Triple Drain discusses Venom production, Dwight's XP system design philosophy, and game accessibility features.
Summary
In Triple Drain Podcast Episode 41, hosts Joel, Travis, and Tom discuss Stern's Venom production updates, the XP/progression system in Dwight code games, and Joel's recent Godfather game performance. They explore whether XP will become a standard Stern feature or remain unique to Dwight titles, debate its appeal to casual vs. competitive players, and discuss trophy systems as alternatives. The episode features banter about recent tournament victories and explores potential applications of XP mechanics to future games like Jaws.
Key Claims
Deadpool Pros have been bumped up in production timeline and are shipping sooner than the original October target date
high confidence · Travis confirms that Deadpool Pros are being shipped, with Joel mentioning feedback from Sterling about receiving a shipping notification from his distributor
Stern's new facility appears to be operational or in early stages of operation based on Deadpool Pro shipments
medium confidence · Joel speculates that if Deadpool Pros are shipping, Stern's new factory must be running or coming online, suggesting both production lines may be active
Dwight's XP system in Venom is designed primarily to ensure casual/family players can experience deeper game content without requiring elite skill
high confidence · Hosts cite Dwight's stated motivation: allowing a father and daughter to feel they're making progress each night through co-op play and XP progression
The XP system is likely a Dwight-specific design feature rather than a future standard across all Stern games
medium confidence · Travis argues it will probably remain a Dwight thing because he's uniquely interested in progression/RPG mechanics; Joel notes that cooperative play and impossible mode are also Dwight-specific features not seen in other Stern games
Most casual pinball players don't understand traditional pinball terminology (multipliers, jackpots, scores)
high confidence · Joel states: 'most people have no idea what the scores are anyways you ask a lot of people they don't know how much a jackpot is they don't know what a multiplier is'
Venom Pros are targeted for mid to late August release
medium confidence · Joel expresses hope that Venom Pros will be available 'within the next few weeks' and mentions timing for the 'Flipping Out stream'
Godfather's core mechanic revolves around stacking multiple simultaneous modes and multiballs
high confidence · Joel describes achieving GC by maxing 10x multiplier and keeping the ball above flippers during multiball, noting the game enters 'endless multiball' with five family multiples stacked simultaneously
Notable Quotes
“maxed out my multiplier to 10x and I kept the ball above the flippers during multiball”
Joel@ 28:42 — Joel's one-sentence strategy explanation for achieving Godfather GC that became a running joke in the group chat due to its absurdist simplicity
“he just wants them both to feel like they are achieving something and every night they're gonna get a little further and a little further because the game recognizes the time they're putting into it”
Joel@ 20:03 — Articulates Dwight's core design philosophy behind the XP system—accessibility and persistent progression for casual family play
“I would much rather have the trophy system I wish that they would have that across the board on every single game”
Travis@ 18:52 — Travis advocates for in-game achievement tiers (bronze/silver/gold) as an alternative progression method to XP
“if that ends up being something because you know Stern tracks all that so if they're seeing they're like we have you know we have way more people logging in with with Insider connected than we do any other game”
Joel@ 23:24 — Suggests Stern's decision to expand XP may depend on Insider Connect engagement metrics and adoption rates
“you're not necessarily thinking about okay what's my score at all you're thinking about what what level can you get what does that unlock”
Travis@ 24:18 — Compares pinball XP mechanics to PC/console RPG progression, highlighting the mental shift away from score-focused gameplay
“Venom is not a mode based game it has many modes it has this but he's like that's not what he's saying”
product_launch: Deadpool Pro production has been moved up from October target; units now shipping to distributors
high · Travis confirms distributor contact about Deadpool Pro shipment; implies new Stern facility is operational or nearing operation
?
design_philosophy: Dwight's XP system explicitly designed to enable casual/family players to experience game depth without elite skill, using co-op and persistent progression
high · Multiple hosts cite Dwight's stated goal of allowing a father/daughter to make progress together each night; Joel notes this contrasts with traditional high-end player design philosophy
?
code_update: XP/progression system in Venom appears to be innovative Stern feature; hosts debate whether future games will adopt similar mechanics
medium · Hosts note trophy system on Avengers was one-off, co-op remains Dwight-specific; unclear if XP will spread beyond Dwight titles
?
product_strategy: Stern appears to grant individual game designers (especially Dwight) significant autonomy to implement custom progression systems rather than mandating standardization
medium · Travis states XP likely remains Dwight-specific because designers may not want forced implementation; suggests Stern requires designer buy-in rather than top-down mandate
?
gameplay_signal: Godfather's simultaneous multiball/mode stacking creates gameplay clarity issues—Joel describes being unable to determine optimal shot strategy amid five overlapping multiballs
high · Joel's streaming experience; asks brother what to shoot when five family multiballs and modes are simultaneously active; describes keeping ball in air as only clear strategy
Topics
Stern Venom XP progression system design and philosophyprimaryDeadpool Pro production and shipment timeline accelerationprimaryWhether XP will become standard across Stern games or remain Dwight-specificprimaryGame accessibility for casual/family players vs. competitive depthprimaryGodfather mode/multiball stacking mechanics and gameplay balanceprimaryPotential applications of XP to other themes (Jaws discussion)secondaryAlternative progression systems (trophy/achievement system vs. XP)secondaryScore vs. progression-based pinball design philosophysecondary
Sentiment
positive(0.78)— Hosts are excited about Venom XP innovation and Stern's new facility coming online. Enthusiastic about Dwight's design direction and optimistic about game accessibility improvements. Some uncertainty about whether XP becomes industry standard, but general appreciation for manufacturer experimentation. Joel's Godfather achievement adds humor and levity.
Transcript
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
foreign [Music] network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast okay so I feel like one of you second time's a charm I think one of you should ask me if I'm ready are you ready no clearly I wasn't clearly I went through I hit this button we already had our banter going we're going and I went to make a joke about how let me just luckily we are only like two minutes in I'm gonna interrupt Joel like I always do since he was bagging on me earlier without pressing record first we did the intro and Tom and I apparently we weren't excited enough and then we then we played the intro and then Joel started talking about the intro yeah and then I said what was it Joel that you said we should just play the intro again yeah because I was like yeah we got him hooked on we played the intro people skipped over the intro then we told them about the intro so we're going to play it again and then Joel made fun of me yep and then Tom laughed yep and then Joel realized yeah did not hit record I was gonna say hey what's what's the time stamp that we need when we start pinball talk and then I looked up and realized I saw no timer his face just went from laughing to so I told the guys I was like oh crap I didn't hit record and they thought it was funny and it was like no seriously actually thought it was funny but all right so um we I'm I'm ready now I think you guys are still ready here's the intro for the 30 to 15 minutes of my life back yeah yeah here we go triple drain all right now we're pumped now we are we are all right let's talk pinball that could have been so much worse we could have been so much further in and that would have I would have felt real bad but all right well welcome guys episode 41 episode 41 we are here uh we got a bunch of crap to talk about we actually to be honest um normally we try to record every I don't know two or three weeks just trying to stay on top of the news there really hasn't been much news um we recorded shortly after Venice there's no news well not like Travis is a pinball champ Champion right now that's overrated so you what what are you yeah it's a big trophy yeah oh it doesn't it doesn't all fit in the frame you've never heard that before I know um look I got I got Andy's trophy too from Chicago for first place oh wow those are those are both first place trophies yes oh wow okay so got some work to do Andy is everything on that spelled correctly yeah yeah I don't Josh Sharpe he didn't make any of these trophies so it should be fine so what was the big one for what were or just what are the both of them for why not um this one's for a warm-up tournament oh no wonder and then the other one's for the uh St Louis pinball championships look at you okay another question about me let's talk about you Joel I have no trophies I have nothing nothing to flaunt I got nothing yep um you got your stunning good looks and a badass beard there sure that's what I yeah that's what I that's what this is the one thing I always have on you I can confidently say I can grow a better beer than you that's fair okay perfect um okay no real news what I meant was last time we recorded we we spent an entire episode doing a very in-depth breakdown on on Venom and um believe it or not I actually got feedback on that and people appreciated it so apparently breaking it down that way was coherent what I think is funny is I later listened to a collected Gamers podcast and they talked about Venom all of maybe five minutes and Dennis is like well we've exhausted that topic on to the next and all like they talked about in five minutes and I'm pretty sure we talked about it for two hours so um I don't know obviously people have different views on what exhausting a topic is so um I don't know hopefully hopefully you guys enjoy taking shots at you now I heard it luckily that's that's the best part I know I just heard that civil war at tpn now so many different podcasts is good for so that everybody can have you know whatever floats your boat there's probably a podcast out there um so yes Venom we're still kind of in a waiting game on that hopefully um I know Stern is still I don't I don't know I don't know timeline maybe Travis you do it like are they still in the middle of the move I don't know if they're actually producing games um oh well I say that you work for a Stern Pinball I mean in a roundabout way he kind of works for a company that depends on Stern Pinball I mean it is sort of Stern Pinball work for us that's what it is okay I don't know well I'm just making up now I I know that there was a a Venom premium that was out at a Trent's bar in Trey Augustine I think it was out there and I heard a bunch of people playing it and the feedback that I've heard so far is just that it's fast that's legitimately the only feedback pretty much everybody has about it so the same exact feedback we had from the people that played at Comic-Con and yeah I mean surprise surprise ass locks are fast so I do think that's the name things are being made because I actually got a text from a buddy of mine Sterling shout out um holy crap I'm giving a shout out and I can't even think of his name um oh no this is bad when I start recording I can't think of names you're trying to figure out the last name aren't you no it's not I know his name it's the it's the league that he that he runs it's down in Georgia I'll have to I will think of this is it the Georgia pinball League no this is terrible anyways sorry so sorry Sterling I will think of it um but Joel is such an a-hole Sterling see if Tom and I he we're saying this we would know it he tricks me because he said his Deadpool Pro was just shipped and Deadpool Pros I don't think we're supposed to be made till October but apparently that has been bumped up is that the case Travis you're shaking your head like you know something yeah yes well he was trying to confirm well he was contacted from his distributor which must not be you saying hey your Deadpool Pro was just shipped so no because I bought all the Deadpools it's not just shipped so maybe they're yelling at it or lying to him but it should be shipped soon but if that's the case that's awesome no but it's not Deadpool yeah Deadpool Pros are coming yep perfect awesome but that that's obviously I don't think those were made in the old facility unless they have both lines going in both okay I don't know it just seems I would assume Stern is moving forward things are Trucking along we will see what happens they're running a business yes Joel business confirmed so uh I just can't focus when I can't think of the freaking name it's a something should we run the podcast Travis I think we should yeah we've talked about this balls of steel balls of steel that's what he runs he runs the ball balls of steel I thought of that oh I didn't look how could you not know that name that's why it's bothering me okay that's like names do you like how he came up with it something balls I knew it was balls balls Sterling okay balls I'm sorry balls of rust apparently Deadpools are coming so that's exciting for anybody that's been waiting on a Deadpool Pro um those are coming so I'm guessing this this turn Factory is up and running or in the early process of being up and running so I'm hoping that means Venoms Venom Pros which we're too old mid to late August are on their way soon so hopefully for the flipping out stream I will have one hopefully within the next few weeks that's kind of where we're at and hopefully it'll be on location people will be able to get a little more hands-on experience in the meantime though in the last few weeks we really don't have anything new to report on Venom um well um free play Pinball podcast did a really good uh interview with Dwight Dwight is still very stoked about the code as he should be that's very exciting one thing that was mentioned though um on the pinball party podcast was now that this type of XP system is being added to pinball and obviously Stern has like fleshed this out and Insider connected as well in my mind I feel like that would be kind of a waste if it's only on one game do you do either of you feel that this is potentially a future type move for stern do you think this is something that or is this just a Dwight thing maybe this will be part of Dwight games from here on out I'd say