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DPP #77-2 "Expo day 2 - interviews!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·47m 31s·analyzed·Oct 21, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Expo day 2: JJP Elton John impressions + Pinball Brothers Alien ER reveal + Pinball Adventures Elements debut.

Summary

Don's Pinball Podcast Episode 77-2 covers day 2 of Pinball Expo with early impressions of Jersey Jack's Elton John Platinum/Collector's editions, followed by interviews with Rudy from Pinball Brothers about the Ellen Ripley edition of Alien (widebody, $7,995, November ship date) and Andrew McBain from Pinball Adventures about the new game Elements ($6,500-$7,000, mode-based gameplay with five elements). Multiple new art packages, accessories, and code updates across manufacturers are in progress with pending licensor approvals.

Key Claims

  • Elton John is available in Collector's Edition and Platinum Edition (equivalent to LE) at $12,000 and $15,000 respectively

    high confidence · Don describing early play impressions; Jack Guarneri (JJP founder) present in sequined Dodger outfit

  • Alien Ellen Ripley edition widebody is priced at $7,995 with mid-November 2024 ship date

    high confidence · Rudy from Pinball Brothers in direct interview; confirmed pricing and timeline

  • Alien Ellen Ripley includes new art package, new hand-painted Xenomorph sculpt by Lior (Art of Pinball), and light-up animatronic topper with tail whip functionality

    high confidence · Rudy interview describing features and topper pending code integration

  • Pinball Brothers moved to larger facility through Euro Pinball Corp partnership with Pedretti for increased production capacity

    high confidence · Rudy explaining manufacturing structure and expansion

  • Elements by Pinball Adventures features five elements (wood, metal, fire, water, earth) with easy/hard mode selection and mode-based progression similar to Taxi

    high confidence · Andrew McBain interview describing core gameplay mechanics and difficulty structure

  • Elements prices at $6,500 (standard) and $7,000 (premium version) with $500 deposits being taken

    high confidence · Andrew McBain stating pricing and deposit structure

  • Alien ER topper and new code integrations are pending licensor approval; art package approval also pending at time of Expo

    high confidence · Rudy discussing multiple pending approvals affecting ship timeline

  • Pinball Brothers has new alternate Translight art for Queen pending approval

    high confidence · Rudy mentioning new Queen art visible at booth and pending licensing

  • Barrels of Fun mixer featured approximately six newly unboxed Labyrinth machines on free play with approximately 600 attendees

Notable Quotes

  • “This is a win for Jersey Jack. This is a game that I enjoyed much more than Toy Story. I enjoyed it more than Godfather.”

    Don @ Early in episode — Strong endorsement of Elton John compared to recent JJP releases; indicates positive reception

  • “I think by far the most people are going to be very happy with this. I mean, the game itself is gorgeous. It's atmospheric. It's a full wide-body cabinet.”

    Rudy (Pinball Brothers) @ Interview segment — Confidence in Alien ER reception despite pricing pressure and heat

  • “We're constantly working on our updates so that that won't be finished. But for this shipment, I think it's scheduled for mid-November, so this is the machine and then there's the update as well to all of the other users.”

    Rudy (Pinball Brothers) @ Interview segment — Confirms November timeline and phased code update approach post-shipment

  • “It really was a matter of timing. We just had to push because of Pinball Expo, of course.”

    Rudy (Pinball Brothers) @ Interview segment — Explains why licensor approvals were still pending at Expo reveal

  • “We're trying all we can.”

    Rudy (Pinball Brothers) @ Interview segment — Acknowledges production and logistics challenges with U.S. support expansion

  • “One thing I will mention is that it's very interesting bringing a game to a pinball expo and getting the opinions of lots of different people. And even myself, I noticed that the back of the playfield was very dark when we first set it up here.”

    Andrew McBain (Pinball Adventures) @ Interview segment — Shows willingness to iterate based on real-world feedback and acknowledge design blind spots

  • “And once the cabinet's assembled, we add another clear coat coating on top of that, and that seals all the cracks and all the corners, and so we've eliminated the chipping.”

    Andrew McBain (Pinball Adventures) @ Interview segment — Details manufacturing improvement addressing prior quality issues

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyElton John (game)gameJack GuarneripersonKen CromwellpersonPinball BrotherscompanyAlien Ellen Ripley (game)gameRudypersonLiorperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Alien Ellen Ripley edition scheduled for mid-November 2024 shipment with $7,995 pricing

    high · Rudy directly stated 'for this shipment, I think it's scheduled for mid-November' and confirmed production is underway in northern Italy factory

  • ?

    code_update: Alien ER topper functionality and new code integrations pending licensor approval; phased release planned post-shipment

    high · Rudy: 'code is pending licensor approval' and 'we're saving that for the actual shipment of the machines'; update will be released to all users after launch

  • ?

    design_innovation: Alien ER features officially integrated Art of Pinball sculpts (hand-painted Xenomorph, mini-LED frame) and light-up animatronic topper with tail whip functionality

    high · Rudy: 'his other big reveal for this is a topper...the tail whips back and forth' and 'hand paint is new. So he's doing them hand-by-hand'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Alien ER art package and code approvals pending at time of Expo; timing pushed to accommodate Expo presentation

    high · Rudy: 'We're just waiting for that. It really was a matter of timing. We just had to push because of Pinball Expo'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Pinball Brothers expanded manufacturing through Euro Pinball Corp partnership with Pedretti to larger northern Italy facility with multiple production lines

    high · Rudy: 'We founded the Euro Pinball Corp. And for doing that, we teamed up with Pedretti, and they moved to a bigger space, so they have more production lines'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.143

