Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Pinball Industry News: April 2019 Re-cap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 27m·analyzed·May 1, 2019
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

April 2019 pinball recap: JJP's Wonka dual-continent reveal and Stern's Black Knight launch dominate conversation.

Summary

A comprehensive April 2019 recap of pinball industry events, focusing on two major game reveals: Jersey Jack Pinball's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which received a coordinated dual-continent premiere with careful press management, and Stern Pinball's Black Knight Sword of Rage, launched at Midwest Gaming Classic. Hosts discuss gameplay impressions, design philosophies, animation quality, and theme integration across these releases, while also covering the Flip Expo in France and broader industry show dynamics.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball coordinated the Willy Wonka reveal across five or six different media parties (websites, podcasts, streamers) under NDA with zero leaks

    high confidence · Martin Ayer explicitly states 'at least like five or six different parties that basically had seen the game up front. Nothing was leaked' and praises the NDA compliance.

  • Pat Lawler designed Willy Wonka's playfield in approximately nine months

    high confidence · Jonathan Euston references Jack mentioning this in their mid-month bonus interview: 'Pat did this in about nine months, if I remember correctly.'

  • Willy Wonka was designed with commercial operators in mind, targeting three-minute games with approximately one-minute ball times

    high confidence · Martin Ayer states: 'this game is actually designed with the commercial operators in mind, in the sense that they were aiming to have three-minute games, so ball times around a minute.'

  • Willy Wonka playfield features a rotating disc mechanic that reveals a drop-through hole—a feature believed to be novel to pinball

    high confidence · Jonathan Euston: 'there is a rotating disc, or a disc that can rotate, which reveals a drop-through hole where the ball can be shot into, which I don't think we've seen something like that ever on a pinball machine before'

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage features music by Ian Scott from the band Anthrax, with heavy metal/thrash styling

    high confidence · Martin Ayer: 'the music is a big factor in this game with Ian Scott from Anthrax having really recorded the classic Black Knight theme and some variations to that. It's very energetic...almost thrash metal, I guess.'

  • Black Knight's animations were created by video game animators and exceed Stern's previous animation quality, but theme integration suffers due to inclusion of sandworms, hellhands, and other creatures unrelated to the Black Knight concept

    high confidence · Martin Ayer: 'if you have a game called the Black Knight, and you're supposed to be battling the Black Knight, then why are there sandworms and hellhands and other creatures that you have to battle?' and 'the creative direction went a little overboard.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I have to say congratulations to Jersey Jack for tying all this so well together because I think other pinball manufacturers might still learn from that”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~7:30 — Praises JJP's coordinated reveal strategy as a model for industry standard

  • “It plays like butter...a very smooth playing game. Even with the upper flippers, the shots that you're supposed to be making are actually easy to be made.”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~25:00 — Key gameplay impression of Willy Wonka's shot flow and flipper ergonomics

  • “if you have a game called the Black Knight, and you're supposed to be battling the Black Knight, then why are there sandworms and hellhands and other creatures that you have to battle?”

    Martin Ayer @ ~65:00 — Core design philosophy critique regarding theme coherence and creative direction

  • “In the sense that, obviously, they never watched the Jersey Jack game because I think the animations on even Willy Wonka but Pirates you name it Jean-Paul De Wijn set the bar very very high”

    Martin Ayer @ ~60:00 — Comparative assessment of animation quality standards across manufacturers

  • “That's not where the game is. The game is on the play field. So all this stuff that's going on, most of the players, whenever you look up and see any of these wonderful animations going on up there...you're not going to see a lot of that stuff”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~80:00 — Design philosophy critique: over-investment in backbox animations versus playfield gameplay

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyWilly Wonka and the Chocolate FactorygameStern PinballcompanyBlack Knight Sword of RagegamePat LawlerpersonJean-Paul DeWijnpersonJack DangerpersonMidwest Gaming Classicevent

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern leveraged factory livestreaming with multiple marquee figures (Steve Ritchie, Mike Vinicore, Gary Stern) to demonstrate Black Knight gameplay and build community enthusiasm prior to location availability

    high · Jonathan Euston: 'Jack Danger also had streamed gameplay footage from the Stern Factory with Mike Vinicore and Steve Ritchie and even Gary Stern playing.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Kaneda (content creator/player community) pre-release enthusiasm for Willy Wonka was genuine and publicly visible while maintaining NDA discipline; sets positive community expectation

    medium · Martin Ayer: 'Kaneda was very vocal in that he played the game. And he was very enthusiastic about the game, causing a hype on its own. But he didn't reveal any secrets.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Both Willy Wonka and Black Knight represent competing manufacturer approaches: JJP emphasizing playfield design excellence and smooth shot flow; Stern emphasizing backbox spectacle and battle mechanics with complex animation suites

    medium · Discussion contrasts licensed theme execution (JJP Pirates/Wonka) with original concept (Stern Black Knight) and divergent animation philosophy.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Black Knight Sword of Rage's creative direction criticized for theme dilution: inclusion of sandworms, hellhands, and other creatures inconsistent with singular Black Knight antagonist concept; animations viewed as over-investment disconnected from playfield gameplay

    high · Martin Ayer: 'why are there sandworms and hellhands...the creative direction went a little overboard...forgot what the main villain...basically is.' Jonathan Euston: 'That's not where the game is. The game is on the play field.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.262

0:00
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory premieres on both sides of the Atlantic. Black Knight Sword of Rage launched at the Midwest Gaming Classic.
0:15
Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland teaser video released. Hi, my name is Jonathan Euston of Pinball Magazine and I am here with... Martin Ayer from Pinball News. And we're here to talk to you about the Pimble Industry events and news of the past month, which would be April 2019.
0:39
And an exciting month it was. We say that every month, but there was quite a lot happening this month with new releases and some big shows taking place. Yes, it was indeed a very exciting month. And we saw a very interesting first, just to dive into our first topic right away. We saw a dual continent reveal of a new game by Jersey Jack Pinball. It was interesting, and not just because of the fact it was happening on two continents, because I think you probably agree with this, Jonathan, that it was a lot more stage managed and a lot more controlled in terms of press release and getting websites and podcasts and things on board and up to speed ready for the launch, which took place initially on the Friday night, I think that's right, at the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee. That's correct. That was the weekend of April 13th and 14th, but the reveal in America was on April 12th, which was the Friday.
1:54
And so the game was revealed there, and they had done their homework at Jersey Jack, I have to say. I mean, there was a live stream of the reveal. they had people from Jersey Jack playing the game, being streamed live, giving commentary on what they're supposed to be doing but at the same time several websites already had received images of the game that they were able to reveal as soon as the game was revealed, including Pinball News and Pinball Magazine but also This Week in Pinball podcasts had the opportunity to play the game so they already knew what the game was about and they had episodes ready to air so I have to say congratulations to Josie Jack for tying all this so well together because I think other pinball manufacturers might still learn from that I agree and also So congratulations to everybody involved in the reveal and in publishing and streaming and doing their podcasts and keeping all that stuff under wraps until the appointed reveal time, which was, I guess, when it was revealed in Milwaukee. for us we you and i both launching our reports at uh what three o'clock in the morning yeah i think it was in uh in europe which tied in with nine o'clock pm over in wisconsin yeah and i think the american podcast had a two-hour head start they could reveal their stuff at seven already i think the reveal was also planned at seven but and what's also interesting to note is is that um I think there were at least like five or six different parties that basically had seen the game up front.
Flip Expo
event
Jonathan Eustonperson
Martin Ayerperson
Jack Warnerperson
Ian Scottperson
Kevin O'Connorperson
Gary Sternperson
Steve Ritchieperson
Mike Vinicoreperson
Stefan Rieglerperson
Kanedaperson
Gary Flowerperson
Dialed Ingame
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
?

