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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast April 2025 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 40m·analyzed·May 2, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

April 2025 recap: Dune and King Kong revealed; Stern art/code leadership shifts

Summary

Jonathan Leib (Pinball Magazine) and Martin Leib (Pinball News) recap April 2025 pinball industry news, covering three major announcements: Dune by Barrels of Fun (1,000 unit limited run, $11,600 MSRP, sandworm mechanism, shipping by end of 2025), King Kong: Myth of Terror Island by Stern (Keith Elwin design with three-artist collaboration, standard cornerstone pricing), and significant personnel moves at Stern (Jeremy Packer/Zombie Yeti appointed art director after Sebastian Napoli's departure; senior programmer Tim Sexton leaving for Play Mechanics, raising concerns about John Wick code development).

Key Claims

  • Dune is a limited run of 1,000 units with 300 sold by Barrels directly and 700 by distributors

    high confidence · Jonathan and Martin citing official Barrels of Fun statements during factory visit

  • Barrels of Fun plans to build all 1,000 Dune games by end of 2025

    high confidence · Direct company statement, though Jonathan notes this sounds ambitious

  • Dune MSRP is $11,600, a price increase from Labyrinth

    high confidence · Official pricing announced by Barrels of Fun

  • King Kong retail prices unchanged from previous Stern cornerstone games ($7k Pro, $9.7k Premium, $13k LE)

    high confidence · Confirmed pricing via official Stern channels

  • Sebastian Napoli left Stern a few months prior to April 2025 to pursue other opportunities but continues work as contractor

    high confidence · Zach Sharp (Stern) provided identical statement to both Jonathan and Martin independently

  • Tim Sexton, senior Stern programmer, left to join Play Mechanics (Raw Thrills company) at beginning of April 2025

    medium confidence · Martin states 'I recently found out' suggesting secondary reporting; not directly from Stern confirmation

  • Dune sandworm mechanism features magnet grab, ball swallowing, twisting action, and wire form release

    high confidence · Jonathan and Martin directly played and examined the game at Barrels of Fun factory

  • King Kong character is now public domain, allowing Stern creative freedom for reimagining

    high confidence · Martin states this directly; character out of copyright but movie/story is not

Notable Quotes

  • “They also had a media influencers day set up where various podcasters and other pinball media were invited to the Browser Fun Factory in Houston to play the game and interview the design team.”

    Martin Leib @ ~4:30 — Describes Barrels of Fun's controlled media rollout strategy and access policy

  • “They hadn't written the code to drive, or at least it wasn't in the version that we saw.”

    Jonathan Leib @ ~10:45 — Clarifies that Dune harvester mechanism was incomplete code-wise, not mechanical failure

  • “We were thinking more like two and a half months to really get it into a fully polished state.”

    Jonathan Leib @ ~11:30 — Skepticism about Barrels' two-and-a-half week code completion timeline; hints at potential launch quality concerns

  • “The Pro and the Premium had completely different cabinet artwork to each other and the Limited Edition had half of the Pro on one side of it and the other half of the Premium”

    Martin Leib @ ~24:15 — Critique of King Kong's unusual art distribution strategy across price tiers

  • “Code was his baby, and he drove the direction in which it was going. And people have been complaining for quite a long time that it sorely needs improving and adding features to.”

    Martin Leib @ ~45:30 — Explanation of John Wick code concerns and Tim Sexton's departure impact

  • “even more interesting, if, if, big if, if Tim would be working with Mark Ritchie both big pinball people are together again”

    Jonathan Leib @ ~46:45 — Speculates on potential Mark Ritchie/Tim Sexton collaboration at Play Mechanics for future pinball

  • “If you put that game in a line up of recent Stern games the colour palette and the wide gamut of colours is very similar to a large number of recent titles”

    Martin Leib @ ~30:00 — Notes aesthetic consistency (Zombie Yeti influence) across recent Stern titles vs. Dune's cinematic approach

Entities

Barrels of FuncompanyStern PinballcompanyDunegameKing Kong: Myth of Terror IslandgameJeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti)personTim SextonpersonSebastian Napoliperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Play Mechanics (Raw Thrills, video game company) hiring Tim Sexton and potential collaboration with Mark Ritchie suggests possible return to pinball development; speculative but notable

    low · Jonathan's closing speculation: 'big if' Tim would work with Ritchie; no confirmation from Play Mechanics or Ritchie

  • ?

    community_signal: John Wick game owners concerned about code improvements and feature additions now that Tim Sexton (lead software) has departed; unclear if replacement (Weishen Chang) will complete deferred work

    high · Martin cites complaints from John Wick owners; notes Tim as 'lead on' and 'driving direction'; suggests Weishen Chang may take over but outcome uncertain

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stark contrast in art direction philosophy: Dune uses cinematic, photorealistic, subdued color palette vs. King Kong/recent Stern games use bright, full-color splash approach (Zombie Yeti trademark)

    high · Direct visual comparison by Martin; notes Stern's consistency across recent titles vs. film-licensed approach at Barrels

  • ?

    leak_detection: Pinball Store distributor leaked Dune reveal on Facebook/email ahead of official Barrels of Fun announcement; disrupted planned media rollout

    high · Martin received email from distributor; game spread across Pinside and other sites before official reveal; Barrels confirmed as unplanned early distributor launch

  • $

    market_signal: Barrels of Fun's Dune at $11,600 represents price escalation from Labyrinth; justified by 'included' campaign highlighting shaker, Infinity Glass, Horizon lighting; single-tier pricing vs. Stern's three-tier strategy

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.300

0:00
Dune revealed King Kong Myth of Terror Island revealed A new episode of What's Cooking With Hi, my name is Jonathan I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined by Hi, I'm Martin Leib and I'm the editor of Pinball News and Jonathan and I are here to bring you the very latest edition of the Pinball Industry News Pincast. And this time we are looking back on the month of April 2025 and all the exciting things that happened in the wonderful world of pinball. Right. And there was a lot.
0:44
Well, from a few companies there was, from several other companies not so much, but we'll get into that. The best part is two new games have been revealed, and we knew they were coming. Yeah. So let's start with Dune, which is the newest game for Barrels of Fun. Yeah, we previewed it last month, although we mentioned that Jonathan and I had already seen and played the game, but we weren't able to talk about it. And now at last we can reveal that it is Dune, based on the 2021 and 2024 movies produced by Legendary Entertainment, rather than the much older Dune movie. So it's based on both of those movies. Right. I'll mute that. Absolutely. Sorry. Yeah, thank you.
1:37
Yes, it's based on the 2021 and 2024 movies produced by Legendary Entertainment. And they have all the assets from those movies. So they've got some amazing footage. and I was going to say they've got the original soundtrack they've got the main theme from the game which Hans Zimmer I believe composed so that's included in the game now we weren't entirely sure when this game was going to be released it's a funny time for releasing games right now it's a very crowded market it is and there's kind of like there's a couple of elephants in the room, as it were, in the form of King Kong and Harry Potter. Right. And terrorists.
2:29

“Well it's worth stating this has nothing to do with the movie. That's probably why.”

Martin Leib @ ~16:45 — Explains why Stern's King Kong: Myth of Terror Island differs from source material

Keith Elwinperson
Kevin O'Connorperson
Mark Ritchieperson
Jonathan Leibperson
Martin Leibperson
Zach Sharpperson
Johnny Crap (Jonathan Bergeron)person
Data East Pinballcompany
Pinball Storecompany
Play Mechanicscompany
Legendary Entertainmentcompany
Greg Freresperson
Weishen Changperson

high · Official Barrels pricing and marketing campaign via social media hashtag; Jonathan/Martin confirmed during factory visit

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Tim Sexton, senior Stern Pinball programmer and lead on John Wick code, left early April 2025 to join Play Mechanics (Raw Thrills company)

    medium · Martin states 'I recently found out' without naming direct source; industry knowledge but not Stern-confirmed

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Sebastian Napoli departed Stern Pinball a few months before April 2025 to pursue other opportunities; continues as contractor; successor to Greg Freres after year of mentorship

    high · Confirmed by Zach Sharp to both Jonathan and Martin independently; unusual given recent appointment as successor

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) appointed Studio Art Director at Stern Pinball in April 2025; previously in-house artist after Zidware work

    high · Official Stern press release received by reporters; Zach Sharp confirmed role

  • ?