it's possible but I think it's going to be more of a Dwight thing okay because the only thing about it is he's more into the like I don't how do I say it like Dungeons and Dragons type of stuff or like r d like r d but the role play or role here it is you know we have we you know this is our second recording because Travis's mic's already out or if video is already out so you can tell that time limit's already passed once um no RNG or um his yeah he loves this idea of building or progressing and and it is cool hearing him talk about it more and more and how amped up he is about it I agree if it sells a lot of games I mean it could become a thing if the demand is there yeah yeah or I mean I I Travis turned his camera back on and it's just his gigantic trophy sitting here that's that's a really good I really think like I I like the idea of being able to start at a point somewhere in the game with your Insider connect sure I I think that would make a lot of people happy oh all the jaws of the world or the ability to skip and the time graphs or the ability to to get through earlier points faster the more you do it like it's like let me get through you know I I'm I'm all for and that's where they're talking about roguelike roguelike games where it's like the first times you play these games the first few levels just kick your butt but it's like the more you build all of a sudden the first few levels you're going to be able to get through them faster and faster and get to the level the the later levels quicker I'm all for it like I'm very curious to see how this works but if we look at the last few like I don't see how XP would fit in Russia's code or I don't see our XP would fit in even into Foo Fighters well like so I would say this I would say I don't think retroactively they should try to implement something like this into games that have already been produced in our current production I wouldn't mind seeing it done in games that are coming up though but it's not necessarily having to me if it were me and I was coding a game I wouldn't necessarily want that in my game if I already had an idea or a skeleton of what I wanted but I'm okay with somebody like say it's Dwight to come up with this and implement it across the board after the fact if you make it an ongoing ecosystem with the stern Insider connect so maybe there's some way they could do that to where it's kind of a separate thing from the actual like full code of a game if that makes sense and that it just kind of is just another layer on top of that so I don't know that's kind of the way that I see this playing out if they were going to go ahead and implement it because to me it would be a little odd if this wasn't on any other games and if it just showed up just in Dwight coded games because then you would be looking at what what like one version of this every 18 to 24 months or however long it would be yeah so I could see something like that but I also understand why certain coders would not necessarily want that in their game either but I argue like you know competitive play uh or cooperative play and like impossible mode those are all Dwight things which are good things but they're not incorporated into you know other games so I I still think it's just going to be a Dwight thing I I mean I thought I heard a rumor or somebody said sometime that there were talks of like bringing Co-op into even like Godzilla I don't know but I really pass them down to whether or not the coder wants to do that or whether or not because I I would be curious and we've talked about this before but when it comes to stern code code there's a base level code that's built into every like like every coder isn't coding their own DJ mixer you know like that's a set code that the the code I'm assuming they can just copy paste in and then kind of tweak to make their own so I'm curious how much like taking cooperative play and just copying and pasting that into your game like how much that would take I would assume there's just it would probably be I would assume a lot of testing because like uh Dwight did something unique with turtles with Co-op play where if if um depending on how many um of the episodes you you got through it would get you to the wizard mode so uh once you get through um four episodes that's when team ups lit but what Dwight did was he allowed team up to be lit for everybody playing so you'd have to have that type of logic in there where what type of modes do you even though one person's played it you allow the next person to play it as well so it's not all combined with progression I don't know there's there's some logic there I think it could be incorporated in other games but it really comes down to whether or not the the game lead or the game designer wants it in their game unless Stern just comes down and bees and they're like boom no this is this has to be in every game from here on out it could be an important part for home games too because let's face let's face facts getting to a wizard mode and getting deep into a game it's not necessarily guaranteed for everybody it takes a very skilled player over the course of three balls or even with extra balls so you have five balls total in a game to get to a wizard mode a lot of the times or at least to the end game yeah so I can appreciate something being added in to a game that allows for everybody to eventually experience it and it allows for people to continually play until they get to it and it's kind of what we talked about last podcast that not every single game has to be geared towards the high-end player not every single rule set has to be geared towards the elite level player sometimes it's good enough just to try to appeal to the masses and that's whenever you're selling a product that's probably well not probably that's most certainly the direction you want to go you want to try to appeal to the most people now obviously right now what we're seeing not many people are really responding to hearing about the XP with Venoms just flying off the shelves I I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand what it means yeah just because we have a grasp on it just because some of us have played PC or console games that have seen an XP leveling system like this it doesn't mean that everybody truly understands it so I think it's going to take a little bit of Hands-On time from a lot of people I think it's going to take possibly a Deadpool situation to where people see the code flesh out and that's exactly what we're seeing with James Bond right now yeah we're seeing that start to start to go up so yeah hopefully it works itself out but I think they really if they're going to lean into this XP which I truly think they need to they need to really make it apparent to the consumer what this is and what this means and just educate people because pinball is difficult enough it's explaining it to a casual now you put an XP system on top of it I mean people might get lost so it's just simply just telling people and the way I've explained it to several of my non-pinball friends to where they're actually interested in it it's just telling them hey if you play long enough you're going to get a bunch of points in the background that just level up your character and eventually you're going to be strong enough to take on different parts of the game and you can keep rematching against that and you can pull that over game to game to game that you don't have to do it all in three balls it could take you 30 balls it could take you 50 balls so when you start to quantify it out like that that's when people start to wrap their minds around what this truly is I agree and I I'm like I think it makes total sense in venom because it is a fighting type game of like okay the stronger you get your attacks are going to be worth more your def they're not going to regenerate as much so it makes these one-on-one battles when you get to certain thresholds easier that makes total sense to me but what I'm trying to think about and this was one of the questions I was asked on Facebook people wanted us to kind of guess or think through if Jaws happens to be the next game like what what would we see in that game and I'm and and we can we can definitely go down that route oh sure okay good that's a good idea I think I think you might be onto that water maybe a boat maybe a boat but the question is you know the question is like Dwight has made it very clear that Venom is not a mode based game it has many modes it has this but he's like that's not what he's saying so you know I think mode based games are a very normal thing I I'm trying to project here how modes would fit into Jaws or the concept of Jaws but if we go one step further how would XP fit into Jaws if that became a thing and no no like you can you literally play as a shark and you get XP for eating various sea creatures eating humans destroying boats we got our answer that I I was just trying to think like if there's a mode that it's like escape this it's like well how would XP help with that and the only thing I could think of is once you get to certain levels maybe it takes less shots or maybe your ball save is a little longer or maybe it's a little easier to light your outlanes you know like something like that where the game gets easier the higher level you get you could do different things like that I I would say if I had to choose between an XP system and you guys remember the trophy system those on Avengers Infinity Quest sure I would much personally I would much rather have the trophy system I wish that they would have that across the board on every single game because even though you have the achievements I think it's pretty cool that you actually can get kind of in-game type achievements that's geared towards doing so well in certain modes so you have purpose to keep going back to the mode and it's bronze silver gold so you have three different tiers for it so to me that's what allows for a lot of replayability with a game so I don't know maybe somehow they can Implement something that maybe is geared more towards the trophy type system and then maybe just include XP with that maybe that's something you could do over time I think repel I mean replayability alone is an interesting thought in pinball right I mean there's a lot of people that once you get to the final wizard mode they're like I'm done they they don't have that are displayed again but it sounds like at least listening to Dwight the main reason he was all for XP is because he wants he wants this he wants XP to give the player the ability to almost guarantee that they can get further in the game his example was like if a dad and his daughter are gonna go down and play every single night he just wants them both to feel like they are achieving something and every night they're gonna get a little further and a little further because the game recognizes the time they're putting into it and they can play co-op that's what he was saying too like Co-op will help with all that so I think what you're saying Travis is not you need you want somebody to like hold your hand through the game or help make the game easier you want like give me deeper instead of just completing the mode give me the ability to complete it and three different ways and then I earned three different potential trophies in that and I know Insider connected tries with some of their achievements to do stuff like that of like here try to try to attack this a little differently than you normally do just so you can get that achievement um so I think the bones are there I think I think there's Stern has a ton of options of what what direction they want to go I just think this XP thing is in my opinion and I think the three of us were all like that's what excites us most about Venom and it'll just be curious if this is a one and done thing like the UV you know ink that was printed on on Stranger Things is this a one and done thing or is this a no this can be a new thing that they start to build into every game yeah I mean it's curious because we've seen Stern do certain things that come off as one and done you just talked about the UV kit I just talked about the trophy system on Avengers you know we haven't seen anything like that on Godzilla yeah since you know what I mean so and I think the trophy system you guys can correct me if I'm wrong and I'm sure they'll correct me if I'm wrong but I think that was kind of Raymond came up with that and kind of implement it I think I'm not positive correct 51 on that I don't know so yeah and it's just like we didn't see a trophies system on Rush or anything like that so you know I don't know Different Strokes for different folks I just think that anything that Stern does hopefully people catch on with it and then one thing kind of sticks to where they'll they'll go that direction and I think the XP stuff I think it is a great idea I think making the game more accessible to every single pinball player that's not a bad thing yeah yeah I agree and I I'm I'm excited I'm excited I'm excited to see where that goes I'm excited to see more people play it and um yeah just to see what's yeah where Stern takes that or where do I I think it's what I do really like is it sounds like and this happened in the free play Pinball podcast where uh they were like man Dwight now it looks like you're you know from a code standpoint it looks like now you're like stepping out of your comfort zone he's like no it's the opposite like I'm now stepping into my like this type of code is what he's been dying to do and that's awesome you know props to stern for like letting him do it and to see what he did initially in Turtles I mean it even goes like Game of Thrones you could pick your house and then in Turtles you pick your character and then Co-op and and then it goes further with with Mando where it's taking track of all your best car like they're letting him do more and more and it's it's I'm excited to see um kind of how how deep he goes with it yeah and I think it fits the theme and the question is if it continues on will it fit other themes I I don't know and I I think that's something that you know as a designer I wouldn't want to be forced to implement something that you don't feel fits the overall picture but at the same time it is you know if that if that ends up being something because you know Stern tracks all that so if they're seeing they're like we have you know we have way more people logging in with with Insider connected than we do any other game or you know look at like it it's clearly there is incentive to do this and people are doing it so how do we you know push that anymore and there's other parts to this too that's interesting I think the fact is if you're doing an XP system and you're doing speed runs to where it's all and when you defeat certain people you make it to where it doesn't really matter how many points you score in the game what really matters is when do you get to the end game and we're kind of we're kind of comparing that to what happens again we keep bringing this or I keep bringing it up PC and console games whenever you're leveling up your character say you're playing I don't know like Elden Scrolls or whatever that