design_innovation: Willy Wonka features rotating disc mechanic revealing drop-through hole; believed to be novel mechanical innovation in modern pinball design

high · Jonathan Euston: 'there is a rotating disc...which reveals a drop-through hole...which I don't think we've seen something like that ever on a pinball machine before'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Willy Wonka emphasizes playfield ergonomics, shot flow, and smooth ball routing despite tight four-flipper layout with dense shot cluster in upper right; explicitly designed for commercial operator appeal with target play duration

    high · Jonathan Euston: 'It plays like butter...shots...flowed really well...making shots cleanly.' Martin Ayer: 'designed with commercial operators in mind...three-minute games.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Flip Expo reveal of Willy Wonka was deliberately low-key despite historic significance; lacked amplification, announcement, or media promotion; organizers reportedly uncertain about show continuity

    high · Martin Ayer: 'no amplification or anything, no announcement whatsoever...basically as low-key as you could possibly get.' Speculation: 'might actually be the last edition or the final edition of this show.'

  • $

    market_signal: Dual simultaneous reveals (Willy Wonka, Black Knight) at competing shows same weekend (Flip Expo vs. Midwest Gaming Classic) represents significant industry calendar coordination or coincidence

    medium · Jonathan Euston: 'Interestingly, the same weekend...there was actually a Black Knight game in Europe...Stefan Riegler, an importer...had imported a Black Knight game.'

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball executed a highly coordinated dual-continent reveal with pre-arranged media partnerships, NDA compliance, and synchronized embargo lifts across six media outlets with zero leaks

    high · Martin Ayer: 'at least like five or six different parties...under NDA...Nobody is revealing anything.' Jonathan Euston confirms embargo success and praises JJP strategy as industry model.

  • ?

    community_signal: Jean-Paul DeWijn establishes high animation quality standard at Jersey Jack Pinball; Stern's animation team praised for technical quality but criticized for narrative/thematic application

    high · Martin Ayer: 'Jean-Paul De Wijn set the bar very very high...animations on even Willy Wonka but Pirates you name it.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Kevin O'Connor credited for Black Knight Sword of Rage artwork; praised for visual design quality

    medium · Martin Ayer: 'the artwork I really have to compliment Kevin O'Connor. I think he did a great job on that.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Black Knight Sword of Rage features video game-quality backbox animations and extensive character roster; represents escalation in Stern's animation investment versus previous titles

    high · Martin Ayer: 'you've got a bunch of video game animators and designers working on this game, who are producing some wonderful top-notch video game animations.'