    announcement: King Kong: Myth of Terror Island officially revealed by Stern; Keith Elwin design, motorized Kong with arm-block and replay knocker, three-artist collaboration (Packer/Freres/O'Connor), standard cornerstone pricing unchanged

    high · Direct reporting on official Stern announcement; Martin and Jonathan saw official assets and game details

  • ?

    announcement: Dune officially revealed by Barrels of Fun; 1,000 unit limited production, $11,600 MSRP, sandworm mechanism with magnet/swallow/twist features, dual monitors, Hans Zimmer music, shipping by end 2025

    high · Jonathan and Martin played game pre-release at factory; official reveal leaked by Pinball Store then formally announced

  • ?

    product_strategy: King Kong Pro model significantly stripped vs. Premium/LE: no moving Kong (static only), no giant spider, no gong, flat plastic temple; yet pricing unchanged from previous cornerstone games

    high · Martin detailed comparisons between editions; pricing confirmed via official Stern channels; raises value proposition concerns for Pro buyers

  • ?

    product_concern: Jonathan skeptical about Dune's two-and-a-half week code completion timeline from factory visit; believes two-and-a-half months more realistic for polish; harvester mechanism was incomplete code-wise at preview

    medium · Jonathan's direct assessment after playing unfinished Dune; launch earlier than development team expected per recap

