Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 57: We have killed ALL pinball sales, and Expo recap

The Pinball Network·video·2h 13m·analyzed·Nov 2, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Triple Drain reviews Metallica LE remake and expo experiences; 500-unit scarcity drives $15-18k secondary market.

Summary

Triple Drain Podcast Episode 57 covers the hosts' experiences at a recent pinball expo, with particular focus on Stern's Metallica LE remake. The episode includes detailed discussion of the game's improvements (new art, animations, code features), sales strategy (500 LE units creating FOMO), and playfield changes. Hosts also discuss Funhouse remake reception and broader expo observations about new players entering the hobby.

Key Claims

Metallica LE production limited to 500 units
high confidence · Travis explicitly states 'In only 500?' and the hosts discuss how scarcity drives desire and hype for the game
Metallica LE is selling for $15-18k on secondary market
medium confidence · Joel mentions hearing of LEs 'going for 15 to 18,000' and Travis discusses secondary market dynamics
Metallica remake added physical post on left side to prevent drains vs original
medium confidence · Tom discusses 'the post on the left that prevents a lot of drains' and indicates uncertainty ('I'm not going crazy here, Tom, am I?')
Metallica remake features virtual ball saves on both sides that can be earned
medium confidence · Tom states 'they have virtual ball saves on both sides that I think can be earned' but expresses uncertainty about earning mechanism
Metallica LE has all new animations, new art, and Opto Spinners vs original
high confidence · Joel states definitively: 'all new animations, all new art. The Spinners now are Opto Spinners'
Booth staff observed significant influx of players new to pinball hobby (within past year or discovering in 2023)
high confidence · Travis: 'A lot of people I talked to this year at the booth were brand new to pinball within the past year' and 'just discovered pinball just in 2023'
Metallica remake features UV ink on redesigned Sparky and upgraded magnet
high confidence · Tom confirms: 'Two plus, you get the UV ink on it' and 'the upgraded magnet, is really cool'

Notable Quotes

“We've been accused of killing, uh, manufacturer sales before, so Tom, Tom, here he is. You know, without hesitation, killing all sales of Funhouse.”
Joel @ ~11:00 — Self-aware commentary on host bias/shill accusations; Tom criticized Funhouse LE remake
“You can drive a lot of desire for a certain product based off the number of units available. And when people feel like, 'Wait, you know, there may not be enough for me,' and you get multiple people feeling like that, that's naturally what creates the hype.”
Travis @ ~1:04:00 — Explicit acknowledgment of FOMO scarcity strategy for LE production; 500 unit limit intentional
“Porting this game over to the Spike Two, um, he said, from a rule standpoint, you know, a lot of the base rules that is something you can essentially copy-paste. But, um, it's a whole new system. So all the light choreography, all of that, had to be redone.”
Joel (quoting Rid) @ ~1:15:00 — Details on Metallica remake development effort; contradicts perception of simple port
“I was just like, 'This is going to be enormous. Like, this will sell very quickly.' ... the vibe of a pin, and you could tell just the popularity of a certain theme. Obviously, Metallica has been popular for years.”
Travis @ ~1:02:00 — Distributor/operator perspective on demand prediction; theme popularity drives sales
“I really wanted an LE, and so this was nice. I mean, it's nice to know I have an LE coming of a Metallica. [after waiting 10+ years from original release]”
Joel @ ~54:00 — Personal motivation for LE purchase; scarcity/allocation dynamics create collector anxiety

Entities

Triple Drain Pinball PodcastorganizationJoelpersonTravisperson TompersonStern PinballcompanyMetallica LEgameFunhouse Remake/LEgameThe Pinball CompanycompanyCarrieperson

Signals

?
business_signal: Distributor carefully managed Metallica LE allocation to avoid overselling; Travis texted hosts immediately after webinar predicting massive demand
high · Travis: 'we had to make sure that we did not oversell our allocation of LEs' and 'I was just like, This is going to be enormous'
~
sentiment_shift: Significant new player adoption in hobby; Expo observed influx of players discovering pinball within past 1-2 years
high · Travis: 'A lot of people I talked to this year at the booth were brand new to pinball within the past year... just discovered pinball just in 2023'
?
design_philosophy: Funhouse LE remake artwork received strong negative reception; new art package confused experienced players and detracted from gameplay experience
high · Tom stated artwork 'totally messed with my brain' and refused to return to game; discouraged purchase of LE version; met Carrie at event and confirmed criticism directly
?
design_philosophy: Stern made substantive gameplay improvements to Metallica remake beyond cosmetics (post addition, virtual ball saves, light choreography, new modes)
high · Joel quoting Rid: port required complete light choreography redesign, new inserts, additional code; not simple copy-paste
?
event_signal: Stern held successful Metallica LE media reveal event at factory with strong industry attendance; separate dealer event held night before at Top Golf
high · Travis and Tom attended factory tour Thursday; Joel attended dealer event Friday; both events described as well-attended with positive reception

Topics

Metallica LE Remake (new art, animations, code, layout changes)primaryFOMO/scarcity strategy in LE production (500 unit limit)primaryExpo experience and new player growth in hobbyprimaryFunhouse Remake reception and artwork criticismsecondaryStern factory operations and development processsecondaryTournament streaming and commentarysecondaryX-Men pinball character design and animation directionmentionedSecondary market pricing and availability dynamicssecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.72)— Hosts are enthusiastic about Metallica LE remake quality and Expo experience; new player growth excites them. However, Tom's strong criticism of Funhouse LE artwork and ongoing FOMO concerns about pricing temper overall optimism. Genuine affection among hosts despite friendly disagreements.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

[Music] the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right we are here we are here November 1st we're recording November 1st so uh Happy late Halloween or happy uh I don't know the day after Halloween I I don't know what I'm supposed to say but uh hopefully everybody had a great Halloween as a as a dentist Tom do you guys like Halloween a lot of candy lot of Cy a lot of clients right or no yeah yeah keep eating that candy yeah perfect and uh Travis did you dress up were you festive did you uh participate in in Halloween in any I wore did you not see the picture I wore my triple drain stuff I went as a podcaster that's what I went it I didn't mean to I just happened to be wearing it but yeah yeah yeah yeah I went with my kids I took all their candy I drank a lot of beer walking around in circles around the neighborhood so I was happy perfect happy Halloween yeah did you use a golf cart no no we we used our legs we walked we walked um and you know silently judge the people that did use the golf cart uh because you know the kids got to burn off that energy they got to run up and down they gota you know that's what it's all about but uh um no it was great uh I'll have to maybe I'll put it in post maybe I won't my kid went as uh my son went as a washing machine um which was I was so proud of him for doing it uh my wife you come up with that idea yeah so my wife had these ideas of like family costumes like oh we could all be cats and I was uh I was no I was not into that so we were in the so what were you like we're going to be like the bra Little Toaster we're driving down the road we're in the van and I was like what's a ridiculous costume and I I knew I had to do was convince one of my kids you know that and uh the idea of a washing machine popped in my head I said Calvin you should be a washing machine he's like what and I was like yeah then we can make it where it opens up and they can put the candy inside and he was like yeah let's do it so was pumped my wife gave me a look and uh that was like two months ago but he remembered and he kept at it he's like Dad I'm going to be a washing machine Dad I'm gonna be so we did it papermache cardboard box everything I'll have to add a picture here um in post um but it was awesome it was awesome it was an awesome little costume and uh it got a lot of laughs so it made me made me very happy um nice good job yeah you're a good dad good job I'm hoping this is setting a precedence for ridiculously dumb costumes you know moving forward uh my my daughter was Wednesday she dressed up as Wednesday which uh was funny cuz my my son could not remember it it's like Calvin it's the day of the week it's the day of the week uh what just died in your house who what was that it sounded like an entire refrigerator fell over there so my kids are on fall break also they're upstairs with the dog apologies to everybody ahead of time you're living my life today Tom did you uh anything for Halloween anything at all uh I won a stroke oh look at you what little bobblehead look at that oh that's a zombie Captain America where'd you win that at player two in Appleton nice oh does it say that on there tell on my screen okay reading is hard I know well it's pixelated at Joel yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay I think that's enough of an intro uh let after the intro Tom I'm GNA ask you more about it great everybody's good we're all good I'm hitting the button we're three guys who like to talk so we came up with cl our name we Joel and and all and we call ourselves triple dra triple dra triple dra triple triple triple drink triple dra so uh I have all these magnets anybody wants one yeah yeah yeah yeah Joel gave me like a hundred of these I have if you saw any of us at Expo first off thank you thank you for saying hi thank you for everything if you saw me you were probably handed a piece of Swag some magnet some Koozie something yeah where's our magnets I gave Tom and Travis you gave us 25 of them like and Tom gave them all away it was great he gave no J no joke at our booth I set out a bunch of these and it's still wrapped well okay not this exact one I'm saying you mean you got more than I did because I only got one pack well Joel just keeps like throwing stuff at me this was from last may like this from a little while ago so he gave me another one and I sat them all out and they were gone within like 5 minutes so either people really like the magnet or somebody really hated us and just trashed all of them one or the other I don't know either way they were gone yeah I found it's it's typically a lot easier to give stuff away when you open it out of the package first you know or have it with you because I'm assuming that bundle of 25 in your hand was sitting there all of X well yeah this I'm just saving this for a special occasion it's fine well thank you Tom for giving away our swag um thank you to all of our patreon supporters who uh funded that swag so thank you for uh the support um we will continue to do that hopefully at shows or whatever uh have stuff we can give away so if you ever see us at a show please come say hi tell us you like the show even if you don't like the show if you want a magnet to throw it away I don't care but uh thanks for uh if you don't like the show make sure you come up to us and tell us yes yes please please please especially Travis um oh yeah I love that I think I can speak for all three of us um but the nicest the nicest people that that the three of us all had a chance to meet happen to be Elizabeth Gieske's parents so I don't know if they're listening right now Ma Madonna and Dan uh they had cookie they were so kind they were they were hilarious they were so uh nice to meet uh I also think they embarrassed uh Elizabeth because of how excited they were to to talk to us and meet us so uh huge shout out to them they were awesome they were awesome the cookies were the best oh yeah they tracked all three of us down it saved part of my tournament life so like yes yeah since I didn't have any food no they were super nice too that's what was awesome they were the true superstars of Expo oh yeah they were they were they pulled out the Tupperware like geki on top pulling the LD hey cookies those cookies were Chef K too they were so good they were great I told Monica I said this is how you make a cookie she just she just she just looked at me hey it's constructive feedback oh yeah if you guys if you ate that cardboard you'd be saying the same thing all right all right wow um I mean you could cook cookies too Travis you can I yeah I actually can believe it or not I know they're not fresh baked they're the pre-roll but I can follow the instructions okay she'll tell you straight up she Burns a [ __ ] out of them every single time it happens I think we need to have a streamed cookie cook off between you and Monica unless Monica doesn't care like she may circles around her will for it I would run circles around her I could probably I don't even watch cooking shows and she does and I could probably out bake her by like two or three x oh boy I'm 100% positive all right conf a lot of confident all right it's nothing it's nothing about man vers woman or anything like that it's being married to her for close to 20 years and reliving this Groundhog Day thing with the cookies monthly like I'm just telling you guys you guys would say the same thing if you're in my shoes right now yeah love you there's only one way we only one way we'll know we either need to stream it or um next show you know both of you bake something and it we'll do a blind taste test I I will I will happily do whatever if it involves cookies I'm assuming tomm you're in the same way you know if they're both there so I mean I am so confident I could go across the country um and bake these in a hotel room bake pre-roll you're bragging about breaking yeah so you can cut them yeah I mean yeah I have a little help along the way but you know it's I'm being realistic about what my talent level is at this but yet I'm still confident in it so that's the key to life right there guys is very confident you got to be very confident but realistic yeah like it's just it's the same way Joel when you were comparing your pinball Talent level to Monica and kicking her ass at celen a couple years ago this is what I'm comparing to is Monica good at anything really I mean she can't bake cookies she lost to me in a tournament man I don't know poor choice in men I mean what does she do well I don't know I'll say this yeah this is why no I heard that Joel I'm just ignoring that I I think this is why Tom I tell Tom all the time I'm a trophy husband yeah like why participation yep all right happens yeah okay so Expo we all three of us are Expo we all three had very different experiences at Expo um yeah Travis was locked down to a booth uh Tom was locked down to a large tournament room and I was walking around with my brother all over just trying to just just having fun what we can do oh yeah I choose I don't know about you guys but I you know like um I choose the fun route of pinball that's why I don't I don't I don't compete Tris and I did work he said he doesn't compete all you tournament Players did you guys just hear that [ __ ] all over I don't have fun fun no um no it was it was a lot I mean we were Jared and I were only there two days and and two days is I mean it's a lot it's a lot it's pinball or Expo can be a lot um but it was awesome it was so great so let's let's go through that um uh let's just start with funh housee because I feel bad that I that I that I put it towards the end of of uh when we did the talk before I think Travis almost thought I forgot about it because I did but prob did F house I had a chance to play it Tom have you played the Remake did you have a chance to play the Remake oh yeah I did at the Open Tom hates the Remake and I love him for it I hated it right there with Carrie wing and I told her like this is terrible no uh I so they had an Le at the UK open and the new artwork just like totally like mes with my brain and it it just threw me way off yeah so I didn't like it well I refused to go back to it to play another entry um but see that's how much we like each other right there see this is this is a key part right here Joel no matter what people think if they think all three of us are shills or get offended by stuff like literally right here one of my best friends is [ __ ] on the project that I've been involved on in over a year way I would have rather played Jetson that's all I'm going to say oh boy was there