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Episode 10 With Special Guest Eric Priepke (epthegeek)

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·May 22, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Eric Priepke discusses his 40+ year pinball journey from arcade attendant to code developer and community organizer.

Summary

Eric Priepke (epthegeek) joins the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast as a guest to discuss his extensive pinball history, starting from working at Aladdin's Castle arcade in 1976 and progressing to significant contributions like creating the Cactus Canyon Continued code update and colorizing DMD displays. The conversation covers his tournament league hosting (NEPL), game design philosophy, meeting John Papadiuk, and technical details about pinball hardware platforms like P-ROC and Mission Pinball Framework.

Key Claims

  • Eric worked at Aladdin's Castle in Cold Spring starting in 1976 at age 17, lying on the job application since he wasn't legally bonded

    high confidence · Eric Priepke recounting his own employment history directly in the podcast

  • Aladdin's Castle sold Vector Star Wars arcade cabinets for $50 each, which now sell for around $2,000-$3,000

    high confidence · Eric Priepke describing historical arcade liquidation practices

  • Eric purchased a Cactus Canyon machine brand new from a distributor for $4,200 in 1995-96, knowing it would be Williams' last arcade EMD game

    high confidence · Eric Priepke discussing his Cactus Canyon purchase decision

  • Cactus Canyon was incomplete at release with no match sequence, no music during initial entry, and various unfinished details

    high confidence · Eric Priepke describing original Cactus Canyon code quality

  • Williams only produced 900 Cactus Canyon machines compared to 5,000 Champion Pub cabinets

    high confidence · Discussion of relative production volumes between the two final Williams arcade games

  • Eric created the Cactus Canyon Continued code update using P-ROC hardware after no one else completed it for two years

    high confidence · Eric Priepke explaining his motivation to complete the Cactus Canyon update

  • Eric built the official Williams webpage for Cactus Canyon while working at Exec PC ISP in the late 1990s

    high confidence · Eric describing his interaction with Williams programmers via IRC and web development work

  • John Papadiuk is compared to Steve Ditko—a creative genius but lacking in project management and mechanical engineering execution

    medium confidence · Eric Priepke's characterization based on interactions with Papadiuk and reports from others

  • P-ROC is the first-generation controller designed to retrofit existing Williams/Stern machines, while P3 is the second-generation board for building games from the ground up

Notable Quotes

  • “I worked at the Aladdin's Castle in 76 in Cold Spring right out of high school. For like four and a half years. And I actually got the job there when I was 17, which was illegal because you're supposed to be bonded and insured to work there. Yes. And I just lied on the job application.”

    Eric Priepke @ early conversation — Establishes Eric's entry into the pinball world through arcade employment fraud, foundational story

  • “They sold every one they had for 50 bucks each. Oh, my God. So, whoa. For anyone who knows, what are those going for now? Probably thousands. No, I saw one, I think about three grand.”

    Eric Priepke and hosts discussing Vector Star Wars arcade valuations @ arcade history discussion — Illustrates the dramatic appreciation of arcade cabinets and collector market dynamics

  • “I paid full retail for one. Yeah, then it was get 10 for a nickel for a couple of years. When they closed them out, I had a Circus Voltaire that I bought brand new from the same vendor for $2,000.”

    Eric Priepke @ Cactus Canyon purchase discussion — Shows collector foresight and timing in the pinball market

  • “John Papadiuk is the Steve Ditko of pinball. It's amazing.”

    Eric Priepke @ John Papadiuk discussion — Provides insider perspective on Papadiuk's design genius and reclusive nature

  • “The problem he had at Zidware is he had no mechanical engineer. He had no project manager. All he really is good at is being a creative designer. Getting it over the goal line is his problem.”

    Eric Priepke @ John Papadiuk design discussion — Identifies Papadiuk's limitations in execution and project management

  • “Circus Voltaire, acid trip, acid trip. You know, random paint colors here, and we're going to have a ring in the middle... That was the most pure of his own essence as he was allowed to get over there.”

    Eric Priepke discussing Papadiuk @ Game design philosophy discussion — Characterizes Papadiuk's creative style and constraints at Williams

  • “It's fine. There's not a lot to it. There are other games that are as simple as that where you can get to the wizard mode without, like, scared steps in one of them.”

Entities

Eric PriepkepersonDrewpersonIanpersonRyanpersonMaxpersonJohn PapadiukpersonTed EstespersonJim RadovichpersonJeffperson

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Arcade cabinets sold for $50 in liquidation (Star Wars) in 1970s-80s, now worth $2,000-$3,000, illustrating collector market emergence and nostalgia-driven appreciation

    high · Eric Priepke's account of Aladdin's Castle sales and current market values

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Cactus Canyon original code was unfinished (no match sequence, incomplete audio, unpolished details); Eric Priepke completed it via Continued version using P-ROC hardware

    high · Eric's detailed explanation of Cactus Canyon incompleteness and motivation for Continued update

  • ?

    design_philosophy: John Papadiuk characterized as creative genius constrained by organizational oversight at Williams; Circus Voltaire represents his freest creative expression; now placed in design-only role at Multimorphic with engineering/project management support

    medium · Eric's comparison of Papadiuk to Steve Ditko and analysis of his role evolution

  • ?

    technology_signal: P-ROC (retrofit existing games) vs P3 (build from ground up) distinction; multiple software frameworks available (Mission Pinball Framework, Pi-proc); used by Spooky, American Pinball, and homebrew developers

    high · Eric's technical explanation of controller architectures and framework compatibility

  • ?

    community_signal: NEPL runs tournament league at Eric's house every other Thursday with 20+ players; mix of casual social players and high-level competitors coexisting peacefully

    high · Drew's firsthand tournament experience and Eric's description of league culture

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.410

0:00
What's the chef cookin? Poor Man's Pinball Podcast with Drew and Ian. Welcome to the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast episode number 10. We made it!
0:22
Happy Anniversary Drew. Happy Anniversary Ian. 10 episodes strong. Well, go on, kids. We're just getting started. If we haven't crushed your hopes and dreams from that last episode, don't worry. We'll keep trying. What you drinking today, Drew? I'm drinking Kessler's. Got a little ice, a little lime. I'm doing it, man. That's beautiful. I am drinking, what am I drinking? DeWars White Label. A little bit of scotch here. And washing it down with some Red Bull. Red Bull, again. You know, these Monday night things kill me because I am a sleepy, sleepy man. But here we go. We have an amazing show today, Drew. Why is it so amazing, Ian? Ah, we have the world-famous, badass, Mr. Continued Himself, Eric Brucki!
1:06
Welcome, Eric. Hello. Eric, we are so glad to have you here today. So, last week, I was invited over to Eric's house for his league play. Was it Flippin' with the Suburbs? Flippin' the Suburbs. I'll get it right one of these times. Flippin' the Suburbs. He won't, folks. So, Eric hosts the league at his house. It's every other week, correct? Yep, every other Thursday. Every other Thursday at his house. And he was so kind as to invite me. And last week was the first time I actually met him in person. He's just as nice as you would expect. I don't know what you guys expect. Yeah, I don't know. If you only know me from Pinside, you might not expect me to be in Pinside. Oh, wow. Yeah, there you go. We're going to have to look up some of those posts. I get in trouble a lot. Oh, man. He's one of the Canada instigators. Oh.
1:54
Maybe. I've seen some stuff. I'm going to have to read some of those forum posts. I've seen some of his shit, yeah. Oh, man. Very cool. But, yeah, I just want to paint the picture here. It wasn't at the league play, but I picture Drew on his knees begging and pleading for Eric to come over on our podcast. Is that how it happened? I asked more than once. It was a very kiss the ring situation.

high confidence · Eric Priepke explaining technical architecture differences between the two systems

Eric Priepke on original Cactus Canyon code @ Code quality discussion — Establishes baseline game design simplicity and incompleteness

  • “It's the only game, really, that's so glaringly in need of some polish. Like most of the Williams production games, even if they're simple, they're done. Sure. And that one really wasn't.”

    Eric Priepke on why he created Cactus Canyon Continued @ Motivation discussion — Explains Eric's driver for undertaking the Cactus Canyon Continued project

    • Aladdin's Castle
    organization
    Flippin' the Suburbsevent
    New England Pinball Leagueorganization
    Williamscompany
    Zidwarecompany
    Exec PCorganization
    P-ROCproduct
    P3product
    Mission Pinball Frameworkproduct
    Cactus Canyongame
    Circus Voltairegame
    CSIgame
    Ripley's Believe It or Not!game
    Iron Mangame
    Champion Pubgame
  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Williams produced 900 Cactus Canyon vs 5,000 Champion Pub units; reflects company focus shift toward final arcade releases and market interest disparity

    high · Eric and hosts discussing production quantities

  • ?

    historical_signal: 1990s arcade industry rarely pushed ROM chip updates to locations; operators only cared about revenue, not gameplay quality; contrasts with modern code update culture

    high · Eric's explanation of why game updates were uncommon in arcade era vs. modern pinball

  • ?

    content_signal: Eric Priepke established as authoritative source on 40+ years of pinball history, arcade industry, code development, and competitive league management

    high · Depth and specificity of Eric's recollections and technical knowledge throughout conversation

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Main Cactus Canyon programmer left Williams before release, foreseeing company difficulties; reflects broader talent exodus ahead of pinball industry contraction

    medium · Eric noting programmer departure and its timing relative to Pinball 2000 development

  • ?

    venue_signal: NEPL operates as semi-formal home league with tournament structure, rearrangement protocols for late arrivals, multiple machines for rotation play

    high · Drew's tournament participation and group rearrangement story

  • ?

    collector_signal: Eric paid full retail ($4,200) for Cactus Canyon in 1995 based on correct prediction it would be last Williams arcade EMD, demonstrating prescient collector behavior; game later liquidated cheaply

    high · Eric's purchase decision rationale and subsequent market behavior

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Iron Man described as difficult 'ass-kicker' with fast play (15 mins per game); CSI characterized as quirky/methodical with unique layout; audience prefers punishing gameplay despite difficulty

