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BDYETP 70: Queen re-revealed, Drained first impressions, Stern tried to kill Nick, non-manufacturer updates, Rush reviewed

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 33m·held·Aug 16, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Pinball news roundup: Wayne Neyens obit, Queen reveal, Multimorphic pricing, Drained preview, Stern Home Team.

Summary

Nick Lane and Kevin Manning discuss pinball industry news including Wayne Neyens' death at 104, Pinball Brothers' Queen machine re-reveal, Multimorphic's price increases and Rio updates, Nicholas Baldridge P3 game Drained (which Kevin playtested), Stern's Home Team feature for Insider Connected, and various machine reviews. The hosts debate build quality issues with Pinball Brothers games and praise Stern's connected features while noting ecosystem fragmentation.

Key Claims

  • Wayne Neyens designed nearly 160 production pinball machines during his career at Gottlieb from 1939-1976

    high confidence · Nick Lane, citing pinballnews.com write-up on Wayne Neyens' death

  • Pinball Brothers' Queen game will have two versions: Champions Edition at $9,295 and Rhapsody Limited Edition at $10,995, limited to 1,000 units

    high confidence · Kevin Manning, official announcement details

  • Multimorphic is increasing prices starting September 1st: Weird Al $3,500, Heist $3,250, Cosmic Cart $3,000, Lexi Light Speed $3,000, Cannon Lagoon $1,800; P3 base price stays at $8,300

    high confidence · Kevin Manning, official Multimorphic announcement

  • Drained is Nicholas Baldridge first physical module for the P3, featuring retro EM-style gameplay with vampires instead of reactors

    high confidence · Kevin Manning, playtester for the game, referencing Pinside thread and social media reveals

  • Stern updated approximately 18 games with the new Home Team feature that allows up to 8 local profiles without QR code scanning

    medium confidence · Nick Lane, describing feature rollout timing coinciding with Godzilla delivery

  • Pinball Brothers' Alien machine has documented reliability issues with frequent breakdowns

    medium confidence · Kevin Manning, reporting secondhand experience from machine owner James

  • Queen was originally designed as a wide-body game at Highway and scaled down to standard body for Pinball Brothers production

    medium confidence · Kevin Manning, speculation based on design inconsistencies and knowledge of development history

  • Drained features a gobble hole, physical bell under playfield, physical knocker, stand-up targets, drop targets, and kickers with no ramps

    high confidence · Kevin Manning, playtester providing detailed mechanical breakdown

  • Stern ran Rush Insider Connected tournament with top score reaching $18 billion, with footage available for verification

Notable Quotes

  • “160 pinball machines in a career over the span of like 40 years, it's pretty incredible. That's 160 more than Ballarama.”

    Kevin Manning @ Early in segment — Humorous commentary on Wayne Nyans' prolific design career vs. hypothetical competitor

  • “I don't have any confidence in Pinball Brothers to produce a game that I would even be tempted to get. So it seems like a waste of license, unfortunately.”

    Nick Lane @ Queen discussion — Direct critique of manufacturer reliability and build quality concerns

  • “When you're at home and you've got to fumble around for your phone to log in, this eliminates that. You hold down the left flipper and select your profile.”

    Nick Lane @ Stern Home Team discussion — Clear explanation of key Home Team feature and user experience improvement

  • “It gives me like the vibe of playing TNA except with vampires... it's a five ball game, so you can defeat five vampires with single ball.”

    Kevin Manning @ Drained description — Establishes Drained's gameplay comparison and core mechanic

  • “I think Stern's really crushing it now... It's such a thing that's like, yeah, of course, pinball machines should be connected to the Internet.”

    Nick Lane @ Insider Connected praise — Positive assessment of Stern's digital connectivity direction

  • “It would be nice if there was one universal system where all these machines could be on there... like SCOREBIT works on all machines, but Stern keeps locking them out.”

    Kevin Manning @ Ecosystem fragmentation discussion — Identifies platform fragmentation as industry problem affecting older games

  • “I'm really salty about that. But, yeah, kudos to him. He's never beaten all of us combined.”