    • Yes, that's right. Yeah, and terrorists as well. So people or companies are looking around to see when's the best time to launch their games in, as you say, a crowded market with some big titles on the horizon all about to be revealed. So Barrels of Fun decided to bring their launch forward a little and reveal their Dune game before Stern got to reveal their next corner Stern game. Which we'll talk about in a couple of minutes. Exactly. So that meant that they didn't necessarily have all the assets available, this is Barrels of Fun, didn't have all the assets available that they would have liked to have had come launch. They also had a media influencers day set up where various podcasters and other pinball media were invited to the Browser Fun Factory in Houston to play the game and interview the design team. but that wasn't until a couple of days after the reveal.
    3:40
    So, although it didn't launch exactly the way they wanted, they launched, first of all, with only a teaser trailer rather than a full gameplay, and that didn't come until a couple of days afterwards.
    3:55
    The game did seem to be very well received, and it came as a big surprise to a lot of people exactly how attractive it was, I think. many people thought of Dune as not being a subject or a movie license that they are particularly interested in once they saw the game just a second, we'll get to that but before, speaking of the launch I believe actually it was Pinball Store, one of the distributors for Barrels of Fun that actually got the scoop on the game because I was waiting for official material for the game to be revealed and bam, there it was on their Facebook yeah i got i got an email from them um about it as well with pictures and oh right okay they brought the launch forward even further than i was expecting right so um yeah i uh while i was waiting for uh basically the green lights to announce that the game had been revealed um out of the blue pimple store basically got all the credit so um but oh so it was a bit of um unexpected launch, let's put it mildly. Yeah, I contacted Barrow-le-Fong when I saw this was out and said, OK, is this something which should be out there? Has they gone early with this and they shouldn't be publishing this yet? I didn't want to add to their woes if it turned out that they shouldn't have put that online and they're about to withdraw it. I didn't want it to then, you know, to have it on Pinball News still.
    5:34
    But then it turned out everybody already had this out on, it was all over Pinside and various other websites, and so the cat was out of the bag.
    5:43
    So, but, yeah, it came back to me, no, this is just a distributor launch. The full launch will be in a day or two. Right. So, but then I thought, I can't just sit here and do nothing. with this, so I ended up having to do that. You ended up with two different articles. Well, yeah, the unofficial launch, part one, which was the distributor launch, and then later, when it was meant to be the official launch, I was waiting for the promised assets to arrive, all the pictures and the videos and everything, and basically not very much turned up. There was a link to a Dropbox file which had a few things on it which I was able to use, but I still haven't seen any really good quality detailed playfield pictures of the game. No, we've seen the game, so we know what it looks like. So no surprise to us. Okay. So getting back to how the game was received, which you were talking about before I interrupted you. Yeah, absolutely. I think people originally were wondering from the tease exactly what the main toy of the game, the sandworm, well, it does, because it only showed one particular aspect of its functionality. So people were speculating and saying, well, is that it? Is that all it does? And a couple of times I told people, no, it does a lot more than that, but I can't tell you exactly what at the moment, because we're still under NDA at this point. Yeah. So for people who haven't seen it yet, just to get an idea, The sandworm is represented on the playfield by, well, artwork, of course, and some lights that are adding up to each other, sort of creating a path that the worm is taking. but the actual mechanism like like the head of the worm is think of um the circus voltaire ringmaster head coming out of the playfield and this is then a similar uh cylinder type of mechanism moving up but it does a lot more because it has a magnet at the top it can pull the ball inside it can release the ball uh on on one of the ramps in the game um there's tunnels underneath and it it really does a lot more so yes and also as it rises up the whole thing twists as well it has a twisting action to it which uh which is very impressive um if you look underneath the play if you get the chance to look underneath the play field as we did you also realize what exactly what a massive mechanical um construction this whole this soundworm device is it's a big mech under there and it does a lot of things and as you say it feeds subways as well if it swallows the ball it can it can grab the ball with a magnet just like the ringmaster can and yeah raise it up as you say but it but unlike the ringmaster it also grabs the ball when it's on playfield level, occasionally. Well, the ringmaster does that, when you hit the wow target. Oh, right, yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry, sorry. Yeah. But rather than having a shot underneath it to go into a subway, the actual soundworm sort of swallows the ball down through the center a bit. Yeah, I think Arabian Nights, that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. And also, as you mentioned, a neat trick, You can raise the ball up high enough and release the magnet so the ball rolls forward onto a wire form. Right.
    9:28
    And while the worm itself may not sound very exciting, at least not to me, that mechanism definitely has a wow factor to it. It does. And it's not the only mechanism in the game. There's also a harvester mechanism in the back left-hand corner, which wasn't working when we got to play it. So we haven't really seen exactly what it's capable of, but it is an animated toy which acts as a bullock as well. When we say it wasn't working, it means the code wasn't there yet. That's right, yes. Good point, yeah. They hadn't written the code to drive, or at least it wasn't in the version that we saw. Right, and to get a better perspective of the whole situation, we were able to visit Barrels of Fun before the Texas Pinball Festival, which was the last weekend of March. So that gives you an idea of how long ago we saw the game. And in the meantime, they had a couple of weeks to finish up on code. And, well, they're still working on code, I assume. But at least get the code to the point where they figured it would be release ready. Yes, they told us that they reckoned that in about two and a half weeks, they'd have the code fully functioning. Right, which I found very ambitious. Well, me too. Yeah, we were thinking more like two and a half months to really get it into a fully polished state. Right. But they launched it sooner than that. So hopefully it's in a good state when the game starts shipping. It's worth mentioning a few details about the game while we're here, that it's a limited run of 1,000 units.
    11:14
    Interestingly, 300 will be sold by barrels of fun directly. with 700 going to distributors around the world, although if they don't sell all 700, then they reserve the right to sell more than 300 by themselves. They are ramping up production over, well, they said from the next month, so that's from the launch. So over the next couple of weeks, and they say the company plans to build all 1,000 Dune games by the end of 2025. Right, and that may sound ambitious as well, but if you've seen the underside of the playfield,
    11:54
    there's a lot of PCBs in there that's actually quite easy for assembly of the playfield, I would say. So they save a lot of time on that compared to some other playfields that have a lot more... Yeah, even compared to Labyrinth, I think, which is built in a different way. Yes, it's a lot more streamlined and makes a lot more sense the way they've done it. And no, it's not a unique method they've used. Other companies have done similar things. But it certainly does look quite impressive when you look underneath it to see how they've put it all together. Right. Yeah. Anyway, we mentioned about the price.
    12:36
    Recommended retail price of US$11,600, which is a bit of a hike from Labyrinth. But BowserFinal are very keen to point out all the extra things which come with the game. They've been running this hashtag included campaign on their social media in the weeks running up to the actual launch day to show that it includes things like the Shaker Motor, their invisible glass. Infinity glass. Infinity glass, yeah, which is their non-reflective glass, I should say. And also their Horizon Atmospheric Lighting System, which really comes into its own, I'd say, in June because it enables them to do effects like eclipse effects and completely change the colour of the playfield as well. They can flood it with different coloured lights and it's not something you immediately appreciate but what we did find when we were playing it is that when you lose the ball and it goes back to white, the whole play field changes colour changes atmosphere I'd say it's only when it goes back to the sand coloured or the daylight colour that you start to appreciate exactly what an impact it's having on not just the feel of the game but also on the artwork and brings a sort of sand sculpts of which there are quite a lot really to life which of course they are with the sand one right Yeah, art package for the game, which we were just talking about, comes from a familiar name, actually, Jonathan Bergeron, who's otherwise known as Johnny Crap, who's done work for Stern in the Jurassic Park game, as well as plenty of other pinball projects as well, things like show posters and things like that. Yeah, but this is a completely different style, of course, completely in line with the artwork for Dune, if you're familiar with the franchise.
    14:45
    Yes, it's very, very well integrated into the whole, not just the cabinet art and the back glass art, but also the sculpts as well and the video clips. when we saw it there wasn't an awful lot of content on the screen at the back of the playfield but that's been added since I've seen quite a lot more of that do you remember in Labyrinth they have the screen at the back of the playfield as well as the main LCD well it's the same for Dune they have both screens there so there's a lot of content to be added and I think it's really come together very nicely.
    15:32
    Right. So, and I believe to round this up for barrels of fun, we already briefly mentioned the Infinity Glass, which is their interpretation of non-reflective glass. I believe there was a post up on Facebook that they are offering this now as well as separately, so to speak. So if you're interested in ordering a sheet of infinity glass, then that's also an option. And they're not the only ones selling non-reflective glass, but we'll come back to that, or anti-reflective glass, we'll probably say.
    16:08
    Come back to that a little bit later. I can get your reflective glass. We should also add that, as they did with Labyrinth, there will be an alternative back glass available at some point, but it hasn't been announced or revealed yet. There will also be a different animated topper. The game comes with a static topper, a multi-layered thing, but there will be more, as again they did with Labyrinth, with the talking heads up there. I don't know exactly what they're going to do with Dune, but I'm sure it will be impressive. You mean the best? Yeah.
    16:47
    Could be, could be. There will also be a replacement shooter rod, And they also plan to do some molded slingshot covers as a post-purchase add-on. Not things that you can order with the game when you buy it, but you'll be able to retrofit them. So I think that pretty much rounds it up for Barrels of Fun and their brand new Dune game, which I look forward to playing in a more finished state. Right, yeah, absolutely. And best of luck to Barrels of Fun.
