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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast July 2024 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·2h 1m·analyzed·Aug 2, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Haggis Pinball folds amid fraud allegations; Stern announces Godzilla edition and art leadership change.

Summary

Jonathan Jostin (Pinball Magazine) and Martin Everland (Pinball News) discuss July 2024 pinball industry developments, including Haggis Pinball's collapse in Australia, Stern's Godzilla 70th Anniversary Edition and art director Greg Ferris's retirement, Keanu Reeves's appearance at San Diego Comic-Con, and various code updates across multiple games.

Key Claims

  • Haggis Pinball liquidated on July 18, 2024, with all social media taken down and liquidators appointed

    high confidence · Martin Everland, Pinball News editor, citing liquidator notices and evidence of factory clearing

  • Damien Hartin retained 100% ownership of Haggis shares and made no equity offers to employees

    high confidence · Martin Everland describing shareholder structure and liquidation notice details

  • Haggis Pinball took deposits for games without working prototypes and misrepresented production timelines

    high confidence · Martin Everland citing former employee accounts; Fathom Revisited announced April 2021 with no prototype, approval not received until Christmas 2021

  • Haggis sold 'season pass' deals with deposits held in escrow that were never actually escrowed

    high confidence · Martin Everland describing pre-orders for five title packages with funds allegedly lost

  • Greg Ferris retired from Stern after nearly 12 years as art director, starting at Bally in late 1970s

    high confidence · Jonathan Jostin citing Ferris's career spanning Bally, Stern, including iconic titles like Elvira trilogy

  • Sebastian Napoli, new Stern art director, previously worked as creative director at Pop-Up and Havoc advertising agencies

    medium confidence · Jonathan Jostin citing Napoli's background; confirmed as successor to Ferris but limited industry visibility

  • Keanu Reeves visited Stern booth at San Diego Comic-Con and played John Wick pinball

    high confidence · Jonathan Jostin confirming video recording shared on Stern social media; contrasts with Mick Jagger's poor flipper skills on Rolling Stones machine

  • John Wick pinball game 'not very popular' and 'not a hot seller' due to negative reception from gun artwork removal

    medium confidence · Jonathan Jostin speculating on sales performance and questioning if Keanu Reeves custom speech could help game recovery

Notable Quotes

  • “Damien was sort of repeatedly misled customers about the status of their games, requesting full payment for games that were nowhere near ready to be produced.”

    Martin Everland @ ~10:00 — Core allegation of fraud and deceptive business practices at Haggis Pinball

  • “All their website, YouTube channel, Facebook and Instagram, social media feeds, all were taken down almost instantaneously.”

    Martin Everland @ ~5:30 — Evidence of sudden, coordinated shutdown suggesting prepared exit

  • “The Fathom games that were built actually looked top quality...Built like a tank, and beautiful games to see.”

    Jonathan Jostin @ ~15:00 — Acknowledges quality of completed Haggis machines despite company failure

  • “Don't underestimate the influence of Greg Ferrer in the pinball industry. Oh, I think you can, really. He's an overused phrase, but I think he's iconic in the industry.”

    Martin Everland / Jonathan Jostin @ ~25:00 — Recognition of Ferris's industry impact in recruiting talent and driving design direction

  • “Getting your art director from an advertising agency is quite a long tradition in pinball, going back to the valley days.”

    Martin Everland @ ~27:00 — Historical context normalizing Napoli's advertising background as consistent with pinball industry practice

  • “It's all organized by managers and what have you. But still, very nice of him to pop by.”

    Jonathan Jostin @ ~35:00 — Acknowledges Keanu Reeves appearance as promotional setup while still appreciating the engagement

  • “It doesn't mean it's not a good game, but apparently the game got off the wrong start, so to speak, when it turned out there's no guns on the artwork.”

    Jonathan Jostin @ ~40:00 — Identifies root cause of John Wick sales underperformance: artwork changes from expected design

Entities

Haggis PinballcompanyDamien HartinpersonMarty RobbinspersonGreg FerrispersonSebastian NapolipersonJean-Paul DeWinpersonKeanu Reevesperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Systematic fraud pattern at Haggis Pinball: taking deposits without prototypes, misrepresenting production timelines, and not escrowing season pass funds

    high · Fathom Revisited announced April 2021 with only 'box of flashing lights' demo; prototype sent 8 months later; customers requested full payment for machines months from production; season pass deposits not held in escrow as promised

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball liquidation and asset clearance

    high · Liquidators appointed July 18, 2024; all social media removed same day; rental truck photographed removing factory contents; no assets of value declared remaining

  • ?

    event_signal: San Diego Comic-Con 2024 featured Stern booth with John Wick and Godzilla 70th Anniversary machines; Keanu Reeves gameplay video and exclusive merchandise

    high · Confirmed attendance; video of Keanu playing widely shared; exclusive t-shirts and 500-copy signed Charlie Bedanti vinyl LP only available at event

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Negative long-term memory of failed manufacturers (Zidware, Deeproot) carries forward; community expects similar sustained resentment toward Haggis

    medium · Martin Everland: 'people have very long memories and bear grudges for a long time if they end up losing money in a pinball scheme'

  • ?

    community_signal: Greg Ferris recognized as iconic industry figure who recruited multiple key talent to pinball (Christopher Franchi, Jeremy Packer, Jean-Paul DeWin)

    high · Hosts emphasize Ferris's influence beyond direct art production; multiple instances of Ferris bringing designers into industry

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.363

0:00
his pinball from down under goes belly up god's never 17th anniversary launch greg ferris retires hi my name is jonathan jostin i'm the editor of pinball magazine and i'm joined by hi i'm martin everland the editor of pinball news and jonathan and i are here for the july 2024 edition of the Pinball Industry News Pincast to bring you all the excitement that's happened in the past month in the pinball world. Yeah and well it's been a rather exciting month despite it being rather hot in Europe at least. Can't speak for the rest of the world but yeah we got Hackers Pinball from Australia not making it and although until recently we had hopes that it still would turn out well. And I understand, Martin, you did some investigations on that as well.
1:04
Yeah, well, I've been following it for some time and keeping a track of what's been going on with the company and trying to find out any details I can. Obviously not easy when it's an Australian company and we're on the other side of the world here. And also the fact that they sort of stopped communicating with everybody and it was pretty much based on trying to find rumours or details of people who may have got machines or may have worked there. Anyway, the end finally came on the 18th of July this year, when suddenly all their website, YouTube channel, Facebook and Instagram, social media feeds, all were taken down almost instantaneously. and the day before that there was a picture posted on Pinside of a rental truck which was parked outside the factory and appeared to be loading up with various, well we can't see what was being loaded up with, but obviously stuff was being cleared out of the factory there which obviously led to lots more speculation that the end was nigh.
2:11
And indeed it was. There was a notice published saying that liquidators had been appointed and a special meeting of the shareholders in the company, of which there was only one, and that was Damien Hartin, who set the company up and kept 100% of the 5,000 Australian $1 shares in the company to himself.
Stern Pinball
company
Godzilla 70th Anniversary Editiongame
John Wickgame
Jodie Denbergperson
Charlie Bedantiperson
Planetary Pinballcompany
Pedretti Gaming / Pedretti Pinballcompany
Fathom Revisitedgame
San Diego Comic-Con 2024event
Pinball Magazineorganization
Pinball Newsorganization
Zidwarecompany
Deeproot Pinballcompany
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Godzilla 70th Anniversary Edition cabinet artwork perceived as lazy; reused single side art from Limited Edition flipped to both sides rather than custom design

    medium · Jonathan Jostin: 'they seem to have just gone back, taken one side of the limited edition, made it black and white, flipped it over on the other side'; contrasts with original release having different artwork per side and model

  • $

    market_signal: John Wick pinball underperforming sales due to initial artwork design controversy (missing gun imagery)

    medium · Jonathan Jostin characterizes game as 'not very popular' and 'not a hot seller'; attributes poor start to artwork expectations mismatch

  • $

    market_signal: Keanu Reeves appearance at San Diego Comic-Con designed to boost John Wick pinball profile; promotional activity intensive with signed merchandise and vinyl records

    high · Video recorded and widely shared; exclusive Comic-Con merchandise (t-shirts, 500-copy signed vinyl LP); pop-up arcade activation in neighboring hotel

  • ?

    community_signal: Greg Ferris retirement from Stern after 12 years; Sebastian Napoli hired from advertising as successor art director

    high · Official retirement announced; Napoli previously at Pop-Up and Havoc advertising agencies; trained under Ferris before promotion

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern system 3.72.0 update adds action button customization for gameplay menu access and knocker volume control

    high · Update deployed across Godzilla, Deadpool, and other titles; addresses user experience friction (3-second hold reduced to button tap) and operator complaints about knocker noise

  • ?

    product_concern: Fathom Revisited machines 'look absolutely amazing' aesthetically but have persistent software issues with no clear path to resolution

    medium · Hosts acknowledge visual quality but note code problems; licensing complications (Planetary Pinball owns original code) and lack of financial incentive to complete software development

  • ?

    licensing_signal: John Wick game produced with Winston character for custom speech; Keanu Reeves appearance raises question of whether additional custom speech could improve game viability

    medium · Hosts discuss possibility of Keanu recording new speech during Comic-Con appearance but doubt commercial value; licensing already includes Winston voice actor