0:00
Hey, what's up? I think now is a good time for episode 77, part 2. Let's hit it! Don's Pinball Podcast is maintaining in effect and somehow keeping my sanity and energy level as high as it could possibly be achieved here at the Pinball Expo. So day 2 is in the books and what an amazing day it was. I'm going to recap it real quick and then I've got some interviews I'm going to get to that were conducted today that I want to get released in a timely fashion. So the day started at 8 in the morning on the show floor. We were invited by Ken Cromwell and all of the fantastic people with Jersey Jack Pinball to play Elton John in the Flesh, the Platinum Edition, which is equivalent to their limited edition from before, and then a Collector's Edition. We're both available to play one Collector's, two Platinums on the show floor, and I got to put some time on them. This isn't a review. This is just early impressions. But my takeaway for the game is that it's fun. It's fun. It's got the music of Elton John in it. And it shoots really good. And the ramps are very, very interesting.
1:05
It's a game, you know, I need to play it more before I can do a full reveal. But there's some interesting ramps there. On the right side of the play field, the extreme right, underneath where the ball, you know, launches when you shoot it from the, you know, launching shooter. It's got the Rocketman ramp. I think that's what it's called. That's what I'm calling it. It's lined with rope lights. It's fantastic. So there's a drop target that protects it. Once that's down, you can shoot underneath that upper flipper. You don't have to move the flipper out of the way. There's an opening for it. The ball will lock and stage, and then a kickback will shoot the ball up this rocket ramp, past the giant plastic rocket, which is all lit up with lights and everything. It crosses in an arc across the back of the play field to the left side of the cabinet where it wraps back around in almost like a 360 and then kicks out and ejects straight. I think that's the one that goes straight down with the flipper. I'm not sure. No, I think it just curls around and drops. Again, it's early impressions. That was so fun to hit every time I got it. I was very satisfied with that shot. There's also a cross-field shot from the upper flipper that sends balls up and maybe back behind the back of the play field to a physical ball lock in the piano with the animatronic Elton John little figure. He's in his glitter Dodger suit. It's amazing, this Dodger Stadium suit. Fantastic, man. That was fun. That was satisfying to hit as all heck. The orbits felt good. The shots felt fair.

medium confidence · Don estimating crowd size and machine count at end-of-day event

  • Jack Danger played Elements and praised it, suggesting only one stationary target addition

    high confidence · Andrew McBain reporting direct feedback from Jack Danger at Expo

  • “It's fun. It's fun. It's got the music of Elton John in it. And it shoots really good. And the ramps are very, very interesting.”

    Don @ Early segment — Core takeaway from Elton John early play; emphasizes enjoyability and mechanical design

    • Pinball Adventurescompany
    Elements (game)game
    Andrew McBainperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Bowen Kerinsperson
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Labyrinth (game)game
    Punny Factory (game)game
    Queen (game)game
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Pinball Expo 2024event
    Euro Pinball Corpcompany
    Pedretticompany
    Donperson
    Brian Allenperson
    Art of Pinballcompany
  • ?

    product_strategy: Alien ER priced at $7,995 described as 'celebration price' due to extended license renewal; below typical widebody pricing

    high · Rudy: 'It's really a celebration price...We've extended the license. We're really proud to do this collab and to renew it'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Jack Danger provided design feedback on Elements, praising overall design and recommending single stationary target addition

    high · Andrew McBain: 'Jack Danger came over and played our game, and I thought he was going to critique it a lot more, and he said he absolutely loved it. We shouldn't change a thing except add one stationary target'

  • ?

    content_signal: Don live-streamed entire Barrels of Fun mixer event with Labyrinth machines to YouTube

    high · Don: 'I live streamed the entire event' and 'That is on YouTube right now, available to watch'

  • ?

    event_signal: Barrels of Fun mixer at Pinball Expo attracted approximately 600 attendees with six Labyrinth machines on free play

    medium · Don estimating 'There must have been 600 people up there' at the mixer event

  • ?

    product_concern: Elements showed lighting visibility issues with dark back playfield when set up at Expo; manufacturer acknowledged blind spot and plans iteration

    high · Andrew McBain: 'I noticed that the back of the playfield was very dark when we first set it up here...we can then go back in a couple of weeks we can just modify everything'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Pinball Adventures addressed prior cabinet chipping issues through two-stage clear coating process (panel-level then assembly-level)

    high · Andrew McBain: 'we add another clear coat coating on top of that, and that seals all the cracks and all the corners, and so we've eliminated the chipping'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball Brothers offering retrofit accessories (topper, lighting beacon kit) for existing Alien SV/LV owners to upgrade to ER feature set

    high · Rudy: 'if you already have an LV version, you can get the topper and just put it up there' and 'if you have the SV...there's another upgrade to add those same beacons'