    17:22
    I think it's worth also mentioning that they have, obviously, the game is on the line, but they also made sure to have plenty of games available to ship when they announced the game. So you could already see it pop up on various shows, of course. And, well, your local distributor, as far as they are local, might even have a show game already.
    17:48
    Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you, Bounds of Fun, for the invitation to visit the factory. Sorry, we couldn't be there for the media day, but it's a long way to fly and not that cheap.
    18:04
    No, exactly. Oh, well. So then there is this little company called Stern Pinball. Have you ever heard of them? way back didn't they do electromechanical games or what that was in the previous century I think oh ok right yes ok yes well we mentioned before about King Kong and the expected launch of that taking place in April and of course it did and the full name of the game was revealed as King Kong Myth of Terror Island Yeah, which is interesting because according to the movie, I don't think King Kong was in New York and not on Terror Island. Well, it's worth stating this has nothing to do with the movie. That's probably why. This is their own imagining, reimagining of the King Kong story. The book, the movie is not a public domain product, but King Kong character is. so Stern oh as I say it's out of copyright now so Stern were out of free hand to be able to re-imagine what would happen and create their own storyline based around this terror island as we know well hold on one of the things I would like to point out if you know your pinball history very well long time ago before Stern pinball was turned pinball, they were actually operating under the name of Data East Pinball. And as Data East, they did develop a prototype for a game called King Kong. They did? With artwork by Kevin O'Connor, which in the past I sold posters of that artwork in the Pinball Magazine webshop, and I might actually consider putting them up again, because I still have some left. But interestingly, so there was a complete prototype with a very large flipper on the upper right of the playfield that was supposed to shoot the ball up a side ramp, and that didn't work. And that was one of the reasons that game never went into the production. But they did take some elements from the artwork on the playfield and reused that on the new game, the Myth of Terror Island King Kong game. So, I just wanted to mention that. Yes, I played the Day 3's game, but I can't remember what the artwork was like, so maybe you should put that up for sale and remind us all. Right. The area above the flippers is like a big door with King Kong coming through it or something like that, and they reused that sort of thing.
    21:05
    Right. Well, it's interesting you should mention artwork by Kevin O'Connor, because this new Keith Elwyn design game features an unusual collaboration with three different artists working on it. They have Jeremy Packer, aka Zombie Yeti. They also have Stern's previous art director, Greg Freres, working on it. And the aforementioned legendary pinball artist, Kevin O'Connor. Right. So it's Kevin's second King Kong game and the first one to go into production.
    21:43
    To me, it seemed like they had some odd choices on the way that the artwork was, or the cabinet artwork at least, was distributed. Because being a cornerstone game, there's the pro, premium and limited edition models. the Pro and the Premium had completely different cabinet artwork to each other and the Limited Edition had half of the Pro on one side of it and the other half of the Premium although it has a metallic reflective finish on the cabinet art as well to give it any gloss but it seemed I would have thought that the LE would have had it would have been the one to get a custom artwork package but no limited to the foil instead of yes I know but it could have done the limited edition could have had the premiums artwork package with the foil and then the premium could have had half pro half LE which is kind of what it is. Right. That kind of made sense. But anyway, they did what they did for whatever reason. Each one has a different back glass. It's worth pointing out as well.
    23:02
    It was, let's go to the launch. Launch to me seemed a little, I don't know, a bit lackluster in a way. it's had a big buzz around the game before it was finally revealed Stern, their usual thing of doing a tease where they actually tease the name, the full name of the game the myth of Terror Island suffix to it which doesn't tell you an awful lot until you've seen the game and I think when it actually came out well Sturton normally sort of hands over some of the distribution of assets to an outside company,
    23:50
    a media company who then sends you links to Dropbox or another repository to download all the artwork and the flyers and the close-up pictures of the playfield. Well, this time it didn't seem to happen. At least it didn't happen to me. so I don't think you got anything either from them, so it seems a bit strange, but never mind. We got what we got, and there were lots of pictures on the CERN website, which is where I ended up having to get pictures from.
    24:30
    The Ellie, the main model there, or the main toy there, is the King Kong model himself, which I suspect people had hopes which weren't necessarily fulfilled with that. People were saying that they hope that it includes a model of King Kong climbing the Empire State Building or another skyscraper and when it actually came to it it didn have that at all It a very static as in terms of not moving around upper half of a gorilla with arms flailing and motorized in the same kind of way as they are for Hulk in the Avengers game. but rather more controlled I think this time because he can turn around a bit more and he also has this ability to block the ball on a wire form by bringing his arm down and a rather nice little feature is that if you do get a replay he can raise his hand and raise his arm right up and knock the glass as a knocker which is one of the things which one of the software guys thought we could do that, and they said, yeah, let's go with it.
    25:59
    Hopefully it doesn't actually damage the model or indeed the glass. Right. The gorilla does remind me a little bit of Hulk from the first Avengers game from Stern Pimble. Yeah.
    26:11
    Like 20 years ago or something. Yes, yes, very similar. there's also a gong which is used to summon King Kong and that sort of hangs in a temple moulding which looks very nice and has little easter eggs of the initials of members of the design team across the top of it if you know who they are you can spot them there and it has a giant spider model on the left hand side hanging over a magnet which wobbles around when the magnet activates that's all in the limited edition and the premium games unfortunately in the pro they've taken away pretty much all of that it only has a static model of King Kong there is a oh yes I mentioned one of the other things he does is in front of him in the limited edition and the premium is a train car which is used as a ball lock and so when multi-ball starts Kong smashes down on one end of it tips the thing up and the locked balls all fall onto the playfield well that's not there either in the pro there's no giant spider either and there's no gong as such and the temple is flat plastic so yeah A bit sad, I think, on that. I thought they could have left some of it. At least had the moving Kong, which is... He is the game, after all. But sadly not. But they didn't up their prices either this time for Stern. So the pricing was the same as in previous edition, or previous Cornerstone games. So it's like a 7,000 pro and 13,000 premium. sorry, a limited edition and I'm trying to remember 9.7 I think is for the premium model I should probably look it up actually but I think that's what it is and it's unchanged from previous there we go, yes 7000 Pro, 13000 limited 9.7 for premium, yes thankfully there's a certain website that's got all these details on which I won't... The policy forbids me mentioning it at this stage. I bet it was in the news.com. Well, it may have been, yes.
    28:54
    Let's move swiftly along then. And, yeah, as I said, it got a good reception, if not rapturous. I mean, any Keith Elwood title is going to get a huge following, even before anybody knows what it is. and I think it's fair to say that people like the playfield layout and the shots on it and it's got some interesting features to it also quite like the artwork I think as well although it's I've seen quite a few comments saying that people are getting a little weary of this full colour splash all over all recent Stern games well that's basically Jeremy Pecker's trademark yeah quite but well we'll talk about that in a minute so let's get on to why that may not be the case going forward but it does make their games stand out very bright and colourfully in an arcade but you compare them to the game we were just talking about just now Dune for instance which has much more subdued tones much more cinematic feel to it, photorealistic, you know, and whereas Kong is not based on a movie, so all the assets for the game have to be created in-house. That's all the animations, all the static graphics, all the playfield artwork, all the characters, you know. You can draw Kong the way you want him to be as well as the other people in the story. but you're not limited by anything you have those assets to work with either so swings and roundabouts but it certainly does have that line, if you put that game in a line up of recent Stern games the colour palette and the wide gamut of colours is very similar to a large number of recent titles, let's put it that way yeah, right so other than that, I don't think I've got anything much else to say about King Kong, the myth of Terror Island. Other than that, I look forward to playing one as soon as possible. Yeah, I look forward to playing it too.
    31:20
    And there's lots more news from Serpion Ball. Now, I'm going to do something very unprofessional here, but we do have a topic that, well, There is a rumor going around, but I figure before we start discussing this rumor, maybe it's better to see if we can get a comment from Stern for our next episode on this rumor before we dive into it and before we basically put it out there.
    31:56
    Then it wouldn't be a rumor. Well, at least we have done our effect checking, and right now we haven't. So I feel more comfortable in not discussing the rumor now, but see if Stern wants to comment on it first. Okay. Well, we'll leave that teaser hanging in the air and come back next month. We've got something juicy coming up, yeah.
    32:23
    Yes. Okay. Well, let's move on then. But, but, but. So we mentioned already Jeremy Packer, also known as Zombie Yeti. just before the reveal of king kong it was announced that he has been appointed as studio art director at stern which is a rather surprising uh move i would say not so much that i doubt jeremy's capabilities but it was only last year that sebastian napoli was appointed as replacement for Greg Ferris, who retired at that point. So the first thing I did was, when I received a press release from Stern about this new position for Jeremy Packer, was ask, like, okay, so what about Sebastian Napoli? And I got a response from Zach Sharp saying that Sebastian left Stern a few months ago to pursue other opportunities, but still works with Stern in a contracting capacity.
    33:29