    • 2:44
    Normally, in this sort of situation, if you have employees, you might offer them a small percentage of the company as an incentive for them to stay and to make sure the company was successful, but no, that didn't happen. So liquidators were appointed, and liquidators went through the factory and declared there were no assets of any value remaining in the factory. So they cleared it out completely? Yes, so we don't know what happened to any of the parts or any of the machines that were either complete or incomplete. It does look like everyone who paid deposits or full payment for machines directly to Haggis have lost their money.
    3:30
    It's worth pointing out as well there's been absolutely no communication from Damien or anybody else at the factory. No statement, only from the liquidators. So not from Damien or from Marty Robbins, who was the game designer and close confidant of Damien. Both seem to have completely vanished and gone to ground, which is disappointing. I suppose the good thing is, from a buyer's perspective, is anybody who paid either deposit or in full through a distributor, which I think there were about four worldwide, they should be okay. Although obviously it's not great for the distributors because they would be lost. Yeah.
    4:19
    But if you paid a distributor for your game, either in full or a deposit, then you're contracted with them, not with Haggis. And it's been very good to see that distributors have been issuing refunds to those people who had paid them. So kudos to distributors such as Slippery Out, Pinball, and Nitro as well, who I've seen making payments back to customers so they didn't lose out. Right. Yeah. So if you have a Fethom remake, or a Centaur remake, of which there are very few built, I believe, then you really have something odd, I would say.
    5:08
    Yeah, and I don't know how it's going to work down the line if you try to get spares for it, because the way that Haggis built the playfields, they had to build, well, to make all their own parts, pretty much, for their games. The playfields were thicker because they put this clear laminate layer on top, which made it thicker and you couldn't use the standard parts anymore. Right. So, yeah.
    5:32
    That's also not helping for a startup company, I suppose. Absolutely not, no. I'm having to redesign the wheel at virtually every stage. Now, subsequent to that, lots of people who work to Haggis have spoken up about shady or unethical business practices which were going on there and how Damien was very knowingly making promises to buyers that he knew he would not be able to fulfil right from the very, very start of the company. I was kind of initially under the impression that everything started off totally above board and everyone was doing the best they possibly could. And it was only maybe post-COVID that problems started to creep in. but apparently many employees there left as they didn't feel they could continue to be part of that kind of operation.
    6:25
    Although nobody publicly called out Damien on this for fear that they could be blamed for bringing the company down, I think. I spoke to one who said that when they announced the Fathom Revisited game, remember they started off with the Celts game, that was their first production game, and then they announced they were going to start doing Bally remakes for the Fathom in April 2021. At that point they started taking pre-ordered deposits but they didn't have any kind of working prototype and all they were showing was just a box of flashing lights. That was literally it. And they didn't even ship a prototype game to Planetary Pinball to get approval to make Fathom. revisited until Christmas of that year, so about eight months later. So all the time they'd announced the game, we'd take any positives, they didn't have approval to make the game. I thought that Planetary would have stopped that before then. Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you? Yeah.
    7:28
    Anyway, allegedly, Dane was sort of repeatedly misled customers about the status of their games, requesting full payment for games that were nowhere near ready to be produced. Sent or paid best was a typical one. They were sent out less than halfway through the fathom run, and the game wasn't even anywhere near close to going into production. It didn't have a prototype of the game. And yet they were sending out letters saying, or Damon was sending out letters, saying that your game's about to be scheduled for manufacturing. It was quite rescheduled for manufacturing, that probably wouldn't take place for a year or so later. But they wanted the full payment up front now. And that was obviously to finish or to make fathoms of the road. Right. And, of course, the other thing which they did was they sold this season pass deal to buyers who wanted to commit to buying a package of remake titles so that they would be first in line to get the machines as they came off the production line and also they could guarantee their machine number would be the same across all the machines in the series. So deposits were taken for the next five titles, I think, and that needed to be paid up front, which was supposed to be held in escrow.
    8:49
    But it never was. So that money also seems to be lost as well. So that's even more shaggy practices. and as we said before, what happened to all the remaining stock and incomplete or completed games, we don't know. I guess a word will come out eventually, because you can't sort of dispose of those without people noticing, I wouldn't have thought.
    9:14
    It's a shame, though, because if all that stock could be very useful for spare parts, people who did get their games.
    9:20
    I'm sure it will struggle at some point. Yeah, well, hopefully. but so far no word from anybody involved in running the company as to not even any apologies for the loss. And we haven't seen anything, I haven't heard or heard of anyone else.
    9:43
    But as you say, it'll happen eventually. We're just waiting for it to die down, the anger to die down. But as we've seen before with Zidware and with Deeproot, people have very long memories and bear grudges for a long time if they end up losing money in a pinball scheme. Yeah, so, well, it's very unfortunate that this ended up this way, because the Fathom games that were built actually looked top quality, I have to say. Built like a tank, and beautiful games to see, so... Yes, well, I do hear lots of issues with those games. They look absolutely amazing, I agree with you. but I think there's a big problem with the software as well which I don't think is ever going to get fixed now as it was a project yeah but you know the original code would be owned by Planetary Pinball I suppose or they'd have to license it to somebody to do that to make those machines work properly as for the 2.0 well I don't think there's a lot of money to be made from finishing that code off. Yeah. But, fingers crossed that somebody takes it on as a passion project and is determined to make the game what it could be. Right. Okay. Well, let's move on to a company that has a better track record, although for a long time, well it had its ups and downs let's say, that's for sure. Stern Pinball, who announced the the 70th anniversary edition of Godzilla Premium, which is a black and white, yeah, or greyscale type of game with red as well. Yeah. The cabinet artwork is printed on metallic foil which we've seen on earlier games like Iron Man and Mustang. The full position. Yeah. So, yeah, that's definitely something that will grab people's attention on location. The question is whether you're going to put a game like that on location, but that's a different subject I would suppose to say. But anyway, for $9,699, you can own this Godzilla 70th Edition Premium.
    12:36
    And it's not limited, because it's a premium. So that's, it looks gorgeous. some people are really, well, I wouldn't say upset, but if you have a full-colour Godzilla and now this one comes out, you might stretch your hand like, hmm, do I want to replace my game with a black and white one?
    12:57
    Or maybe not, or just be happy that you got a Godzilla game, I would say. Yeah, indeed. I mean, I thought it was a mix of bits of it that look nice, but experience has shown that these games tend to look better in real life than they do in photographs. I have to say, I was, and I'm sorry, but I was not impressed with the photos that were provided for publicity for this game.
    13:29
    I was going through them and I was like, okay, this is the fourth picture of the same piece of the play field in a slightly different angle, but there's nothing new on it. So, yeah, I agree. There wasn't a lot out there. There were a lot of pictures, but it didn't show you very much. But I do like that they've done the plastics as monochrome as well. Those look nice. And the Godzilla as well, and the building too. Yeah, all of them are 3D. Yeah, all of them. Yeah, they're nicely done. I don't particularly like the way all the inserts are the same colour, the same bright colours that they were on the original. That kind of, to me, kills a bit of the black and white and red effect. Although I entirely understand why they have to do it, because they signal various modes running and various features are available with different coloured inserts. Right. So if they made them all red, it would be very confusing as to what's going on in the play field. Right. But I think the biggest disappointment for me really was the cabinet art. And when they did the original run of Godzilla, they had different artwork left and right sides and different artwork for all three versions, probably premium and LE. And here they seem to have just gone back, taken one side of the limited edition, made it black and white, flipped it over on the other side, and just used that for both sides of the cabinet. Well, that's a bit lazy, isn't it? Yeah.
    15:08
    I mean, it's not like they haven't got the guy who did all the artwork for the game working for them anymore. Yeah. He's still there. Well, maybe they lost the art director that did the game, that directed all the art for the game. Someone else was in charge. I don't know. Hmm. It just seems a half-hearted effort on that when the rest of it looks nice. But as you say, it seems to be quite divisive. Some people love it, some people hate it.
    15:42
    Well, they can always come up with a different side art for one side, and then that issue is fixed. Yeah, well, absolutely. I thought they'd done that in the first place, but they obviously didn't. It's also interesting that they've made the display graphics. They can either be colour or monochromatic as well, to match the rest of the game. I'm interested to see how that works. But they literally just made it monochromatic, in which case you might find some text becomes slightly less legible than it would have been otherwise. And some of the artwork might not work so well if it's... they have similar luminous levels with very different colours. So my blur or blending of it. But we'll get to see that soon, I hope. I don't know whether there is one anywhere near me, but hopefully we'll get to see one when we go to Expo later in the year. Probably, yeah, yeah. Probably. Knowing Stern, you'll be tripling over games. Yes, that's true, yeah. Well, we might be making the factory at the time. Right. So, oh, well. Anyway, so Godzilla 70th anniversary edition. If you're interested, go get one or two or whatever. There will be plenty. They will be making them as long as they can, I guess. As you say, they're not limited. Yeah. So in other news from Stern Pinball, and this was... Our second headline. Well, our third headline, but the second one from Stern. And Greg Frevers, art director at the company, retires after nearly 12 years of working at Stern. And Greg has a long history in pinball. He started in the late 70s at Bali. I think Harlem Globetrotters was his first art package. Pinball Backlash is the one. and he's done many iconic ones since then.
    17:45
    And, of course, the Elvira trilogy can't be ignored, for which he did, for all three games, he did the artwork and worked together with the pinball designer Dennis Nordman. The Bonelli project also deserves a mention, I would say, because there was their Dennis and Greg's sort of private project that eventually Stern took into production and then there's so many games that Greg was involved in as art director and basically every game from Stern from the last 12 years Greg had his input in who did the art which translate would go on which game which side art would go on which game, all that kind of stuff you know and a lot more designing, assigning art to artists like, okay, I think he he's the one who found Christopher Frenchy and brought him into the industry for the Batman 66 game and he also brought in Jeremy Packer after he had done some freelance titles for them and he's now a full-time employee there.