    • 2:31
    You know, it didn't feel like it bricked. The flippers did not feel weak at all. They felt strong. I was able to keep center of the ball all around the place. You know, I wasn't plagued with multi-balls. It was satisfying to get the multi-balls. So, you know, this is a win for Jersey Jack. This is a game that I enjoyed much more than Toy Story. I enjoyed it more than Godfather. I liked Elton John. Elton John's $12,000 and $15,000 right now. If that's in your budget and you think this would fit good in your game room and you like glitter, this is the game to get. Now, I didn't play a ton of modes or anything, so I can't comment on any of that. But the brief time that I spent with it, you know, I played it three or four times. I enjoyed the game. And it is an Elton John pinball machine. That should tell you whether you like it or not. You should definitely play this game, absolutely. I'm putting quarters in this. I'm putting dollars in this when I see it. So that's my first takeaway. I would like to play this game more, and I'm hopeful to do that. So locations, I need you to go and get collector's editions and platinum editions and put them out there so I can go and play them. And then, you know, we'll see what shakes out down the road in the market in the next 6 to 12 months with this. So, you know, the Jersey Jack team is very proud of it. None could be prouder than Jersey Jack Guarneri himself, who was dressed in a head-to-toes sequined Dodger outfit, light-up tennis shoes. I've got to post the dang pictures, man. I can't believe I've been missing out so far. What an incredible experience I'm having here at the Pinball Exposition. We gave away the first raffle basket at Spooky Pinball's booth, so congratulations to the winner. I hope you enjoy all this stuff. I've been giving away prize packs left and right, stickers and everything, high fives, daps, hugs, people giving me beers. It's been a great time here at the exposition. I managed to do some interviews, and I would like to get to those here in a bit. Finally, at the end of the day, at the barrels of fun pinball mixer, where they had, I believe, about six newly, freshly unboxed Labyrinth machines all up on free play so people could really get there and join. There must have been 600 people up there. There was pizza. There was cookies. There was a cash bar. And we were having a good time, answered a lot of questions. And I live streamed the entire event. So go check it out. That is on YouTube right now, available to watch. I streamed the entire event on one of their machines. Everybody went through there. Bowen Cairns blew the game up with his death save from hell. I couldn't believe it. It's all on there. So if you want to watch some gameplay, the overhead lights were very strong. There's a little bit of glare across the middle of the play field. but you can hear, hopefully, the call-outs, the music, and get more of a sense of the gameplay as casual people are playing it, people of mortal means like myself. So that is up there. That book ended the day. The middle of the day was spent running all over the place back and forth, conducting these interviews. We had a great time with everybody. The art of Brian Allen is amazing. Go check it out. He's got an alternate translate for Bram Stoker's Dracula that absolutely kicks socks, man. This thing's amazing. So I'm not going to hold it up anymore or belabor the point. Let's get to the interviews, and then we're going to kick off the final full day of Expo tomorrow. I am exhausted, but I'm having the best time. Thanks to everybody that's come up that says they listen to the podcast. I'll get to that after the interview part, but you guys are just awesome. So this first interview I'm going to set up, this is with Rudy from Pinball Brothers. Enjoy. I have something absolutely special here that I'm very proud to bring to the world of Don's Pinball Podcast. I'm here with Rudy, direct from the Pinball Brothers, makers of fine pinball machines such as Queen, and now featuring Ellen Ripley edition of Alien Widebody. It's amazing. Welcome, sir. Thanks for being here. Hi, Don. Thank you for having me. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So we're recording here locally at the traveling Don's Pinball Podcast studios. I've seen this game that you're bringing out now. You've come back with Alien, that widebody game loaded with pop bumpers, loaded with nostalgia, for the movie, but we now have more Ellen Ripley in it, right? That's true, yes, for the first time.
    6:37
    So I saw the back glass. That was one of the first things we saw. Ellen is up there on that huge back glass in the loader fighting, you know, that B word, alien, knocking her back, and then it just goes from there. And in addition, there's art new on the side panels of the cabinet as well. Yes, it's all a totally new art package. Yeah, and it's just about finalized. I saw it still said pending license or approval, so we're right at the cusp of having this thing ready to go. We did everything to bring it to Expo. So you'll forgive us if we don't have everything planned out right now, but we're really just doing this deal. With licensing, there's some things that are totally out of your hands, and deadlines sometimes need to be pushed. But I like what I'm seeing so far with it. Alien's a game that's always been fun to play. It's very atmospheric of a game. Yeah, well, it's no surprise that it won this Pinball Award for game integration last year. So that's really cool. Yeah, and it looks even better now because in addition to the art on the cabinets, there's also new sculpts in the game from our friend, Lior, from the Art of Pinball, now officially partnering. So you don't have to go out and pay $600 extra for his specific mods. They're now coming direct from the factory. So there's the frame around the mini-LED screen that's in the play field, and then also the Xenomorph sculpt is new. Yeah, the sculpt is the same, but the hand paint is new. So he's doing them hand-by-hand, doing all of them. Yeah, perfect. And then his other big reveal for this is a topper. Yeah, that's crazy, just crazy. Yeah. I think the Internet's gone wild about this thing. Yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, is it a topper for a pinball machine, or is it a diorama for my shelf? Like, I want to have this on my desk at work just so I can look at it. Well, of course, you need the pinball machine to make it work properly because it's going to move, it's going to light up, it's going to do all the stuff that you control with your gameplay. Right, so the tail whips back and forth, from what I heard. Yeah. I don't think they're quite functional on the – well, it's sitting on a desktop right now. It's not plugged into the machine yet. It is, actually, but it's not doing anything yet. Oh, okay. Yeah. That code is pending licensor approval as well, but that'll be really good. Yeah, we're still working on the integration. We have some other add-ons as well, and they're almost integrated but not quite. Yeah. But all of that will happen until the machine ships. Perfect. And I saw some other accessories that are available now too. There's like a lighting beacon flasher kit for the gameplay itself. Yes. And then if you already have an LV version, you can get the topper and just put it up there and you're ready to go. Exactly. And then if you have the SV or the new Ellen Ripley, there's another upgrade to add those same beacons that the LV has. Yeah, and then they integrate in there. So if you were looking for the definitive version of this game to pick up and you don't want to go for the LV version, here's one available for you. The new code also came with it, right? Is that code ready to go now? No, not right now because, as I say, we're working on the integrations. That's a really big part of it. Of course, we could do a semi-update right now, but we're saving that for the actual shipment of the machines. Okay, okay. And now when that's ready to go, will it all come out at once, or will it be kind of like a phased release with further updates?
    10:01