    medium · Drew and Ian's commentary on tournament game difficulty and appeal

    • 2:20
    And kiss the ring again, I tell. Man. You know what? No, I was really excited to have him on. He said right away, he said, yeah, we can do this sometime. And then me, being myself, I'm like, hey, how about Monday?
    2:36
    No tact. I love that about you, buddy. Well, you're the lovable one. I'm the asshole, so it's better from you than me. Yeah, I didn't spill any drinks on his floor. Yeah, no. Oh, but I'm fine. All right. You know what? That joke's almost dead, folks, almost. Nah, I'll spill another one. Don't worry. Anyways, so I get to experience my first taste of league play. Had fun. Actually, in the first round, I was paired with Eric and a couple other people, and Drew took first place. Yeah, we played Ripley's and he killed us. Ripley's, yeah, my first ball. I had over 10 million, and I was feeling good, and Eric goes, that's a good score for three balls. Now I'm feeling great, right? Yes. And then the next game, I come in last. I assume you didn't win the attorney that day. Nope, nope. But you know what? I'm going to brag a little bit. I didn't come in last. Hey.
    3:31
    There you go. Congratulations, Drew. I'm proud of you, man. You represented the poor men well then. It was fun, though. Eric, it was a lot of fun. I'm sorry I missed it. Oh, man, you need to show up there because it's just cool. And Eric was so nice. He's explaining the games to me. and everyone else who was there was helping me because a lot of these games I haven't played or I haven't put a lot of time on. And very laid back. There's a couple of hardcore people at your house, right? A couple. They're not really hardcore. No, and they understand that this is more of a social league, so they're not so serious. And when I say hardcore, they weren't douchey or anything. No, they were just really good. They're just really good, and they're focused. Like, there were a couple of people I tried saying hi to them, and they didn't, like, brush me off, but they just ignored me. They're just, like, in their zone, looking down. They're looking for their points, man. Yeah, and they were doing it. One guy put a grand champion up on his CSI. Who's that guy with the long red hair? Good job, Max. Oh, man, man. Grand champion. I'm watching this guy play, and go ahead. We played it again later, and I doubled that. Really?
    4:35
    Because he played for, like, it seemed like an hour. Eric wasn't having that shit. Oh, man. That's, like, not in my house.
    4:44
    She's stepping to something. But the question there is, CSI, huh? How's that game? It's quirky. I think that's the polite way to say weird. It is. Now, Ryan and I were, Ryan, TurboGrafx-7 was there, too. He's the one who got me hooked up here with Eric, so thanks, Ryan. That game is one of the most unique layouts out there, isn't it? Yeah, it's pretty strange, and it's not a bad game. The theme just is very flat for a pinball machine. Pinball machines are, like, exciting or funny or rock and roll. It's very methodical, right? Yeah, CSI is kind of just almost like a deadpan comic. Like, you know, if it's not your thing, it kind of falls flat for a lot of people. But I don't think it's a bad game. No, there's a lot of interesting shots. Right down the middle, there's a centrifuge. Sort of like the disc on the Tron at the back if you haven't ever seen a CSI. And you kick the ball in there, and this thing whips around, what, 10, 12 times, right? Yeah, it depends. Really fast. Yeah, sometimes the disc's going faster and it'll stay longer. and really unique. And then there's a microscope on the right, and you're collecting evidence, I believe, right? That's kind of the goal. They have these different lighted inserts that this is green evidence, this is red evidence. Anyways, quirky. Check it out. It has a giant skull lock in the back. Yes. Can you talk about that? You lock balls in the eyes of a skull. Yeah. And then on the back glass, there's a good-looking, fusty woman. That is not the official back glass, though. That's an aftermarket. I never saw the original, but I like the second Backglass better. Driven to the second Backglass.
    6:22
    I'm mesmerized by this good-looking, busty woman on the CSI Backglass, and I'm like, way to go. This was Stern Game, right? Yep. Yeah. I'm like, way to go, Stern. And then you're telling me that's not the original? The original was probably the actor from the show or something. Yeah, it was pretty boring. Oh, so they put boobs on it. So, you know, hey, if you own a CSI, look for that aftermarket Backglass Jessica's boobs. Yeah, that's the review. Boobs. And at least they have some clothes on so it's family friendly. It's just a little saucy. Not our race or anything. She's just wearing like a ripped kind of top and whatever, but just a cute little blonde. Not the amazing adventures of Ron Jeremy, right? No. We're talking normal PG-13 good stuff. So you got boobs, a microscope, skull. Yeah. How can you go wrong? Is there a lot of murder and intrigue? I know.
    7:16
    What are you collecting evidence for? It's not even like whodunit where you get to see a crime and then you're supposed to solve a crime. That would have made sense. Yeah, well, this one is just. Like you work in a lab? Yeah, like, oh, no. It is. You found some bugs. You found some skin samples. You know, like. In the lab.
    7:32
    It's kind of why it falls flat for a lot of people. Oh, that's hilarious. It's just sort of sterile. But that layout would probably do better with a better theme then. because it is running kind of cool. Okay, good enough. Good enough. So what other games are on the block? Oh, so... Ripley's, CSI.
    7:50
    Well, for the tournament, yep, Ripley's, CSI, Getaway, which is very cool. You know, it's one of those, it's Steve Ritchie, right? Yep, yep. Yeah, you can tell that just by looking at it. Yeah, it's a simple game. There's not a lot to it, but, you know, with the amount of inserts and the cool, it spins around and around. Super Charger. Supercharger. It's the same thing as the Hyperloop. Yep, but it's a shorter version of the Hyperloop. Right. It's only like half the machine instead of two-thirds of it. Simple game, but cool rules, and it's got the shifter, and you're going through the gears, and it's just a lot of hurry up. All right. What other ones? Then what else? Oh, Creature. I got to play in the tournament. How'd you do on Creature? I came in second. That's not bad. No, that was okay. And then, ooh, what else? There was five rounds. Yeah, it's only five rounds. You're only missing one. So, Ripley, CSI, Getaway, Creature, and... Oh, Iron Man. And I came in third on Iron Man, and that is the ass-kicker that everyone says it is. I've only put a few games on it before. Go ahead. And mine even plays pretty friendly. Like, if you ever make it over to the league at Jim Radovich's house, his plays super mean. Oh, man. That game... I might want one of those. That's just a game you just keep playing over and over. Yeah, I love it, because even if you have a good game, it lasts. 15 minutes.
    9:11
    It's not like something where you have to invest 45 minutes or an hour. Oh, man. It's fast. It's an ass-kicker. Yeah, I'm a sucker for punishment. That's why I like my monster bash. So, yeah, I like to get my ass kicked easy. I'm into it. I'll play it. Oh, you'll love it. You'll love it. Awesome. Well, that sounds like a lot of fun. So what did you end up? Do you know what you played? I was 14th out of, what is it, 20, 22? We had 21. Because we would have had 20 exactly. And then Jeff showed up at the very last second, and we had to rearrange all the groups. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. I don't know you, Jeff. You seem like a really nice guy, though.
    9:48
    But Mr. Eric Prepke here came in first. Did I? Yeah. Did I? I don't usually. Usually Max beats me. He's so modest, folks. Yeah, usually Max and Jim and Steve and a couple of the other guys beat me. Oh, I enjoyed watching Max play because, like I said, he was just focused on the game. And Eric's playing and, like, saying, oh, this is what you do. This is how you do it. And Max is like, I'm just kicking this game's ass over and over again. Yeah. That's like those streamers they grind. Explaining code and multitasking and answering questions. And the second I do that, Drain City, man, no way. Isn't happening. Very cool, man. Well, that sounds like a blast. I'm sorry I missed that. I'm going to have to hit up the next one, though, for sure. Eric, man, let's talk about you. Let's talk about you. So, Eric, how long have you been involved with pinball? What got you into the hobby? Or is this more of a way of life now for you? No, not at all. I worked at the Aladdin's Castle in 76 in Cold Spring right out of high school. I just found that out. How cool is that? I fucking love that place. For like four and a half years. And I actually got the job there when I was 17, which was illegal because you're supposed to be bonded and insured to work there. Yes. And I just lied on the job application. and my first day when they had to fill out all the paperwork, the manager wasn't there. It was one of the other attendants, the guy with the bad wig that everybody called Lurch. I mean, if you ever went there, you probably saw him. He was there all the time. Yeah. So he filled out my paperwork. He didn't notice. So I got away with it. And then like two years later, after I'd been working there, the manager was like, you know, I found out that you lied to get a job here. Do you know how much trouble we could have gotten in? So the short answer is how did you get in a pinball? You committed fraud. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know. He's like, but I couldn't fire you because no one has ever wanted to work here. I love it. Wow, that's awesome. Because you were just excited. You said you just wanted to be here all the time. Yeah, I just loved being at the arcade ever since I was a kid. So when I had a chance to get paid to be there, I was, I mean, but, so the manager there was a pinball guy. Like, he played serious pinball often. And he's the one who taught me how to really play and how to fix games and how to clean games and stuff. So that was where I really got into pinball. Of course, I'd seen pinball before that, but I wasn't really into pinball. So that was right when Earthshaker was new, and then a couple other, like a little bit later, Whirlwind. So that's where I started. You're dating yourself. Yeah, that was what I learned how to play on. That was where I learned, oh, there's rules, and oh, you want to do certain things to get. Yeah, instead of just, oh, you just flip the flipper. Right, instead of just trying to keep the balls. And at that time, we're talking about in the 90s, they didn't have a lot of pinball, correct?
    12:26
    Most of the time when I worked there, they had three. Okay. At one point, we were up to six. Because that was when they were putting in all the Street Fighters and Mortal Kombat. Yeah, and there were certain times of the year, like when all the theme parks closed down for the year, they would have big auctions to get rid of all their stuff because they wanted new stuff for next year. Yeah, yeah. And we would get a lot of that stuff in. So in the fall, when those places closed down, the number of games in the building would go up drastically, and sometimes we'd bump up on Pillow a little bit. And then over the course of the year, they would get rid of games. Because that's when pinball was affordable. Yeah. Yeah, it really was. I mean, compared to now. But Aladdin's used to sell off games so cheap. Like all those Vector Star Wars games, they sold every one they had for 50 bucks each. Oh, my God. So, whoa. For anyone who knows, what are those going for now? Probably thousands. No, I saw one, I think about three grand. The stand-up or the cockpit? That doesn't matter. The stand-up. The stand-ups go for like two grand. Yeah. The cockpits were a little bit more. But most people didn't know that Aladdin sold games. Like, we had a price list in the office, and they were, you know. That was just standard business. Yeah, and people could just come in and ask to see the list, and they could just buy it. And it was all ridiculously cheap, because by that point, Aladdin's already had their money out of it. They just wanted it gone.
    13:40
    Like, home collecting wasn't a thing, really, then. Sure. Because, yeah, for them, it was just a business. They bought the games, they used the games, and then off they go. Okay. Well, it's interesting because he says that now, but it's like the home collecting market is such a big thing now with nostalgia. Eric, for those of you who don't know, he does the color DMVs. He's one of the guys that colorizes those beautiful displays that you see. He also did the Cactus Canyon Continued. continued and uh i uh was watching the stream with ryan and you let it be known that you own a cactus canyon but you bought it brand new from williams well yeah i didn't buy from the local distributor but the distributor yeah but right when they were new like we ordered it before they came out which wasn't a thing you did back then not for the home use what did you pay for it back then so this was what 90 i think it was 4200 95 96 yeah i think it was 4200 because Because we didn't even try to haggle with them. We just said, we want one of these. When it comes in, we'll take it. Because I knew it was going to be the last EMD game, and because I knew they weren't going to make very many. So I just wanted to get in there before they were out. And they ended up closing them out anyway because people weren't buying them. But I didn't know that was going to happen. So I paid full retail for one. Yeah, then it was get 10 for a nickel for a couple of years.
    14:59
    When they closed them out, I had a Circus Voltaire that I bought brand new from the same vendor for $2,000. Oh, wow. Because they were just trying to get rid of them. Because all the bars were like, I don't want that thing. It looks like a gay circus.
    15:12
    Well, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, just a little sidebar here about Circus Voltaire. I think it's a great game. I really do. But I'm wondering what they were on when they designed that. Well, it's John Papaduke. Yeah, it was very Papaduke. Papaduke was on Papaduke. Yeah, it's just such a, you know, how can someone come up with this? And I'm not very creative by nature. So for me, I'm just like, you know, but it's amazing to me that this is what comes out. Well, don't they say it was supposed to be the sequel to Theater of Magic? I mean, that's kind of an antitrip of a sequel. I don't know. Yeah, I know. I've heard him say it. I don't know how you get to one from the other on those. That's what I was just thinking. No, Magic Girl makes sense. Yeah. Magic Girl is like. So Circus Voltaire is the most off the chain he got at Williams. That's the most he was allowed to be himself. He also did Toten and World Cup Soccer and a couple others, but there were other people reigning him back in on those, like someone else finished World Cup Soccer. Well, yeah, he does World Cup Soccer. It's like, okay, this is a straightforward game. It's a soccer game. There's a dog. It's cartoony, fine, whatever. Then Circus Voltaire, acid trip, acid trip.
    16:21
    You know, random paint colors here, and we're going to have a ring leader in the middle. Yeah. The display's in the field. Yeah. So that was the most pure of his own essence as he was allowed to get over there. Have you ever met Papa Duke? Oh, yeah. When he was doing the Zidware thing, he had an office in Chicago, and he was trying to get Magic Girl made. And I actually went down on a few weekends just to see if I could help him out, work on anything, whatever. I never was actually part of the company. He never paid me for anything other than he took me to lunch when I was down there. But he's an interesting dude. He reminds me of the, you know, everyone talks of stories about the co-creator of The Amazing Spider-Man, Steve Ditko, if anyone knows about that. Steve Ditko is like this incredible recluse, you know, and Stan Lee was working with him, and, you know, he came up with most of the characters, and he never wanted to be photographed or interviewed or anything. John Papaduke is the Steve Ditko of Pitbull. It's amazing. But he's resurfaced. Yeah, but from what I understand from other people that are working with him, they've got him in the role he needs to be in now, where he's designing and being the idea guy, and then there are other people that handle making it real as far as mechanics. Okay, so he comes out and says, hey, we're going to have this ringleader and this crazy stuff, and they say, okay, let's pull you in here a little bit. Well, not necessarily even that, but making it all work the way it's supposed to. The problem he had at Zidware is he had no mechanical engineer. He had no project manager. All he really is good at is being a creative designer. Getting it over the goal line is his problem. So they're keeping him in the designer role and letting the engineers do the engineering and the project managers keep it on track and that kind of thing. So not taking anything away from Papa Duke, but does he not have some of the technical abilities? It's just not what he does. Okay. Well, you know what I mean? Because, like, you know, any of us can come up with an idea and say, hey, this is what we want the layout to be. But like I said, at the end of the day, it has to shoot well. Yeah. The geometry has to work. I think he's pretty good with the layouts and geometry and even building and wiring a lot of the whitewoods and stuff. But the more complex mechanical engineering stuff, he kind of falls short, I think. And then especially on the he needs someone making sure that everything stays on track and stays on budget. He's a handler. Right. And he's got that at D. What is his specialty, though? Is it designing? Designing, yeah. Okay. So design is where he's at. That's his realm. Okay. Where were we? We've gone way off the cake. Sorry. That was a top of the... I just wanted to see how, like, you know, what came about, you know, him buying a new machine, basically, 14 years ago or whatever. Yeah, that was kind of crazy. Not longer than 14. The other crazy story there was I actually did the webpage because it's for Williams for Cactus Canyon. They usually had a webpage on the Williams page for each game after it came out. and because all those guys, the programmers and most of the programmers, I guess, at Williams, hung out in an IRC channel online from their offices so they could talk to each other without having to get up and walk around the office. So I would just hang out in there, and, you know, like, hee-hee, I'm hanging out with the Williams. I'm so important. And there was one day that I said, hey, how come there's no webpage for Cactus Canyon? You guys usually do one. And they're like, what? No, Ted Estes said, everybody's too busy because we have to get the Spinball 2000 thing done. Like, we have a short time limit. We need to get this done and turn the division around or they're going to shut us all down and get rid of us. I said, well, let me have some assets. I'll do it. Next thing I know, I've got all these files, like art, audio, all this stuff. He's like, here you go. Build us a page. I'm like, wow. Okay. So what were you doing at that time where you got access to all that? I was working for Exec PC, the ISP in town that is no longer around. They got bought up. But, yeah, I was working there. I mean, I just did that as a side thing. Hey, guys. My name is Eric, and I want to build you that page since you guys are too busy for it. They're too busy shutting it down.
    20:27
    Well, the Pinball 2000 was coming out, or at least the next year. Yeah, that's what they were all busy on. Like, no one had time. They did the webpages themselves whenever they had time or on their own time. And everybody was working so hard on getting Pinball 2000 done that they just didn't have time. Yeah, 98 was a busy year for them. Well, they only made 900 Cactus Canyons, and they made 5,000 Champion Pubs. Yeah, that's a lot of boxers to produce.