    19:16
    Yeah, so, well, congratulations to Greg for reaching the retirement age, I would say, and he doesn't look that old, I have to add. He probably looks even younger now, having all those responsibilities taken off him. Right, yeah. So, no, of course we wish him well, at least I do. Absolutely. Yeah, I hope to see him at Expo. I reached out to Greg because I noticed on his Facebook page that he's now apparently working for Greg Ferris, illustrated something, I don't recall the name exactly. So I asked him about that and basically he has a possibility to work as a freelancer and he kept the company on even while he was art director at CERN but he never had time to do any work in it. Of course now that has changed. So if something comes along that he is interested in and feels like he wants to do, then that's the company that's going through. And it's not going to be Pinball unless it's Stern. Oh, I wonder if that would preclude him from doing like Pinball show posters or promos, that it's not another pinball company, but it is pinball related. I don't think Stern would have any issues with that. No, I wouldn't have thought so. There'll be a rush of pinball shows all contacting Greg, asking if they'll do their 2025 artwork.
    21:10
    Which would be great. Yeah, if you're hinting at the Dutch Pinball Open, I think they have already somebody working on them. But then again, it wouldn't hurt if Greg Ferris would be involved. Absolutely. And I don't want to drop any hints as to whether Greg Farrokh will be at the event because I haven't asked him yet. I'm sure the door will always be open. Oh absolutely yes. Because he was there a few years ago with the Sharp. Yes. Yes, very successful show and very successful guests to have at it as well if I remember Yeah, fond memories of that show. Of course, Greg was there with John Paul, wasn't he, in JP? Yeah, well, and Greg is also the one who brought Jean-Paul DeWin, who is currently the art director at Jersey Jack Pinball.
    22:08
    He was brought into the industry by Greg. Yeah, exactly. So don't underestimate the influence of Greg Ferrer in the pinball industry. Oh, I think you can, really. He's an overused phrase, but I think he's iconic in the industry, as is his art. Including, of course, the game that we started this pin cast with, The Fathom. Right, yes. Yeah, that's also it. Very colourful, and also the only known pinball back glass, I believe, with a murder eye.
    22:48
    Well, potential murder. I don't know whether it's clear that the person involved is being dragged to their death, but that's certainly the suggestion. Well, it seems like he has a hard time breathing.
    23:02
    Well, yeah, he does. Yeah. Anyway. Best of luck for Greg Ferris. Nice that we talked together. Yeah. Best of luck for his future endeavours, but in a positive sense.
    23:20
    Yeah, we're seeing him as well. At pinball shows, now he is more free with his time, I suppose. Yes. He did a very good seminar at Pinball Expo with Jeremy Packer, where the two of them talked about art, older art and more recent art, and they're very entertaining together, so good to see those two back as well. Right. Of course, who we haven't spoken about yet is Stern's new art director, who's taken over from Greg. And that was somebody that we were not previously aware of, a guy called Sebastian Napoli, who, it turns out, Sounds very Italian. It does sound very Italian, yes.
    24:04
    He had apparently been working at Stern for the past, well, short time under Greg's tutelage. so learning the ropes of the pinball business because he was formerly a creative director at a couple of advertising agencies called Pop-Up and Havoc to be exact so the role of creative director is definitely not new to him pinball may be new to him we don't know that but it's definitely not a name that we've seen pop up many times
    24:39
    No. Though, of course, I was going to say that getting your art director from an advertising agency is quite a long tradition in pinball, going back to the valley days. Yes. And possibly Gottlieb as well, when they used to use advertising posters to do most of their artwork. Wow. Almost everybody did back then. Yeah, exactly. So this is just following in that long line of people coming from the advertising agencies into Pimple. Right, so I was quite surprised to see that, or well I should put it differently, first of all I didn't see Greg Ferrer retiring coming up, but knowing who is working in the art department at Stern, it was sort of a surprise to me that Stephen Martin isn't taking over Greg's position. But maybe for a very good reason, we don't know. Maybe Stephen isn't interested in that position at all or he has other obligations or he's very happy with the position that he's in right now. So that was sort of a surprise to me. Then again, most people who are not that well aware of who is working in the art department at Stern will have no idea. No, I think some of these are unsung heroes. Yeah. So that was quite a surprise to me. I have not checked with Stephen to see whether he is happy with the current situation, but I also have no reason to believe that he is not. No, absolutely. So anyway, we look forward to meeting Sebastian when we get to Chicago next and see what plans he has for the art department, because he's a very busy section of the company these days. Right, yeah. Lots of artwork, of course, with three models and flyers for every model out there. And, well, the videos that are made, all the promotional photos for the game, that's all the art department. Yes, and dealing with the licensors as well. Exactly. Making sure they get everything cleared with them. Yeah, and of course... One of the biggest headaches, I think. and then deciding which artist is going to do what for which game, and checking up on those and guiding them in the process. And so that's all part of what the art director is supposed to be doing. So, well, anyway, we wish Sebastian Napoli the best of luck in his new position. Certainly do. And Greg, of course, a very happy retirement. Indeed. Okay, so there's other Stern news as well. Sorry to cut Greg short. Yeah, absolutely. You can leave on. Yeah, so, and that brings us to the San Diego Comic-Con, which was held last weekend, I believe, or the weekend before that, I'm not exactly sure.
    27:59
    I was not there, but Stern, as every year, had a booth, or shared a booth, I would have to say, at the event. and this time they brought their John Wick and Godzilla 70th game, amongst other titles.
    28:17
    One of the highlights of the event, at least for Stern, I would imagine, is Keanu Reeves, who plays Johnny Mnemonic, if you remember well.
    28:30
    Yeah, but also the role of John Wick. Oh, yeah. Right. Coming by the CERN booth and playing a game of John Wick, which was recorded on video and shared on CERN Pinball's social media, naturally. Yes, it's been very, very widely shared, that one. Yeah, yeah, very cool of course It was not the first time of course that Keanu Reeves is on a pinball machine As I mentioned, Johnny Mnemonic now I'm not sure about his flipper skills No, he didn't seem to be doing very well But at least he did appear to know how to play Which is more than Mick Jagger did When they had a promo of him trying to play the Rolling Stones when he had a machine in his own home, and didn't know how to flip properly. So kudos to Keanu for at least knowing how to play pinball. Right. Yeah, and, well, of course, it's all organized by managers and what have you. But still, very nice of him to pop by.
    29:45
    Yeah, Stern also had a pop-up arcade as well in a neighboring hotel, the Marquis Marquis? Right yeah every year I would say yes that's right yeah well they had more machines there but it's an arcade so they invited people to come along who were attending the show to come to the neighbouring hotel and participate in the pop arcade they had there now on the on the stand that they had in the show along with the John Wick game and the Godzilla 70th they also had a bunch of what they describe as official John Wick props from the movies.
    30:31
    So it was obviously a bit of a John Wick theme. On display, I suppose. On display, yes. Yeah. Along with that, they also had some merchandise that they created, especially for the San Diego Comic-Con. They had some John Wick by Stern Pimble t-shirts, which I think were only available at the event, as was a limited edition vinyl LP album featuring the game's original score,
    31:03
    which was composed by Charlie Bedanti of Anthrax. And Pantera. And the albums were signed by him as well. And Pantera, yes, of course, yeah. There were only 500 copies of that available at the show. I don't know if there will be more available afterwards. at the time of recording this, which is the 1st of August, neither of the T-shirt or the album are available through the Stern webshop on their website. Yeah, so you may have missed that if you weren't at the show. But then you'd up to be some more available before too long. And talking about the John Wick game, Moving on from San Diego Comic Con, if you happen to live in the United States and are listening to this and weren't previously aware, you are in with a chance to win a brand new John Wick Pro pinball machine in a free sweepstake. Yes. In fact, you can be in with two chances, actually. All you have to do is to sign up and log in to Insider Connected any time between 24th of July, which is obviously gone, and the 7th of August at midnight Central Time and you will all trust me to be entered into the sweepstakes to win the game. If you already have an account that's fine, you're still eligible by logging in during that time, so basically just log in to your Insider Connected account before midnight on the 7th of August. And you can also enter by signing up for the Stern email newsletter and joining their mailing list by going to, and then get ready to write this down if you haven't already signed up for it and happen to want to join into the sweepstake, insider.sternpinball.com slash WCK-24.
    33:05
    So WCK as in WIC and dash 24. so that's how you can enter the sweep state which is open to legal residents I won't get into that of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia you have to be 18 years of age or older and if you do enter and good luck to you and if you win let us know yeah so a pity that it's not available for people outside the US Yeah. I would have loved to win a John Wick game. Well, yeah, I'd love you to win a John Wick game as well.
    33:46
    How nice of you. I guess it gets a bit problematic with national laws about sweepstakes, as to whether or not you're allowed to enter... I think I'm allowed to enter a US sweepstake if I want to. there's no law forbidding me death from that, you know. But then again, if you win, you're not this one. Yeah, well, oh well. Anyway, so, after all this exciting news, time to cool off a little bit. Do you have some code updates from me? Funnily enough, yes. Four machines got code updates. No, in July.
    34:31
    Starting with JAWS, which has all updates, to last month's bigger update. So 0.92 came out on the 2nd, just added a few new mystery awards, but it was mostly bug fixes from new features that had been added before. The aforementioned John Wick, that had an update on the 9th of July, and interestingly, nothing since then, but that was version 0.84, which had a lot of tweaks to the rules and bug fixes, plus they put in some new film speech and improved some of the light shows. so all good news there Godzilla, and that came out around the time of the 70th anniversary monochromatic version, they added King of the Monsters Challenge which is one of those gameplay modes that you can get through the gameplay menu before you start the game basically takes you straight into the wizard mode and that thing has its own high score table as well, they do that on pretty much every game interesting, well, very interesting they're upgrading all their games to version 3.72.0 of the operating system or at least the game system which adds in some new features including a setting for the action button on the one on the lock bar what that does in a track mode you can get it to either do nothing to start the game or take you into the gameplay menu we were just talking about which previously you had to hold in I think it was the left clicker button for about three seconds or something, and then you get into it that way. Now, if you use it a lot, you can just tap the button on the lock bar and get into it that way. It also added some options for the volume of the knocker on the game, which a lot of people get annoyed about when it goes off. So it now has options of normal, low, very low, or off. So you can still have a knocker effect, but it can be a lot quieter. And the final game was Deadpool. Yes, that's right. Remember Deadpool? Yeah. Well, whether the update that's come out is to tie in with the recent Deadpool and Wolverine movie, I don't know. But they added a new Berserker boom feature, which you correct on that action button we were just talking about when you were playing the Berserker rage mode. And they also added some extra Wolverine speech, which kind of suggests that it is kind of tied in with... Excuse me. So I didn't wish you a new movie.