    • 4:01
    Nothing was leaked. You know, the biggest fear at Stern or other companies is like, oh, we don't want anything leaked before the reveal and so on. And basically everybody showed like, oh, we signed an NDA and that's fine. And nobody is revealing anything. I think Kaneda was very vocal in that he played the game. And he was very enthusiastic about the game, causing a hype on its own.
    4:27
    But he didn't reveal any secrets about the game. Yeah, well, we knew that the game was going to be revealed at Flip Expo, and we knew the game was going to be revealed at Midwest Gaming Classic, but we didn't actually announce the title of the game or any details about it until such time as we were given permission to do that. Yeah, okay, so that's the one part that Canada did spill.
    4:57
    Everybody was told to refer to the game as Jersey Jack's fifth game, which everybody did except Canada. But on the other hand, I think that it would be Willy Wonka.
    5:13
    That was sort of like public knowledge, I guess. Yeah, it was no big secret, but yeah. Just in deference to Jack and the rest of the team there, we didn't spill the beans officially until they were ready to announce it. Right, okay. So they planned that reveal very well. As far as the game goes, we both played it. What do you think? I loved it. I thought it was really good. it had a lot of the flow and the shot geometry of Dialed In which plays, I mean it's one of the best playing games of recent times I think Willy Wonka's packs just packs in so many shots into that same kind of upper right area where the theatre is in Dialed In but I just felt it I'll go out first of all and say I'm not a huge fan of the movie simply because I haven't seen it for so long and I deliberately didn't want to watch it before I played the game because I reckon there'll be a lot of people out there who aren't that familiar with it. So I was being one of those, I was being your representative for somebody who is vaguely aware of what Willy Wonka's about from their childhood but hasn't seen the movie in 20 years or more, or 30 years.
    6:36
    So I was coming at it from that angle, whereas you, I know, saw the movie a couple of days before. I tried to, but I couldn't find it online for free, and I didn't want to pay for it. I saw a couple of clips which reminded me of the Wonka vision, which I had completely forgotten about. So I had an idea what that did, else it would be a big blur for me as well. I couldn't remember what that was. That had no reference to that. but so I was coming at it as how is this a game to play even if you don't know the theme right and from that point of view um I I picked up you know the basic objectives very quickly obviously there are references in it as there would be for any licensed theme to two elements which I was less familiar with you know I didn't know who you know the names of the kids in it I didn't remember much about the wonky vision but I think probably most of the references I've got from recent times about Willy Wonka come from sort of flashback or pop culture references from shows like Bambly Guy who did kind of like an equivalent of Willy Wonka sitting in a beer factory so all that stuff sort of resonates with me even if I don't actually know the exact reference that it relates to but flipping it yep, lovely smooth playing game, lots of shots really, really lots of shots and something that's very unusual I found and I don't know whether you found this too Jonathan is that even with that many shots packed into a very tight area and it's a four flipper game they all flowed really well you think they'd be really narrow and that's the criticism that's been applied to it's not like Udini I was going to say exactly that yes Udini it's got a lot of shots and you're hitting a lot of posts I didn't find that in Willy Wonka at all I found I was making shots cleanly. If I was making the shot, I was actually getting the ball all the way around. It wasn't rattling and coming back at me all the time. Was that what you found too? Yeah, it's a very smooth playing game.
    8:51
    It plays like butter. And even with the upper flippers, the shots that you're supposed to be making are actually easy to be made. For those who have seen the layout of the game, there's a third ramp, which is a sort of center ramp that you can only shoot with the upper right flipper. And even that, although it's a very tiny area, that shot is very easy to be made. And very satisfying when you do make it as well. Yeah, and I was also very happy to see some sort of mechanical innovation in this game, in the sense that there is a rotating disc, or a disc that can rotate, which reveals a drop-through hole where the ball can be shot into, which I don't think we've seen something like that ever on a pinball machine before no also interesting although it's not exactly innovative it's an interesting idea that ball lock and the scoop on the right hand side which also feeds the same kick out kicks it out into the shooter lane which then shoots it back up to the top of the play field which is I haven't seen any kick outs into a shooter lane I don't think in any game, I'm sure some people would probably be wrong on that, but that seemed like a nice idea in a way of not just... It's a safe eject, if you know what I mean. It doesn't throw it laterally across the playfield and down an out lane or anything like that. It's into the shooter lane, it's up to the top, and go around the orbit and then round to the left flipper or into the top rollover lane, depending on what's happening. Right. So I thought that was nice as well. Right, so definitely compliments to Pat Lawler and his team for the layout of this game and the smooth way that it plays. It really is a very satisfying game to flip. Yeah, and quite a short turnaround time on that. I think Jack said in our interview that we did with him, our special bonus mid-month interview with Jack all about the game, I think you mentioned that Pat did this in about nine months, if I remember correctly. Right. And what I also understood is that this game is actually designed with the commercial operators in mind, in the sense that they were aiming to have three-minute games, so ball times around a minute. And I think they actually managed that quite well. I didn't see any ridiculously long games on the show where we were playing the game. And it was a game that, yes, there was a line, but I kept getting back in line and I wanted to play it again. So that's also a good sign. Yeah. And I should also mention that at the show, they also had some very nice Willy Wonka chocolate Wonka bars or miniature Wonka bars available. Yes, like coffee. Yeah, well, which I know you were particularly partial, Christoph.
    12:06
    Sorry, I like my sweets. Well, I have an agreement here. I don't know if you can hear it, but I have a miniature Wonka bar right here to eat during this. Well, actually not to eat, but as a souvenir of the weekend. Right, and that will be very collectible in a few years' time, I'm sure. if not edible right I understood that at the Midwest Gaming Classic they actually had big chocolate bars with the Wonka label wrapped around it so but so yeah a very nice way to tie in with the reveal of this game yes absolutely it was a slightly strange reveal I'll put reveal in quotes there because There was no sort of big presentation, no announcement by Jack, although Jack was at the show, obviously. Right. We're talking about the Flip Expo recently. Not the Midwest Gaming Classic one. Yeah, which was a little more managed, shall we say, with their own seminar. it was midday in Le Treport in France where the game was brought out, set up and then made available for people to play keep in mind that the location where this was happening there's two big rooms basically and the room where this was happening is basically a big sports hall there was no amplification or anything, no announcement whatsoever was made that the game was basically revealed there. So a handful of people knew and that was about it. Yeah, it was about as low-key as you could possibly get. All of a sudden, if you were walking past, there was one moment there was a gap where next to the Pirates of the Caribbean dialed in Hobbit and the Yellow Brick Road edition of The Wizard of Oz. and the next minute you turn around and there's a Willy Wonka machine filling that gap which wasn't covered up or anything it was just out there for everybody to see while the streaming rig was set up so people could watch it online and then basically it was available for everyone to play I think online they could have given it a little bit more attention as well I even had difficulty finding that stream.
    14:41
    Yeah, I have no idea where that was. I mean, it turns out you have to, I think if you look it up, or if you Google Soiree Flip, then you're able to find it, but if you had no idea and you were just Googling for Willy Wonka Pinball stream, you won't find it.
    15:02
    Yeah, you kind of miss a bit of a trick there with promoting, I'm sure, a number of people would have come to the show who were maybe in two minds about it if they'd known that the game was going to be there and available for everyone to play. Yeah. It might also have something to do with that. Obviously, I think a week before the show, the organizers of the show was informed that the game would be revealed there. And I even suggested, like, you better start hyping this a little bit to draw more people to the show. but I don't think that really sunk in because I don't think they did that much and might also have to do that later that we found out that it might actually be the last edition or the final edition of this show because the organizing team is sort of like no longer interested in continuing doing the show although that might have changed during the course of the weekend but that might explain why there is not that much promotion put into the fact that this game was being revealed at the show. That being said, while we're talking about the show, I think it was a great show. I agree. I think it's... It has been expanding rapidly over the past couple of years since they got that second vendor haul.
    16:23
    It's become one of the major shows, I think, in Europe. It still needs some work in order to expand various aspects of it, but I'm not sure whether that's what they want to do. Right. I think they like it to be a local, a very French show to encapsulate the laid-back, savoir-faire attitude of, here's a wonderful show. We're not going to shout and scream for the rooftops. We're not going to do a big social media plug on it.
    16:52