    Yes, I contacted Zach and got exactly the same response as well. So there we are. We have confirmation. Two independent sources. Oh, no, it's the same source. Same source. Yes. Right. Okay. So two different reporters. Still okay. the interesting thing is well Jeremy came in after doing artwork for John Popadou at the Zitware company was noticed by Stern, picked up by Stern worked as for a while as a freelance artist then was hired at Stern as an in-house artist and is now basically running the art department yeah And I'm not sure, well, I have no idea how his role was with King Kong, and I'm curious to see what it will be like with upcoming games. Yes, quite. It's just what I was saying when you were saying about how all recent titles have had the zombie yeti feel to them. Will he actually be working directly on the titles, or will he be in the art director position? and contracting other people and directing their art. Right. So maybe we'll be getting some more variety in future titles. But I think it's a great, great hire for Stern. Congratulations to Jeremy. Right. Yes, I was very surprised too when it turned out Sebastian had left. seeing as he had worked under Greg and been tutored by him with the definite intention of becoming the art director at Stern. And then a couple of months later, he isn't. So that seems a little odd. But I wonder what other projects or what led that to transpire. transpire but uh yeah saying that i mean to me saying he will continue to work with stern the contracting capacity to me that means that um he will help out with the when they are overstretched and need additional effort to uh on particular project right but he's not an artist so it's not that can help i i mean he was art director so he was an artist as well not on games at least not that we know of. I don't think he's done any himself, but that doesn't mean he's incapable. Okay, sure. Anyway, so from Sebastian changing his career path, so to speak, to pursue other opportunities, I recently found out that senior programmer Tim Sexton has left Stern Pinball as well. And he started working, if I'm not mistaken, at the beginning of April at Play Mechanics, which is a raw thrills company, of course. And, well, not strange to pinball with... Not now. Well, not now indeed, but mostly video games. So I suppose good news for Tim. for landing a job at Play Mechanics. Probably not so good for CERN as they are now probably in need of a new programmer to help out. And programmers often undervalued because in the end,
    37:31
    a play field without code, well, that's only so much fun you need the code to make it actually do what it's supposed to be doing so I wonder how that's going to pan out and looking at my notes I noticed you mentioned how that's going to look for John Wick game owners yeah, it's not a good sign if you happen to own or like the John Wick game which Tim was the lead on for software.
    38:05
    That code was his baby, and he drove the direction in which it was going. And people have been complaining for quite a long time that it sorely needs improving and adding features to, which would have been work that Tim would do, but he's not there. Anymore? Yes. So has he left behind some code which is going to be released later? I mean, he's not the only one working on it. He's part of a team, but heads up the team that builds the code or writes the code for that. There's a suggestion, I've seen, that Weishen Chang is going to take over the team and the projects that Tim was responsible for. so whether that mean that John Wick will John Wick software I should say will go in a slightly different direction or whether it will be driven forward and be completed sooner we don't know but fingers crossed that John Wick game owners will get the code that they need to complete their game yeah we mentioned about Tim going to play mechanics Of course, Mark Ritchie works, and of course Mark Ritchie is responsible for the recent Pulp Fiction game, and the suggestion that Play Mechanics will be working again to produce another pinball machine before too much longer.
    39:37
    Certainly Mark, I think, will be keen to get another design of his produced, whether it will be with Chicago Gaming or not is more questionable I think but I think they've been frustrated by delays in getting Chicago Gaming and getting the game produced so we'll wait and see but interesting that those Tim and Mark Ritchie both big pinball people are together again. And even more interesting, right, even more interesting, if, if, big if, if Tim would be working with Mark Ritchie on a new pinball machine,
    40:24
    I believe Tim worked also with Steve Ritchie, Mark's older brother. He did. So then he would have worked with both Ritchies.
    40:34
    Which not many people can say. No, no, I was going to wonder exactly how many people could say that, but on software, probably not that many. No, but that's a big if.
    40:48
    Oh, yeah. So as we're not doing rumors, we won't start any of our... Well, I just started this one. Right, okay. Well, if we are on rumors then,
    41:03
    it might be worth mentioning that with Tim leaving and the rumor that Waston has taken over, There's also rumors about Stern taking action on the flood of games that seem to be coming out at the moment, not just from them, but from other companies, and the potential, well, not potential, the actual shrinking of the pinball market at the moment. which I've heard rumours, I don't know whether they're true so it's only a rumour and we'll look for verification on it and we'll get back to it but still the beans, go ahead well the rumour is that Stern might be cutting back on their production so they may not actually be producing games five days a week and might bring that down to four right It makes total sense to move to a bigger facility just to cut down production.
    42:10
    Well, yes. I mean, I'm sure when they moved, they were not aware of what would be going on economically in both the U.S. and the international economies. And I bet they never foresaw the tariff situation that we would be discussing. Not only that. Okay, so my take on this, since I brought this up, I think Stern was expecting the increase of the market during COVID to sustain. And I don't think that's the case at the moment. As increasing in demand and in pricing? well yeah but so during covid there was apparently a lot of demands for people who were not able to play on location because they couldn't leave the house or whatever so they got a game for the house and the witch which caused the pimple markets to see a huge resurgence if it wasn't already there but at least a lot of more sold games quite a few distributors actually not completely selling out of at least certain titles and the situation now is that a lot of distributors basically have overstock yes but also with that big demand a big increase in pricing as well, certainly in the second hand market so that's now come down a long way so we're not seeing the kind of prices on used games that we once were So people become a little more cautious, shall we say, about buying new games if they think they'll be losing a significant amount when they come to resell it or move it on and get the next newest title. So, yes, the market has definitely cooled a lot.
    44:09
    And that is impacting on new game sales as well. And we'll continue to do so. And also, you know, we've seen this particular time, this particular month, in fact, a couple of titles launched almost simultaneously. And as I said before, there's also another big title about to be launched. A lot of people are sort of biding their time and waiting to see exactly what goes on with Harry Potter and whether that's where they should be spending their money or whether they'd be better off buying one of the more recently announced titles. Right, and not to forget the games that were revealed in March at the Texas Pinball Festival show. I mean, Merlin's Arcade was announced, Portal was announced and revealed.
    45:03
    So basically, there's five games announced that are likely to be revealed within a two-month window. Yeah, it's a crazy time.
    45:17
    Well, we have some crazier, but that was last year. That was last year in Texas, yes. So seven new games, I believe, at one show. Yep. Anyway, but anyway, you found some interesting notes on code updates. Yes, well, one thing I did spot in the most recent launch of King Kong is that they have finally, finally got rid of the simulated dot matrix display that they've been using for their test and menu settings.
    45:57
    And it's always irked me that they never did that. I mean, it's been eight years since, more than eight years since they brought in the first LCD, which was with Batman 66 in December 2016.
    46:13
    And up until the last game, until Dungeons & Dragons, they were still using a dot matrix settings and menu, test menus, which seem ridiculous when you've got a beautiful LCD you can use for exactly that, and which every other company does. Well, they needed those programming resources elsewhere, I suppose.
    46:40
    Well, I mean, you'd think that would be part of the underlying operating system that they keep updating. But anyway, that's exactly what they've done. Finally, finally at last. The rock has come down. Oh, no, sorry. Different show. Yes. Yes, with King Kong, Myth of Terror Island, there is a proper graphical test and settings menu, which actually is a proper one. They've really done it very nicely. They've got all sorts of graphics in there. They've got the ball trough, for instance. If you're testing that, it shows you the ball trough where the ball is being sensed, where the balls are being stored. if you go to the switch tests it's got a proper layout of the play field showing you where every switch is I mean JJP have been doing this stuff for ages as well so it's not groundbreaking but also they do a thing like a history of the last 20 switches that were triggered so you can see if something is triggering repeatedly for instance and also the ability to test a switch like a slingshot or a pop bumper or something without the coil that's associated with it firing. So, you know, if you're pressing the rubber on the swing shot, it's not going to keep kicking back at you when you're trying to test the switch. So, it's been a long time coming, as I said, but it's here at last, so that was great news. So, yeah, that was, that's in King Kong. There's new, hopefully it'll get rolled out to other games, but... Very likely. It requires a bit of a customization for every game. Of course, they've got the switches in the different places and the lamps and coils as well with their own names. They have to go through and do quite a lot of work to make that applicable to each title.
    48:34
    Now, speaking of this improvement, is King Kong on which this new test settings menu debuted, is that already Spike 3? No, it's not. It's Spike 2. Still Spike 2. But it might be a preview of what Spike 3 is going to look like when it does come. Right, okay. So Spike 3 being the operating system that Stern is using to run their PIMO machines on. Yeah, and hardware system. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. Sorry. Thank you for correcting me. That's alright.
    49:11
    No, still Spike 2. We haven't seen anything exactly what's available in Spike 3 yet. So can we get to the new code, please? Yeah, only two this month. Venom. Thank God. Yeah, Venom's added a new Symbiomania wizard mode. Oh, thank God. I know you're waiting for it. Yeah, I couldn't sleep without it. Yeah, I'd say, finally! We should say it as well.
    49:39
    Unfortunately, it's one of those things that's only available either if you've got the topper installed on the game, so it's a topper exclusive mode or if you have played a non if you have played a topper game within three months and are playing on a non game then you can still access it yeah I know yeah also a couple of display effects Do you have any idea how much those stoppers cost with all these tariffs being applied?
    50:10
    Well, not yet, no. I look forward to seeing that. Well, you'd think they'd be able to afford that, wouldn't you? But yeah, who knows where the parts come from. And Dungeons & Dragons, the previous title, I was going to say, until King Kong came out, the current title. That's version 0.89. Came out on the 2nd of April. Really quite a big update with far too many changes to the list here. Jonathan will be disappointed, but we won't go through them all. But they have added new artifacts and equipment items to collect during gameplay to add your direction capabilities. And they've added the DJ mixer thing so you can play the game tunes and overhauled the game mode menu, the thing you get when you press a flip button and hold it and choose which mode you want to play in. That's been overhauled as well. But that's enough new code from Stern Pinball, and I think it wraps up Stern Pinball news for this month of April. Ah, okay, finally.