    37:03
    And that goes back to the new version of the system as well, to have those new features I just spoke about. Right, okay. Now, getting back to the John Wick game and Keanu Reeves, obviously visiting the Stern booth, accompanied by Jodie Denberg of Stern Pinball, who's in charge of licensing. It appears that the John Wick game as it currently is, is not that very popular and it's not a hot seller. We've talked about it in previous podcasts. It doesn't mean it's not a good game, but apparently the game got off the wrong start, so to speak, when it turned out there's no guns on the artwork and so on. So my question is, now that there is a possible connection with Keanu Reeves, could the game be saved if Keanu Reeves would do custom speech for it?
    38:11
    Difficult to know what we'd add at this stage, really. I thought they probably got everything that they want in it and of course they got probably got Winston from the hotel manager doing all the customer speech for the game so do they want that? I don't know I doubt it would be a nice gift to those people who did buy it and might prompt a few extra sales but yeah it's not worth getting John or Keanu Reeves into a studio Well, you know, if he's there anyway, he could do a few. I mean, I thought it would be nice, but I don't think it's going to make a lot of difference to sales. Okay. Oh, well. Oh, well, that rounds it up for us. Go on, Pinball, I suppose. It does. Yep. Okay, so let's move on to, oh, I don't know. Let's go across to Italy then, and Pedretti Gaming, a.k.a. Pedretti Pinball, almost a.k.a. Euro Pinball Corp. Right.
    39:12
    Part of Euro Pinball Corp. Yeah, that's right with Pimble Brothers. Right, yeah. Well, the Euro Pimble Corp is very busy at the moment, I have to say. Because if we're sticking to Pedrecci Gaming or Pimble, whatever they are called these days.
    39:33
    Of course, they announced Funhaus remake in a classic unlimited edition a couple of months ago. And those games are now shipping and have already been arriving at various distributors across the globe. So that's good news. Other games at European Ball Corp are also in production. We'll get to that a little bit later.
    40:00
    Yeah, so. And there's a, speaking of the Funhouse game, there's a promotional video from Flippin' Out Pinball, which shows some gameplay and, well, you know some interesting details in that video. Yeah, well, I used to own a classic funhouse, so I was interested to see that the eyes on the Rudy head obviously operate very differently at the moment to the way they did in the classic game. Because when you shot the steps ramp, which is the left ramp, which would send the ball the way around past him and back down to the left in lane.
    40:41
    His eyes used to follow the ball as it went round, and that was actually one of the marketing features they were promoting when the game came out. Yeah, the game was watching you. Exactly, yeah. Well, it didn't do that in the flipping out pinball video. The eyes kind of flicked over to that side, but didn't stay over there at all, so it was like just for a fraction of a second they flicked over, and then back to the middle again. And most of the time, it looks like the eyes are centred. There's not a lot of movement going on there. So maybe that's something they will enhance in a day. But I also wonder whether the eyes are driven differently because there's a lot of difference with what's going on in there because they also have LEDs in the eyes now to light them up, which kind of makes it even more obvious when they're not doing what you expect. but it would be nice to see I mean they have the possibility to do a lot more with it because the with the new rules as well they can add features which tie in effectively with the eyes you can have various shots across the playfield and his eyes move across the playfield to look at the shots as they light up there's lots of stuff to do with that there's the possibilities Yeah, at the moment that's not there, but what is there now is a 97-page operations manual for Funhaus, which is now available... Good, nice reads on embedded days at night, yeah. Well, I was reading it earlier, and I didn't fall asleep, surprisingly. But this is available either as a printed ring-bound physical operations manual, like the original, or you can download it for free from the pinballremakes.com website, which is the Pedretti's website for their remakes. Curiously it was dated April 2024, so I guess it's been a while in production, or a while to finish. The manual talks about the game's rules, but only the original rules, not the 2.0 rules which are available for the LE and can be purchased as an upgrade for other games. It doesn't really talk about the 1.5 rules either, which are something to be sort of enhancements to the original rules. There are a few things in there which are carried over from the Williams manual that they haven't taken out yet. Like on the control lamp test page, it shows lamps for the magic mirror.
    43:21
    But that's now an LCD, so it doesn't have any lamps on it anymore. But they're still there in the lamp matrix.
    43:28
    It is quite interesting because it includes details of all the fast pinball boards that they use in the remakes as well. so you can see how that's all put together. And also you can get into a new extended settings menu, which you need to press the escape key for five, inside the coin door, the escape button, let's just say, for about five seconds, and then you can get into some other settings which are more tied to the remake. so it has RGB GI for RGB lighting really for the general illumination whether you want to have that coloured or you can decide to make it all monochromatic or single colour and make it more classic looking you can also set the lighting within Rudy's eyes either on or off also the auto plunger which is a new feature on the game shaker motor and topper you can enable and disable those, and you can change the power adjustments for all of the game solenoids. So if you find that the swing shots are too strong, then you can dial them down from this extended menu.
    44:42
    Even things like lock release, if it kicks the ball out of there too fast, you need to be able to control it or cause it to bounce off the sidewall or something like that. Do you have anything exciting to talk about?
    44:54
    Well, you may not be excited. I'm very excited by the fact that you can pick the display color for the emulated alphanumeric and enable and disable a ball saver. I mean how much more exciting is it to get than that? Without knowing that, yeah. Well there you are, you can rest now knowing those things are controllable in the relay in the extended menu. Right. Remember press escape five seconds. Yeah okay. I wish you could have escaped this in five seconds. So, as we were talking about Pedretti and the link to Euro Pinball Corp, let's quickly jump to Pinball Brothers from Sweden. As Will mentioned in the last month pin cast, the first ever pinball machines have begun shipping from Italy to various distributors. It seems they are making both the Voyage Collector Edition and the Arrival Limited Edition alongside each other. It was clearly shown on a photo from the factory shown on the Bill O'Rourke's website.
    46:13
    Apparently, it showed a picture of two shipping boxes, both featuring the words demo, EBA LE demo and EBA VE demo on the sides, for whatever reason. But those are probably, as it says, show models for either distributors to take the shows or put in their showrooms and so on. The good news is the production of ABBA, assuming these demo games were more like prototypes, but full production has now begun. I was thinking they're probably more like samples rather than prototypes. Probably you've heard the name, yes. Yeah. That's how they used to, well, they used to differentiate. A prototype would go on location, and they'd send out the sample production game just to make sure that it's absolutely bulletproof, and then they'd, normally it'd be at the very start of production anyway, but it'd give them a little bit of time to make some final tweaks if they need to, but nothing major. You know, they find that a bulb is falling out all the time, so whether they change it from a 55 to a 44 or whatever, What if your bowl is falling out all the time? Ah, well, yeah, okay, so yes. Slightly more work required. Yes, so that's ABBA, which of course is one of the games which they're making. Pinball Brothers, of course. But there's still... Needless to mention that Alien and Queen are also still in production at Euro Pinball Corp. which means that they are currently manufacturing four different games in various models. There's also Funhouse made at the same factory. Yes, that's right, yes. Yeah, they're busy boys down there in Italy. Yeah, so... And talking about other Pinball Brothers games that are in production at the moment, Remember we've spoken before about the alien toppers, which they showed, when was it? Yeah, I can say, it was a year ago, wasn't it? Well, that topper is now in production and all the pre-orders, all the people who pre-ordered the game should now have their topper in their hands, or on the top of their game. but they carried on making them so there are some in stock for immediate purchase if you have the Pimple Brothers Alien game and didn't choose to pre-order it you can buy it outright now doesn't work with the Highway Pimple version just the Pimple Brothers one but yeah it looks great nice beacons lighting up the game up there and some nice models on it as well. So, yeah, well done to them in getting all those out. Right, and that rounds it up for Pinball Brothers. Euro Pinball Corporation and Fredressi all tied together at this point, yes. So, moving back to the US, American Pinball. Yeah,
    49:40
    Executive VP David Fix has been going to quite a few pinball events. shows and parties. He was at the Hot Wheels Legends Tour 2024, which was held in Morris in Illinois,
    49:56
    the famous Morris. No, okay. I'm sure it's famous if you live there. But he was also at the probably even more famous SS Billiards, which is owned by Lloyd Olsen. Yeah, Lloyd. He was there because Lloyd provides technical support for customers for American Pinball Games as well as Chicago Gaming Games and Planetary Pinball Supply as well. So he now has a full line-up of all the American Pinball Games there. So if he needs to reference a particular part or needs to look at something in order to help a customer, he's got all the games there. And the final game in the line-up, which is Barry O's Barbecue Challenge, was unboxed and added to his...
    50:51
    My lab. Yep. Just in time for Dave Fix to turn up and to have an American Pitbull party there. Right. So that was a nice event. Which was the 14th of July, if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure you're right, yes. And they had a little high school challenge there where bottles of hot sauce, barbecue sauce were given as prizes for the top three.
    51:19
    And talking of shows, David will also be a special guest at the UK Pinfest show, which is being held in Daventry in just over two weeks' time, on August the 16th to the 18th. So that's the main UK show, which I understand you have other plans or other commitments. Yeah. Yeah, we can. Yeah. Unfortunately, I cannot be there. My apologies to Phil, and the other Phil will probably be delighted.
    51:52
    Yes. He's not normally there either, but he might be. So, yes, David will be giving a little talk, I think, or being interviewed by someone or other. The games he designed. Yeah. Well, he's had a long career in the coin art business, And if anybody knows what's going on at American Pinball, then it'll be him. He's a pinball collector as well. Absolutely, and operator, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he has a long history also with other companies. He used to work at ICE. Yes, that's what I was saying, in the coin-op industry, not necessarily just pinball. Yeah. And, of course, a major involvement in Pinball Expo as well. Yeah, yeah. Which we were talking about a little bit earlier.
