And just like that, it is time for the Sunday live time and temperature check. Volutric analysis currently being conducted. Eric, how was the new Predator? I haven't had a chance to do literally anything. Getting ready for that party just wiped me out. I was I was up at 5:00 a.m. that day loading up games, getting down there, and then I I didn't I didn't stop till after 3:00 a.m. the following day. And then I had to get up early for the launch because I wasn't going to miss that. Man, welcome to a very spooky episode of the Sunday live stream. Um, how could it not be? How could it not be? I can't believe it finally came. I was talking about manifesting in my brain the midnight launch for Beetlejuice. Made no sense to do it, which made me want to do it. And then we did it. And not only did five people show up, 50 people showed up. We had the 20 invited guests. They had some plus ones. I think some plus twos snuck in. And then once the spooky crew heard there was food, just everybody from the factory came to the house. Someone brought uh ABBA. Somebody brought an America's Most Haunted I didn't know was coming. I went upstairs and there just like more games in the living room. There was a bus outside madness, man. It was so great. So great. Um we have to do it again. We have to do it again. Even bigger. How's my volume? make sure you can hear me. I don't put it past me to mess something up at somewhere along the way. I don't want to get too far down the road and find out that the audio was complete garbage, right? We got the Colonel Sanders drip on. Dude, it's like the middle of November. The the year's almost done. What the hell is happening? I feel like it was just Expo a little bit ago and then I I went to Florida for a week and a half. I went to Halloween Horror Nights. Now all of a sudden it's like Thanksgiving time. Volume's good. Perfect. Enzo Abba does slap. You see, there's a concept that I I I put in my brain of like good bad games and bad bad games, right? You know, games can be good. Like good games can be good. Godzilla is good. The big Labowski is good, you know? And then there's bad games like Bone Busters and Strange Science. Like they're just bad. Uh, Spinal Tap, which barely even counts as a game. Barbecue is like a bad game. That's bad. But there's bad games that are like guilty pleasures, right? AB is one of those. It's a good bad game. Like that theme is stupid. It's like of all the 70s bands you could do, AB is like the most cringy milktoast whitewashed blah. It's like this beanie. Absolutely no spice. Like pumpkin spice would overpower ABBA. Like Abba makes the Spice Girls look super hardcore and edgy. But notwithstanding, it's amazing that they picked that theme and made that game like legitimately. And I have a great time playing it because it's so stupid. So it's it's that's it's not a great game. It shoots fine, you know, but Predator is a a much better game. Um, so it's a bad game that I really enjoy playing and you know, you shouldn't feel bad if you like unironically really are into this game and I think everybody that has one is like loving it. Like I don't see them come up for sale very often, mostly because probably not that many of them sold, but like it's a special game. And uh, Dr. Tone brought over his arrival edition or voyage edition or whatever it was. We were collecting avatars all night. It was so much fun. It got played as much as anything else did in the house. We had a great America's Most Haunted that Mad Pinball brought. I didn't even know it was coming. I didn't even know like I heard they were bringing a bus, but I didn't think it was like like a bus bus. I thought it was like a big cargo van that they called the bus. Ridiculous. [snorts] Ridiculous. So, Patreon people, I did a recap the morning of morning after of like how the party went and everything. So, go check that out if you haven't. I know a lot of you had the the party pictures are up there now. Go find yourself, download them. Um, I have an episode ready to go on the main channel here. Was going to do it at some point. I think I'll have some time today to actually record some thoughts and things. But the best part of all this for me, this is me being a little selfish, is that I get to see what people's reactions are to this game that I thought was good. But like what do I know, right? What do I know? I'm just a guy in a Colonel Sanders get up. Like I've got the full drip on too. I got the pants on too. Um but like seeing people's reactions in real time in real time. I was taking people down to the theater. We were playing the trailer and then I was watching people's face reactions as the trailer was playing and like I saw jaws literally dropping. People just like is this the game? That's the topper. What? Phenomenal. And then the best part, this was so great. People got to walk into the house, grab some snacks, go watch the trailer, get their mind blown, and then just go up the street and walk in and like there's the actual game and and they can play it. Like, go play it. There's five people here. Go nuts. Four player game. Let's go play it a bunch. You know, uh there was no huge lines. This game's going to have lines at every show it's at. At every show it's at from here till forever. And if you were at the party, you got to actually spend some quality time on this with the dudes that made it, like pointing out stuff, what to do, explaining things, how the rampception works and all that business. What's up, Jenz? How you doing? H finally played big labow on location recently. Eric, that's awesome. That's a fun game. That's a fun game. Flippers feel a little soft, but you're able to hit all the shots. I enjoyed my Big Labowski. I still kind of miss it. You can't keep everything forever, right? But yeah, Big Labowski, great game. Godzilla, great game. Evil Dead, great game. Beetlejuice, great game. I have a list here that I compiled. I'm going to read this on the podcast episode, but just going through the 14 games that Spooky Pinball's done now. It's just kind of amazing. Hopefully if next time we get a spot to come trash can ninja if that is your Christian name. Um I'm going to come up with a fairer way to do or like a more egalitarian way to do this. Um so like here's here's what happened. A lot everybody that missed out it sucks. You know people were emailing me like right at the jump and they just didn't make the cut off and some people's email like spam or delay was