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Episode 105 - 2019 Year-End Review

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 1m·held·Dec 30, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

2019 year-end pinball review: Punny Factory & Rick and Morty layouts analyzed; doubt on unlicensed game sales.

Summary

A year-end review episode (Dec 29, 2019) covering 2019 pinball news, including discussion of two unreleased games: Punny Factory (Team Pinball/Andrew McBain, designed by Dave Sanders) and Rick and Morty (Spooky Pinball, designed by Scott Denise with code by Eric Pripke). Hosts discuss game layouts, themes, sales potential, and design philosophy, with skepticism about Punny Factory commercial viability despite solid layout design.

Key Claims

  • Punny Factory will sell 25,000-ish units based on $5,500-$6,000 price point

    low confidence · Speculation based on pricing tier comparison; no actual sales data available

  • Rick and Morty sold out in four hours

    high confidence · Direct statement comparing Spooky game launch speed to Alice Cooper sales

  • TNA (Total Nuclear Annihilation) was Spooky's most-produced game until Rick and Morty

    high confidence · Host explicitly states production numbers relationship between TNA and Rick and Morty

  • Eric Pripke coded Rick and Morty after doing Cactus Canyon Continued

    high confidence · Named source attribution in discussion of game's development

  • Dave Sanders designed Full Throttle and significantly reworked Alien (originally started by Dennis Nordman)

    medium confidence · Host hedges on Alien credit attribution ('I believe') but confident on Full Throttle

  • Rick and Morty rules are not very far along in development

    high confidence · Paraphrase of Eric Pripke statement about incomplete code rules

  • Dialed In is Jersey Jack's best game but probably their worst seller

    medium confidence · Host opinion stated as personal assessment; may have changed since this 2019 recording

  • Rob Zombie at 300-unit cap sold out quickly due to speculation bubble from America's Most Haunted price appreciation

    high confidence · Host connects speculative secondary market behavior to Spooky's deposit policy change

Notable Quotes

  • “Well, I have been – I installed Shaker Motor on Walking Dead. I did that a couple days ago.”

    Zach @ N/A — Personal equipment mod discussion; shows host engagement with pinball machine customization

  • “Pinball apparently doesn't believe in trash week, Tony. Pinball believes in every week is precious.”

    Host @ N/A — Commentary on pinball industry's tendency to release news during holiday lull; sets up discussion of end-of-year announcements

  • “The theme. The theme. And I guess he's got some books. The name is bad.”

    Zach @ N/A — Critique of Punny Factory's theme viability; identifies theme as primary commercial obstacle

  • “I don't think it sells 100 units.”

    Tony @ N/A — Pessimistic sales projection for Punny Factory based on theme weakness

  • “dialed in is Jersey Jack's best game. And it's probably their worst seller.”

    Zach @ N/A — Key observation about gameplay quality vs. commercial success in unlicensed pinball games

  • “That is a traditional Italian bottom layout, in fact.”

    Zach @ N/A — Correction of terminology misuse; sets up planned article about Italian bottom layouts

  • “I'm sure I'm confident there were massive down periods or waiting for things to get made and manufactured.”

    Zach @ N/A — Pushback on assumption that Scott Denise spent continuous time perfecting TNA during development

  • “Every mechanical thing that he thought played best is there. So you might go and say, oh, like I might say, what about putting in a very target like Silver Slugger?”

    Zach @ N/A — Analysis of Scott Denise's design philosophy; suggests TNA represents his ideal single-level implementation

Entities

Andrew McBainpersonTeam PinballcompanyDave SanderspersonDennis NordmanpersonScott DenisepersonEric PripkepersonSpooky PinballcompanyHighway Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Skepticism about whether Rick and Morty can capture same 'magic' as TNA despite using different (ramp-based vs mechanical perfection) design philosophy; concern about design repeatability

    medium · Hosts question if practical ramp-based design can match idealized single-level perfection achieved with more development time

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Rick and Morty's 4-hour sellout compared favorably to Alice Cooper's weeks-long waitlist; positioning as major manufacturing success driven by design reputation

    high · Direct sales velocity comparison and attribution to Scott Denise's proven design track record

  • ?

    product_concern: Unlicensed pinball themes face severe commercial headwinds regardless of gameplay quality; Dialed In cited as best-playing Jersey Jack game but worst seller due to lack of licensing

    high · Multiple explicit statements about theme liability overriding design quality; Punny Factory projected to sell only ~25 units despite solid layout

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Scott Denise appears to believe TNA represents his ideal single-level playfield implementation with all desired mechanical elements; Rick and Morty represents different design priority (ramp-based vs mechanical perfection)

    medium · Host interprets Denise's statements about having put 'everything he wanted' in TNA and speculates future games won't revisit single-level focus

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market speculation bubble around Spooky Pinball limited editions (America's Most Haunted price appreciation triggered Rob Zombie pre-order speculation); Spooky responded with $1,000 non-refundable deposit policy

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.365

0:00
Alvin Jones here, calling in to tell you that this episode of the Eclectic Gamers Podcast is brought to you by the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Roanoke, Virginia. The Roanoke Pinball Museum is an interactive museum dedicated to the science and history of pinball. Their mission is to cultivate curiosity in science, art, and history through pinball while preserving and honoring its role in American culture. The museum is open every day except Monday and houses over 65 machines with models ranging from 1932 to 2018. Chain! Rowan Oak Pinball Museum! It's not a turd!
0:48
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, December 29th. It is episode 105. I am here. I am Tony. Hey, Tony. Welcome back. I'm not. No? Not anymore? Are you sure? I don't have that. I don't have the spins. I'm good this week. Okay. Excellent. So, what's happened over the last month? You've been gone. I had to do one of my patented under 30 minute short episodes. You had to do the shorty. Well, there was not any news, which has strangely changed over the last couple weeks. Yeah.
1:28
Well, we had the rotating sickness running through the family where it just, everyone kept getting sick and this and that, between that and work. And playing a whole lot of pinball at home now, thanks to Nick Sean, the Rona pinball. Campus Queen holding up. It's holding up good. And you remember when we played it here, there was that thing where the tilt light would come on, but the game wouldn't actually. It's not doing that now. Oh, okay. So, something should lose? Yeah, I don't know. Because if the game wasn't tilted, I don't know why the light was. Right, because remember when we played it here, the tilt light would come on without tilting the ball. It's not doing that now. The tilt light comes on when you tilt. Okay. Well, that's how he said it was in Virginia. Right.
2:14
Jersey Jack Pinball
company
Roanoke Pinball Museumorganization
Zachperson
Tonyperson
Punny Factorygame
Rick and Mortygame
Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
Mafiagame
Full Throttlegame
Aliengame
Dialed Ingame
Walking Deadgame
Star Trekgame
America's Most Hauntedgame
Rob Zombiegame
Alice Coopergame

high · Hosts discuss speculation period, failed gameplay reviews, and direct causal link to deposit policy introduction

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Team Pinball composed of former Highway Pinball employees; Dave Sanders (Highway Pinball designer) continued to design Punny Factory

    high · Explicit statement about Team Pinball's formation from ex-Highway staff and Sanders' design history

  • ?

    announcement: Rick and Morty Pinball by Spooky Pinball officially announced with 750-unit cap; features portal garage toy and dimension-travel rules mechanic

    high · Direct statements about official launch, sold out in four hours, and coding status provided by Eric Pripke

  • ?

    announcement: Punny Factory officially announced with $5,500-$6,000 pricing; single-level design with three drop targets, 17 stand-up targets, three-pop bumper config, left kickback, and center up-kicker toy

    high · Detailed layout specifications from Pinball News article and official pricing range disclosed

  • ?

    product_strategy: Rick and Morty rules are early in development; significant changes anticipated before release

    high · Eric Pripke paraphrased as indicating rules 'aren't very far along' and significant tweaking/changes likely

  • ?

    product_strategy: Punny Factory uses overlay artwork approach (bare wood stained underneath with printed overlay) similar to Mafia; differs from traditional solid playfield printing

    high · Hosts discuss playfield aesthetic approach and stained wood under overlay for improved appearance vs Mafia's bright white exposed areas

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Scott Denise referred to Rick and Morty layout as 'not an Italian bottom' during charity stream, but hosts argue it factually is an Italian bottom layout despite atypical lower playfield design

    medium · Reference to special charity stream statement; hosts plan article to standardize terminology usage

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball applies artificial production caps to maintain scarcity perception; Rick and Morty at 750-unit cap vs TNA production numbers not explicitly stated but implied higher before cap

    medium · Hosts discuss Spooky's cap strategy and note TNA was 'most produced game they've ever done' before Rick and Morty, implying caps are intentional limits