    52:41
    I was going to say, American Pinball also, just last weekend, represented the Southern Pride Gaming Expo by Classic Game Rooms, their distributor, and also at California Extreme, which was by Dom's Custom Services and Pinball Traders. So they're doing a big push to up their presence at pinball shows across the U.S., certainly, and expanding now into Europe. Okay. Now, do we know whether, and maybe this is a question that we should ask David himself, but a couple of weeks ago, American Pinball sent a letter to their distributor asking them to inform them of any barbecue restaurants in their area so they could see whether they could sell again to such a barbecue restaurant. do we know if that resulted in anything? We don't. I think the idea was that they'd contact American and American would then contact their local distributor slash operator and the operator could then put the game on location there but obviously it would involve having to purchase or a sale of a Barrios BBQ Challenge machine to go there so everybody would win in that instance. No, I have no knowledge about whether there were any references or anybody took up the opportunity to cite a Barrios barbecue journey. Well, David, if you're listening,
    54:24
    please call in and enlighten us with the answer. Well, if we don't find out in this bincast, if he doesn't hear, then it'll be one of the questions I'll be sure to ask him when we get to UK Pin Place in the country. And you will tell us all about that in our next episode, won't you? Absolutely, yes. I need to read about it. Of course, on the Pinball News site. Right. Okay. Now, I also understand, still speaking of American Pinball,
    54:55
    their Aura Lighting Kit is now available for Barrio's Barbecue Challenge, Hot Wheels, and Galactic Tank Force. Yes, that's right. Yeah, add on extra lighting, which is a bit like the stern expression lighting, I suppose, and you can retrofit it to certain previous models.
    55:20
    So, yeah, if you want to add more light and more lighting effects to your either Barrios, Game, Hot Wheels, or Corrupted Tank Force, as you said, you can buy the kit now from American Pinball or their distributors. Right, okay. And then I understand there's also a special offer if you buy a Hot Wheels pinball in, well, basically this month, August of 2024.
    55:47
    Yeah, there's a couple of good things about Hot Wheels this month. First of all, if you buy a machine this month, as you just said, you can get a free T-Rex toy that can be used as a topper for the game, if you want. You also get a special set of four summer-vibe cars, which you can swap out with the ones which are supplied with the game, if you particularly want to do that, to summarize your game. But also, there's more than that. If you, again... Tell me more. Yes, tell me more.
    56:22
    Again, if you happen to live in the US, there is the chance to win a Hot Wheels pinball, as well as a John Wick pinball. yes and a free sweet steak being run by Kroger's who I think are a supermarket chain aren't they um if you never been there if you go to um www.hotwheelsweetsteaks.com yes that's right hotwheelsweetsteaks.com uh then you can enter there and uh again good luck if you do enter and do let us know how you get on. Right. And if you are participating, because you heard about this on this pin cast, we do demand 10%. What's that? One leg? Well, something like that, yeah. Well, I kid, I kid, of course. You'll be pleased to know There's a new code for American people, but only for one game. Ah, thank you. It's a Barry O's Barbecue Challenge, the current title of theirs, although other titles are available. This came out on the 24th.
    57:35
    Nothing too major, but added a new mode, Firework Frenzy, some custom upgrades some extra custom upgrades which is an additional hot rod challenge cruise night as well so another one more animations, call outs a bunch of UI enhancements bug fixes and high school categories and light shows so just all good stuff to add to Barrio's BBQ challenge right ok so and that rounds it up for American Pinball it does indeed ok so let's move on to oh I didn't know where should we go Multimorphic in Austin Texas or Round Rock Texas yeah just north of Austin yeah so they attended the Greater Austin Comic Con with the Princess Bride game which is scheduled to go into production in August so that was a prototype and a Weird Al Yankovic machine set up right outside of Weird Al Yankovic's VIP room wow, that was something planned sounds like it and well of course Weird Al himself came over to check out on his game together with Jerry Stallenberg and Steven Silver the designer of the game which was immortalized by a photo which was shared on Multimorphic's social media so yeah, that was fun that was also the only news that we have for Multimorphic Yes, so it's a trend of people who are depicted in the game coming over to play their game Yeah, well apparently, I'm not sure who was first but either Keanu or Weird Al set an example and others are following Yeah, well, how long before Elton John makes an appearance? Well, it's about time.
    59:46
    Yes, we should probably talk about Jersey Jones, we just mentioned them there. Why not, yeah. They have been pretty relentless in plugging their Elton John game, which is fair enough. I don't see the job of marketing at Stern or of marketing at JCP, because if there's only one game to sell, then there's only so much creativity that can go into what angle can we come up with this time. Yeah. Well, they are posting stuff almost daily at the moment. Yeah. On social media. I do have to compliment them. There are some very interesting what it called little things interesting to know Details
    60:35
    Yeah, details. Titbits. Titbits, yeah, no, not the word I'm looking for. But anyway, as soon as I come up with it, I'll let you know. Yeah, probably about five seconds after we finish. Probably, yeah. So, no, but all these little anecdotes, if you wish, about Elton John playing at a sports stadium and so on, it would be fun if these would be in the game as well, in some way or another. Well, maybe they are. I haven't played it since. Yeah. I haven't played them in a game. I mean, you've got him wearing the Dodgers baseball outfit, you know, right there on the play field so that kind of commemorates that um but yeah i'm sure there are other there are other things which are in there somewhere um either on the play field or in the video because there's as you say there's was somebody with a that long a history of making music and live performances there's going to be so much you can pick on um and also it's no it's it's great when an anniversary, one of these things comes along, and they can market by marketing it on the social media. For instance, the Elton John won the Best in Show Award at the recent Southern Pride Game Room Expo. Yes, it was the best new game category it was. Yes. So congratulations. Yes. And rightfully so, I have to say. It's a very fun game and I keep hearing that people are surprised how much fun it is because based on the theme alone they didn't expect it to be this much fun. And I think this is seriously, possibly a top three Steve Ritchie game. Oh, definitely, yeah. I think for the whole package that you get with it, I think it's the team that really pulled a great game out of a whole bunch of assets, but it could have gone horribly wrong. Because you've got so much to work with, where do you start? I think they've done it really well. I just wish it wasn't so expensive, or I'd be interested in buying one myself. Yeah, because I know you're an avid Elton John fan. I do like Elton John, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know, I know, yeah. Anyway, other news from Jersey Jack Pinball. Yeah. And we're heading back down under again. Yeah, well, not we, but Jack is. Mm. Jack Guarnieri, the founder of the company, will be a special guest at the first edition of the Melbourne Pinball Expo, which will be held the weekend of December 1st. I'm not sure if it includes November 30th.
    63:31
    But according to the website, the new Jersey Jack Pinball title will be launched at the event. So that gives us a little time frame. Well, we already knew that they were aiming at IAFA, which is a few weeks prior to... Yes, in November. Yeah, so no surprise there. we're still hoping crossing our fingers and what have you that the game might actually be ready to be revealed at Pinball Expo which is a few weeks before that yeah and if it is will it be on the line for the factory tour yeah that's a good question and that's all the Jersey Jack news for the moment ok Okay. Well, let's not waste any more time, because we don't want to come up with another three-hour pincast. So let's move to another American company, Spooky, based up in Wisconsin, Benton, and let's see what they've been up to, because they also were at the Southern Pride Game Room Expo. Yeah, they have a business show schedule, indeed. Although the only voice artist Scott Innes was there, and because, well, I think because of the distance down to Atlanta from Wisconsin, I don't think the team went down themselves, but they certainly had a good presence down there.
    64:59
    That seems to be sort of growing in popularity now as another more southern show along with the Texas Pinball Festival.
    65:09
    So not only actors, but also voice artists are now attending pinball shows. attending comic cons and things like that where they actually do Q&A's and audience sessions so yeah and of course there were plenty of voice artists that we've known over the years who were always entertaining so I'm sure Scott was a big hit down in Atlanta right, ok well, great So, in other spooky news, all Scooby-Doo topper pre-orders have been delivered.
    65:52
    But the company is still building additional ones, so they have them in stock in case you decide to order one later on. Oh, just like the alien ones. Great. Yeah, exactly. I think I have actually some more spooky news. Let me see if I can look it up. because Bug, who is basically running the company, if I'm not mistaken, was interviewed by Don's Pinball Podcast at Southern Pride Gaming Expo. Yes. So he was there.
    66:22
    It turns out that Spooky is currently building Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as we know, as well as Scooby-Doo, of course. But speaking of these two games, Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the ratio currently appears to be in a 3 to 1 ratio. So three Looney Tunes, one Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So that appears to be the more rare game, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
    66:52
    If Looney Tunes sells out, which will be 888 units and we're not there yet, we may see an upgraded topper for the game. and previously Spooky launched their games in December and they seem to be very fond of that area of launch so if we're looking for a new Spooky game December would be a good time to be on the lookout Great, okay, we'll put that in our diary and make sure we're checking the social media feeds and press releases Yeah, exactly. Well, first of these, okay, let's hope we get one this time. Well, maybe, yeah. So, if you would be interested in ordering either Looney Tunes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and you would do so today, then you can expect your game to be ready for delivery around January of 2025. So, and last but not least, the company has apparently five licenses locked in for future game titles.
    68:05