messing it up. like they were opening an email, sending it, but like there was a delay blocker, so you can't open an email and send it too quickly. And so like that messed a bunch of people up. So once I I got word late that like, okay, confirmed we're doing this. And I still I still didn't know the date of it because, you know, there's a lot of moving parts with a game launch. Okay, they launch one major game a year for now. And you have to have, you know, the game has to be in showable condition. You need to make sure a trailer is complete. Uh you need to make sure, you know, parts are approved. You got to make sure you got the licenser approval. So it's like there's the game itself, there's the company's footing. Is everybody in town? Like are people hunting? Are people at an expo? You like they have to be ready. The game has to be ready. The code has to be ready. the licensing team, which the company has no control over, has to be ready. Um, and then there's the overall market. You know, there's some strategery involved. You know, do we do we rush it and and and put out a game like Dune just to beat Kong, but it's not quite code depth ready, you know, or do you wait too long like Predator and by the time it comes out, people have already forgotten about it. So there's all these moving cogs and then in the middle of that is me who like doesn't matter at all and I'm you know and and I'm trying to keep the community engaged and people want to book flights you know costs go up the longer you wait they want as much notice as possible they got to get time off work you know all these moving parts and so it all it all it all came together but I only had like a couple of weeks to like get it out so I had to come up with some kind of way to try to make it fair that you know people could get in on it. And so I thought, you know what? I'll just put a a password up and then we'll just wait for people to email in. Everybody has an equal shot. So for next time, now that this was success, right? Because initially Spooky was kind of like this is way we don't want to commit to this. This is crazy. It was so much fun though that I think we're going to do it again. And I think we'll be able to have more advanced planning and we'll be able to pull it off even better. So I'm thinking this I'm thinking I still want everybody to have an equal chance to go. Um, I'm thinking we'll go old school with it where you just mail in a postcard with your your name and contact info on it and just mail it in and and we'll have a window of hopefully like a month that you can mail these things in. We'll gather them all together and then we'll do a live stream and we'll name them all off as they go into the hat and then we'll just we'll pick names randomly that everybody's got an equal shot, you know, and then we'll we'll pick uh, you know, 20 alternates. Then we'll contact everybody and if people are like non-committed, can't make it, we'll go to the alternates, you know, and I think that's probably the best way to do it. People will still be mad if they miss out on it. But there's only so many spots, you know, with a thousand games and, you know, tens of thousands of people interested. There's just people are going to get left out. There's no other way to do it. I That's how it is. Um, you know, save up money and and buy someone's spot. Um, I guess I could try to find a used Tales from the Crypt. Sure. The first one who joined the stream gets in for next year. Oh, wait. That's Dustin. Well, I mean, that's that's reasonable, but people will absolutely throw a fit on that. Okay. So, for Gremlins launch, can I come? If that's a game that gets made, yeah, Enzo, you can come out anytime. You know, you do a lot of work for us. Um, you're a homie. You let me into your house. She made me pizza. So yeah, you're going to have to get a a boat or an underwater bus to get out here though, dude. Less stressful kind of. I mean, otherwise we do like, you know, 20th caller on the line, you get tickets, and then we give away tickets for like a year or something. Um, but this was fun. This was fun. Um, are you getting a new Allwood shirt? Thinking about it. I just saw those go up. Um, I I think I'm essentially a Walt Wood supporter. I do like his content. I want to show you guys something. As you know, with Patreon, I do monthly giveaways and because I'm so busy, sometimes it ends up being a every three month get caught up. So, I'm glad I waited. I think I waited. We have October, November to give away, maybe even September. But, I got a bunch of these. I got a bunch of these to give away now. like not the Franchie original, but like the actual production one. Now, not only that, these are special ones that have the Midnight Madness logo on them. So, even though you'll be able to get these at a show eventually for $80, they're not going to have the special extra Christopher Franchi art, the midnight art. These have it. So, I've got I got a few of these. So, Patreon members are getting randomly drawn for these. Starts with five bucks. patreon.com/donspinball podcast. Uh, you you'll get the show pictures on there. Extra shows that I do are on there. And if you join at one of the higher levels, you in addition to my undying support and your promotion of independent media, uh, you get bonus entries. and we'll do a live stream maybe later today where we'll give away we'll get caught up with everybody because I do have a a short supply of some of these. You want this one. This is this is the translite. And this isn't something I printed myself. These are like actual spooky. I would say production, but all their games are collector's editions have back glasses. Now, here's something cool. Captain already got If you were at the party, you got one. Um, for the party people, I I was trying to do something special for their game where it would be the midnight edition. And I think what we've landed on is actually taking the special translate with the special logo on it and and making this into the back glass. So, your back glass for your midnight edition game will have the extra emlazed logo. Not not not just a shiny decal like we've seen before, but like the actual back glass art will have the extra Frenchy touch just for the midnight editions. I think that's rad. I think that's super rad. Oh, dude. It It was hard to run this um because I felt so bad because people I've known for years now just missed out, you know, by milliseconds and then they're