game Elder spring yeah whatever it is yeah all those games where you get XP right you're not necessarily thinking about okay what's my score at all you're thinking about what what level can you get what does that unlock what more gear can you get for your character what weapon can you get it has nothing to do with score so I I almost feel like it's it's definitely weird having a pinball machine and not have to worry about score but again you make it there's a there's most people have no idea what the scores are anyways you ask a lot of people they don't know how much a jackpot is they don't know what a multiplier is they don't know and that's fine they just know does the game shoot well does it look pretty does it sound good and does the Blinky lights do cool things that's that's what it boils down is fair yeah yeah so you create that atmosphere you give XP and you fight null eventually yeah I think that's well I just think it's funny that like you talk about Lord of the Rings nobody if you've ever owned Lord of the Rings or borrowed it people are like did you get the valinor that's all they asked they never asked like what was your high score in the Lord of the Rings because that is a game that people care about progression and that that's just how I look at pinball machines how far in a game can I get how have I seen everything in the game like Hobbit I know when I had Hobbit my goal was to get to the third wizard mode because that's as far that's kind of as far as you can go into the game I know I did it I have no idea my score was I don't care what my score was so I I just think this is cool I think this is cool and I think this might appeal to a completely different group than others but also at the same time yeah I don't know the majority of people may love it tournament Players may love it I I really this is kind of a wait and see situation it's just cool that this is something new and exciting to be looking forward to all right uh transition I don't have one Godfather okay so Godfather I wanted to bring this up because what a transition I know right you like that that's Pro that's a pro move right there he just wants to brag about a score but it's not even a score to brag about so here's the deal I've streamed Godfather three times and um I really don't care about score until I happen to look and every game comes with a default leaderboard what I'd realized is after streaming the game twice I hadn't even got on the default leaderboard I I hadn't been there so I know I know Carl D'Python Anghelo is like what's your XP score though oh I would have been crushing it yeah I know Carl D'Python Anghelo is like in the billions and he's like trying to do absurd things so I'm like okay let me look at the leaderboard I know I'm not but when the lowest score is 75 million and I can't break that I feel I just it was one of those like that's the lowest score and the GC of the game by default is 300 million so I I went into my third stream like okay I have to get on this lead report so my brother and I are playing it a key to that game and a big part of that game is all about the multiplier and so I actually picked the house that or the family that was yellow and that actually allows you to earn weapons quicker so that you can get to that max out that 10 times multiplier faster so that's the direction I went and it actually paid off for me and I luckily I had one game where I actually got like 330 million points so I got GC I'm still not on the leaderboard not on the top 10 leaderboard but I'm on the GC I got the GC of the game yes Travis or Tom you're holding me up your hand what what did you tell Travis and I so yes so why did you achieve this well hang on hang on let me let me tee this up because somebody out there is listening laughing their asses off right now we got a little bit of a group chat and Joel was ready to just start bragging non-stopping I don't blame him has he got the GC so he he said on a group chat with Carl he's like oh I got the GC I got 300 billion yeah yeah and then then Carl asked him what was your strategy what I did that group chat hang on hang on I don't I definitely answer this I got the popcorn get out so I was ready yeah because I was in a situation to where one of the best pinball players in the world had just asked Joel yeah what was his strategy genuine curiosity I'm curious which strategy he used yep he wanted to know my answer was I maxed out my multiplier to 10x and I kept the ball above the flippers during multiball that's what I wrote and not realizing that apparently that statement kept the ball above the flippers during multiball was you guys lost it you're like oh my God you just it was everything so I I really enjoy that that group chat because I feel incredibly out of place um I peed in my pants when I heard it it was just so awesome when he said it it was like everybody just stopped typing and all three of us were just trying to like process exactly what Joel just said so that group chat was our names and then it went to bond 60th owners which I'm no longer that and then it became uh great pinball players in Joel and it was that for a long time and so I said guys I got the GC on a Godfather tonight please give me this for 24 hours so I just changed the group chat to Great pinball players and it has since changed back I'm pretty sure it's changed back just great pinball players in Joel but yeah Carl being genuine I wonder what strategy he took maxed out my multiplier kept my ball above the flippers during multiple that's the strategy I took and I will say if anybody watches that stream that's 100 what happened and that's my issue with Godfather is because everything Stacks I was just in this endless multiball for I was multiballed for multiple extra multiball I got to five family multiple it was just like one would finish another would start and I was just kind of I was just I was joling out I was keeping the ball of the flippers just trying to you know it's like flipping the flappers and that's another thing about Godfather when Joel comes out with his first pinball tutorial my God look at that my um I'm asking my brother I'm like what should I shoot he's like I I mean when you have a mode going or job going you have a job going and two or three different multi balls all at the same time and it's the light show of God it's like what do you shoot shoot the joke then became shoe to everything you know the Woody quote in Toy Story that's what I felt like I was doing while in multiball and I was watching my I was watching my weapons and once I'd get to 10x I'd hit it just to you know let's keep it and that's just the strategy I used and a whole bunch of points came out of nowhere so is it is it a strategy I would use to coach someone how to play Godfather no it's probably not the best but it's it worked I don't I mean you just created a new t-shirt for us Joel so keep the ball about the flippers during multiple we're rolling in the money now that's that that was a little space what I would love is for Carl to like he was probably sitting there and he's like oh what our strategy you haven't thought of you know it's good I know my mind doesn't think the same way his does so maybe he was like prepared like you know wet in the pencil like oh what do we need oh oh that's what he did okay never mind I like how you I like how you think Carl was really expecting a serious answer from you I I [Laughter] feels like there might be the tiniest ounce of not respect because I know there is nothing but mutual respect from Carl and I but I don't think Carl looks to me for actual pinball playing in Christ Carl when you're listening to this next time I want you to think about this when you're at your next tournament yeah it's just probably going to be pinball at the lab I want you to contact Joel before your first game and ask them what should you do on this game I'm ready I'm ready to coach I'm ready to coach but anyway so this kind of leads me to another conversation which is stacking just stacking in general and if you look behind me I've also I currently have a Spider-Man Spider-Man Vault so Zach came and picked up Foo Fighters and he this is from his personal collection which he's selling and he um he had we thought this would be a fun game to like kind of like I don't know wet the appetite for Venom because it's Spider-Man um side note on that this game's been played more by my son than any other game I've ever owned he loves Spider-Man he plays this almost every single day he loves this game and he's a good boy he's three um we my brother and I stream this one night I know this game has a lot of love and I know there are some people I think it's Steven Bowden who says this is his favorite game I mean they're they're this game is well I'm not in this conversation love is this your favorite game how was this your favorite game when you have Rush oh yeah oh oh Uno reversal card foreign this is one of your favorite games okay I know this game gets a lot of love and as I know it's lineman code Steve Ritchie layout um it shoots really fun it shoots really well I will say I enjoyed the layout another thing that really stood out to me this makes me sound spoiled but I haven't I haven't had a DMD game in the house in a while and just like to see this era of game there's a ton in here like there's there's a lot of mechs going on here there's I don't know it's it feels like a relatively packed game for what it is and then I really just am such a fan of DMD animations this has a color DMD in it but I just really like DMD artwork and I and I that's why I really like the the cgc remakes the extended DMD there's just something about dot matrix artwork that I'm a big fan of there's a good question yes do you guys prefer DMD or LCD like in the era of DMD versus LCD or pinball or pinball podcast Joel we're talking about right now I still prefer everything I own is LCD okay what about you Tom uh I guess LCD but DMD is a close second because of Rush right because Russia's no no but I just really love the artwork of it um I will go on record and say I prefer DMD over LCD wow just hot take everybody are you saying that in in are you going big picture here just in all the DMD games you just like those more or do you actually feel like communicates do you actually like the screens better no I just like the DMD screen better than the LCD screen you just think it communicates I would I mean I've said this before I think there's enough information on it I honestly never look at the LCD unless I'm trapped up and I need to find information anyways okay so I don't get to see any of the animations play out I don't get I don't get to see any of that and even if I'm off to the side watching somebody play I'm Not staring at the LCD screen I'm staring at the screen or at the excuse me staring at the Playfield as I'm watching that be played so that's just my personal preference I just much prefer EMD over LCD for that reason well feel free to share your thoughts on uh our Facebook page or write us at triple drain gmail.com this would be interesting thing because I I personally feel like my favorite pinball art is the cgc remakes DMD it's colored it's huge and it's just I really love the way that looks and I've said this before if if stern was to ever Vault a game like Lord of the Rings or Tron or whatever Walking Dead I would love for them to go the extra mile and like do that go with an extended that's colored yeah like make it go ahead and go colored just go Sega size sure I I just really love I really love that and I think that would be a perfect happy medium right for for the Lord of the Rings like oh bring movie clips no just look at the background for Spider-Man like yeah that looks gorgeous yeah it's awesome granted the the frames per second's a little off right now but that's you know that a color DMD looks gorgeous it me it just pops I just whenever I'm at a show or the Godfather's right next to it 27 inches or 26 inches yeah I mean again it's personal preference yeah I'm not gonna I'm not gonna like shame LCD screens or anything like that it's just my personal preference if I go to a show my eyes get drawn to a color DMD I will I will stand there and wait to see animations come up on a color DMD that I haven't seen before so like Big Lebowski when it was essentially colored DMD with movie clips that's kind of a perfect yeah I would say I would say that's a good it's a good mesh I mean I understand the place of LCD obviously Jersey Jack did it with Wizard of Oz and then just kind of escalate it or to where everybody had to play ketchup with it and they had to kind of follow suit but you know I like I found myself even playing Pulp Fiction a couple weeks ago in Chicago and I felt like everything you understood what was going on just based off looking up there you got an idea with what was happening that's just numbers yeah no it's not just numbers alphanumeric yes right thank you there's letters to Tom you hear that Josh time to piss Tom off more so I don't like Spider-Man is what I'm gonna say no um I do I appreciate this game but the biggest complaint that people have against Spider-Man is they feel like it's wood choppy and I've realized I don't like exactly like wood choppy okay so what do you have to do in this game to get it's you have to defeat all four villains then you get an extra ball then you defeat all four villains again and that's how you get to the uh Battle Royale and then you have to be defeat all four villains again and all the modes and that's how you get to superhero so people think it's wood chopping people call Metallica wood choppy because it's like you have to do these things you get to one step and then you have to do them again and then get to a step and you have to do them again so that's the thing where the modes don't like sand man when you're fighting Sandman the only difference between fighting him the first time second time or third time is you just have to do it more like that's not that's what I feel like is wood choppy I disagree okay and end of debate anything else yeah so no I mean it's not like you're hitting the same shot eight times in a row that's wood chopping like man it's the same shot he's just getting a multiball and rip the [ __ ] out of it I mean it's yeah it's it's not like you do it in Singapore but trap a ball Joel okay so that was the other thing is in this game there are two main multiballs the Doc Ock one to like battle Doc Ock you're doing a multiball and then the other one is is um the black suit multiball wait until have you taken out the Center Post yet no that's that was in there I left it in there um I'm just I I the problem then is the what frustrates me in this game is it's it's a lot of work to start a mode it's a lot of work oh Travis going it's a lot of work to start a mode so of course you want to get a mode started before you get into a multiball but then like once you're in one multiball there's nothing stopping you from getting into the other multiball and there's nothing stopping you from having multiple villains go all at one time well yeah there is that's accuracy I don't have so if my goal we're gonna get it playing that game if you I get it that if if