    51:13
    Finally! So, heading over to that other pinball company, Jersey Jack Quimble, also located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
    51:25
    Well, we're basically waiting for Harry Potter to be revealed, but we haven't seen anything yet. Other than that, distributors have been told they can promote Harry Potter as the next game from Jersey Jack.
    51:43
    Yes. I think they're allowed to take pre-orders, priority deposits on games. I think that's correct.
    51:55
    But, as you say, nothing has actually been revealed of what's going to be in the game, even though the game is on the line, apparently, being produced. Right, yeah. And that has to do with probably adding bits and pieces together. Jack Guarnieri did attend a seminar at the Fantastic New Anglican Show, where he basically said distributors will have show models when the game will be announced. So that means they have to manufacture and ship games up front, so that distributors will have these show morals present when they announce a game and just hope that nobody's going for their own glory and like, ha-ha, here are the first pictures.
    52:54
    But I'm sure they have everything under control with that and big sanctions if someone leaks something. So we do know design of the game is by Eric Meunier. Software is by Joe Keds. Well, probably not alone, but he's head of the software team.
    53:17
    Sounds by David Thiel. Yeah. Who's basically back with Jersey Jack. Yes, indeed. Yeah, good news there. Yeah. So the game is scheduled to be at the European Pinball Championship in Austria, which is at the end of May, along with Jack. I'm not sure whether they will be able to make that but they might certainly hope so I've been promoting it on social media Jack will be there with the game it will be disappointing if that doesn't happen well you never know where delays occur and this is a reveal that I can imagine JJP wants to basically have to it has to be perfect Yeah, they want you to do it right. Yep, absolutely. And as you say, delays can occur with the licensor, for instance. It might not be prepared, not be geared up for a launch on a particular day. It might not fit in with their other scheduled promotional Harry Potter event. It might want to start it in the middle of June or something like that.
    54:32
    Yeah, exactly. That's what the license is, and that's what you have to go with. Right. And in the meantime, while Jersey Jack is building Harry Potter for show models and so on, they are finishing production of Avatar.
    54:50
    Oh, okay. Just so you know. But that doesn't mean it's game over for Avatar, because they might take the game back into production at some point if demand is there, I suppose. Yeah. as long as they've got the license for it. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm sure... It's a very recent title. It is, yes. I'm sure they'll be building it on and off for the next few years, indeed. I mentioned about Jack going to the European Championship in Austria at the end of May, heavily organized by our good friend Stefan Riedler of RS Pinball. and I'll be there to cover that. I think you were invited, but I think you have other commitments or at least had other commitments. Well, that's the thing. If you earn your money in the weekends and all these pinball shows take place in the weekends, you have to make choices. I know. It's a tough world out there. You have to do what you have to do. Yeah. If something clears up, I might still show up, but don't hold your breath.
    56:03
    Well, Jack himself will also be in Europe, in the UK, in the middle of June at the Pinball Heaven Open Day, which is taking place on the 21st of June at the Pinball Heaven HQ near Preston in Lancashire. Jack is scheduled to be there along with the Harry Potter game. so that's certainly more concrete I'd say that by the 21st of June the game will have been released but hopefully it will be there for the European Championships at the end of May as well so maybe we should go there as well and record a new episode of Dinner with Jack Warnieri oh because that went down so well the first time yes Okay, talking about dinner Right It's time for What's Cooking With Steve Ritchie Yes, we got to sit down With Steve And Bill Grupp as well And Steve Which you will have heard in Our previous Pimcast But at the same time we also got to talk to Steve About his favourite recipes right so what's cooking with steve ritchie um wow i make a few dishes um mostly seafood and steaks which is i mean now i'm not i'm not great at putting things together sometimes but uh i don't know i okay i have a king crab recipe it's real simple you you know Put a pot of water on, not too much in the bottom of a big pot because king crab legs are big. And you break them apart, and I cut them with scissors so it's easier to break the shell open. And there's a way to do it where the meat doesn't come out. I cut this side like that and this one, and you can get close with those two. Anyway, it makes it much easier to eat. You put them in the pot after you've got steam and never down in the water. He's talking about steaming only. That's what king crab likes. and um so you steam it for 11 to 12 minutes something like that and it's it's very delicious you know we serve it with your own butter it's like now it's ridiculously expensive um but we still do it a couple times a year um i also have i don't know i like to make shrimp and scallops. I saute them in olive oil, butter,
    58:47
    minced garlic, which bigger chunks of garlic makes it very interesting. Salt and pepper. And occasionally I'll add some Cajun spice. My favorite one is Paul Prudhomme's. Blackened red fish. That's a great flavor. But I don't do that often. Most of the time I just cook them with salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil. And you serve them with I serve them with, well, there's a lot of things.
    59:14
    Sometimes I make, you've got to boil potatoes and then cut them up. And, again, garlic, salt, pepper, I like those ingredients. And then you, and butter, and you soak them in all this stuff. And then you place them on a flat pan and put them in the oven for 25 minutes or so. And they're delicious. and tender and awesome. People like them.
    59:44
    For vegetables, I like to make salads. I haven't in a while, though, because it's so easy to just buy a salad bag, you know, and throw it together. But occasionally I'll, you know, get a head of lettuce and cut up a tomato and green onions. And I like things in a salad like artichoke hearts and marinated. That's the best ones. Otherwise they have no flavor. And sometimes olives, depending on, you know, what's in there. I don't ever use nuts or fruit. I just nut, you know. And I do that with wine vinegar and olive oil only. I mean, there's salt and pepper and oregano and things like that. Some Italian spices often. But it makes a nice salad. And a lot less calories than buying, you know, salad dressings that are just loaded with oil and fat and stuff like that. If you're going to eat some fat, eat olive oil. It's the best for you. And that's about it. And there you have it. Very much Steve. Yes. Well, who would have thought?
    60:46
    I didn't know that Steve was so much into, well, linguine and that kind of food. Yeah. Kudos to Steve. Yeah. We look forward to tasting some of that at some point in the future. So thank you, Steve, for sharing that with us. And thank you again for Steve and Bill for sitting down with us at Texas Pimp Festival and talking about the Elton John game as well. Right. And hopefully we'll bring you a new episode of What's Cooking With in our next episode. Oh, well, can't make any promises, but let's see what we can cook up. Right. Very clever. Yes. So for most of the next companies that we'll be discussing, it's rather short if any.
    61:41
    So if you're wondering how long this is going on, then the good news is we're almost there. We're on the home stretch. Okay. So Dutch Pinball slash DPX, Dutch Pinball exclusive. the good news is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is currently shipping and the Dutch Pinball Museum is one of the or is the first public location where you actually can play Alice's Adventures in Wonderland I think they got the second game of the line went to the museum and it's already there for you to enjoy so if you happen to come to the netherlands um rotterdam is the place to be if you want to play alice's adventures in wonderland yes absolutely and um on the subject of alice's adventures in wonderland we were talking earlier about uh the impact of tariffs on pinball pricing well um it's it's a bit of a movable feast going back to the cooking analogy at the moment in that no one quite knows exactly what tariffs into the US are likely to be because they keep changing. But for those buyers based in the United States, the buyers of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, they were at one point likely to be subjected to an import tariff of 20% from products in the European Union, which included pinball machines from the Netherlands.
    63:30
    So what to do about that? Well, Dutch pinball said basically, well, this is a problem in the US. It's not a problem anywhere else. It's not a problem in the cost of building the game in the Netherlands or selling it to any other country. But when it goes into the United States, the proposal at the time was to put an extra 20% import tariff on it. And basically somebody's got to pay that. And it's paid on entry to the U.S. by their U.S. distributor, Cointaker.
    64:09
    And they would need to pass that on to the buyer. and they can't afford to lose 20% of the cost of the machine no margin left exactly, yeah possibly takes them into negative margin so Dutch Pinball said we don't really know what's going on at the moment we are proposing holding back games intended to be or destined for the United States in the hope that the tariff situation will settle down and tariffs can either be cut drastically or removed altogether.
    64:50
    However, if you do want your game in the position which you originally were in line, you can pay the extra 20% and get it when you would have got it anyway. So basically, it's up to the buyer to make their choice. What they were not saying,
    65:09
    and mainly because it's not their decision, was that you could get your non-refundable deposit back due to the change in price. And that irked a number of people saying, hang on, you've changed the price of the game. We should be able to get our deposit back. That wasn't what we signed up for. Dutch are saying, well, we haven't changed the price of the game. That's not for us and for everybody else in the world. The price is exactly the same. It's only gone up because your government has decided to add this extra tariff onto it. So it's, you know, not our problem. Right.
    65:49
    Well, there might be a third angle to that in the sense that with pricing of parts going up as well, it might still affect the pricing of the game as parts have to come from China. And some parts come from the U.S. as well. Well, parts come from China, they go straight to the Netherlands, and the price doesn't go up. So that's fine. If they go through the U.S. and if they're buying Flipper Mechs from, I don't know, so Pinball Life, say, and Pinball Life are getting them from China, then the price will go up. Or if the European Union decides to impose tariffs on U.S. products in retaliation, that could push the price up to the Dutch as well but at the moment neither of those things have happened and at the moment there is a kind of moratorium for the next couple of weeks where higher tariffs imposed by the US aren't being imposed they're stuck at 10% which I don't know what the situation there is I think Dutch are sticking with their original proposal to hold back U.S. deliveries. Yeah, and focus the production on games that are destined for Europe, Netherlands and Europe. And Australia, and Canada, of course, as well.
    67:19
    It's just non-U.S. games. But it's a very changeable situation and very volatile. and the situation can change at any time.