    We're constantly working on our updates so that that won't be finished. But for this shipment, I think it's scheduled for mid-November. so this is the machine and then there's the update as well to all of the other users. Okay, so if I was to walk into the factory here in northern Italy, are these cabinets being put together right now? Yes. Okay, and is it everything except for the final art or is the art going to be approved? We're just waiting for the ink to dry? We're just waiting for that. It really was a matter of timing. We just had to push because of Pinball Expo, of course. Okay, okay. So if I call one of your listed distributors and order one now, they'll be put together reasonably in November. Definitely. So if I was to email Jeff at madpinball.com and say, man, give me the Ellen Ripley. Yeah, certainly. That's perfect. I mean, of course, with the demand that's coming up, especially at that price, we don't really know whether everyone is going to be served by Christmas as to be expected. But we're doing the best we can. We danced around it. Let's mention the price. I mean, surely a machine of this caliber should be commanding about $11,000, I would think, in the box shipped. But I think there must have been a misprint or something because the tag on the back glass says $7,995. Exactly. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, that's below $8,000. That's true, yes. For a wide-body alien. Yes, there you go. With then subsequent available topper, brand-new code, brand-new art, new full back glass. Yeah. Yeah, shatterable glass and ready to go. Yeah.
    11:31
    It's really a celebration price, I would say. Yeah. We've extended the license. We're really proud to do this collab and to renew it. And so it really is a price that we thought about a long time and now we getting heat for that If we put on it we would have gotten heat So we getting heat anyway It doesn matter Yeah so as long as you not going to win just do what you want to do I think by far the most people are going to be very happy with this. I mean, the game itself is gorgeous. It's atmospheric. It's a full wide-body cabinet, which when you have it between your hands, you can really appreciate that. And I've got a renewed interest coming back to Alien now. Now that I'm a much better pinball player than it was the first time I came across it. So I'm actually able to complete some of the modes now and activate that xenomorph, and he still comes down and grabs the ball, or she pulls it in for the lock, which is just such a great moment, especially if you care at all about the license and the movie. Yeah, the movies. Movies, yeah. I mean, you decide from moment one whether you're going to play the first movie or the second, and they're all in there. I mean, you're over-delivering here. Love it. Sorry.
    12:43
    So these games are being made, And then are they coming over in batch shipments to the U.S., or is there a separate shipping fee if I want to get it to my house? We haven't really worked all of that out yet. Because you guys have like a production center or something in the U.S. now, right? It's not a production center. It's mainly support and parts. Okay. So that's connected to a shop where you can actually preorder most of the add-ons and stuff. So if you're interested in pimping your LV or SV, you can do that with shipment from U.S. Oh, okay. So that'll be something that'll ship here and so it doesn't have to come way through customs. So that's nice. Yeah, we decided to do that because people are always anxious if they buy from somebody foreign.
    13:30
    Is it going to be long shipments? Is it going to be expensive? Is there going to be proper support? And we're doing all that all the time. So you have support now in the U.S.? Yeah. Okay, cool. So you can go either through your distributor or just straight to get parts? To the parts, yes. Okay. But usually, I mean, we have prided ourselves in having excellent customer support. So whatever issue there is with the machine, Sean's going to take care of it. Everything's fine, and that's what you read on all the forums. Perfect, perfect. So in terms of numbers, there's not, like, a hard limit on this as far as the numbers, but maybe time? That's right, yeah. You have to think in production capacity, really, because we are still doing LVs. We are still doing Queens. We're doing Rhapsodies and Champions. And there's going to be another model probably coming out next year.
    14:23
    So you always have to think how many parts are we going to have to actually make a production run. And when that's done, there may be still some demand, and we don't really know when we can start the next run. Yeah. So are Queens being produced now in the new factory? Of course. Okay. And is that where they were being built before, and then now there's an official partnership or ownership? No, they moved, actually, for our partnership. We founded the Euro Pimble Corp. And for doing that, we teamed up with Pedretti, and they moved to a bigger space, so they have more production lines. Okay.
    15:05
    Oh, sorry. No problem. So that's great. So aliens are rolling out. November is when you'll be able to get them. Under $8,000 right now. And is that landed in the U.S. or is there still – do you have to figure out the final price? I'm not sure on these details. Check. But you'll certainly check with your distributor. That's no problem. You'll get there. Perfect. I think it's eight plus shipping. And then it depends, of course, on where you live. If you live on a remote island, you'll see it's going to be more expensive. I'll need to go over and do some quick live streaming gameplay of the Ellen Ripley, the ER version. And you guys got a sheet of voodoo glass in there right now. I just walked by it at the booth. Yeah, that's just because I shattered my finger.
    15:50
    Every accident could have a silver lining. I was going to play it off. But, yeah, so there's a sheet of voodoo glass in there now, and it really does change. There's absolutely no glare, even with the lights that are on the show floor. So I'm going to go back there and get back in line and go play it. But, yeah, anything else that you guys want to talk about? I know you let it slip there a little bit that we do have a new product, a new SKU line coming. We have so much stuff coming that I don't really know where to start. That's the real problem. We're doing some alternate Translight art on Queen right now, which you can have a look at because it's right next to the other machine. Oh, okay. Okay, I was wondering if I missed something. Yeah, that's it. If that was like the Rhapsody version, I never noticed that before. But, no, that is a new Translight. That's new, yes. All right. And that is pending approval, too, so we're in the middle of a lot of things. Perfect. Yeah, I like the fact that you still support your prior releases with accessory updates. And they're not necessary to gameplay. You don't have to get these. But if you really want to pimp your machine out, you're there to serve, so that's fantastic. And these accessories will now be landed in the U.S. to ship from there, so there'll be less hassle about going through customs and getting held up. for those of us here on this side of the pond. We're trying all we can.
    17:08
    Well, good. Anything else you want to shout out or anything that we missed here? I think I'm sort of – I'd like to do a shout out to the pinball expert crew, of course, because it's really awesome. These guys are fantastic. I've been having a great time with everybody too. The event is incredibly well organized, and I've just been bouncing like a pinball myself from booth to booth, and time is just flying. So get down here if you want. We still have two more days of Expo going. There's giveaways at the booths. Games are here to play. Come check it out and hang out with the Pinball Brothers. Thank you very much. All right, thanks.
    17:43
    Man, that was fantastic. Go get yourself an Ellen Ripley. Next up, we've got a conversation with my friend and yours, Andrew McBain of Pinball Adventures, purveyor of Pony Factory and Elements. Go check it out. It's on the show floor. I spent some more time on it today. I hear some more of my thoughts here in a bit. Let's get to it right now. Oh, next up for the games and fun, I'm sitting here with Mr. Pinball Adventures himself, Mr. Andrew McBain, traveling down from the frosty shores of the British Columbia territory of Canada. You're here with a new game for us, sir.