like, "Don, is there any way you can get me in?" It's like, "I only have so many games. I only have so many." Hopefully, we'll be able to allocate a little bit more for next time so we can bring some more people in. But we got to still keep it like a special show. But I'm working to find ways to let everybody participate. Um because, you know, even though there's only so many spots for the party, for the deposits, we should be able to increase at least a little bit more capacity for people just want to come and hang out. If you think people are crazy for driving 15 hours, some of them drove 15 hours one way to come to this party. Imagine driving 15 hours one way to come to the party when you're not even secured a deposit. Um, yeah, there's there's no way to make everybody happy because unless they start making 5,000 games, which they're not going to do. So, and if they make 5,000 games, each one's less special. Like if you got one of these, man, you got something that's gonna maintain, man. And uh I think the the crowd can speak, man. We had we had 20 to 40 people that all have played it now that can all attest. Like I asked everybody after they played like, "So, what do you think?" And it was just they love it, man. They love it. It's a cool game. The way Beetlejuice comes up, brings the ball, and then the plunger kicks it down the wire form to you. bring 70 people so they can sell the 70 machines and forget phones and website. We could have done that, you know, but you know, they're trying to still be fair. And so even though party was a blast, Dave, even though the website immediately crashed, um I watched them, there was like eight to 10 people all on phones for a solid 15 minutes taking calls, selling games, and then they sold out in 13 minutes. On the phone, they were just like, "You've got a game. Give me your name, email address, telephone number. We're going to call you back to get your deposit. Click next. Hello. Yes, you have a game. I need a name, email address, and phone number. We'll call you back. Click. There's doing that over and over. And then the saddest part was 13 minutes in when it was like, we're out. Just if anybody calls, tell them we're sold out. And the calls kept coming for another hour. And it was just like, we're sold out. I'm sorry. It It's like heart-wrenching, man. People were so so sad and disappointed. And there was a lot of people that called a hundred times and couldn't get through. But it wasn't because phones weren't being answered. More Chipotle than I thought was humanly possible. We had a metric ton of Chipotle. Thanks, Alan. Appreciate it. Come on out. Um, so now we're into like post-launch period. Great place to be. Um, because there's going to be a lot of excitement. This is going to be game of the show at every show. Uh, Pinball at the Beach is coming up in February. That's the first place that actual production machines will be there. Uh, a lot of people will be able to see it person if you haven't got a ticket for it. It's a hell of a show. It's February. It's Tampa. A little bit chilly still, but it's a heck of a lot better than it is in the Midwest here. And yes, you can go into the ocean. It's not, you know, it's a little little brisk, but it's doable, you know. But, you know, banana daries on the beach, hanging out with people, playing all the games, and just like casually talking to pinball designers like, "Oh, hey, I always had a question about this. What's up with that?" And you could just ask them. Like, that's super fun. I was there last year. I'll be there this year. Eric's coming. Busch Gardens is located close by. Probably swing by Disney. And then March, TPF, I'll be there, too. Hopefully, there's like 10 games again and they're going to be 10 people deep. And TPF is going to be an awesome show. The transition. That's the one I'm looking forward to probably the most. As much as I like pinball at the beach, as much fun as that is, I think TPF this year is going to be a return to form because we're going to have like at least 10 Beetle Juices, right? We're going to have maybe a new game from Turner. Maybe we're gonna have um probably a new multimorphic game. Battling for game of the show. I'm hearing I'm hearing Halo rumors like Halo will be at the show. Get to play that. Um, who else? Uh, maybe Pinball Brothers will bring some more Predators. Maybe they're not all sold yet. Um, but it's it's going to be a cool show. Just Beetlejuice alone. Uh, whatever the January release from Stern is will be there. Walking Deads will be there. It'll be like a great way to play just all of the new stuff. Um, I would love it. Love it. As much as a spooky shill as I am, if JJP is there with their next game as well at TPF, it could be time. It could be time. I don't think Potter wasn't available at TPF. That was the TPF where Jack told everybody to keep their dollars in their pockets. So, it won't even be a full year yet. So, that's probably wishful thinking because Potter hasn't even made it to TPF years yet. So, maybe it's a little early for Sonic. But I think that'd be awesome if it was there. I got plenty of games on Evil Dead at the event. Yeah. Um, this was fun at the show or at the party that we just had. There were a lot of people that still had not been able to play Evil Dead yet. And so in addition to being in the factory and playing Beetlejuice and talking to the people playing ABBA, we got to go to the factory and play like the Evil Dead that's running like not the beta, but like the Charlie code. like it's not even beta yet. Um, and all the other games that they're they test code on. So, people got to play that. They got to see the whole lineup of Evil Deads. Man, it was great. For the next theme, wouldn't it be cool to do costume contests beforehand? Everyone sends in a video and the best ones get access to the midnight pre-sale. Makes it more fun and based on effort. So, Rams Road Trip, Derek. So, you're thinking do a costume contest beforehand to ensure yourself to get a spot as a prize for the midnight release party. I'll run that up the tent pole, man. I think that'd be fun. Can't wait for both Pinball at the beach and and toilet paper. Texas Pinball Festival. What's up, Retrox Tech? I don't even I don't even know who you are. Do you have a channel or something? RTX Pinball. I'll check it out. Um, yeah. So, at the shows leading up to the next release, a costume contest, like come in your best Beetlejuice costume and then