    • Success obtained. It's been working good. Everyone loves it. Dad played it. My youngest daughter's played it possibly more than me. Maybe not quite, but she plays a lot. What's your high score? My high score so far is just under 2,500, which is actually lower than I think the best score I've ever had on that machine when I played it in Texas because I want to say I beat three. Yeah, I think you did. But I've been aiming more for reaching certain target goals, and I've been failing. Then one day, me and my youngest daughter were playing, and we fired it up. And it's like, okay, la, la, la, la, la, we'll start playing. Come around ball three, I glance at the scores, and she's hitting it like 1,900, and I'm at like six.
    3:05
    She was hitting everything perfectly good. She ended up with 2,300 on that one. I was like, holy monkeys. I was in shock. Has she asked, when are we getting the next one? No. Oh, okay. But, I mean, my wife's played it. Oh, she's never played here. No. She hates my games. She's played it several times. My father's played it a whole bunch of times when he was over for the holidays and everything. So, it's been doing good. I've been playing it darn near every day, at least two or three games. Yeah, that's one of the things I like about Hard games, you know, brutal games Like that, where you can get through one You know it's not going to be like a ten minute thing So it's like Because I used to, sometimes Will go and, like if I'm watching Overwatch League, and they're at an intermission Break, I'd be like, oh yeah I can go down and play an EM Style game, and get My butt kicked, I can't play Star Trek, but I could maybe go And play like Jax to open and fail and be back in time. What I do a lot of times is when I get home, I'll get home, and my mom picks the girls up from school just because of timing, and then she leaves, and I'll play three or four games, then I'll go get cleaned up, and we'll do homework with the girls and cook dinner and all that stuff. That's what I've been doing typically. So it's been good. Awesome. Well, I have been – I installed Shaker Motor on Walking Dead. I did that a couple days ago. I actually went down last night and tightened it. I did not have it as snug as I should have on a couple of the T-Nuts. The issue is – and I saw someone post on my Facebook when I said I was putting in the Shaker Motor, and they said, oh, yes, I think they said something about in bloodbath mode it's an experience. Oh, I might have to adjust the weight. Really? Yes. Because there's no, on SAM, at least, maybe Spike's different, but on these SAM model stern games, you can adjust the frequency of the shaker motor. Like, you can put it on, like, use it a whole bunch or use it a little bit, but you can't control through power or resistance. There's not a setting to dial back the actual number of revolutions a minute that are happening. Right. So the problem is it shakes, like, the whole glass. It feels like an earthquake, and I'm just – it's not choking or anything, so I think it probably just sounds louder than it really actually is, because most of the rest of the time when it's on little bursts, it feels like how Star Trek in my hands feels, so it's probably fine.
    5:53
    But you can – the weights are identical, so that was what makes it lopsided. So the more you – and I did this on the virtual pen. If you want to soften a shaker motor, you want to move the weights further and further apart. So 180 degrees is actually the softest because then it's balanced as it revolts. So I might need to pull it and change it if that ends up irking me too much. But after I tightened it down to the T-nuts more, it felt like the glass still rattles in the game. But you do want it to be an experience. So assuming connections aren't popping off, I suppose it doesn't really matter. Right. Anyway, I was just like, I was a little shocked because I know my Star Trek, I had that red trimmer motor from Cointaker, and a lot of people always talk about how that was too powerful. This is the more standard stern motor, but it's like, well, it feels like it's shaking a lot. In any other mode, it's just like little rumbles, little fun rumbles like on Star Trek. But bloodbath mode is just... I guess it's supposed to be the growl of a zombie. I don't know. And then for Christmas, I got a number of video games. So I got the 2015 version of King's Quest. I remember the old Sierra King's Quest. Right. So I had that on my list for quite a while. Wolfenstein Youngblood, which I have started. I'm maybe three chapters in. Who do you play with? By myself. I'm playing with a bot. It wants me to create a Bethesda account. Just play with it. And I'm like, I don't want to create an account right now, and I don't think I already have one. I don't want to create an account right now. Come on. I've got a Uplay account, and I've got an EA account. Do I really need a Bethesda account on top of this? This is getting tedious.
    7:39
    Assassin's Creed Origins, which I was playing when you came over for us to record today. Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which I'll play after Origins at some point, which I know Don of Gaming on 10 is a huge fan of Odyssey. I think he's a fan of the horse. Isn't Odyssey the one that's got, like, fantasy stuff in it? I think so. It's the one that's set in Greece. Right, yeah. And I think, like, maybe there's a unicorn and stuff or a pegasus or something. Yeah. The Outer Worlds, I got that. Ghost Recon Wildlands. That's not the newest Ghost Recon. This was supposed to be the one that was good. Maybe I remember right. Gear is five. I still need to finish four, but I have five now. Far Cry 5, I actually forgot I owned. I thought maybe it was a free game at some point. No, it was in my pile. I completely covered it with other games and forgot I owned Far Cry 5. Actually, that one's on super sale on Steam right now, and I thought about buying it just because. That was from my mom, so she returned it, and I'll get, I think she ordered me another game in its place. She emailed me yesterday. The Far Cry after that. No, no, it's like, I don't remember what, some weeb thing probably. I don't, Code Veronica. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Far Cry 5 is on Steam right now for another couple days for like 15 bucks. Yeah, yeah, no, it was, I took it off my list. I added it and I took it off, but really fast. like within a couple days, but apparently she had done the order after I'd updated my list. And Halo 5. I used to own Halo 5. I never finished the story, and Halo 5 was one of the games that was burgled from me. I only had a few games that were missing, but they stole Halo, and so I couldn't finish it, even though I had it installed on the hard drive. So that's sort of been what's been going on with me. But this is when we would normally, and thus we will do our year-end review for 2019, Hence the title of the episode However Moving into the pinball segment The challenge we have is There is a whole bunch of new news What is this? How is this even possible? Here are the rules I'm going to lay them out right now It's the end of the year Nothing comes out at the end of the year You let people enjoy their holidays You let people enjoy Enjoy the trash week That is the week between Christmas and New Year's When nothing happens Some people go to work Some people don't. And it's just, you know, even when you're at work, you're like. Yeah, I've normally taken off this entire period. But now that I'm at my new job, I don't have as much vacation. And I don't earn it as much. And it's like, I guess maybe I should always have just worked those days because there's nothing to do. There's nothing. We send like two emails a day. That's because almost everybody is on vacation. Now, in my job, we still have a lot to do on those days. We still work hard. But even then, we don't. Our crew was on this. I need to kill so much time. I typed in all 100 member invoices that can't be issued until January, just so I had something that would fill a few hours. Oh, yeah. I spent time going through and doing all my prep for 2020,
    11:03
    all the new worksheets for 2020, all the new log sheets for 2020, all the new folders because we have to retain our stuff digitally forever. We have huge going back into the early 90s digital files of stuff. I did that. And at one point, it got to the point where it's like, you know what? I think I can make some of these sheets more efficient. So I burned like three hours completely rebuilding a sheet from scratch to make it slightly more efficient.
    11:30
    Most of the people that I have meetings with, discussions with, and stuff going on with, they're all on vacation. So I worked on some of that. I went out and did some cleaning and did the type of stuff that I haven't really had a chance to do since I became a superintendent because I'm normally in meetings and correspondence and working on all that. So, yeah, it's trash week.
    11:58
    It's just trash week. It's been convenient. I made a number of changes into the accounting system that I've wanted to do and stuff like that. So that's been nice. But Pinball apparently doesn't believe in trash week, Tony. Pinball believes in every week is precious. Well, except for the last six weeks where we didn't have any news. Right. And here we are now. So let's start with one of the older news items, which isn't old at all, and that is the possibly hit game, Punny Factory.
    12:29
    So I have a link in the show notes for anyone who wants to read about it. Pinball News has a nice article going all through Punny Factory. But this is the brainchild of Andrew McBain, and he was the person behind putting together the Pinball Adventure series of books. Some people that follow the Twippies might remember that the first volume of that was one of the top three finishers for favorite author publication magazine earlier this year for the 2018 period, which, of course, was in no way a burn against me, given that even the main contributor, Todd Tuckey, said that book was bad, and it still came out ahead. But I don't hold a grudge. I know. It's not just a joke. It's fine. I'm okay. To be fair, it is hard for articles to hold up against something that's actually. You know what? But Garbage Cheer, I would have been okay with something else being there instead that wasn't mine, just not that. now I've heard it's better now like they went back they fixed, I mean there were major editing errors those got fixed, they re-released it on a better paper quality and all that so that hadn't happened at the time but since then so it's no longer a pulp right, right, purportedly steps were made to try and make the, and they've had more volumes come out since then apparently as well, I didn't buy that one or no, I didn't I definitely have not No. So anyway, but so McBain has experience in pinball on that publication side, but he is not a pinball manufacturer. But what he has done is he has gone and contracted with Team Pinball to do the build. And if Team Pinball sounds familiar, they were the former highway pinball employees that made Mafia. And the game layout itself was designed by Dave Sanders. And if that name sounds familiar, he was the highway pinball designer. He designed Full Throttle, and he is the one who I believe is credited as the designer.
    14:36
    I'm hedging a little bit on Alien because some people think Alien is a Nordman game. Dennis Nordman started Alien, but I believe that it was significantly changed by Sanders after Nordman left the project. So I think it's a Sanders game. I don't count it as a Nordman game at all. But some people might want to give them dual credit, like say it was designed by Nordman and Sanders. I think most of what you see is Sanders, though.
    14:58
    And a lot of people like that game. I liked Full Throttle. When it worked. Yeah, but that's not the designer's fault. That's not the designer's fault. I like that. When it worked, it worked good. For a wide body, I thought it was a good... I prefer it to Alien for what they did with the wide body layout. You put in enough ramps, you'll force flow. That's the idea. So, this game. It's a single level design. Two-flipper game. Has three drop targets in it. It's got 17 stand-up targets around the play field. It has a three-pop bumper configuration up the top center. It does have a left kickback ball save. There's an up-kicker in the middle of the play field. There's like the factory toys there. And that up-kicker feeds into tube shot, tube shot, trade tube shot. Oh, tube shot.
    15:46
    And in the upper left corner, kind of like Silver Slugger, there's a very target. I can appreciate a very target. That's the thing. So in our internal notes, Tony sees an image of the layout. The art is done with the overlay, which I think looks good. I thought it looked good on Mafia. It's the same approach that they did with Mafia. Yeah, it looks fine. So basically there's bare wood underneath that, and the overlay goes on top. I think in the Pinball News article, it's discussed that the wood is stained so it'll look a little better. In Mafia, it was like bright white, where there isn't the overlay, and here it will look a little more like you'd think of with a bare wood, regular printed play field.
    16:28
    So, all right, so that's the idea here. And I just thought, I guess we should have some discussions. I actually think that this layout does not look bad.
    16:39
    Yeah, no, honestly, it doesn't. I think, I don't know if it's going to really stand out much. I think it'll get lost like any of the other little ones, little ones, any of the other little, small, kind of boutique-y things that's not from Spooky. I think it'll vanish. Yeah, it's just, I mean, I think it looks like it would have some decent flow. I know some people don't like Very Targets. They feel that it kills ball flow too much. I actually like Very Targets quite a bit. I do, too. So that's the part. And given where that's placed, and I've said it a number of times, while the rules leave a lot to be desired, Silver Slugger is my favorite single-level layout. I like it more than TNA's layout in terms of just evaluating the layout.
    17:27
    And this has got that, and we've got a spinner on the left orbit, which kind of reminds me of Silver Slugger as well. Don't know about the spinner factory thing with the up-kicker feeding the tube shot, which is clearly to provide sort of this ramp return to the right flipper. Right. That, I don't know if that's really going to be fun or not, but I've read through the rules and stuff. It sounds like a competent game. They have an experienced designer. He hasn't done a lot of games, but he's experienced. And I don't think either of his prior games are terrible.
    17:58
    I thought Full Throttle was a good design. Alien's design, to me, left a lot to be desired, but it wasn't a bad, it wasn't a Rob Zombie or WWE. Right. I thought it was awfully clunky for what it was. But this does not look clunky to me. No. But I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to play it because I can't. The theme. And I guess he's got some books. The name is bad. And there's a book about the Punny Factory that's all, I guess, already out. But it's like. If anything, that makes it worse. It's like. Well, I can appreciate a good pun.
    18:42