a Jetson there is there even one in Robert Englunds I don't know that's a great question that is awesome can I use that for promotional material put that on the I'd rather play J we might have another around somewhere all right so we'll just here we are I have I have played the um I have played the I don't maybe that was wasn't a remake maybe that was an add-on kit never mind I good night everybody no what's that the fun house 2.0 kit or something like yeah so Tom we'll just that's fine we've we've been accused of killing uh manufacturer manufacturer sales before so Tom Tom here he is you know without hesitation killing all sales of fun house so congrats if I was in the market for a fun house I would get one I just probably wouldn't get the LA that's that's it so I yeah yes I understand and I Know Travis has before talked about like he doesn't look at the upper third of a pinball machine all of his shots he lines them up with artwork or like that's how he kind of Judges where the ramp is so I could understand how a new art package could really throw you off I really mess with my brain yeah but not gonna lie I'm sure if I got used to shooting it it would be fine but like first try no yeah um I met Carrie for the first time uh um in person she was great uh clearly the best hire the pinball company's ever had um so good on her um but it was great it was great being there and I had a chance to play fun house Travis uh gave me some coaching I've only played fun house two or three times but to actually get you know a little crash course on do x y and z um and I get it I understand now I understand why people like that game there's uh I played the the the Remake but not the the the new you played the original code yeah and you actually did very well on it I was I will impressed he put up over 7 million I think it either seven eight or 9 million he actually did some things on it I'll take it it was that was better than my entry at the UK open that's why he turned around immediately he's like was this good did I did I do decent I mean he was being serious I was like it's a it's a decent score Joel you did fine I had to begrudgingly give him props in front of everybody um it was fun though it I mean it shoots great like it's um I don't know I have no you know I felt like it was well built beautiful game uh the flippers felt good I mean every I have no complaints with how it played now then again I don't have you know countless hours on an original game to compare it to but um I understand the appeal to it it's uh it's just kind of fun to play um it shoots really well creative shots um bopping the guy in the mouth is a great time like I get it so I know when uh when it was revealed that that was the game that was being remade I was like fun house really and now I get it I get it okay so if people don't realize how much even from a used game perspective that that game sells like it's for whatever popular title I've actually I actually have a patient who asks me about funh house like every time he comes in because he he knows I play Pinball and that's like his favorite game so you tell him don't buy one from the pinball company don't buy the said go buy a used one but no it's yeah it's just it's a popular game to people that have been around pinball for a while but then at the same time it's one of those things that people got to remember and this is a big reason why attack from Mars Medieval Madness and all those Monster Bash even behind you this is a big reason why they stay popular even today because a lot of times if you go online you'll see like top 100 rankings right whether it's on pinside or even on our website we have top 50 rankings according to like different data points but new people to pinball will go on there and they'll look at that so it kind of guides them down that road like what else is there besides just a brand new modern day pen and that's kind of where that comes from and that type of data being available I mean that's essentially what it is but that was the other part I was kind of Blown Away by I don't know if you guys noticed this a lot of people I talked to this year at the booth were brand new to pinball within the past year and I was floored how many people I talked to that just now either bought their first game like since 2022 or had just discovered pinball just in 2023 and just decided to go to an expo like it was amazing I I didn't have that experience in the and what I mean is I mean the majority of people that I talk to either watch the stream or uh do trip you know like this podcast so you know free for people that watch pinball streams or listen to pinball podcast you know you've gone another level in to the Hobby but you know for you to be Manning a booth Travis you are you're seeing everybody everybody and that's awesome that's really exciting to see that the hobby is growing or that there's you know continued interest in this even during uh a point where you know just with the economy it's not like people have the money to blow on fun toys like they used to you know a few years ago so that's that's really exciting but um no I I I felt bad for you for being in the booth for so many days but it is your job and I get it because I mean it it was fine it it was fine I mean it is what it is you got to you got to do certain things but I try to get around and hang out with as many people and if I didn't get a chance to hang out with you or if I had to have a short conversation with you I thoroughly apologize but yeah so but tpf tpf I'll be there not Manning a booth so I'll just be able to do anything and everything yep just enjoy the show so uh Tom you streamed an excellent tournament it was awesome I had an I had an opportunity to commentate again uh I did some commentating with my brother and you and then you subed out and Neil stepped in and um I think it was like three hours it just it flies by I and and honestly I walked away I love it I loved I love it I I don't know if anybody enjoyed my commentary or not probably not um but I loved it it was Jared had a blast doing it and um you got the best seat in the house you know you're watching the stream and just taking it in and seeing that high level of play and um the way that they they attack these games um it was I had a blast doing that so um uh thank you for for letting me do that and uh it was good thanks Jo yeah and Jared too that tournament was awesome it was it was really cool um did you when you did have an opportunity to step away what we'll just so funh housee check what other games did you have an opportunity to play at Expo with your little time off I guess we'll get into this a little later but uh so Travis and went to stern to play Metallica true and then so so I got one game on Metallica well we'll just do it now that's fine we can uh okay if you want so I was not there this was there was a Stern uh media invite this was Thursday morning just media people were invited to it unfortunately I was not going to get to Expo till Friday but Travis and Tom the two of you had a chance to go so um yeah go ahead and yeah once they found out Joel wasn't there they're like you guys got to leave sorry you're right I see I go to opposite the floodgates opened up there was so many more people at this one than the one in May there was a lot of people there which was cool to see and I heard there was a lot of um like arcade one up people like not normal pinball arcade one up arcade people um it was good I thought that was good yeah so was a bigger crowd um bigger did they do the the did they do the whole tour did they do was there a lot of some people but we got we got ushered away and like we were like what's going on cuz we were like the only ones like not in that room and Travis and I were like what the hell is going on like it was informal yeah we were just like you guys got to leave we got to get more people in here and I mean we were like okay but then like all of a sudden like everybody was in that room oh the Travis and I then uh but then but then like Gomez came up and talked to us and said Davis so it I mean it was it was really cool it was really cool and some of the other employees too but yeah we got to talk to Mark who does the the animations got to talk to jack for a little while yeah he's an awesome dude and plus two that's when we got to talk yes exactly that we got to talk about the uh yep the peard look the on X-Men yeah I mean there's just a lot of cool stuff it you don't realize especially if you haven't ever been to the stern Factory before just how massive the operation truly is and how much goes into just producing these games from the ideation of it the conceptualization of it to just actually getting it to Market and then the continued life support afterwards it's it's a large undertaking it really is yeah so you you uh Side Story with Mark uh Jared and I talked to him for a while so Mark Mark is uh he's one of the animators and he he did pinball then stepped away came back and he's like all in all in on his element and I was asking him about X-Men um animations because he went from Venom animations to John Wick to now X-Men so it's like to go from you know 2D you know kind of comic book art to then photorealistic you know background and and cars and action animations to now back to X-Men uh huge comic book fan and and he's like you know we're doing these storyboards about this is the panel and this and somebody's like well the shot goes from left to right so you know uh we'll have Nightcrawler like do this to move over here and he's like no that's not that's not how Nightcrawler teleports like it's a poof you know it's a here and then a there you know there's no movement and it's like so to get these like people you know sharing their experiences from the comic books from these years of enjoying the product um and then get to draw it and and he said the way the direction they have is zombie Yeti has essentially established the characters or the character drawings and then as animators they are trying to match what zombie edti has done so um it was it was awesome it was really cool talking to them um talking to him when he was there but anyway so you guys are at Stern uh Metallica um and just to reiterate Tom you've you know you've said before you're done with new and box you're done with Le done um it's just don't do no more Le's yeah so you bought and then Metallica came out I'm like [ __ ] yeah y um so you saw it what was it um because we know Ray a screwed up the code we know he ruined it right I mean that's what Ray does Ry he the ones and zeros with Ry he just he just ruins it but um but what was it about the game I mean you saw it and how quickly did you know once you saw it you're like I'm I gotta buy it yeah it was you know it was the artwork and the whole like changes that were made I they did such a good job with you know like new inserts and just new Max um I you know it it's still the same Metallica game but it's also different cuz you know they added different features as far as as code um I was just overall impressed I yeah you know that like just seeing the artwork you know like it was like oh wow this is this is really cool yeah it's more more Metallica themed than like the original yep but uh but you owned an original you had owned original for years I had so yeah I had a premium uh monsters which I got rid of I think at the beginning of the year okay and um I uh I actually wanted an originally and I was originally told I was going to get one and then the distributor kind of backed out on me and said oh you know we yep we uh I had too many sales you know I didn't I didn't have enough allocation so they ended up giving me a little deal on a premium though but but still uh you know I really wanted an Le and so this was nice I mean it's it's nice to know I have an Le coming of a met so you're talking about the original when you original this is years and years ago when Metallica originally came out you were trying to get an Le so you just had to wait you had to wait 10 plus years but uh now you got your La coming um I I think it is an interesting uh on the pinball show Zack and Dennis had an argument about whether or not this is considered a new game and when you actually go to list like it is all new animations all new art The Spinners now are opo Spinners who said it wasn't a new game Dennis doesn't think it's a new game he treats it I'm sorry brother you're wrong right I I get it I I mean I understand it's it's the same layout it's the same basic I mean it's it's like they took they took everything the original had they took away the same exact layout though 10% of it and then added a bunch more and and what they the only thing they took away were the DMD animations and the art and then so well there was there's a couple other things though I mean well there's one major change to the actual like like formation of the final layout and that's the the post on the left that prevents a lot of borging to happen like a lot of drains out to that left there's a post there I didn't know they added a post there's a post there I could have swore there was right I'm not going crazy here Tom am I I didn't know of any physical changes but hey you guys were there maybe you were told I know we were there like I'm hoping I'm not going crazy I mean I I ate a lot of candy yesterday night so you know the beer cand Craig Bobby killed my enjoyment of the game because he kept talking to me while I was playing I'm like Craig yeah CRA let me just play the game Craig even with that he's still uh he still bought one so I'm excited about it um hopefully I'll have a chance to uh play it soon um uh from a distributor standpoint Trav is this a uh you know how did how are sales are you excited about this game yeah I mean it did well we had to make sure that we did not oversell our allocation of Le's okay on it and I mean it so one of the things about this is that's for a variety of reasons I remember when the webinar was happening I texted you guys immediately I was just like this is going to be enormous like this will sell very quickly yeah I mean because you just you can just tell you can tell the vibe of a pin and you could tell just the popularity of a certain theme obviously Metallica has been popular for years in only 500 yeah that's the key too it's one of the things is is you can drive a lot of desire for a certain product based off the number of units available and when people feel like wait you know there may not be enough for me and you get multiple people feeling like that that's naturally what creates the pH there's only one Tom graft and that's why he's in such high demand you know but it was funny though like this game was unique cuz I've heard of some Le still being available at the end of the week if people like really really search for it and that was even at MSRP and then I've heard of other lees's that are repoing for 15 to 18,000 too is c yeah I mean and people just like Metallica so you're going to see different dynamics of it and everything but I just know seeing it at first on the webinar and I think we were in Chicago when this came in so I was already there and I think it was the morning of the stern pro circuit Championship final so it's like I was doing two things at once but yeah it's just as soon as you saw it you were like okay this is going to be cool it has enough added on to make it remastered to make it feel like a completely new experience yet familiar enough to where you're like I remember that this felt great before and now it's just feeling great on steroids that's what it's essentially what the game playay felt like to me once Tom and I got to play it at the uh at the fact and I think even before the factory I got to go to a dealer event the night before at Top Golf and it's they had it set up there and yeah it was it was fantastic now what I will say is and this could be good or bad depending on how you look at it the game play it plays a lot longer which for a lot of people that could be great and that's for a variety of reasons I think one because that post that's there on the left side correct me if I'm wrong I don't I don't think it was there on the original metallic but I might be losing my mind and then they have virtual ball saves on both sides that I think can be earned I'm not sure how to earn them but they're there wasn't in the original code I don't recall that I don't recall that freaking I don't recall that but admittedly I play Metallica like the original like in competition so I don't know if it's something that's being turned off or not could just be turned off yeah but the but the mechs felt good too like the snake never rejected on every copy that I played nice um ramps orbits felt good and I actually like the redesigned Spark I know that's like 5050 cuz a lot of people love the original Sparky from I guess it was dirty Donnie and I don't know if there's certain reasons why they had to change it I've heard there was I don't know much about it yeah I like