maybe we can award spots, invites to the party. We need Portal. Everybody needs Portal, man. I think Postcard Idea is amazing over costume contest. I just want to like what's the what's the way to just give everybody the same chance? I don't want, you know, you're an insider, your favoritism, whatever, you know? I want to give like everybody like that. This may be somebody's first pinball machine and I want them to have just as much of a chance as like an insider, right? I hated like not getting invites to media days for roller coasters when they came out just because like I wasn't an insider. I didn't like kiss the executive team's ass all year just to get an invite to the media day for the new kitty coaster at Six Flags. I liked it when it was like open to anybody like, "Hey, we have a coaster forum, you know, who wants to go? We we have [snorts] we have spots. Come on." You know, like how can we bring the community in, you know, because everybody's differently talented, you know? It doesn't always have to be the same people, you know? I will say this though and this is getting out there and put this out for everybody because I know, okay, if you are in the position that you want to get a pinball machine, contact your distributor, contact Mad Pinball down here, Corbin at madpinball or jeffmadpinball.com and tell them you want to be on the list for Spooky's next game. Do it now. it's a year away from its release, give or take. Just do it now. That way, and forget about it. And then a year from now, when all the hype is building up and nobody has spots and people are taking pre pre-sale deposits, you'll have us a chance to be like, you know what? I'm going to be in on it. Let's see what it is. Because the good distributors, even if they were taking money, were saying, listen, up to three days after the reveal, if you want to back out, you can back out. You know, I still have yet to play Multimorphic Pinball. I wonder if Multimorphic is coming to pinball at the beach cuz Portal's got to be there. We can't have all the games if Portal's not there. Already on three list for next game. Dustin's doing it right. You know, Dustin's doing it right. So, if he doesn't get a chance to get to the midnight event, he's got three chances with distributors to like be able to breathe on launch day and and confident in the fact that he's going to get whatever this next game is. Um, I've seen it. I've played it. I It Spooky hasn't peaked yet. Okay. People like Evil Dead was a peak. It was. And then Beetleju is another peak. And then there's another peak coming. Like as good as these games are, there's another peak coming. You don't want to miss this one. If you're if you like pinball, if you have an arcade, like it's going to be limited. It's going to be packed. It's going to be franchied. I don't want to hype it too early. It's a year away. But do yourself a favor and get on a list. And then don't be posting hateful comments on launch day a year from now like, "This is BS. I was calling 300 times for the 30 games that were available. Like, don't don't even put yourself in that position. Set yourself up for success. They're not listed yet as a guest. Think it depends local distributor. Someone brings one. H. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, portal. I need to give away that portal shirt I bought. I think I got it somewhere. Depends on a local distributor or someone brings one. All right. Anybody in Florida, grab your multimorphic and bring it down. I wonder if we'll see a return of Ramps Road Show. Like, where are we at with that? I think it's a game it deserves to exist. Guys, I got a I got a sneaking suspicion that this next licensed game from American Pinball is going to be Cuphead, but just rethemed. Hey, Monica, how you doing? Um, Dustin, you're not going to have to worry about that. So, Evil Dead has a great color palette for its theme. Beetlejuice has a great color palette for its theme. They're both kind of like same same, right? A lot of greens, a lot of purples. Looks a lot like Scooby-Doo. Um, but you know, TCM Looney Tunes complete departure from that. So, the best thing is to take your Evil Dead, take your Beetlejuice, and put a TCM right in between them. That game's phenomenal. I took it down to the new house. It was at the party. I hope people liked it. Already done. It's getting rethemed 100%. Right. I know. Like, if they're not releasing that game, and I haven't heard of any new designers that they've hired, so they're going to take the game it's already designed and rethe it. Stern must be in the war room trying to strategize their next move or they're just going to keep doing what they've been doing. Um, and maybe the fact that their games sell through to distributors is is reassuring them that everything they're doing is right because their games are selling. But if they get if they get stacked up at distros, that's where the back flow is going to start happening. Wife decides she's running a half marathon on the Sunday at pinball at the beach. Oh, like like like down there in Florida. And Brad, I'm sorry I didn't have like I wanted 20 extra friend game. I could have given away 40 friend games if I had them, but like I I I couldn't get it. Halloween Horror Nights was great. Yeah. All right. Now that you've seen them, what I want to know is, do people think Evil Dead or Beetlejuice is better? I know it's not fair to like throw them against each other. Most people are probably going to own both and there's room for both. But like I was thinking that it was going to be like a 6040 split because the theme is a little more palatable to more people. I was thinking Beetlejuice would come out slightly ahead overall like on a ranking list with uh Evil Dead. Evil Dead's a wide body. I think Evil Dead has more mechanisms. Um Beetlejuice has faster gameplay. uh has more mechs or more sculpts in it and a much more uh like higher tier theme. It's hard to compare them. Ed is more my style. See, I think I think it's up to the individual person. I think people are going to say Evil Dead is still better and other people are going to say Beetlejuice just beats it out. I think they're both like neck andneck. I don't think it's, you know, one's higher than another, but I think it's going to come down to individual choice. You know, I think the theme for Beetlejuice is like outpay. I think the music in Beetlejuice is better than Evil Dead. I think the mechanisms in Evil Dead are more