    We're not in the 80s anymore. Who wants that in their home as a theme? I'm really struggling. I don't think it sells 100 units. I don't think so. Do you think it sells 50? No. Do you think it sells better than Mafia? Yes. Okay. We're in agreement on all of those points. So anyway, just FYI for first. Well, unless this turns out to be a $10,000 game. and I'm trying to, I don't remember if the pricing was, I don't remember if the pricing was named. Because that's the thing, is anymore it doesn't matter. A game could look good and be like, oh yeah, that's a good game, and I'm just looking at it, I would assume that game is going to be like $5,500 maybe $6,000, that could be a good game. They're like, this is a $12,000 game. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's like surely, surely not. Surely not. Don't call me surely. I was afraid you were going to say it. I was hoping maybe you'd never seen Airplane. Yeah, that's definitely... We watched Airplane together. I know, but I was hoping you didn't remember that part. And then you'd be like, yeah, yeah, no, Dennis has never... No, I don't remember one of the meanest parts of that movie that was full of everything. Yeah. Now, so I... As I'm scrolling through the Pinball News article real quick to try and see if there was information on the price theme...
    20:02
    Yeah, that... Okay. They gave a range. $5,500 to $6,000. So it's going to be in the CERN Pro range. Okay. I bet you they sell $25,000-ish. Yeah, for that reason alone, I think it will do better than Mafia. Mafia was a better theme.
    20:19
    Yes. But this unlicensed stuff, I get it. I just don't think it's the right way to launch manufacturing in general. I think an unlicensed theme has to have a major name. Because once again, I've said it multiple times, I'll keep saying it, dialed in is Jersey Jack's best game. And it's probably their worst seller. Maybe not anymore. Pirates might be worse. Might be because they didn't keep it in production very long. Right. But it is, and I have played a fairly large amount of Willy Wonka. and I enjoy Willy Wonka. I've said it before. Willy Wonka is my second favorite Jersey Jack game. I still think dialed in is a better game. I agree. But if Jersey Jack can't make it a huge seller, or dialed in a huge seller,
    21:16
    somebody, some little small thing is not going to get a huge seller. Based off of the non-license. Right. Based off of the non-license theme. I think the best that they could hope for is if the rules combined with the gameplay provide some sort of excitement level that is on par with what happened with TNA. And then you're looking at maybe around 500 units. Maybe. That would be if it was, you know, for TNA, for Spooky and TNA, that was a, like, gangbusters amazing response that everyone was like, holy crap. And people just fell in love because they didn't know, most people didn't know Scott, right? But the thing is where I think even if the gameplay was, I'm not saying we would play the same, but let's say the gameplay experience was on par with TNA, you know it's not going to have the sound package that TNA had. And that's the thing is because TNA was the total package. Exactly. The sound was perfect. And the light show was amazing. Scott loves his RGB lighting. And everything about that game, that was the perfect storm of a game.
    22:29
    Right. And still it would have never been picked up by anybody major because there's no way it would have sold, you know, the thousands of units they would have wanted it to sell. Right. But the reason why Spooky picked it up is they saw the reaction. See, it's like this homebrew went out in the wild and people saw that it was popular. A manufacturer saw it was popular. And for a boutique manufacturer, it was like, this would really fit well. And up until Rick and Morty, which we'll talk about here shortly, it is their most produced game they've ever done. Yeah. Now, they've put in their artificial caps on all their other games, aside from the contract games. And the contract games were contract games. Right. Right, but their artificial caps, I think, were probably pretty realistic because I don't think their actual sales numbers on those machines would have been a whole lot higher. Yeah, I would agree with you. Rob Zombie at the 300 cap did sell out really quick, but that was during a speculator period where people saw what happened with the price value on America's Most Haunted. Right. And so people thought that they would be able to buy the game, and then when they were done with it, sell it for more than it sold new in box. until people played it. Right. And then that changed really quick. And that's, I believe, why Spooky started doing the, to get on the lists, the $1,000 non-refundable deposits, because people were getting out of the Rob Zombie orders as they were trickling out, and then reviews of the gameplay were coming out, and people didn't love it. Right. And see, that's the big thing with Spooky is Spooky's games are very niche. Mm-hmm. Right. Like Alice Cooper, there was, and you probably once again can, but there was for quite a while, those 500 units, most of them sold really quick, but you could get on the list pretty easily for quite a while. Right. For like weeks. Rick and Morty sold out in four hours. It's the same. Exactly.
    24:25
    And speaking of theme and Rick and Morty, let's go and transition to that because we do have that. I talked about it on my solo episode a little bit, but there is more news that has come out since then. So Rick and Morty Pinball, Spooky Pinball, 750 unit cap. There is a link in the show notes to a write-up that this week in Pinball has with this additional information that came along after the game's initial launch.
    24:51
    Eric Pripke is the coder. People might know his name. He did Cactus Canyon Continued. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's where Pripke's from. So, he indicated that the, what, my paraphrase, that the rules aren't very far along. People were asking, like, what was going to be with the rules, and he indicated that a lot was still likely to be changed, tweaked, or outright changed. So, sounds like the rules aren't actually very far along in the code. It is a mode-based game. The modes are going to correspond to various Rick and Morty adventures from the show. And then, in addition to that, the garage toy is the portal. so you can open a portal in the garage and travel to other dimensions while you play that it'll be accessible via the modes or via even in the multiballs. And when you go through the other dimensions, that's where the rules of that reality make things different. So some things might score more, some things might score less. Certain features might not function anymore. And I thought that would be a really cool idea. Here, the pop bumper doesn't work. It's dead. That would be cool. I think that would be really interesting. And I know it's been talked about by lots of people. I love that pop bumper. The pop instead of the left sling? Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I mean, it's no secret to our listeners that I love interesting things done with pop bumpers because I love pop bumpers. But that left sling pop bumper is awesome. Yeah. it's an unlike on TNA which also had a unique use of a single pop bumper TNA still went with a standardized what we think of as a traditional modern lower playfield layout Rick and Morty obviously has decided to go with an atypical design which we do not see much anymore however I will must it's still an Italian bottom I'm seeing people constantly misuse the term that That is a traditional Italian bottom layout, in fact. It's got dual in-lanes, a single in-lane on each side. We've got our traditional out-lanes as well. The only thing is that the lower structure is – and I actually – I'll fold this to a list. Now that I also got a mechanical keyboard for Christmas, I have been clicky-clacking away. Yep, clicky-clacking away. I am writing an article about Italian bottoms. They're still amazing, aren't they? Not Italian bottoms.
    27:17
    No, there's a reason why we do that. There's a reason why we keep seeing it. But, I mean, mechanical keyboards are so amazing, aren't they? Yeah. I love them. I'm surprised at how much better I enjoy it. I love it. I didn't think, I thought this was more of a, like, okay, I like the sound, and I knew that, you know. It's the tactile. Yeah. But, actually, I'm hitting, like, on my other cheap keyboard that came with the desktop, I was inadvertently double-spacing a lot because I'd pressed my thumb on the space bar, and I wouldn't know I'd done it. Uh-huh. And now I can hear it, which is a big help. And I can feel it. That's a big help. I went with brown. I've got cherry browns. Mine are not the cherries. They're the Chinese one. I've got a Corsair.
    28:03
    I've got a Corsair and I've got a Red Dragon. The Red Dragon is the one I carry on my laptop. Now, even though the mechanical keys themselves are not cherry, the keyboard, it's cross-compatible. So I can put in cherries if I want. If I so desire. Though apparently both the companies follow the exact same color scheme. So, there are some subtle differences, basically. This is completely not to do with Ken Ball. So, I decided I needed to do an article. Because I even heard on the special charity stream, Scott Denise referred to his Rick and Morty layout as not an Italian bottom. That is incorrect. It is. But I know why he said that. Because people have started to think that the dual sling inlanes, outlanes equals Italian bottom. And they are Italian bottoms. It just explains out why they are. Right. And that's the part where no one, you know, we just throw terms around and we start to think they mean something. They start to have their own meaning. Sure. Well, it's like how some people will call a single level game street level. No, street level are single level, but that was a very specific thing. Yeah. So, I'm just trying to get people all using the same terms. All the Q-tips are cotton swabs, not all cotton swabs are Q-tips. Exactly. And I'm guilty of this stuff as well, especially outside of pinball. I will still say make a Xerox. that's a brand. We're talking about a photostatic copy. But I was just like, I'll just say the brand. I don't even know if Xerox is still around.
    29:30
    I don't know. I haven't used a physical Xerox in years. I don't know. I've been, we got to achieve this. Well, we use Canon and stuff.
    29:40
    Anyway, so, but regardless, it's different, and it's cool. It's different, it's cool. Yes. I understand why this game sold out so quick, because Scott Denise is a proven good game picker. Yes, but he's only made one game. Right, and here's my biggest concern. He had years to perfect that game. Yeah, but I've heard others say that. I think it's true to a degree. But the reason why I had just, even though years were spent, or he had years, it not like every day he went home and spent two hours subtly moving a stand up target and so that where because I heard the same thing with Keith Allen and Archer I like yeah it took a long time because he had another job It wasn't like every single day something was slightly moved. Right. I'm sure I'm confident there were massive down periods or waiting for things to get made and manufactured. It's not like Steve Ritchie going into the office every day and saying, well, yeah, I spent, you know, 11 months on the play field. And that probably meant five days a week he was mostly tweaking stuff on his layout. That's a valid point. But maybe I'm wrong. But that's just my thing is where I do think that there's a good point is he was able to think up and he had all that time to come up with everything that he thought for him would make the most ideal single level play field. That's why I don't think he'll ever do another single level. Because every time I've heard him talk about it, he said, well, no, he put in everything he wanted is in there. Every mechanical thing that he thought played best is there. So you might go and say, oh, like I might say, what about putting in a very target like Silver Slugger? And his response, I assume, would probably be, well, I don't think that plays as well. I already did the perfect play field. That's what TNA is. So Rick and Morty, being this different style of layout, the thing is, he got to really focus on what would be the dream single-level game. Is this a dream layout for him? I don't think so. I think this was, now that you know you're going to do a next one and you're trying to come up with it, can that practicality live up to when you were just, you know, sketching on Atkins and finally got to actually really truly build what you thought was an ideal single level?
    32:07
    Did you capture that magic in this, you know, ramp-based game? Maybe. I think of skills. He's got skill. We know he has skill. Yes. Given that, I mean, when I look at the layout, I don't, aside from that pop bumper, most of this layout does not look dramatically radical to me. No. I think a lot of it. It looks flowy. It does. So I think I'd like it. I think a lot of the stuff that's going to be interesting, the Magna Save. Yep, and that was another piece that came out after the initial reveal. A little more explanation. Scott explained, but it's thematically called the anti-gravity device. But the way it works is you build up charge in it, and that determines how long you can actually activate the magnet by holding in the button. So if you want to just use a little bit and just give a little bit of play, you just tap that button, versus, say, like a game like Black Knight, where you hit the magnet safe, and it turns on for however long it's programmed. Right.
    33:10
    Or you can hold it in to actually make the magnet gain control, assuming you have the charge. Right. So that, I think, is a neat idea. I guess maybe it was done on some EM games or something. I don't know. I think he mentioned that he'd seen that concept done before. I can't remember a MagnaSafe game that at least I was aware of that I knew I could hold in the button and get it to do something different. So I think that's a neat idea to put into this. I think it fits the theme well. and then that center horseshoe area with the drops, that's what's being commonly referred to as the Denisi Lock 2.0. I liked the first one. Yep. This one will let you lock up to three balls.
    33:57
    So it functions as a little lock. If a ball's already in there, you can smack the target and the ball will go to the other side. It can work like a captive ball as well. if you already got a ball in there. Right. So you've got that. And then, of course, if it's all the way open, you've got one of those U-turn shots like people might associate with Silver Ball Mania or Stern Star Wars.
    34:19
    So it's got some multipurpose there. And what do you think about him indicating, like with TNA, that locks are stealable full stop?
    34:29
    They're not letting you disable it. I think that's his thing. And I think, in all honesty, with this style of walk that he makes that I enjoy, I don't really think there's another way to do it. There has to be. I don't know. My one issue, which comes to mind, I mean, I'm fine with it on TNA. The difference is Bowen Cairns is on rules on this game, not Scott. So is it really Scott's place to tell him what the rule is with the ball lock? Right. I just don't see how that kind of ball lock can be not stealable, other than doing it as a software code thing where, oh, I've got the balls locked, but they're no longer up there where they're supposed to be, so when I finish this last, when I lock the last ball, it'll just shoot me out a couple. Right, right. It'll have to do something virtual. Sure. Right. But there'll be a software solution to it. Right. But that's not the same level of fun or interest to me. Sure. It might be the right answer I think It'll be something that tournament players will dislike Some will Some are okay with lock stealing Some aren't It's not a universally agreed upon thing There are some who do feel very strongly That lock stealing is unsporting Then you shouldn't have locked the ball I think that's a fair argument If you don't want your lock stolen Don't lock a ball I know people when we had TNA at 403 Who would not go for the ball lock Yeah. Because I assumed they were afraid of them being stolen. I would and often had mine stolen, but I wanted the ball locks because I wanted to win. Yeah. See, I wouldn't go for a ball lock unless there were balls locked.