the new Sparky 2 plus you get the UV ink on it so that's really cool the the uh the new magnet in there where you have the upgraded magnet is really cool and I like how they did the five lights in front so you can see your progress towards a lot easier to tell progress now even on crank it up because of the LCD and this is a good thing with the LCD I like how they did this you could tell where you're at on certain things immediately without having to like scroll through the info even the snat felt better to me and not only that like it held the ball longer during like your multiballs and stuff which I like so yeah it that's awesome right talking to rid um I and this is credit to him but I was like so what did you do you just you went to the original game you know copy paste boom done right and uh no no was the answer I mean porting this game over to this to to spike two um he said from a rule standpoint you know a lot of the base rules that is something you can essentially copy paste but um it's a whole new system so all the light choreography all of that had to be redone um not to mention they added inserts so it's like all the inserts now you know with with some of these um some of the light choreography all of that has to be redone obviously the additional code there's new modes um there's like a 72 uh yeah like an ultimate wizard mode or something but on the on the scoop on the right instead of just crank it up there's additional things over there um so there was a lot more that needed added as well as you know the the code in the background for what's going to be displayed on the LCD like you're saying you know additional UI things progress um stuff that wasn't in the original game so I'm excited I'm very excited to play this game I totally understand why it's sold well um I also think it's a cool opportunity for people to get the original uh Metallica at at a cheaper rate than they were you know a month ago um it's just the original Metallica Metallica to me is like a top 10 game that's a game that I've considered owning um so I'm really excited to see as Travis said the that game on steroids to see it even better uh you can tell by everything behind me the you know expression lights and the speaker speaker lights expression lights more light I can't wait well I'm glad you pointed that out cuz I meant to say this too the expression lights on it I felt was by far on any other machine that the expression lights have been on it felt the best on Metallica like it made the most sense it like everything about it yeah was just excellent and I say this with L's that are already sold out anyway so it's not like we're Win Schilling it or whatever it's just a fun game it's Metallica you get to play what's a classic Borg design you get to play lyman's code that's just in his rules and against the mind of Lyman it's just so much fun to play and then you have that add-on additions that Raymond's done to where he is polishing up some stuff he's adding on some stuff that doesn't take away from the legacy of the game it just adds on to it and then you know the artwork is subjective like you know whether you like it or not it's totally up to you because I know a lot of people prefer the Le artwork over the premium and I'm one of those too like I think the Le artwork look looks fantastic Inc yeah yeah it just everything about it I it's cliche but everything about it just pops it just catches your eye compared to anything else that's around it so yeah I I think the machine is going to stay popular for a while I I would like to think if the original Metallica did not exist and this was like the first iteration that we ever saw about it like I think that the whole entire Community would just be absolutely gushing about it you know more than anything else you know I I there's just a lot of value in it I mean obviously the code is near complete which is awesome out of box the shots feel good shots don't reject flippers feel Snappy if this was the original metallic up he would be like oh Borg reuse the the Guardians layout probably yeah you're probably right you're probably right you're probably right but no I'm excited well we'll have to wait and see on it and get more experience uh but it's it's just you know you probably have the same people reach out to you and they're like what should I get should I get the new X-Men should I wait on Metallica should I do this should I do that and I'm like you know like Metallica is a known thing um same thing people are like should I get X-Men or should I pull the trigger on Jaws it's like well Jaws I understand Jaws isn't done but it's a known like that code is pretty much done like it's a known thing same thing with God I saw a comment they're like I'm about to buy an Xmen but maybe I should just pull the trigger on Godzilla it's like Godzilla is a known thing so if you if you you want to go with the safe bed on what this is an established fully fleshed out finished game it's a known thing do it right now if if you're buying a a John Wick or an X-Men you're G to be waiting for code updates yeah it's it's kind of there's a question mark there you know well it's one of those things too it just like Tom's alluding to it depends what Journey you want to have as a pinball owner right do do you want to join the live service thing to where you see progression of it and you know it's going to change or do you want to be with a game that's already gone through all that for close to a year or whatever you know just I guess it just depends on what you know what experience the buyer wants there's the lwin effect yeah the buying games yeah when the new games come out people yeah so um well the good news is people are going to be able to get X-Men for cheap soon because um Travis has killed all sales he's killed all sales for the game he did it single L um he has he has because you know he hates he hates Stern and he just um he hates fun so Travis put out a video Travis put out a video and I say all this with sarcasm but um I think it's I think it's actually a really good video and it shows a lot about the challenges of Designing pinball and code and early code and having to think through so many different situations but Travis on the pinball on the pinball company's YouTube channel put out a um launch party tutorial Strat video for X-Men he recorded Ed it on a pro and um you can summarize the video in really really easily um wi and doubt you shoot Midtown you shoot the shot to the left of the Sentinel head when and doubt ramp out when doubt ramp out now what is interesting though I watched the video Tom's done it even Carl uh D'Python Anghelo he's all made comments about trying to follow the strategy that that Travis showed which was on Travis's model he could hit that that middle shot it's a middle ramp it feeds the right flipper he could hit that shot from either flipper from a cradle at speed he could hit that shot all day and the way that the code is currently established you can progress through almost everything in the game every mode qualifying modes every multiball most of it not everything but a large percentage yeah a lot of it you can get away with just hitting that shot over and over and over again and um so as of right now well that was 085 I don't know or 086 they just released 087 I don't know if you've seen any changes but as of right now if you're in a launch party this week next week when in doubt ramp out right in the middle just keep hitting that shot and you're going to progress through the game um I don't know what are your thoughts on that Travis what are you you felt what was it dirty you felt that you just yeah well I mean so yeah to back up to kind of tie this in with Expo too cuz Expo was the first time I'd finally gotten to play an X-Men like both got to play it way before I did and so even then you know playing a few games on it I I was more or less trying to find shots and the copies that I played on at both the dealers thing at the stern Factory and I don't think I got to play at the show I don't think I ever did but even then it was like you know sometimes some of the shots worked as you thought that they should other times the ball was flying off wireforms it was just very setup dependent just like we were talking about and so even the game that I set up for at our studio it's like we did nothing to it at all we just set it up and all I did was is just find the pitch and say okay I think I'm just going to go with this we'll see what happens and you know for the most part Center ramp Midtown ramp works from both flippers now if you get flipper fade you have to hit the shot solid or it's going to just fall right back that's I mean and that's typical but I don't know I mean overall it just I mean the game the code is what it is early on um I think really what happens is is that I got lucky in figuring this out early on because one of the ways that I try to discover code is I try to compare it to what the shots feel like so what shot is repeatable and then what things in the code apply to that shot so that's what I do and then I just keep building out my model from there and what happened with this is I discovered okay you can qualify your missions here like all right now how's the mission play well okay here's the missions that actually work with this shot and it just happened to be two of the challenging missions that worked the best that were worth more points at the time with the code and then I discovered okay wait I can actually get an extra ball also if I hit this shot just because you qualify the extra ball or you you get it you collect it at the Right End lane and then from there I just realized way I can keep leveling up the Beast lab which is the mystery Awards and stuff like that so mhm I mean that's just part of it that's part of Discovery and pinball is that you get ideas and you think about what is possible and then you test the ideas against like whatever whatever you have in front of you and it just happened to be like wait I'm trying to hit all these other shots I'm getting like maybe 50 to 80 million if I play really really well but then I'm realizing wait even if I do that all the points are on the back right on the back end of it so I'm like okay what can I do early on that's simple that anybody could pretty much do at least they know how to do it anybody could do early on and that's kind of the goal with those videos is to figure that out it just happens to be it just lined up that's all it is so I mean I I think every new game you know you competitive players um you're at just a different level and almost every new release uh there's there's typically an exploit of some kind found relatively quick and then you know that's the strategy and then normally the the game designer or the coder will code it out or they'll find I mean ens even talked about he's he's more than happy to comfortable releasing games unfinished because he wants to see the way that you know the upper end players even the average or the lower like how are people playing these games so that he can make sure he can he can shift or redirect to make sure there isn't one blatantly obvious the only way to win Strat and I that's fine it just happens that with this particular layout and we talked about it with X-Men the fact that if you hit a shot every single shot returns to a flipper you know you can't you you have to address that in code you have to make sure you design um you have to make sure you design the modes and whatnot so that you can't exploit you know just whatever one shot over and over and over again um right and and so it's it's early it's still very early in the code it's one thing I mean Gomez said this game was push pushed ahead you know six months in the schedule so I have no doubt that they will hopefully adapt that in some way you know maybe you just once uh you know when you get to the Future it's like once you hit once you hit that shot you can't hit that shot again until you hit another shot uh you know there's a lot of little things they can do yeah and there's just there's so much more that you could do I I think it's it boils down and I always go back to this it boils down to Game Theory right and so with Game Theory I always believe like and there's a saying yeah that the behavior a game rewards is the behavior it encourages so if I know I can hit a shot over and over and over again and it's safe and it's worth enough yeah compared to anything else I'll do that yeah now obviously if there's something else that seems safer or worth more even with the risk then yeah we'll do that and Tom and I talk about this all the time and I'm sure other tournament Players discuss this with each other it's it all comes down to just Game Theory what's safe what's efficient what can I be most accurate with and get the most points on and that's kind of the way we view it and when you're doing a launch party video The Very nature of a launch party it's a tournament the very nature of tournament is scoring the most points to win and that just happens to be what it is now if we're just wanting to explore the game and see what's going on yeah there's probably other ideas in it now that can lead the points especially with the danger room I noticed with the newest code update that just came out yesterday I went and tested some things and yeah there there is some extra scoring in there now it just depends if you want to take the risk not and that's the key to pinball is creating risk reward and yeah I I think it'll be there either way I just I I've gotten to where I don't judge code super early like I just look at it I'm like okay how how is this what can change same yeah it's the same way we talked about Avatar right we were going through all of it and we were trying to figure out what it was when you were explaining to us it's like well why not just do that it's like yeah yeah you come up with ideas and you just test and you just see them that's the fun part of it every game plays different so Tom you have played um I know I think it was Lumberjack Johnny that had the Le and then now you have a pro in your house um what what's your overall experience now you've played two completely different models or I mean what's your initial thoughts on putting time on X-Men I like the pro better I I I don't I and I said this the last podcast I just don't like how the game screws with you the premium and Le you know you get on you hit a shot and then the the ramp breaks and then your ball goes out of control or like you hit a shot and like that finger stops the ball and then it launches it um I just it maybe it's me being a tournament player I just I just don't feel like I should be penalized for hitting a shot um now I got a question for you Tom just on that because I haven't I don't know enough about the premium do you know what triggers that or when that happens is it during a or is it just once you qualify The Sentinel head then the sentinel's ready to attack okay is that thematically that's what it it's I mean Carl mentioned this in one of our chats that he he like is avoiding the Sentinel head as much as he can because once that raises up you know that next shot that's going to go over the left hand it's going to break the wire for okay so it's like once he shows up but you can also there's a flasher there's a flasher on each hand if it's if it's red that means it's gonna attack so does does that switch back and forth then it could be on the right hand I don't know what qualifies the right hand but the when it initially raises up it's always the left hand that's so it basically just nullifies this the Midtown shot which is a center ramp and the subway shot which is kind of like the hidden right ramp that's behind the Sentinel head what's dumb is it's not well not dumb it's it's I mean it's that's the game but it's uh it's for a time so it's like it's your it's your fault for hitting the shot it warned it like the hand's red don't hit the shot but what's funny is you can hit the shot the Midtown shot it'll break the wireform it'll come down to your right flipper and you're like trying to you know surve you hit the midtone shot again it's still broken it'll it'll do it again you know yeah how would you feel how would you both feel if that Mo if that was attached to a mode instead oh like like Sentinel facility raid or something like that or some type of mini cuz I feel like you could make use of that but you need to make use of it in very specific way kind of like kind of like the original X-Men where like you'd start the Iceman mode and then like the ramp would move or a certain mode like like uh right would that make you feel a little bit more better about it Tom like would you be like okay I think it brings up another question though that it's like you don't want your Mech to be hidden behind code and so that's something where like I know my wife when she played X-Men and the finger stopped the ball and flicked it back that that was like a a moment for her she's like oh that's