that's the goal then yes and I understand that it's like the key this is a game that would teach you or force you to play more controlled when you're in a multiball but the other side of me is like if you just start a mode get into one multiball and just go to town there's a good chance you're gonna end up fighting all four villains during that multiball and potentially start the next multiball and if you just like all of a sudden boom once you get out of two multiballs it's like what have I done well apparently I've done I've done two levels of Sandman I've done one level of Venom I've done it's like I'm already I've already progressed through all this but then I'm stuck I'm I'm at that point where it's going to be a lot for me to get my next multiball going or I'm gonna have to like be that's when I would trap up and actually be like cautious of like backhanding Doc Ox shots to get that multiball going oh multiple start again okay now I can like go to town and try to accomplish more which I think this is turning into a triple combo but this is not this isn't the right way to play it I'm just saying this is what I do and then what happens is it's like oh great I got to Battle Royale but I've only done one mode so I am so far away from getting to the final wizard mode because I still have four modes to go to yeah but how many people think of it like that though Joel I've never seen I've never seen anybody get to Battle Royale and be like oh crap I've only played one mode because that's right because that's as far as like the next step is the man gets 300 million million on Godfather and now I'm just saying that's the difference between Battle Royale and then getting to the end of the game is there's there's a lot left for me to achieve or accomplish so yeah getting the superheroes is no small thing insane no it's insanely difficult it's not easy to do so that's what I was saying earlier if I look at games from a progression standpoint it's like okay I've technically seen everything in the game except for the final wizard mode and that last step is such a big step for me that in the idea of like well what do I have to do between each one it's like I don't I'm not excited to do a level three Venom because I've already seen him twice like I don't feel like I'm missing things but it's harder to do you have to it is you have to hit the side ramp I mean I I've no doubt if you get to superhero it's probably a very rewarding and gratifying uh mixer Tuna on the Buffalo Channel he's really good like a very good player of streaming these deeper wizard modes so when I saw he had a stream of getting to superhero like that's a big deal that's not a normal like Stream So I get it and I don't just for maybe a player like yourself Tom a controlled player where you're having to think through that that idea of you know okay I and I know Bowen did it during his tutorial like make sure you're using one multiball to pick through the dangerous shots but also to prep your next one so that when you get out of it then you can start your next one while I'm just joling out I'm just flailing and I just I'm starting everything all at once so when it's all over I'm stuck and that's I feel like I've been in the same spot in Godfather where it's like I'm everything's going I'm going and I'm trying to work on a job and I want to make sure I cash out when I got my 10x but at the same time I got multiball after multiple after multiball so then it's all over and it's like well I just played four multiples in a row so I'm I'm the furthest away from all four of those as I can possibly be right now and you just kind of feel while I wish it was the opposite where it's like you gotta Doc Ock out exactly yeah but that's if you don't stack though then it's like okay I finished that multiball but luckily you don't necessarily want to stack and and that and like Bowen's whole whole tutorial was about that like you'd necessarily don't want to Stack those multiballs you actually yeah I was telling you this before off the podcast you actually wanna help progress towards your next one and then not take it it's almost like you start both of them you're like crap I screwed up but maybe that's maybe that's just the level of play that I don't have yet the the the playing under con playing in control in a multiball is a challenge and it takes and a lot of it is um self-control just like don't be a honey badger yeah relaxing yourself is like I know I know I have two balls on my left flipper I want to flip them so bad but just leave them there and try to work with the right for a while you know like it's hard I'm going to give you three things to work on on Spider-Man I'm ready one is post pass trapping up and doing a post pass number two is doing like a ski jump so like you hit the ramp ball comes down you lift up your flipper let it go to the other flipper and catch it stop it and then the other thing is to try and actually do like a I think you could do like a post catch on it so like when the ball is coming down you can like fling it up into the post and get it to die down so I luckily doc ox.net works pretty well where I can actually backhand dock it'll feed the right flipper again but then if you flip at the right time you can just you can keep that ball in the right flipper and you can do it again yep those are all those are all skills that I I understand where I struggle is implementing any of that during multiball because it's just so much chaos single ball play yeah I understand but the problem is once that's what I that's why I voice this idea of like I don't know how much I actually like stacking because I don't want a second multiball to start at the same time I already have a multiball going like I don't I don't want that and stop doing it which I okay so let's talk about we always come back to Godzilla right if I'm in building multiball if I'm in the main building multiball you can start bridge multiball at the same time correct or no no no that's what I'm talking about I like that you can't oh so you know Keith elwin to hold your hands yeah I can't be in Brit I can't be in the middle of building multiball and then start tank at the like I don't that's what I like I I think I prefer games like that and I understand that's the exact opposite of of Kiefer code where like that's why people complain about GNR all of a sudden you have you're just multi-wall all the time or well that there's other things with GNR but like this that's my thing about this is you can plunge if you pick the right skill shot you can plunge into a multiball and while that multiball is going you can accidentally lock enough balls to start another multiball and then while that's going all of a sudden well I've it's just it's just it's just my opinion I just I just cut down to preference too like what did you think about Avengers because all the multiballs can pretty much stack together on that one true [Music] just because some of some of them were harder to start than others like um like I know Iron man multiball that shot is I mean you can mistakenly hit that shot Thor I mean you're gonna hit that Captain ball a lot yeah did it bother you that everything was together what what can you stack what are you asking the poor the port a lot yeah the portal yeah I don't that's maybe that's a portal with Iron Man I look at multiball as an opportunity to help me progress whatever I'm doing like I just I don't I'm not looking at his points I'm looking at it as a progression thing so this is security that's why we're telling you not to stack the two multiballs which I get but it's for coaching you Joel I just feel like that there's the shots that you can hit to progress your multiball I don't know at least what I found in Spider-Man I could probably do it if I really focused on control but Godfather there's so many different multiballs and so many different shots that qual like that thing it just I don't know and that's that's what some people complain about so um and then the other side of that is once you get it though once you're stacking so many things then it becomes even harder to understand what you're actually trying to do because it's like okay in Godfather if I have three multiballs going and a job what like all the lights are lit and I yeah that's the extreme though you know what I mean like Spider-Man is first tier and what you're describing with Godfather is basically like 11th here got it you know what I mean so let's go to 11. right right exactly so Spiderman we're we're really just talking about two multi balls that you happen to stack together so if anything this game should be a good training mechanism for you to learn how to get flipper control sure learn how not to Joel out all the time it's okay to stay calm you're in the multiball you see the Blinky lights you just hit them you keep the balls trapped up don't flip them at all hold on to them until you drain out of one and then try to try to post pass over try to cradle separate and then go to town again I I I get it and that's maybe that's the thing that it's pointing out like I have a lot to learn because but I think the game also the other thing that I've learned a lot about Spider-Man is how much I appreciate the uniqueness of modern modes and and what I mean by that is like um Venom on this the only what you're doing in venom is you're either hitting the left ramp or you're hitting the Venom shot that's all it like that's what the mode is that's it and you compare that to like Foo Fighters where you know um uh what is it Seattle it's like the two shots and the way they travel across the thing and then the way they travel back or Ray days really good with he had a bunch of unique modes in Rush where it's like you know what was it a limelight where it's like things get dimmer and then you got to do it like it's these modes feel unique they feel like genuine to that thing that you're doing while this era of game is is a little more just hit the blinky light like the the um the Green Goblin mode is they're Green Goblin Targets on the side that's all it is it's just keep hitting those targets so that's the kind of thing that I I I'm really what I'm finding in modern code that I really like is the uniqueness of the mode I I just think it's a level above did you hear that Travis oh he's saying Lyman is a bad coder because I'm starting to hear that's he's really dogging on this code I did say that but uh did you did you know you could uh you can 2x one of the shots in the game yes so that's another 3x digital modes yeah if you hit the white shots I watched the whole Bowen tutorial I saw it and I see it I don't think you would appreciate a little bit simpler code to where you fully understand what's going on it's because it makes the exact opposite of Godfather where you're you're not sure what's going on so to me it's it's a good game to kind of be able to figure out your your skill set yeah and to work on skills and to work on hitting shots because you are right games of a different era in Spider-Man 2023 obviously it was from a different era at this point since it's DMD game but that's the way a lot of pens that came out around that time is the the rule sets are very linear in that way that you got to do XYZ in order to do the next thing so yeah that that's kind of what's changed ever since I guess gosh I don't know maybe AC DC Metallica sometime around there you you kind of saw rule sets just start to gradually start changing to collecting a lot more things and then making making different progressions happen later on deep in the game yeah I I mean this is a game that's easy to explain in a way where it's like oh I started Green Goblin what are you gonna hit same targets you hit to start it you know oh I started like I get that but I think it I also think this makes me somewhat hypocritical because like I'm super stoked to get caxis Canyon Cactus Canyon Zach said my SC plus is in hopefully I'll be getting that at that in the next few weeks like I understand that the Cactus Canyon code is very much like oh I started the mode that's the left orbit guess what shot I'm hitting to keep doing that mode it's the same thing so there's part of me that likes that Simplicity but then I'm also really curious to see what Josh does whether or not they make these modes a little more complex or a little more unique but the really what it would it Shine after playing spending time like that on it this type of era of game a DMD game my I do really like the DMT but I do I have found myself appreciating the uniqueness or the originality that that coders are bringing into modes these days and making these modes seem different or you're kind of a their own unique experience that that mode is just a fun thing to to do um versus just like a box you have to check so um is your seedling falling off one of my kids just belly flopped right above me did you guys hear that I think I did yeah yeah well those were my two comments about my current thing my current uh screaming or crying and we're good okay perfect um so that leads us I think that's it for normal news we did actually um post both on Facebook and our patreon we posted like Hey we're recording tonight is there anything you guys want us to talk about and um thank you so much we had a really great uh we got all we had a ton of feedback like we had a ton of people comment and um so we're gonna work our way through some of these so yeah this is going to be somewhat rapid fire because we've got a lot to go through so we're going to start with patreon because these are the people that support us we really appreciate you guys check us out uh triple drain on patreon uh if you want to support us there you can um Joe Hills he actually has a really interesting story here where basically said he was at a local arcade and he noticed there was a woman next to him with her with his with her son and she pulled out her phone because she saw the QR code on Insider connected and you could tell she was trying to hey to play the game because she saw her QR code and assumed that's how it worked and that's when Joe said he handed her a token showed her where to buy more and realized like we're in an age now and I'm curious if this is happening at other arcades where people see a QR code and they assume that is a way that you pay to start the game so his question and there was some discussion on the patreon about that do you guys think that this is a planned thing for stern because I I was trying to think my way through this and the only incentive I could think of would be like a loyalty program or something where it's like if Stern recognizes oh you played 10 games then we'll give you the the 11th at a discount but then well whose Pockets that coming out of because if if um people that are routing the game they don't want to come out of their pocket unless they feel like being able to play or pay digitally is actually incentivizing people to play more than having to go cash another dollar it's it's entirely possible I know that they do this with PGA golden T right now they have NFC technology in which you can just tap something to it and you can pay there's transactions there so yeah we know a lot of different operators that will