    36:07
    Even if it wasn't enough that one lock would steal it, I would. I would because I had such a hard time destroying reactors on that one that I felt safer going for the ball lock shot. That one's so much different than yours. I did. But it's gone now. It's gone to be free. I don't know where it is. I assume it's free. It's flying around free. So anyway, that's the latest on the Rick and Morty stuff. I'm hoping, I guess they don't really need to because I sold them all out, but I am hoping that they would bring some to Texas. That would be nice. I would think it would make sense for them. Well, in a way, but it's like they already sold them and they're a non-refundable deposit. So if people want to get out, they have to basically sell their spot to someone else. So why would they need to bring it? There's nothing to sell. Because there might be nothing to sell, but it still would be a good PR thing for the company itself. Sure. Here's our new thing. I mean, they brought Rob Zombies and they sold them all. Yeah. I'm trying to remember how many they brought, though. Was it just two? I think they had two. Yeah.
    37:10
    They had two. Yeah, they had. If I remember right, I'm not 100%, but if I remember right, they had two working rod zombies and one that was just a play field with like no electronics or anything, as I recall. Because then there was one on display that didn't, that just had like the play field. I don't think it was even fully populated. If I remember right. Okay. But that was a long time ago and I'm an old man. I don't remember stuff anymore. Well, the last of the new and the most recent of the new is Stern's Stranger Things, which I do have a link in the show note to two things. There's a link to the reveal article that ran in IGN for those that want to read about it. And then I do have a link to the YouTube video that Deadflip put with the gameplay reveal. That's the pro model that had the gameplay reveal.
    37:59
    This was a little different because Stern actually had games in the hands of distributors before they did their formal announcement. So there, in theory, wasn't even a two-week wait. I say in theory because I think those ones almost immediately got spoken for. But the game, actually, I think before Jack even streamed, there was a location that one got it, installed it, and streamed it before he did. It was a bad stream. Like a one-camera shot, bad angle. Not someone who normally streams, but hey, they wanted to be the first to stream it, and they achieved that. So kudos to them. But a quick summary of what we know. We know a lot. Brian Eddy of Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness fame is on the design. The layout is a traditional fan, much in the vein of those prior two games of his. In fact, on the Deadflip stream, he opens with saying that he wanted the layout to be familiar to people, those who really liked those two prior games of his. He hopes you would enjoy this because he really did try and follow that layout style. The Premium and LE model do have two, in my view, two key differences. One is there's a magnet ball lock that works on the vertical part of the backboard. So the balls actually stick. It does. Stick to that. On the Pro model, there is an up post that, after seeing the screen, it does not lock all three balls behind the up post. I wasn't sure if it would or it wouldn't. It temporarily holds it, lets you see, and tells you your ball's been locked and then gives you your ball back. Right.
    39:33
    And then the projection mapping. there's a movie screen that I guess it represents someone's lab on the Pro but it's a white screen like for a projector on the premium models and stuff will be projected onto that. The drop targets are projectable there are a series of stand up targets that like flank the ramps and stuff those are projectable and I believe the two ramps also have projection shoots onto them and displays a variety of things as well the main toy which is on both versions is a Demogorgon shot that's in the middle. Kind of think of like where you'd expect the saucer to be on Attack from Mars, except the projector screen slash lab middle panel actually drops down I think System 11 Joker's style going down instead of going up. It makes a ramp, a jump ramp, that will let you shoot the ball into the Demogorgon's mouth. That's pretty cool.
    40:28
    It's got that. And then video They did indicate video and audio assets both were obtained from the show, so you will see and hear things from the show directly. The pin only features elements from Season 1 and Season 2, not Season 3.
    40:46
    Custom call-outs by David Harbour, who is the actor who plays Police Chief Jim Hopper. Yes, which is very good. As a fan of the show, I like having call-outs by an actual person. The game did go with six balls in the trough, so I'm imagining we're going to see some sizable multi-ball or multi-ball with considerable add-a-ball capabilities. Yeah. And the theme music is obtained from the show. It sounds like all the other music is going to be done by Ken Hale in the style of Stranger Things, but the only song that they said they committed to was the actual theme song.
    41:27
    Okay. A lot of people before the game came out were speculating about how the upside down, which apparently is a major element to the show, was going to be incorporated with the most common theory being doing a lower play field, maybe black hole style where it feels like it's upside down. That is not the approach they went with. Upside down is a hurry up where the game will announce that you have entered, and it happens randomly. You will all of a sudden be in the upside down. From what I saw on the stream, it appeared to be you then had a very limited period of time to get all of the center drop targets down. And if you did so, you got some sizable points. Yeah.
    42:05
    So there's that. Code. Lonnie Ropp is the lead on code. However, Mike Vinacore is helping on rules and code balance. And Brian Eddy is also contributing to rules. Brian Eddy is a coder himself. And then the art packages were done by Bob Stedwick. I believe it's the pro is season one art. season two art is for the premium and upside down is for the LE so just sort of baseline describe the packages Tony you watch the show I do not I've obviously on this week in pinball podcast already commented on this what do you think from what you've seen so far I love Brian Eddie's work that's just the known quantity how this turns out I watched the entire higher dead flip strength. And I like the look of the shots.
    42:59
    I think the game looks fun. I was honestly really excited for the theme when I heard about it, but actually seeing it, I don't. I'm more interested in the shots than the theme itself. I think it's okay integration. The art's fine, but I don't really care about it that much. Not like I thought I would. It's more, I don't know how to put it. I thought it would grab me more than it did. Do you feel that the art is too much of, say, montage stuff going on? I think that might be it. Like the play field feels like a montage of floating heads. Yeah. I think that's a good possibility. And just the play field seems so crazily busy and the massive vomit of color on it. One of the things a lot of people have pointed out is this play field has a lot of inserts in it. Yeah. It's like it's all inserts. and maybe that's why but they aren't, I don't it doesn't do anything for me. Right.
    44:02
    I'm really interested in this projection stuff. If it works really well and it maintains really well I think this is something we might see more of because it gives a lot of flexibility that we've not traditionally had. Yes, I agree. And there are a lot of questions. Obviously, we've not seen a stream yet with the projection, so we don't know. I'm assuming it's been tested in standard lighting scenarios. I don't know how well it will stream. Right. Because normally we throw, normally Jack will throw more light because cameras are hungry.
    44:42
    And I agree with pretty much everything you've indicated. While this is As Brian Eddy has done in the past This is very much A traditional fan In his full vein In his full fan-iness There's a reason why fans are popular I know some people will probably be critical Because they feel we've had too many fans lately They sell and they're fun to shoot I think fans tend to play a little safer In games Because most of the time when you don't have a fan and it's because you've stuck objects towards the lower end of the play field that obfuscate the ability to shoot the ball to the back, and that means less reaction time, so fans tend to play safer. What I will say is, especially after watching the stream, is while these shots are in essentially the same style fan positions that we see in Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars, he moved the feet where they come out. Right. So these shots don't all go in the same place. So it's like I saw that the right, what people thought maybe the inner orbits were a horseshoe, but it's not. The right inner orbit comes out the far left orbit. The left inner orbit doesn't orbit around at all. It stops and then also comes out to the left. And that's the same thing where the Demogorgon toy feeds out to the left. So that's different. the right orbit can feed to the left orbit but it also can just stop and end in the pops which is only a two pop layout with a kicking rubber up there as well which is very different for Stern which my understanding was had a mandate to always use three pop bumpers but apparently Brian Eddy gets to have exceptions made he is Brian Eddy so there's that the left orbit doesn't come out the right orbit it feeds a ramp and comes out to the right flipper on a ramp, as does the right ramp. The right ramp actually has a plastic above the ramp the ball drops down onto. Right. And it flows really well. It all moves really smoothly. Everything looks good. So where the ball comes back, obviously it will all be very predictable, but it does not, like, where you shoot a ramp on Medieval Madness or Attack from Mars, the ball does not end up in the same place on this game that it did on those. Right. So he's changed where the Vols are going. So I think it will feel different for that reason, because obviously which flipper gets fed makes a big difference on what your next shot's going to be. So I think he mixed it up enough. I'm in no way – I thought Eddie was going to do one of two things. One, the most logical, which is what he did do, which is lean into what are your most popular games, the two fan-loving games. Do that. Or I thought he'd do something radically different. There were clearly people that were hoping he would do another game in the vein of Shadow. I don't think that's ever happening. I don't. No. And not because Shadow was a B-tier game. But just the way, the whole approach of Shadow is just not how we see modern pinball. Where you, and I get it. They want a cool magnet ball lock like the Sanctum. But we're not going to get a pong upper play field. And I just don't. No, that kind of stuff isn't really. Because it wouldn't be on the pro. So now you have to decide you want that and look at the reaction to things when Stern has done upper play fields like Aerosmith or Game of Thrones. And people are like, just get the pro. Right.
    48:14
    It's kind of like either it doesn't do enough or it's not as fun. That's the issue I think that Steve Ritchie runs into is sticking in an upper play field and people will go to him because they want his flow. and it's too stop and go when you add things like that. And this will flow. This is the Spice Milan.
    48:35
    Where's my dune pen? Oh, wouldn't that be nice? Maybe after the next movie. I do, and now, when you were talking about like the Sanctum Ball Lock, that magnetic ball lock could be what we're looking for for that kind of feel. Yeah, I could see them make a game where they put in something like a magnetic ball lock. I don't think we're getting user-controlled diverters. They would BOM on that for arguably relatively little real practical games. No, that's not going to happen. It's not all that that the Shadow lovers have. Shadow is an interesting game because as the hobby has matured, it's one of those games where it was when I first got into the hobby, it was very clearly, this is a B-tier game. A good game, but not one of the greats. And now, maybe because it was more affordable, people started talk themselves into, like, it's an A-tier game. Some people seem to do the same with Osplor's Brom Stoker's Dracula, a game I really like. In fact, I like Brom Stoker's better than Shadow. But, but it's a B-tier game. Yeah. Know your place. You don't get to make everything from WMS to A-tier. That's just silly. So, anyway, I'm sure we'll get one of these on location. I don't know if we're going to get a premium or not. I guess it depends. It'll depend upon how it does. But I'm sure we'll get a pro. I like the Demogorgon shot with the ramp. Yeah. I like the idea. The ramp jump shot on Jokers I always thought was a cool idea. Right. And while Jokers isn't a great game, I thought that shot was well done. Yeah. And they solved some of those problems with how this one works. Right. And from the video, it looked like it was a fun shot. Yeah. Yeah, no, the game looked fun to shoot. Obviously, as I've noted before, I've not seen this show. I don't have any current compulsion, even from seeing the gameplay, to want to own this. But I want to play it on the phone. I would like to play it. I said the art is just, I don't know. I don't know what I was wanting from the art.
    50:43
    I like the side art on all three. but the trans lights are okay and the play field art's just I don't like it at all so and that's the art that I guess really matters when it comes but there's so many inserts you don't see most of it anyway I don't know we'll see but I'm sure it'll play well it looks like it plays fun and I'm sure it will play fun Well, now that we're all caught up with the current events, we can finally go into the year-end review, which in our turtle notes I tried to kind of carve up by the companies and note that there are new games that can be talked about.
    51:34
    It might not be comprehensive, so preemptive apology. Sometimes people will write in and say, you didn't talk about this. I'm like, yep, sorry, it's because I forgot.
    51:42