    20:57
    But, yeah, they were focusing on the future at the time, it seems. Yeah. Very cool. Very, very cool. So how did you get into the Cactus Canyon continue? I kind of know the story, but for those of you listening and maybe haven't heard, like I said earlier, Eric is the guy who decided that Cactus Canyon was super boring after how many years of playing, and he decided to upgrade the basket. So what do you think of the original code? It was incomplete, right? It's fine. There's not a lot to it. There are other games that are as simple as that where you can get to the wizard mode without, like, scared steps in one of them. I was going to say, give me an example. Yeah, they're scared stiff. Like, you play a couple dozen games of Scared Stiff, you get the shots down enough, you can get to the stiff-o-meter thing and, you know, like the end of the game, basically, and then it starts over. Texas Cannon is kind of the same way. Like, there's not a lot to it. It's very straightforward. And after you play it, you know, a couple dozen times, you can probably get to the end of it. But there were also a lot of unfinished details. Like, there's no match sequence at all. It would just flash a number. There's no music when you're putting your initials in. There's just a lot of places where... So unpolished stuff. Yeah. If they would have had more time to finish it, it would be better than it is. Because the games... So wait, once again, what year was Cactus Canyon? 98. Yeah, 98. Okay, so yeah, the games preceding that were much more polished, obviously. Oh, yeah. And the guy who is the main programmer was already gone from Williams when they put it on the line. he moved on to another job because he saw what was coming and didn't want to go down with the ship. Were they going back? They weren't doing as many revisions back then. No, no, not at all. Not like they do now. Correct. They put out a game and that was it. Right. Because the game's done. It is what it is. And that's all it is. You have to change out entire ROM sets, right? Right. It was a lot harder to upgrade than back then. But it could be done. And there are multiple versions of some games, but it was mostly just to fix bugs. Like if they found problems. That's untimely. or exploits that they would send a chip. Yeah, but it was rare. And most arcades wouldn't do it. Like, if a game was on location, it never got updated. Yeah, I've got to open up my back box and put this round. Well, they didn't care about how the game played. They just, hey, is it pretty? Is it getting quartered? We're good. Yep. Are people putting money in it? That's all they need to know. And it's the same way now, even though it's still plugging into the speed. That sounds a lot like Stern. Yeah, people don't update them on location now either. but so yeah once they got your dollar they got your dollar now motherfuckers i miss those days where i could just put a quarter in there so all those new quarters this is crazy as my wife likes to say i got your dollar so anyway after all those years of playing it with all those like rough edges and stuff then the p-rock board comes out and oh hey you can put this in your game and write new software for it and i thought wow this is amazing somebody will finish texas canyon And that somebody was you. Two years went by. He was waiting. And no one else had done it. So I just decided. What did you do? Wait by the mailbox for someone to write you and say this was done? I just kind of figured someone would try. It's the only game, really, that's so glaringly in need of some polish. Like most of the Williams production games, even if they're simple, they're done. Sure. And that one really wasn't. It was like the only one that really, really stood out. So I figured someone would do it. And where would you get this information that somebody had done something online? Yeah, just from forms on RGP back then, I guess. But I don't know. I didn't. But I don't know. So I just decided I was going to do it. I was going to try it and see how it went. I didn't know anything about the programming language that they used and all the tools for editing DMD stuff and whatever. They're all unique to me. And what is P3? Is that just like Linux and basic? Well, the P3 is their second generation of the controller. The original P-Rock is made specifically for connecting to an existing pinball machine architecture. That has the basic framework. Was it that mission framework or whatever? Well, let's do this in two steps. There's hardware and there's software. Eric, I know words. I don't know how they go together, but I know some of the words and what they mean, sort of. The original B-Rock is so that you can write new software for an existing Williams or Stern game because it's made to hook right into those systems. It has a switch matrix in it. It has a lamp matrix in it. It's all that stuff in there. The basic pinball language is in there is what you're saying. No, just the hardware. Just the hardware. So it's the hardware for the matrix. Okay, I got you. So then once you have that board in there, you can write whatever kind of software you want to control it. Okay. You can use Mission Pinball framework. You can use the Pi proc game framework that the Multimorphic guys created in the first place. You can write your own completely from scratch. It doesn't matter. The P3 Rock is their second version of the board that's made just for making games from the ground up. It doesn't have a lamp matrix in it. It doesn't have a switch matrix in it. But it also works with any of those software frameworks. But it does the hardware differently. So there are additional boards you add on for your switches or for your lamps or for your coils, instead of it all being in the one board that's meant to be a replacement. And that's the system that, like, Spooky uses? Yeah, yeah. Spooky and American. American, too. Yeah. Yeah, and Mission Pinball Framework is just the software end of it. It's a pre-made system. That's like press player one, start. Yeah, all the basic stuff is automatically covered, and then they provide a lot of simple ways to do simple code for a game. If this switch gets hit, give them 10 points. Right, play a sound, make some points. I know a little bit what I'm talking about. He's looking at me like, what are you talking about, Joe? But if you want to get really custom and really make it look like a polished professional commercial game, you're probably going to want to do more custom code than just NPF. I mean, you can do both. You can start in NPF and then add your custom bits on top of that, or you can use one of the other frameworks where it lets you build it completely on your own as far as the display and the modes and the scoring and all that. With MPF, you can just put some things in a config file. It handles the display. It handles the scoring and all that.
    27:21
    Which route did you take? Back when I did mine, MPF didn't exist. That came later. So I used the PyProc Game framework that the Multimorphic guys made, And it provides a basic running game. Like if you run their software and hook up their board, you can push start. It'll plunge out a ball. You know, switches won't do anything because there's no rules for them or anything. But you drain a ball, it will mow the balls over, go to the next. You know, like that kind of stuff. Handling the trough, handling like basic operations. That's in there. And that would be my game, folks. I would just plug it in and be like, okay, you can plunge a ball and you can drain a ball. Game over because I can't program anything. Yeah. Well, Drew, I thought you were an expert at this. I thought that was great talking to you. Just words. Mission pinball. Config files. Done. Did those words come out in the right order? I don't know.
    28:15
    Oh, you're a lovable bastard. All right. Anyway, Eric, never mind us. So take us back. What year was it when you started working on Cactus Canyon? Maybe that will help Drew. I'd catch up. I think it was 2014. Okay. Okay, so this is before the P3 system, the original P-Rock. Yeah. All right, so that came out, you plugged it in, and you just had to kind of figure out how it was coded, right? Yeah. The wording of the code. Yeah, well, the first thing I did was play the original a lot and take a lot of notes as far as how the scoring worked and what the display did and whatever. And then I found some utilities, like, to extract the audio from, the original audio from the original ROMs, and I worked with a guy to modify a different program to be able to get the original DMD frames out. What was your original vision for this? What did you want to add to this? Well, first I just wanted to polish off the bits that weren't done and then add a couple of things. The big one is on the rule card, on the game, all the ones that shipped, it talks about beat all the Bart brothers and fight Bionic Bart.
    29:18
    He's not in the game. He didn't get that far. It was never in there. They never came up with rules that they liked before the programmer left. Oh, so they just said. So it was never in there. And they were supposed to edit the card before the games ran out, and they didn't do it. Like, no one was ever supposed to know that was going to happen. So that was, I wanted to at least put Bionic Bard in it. And then other things just sort of happened organically. So that was your first goal? Yeah. Goal number one was, can I recreate the original game to at least the standard that it was before? Can I get it to do all the same things it used to do, but now it's in my code so I can add to it, change it, whatever. So I did that first. Okay. And when I was happy enough that, okay, it actually runs the whole original game after I rebuilt it, now I can work on doing other things. And if it wouldn't have come out any good, I wouldn't have ever showed it to anybody. I would have just quietly taken it back out. That was a fun experiment. Cactus Canyon, that never was.
    30:13
    But it came out really good. So I took it to Expo just to show people how it was working out. And from that very first day when I headed Expo, I had people crawling all over me for how can I get this? When is this ready? Like, what is this? Isn't that amazing? And not taking away from your talent and the awesome thing you did with that, but anything new in the pinball world, people just go apeshit for it, right? Well, there's not a hungry bunch, man. Especially back then. Well, sure. And you're like, hey, I got new code. I got this and that, you know, whatever. And people just are ravenous about it. It's awesome. Yeah, so that's pretty interesting because the Cactus Canyon continued. I saw the Straight Down the Middle review, and I was floored by everything that was on there. The tribute mode, by the way, I love that. It's not a question. I just wanted to let you know that I love the tribute because you basically took bits and pieces from other Williams games and kind of incorporated them into Cactus Canyon, right? Yes, that was probably my stupidest idea. Oh, it was my favorite.
    31:13
    Building every one of those is like building a whole new game. because I need to get all new sounds and I need to rebuild all those graphics and I need to rebuild all those rules. So every one of them is like starting a new game from scratch. But someday I'll probably add some more of them just because, I don't know. Well, why not? And that's one of the things everybody loves. Everybody loves Tribute and everybody loves Cowboys vs. Aliens. The other thing that I added kind of as a joke, like it just sort of came to me like one afternoon. I'm like, oh, I'm going to do this thing. And I put it in there and I'm like, hey, look at this. It's hilarious. And everybody loves it. The stupidest things entertain us, man. It doesn't take much. I saw the fart noises, too. Yeah. That's awesome. I talked about that on Ryan's stream. That was, someone had said, can you put some kind of a tribute to Blazing Saddles in the game? Because it's a cowboy theme. One of my favorite movies. Yeah, you've got to be able to put something in there for Blazing Saddles. I'm like, yeah, sure. I've got to be able to do that. So I went back and watched Blazing Saddles. You're like, oh. I'm just, oh my goodness. Send it out to the campfire with memes. No. Like, the whole movie is so racist and so vulgar by today's standards. I'm like, I can't put any of this in there. I was about to say you could do the scene where he's standing on top of the building and the guy's coming. No, we're not going to do that. Welcome our new. Yeah, we can't do any of that. Put them in the KKK outfits.
    32:27
    So then when I got to the campfire and they're all farting and eating their beans, I'm like, okay, this I can do. Yeah. This is family friendly. Everyone likes a good fart. Farts are always funny. We could have done one, what's his name, Mondo, when he punches the horse. Yeah. But then they were like, no. But again, animal cruelty. You can't get away with any of that stuff. What's wrong with you, Drew? You want to punch all the horses? Yes. Shame on you. Knock out the horse. So you stated that CGC's hardware isn't compatible with your Cactus continued project. Has anything changed since then? Oh, no, that's still there. What they run is an emulation of the original software. And all of their hardware, the switches and lights and everything, are wired differently. So it just does not, cannot work. Like, you can't even take their control system out and throw in the P-Rock and Williams power driver board and a Williams – well, I guess that's the only two you need now – and hook them up to the play field. Like, you would have to rewire everything. Or they'd have to change it completely if they do a remake. You have no idea if they're doing Cactus Camel. Oh, it's the next one. Oh, is it? Okay. Yeah. You heard it here first. No, we're not here first. It wasn't here first. It's been all over. But, yeah. Four minutes, ten minutes. Listen, you heard it here first. Come on, man.
    33:44
    Has anyone from there contacted you, though? They contacted Terry at Pinball Life because they knew that he knows me, and they said, hey, we want to talk to him about Keku Canyon. How special do you feel when they've got to call another person to be like, they know this guy, we can't call you back. Talk to my public. No, they didn't know how to get a hold of me, so they talked to Terry. You can call him at 262.
    34:05
    So then Terry calls me and says hey they want to talk to you about something to do with Cactus Canyon He didn tell me what or anything and he gave me his contact information So I called the guy He didn answer I don't know why. Terry said, I don't know why he gave you the phone number. He never answers his phone. So I called him. He didn't answer his phone. I left him a big message. I followed it up with an email to his work email address. Never heard a thing. So, eh, I don't know. I don't even know what they wanted. Oh, so we never got a hold of it.
    34:31
    Misconnection. Man, I'm curious. I'm curious because they can't go on just with the original code unless they just do the bare bones code with maybe a little bit of tweaking like you did to make it shootable. I don't know. Well, it was plenty playable and shootable before. It's just sort of boring. Well, I mean, I meant with that extra polish. Yeah, but according to Head to Head, the rumor is that they hired the original guy to work on it some more. I thought he went MIA. He kind of did. There were several attempts made over the years to get him. Who is this guy? We keep saying this guy a lot. Matt Correale. Okay.
    35:07
    There were several groups that tried to get him to finish it, and he admitted at some point that the game in his house does have more further along code on it. But at some point he just finally said, I want $40,000 to finish it. It was somewhere around there. He wanted a bunch of money to finish it, and then he said he would do it. So a bunch of rich guys got together, and they all put the money together, and they tried to pay him to do it, and he suddenly had some sort of a change of heart. I'm busy, guys. It's 60 grand now. No, it's like he had a come to Jesus moment or something. He decided now this was the wrong thing to do, and he would not do it. Really? So he agreed, and then he just said, yeah. Yeah, that's where it got left. I heard from some of those guys that were trying to get it done, then eventually came around and were like, hey, can we run your thing? Yeah, would you do something with that if they asked you? No. No? No. How come? I just don't have any interest. Okay. He's already done it, bud.
    36:00
    He's played that game. Fair enough. He's already made his continued. All right, well, cool. I did hear another fun little thing here. I'm just, I've been stalking you for the last day or so. Oh, no. Tell me about how you got the voice actor to do the mayor to re-record some audio or record some new audio. Oh, well, somebody on the pinball controller's forums back when those were still around before they moved to the Slack thing that they use now. Somebody pointed out, you know, hey, there's a voice actor listed in IPDB for the game. Like this guy contributed. And I found he's on the Internet. He's just a for hire voice actor. Like, oh, OK, awesome. So I hired the mayor, dude.
    36:39
    I contacted that guy and I said, hey, I'm working on this completely unimportant project for no money.
    36:47
    Could I maybe pay you a couple of bucks to have you read some lines? And he's like, yeah, OK. How many? A couple of bucks. I paid him 100 bucks. And I said, yeah, he probably gets like $400 an hour. normally. I didn't say, here's a hundred bucks and a case of beer. But this was, just sit at home with your mic and do a read-through and that's it. Like, there was no direction, there was no production. So, I sent him samples of all the male voices in the game and I said, which ones of these did you do? And he said, well, of these, I only did the mayor on this game. I said, okay, well, that's perfect because he's kind of the narrator of the game and I'm going to need him. So, I wrote, I think it was two dozen lines the first time and I sent them to him And he sent it back, and they're perfect. They fit right in with the game. If you don't know the difference, you can't tell which ones are real and which ones are new. Really? Yeah. That's awesome. And then as I got more into the game, I kind of went back to him. I'm like, hey, remember me? Can we do that again? So I gave him another $100, and he recorded another. I think I sent him three dozen lines that time. Let's send this guy. All those fart noises were him.
    37:51
    No, I gave him $100. Those are courtesy of Google. Thank you, Google. Hey, maybe we can send him $100 and he can do our intro for us. There you go. Like, hey, can you just say, welcome to the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast?
    38:08
    That's about right. He charges $1,000. I really wanted some more from the drunk character in the game. The call out that everybody knows from Geckos Canyon is, the lock is lit and so am I.
    38:23
    I really wanted more from that guy. Well, Ian can do that for you. It turns out that that guy. What do you mean?
    38:30
    The voice for that was Rob Berry from Williams. The sound engineer from Williams actually did that character. So I actually contacted him. I found him through LinkedIn and asked him if he would do it. And at first he was like, oh, this sounds awesome. Yeah, I think I want to do this. Have you told Matt yet? And I was like, uh, no.
    38:47