    Kevin Manning @ Early banter about Ed's tournament win — Establishes competitive dynamics and friendly rivalry between hosts

  • “There's a way to skillfully keep your ball in play... There's good risk-reward in the game. It's very much a simple-to-learn, difficult-to-master kind of game.”

Entities

Wayne NeyenspersonPinball BrotherscompanyQueen PinballgameMultimorphiccompanyNicholas BaldridgepersonDrainedgameStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Wayne Nyans' death at 104 ends an era; prolific Gottlieb designer with 160 machines and multiple industry firsts (Adaball system, first multiplayer EM). Hosts emphasize historical significance and encourage playing his games as tribute.

    high · Extended obituary discussion with specific dates, game counts, and career timeline; described as 'prolific' with 5 decades spanning industry changes

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball Brothers' track record raises red flags: Alien plagued by frequent breakdowns; Queen's design inconsistencies (misaligned inserts and art) suggest slapdash quality control; hosts express hesitation to purchase due to maintenance burden.

    high · Nick: 'I just don't have any confidence in Pinball Brothers to produce a game that I would even be tempted to get.' Kevin: 'everything he tells me is, like, it just breaks all the time.' Specific technical misalignment noted.

  • ?

    machine_intel: Queen allegedly scaled from wide-body to standard-body design at Highway, potentially creating playfield inconsistencies. Kevin speculates this explains insert/art misalignment and may affect ball control.

    medium · Kevin: 'it was originally going to be a wide body game and they scaled it down to a standard body game. So that could be why some of the weird art doesn't line up and stuff like that... taking a wide game and squeezing it into the standard body game. Is that going to make the game shoot weird?'

  • $

    market_signal: Multimorphic raising module prices effective Sept 1 (Weird Al +15-20% range, P3 base stable). Supply chain constraints and demand cited; customers can lock current pricing with deposit.

    high · Kevin: 'not a surprise that's pretty much across the board for everybody... increase of demand as well as the part supply problems force them to announce that the wait time has increased'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.461

0:00
Coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, a pinball machine tries to commit arson. We've got a reveal of a brand new game announcement. We've got a review of Rush. And we're also going to re-review, or at least do, we're going to go back and take a look at Mandalorian Premium. Let's put it like that. All that and more coming right up. Double Super Jets!
0:30
I need a room. I want to party, talk to kids. I need a room. I need a dog and a sheep. I got five in my life.
0:49
That's right. We'll be right back. full time. And the weird thing is, they can't beat me.
1:27
It hasn't happened yet. At least, it's not according to the guy with the microphone. That's cool. And now, the Hall & Oates of Pinball Podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Whoop-boom-shakalaka. It's us. What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of Brody and Talk Pinball. It's episode 70. We've done 70 of these suckers. It's August 15th, 2022. Nick Lane, what's going on? I don't know why you gave him the opportunity to fucking dunk on us again.
2:19
Like I really don't. He knew what he was doing because he's like, I'm going to stop during one of our most popular songs, talk trash on these guys, and then just go back to it. So it's like I'll give him a shout-out, but I'll also, like, twist the knife a little bit while I'm doing it.

high confidence · Nick Lane, tournament participation and observation

  • Kevin Manning placed 20th globally on Rush Insider Connected with 3-4 billion points but was beaten by Ed who scored 5 billion for 17th place

    high confidence · Kevin Manning, personal tournament results and frustration

    • Kevin Manning @ Drained mechanics — Articulates design philosophy and gameplay balance of upcoming title

  • “Everything he showed me is, like, it just breaks all the time... I can't bring myself to pull the trigger on that game because of the build issues.”

    Kevin Manning @ Pinball Brothers reliability discussion — Explicit statement of consumer hesitation due to quality concerns

  • “You have to be a shill for one company and one company only. That's the only thing I've learned in all my years of pinball.”