    A lot happened this year. Yeah. So we'll start with CERN because they put out the most games. And at the start of the year was Monsters, I think, which I would describe as a game which I remember had a tremendous amount of hype. And then just, like, the bottom fell out of that market. Right. But I think here's the thing. The hype on Monsters was 100% nostalgia-based. and I think it was honestly an extremely vocal minority because a lot of the people that I talked to in person thought the theme was crud and they didn't care. Yeah, I still, I mean, most of the people I've spoken to since, just they don't care for the rules. Right, now the game is going to destroy what was left. Yeah, and it's not that the rules are poorly balanced or anything. They just, I mean, the best way I could describe it is I had a tournament game. And these are tournament players. I'm not talking to the homeowners with it. So these are people that's playing it on location. And I had a game against a very good player. And I had the best game I've ever had on Munsters. And when I finished, while I was very pleased that I had my best game ever, I also, in a way, felt nothing. Yeah. Like, I didn't feel like I got far, other than I knew my ball times were really long. Right. And I, I mean, I don't know. It feels like, like, the ants, I mean, it's a game where it's like, any time the action bar flashes, you immediately slap it, and I don't know. It just, I don't know. It just doesn't, for me, it doesn't, it's not exciting. Nope. It's not exciting. And I agree with you in nostalgia. I also think that the initial reveals of Franchi's art packages helped sell it. Yes. because the art, it looks great. It shoots well. The layout's good. The code doesn't feel imbalanced to me. In a lot of ways, you'd think it's like it's almost the game itself feels paint by number, which are something. It's like, yeah, in a way, it's so generic. I don't know. Nothing about it is special.
    53:52
    It's a very okay game. That's what it is. The thing is, normally, with all those things like great art package, nice layout rules that make sense that aren't imbalanced it seems like it checks all the boxes but for some reason it's like brand serial even though it all works I there's not it almost I bet there are games that are flawed in some other way like they have a worse art package or they have worse rules or something but I'm going to like the other game more for some reason. There's something and I don't think it's the theme, even though I don't Munsters, this is the era of themes Dennis doesn't watch. I don't remember watching Munsters, ever. I do. I just didn't care. I don't. I just don't remember. I'm sure I've seen part of it, but I think it's one of those things where maybe if it had, maybe it was just so generic. If it had one thing, one interesting thing, it might have rotted up, but instead it's just meh. Yeah. So then we had Black Knight Sword of Rage, Steve Ritchie's game.
    55:04
    First, he finally got to have a good art package. Yes. For Steve. I don't think Steve has. I saw someone ask the question once, and I've been on a forum or on Facebook. It's like, what was the last good art package that Steve Ritchie had? I think this was on Slam Tilt Podcast, actually. I think they had the discussion. It's like, you had to go back to the Williams era.
    55:23
    And when they named everything else he had, I was like, yeah. It's all basically been the bad years of, you know, cheesy Photoshop montages or then more recently, like Game of Thrones and then Star Wars and possibly because of the license as well. Star Trek before it, you just got stuck with licenses that didn't let them do it, have anything. Yeah. So they're all kind of, even they're not ugly. They're just kind of, of course, Game of Thrones was raked over the coals. I thought Star Wars was raked over the coals More so than it should have been as well Probably Because that one was just more montage-y I thought Star Trek Had a good art package For the LE Yeah, well, on Star Trek I'm also thinking There's nothing In a way it was smart, but The play field When you look at it, it looks like Space, not Star Trek It's like, okay, well, I guess That was safe and it works but it's not going to win any awards. No. It's not going to win any awards. The only thing interesting on Star Trek was the Ellie's translator. Yeah, right.
    56:31
    So, anyway, so he finally got a, it wasn't licensed IP. They did have to go back to who controls the Williams license and get that, but it was his IP from back in 1980, and so he knew what he could and couldn't do. So he got that. I think the one thing, well, two things. One, my read is, I think, especially after hearing about the sales or the acceleration of Jurassic Park's sale, that I don't think Black Knight moved as many units as Stern hoped it would have, which doesn't surprise me given the license is only known to pinball people.
    57:10
    The other thing is, while I have only played the pro, competitive players do not like the premium. I've played both. They're both fun. I think if I was to buy one, I would buy a pro because I don't think the upper play field adds anything that's worth it. well with the at the highest levels and this is where part of the issues come up and I keep thinking because he's a high level player himself the league coder Tim Sexton will probably address this but my understanding is it still remains an issue that for good players staying on the upper play field is very easy and because there's a multi ball that can be obtained up there and loops that can be repeated it's too easy to just live up in the upper playfield and blow the game up. So that has to be solved.
    58:06
    If you, like, the current solution is that the premium cannot be in competition. It's, at a high level competition, it's too exploitable. Gameplay's way too long. Which is funny because that lower, much like all the other Black Knights, that lower playfield is very brutal and difficult to survive on. But, in fact, one of the, I can't remember if it was Stern or someone did a, had a contest, they announced a contest, a high score contest where you'd submit scores on Black Knight and they didn't segregate the categories between pro and premium LE. I saw some discussion from our area players and they're like, guys, if you want to submit a score, you can go to 403 and play and do it. There's no point. You will never beat a premium person because premium just gives you points and you don't have those options on the pro. They were going so far as to essentially say it is impossible for you to beat someone who is on a premium. A much lesser player will blow your score away. You can't do it, so don't even waste your money trying to. If they wanted to do it, they should have just separated the categories, and premium LE is one group and pro is another, but they didn't.
    59:15
    Star Wars Home Edition. That came out this year. It did. I haven't played it. I haven't either. I don't know anyone with it, but I watched streams of it. It looks fun. I've heard more than one person say they feel it plays better than Stern Star Trek. Star Wars, excuse me. Okay. So, different designer. This was a, the layout is very reminiscent of the Spider-Man home pin, but there are changes. There are some changes to it. There's that interesting ball lock. Yeah, yeah, the little captive ball. The ball that falls in becomes a captive ball, and then you knock it free, and then you have a two ball. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's a neat idea. Obviously, the issue with it being a home model with hobbyists, it's going to be that line in the sand of, Okay, well, that's not real enough for us to count it as real collectible pinball. And the issue there, saying aside the mentality, because, you know, you buy what you want, who cares, is chances are the resale value will collapse a lot more on that than we are used to. So a lot of people, I think, are going to avoid buying it because they know, well, I will get tired of it most likely eventually, but I'm used to taking something like a 10% to 20% hit when I sell a game, not 50%. Right. And is that what's going to happen? Is that game going to go from $4,000 to $2,000 after 200 plays? We're not used to that. Right. So that's the issue that comes up with that. The comic art edition of the commercial Star Wars I liked it better I don know anyone who didn I sure there is somebody out there Probably
    60:51
    But by and large, that was, and it sounds like that did move units. There were people that were like, that was the one reason that I wasn't going in. That you're going to blow up? Yeah. My laptop, if people can hear it, has spun up the railgun. It's kind of like It did, it's fun It's like a proton pack fire And I haven't loaded anything I've got the recorder running I've got the virtual mixing board running And I've got our OneNote running Just like I have the entire time I haven't done anything It's like, okay, now it's like, okay We're okay, it's closing the thermal Yeah, there Thermal that made us okay, okay So, yeah It sounds like they moved some units. There were people that just couldn't, they didn't want that art package, the old art package in their home, apparently. I don't think it moved a tremendous quantity of units, but I think it was a good way to breathe life into the game.
    61:53
    Jurassic Park. All right. Now that, Juggernaut, it's going to be a twippy game of the year. Yeah. If it's not, I will be honestly shocked. I just can't fathom it. With the kind of fanboyism and tribalism that has appeared in pinball the last few years, I can completely see Wonka taking it. I don't believe Wonka's a better game. Wonka hasn't moved nearly as many units. That doesn't matter.
    62:25
    Well, I mean, it comes down to the, you'd have to have JJP fanboys disproportionately in the vote. Setting aside shenanigans like people buying votes and stuff, I'm saying. Right. Because, you know, the TWIP has their panel that has, and they don't reveal what they do, but they've got things that they are doing to try and control for that. So, saying that aside, and last year a Stern game won. Yes, it did. And I think it was more contentious last year. If for no other reason than, okay, L1's Iron Maiden, which is what won, very good game. Pirates. The buzz on Pirates was better than the buzz on Wonka, but they did sell fewer, so that did jeopardize it. And that was game number two. But the thing was, Deadpool ended up surprising a lot of people as being a really good game. And I would argue, Stern isn't competing with itself this year. Nothing else in the Stern lineup is remotely as good as Jurassic Park. I would agree with you. Because I don't think Stranger Things is in the vote. It shouldn't be. I mean, I guess it could technically be, but I don't think anybody's going to play it. Well, it's like, when do we do the cutoff? Okay, yeah, it's out there on location now. In a few places. But I think the only Stern game that could argue with Jurassic Park in fun is Black Knight. And it is not. It's not. No, it's not. I think the order of game sales is Jurassic Park followed by Munsters, followed by Black Knight, followed by Elvira. That's my guess, is where we're going to end the year at. Probably.
    64:07
    But that doesn't necessarily mean... It wouldn't surprise me that Black Knight will actually be ranked up above Munsters, for example. It should be. But Jurassic Park, very fun game, I think is better than Iron Maiden on a variety of fronts. Actually, in everything but call-outs, I would argue, it's better.
    64:25
    And, well, maybe art, too. But given that, it's like, it's just, people love that game. I don't know anyone who does not like Jurassic Park, at least think it's decent. I think that, in my mind, Jurassic Park is the shoe-in for Game of the Year. Yeah, no, it has less negative reaction than any other game. So, putting my pessimist hat on, it has less negatives going in than any other game. Very true.
    64:57
    So, that's my guess. But you're right. We could be surprised. If I was to pick just me, best game of this year, it's Jurassic Park. And we will probably, maybe on the next episode, once the official drop-down ballot comes out, we'll go through and we'll do our Twippy pick. Yeah, like we do. Like we do. So we'll talk more about that more then And then Elvira Which came out a few months ago We do have it at a couple locations I have played it It's fun I don't I do like the direction of the rules Of course it's Lyman So I'm not too surprised But right now it is very heavy on Play the modes And I like that And that's what I like about Lyman He is a, he's more of a, let's make you play modes, not let's make you just work towards the next multiball. And so I think that worked. And the layout's fun. You know, but mechanically, I'm not impressed. There's nothing, it's fine. It's just, because there's no pro version of it, I would never get in on that game. No. Never. I mean, like, I would much rather have a premium Jurassic Park than Elvira. Yes.
    66:12
    So, you know, that is what it is. You mentioned Willy Wonka That was Jurassic Park That's Jersey Jack's game of 2019 I believe it's doing very well for them Originally Jack of Jersey Jack Did indicate that they were going to reveal Another pin At the end of the year It's not It could still happen Yes but he has in subsequent interviews Indicated that that is not the plan now So he's already backed away I get it I'm not saying he lied I understand why they would need to Especially if Wonka's doing well Why would you push the next game out If the line's busy And that's where I think the issue was When Elwyn mentioned that They had to accelerate Jurassic Park By I think at least two months I think it was because of Black Knight And Black Knight may have had to come out earlier Because of Monsters, I don't know But now We knew Elvira was, other than Code Was done for quite a while Stranger Things looked like, obviously, we'll still need more code as well, but functionally, I think they got the window they needed because of Jurassic Park. I've heard some people even speculate Stranger Things was originally planned to be ahead of Jurassic Park, and that's where the acceleration came in. It wasn't actually about low sales, but rather that Jurassic Park was further along, and maybe the projector technology stalled things on Stranger Things. I could see that. Willy Wonka, overall, good, well accepted layout I don't really know anyone who dislikes the layout that I've met rules biggest complaint and it's a complaint on a number of JJP games is that they find the rules confusing it's a complaint on a lot of modern pinball games the reason why I don't think that it wins over Jurassic Park even though it's in a better sales position than Pirates was is sound package is garbage. Oh yeah, it's trash. So there's a big negative that people have with that game, and that is, it is not fun to listen to.
    68:22
    And so that's why I don't think it can. I think it has a big negative that Jurassic Park... Yeah, Jurassic Park's call-outs suck. The call-outs suck. But it doesn't grate on you to the same degree that Iwanka does, with its constant jingly, jangly I mean, I really I can't remember the last sound package I disliked this much.
    68:46
    That's hard. Especially if I'm just thinking sounds and not call-outs. Because, yeah, Jurassic Park, bad call-outs. X-Men had bad call-outs. But I didn't hate the sound package of X-Men. Just the call-outs. Sort of thing like that. But I think Wonka takes number two in the twippies. If we're going to kind of tie it in that way. I mean, I just I think so I think it makes the most sense for it to take a number 2 I don't necessarily know that I would make it my number 2 but I think realistically it probably does so let's see so let's hit on some of the other manufacturers Multimorphic, the P3 platform they did have the refined version I know more changes will be made to the Cosmic Kart Racing at TPF this year. When we played it, the prior go-around, it was only half-coded, and it wasn't a very fun experience, in, I think, either of our view. You actually were very disappointed, as I recall.