    18:16
    That's correct, John. We're here with a new game for everyone to see called Elements. There's four of these elements in the game. Wood, metal, fire, water. And earth. Oh, and earth. There's a fifth element? That's the fifth element. Is this the rumored fifth element game that we've been asking for?
    18:34
    You've heard the call and you've stood up, sir. So, I was at the booth today, and the classic stand by Punny Factory is right there. Flipping, going nuts, smash the puns, have a great time. But right next to it, we've now got elements, the follow-up to Punny Factory. Yeah, and so there's based around five elements again. But talk a little bit about the gameplay. Is it mode-based with these elements? What am I doing when I'm playing? we decided to make the game somewhat like a version of the best way I can say it, it's like Taxi the game in Taxi you have to do five different things and then you complete the game and then it restarts over again so what we've done with Elements is that we've taken the individual at the start of the game would choose whether or not they want easy or a hard mode and then they choose let's say they choose the easy mode, then they basically have to go through five different elements using three of the characters, which would be Valkyrie in the beginning, the ninja, and then the knight at the end. And the whole goal of the game is to achieve the pure element. Once you've achieved the pure element, you basically have to go through the hard mode again, doing all the elements before finishing the game. Oh, I see. So, yeah, I didn't really see the breakdown of, like, what made the easy mode easy, what made the hard mode hard. I just went with easy because of my mediocrity when it comes to flipping accuracy. Yes. There's lots of training modes as well. So there's five training modes, and then there's five battle modes that you have to complete before going to the final element. And the training modes, from what I was following along with, eventually they will self-complete if you don't complete them on your own? That's correct. On the easy version, if you don't complete it within the time frame of, I think it's 45 or a minute that they give you, depending on which mode it is, you automatically get it completed for you. But in the hard version, you have to complete the modes or you have to redo them again. Oh, I see, I see. That makes more sense. And it corresponds to the inserts that are down there near the apron.
    20:36
    And then it looks like I played two of the modes here so far. The water one I'm familiar with where you hit the captive ball back and forth. There's like two solitary Newton balls and then a captive ball that swings there back and forth for water. For wood, it looked like it was more orbits that I'm hitting. That's correct. There was two orbits. You have to go through the orbit once and then twice and then a third time, and that completes the element mode. Okay, and then during the game, I was able to play a little bit with this concept of this in-game currency you have, this gold coin, but I didn't see how that incorporates into the gameplay yet. Like, what do I do with that coin once I hit the drop targets? So what ends up happening is that we have a mode that if you go on the upper play field, there's three drop targets and there's a stationary target up there. As you're hitting the drop targets on the upper play field, every time you hit all three drop targets, you get a gold coin. Get 10 gold coins, it lights extra ball. If you get 25 gold coins, it'll light special and give you a free game. The stationary target that's up there, you basically hit that, and on random, and this can be set in the settings, that randomly it'll give you an extra ball every 10 shots or every 20 shots, but that's up to the operator to decide what percentage the extra ball would pop up. And you're basically forging the gold. And on your apron, you will see how many gold coins you've achieved, how many tree elements you've received when shooting the top pop bumper. And there's also...
    22:08
    You know what? I forgot. There's also something else that you can achieve as well. Gems. I think there's some gems in there you can achieve. Yeah, there's several different territories within this game. And I found myself just kind of focusing and shooting on that right ramp for a little bit and focusing on trying to get either the orbits or up to the upper play field to play around. So there's really an elementary playground here. Correct. All underneath a giant dragon sculpt that's stuck to the back of the play field. And a witch's hand. Oh, yeah, the purple witch's hand. That moves. Okay, I haven't seen it move yet. I need to go back and play some more. And the infinity mirror. The infinity mirror is a hole. Well, it's a seemingly hole down to infinity in the middle of the play field, which does change color too. Interacts with the ball, depending on which side your ball is being shot, and the targets, and the upper targets or lower targets, the infinity mirror will pulse on that particular side. Yeah, so you mentioned the screen that's on the apron down there, and I wanted to comment on that. Let's talk about the design of the cabinet itself, which is a departure, a clear departure from what we traditionally see, in that the back glass is just one straight sheet of back glass. There's no LCD monitor in that back glass. But what you have is a nice topper monitor made out of that same thick lacquered birch plywood, you know, sitting up there continuous with the back box. And then there is a screen up there, which is pretty visible to folks, you know, around watching the player. A player yourself, you have to kind of crane up, but you've gone ahead and included a smaller screen down on the apron. So that's correct. We decided to put a topper with an extra pair of speakers up there So you really get that quantum quadraphonic sound coming out when you facing the machine With the screen on the top of the top or of the machine that basically for spectators to see what's going on in the game, and also it would run loops of whatever element that you're fighting. It would run a loop of the element, for example, going through the forest and the woods, a wood element, and it would be maybe a firestorm if you're defeating the fire element. And the screen at the bottom of the play field is basically there for scores and showing your achievements and showing any extra ball that you would get or what to shoot for. We try to implement a lot of call-outs in the game and a lot of flashers. So there's a lot of old-style flashers in the game that flash and basically show you where to shoot. One thing I will mention is that it's very interesting bringing a game to a pinball expo and getting the opinions of lots of different people. And even myself, I noticed that the back of the playfield was very dark when we first set it up here. And one of the reasons for that was that when we were playing the game in our warehouse, we have these bright lights, obviously, so we can see everything. and I never thought about how dark it might be in the back of the play field when we were bringing it on location. So it's great to get a lot of different feedback, a lot of different shots, and a lot of different things and more light shows that we can add to it and then go back in a couple of weeks we can just modify everything to hopefully please everyone. Yeah, so I think the way we can help get elements to where it needs to be is by gameplay. And so the gameplay testing from this weekend being at Expo and getting all these hands on it and other objective opinions, you can then go back with and kind of fine-tune everything. That's absolutely correct. I will say that Jack Danger came over and played our game, and I thought he was going to critique it a lot more, and he said he absolutely loved it. We shouldn't change a thing except add one stationary target. That's it. Yeah, yeah. There's kind of an eject off that right ramp. It comes pretty fast, shoots across the play field, and then right now seems to favor just a regular metal ball guide area. But a target right there would be much more satisfactory, kinetically speaking, I think. So, yeah, take that and run with it. I am in agreement with Mr. Jack Danger here. A departure from what I – no, I'm kidding. The guy's great.