numerous. The playground is bigger. Beetlejuice looks more fun. Not biased on theme. All right. I really enjoy both. I think it's Yeah, I mean, both games are great. I'm just, this is just the enthusiast part of me that just likes to rank everything because I'm thinking I think there'll be a slight edge to Beetlejuice overall. Like if you asked 100 people, I think it'd be 6040. I don't think it'd be 50/50. AB 100%. Yep. I've been saying I like Evil Dead better, but Beetlejuice is a superior game. Yeah. I mean, I still think I still think the game play of Texas Chainsaw Massacre is hard to beat. I just played it yesterday. I drove out to the house yesterday. I was there for 30 minutes. I played a hell of a game on TCM. It took up that entire 30 minutes and just walked away like this game is so damn good and it is so slept on. And I think for everybody that missed out on Beetlejuice, satiate yourself with a TCM in the meantime. That's me Win Schilling as a fan of the game. Like the game's so fun, those mini bulbs. Um, yeah. I think that the lighting package of Beetlejuice is a step above Evil Dead. So much so that they're going to go backwards compatible with some of the upgrades Beetlejuice got to like add more light to Evil Dead. Beetlejuice would be more popular. I think I think it'll it'll only just be more popular, Allan. So, the call outs. So, you know, in a bubble, objectively looking at the game, you're thinking like, there's no custom call outs. How can it compare? Ask anybody that has played Beetlejuice. Like, did you even Were you even sitting there playing going like, "Man, I wish there was more call outs. I wish somebody some ethereal voice was telling me to shoot the left ramp." And I I think what you're going to find is like people are going to say, "Didn't even occur to me. I was just having fun in Beetlejuice. I was hearing the clips from the movie. That's what I wanted. I was having fun. I was learning the shots. I don't think anybody was sitting there going like, "Man, I really wish somebody would say the left orbit is lit." You know, and I don't think that's going to be the standard going forward. It's just for this game specifically because they there was there was a call out voice initially in some of the code and when they took it out, it was much better. It was just much better. Is Spooky going to stick with a standard body or will they be doing more widebody? Depends on the game. Um, you know, when they approach a project, it's like the project kind of jumps out as like this should be a wide body or this should be a narrow. I don't view Evil Dead as a widebody. I mean, Evil Dead's a widebody in the same way that Scooby-Doo is. You know, that extra room allowed them to do a double shooter lane on the right and have all that room for the hand on the left. you know, it's not wall-to-wall playfield like Future Spa where the ball is just slowly going everywhere, you know, and Scooby-Doo had a lot of effects and things on either side that just allowed more space. So, it depends on when they start the theme because uh they don't start with layout and then put a theme to it. the the theme creates the layout and then the layout commands mechanistic things and regions and sometimes [snorts] those mechs and things you're like this has to be a wide body so we can put in everything that we want to other times the theme is such that we want narrow we want faster and so that's what you get remember Harry Potter is a narrow body machine or standard body and it's phenomenal so it it's it's really Just depends on the game, but Spooky is definitely not afraid to go widebody when the mechanisms require that. Beetleju plays Fast and Furious. Yeah, it does. And I like that there's there's close shots and there's far shots. Like there's a good mix in there. Um there's a region with the waiting room area that feels kind of self-contained when you're up there. I like that when when you can shoot up there and you're like, "Okay, now I'm just playing up here now. And then you don't have to worry about the ball going down the drain. You can just worry about lining up your shots. Um, you know, uh, Total Nuclear Annihilation does that. Scooby-Doo does that. When you go to the upper play field, you you can calm down and just play with the bookcase and some of the shots because you don't have to worry about a ball going down an out lane. Like that's the fun part of having those different regions, an upper play field or a playfield region. Don, the marathon work year begins today, right? To get the game out. Right now, um, you know, it's all about finishing strong on Evil Dead, giving everybody a break for the holidays, making sure parts are ordered, and then boom. Yeah. you know, it's um it's got a good mix of flow and like accurate shooter shots, you know, because you can trap up and then every time I trap up on the right flipper, I don't care what mode I'm in, I want to hit that scoop that's all the way in the back of the machine. And I like how they have a ball guide rail on that left ramp on the base of it. So it when you hit that ball guide, it'll it'll put the ball straight through the spinner and right through the pops into that scoop all the way in the back and then it's going to come straight back through the spinner. Know your work every day. Oh yeah, right. I went back to work yesterday and I think I'm working for about two weeks straight in two different states. Um, no. It's probably three weeks because I have to do my week and then do my other week and then come back and do my other week. So, I'm going to blink and it's going to be mid January and I'm going to be packing the rest of my stuff and getting down to Benton because we're going to be full-time down there. But yeah, dude, game's good. We're getting some good games this year. Um, I saw the uh pictures from the tour at Barrels of Fun. And they had some uh Winchester Mystery Houses there, too. So, that was good for them. Dustin, have you seen the Stock Topper? We can't get off Beetlejuice, man. I can't derail this train. Um, the Stock Topper is awesome. It's Dante's Inferno with the mouth and then like the building and then a background and then the same lighting strips. So, I don't know. They need some kind of like wall-mounted shelf that you can plug the standard toppers into and just like put up on the wall and just have them go through like their whole things because like the stock toppers are actually good for being