    69:52
    But I did not play it this year. I did not play any Multimorphic this year. My understanding, well, to me, there was not a big thing, a big title, a big anything of note with Multimorphic to get me as a non-owner excited. No. This next year is when they're supposed to have that next traditional pinball game revealed. Okay. Yeah. Nick Baldrige has formally announced the Quest for Glory now. He's gone public with that. Yeah. That he's working on. But, of course, we don't know whether or not that will be able to be secured as an actual license that P3 would be able to sell. While Nick's trying, he has reached out to Activision to see if they would be willing to allow him to use the license itself. But otherwise, it would just be a really cool project for him. And obviously, he'll see it through because he always does. His projects are very impressive.
    70:46
    Quest for Glory, like, to me, that sounds like a really great idea that leans into the technology of the P3 system. As a license, the Quest for Glory series of games are very old. I don't know. It wouldn't be the license I would start with, but that would be a third-party developed thing through Nick anyway. I still think Multimorphic needs to do a licensed pen. I think that's what they need to do. That's like the solution that they haven't tried. I mean, and if it doesn't, then I don't, I mean. They're a great technology demonstrator. Yeah, but how long do you try? Here's the thing. I don't know. Let's say that, and it's my belief that they're fine. financially they're fine because they've got American Pinball and Spooky using their boards. So they're not just selling to the homebrew community. They actually are supplying manufacturers. Right. Small manufacturers, but nonetheless manufacturers. Still, it's going to be enough to let them run this on the side. And if they get the right thing that makes the P3 take off, it could be huge. The technology is amazing. Yes. And I think there's a lot of hope for it. They just need that thing, that in, the thing that makes people care about it. Right. And I actually got to see quite a bit more of P3 this year because Slap Save Pinball Podcast, Jason Fowler is one of the hosts there. He had one, and he streamed it a number of times on their, they started doing a Twitch stream during the year where they were usually streaming weekly. And for quite a while, it was P3. And I got to see a number of the P3 elements. And he found the system. He kept saying he found the system quite a bit of fun. And it looked entertaining. But, again, it was like it didn't make me want to buy one. And even when you have to choose lineup space, I know Jason ended up selling his. Yeah. And, I mean, things sell. We buy things and we like them and we sell them. He said it's a good system. But, still, it didn't survive over a number of other things that he already owned. So, and I think I would be the same way. I would be like, if I had one, would I, when I need, I was like, I need more space. Ninja Turtles looks fun. Is P3 what I sacrifice? And how hard is it for me to sell it? That's the other thing. Right. And I think it would be harder to, I think it would be pretty hard to sell. I think it would too. Especially because you wouldn't want to take a big loss on it. And it's, I mean, it's a $10,000 thing. Yeah. And that's becoming more and more competitive as prices creep up more and more. But there's still a really big window between a number of games from, I mean, we're still talking like a $4,000 difference between Stern Pros and Spooky Pinball or $3,000 differences when we're talking like American Pinball. And it's like, that's a lot. That is like a System 11 and early numeric game sort of pricing. And that's what runs through my head. and if I bought those, like I bought that and like three pens versus P3 and I can let three people play at once versus standing in line. You see, that's where all that, I just, I'm not sure how it ever takes off. As cool as, and it still is the most impressive tech in pinball, I just, I really struggle seeing where the path is to make people care. Right, and I don't think the, like Highway tried either, the whole hot swap change thing, that's never going to take off. It's a beautiful idea.
    74:23
    Right. I get the attractiveness from the hot swap. And their system is much faster. It is much faster and it is much better. Yes. I still don't see how it actually takes off. Because you can't play all the, you can't, because there's a, the struggle is there's still a big difference between hot swapping between 10 games and having 10 games in a row that can be played by anyone at any time. I mean, how many times have we walked downstairs into your game room, fired every single machine up, and then just walked down the aisle with four of us playing every single game in your game room just as a continuous round robin? Right. Yeah. It happens. Yeah. Like you do. Yeah. It's convenient. And whereas otherwise it'd be like, okay, well, I need 90 seconds to swap my modules. Right. But we have to finish the other game first. Yeah. I get it for space reasons, though. There's a lot. I mean, there are different people in different situations or, you know, want to dedicate. There are a lot of really good ideas with it. For me, fundamentally, the swapping stuff isn't their big issue. It's that they don't have a single game that's worth that price. Right. And, Charlie, this is year-end review. 2019, sure didn't see the launch of that. So, I'm really hoping for 2020. Because they are, that's why I always have to, I mean, I've been called out for not always bringing up Multimorphic and that I think is a challenge That they face with a lot of people Putting commentary in here is That they often do get forgotten about Because I forget about them all the time It's like if people are remembering American Pinball over you American Pinball is doing something that's working That you're not And I note American Pinball because we're going to transition into them next Which their game Oktoberfest came out this year I don't know how many it sold I've heard less than TNA.
    76:15
    It would not surprise me. My sources say in the neighborhood of 300 units. I've actually played a lot of Oktoberfest. Okay. I've only played it once or twice. I played a fairly large amount at Logan Arcade when I was in Chicago. It was one of the games that I played a lot because I hadn't played it a whole lot before that.
    76:41
    And it's forgettable. Houdini's better. I've heard that from quite a few people. I find Houdini more enjoyable from both an art package and a play. I mean, and Houdini's a hard game with tight, annoyingly tight shots.
    77:02
    I still think Houdini was a better game. And I think Oktoberfest is not surprising me at all that it sold that lightly. So Also like we said before Now the rumor mill is right now Been going around I have not commentated on it before Because I didn't know how substantiated The rumors are though Twip has felt willing enough to list it In the rumored titles That American Pinball Maybe their next game, maybe not their next game But that they got the license for Hot Wheels For those that don't know Tony just dramatically rolled his eyes dramatically. Yeah, that's... I don't see how that I don't think it sells. I'll chalk it up to you without going into a big long explanation. Car-themed pinball games do not sell anymore. You can point to Getaway and High Speed as much as you want. All the other car-themed games have not sold well. Corvette, not popular. Mustang, not popular. And that's a good game, by the way. It's a really fun game, but it is not popular. It did not sell well for Stern. Full throttle, not popular.
    78:14
    Okay, do everyone know Hot Wheels? Yes, but we all have cars now. We don't play with our Hot Wheels anymore. I mean, I had Hot Wheels. I would be more excited about micro machines than I would Hot Wheels. I wouldn't even be that excited about them. I mean, it feels like something that American Pinball would do, because Balser could do some sort of crazy, like, orange ramp that would, you know, loop or something. But, again, it's just – Oktoberfest had the cool-looking ramps, and where are your 1,000 sales on that?
    78:47
    That it's a license and that – I think where they go, oh, yeah, like 70 million Hot Wheels cars are owned by people, and they think that that means it's going to translate. And it's like, to me, it doesn't work. I just don't think it will work. I don't think that the – I don't think the nostalgia for Hot Wheels is sufficient to really move pinball machines. That's my guess. I think you're right.
    79:09
    It just doesn't make sense. I just, I mean. Is there nostalgia for Hot Wheels? I mean, I get that people still go and you can get a, like, go and spend a dollar at Walmart and get your kid a Hot Wheels toy. And I'm sure people do that, but I don't. Yeah, is there, like, we don't, we don't remember those compelling storylines from Hot Wheels like we do Transformers or He-Man. Things like. I'd be more interested in Tonka trucks. Well, I just, I think the issue is, like, it's a brand. It's like, would people realize? Garbage Pail Kids would be similar. It's like it was a trading card game. There was a show, I think, but it probably would do better than Hot Wheels. But see, that's the thing. Hot Wheels, you know what would do better than Hot Wheels? My Little Pony. It would because there's a story. Yeah. There's a story in their character. See, that's the thing. When we're talking about licensed stuff, people want what they remember or are being entertained by the story. and the character is not... Yes, as a kid, I remember playing with Hot Wheels. I also would blindfold myself and throw steel pennies and find them with a magnet. You know what? Let's just keep going. Okay.
    80:19
    I say, a lot of things amused me as a child. We'll go ahead and... We're just going to let that one slide. Come on. We're just going to keep right on walking past that one. I had a slinky in her street. I was allowed toys. I didn't just have to play with coins and magnets. I picked up rocks and I sorted them by size and shape.
    80:45
    And then once the whole garden was sorted for rocks by size and shape, I would scatter them across the yard and then do it again.
    80:59
    Okay. Anyway, spooky. Spooky. All right. Well, we talked about Rick and Morty. and obviously how they sold that and put on a clinic on exploiting fear of missing out because, oh, they leaned in hard on that. See, Stern has leaned in on hype. Like, Munsters was a good example of leaning in and getting a bunch of sales on hype. Yeah. But there's not a fear of missing out, aside from the LEs, with Stern. Right. So that, other than that, other than this recent stuff, and we already talked about Rick and Morty, the big news was actually old news. I thought Alice Cooper, because I didn't play it until this TPF had come out this year, it actually started production back last summer. So, in 2018. So, they've really just been building Alice Cooper Nightmare Castles, which I have very little time on Alice Cooper. All I did was brick. I still had fun with it. It was fun. But it was not a game I was compelled to own. But I like the look. I like a lot of what Spooky does with their games. I do. I think they target, as we said earlier, they target very niche things that fall within certain interest areas. And I think that could hurt them if they weren't a boutique. As a boutique, I think it works perfectly for them. So, let's lean a little bit into their boutiquiness here for a moment. Spooky, Rick and Morty, 750 units. Charlie Emery, the owner, has indicated that they're not expanding their production capabilities. They produce about 10 games a week. This will be an 18-month run.
    82:35
    Should Spooky expand? Should Spooky stay the same? And if so, is 750 units the right amount to do? Is that too many for them to be doing?
    82:48
    Can they go bigger? Can they make more and just take longer? What do you think on this? I think the lack of expansion and aiming for just the longer run, more likely than not, has to do with getting the licensing and design of the follow-up game. It gives them more time to find something that falls within what their fans want, that will sell well and to get it designed and hopefully,
    83:24
    this is just my own personal opinion of this guy, Hope, give them time to tighten up on their manufacturing issues.
    83:32
    Yeah, and that has been discussed quite a bit. Actually, I saw in the Rick and Morty thread while I was reading it, a number of arguments, which, again, we talked about JJP fanboys earlier. There are spooky fanboys as well. And one of the things was the whole manufacturing quality argument. Because there are people that are very defensive of that and say no. And they claim they've not had problems with spooky. And I believe that they have. That that's true. Our experiences have been different in terms of we had a robbed zombie on location. It was a disaster. Mechanically, it was a disaster. The game was down all the time. Oh, yeah. It was terrible. And in fact, I believe my understanding is part of the reason why TNA left 403 Club is it was starting to have a number of issues. It had to be worked on a lot. That's what I heard. Not to the same degree of Rob Zombie, where the game had to be turned off. But there were issues with the ball lock, the sensor. And it wasn't always possible to figure out why it was having a problem. It was part of the frustration. Mine, well, I don't have any major issues. My out-of-the-box stuff I had to do was more severe on my TNA than it was with my sterns. So, like, I have a scratch in the clear out of the box. It's like, why is there a gash in the clear coat of my game that's new in box? But it's there.
    85:01
    You know, there was gunk or something. I thought one of the decals was scratched. It had been rubbed up against something. and there's gunk all down the side of it cleaned up, sure, tweaks and stuff are to be expected. But I had to tweak it more than I had to tweak my Stern game that I bought new in the box. Yeah, it's one game. It's what happens. But, of course, there was a lot of fallout with a lot of people who got TNAs before me with clear code issues. Right. With the ink coming up as well. Now, we've since then seen Stern and JJP have similar problems. Right. So we know that it wasn't isolated to one manufacturer. But clearly, there are people that run into frustrations with spooky games that don't, they indicate they either don't get it resolved to the degree that they do when they have an issue with JJP or Sir. So there is that. That discussion moves on. Back to my query on that, about Rick and Morty and all that. My thought is, given that they sold so fast, all Summoner and 50, clearly that was a perfectly fine number to do. They didn't have to sit. Like, Alice Cooper's, they didn't, you know, I don't know how quickly they wanted them all to move. My guess was they were probably a little concerned because they did not fly like Rob Zombie flew or how Rick and Morty flew. Well, Alice Cooper is way more niche. Yes, I agree. No, there are reasons. There are definite reasons. and I've heard some people think that the reason why Rick and Morty flew was Scott Denise there are some sales that I'm sure were driven by it being Scott Denise but it's the theme of that game. Yes. Very much. Because we haven't seen it shoot yet so I mean we can say also in Lyman we trust and all these little catchphrases that people have but people like to see how a game actually plays because even some of the greatest designers have stinkers in their catalog. Right. So So, you know, my thought is if I were them, I'd expand.