    67:34
    Well, especially with this president. Well, I don't want to get political about it, but... No, neither do I, but based on the facts, it depends whether, I don't know, whether the sun shines or whether it's raining or what his mood is.
    67:49
    Yes, well, it's very difficult for any company to make any firm decisions or statements, one way or the other, at the moment. So everyone's just sort of biding their time waiting to see how it all settles down. And hopefully it will be resolved in a sensible way. But that's what Dutch people have said at the moment. So we'll keep you updated as and when that changes. That's what I'm sure it will. Right. Now, since we're on the subject of terrorists, Daniel Janssen, who is the CEO of Pinball Brothers, who we know of, well, the Alien Game and ABBA and Queen, of course, he was quoted in a Swedish newspaper about the terrorist situation where he basically complained that they were hit like double as hard as some other industries. industries because, well, they're looking at tariffs for importing gangs into the U.S., but they're also facing tariffs for importing parts from the U.S. and parts from China that go through the U.S. Ah, right, yes. That's just what you were saying, yeah. Yes, exactly. So, well, we don't need to repeat the whole story, but in short, as a result, he's saying, they are likely to reduce production at their Italian facility, which they are running together with Pedretti Pimble, the Euro Pimble Corp.
    69:35
    So there might be less games produced by Pedretti, at least for the U.S. market, but the U.S. market is the biggest market for Pimble Brothers at the moment. So they're looking to see if they can sell more games in Europe to keep production going at the regular speed, I would say.
    70:02
    That's not the only news, but I thought let's tie it in with the Dutch Pimble situation. Absolutely, yeah, because it is tariff-based. I wonder whether that's in any way related to other Pinball Brothers news which is that they have announced the end of the alien Ripley's Collectors Edition I'd suggest you take a sip of wine or something yes unfortunately I haven't actually got anything left at the moment yes so they said that you already finished that whole bottle well you know It's been a tough Pin cast I'd say after a successful run They said the correct edition of our Award winning Alien Pinball The Ellen Ripley version Is reaching its final chapter Only 9 units remain To be built, it's not in stock yet They still have to be built Okay, so I wonder why that's it Why 9 units, are they limited on the number They're going to make Or the parts they have in stock, I don't know Yes, it could be, yep. Good point. It says, after this, after that, that's it. No reruns, no second chances. If you've been thinking about it, now is the moment to secure your alien Ripley pinball before it disappears forever. Right. I hope it doesn't disappear, but yeah. Well, they stopped making them. Right. But to me, that sounds like they will not be making the Alan Ripley version, but that doesn't mean that they won't be building any alien machines anymore. No, no, absolutely not, no. I'm sure they can still make the limited version as well of the game and the standard. Right, okay. But then again, everybody wants the Alan Ripley version, so you might as well jump on the situation or jump on a chance while you can. Well, there's only nine left.
    71:58
    We're all gone by now. Yes. Yes, quite. Right. And, well, excellent news. There's new code for ABBA. Yes, 1.4.5. It came out on the 21st of April this year. And only some minor changes, but they did improve the synchronization of the sound and the video for the music clips. And they added a game mode menu and a few other general improvements and bug fixes. But, yeah, apparently reports suggest that the sound sync is greatly enhanced, but maybe not completely in sync at the moment. So maybe a little more work to go on that. But certainly a nice improvement in the game, and nice to see ABBA getting a little more love before they launch into their next title, which must be revealed fairly soon. Well, that's what we expect. But then again, with pure terror, they might choose to delay. And also, tying in with the Pimba Brothers situation, we of course have Pedretti Gaming.
    73:17
    Interestingly, Pedretti Gaming have announced that they will be absorbing the extra costs of terrorists on the games that they are shipping out. which is a different situation than what I understand from Pinball Brothers. But this applies to a game like Funhouse Remake, which is a Pedretti title, although manufactured by Euro Pinball Corp. Yes. So different companies, different policies. In association with a pinball company. Yes.
    73:51
    And that's all the news I got from Pedretti. but just to get your head around everybody is dealing with the situation and nobody knows what is coming no interesting times and we do look forward to a new Pimple Brothers title but that also goes in collaboration with Pedretti slash Euro Pimple Corp and if they are taming down production that also could affect upcoming titles. Yes, we are kind of expecting a new title from Pedretti and a new remake title any time soon. But, you know, if the market's a bit depressed at the moment, maybe that will be a little further off than we're expecting. Right. And it could also be that the market is waiting what Harry Potter is going to do. Yes that right That a good point That is the monster title that could change the fortunes of other companies or indeed JJP as well Anyway we talk about titles which haven been announced So let's move on to a couple of companies that we spoke about earlier who have just recently launched new titles. Firstly, Multimorphic. They recently launched their Portal game, which seems to be getting a lot of traction, a lot of attention, and very positive feedback as well at the moment, and people are clamouring to play it. So after a lot of requests from people who signed up to go to the Golden State Pinball Festival in Lodi in California,
    75:45
    Multimorphic have agreed to show Portal at that game as well. So they will be taking Portal to the Golden State Pinball Festival after all. They weren't intending to be there originally, but they've had their mind changed by request. Right. And I understand the game is also going to be at the Amazon show this weekend. Mm-hmm. Right. So there's your chance.
    76:13
    Yep. We mentioned in the past the new anti-reflective glass which Multimorphic produced called the Pin Glass Plus. that was originally special launch pricing and only available for pickup from a multi-morphic facility in Round Rock in Texas $150 a sheet yeah unfortunately that launch pricing has now finished but the good news is that it's actually available to order through their website, their pinglass.net website where you can ship it anywhere in the US, I believe. I didn't try putting in a postcode code for Canada, so it might be available for there as well. But certainly in the US, you can get it shipped.
    77:05
    And also still available for pickup as well from Multimorphic. But unfortunately, as I say, the launch discount pricing has now ended. But still pretty good value. and from what we've seen, it looks very impressive as well. I couldn't see it.
    77:27
    They saw straight through you, didn't they? Yeah. So, as we mentioned before, with Balsafon, other companies are now coming out with anti-reflective glass, so you have quite a wide choice of different types to do. I guess it would be nice to see a comparison of all the different ones. I did one a while ago when there were only three, but now there's a lot more.
    77:57
    Five at least. Yeah. Well, I think maybe more than that. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so then that other company that also launched a new game, Turner Pinball. Yep.
    78:09
    A little bit of news from them. speaking of pinball shows Merlin's Arcade will be at the Pinball Star booth at Allentime but it will be demo units only they are not going to be sold so usually Pinball Star is offering a show discount on a game that you can pick up after the show but that's not the case with Merlin's Arcade you can order the game at the show of course but you won't be able to take it home immediately.
    78:44
    And in the meantime, at the Turner Pimple headquarters, if you want to call it that, they reported that 75% of the Ninja Eclipse production has been passed. So that means, well, it's a production of only 100 units.
    79:07
    So how many would you think they made? 75% of 100. So less than 25 remain as this news is probably a couple of days old already. But good for Turner Pinball to move along the production of Ninja Eclipse,
    79:33
    which means they can start building Merlin's arcade all the sooner. Yes, absolutely. I think people are clamoring to get their hands on the game. It seemed like a lot of fun, didn't it, when we played it? Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. I highly recommend it. If you get the chance to play it, play it. Okay. Well, one company which hasn't announced their next title, although we keep waiting for them to do so, is American Pinball.
    80:05
    Still no news on their upcoming release. Rumour to be cut, man. Yes. I'll leave you to say that. I've seen it said somewhere that they're going to be releasing it sometime in the summer. So I suspect that means that they are waiting for Harry Potter to be launched and the ripples to subside. Summer of what year? Well, there is a good question about that, yeah. They'll have to release the game at some point, I suppose, or decide they're not going to. One or the other, but that would be a big waste and a big shame. In the meantime, however, we're not in the summer yet. We're still in the spring, and American Pinball is running a spring refresh sale, which means offering 25% off the sales of parts and American Pinball merchandise, or swag. if you go to the American Pinball website you can use the code SPRING and that will apply the 25% saving this is only valid though until the 4th of May so basically if you're listening to this the moment it comes out you've got until tomorrow to do it or the day after probably the day after so don't hang around if you want to get your 25% of American Bimble parts and merchandise. So if you're smart, you order a Bimble cabinet and a Sep's Fair Playfube at 25% discount,
    81:45
    and then you put them together yourself, and you get a game with a 25% discount. It's probably not an option in the web shop. No, I'm sure it's not. But there are some actual very good prices available If you are looking to buy American pinball games, as an aside, this isn't part of the news, but I have noticed that there are some very good deals available. We saw this indeed at Texas, but the Galactic Tank Force, for instance, the Signature Edition, which I think came out as about $15,000, I believe. You can buy it new in box for $8,500 now. Right. and things like Legends of Valhalla the classic edition of that is five and a half you can get even the Galactic Tank Force classic is just under eight although curiously the Barry Owes game seemed to be quite expensive still so the top end of prices with the limited edition eight and a half hmm well maybe the margin on that game wasn't that much hard to imagine there's not a huge amount on it but well we'll see but anyways you can get a nice Hot Wheels classic for 7.4 which is seems like a good deal or the deluxe version for 7.6 so there's some nice prices out there and Houdini for the same price as well right so then moving on to a company that's hoping to start building their very first pinball machine uh wonderland amusements uh this is a well they announced uh this uh alice goes to wonderland game a couple of months ago uh which is a um a game at 80 of the size of a traditional arcade sized pinball machine uh they run a kickstarter for it which we discussed in a previous episode as well because it got funded very, very quickly. Yes. And still people have no clue what they're actually buying in the sense that we haven't seen any gameplay or, well, let's put it like this.
    84:04