put on cards and stuff like that to where a swipe card goes and you have a credit that goes on the game and it's been reported plenty of times that those games actually make more yeah in overall Revenue just because of that and it's like anything else if people just have a card that they have to use or they're putting a credit card swipe or whatever it could be people tend to spend more money than what they would by handing over actual cash or putting in coins in it so yeah in theory it makes sense I don't know if that's the plan in the future but so are you talking through like Insider connect yeah yeah that would be because there's a QR code reader there but if there was if I mean I I some this was either a podcast or something I saw online but some somebody said like well why do arcades do tokens like if tokens are a pain or you realize that people are using tokens from like why do people use them and somebody made the comment of like when you use a token you know people are going to spend that money verse a quarter where if somebody gets pissed off and they're like I have a dollar fifty and quarters still there's nothing stopping them from walking out the door with the dollar fifty but if they look and they see I got a dollar fifty worth of tokens they have to use them so they end up using them so if that became like if Stern did something like that where you can buy twenty dollars worth of credit for or you get 20 you spend twenty dollars to buy credit and you actually get 25 worth like and then they find some way to work with the the person that's routing the game I was just gonna say that how would that work with operators but um I mean I like like I said I don't know I know golden tea does it okay but I don't know exactly how that works with operators though so the NFC it stands for near field communications and it's basically like golden tea they have something and I think it's the caddy or PGA Tour caddy app to where you can actually just use your phone or use something like that to where you're able to pay based off that so if you if everybody goes and looks at what a Golden Tee is with the pgas you'll see it right there right by the trackball and right above the buttons to where it has like a huge part that says tap here so the technology is out there it wouldn't shock me if we see something like that and pinball eventually and I think it would be pretty cool for operators if stuff like that could get figured out yeah well Andrew Doane Doane I think don't don't anyways he he was commenting on this and and one of the things that he was asking was uh do we what are other potential Insider connected things um that that could be used and I know Tom has shared his uh his overall views on Insider connected a few times and I know like local leaderboards are a very common thing or tracking your home play kind of thing or head head to head is something we've talked about a lot um one thing I did think I the fact that Stern is XP XP alone is a brand new thing that Insider connect is going to allow you to do and if we look at Insider connected purely as the ability to the to inform the machine who you are you are playing this game and it it tells the game like I've played this these are my achievements this is how much time I've spent on it I would assume at some point in time they will build in some sort of difficulty system where the game will make itself easier or harder based on how much you've played the game I think that could be kind of cool um and then another thing that I think would be cool would be a way to get to things you've been to so like if you've gotten to a wizard mode I think it would be cool that once you've been to it once you can scan in and like shortcut you can like shortcut back and be like hey I got to this wizard mode but I want to just practice it so that I can work my way through or show it off to somebody else um obviously Insider connect or some of the new ones with these challenge modes give you that ability but those are just two thoughts that popped into my head I don't know if you any other brainstorms that you guys think heads up heads up yeah like Head to Head play yep yeah which which I know all the heads up tournaments that we've seen you know what is it Ace Yogi or whatever that Carl streams they just buy two pros and put you guys do it Lumberjack Johnny's yep what was it that Zach called it pancake something um anyways it was you guys all have two of the exact same game you put right next to each other but that's pancake mentioned your stuff this was like a year ago and I think instead of calling it Lumberjack Johnny oh yeah it was something pancake but I'm Jack Blackjack but that's not normal for a bar to have two of the exact same game right next to each other so really when you're talking about heads up that is some sort of like yeah non-local heads up play uh where you login for somebody else you could probably easily program that to where you know player one steps up you time them Player Two Steps up their time they could have the time player one head and you have to beat that time or something oh okay I I would love the a bit like races think about that yeah where I would love races where you pick something in the moment that that person accomplishes it it shuts the other person's game like kills the flippers like I think that would be incredible but what's a turtle shell challenge half shell challenge half excuse me yeah so if you can both do it at the same time we're at a bar and I'm like all right Jill I want to challenge you to this and I go first and I get like two minutes then you gotta beat it no problem yeah yeah so that could be cool um yeah that could be cool I think I really want them to fly watch out the social side of Insider connected more like I wish you could do challenges yeah um that was something scorebit had where you could do like uh like a weekend challenge it's like Whoever has the highest score by the end of the weekend it shows so you can pick your friend and challenge them on a game and I just think that could be I I wish that was something like I wish it was easier for me to know what achievements you guys have or watch that that kind of stuff so there's a lot more that they can flesh out for sure for sure Travis is shaking his he's he's basically head banging over there he's he's just agreeing I'm just agreeing with every everything you guys are saying that's all right so this is an interesting one Tony V feelings on recent surge of content creators on YouTube who focused on Arcade one UPS New Wave toys Etc getting into pinball and engaging in integrating it within their content is this good or bad what does it mean and what could that do for the hobby is it time for some nerd turf wars arcade one oh yeah so arcade one up no what there's a there's a handful of content creators that actually have a lot of followers and the majority of what they talk about are they were just video games and then they got into the arcade one-up scene buying all the different arcade ones ups and then kind of pushing this idea of building their own home arcade but it wasn't real arcade equipment it was all arcade one UPS then modding arcade one-ups and I feel like some of these guys now that they actually have that Vibe or that feel they're like What's the next step and a few of these bigger creators have bought pinball machines and so they're bringing the idea of having a pinball machine at home to an audience that we aren't I'll name drop uh B from uh Kong's R Us he's one of them yep yeah and so I don't know a ton of them but I I'm all for it I anything that can grow this Hobby and bring it to the attention and and the eyes of more people I mean it's amazing how many people I talk to and when I say pinball is a hobby they have no idea that it's a modern thing like it's still going so if arcade people don't yeah and that's totally fine and I don't care I don't care what Creator I don't care if you're a if you're a makeup tutorial YouTuber if all of a sudden you get the bug to have a pinball machine and put it in the background of your thing and and you know your million followers see a pinball machine in the background while you're doing your makeup tutorial great I don't so I have no sure okay if at the end of the day if the twippies if the best pinball YouTuber ends up being the makeup tutorial person because you know she got her Army on voting for it then yeah there's your Turf War but at the same time good on her like anything to bring more attention to pinball absolutely yeah and well I mean to be honest with you this isn't the first time that people kind of from outside of pinball have kind of joined into pinball too this has been happening for years and years I think if anybody's been on Twitch for the past decade at least this name might ring a bell lethal frag was one of the first twitch users to actually stream pinball to where he was I think he was almost like a role-playing game type streamer way back in the day and he did an endless two-year like every single day he streamed for two straight years it was a big deal and then he wanted to move into pinball and he actually launched a Kickstarter and I'm pretty sure you can still find this online to where he raised anywhere between fifteen or twenty thousand dollars from people that watched him just to be able to build a rig get a pinball machine I think he even streamed Star Trek or Stern Star Trek I think is the game that he streamed and this is back in gosh 2000 13 14 15. it was a while back so and that was somebody that had a lot of people watching him at the time so this is this is kind of the same thing that's been happening a little bit and we've talked about this before in previous podcasts that one of the things that really got stranger things out there believe it or not and this is probably one of the most viewed videos ever for a pinball video it was a family vlogger that did it and they had a stranger things and they actually showed themselves playing it in the background they showed them you could see it in their game room and everything and I think that video probably has 5 10 15 million views on it well I forget I forget who it is off the top of my head but I know I've seen it and it's just yeah people there's crossover like that and to me that's a good thing I I don't mind anybody just talking about pinball discussing pinball anything to get people more interested I'm all for well that's because you're a shill right because you were oh yeah I know yeah hell yeah yeah I everybody to buy pinball machines uh well I think it is funny because the first question I asked was actually from Joe Hills and Joe Hills is actually a rather big Minecraft streamer that's what he that's what he did and so for him as as somebody who's pretty big on Twitch he for a long time and he might still do that I just haven't been on Twitch in a while he would finish his Minecraft stream with a few hundred people watching and he would raid a pinball streamer so he he rated my channel multiple times and he rated yeah Toms I mean it's just like it's awesome that that's his idea I know I know his audience is Minecraft but he's trying to build you know bring that in and I think Joe even um streamed some pinball himself he was just at District 82 not too long ago oh that's awesome yeah that's awesome okay so last question from patreon William Moore appreciate Joel streaming Godfather I just received my godfather CE and was surprised at how difficult it is but if you take your time to figure it out it falls into place but since but still has Wicked outlanes I can have a 300 million game and then an 800 800 000 point game back to back William I totally relate because I had my 300 million game and since then I haven't passed 75 million so I that is a game where um there was another joke that came up on stream where somebody said Godfather's the perfect game to drink whiskey to and smoke a cigar you know something that's kind of calm but you can be precise you can think through it it's a kind of a problem-solving game if you want it to be otherwise it can be a very relaxing time and then they're like Foo Fighters is a game to drink a Mountain Dew and smoke crack that was you know those high energy kind of crazy fun game but I mean every game's a little different but I do I do know that like yeah Godfather um I see why Nick Lane on Buffalo pinball freaking loves the game I know the way that Nick talks about the way his mind works and the math I Know Carl is loving um Carl D'Python Anghelo's loving Godfather because of that just if that's the way your brain works and you really want to understand and look at the big picture you can really arrange things in a way that you can just blow it up but I will say this is not a game that you're going to blow up on accident like you really have to do a lot in the right order to put up the big points and I've only done that once I've only done that once of all the times I've played it so I don't know I mean Tom you have one is this do you feel like it's a are you starting to get get a good grasp of it and and is it a game that you I don't I can't curl it yeah well nobody can you're not a God isn't what you said to me earlier yeah exactly it's um there are some pinball games that are just fun to step up to and play and this game you can you're just not gonna give me points that that game to really everything about every pinball game you can step up to and play yeah but like what are you having fun good okay yeah that's what what's level of fun you know smoking crack fun or the uh yeah so I don't know I think it's cool I do think I mean if this is a game I love right now because right now I have um TNA so I got a spooky game I got a an old older DMD game with Stern and then I got Godfather and I have Godzilla and just seeing how different the four of them are it's just it's really cool to see how different and I love seeing how different they are Travis is out um it's just they're all so unique but I will tell you Godfather this is snowflakes gorgeous this game Christopher Christopher Franchi killed the r package jjp knows how to make a beautiful beautiful freaking game there's no there's no denying that um and if and if you like a game like that that you can really dive in get your notepad out and you know learn the rules there's a ton there there's absolutely ton there every time Joel says Spider-Man's this old game I feel like my armor League's just gonna fall right [ __ ] off it's the oldest game in this collection but I understand it in the realm of pinball it is it is an infant I get it I get it so that was patreon patreon thank you so much can you get my Walker out thank you so much for um so when did the original Spider-Man come out the pinball machine that is we're Stern I don't know I'm curious is it 200 like eight well I thought the Vault was 2007. no the original was 2007. okay the vault came out in 2016. yeah so super old no I I yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I got it uh we're just hammering through these questions I'm glad we're we're writing this all right so that was patreon we had five um Facebook we have 42. so here we go let's do it Don's football podcast I