    Come along. Enjoy yourself. We're only going to charge, what was it, four euros? Four euros. Four euros to come in. I mean, it's nothing, is it, really? No, no, no. It's like $4.50. Yeah. I mean, be able to play all these games and go to all the vendor stands. And, you know, everything else was reasonably priced as well. And with a great little supermarket next door, a little car for, if you wanted to get snacks or drinks, they sold them at the show. But if you wanted to go to the supermarket, there it is, right? You know, literally, you know, 30 seconds walk away from the entrance, you can get whatever you want. Nobody worried about it. And then they put on a good show. And it's a good time of year. The weather was okay this year. It wasn't as good as last year when it was wonderfully warm. Yeah. It was a bit chilly outside, which meant they couldn't do a lot of the things that they would have done outside. And you and I couldn't do our interview with Jack outside around the back of the main hall, as we did last time, because it was too cold. but they were happy to suffer somewhere in the back in between all the chairs and stage stuff and what have you and provide us with some wonderful hospitality as well which if you listen to the podcast you will hear as they turn up with first champagne for us to drink during our discussion and then some chocolate crepes as well to munch on so apologies if it made you hungry or thirsty listening to it very appreciated and I have to note as well that compared to last year the number of games at this show went up quite significantly which is a good thing because I was really afraid there was going to be another show with less than 60 games and actually I think the number was up to over 100 something like that you probably did the count I didn't to be honest I didn't because I normally do the video but I could go back and check on that but interesting quite a lot of the games although we call it the vendor hall and the free play hall quite a lot of the games are actually in the vendor hall rather than the free play one so your the newer ones shall we say are in the vendor hall and the ones which were brought by local collectors, enthusiasts and supporters of the show are in the other hall, along with all the tournament machines as well. But there was a dial-in in the tournament lineup as well.
    19:33
    Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the final of the main tournament was held on it. But all in all, a very good show.
    19:43
    You wrote a very in-depth report which people can read on pinballnews.com which I highly recommend. I was supposed to write a report as well but after I saw what you did I knew I'm not going to top that so I was too busy with other stuff so I was like, okay I'll just send them to you. Fair enough, thank you very much. Yes, it's quite as you say, in-depth. There's about 130 high-res pictures on there and a video walk-around and of course linked to our joint interview that we did with Jack,
    20:25
    which I think is now back on Podcast Garden. Is that right now? Because we had a little problem with that website. They had some issues with their security certificates, which meant that people couldn't get to it and we couldn't upload to it. But I think it's all back now. Yes. So if you're listening to this, then you probably discovered that we're back on Podcast Garden because you were probably listening to it on Podcast Garden. Unless you downloaded it from Podcast Garden, then still the site is working again.
    20:59
    That's it, I guess, for That's the Willy Wonka game. There's one thing we have to mention. Obviously, we did record the bonus podcast in which we interview Jack Warnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball, but we had another guest as well. We did, indeed. reporting live, well, semi-live from the other show as well. So that didn't kind of work out too well. They had some communication problems. Right. So people were wondering, like, we finally had Gary Flower on the show. We did. Yeah, kind of.
    21:40
    Yeah. Sadly, there were some communication issues and I don think Gary could hear us and we couldn hear him very well But in order to solve that we came up with a solution So to bring Gary finally on the show, and God knows he tried so many times to get on the show, this time we'll be calling Gary. Yes, we're not going to take any more chances. Rather than risk missing his call, we're going to call him up right now and get him to report live with his reminiscences of the Midwest Gaming Classic and everything that's happening I'm calling him right now I'm sure we'll be able to hear that at any moment it's just a matter of waiting until he picks up his phone that's good we can hear him can he hear us I wonder as soon as he picks up we'll find out if he can hear us Yeah, okay. We did tell him we were going to call him, so he should be ready. Yeah. So, this is a big moment. I mean, he's been trying so long, and now he's finally here. Come on, pick up.
    23:00
    Oh, no. Poisoned male? You've got to be kidding me. What? You've got to be kidding me. Oh, man. We've spent all this time building up to him, and he doesn't pick up. I'll try again later. He's worse than we are. Remember you have dialed. I'm glad you said it in another hour.
    23:19
    Oh, well, we gave it a shot. We'll see how it goes. Maybe we'll try it later or else. There's other episodes as well.
    23:27
    We will get there. We definitely will. At some point, I'm sure we'll do. So, since we already mentioned the Midwest Gaming Classic show, which was the same weekend. Yeah, Gary can't fill us in on it. We'll have to do it ourselves. Right, so, well, Midwest Gaming Classic was the show where Stern Pinball were revealing their Black Knight Sword of Rage game.
    23:55
    And obviously the game had been sort of revealed on Facebook and Stern's website and all that kind of stuff, but nobody had a chance to play it. and here at the show I think there were at least like 20 plus Black Knight games, probably different models as well, I'm not sure. Yes, all three models I think were there. Right. Well, I wasn't there, so I couldn't check, but I have to go with what I heard. So the game was there, also live streams covering that game, And in the meantime, Jack Danger also had streamed gameplay footage from the Stern Factory with Mike Vinicore and Steve Ritchie and even Gary Stern playing at some point. Who, surprisingly, being Gary Stern, and we all know what a terrible pinball player he is, he actually did pretty good on a game where he could hear no music. well that game obviously suited him yes you could tell that so what were your impressions of Black Knight sort of rage then from the reveal and well the reveal we covered before but the first live streams and the first chance to actually see people play it for real well first of all I have to say the artwork I really have to compliment Kevin O'Connor. I think he did a great job on that.
    25:36
    Obviously, the music is a big factor in this game with Ian Scott from Anthrax having really recorded the classic Black Knight theme and some variations to that.
    25:52
    It's very energetic. Well, like, I don't know what you call it, heavy metal or whatever. Yeah, almost thrash metal, I guess. Yeah, shredding guitars and so on, which is fine, but when you're watching that stream for 30 minutes, then it really gets old quickly.
    26:11
    Yeah. And basically, the impression I got is, usually with pinball, there's different tunes of music in there that build up to something. I mean, there's a main theme, which is not as enthusiastic or hyped up as a multiball theme or something which is supposed to be more exciting. But here, it was like everything is like, okay, pedal to the metal, and it's just volume at 11 and go. yeah I think it's definitely a full on in your face game right from the very start I think that's probably a good way of putting it it's high pressure constantly there's no easing up on that as reasonable as if you're battling the black knight you're not going to warm up to it you have to get straight in there straight away and start fighting for your life and I guess that's what the game does But you're right, there is a little change in pace that we've heard so far. I don't know whether that's going to change later. So that was one thing that I noticed that at some point got a little annoying with me. And it could also have to do with watching it on a live stream. And it might probably be different when you're actually playing the game.
    27:42
    That being said, I was quite surprised. I mean, up front, the animations in this game were really talked up by people working at Stern. Like, these were the best animations that were ever seen in pinball. Well, maybe at Stern pinball, but even with that, I probably disagree. In the sense that, obviously, they never watched the Jersey Jack game. because I think the animations on even Willy Wonka but Pirates you name it Jean-Paul De Wijn set the bar very very high and without wanting to be disrespectful to the animation team at Stern if you have a game called the Black Knight, and you're supposed to be battling the Black Knight, then why are there sandworms and hellhands and other creatures that you have to battle? You're there to battle the Black Knight. I don't get that. I mean, I found it a little distracting and sort of out of place. I think this is something where the creative direction went a little overboard, like, hey, this is what we can do, let's do that. But just because you are able to do something doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do it.
    29:19
    Okay. Let me counter your arguments a little, although not entirely, because I do agree with you in a number of ways. certainly with games like Pirates of the Caribbean Willy Wonka in fact all the Jersey Jack games they're all licensed themes so you have a bunch of assets you can work with and a look and a feel which you are matching which the movie gives you and you have assets as well which are provided to you which you can use so I'm not saying that JP DeWin did not try to undermine that in any way and say oh it was really easy was given all this stuff it wasn't at all because obviously he needed to create things um the different the one exception there of course would be dialed in right which is an entire you know original concept which um although based on you know tv news channels and and um and god games like sim city and things like that so the the references there you can use with black knight It is a completely original concept. So you do have to sell the idea to people. But to take your point on board and agree with you, I think it's clear that you've got a bunch of video game animators and designers working on this game, who are producing some wonderful top-notch video game animations and characters in the back box on the display.
    30:55