    So then, you know, he talked to Matt about it, and Matt shot that whole thing down. He's like, oh, really? Sorry. You know, cool project and all, but we're not going to help you. And I'm like, oh, okay. They don't want you independently doing your own stuff. I get it. It was their thing. They made it. And here I am, you know, like bastardizing it into something else. I'd be a little offended too, I guess. Quite honestly, you're the face of Cactus Canyon right now, let's be honest. Right? Because everyone who's talking about it, we're talking to Eric Pripke, the guy who did Cactus Canyon Continued. And Williams is an afterthought at the moment. Well, yeah, yeah. Everyone knows that if they have a Cactus Canyon, the far superior version is the continued version. Speaking of which, would you ever do a continued version on any other Williams properties that you maybe feel is lacking in code? Or is there anything out there that you'd like to add on? Would you like to take Crease from the Black Lagoon? Okay, could you put him back in the lagoon and get him out of the dry pad? We talked about that last week. That's all I'm saying. we're like it's such a great game but if it was in the lagoon it would have been something like that driving is a cool theme don't get me wrong but it's creature from the black lagoon I would like some more movie stuff in there just saying well do a kiss and park the car it's okay but I need me some creature baby I guess they couldn't come up with enough things to do with a puddle it's a lagoon dude when you say it like that you're right and it's sad That's not true. If they can make a fucking CSI one, they can make a Creature of the Black Lagoon. But there you have microscopes and centrifuges. And skulls with bollocks. And skulls with bollocks, yeah. Well, fuck it. So I take it, no, there's nothing out there that's really... No, there aren't really. There have been other people that have tried to push me into working on other games. That never works. Theater of Magic is one people really want done. They want more into that game than there is. Really? Yeah. Because you get to the Wizard. I don't know if you've ever gotten to the Wizard mode on... Nope, we're not that good of players. We don't play that much. It's basically just every shot is like a bunch of millions of points for a little bit of time. And there's no display to it hardly. Once again, a little sidebar. We were talking a little bit at your house about, you know, these high-scoring games versus low-scoring games. And, you know, like Ripley's. Yeah, you get $12 million or $15 million on Ripley's. That's pretty good. A lot of the other games, $100 million, $200 million, $300 million. What is your thought on that? Just in general? Well, yeah, just in general. Like you said, you have games that, you know, some shots are $2 million, $3 million. I guess I kind of agree with Steve Ritchie. Big scores are fun. More points is more fun. I like that. I mean, it doesn't really bother me. As long as you know what the scale you're in for is.
    41:29
    The first time you play Ripley, you might be really disappointed because you might think you did terrible at it. But once you realize, oh, these points are just lower, I don't care one way or the other. But I guess if I had to make the call, I'd rather have bigger scores. Yeah, for sure. People like that. and you're like, yeah, I got a million. It can go too far. Attack from Mars gets sort of crazy. Yes, a couple of those games do. I like low scores because that's all I ever see.
    41:54
    No, that's the other end of the argument. Like, you know, Jersey Jack games, you know, like The Hobbit, you get a million, that's a good score. Yeah, and I totally get why it makes sense. I think that's Keith's crusade over there, but maybe not. It might have been some of the other guys too, but they just, you know, The last three digits on any modern game are completely useless. They're always zeros, so they just took them off. Yeah. No, that's true. That's true. Do you have a favorite pinball coder? No, not really. Okay. I like games. Appreciate them all. Yeah. I don't know. I guess I tend to focus more on the design of the play field than necessarily the code, although that's not always true. The first time I played Walking Dead, I thought it was terrible. Right. But once that got more polished up, now it's fun. So that brings up an interesting point because we always talk about theme and art and different things. What are the couple most important things to you when you're looking at a pinball game? Design and playability is usually my first major thing. So you're a player at heart, obviously. Yeah. And then I really like the machines as a whole as a work of art. So what it looks like art-wise is probably second for me. And then rules and stuff after that. Like for games I want to own. And then rules and stuff after that. That's what we're talking about, games that you're putting in your basement, you own, that people aren't giving to you.
    43:13
    I got to ask then, what's your favorite art package? What's your favorite shots? You got a favorite? Well, the art package one's easy. That's still Metallica at this point. Metallica? Yeah. They're already dying. Yeah, that is a good package. That was the first one that Stern went back to a more hand-drawn line art kind of style, and it's great. I really like it. not that any of the newer ones like zombie eddie stuff's great too but my favorite is still metallica um i tend to like the more creative playfield stuff that a lot of people don't necessarily like like congo is sort of a weird layout but that's cool um i really like the ramp system on that i'm putting myself in the same boat here with trudeau which is probably bad these days but flintstones the ramp return system on flintstones is no ryan and i were talking about that ramp that comes around and flips it out by the flipper. It's not like it just goes around behind the flipper arbitrarily. What it's doing is it always puts the ball on the flipper where you have the next shot. If your next shot is going to be from the left flipper, the next one that would be important, it puts the ball over there. So if you miss, it's your fault. It's not like you have to get a return to that flipper. It will put it over there. It's always my fault.
    44:24
    That's awesome. That is awesome. Yeah, it will put it to whichever side you're supposed to shoot from. It's not just random, and I think that's really cool. What other games did that? Ryan said a couple other games I couldn't think of. Well, there are a couple others that go around behind the flippers like that. Like, NASCAR has the loop that goes around. Hurricane, the third one of the Comet Cyclone series that's a roller coaster, that has a thing that goes around, I think, roller coaster to a kite. Hurricane, that's the one with the big clown in the middle. Yeah, I don't know. It's terrible. I never played. Yeah. The spinning backlight. Yeah. Drew, what's your favorite R package? I don't know if I ever asked you. Ooh. You know. I don't even know what I said for mine, so disregard anyone out there. There's a lot of good R packages lately. You know, games that I've owned. Yeah, Iron Maiden. You know, you said Zombie Yeti is awesome. But I do lean towards Metallica, as everyone knows. That still is my favorite game. I don't own it anymore, but it's awesome. you know there's a lot of good ones out there I mean you know classics like Monster Bash I mean your game is beautiful you know if you're just looking at I'm pointing at it now and Ian's looking at it sorry I'm getting excited a lot of beautiful art packages out there like I said I'm not one that's not my first thing that I do I'm more like Eric here I love the great I just bought my Simpsons I love the way it plays I love you know shooting that game. When you hit a shot, it just feels good. You're like, this is my game. Yep.
    45:58
    And the Hobbit I just picked up, same thing. I mean, that game is, you know, it looks amazing. Hobbit is absolutely gorgeous, definitely. There's a lot of good ones out there, but yeah. No, Metallica, Jerry Donnie, like we talked about, I mean, he wasn't right for Stern, but he's right for pinball. Yeah. You know, because he can do it. He's almost kind of one note, though. Like, a lot of his stuff looks similar. And because Metallica was the first one, you know, it kind of stands out. But then Aerosmith and, you know, whatever, they all started to kind of be same-ish. Yes. Not that that's bad. That's his style. Aerosmith and Metallica, like you said, if you didn't know what you were looking at, yeah, it's the same art style. It's the same thing. Yeah, I heard the joke that he goes in this crayon box and it's only purple and blue.
    46:43
    That's not true. That's so mean. Oh, come on. You know what? Cosmic Carnival looks beautiful, too, and he did the sculpts on that, too, in Cosmic Carnival. Yeah, but to his point, though, the colors on that look the same. Yeah, they're purple and blue.
    46:56
    But then Pabst Can Crusher, I didn't know that was Dirty Donnie. Now I know it's obvious when you look at it, when you know the artists and stuff. But when I first saw that, I was like, my jaw hit the ground. I was like, you know, that's fucking cool. The layout's shit, but it's a cool-looking game. Speaking of Aerosmith, do you like Aerosmith, Eric? Yeah, it's the best version of Kiss.
    47:16
    Okay. There's like three games that are that same sort of layout, you know, center ramp and thing on the side. And it's the – I don't remember what the third one is, but Aerosmith is my favorite of the three. I've only played literally, I think, one game of Kiss. I've played quite a bit of Aerosmith. I like Aerosmith. It's so tragic that that head thing on Kiss shoots the ball straight down the middle most of the time. Yeah, everyone talks about that. It's such a shame. Yeah. You can't adjust that at all? It's just a straight down the middle thing? I would imagine, like, the mod guys should come up with one where his tongue is kind of curved. so that it throws it. Because it's just a scoop and a switch. It's hard to... Well, it's just a big plastic head. Yeah. You know, like, it goes out of his mouth. It just puts something in there to deflect it or something. I don't know. I just know that a lot of the Monster Bash owners now for these remakes, the scoop just loves to shoot down the middle all the time, and I had that issue. Then I just, you know, just adjusted the power just a bit, and now I've never gotten it to shoot down the middle. There's always ways you can fix that. Hey, guys out there who have Monster Bashes, quit putting that on pin side and just adjust your fucking power. How about that? Thank you. Service announcement is over. Oh, yeah. And people said that about the snake on Metallica, too. I never had that issue personally, but, yeah, people are like, oh, the snake shoots it down the middle or this or that. You're right. His snake is just fine, folks. Don't worry. He's never had that issue. It does hook to the left. Never had a problem with it. He's heard other guys had a problem.
    48:35
    Yeah. Go get it checked out. Get a new girlfriend. Do your thing and adjust your snake power, folks. Brought to you by Drew. All right. So how did you get started with Color DMD?
    48:48
    We're not going to grill you all day, I promise, but I am curious. I just want to pick your brain if that's okay. It's fine. It's content. That's right. That's the business we're in right now, right? We're content providers. Well, I worry about this at night. I'm like, Eric can't do all of them.
    49:05
    How many have you done so far? 20. All right. How did you get involved with them? It was a lot of begging, actually. Nice. I wanted to work on it for a long time, and I had tried to contact Randy several times. And, you know, hey, I could do this game. Hey, I could do that game. And I never really heard from him. It was kind of a bummer, but I kept trying. Yeah. And then finally, somebody I know from down in Illinois, he has a Big Bang Bar. And I contacted Randy again. I said, hey, this guy let me borrow his Big Bang Bar, and I could color that. Well, that got his attention. You know, that's a high-profile thing. Like, you color Big Bang Bar, and people are going to be like, ooh. you know because there would be the first Capcom game and it's a kind of like it's a kind of a prestige piece for a lot of people because it's rare oh yeah there's that so that got his attention he emailed me back well he didn't have Capcom support ready to go yet so he's like I don't know how long it's been before I get to that whatever I said well I could do Flintstones in the meantime which is the one I originally had proposed to him he's like yeah okay well I found out much much later that the reason he didn't answer me is because he figured since I had written my entire own game from scratch and done my own color solution that's a different thing from his, like works in a totally different way, that I would think their stuff was silly and amateurish and whatever. Like, I wouldn't... Oh, you're big time, Steve. That's what he thought. I'm like, no, no, no, that's not it at all. You're big time, buddy. You're on the poor man's pinball pocket.
    50:29
    You've made it. But I just... Do you hear that, Kaneda, straight down the middle and flash save? You come here, you have made it. So after I got done telling him how awful everything was. No, I just really wanted to, I was pretty sure I would enjoy doing it. And it turns out that's actually the case. But at the point where I got in, the tools that they use had matured pretty far. Oh, cool. So the stuff that, like if I would have gotten in maybe a year earlier, I don't know that I'd still be doing them because it was a lot harder to do back then because they were doing a lot more things just by brute force, like doing everything very manually and by hand, a lot of math and spreadsheets.
    51:12
    Stuff that isn't as fun as what you're doing. Since then, Randy had built, because now that he had other people, like he had brought a few other people into Color Games, he had more time to work on the tools, and he worked on making more, you know, like graphical user interface kinds of tools like you would expect from any Windows-type program or whatever. And then the work is a lot more creative and a lot less math. And it's still, there's a decent amount of logic problem to it to be able to determine what's on the screen and how to know when the scenes change and stuff. But it's like half that and half creative to actually do the color. So obviously a lot of it's logic and programming and all this stuff, but some of it is just creative. You're kind of... Yeah, I mean, what the game looks like is ultimately up to whoever's working on it. like what colors you pick and whatever. And there have famously been a few that people are kind of upset with how things turned out. Like what? The Pirates, Stern's Pirates is the one I hear about the most often. Really? Because the guy who was working on it, he wanted it to be more colorful. In his opinion, it's a color display. It should be colorful. So in some ways, he didn't necessarily stick to the actual colors of what things are in the movies. So why do you think some are so good and some are just... On a side note, I just want to say you did a great job with Black Rose. That was my favorite. I think he took forever. I know. I know you had an issue with it. He's still working on the cannon. No, no. It was the explosions, right? The explosions. Yes. They were random, right? They were very hard to detect. God bless you, man. I just was, I know I messaged you a few times, and I was like, is he ready yet? Eric was as cool as he ever was. He was like, yeah, dude, soon. The explosions suck.
    52:59
    But, man, when it came out, it was awesome. and totally transformed that guy. I wish I still had it. So, yeah. I can't afford more than one. Some of these colored DMDs seem like new games, and some of them just seem like they're colored dots. Does that make sense? You know what I mean? Yeah, I guess. I mean, a lot of it depends on how good the source material is because colored DMD doesn't actually change what's on the display. It just puts the color in front of it. So, like on something like Adam's Family, a lot of that art is very rudimentary and plain, and there's only so much you can do. Got it. And in the early goings, they had – the system supported fewer pallets of colors. Like, I don't know how many they started with, but, like, when I first got in, we could have four pallets of 16 colors for the whole game. Now we're up to, like, 16 pallets of 16 colors. Why the – Just limitations of the system as far as what they have room for in the memory and what it's built to handle and understand. Like, that's the part Randy keeps improving. Okay. He keeps adding capabilities on the back end that we never had before. Sure. That make it easier and easier to put more detail into things and to be able to detect the really hard stuff. And this is just through trial and error and different things. Yeah. It's a matter of when we get to something that we can't solve, Randy figures out a way to make it work. And along the way, sometimes we end up with, like. What is Randy's background? He's an electrical engineer. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Smarter than us. Just like everyone we bring on this podcast, man. We don't bring Randy out, but yeah, he is smarter than us. The last time the palettes got increased was when Game of Thrones was done because there's so many video clips in that game that he needed to have more color choices. How does that one look? I've never even seen that one. It looks really good. Game of Thrones. I have yet to see one. It looks really good. I haven't either, now that you say that. That one's done by Dave Timmer. He's another one of the really good guys who's done a bunch of games. Game of Thrones is interesting because it's a, you know, the series just wrapped up and people are so disappointed with how it ended. Wah, wah. That it almost. I haven't seen the ending yet. I'm waiting. Tonight, actually, I'm going to watch it, believe it or not. Surprisingly, it's like, okay, so the pinball comes out because it's a hit show, right? And then the hit show takes a dive, a nosedive, you know, because it's not the ending everybody wants. It's, like, more disappointing than an upper play field in the premium, man. I mean. No, wait, wait. It went full circle, bro. Nothing is more disappointing than that upper play field. I don't know. You've got to see the ending, I guess. I do. I will see it in a couple of hours. But nothing is more disappointing at this moment than that upper play field. But, yeah, it's just funny how that works. It's a complete circle. It's a circle of life. Sorry, we've got to keep doing these sidebars. What do you think about upper play fields, Eric? It depends on the game. The one on Simpsons is awesome. It is awesome. I love the Simpsons one. It's enough out of the way. It has enough to do. It's important enough to the game, but there's still other things to do. And it's not a premium version. It's harder than that game. It's perfect, actually. As far as I'm concerned, it's my favorite upper play field. I love it. But Game of Thrones and Family Guy and Trek, which I know is Family Guy. A lot of those, it feels like a different little game. Well, especially on Family Guy. It's intended to be like a different game. A stupid little. It feels weird because the ball is a different size, so the physics are all different. Have you played the Munsters Premium? Yeah, it's the same thing. It's the same thing? Oh, yeah. Everyone was talking about this one might be different. No. No, it's not. No, it's the same thing. I was hoping it would be different because I remember we're at MGC and we didn't get, there was too many people, so we couldn't play. I didn't even know there was one there. There was a game in there? No, we were waiting in line. That guy kept playing and whatever, so we went to the pros. Oh, I don't remember that one. I will say this, though. I mean, like, there's upper playfields, and then there's, like, upper playfields that, like, blend seamlessly. Like, I don't even think of, and I know we talked about this, but Lord of the Rings. I don't even think of those as upper playfields. That's not an upper playfield. It's just like an upper. It's almost like a ramp. That's an upper area. Yeah. Thank you. I just dig that. That feels good. But I think The Simpsons is my favorite by far, upper playfields. Usually they detract.