free and included, you know? Um, so how many how many of these Beetlejuice toppers are going to sell? They sold over 800 for Evil Dead for 888 games. Dante. Yep. Um, they got to beat that. They got to be at least 900 of these Beetlejuice toppers because even if people are mixed on going butter or not, you know, butter is not necessary, but it is awesome. Um, when you look at secondary value of your game, that butter is going to be the one that people want. You know, collectors that have stupid money that want the best version of the game, that's the one they're going to get. Your next five days off is December. Oh, okay. All right. Well, we'll be moving in December then. I sell the LED controller I make for them. Just build your own shelf. Oh, perfect. Yeah. All right. Dustin will hook you up. So, yeah. Like I wouldn't mind just displaying my stock spooky toppers somewhere. I want to do something with them. Our largest distro is already 95%. Dude, on topper sales. And largest dro I think I think is pinball star. Are you going to fit fit all your games in new place? Oh buddy, I can fit twice as many games in the new place. M is a schedule keeper. Thanks for letting us all use the Benton House for the Shindai Q. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks to Monica. She made the gift bags. Hopefully everybody got one. I did hear back from somebody that was having so much fun that they missed out on it. We still have them and I'm waiting for an address in my email and I will send that out. I want to make sure everybody gets their goodie bags. Monica did a great job with them. Dude, that's crazy. How I mean, how is it not? The game's $10,000. So, you know, at this point, the value of that game is so much higher than that that it's just like it would be rude not to get the extra topper. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Captain 12. I thought Dr. Tone also did. Or am I confused? Was that your home theater in the pics? Absolutely, 100%. All right. So, we're going to set this up with more time next year, so everybody's going to be there. Um, Monica, we're going to be living there, so it shouldn't be a problem. All right. Well, then email me your address and I'll mail you. I have four bags left that people didn't grab, so we'll get them out to you. Monica made a bunch of cool stuff that goes in there, so make sure you get it. And make sure you let Morgan at Spooky Pinball know that you want this back glass art with the with the extra Midnight logo on it because you were there. I thought about putting an ED topper on Tales from the Crypt. [laughter] That would be awesome. Four people didn't get one of the 20. Cool, man. We need we can hear about home theater stuff. Allan, I need uh an audio system for the home theater, so I'm open to suggestions. Let me know what I can do to pimp it out. 42 minutes. We're still on Beetlejuice. 42 minutes of Beetlejuice. We We barely had a multimmorphic moment during the Sunday live stream. What the heck, man? What the heck? I didn't get a game, but it'd be possible to just get a topper and hook it up to an outlet. Yeah, dude. Totally. I wish you could like get the topper and just hook spooky speak up to stuff in your house. Allan, appreciate it. I mean, all I probably need is just like a soundbar or like a a surround system. Um, but let me know. I'm getting text messages, people waiting for replies. Dude, I've never seen it like like the day of and the day after the party. Like I've never gotten as many messages and emails and subs and Patreon people joining. It was crazy. Our first non-ster game in seven years. Hell yeah, Scott. That's awesome. Beetleju just for the theme alone over Evil Dead. Yeah. So, I think people are going to be like that. Um, as great as the both games are, I I think that if you pulled a hundred people, you'd probably find 60% of them preferred Beetlejuice over Evil Dead. And I think the theme has a lot to do with that. You need a full Doby atmas system. Is that 5.1? All right. Um, I think even I might come down with like a little edge towards Beetlejuice because like I love that character. got something for you. [snorts] Hey, we even dress alike. Learn to throw your voice. Fool your friends. Fun at parties. Like, I love all those lines. I want spooky speak for turning on the downstairs game room lights. Oh, dude, that would be awesome. 514. So, five is like the surround speakers, one for the sub. What's the four? I don't know. 514 for the party. I bought a uh a Bluetooth speaker I got from Costco and it seemed to have plenty of like booming sound just with that little thing. It's just going to be funny. Like I want to put Beetlejuice on its own circuit so I can have all the lights off but just have Beetleju just turn on remotely and then when I go downstairs I could just Beetlejuice three times and just like it's going to flood the game room with light. Point four is overhead speakers. Ah, have fun. Need to go and start fixing rebuilding my DigDug arcade cabinet CRT monitor. Brad, you arcade people. All right, man. Brad, have fun. Thanks for hanging out, buddy. See you soon. Pinball at the beach. I'm pretty much working every day until then, but we're going to we're going to make it a point to be there in the Tampa region. I I hope I already asked for that time off. I think I did. I think I'm good. Uh working two jobs right now and trying to keep the schedules from overlapping each other into like an impossible situation when, you know, these aren't these aren't two jobs in the same town. These are like six states apart. Got to have time for flights. It's always a uh variable. A lot of bagging on stern pinball recently. I'll just leave it that now. Um I've been teasing Stern just because it's fun. They're still 90% of the pinball market or or whatever the numbers are. Um, I just, you know, it's just hard to look at me personally in my pinball budget and see $10,000 going to something like Beetlejuice and $13,000 for The Walking Dead and just having it look like such a let down. But my hope is that Stern can take this pressure and I want them to really punch back. I want them to bring it, you know. Um, I I think that the $13,000 LE should come with the topper, should come with the accessories. Maybe not at launch, but down the road. Um, just do what you can to pack more value in there. I like what they're doing with the lights. I like the speaker upgrades, but you know, when I when I have a finite pool of