    But, as so many people often say, that's not where the game is. The game is on the play field. So all this stuff that's going on, most of the players, whenever you look up and see any of these wonderful animations going on up there, except when the ball is static, and on a game like Black Knight, the ball is not static very often. It's a battle game, as Steve Ritchie is famous for. So the ball is almost constantly in motion, except on the few times where you do lock the ball. So you're not going to see a lot of that stuff, which is a shame as a player. It's good for the spectators, sure.
    31:31
    I think the animations they've done are excellent up there. But in terms of developing the theme and the story, as you were saying, it takes off in a whole different dimension it's almost like the black knight is a minor character in in the movie or in in the uh in the game yeah now and um it's a it's a black knight universe has been created almost like a marvel universe where he's just one of the one of the people you have to battle amongst a whole whole raft of others and i think he gets his role is diminished which obviously is there on the play field in a big way, and then the other characters are there only in the back box.
    32:15
    But as far as the modes in the game go, yeah, there are a whole bunch of other characters that have been thrown in which have no explanation. Right. To me, it almost felt like a sort of ripoff of Medieval Madness, where you have to battle different lords or whatever knights in order to get to the King of Pain.
    32:45
    But these are medieval madness. You're still battling other knights, and now you're battling all sorts of aliens or whatever you are.
    33:02
    And the other thing with medieval madness is it's funny. Exactly. So you could forgive throwing in all these extra characters if they're all making you laugh. Right. But in medieval metas, it's still sort of fitting with the theme that you have this king of pain, and he has his men, and they all have castles, and you're destroying their castles one by one. Still, that fits perfectly with the game. And now you're battling the Black Knight. and all of a sudden you're not battling the Black Knight, but you're battling a hell hand or a sandworm or some icy creature from I don't know where.
    33:47
    And that makes it a bit like out of place, I would say, in the sense that it doesn't strike me. If you're battling the Black Knight and you obviously have a Black Knight on a black horse and there's a black knight in black armor on the playfield, then you're sort of positioning the theme of the game like a medieval knight and that kind of stuff. And then it really confuses me. Where are all these other characters coming from and why are they even here?
    34:22
    You can kind of imagine it. If the black knight was bringing up his army, and there was maybe different types of armies that you had to battle with him leading them always. Right. Or almost like Game of Thrones with the White Walkers or you've still got the lead White Walker but he's got all his minions and all his followers who are coming up in wave after wave and you have to defeat. maybe they're a wave of sandworms or hellhands or whatever but still with the Black Knight in the lead and taking the charge to you but that wasn't what it seemed like to me yeah it's like I said I got the idea that the creative direction went a little too much overboard with this and forgot what the main villain of the game basically is. Yeah, because this is the third game in the series, so you've had two games with just the Black Knight to battle. So when you actually have a third game where his role is effectively diminished or diluted by a bunch of others, it feels a lesser game in that regard. Although I think the playfield and the shot map is actually quite fine. I'm not sure about the upper playfield. I'm not sure whether there's anything much to do up there in the same way. No, on Black Knight 2000 I really like the upper playfield on that because the ball bounces around when it's going into the rollover lanes the war rollovers. You can bounce it so it goes up onto the upper flipper and you can have a shot at the target bank, the motorised target bank or for the lock or go around the orbit and it seems when it hits the rollover when it comes down towards the flipper on the upper playfield. It kind of dies. There's not much going on up there. There's not much action. Right. Which is fair if you're playing the pro, because you obviously haven't got an upper playfield. So that makes sense. Right. So, and there's one other comment about the Black Knight that I need to make, which has nothing to do with the theme integration or whatever you want to call it. But obviously we mentioned that Willy Wonka had a dual continent reveal.
    36:48
    Interestingly, the same weekend as the Midwest Gaming Classic, there was actually a Black Knight game in Europe as well at the Austria Comic Con.
    37:05
    Stefan Riegler, an importer in Austria, had imported a Black Knight game to be present at that show, which is great the difference in being that this was not organised by Stern Pinball Yeah, there was no sort of official launch it was all Stefan's work in order to get the game there and I'm not saying it wasn't supported but there was no European launch over there at the time which there could have been I think it's interesting I don't know whether you feel the same Jonathan but I thought that originally, I thought the Midwest Gaming Classic it was just going to be the Black Knight show, really. You know, they're going to have Marco going to be there with like 20 or 30 of these brand new games. It's Stern's big reveal of it. And then the same weekend, we also get the reveal of Willy Wonka, which I think kind of, I don't know, I don't know whether it attracted or whether, you know, are two reveals better than one? for the show probably yeah i think it must have drawn in uh more people in the sense that the pinball people who were uh maybe hesitant or not sure about going um sure it might help to know that there's two new games being revealed at the at that show um interestingly i think um if you i think there couldn't be a bigger contrast between the two games if it wasn't just for the musical aspect I mean Willy Wonka has all this musical like music from the movie which reminds me a lot of The Wizard of Oz actually versus the shredding guitars from Anthrax yeah absolutely Black Knight is a battle game Steve Ritchie does battle games like nobody else.
    39:10
    And Pat Lawler does flow games and stop and go as well, built into that. But he originally stopped and go a lot, but I think he's added more and more flow to his games over recent times and made them a lot more accessible. I don't think it's all about trying to kill you all the time, whereas Black Knight is very much about trying to kill you, both metaphorically and trying to drain the ball in the shortest possible time. Judging from the videos I've seen of people playing anyway, I haven't actually got my hands on one yet. I'm looking forward to doing it. Yeah, same here. But it does seem like most of the major shots on that game are halfway up the playfield. So the bash toy for the Black Knight, the flail, the shield,
    39:59
    and the lock shot, it's all in the bottom half of the playfield. that ball is going to be coming back at you very, very quickly. Yeah.
    40:09
    Whereas Willy Wonka, long shots, no smooth shots, reasonably safe most of the time, although whether the ball times are any less, I would like to say. Right. So obviously in terms of technical innovations, since I mentioned that with Wonka, that flail kind of toy on Black Knight, that's something that we haven't seen before. It's interesting.
    40:34
    Yeah. motorized. There's a motor there. There's obviously a couple of motors on Willy Wonka. One to rotate the disc that covers the subway entrance, and also for the spinning gobstopper toy as well, which is variable speed. So various modes, the more you hit it, the faster it spins. Right. And it's having magnets on the playfield as well on Willy Wonka. Seven is just outrageous, really. they're not full-size magnets in the same way that we've seen them before they are mini magnets which is another, I guess you could say another innovative feature on that game with LED circles around them as well, so you can see where they are and see when they're active and the concept of micro-inserts I suppose, which is something I don't think we've really seen I don't think we've seen inserts that small on any game before, obviously not recently Lord of the Rings comes to mind really? yeah, the LEDs in the ring just above the flippers that's true, but I think that's one big insert there, isn't it, with some LEDs underneath it, or are they all individual ones, maybe they are I'm actually not sure I think it's one insert we're printing over the top where these are individual holes, which is interesting design, but anyway more on that later Right. So while we're on the topic of Stern Pinball, there's some other news as well.
    42:10
    Yeah, some people coming or maybe going, and upcoming games as well. So where do you want to start with? Well, I'll start with the – I understand, and I haven't got any more details on this, that the next game to come out of Stern after Black Knight is going to be Keith Elwin's game. I think a number of people thought it was going to be Brian Eddy's, but I don't think it is. My current understanding is Keith's game is next in line. But, of course, all these things are liable to change. You know, various delays or changes in the production schedule could mean that that isn't the case anymore. But at the moment, that's my understanding about that.
    42:59
    I also heard that Jeremy Packer, Zombie Yeti, who kind of took a step back from pinball, probably a bit burnt out, I think, from his time producing so many games. and took a self-imposed break from doing the artwork for pinball games. I think he's now back working with Stern on a new game for them. I don't know whether it's – I don't think it's Keith's game, but it might be. But certainly it's an upcoming title that he's working on for now. Right. And talking of artists Okay yeah I get it I get it you want me to spill the beans on this one yeah go on okay so um christopher frenchy is uh i say an interesting artist uh to discuss um i think um i'm not even sure when we discussed the um the texas pinball festival did you mention that, as we understood it, at the show, during the show, Christopher Frenchy quit Stern, said he would never work for them again unless it was that he was being hired by Kapow. And then after the show or even during the show, things got smoothed out and as often the soup doesn't get eaten as hot as it gets served. But there was definitely some frustration on the end of Christopher Frenchy. And so the rumor has it that, at least at that point, things were straightened out and he was back at Stern.
    44:44