    26:05
    So you're taking deposits right now, four elements, if you'd like to commit to one. $500 is what you were asking. The sale price between the two versions, $6,500 and $7,000. So coming in under that $8,000 mark. and then you kept the same cabinet quality that you had with Punny Factory. I mean, I love that thick birch plywood that you used. I love that lacquer on it. You can look at the back of the machine and the thing is just beautiful. I love it. Thank you very much. Actually, what we've learned over the past couple of years is that we've learned to improve on the cabinet.
    26:40
    We were getting a little bit of chipping on some of the corners and we didn't know how to fix that problem. And why it was becoming a problem was because we were clear coating and sealing the panels on their own and then sticking them together. So what we've done is we've done that, but we've taken it a step further and assembled the cabinet. And once the cabinet's assembled, we add another clear coat coating on top of that, and that seals all the cracks and all the corners, and so we've eliminated the chipping. But we've enhanced a few other things, including a new rail system that pops up the playfield, which is quite similar to a Capcom, one that you'd find in Flipper Football or the other game, Break Shot. It's a very simple mechanism that allows the playfield to stand on end and for you to work at it and remove the playfield. And we're still keeping our frame that's at the bottom. And we have a cage system that encloses everything that you can basically take your whole play field out and sit it on the table and work on it. And, yeah, a few other little things that we've done that makes our pinball machine a little bit more eccentric, I would say. Yeah, when you were setting up and you had the play field out there, I noticed you still have the interior cabinet graphics, too. That's continued over from Punny Factory. So, you know, there's not only a world under glass. There's a world under the play field. Take a look down there. That is correct, and we've decided to also clear coat the inside as well and protect the graphics that are inside there as well. And then so for anybody looking at photo or video that have posted of elements, you'll notice you don't see the typical speaker grill or speaker inserts on the back glass, and that's because you stuck with the design that you had with Punny Factory where it looks like the back box cabinet speakers are side facing, and they come out of this other grill that's almost like 90 degrees to the orientation of the speakers, and then the sound comes straight out that nice wood frame that you have built there. That's correct. I would think of it sort of like there was an ear on the inside. It looks like an ear on the inside of the cabinet on the inside, and it's basically hollowed out, and the speaker goes into the sides of the inside of the cabinet, and then it's forced to shoot its way out directly to the player's ears. and we found that the player receives the best sound quality when the speakers are like that. Yeah, yeah. So it's a neat design, and I haven't had any audio quality issues for sure. I'm excited to see how the code ends up finalized. I know you're still messing around with some of the sound effects and the music. So once it's all integrated more, especially with that improved lighting for the back of the play field, I can't wait to see what you come up with next here. Well, I meant we'll do a few videos in the next two or three weeks, and you'll see all the improvements. I think that's the best way to convey it, yeah. So great. So get hands-on with Elements this weekend, Schaumburg, Illinois. It's Pinball Expo, everybody. It's the biggest one of the year here. Don't forget, we have Punny Factory still available. Get your Punny Factory. Get both of them. Come on. I mean, fill out your game room here.
    29:55
    Andrew will do you a deal. And does your price still include domestic shipping? Unfortunately, that was only a promotional thing when we first released the Punny Factory.
    30:08
    And I believe 20 people got the free shipping. And now we've backed off of that. And unfortunately, we've lowered our price a little bit and hopefully to compensate for the shipping. But now we have Mad Pinball as one of our distributors in the United States. And he'll be happy to ship for you from the United States. And it'll be probably a little bit cheaper. All right. Perfect. Well, thank you. Anything else we forgot to cover here before we get back to the booth?
    30:36
    Thank everybody for their support, and we really appreciate it. And I couldn't have done it without my team. I'm nothing without them, and they're basically nothing without me. All right. Andrew McBain, Pinball Adventures and team, thanks so much for bringing us an element so we can play and another punty factory for people that haven't had a chance to get their hands all over that machine and that crisp birch plywood. Thank you, sir. Hey, thank you very much. Peace out. Thank you so much, Andrew McBain, for coming up to the Mobile Recording Studio to give us that great insight into your process. We love the things that you do. Keep making pinball machines. It's only going to help the hobby. The next up, the final one I met up with, this wasn't Alec. No, this was Robin from the Electric Playground. T-E-P-P, the electricplaygroundpinball.com is their website. They're making these new fancy toppers. They're one of the aftermarket companies that's doing it and crushing it. Their Twilight Zone topper is amazing. It's got a little marble that comes and rolls out of the gumball machine. And they are launching their Godzilla topper. It's been a long day. The Godzilla topper, finally, Saturday, tomorrow morning at noon. There's going to be 15 of them available if you want to get them. Various trim levels and accessories and things. We're going to talk about that right now.
    31:48
    Back again. The interviews keep coming here at the Mobile Recording Studio. I'm here with Rob Rath from the Electric Playground, purveyor of the best in acrylic-based pinball toppers. Rob, what's going on, man? Not much, man. Great to be here. Yeah, yeah. So the folks will know you, of course, from that awesome Twilight Zone topper. The one with the marble that comes out of the gumball machine and goes down the habit trail. Love it. Yeah, man. We're kicking them out. We got a bunch of orders coming in. We're currently in our third batch on that. So we're shipping all those by the end of the year, taking a few more here at the show. And always great feedback. Had Gary Stern come by and give it a peep. So that's always exciting. Gare Bear, yeah. Gare Bear. Did he push the button and let the marble come out? You know, I think there was a little bit of some people interacting, and he was just observing quietly, but he was watching intently. The ball was moving. Did he give you, like, the silent nod of approval? Hey, man, hey. You know, Seth was there, too. I think they were like, hey, you know, these guys got something going on. Let's see what they got. It was like a hot little tear. A single tear comes down, like, my boy, you've made it. Stern's remake in Twilight Zone. You heard it here first. Oh, man, yes. This is my second time seeing the Twilight Zone topper in person, And it is impressive with that little blinky eyeball you got and the depth of field of all the cutouts and everything you've got included in there. And I love the kinetic frenzy of that ball that comes out, man. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, as far as I know, we're the first to do a habit trail on top of a topper, and that's a big wow factor. And the genesis of that was the most packed machine in pinball, historically speaking. How do we make the most packed topper? And it's a feat. I love it. I love it. Yeah, and the perspective of being down in the player's position, and seeing it, it's even better than just on a shelf, you know, with the all-seeing eye. But we're going to just talk about how cool the Twilight Zone topper is because Godzillas around the country, they're a little cold and frosty on top of their back boxes, and you've got something for us. We need some action on top of that Godzilla. Yeah, yeah. So, man, I took a look at this thing in person again today, and it's just nothing but light-up screens and a UFO that rises in the distance and interacts with the game in interesting ways. Totally. Yeah, so you're ready to start taking public orders on this again, like tomorrow morning, Saturday. Yeah, tomorrow at 12 Central. We got the second half of our batch. So this first batch, we always like to do these small, work out some of the kinks in terms of manufacturing. The product is done. The design is done. We appreciate the community's feedback on getting to where we're at. We've got 15 for sale tomorrow. We've already hit our wait list. They've already got their 15. We split these half and half.