    Nick Lane @ Hat discussion — Sarcastic commentary on manufacturer tribalism in community

    • Home Team
    product
    Insider Connectedproduct
    Nick Laneperson
    Kevin Manningperson
    [name withheld pending review]person
    For Amusement Onlycompany
    Pedretti Gamingcompany
    Aliengame
    Rushgame
    Godzillagame
    The Mandalorian (Premium/LE)game
    Walking Deadgame
    Pinwoofercompany
    Trongame
    Edperson
    [name withheld pending review]venue
    Community Beer Worksvenue
    Zach Sharpeperson
  • ?

    product_launch: Drained entering public testing phase; QR-coded promotional postcard released; design documentation shared on Pinside; art still under NDA but mechanics/music fair game.

    high · Kevin as official playtester: 'I can show this because he showed this on social media today... He said, everything's fair game except for the art.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Drained combines EM-era mechanics (gobble hole, physical bell, knocker, stand-up/drop targets, single-level playfield, nudge-centric) with modern P3 software; vampire theme replaces reactor destruction; risk-reward system with two-ball mechanic.

    high · Kevin: 'it gives me like the vibe of playing tna except with vampires... no ramps, single-level, old-school play field... simple-to-learn, difficult-to-master kind of game.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern's Home Team feature rolled to ~18 machines; improves UX for home players but highlights ecosystem fragmentation—older games (Walking Dead) lack Insider Connected, creating obsolescence pressure despite gameplay quality.

    high · Nick: 'It makes me want to have all my games to have the Spike system with Insider Connected... Walking Dead... that game's like on the chopping block because... Insider Connected is kind of starting to push out these older games.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern Insider Connected generating player engagement through bi-weekly tournaments; Home Team local profiles eliminate friction; operators reporting increased foot traffic from tournament incentives; demand for Insider Connected kits expanding.

    high · Nick: 'I love it... gets me just seeing how good I can do versus other people.' Kevin: 'I ordered some more Insider Connected kits. So I think Kev will do one on the Mandalorian... owners of Masuda Childs... commented... they saw people coming in, and they can tell that they were there to participate in that high-score tournament.'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Multiple disconnected scoring ecosystems (Stern Insider Connected, SCOREBIT) fragment player base and prevent universal online integration. Kevin advocates for unified standard but acknowledges Stern's technical superiority incentivizes lock-in.

    high · Kevin: 'It would be nice if there was one universal system where all these machines could be on there... like SCOREBIT works on all machines, but Stern keeps locking them out.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball episode 70 (Aug 15, 2022) covers major announcements; hosts leverage media access to playtesting (Drained NDA preview) and tournament participation (Insider Connected); drive sponsor integrations.

    medium · Kevin granted official tester status on Drained; Nick runs local tournaments; both hosts conduct reviews (Rush, Mandalorian); multiple sponsor integrations (Pinwoofer, Flip N Out)

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern Rush Insider Connected tournament: top global score $18 billion (verifiable via video); Kevin placed 20th with 3-4 billion; local tournaments (Godzilla) seeing 10-participant participation, above prior selfie tournament baseline.

    high · Kevin: 'I had like 3 billion, 4 billion... I see he's sitting at 17th with like a billion more than I had. He had 5.' Nick: 'the person who actually came in first... got, like, something ridiculous on Rush, which was, like, $18 billion... His game was filmed.'

  • ?

    announcement: Pinball Brothers officially reveals Queen Pinball after September 2021 London pop-up preview; two tiers (Champions Edition $9,295 / Rhapsody LE $10,995); 1,000-unit LE limit; built by Pedretti Gaming Milan.

    high · Kevin: 'Swedish pinball company pinball brothers have today officially announced the launch of their Queen Pinball machine... Champions Edition will cost US $92.95, while the Rhapsody Limited Edition costs an additional $1,700 for a total of $10,995... limited to 1,000 units'