money and I'm looking at the offerings for my personal collection, you know, it's hard to make that jump. Especially when, you know, if you just wait around a couple months, that price is like bargain basement. But um yeah, hopefully they they hear some of this feedback and they approach it in a mature manner and then they really punch back. I wanna I want to be torn like crap, do I get this game or do I get this game because I want to have a bunch of good choices, you know? I want Multimorphic to feel some heat so they bring out an arcade version of one of their games where I can just have a standalone portal. I want a portal cabinet, regular flippers, smaller screen. That's what I want. I don't want to have a big heavy beast of a system that I don't know how to work on. 13,000. Still don't get a topper. The toppers are 1,500 bucks and they're plastic. And if that's the X-Men topper that they released, it looks like it looks like one of the billboards on 192 or Bronson Memorial Highway in Cassimi right next to an old sizzler. Eric knows what I'm talking about. Oh man, now my wife is upset at Stern. I'm hoping you are right about Stern. They have instead of connect, which I love. Yes. And the resting on the laurels. Yes. Stern builds taxis. Spooky builds top fuelers. Oh gosh. Brutal. Brutal. Um yeah, for $1,500 you can make some sculpts for your toppers. They don't all have to be just stacked plastics. Throw some, you know, L LCD screens are cheap now, you know, put some stuff up there. Make it do some cool interactive stuff with the game. You know, making it look like the uh the 192 billboard and Cassimi right next to a gift shop with a fading wizard paperier-mâché concrete out in front of it next to a CC's pizza doesn't do it for me. Did you see the Beetlejuice snake? Did you see the Cheryl Topper? Where do you see the next one? My god, they keep getting better. So, get on a list, man. I I love this era of pinball. This is even better than three years ago when I came in. Um, starting to build Godzilla, right? The building is a diverter and it raises and lowers as you damage it. Like you're Godzilla fighting the city. You're Godzilla fighting tanks. You're Godzilla fighting Kaiju. I've been waiting for the followup to Godzilla and I haven't seen it. Jaws was close only because the theme was incredible, the modes were incredible. The game was fun. They still didn't have like, you know, a shark that was a diverter. They did an LCD on the Venom Topper. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they did. Um, yeah, they did. And it was cool, but come on. The problem was it was on Venom. They were trying to do something with feral liquid, which which that was impressive, but yeah, they're just plastics. And you know, you already had a sculpt of Wolverine you could have reused up there Venom could have been a couple little changes would have really really made Venom awesome. The code was great picking the characters, unlocking the characters, leveling up. Like I was there for that, you know, but like Scream is in the game and she's just a video mode when you don't interact with that character at all. Like character is not relevant, not part of the story, not part of anything. And that would have been awesome if there was some more Scream in there. We had the doppelganger swing out mech. I like that. Spider cheeks. I like that he was a sculpt. Maybe like have a a scream one on the other side that would pop out. Give me a spinner. Just a couple things would have really elevated Venom, I think. The big rumors Godzilla's outsold Adams family. I believe it. Game's awesome. Game was awesome. Um, what do you think is going on at JJP now? Ken's not over there. They're making Harry Potters every day. Are they getting bored of doing just being the Harry Potter company? I think contractually I'd heard that they do have to release Sonic even if Potters are still being churned out. I can't get off I can't get off the Beetlejuice party. Donna had such an amazing time with the Midnight Mattice Party. Thanks again for the hospitality. Of course. Of course. Had a blast. And we'll let you do the Yeah, Spooky had a lot of fun with this. And if you listen to Loser Kids Pinball podcast, which I think you should, um, most of the way through it, they have Bug on there. And he even admitted that it was, you know, at first daunting, but they're glad they did it and they'd like to do it again. And I'm here for that because hell yes. I want to find a way to make it even better. I think we need to have like a tent in the lawn next to the factory just to hold everybody. get a band, you know, so there's like some music and a party in there and then you can cycle like you can book a time to like go down and play the new game in one of the buildings. You can have the food tent and like the outside party loud music tent. That's what I'm thinking. And we could bring more games, bring more people. We could have, you know, the core group of Deposit Midnight release people, which is going to be finite, but we could have a big tent that everybody can go to. And maybe the house party is just like how it kicks off for like the select few people get their gifts and stuff. And then we expand to the big event and then we have time booked on the new game. Deposits are taken at midnight. Um the band rages and everybody just has a great time and horses and torches. We had we had everything for the torches, but it just we didn't even get to it. Hilton, thanks for coming, being awesome. That was super fun. That was super fun, man. We need to get more local Wisconsin people down there, too. All right, I've got a whole a whole show I'm gonna get into. topics will include Beetlejuice and I could probably do a whole show just on that. Um, talk about some Stern and then what I think is going on. It'll be fun. Let's do 7 p.m. instead of midnight next time. Listen, we do midnight because the launch day is the 14th and that's the soonest on the It's the earliest we can do it. Us oldies were struggling coming 101. I I get it. I get it. But then, do you want to have an earlier party on launch day or do you want to have it the day before? Because the whole point of midnight is that they have a street date that they can sell this game. And midnight is the absolute earliest time possible on that release day. But yeah, maybe maybe we can do that. Don't we get to make up the rules? But yeah, I agree. It'd be fun to just come in at 7:00 and