    34:18
    It's really cool. One of the key features here is this rising UFO. That unit is 979, and our base model is 879. You can check it out on our website. But the feedback has been awesome. I mean, like you said, these are acrylic-based toppers, but there's a lot of depth to this thing. I mean, when you see it in person, what's your interpretation? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's stacked. There's that depth of field. This was the first time seeing it in person with the functioning UFO and how smooth that action is as it rises up there. And it comes up higher than I would have expected, too. You know, and it's like, oh, dude, that's awesome watching it pop up. Totally. I was with the crowd. We were playing with the demo buttons there, and it popped up, and I saw people like, oh, wow. It's a wow moment. It might not be a ball moving on the habit trail, but it's a wow moment for people. This thing has 14 points of interaction in it. So, like, we're actually monitoring 14 different points on the machine via optical sensors, and we're communicating that to you, and we're showing you key gameplay elements. So, like, I get there's a lot of options out there, and you can put a big glowing head on the top, But if you want something that really leads into the gameplay, you're going to get a completely different experience from this topper. Yeah, yeah, because there's boxes of lights out there, and they sit there and they look okay. But the interactivity is what really took me. So besides just the lights and the acrylic itself, do you have boards in this thing too We do yeah So there actually a node board in this I know us Stern fans out there know that term so we got a node board we got a node board that is basically mounted under your play field connected to frankly another node board there in the sense of it it mounted directly beside it and we're monitoring those lights and communicating with the toppers there's a lot of tech in this one um that is is giving you some advanced you know communication so you know when you're playing that 45 minute godzilla game which many of us do and you need take a break and reflect on the progress you've made to destruction, you can look at that topper and it's going to help you kind of understand where you're at, which is a cool part of it because most of us, you know, we're playing by ourselves and we've got reinforcement. And that's like the ingenuity that I can't replicate with just a box of lice on top of my machine, you know, like having that interactivity and the way that it tracks along with what you're doing and the future-proofing expandability of the device. Totally, totally. Yeah, so we're showing off at the show. So we've got four resin building models that Sleel is doing. If you guys are in the Godzilla community, you may know some of his stuff. Those can be added on. So if your thing isn't just acrylic and you like the modeled stuff, we're working on that. You mentioned some screens earlier. We're showing our Conqueror upgrade, which is actually we're going to be doing a resin model that goes on the front. This is an add-on later with four screens, and you're going to get even more interactivity. So this is a modular thing. We're both supporting external modifiers as well as doing some of our own mods ourselves. Yeah, yeah, that's great. So you can kind of pick your level of involvement. Are you good with the vanilla out of the case? Add your UFO on there. Customize it as you want to down the road. And the support will be there. Totally. I mean, so many of us have made this Godzilla our own. So we wanted to expand that into this topper as well. Yeah, yeah. So last time I had you on the podcast, I was talking about what about future ideas and things. And, you know, of course, I've got 10 other machines that I'd love to see your concepts. Yeah. But you're mentioning that there's, you know, like 100 hours of design work that goes. Yes. So up with one of these. So we did a panel actually last night and we the whole format was like vote for 15 or 20 minutes on what machines you would like to see us do. And we'll talk about those ideas. So we had a couple come up. I think we talked a lot about Indiana Jones. Oh, yeah. We talked a little bit about Lord of the Rings. We talked about Adam's family, which is a really cool conversation because it's like, well, you know, every one of them came with a topper. But a lot of them are broke and a lot of them don't look great. And it's this classic machine just like, you know, Twilight Zone. I wonder where you would go with Adam's family. I mean, would you seek to kind of replicate in a more three-dimensional form that original? Yeah, that was kind of where we as a group kind of ended up. So, you know, Adam's family's got the building, the house on the back. and then the topper is like the very tippy top and then the clouds. And it's a little bit interactive, but it's not blow-your-mind interactive. And if you think about like Elvira and that house, the top that spins, you've seen that. It's badass, right? Oh, of course. So, I mean, imagine just like remaking that and making it better. And that was a key piece of the idea for that one. Yeah, and there's so many aspects of the gameplay mechanistically too that kind of like the thing hand that comes down. Sure, sure. The read book case that slides out of the way. And so if you could have that replicated on the top or two in concert with the mechanism on the game field, I mean, you know, I'm already brainstorming some ideas. Yeah. So the cool thing about Godzilla for us is, like, you know, I mentioned these 14 points of interaction, you know, tech, tech, tech. But we're building out things where we can make this easier for us to build things in the future. So, like, making these things work. It's really exciting to be a part of this community. And also just being at Expo. So, you know, you've got to make yourself go to these shows, but we're meeting all these amazing people and collaboration. It's such a cool space to be in. Yeah, and I don't think there's a better venue to put this thing out there and, like, watch the public zone interaction, you know, because that's a level of objectivity that you can't replicate, you know, back home in St. Louis. Totally, totally. Yeah, I mean, you know, we've got our local fans, but, I mean, there's only so many people in this world doing this stuff, but the people that are doing it are so passionate along with the community, so it's great. So is this noon central time? these are going yeah noon central uh again only 15 these are gonna all ship by december 15th and then we're gonna do more of course um but uh these are our core people uh and they're gonna you know the biggest thing we're getting back from them too is like you know how does the installation manual work like is it easy how can we make it easier kind of like take it slow in that sense so uh design is done but you're going to get your final product nothing's going to change about that, but we're really appreciative for our first customers, for sure. Nice. Yeah, and I think I brought this up when we were on the podcast last time. You know, if I get this thing in box, you know, December 15th, it shows up, how long is it going to take me to go through the install first time? Yeah, it's about 30, 45 minutes. The box is really cool. We haven't debuted that. We're big on our boxes. Oh, nice. Like, they're fully printed. This one's pretty cool.
    40:32