    • 2:37
    Yeah, I mean, we might as well address the elephant in the room. First of all, you know, kudos to Ed for beating us. But, I mean, he beat us on a game that he, like, this one game that he plays like a million times. All right. Let's just talk about that. And second of all, you know, that's a gift. He got to beat the bro crew. That's the best thing that happened to him all day, so congratulations.
    3:04
    What I'm really more salty about, though, is I was crushing him on the Insider Connected global tournament thing for Rush, which was a good point of pride because they only had the game.
    3:19
    Stern was doing that tournament the day I got the game, and then that motherfucker beat me. I put in a score that was like 20th in the world, And I look up, I was so excited, ready to send it to him, ready to rub it in. And then I see he's sitting at 17th with like a billion more than I had. I had like 3 billion, 4 billion. He had 5. So I'm really salty about that. But, yeah, kudos to him. That's good. Listen, he's never beaten.
    3:48
    All right, I'm going to put it this way. I'm getting riled up early. It all took. And you did it. He's never. He always wins on his games. and when we play one of our games, he loses. That's all I'm going to say. I mean, we have video evidence of us beating him.
    4:05
    He's going to be on stage in front of like 20,000 people, you know? He beat us on his Star Trek, all right, and I beat him on my Walking Dead. So we've got to play a neutral game. That's all. You can come to my house and play Toy Story together. You both will love that. Yeah, I can't believe you put that on there again. All right, let's move on. We've got a show to do. All right, let's get right into the news.
    4:30
    Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. Show hunt, it's on fire. All right, let's kick it off by remembering Wayne Nyans. He was the prolific game designer, mostly with Gottlieb. He just passed away at the ripe old age of 104 years old. This was on July 31st. He was in hospice with his two daughters, Patty and Phyllis, in attendance when he died on Saturday, the July 30th. If you don't know Wayne, pinballnews.com does a great write-up on him here. He says, Wayne's life in pinball spanned five decades and saw enormous changes across the industry in a way that games were designed, built, and sold and played. After a short stint working at Western, Wayne joined Gottlieb in 1939. It was there that he found his true home under the wing of David Gottlieb. He designed nearly 160 production pinball machines while he was there, starting with his first college days and concluding with the spirit of 76, a game Wayne confidently predicted would sell over 10,000 units. He was proof-correct, and the president of the company presented Wayne with the 100,000th machine. This became the only pinball Wayne kept at his home. Eventually, he donated it to the Pacific Pinball Museum. Wayne's first game for which he was the sole diner was college days from August of 1949. So he worked from 1949 to 1976.
    5:50
    Wayne had been working under Game Desire Harry Mavs but when Harry left to join Williams 31 year old Wayne stepped up He remained at Gottlieb throughout the rest of his career Notching up numerous industry firsts Including the Adaball system to facilitate Operating pinball machines in regions Where replays can be rewarded And the first multiplayer Electromechanical game By the time of his final game Spirit of 76 March 1976 Wayne had progressed to Vice President of Engineering And Product Development So, man, 160 pinball machines in a career over the span of like 40 years, it's pretty incredible.
    6:29
    That's 160 more than Ballarama. That's right. We have so many other folks to talk about who will never design a pinball machine. But you got to give credit where credit's due, and Wayne definitely earned it. All those industry firsts, all those great machines. If you see one of his games out there, definitely give it a flip. and raise a glass to Wayne. So thanks, Wayne, for all your great games. Thank you, Wayne.
    6:54
    Let's do a partner thanks before the train fully leaves the station. All right, all right, all right. We can thanks the partners. All right, Nick Lane, thanks the partners. Sure, sure. Give a shout-out to a premier premium sponsor, Pinsvidium, Pinsvidium Lights Lighting Kits, to add onto your pinball machine. They're controlled by an app, iOS, Android. You can use coupon code BUFFALO to save 10%. Highly, highly recommend it, especially on your darker games. You definitely need it. I see that. Deadpool is, everybody owns a Deadpool now. If you have a Deadpool and you don't have Pinch Stadium lights on there, how do you even know what's going on in that game? Grab a set of Pinch Stadiums for them. Pinwoofer.com, one of our newest sponsors. I saw my email today. My kit shipped for Rush. Somebody asked me if I have a Pro or Premium. I have a Rush Premium. So my kit shipped today. I'm really excited.