    And then last month he showed some concept artwork for Beetlejuice that he suggested to Stern. It was a back glass that he showed. and the interesting news here is that none of the design teams at Stern were interested in doing it and as George Gomez told Christopher Frenchy, if they are not interested in doing it, then there's no point in doing it. No. Because if you don't feel it, then what's the point of doing it? Yeah, that's right. You don't want to just design a game based on some nice art. Right, so I think Christopher, I don't recall the post exactly, but if other pinball companies were interested, they could contact him. So that could be interesting, and I would not be surprised if we would see Christopher Frenchy actually designing some artwork for different manufacturers as well. Well, he's a freelancer, so unless he has a contract, an exclusivity contract, with any of the other manufacturers, or with Stern, then why not? Why shouldn't he work for any other companies? We already know he does stuff for... with Joe Kamikau at Zynga. Right. I think that's well known. I don't know if he's done any work with Joe for Avstacrat and slot machines, but it wouldn't be a huge stretch to imagine that taking place. obviously Joe with Kapow it's well I think Joe posted that he was kind of done with pinball yeah he retired again yeah but you know everyone's retired until they're working on their next game true it seems so never say never as everyone is very keen to say in the pinball industry because people change their mind and markets change and ideas come up Well, I know that Joe was pursuing various licenses as Kapow back when the Batman 66 game came out.
    47:02
    Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know if you remember or you were at that one, but there was a pinball expo where he circulated a questionnaire. Exactly. That's exactly what I was getting at, where people could, basically you could tick a box. There were a number of themes listed. I do recall Big Bang Theory being one of them.
    47:28
    And basically these could be handed in somewhere, I guess. and they would take that into consideration to see, like, feel if there's any demand for a certain theme.
    47:44
    Yeah, so, well, maybe we'll be seeing a Big Bang Theory pinball coming up. That was just one of the games, and I think Big Bang Theory is actually an aristocrat slot machine already. Actually, it was already back then, so with the connection already being there... Yeah, I was kind of assuming that those were licenses that Joe already had for stop machines and was looking to see whether they could be extended to people as well. Right.
    48:17
    And it could be interesting, on the other hand. Well, we'll see. For now, Joe is apparently done. But then again, the next license show day, he will probably run into Gary again. again and they'll probably have a drink together or a dinner and who knows what that will lead to. Yeah, I don't think anyone's really done in the pinball industry at least while they're still breathing. They can always come back and come up with a new idea. We've seen that happen many times including when Jack brought Pat Lawler back for instance and Sam brought Brian Eddy back and all those people you thought were out of Pimble suddenly come back and not to mention the in a related incident the closure of Larry DeMar's company Larry's retiring his LED gaming company who did software and game concepts for slot machines is closing down, it was effectively closed down already but I don't think it hasn't financially closed down until the end of the year, but a number of people from that company were ex-Pimble people who are now back in the game, including people like Duncan Brown, who's now back working at Jersey Jack alongside Ted Estes. Which is basically reuniting the old team. Yeah, and Pat's there, of course, as well, and John Yowsey, of course, doing art.
    49:58
    It's almost back to the good old days. well let's hope so yes so as I say you're never out of pinball now speaking of design teams that's actually a very nice bridge to our next topic since we're going to be talking about Deep Root Pinball now obviously Deep Root last year announced that they would be having there are five days of Deep Root at the Texas Pinball Festival and then they cancelled but that being said they do employ four pinball designers if i'm not mistaken yeah i think that's correct with uh dennis nordman working on at least two non-licensed games barry osler is working on multiple games john poppaduick is there and john norris as well i remembered yeah and um And the interesting thing is that John Poppadew was the first designer who was not officially announced as being a designer there, but people got news of it. And there was, with the whole sitware debacle, if you want to call it, about John not being able to deliver the games that he actually owed people, but was unable to build.
    51:27
    Deep Roots took it upon them to, at some point, deliver these games. And apparently those games were supposed to be delivered somewhere this year. Not sure whether they're going to actually do that, but the interesting news now is that there is a video teaser for a title that was formerly a Zipware title, Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland. Yes, absolutely. I think there were at least three titles from John, with Magic Girl, Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, and Alice in Wonderland. so those would be the three which he was believed to be working on for Deep Root. Magic Girl obviously has a history, a long history, and the other two do as well to a degree in that people paid money for those, or paid deposits on those, or indeed paid in full in some cases for them, and then never received them. So there's the whole legal side of that going on. But Magic Girl was produced in a form, be it unplayable, pretty much.
    52:42
    So a number of those machines were delivered to owners. But it was thought, or I certainly thought, that Magic Girl would have been the first of the titles that they would have made from Deep Root. but it looks like they've skipped that for the moment and gone on to promote Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland which they have started the promotion process with a, as you say, a teaser video which kind of fills in the backstory to the game or creates a backstory to it, I suppose, as up until now there's never been one. This is the game which actually started as a Ben Heck-themed game. Right. But it was then rethemed after Ben and John were no longer associated, to be safe.
    53:35
    Right. So I'm trying to figure out what the name of Ben's game was, actually. Was it Ben Hank? Yeah. Come back to me on that. Yeah. Because there was also something like Ben Hank Something Something Adventureland. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure there were zombies in there as well. Yeah, it was definitely Adventureland and maybe zombies. But I don't think it was retro, I don't think it was atomic at that point. Right, but having the title being changed to Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland,
    54:12
    so, well, if we're discussing this teaser with this backstory, then it appears to me what they try to do is create a story where every element of the title is sort of explained.
    54:28
    So here goes, in my best English, trying to describe this teaser video, where we see a giant UFO with Martians invading the Earth and then being sabotaged by a heroine.
    54:50
    The Martians led by a bad guy, a sort of captain, or Ned, which doesn't really sound like a bad guy name, but anyway, carry on. Right, so this heroin sabotages their plans to invade the Earth, causing their sources to crash, which happens to be in an amusement park, which is next to a nuclear power plant, sure, which happens to be based on a graveyard.
    55:25
    Well, who can say they haven't been to somewhere like that? I know I have. Okay, well I haven't Maybe that's for the best So, but, okay It sounded a little bit far-fetched To me I mean, it's not like What type of game is this? Oh, this is a carnival game Or this is a Soccer-themed game Or a baseball-themed game No, this is a game themed about Martians invading A Adventureland based Near a nuclear power plant Which is built on A graveyard So it's stuffed with zombies Uh huh yeah Sure Like I said I find it a little bit far fetched I do have to say that So there is this video Is completely animated Which looks very very cool And very Modern I would say also a little bit cartoonish in the sense that I yeah it sounds like you're watching something at Cartoon Network but that doesn't have to be a bad thing so now I'm just curious how they are going to integrate that whole backstory into gameplay well it certainly gives you plenty of gives them I say the team at Deep Root plenty of possibilities of features to include in the game although as you're saying, you know, it's a bit widespread and kind of a scattergun approach in the, well, yeah, okay, we have aliens, not sure they're necessarily Martians, but there are certainly aliens, there's zombies, there's a theme park, there's nuclear effects, there's a retro in there somewhere, we're not quite sure what the retro element is. I'd say, yeah, I figured the retro part is the aliens and then probably using that in a sort of 50s sci-fi manner. Think Roswell and how that was used in movies and all that kind of stuff. Basically, like Attack from Mars was apparently a parody on those type of movies and stories. So probably in that sense. But then again, I'm like, okay, with Attack from Mars, we had Martians invading the Earth. Everybody could understand, okay, we have Martians invading the Earth. It's not like we have Martians invading an adventure land near a nuclear power plant based on a graveyard.
    58:13
    Yeah. It may be a scattergun approach. I mean, it's like it's trying to combine Attack from Mars with The Walking Dead, Total Nuclear Annihilation, and Cyclone.
    58:33
    Yeah, a bit of Creature from the Black Lagoon thrown in for retro feel. There you go. Guaranteed winner. Yeah.
    58:43
    If you say so. So, okay, that's a little bit confusing. But then again, it might be the coolest game ever.
    58:53
    It's certainly something that keeps us talking about it for 10 minutes or more. Yeah. I think as long as it doesn't take itself seriously, as long as it's lighthearted and throws in all these aspects in a humorous way and a bit like in the way that Futurama can dart around various themes and ideas. Right. And it's got strong characters who you emote with and care about. and don't just, you know, not give a damn about, then I think it could possibly work. Right. So what I found very interesting is, obviously this video was published on the website of Deep Root Studios. And on that same website, you can take a look at their team, which is just a team of Deep Root Studios. So the pinball designers are no part of that. But these are just the people making animations and that kind of stuff.