    87:05
    Because being the company that you have to wait 18 months to get a game you pre-ordered, it's not a great work. But I don't think that the people buying the games and the people who are going after their games being as it is a boutique, I don't think those people care as much about that. I think they don't think they do when they order. But I think when we, if we have a good, and one could probably, because a lot of it will happen on Pennside, get a decent accounting. I think you'll see a lot of line flip spots where people are just going to give up. It's possible. Because Stern, JJP, American, Deep Root, they're going to keep putting games out while everyone is here still sitting in the queue for Rick and Morty. and how easy is it to stay excited for the old thing that's not shiny anymore, that you still haven't gotten, versus all the new stuff? Just given how many people get initially, because a lot of these sales were via initial hype, or people knew they had to act now because otherwise they wouldn't be able to get it new.
    88:14
    It's a really long wait to say that this takes, I mean, if you're on the back end is what I'm thinking. I'm going to have to wait like 14 months to get my game that I've already had to pay $1,000 to. I mean, Spooky got $750,000 in interest-free loans. Great deal for them. Just pre-orders.
    88:36
    You know how I feel about pre-orders. No, no, and I've commented on that before. It's my own personal opinion. It's not about, in this case, it's not about the concern of losing the money, But it's just like the terms aren't advantageous in any way to the consumer. I would never preorder a pinball machine now. And so, I mean, given all that, what they're doing is working for them. It's just I think if they want to – if they don't have a license like Rick and Morty, $750 is too many. Yes. So they either should go back down to like the 500-unit count, unless they know they got something that they'll just be able to get these interest-free loans on because it's such a hot title.
    89:18
    If it was Toho Godzilla, I don't think you'd do 750. No. No way. So given that, then it makes sense to keep the size they are. Otherwise, if they're planning to try and do Rick and Morty's moving forward, I think you need to consider expanding your line capabilities.
    89:36
    And the other thing I would like to see out of Spooky is code development. seems really... Stern gives a lot of criticism, rightly so in my view, about incomplete code on all these games coming out. Spooky code development seems very, very sluggish. Like, they've had this whole window of time and Perky's not willing to want to talk too much about the modes right now because they're still under so much development. It's like, okay, but what's been going on since... I mean, all y'all did this year was build Alice Coopers, So why? I hear the Alice Cooper code is still missing stuff, too, is the thing. Really? Yes.
    90:19
    So given that, I would, I guess, you know, from a consumer standpoint, it would be nice to see some of that stuff get tightened up in 2020. I mean, that's something they just need more coders. That's what I'm wondering. If it's like, if this was an issue, if there's always this one code, like Kripke is the one code. He's not the one rules guy. I mean, I get where there could be a challenge. If Karens is working on rules for Alice Cooper and trying to do the rules for Rick and Morty, there's an issue there in terms of stretching people thin. I don't know if it's the best idea to say, well, we know we're only, you know, we're wrapping up. We haven't shipped any Ricks yet. Okay, I get that. But at what point, what about the early people? Are they going to want to keep their game?
    91:01
    And the reason why I think Spooky should care about that is I mean they got their initial sales So in a way you could say everything is fine But you don want the Rob Zombie situation where if people are frustrated by the depth and breadth of what Rick and Morty has to offer who are first in the list, they start listing them used.
    91:18
    Does that cause any problems? Spooky's probably could say no because we have non-refundable deposits on all of these games. So if someone backs out, like doesn't sell their spot and backs out, we get to keep a $3,000. and we'll just sell the spot to someone who's still excited for Rick and Morty. That can work for Rick and Morty, but will people hold a grudge on the next game? You know what? I would like to say yes, but I think the reality is no. I think it depends. I think the reason why Alice Cooper, Nightmare Castle, which in any measurement other than maybe, I'd say, arguably Cab and Translight Art is a better game than Rob Zombie in all other ways. but I think that's part of okay yeah they upped the account by 200 but I think part of the reason why it did not immediately sell out was people saw what happened with Rob Zombie and they were like let's be a little right so if you have the right theme like Rick and Morty that's going to override right the right theme will override everything always because the right theme will bring people who don't know anything about pinball yeah at least some so that's the thing I think it would be smart for Spooky to try and do more Rick and Morty styles, but I just... If they want to stay the size they are, that might be the best... It might be best not to do a bunch of those unless you just need that sort of development time. But if you get known to being the company that builds you a game that's build quality isn't any better than JJP, but I have to wait four times as long, I don't think that's the rep they're going for. No. So, anyway, some thoughts there. Deep Root.
    93:05
    So we saw the prototype of Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, commonly just called Raza, at the Houston show.
    93:17
    They've released the day's schedule before TPF about what all is going to happen for that media event at their facility. So that's all moving forward. So 2019, obviously, I would describe it as a disappointment for Deep Root because even though they knew at the end of 2018 and announced it, the original plan was these games were going to be in people's homes by now. They were going to be in homes in 2019. And everything basically got solved by a year. Which is what most people who were not Deep Root saw coming. Yeah, I could see that. I think, in some ways, I felt that, at least if they were only focusing on one game, that they could have made their timeline. And now it's sounding like the new timeline, while it could be more than one game, it's sounding like, I mean, they're clearly only committing to Raza. I mentioned this on a stream that I did, but I'll mention it here. I've probably said it before. I think Deep Root would have been, setting aside what they initially said and everything, it would have been so much better for them if they had been able to actually release this year than next. Yes. Next year's a mess. This year, their only real competition was Jurassic Park and Willy Wonka. Everything else was arguably a weak title to go up against. 2020 is Stranger Things. Rick and Morty's are going to be coming out. American Pinball surely will have a new game announced by then.
    94:53
    It's like, I just, and the rumor mill is, Stern's licensed rumor mill sounds a lot stronger to me for 2020. The talk is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The talk is James Bond. These are better than Munsters and Black Knight. Yeah. And so, I just, I mean, they have to be tied to their schedule. They have to do what they're capable of doing. But they would have been in a lot. Launching a system or whatever with innovation around non-licensed original IP concepts would have been better this year where there was a number of that. Like Oktoberfest.
    95:34
    Okay. I think if they launched this year. Non-licensed. Black Knight. Licensed. Pinball only. Elvira. A brand that really only resonates mostly with pinball people. this was the year. This year would have been perfect. And now next year you're going to be throwing your unlicensed, or I shouldn't say unlicensed because they're not saying they're unlicensed, but their original IPs up against a series of behemoths. And there's going to be so much choice next year. It's just a bad year. I think it's a bad year for them. I don't think they're going to make as big of a splash.
    96:10
    The only thing will be is that the tech, something about the tech that we still haven't seen, because they noted almost none of the tech is in the prototypes. Right. And we keep hearing that the tech has all this amazing and it's game changers, and we've heard it from other people who've seen some of the prototypes, that there's really awesome stuff, but until we actually see any of it, you can say whatever you want. Yeah. And the truth of the matter is, just because you think something's really cool, is it going to actually be cool enough to move a machine?
    96:41
    Yeah. good point oh you've got a cool thing with your play field, too bad your theme's all stuff, yeah is the cool stuff stuff that the average player will notice or is it all like oh well here are all these really cool, you know we've seen the patents on cool ways to be able to take the play field out and work on the game like no dimpling new approach to how they're doing the art or the clear coat or whatever, however they're doing the play field but the location player doesn't care about any of that that's stuff for homeowners. That's what I call under-the-hood stuff. Right.
    97:17
    I don't know if under-the-hood is going to be enough. I don't think it would be. I know they got at least one licensed game planned.
    97:27
    Probably would have been best to open with that. We saw it with Dialed In. The issue of that, as Roger Sharp has often described it, Dialed In isn't unlicensed. It's a Pat Lawler license. Okay, well, that's not a strong enough license then. No. And I don't think J-Pop is a strong enough license either. No. Not for what Deep Root must want. Because Deep Root isn't positioned to be a boutique. They've got so many employees. They've got so many designers. I mean, they have the stable of people that compete with Scurv. That's what they've got. They have everything they need to take that position as the number two pinball manufacturer. Yeah, and I could see that if they got the games. And that's the pinball. It's a close group. Because they sound like they're leaning into original IP development. And that used to be how pinball was. And there's a reason why Data East climbed up the ladder rapidly, blew past Premiere in 1990, and became the number two. And yeah, Williams had their network and was 75% of the market, but Williams, that was back when there were arcades, and the arcade operators just needed things that took quarters. It didn't have to be licensed. Right. And through the strength of license, because it sure wasn't on the strength of mechanical quality, Data East really climbed up that ladder. And that's the model now, more so because it's homeowners. Right. Like, you and your desires about, you've really focused on Stranger Things about looking at the art. Because as a fan of the show, if you were to own the game, you want it to evoke something when you look at it. And it doesn't. In the 90s, no one cared. Right. It was different. It's just like, oh, yeah, the Stranger Things. Now I'll put a quarter in it. Now it's like, no, it's in your home. The people about Star Wars. Comic art. Proud of that. I'm proud to show that. I don't want this Photoshop-y looking Star Wars. That's the thing. I don't think.
    99:34
    I mean, there are original themes that I would like to own, and it has nothing to do with the themes and everything to do with the gameplay, and they're all old.
    99:44
    Yes. Now, that's one nice thing is, and granted, still prototype, while there was a lot of criticism about at least the right ramp shot on Raza, by and large most of the geometry people seem to find tolerable to good. So it sounds like they have something that's fun to shoot. So at least it's not a turd. That'll help. I mean, because look at Home Pin and what happened with Launching Thunderbirds. Regardless of what people think of the guy behind Home Pin had the game played good people would be more willing to give it another chance. So now they don't because almost everyone hates that game. It's like dead last on the pin side ranking list. It's a solid state game. Last company I had to note was just Dutch Pinball. Obviously, probably not really worth saying, except apparently they have so far, at least with the leftover parts from Aura, been building and shipping games. They average one to two games a week when they build.
    100:48
    And I read online someone saying when they contacted CoinTaker about getting on the list at $12,500 that it might be like six weeks to get a game. So it sounds like that list ain't deep. Yeah. Given that output level. So I think this company never makes another game again. They're clearly going further than I thought, but it's going to get harder. The fewer and fewer leftover parts they have and the more stuff they have to source, because assuming they keep the price at $12,500, the more you put out, the less demand there is. but also the profit margin is falling as they have to now source new suppliers for things that they had in the warehouse. And they have to source it in small batches. And, yeah, because the question is how long do they go along with just Barry building stuff with a couple friends versus before they start hiring some workers? I still don't think everybody gets made whole. No, I don't either. I don't because I think the profits are going to fall too much, and at some point Barry might be able to dig himself out of any financial hole he did to buy out and get out of the RMS. I think that's what this is. I think that's the best that's going to happen. I don't think anybody's going to get made whole unless they buy their own. Well, that does not count because they still bought two games. Right. But that's the only way they're going to get their games is they're going to buy one and then wait to hope to get their money back on another one that never happens.
    102:08
    Well, we'll just have to see. So, video games. So year-end review. Tony has, in our internal notes, done a major look back. So, Tony, I did not do this major look back.
    102:23
    Well, you were too busy putting together what was a completely unexpectedly huge pinball segment. Yeah, it was a surprise. For the end of the year. I, on the other hand, sat down and between being sick a few weeks ago and everything else, I've done a major look back at my personal gaming habits for 2019.
    102:48
    And in all honesty, I'm a bad gamer. I mean, I've never been a great gamer, but this year was pretty bad. And I'm going to check it out right off the top that I think the reason is because of where my priorities in life were this year. Because we started the year missing half of our staff at work. You remember, I was on call three weeks at a time. Then I'd have one, maybe two weeks off. Then I'd be on call for another three weeks. for the first six months of the year. Yeah. So all I did was work for the first six months of the year. And then I got promoted and took the superintendent's position, and I've been concentrating on learning that and learning all the requirements there. And I basically, this year, I think more than any year in my life, have been centered around work, where work was actually the primary motivator of everything this year.