    7:47
    He's got a brand-new designed back box and I think a cabinet speaker. And he's just like, he told me it's going to blow me away, so I can't wait to put it in there. We'll talk about it next podcast. I'll give you my thoughts on it. I think we'll have Dan Dean on to talk about, you know, upgrading sound on a pinball machine and to learn a little bit more. He's very passionate about it, and that's the kind of people that we like to work with. So, Pinwoofer. Flippin' Out Pinball, flippinoutpinball.com. The only place, I swear to God, I can't imagine somebody offering better customer service than Zach Metty, and he brought on board his boy, Greg Bone. So, you know, there you go. What a dynamic duo. They're pretty good at putting on pinball content. They're even better at taking care of you and selling pinball machines. That's flippingoutpinball.com. Titan Pinball, Silicone Rings, pinballs. They've got tools. They've got my favorite pinball mod, which is the clear flipper button cabinet protectors that are static clean. If you mess up putting them on, you don't destroy your game. It's awesome. Had I known that and could go back in time, I would have saved thousands of dollars on this powder-coating rabbit hellhole that I've dived down. So, Titan Pinball, I love you. You're just a little late to the party, but I still love you. All right?
    9:06
    PinballRaffle.org. and support a charity, do something good, and maybe win a pinball machine, head over to pinballraffle.org for your chance to win a Stern almost each and every month. And pinside.com. Pinside. Oh, my God. It's a place where mental health issues are showcased as adults talk about pinball machines and what's going on in pinball. I love pinside.com. Buy style games. Rate games. Hey, you just got into the pinball hobby. You have no idea what a good game is. Don't let that stop you from rating a game. Just hop right in. Hop right in. It's pinside.com. everybody. I love it.
    9:39
    Cometpinball.com OG sponsor. Lights for your pinball machines. LEDs. Get those. Take your Spirit of 76. Rip out those incandescents and throw some LEDs into them. That's cometpinball.com and last but not least, Jersey Jack Pinball. Making the most beautiful pinball machines on the planet. Thank you, Jersey Jack. There you go, Jersey Jack. I'm representing today. Oh, shit. I wanted to wear my hat that I got before I give it to the board. Oh, I got mine. Hang on. Of course you do, but I got to wear it. Now I can really confuse everybody because I have the Borg hat and the JJP shirt. So wish me the high on because you can only be on one pinball machine team. You can't like more than one manufacturer, so you have to pick a side, Stern or Jersey Jack, or Multimorphic or Spooky. You can only like one. That's the only thing I've learned in all my years of pinball. You have to be a shill for one company and one company only. Shout out to Agate who made that awesome hat design. It says the Borg giveth and the Borg taketh, and that is 100% true for anybody who's played a John Borg game. You know, you're cruising along, having a good game, all of a sudden it hits a slingshot, and the slingshot power gets jacked up by like 10x and shoots it into an out lane. That's it. That's a John Borg game. God bless him. God bless the hat. Hits that double in lane post and pops out. You got bored. Yep, you really did. All right, there we go. Let's get back on the track here. All right, before we – I'm going to throw this in here too at the top of the show. Thank you to everybody in chat who had the hype train going. Appreciate all the bits and subs and hype you got going in chat. If you want to support the stream in other ways, you can follow us on social media. It's all at the bottom of your screen there, Buffalo Pinball, wherever you go.
    11:29
    Email us, talkpinball at gmail.com if you got questions. feedback. If you want to talk about something we talked about on the show, we'll read your email on the show. Follow and sub us on Twitch. You can use your Prime sub if you have one of those. If you have Amazon Prime and you get one free sub a month, you can give that to us.
    11:49
    BuffaloPinball.com if you want to send some PayPal cash money, or you can drop a review on your favorite podcast listening service. We would appreciate any and all of those ways to support the show. All right, back to the news. See, we've got to keep it on your toes. Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. Show hunt. It's on fire. I spice up all the ads now. You do. So if you skip the ads, it's your loss.
    12:13