heard the Don Pitbull podcast guys pretty great talk about him he is he's a nice guy he's been showing up in stream appreciate you Don thanks for saying hi um let's hear about how unfortunate Joel is for only being able to stream the pro Venom thank you Stephen yeah I feel bad for me yep um we need to what the Sarah Mclaughlin song uh Daniel Costa when will Joel sell his TMNT to buy Venom I don't think that's gonna happen I don't think that's gonna happen but we'll have to play one and wait and see there uh Rick quick if that's his real name that's incredible Rick quick I can confirm that's a real name that's a real name that's awesome how about thoughts on the best way to spread pinball to the massive maybe a televised tournament with a million dollar payout celebrity tournaments which turn out local media or college tournaments to get the next wave of players at least familiar with the sports any idea how to bump the numbers a million dollar tournament would be awesome uh raid a or um you know Escher would love that million dollars or right Zach McCarthy who's uh who's the big one right now it's not is it Zach who's number one right now well yeah sure sure that's right oh that sounds great but that's not I don't so are we talking about just spreading pinball as in just pinball itself are we talking about spreading tournament pinball I think it's just two different things I think it's just growing but that's the idea of how do you televise how do you how do you how do you convince people to get into this okay without bringing money into it to like several major ways you either contact a massive YouTuber such as Mr Beast or somebody like that you offer up your pinball machines for a challenge or you contact CBS you try to get the pinball machines into the Big Brother house or something like that you say hey we'll offer you one or two so that way it's always shown on live streams it's always shown during the actual I don't know during the actual broadcast who knows about licensings rights or stuff like that but I think any way that you could get it seen based off that I think if you contact family vloggers just like we talked about earlier there's a lot of them they get millions upon millions of views and you say hey we'll give you one in your game room and all you got to do is just talk about it every now and again to me that's an easy that's an easy ask right there considering you're just offering up a few thousand dollars for a pinball machine in turn to have millions of eyeballs on it and it might not necessarily be the majority of people are in a position to buy pinball but people are seeing pinball people are discovering it and you kind of plant that seed a little bit I agree I think um uh one of the best things I I shortly after King Cromwell started at jjp uh I think he was involved in the marketing campaign to get one they got Willy Wonka to the slow-mo guys and to have Gavin make a slow-mo guy video I mean that video got I think it was over a million views I mean that that was like some of the best advertising you could ever do and uh I totally I never thought about like Big Brother house like that makes total sense uh there's a lot of like gamer challenges going on right now I think State Farm just had a gamer challenge where they got all these big twitch streamers to compete but the idea was like let's have them compete on Super Mario and then compete on Call of Duty and then compete on this and the compete on that it would have been they do that with chess too I think it's called hog Champs or something like that to where they get the biggest twitch streamers and the biggest content creators to do something like that so to me I don't see why Stern couldn't do something like that because they had the shoopies or whatever that's called instead of getting us pinball players to be on it why not just get some major content creators to come all play in a tournament because you they're gonna tell Their audience about it like as it makes exclusive as the these people are sounds like you should start working for stern well they work for him Tom remember yeah so that would be a good idea I personally think I've always wondered why that hasn't been done maybe they've attempted to put together who knows if Stern sent whatever a Foo Fighters to like like six big twitch streamers as competitive as they are right they sent one and they're like here we're gonna put this in your home and then they're all out in LA and then we're gonna come out and we'll film and you can do a local tournament where you all compete on Foo Fighters like you give them the game early for them to learn it or play it a little bit I don't know I think that you could do that okay here's what you do you would contact eight big content creators you would have them all come to stern so I'm in Chicago they would all do the shoes like huge you would let them all film behind the scenes stuff so they could create their own content so they would get it out a different video the way that they would do it you would be able to have the content for you that way you spread out over at least eight different YouTube channels and we're not even counting all the Facebook we're not counting all the Twitter we're not counting all the Instagram all the tick tock all that you'll spread it around a ton it would get millions upon Millions upon millions of use that's the easiest way to spread pinball out by far more than anything else we could do well Rick quick there's your answer uh Tyler person blue uh Mountain Dew and crack yeah um so carry over topper modes being active even in competition mode on Stern games Travis knows the story well Stern Insider stuff when it comes to so I'm guessing this is a guess but I'm guessing uh Jurassic Park T-rex or goat Mania mode was lit and that somehow got played during conversation it wasn't it wasn't that although I have seen that happen at a tournament here in St Louis and I don't think anybody even realized it was happening I was just watching it off to the side and I was like that's funny that's a lot of good I just kept on but no this one actually happened in the St Louis pinball championships with the tiebreaker going on and it was the uh the Mando topper is this what's up to here is this is how you won your big trophy by using the Amanda no no no no no no I already did my exploit on Mando at Expo again Sandy Bagwell love you Andy but but yeah it's just so without going too in depth basically it caused a A major advantage for somebody so it just kind of made it to where the whole game had to kind of be restarted with scores being counted so on and so forth so yeah bescar Mania yes ah yeah yeah and it was one of those things the game was actually set on competition mode too and we were debating about that at the beginning of the tournament and we were looking at we were just like we can't see it we can't tell I don't think it would be on but nope surprise it it still happened on competition mode so yeah and it was chaos women and children screaming Mass Hysteria interesting okay yep so hopefully I I would say if there if there is a mode attached to a Topper I would hope that competition mode could turn it off immediately the same way the competition Mode's going to turn off the XP everything else yeah so it just makes sense it makes sense uh Josh McLeod hopefully some new food code updates we talked about this a little earlier yeah hopefully something but we but this Foo need more code did we talk about or was this the first time before I hit record we didn't talk about that that must have been your other podcast before I hit recording I said with Foo Fighters yeah evidently I said with Foo Fighters we um oh we talked about it before we started podcast yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah [Music] we haven't uh there hasn't been a little update in a while and I know we're at a point where the final wizard mode needs to come into the game but I I had brought up the idea of the combatron I I know if we compare this to the other Tanya code which was Deadpool there was a big step I think it was 0.96 code when Deadpool introduced mech suit multiball and that was a multiball that was based on combos that's kind of a progressive thing throughout the game and that really changed how people address the game so I'm curious I don't think there's anything currently going on with the combos and I don't know that's the question is there a chance that I'm getting some Squints maybe there is a little bit yeah I mean you have to like do a bunch of combos to get a part body part on the fubot I've been to football multiball did I tell you that extent I got to that I did it I kind of gray into five gift Subs why he bet me five gift Subs to get to fubot yeah yeah he suckered in an 80. he gave me a suckered him in he gave me nothing for getting a fubot no um I was proud of that I was proud of that because that's a progressive thing and and um what was lucky was he showed up in my chat and and he's like you only have to he was basically like aim at the radio Sonic whatever because I I didn't even realize like that was one that I hadn't done and then as soon as I got out of that there was like one other thing I had to do real quick that I was close to but I didn't know like I wasn't aware but he kind of he's like you're close to Foo the fubot multiball like do this and do that and we got her done yeah you have to hit a certain number of combos too that's part of it like the com combotron but like I think if you get it to where the value is 10 million you lock it in for the rest of the game I think that's correct but it could be wrong well I know some people are wanting more call outs I don't I know I think it's been said very clearly I think Jack danger actually said it somewhere like out of respect for take Taylor's death I don't think there are going to be any kind any any you know band members no nothing from band members so if there's more call outs or it's it's going to be the voice actor or another one but I don't know we'll see um kineticist um he's an awesome supporter he supports us on patreon as well how do you make competitive pinball more accessible and appealing to new casual players and can should that be a focus on the ifpa or a different entity I know we kind of talked about this a little bit already but how do you make it more appealing to more players I don't I don't I don't know if you're at a bar the best way to draw somebody over to that table or a pinball machine besides theme that's the only thing I can think of if if we're going to get some crazy if somebody if somebody releases Super Mario Brothers there are Pokemon or something like that that's going to get some more people playing a pinball machine that don't normally play a pinball machine but what's going to get them to keep playing it and coming back to it or buy one to put it in their house it really boils down to the community um I I think that the best way to do it if you want to build up your tournament scene you want to build up your community scene I think the most important part for player retention is making people feel welcomed and an easy way to do that is you hold pinball socials so what you do is what I would recommend everybody to do if you want to build up your community is get your established players right have them have a big pinball social to where you invite new players out people you might be at a bar you might be at an arcade whatever bring them in but you put them in a situation to where they don't know what's going on on each pinball machine right but you just give them maybe 10 15 minutes on each pin put everything on free play have the players that are in the community explain one or two things about the machine to them and let them try to do that let them try to start a multiball then when they're done say your goodbyes rotate to the next spin introduce yourselves you meet somebody new then you learn something new on another pinball machine you just keep repeating that for an hour hour and a half you just get people involved that way and I think that's the easiest way to kind of build up a community it's not necessarily about being ultra competitive or anything like that it's more about your community making people feel at ease and making people enjoy what and just enjoy coming to it it's the same way for everybody out there that does a bowling league for everybody out there does beer league softball yeah it that's fun to do but it's also fun to be around friends as well so I think that's the way that you package this and that's the way you get more attention to your league or to your your monthly tournaments over time and it just takes time to build up to have 20 30 40 50 people there it's not going to happen overnight sure I think it's like I know electric bad arcade I follow them on Instagram and whatnot like it just looks like they're having a blast so whatever they're doing they're doing it right and it just looks like even if I I guarantee District district 82. he doesn't he doesn't want to talk about me for instance like the five dollar volley that's taken a a thing of its own or a life of its own so stuff like that I think that's important what I was saying though with electric fat is like I guarantee there are people that go just to drink and hang out and they don't actually play just because it looks like the environment is a fun time now District 82 is a step up when it comes to like the actual competitiveness and what all you're going to experience with the number of machines and the quality of the machines and all that but I mean maybe not there's still a lot of excellent players out there yeah but they don't have time no they don't have time well electric bad as Mark and uh Roland there can you have it again sex appeal so you know yeah well thank you you do your tripod good job buddy there's clearly um yeah there I mean the fact that I know about and I'm not I'm not but it's like the fact that I know about District 82 I've never been there you guys are doing something right the fact I know about electric about Arcade out here trying to keep you out just kidding they're clearly doing something right when you know about these things like yeah so I I think that I I really like what you're talking about though and yeah I think you're the the key there is you want to it's a community everybody wants to be accepted into something and everybody has some hobby or interest and if you make people feel accepted that's the best way to bring them into whatever Community you're trying to do Pinball's the Common Ground too and that's important you you find the common ground and you go from there yeah this is gonna kick my butt and yours let's do it together that kind of thing yeah I I think the hard thing is to make competitive pinball fun for everybody you know which if you can do that that would that would drive people to it you know earlier on like I'll I'll give the Expo tournament as an example so like early on when when Expo used to happen everybody used to be waiting in a line to to go up to a pin and you know for a competitive player that's not such a bad thing but to maybe somebody like usual you'd be like wow there's a line