    57:14
    Sword of Rage, premium. I like that upper playfield, too. It's part of the game. It should be part of it. It should be the pro. We talked about that. That should be the pro. So those are different. Yeah, and I don't think a Sword of Rage is an upper play field either. I think, oh, this is just part of the game. And that's what makes a good upper. I'm using my air quotes for you guys. I can't see us. You can't see this air quote, but it's magnificent.
    57:38
    So anyway, sorry, I digress. But go ahead. I don't know where we were. I was just knocking by about Sword of Rage. Fuck upper play fields. Well, you know what I like about Sardar Age, though? I like that it was on that Lexan, or the Lexan or whatever. Yeah, it makes it feel like it doesn't take up so much room when you can see through it. It's so cool. You can see underneath there. That is neat. You're right. How much different would the Game of Thrones upper play feel be if you could see through it? And it's not so fucking, it just flutters everything. Game of Thrones, premium and pro, I mean, there's just, yeah, there's not enough visibility. Did I say pro? I'm not premium. No, no, no. I'm just saying in general, there's just not enough visibility in that game. I like the pro a lot, actually. I love the play of that game. I don't mind it. I don't care what people think about the Pro. I love it. Eric, what do you think about the Pro? Game of Thrones in general. Do you like the show? I actually don't watch the show. Okay. Well, that's okay. I watched one episode and got to the end of that and went, well, this is interesting, but never really picked up the rest of it. But I like the game, and it's a standard Steve Ritchie layout without an upper flipper. Does Steve Ritchie have a standard layout, though? Sort of. I mean, if you take Black Knight Pro, you can kind of put it over a Game of Thrones, right? Yeah. It's similar. It is. Right? Yeah, you're right. That Black Knight is the same. His more standard thing is the two flippers, one up on the side with an upper loop. Yeah. The getaway.
    58:56
    Star Wars. Star Trek. Star Wars doesn't have a flipper, but Star Trek has the upper flipper. High Speed had the upper flipper. Doesn't F-14 have that too, or no? No.
    59:06
    F-14 has two up. Okay. All right. Star Wars or Star Trek pinball? Game-wise? Yes. The new Star Trek or one of the many old ones? No, no. Steve Ritchie. Yeah, no, I like the Star Trek better than Star Wars. Oh, yeah. Dude, it's so much better game. I wish, I said this before, I wish they would have just made that Star Wars. Right? Seriously, put the Millennium Falcon right in the middle. You're going to bash that? Sure, I'll bash it all day. Because. What are you playing, The Empire? Don't care. Yeah, yeah.
    59:39
    Folks, he doesn't give a shit. I don't give a shit. No, because that game, A, it shoots better. B, I just, I'm so disappointed in Star Wars. That's really what this is about. Sorry. I wanted to like Star Wars, but every time I play it, I walk away going, yeah, I know. Man. We went from Color DMD to Star Wars. Yeah, I know. Here we are. Back to Color DMD. It happens, though. It happens. It's what we do. All right, so let's move past it. Color DMD, you do great fucking work on that. Thank you very much, Eric. Thanks for what you do to the community. Everything. Everything you do for the community, sir.
    60:14
    Drew posted this question here. I'm looking at the show notes. Good question, man. Where do you see the industry is headed? Are we at the peak? I added the multi-morphic. How do you feel about multi-morphic? Oh, it's a very interesting system. I just think they still really need, like, an A title to really launch. Like, I don't think enough people are on board yet. Everyone keeps saying that. And did you listen to Kaneda recently? I don't ever listen to Kaneda. Okay. So Jerry went on his show. Oh, that's very cool because Jerry interviewed today. Yeah, they pretended it was his podcast. Jerry actually doesn't mind Canada. He thinks he's great. He loves Canada. So Jerry did the, he was interviewing Canada. But anyway, they're talking about Multimorphic, basically, bottom line. He was saying, you know, we have this new game coming out. We're not going to say when it's going to be released because when they announce it, they want to be able to ship it, which is cool. Everyone can get on board with that. it's going to be another $2,500 thing. And he said it's going to have, and I quote, the most innovative? You shouldn't quote that at all. Because I can't.
    61:20
    No, versatile. Versatile. Sorry, that was the word. The most versatile mechanical feature that's ever been in an AP bubble team. That's got to be a pretty badass mech, right? I don't know. I don't know what the fuck he's talking about. I'd love to see it. Nobody does. Yeah, I'd love to see it. So what's your take on that? Jerry, send us a picture of it.
    61:40
    Powermanspinball at gmail.com. But as far as the P3 system in general, I think it's great. I really like Lexi. And a lot of the other smaller games they've made are very fun, but they're smaller games. You know, the heads-up thing is cool. I don't know if you've ever played that at a show where it's two games connected together. And, like, as you hit things, it sends balls to the other players. Yeah, for sure. That's really cool. The Cosmic Kart Racing, now that it's polished up and done, they had a TPF this year. It was a great time with three other people. But there isn't really that grab-the-public game yet that's going to pull people in. And they're also having a problem. A lot of people play heads up, and they really like it. But then if you want to play heads up at home, you've got to buy two of them. Yeah. That's the problem. And the problem he's running into. So his goal, he stated he wants to have 1,000 of these things out there. Because then they can sell more content for less money. So that means they have... Or he can have third parties. Correct. That's what it was. That's his goal. Even for them, you know, they're selling these games at $2,500, which is a bargain we can all agree on. If you can have a new game for $2,500, but you need several thousand people to buy these... New games. Well, to buy a $10,000 system. Well, the nice thing for them is the way the industry is going, everybody else is getting that expensive. so theirs doesn't seem so bad anymore. And that's a great point, but how come he hasn't gotten to 1,000 sold yet? Like I said, I think he doesn't have a game that's really grabbing people who aren't already interested in the tech. Like, the tech of the system is fantastic, but he needs a game that will grab the people who don't care about that, that aren't concerned at all with all of the fancy engineering that goes on and the fact that, oh, you can swap this out, swap that out. He needs the one that will pull people in when they know nothing about it. Exactly. He was talking about that more education for marketing and for the public. I didn't want to say anything about it during our MGC recap, but, yeah, there was one on there, and I wanted to play it so bad. Oh, it was very broken. It was down. And I didn't want to say it out loud because I didn't want to make it sing, But I have not played, and that is on my wish list. So I'm going to have to attend more shows. Hopefully Expo will have one. I'd like to go to Expo next year. This is a great question. Are there any on location?
    64:10
    Not around here that I know of. Well, that one, the one that was at the show that was broken is from Geeks Mania in Madison. Okay. But his place is a pay one price, get in and play as much as you want. So his games get beat. So, you know, that thing took a lot of wear in a short amount of time. I mean, all of his stuff does. So would you ever be interested in a multi-morphic in your house? Yeah, down the road eventually. Okay. I'm not going to say no, but I don't really have money to buy games anymore. I got a kid in college. All my money goes that way. I saw your collection, bro. All you need to do is sneeze and sell one of your machines. See, that's the thing. I don't want to get rid of any of the ones that I have. Yeah, that's true. So for me, I'd rather sit on what I have than buy new stuff. I love a man that has all of his shit bolted. Well, you know what, though? You said you were babysitting a lot, too, though, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome, though. Which is why you don't need to buy new games, because you have all kinds of fun stuff to play. Do you have a Black Rose at your place? I do, actually. Fuck, yeah. I missed that one. I'd like to play some more Black Rose. Was there a Black Rose? Oh, there was. It's in the front room. And when I saw it, I'm like, great. And he had a sign that said, out of order. No, no, no. The sign says, sometimes resets. Do not use for competition. Ah, there you go. So it's there, and it works, and you can play it. but you wouldn't want to play a lead game on it because it might reset on you in the middle. Because every once in a while when you hit the right-hand side and both flippers go at the same time, something spikes the voltage and it resets like Williams games do. Eric, do you have a guilty pleasure game, a game that nobody else seems to like but you love? Well, there's always a game. People like any game. I know, but I need to know yours, though.
    65:43
    There's fans of anything. There's people who like CSI a lot, you know, like considering it their favorite game but sadist. Yeah. I don't know. And it's so bad on that game. Probably the two I get the most crap for from people would be Flintstones and Gilligan. You know? You have a Gilligan? He does have a Gilligan. God damn it. I should have been there.
    66:01
    Ryan and I. I wouldn't even have been part of the tournament. I'd have been that asshole that's like, we've been a little playing Gilligan. We did play Gilligan. But Ryan and I played two games on Flintstones. And I had heard, straight down the middle, I think, was talking about the theme integration and how it looks like bedrock. And it does. they have so many molded sculptures in there and it looks like the city. Sterling, you're listening. And then we played a couple of games, got a little bowling alley. It's a cool game. Yeah, I like that one. Why is that game shit on so much? Is it really shit on? It's not the Flintstones cartoon. It's the movie that everybody hated.
    66:42
    I think if it was the original Flintstones, it would get a little more love, but I still think a lot of people would be like, It's a cartoon. Yeah. But Gilligan, I get why a lot of people don't like that game. It's super flat and linear, way more than Cactus Canyon is. Sure. But I remember being in the arcade when that game came out and just being completely blown away by the dot matrix display. I was like, this is the greatest thing ever. I put all my money in it, just one after the other. What do you think about Popeye? No, I don't like Popeye. I don't like the game. I like the cartoon. I love Pop-Arm. The cartoon's bad ass. Yeah, but the game's not great. You know, it was funny. I have, like, two Guilty Pleasures, and I haven't played either one of them, and they're already just my Guilty Pleasures, and Gilligan would be one, and the other one would be Special Forces just because I saw it was, like, back-to-back TNT. Yes. I was, like, YouTubing. I was down the YouTube rabbit hole, and I think I was watching Special Forces, and I thought, oh, I love everything about this game. And then the automatic, like, next on the playlist was the Gilligan's. I was like, all right, I'll watch it. And I was like, oh, I want that one too. And then the third one would probably be Black Belt. I don't know anyone that owns a Black Belt. You don't have a Black Belt. No, Jay does at his house. Seriously? Yeah. Who's this guy? I think. Oh, wait, and he might have a Bruce Lee instead of a Black Belt. No, Dragon Fist.
    68:11
    It's called Dragon Fist. It's a Bruce Lee game. Sorry, Jay, we're not friends anymore. Rilo in Rockford has a black belt Oh gosh Is that a place or a person No it Rilo He a Brazilian guy that lives in Rockford that is a pinball guy He's got a bunch of really rare stuff. He has Q-Bert and Defender, several other games that are just weird.
    68:33
    He's got a couple of games from Brazil that are really weird. He's Brazilian, man. Rilo, get it. The Brazilian butt wax game or something. That's awesome. I mean, no, Brazilians always have the coolest names, obviously. Relo is a fucking cool name. Sounds like Reload. Relo. Yeah. And then there's the Brazilian animator feature, Rio, which is separate, not to be confused with Relo. Very cool, though, man.
    69:00
    Very cool. All right, so I've got to be best friends with you, Relo. So, my name is Ian. I want to play Black Belt. Sorry, but it's happening. So, Eric, what is your take on the industry? Where do you think? Oh, is that where we're still going? Yeah. Well, we'll play that game. We're talking multi-morphic. But what do you think has happened with the pinball industry as a whole? Unless Deep Root really does come out and flip the script somehow, I think it's just going to kind of continue exactly as it is and has been for the last 20 years. Like, the only exciting thing they've done is finally change the LCD screens. Well, yeah, but I mean, like, do you think it's going to keep growing? Oh. So Drew and I had two different schools of thought. Drew is in the belief he's an optimist, an eternal optimist, that believes that this thing will always continue to grow, and younger generations will pick up the mantle, and this thing is going to always be around and blow up. And then I am on the opposite side of saying this is a nostalgic thing. This is 30s and 40s and 50-year-olds that have disposable income, and this is why we have a resurgence. So we're on separate. He wants to know what you think. Well, if you look at the history of it, it's very much an up and down thing. Like it's never been, it wasn't like it was all good and then went bad and now came back once. It's done this several times already. So I think we're probably still in for growth for a little while more yet. But then it'll probably pull back some and then it'll get popular again. Just like everything else. The late 80s when it kind of started dwindling and then the 90s kind of brought it back up. Yeah, it's gone up and down many, many times. Yeah. And I think we're still on an up for now. I don't know how long it's going to keep going, but I think it's going to be a while. Sure. Like five years, ten years. Yeah, and then I'm sure it'll pull back some, and then something will happen, and it'll get popular again. It's just as long as people keep making games. Well, you just look at all the companies that are coming out and more games, higher prices. I think if we have a problem, that's what it's going to be is saturation. There's going to be too many titles coming out. I do agree with that. That too many people are going to have to end up folding up because they just can't sell enough machines because there's too many of them available. Because even though they're cool and we'd all want them, we just can't send them to the canapora. Right. People just can't afford them. Yeah. And there aren't enough locations buying games anymore. Wait. You can't buy every new in-box game, Eric? No. Okay. Ian, can you?
    71:26
    There are people who can. I know. And you know some of them. I've met some of them. Yes. You know what? I would love to take out high interest loans. I just can't. I don't know why. I don't know. If I can sneak it past the wife, I might try it. But, no, I am cast-strapped as it is with the one-year-olds. Eric, do you have any thoughts on Willy Wonka? Were you there at MGC when they revealed it? Yeah, I played it a little. I really want to wait and see what it's like when the code is finished. Right. I think that's what we're all waiting for. It's a Pat Lawler play field, so, of course, the shots are all great. It's just so good. My problem is it has two upper flippers that both have important shots for the gameplay, and I'm terrible at upper flipper shots. Really? That's my weakness. He's being humble. So now I know your weakness. This is what I've got to play against. He is a good player. Yeah. I watch him, and he's good. So, like, Simpson's, that treehouse shot, that's a tough shot. Yeah. Yeah, I almost never hit that range. That shot, I've had the game now. I've probably put 100 games on it. I've hit that shot, like, three times. We never even talked about your Simpsons acquisition. Oh, man. We'll get down to it. We'll get to it. It was after the last show. Yeah.
    72:39
    Yeah, it was. It was. So we were still on our way to, you were still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about it when we were talking about it. And I still am because the wife is playing it with me, which is fantastic. Yeah. Kathleen's getting into the pinball? Yes. Nice. Eric, I hear your wife plays some pinball. She's pretty into the hobby as well? Yeah. Yeah, she's been to tournaments with me. She's going to Pinnberg with me this year. Nice. What's her name? Liz. Liz, I love you, Liz. We love you, Liz. But we were talking about it before we actually started recording that three of the games that are in the house are hers. She sought them out and made the deals and bought them herself. One of those is Creature. Yeah. Creature, Spider-Man, and Theater of Magic. Liz, you're the coolest. Theater of Magic? Man, Liz, you are. Yeah, that's awesome. So was she in the pinball when you met her? No. Okay. No, that's my fault. Okay.
    73:32