    Next in news, speaking of companies that do make pinball machines, this is the next machine from Pinball Brothers. Well, you count your chickens before they hatch, Kevin. Yeah, I mean, that was posed as sort of a question. They have shipped pinball machines, so I'll give them credit for that. whether or not they stay working you'd be the judge of that because i don't own any so i can't say from first-hand experience but what i've seen is questionable all right queen uh they revealed this again so last year if you'll remember they had a uh they had a sneak preview of this game at like queen pop-up shop in england uh in london i think it was oh yeah it says right here at a pop-up store in london in september 2021 swedish pinball company pinball brothers have today officially announced the launch of their Queen Pinball machine.
    13:02
    They announced two different versions. The Champions Edition will cost US $92.95, while the Rhapsody Limited Edition costs an additional $1,700 for a total of $10,995. As with the Pinball Brothers' current title, Alien, Queen Games will be built by Pedretti Gaming in Milan, Italy. Rhapsody Limited Edition is limited to 1,000 units and features illuminated artwork on the cabinet interior and on the back panel, a shaker motor, special shooter rod, not shown in these pictures, gold-colored metalwork, gold-colored cabinet, and back box art package, a numbered plaque and certificate. All very, very exciting things. So what do you think about Queen, Nick?
    13:46
    So I'm not a Queen fan, but then again, I'm not a fan of a lot of these bands that come out, and I end up liking it. So it's not so much what do I think of, like, Queen as the title. I just don't have any confidence in Pinball Brothers to produce a game that I would even be tempted to get. So it seems like a waste of license, unfortunately. And, you know, people have kind of picked apart what's going on in the game. Like, the inserts don't match the art in terms of, like, the – like, it might be, like, the art around, like, where the insert should be is, like, a circle. But the insert's, like, a triangle and how it lights up. Like, it's just like these really sloppy things. And you look at something like that, and that's like that's indicative of what one might expect from it. It's like slapdash, half-baked, here it is, it's Queen. And inevitably, Queen fans will buy it. So, yeah, they don't need to go all out and fix things. So, I don't know, man. I would never buy a game from this company that has, when they're competing against something like Stern. I can just imagine the problems you're going to have with it In fairness, I've not played it, I've not seen it But we know the history of Alien We know that there's work involved when you buy these games And there's just too much risk Yeah, so my understanding of the history of this game Is this is another one that was actually designed at Highway I think it was originally going to be a wide body game And they scaled it down to a standard body game So that could be why some of the weird art doesn't line up and stuff like that. I don't know. I'm just speculating here. But so they're taking this other design. I can't remember who this was credited to. It may have been Barry Osler.
    15:30
    And moving forward with these assets that were designed under Highway. So I don't know. It's also like how taking a wide game and squeezing it into the standard body game. Is that going to make the game shoot weird? I don't know. Did they remove shots? I haven't done, like, a side-by-side comparison to see, but it does raise some red flags. And like you said, the build quality. Like, I like Alien a lot as a game. I play James's quite a bit. But everything he tells me is, like, it just breaks all the time. So I was like, oh, well, maybe, you know, if this game is cool and, like, James always fixes his games and he's getting the LE, so he's going to be selling it as standard. I was like, well, maybe I'll get that from him, play that game for a while, but I can't bring myself to pull the trigger on that game because of the build issues with that. So unless they really turn around their quality, I won't be buying this one. Well, because, I mean, you're busy enough in life, and you play pinball not to fix it, right? Like you play pinball because you want to play it. And we all understand that you own these machines. There's some tweaking you have to do. but honestly you buy a new in box game and you shouldn't be fixing it all the time that's not a revolutionary thing, that's not a crazy thing that I'm saying there's always stuff to fix on pinball machines, yes we get that but there's different levels of it there's like, okay I'm going to have one or two things that tweak out of the box and then eventually rubbers are going to break and things like that or boards are going to break down, switches aren't going to work all sorts of crazy crap like that. Where your tolerance level is, it's going to differ for everybody. When's the last time you fixed something on Tron?