of 40 people I don't want to wait in line to play one pin you know so um I I think doing some of like the match play tournaments and The Knockout tournaments if you can do some of that stuff on in like your local scene and get a social aspect going because you're in you're playing groups of four or three and uh you're interacting with people I I think that's a key yeah yeah good point it's a good point and attitudes of course that's the biggest thing too and I gotta work on my attitude because when I when I don't play well I have a bad attitude right well it comes down to well it comes down to also everybody knows District 82 competitive players that's that's what it's known for right right but then let's consider the other leagues or the other communities that are around that might have eight to Fifteen players right if you have four players out of that group 25 30 that are just completely batshit crazy throwing their hat around stomping around screaming out cuss words right it's gonna be awfully hard to build up your community you get somebody brand new to that and they see that they may not want to be a part of that that that makes things awfully difficult it's not to say hey don't be competitive but that's kind of where competitive pinball or tournament pinball is just in this weird space to where you could have people competing for three Whoppers and it would be just like the World Championships it's game nine of ifpa every single time and that's that's fine but then at the same time if you have somebody else that's playing it just happens to be a Tuesday Wednesday Thursday night for them they just want a beer after work they just want to hang out you have those two competing ideas so I think a lot of it is is finding that equilibrium finding that way to introduce people to ease them into it because their idea of competitive pinball might be a lot different than our idea of competitive pinball like my true idea of it is we're going to endisk right and we're doing a papa card and we're playing against the world's best players from everywhere like to me that's competitive pinball if I'm doing in a local event or if I'm doing local League I'm not taking it serious at all and I'm certainly not going to sweat not doing well I I just want to talk to people I Just Want to Have Fun so I think that's important too is to figure out what direction are you taking the community what's your in-game goal with everything yeah no I think it makes total sense I I don't have any experience in it but I do know well my little my one tournament I played at Cleveland it's like yeah the best part of that was hanging out talking to the other people while you're waiting yeah and then it's like wow I just got wrecked on that game and then you share that oh yeah that's or focus on it I mean it's yeah it's the part of the fun the important thing is as you finished ahead of Monica sure did sure did I hope she I hope that bothers her I don't think she knows but it does oh she knows he's out the blood next time you guys play I mean there is a big part I mean the social aspect is a big part of the competitive pinball Community I think it's a very good part of it for sure uh next question cause Brian kosner when are we getting a Bluey pin I'd be all for it bluey's an awesome show if you haven't seen it check it out um Neil McRae the one the only the UK opened in its amazing build up are either of you guys planning on going to that UK open flying over here oh Travis is going I wish I was yeah Neil there's no way that won't be fun there's no way that won't be fun uh Carl Carl D'Python Anghelo keeping multiballs above the flippers [Laughter] uh Chris wombat the rumor to be upcoming Jaws from Keith Owen would like to see what you guys think will be in the game or your ideas of how this game will be another Elton home run since they likely won't have full assets similar to Jurassic Park Jaws is one of the last stream teams for me so I'm real I'm ready for others to Chum up the excitement like myself um I have no doubt it'll shoot well after interviewing Keith I mean his goal is to make the funnest shooting Whitewood possible so that's one thing that I think Keith does incredibly well is he actually doesn't rely on the theme to make it fun so I I have no doubt that it's going to be a fun shooting game um second to that though is I do know that he's going to make a very balanced and enjoyable rule set um I have no idea what that's going to look like I have no idea how you take Jaws the movie or if they don't have those assets how you just take the idea of of like modes or if it's all types of an escape I have no idea what the progression is I mean I have no idea I have no idea what they're gonna do with that but um I know it's going to shoot really well I don't I mean do you guys have you guys brainstormed at all on what you could do you see a game about a dishwasher and I'd probably buy it I don't know I would what's your question have we bring yeah he's he's saying Jaws is a dream theme so if he's playing the game of what it's gonna possibly be like how do you picture it like I'm not talking about shots I mean maybe like a Mech what do you mean like what kind of Mech do you think would be in it or like how do you think the code would potentially lay out like what's a mode look like in Jaws I mean it it depends the direction they're going if you have assets then I guess the modes would be based on different scenes of the movies possibly but I think if if it's Jaws let's just say if it is that you don't I I personally don't think you need a bunch of assets you just need a shark just need water you know I I don't think anybody's watching it because of the human characters or gonna play it because of the human characters I don't think this is a Jurassic Park situation where you have like Jeff Goldblum you know what I mean I I think it's just it could just be very shark Centric now of course unless they do the one with Dennis Quaid in SeaWorld and all that terrible terrible Puppeteer stuff or whatever it was but yeah I I think you could just simply just have the shark I think you probably have some type of Mech with a shark cage I think that's a given because that's you know you just look at the motifs of dealing with a great white shark right so maybe you have some type of I don't know magnet that gets caught and it's in the shark cage and it goes under and maybe that has some type of mode to where it changes the play field to where you're underwater you're the shark you're you're hunting stuff maybe you have a shark that eats a ball it is an interesting I mean even just that point alone are you the shark is it you verse the boats is it you versus the boats is it you verse the people or is it the opposite are you a fisherman and you're trying to survive being attacked well just like you said there you could have a boat mechanism in it too in a buoy somewhere I I would love if we were the shark I would love that right I would rather be a shark than anything that's true it'd be interesting if you are jaws and then the shots you're like you're chomping on things and all that you're taking bites out of things and that's how you collect your different power-ups you eat so many other tiger sharks or something like that you eat so much squid you fight an orca you gotta find it how have you not it's not gonna be that I would sit there on my ass playing man-eater and I would just go just after the humans no carrots at all I don't have a good answer but I think I have faith in Elwyn and Ellen We Trust right isn't that the yeah yeah and I wanted I mean and I know Owen's the first to say it's not him it's the team they his team knows how to like it'll it'll be fun Max Rick nagle's gonna do something crazy with the mechs and then um what's his code the coder um there's Rick Nagel decoder Rick Nagel's the coder so who's this he's the artist zombie Yeti who's his mechanical engineer it's not Nagel it's on the Harrison Drake that's what it is a little bit I just need a little bit of assistance instead of you sitting there throwing out names I don't Cletus I don't know well hey we we do know it is confirmed though zombie Yeti confirmed that Keith elwin's putting out 18 games yeah next year yeah I think that's what it is 18 maybe 22 games 18 L E's maybe 22 games total yeah separate games is coming all right we gotta we got so many more of these uh let's go through them let's go yeah Adam gross any I'm curious what you think about the state of Kurt Stern code updates people are getting antsy in the Foo Fighters owners next question what do you want to see from the future updates to the newer games you own so I will say Adam first off I think it's hilarious because I've been watching the Cactus Canyon thread for a long time and the number of people are one that they're one upset that they don't have their Le yet remember there's practice orders Cactus Canyon Le's were ordered not last October but the October before and people are like where's the lineman code where's the lineman code it's like that is that is a level of unpatience compared to Foo Fighters it's been what a month like that's what it's kind of crazy that it really depends on where you're at uh code that I'm waiting for in newer games uh I mean I know Keith Owen when I interviewed him said that Godzilla is going to have another challenge mode that looks cool can't wait for that that'll be fun that's exactly what I was going to say I just want challenge modes in any any updates that's what I would prefer that's by far my most favorite thing is to be able to do a challenge mode and and actually I introduced uh Battle Royale to one of my sons on Avengers he didn't realize it was there and he rarely plays pinball been playing it all weekend long oh there's an easy way to get hooked yeah so I wish I wish everything would have challenge modes I I've played almost nothing but king of monsters time attack since I got the topper and Tom have you played it yet yeah I've played it have you beat it yes God of course you have how much time did you have left I don't remember well like Carl had like I didn't like on the second try and then it was like okay I'm good old Joel's on his like 90 seconds I'll tell you the XP I have going on that game you're ready for that Venom just to show up uh no I just get so frustrated because it's the stupid left spinner or the left ramp is what's get what kills me it's always I just I just can't wait you need to do the first time you get venom you do not stop it's a stream until you beat no you're going to be the second ever no long stream defeat yeah uh Derek Carr manian why hasn't competitive pinball gain sponsorships it seems like ifp is more concerned about growing which is seems as self-sustainable at this point but things such as League dues or prize pools or funded by players themselves I just I I I think I think they've tried I think it's not an easy thing to do kinetus is a little to no business value for those who would be in the position of the sponsor I would love to sponsor more things with my limited funds I mean I think your best the best thing to sponsor is a super series I mean it would be awesome if like I this is I eat Pringles a lot on my stream it would be awesome if Pringles sponsored an event or something but that I I Tom I don't want you to feel like I'm not listening he has pinball pinball company sponsor sponsor tournaments you are correct you should have said Precision flippers he would have stopped immediately I we yes pinball related companies will sponsor tournaments but I feel like the question is like outside yeah if you're playing if you're playing in a pinball tournament you know who American pinball is so how much marketing is it really doing that's what I'm saying here's how it happens yes you don't sponsor the pinball itself you sponsor what the event is and how many eyeballs are going to be there if Stern does the full-on content creator Invitational guess what you'll have sponsors no doubt in my mind because there will be plenty of eyeballs so the sponsors will go where the eyeballs are let's face facts the people that do it in Pinball it's more or less a Goodwill jet Jester I mean you're only getting so many eyeballs on there but if you truly want to get a bunch of sponsors you need to have people on there that are going to drive the views and all of us in pinball we all know each other within our ecosystem let's face facts you get outside of our ecosystem just like that it's very hard to tell uh that was one of the questions why isn't Travis about a new camera yeah well this is awkward yep um I I would say my wife hates me probably I've asked her but she keeps saying no but um yeah I don't know Joel I haven't I got a new webcam yet I think you like the attention I think you just like that we I think that's what it is I think that's what it is no I I will be perfectly honest the reason why Elgato no signal happens all the time because I'm supposed to have something on my computer that stops this from happening and it doesn't work so my options are I either take my camera completely apart and put on a different camera or I keep trying to figure it out and I swear I keep trying to figure it out every single week and it does not work it's so hard to take you seriously when it's still off right now like your signal is still off um he gave up we've gotta we've we got a handful of questions left and thank you so much for the people that wrote them but we are running a little low on time I did there was one other topic that I did wanna well I'll let you guys pick do you guys want to talk about tournament difficulty or do you want to talk the current state of pinball sales tournament difficulty trying to talk about cells I'm going to cry tournament difficulty recently I have witnessed or watched two big tournaments in the last I don't know a few weeks one was the egg pin yagpen was up in Canada shout out to Mike in the pinballers for streaming it also shout out to Jackson gee for doing the art it's real quality stuff um yagpen it sounds like they set up their games to be very difficult or almost every modern game had lightning flippers on it they had Precision flippers which a lot of people weren't used to but they did like just crazy stuff with Way Beyond the norm of you know removing the outposts and removing a few rubbers they had Precision lightning flips yes they so big massive changes to make the games more difficult that was yagpen and I know yagpen the the tournament director he's they're they're clearly trying to be the next Papa and Papa was known for having difficult games like that's something that I read or heard but I feel like he's taking it to a whole nother level of difficulty so that's one end of the spectrum jagbin tournament other end of the spectrum was the Beast that was just put on by Jeff teolis up in I think it was Buffalo where it sounds like a lot of those games were actually incredibly forgiving or were stock or close to stock so you guys are both high-end tournament Players when you guys are at a tournament what's the balance there do you prefer games that are I know you guys have talked like pinball Expo in Chicago those games are stock so