    And the next game is not going to be a split game or whatever we call it. Not two titles on one design. Yeah, no, that's apparently not the case. Okay. So, I completely forgot I had that extra intro, but thank you to Don Spindle Podcast for taking out the time to interview Bug and publish that interview. Indeed, yep. And we talked about Looney Tunes, just mentioned there's some new code for Looney Tunes now available. In fact, it was available from the 11th of last month, of July, which had a couple of new film modes, Bully for Bugs and Rabbit of Seville some new Top of Light shows some new Speaker Light shows and a bunch of bug fixes not that bug the other bug fixes right yeah don't get confused no that's right yeah and that's it I think for Spooky Pinball for this month right okay so well thank you for that thank you yeah then we have another pinball company in the US all the way in Texas Barrel for Fun Yeah, they were due to be exhibiting at the California Extreme show, but as we mentioned before, they had this hurricane that blew through the area and disrupted the... Twice. Yes. I'm not mistaken. Yeah, disrupted all their transport plans in order to get the games up there. They didn't actually make it. So although they were there with promotional materials, they didn't have any games. Which was a shame. Yeah. Still, at least at least no one got hurt, so that's the main thing with the hurricane. So, and from what I understand is, we mentioned this I think last month, Barrels of Fun were very transparent about the number of Labyrinth games ordered, and at that time they were about the 750 mark. Following that news, quite some people ordered the game. I think at the time they made a second announcement, the count was up to 822, which leaves a little more than 200 games to be able to order. Yes, it was 1100 maximum. Yes, 1100 maximum. So if you're interested in a labyrinth game, which is also still a great game, I have to say, then make sure you get one before production runs out. Yes, indeed. And I think that pretty much wraps it up for Bowser Fun news. Well, there's a little bit more in the sense that, of course, we mentioned the hurricane, which also delayed production at the Bowser Fun facility. but they're already back up and running. Yes. So good news on that end.
    71:12
    Let's move over to Taiwan now, and you have some news from HomePen. Yeah. And, well, firstly, the boring stuff, which is they have upgraded the power supply on their This Is Spinal Tap game. And if you are one of the few people who actually already have a This Is Spinal Tap, then you will be receiving, if you have not already, the upgraded power supply for free. They sent it out to all or both buyers of the game so far.
    71:45
    You're so harsh, Mark. I haven't seen two on location, so I'm sure there are other machines out there. But the original game, one of those original games, is at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Australia. Another one was flown over by retro arcade specialists into the UK for last year's UK Pinfest show. And I would not be at all surprised if the game was at this year's show.
    72:17
    But that is the original one, not the none more black upgraded version with the third flipper and some other changes made to it. So, we haven't seen that game in, you know, up close. In real life. Yeah, that's right. Not yet. But do we know why that game, that power supply, needed an update? I wonder if it's to do with the new third flipper. That the game was designed for two flippers, and the power supply was probably rated for that. and you added a third one, then which is, unless it's on a completely separate button, it's going to be firing one of the other flippers. So the current rule will be that much higher. Okay. Makes sense. Just curious. That's a guess from my perspective. I don't know, but that would seem reasonable. Right. Okay. So then we got a little bit of a tease. as we got a sort of close-up picture from the bottom part of the Blues Brothers playfield. Just a little bit. We couldn't see much other than it's an Italian bottom. Yeah. And there's a piano roll which actually the artwork continues under the apron or where the apron is going. Yeah, that's right. And on that picture it has some very brightly coloured blue and yellow plastics for the lane guys and the slingshots. Yes.
    73:59
    Which I don't know how it's going to be. They didn't seem to be very much in keeping with the feel of the movie to me. But I'm hoping that they will be placeholders for what will eventually be there.
    74:14
    But also... It appeared to me that it was artwork on them in the sense that there's Buddha's bowls and what else was there?
    74:24
    Music notes. Right, yeah. I'm not sure whether that sums up the movie, but... No, it could still be a place of worship. Or the theme or the book or whatever. Yeah, or the stage show or the TV skit on Saturday Night Live. Which is what it's based on, not the movie. of course.
    74:47
    Talk about clarification. Yeah. So Mike Kalinowski posted a clarification on I think it was on the Homepin Factory Facebook page. On the situation about the open source software that we've discussed before and how that is planning to work. He says that the Blues Brothers game will come with complete code but that will be open for buyers to modify and create their own versions if they want to and they can then share that but they have to submit it to the home pin who will screen it and test it before making it available for download to other people. Now I'm guessing if you can download the game code, modify it and upload it to your own game there's nothing to stop you then sharing that with other people without going through home pin but um home pin will will test it and make sure it's it's um it's not going to cause any harm it's not going to burn your house down yeah all you're going more importantly um so yes there is that um level of sanity check that goes or will go on if you if you can download from the home pin website it will have been checked to make sure it is safe to use in the game. Whereas if you get it from somebody else who has the game who hasn't gone through that process anything could happen I guess. Right so now for a second and I'm gonna drift off a little bit here but we talked earlier about pressing the escape button on a game and entering a different menu. Now, I can imagine, in case of any game, but let's stick with Blues Brothers for now, that for many people it might be a little bit far-fetched to develop your own code or write code, because if you don't know how to do that, But what if you could enter a certain menu in the coin door or in some way where you basically can select yourself for every shot that you can make on the game what it's supposed to be doing in the sense that you can, if there's a scoop out there, for example, it can be used to lock balls, and three blocks will result in a multiple.
    77:33
    So you can completely customize the rules in the game yourself. Would that be more effective, probably, or appealing to people than writing your own code?
    77:45
    I think it would be quite hard to do that, simply because the number of combinations and permutations, If that scoop is also used for something else to start a mode, but then you also say, I want to make it start multiple, well, is he going to do both at the same time?
    78:03
    Yeah. One and then the other. Yeah, I mean, there's a sheer number of different options for each of the shots. And, of course, you want to just sort of tie in, don't you? If you start a mode here, you want to be able to light that shot, then that shot, then that shot, and set all that up through a menu system. It's going to be pretty complicated, I think. So, yeah, I think it's, other than doing simple changes, you know, like if you, I don't know, if you do have a multiple start there and you want to move that to another shop which isn't in use for anything else, then, yeah, that would be fairly easy to do. But it needs to be tied in with the overall plan for the game, doesn't it? Yeah, okay, I'm just thinking of that. Yeah, fair enough. Okay, well, I think that's it. No, no, no, no. Yeah, we've got more. The Blues Brothers prototype of the game will be shown at the Newcastle Pimpette show in Australia on, well, it's the weekend of September 14th and 15th.
    79:08
    Traditionally, Mike Kalinowski will be there as well, and I believe that last year he brought the Spinal Tap prototype, which then got terrible. Yeah, it didn't go too well, I don't think. Yeah, so hopefully it will go better for Blues Brothers.
    79:26
    Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see some actual gameplay footage from it. Yeah, and if you're in Australia, and I realize that Australia is a rather large country, But if you're in Australia and in the capability of attending the Newcastle Pimpin' Show, then, well, go and check out the game. And let us know what you think. Yeah, exactly. And that rounds it up for Home Pin from Taiwan. Moving back to Texas in the United States, that is, of course, Turner Pinball we haven't discussed yet. No, not a lot of use for them, really. No, their Ninja Eclipse game is getting out there now. It seems to be sort of trickling out rather than a big rush of machines appearing, but they are starting to turn up at some arcades across the US, across the US and I think their relative rarity is a big selling point at the moment for the arcades that have them. Right. I also understand they're just there temporarily. I noticed that a few arcades, they will have the game for two weeks and then it will be gone. That's true. I haven't really tricked that, but you're quite right. Yes, they do sort of put a date range of when the game's going to be available to play. Now, whether that's because there's only a certain number of games and they're being moved around arcades, I don't know, or whether they're just there before they go to people's homes. No idea. But, yes, you're absolutely right. There don't seem to be permanent installations there. Yeah. Maybe that's something that Turner Pinball are sponsoring. to get the games out there. Right. Well, it's also a good way to build your network with operators. Yeah. If the game earns well while it's there, it might result in a sale as well. Yeah, and also playtesting the game as well. You know, if it's only going to be there for a couple of weeks or something like that, then if any issues come up, then it gives you a chance to fix it back at the factory once the game gets back. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's Turner Pinball. a little bit further up north, I would say, we find Chicago Games.
    81:55
    Yep. They have announced that they are going to be doing another run of Medieval Madness games, remake games, I should say, before the end of this year. At least that's the plan at the moment. Starting at the end of this year and running through the first quarter of 2025. I would say that's the current plan. but as we know with every people company those timelines can slip I think CERN are probably about the only ones who are able to say that they're going to make a particular go back and remake a particular game at a particular time and stick to that but a lot of things can happen that can cause that time to vary slightly but yeah if you were looking to get a remake of Medieval Madness, then I'll go back in production at the end of this year and start next year. So here's your opportunity to get one, brand new. Right, okay. So do we know whether that will mean that the production of Pulp Fiction will be paused, or are they doing two production lines, or... Well, certainly we want to do two production lines. Whether they're at that state yet, I don't know, and perhaps that's something we'll find out when we go to Expo. Right. And Factory Tour. time. At the Chicago Gaming and Churchill cabinet place. Yeah, in Cicero. That's right. Yeah. So now if we're talking about pinball production, here's a company that has quite a, I'm not sure whether it's groundbreaking, but it's definitely interesting, a way to actually have future owners of the game participate in building their own game. And which company is this? We're talking about Hexa Pinball in France, who have shown off their Space Hunts game at various pinball shows in France and Belgium over the past couple of months and they just launched a pinball workshop experience which is basically a three-day course where space hunt buyers can attend the Hexa pinball factory in Matillac which is in France and become involved in building their own machine and the first course took in three participants but more courses are planned. If you are interested in buying a spaceship game and also building it yourself... Not entirely yourself. Partly yourself. Being involved in the build of it, yes. Okay, well that's a nice way to put it. It sure is a smart way to get around the difficulties the difficulty of finding proper employees.
    85:02
    But if you're interested, send an email to hello at hexa-pinball.com if you would like to take part in building your own game. Oh, it's a very nice little opportunity there to know. Another manufacturer is offering you the chance to see the game that you're going to be owning basically be built from scratch. Yeah, and for you to be part of that build. You can always remember this is the, I remember when I put in this screw for the shock bumper. Yeah, why did I not screw it in properly? Yes. Now it's fallen out. Right, okay, so. Yeah, it's nice. It gives you a lot more, a lot closer attachment to the machine rather than just arriving. And, at least in the first course, if you want to call it that, the members of the design team were also present to explain. And Roman, of course, was the technical guy behind Space Sons. He was also present to show how the game is put together so that it would be done correctly. So you're hands-on with the team, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, excellent. Good idea. Yeah, I'm sure there'll be lots of waivers and disclaimers and things, signs in case you happen to electrocute yourself or pull a screw through your thumb or something like that. I wonder if you, once you finish building the game and you start testing it, whether you'll get a sticker in there that says it's tested by you. Oh, that'd be cool, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it'd be nice if it came up on the display. I had a picture of you building it with the team. Yeah.