cool like she she like that stood out to her like oh wow like that's neat and so if all of a sudden you've hidden you know the hand functionality behind a mode there there'll be novice players that'll never get to that mode I I won't lie Joel when I was playing the premium that damn hand on that wire form like broke away and the ball went right down the middle like four times in the same game that did not feel like a moment to me that feel like she was talking about the finger the finger that I feel you but I I think I mean I think an easy Sol with the hand is you add short ball save where then you get one or something where it's like well it's kind of like so the finger on the game that kind of makes sense to where I don't feel like that it's giving you the finger yeah well I don't feel like it could penalize a player whereas if you're if you're playing on a certain copy like imagine if you coin drop in right and you're playing on location you hit the shot and then it just dumps it right out the outline or down the and you're just kind of like yeah exactly so I I see it both ways like I get it it's a design choice and with that design choice you got to figure out the code and Joel you're right you don't want to hide the mechs behind code necessarily you know imagine if you were playing Godzilla and every time you hit the ramp there like the Bridge opened and drop the ball I would not be friends with Keith I would be the moment the moment the building goes down instead of it it just goes down and it just yeah it's like no you destroyed the building building's gone it's up to you I'm not talking I'm talking about the bridge oh yeah okay yeah every time just like it keeps the ball can't swim y yeah yeah but so within the game how do you stop what I'm insinuating you know like what do you mean how you stop it's always that's the thing when that Sentinel heads out that that will matter what it it will stay lit until you break it so you have to to you have to get a shot for that so when it breaks does it go back or does it stay broken it'll stay down for just a second or two while it does an animation and then it goes back up and then it won't break anymore uh I think you have to hit you have it's it's all related to The Sentinel so I think you have to hit the Sentinel a certain number of times or once he goes down when he comes back up he'll be ready to go it's but it is yeah it's a thing I do feel like they would they could have a cool challenge mode with that though that's the interesting part I feel like you could do something with that to have a pretty specific mode for it yeah like battle The Sentinel or something like that like I I think there's something there to yeah but if that's the if that's one of the key main deciding purchasing factors between the pro and premium you don't want all of a sudden like let's actually use this Mech way less I just think and at least on mine the one that I borrowed from Zach the um when the hand broke you could save the ball you just had to pay attention and that that's the that's the idea of like you go to hit a shot and you get that little mental break of like oh I just hit the shot like you relax for that Split Second because you know you have time for the ball to get to The Flipper if you relax when you hit that shot you're screwed because it's like you got to know okay I'm gonna hit the shot but it's I got to be prepared I got to be prepared because it's coming back at me so I I definitely think you could work with it I I'm not opposed to it I just think when when Tom said that he likes the pro better Jared and I were very much we wanted to play a pro at Expo because um we're like okay you take the hands out of the equation and then the head stays up that's really like the Beast leaper Target that's kind of a I don't I that that was that's not at Tom I felt I felt better on the pro Prem for that reason like I like how the ball kept flowing I think I think the pro is a solid game yeah I I think this is easily going to be one of those Pros that um kind of like a Turtles Pro or a Deadpool Pro where it's like the premiums a great game but the pro still kicks butt like that is a that is a I would not feel like you're missing um you know a huge portion of the G like I know people that love Jaws Pro and Jaws Pro is a great game but that upper Playfield adds so much in my opinion to the overall experience of Jaws I don't necessarily think the hands are at this point like you have to have the hands to experience what X-Men pinball is what X-Men pinball to me is a is a crazy layout with some really awesome wire forms that whip back and forth and a cool Danger Room like all that's still there um so if you're in on a pro I think you're going to love it um I I if I was to buy an Xmen right now I'd probably buy a pro um I really like it the only thing I like better I'm not an Le buyer the only thing I like better about the premium honestly is the art I just think the cabinet art on the premium is better than the pro but the the Le art is fantastic I mean and and the foil uh the foil side art is just like oh yeah oh yeah I just to me St if you want to force people to buy premiums expression lighting put expression Lighting in every game like that to me I'd be a sucker if if X-Men only X-Men premium and Le had expression lighting but the pro didn't I don't think I'd ever buy a pro I just I'm that much of a sucker for lighting um but that's just me so so you're getting your John Wick pretty soon I'm still waiting for my John Wick Pro uh expression lights well hopefully they make did you order them I hope so so yeah okay so X-Men X-Men check I think Stern Stern in general check two amazing games they had a huge Booth I mean Expo the line to play Metallica they only had two or three there I I never had a chance to play it because the line was so long I they waited three and a half hours to play what to play X-Men to no to play Metallica or sorry Metallica yeah they had they had so many X-Men there you could you could play all the different models but I mean a lot of people I talk to really were impressed by X-Men when they played it so I I mean Stern Stern did what Stern does they they they were great um I went over there a couple of times just to like I'm going to go like warm up on a game there wasn't a free game there everything was packed yep I mean it was crazy there's a lot of people at Expo this year a lot okay Stern check uh we talked about fun house um let's talk about okay so Avatar Avatar I've I've played the heck out of Avatar streamed it had a great time with it um Tom you had played one before Expo right or no yes I streamed it that's right that's right yeah you Lumberjack Johnny's had it I beat your score I don't doubt that at all um Travis though Travis had his first experience with Avatar uh initial thoughts what did you think of Avatar I sent you the video Yeah of me playing it yep and you loved it yeah it I think to its to its credit it was I think it was later in the day that you played it and you had some mechanical issues there were some uh so I got to play it yeah I got to play it three times and I will say after after playing it I still want to play it again because I want to give it it's due like I'm trying to trying to find shots and trying to figure out what is going on one thing I really did like I I don't like the placement of the shot but I like what happens when you hit the shot and it's the one with the upper right flip it's super early when you just I don't know what shot it is what it's called but you know I'm talking about Joel where it wraps around like super quick and it comes back to a flipper like that shot that's a pretty cool look like just seeing the ball path of that so yeah it's there's some stuff on it that that I enjoyed I think it's just um it was kind of weird because I I ended up getting the game into a I thought it was updated code to where they took out like the infinite adall yeah but I was on like ball three in a multiball and there was like like the balls just kept getting at it just over and over and over again and I don't know what was happening exactly so I don't know I I'm still trying to figure out what the rule set is in certain spots but you know I overall if you have questions let me know you know I made this awesome tutorial I need to I need to I studied the chart overall the very first one I played felt like it shot fine I mean with the and everything flippers felt good but yeah later on when we went to go play a CE cuz we wanted to see like okay how did the Playfield look MH first off and then we just wanted to like experience that but unfortunately yeah the flippers were just malfunctioning a lot like the left flipper would either chatter a lot or just not fire at all so that was that was fun but overall it was so I noticed something I sent this to you guys that it seemed like like the Playfield art like something was just off with it in terms of like what I was expecting whenever the lights went out and the UV and all that but I couldn't place what it was and then somebody else pointed out to me that I guess it had like a UV light there was a black light on the up above yeah and then I still wasn't quite sure what was going on so I went to like pinside thread just to see like if anybody else knows it sure as [ __ ] like apparently I guess something was changed from what I don't I don't know what it was I still don't know what it was do you guys know what I'm talking about no I don't I did not read the thread um I just I don't know it's like I was expecting like the red to look like a little bit more like more red I guess and just the way that the UV was but I'm still not quite sure um like I don't know if it was something with the Playfield or just I didn't see something the lighting or what it was I saw the one at um jjp when they did the media day but they were using U flashlights you know to point directly at the areas and I just think the biggest challenge um the biggest challenge that I see with that Playfield is the Art's there but the art is is very small and detailed and they just don't have that many UV lights above the Playfield so that might what it was yeah when that kicks on so if they had a UV light above it that was on all the time then you're just seeing the art the Art's never going to change cuz you're just just seeing it all the time um if you don't have that and then you're relying on the the UV lights that are built into the game um you really have to have a dark room to see an impact um so I if somebody if there's some aftermarket mod maker uh pin Stadium or pin lights or somebody that makes a set that can trigger when the eclipse happens I think they're going to sell a ton because I think it just needs more UV light the the the Ink's there it's printed it's just it needs the light to see it um but yeah I I did not play Avatar at all when I was there obviously I streamed it so I I was not going to wait in line for it but um I did hear positive I mean there were people that played it and I think are surprised that's a layout that's a very unique lay layout a unique shooter um so I I still think the the overall perception of the game was positive coming away from that I talked to Mark seiden when he was there and he had a lot of people say the same thing come up to him and congratulate him or or say how they excited they were about about that so um cool so jjp check well I definitely I want to play it again like I will say that like I want to play it under a circumstance to where it hasn't been like just played OB yeah obviously the games are played non-stop everything goes to that so it's like whenever you do play a game at a show you're you tend to be a little bit more forgiving on like what your overall perception is of flippers and everything because yeah they get played nonstop and it's a physical machine have they updated the multiball rules yet I I think he said they they did somebody told me they did but yeah but I want I want to play it again I want to see so um it's tough because you want to go to a show to experience new games but at the same time please everybody remember these games are going to play different than if it was in your house um everything's a little weaker everything they're getting hundreds of plays non-stop the whole time it's there uh and then you can't hear the audio for any game you can't hear the audio at all and that man that makes an impact if you really want to know what that what that sounds like go up to any of your games that are in your house I itched my nose Tom thank you for calling me out though appreciate my daughter calls me out why don't you get a vasectomy while we do this WOW uh quick side note thanks for everybody that said hey I apologize to anybody that listened to it I had multiple people good and bad some people thought uh my little rant there at the end was uh hilarious other people they're like dude you gave me PTSD I had a uh I had a vasectomy and you brought me right back to it um I had over five women come up to me at Expo oh and the first thing they said was I can't believe we sat there and listened to Joel talk about his balls you know and that was a that was a realization after I realized I was traumatized I don't know about you Travis but well I told my wife and she listened to about two minutes of it and she's like why did you talk about this and at least what I told people I was was like when when I record and I hope it's apparent I I'm not thinking of a professional production here I'm just thinking about let's Tom Travis and iset the three of us have a fun conversation we're three idiots with a microphone that's if I can make the two of you guys laugh I'm gonna do it because it's fun and it's just I didn't think about um yeah you know when I had uh shout out to El rucko Lesley I met met her in person uh she told me that um she started triple drain when the the took off and then she fell asleep and when she woke up which is perfect that's what our she was in the middle yes we put yeah play it for your kids they'll fall asleep in a second um she woke up and she's like I woke up and you you in the middle of the the whole vasectomy conversation and she's like I was so confused I had to she she's like I had to go back I had to rewind to understand what you were talking about because that's where so I anyways I apologize uh if you enjoyed it I'm glad you enjoyed it if you didn't did you enjoyed it if if you if you didn't I don't know what I don't know we might even have a new segment everybody how's Joel's balls doing this week I you know I think best was our picture outside of stern I know the ball oh that was our most interactive post ever I think we got the most so with all that said um what were we talking about what's our next game well okay Stern check I was GNA I want I wanted to say um yes if just just understand games that you play at a at a show are are not going to be the truest form or the truest experience uh of the game um but spooky I went to Spooky there was nothing new there but this was my first opportunity we played Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes at um Texas pinball Festival I had a chance to play both of them here the code has clearly progressed a lot um I felt that both of them shot better at this show than they did there so I was impressed by that uh Jared had never seen or played Texas Chainsaw Massacre that game is disgusting that game is is so it is like we walked away and jar say oh yeah it's kidfriendly for sure you should get one and he walked away bom he's like I just feel gross but at the same time it's so good like it's it's really well done that's what I'm saying like they really if Texas Chainsaw Maser is a theme that you're into that game did it that game did it they did it justice it's all in there the sound effect that was one game I could hear the pig squeals and the screaming and the blood and the I mean it was it's it is so over the top in every way so you out to eat afterwards no no I did not we did do that and then go uh we went and played some barbecue challenge um we did do that that was uh you know similar in a way but um uh American pinball we all we did I played Legends of aalla so Jared could experience that and he came away like all right I mean it was kind of of a just and then um we played barbecue Challenge and uh couldn't hit a ramp it was same thing I I played Barb the best barbecue challenge I've played was at interium both of that at that like in that bar I could hit the ramps but I've played it at Texas change Texas pinball festival and now at Expo when you introduce pinball uh you know Expo power to that game you can't hit the ramps and it's and you know insult injury there's Spinners on the ramps so it's like I can't even hit the ramp let alone get us B so um it's just unfortunate it's just unfortunate that that's how a lot of people are experiencing that game because when you play it at interium it shoots fine like and then it's like the