it's like it allows it allows these tournament Players to get to wizard modes or the opposite end of that where it's like you're just trying to survive and and if you can put up a two million point game on whatever that's something to be proud of so I don't know what are your thoughts on that where do you fall on um on what you prefer to play or at what point does the game get too difficult that it's not even fun like I don't know thoughts on that Drive um [Laughter] go first why not I think well it just depends on the type of tournament but um yeah I mean I'd rather play a a tournament where it's kind of like a medium-ish level like some of the some of the games are tough but fair I guess okay you know um I don't I don't necessarily like when you know things are you know you take out a whole mechanism on a game because otherwise it would play too long you know sort of thing but um for instance uh I guess they used to take out uh the whole lock mechanism and sorcerer because uh it was just you could just hit that thing all day long but now they have updated code so like you have to drop targets to lock a ball so it makes it more appealing I guess to having a tournament let's say I think it just needs to be an equilibrium I think [Music] um we could all agree and I know a lot of tournament Players were talking about it that weren't there we were all just like this is insanity but at the same time it was entertaining to watch because you were just like who's going to survive this like how's this going to go down uh personally I would much rather I gravitate towards a tournament such as the Beast that fiolis put on I thought the game setups there were very fair they weren't super easy but they weren't super difficult either it was that happy equilibrium to where I was more than happy to keep doing the entries keep playing in comparison Expo I don't think I'll ever play that tournament again it's not necessarily because I'm like oh I just hate it it's just it was so exhausting knowing that you need to score one to two to three billion points on Modern Sterns every single time just to have a chance I mean takes a lot of brain power it takes a lot of stamina just to do something like that so I I see it on both ends I personally I wouldn't want to play in a tournament in which I just felt like I was just getting my teeth kicked in every single game I I don't I don't necessarily like those types of tournaments and I don't necessarily want to play in something in which I'm there all day long experiencing that I think that's the other part to it too that that I just wouldn't enjoy personally but I could see why there are people out there that do enjoy that that type of challenge I don't mind setting up my game super hard at home but the caveat is is after I'm done getting my teeth kicked in within 15-20 minutes I could be done with it and I don't have to do anything else so you know I think there's there's pros and cons to it but I think it's important to find an equilibrium to make it to where the games are playable make it to where it's fun and I want competitive pinball to be competitive that's the main thing well that's at least from the outside looking in it's the the two main reasons they make the game hard is one it actually makes you really good players it gives you a challenge for you really good players and then two time because it sounds like just right the game if if every round is going to take an hour and a half or something it's just you know when you're doing four players per game and if you have a stock aim you it one round could take a long time so if that idea of you know being able to achieve around in a certain amount of time then that's more people that can play the tournament can go a little faster you can do more so clearly a balance but I just some of the feedback I heard from yagpen is it's like some of the people that went have no interest in going again because it just was too brutal and then there's other people that had heard about that and just you know high-end players that are like I'm not going to that because I'm not gonna it's not fun for me I don't want to get my you know my teeth kicked in the whole time I'm there and feel like I'm not even having fun um so hopefully that's feedback that they take and maybe do a little less next year and then maybe if certain tournaments it's like oh if the Chicago pinball Expo if that tournament's too easy and they get that type of feedback okay maybe I should pull a few rubbers you know do a little bit make it a little bit harder I think even an expo they kept it easy all the way through until I think the final two or maybe even the final four because I know I Josh and Brian dye were starting to make the games harder just to keep things moving yeah this was like during the finals yeah it got long yeah super super long so I get why you have the games played super hard especially if you have multiple tournaments going on you have hundreds of people you have to keep things moving along I I get that that's just you know that's a tough Balancing Act it's not not an easy thing to do to time up multiple games across multiple eras and try to time it up according to Banks too that's insanely difficult to do so yeah I mean like I said I see it from both both perspectives but I also respect the process that goes into trying to get the games to play as Fair as possible within keeping in a certain time yeah well I know Tom has a bad time so Travis I'm gonna I'm gonna point this to you you have I'm gonna give you one minute I'm gonna start a timer you have one minute to tell me about the current state of pinball sales ready go this should be fun uh I mean there's some games selling there's some games not selling so you said you were gonna cry there's another I want to well we'll just put it this way there is an obvious lull that's going on if you're into buying used games this is your time to strike like this is your time to do the gold rush and all that new inbox games it's obviously there's plenty out there across the board it's very difficult to find a game that's completely sold out except for maybe Godzilla premium that sucker still sells like hotcakes but outside of that I I think that supply has finally exceeded demand at this point and that's what we're kind of seeing and I think we're going to see that now for an extended period of time I'm not gonna cry Joel I'm holding it together I'm so holding it together yeah it is interesting there's only a handful of games that I mean people are waiting people are waiting on Galactic taking force people are like waiting on Cactus Canyon Le but other than that or Deadpool but those we just heard apparently those are coming uh Venom people are waiting on that otherwise it just seems like pretty much anything else that you want is available in some capacity and yeah it is what it is yeah I mean it could somewhat be considered a Tom's raising his hands well once we get off top back I have something so go ahead we are now off topic so I I talked about this before um off off the podcast but I wanted to ask Travis a tournament director question oh yeah what call would he make um it has to do with the game that is currently to the left of Joel Spider-Man oh so you have a player that is playing Spider-Man multiball one of the multi-balls and he gets a ball locked behind the three bank that moves up and down yeah can you continue playing by ifpa rules or do you have to trap up and have a TD unstuck that ball you have to trap up and have a TD unstick the ball final answer that is correct so that would be the same as uh like attack for Mars anything like that no it is not the same it is not the same because because Josh Sharpe says so so an attack from Mars and actually jackpot there are dirty pool rules in that game specifically where you can like gain points by by hitting the ball back into like the area it's like like on attack for Mars you can hit the ball into the saucer and it would reward you a saucer but on Spider-Man there is no such thing so in Spider-Man that is considered a stuck ball and you have to get a TD to unstick that I did actually not know that rule and we're I was watching the Batcave pinball um stream and and by the way you should check that out uh Eric Stone was playing uh Spider-Man and that that came up he had a ball and some people in the chat um actually it was uh zmac was in there El Rocco and they were saying like oh that's actually illegal and Eric Stone was like no it's not and I actually agreed with Eric I didn't think it was until I actually looked up the rules and uh yeah sure enough you have to get a TD in that situation it's considered sorry Mr Stone I would have walked over with the red card and told you there's a plastic over top of that so how do you even get to the ball to get it out and that would not be so when we're talking about a dirty pool or what they're they're in in in Spider-Man right in the middle there's a three Bank Target that actually goes up and down it'll go down and then it opens up the shot behind it same exact or similar Mecca's attack from Mars Tom yeah you hear an echo no what I do did you already explaining this Mech yes um explained it's okay I would sorry okay Joel I just want to make sure there's I think it is clear that there are all levels of players that listen to this podcast and some people may not know what we're saying by dirty pool but since you're watching here it's just you go ahead and say a Joel I'm gonna just use my hands my question though when you said attack from Mars has dirty pool rules does that mean if the if the gate is up and a ball sitting behind it if you hit that gate does it kind of like kinetic energy go and bounce that ball back and it can detect that that there's a moving object it can go in the saucer in the back and it'll give you a destroy on the saucer oh so you can skip everything basically that's what happens interesting all right yep I did not know Joel if you get a ball stuck during multiball put that bulb back on a flipper now I'll be just focused on keeping the bubble flippers that's what I'll be doing um all right well that's all I got we'll plug it up uh come on plug away man uh first of all good job Travis on that uh Second of all uh I I am Fox Cities pinball there is no other person no uh you can find me on Fox News twitch YouTube Instagram Facebook you can see how bad of a player I am it's great just just go watch it yeah perfect and then go watch all the tournament streams I have this weekend at uh at District 82 this summer pinball classic the Beat the Clock wonderful wonderful well thank you Tom thank you as always for being here thank you um Travis plug away oh yeah you guys can find me right here on the triple drain pinball podcast and you know today that's all I feel I plug in right now yeah that's great there you go and I'm Joel this is uh yeah this is obviously a triple drain pitball podcast I stream uh flipping out with friends or on The Flipping Out YouTube channel every Wednesday 10 to midnight Eastern Standard time we'll be doing a flipping out with friends tomorrow that'll be a chatting stream uh oh he's showing off the merch and the guns yep um so yeah flipping on Friends check that out hopefully I'll have another interview coming up soon and yeah check out our merch on Super Bowl swag or our lunchboxes on Zazzle you can support us on patreon all the good stuff um but yeah thank you to everybody that supports this Channel and that that listens to the to the podcast and all that and uh if you're watching this on YouTube make a comment or write a comment we try to respond to them I say we it's me nobody Tom does Facebook Travis does nothing I I respond to the YouTube stuff yeah you do it's really nice thank you all right I don't even exist no you do okay you do but you do under Fox Cities that is Tom Conor mcbone yeah all right like always Tom you get the last words goodbye foreign
The Free Play Pinball podcast did an interview with Dwight about Venom code design
high confidence · Joel mentions Free Play Pinball Podcast did a 'really good interview with Dwight' where Dwight discussed his enthusiasm for the XP system
Joel@ 17:37 — Clarifies Dwight's design intent for Venom—that despite multiple modes, the XP/progression system is the primary focus
“I was just in this endless multi-ball for I was multiballed for multiple extra multiball I got to five family multiple it was just like one would finish another would start and I was just kind of I was just I was joling out”
Joel@ 30:04 — Describes the overwhelming cascade of simultaneous multiballs and modes in Godfather that creates gameplay confusion
market_signal: Hosts recognize XP system may appeal to different audience segment than traditional score/mode-based design; consumer education needed to explain XP value to mainstream players
high · Joel notes most casual players don't understand multipliers/jackpots; Tom suggests Venom has not yet resonated with casual base despite XP; comparison to Deadpool situation suggests market needs hands-on play to understand feature value
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sentiment_shift: Hosts express growing excitement about Venom's XP system as a long-term innovation, contrasting initial skepticism with deeper understanding of design intent
medium · Joel states 'I'm excited to see where that goes'; multiple hosts defend XP as good for game accessibility; tone shifts from uncertain to supportive as design logic is unpacked
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manufacturing_signal: Stern's move to new facility appears to be progressing; Deadpool Pro shipments suggest production capability is operational or near-operational
medium · Joel speculates new facility must be up/running if Deadpool Pros shipping; notes both old/new production lines may be active; Venom Pros expected mid-to-late August
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content_signal: Multiple pinball podcasts covering similar topics (Venom XP) simultaneously; hosts note diversity of coverage allows different audience preferences
medium · Joel references Eclectic Gamers Venom coverage, Free Play Pinball interview with Dwight, Pinball Party Podcast discussion; notes different shows exhaust topics to different degrees
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design_innovation: Dwight implementing increasingly sophisticated progression systems across games—Game of Thrones (house selection), Turtles (co-op with episode-based unlocking), Mandalorian (character tracking), Venom (XP leveling)
high · Hosts track evolution of Dwight's design approach; note he's stepping into creative comfort zone rather than outside it; progression appears intentional design direction
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competitive_signal: XP system potentially shifts competitive focus away from score/high-score leaderboards toward progression/level milestones, changing how players conceptualize competition
medium · Hosts note console/PC RPG players don't think about score in XP systems; debate whether pinball tournaments would need to adapt scoring/competition formats; potential meta shift in how players approach Venom