    103:59
    But we'll take a look at what that actually did to my game. So I played a lot of games. I did play a lot of games. I didn't finish many, if any, games this entire year. And I've never been a finisher. I know you are a hardcore game finisher. and then you will play one or two games and when they're finished you will go and play. That's when you'll start playing something else. And I've never been that type of gamer. I play the games that grab my interest for whatever reason or I will sit down and be like, I just feel like playing blank and I will play whatever that game is. And if I finish the game cool and if I don't finish the game, okay. That's just when I stop having the interest draw of wanting to play that game I go play something else. And I'll come back to it later. It's a smart way. I've thought about that I should be doing that more often. Some people, they get the heartburn if they don't complete something. Or if they don't know the whole story. And I rarely find, I very rarely found games where I've cared that much about the game.
    105:14
    That's a good point. Some of them exist. I've played some of them. but a lot of those ones were fast, were pretty fast games, or they were catchable for some other reason, like a game I've not talked about in years, but I still think about all the time, Firewatch. That was a huge game, but it was fast, it was short, but that was a game that I played through to completion quickly.
    105:41
    So, let's take a look at the actual numbers this year. without a doubt, the game that I've put the most time into this year is most likely Battletech. It could be Rule the Waves 2, but that's only been out for a few months, where Battletech came out in April of 2018, and Battletech had multiple DLCs drop, two this year and one right at the end of last year. So I played a lot of Battletech this year. I've played a lot of Rule of the Waves And I've played a lot of Overwatch Though I have not actually played Overwatch Since the Halloween Thing I've downloaded the patches And I might have played a little bit But I've not really played No Winter I didn't play any of Winter at all Battletech did become my most played game on Steam It's at 305 hours I started the year under 200 I think I was at like 180 At the start of the year I'm up to 305 hours as of yesterday. Torchlight 2, I played this year. That's up to 269 hours. That's my second most played game on Steam. And my third most played game on Steam is Civilization V at 220 hours. And I've not played Civ V in years. Not since Civ VI came out.
    107:07
    I don't know how much time I actually have on Rule of the Waves 2, but the time I do have on it wouldn't count because so much of it's idle time because it, like BattleTech is very turn based and part of the reason I think I play both of those games so much is because they give me the flexibility that I will play them while I'm watching something on Netflix or YouTube or Disney Plus or whatever I'm doing or while I'm reading I'll have it up and I'll read and I'll play like a single turn and then I'll go do something else or I'll go do stuff with the kids. Like a lot of times when I'm helping my daughters with homework, I'll have it up because it's something I can do without it being loud enough to interfere with their homework and without causing me to have issues turning away. It's not like I'm going to be in the middle of a high-tense scene and I got someone to hit the pause button to go take care of something. It doesn't matter because it's turn-based.
    108:03
    So I have played games on the Epic Store. my total gameplay time on all the games that I own on the Epic Store is 42 hours and that's all from this year obviously and almost all of that, 38 of those hours are satisfactory and those 38 hours of satisfactory are basically three weekends total that's what I play on a weekend it's like I want to play a resource management game so I sat down and played that game.
    108:38
    I've played games like that on Steam, like Tactorio. It's a very similar game, except for it's top-down instead of first-person.
    108:44
    And I've played some other resource management games, like the big one other than Satisfactory this year is going to have been the Transport Fever games.
    108:57
    The Transport Fever games are a pair of, because there's Transport Fever, and Transport Fever 2 just came out, But they are basically like Railroad Tycoon, but more so because you deal with not just building rail lines like you would in Railroad Tycoon. You build, you know, tram lines, city buses, long haul trucking, airplanes, ports, boats, ships, the whole nine yards. So it's entirely based upon logistics and resource management. And every once in a while, I get a hankering to play a game like that. and I'll sit down and play one for a weekend. And that's how I play most of my games is, like, on Friday night, I'll get home from work, and I'll sit down, and I'll have a glass of whiskey or something, and I'll be like, I feel like playing this. And then I sit down, and I'll play that game for basically the whole weekend. And I might not touch that game for six months or more. And it's part of the reason that storyline-based games aren't games that I play a lot of, especially games like I played a fair amount of on my PS4 that I got last year. I've played God of War. I've played Jedi Fallen Order. I've played Red Dead.
    110:16
    Some others, but none of them have I come anywhere near completing. and everything other than Jedi Fallen Order, I'd probably have to sit down and look the controls back up because it's been so long since I actually played them because I'll get in the mood to play it, and I'll play it for a weekend or two, and then it's just something else catches my attention. That's part of the reason I tend to try and stick on the same game, I think, is I'm worried about forgetting the control scheme. Yeah. Or the story, or where you're going, or what you're doing. Where I'm going. Story, I can be okay if I don't really remember the story very well. I noticed when I was playing and I finished Metro Exodus, it's like, okay, well. And not necessarily always. I went through that relatively quick, but I didn't really remember how the game started because I did take a while from, like, I picked it back up, but I'd already done the first couple chapters. That's kind of like, whatever. I played a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn in, like, January and February and March. I tried to pick it up in October I was like I kind of want to play that game I could not remember half the controls and I had to sit down and re-figure everything out and try to figure out where I was going and what was going on and I ended up going and playing something else so that's a me issue that's part of my not being a great gamer this year and the other games that I've put a lot of time into this year are Outer Worlds. I think that's the game I've come closest to completing. It sounds like you've really been focusing on it. Yeah, and even then, I haven't played it in a month.
    111:58
    I haven't played it in December at all. I haven't played it since November. But I'm close. It's fun. I enjoy it. I started the new Battletech DLC came out just before Thanksgiving. and I played through an entire career mode of that and then I started a new story mode of that and then I had a hankering for ships. I started playing some more World of Waves 2 and then, yeah, I've just kind of floated. So, I've been a bad gamer this year. I mean, I'm never a great gamer. I play lots of games I never finish, But even for that, because most of the games I played this year were things that were specifically designed just to burn some time before I walk away. So, I don't know. Maybe it's time to start hunting a new hobby. I don't know. I mean, I've picked up a couple little things that I'm starting to do some work on, and I've started to research. I was looking at the Kill Team, and I picked up some models to paint. I've got some stuff so I can go back to working on painting some of my tabletop models. I've got several new board games on the way.
    113:21
    One that my wife kickstarted that we played over Christmas was a lot of fun. I've got another one coming from the Cyanide Happiness guys, coming in March. It might be before that. But I'm figuring March at the outside They're hoping to start shipping middle of January But that stuff can get pushed But We'll just have to see going forward How things are You might not be a gamer anymore Maybe I'm just an old man Maybe But the challenge with a lot of the other things Is you'll still I guess the obstacles still remain I don't know how easy it is to walk away While you're painting models and come back to it and back and forth. That's easy, because I've done that before. So that's the sort of stuff. Only certain games obviously accommodate that, and you doing more turn-based stuff is why. Right, because I can just literally get up, and that's why you get calm. Right, cleanly aligned. I mean, I think it just, for me, it always ebbs and flows. This was not a, I didn't game all that much. I mean, I guess I played a lot. I play games all the time, but it was a lot of stuff like, okay, well, that's where things like Overwatch and doing the mystery heroes for the weekly crates and stuff, it's like, okay, I can do that, pick it up, put it down in little bursts, essentially, and, you know, do that usually over a two-day period of time. And I'm not – I remember the controls. I don't have to think a lot with it.
    114:52
    And because, obviously, with me it was – you know, there was a whole mess. I didn't really do a lot of gaming after the burglary for about a month until the window was dealt with. Right. And that was also, that happened after I had accepted the new job. And then with the new job and the financial challenges that the organization was going through, that was just consuming. I mean, I was, I think, putting 60 hours a week in for a while there, and I was burning out very quickly because I was like, I didn't expect it to be this much work. Right. And because that's not, that wasn't the bill of goods I was sold. now that things are stabilized even though I have to do a lot more than I used to because I had to make some changes organizationally now that so much flows through me and I have unilateral control it's gotten easier because now everything happens under my efficiency model and so I don't have to it's not the same and I'm not having to hunt for money now 2020 is good 2021 is not but even if I couldn't solve anything for 2021 will be able to survive 2021 just based off of what happens in 2020. So now I'm not having that and I started to game more towards the last quarter of the year because things have gotten easier. Right. So that's where I was like, oh, okay, let me go ahead and finish Red Dead Redemption 2. And I did. Let me go ahead and finish Metro. And I did. Whereas before that, like this year, I don't think I was finishing anything after January. Yeah. And it was sort of like, no, I didn't feel like it. So I just watched more movies instead. And this trickled on a bunch of things. Like I wrote a lot less pinball articles because I just didn't feel up to it. Like I looked last year. I started a dozen articles, and I published, I think, nine. This year I did two, working on my third now. But it's like there's a reason why that happened. And I work from home a lot more, so you think, oh, yeah, finding time to sit and write should be easy. Well, finding time, not so much. Being able to, sure, but I wasn't in the mood. Right.
    117:07
    So that was that. I mean, I kept about the same playing pinball pace that I did from last year, though I think for both of us, we played a lot better this year than I think we have before. I'm ranked higher than I have been in a long time. I'm not but I think part of that is has to do with the fact that just like I dropped off pinball bat because of the work stuff yeah you couldn't make any of them especially in the spring in the first half of the year I went to like three maybe four tournaments yeah you missed a few like the four or three ones in a row. Yeah, I missed basically, I went to like one tournament a month between January and March, and then I didn't go to another tournament until June, I think. Yeah, that sounds about right. I think that I went to Penapalooza. Right. But that's like Missouri points. Right. And that's a big once a year special thing, and that was right at the end of May, but I ran into a lot of people there who they hadn't seen me since like February because I didn't go to any tournaments in March because we went to Texas. Yeah. So for March, April, May, I didn't go to any tournaments. And I got a lot better about that afterwards. words, but especially after the change in my position at work, because not being on call like I used to be, I was able to attend tournaments more regularly. I think after, I only missed a couple after that, and they were almost all, well, I missed more than a couple, but the ones I missed were all due to, you know, family stuff. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't like before when it's like, oh, I've been working for 12 hours, so I don't feel like going to play pinball because I've been at work since 2 a.m. So, yeah. So, all that obviously will affect your video gaming desires as well. Right. So, I think the main thing is that these were very, for both of us, in terms of sheer coincidence, they were very transitionary years for us, occupationally in particular. but we're ending the years better off than we started the years. So I bet your gaming picks up in 2020. I only attended 15 Kansas tournaments this year. You attended 20.
    119:48
    And I know you didn't attend all of them. No, no, no. If I intended my regular ones, you would assume I would do 24 a year. Right. Because I try and make two a month. Right. I only did 15 this year. So.
    120:02
    with no wins, but some of my best finishes ever. Yeah, that's the thing. You had your best 403 finish ever this year, which was your highest finish, I think, ever at third. Right.
    120:14
    So there was that. You had a couple other well-ranked ones as well. Yeah. Well, we've gone over two hours now. Yeah, no, there's just steps to turn enormous. That's in your interview. So anyway. You pinball people putting out brand new machines at the end of the year. Don't you know we have other stuff planned? We do. We may have trivia talk on the next episode, depending if the official ballot's out. I think it will be. So, anyway, you can always email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or reach us on the website at eclecticgamers.com or on social media. We're at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. Though, once again, the Instagram, we don't get to see nothing until Texas. Texas, I do have my tickets. Oh, okay. I was going to say, it's about to go up. I was going to say. So, buy before the year change. Yep, I got mine. I have mine. And as you know, I booked the hotel months ago. Right. And I think my brother-in-law, Eric, is planning to go as well. So, we'll have a carload.
    121:19
    Yep, we'll have our carload. All right. Well, we'll talk again about stuff like that. They'll probably not text us specifically in two weeks. Yeah. Until then, I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. Peace.