game's got to be able to shoot for you to experience the code um so yeah American pinball uh we're kind of in a wait and see situation I mean the rumors cuphead hopefully that's coming out sometime soon I also know spooky I would assume they're going to have some sort of reveal before the end of the year um so wait and see on that Turner pinball did either of you guys have a chance to play Ninja Eclipse I did I actually got to play it at the very end of the show and it was a lot of fun and we actually bought one like not me personally but we bought one for our showroom to uh take a look at closer I was very impressed with what they were able to put together yes um jar and I were in the same boat I've played that thing I've seen the whole lifespan of it we played the Whitewood uh we played the white Whitewood at Texas two years didn't you play that with us show like with Raymond me and you and then they had no idea yeah like was yeah yeah I think both him and I put up the top two scores yeah from what they said the day and then Joel little old Joel there he had fun put the third the third highest the third highest he did yeah uh it was I mean it was a white wood there was nothing in that game when we played it and at the time I was like you know I not to be rude but it's like oh it's cute it's cute that you guys are trying you know it it's kind of like a props to somebody new in pinball thinking they can make pinball like just kind of a humble pie situ like good on you and but then fast forward to uh Expo later that year and it's like they got an arc package but it was in the zizzle cabinet at the time you know this thin it's like why are you guys trying to revolutionize and change everything you know you don't need to but it actually looked like a product like it's not going to sell because it looks like or feels like a toy and you're selling it at whatever I think it was like Pro price like this you know it's good step in the right direction but still long ways to go then I played it at Texas this year and it's actually in a real cabinet they got um the art is incredible um they did a really good job on that it's it's actually a fleshed out game but it still had some GE geometry issues like I there was you know that side ramp I could not hit it um but it was like wow okay they're still chugging away on they haven't given up on this project they're still cruising right along and then I played it here and it's like this actually shoots well the Arts there they've added more to the code there's good light effects like they are really these are customer the four games were there customers took home like they're they're building these games and I talked to Chris Turner the the head the head guy there and I was like do you mind taking off the glass I want to show Jared what that looks like the way that that glass is in the frame built into you know they have like essentially light LED lights built into that which are now coded into the game you know cool lighting one of the modes was like a stor ship uh kind of mode and like the lights are like flickering like lightning I mean it was really impressive what's in this game and then they take the frame off and then he lifted up the Playfield and showed what they did there and you know they're huge pcbs it's like our assembly process is super easy you know this is this this is this huge and I'm like well you know some people's complaints with the PCB is like if that one LED dies then the whole the whole board is garbage right and he goes nope thought of that and he's like the way that these these LEDs are are added you could leave the PCB attached to the game and you could desolder the LED from this side and resolder on a new one because the way the tabs like and I I I don't know if you guys knew but the Turner pinball the games have acrylic playfields or they have a plastic um the top layer is not wood it's it's plastic so all of a sudden all the negative stuff about haggus that I've heard I'm like well how did you address this you know if you overtight and won't they crack he goes nope you know the haggus they used acrylic while we use polycarbonate I could be wrong maybe those are swapped but he's like ours will never it won't crack it will only Bend I'm like okay well what about delamination he's like well we tested a whole bunch of this and even with hot and cold you know the way that we've designed it it won't delaminate like they did I'm like well okay are you using standardized mechs because I know haggus had to use specialized mechs he goes every Mech in this game was bought by pinball life he's like you just have to use the right so it's like every question I had of potentially it's like they're actually learning they're learning from the failures or others they're taking criticism they're they're listening to the community so um if people bought one I don't I don't blame you I mean to me it's still it's still a question mark it's an unknown thing if I had that money I'd rather buy Stern Pro um chill right but it's just confidence in that but to see what they're doing yeah it's like I'm proud of them I'm proud of them for for for toughening it out and really putting all this this energy and effort to really make an awesome product I'm I'm curious to see Travis what you guys at the pinball company see out of this out of this machine but some of the Advan the the technological advancements they've built in this game are head like wow that's impressive well that was one of the things too getting to play it and Tom you said you didn't get a chance to play it I didn't get chance to play a lot of games because I was stuck streaming the tournament darn but yeah so we I got my chance to play at the very very end of the show like games are turned off we came over there and Dom and Carrie who are part of the group that I'm with they they had already played it and they were just gushing about it yeah right so I was like well I played the white wood I haven't seen it in a long time I haven't played it in two years and so I wanted to come over and check it out and I remember when we saw it I guess I forgot what show it was Joel that we saw it last time that it some things had changed on it and I remember that the feedback on that wasn't great so I know that they changed some additional things on it but I didn't get a chance to play it then I just got a chance to look at it but yeah here they fired the game back up and I got to play one ball and it was just yeah it I mean the shots felt good the the flippers felt good that was the biggest thing the flippers felt good and you know I knew what to shoot too like the the Playfield did a very good job at letting me know okay here's the shot that you hit now and I thought it was really cool the Scoops firing the ball back and forth and now they've added a Target up top to where you have to lift up your flipper if I remember this correctly I think you have to lift up your flipper and it could hit that Target too and that's after the ball goes from like an outlane to a scoop to another scoop and then firing back so yeah there there was some cool stuff to it and I'm I'm interested to look at that machine closer and I think that's one of the reasons why we got it because there's some ideas there that are that I think could take hold and yeah I'm curious to see where they go with the ideas that they have and with what they have at their disposable or their disposal for the next project as well yeah um I definitely think so talking to that there there's some technology that they have built into their their machine that I think they would love to license out I think that's the idea that you know we're showing the you know how this works so if we could license this to a a manufacturer that would be awesome uh which is good on them you know good on them if they think that they've designed something that that others could use or grow or learn from but um honestly I'm nothing against whoever designed the layout of this game but I think if they brought in uh you know an established pinball designer of somebody to help design their next game um I know they're artists and I I feel so bad because I think it's um I can't remember the guy's name and I don't want to say the wrong one but uh the artist that is currently I apologize once again um I think they've hired him full-time or like he's exclusive to them now and so they got a great artist um but if you can get somebody you know an established pinball designer that's available like and bring them in so that the buyer base has that confidence of like this is a guy um I don't know I I just I see good I I see good potential there but I think right I think I saw in na arcade that all their I think they have to build 100 games and they're all sold so they've technically sold them out so this is the hard hard part of pinball right actually making them so we'll have to see how well or how successful they are um at at making those um and yeah I definitely think six months from now a year from now I'll be curious to see what's coming out next uh for them or where they're at um barrels of fun was not there there were labyrinths there they were being played um I know they're still chugging along on their games um cgc cgc was there kind of they um the only thing they really revealed kind of was uh on pinside and some leaked photos from the cgc tour they showed the Cactus Canyon add-ons what the mechanical add-ons are going to be in that game so at this point it is going to be a motorized Saloon door in front of Bart and then there's an opto spinner not an opto spinner it's another type of spinner uh but it spins well it's the same spinner that's used in Pulp um Hol hallifax spinner or something but anyways it goes to the to it's it goes to the Marksman shot so it's the shot to directly to the right of Bart um so they're adding a spinner and they're adding a new light to indicate how many locks you have for the mine so you know some some simple mechs there but then um not simple but some you know smaller mechs that I think will add a lot to the game was that at Expo or just online okay so what about what was at expo well it was in the cgc tour so there were people that saw and had a chance to I think even Neil McCrae like played it with the mechs in the game um and then there's pictures on on side where um they've shared some of the new modes and stuff that are going to be in the game but what was actually at Expo pulp was there and I think Cactus Canyon and a few I mean it was just yeah nothing crazy P fiction Le's are being made that's new news they are being made finally first being made um I think they're still I think everything's there but the topper but they so they may be shipping the topper separately I don't know but they are being made they are being made they're moving ahead so it's just a matter of time Tom just a matter of time um all right so what about okay so there's one other game that I can well well there's a well there's a lot of other did you play we'll be real quick about space H did you play Space too many games I don't know space is I heard about it but I I didn't get to play that or the uh the Tony Hawk game I didn't get to play that one two I heard about but I never got to play them uh my real quick review of space Hunt is I like the art actually looks funny I mean it's themed it's a pinball it's like it's a weird theme but it looked he that the art is funny it it looked good I mean the color better than pinball Adventures py Factory oh yeah oh yeah way better oh was that there no no my my my only real complaint with it was last year not this year is the the the the unique Mech to the game is this weird upper Playfield with this dangly almost like a tilt Bob kind of thing so you know I walked to up to the game I'm like well how do I get up there well there's one ramp to get up there it's a super tight shot and they put a a drop Target in front of it so you have to hit the drop it drops down and then you have to hit this super tight shot clean because it needs a lot of power to get all the way up to that Mech um and the best part is the top the drop timer is timed so you can hit the drop you get I don't know 30 seconds to hit it and then if you don't it comes back up so you got to hit it again so I only got up to that upper play field twice and there's nothing fun up there uh I thought you'd want to hit the little dangly tilt Bob no you're you're trying to like Loop the ball around it and oh okay yeah I saw I saw the game you're talking I didn't play it but I know what you're talking about now I you know I finally got up there and did it and it was just I walked away I was like that's a shame and what I mean is you know don't put the coolest Mech in the game hidden behind code or like behind a really tough shot like so many people will never experience that upper play field because of how hard that shot is um so space hunt but I think the game you're alluding to is Alice Alice is that the game that you're alluding to no Abba of course oh Abba well no I did not play ABA I I forgot that that game played one game how'd that go for you Tom not well not well did you enjoy flippers seemed a weak no you didn't like flippers yeah think that's the game or Expo and then the rubbers on it were like I didn't like the rubbers I I personally think that might be the game too because queen queen and avilable so I was like oh go play that and then like I you at least get to hear the music did you hear the music at all yeah I heard one song that I never heard of before did you Eno catalog no I didn't no you didn't add it to your mix was there anything redeemable about your Abba experience is it ABA or ABA we always yeah whatever I mean yeah it was okay I mean but it's a machine it's a pinball machine I'd want to play it again I guess to see okay well there you go at least you want to play it again so that's that's good apparently I will be streaming it at some point so once I stream it I will have an opinion but uh fantastic can't wait for that I did get to play two games of that and one of it I will forever be pissed off now too because I bought I bought a book that Roger sharp had wrote a long time ago very difficult to book and I wanted to get him to sign it ah and so the moment I leave the booth to go do something else he comes by the booth to play fun house and by the time I get back over there all a sudden everybody's like yeah he was over here like about 20 minutes ago I'm like oh my God nice so yeah yeah totally missed it but yeah it I think the the pinball machine's fine though I mean if you enjoy it it's it's fine it's it's a good time I will let you know once I have a chance to play it but um yeah okay games that I did actually play though Alice did did both of you have a chance to play Alice I did I played it line was too long line was freaking long yes I played it the line wasn't long when I went over there which was I think because it was towards the end like everybody was already because everybody was watching the tournament well I I think that it was that and also when Stern brought Metallica out that spread other people out elsewhere so that kind of that's what I was waiting on so yeah that go ahead Travis tell me about your your Alice experience oh let's see here okay I'll start with the good the good on it is that I knew what shot I was supposed to hit every single time like the inserts clearly guided you through it it there was no guessing of should I hit this shot or should I not so it was pretty crystal clear on what you needed to do to progress through everything so that's good um the layout is what it is y I personally I didn't find it hard to play at all it's and I don't know if that was just the setup or just the layout in general um I think I was able to get through every single mode so the game was set to two balls Y and I Remember by ball two I had to I just ended up just letting it drain on its own because I think I got through all the modes that there was to do and a multiball but the weird part was I never got up to the upper play field I don't know how you didn't cuz one entire mode is focused on the upper play field see that's what I thought too so I don't know what happened with that because I did watch Monica my wife played too and I did see her get up to the upper Playfield so yeah it's and I don't know why I didn't so that is something she's good at she got to the upper play field yeah but there we go but after watching that her reaction to it was hilarious she was she's flipping around and she's just like is there anything else that's going to happen right now and I'm like nope that's it yeah that's what it does it just kind of kind of goes around and it was you know that was what I expected though with a larger upper Playfield like that sure it's just yeah I mean it didn't seem that exciting to me but I mean maybe other people had fun with it but overall it's it's an okay it's an okay game I just I just don't like the L like are you going to