    87:12
    Lots of possibilities. Very, very interesting initiative. Best of luck to Hexa Pinball. And, of course, hopefully they will be able to make it to the Dutch Pinball Open in November, which would be the northern pinball show for them to attend. but I have good hopes that they might be there and bring the game as well. Great. Well, talking about Dutch pinball, as you were there, let's talk about Dutch pinball.
    87:46
    And I understand you have some news from Barry and Melvin. No, actually, well, technically it's not from Barry.
    87:55
    Rance, who is sort of their spokesperson on Pinside, He announced that the company, the DPX company that is, is currently waiting for parts from various vendors for the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland game. They're still making some last minute minor changes to the game.
    88:25
    Nothing spectacular, I suppose. They still expect to do the reveal of the game in the third quarter of this year, most likely in September, looking at the delivery times of some of the parts needed to build the game. And that brings me immediately to the following. As they are waiting on delivery parts, people were wondering, will the game be at Pinball Expo? Well, that depends on a couple of things. First of all, when do parts suppliers supply? Do they deliver on time? Yeah. Then the games have to be built and tested. That has to go correct. Then they have to be shipped in time.
    89:12
    And from what I understand, they have to be shipped by the end of September to be at Pinball Expo. if customs are not delaying anything, holding up the game in customs or so. So it's all a big hopefully yes, but if something goes wrong, then possibly no. So they are trying to get the game there. Oh yeah, definitely, yes. Yes. And there were some questions asked about who the artist is on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Aside from what I assume is the line art from Jeremy Packer that this covered in, there was some speculation that it could have been Brian Allen who posted apparently some Alice in Wonderland like artwork but it's not Brian Allen it is the same person who did the artwork on the Big Lebowski and as far as I can tell two names are involved in the Big Lebowski It either Jean De Win who is not sure whether JJP would allow him at this point or is Frank van Hagen who was involved in the artwork on the Big Lebowski as well. Either one of those two is involved. But, well, we've seen the Big Lebowski artwork, so we expect the same quality or even better. Yeah, but that doesn't really doesn't gel with Jeremy Packer's artwork which is very different so I'm not saying I haven't got the capability of switching styles to something more akin to Zombietti stuff but it'll be interesting to see how they take what was included with the Zidware assets and develop it into a complete game, which, of course, had to do with the rest of the game as well, you know, because it was hardly a complete design from J-Pop, was it?
    91:47
    Well, it's sort of like Call of My Numbers, I suppose. Well. No, not really. I kid, I kid, but... Yes. I'm sure they know what they're doing. I'm sure they do. Well, this is, like, quite a challenging timescale to get to reveal it in September, and maybe get a playable game over to Chicago in October. Right. Well, best of luck to them. Yeah, exactly. Whatever they come up with. Yeah, exactly. Then we have Vector Pinball all the way back in Australia again. Yeah, a lot of news there. They were at the Brisbane Pinball and Arcade Collective's annual tournament where they were showing both versions of the back glass on their 8-ball Fury game, which is the same game but with different back glasses.
    92:41
    And a different trim. But probably more interesting than that, because we've seen that before, was they also were showing an early custom game that they'd made for the oil company Castrol back in 2018.
    92:55
    Right. If I'm not mistaken, there was a re-themed firepower. Right. I was trying to work out what it was. I couldn't see it very clearly from the pictures. But, okay, I understand. Yeah, because they have quite a history of making custom games for various clients and promotional use. So that's where the April Fury game sprang from, as their first own design, shall we say. Right, yeah. I'm trying to verify quickly whether it was indeed a retuned fireball.
    93:38
    Firepower. Yeah, firepower it is, yes. But no, it's not on the website. Okay, not to worry. I think it was on the Facebook page or something like that. Yeah, no, I know, but I thought they had a section on their website with custom pinballs.
    94:03
    They even have a special website for that. Maybe it's on there. Quick-speed checking, looking up the news. Okay. Well, in the meantime, we can say that we moved to Cardona pinball in the U.S., back in the U.S., of course, do their Nogo Go for the Battle for the Green and Black Rose Skull and Bones 2.0 conversion kits for the game. I can confirm, by the way, it was Firepower. A Kestrel game is a re-team of Firepower. Well done. Okay. We saved you just in time to say that we have no news from Cartoon and Pinball about any future kits.
    94:44
    Although I did catch a few videos of theirs, which are always worth a watch on their YouTube channel, so head over Cardona Pitbull Designs on their website and recommend watching some of their discussions with James Cardona talking about 2.0 games and including what happened about the Tales of the Arabian Knight 2.0 kit, which is quite interesting. I'll say no more. Leave you to discover that for yourself. Ooh.
    95:16
    Yeah. Okay. Then we have Pinball Adventures in Canada. Yes. And it's been very quiet from them for, basically since Pinball Expo last year where they had a presence that wasn't very impressive. Yeah, less than impressive to reside here. Yeah. So, and apparently they noticed themselves as well, like, hey, something's going on. last month Andrew McBain already sent a message to me saying that they were in the final stages of Element or something but then again that was a game that debuted last year so yeah oh well so there's a story to the story I suppose that was small yeah so I got a quite a few long a post from Andrew earlier this month up until today and basically he said that when they were building a pony factory and cranking out 15 to 20 games a month and my guess is that would be one month and that was it. But aside from that,
    96:40
    for them it started to feel like work and apparently they're more in it for the fun than that it should become or feel like work. And apparently they're in the fortunate position. They're a big family with six children and grandchildren and what have you. And Andrew recently sold one of his companies for a good sum of money. So they're debt-free and they can basically live a happy life and choose what they want to do and what not to do. And apparently what they don't want to do is build 20 games a month because it's not... Too much hard work and too much pressure to get it all done. Yeah, right. So they're now sticking to... Basically, he sent me pictures of an upcoming game called Sushi Madness. And for that game they designed their own board system. I'll get back to that in a little bit. And they're basically aiming to build like one to four a month. And basically only when one is ordered. So they're not building games up front and putting them with distributors down. If you, they will be promoting the game, they have ideas for that. Targeting other areas or areas where current pinball manufacturers are not targeting an audience yet. And if that results in a sale, then think of it as, and I'm not sure whether this is what I'm quoting, his brand, so to speak. Think of it as a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, which are almost custom built whenever they are sold.
    98:52
    Think of it like that. So, yeah, you buy an 8,000 dollar pinball machine for your children, possibly, I would think.
    99:02
    But you get the white glove treatment. And that's what you pay for and that's what they like to do. So, it's hard to argue with that. I mean, if they're not in it to build hundreds of games, that's all up to them, of course. You know, and I also did ask about why develop a board system yourself, if you can easily use the fast pillow board set or the P3. He came back to me and he said basically they wanted something very simple, easy to implement, and also easy to expand on. And if you have more coils in your game, then there's an add-on board and you can easily add on to that. I'm not sure whether your file supply will be able to handle it all. That's always been a feature of Ultimorphic's system and Fast's system. You just chain on another driver board if you need it. So I'm not sure about that. I mean, personally, I'd say for that, the key thing is support the community. and also the level of tools that you're given to program it in the first place. If you have to get in and write C++ code in order to get it to fire a coil,
    100:30
    that's not going to get much attention from most home buyers. But if it's got a pinball constructions set type interface to it where you can easily chain together rules and flashlights at certain points, that kind of thing, then yeah, okay, maybe it could be interesting at that level. But how many people really want to do this? We're getting back to homepil again, aren't we?
    100:56
    What do you want is a game that works. Right. Well, there is a homeroom community that might be interested in having the option to choose for maybe a less expensive board set to put in their game, and we'll just have to see how that turns out. Yeah, well, it's worth trying. I wonder what they've been using up until now then. Well, that's a good question too. Yeah. Given that most of their games are being developed by Team Pinball, maybe they used the Team Pinball board set. Yes, I think so. Yeah. So it's another another board set
    101:41
    Right and maybe it's the team in the team people board set that they're basically Claiming as their own now Not saying that they sold it, but you know what I mean, so so yeah Well just because they're they're marketing it and using on their games and me they developed it No, so they can eat and we have to go easy. No said to Team Bimble, we need to open this system up or have a slightly different version of this board which people can use themselves. Or any other contract manufacturer of circuit boards. But again, I think it really is down to how you present that to a potential game maker as a usable system. If you want a homebrew game and you want to use multi-morphic or you want to use fast, there's a big community support out there who can tell you exactly how to do it and all the pitfalls and things this is a new platform is it is it worth a while of uh of learning it from scratch and being you know one of the few people who have ever used it and with with very little in the way of background right yeah anyway yeah it's worth a point yeah right yeah okay so but um at this point And sure, we will cover them as Pimple Industry News, but I would say this is more like homebrew serial production,
    103:12
    if they get to that. But the main issue that I have with the company so far, aside, well, I get it. it's a family business and they are not like a Stern or a Jersey Jack, but basically it appears their designs are never finished. Yes, it's a continuing trend, isn't it? We're seeing, going back to home again, you know, we were looking at Spinal Tap and now we moved on to Blues Brothers already and Tap's not even out there really in any numbers. And the code for test still has to be rewritten. Yes, exactly. So, yeah, so, so, and I get that there's,
    104:05