pay your deposit and play the game and then just rage until we want to crash. We just started too early. I think I was there at 5 and some people showed up at 1:30 and helped me unload the truck. Dude, I didn't stop. I started at 5 that morning loading the truck, driving down, shopping, unloading the truck, getting gear set up, testing the trailer, and then it's like people are already showing up. And then once people started coming, it was just that was it. I We're just rolling with it, figuring out the food on the fly. U But this was good. We learned a lot with this show. It was It was so much fun. Like tell me tell me somebody that was there that'd have a great time. But the things that we learned will apply to the further ones. It's going to be awesome. Oh, this was a fun Sunday. We stayed on Beetlejuice the entire time and like it's still going. Um, so I'll upload this now. We'll record a show later today. I've got a bunch of these Beetlejuice translates to give away the midnight versions to the Patreon members. And you have all the way up until I actually do the live stream to get in on the giveaway. If you're a $5 member, you get an entry. If you're a $10 member or above, you get multiple entries. And uh, yeah, we'll be doing that. If you want to enter without joining the Patreon, you got to send me a postcard or something. Um, but yeah, we'll be drawing people. It'll be fun. Listen, I was playing Monsters at 3:30 in the morning and still going. I got to the wizard mode. I should have streamed it. We should have streamed that game. Um, but yeah, like I get it. And and I was up the next morning for the launch at like eight o'clock. I'm recording podcast for Patreon. And then I was over there Carrie Hardy's live streaming the whole launch. I'm watching it all play out in real time, watching the game sell out in 13 minutes by telephone. If the website didn't crash, it would have been not even 90 seconds and they all would have been sold out. And then uh yeah, everybody's has a job for another year. Um we'll finish up the Evil Dead production. We they will. And then um my hope is that January to start rolling off the line and we get some location games for show games. People are going to be coming by the house playing it. I was on 151 at 3:30 in the morning heading to Madison. Right, dude. Thanks for bringing ABBA. That was awesome. Thanks to Mad Pinball for bringing America's Most Haunted. Jeff at madpinball.com. Corbin atmadpinball.com. Get a game. Get on a list for a game. shop their used inventory. Um, ask them about what events are going on. If you have an idea for a cool event, like they're open to it. Um, these are distributors that care about pinball even more than I do and playing it and restoring it and finding cool rare stuff and bringing it to people. They got a rotation eight working and it was at the electric playground booth at Expo for anybody to sit there and play in a group. It would have been cool to show up at 10 in the morning and put deposits down. I get it. I get it. Well, then you would have Oh, I I see what you mean. You mean on launch day? Um, yeah. So, that's the other thing. Like, do they just keep all the games only for on-site sales and then you have people legitimately camping out the night before waiting for 10 a.m. to walk up and give their deposits? Nobody wants to do that. Number two will be the arcade bar. Our o arcade bar in early J. I'm tired still, man. All right. The video gameplay looks intense and hard to play with the strobing light shows. Does it feel like that in person? No. Um, it feels appropriate in person. I think the cameras pick up a lot more of that light intensity than you notice. Um, but I don't think anybody was having like strobe effects bothering them. My pin stadiums on monsters at my house was definitely doing that. Those things are blinding. Those neon atoms or whatever. Um, but no, because all the lights, the the extra lights that light the playfield are facing the playfield. They're not like in your face. Like look at Star Wars behind me. Like it looks nuts on the camera, but in person it's not that intense. Like that looks blinding right now, but you can see in person like there's perfect resolution there. So, um, yeah, I would say come play one at a show obviously. And I think what you'll notice is it's not as intense as it looks like on the cameras. But don't take my word for it. Ask people that were there. There's 40 people or so that have played this game that can talk about it now. So ask them. We had 20 invited guests and then they brought some plus ones. And then there was some friends of some staff that also was there and other family of staff was there. So we we had at least 50 to 60 people all together like throughout the night across three different locations and it didn't really feel overcrowded which was nice. All right, Hilton plug Madison pinball. I want a Madison pinball hat. How can I get one of those? Um I got to start printing t-shirts again. Anybody that was at the show that missed out on a t-shirt, let me know. Email me. If you missed out on a banner, email me. If you missed out on a gift bag, email me and we'll get you we'll get you made good. Lighting looks amazing in person. There you go. Um, I may have some extra midnight show t-shirts. If people would be interested in purchasing one of those, just go ahead and email me. We'll work out some details. I know I saw people with those hats, man. I was maybe jealous. I wanted one. Um, I'll get one at some point. I I'll buy one off you. All right, guys. Be good. It's Sunday. Go have a fun day. And if you're somewhere where there's no sunshine, feel free to make your own. Um I've been watching a lot of these First Amendment auditor videos. Just I love it. So fun. Um I'm going to get some food. I'm going to crash. I'm in the middle of a three-week work week. Uh and then we'll talk some more pinball garbage. How do I stop these streams again? Oh, I know what we need to do. We need to go to the ending. Let me get that queued up. All right, guys. Be good. Email me. donspinballodcast@gmail.com, patreon.comdonspinball podcast, Facebook, Discord, YouTube, all that stuff. Um, keep pumping the subs, dude, because it helps me get more reach and more exposure. The more numbers that I can show that I get, the more I'm likely to get cool stuff to bring to everybody. So, it's a nice circular jerkacular, if you will. All right, guys. Be good. I'll talk to you soon.