    So, Pinnberg, and I heard you. Sorry to Pinnberg. Yeah. So, you got one of the tickets that sold out in five seconds or eight seconds. How does that happen? You just got to be there and hit the button. Man. And Ryan got in, too. TurboGrafx-7, like. Well, yeah, you're not playing Pinnberg. No, I'm not. Yeah, so. But. Zach Mennie did it, too. Hi, Zach. Everyone talks about it. You know, a lot of people just don't get in. I mean, because you. Yeah. Yeah, especially now these days that they're taking 1,000 people and they still have a wait list that's over 400 deep. There's too many people who want to play. That's crazy. And they talked about opening it up, but they have, like, logistical problems. Oh, yeah, definitely. Okay. I mean, it's already amazing that they make it work as well. And it runs like a machine. Because they said, like, what was it, the last year or two, they've added, like, 100 or 200 players. Yeah, the first time I played it was, like, 640, and then it was 700, and then it was. Now they're getting close to 1,000, right? Well, no, it is 1,000 this year. Oh, is it? It was 800 last year. Yeah, that's right. It was 800. And then this year, or was it over 800 last year? Ah, but it's 1,000 this year. And that's just insane. It was already insane at the 800 people that it was. I've done it the last five years. Well, this will be the fifth year. So going back to the hobby growing, I think that's testament right there. Oh, yeah. Especially the competitive part of it. Sure. because when you're talking about, yeah, 500, 600 people, okay, fine, but now you've doubled that at 1,000 and it's selling out in seconds. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty wild. Yeah, two years ago it took like 20 minutes to sell out. And then last year it was out in less than two minutes, and then this year it was instantly. So do you think they're going to get to a point where either, A, I mean, having like 2,000 people on tournaments, crazy, or B, they'll have like a plan to get in. You know what I mean? No, I think at least for the foreseeable future, they're just going to keep doing it the way they do it. I mean, like, yeah, they would love for everybody who wants to be able to play to be able to play, but they're just going to keep doing it like they're doing it. Because I heard about that Allentown Festival that they just had last weekend or whatever, and they said it's so tight, and people had to wait in line for like hours to get in. Yeah, just because they only had one person taking tickets and money and letting them in. That was kind of a logistical problem. What is that? They had a much bigger turnout than they were expecting. That's a good thing, but it's also a problem. It's good for the hobby, but it's like, yeah, you've got to wait three hours. They just weren't prepared for the volume that showed up. So, Eric, I've got to ask you this. Also popped up on the stream. I don't know if Scott from Penn Stadium said this. Are you coding for Spooky? I am. What are you doing for Spooky, man? I'm working on Scott's next game. what is that we won't tell anybody we have no listeners don't worry these microphones are not I'm not going to make that mistake how long have you been working for Spooky if you can say that just this project do you work for Sky or do you work for Spooky well I'm are you a subcontractor of a contractor for Spooky I don't know how to define it. For the game called? No, it's just a haunted house party. I love that. He's sticking to it. Oh, yeah. I'm going to always call it that because I do not want to screw it up. I'm way too invested in what it actually is, so I don't want to be any way involved with what shoots it down if anything ever does. I respect you. That's great. Is it something that... Well, hold on. Stop. No, you're prying. No, I'm not crying. I can ask him questions. I just wanted to ask him, you know, how long it's been going on. Ian and I are making serious eye contact. Well, I know what he's thinking. No, no. I can ask this one question. Okay, go for it, buddy. Go for it. No, I respect you so much. Seriously.
    77:32
    Is it a theme that if you weren't doing this, you would be really excited about? Oh, even if I wasn't involved? Oh, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. See what I did there? I'm fucking proud of you.
    77:45
    I thought I was going to be my normal dick self and say whatever. No, no, no. I knew you were going to say a normal question. Okay. It was going to be your after question. But then what is it?
    77:55
    What is it? No. Really? They call it healthy. Yeah, healthy like parties. Okay. So if you weren't involved with this, this would be something you'd be excited about. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's awesome. That's awesome, man. That is cool. Well, how long? All right. So this project obviously has been starting since hell fucking when he released, what you want to call it? Do we have a – and I know you don't have, like, a release date or anything, but is there, like – That would be 2020. Yeah, next year? Yeah, it's essentially what's coming up after they're done building Alice Coopers. Yeah, and that's going to be – Where are they at? They're usually on a 12-month cycle. They're close, man. Yeah, they're getting through. They're getting there. What do they think, in November? Yeah, they've got a couple hundred Alice Coopers out there. Yeah, they're doing pretty good with those now. They're rolling, baby. They're rolling. You know, they should open that up because they said 500, but it seems like it's selling pretty well, right? Yeah, with the deals they make with the licensing, they don't have the option. Oh, it's just 500. I mean, they would have to go back and re-license to get more time and more allowance. Oh, they just say it's 500. Yeah, so Charlie always sticks to what he said is what it is, and that's that. Yeah. You know, he's good for his word. I love Alice Cooper. I would love one. I didn't get on the train fast enough. What do you think about Alice Cooper? No, it's a good game. It's a fucking cool game, man. Yeah, and the hard-on is great. I dig all of it. And they're not totally sold out yet. I don't think. I thought they were. No.
    79:17
    Interesting. I might look into that. Maybe. I mean, they're getting close, but I think there's still some left. Well, I know there were still some people selling their spots on Pinside. Yeah.
    79:29
    Early on, I think a lot of people, when they saw the first demos, when the code wasn't all there yet, I think a lot of people got nervous and wanted to bail. That many, you pussy. It's gotten a lot more polished in the last couple updates. and everybody who sees it now and plays it, there's really all good things to say. I mean, that game, and for what you pay, it's $6,500. I mean, that's way better value than a lot of other games right now. Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to follow up there. So you're working on actual rules and code? Yeah, I'm doing the game code part of it. Scott doesn't want to program it. That's the thing. So he brought me in to work on doing the heavy lifting on the coding part.
    80:16
    Bowen is still involved, just like he is on Alice Cooper, as far as helping to architect rules and stuff. But, yeah, I'm doing the production end of the software. Okay. Is it just you guys, or how many guys do they have coding this season? No, that's pretty much it. Okay. Do you get a free game at the end of this? Well, it's part of the contract. It's not free. I mean, I'm working for it. Well, I understand that, but, I mean, so you're going to have to get one. Yeah, I will get one. Oh, that's awesome.
    80:43
    So I will get to play this game someday. So you've obviously seen, like, the shots and layouts, so you feel it's up to the TNA kind of sequel. I know there's a lot of pressure on Scott to produce something that. Yeah, no, I think it's a really good layout. I think it's used really good. All right.
    81:00
    I don't know if he's mentioned it, but the whitewood's pretty much done. Right. We haven't actually started full on into the creation of what will be the game yet. But, yeah, I think it's a really good shooting layout. I think it's really fun. And it's very, very different from TNA. Good, good. Scott seems like one of those guys, though. I'm a big fan of TNA. Yeah. Isn't it one of those really hard kick your ass things? Yes. Yeah, it's unforgiving, but I love the music package on it so much. Sorry, straight down the middle. this or that? TNA or Alice Cooper? For me? Yeah. That's a rough call. That is a rough call. I go Alice Cooper just because I dig the art package more and the molded castle and I like Alice Cooper, but I definitely respect TNA though because I do really, really love that game. I think at this point I'd probably have to pick TNA just because I don't have a lot of time in on Alice Cooper yet. But playing it more could probably be my... I'm in the TNA camp. I love Alice Cooper. I think it's a great game. But, I mean, I'm playing a lot of TNA. It's a fun ass kicker. Yep. We hear it. Yeah, I think I'd edge it out. And you can get a TNA for like $5,500, $5,000 right now.
    82:21
    I think for a game without a single ramp, like, you can't go wrong with that thing. We got to move on, Jude. We are at an hour and a half. Look at us. Jack is crushing it. Do you want to do your personal podcast news? Yeah, we can do that quickly. All right, man. Try to run through it. Throw it out there. So for all you guys who care, which is almost nobody out there, but the three people who care, The Hobbit, I'm still having some issues with it.
    82:50
    But Jersey Jack Tech Support has been awesome. Good to hear. They've been emailing with me. We talked about it last week. They're doing great. That's awesome. I asked how they were doing. They're doing fine. Well. My game still sucks, though. Yeah. No, it's just this, like, sticking little issue. Like, the game will play fine, and then it, you know, happens. So what's happening again? So it ejects two balls into the shooter lane, and then. So you've got a problem with your balls. Yes. My balls are going into the shooter lane prematurely, and it's causing issues with the marriage you know anyways but i'm just your snake bro yeah a snake shooting fine down the middle we talked about that um anyways so the ball the ball was ending early and we went through the opto boards and the trough those are fine i actually got new opto boards put them in the same thing was happening so then there was also a malfunction and one of the drop targets. So we said, ah, it could be the opto or the opto pair,
    83:59
    which is basically the little wire that goes to the opto board. And they figured it probably one of those because I swapped some out and moved them around, and it went to the other opto. Anyways, long story short, they're sending me the little opto pair, so I'm going to plug that in. An opto for your opto? Yep. Yeah. Yep. So that will solve that issue. You hope, right? I hope. Well, thank you, Jersey Jack, for helping my boy Drew out. Well, that's the thing. Anyone else have this issue with the Hobbit, please email us at poormanpinball.com. They had similar issues with Woz. Did they? Yeah, it's basically the Opto Board and the Opto Assembly, just a little basic stupid shit. Maybe you've heard about it. I don't know. poormanpinball.gmail.com. Email us if you've been having issues with your Hobbit as well.
    84:48
    I'm curious if this was a known problem. Because Jersey Jack has been as great as their games are. You know, the more shit you put in there, the more shit you're going to put in there. I learned that from my 1988 LeBaron, okay? It had a digital dashboard, which I thought was awesome, until it reached negative 30 degrees and that fucker froze. I had no idea how fast I was going for the first 30 minutes. The more shit you got, the more shit that goes wrong. But like I said, they're working with me. They're sending me these free parts. It's not costing me anything, so I'm fine with it. You know what the cool thing is? As we all know, right? Learning about your machine is good, right? Because you can learn stuff and you can say, hey, now in the future when my shit fucks up, I can figure it out. He motioned to Eric. Eric didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. Eric dug them. Eric, you have 120 machines in your basement. How many times do you have issues with your machines in your basement? Yeah, if you're going to own them, you're going to have to fix them. You've got to learn it someday. Correct. And Ian keeps dropping the mic like he's done. We're almost done. So, not quite there. So, anyway. My mic is drunk. Like I said, I'm going to make this quick. More importantly, though, the Simpsons. The Simpsons game came last week. It got shipped from California. I want to give a real special shout-out to Evan at Orange County Pinballs.
    86:06
    He wrapped the game up like a new-in-box stern. He literally took a Munsters premium box. I can't believe he had one because I didn't believe someone even bought that thing. Oh.
    86:18
    All right. Anyways, it came in the Munster's Premium box, Stern box, wrapped up with all the Stern packaging. It was banded and everything.
    86:31
    Ian and TurboGrafx-7, Ryan Kipper came. Kiper. How do you say it? Kiper. Ryan Kiper. Sorry, Ryan Kiper. Came, helped me set it up. Game was beautiful. Game worked fine. Worked flawlessly. It's been working flawlessly. My wife's been playing it. She's been loving it. I got a color DMD for it. Did you do Simpsons? I did not. Oh. Whoever did it, did a good job. Oh, it's an awesome. Wait, you got a color DMD? Oh, it's, it's, I haven't installed it yet. It's at my house. Oh, shit, dude. Yeah. Oh, man. Come on, it's a spin. I know. It's a color DMD. It's bolted. That game. It's bolted. I got the alien invasion twice, by the way. Wow. You waste any time. Is that a real wow? Yeah. I did it twice, and at first I'm like, oh, this must be easy.
    87:19
    And now I'm getting it from a good player here. No. I think I got to it twice in the 12 years that I owned it. I got 120 million points the other day. That's pretty good. All right. See, I'm getting some accolades here. And in the same day, I killed Smog in The Hobbit. Well, it's time to sell them both, and you're done.
    87:38
    Yeah. I'm done. Way to go, Drew. Dropping the mic again. I don't know what's going on with this mic. It's not liking me. Anyway. It needs some magical duct tape. Yeah. Evan, thanks again. Orange County Pinball is Fulwich in California. I can't recommend them enough. I made this gamble. I bought this machine online. You know, I talked to him. He shipped it all the way across the country. It came exactly as described, and it was wonderful, and he's a great distributor. So thanks a lot for that, Evan. Anyways, moving right along. we're going to talk about different manufacturers and the stuff that's going on. Eric, I'd like to hear your opinion. Did you see the stern news about the Batman 66 and Monsters Premium this week? Oh yeah, of course. So, what is your take on the Batman 66 art package of Catwoman? It's not really an art package. It's like a new back glass. Yeah. They really phoned that one in, didn't they?
    88:37
    You know, I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt because it's such a cool game, but I can't let that cloud my judgment. That was kind of... Ian really put tape on his mic. That's awesome. Well, I sell paints for a living, guys. I got paint on his tape.
    88:52
    We're talking about Catwoman artwork and Munster's premium. Sorry, you think I was phoned in. Catwoman. Meow. Yeah, I mean, it's just Stern being Stern on both counts. Sure. And I don't give a crap about the nitpicky details that Pinside was going on about with the cat statue stuffed in the arm. Like, whatever. I don't care. But, in fact, I didn't even change the cabinet artwork. Yeah, that's kind of lazy, right? It seems weird to call it another version when all you changed was the back glass and the size of the head. Because now, in theory, you could just buy that trans light.
    89:27
    If they'll sell them separately. A lot of times, like with the LEs, they don't sell those. If you have an LE and you break your trans light, you have to send back the broken one. Are you serious?
    89:36
    Yeah, because they don't want them out there. So they made me do that with this. It makes sense. It makes sense, but what? Here are my shards. Replace it, please. That's what you get. Well, you know what? My take is obviously the same as yours. If you just made the cabinet art, like, a different color, you know, like black, and then have her. What's that woman crawling on there? Why? Well, you know, you just have to change it up. Just the artwork has to be different enough, right? It has to be different enough to pop next to it. It has to have a pop next to Batman 66. That cabinet, say Supreme on it.
    90:18
    Supreme. And then put Catwoman on there and charge $15,000. I mean, as we all know, I kind of like Stern. I'm starting to like Stern less and less every day.
    90:32
    It's Monday, folks. He's not too sure. By Friday, he's going to hate him. But that's a little lazy to me. Oh, yeah, for sure it's lazy. It's kind of a cash grab. What do you think about the Munsters then? The playfield are changing. Oh, everybody knew that was going to happen. Really? Yeah. Really? I was just about to say, I would have had money on day one that they were going to do that. See, you know what? I'm sure there are plenty of Ellie owners that didn't, and they only went Ellie because they thought that was their only option. Not everyone's as cool as you are, Eric. They did the same thing with Metallica. with several versions of the premium. That's just what they do. Yeah, the day the premium came out, I did say that. I'm like, someday they're going to have a color version. You said someday, not five months later. They'll sell the black and white one until sales fall off, and then they'll get enough complaints from people that are like, oh, my customers don't want that black and white one, and they'll make a color one. I'm actually glad. I'm just not that smart. I didn't see it coming. I'm less upset about that one than the Catwoman, because that one is just kind of like, oh, this is what people wanted, right? Yeah, that's what they did with Metallica. They made a second premium version that had the pro cabinet art on it. Yes, because the pro cabinet was so cool. And that's the one I bought, by the way, and now I don't have. I'm the opposite. I am, you know what, Batman 66 has been out for a while now. It's fine if they want to throw a Catwoman up there. Whatever. It doesn't give me, I don't give a shit. I will. I'm more upset about the fact that there are people out there that bought an Ellie because they thought it was their only option of getting a color play. Really? Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like five months is way too soon. You know, you pull this shit maybe a year later, sure. Five months, not so much because now it just screams cash grab. But here's my thing about it. We all know that that game itself isn't selling all that great. No, it's not. It's not up to expectations for Stern and everyone else. So I don't know, man. Here's my thing about LEs in general, especially Stern LEs, and I hate to what's the word? he's going to say it say the word what word? I have no idea what word? this is why people tune in yeah totally wait we don't know our words again I put words together and sometimes they make sense framework yeah I had that right mission pinball framework right I said it right MPF only like four years later Stern Stern's LEs and a lot of LEs from a lot of companies it doesn't mean anything it doesn't mean limited let's be honest you know 600 LEs well yeah right I mean yeah these days with how many sell there are several games where I think the premium is actually the one that's the lowest number out there sure like Mustang for example and probably WWE there are probably less premiums than LEs Yeah. Well, and you brought Metallica, that road case edition. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's super rare. It's super rare because they didn't sell a lot. Right. No one wanted it. And, yes, it's basically Metallica, and it's got, it looks like a roadies case on the side, and then it has the actual band members on the back last. Oh, yeah. A photograph of them, not a hand drawing. That sounds terrible. Yeah, exactly. A bunch of four-year-old dudes. You watched it. You see this and you're like, well, that's not a fun pinball machine. You see caricatures of Metallica playing, you know, a guitar, like, looking like devils and, you know, whatever. It's like, that's cool. That's baby Donnie. No, it was a picture of Metallica, yeah, 80 years old, like, we rock, we're awesome. Like, come on. And when I was searching for it, I saw a few of those that were decently priced. I'm like, nope, next. I wanted a premium really bad you liked the artwork yeah I loved I wanted the hammer I wanted all the cool premium stuff and I'm just like no I can't do this I could not bring this to my house and feel good about it was so bad it was Game of Thrones Metallica style yeah it was bad but 600 is not limited edition and now I sound like Kaneda can you say this Can you say that it doesn't really matter the number, but as soon as they start pulling them, then it becomes limited, right? Yeah, that's what he's talking about. WWE, no one bought it. They're limited. There's not a lot out there. Pirates from JJP. Yeah, it's way limited now. Now those prices are going to stay good. If not, people are going to make a little money when they sell their Pirates. If they can get them to work and get their playfields not shipping. Sorry, everybody out there that's a Pirates fan. And it just happens, man. And I don't want to spend a ton of time. There's a lot of pictures out there now of chipping play fields. I feel bad for them. I don't want to spend a ton of time on WWE, but that game should have been great, right? Because the theme is awesome.
