluxe that's, like, really floaty, and then a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So, like, and then Alien Pogger, which I think he has on the sideball. So it's like trying to figure out how to get those all playing fast is going to be a challenge of just pulling rubbers and pulling the ball save on some of the longer ones like Batman or Guardians.
    104:59
    Trying to get those to play similarly is going to be a challenge, but I'll figure it out. It'll be a good learning experience. Yeah, the randomness is what's fun of it. You might get a short game, you might get a long game. That's kind of part of Flip Frenzy being so randomized. You don't know who you're going to be up against. You don't know what machine you're going to be up against. You might be a hard, easy player, hard game, easy, quick, long, who knows. That's the fun of it. Yeah, and I like the fact that I guess because I had gone into it thinking from what I had heard is that you play one game and then your second player on the same game.
    105:35
    So you're playing each game twice. But I guess that if you just have more games than there are people, then that doesn't happen and you get new games all the time, which is the way it was when I played. So thankfully that's also going to be the case here, is that we're going to have more games than we're going to need for people, so then at least we'll keep it going that way. So that's good. I'm glad that it's not. Because I mean, I can see it being fun to get a second chance at a game if you play poorly on it, or even if, I guess if you play well on it, then you get confidence in being like, well, I can blow this game up because I just had, I got played it again, but then you'd play like half the game, so that's not as fun. I get it now. I get it. I'm so glad you got to play it. It's just fun. And as we sort of said before, it's particularly fun for people that are just getting into Pinball as well because you're guaranteed a lot of gameplay over whatever it is, usually three hours. It's a bit of speed dating as far as social goes.
    106:37
    It's just crazy good fun. Yeah, and a lot of people have hired players as like, oh, well, you know, it's not as good for determining who the best players are. It's not as, you know, but I mean, both me and Phil were also the top two at the end. So it's like, well, it didn't seem like that happened and a lot of the people in the standings were kind of roughly where they would be anyway. So I don't necessarily think that's true either. So, yeah, I just think that there sometimes is some random upsets that people sort of just will call out the format of the title of the actual comp itself. But upsets happen all the time. It has nothing to do with it. So there you go. There you go. Yeah, I'm excited. A new format to enjoy. Excellent. All right, well, thanks everybody for listening. We will speak to you again next week. Thank you, Joe. You're welcome.
    107:33
    See you next week. For real, I'm going to be back. Sure. You better be. That's right.