    59:56
    And I think there's like 40 people already there. I wonder whether they could be doing more than just publishing. Well, according to the website, they are doing more. And we already knew that the idea is actually that once they create an intellectual property, I think the plan is to turn that or to exploit that in as many ways as possible. So Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland could be a cartoon series that could be available for streaming services or Cartoon Network or whatever. What I understood is that they're trying to create some sort of electoral property for all these titles and use that in these games and vice versa. Yeah, well, no reason not to. if you're coming up with the original titles, and in most of the cases they are,
    60:51
    you want to, I guess, turn them into some kind of animated or broadcast format. It gives you a lot more chance to expand and explain the story behind the games, rather than having a teaser video like that. If you had a 30-minute, or with commercials in cartoon, that introduced it, then that would be a lot more entertaining and get you more into the pinball side of it as well.
    61:22
    It almost sells it, rather than having a theme developed, like Futurama, which goes off and becomes an amazing cartoon series, and then people say, let's have a pinball machine, do them both in parallel. So the two, they coexist and they support each other in that way. That's a good idea. I think they've got a new means of actually theming or coming up with original themes and developing them, which are beyond just the game. Right. And there's actually a sort of collage of characters that they are apparently working on, so you can get an idea of what kind of different characters are being developed by Deep Root. in the meantime I did a quick count of the people listed currently on the Deep Root studio website and that's actually 38 people so I wasn't that far off with my number 40 and that's just the studio and then we're not even talking about the pinball designers and the mechanical engineers and all the people involved in that and they haven't actually produced anything yet, they haven't sold anything yet so all the people are on the books working away and without any income to support them yet. There's a lot of investment in that business.
    62:45
    Good luck to them. Right. It's going to be very interesting to see how they proceed, but from the looks of it, there could be enough content to start their own network, I would almost say. Well, that would be something.
    63:03
    Yeah. Okay. I'll just looking at the points that we're going to mention I just want to flip back to Stern and flip as in book because the we're still waiting on the 30 years of Stern book, it was 30 years wasn't it wasn't 25 or 35 I can't remember now it was so long ago 30 years of Stern was 30 years of Stern paper flock they were or slash are producing the book I think this month that we're in now, looking at the clock it's just come midnight here on the 1st of May I think May is when it was due to be released two years ago, so it's now officially two years late in being published no sign yet it's going to be sent out to anyone Is that reason for the celebration? Oh no, it's celebration, commemoration maybe, as Mark the moment and I'm sure Paperflock are as keen as anyone to get the book published and out to the people who bought it I wouldn't be so sure in the sense that you'd think they have it done by now, I mean I'm a publisher actually the whole idea of doing a book on 30 Years of Stern came from me and as I approached Gary Stern and Dave Peterson with that idea in uh i think uh in january of 2015 at the eag show and they liked the idea and then again so um eventually they decided to uh somebody else might have talked to them about it and they might have not gone with the way that i wanted to do it because i would uh if i would do it uh as editor of Pinball Magazine, it would be a Pinball Magazine publication and I would also highlight the things that didn't go right and that might not have been what Stern was looking for. No, I think they wanted a lot more editorial control over what was actually in the book including maybe not mentioning some of the less successful games Well, not just the games but also some of the people who worked there and some of the events that took place Yes including various people leaving the company or rejoining or just leaving you know and not rejoining ever Right While I think those people tell the most interesting stories.
    65:42
    Yeah. Well, this is a, I guess it's going to be a sort of a puff piece, as they call it, for Stern. So to big them up and not mention any of the less savory parts of their history.
    65:55
    Right. Okay. So anyway, so yeah, it's not out yet. That's the point. Yeah. And it's two years late. So but I do feel sorry for the people who supported the book, invested their money in it and still have nothing to show for it. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't want to bang on my own drum, but if you're interested in reading a quality pinball publication, then may I refer to Pinball Magazine?
    66:29
    No, never heard of it. No? No. I hear it's a great publication. I mean, the last issue, that's the fifth issue, 360 pages. Wow, that's more like a book. I guess it is So maybe people should check that out And speaking of Checking it out, for those people Attending either the Golden State Pinball show Or I'm trying to The Allentown show, which is next weekend At the Allentown show Pinball magazine will actually be offered At the stand of Pinsound Ah, okay Excellent Pinsound who were also in I think also selling your publication and had a very nice stand at Flip Expo as well with a large display of machines all demonstrating their Pinsound alternative soundtracks which I think people appreciated a lot that was very nice. Right and they were also selling it at the Texas Pinball Festival Ah right So it's a very fruitful collaboration with Pinsound, I highly recommend you check out their product.
    67:44
    Okay, well, we're on the subject of self-promotion. Let me just mention that time of recording, it's now Wednesday the 1st of May, and in a few hours' time, at 8pm tonight, I shall be opening registration for the new tournament thing we're doing in the UK this year. We're doing a fantastic five days of pinball tournaments featuring five days of pinball events at a couple of locations. Maybe you should play with the brood.
    68:21
    Wow. Okay. In that case, it's cancelled until next year. No, we're definitely doing it. And it's July the 17th to 21st, five days of tournaments culminating at Flip Out London in South London. The point being that registration for this opens in a few hours' time.
    68:47
    If you want to sign up for it, if you want to come to London, only 80 places available, so you better get in quick. 18 or 80? 8-0. Okay. If it was 18, yeah, that would be very quick. at tournaments.pinballnews.com a little bit later today where the registration will be available. So that's the fantastic five days of pinball tournaments in London in July. And that's my self-promotion over.
    69:16
    Okay. Even though it's not me running it, we have tournament directors, a couple of, Matt Vince is running three of them, or two of them, I think, and Neil McRae running the other two. And I don't know, I might run another Sunday tournament yet, but I'm just in overall charge of that. These are the guys who are actually going to be on the sharp end of events and making sure everyone has a fun time. Right. And is it just going to be tournaments, or are there other events scheduled as well? No, it's just tournaments. It's tournament weekend.
    69:53
    We have our UK show. So UK Pin Fest is later in the year, in August, at ukpinfest.com. So you can check that out. That's back in Daventry in the English Midlands.
    70:07
    We're breaking the UK Open and UK Classic out of that show, giving them their own location and adding another three tournaments to it as well just to make it a really fun five days and bring it to London as well. Lots of people will say, why don't you hold the tournaments in London? Well, now we are. Okay, so there's tournaments. Does that mean, or will there also be games on free play? And these five days, are people who are not a tournament player welcome to come in and play some pinball as well, or is it strictly for those 80 who are registered and that's it? There certainly will be free play machines available. and the first tournament's been held in a coffee shop in West London where they have all the newest machines and then we're moving over to our pinball club in South London where there will be free-playing machines as well as a classics tournament as well which is a lot more relaxed than the main tournament.
    71:14
    The main focus is on tournament play. It's not a pinball show as such. it is a tournament but it's kind of like the events that are held at the clubhouse in Holland at the Dutch Pinball Association for the Dutch Pinball Masters it's a tournament event although there are some free play machines available but we can't, that's not the focus of it but if you want to come along, if you're a partner with somebody or you're not a competitive player yeah you can probably come along and play and just sign in and come along and we have a number of days where people can do that. And talking of the Dutch Pinball Association and Dutch Pinball Masters, we've secured the services of one Mr. Ad Jonker. Who? Well, I know, no one's ever heard of Ad, but he's coming and bringing his tournament system over to run the UK Pinball Open scoring system for us. So while Neil is tournament director, Ad's going to be looking after all your scoring and displayed for the qualifying rounds and using his tried and tested system to make sure it all runs smoothly. Okay, good. So, and just to be clear, Ed John Curtis is a very dear friend of mine, so I was just joking. Yes, I know. You know, but... He's a great supporter of pinball and he loves it. He comes to Texas, he comes to whenever he can and various other shows around the world and runs tournaments as well. He's a seasoned tournament organizer, tournament director, and a pretty good player, and a fellow beer lover. So all-around good guy. Yeah, always fun hanging out with Ed.
    73:00
    So, okay. So enough with the self-promotion. Yes. Then I have three more items on my list to briefly discuss. Go for it. Well, American Pinball in Oktoberfest is on the line and shipping.
    73:22