    95:38
    For a lot of people. No, not for everybody. No, no, no. I understand that, but I'm saying for a lot of people, it's a great theme. Yeah. Whether you like wrestling or not. Yeah, I think the ring killed that game. I think once people got to play it, the ring, it took up too much space. And I never played one, but yeah, I've read that and everyone said, yeah, the ring and all this different stuff. But, you know, a lot of people love wrestling. And you ever play the Data East Royal Rumble? Yeah. It's cool. It's neat. And I was a wrestling fan in the 80s. Were you? Yeah. Of course. We were kids. Yeah.
    96:10
    But, so, great team. Should have done well. But, once again, Stern didn't do it right. Ooh. All right. Go on it. Let's move on. Move on. Is Chris Franchi done at Stern? I heard Chris Franchi's working with JJP. That's the rumor. What do you got, Eric? Eric knows the truth because he's an insider. The only thing I know is the stuff that he said on the Slap Save where he's got his own little segment now where he talked about how he's just a contractor with Stern, and if they have projects for him to work on, they do, and if they don't, they don't. It's not like he was ever in or out. When there's a game that he's on. He was never an employee at Stern. Yeah, he contracts for specific games and mostly for the Kapow games through Joe Kamenkow. The Beagles and the first one that they did, I already don't remember what that was. So should we take them at his word or should we believe my wild accusations?
    97:05
    Let's go with the truth. Well, you know what? I'll tell you one thing. The truth doesn't get ratings, Harry. Oh, sorry. This week in pinball, no, this week in pinball, they were talking about how, I think, Gomez emailed Jeff over there at This Week. And he basically elaborated on the whole, hey, my guys are only going to work on projects that they're passionate about. Well, this is, it goes into, it's a little bit more detailed. Sure. It's not about just passion. It's also about licensing and what assets they can get for each individual license. So, you know, art is a very actual, it's actually a very small part of the pinball process when they're actually manufacturing these games. obviously. So, Franchi releases things like Beetlejuice artwork or Superman artwork.
    97:58
    Would you want a Superman pin that doesn't have the theme music? You know, from 78. I wouldn't. No. If you're missing key things, or like Beetlejuice, they gotta have Michael Keaton sign in. What good is Beetlejuice without Michael Keaton's call-out? Is he saying that some of these teams were like, yeah, I want to do this, and then they're like, well, wait. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What they're saying is, George says, these are our themes that you can work on. And then, you know, if they do pick those, yeah, then they're like, well, this is what you're working with. And then they say, oh, no. Oh, fuck that. No, I don't want a Beetlejuice without Michael Keaton. What's that? That's not Beetlejuice. That's like Jaws without the music. Or the shark.
    98:44
    They get the shark. Everyone gets the shark, according to my wife. That's nature. Yeah, as you hear as my classic. Oh, that's nature. Nature gets the fucking shark. Oh, man. Thank you, Laura. All right, moving on. JJP, when is Wonka going to start shipping? Do you have any insight on this? No, I do not. I don't know. Do you think it's going to ship in the next month or two?
    99:06
    It should. I mean, if they're not making pirates anymore, they've got to be making something. But they're making the... The Elbert Road. Oh, right. And Ruby Red. Oh, I didn't know they were making more Ruby Red. They're doing the Ruby Reds again. He just announced Ruby Red, which made me go be a little nervous when he asked me about Wonka. Am I still there? Well, that makes it sound like they're not really ready to roll production yet. That was my point.
    99:29
    November. Sorry. I really wanted Ryan, TurboGrafx-7, to be here because him and I had this debate at your house, actually, before we left, before you kicked us out. Yeah, I got it. Yeah. I'm just kidding. But we were talking about this exact same thing. He goes, oh. He goes, no, no, no. They're going to ship in the next month. And I said, well, what makes you say that? Yeah, what other deadlines has Jersey Jack ever hit before? And that's what I said. I wish Ryan was here so I could punch him right now. Ryan, are you listening?
    99:59
    We know you are. But anyway, so we're having this back and forth. And, yeah, he's like, oh, you know, I give him a little bit of slack and whatever. And I'm like, that's fine. And I'm okay giving him slack. But, you know, Jersey Jack was very adamant about saying 60 days. Well, they aren't very close. It's close, isn't it? Yeah. They unveiled this in the middle of April. We're past the middle of May now, which means they've got to start shipping next month pretty much. And if they're doing Ruby Red, as Eric just said, they're probably scraping for parts or something. Yeah, just – They're not ready. Yeah. Right. Stuff to keep the line moving. Sure.
    100:39
    And I don't begrudge them for that. That's awesome. That's good business. They've got to keep the line moving. But those Wonkas are not on the line, and they won't be on the line for 30 days, 60 days. Eric, do you give a shit about how you draw an H on Wonka?
    100:55
    Very important to me. All of these tariffs are just right. That was said beautifully. Thank you, Eric. All right, on to the next one. American Pinball.
    101:08
    What's next for them? I don't think we know. Well, there was that group of names that got the lead. The four names. Yeah, just because they trademarked them. And I actually know Josh, one of their programmers.
    101:24
    Googler. He tried very hard to get the head of the company to register those under some other name, like to try and hide them because people constantly look for that sort of thing. And he wouldn't do it. He just registered them straight up. First of all, I want to know who these people are that look for this stuff. Seriously. Like, we're in it, but... This Week in Pinball are probably some of them.
    101:46
    Do you know some of the people that look for this stuff? He just said Jeff. But I don't know which one of those four is going to be next. I haven't seen any rumors about what the order is. There again, I mean, are they selling a bunch of October 5th? No, it's smart, though, because now they just had free market, whatever they call it. Yeah, market research. Which makes people react to? Yeah, nobody cares about Valkyrie. We learned that. Nobody cares about Poker Run. We learned that. Well, you care about Valkyrie. That's my favorite one. But, yeah. Are you going to have any of those games? Sherlock Holmes, Valkyrie, Poker Run. Robin Hood. I'd have to see them. I mean, any of those could be good. Okay. Depends on what they do with it No they interesting I give them that I mean They interesting More of my experience with pinball is from the early days when everything was just a random theme like Sherlock Holmes You're like, oh, this is okay. Whitewater rafting. Here we go. I'm totally open to this could be a good game. And I'm like you. We talked about it a little earlier about, you know, I want a game that's fun. You know, I don't care so much about the theme and the art. If it's a cool game, it's a cool game. If it's not, it's not. Yeah, speaking of cool games, Suncoast Pinball, you know, Cosmic Carnival, did you, Eric, did you see the early code gameplay? I did. Okay, what did you think about that? I don't think it's very good. Okay.
    103:12
    Layout-wise? Yeah, that's the problem. Part of the thing is go to the thread for Suncoast, go back to the beginning and look at the whitewood. There's nothing there. I agree with that. I think the game package looks pretty cool. Yeah, the best thing that they've done so far is hire Dirty Donnie. Yeah. Because his really busy artwork makes it look like there's stuff going on. Yes. And there isn't. And I had similar thoughts. You know, like the sculpts are really cool. Yeah. The art is really cool. The animations were very cool. So, so far we've got three very cool, but then it's very simple. Right. It has a ramp on either side that returns to its own flippers. Yeah. It has the scoop in the dead center.
    103:55
    What's it going to do other than shoot it down the middle? Apparently on the assembly line they're, like, turning them as hard as they can in the hole before they pull them down. And I don't want to poop on it too much because they've obviously put a ton of work into it. They've done it. Like you said, Dirty Donnie, probably the best thing they did. Yeah, absolutely the best thing they've done so far. We talk about it. Well, the other also very important good thing that they did was they talked to Jimmy Compi at TPF, the guy who's worked with all the pinball companies. He helped out American with some of their stuff. He's helped out Spooky with some of their stuff. What does he do? System stuff.
    104:33
    He mostly works at the low-level system stuff. Okay. So like coding some different software things. Yeah, but like the underlying system, not the game software. Yeah, I got it. I mean, he's working on game software for Suncoast because that's what they're paying him to do, but he'll basically do whatever you want. Like with Circus Maximus on Kingpin, he worked on their emulation to get it running the original, that kind of thing. And he's worked with a bunch of people. Well, when they had it at TPF, they had it running on their own hardware, and it was terrible. Did you play it?
    105:06
    Yes. That was his air quotes, yes. They were slightly better than Drew's, but yeah, still. And they were more sarcastic than Drew's. Still bullshit.
    105:17
    Here's the summary of how it worked at TPS. If you walk up to the game and press the start button, it would start playing music and launch a ball, and a score would appear on the screen. And you could plunge it, and every time you hit switches, it would add points. But that's all that it did. If you push the start button again at any time while you were playing, it would launch another ball.
    105:38
    So that was it. Was this the problem with the basic Mission Pinball framework? No, they weren't using Mission Pinball. But there was literally nothing there. Okay, so it was like the most basic of basic, literally. Like, me and Ian come together and we're like, hey, hit the switch, give you 10 points, that kind of thing. Yeah, the audience always giving Drew 10 points. 10 points is all I get, baby. Yeah, I like Drew right now. No points inflation over there. Okay. But that was all that it did, and they had hardware problems. Like, one of the coils locked on or something and burned up one of their boards. So, after the show... Tell me the shots were good. Tell me they felt good. I can't lie to you. It's kingpin? No. You mean me? No, no, no. We're still talking about Suncoast. It's the Suncoast. I'm not listening.
    106:22
    So you played Cosmic Carnival? Yeah. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, TPF. And I finished the first ball that I had, and the guy from Suncoast was like, well, you could play more, and I just said, no. Sorry.
    106:36
    That's so funny. Do you think of, you know, Dennis Creasel actually had a really smart take on this when he was hosting this week in pinball. But he said because the shots are symmetrical, that's half the problem because everything's the same on left flipper as it is on the right flipper. Like once you hit those shots and you've got them locked in, you're good. Yeah, well, and then there's not many of them. There's the weird pseudo orbit around the pops that's just two bent walls that basically turns it into an orbit. The center shot and the two ramps. That's it. And then you've got a bank of targets on the left and a bank of drops on the right. The only way to get back up to the top to get to the top lanes is shoot down the drop targets and go through there back to the plunger lane and shoot it again like you're starting over.
    107:25
    It just doesn't have enough in it. I guess for a first design, it's not – what can you expect? It's the weakest point. I feel like a slight genius over here because I wrote in our show notes that whatever they paid – I'm looking at it right now. Whatever they paid Dirty Donnie, it wasn't enough. The layout looked kind of okay. Nothing really stood out as new. But a great first effort by Suncoast. Back to Eric's point, though. Eric nailed it. And we always talk about value on this show.
    107:59
    And I think their price was what? It was like $6,500? No, no, no, no. It's like $599. Okay. So six grand. Guess what you can get for six grand? No, it's $599. 4999. You can get a classic Monster Bash. You can get a classic Attack from Mars. You know what I mean? Or any Stern Pro. Yeah, it's a league they're playing in. They're not swinging hard enough. And I hate to shit on them because, like I said, it's their first effort. It's their new guy. You know, that would have been a good $4,000 game. Five.
    108:34
    4999. Yeah, 4999. I mean, you know what I'm saying, though. because, like, for value. And they are making the right decisions. Like, hiring Donnie was a good decision. And picking up Jimmy and paying him to help rebuild the underlying system so that they can have a more interactive, more complicated game in a shorter amount of time. And their animations, like I said, look pretty good. Yeah. So they're headed in the right direction. The play field layout just isn't strong enough. It's not. There's not enough fun in there. I agree. That's the biggest problem. I watched about 20 minutes of that YouTube channel, and I could have finished it at five minutes because they shot all the shots in about five minutes. They did. And I'm not being sarcastic. That's just how it was. And I ended up, I was like, well, there's got to be more to this. But, no, they shot everything in about the first five minutes. I'm nitpicking here. And it's a little boring. Well, all right. So, Drew, you put that next to an Oktoberfest. you know, Oktoberfest has fucking everything in it. Like, they threw a shit ton. Oktoberfest has everything pinball in it. Whether you like it or not, it's all there. Yeah. And it uses a lot more of the layout. It has a lot more of the... It has a scoop. It has a cool mech. It has drop targets. It has other targets. It has, you know, cool ramps. It has, you know, like the wire ramps. And it makes a better use of the space. Yeah. The thing I really like about the Nightmare Before Christmas homebrew game, he does an amazing use of the space under the glass. He's got so many ramps and diverters and stuff. He's got so many ball paths. And Suncoast didn't try any of that stuff. It's very, very straightforward and very, very basic. He messaged us on Facebook. Did you know that? True. Who did?
    110:26
    The guy who made... Mark. Yeah, Mark, who made Nightmare Before Christmas. He wasn't too happy with your bracketology there.
    110:37
    Hey, hey, I was cheerleading him almost to the end. Who's friends with Brad? Yeah, so they were both, they refused to vote on our podcast. Oh, I didn't know he was friends with Brad, but I was cheerleading him until almost the end.
    110:53
    No, he was fine until he lost the bill of debt. Drew got drunk and wanted just three-ball lock in a phone booth. I want a phone booth elevator right now on my fucking pinball machine. I don't know what it was with the three ball lock, but he got sucked in.
    111:12
    Hey, hey, Nightmare for a Christmas, have you flipped that one? Yeah, he just talked about how he was flipping it. He just talked about it. I wasn't listening. You take turns not listening. That's how it works here. No, it's okay. That's why we're so charming. He's brought it to Expo a few times. Sure. So we got to go to Expo next year. Do you want – That's happening. Do you think a big company is going to pick that up? I don't know. Well, it's a license thing. Right. You need a license. Because it's Disney. I don't know how hard that license would be. You know, Jack talked about that Disney is just a big deal. It may be really hard to mass produce the layout that he's got because of the layering and the difficulty of all the pathing and the – Would you be in on that game, though? Yeah, probably. It's really good. If they got some cool sculpts in there and did it right, that would probably be it. Yeah, I mean, he did a great job on it. Just by himself or whoever else. I don't know how many people really helped him. Better than Alwyn and his brother's design? Well, design-wise, theirs is also really good. Yeah, that's what I'm asking. But as an overall package, Mark's game is more complete. Okay. The software is more complete. The play field art is more complete. Did you ever play the Archer? Yeah, it was at Expo last year, too. This guy's played everything. Yeah. Is there a game you haven't played? Let's start with that one. I've never played the Pinball Circus, that one that's like three layers. Oh, yeah, the one that goes up. Yeah, for sure. No, it's, you know what, I'll just call it that. Suncoast is doing a good job for their first outing. It's just, thank you, Dirty Tommy, for that. More importantly, they seem to be making good decisions going forward. Sure, but it seems like things are only improving for them. I don't understand how a company can spend X number of dollars on a game, because obviously it's very expensive to do what they're doing,
    113:03
    and then if it doesn't sell well, which can we say at this point it's probably not going to sell very well? You would have to assume. Right? Make an assumption. You know what? Jason from Slapsave is in on one. He's even got a record. Oh, really? He's got a record saying it's top, what did he say, fucking top three or top five best art packages. What? I don't heard. Yes, it looks great. It looks great. Jason's all in on Slash. Because, once again, I have $6,000 sitting here, right? You probably don't listen to us. And I can buy a Cosmic Carnival. I can buy, yeah, any Stern Pro. I can buy a used Stern Premium. You know, there's all kinds of options out there. For $6,000 or an extra $1,000, you can get it on Oktoberfest, which is loaded. Yeah. Listen, bang for your buck is the MacToberfest in 2019, right? Bang for your buck? Best bang for your buck. Why don't you just buy one, Ian? I'm just saying. It does seem like it would go well down here. Thank you. I wanted one for the longest time until I played it through the MGC. I didn't like it as much. He's powered on it pretty good. I didn't like it as much. What do you think about MacToberfest? Oh, it's fun. That's what I thought. There are certain things about it that could use tuning up a little bit as far as gameplay-wise. I think the mode selection is too slow, and I've already told Josh that. But overall, it's a fun game. There's a lot of stuff going on. I just told Josh that. No, I mean, it's not like I'm saying things. Can you send us your e-mail list? Because we would love this e-mail list. It's not like I'm saying things here that I haven't already told him. No, it's all good. This is the open forum to pitch. You do whatever you want here, Eric. Listen, you're going to upset 20 people. That's all the people I listen to. Yeah, 20 people are going to get upset. No, I'm joking. But, yeah, no. Go on, sir. I'd like to learn more. What do you think about Oktoberfest? No, it's cool. The layout is very interesting, I think. It's got some unique stuff to it. And the player-controlled magnet catching is pretty cool.
    115:05
    And a lot of the mode rules are interesting. Like, there's a lot of, like, the one where you play with both lefters on one side.
    115:12
    Yeah. So right now, all the new games that are out, you know, there's always, like, 10 or 12 games you can purchase, right? Brand new. What would you buy? Oh, I don't even know.