    It leans into Godzilla destruction, so I'm excited about that. But yeah, it's pretty simple. And, you know, there's no, like, soldering or cutting or anything like that. So it's interesting to have so much interaction but not really, like, mess with anything. The power of the node board. And these are made in the U.S. then? You make them locally? Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot of parts made overseas, but we're building these in the U.S. We're building these in St. Louis. We've got a team of four guys, a combination of family, local people that have done this before. Even a pinball pro is part of our team. Our Twilight Zone toppers, we're getting to the point now where they're about maybe eight or nine hours to assemble. Godzilla is quite a bit less. It's a more affordable product. There's less involved, but it's got a lot more tech built into it. I definitely mentioned before, I don't own a Twilight Zone, not that I'm against the idea, but I kind of want this topper just on its own. Yeah. And people have done that. We do. We've had quite a few sales. Man, there's this black and white Twilight Zone. Oh, would you do a black and white version of your topper? Great American pinball. Great. I'm not even – we're already under NDA.
    41:46
    So let's just speculate. In the future, say next year when there's another limited edition of Godzilla, the black and white edition. I mean – The black and white Lizard's Kiss edition. That may be a complimentary topic. Guys, like this black and white Twilight Zone is incredible. Like the workmanship. And then also like a lot of folks haven't really watched a lot of Twilight Zone. I certainly haven't. But it was a black and white show. Yeah. So it just makes sense. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's elegant in its simplicity. I love it. I love what you're doing. These things are going to fly out. I'm sure you're going to sell all these next 15 and then, you know, be on to the next. And I know you've got products, you know, down the road that we're going to see from you too. Yeah, yeah. We've got two for next year that we're really excited about. One of them is in the bag. We're like the big pinball companies, right? The design is done. Yeah. We're ready to go. Nice. No, it is. That one is done. So that one is exciting, and we've just got to make time for it. We haven't done any limited toppers just because we don't necessarily love that. But this particular one, it's for a smaller run machine. So we may do something to where it's just like we're going to make these and be done with it. Okay. That one in particular, we're hoping people are really going to love for their bars and their arcades. Perfect. Speaking of, we actually debuted a new thing at the show. Yeah, yeah. The pin caddy. No, what's your name? Pin wing. The pin wing. It was called the P-wing, which – P-wing? Mario? Mario 3? That's right where my head went, but I'm like, surely he doesn't mean the thing that gives you infinite flights or an entire level of Super Mario Bros. 3. That is what we all need in life. I want some P-Wings, man. So, yeah, so this is, like, a thing that we made out of necessity for us because, one, we can do it, and, two, because we're, like, very meticulous about our machines working on them. So, like, when you're working on your machine, it's your working on your machine if you got them. Yeah. At some point, right? Absolutely. There's the tools. There's the balls. There's the screws. Like, this stuff is all over the place. And we wanted something that would, like, help us keep that organized, but also there's beer involved.
    43:46
    There's a cup holder. This, in essence, is a tool shelf for your game room, but it's disguised to look at something that's pretty awesome and also functional for beer and phone charging purposes. That's correct. So we are the electric playground, so there's some electricity involved. So basically we're using a lot of the same materials that we're familiar with, you know, in building these toppers. We've got some really nice touch, you know, black matte acrylic. We've got these quarter-inch translucent fluorescent LED strips in it. It actually looks like a wing, so that was a big part of the name. But the key functionality is, you know, you've got the drink holders. You've got these separate compartments for not with jars, but like little spaces for holding your screws. You've got the USB charger. You've got places for the balls, places for your tools. We've got a couple photos on our Instagram. I'm going to take a couple pictures of your display models you have because seeing them in person, like you're struck just right with what the functionality is. This is something you can set your drink on, set your screws down, grab your nut driver, a place to put your balls when you're taking them out of your machine to lift your play field, and you can put it on any – affixable to any vertical surface. And then the lights through the acrylic are attractive too. It's like it's almost underlit with LEDs but with colors that come through and pop like through the edge. So I'm all about that. Like someone put plastic protectors on your shelves, right? Yeah. I mean, look, you explained it well. You may be our first customer. This guy's like, I want this thing. I'm taking one with me for sure. Yeah, so it's cool because we're getting feedback from people, and they're liking it, and we think it's going to be really cool. And we wanted to do something that was, like, not game-specific, right, because it's awesome to make this game-specific stuff, but it would be cool to, like, build a community. We kind of did that with a couple other things we've done, just trying to build community and product and hopefully solve some people's challenges, yeah. Heck to the yeah. Yeah. All right, man. Thanks for the great roundup. We've got this game going live for sales tomorrow, the game, the topper for the game. Good. It's almost like I've been at Pinball Expo for 48 hours nonstop. Exhausting. Yeah, yeah. Anything else you want to get out that we didn't get out yet? No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, it's great to be here with you. Hit up our website. It's TEP Pinball. There's two P's, the Electric Playground Pinball.
    45:51
    Right at the top of the page, you're going to see a link to the product. It's 12 o'clock central tomorrow, and we hope you get in. and we're looking forward to getting feedback and getting this people's hands. Perfect. I'm going to go shoot some photos of some pinwings. Awesome. We'll get that up on the site. Rob, thanks so much. Always a pleasure to come by. We're shaking hands virtually here through the power of radio. All right. Thank you so much, man.
    46:13
    Thanks so much to all of my interview people from today. I'll see if I can get even more tomorrow. Everybody else I haven't got to. It's not due to lack of trying. It's due to lack of time. We're having great fun here. The final day is coming up. everybody that's coming to me and said thank you dude Don I listen to your podcast I enjoy it you guys are great I think I met a kid named Ethan today I want to shout out him make sure you got his t-shirts thank you buddy and even if it wasn't Ethan everybody's an honorary Ethan you know if you're a youngster and you got t-shirts from me today you were awesome kid gosh it's been such a crazy crazy day I want to shout out everybody else Bo and Karen's what a cool guy man he's playing pinball with me he killing it but like funny like he's a funny guy. I like that Zach Menny ran into him today. We had some good times. Everybody's been just great, and we're just going to keep it going. More fun will come in tomorrow. I'll try to do another episode again at the end of Saturday. Tomorrow is the Pinball Olympics, so look forward to the live streams. If you're not already following on Facebook, it's a great way to get content as soon as I put it out. If I see something amazing, I try to throw it up right away. I've got more stuff coming today, so follow the Facebook page. It's a great way to do it. Follow the YouTube page, too, because I'm going to be doing more live streams and everything. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. It means the world. And you guys are great. Let's keep pinball going, man. Let's pinball. All right, later, everybody.