    Good, yes, yep. That's as much as I know about it. Yeah, so I guess that means that it's kind of locked down now, no more changes to anything on the play field. Hardware gator. No, no, the hardware and the artwork is done and dusted and it's getting out there. So, yeah, I actually saw one the other day in a...
    73:48
    There was one at Flip Expo. Yeah, but I was thinking I saw one in a bar somewhere that was doing a beer promotion, and it would have been an ideal place. I think Joe Belser on Facebook was talking about how it would be ideal for a location to have an Oktoberfest, and, lo and behold, it has an Oktoberfest. So, yeah, although it's not just about the drinking, but it's a very good game, a very good bar game, you would think.
    74:13
    Yeah, hopefully it will be for them. I played it at Slip Expo. I think that was still a prototype game.
    74:23
    I'll reserve my comment. Okay, I enjoyed it. I played it there. First of all, I played it since, well, for a long time, since Expo, since it was first revealed. and yeah, I had fun with it. I think the play field seems to play well. The artwork is very bright and attractive, I'd say. It would draw people in the same kind of way that Python and Angelo artwork did on games like Hurricane.
    74:55
    And being a graphics guy, I do have issues with the display graphics on Yeah, they're not up to the level of Stern or Jersey Decker, I'd say. No, I think that's fair to say.
    75:13
    I wish they could enhance that. But, you know, at the end of the day, as I said earlier, the game's on the playfield.
    75:23
    I just don't like to look up at the display and sort of inwardly cringe. but then I do that in a number of ways that I think people would not even spot. You know, that's the thing that gets me about a lot of color DMD games or displays.
    75:42
    I look at them and I see this, you know, yellow text with purple text underneath and green text underneath that, and I'm thinking, oh, my God, you know, why on earth did you pick those colors? And that makes me cringe, and everybody else goes, ooh, lovely color. so I think I'm probably different in the way that I look at games to other people but there you go can't blame you I think it's best for me to reserve my comments I also played Octoberfest at the Texas Pinball Festival and because I did I actually noticed that at the game in France not everything was functioning correctly or as it was functioning at the Texas show So my most recent memories playing that game were basically the game wasn't working as I was expecting it to work. I think skill shots were not enabled and some other things were not working as good as they were. I think even one of the flippers was having some issues. So that sort of killed the fun in playing it for me a little bit. But I still say that I like it far more than Houdini.
    77:04
    Yeah, I think I prefer the artwork on Houdini. But yeah, I know what you're saying. I had a little funny story to share about I was playing a four-player game. I think I was playing with that, actually, amongst other people. And I'm not sure if one of the stand-up targets was not registering or was registering too frequently, shall we say. But at the end of the ball, when the ball drained, it sort of counts up the number of ducks that you've collected by hitting the stand-up targets. And I think I got such a large number of ducks, it sort of draws all the ducks across the screen. but it was drawing them and there were so many of them that they were basically drawing on top of each other and they were kind of like one pixel from one duck to the next they were all overlapping and there were so many of them that it got sort of like halfway across the screen and for every duck it does it goes quack so you're going quack quack quack and do this like a hundred times and no hurry up possibility you press the flipper buttons and it doesn't speed up at all in fact I tried it, I pressed the flipper buttons to try and speed it up, and the game crashed and reset.
    78:15
    So you broke it. It was a four-player game. Well, it was a four-player game. It was a – oh, sorry. So, yeah, basically. I think it has a limit on the number of ducks it can count up. So there you go. Josh and guys at American Pinball increased the number of ducks that it can cope with situations like that because, obviously, I think it probably had something like, I don't know, over a thousand ducks collected and um that's enough to kill the game so yeah so um but we still laughed and we still had fun right okay um i got two more notes uh i'll do this one and then you'll do the the last one um brian allen um who is the artist that you might know from the limited edition alien back glass that he did for Highway Pinball I think we mentioned last month that he did an alternative back or trans light for Monster Bash which was loosely inspired by the original trans light I would say but then in his own style and apparently he was summoned that needed to be licensed from Williams and I just got word from Brian that is now all settled and that the Translight will be available soon again through official channels I believe so that's good it was a very attractive reworking of the original. I'm saying this, I'm looking at a Monster Bash poster hanging on the wall that features the characters, but the one that Brian did was on the Back Alley Creations stand at the Texas Pinball Festival and yeah, I think a lot of people looked at that and basically saying, wow, that looks amazing. It's a lot more edgy and a lot more, well, scary, I suppose, as monsters probably are meant to be, rather than rounded faces. They're a lot more angular and a little more frightening and sharp, I think. And people thought, oh, that's good. I don't think it was actually, it wasn't in the game. It was in a light box, I think. And I'm not sure people necessarily knew whether or not it could be put in a game, whether it was even the same size. But it did look great. and it's actually, you can see it in the Texas Pinball Festival report that I did on the back alley creation stand where I go through all the vendors in the vendor hall.
    81:03
    It's not featured directly, but you can certainly see it and see what it is that they had there. I think it's, yeah, great work and it deserves to see the light of day and be out there. And does it need licensing? well we can have this discussion it's derivative of the original I would say so maybe it does but either way it does look absolutely it's got wonderful colours, strong colours and it's just sort of more amped up and vibrant version and edgy than the original I think it was $225 or something yeah something like that originally I think it was a limited edition. I'm not sure whether it still is.
    81:53
    I do know that Brian will actually be selling these at the Allentown show next weekend. So if you're going to that show and you want to see the artist who created this or even get a translator yourself, then here's your chance. Yeah, I believe it was limited to 125, obviously original production run. But there was also a nice black and white sketch as well, a framed sketch, a smaller version from which it was based. So I don't know if that's sold or whether that's available as well.
    82:31
    So basically a print of those would be very nice, just to hang on your game room wall, even if you don't buy the, or don't even have a Monster Bash. Right. Yeah. Good.
    82:41
    And the last one, I suppose, is just something I noticed that the, I don't want to call it a doomed game because it's far from doomed but the highway pinball game Alien which is probably well in my opinion I'd say it's one of the best utilizations of a theme in a pinball of any license really it's so in depth and it's clearly done with a lot of love by everybody who was involved in the design team for that game could be seen as being having reached into the road when Highway of Pinball closed but work is continuing on the game code I hear there's a programmer out there who's coming up with a newer version of or updated version of the Alien game code whether that's going to lead to any more games being made by Pinball Brothers.
    83:44
    We could speculate for a long time, but yeah, there are... It's a very valuable license. It's a very sought-after game.
    83:57
    And, you know, parts are becoming available. Pinball Live does have the boards available, the underplayful boards for that game. So, no, maybe, if the game's been developed, maybe it could go back into production at some point and well, that's a speculation, but the fact is that game code is being further developed beyond where it was when highway shut down, and stay tuned for more information on that as we get it. Right, okay. I guess that rounds it up for the news. I think it probably does, yeah. For the news that we are bringing you from recapping the Pimple Industry News of April 2019, But please do join us next month for another episode of our Pinball Magazine and Pinball News podcast.
    84:52
    And anything, any closing words you want to add? Not really. I don't currently have any overseas shows to go to, but this weekend I shall be at the Play Manchester, or Play Extra, I think, show in Manchester, where the Northern Lights pinball team will be there with around 50 or 60 pinball machines. Always nice. As part of a much bigger sort of gaming and arcade and Comic-Con and basically everything to do with gaming and be it card games, be it video games. Cosplay as well? Cosplay as well, yeah. Yeah, still time to come over, Jonathan. Oh.
    85:43
    So that's in Manchester this weekend, so look out for a report on that. And after that, I don't know.
    85:50
    I'm not sure what shows I'm going to be going to in the US over the summer, if any, because work is getting in the way, which is a bit annoying. But, you know, you have to pay for these trips somehow. So still looking to see what we're going to be doing. Yeah, we've got to work on a celebrity status that we don't have to pay anymore, that they're just offering us a ticket and a hotel, so please come over and enrich us with your presence. Yeah, well, if anybody wants to make that offer, I'm all ears, as they say. And I'm sure I'll be able to work around any work commitments to make sure that happens.
    86:26
    So please, please. okay well so this is uh that's it for uh for this month uh next week we'll be next week next month we'll be back with a new update and um in the meantime um there will be another newsletter update uh coming out uh from pinball magazine as well and if there's any shocking events you'll probably read about it either on pinball-magazine.com or pinballnews.com Yep, so until next month where we'll be looking back at the wonderful month of May so from me, Martyn Ayo, and from Jonathan Houston we'll wish you a very good goodbye and we'll see you next time. Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.