    115:25
    But no, right now, I just give you $8,000. Just say $7,000. Oh, probably Iron Maiden, actually. Really? Yeah. Premium, then? No. Pro? Yeah, I'm a pro buyer all the time. Wow. Okay.
    115:39
    He is one of us. He's a poor man just like us. Yeah. I love it. That was Drew's first new unboxing. It was. It's a good game. Yeah. I begged him because he was going to get a Metallica, I think. And I begged him pleading. I was going to get a Metallica Pro or an Ironman Pro. And then we went to a bowling alley that, well, Pin Map was not up to date. And we just thought it had a Metallica and ACDC. And I think it said Guardians. And we got there. It had a fucking, it had ACDC. It had Iron Maiden, which had just come out, Metallica, Houdini, and one more. Was Pirates there at the time? Not at the time. Pirates came out later. I'm trying to think what the other one was, but it was an amazing game. It was amazing. Whatever. But, yeah, we played all of them, and it was Iron Maiden shot way better than any of the other ones. I love hitting those repeaters. We love ACDC. That's a great game. We love ACDC. And we love Metallica. and you love Metallica going into it. I love the band pins, period. I'll just say that. But Iron Maiden just got, like, fucking butter, dude. I'm still a big fan of Iron Maiden. I'm a big, big, big fan of that band. I chose to go with that instead of Metallica Pro, and then I sold that, and I bought a Metallica Premium. Yeah, he eventually was like, no, I like the Metallica. No, I mean, Metallica still to this day is my favorite game. It just is. Well, and the theme of Iron Maiden does nothing for me one way or the other. I don't care. I'm the same way. I wasn't a big Iron Maiden fan. I think the music is good for pinball. It's nice, high energy, very fast. I said the same thing. But I don't care one way or the other. Yeah. But I really like the layout of that game, and the rules are very fun. Yes. I agree. I agree 100% that the music is totally amazing for it. The art package, though, puts me over the top over Metallica. I just think it looks prettier than Metallica. It's a good art package. I mean, it looks good and zombie-y. And I like the shots. better than I do for Metallica. I like Iron Maiden's shots. But that's just where I was. So you're a Maiden fan then, a pro Maiden fan. Oh, yeah. Money not being an object, I would get one, but I just don't have the money.
    117:55
    Money not being an object, he goes, Iron Maiden pro. I love it, Eric. I love it. You are one of us. Did you see the Harry Potter artwork leaked? Yeah. Yeah, for the virtual pin.
    118:08
    Is that what that was? It was the one leak I fucking got. It's virtual pin artwork. Who sent that to you? I don't want to say. Because it's so top secret. It goes many layers. It was Ken Cromwell.
    118:23
    Thank you, Ken. But no, it was me begging him. Then I got it. And then the next day, Twip posted it was for the virtual pin. Oh, is that what that was? I didn't even see that part. Yeah, it's virtual pin. Did you see the layout? So I'm assuming you didn't, Drew. Did you see that? I just saw it on This Week in Pinball this week, or just this morning. They had the CAD version of the play field. Yeah. Dude, that looked absolutely fucking amazing. So this is getting released for... But it's just a homebrew virtual for a computer virtual pin. Oh, someone just came up with that. Right. It's not like Zen is making it or any of those. It's just a homemade thing from the guys at VP Forums or VP Universe or whatever. Do you play any of the Zen Star Wars stuff? I play some of them. You like them? Yeah, they're pretty good. I'm going to show Drew the layout of this bad boy. Look at those ramps, buddy. Don't they look a little Hobbit-ish? But then they expand it out to... Yeah, I'm a fan of that. Dude, that looks fucking cool.
    119:29
    Yeah, it's definitely very Hobbit-ish. They got a bank of targets on the right there that look awesome. That's potion. When I first played the Hobbit and those ramps, I'm like, yeah, this is stupid. Why would you have two ramps right next to each other? You know, kind of thing. Yeah. And then you play it. I'm like, yeah, this is cool. Oh, man. That cat drawing got me kind of a little hard. I was like, man, that is fucking cool. Oh, so is that on the right there? Is that like a bank? Like a cover fest? Right. A curved bank. And then the two things in the middle are pop-ups like Hobbit. So between the ramp and the pop-ups, it's probably very Hobbit. Your little creature. that come out. Yeah, this is Hobbit. Yeah.
    120:09
    You've got to have some sort of diverter or four diverters or whatever this rants about. Well, it's virtual. They can do whatever they want. Yeah, it doesn't really matter on virtual. I think someone was talking about that where it's like... Well, that is true. Yeah, it's amazing how all this pinball effects looks great. However, when you want to have room for mechs... Right, you can just totally cheat on a virtual pin. You can just do whatever the fuck you want. Eric, did you see... I always talk about this because I love it. Do you see Jack Danger's orbit locks? Yeah, that's pretty neat. See, that's what I said. Those things are cool. There's not a lot to his layout either. No. But it's definitely more interesting than the Suncoast one. Yes.
    120:48
    You heard it here first. No, I agree 100%. No. Yes. If that game, you could put any theme on it, those orbit locks. You're right. It was just interesting. I'll say this, too. I mean, it is a little reminiscent of Beatles, a.k.a. you know a little beetles like for sure yeah yeah um but it's it's it's simple but it has a lot in it yeah it's a lot of fun to shoot the beetles which has i'm drawing a blank what is that based sea witch thank you guys you know um but yeah it's sea witch-esque in a way a little bit with that upper loop well just the kind of style that round sort of um yeah the orbit the way it is with no ramps. Yeah, but Beatles shoots so beautiful. If only that thing didn't cost nine grand, you know? That's a $4,000 pin I would buy instantly. And I don't know why people bitch about, I mean, I do understand why people bitch about no ramps, but like I said, TNA, the Beatles, Jack Danger's design, if we saw more designs like that, I'd be okay with that. You know? How about you? Yeah, and you kind of mix it up. If every game has the same basic layout, It gets dull, so, I mean, if some don't have ramps, as long as they've got some interesting things going on, that's fine. Forgive me, Getaway doesn't really have ramps, right? It has the ramps to the booster thing, and the lock is actually on a little ramp raised on the right. Yeah, but they're not really ramps. Right, right, right. It's not like a Borg layout. Yeah, it's more of a traditional single layout with some unique stuff, and it's a great game, right? Yeah. So I think we need more of that. You know, just innovation, just stuff that's unique and just kind of fun. So, you know, like I said, I don't need a ramp. You have no ramp, I'm good, as long as it's a fun game to shoot. Mailbag.
    122:45
    Mailbag. What time is it? Mailbag. I'll put my wife's little mailbag in there, too. Mailbag. Please do, because ours are awful. Yeah. And then you have to punctuate it with a zoink. Zoink. Hey, that's now part of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. Boink, boink.
    123:06
    Drew, you want to navigate this mailbag? Yep, I will. It's a mailbag. I didn't follow it this week. First one is from Josh Secert, who said he was best friends with Ryan, which can't be true because we're best friends with Ryan. Ooh, Josh, don't lie to us. Josh, I'm glad you're listening. I'm glad you're a fan. Ryan, you're our new best friend so you know, I guess we can all be best friends together, I love you Ryan, I love you Jack and I love you Aaron you're all mean girls up in here I love it, that's the best Brad Hopkins sent a love letter not really so much a love letter it was just he was just watched our last episode, thank god are you hijacking my segment? no, not at all, but I see you looking it up, so I'll just jump in here He just told me my wife is the keeper, which is kind of nice. She's fun, sharp, funny, and entertaining.
    124:04
    Absolutely she is. She's a fucking stud. And I'll say this, because I've known Laura a long time. She is like that all the time. Dude, she's a trip. That was not acting. That was not her putting on a show. That was Laura. No, and we knew putting her on. She knows zero about pinball. Anything she said, right off her fucking hip. She had no idea what she was talking about. You know what, though? Fucking hilarious.
    124:32
    Like, that girl, she knows how to make it fun. She is hilarious. When I met her, I was just like, huh. And then she opened her mouth. I was like, holy shit, I love you as well. Yeah, thank you, Brad, for that.
    124:46
    He said that that was our best episode yet. I'm starting to think, good. I may finally get to move you guys to number one. then you had the love letter segment and sent me and then you had the love letter segment send me a love letter that was me you're welcome Brad I thought that segment made me cringe before but this was the worst I am lucky I work at home because after listening to that love letter I had to take a shower then I figured it out you guys like being number two nobody likes being number one just look at the smack talk two-time Twippy Award-winning Kaneda has to put up with. Well, you know what? Here's the funny thing, Brad. Kaneda wanted us on his show. We were going to go on his show. And then, like, the next week he said, I hate podcasts that put other podcasts on. So I instantly stopped talking to him because I was like, well, you wanted us on, buddy. I don't know what happened there. And then I felt kind of shaded by him. So, you know what, Kaneda? We love you still. but do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, do you have any socks on, bro? Are you wearing any socks right now? I doubt it. So we'll talk later about that, Kaneda. Thank you, Chris. And, Brad, thank you for sending us an email. Drew, what else you got? All right, so I found Josh's email. What's up, guys? My name is Josh, and I'm best friends with Ryan Turbo. I've been listening to your last few episodes and think you guys are great. I hope to stream some Hobbit with you guys in the near future in Ryan's basement. Although I don't follow the community as close as you guys do, I still love to play. I hope to meet you guys in the near future. Keep up the good work, Josh. So, Josh, thank you for that. Once again, we're all best friends with Ryan now, I guess, apparently, which is fine. Eric's best friends with him, too. Yeah. Ryan is a popular guy. We love him. Ryan is a good dude. So I can see why that happens. And he will be with us soon in the future. We're going to be having him on a lot more, so you guys can expect to hear Ryan.
    126:47
    Um. Rich fuck Ian. Oh, Ian Hauerwer. You jerk. A guy from a few weeks ago. Just kidding. I love you, Ian. So after the Bill and Ted's home booth elevator fiasco, because Drew kept thinking it was a fucking elevator. All right, everybody, let's just take a step back and just realize that Drew was drinking and he didn't see half of those movies.
    127:13
    Oh, Bill and Ted's? I saw it. Did you see Harry Potter's? No, I don't want to. Not a one. And that's what people wanted. They want Harry Potter. At the end of the story, everyone wanted Harry Potter to win. He said he did a mock-up for us. But they lost to Bill and Ted. So for what Ian Harwer did, he just took a picture of Aerosmith Premium Upper Playfield Elevator, and he said, oh, here's the Bill and Ted elevator for you. Boom. There you go, Drew. There you go. I got an elevator. Thank you, Ian, man. We appreciate it. Does that thing even lock balls? It does now, motherfucker. Yeah, I'm not sure on the premium. Yeah, I don't know either. On the pro, it just kicks them back out. Yeah, yeah. I think it does on the pro. It probably does because it looks a little different. It's on the upper play field. I don't know. But that's what Ian said to us. He's like, here's your phone booth. Shut up, whatever. But it was an elevator. Yeah, speaking of which, Bill and Ted didn't do well on our online poll. I think it was something like 79% voted Beatles over Bill and Ted. I'm pretty sure it would have been a way worse landslide. Whose fault is that? Beetlejuice wasn't even in the contest. That's my fault, I guess. Yeah, it is your fault. All right, well. I will say this, though. We had a lot of turnout for that vote. We did. We had like 60-something people vote for that thing. Where are these people when it comes to actually listening to the show? Come on now. Yeah, yeah. Ten people listening to our show. Sixty people check in to vote on Eric. Eric, thanks for making me feel like a chick out here. Jesus Christ. They need to step up is what I'm saying. Yeah. Hey, people, listen to Eric.
    128:56
    Man. Thank you, Eric. Okay. How about Jeff? Jeff Patterson. The last email is the best. Jeff Patterson. Sorry, Jeff. Sent us an email that just said, Nightmare Before Christmas over Harry Potter. Ah.
    129:14
    It had literally 100 H's. I didn't count them, but there was between 100 and 150 H's. I counted, 126. All capital letters. That was it, Jeff.
    129:27
    So, thank you, Jeff Patterson, for that from this week in pinball. Jeff, Julie noted, we agree, though, secretly, internally, that Harry Potter would make the best pinball. I said publicly. I said privately. I've never watched Harry Potter. However, I think it would make a great theme. Is it better than Nightmare Before Christmas? The jury's still out.
    129:52
    What a dick. Send us your hate mail at poormanstrimball at gmail.com. We will listen. We will respond. This is our show. We can do whatever we want. So, to you too, Jeff. We love you. Eric, do you have a dream theme that you would love, Fimball? That's a good question. You clearly heard our bracket, and it was awful. We had no sense against Labyrinth. Probably Futurama.
    130:20
    See? God bless them. That's honestly my dream theme. I would love Futurama. There are more people into Futurama. I feel like I have to go watch that show. Would you?
    130:32
    You'd want some sort of big bender on the play field, right? Yeah. I don't know. There's so many things to do. There's so much to that universe. of whatever, but I actually played a virtual game once that had a robot in the back corner that basically looked like a bender and its arms were the ramps, so you could shoot into the body of it and the balls would come down. Yeah, like the universe one where he's God or whatever. Yeah. No, you're right, but there's so much you can do with it. Yeah, there's tons. I always said, and I told Jeff this, we emailed back and forth, Jeff Patterson and I, we did a theme one like that, and bite my shiny metal ass multi-ball. Right? I mean, you're right. There's just so much you could draw from, and that Greening's universe there is awesome. Yeah, it lost to Scooby-Doo. I'm sorry, guys. Oh, man. Sorry. You know what, though? I still picture Scooby-Doo being a very, very cool pinball machine, if done correctly. No, I think Scooby-Doo could do well, too. But like I said, just after looking what Stern did with Simpsons, if you did something similar to Futurama, that would just be super cool. Just have the call-out and the actual voice actors. That's what people don't realize. The Simpsons game has Dan Castellaneta. Yeah, well, they hired four of the actors to do the game. You know what's funny? So it was three, right? Oh, I'm in three. Yeah, sorry. The only reason I know that is because my wife, who doesn't give a shit about pinball, she's playing it with me, and she's enjoying it. And she said, how come there's no Marge or Lisa? Because they picked the ones that would give them the most voices. I know. And then I said, there's got to be a reason. And she started Googling. She was, like, really intense on this, and she was Googling, and then, yeah, and then I found on Pinside a bunch of people said they, yeah, they hired Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, and. . . It was Julie Kedner because they had to. . . Yes. Bart. Bart, yes. Yeah, but the other two were specifically because of how many characters they could bring. Correct. Because Dan Castellaneta, they're like, well, we have to have Homer, obviously, and then Hank Azaria has. . . But both of them do tons of characters. I know. No, Hager's Area does Wiggum and Poo, but they couldn't get Mr. Burns because they couldn't afford him. It was the whole costing. But anyways. Well, thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Ian. Thank you, Josh, and thank you, Brad. Thanks, guys. Thanks for writing in. I appreciate the write-ins. We always appreciate emails. Send us your email, poormanspinball at gmail.com. You can send us a love letter, which unfortunately is not happening today. Brad, you're welcome. thing.
    133:03
    We did this for you, Brad. Otherwise, if you guys want... This is my sexy love letter for Brad. Stop. It's over. Cut for time. Womp, womp. Send us your emails. poormanspinball.gmail.com If you have any questions, we can always get them back to Eric and Eric can answer them for you. For sure, because we're best friends now.
    133:29
    Let's wrap it up. Thank you so much for coming and joining us today. Joining us for the Four Man's Pinball Podcast today. Such a special treat to have someone on here other than Ryan, who actually matters to the pinball community. Wow. Yeah. Other than Ryan. Ryan matters. You matter. We're just trying. Is legitimize a real word? You legitimized us? Yeah.
    133:53
    Drew and I have been treading water for far too long. Thank you, and thank you, Ryan, for helping us out. But, no, seriously, Eric, thank you so much for joining us today and everything you do for Pinball. Oh, you're an awesome man. Thank you so much. The Color DMV, the Cactus. You know what people are going to say? Hey, I listened to Eric on that podcast with those two dicks. Yeah, exactly.
    134:14
    Well, that's okay, though. Eric, what's your handle on Pinside? How can they find you on Pinside? I'm CP the Geek from Pinside. All right, there you go. Send your messages. And my first pseudo-interaction with Eric was when I posted the poor man's pinball link and said we were doing this. And he goes, whoa, locals. Yeah. Wacky. That was so awesome. It was three words. The geeky, the geek. Whoa, locals. Wacky. Who knew we were so close? Except we'll be out of the country for the next pinball. Yeah, the next one's on the 30th. Next? Yeah. You guys are going to be far away. Far, far away. Next week, guys. Sorry. No pinball podcast for us. We'll be doing St. Kitts. Yep.
    135:08
    I'd say we play a great at Kitts, but we don't have that because we've only done 10 episodes. It's okay. Me and Ryan will break in and record a show. Ooh.
    135:19
    That might happen, folks. That may happen. That would be way cooler than when Drew and I come up. Yeah. We were just going to play some music like, we'll see you next week. But now it'll be, might you be willing to do that, Eric?
    135:34
    We got to talk to Ryan. Next week. I'm sweating here just thinking of the editing when I get that. We might have episode 11 for you next week when we are in Stink Kits. All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Thank you, guys. It's been a pleasure, man. We enjoy it. We'll definitely stop by your house again if we're still welcome there.
    135:58
    For this episode, it's always 50-50. So thanks for listening to episode 10, guys. Seriously, all of our fans, everyone out there who listens every week, we appreciate you. And we will see you next week with something that will be on there. It's episode 11, whatever it may be. Not next week, we can't. Nope. We're going to have something for episode 11. Whatever it may be. Peace out. Later.