stream that Joel I doubt it I do not I don't think we're going to get one um no Alice well Z he's not a distributor for him so I don't know and I don't think he bought one true I mean sure if somebody ever trades one in but but here's what I don't understand and maybe Joel Joel you got to play it so you can answer this I don't understand how why on the gameplay reveal of Alice right to where I think it was Carri Hardy and Chris they both were on there together and for whatever reason whoever was playing the game I don't know why they were having such a hard time getting the center ramp because that shot is wide open the copy I played on didn't have any Rejects at all and it you know you could shoot that all day long so I don't know I don't know what your experience was with that so my experience you know when you're in the moment so I um yeah the way you qualify a mode in the game is um you the mode is qualified by default you have to hit the center ramp uh and then that'll lock in the be right back um I think it's you it's basically you have to hit the center ramp and then you have to hit the scoop um but you can change the mode so you can like hit the center ramp which means the scoop is lit for your mode but then if you hit the pop bumpers that'll change the mode so uh there was a time where I had the right pop bumper I had so I had got to the right mode it was like the Nave of heart or something can I don't know but whatever it's that was the mode that put you to the upper play field so I I was hitting the orbit trying to get my Pops to finally get to the right mode and then once it's there then all of a sudden it's like all I got to do is hit that middle ramp and I couldn't hit it and the guy watched me he's like well now you know what it feels like when I'm trying to hit the shot at 2 am so I get it I mean i' I stream you you're a comp competitive player sometimes easy shots become very hard when there's pressure no they don't easy easy shots stay easy some they do but no I my my inial concerning though okay here's what's concerning and maybe since you played it if you have a difficult time with the center ramp how are you going to handle any other shot in that game cuz every other shot yes and every other shot is clearly more difficult than that shot clearly so I would say my initial impression the first time I played the game it was Jared and I um and Zach Minny who was there and uh we all our initial impression was like this game fine like we were expecting it to be a brickfest or a tough shooter cuz that's what we saw on the stream and then we were're just hitting all the shots we're like this this game shoots fine like what's the problem there's no problem here um and it wasn't until and I had everything lined up to start the upper Playfield mode when I drained thinking like oh no problem ball three no they had it set on two ball game so I was like okay I gotta play that game again because I I've got to get to the upper play field I want to experience that um I think it shoots fine I think the game you everybody's heard it the light the artist objective but the physical things in the game beautiful the sculpts beautiful the the the topper awesome with the with the the looks pretty cool it's a beautiful looking game if you're if you're a pinball Enthusiast that likes having like that trophy that collector piece this game will look great just sitting it like it will look great and it shoots fine a weird shot though is you hit the right orbit and the way the ball comes around you typically an orbit shot goes to the left flipper right orbit left flipper no this goes to the right flipper so it like that kind of threw me for a loop so you got to get used to the lay but it shoots fine it kind you know it kind of has that J-pop type feel but I didn't like what was underneath the upper play field though which you can't see yeah right you can't see it yet it has targets back there and a post and you're supposed to like nudge it around to hit stuff and yeah I did not get that at all this comes back to this thing I said earlier which is I don't don't make your cool Mech don't hide it behind code so anybody that walks up to Alice yeah Jo is all about that Tom do you know do you know what shot we're talking about here Tom have you looked at idea so under underneath the upper Playfield right there's targets like standup targets that kind of go around in like in a half circle and they're blocked yeah exactly on Alice yeah and they're blocked by a drop Target so you got to drop the drop Target down and then you can hit it but there's also a post I I can't remember if it's a star post or what but something is there too that you have to nudge the ball off of like to just hit back and forth kind of so instead of like a pop bumper there it's just that post yeah can't you can't see at all unless you're like 5 foot or 4 and a2t you literally cannot see you have to bend down look so I yeah that part of it just I was not trying to do anything under there um it was it was really odd like I did not understand that shot my entire goal when playing was just to experience the upper play field and I just what I'm saying is that upper play field is huge and if you have anybody that walks up to that game is going to be like oo how do I get up there and to make that challenge yes I finally did it and I got up top everything you hoped it' be it was no it was fine I you know your five stars what would you give it kinetic satisfaction I'd give it like a one or a two like it's not because there's no Joel destroying our I killed the sales yep well there's no Fe like the ball comes down and you got to look at the art and the way I mean the way the the magnet if the ball goes past the magnet and you turn it you like pulse it on it kind of whips it around and throws it back so if you really spend a lot of time you could you could potentially get a little bit of control but um I would take soggy weak flippers over a magnet all day long because you can act like the magnet is such a wild card that it's like if you're actively trying to accurately do something up there you're it's so hard to do it with magnets and maybe you would get better if it was yours and you played with more and more and more but the problem is when you when you mess up the ball's off the upper Playfield so then you need to quickly hit hit the left orbit again that's how it uses a vck to get back up there so the mode I was able to to do it it happened really fast the ball just flew off then they're like that's fine hit the left orbit again I hit it again I had a second attempt and that's when I was able to actually like there's enough power to hit the shots it's just very uncontrolled and um was it fun to actually hit the shot like did it actually cuz on the on the version we played the Monica she did hit the captive ball or whatever that was at the top she hit it solid but it didn't it still didn't do anything so it's just kind of like man that's a lot of work to experience the one Mech in the game that I'm excited to experience and my initial experience wasn't like whoa like it wasn't like well and that's what I was talking about last episode I mean you look at Twilight Zone and you're just trying to get a ball basically to go in into that hole Yeah whereas this is like you're trying to hit targets you're trying to hit the captive ball I mean to me it doesn't make a lot of sense but well I it feels like you're supposed to do a lot up there right with you doing very little like that's in my experience watching other people that's kind of how it came off I agree and I think it's just because it's just so expansive too if you have a magnet yeah if you have a magnet I would think you would want to condense down the experience as much as possible just so that ball just is ricocheting all over the place but it didn't really feel like that see the one um's frustration you're going to love it you're going to love it they are good upper play like the Foo Fighter upper Playfield is great Jaws is great uh Simpson spinball party upper play but those aren't magnets though like this is very much different without a flipper up there what I'm saying though is uh so shadow shadow has the battlefield it's not a magnet but it's this weird little wedge thing that you popop and it's it's hard to control but it is controllable but the battlefield has drop targets that are popping down so it's very you get that ktic kinetic satisfaction of seeing this thing Bop the ball and the drop targets and you want to hit them hit them hit them hit them and then they drop down and boom you get this like reward of the ball coming off the upper play field it's like that's fun this I don't know so you're basically saying it's a better design is what you're saying I think and that's what it is it's it's true yeah to me it is what it is if you're in on analice and you're excited about it for this world underglass this experience I it's there it's just to me um yeah I I think I I I have to be sold on on a Playfield I got to be sold on wanting to shoot this game and the way that this game's laid out there's one ramp it's right up the middle you got a right orbit left orbit you got a weird shot turnaround shot in the left and then the right orbit will divert to another ramp sometimes and a scoop like it's just it's not a game that I want to shoot like X-Men was a game I wanted to shoot over and over and over again did it play better than Thunderbirds yes yeah well yeah the flippers felt fine I mean that was a good it played better than Rosa I'll say that up front it played way better than Rosa and I played that in 2019 Houston Expo that was just a hot mess you know but this one played a lot better but I mean at the same time too it still didn't capture like if you're a J-pop fan you like circus volter you like so like anything like that I didn't feel like it captured that feeling playing those games there's a lot of kinetic satisfaction in those games shooting a goal on World Cup soccer is awesome um all the toys and Mex the interactions with theater of magic certain full ter like none of that was it just it wasn't there it wasn't there in my opinion so um but if you like Alison Wonderland and boobs maybe this would be the game that would be it maybe it would be yeah it could be all right was that all the games is that all the games well no now we have the um well we're missing all the home brw there were some cool home brew I did not have uh did anybody go over there was I the only one no I went over there I there was time there were lines um I did play the great the greatest showman that was that was cool you did go over there that was the only home brew game I played um and it shot I mean it's it's Whirlwind but I was super impressed um uh Jeffrey is the guy's name and his wife they um they made the whole thing themsel like she did all the code it's super impressive to see like she doesn't know that at all but figured it out and um you know super Bare Bones kind of very very very very basic rule set but um it it was a fully playable game and really impressed you know with the quality of it was really nice but it's it's a reskin it's a reskin of of the game um I think it goes to show though there's something there if you take some of the old Bal Williams stuff and you reskin something to where it's it's something that everybody can identify with you might you might be cooking with gas there with like 500 to a thousand units because I could see greatest showman appealing to that many people actually I don't know if it'd be on a whirlwind but it was cool how it thematically made sense to where they had the ticket booth be Two Scoops your collecting tickets so yeah that was pretty cool I I enjoy it CU I like the theme so that was a fun game and I know Jaws is also a rekin on on Whirlwind but they made that game is super theme appropriate and very well fleshed out and uh Jaws not Jaws well saw there is a jaw there was a Jaws resin switch some letters there s shout out Glenn for all the sound um in Saw um saw but okay so what did you see what was was there a home brew that stood out to you there was but I can't talk about it on the podcast and if you know you know I'll have to tell you guys afterwards I'll have to tell you guys afterwards up screw you there yeah yeah the well yeah the people that know no I I'll put it that way but I will say overall The Homebrew area is really cool um I try to get over there as much as I can I want to talk to some of the people over there more meet them more like just get into the minds of seeing you know how they're doing what they're doing and yeah it's just it's fascinating to see people their interpretation of pinball right what shots are interesting to them what rules are interesting to them what themes are interesting to them because that's like a niche within a niche within a niche right there I think it's really cool that it seems like it's expanding like every single show it feels like it's expanding more and more and more like more people wanting to get involved in that Niche and so yeah there's some really cool stuff over there I can't I honestly can't think of all the themes off the top of my head but there's some cool ideas there for sure yeah um well Expo is awesome uh if you've ever wondered Chicago I mean it's worth going to I the only two shows I go to are Chicago pinball Expo and Texas uh Texas pinball Expo they're awesome they're both fantastic um uh yeah there's a ton of Industry people there uh there's just so many people that all love pinball create pinball create content um it's awesome it's awesome um Tom do you want to talk about your tournament uh the the the Expo tournament um I know you did it the whole time was there any anything that stood out to you good it was long there damn kids on those default Sterns taking forever and some of the old people too Dy Bagwell he's older he plays well Raymond we claim him now since he's above 30 right who was uh when I was commentating he kind of floats between yeah uh when I was commentating there was an awesome game of Jaws and basically um uh I don't I don't remember the guy's name but he he was from another country uh but he uh that dude oh was it Roy Roy it was Roy Wills was it him one of the guys uh basically like did the whole game he did like multiple bounties you know had Fourth of July lit and it's just best players in the world yeah over in Europe yep um to see him just like just work through that was just it's so cool it's so cool to see um just somebody you know that's how I play Pinball as progression I want to see as much of the game as possible and I think sometimes tournament pins are are they're not exploring the code of the game they're just focused on One path and you see that path over and over again but like to him just do the whole game it was just like wow that's I don't know super impressive super impressive to see that skill um all right Tom did you play in the tournament I did and how did you do I did fairly good I I uh did you qualify for finals that's the question no you didn't oh [ __ ] no yeah you did you qualified okay so how well everybody qualifies for fine well you showed us the cut off line for making money and did you hit the cut off I was one game away from being in the money so I was I was I was Top 40 but I uh who uh who stopped you from getting money uh Logan Joshua Henderson so Chicago play right or somewhere in Illinois yeah yeah yeah did he drive himself to the tournament he's a good kid uh I'm pretty sure he did now Tom did play one player though I thought that could not drive themselves to the tournament yes that was my first opponent miles Bradley sorry miles I had to get revenge because Liam knocked me out last year so yeah he had to go to school the next day yeah yeah yeah the Bradley Brothers problem like he did and and we streamed that match I think that was the only match I was I was on the stream but uh he uh he did a perfect scars like he is difficult yeah jaw he hit every shot he went up top on the premium got got the the machete and then hit his final shot because I I literally walked away as he was playing and I went over by the because there was a TV there with a bunch of like a like a Stadium View and uh I went over and I saw he was done and I was like wow he only played for like like a minute and and like I walk back over there thinking like all right he's probably got like 20 30 million if even that I look and he's got like 300 million and I look back at him and I'm like the hell did this kid just do but like yeah he just he started scars hit like every shot perfect and then walked away and was like beat that Tom graph did Tom graph beat it I did not beat that score no yeah no I had a but it's best two out of three right I right I had I had to beat him on my pick so nice and what were your picks Star Wars I got I did the pro and the premium you can do that Expo yeah so you're living proof that an old man can beat a kid on Star Wars yeah but