    in the case of Homepin, licenses involved and you need to crank out the game before a specific date to, to, to honor your contract, but... It does seem as if there's a group of manufacturers, and I'll put that in quotes at the moment, who enjoy the development and the launch of new titles, but don't really want to get into the manufacturing side of it that much. Well, that's the boring bit. Where you go better. Yeah, well, that's where people go better. It is, yeah. Yeah, so we had that with Haggis, who were launching games, launched three games, and then found they couldn't make them very well.
    104:49
    Homepin, who launched several games now, and manufacturing is problematic there. And here we are again now with Pimble Adventures, who don't get into all the manufacturing in quantity either. Right, yeah. I did get an additional message from Andrew saying that if,
    105:15
    let me get it in front of me so I won't misquote him, because they want that to do. And I'm not sure how much of this is intended for publication, but they have the money and capability of increasing their production up to 50 units a month. Then again, you need to sell those games first. Yeah.
    105:41
    And have all the parts installed. Right, also that. But it's not something that they really enjoy cranking out at many games.
    105:52
    And that may also have to do with, well, we've seen the photos of Bunny Factory in progress, which is basically a small business unit which hardly had a production line acting as a factory.
    106:11
    Yeah, they all pretty much hadn't built anyway. Yeah, so, yeah, oh well, I mean, whatever works for them.
    106:21
    It would be a shame if they did have a big hit on their hand, or had a potential big hit on their hand, but don't have the capability or the inclination to produce the game in any significant quantity, because I always thought Elements had a good potential to it. Right. I haven't seen the software finish, but I enjoyed playing it at Electro last year, I could see that it could be a good game. But if they say, oh, we're going to make one a week, something like that, then you're probably only going to get 20 or so ever made.
    106:56
    Right. And then you have to wonder, I mean, even if you're, I don't know, some fancy millionaire who likes a bimbo machine for his game room, which is totally fine of course you know you want something exclusive if it breaks down then what's going to happen yes did you say that Andrew said that future games will come with a one year warranty ok so it breaks down in the 13th month then what are you going to do well we don't know what are you going to do if Andrew decides with all the respect Yeah. Like, you know what? I like retired life better than building pinball machines. Yeah. I know.
    107:50
    Anyway, one change I did notice, as Andrew mentioned, was they're going to be using the same cabinet and back box designed for all future titles. Right. Which is a change because that element is very different with a big topper display to it. Right. But yeah, it makes sense. And I suppose it means that if they've got all the parts, I don't know, they've ordered enough parts to build 50 games and just store them, then they can sort of be like Stern are and just go back and redo another game at any point. Well, yeah, these are probably custom built anyway. Yeah.
    108:36
    Basically, it's like, which one would you like to be built first? And they build it for you. Yeah, and they're all going to be very difficult to look and feel. And maybe you got an idea from Hexapimble and they offer this service where you can build it yourself. Well, yeah, that could happen. Yeah.
    108:52
    Anyway. Anyway, so, but so, long story short, Pimble Adventures is still there, but they're enjoying the easy life, so to speak. Yeah, don't expect any large numbers of machines to come out of there in the near future. Right, and then still, I'd love to see them succeed and have a hit game, so to speak, or at least finish a design and stick with it and get that into production and have it also appear to be a fully functional game that doesn't break down after 20 minutes of a pimple show. Yes. Okay, that's the dream. Right, what other companies have we not yet covered?
    109:43
    There's Tilbop, who are working on their road trip game, but there's no news from them. There's not? No.
    109:50
    I don't think there's any of them in Biktronics either, in Spain, or STR, or Quetzal either, about any of the titles. Come to think of it, well, Quetzal and Biktronic is a little bit of, well, it's not the same companies, of course, but they're working together. since that fire in the pinball factory in, I think it was 2023.
    110:13
    I did understand that they did resume pinball production, but I haven't seen any new titles or any news from them after that. No. No, I don't think ever. Did they ever get Tokyo Perfect Drift out? No, we're still waiting for that. Yeah, okay. That's a shame. It's a beautiful looking game. I'd like to see that. Yeah, yeah. Circus Maximus was the last one on the list where we have no news to report from and probably never will have from the looks of it no ok so yeah absolutely yeah so well you kick it off there's a new kickstarter well not that new now but there's a kickstarter running at the moment for a tutorial video tutorial by a guy called Abe Blitz, who you may have heard of or may have seen some of his videos.
    111:09
    It's for a project called Mastering Pinball in Depth Skills and Strategies. The Kickstarter for this video runs until the 5th of August. Now, it's already attracted a large following, and it's fully funded already now and all the stretch goals have also been achieved in the Kickstarter, which is to add more content and to get various professional people involved in it. So that's all happening as well. But there is still time to get in on the four remaining support tiers, which start from as little as 25 euros for just a copy of that video, but there are other things you can get, T-shirts and, well, I think some of the higher-end ones that involve, like,
    112:11
    again, sponsorship logos and things involved on the video, they've all been sapped up, but I think you can still get your name in the credits, that kind of thing. So if you want to do that, head over to kickstarter.com, either just search for Abe Flips, which is A-B-E-F-L-I-P-S or it's kickstarter.com slash projects slash 8flips and you can get it there and all the details about it and remember you only got until the 5th of August which is when the Kickstarter ends so you've only got a couple of days to do it and is this going to teach us anything other than what we've seen for example the tutorials from Bo and Keren and how he plays the games and what Jack Danger has done in the past I don't think it's so much about a specific game. It's about overall skills and strategies when playing games. So it's much more wider, has a wider scope than a single game future model. So, yes, I think so. And it seems to be very well regarded from his previous videos. So this is a nice project to see, and it's good that it's attracted an awful lot of support. So good luck in finishing that project.
    113:29
    Right, okay. Now we mentioned earlier the UK Pin Fest is coming up. Yeah. Remember, in Pinballs, David Spix will be there. He will be interviewed by Martin Ayup. Is that an interview that you recommend that is really good or ever heard of him? No, no idea. But I'm sure David can talk without much prompting about what's going on at American Pinball, past and present, and, as we were saying earlier, about his long career in the coin-off business.
    114:08
    Apparently, there will be a full report on the show on a website called Pinball News. Oh, that must be new. I haven't heard of that one. Okay. Rather media. No. Okay, well, I've got some news about Deep Root. We always like to keep updated on what's been going on with the fallout from that case that the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, took Robert Mueller to court. A civil case, not a criminal one, where a settlement was agreed last month with repayment of ill-gotten gains and financial penalties to be decided at a later date. Well, the schedule for that later date has been published. It's not exactly farce justice. The SEC's suggestion for what those monetary remedies should be is due by the 20th of September.
    115:02
    Robert's response is due to by the 8th of November. The SEC's response to Robert's response is due by December the 6th. And there will be a court hearing beginning January the 27th, 2025, to actually nail it down, which should last no longer than two days. So, hopefully, by the start of February 2025, we should actually know what those numbers are and what it all amounts to. This will be a mere seven months after the settlement was agreed. and also a reminder that the SEC first filed charges against Robert Mueller backing it for fraud back in August 2021, so three years ago. I just wrote down all these dates, and I'm looking forward to completely ignoring all of them.
    116:01
    But I'm sure you'll remind me in time in our upcoming... Well, I will let you know, yes, what went down anyway.
    116:10
    I'll keep an eye on proceedings as I tend to. Right, okay. Then some more other news. Yes, there's a new-ish. It's been going for a little while, a couple of editions. A free newsletter all about pinball culture, which encompasses both physical pinball and digital pinball. It's called The Ball is Wild, and it comes from Robert Glasshutter, Hutner, I'm sorry to say who writes a lot about pinball and you can find it it's free to get so to get it go to the website called button down dot email forward slash the ball is wild I think that's a sort of newsletter sending out company like MailChimp and that's where you can actually read them and I'm sure you can then sign up for regular updates. So nice to see that being offered for free from Robert. So thank you for that.
    117:18
    And we have both been contacted by a good friend of ours, Ryan Claytor. Yes. Famed for Coin Op Carnival.
    117:31
    Right. which describes the story of People Design Away 9 as in comic book form. Yeah, in the first edition. We're waiting for the second issue to come out. Oh, he's way too busy for that. Yes, exactly. They always said it was going to come out when they had the time, then we're going to stick to a schedule, which seems to be a popular thing, it seems, to do it when it works. Anyway, he contacted us to let us know that he's now shipped out all the Kickstarter orders for his latest publication, which we mentioned a few months ago, which is called One Bite at a Time. And this is the history of his elephant-eater comic publication, publishing house, I suppose.
    118:15
    And with those shipped out, he is now on a promotional tour to promote the book, which will include a visit to Pinball Expo, where he'll have both a booth and will present a seminar. So we'll see him there. We will see him there. In the meantime... If we manage to get to Pinball Expo. If we manage to get to it. Yes, that's right, yeah. In the meantime, you can buy a copy of it, of One Bite at a Time, from his elephanteater.com website.
    118:48
    And I don't know if he offers signed copies there, but if not, you can probably buy it there, read it, and then take it to Expo and get it signed. Or I'm sure we'll be able to buy it directly from him at the show as well. Right, okay. Now we just briefly mentioned Pinball Expo. Any other news other than Ryan Claytor of Carnival Thing having a booth there? No, I had a look at the schedule earlier, it hasn't been updated yet with 2024's details, I don't know what or which seminars are going to be there. I know a few people who are speaking, including a good friend of mine, Mr. M.G. Brown, who is going to talk about writing for Inboard News and his pin-spotting column there.
    119:46
    But other than that, I don't know yet. So it's going to be a surprise to me exactly what we're going to be seeing and covering as, again, as you say, assuming we manage to get there. Right, okay. Well, that rounds it up for our Pincast recap of July 2024. We hope you enjoyed it very much. We'll be back at the start of September with our next Pincast, looking back at all the events in the pinball world and industry throughout this exciting month of August. Yeah, well, we thought July would be a quiet month, and well, it certainly hasn't turned out to be, has it? So let's look forward to what's going to happen in August. And as you say, we'll be back at the start of September to bring you all the news.
    120:35
    Okay. So, well, until then, we both hope you have a fantastic rest of the month. And we look forward to joining you again next month for our latest edition of the regular People Industry News Pin Cars. Yay. My name is Jonathan Houston. Sorry. And I'm Martin Hayer. And we will see you next time. And have a great month. Thank you.