    Early April, an update video was posted on YouTube and social media where they were able to show the very first display animations in that video and talk you through them, which is nice much to my surprise they called it a DMD animations but it's an LCD so I have no idea why they call it a DMD because as far as I know there's no DMD in that game and well obviously with the game being a huge success on Kickstarter selling out well, not even selling out, but getting funded like five times over the original goal.
    84:54
    Questions were raised. What about tariffs? And in a reply on a question asked about that on Facebook,
    85:04
    Wonderland Amusement responded, the tariffs will be paid by Wonderland upon importation. Kickstarter backer prices and pledges will be honored as is. so once again every pinball company is making their own choices regarding the tariffs and in this case the question is very legit as the game is supposed to be manufactured in China exactly so that means when it comes in it'll be currently subjected to an 140 plus tariff which would effectively more than halve the, well, it would double the price to Wonderland Amusements, which they would then have to swallow the difference when they're selling it on to their backers. so that's a major hit for them to take I can't imagine saying that for the prices they're selling it at they're making a huge amount of profit on each game especially not if those tariffs keep in place no if the tariffs are in place they might actually end up losing money on it I'm sure they are hoping that some kind of agreement will be reached well with China it's even more difficult so I have no idea whether there's any ways to either have the game shipped to Mexico or Canada and then find some sort of I don't know shady detour and all of a sudden they end up in America without any customs notified I don't know I think the country of origin has to be declared but exactly how that is calculated. If it's made in multiple countries, you know, it gets shipped to another friendlier country, the US considered friendlier country with the lowest tariff, where the manufacturing is completed. You know, it's 99% complete in China and then comes in and gets the playfield glass or plastic slid on in another country. Is that where it's actually finished? Manufacturing is finished. Right. Well, You just gave a couple of people manufacturers a great idea. I'm sure they've considered all the options, and I'm sure the U.S. Customs Department have considered them as well.
    87:40
    Yeah, well, they're not looking at pinball machines. I mean, come on. So, anyway, so spooky pinball then. Yeah.
    87:51
    Well, rather successful with Evil Dead, a very popular game. It sold out at the Texas show, as we reported last month. Yeah, on the roll with that game, I think. Yeah, and rightfully so, because it's a very fun game to play. Much to my own surprise, I have to say, because I'm not into horror at all. No, nor me, and no interest in the movie. I know nothing about the movie, but it doesn't matter, I don't think, that much. I'm sure it helps if you do know the story and the characters in it, But even if you don't, it does that really difficult thing in pinball, is to sell the storyline to somebody who doesn't know anything about the story. Right, yeah. So in the meantime, Spooky is still selling Scooby-Doo, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Looney Tunes, if I'm not mistaking, which are available for immediate delivery. Yeah, they also laid out a rough timeline of software updates. they're going to be bringing out for their previous titles as well.
    88:56
    So they are supporting those games and bringing out updates for, I think, all the ones we mentioned just now, Scooby-Doo, Texas, and Looney Tunes, over the next few months. But what we do have is New Code for Evil Dead, which is a current title, as we just mentioned. the newest version came out on the 10th of April adds lots of new features, adjusted quite a few in terms of how they work and what they score and added the new multi-phase Henrietta multi-ball into the gameplay so if you got an Evil Dead your game just got a whole bunch, well not just but at the beginning of last month got a very nice update. So we look forward to seeing a lot more coming for all Evil Dead and other spooky titles over the next few months. Right. Okay. So then let's take our show to France. Oh, road show. Yeah.
    90:06
    Hexa Pinball from the Bordeaux region in France, they had a visit from Pinball Expo chairman Rob Burke.
    90:20
    And it's interesting to know that Rob was the first in the U.S. to buy a Space Hunt game from Hexa Pinball, and he also showcased it at the last edition of Pinball Expo, where I think it was in the Pinsound stand, where Pinsound actually also provided the speakers and the audio system for the game. Yes, that's right, yes. There was an interesting Facebook post actually from Hexer about their collaboration with Pinsound, which wasn't entirely clear exactly what the collaboration was.
    91:01
    It seemed to me that they are using their speaker system and soundboard in Hexer, but I thought they'd already always been doing that. But this was a recent Facebook video,
    91:14
    including the fact that Romain Fontaine, who was part of the Hexapinball team, was also part of the Pintown team. So that was the tie-in between them.
    91:30
    But I couldn't see there was actually any news there, other than the fact that they are, and they do work together.
    91:38
    Right, yeah. And I think they were unpacking a game which was destined for the Pinsan brothers. Yes, that's right. Yeah, it's going to the Pinsan place. Yeah, that's right, into their lineup of games. Right. Yeah, and toasts all round when they unpacked it and played the first game. So, anyway, I mentioned about being on the road and travelling. And another company which we've mentioned before, who changed their name a while back to Ramps, is Ramps, Ramps Pinball, based in the US. And they have their road trip game coming up soon, but it seems to have gone a bit quiet on that front. We mentioned last month that they didn't appear at the Texas Pinball Festival, as we were expecting them to. They were at the Pinball at the Beach show where they first showed Road Trip. Which was in February, by the way. It was, and it was well received there. I think it got good reports from it. But their website, Ramps Pinball, says coming soon for Road Trip. It says approximate launch mid-April 2025.
    92:54
    Hmm, that happened. Or that passed and it didn't happen. That's approximate, though. so is the month approximate or the year that's true yes hopefully it will be coming soon but maybe they're still waiting for Harry Potter they probably are waiting for Harry Potter they don't want to be in the shade of that launch and might also be waiting to see what's happening with tariffs it might be getting some parts in from overseas so anyway look forward to seeing that game when it comes out and hopefully it won't be too much longer before that happens. Right, okay. Now, welcome to the No News section. Oh, my favorite. Yeah, because this one is really quick. There is no news from the following companies. Home Pin in Taiwan. Chicago Gaming in Cicero in the US. Right. Vector Pinball in Australia. Haggis Pinball, defunct, RIP in Australia. Right. Bitronic in Spain Pinball Adventures in Canada, Vancouver Cardona Pinball in the US STR Pinball in Spain Quetzal Pinball in Spain, although they are working on a new title, I know that Yep, just trying to get it manufactured by someone And last but not least Well, I could say Circus Maximus as well, although that's probably defunct as well. But they were working originally, set up to build Python's Pinball Circus. But it was interesting that a home-built Pinball Circus was exhibited at the Pintastic show, Pintastic New England show. Built entirely from scratch rather than using one of the original Pinball Circus games. There's no plans to build any more, it's just a one-off. And there was apparently a deal done with Planetary Pinball, who are the rights owners to the Williams Valley sub-licensors, I would say licensees of that, who own the title Pinball Circus in relation to pinball games. So deal with some of them to allow it to be shown at the show.
    95:14
    But to go to the show, it can be done. It wasn't finished. I was going to say, based on the photos I saw, you couldn't get very far. No, no, I don't think it had Pinbow, the elephant. Which is level two. Yes, exactly, yeah. So there's some way to go, but it's being worked on, and it was good to see that somebody's having a go. And then people will be able to play it, because the one at the People Hall of Fame in Las Vegas seems to be permanently broken,
    95:52
    denying anybody the chance to play it. and then there are some other news other news yes well let's just um go back to that uh old remember them deep root um naming a bell anywhere uh well um the case uh brought by the sec against deep root head robert muller um that has been postponed for another 90 days while the criminal case against him for the same or similar charges progresses. The latest 90-day stay was filed on the 5th of April, so you can expect no more news there for a couple of months. And basically, they just keep kicking it down the road until the criminal case reaches a conclusion, then they might pick it up again. So the next application for postponement is due on the 3rd of July. otherwise the trial to determine penalties is due to if it's not postponed any further the trial to determine the penalties is due to start on the 11th of August so don't hold your breath for that one, I don't expect that to happen and finally it looks like there's another reseller of deep root investments a chap called Mark Zabinski, he's reached a settlement to pay back some of the commission that he earned to the liquidator trustee of the company, so hopefully some of the people who lost money in those deep-root investments will get some of their money back. The actual amount hasn't been disclosed. I think it's mentioned somewhere that it might have been £85,000, but that wasn't in the court filing. But a motion for the court to agree the settlement has been filed, so that's the latest update on that. Secondly, in our other news, there's a company we mentioned before called Ballarama.
    97:50
    Right. Yes, Australian proposed pinball maker. They've decided to throw in the towel and decided that the pinball market is too expensive to get into without a significant backing, which they didn't find forthcoming. so it didn't look like they had any money but okay well no uh they were hoping to get somebody else to to back their their project um which is uh never a easy thing to do uh they didn't ever get around to revealing the game and but they never took anyone's money and they did seem to um file a number of pinball related patents so um so maybe those have some value in it some way down the line but uh at the moment it was uh was look at it as just a dream that uh that never happened um you know we all have the i don't all but many of us have a dream of being able to uh get into pinball manufacturing and and bring our our many imagination um imagined designs i should say um to reality but uh it is a dream and uh it looks like that one um is over It's a complicated one. Yeah, apparently pinball is hard. Yeah, who knew? I know, you thought somebody would have told us by now. Yeah.
    99:11
    Anyway, that rounds it up for all our exciting news for the month of April 2025. I think it does, yes. We'll be back at the start of June with our next Pinball Industry News Pincast, looking back at all the excitement in the pinball world throughout this month that we're in now, the month of May. Right. So, don't forget the Pincast that you're listening to is actually the Pincast the industry listens to. Ah, good point. Yes, that's right. So, anyway, until next month, from me, Martin Ayer, and me, Jonathan Judson, we hope you have an amazing May. See what we did there? Yeah, I see what you did there. That's good, isn't it? We look forward to joining you again next month for the next edition of the Pinball Industry News Pincast. So for now, bye! Bye-bye.