it'll probably never happen again what is it like Carlos says like you just play old men on Star Wars that's all you got to do like that's the entire strategy it's something like that I watched uh one of the games we commentated was that and and uh so the listeners there's two there's typically two of every Stern Stern game that Stern current currently sells there but then some games they have the pro and premium version of the game there corre so during qualifying the tournament Players need to pay attention you know the left Pro of a game May shoot great while the right Pro Pro of the game a foot away may be dangerous so remember which one um but because uh the way it is you know it's it's this knockout tournament basically where you win you keep playing and um but you it's best two out of three and you can pick the same game where you can't prick pick left Pro right Pro but you can say I want to play Star Wars Pro and so let's say Tom beats the kid in Star Wars Pro and then the kid picks Jaws well if it's Tom's pick again it's like you know what I'm picking Star Wars premium cuz already beat you in Star Wars y um and I saw that twice I saw um once was Star Wars like I picked Pro then premium and then later on there was a guy uh one of the kids play it was a kid that was was battling I think it was Roy picked um Venom and he did Venom Pro and then when it was his pick for the third game he picked Venom premium so it's like I think that was uh I think that was Sterling vers him yeah yeah yeah Sterling's really good like there's some uh yeah there's some really there's some interesting stry there of like if you've got a game you can really lean into it um so it was it was really cool to watch and I know there was did you pick Tom that's what I want to know Star Wars oh Star Wars I picked Han both times both times both times it worked Joel who who would you pick when I was commentating people were either picking Han or R2 that's what I noticed based off of the modes that were lit Joel who would you pick I would probably pick I think it was R2 is what I saw that I would probably pick R2 and why would you pick R2 because wasn't he uh there were like one he's one shot away from both what was it indoor and Hoth not Hoth it was the top Death Star Death Star the top one and the bottom one correct whatever it was there so he that's all I saw when with the it was like one mode boom they're in that multiball and then one mode boom they're in that you pick R2 for just his his mode tree his mode path yeah okay what would you pick Travis that's fair no I I do a little bit of everything everything no one of the reasons why I would pick R2 is because it helps your multipliers like go up quicker oh I don't your multipliers don't Decay as fast if I remember right and you have more multipliers out there also interesting which helps as well because there's a certain Decay process that it goes through I I think it's timed it's been a while since I've done it and you actually have to know which multiplier to have on what shot based off what it will Decay to also so that way you don't have to worry about moving it again it'll stay on the prime shots that you need it to be at so there's like a certain another level of thinking and planning out tactically and R2-D2 actually helps with that as well so there was one move uh that I was really impressed by it didn't work but um it was the it was it was a younger guy he had something Grant uh I think that he had the Steelers hoodie on Nate he had the St that was the whole thing anyway he was shout out to Ken he Ken he was playing Star Wars and you know to get the tie figh multiball you have to you have to smash that button 50 times you have to get 50 Tie fighters he was close right 35 on default 50 and comp if it's set to that yep fighter destroys he hit the Tie Fighter Target came whizzing back and went straight down the middle but he's he's wailing on the button you know at this point I'm thinking like Ball's gone he's Welling on the butt and then he shakes the whole game to try to get that extra little bit of time a t with a danger animation to try to get because if he could smash that button just a handful more times it was just just like wow like that's a big brain move I wish it would have worked for him it didn't it was he was too far away to like he he just the ball but it was like wow I never I would never think to to to try to tilt the G not tilt but get a nut a danger after the ball is drained to give you more time to complete something I just thought that was big big brain Strat I thought that was not only that other games you can do that on too not with like a a danger or anything like that but you can put the game in such a state that the animations they have to play out but you're you're able to like Park the ball somewhere or you're able to start something and keep a ball save going a little bit longer multiplier longer stuff like that so but you won't realize these nuances unless you do a lot of testing a lot of testing that goes back to what we talked about X-Men you come up with the idea and and then you see what's possible against the software and what's hilarious is on a lot of these Sterns there's a ton of stuff that you can do that maybe it's like only a handful of people in the world realize you can even do that and then once it's shown by Tom graph in his Fox Cities Pinball stream then everybody knows you can do it but you can do that even on older games too like everybody remembers now Kaylee George band maneuver that he did on Johnny Neon with the GL so yeah there's tons of there's all these little nuances I think that's what makes that's what makes tournament pinball to me a lot of fun that you find these ideas and you just see what you can do with it and sometimes you'll surprise yourself you're like huh and you look up and you try to confirm with anybody else and you realize nobody else really knows about it so you're just like oh this is cool because this game has probably been played thousands of thousands of times by everybody across the world and nobody else really realizes so that's like that's cool like the discovery of it I think that's what you were seeing right there Joel with the Star Wars that there probably is a lot of people that realize that but then there's a whole other lot of people that don't know about it so that's what's cool about pinball yeah we're g to have a bunch of listeners with Star Wars now at their home and they're going to be shoving the machine left and right now whenever they drain just to get the animation yeah warning sound yeah yeah if you're close to a multiball on Star Wars and you're going to town on it you can danger the machine and that will save you from going to your bonus and you could resurrect and get your multiball going crazy it's pretty cool all right well um Expo in every way was awesome Expo yeah so um put it on your calendar for next year um it was great I just I just want my Tom graph I want Tom to have enough time on the floor I miss maybe I won't stream next year I mean that's one of the reasons why I stopped playing tournaments at some of these places I realized I didn't really have enough time can't experience the show yeah you know even working a booth I still got to see more of the show than what I would have playing in a tournament I did get called out for not streaming the women's tournament well it did remember you should have been awake at 5 in the morning to do that you should have I don't know dude that that women's tournament ran so long I told you guys I literally worked a full day then I went to the to the uh tournament room talked to the few of the players found out they were still in early rounds I was like huh are you guys like still going to keep going or what and this is like 11 or 12 at night and they're like ah I guess we're going to keep going so then I go to the Afterparty and I come back at 3:30 4:00 in the morning like just walking past to go to my hotel room and they're still such a party animal Joel yeah and they're still playing but I knew I did not go in there at all I just I looked from afar and I just I yeah I saw them all in there and I'm like you know what this isn't the time to go in and talk this is not the time to go in and joke it is way too late and I'm not so sure that they're in the mood for that so yeah I mean it's tough that that tournament ran forever forever and ever and ever I I don't know what time they got done with it and I don't understand like I mean it it's basically like the main tournament so I mean you have everybody making a andb division and they start finals at like 5:00 pm so yeah so it's like I mean how do you not know it's gonna run super late I just assume that they all did because when somebody told me I think it was Elizabeth told me early on right before the jaw seminar that the tournament is supposed to start around 5 or 5:30 sometime around there and I even looked at Monica because she was debating whether or not to try to qualify and I even told her right then and there I said if you would have qualified for this I might have told you hey here's what it's going to look like if you want to keep playing in it like it's because I mean the games are set to default right and the players are excellent like the players are great so they're going to play longer games it's like that across the board whether it's men's or women's so yeah or open or women's or what you know it they all play great like we talked about the different ages the different genders and everything so I think with the sharing of information and the fact that like Tom streams exist a lot of people are seeing this and seeing what's POS so everybody knows the strategies and they're getting better with their skills and everything so yeah it's that's kind of it's funny that goes the exact opposite way of what we talked about before Tom where whereas it's like games are set up so hard you don't get to soy you experien I just cannot stream all day long I mean I tried to do that with the Andy's uh silverball super social like oh the first night went till like 2:33 a.m. then the next night same thing I got up the next day I'm on you know an average of three to four hours of sleep for two days straight and it's like nope yeah and then like that's not worth it yeah that's brutal no and I ended up bailing on the on the finals for that I mean it's just like you can't expect that stuff I mean maybe Robo Tom Tom you need just I cannot do that stuff anymore I'm not the fact is if you get Tom on less than 6 hours of sleep you get salty Tom but if you get Tom on Less Than 3 hours of sleep oh buddy oh you're in for it and that's I mean yeah I mean we all find this out or so like I'm sure you guys were like this back in college like I was like well I don't need sleep I'm fine I can right I can be fine and even like in my 20s I'm like h i don't need sleep early 30s I don't need sleep I hit 40 I'm like I need sleep like I have to and yeah it's just yeah it's rough because it throws off what your whole entire week if you don't get a good night's rest or even a half decent sleep yeah I mean maybe this is a go ahead sorry no Joel how are you sleeping that's what we need to know I mean I I took off of work for you know basically three days and I mean I gotta go back to work so like Monday Rolls by I gotta I got to continue with my life I mean Tom I would not want you putting anything in my mouth unless you have a full night's rest let me tell you yeah maybe maybe I got to cut back on the streaming then or or pick events that aren't going to you know go so late yeah go so late well it's POS I think it's fair to to stream whatever event you want and I think it's completely fair to stream within the hours that are reasonable you know for health and everything it's yeah and that's it I mean and you know maybe you guys don't know but I I do have like um I I have aib and if I don't get enough sleep if I'm stressed out my heart goes out of whack so you know I got to kind of control that by by doing healthy things yeah and I feel like uh streaming super late at night is not that no yeah not getting three hours of sleep is is you know getting three hours of sleep at night is is not healthy we want our maybe other people can do it but you know um so I don't know we'll we'll we'll see how we we'll think about things and see if I want to do it next year so um to transition on that note um yeah I stayed up super late Wednesday night um I at Expo or this past Wednesday this past Wednesday oh you want to talk about Monster Bash well I look at the time I realize we do need to wrap up but um I just all we do yeah I gotta be done in 15 minutes oh Joel you're going to be happy with me I got an appointment later today at work with a member of a pro sports team here in St Louis that uses a ball and a bat it's going to be really cool but I'm not going to sell them Monster Bash hopefully X-Men okay good that's a good transition why are they using you as a Salesman there's got to be somebody better there's got to be better I'm the baseball person Joel I connect yeah I'm the one that knows all right Monster Bash what did you experience Monster Bash here's my thing and I'll keep it short I'll keep it short uh Monster Bash has always been on like my short list of games that I'd like to have I think Universal monsters it's a great it's a great theme uh it's a theme I knew my kids would like my wife would like um Zach this is his personal one he let me borrow it I was super excited to get it here uh I streamed it I got it on a Tuesday streamed it that Wednesday just getting to Monsters of Rock that's the mini wizard mode that was like the goal of the night got to that was like great I was like okay but in my mind everything that I've heard about this game is shallow and I was thinking the only way you can get to the um the No Monsters rock is the final one I got to the middle the middle wizard mode Monster Bash so to get the monsters rock you have to collect all their instruments to collect all their instruments I assumed you had to get everybody lined up and then start Frankenstein I I didn't think you'd have a chance to do it if you were doing the modes individually um the very next day I I went to play the game I beat the game and I'm like oh okay like that's not impossible like it's right there um and it's like once you beat a game the The Joy of wanting to play it goes down a little bit so I was like oh this game's a lot easier than I thought and I played the game later that day I was playing it with my son and I was one instrument away from beating it again and I'm like okay I get it now I understand why this game isn't in a lot of people's collections or or high-end players because you can just blow through it so um earlier in the week I actually beat Cactus Canyon as well I'm like that's but Cactus Canyon to me there's more depth there and it's like a perfect level of difficulty for me it's achievable but it's not every game it's achievable so uh Wednesday night we didn't have a new game to stream Um Zack put up a poll they said let's play Cactus Canyon so I I had set it up on a way I was like I'll play Cactus Canyon but if I beat it then I can move to Monster Bash thinking the depth of both of these games is enough that I could I could maybe I could beat them both on stream um played Cactus Canyon on stream uh did well but couldn't beat it and then I was like you know what we're moving to Monster Bash thinking oh yeah I'll beat this on stream no problem uh no I stayed up an extra 45 minutes played for two two hours 45 minutes playing that game I got one instrument away I think twice from beating that game um and so now my feelings of monster has changed it's like here I am thinking oh yeah this easy game I can beat this whenever I want no I can't I can't beat it whenever I want it's just it dangles the car it's right there it's right there and um I just think so you're saying it's like the perfect layout and rules set yeah it's or like a player of your caliber to want like one more one more game is is right there and it's that's a sweet spot yeah and I I really like it but I understand a lot of other games a lot of modern Sterns you know I understand the right there moment is not the final wizard mode I'm not I'm never going to see the final wizard mode of Godzilla but there's something else lower down that that's that that's my right there moment that's my goal if I can get to that in that game then that's I did something um so Tom you have a Monster Bash don't you I can't remember Tom like early on when I first got into collecting I bought one now have you done what Joel's done on it yeah destroy it oh yeah you guys are you guys are a whole another level of play but well it does always happen I mean you know sometimes players yeah more difficult I think the game I have is at default I could turn off remove the out Lan post see what happens put the outlan post up oh yeah a lot of that the out oh yeah Joel Joel if you want to see a crazy Monster Bash if you want to go down this rabbit hole look up on I think it's probably going to be on pinball videos look up Monster Bash at indisk and I think this was 2018 maybe like this was played in finals I think either final 8 or final four and the winning score was like 7 million that thing played so mean yeah so incredibly mean yeah it's it's interesting so and my last remark is last yesterday with Halloween we had a whole bunch of family over it was awesome um that game was played non-stop Monster Bash from everybody that was here kids to adults played Non-Stop and it just really makes me as a pinball Enthusiast a collector it's like why like what why why is this game so loved and and and I just think it's like all the toys are just right out there in front of you and there's no confusion on what to hit the only thing I had to explain was Dracula like nobody knew I'm like dude Dracula's in this coffin what like how do I get him out I'm like focus on this and if you ever see that Lit hit the scoop and the moment he shows up and this moving back and forth It's like and I'm thinking I'm like why is there no Dracula Mech and why why is that uncommon and then I think of Jaws jaws with the fin you know it's the same concept this some this thing pops up and it's moving and you want to see it you want to hit it and so I don't know it just the more that I've played Cactus Canyon and and Monster Bash these games really speak to me scream I I I understand they're too easy for your level but um for other people that are listening like but that's okay though yeah it's it's okay there's there's players at different levels so like to give you an example this cuz you're talking what you're talking about is just user experience right no matter what you're so one of the things that's what Monica and we didn't mention this at Expo but there was a uh Princess Bride there from multimorphic and Monica just loves that game because she loves the theme and everything but then it's like all the shots feel accessible for what the layout's supposed to be for that and plus the rules make sense like thematically makes sense doesn't feel overwhelming and that's kind of the same way Monster Bash is right like the rules feel really accessible yet you can go deeper and get into certain Nuance with collecting instruments and stacking things together and everything like that so yeah so that's the type of stuff that would would appeal to a novice or to somebody that's never played pinball or somebody that's just an elite level player like there's still certain nuances in the game that's fun and I think that's what Monster Bash hits and even like Princess Bride it hits the same thing so I think there's a certain um there's a certain Elegance to Simplicity with that that yeah that that well it's easy to explain too just like you said like hit this shot to make this happen and it's cool when you do it my nephew Marcus I mean his goal was like once he realized you're collecting these these creatures it's like well he's like I've gotten everybody but creature what do I have to do I'm like well you have to hit it four times look at this look at the thing or like how did I get wolf man well you do this and once you explain that little bit of thing that was his goal just it throughout the night he played it non-stop like can I can I at some point collect all six and um and yeah just explain like so now here I if you would asked me three days ago would you ever own Monster Bash no I'm bored of it I beat it it's easy you know but now it's like I know I could get better at the game but I I I see the appeal to it and I think it it really Sparks this um I don't know like why like for modern pinball I know designers Focus really hard on people at your level all the way down to people at my level or lower but just I don't I don't think it's necessarily the fan layout I just maybe it's just a really good theme or the fact that there are so many toys but they're interactive toys like I I just I don't know the secret sauce so it it gets me excited about cgc is saying once again their Medieval Madness is pushed back to like spring of next year but I'm if if I can buy a Medieval Madness I'm gonna buy one just because I want to I want to get it out of my system I wna so you you want to know what the secret sauce tell me what the secret sauce Isis what is I I know what he's gonna say yeah and Tom knows this because he's owned enough of these games it's you want to create an emotion for the player as early as possible in their experience okay and that's what a lot of these old school games do well okay that the rule set is insanely accessible just like you told them or you told somebody you hit this shot four times to make this happen right or you hit this shot this many times to make this happen and then when you can physically see something happening that goes beyond a light show or goes beyond a sound right right that adds to it but you still need the light show and you still need the sound right to really really make it all come together and I think that's what those old school games do great and there are some Modern games that do that and we talked about you know I mean it's going to be cliche but we talk about pinball moments but the reality is is that you want to get an emotion early on out of a player and that's what like we talked about before that's what pulp does excellent on it's like as soon as you you plunge you realize you're in the Pulp Fiction world like you hear the actual not just you don't hear pinball call outs which I love it you hear the movie quotes and they make sense in the places that they're put in right and it makes sense like I have to get into the pawn shop by just knocking down these drop targets and hit it into that scoop and then when you do that it does like a little light show or the same way with the inline targets and it does the get down get down and you know you move the briefcase around so stuff like that I've noticed more than anything else working in the pinball industry that you're a lot of your people out there that want to experience pinball gez wow even him he must be CJ CJ must be but that's the emotion they want right it's like it's just yeah it's bringing you bringing you into that world and you can do that through a variety of ways it's like it's just the hook you got to do that so quick in it and I think that's what bash does great and that's why it sticks around great because you could FL around and accidentally make a moment happen so true yeah I get it I just for people are listening to this I you're probably one of two you're either like I got moner Bash that's never leaving or you're like I had it and I got bored of it I mean that's so many like I've talked to multiple people they've had it and they just got bored of it because they're that good or but I and I understand I don't want to brutal I don't want to make a game harder uh physically because well yeah you do the reason kids screw that family that's what I do all the time if I put the if I open theing Lan yeah then get better Jo tell them to get better turn off the ball save say flip better hit your shots yeah all right how do you think got so good yeah okay when my son Calvin can act look like wait yes if I ever think that Calvin's getting too good then I'll I'll make sure to I'll make sure to to but right now I'm just trying to get him to not to double flip like just flip one at a time before we go on Joel you hit the nail on the head when you're were talking about people like the game leaving for various reasons so Tom you said you had Monster Bash but you don't have it any longer yep so you have like you have a ton of games like why did you get rid of Monster Bash and is there any games that were a reason why you got rid at the time I owned uh I own Transformers and Lord of the Rings they're all Gomez's they're all similar design and uh I was just like yeah Monster Bash just isn't that deep can I can get far into it whereas Lord of the Rings I had to like really work at it to get deeper into the game so I mean at the time that was that was the rationale like I'll keep Lord of the Rings and and get rid of Monster Bash does Lord of the Rings have fun experiences in that first three minutes of playing sure you you got to uh you got to start going to experience those or no I think I think bashing the B rug yeah I mean that's not a not a hard thing to do okay but yeah I there are certain things on games though so I got to experience this too I told you guys about this at a kid's birthday party just the other day so they had pinball machines actually at this one place I think it's like called Cookoo Joe's or whatever three pinball machines with a Godzilla none of the parents there have ever played pinball so I took a couple of them over there I'm like hey you know let's go play a game and everything and this is like the first time I've ever met them they just saw that I was wearing a pinball shirt and that just spark conversation I'm like oh yeah it's really cool come see this and they saw it all they didn't understand what was happening but then once I showed them hey here's the building on Godzilla here's what it could do they were just like all just enamored with it tickled to death CU you could actually hear the sound to it to see the building moving up and down so I literally spent the next 10 minut minutes starting multiball for everybody that was there and then letting them take over and just have fun with it and that's a thing it's like we forget a lot of the times because we've played pinball so much and we've SE seen the same things happen over and over again there's a Certain Magical element to experiencing those things for the first time and kind of seeing what's possible on something and kind of seeing everything come together so that's to me that's cool and I think Monster Bash can do that for a lot of people because everybody can identify with monsters right it's like everybody knows Dracula Wolf Man and all that so yeah it's we've I've just I've had a lot of I've had a lot of modern games in the last few years coming in out of this house and my nephew um they come over all the time and it's like it really tells me a lot when they step up to a game and put one or two games on it and then just like move over to Cactus Canyon or they move over to Godzilla and it's like there's just it's like wow okay there's nothing in that game that grabbed them um but then to see Marcus last night like non St whole night boom monster the whole time it's like okay I get it I get I get that there's toy toys are fun what makes Metallica fun too now I think about it it's like yeah you bring somebody in that's a huge Metallica fan it's like yeah just hit it up the middle and you'll make Sparky do stuff like that's simple or the moment it goes in the steak's mouth now it's like boom or right I think the hammer is the only thing when people see that and the ball go under the Playfield that's the one that's the one toy that's a little further away from the start button to experience how cool that is there's some cool stuff Metallica is going to be great but anyways we need to wrap up um Jo's got to go Joel's the one wrapping up early today unbelievable for the record everybody Tom and I would go for like four hours if we could I don't know you know I feel like there's a chance quation between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 5 well hey if you want to hear Tom and Travis talk more uh I'll plug it for you uh the pinball players podcast on on Fox and fox what no that's not what pulse pinball pulse wasn't it pinball players at some point Am I Wrong somebody else there was that's not us there's another there's another podcast called pinball play podcast pinball pulse uh it's on it's not even a podcast he doesn't even know what it's on yeah it's on Twitch but didn't you call it podcast no he's giving me all this doubt at the beginning it was but it's not a podcast it had the word podcast in it didn't it it it did it it did it changed show so it's so it's what pinball pulse show we're calling it flipping out with friends Joel all the way all our backs pinball players podcast who the heck is pinball players podcast he doesn't even know the name of it it's somebody I wanted to see who is actually pinball players podcast so you were you were kind of close know the channel it's onel we just we're giving Joel [ __ ] it's actually called it's pinball P ttch it's pinball pulse a pinball players podcast that's what it was labeled but it's kind of going through some stuff it's still pinball pulse so pinball players podcast was part of it I didn't just make it up one part of it just one part of it it's like saying like Transformers you know Dark of the Moon Rob in disgu robots in Disguise podcast yeah okay pinball pulse if you liked the tournament conversation that we had 20 minutes ago and you want two hours of it and you want more more make sure you subscribe to Fox Cities Pinball it's actually great it's awesome Tom's really good at getting good guests on they talk nothing about tournament pinball keep up the good we talk we talk everything tournament pinball not talk nothing about tournament pinball did I say nothing no you said this why it's time to wrap it up I can't even say words you're all over the place you're all over the place you want to plug your own thing Tom so you can say the right thing no wonder you couldn't drive the golf see really mediocre play m check out flipping out pinball yes yes on Twitch on YouTube oh oh on YouTube I love how we're just roasting each other's content if you want to see a guy hit one ramp for 30 minutes check out the pinball company's YouTube channel X-Men launch party uh oh well you won't see the guy cuz his camera goes out you Dingus that's true it the audio drops out audio from audio drops out after ball one and I get paid for that too amazing biggest pinball grift ever paid to do that Carrie do uh videos I mean she could figure it out so we're we're about to we got some things coming along it's just taking time every like certain certain things have priority each other you just it takes time Joel yeah yeah exactly you know it's game finished when it's comes out the door you'll see a fully fleshed out YouTube If the game has been done before not gonna be done all right uh so those are the Tom you got more to plug no I'm good got actually I do I'm gonna be streaming uh well we'll probably H I'm going to be streaming uh at Atomic pinball arcade winter bash and member it's a Stern pro circuit event Joel you wouldn't know anything about that but everybody else that's listening you know what I'm talking about so if you want to tune in for that it should be a good time a lot of Ono yep signups ongoing too you can still sign up what's that I said I'll tune in I'll tune in okay hey Joel I it's it's probably closer to you if you want to come and just commentate just come hang out that would be great I got a spot right there in my basement you could SLE it is the last STM pro circuit event of the Year Joel okay all right uh we can uh we can keep uh going with the podcast now I just found out um I'm delayed till another day to meet the client yeah and I have vacation next week next week I've already got a text about needing to go out to lunch so that's why I said with my wife and children you know don't these kids go to school no we have today off it's a which is random they did like a teacher day and it's a great day to do it because all the kids were up super late last night with uh Halloween and whatnot but my son had that last week yeah Travis you got anything to plug no I think you guys pretty much [ __ ] on everything so we're good it's fine everybody knows where to find me so um and then yeah you need three YouTube subscribe to Fox pinball subscribe to the pinball company and subscribe to flipping out pinball on YouTube we're trying to hit 5,000 subscribers we're like 200 away um to get there which would be awesome um yeah check it out I've done some tutorial videos recently and then Jared and I we stream every Wednesday night so you can click the live Tab and check those out Jo I'm streaming Papa events and I can't get even that many subscribers I got to start playing more mediocre yeah that's where it's at that's where it's at people relate to mediocre Tom they relate to it you know um but all right well I appreciate you guys this was fun um yeah thanks to all our supporters on patreon thanks for the people that do that check out our merch on silver bowl swag all the stuff um but we will definitely record again it's November 1st it's crazy we'll definitely get something out before um Thanksgiving um but yeah this is will we man are you committing Tom and I to more work defin get something out before Thanksgiving we'll figure it out all right let you guys know my Vegas experience that's what do no great uh like always Tom you get the last words uh go out and vote