    17:19
    I think most of the stuff I fixed on that is the disc rubber and stuff, but that's because I swapped it for a different one.
    17:27
    It's a pretty straightforward game, though. There's not a lot of crazy mechs and stuff like that. So the more complicated stuff you get in there... The game's like 10 years old. Well, I think the rerun's 2014, but you've not been messing around with it. Nope. It's pretty solid. You've enjoyed the hell out of it. I have. I crushed it at that tournament, too, and then I played like crap on every game after that.
    17:49
    That's how my tournament went. We'll talk about that some more later. All right, that's enough Queen. Like, I don't care enough about that game. We just didn't mention it.
    17:57
    Multimorphic's got some updates. Let's pop over there. Yep, that's where we go. So they released a big new update for Rio de Al's Museum of Natural Hilarity. added a bunch of new features like the You Make Me Mini Wizard mode, Drink from the Firehose mode, which is cool. It's a ball save mode where you get a bunch of shots at the side ramp. The Dare to Be Stupid Multiball is updated. Updated UHF Multiball and much more. That's all up at Multimorphic.com if you want to update your Weird Al. If you've gotten it, if not, it's going to be a while. The increase of demand as well as the part supply problems force them to announce that the wait time has increased uh but you know not a surprise that's pretty much across the board for everybody's waiting for pinball machines these days they also announced that prices are going to be going up also not a surprise that also happening across the board uh not taking place until september 1st though so if you want one of the current games you can lock it in at today's price with a deposit so um the the new prices for each of the modules is going to be 3,500 for weird ale 3250 for heist 3000 for cosmic cart 3000 for lexi light speed or 1800 for cannon lagoon um the base price of the p3 is not going up that's remaining at 8300 so um jump in now if you want to get one uh you also you know get in line um i had everybody else who's gonna order two so it's a great time to to grab one if that's what you're looking at um let's see oh speaking of p3 uh let's come back over here i have the distinct honor of being one of two play testers on nick baldridge's next game for the p3 it's a game called drained if you've been keeping an eye on the uh pin side thread he's got a thread where he's shown the whitewood of it detailed uh updates as far as what's going on with the the development of the game this is his first physical module for the P3. He's done a number of software games like Ranger in the Ruins, Silver Falls, Quest for Glory, which we haven't seen yet because of licensing stuff. And what's the other one? I'm forgetting. I'm forgetting the other one. He's done too much. But this is drained. And I can show this because he showed this on social media today. So this is one of the promo postcards for it. It's actually a record. So it reminded me of those records that McDonald's did back in the day where you could, like, win a million dollars by singing the song, the menu song. But there's also a QR code where you can download the digital version of this. It's a medley of a bunch of the songs in it. And he shared some of the music so I can – so I was like, how much of this can I talk about? Because I'm a tester. He hasn't shown it all to the public yet. He said, everything's fair game except for the art. So I won't talk about the art. This is the only art that we've seen. and the game is a retro retro feel so when i play it it gives me like the vibe of playing tna except with vampires so you're you're playing through it so instead of like destroying reactors you're battling against different vampires it's a there's a gobble hole it's got a lot of cool retro features so it's got a gobble hole on it there's a physical bell under the play field There's also a physical knocker on the bottom of the play field. It's got a bunch of stand-up targets, drop targets, kickers up top, stand-up targets in the front.
    21:31
    And then that integrates with the modern technology of the P3. So there's no ramps, single-level, old-school play field. You've got to really give it some nudging action when it's at the top. So it reminds me of old EMs in that way. When you get it up top, you want to nudge it around and try and get as many of the targets up there as you can while you can to progress through the different parts of the game and then get your battle on with the vampires. And it's cool. So you have to defeat the vampire by hitting the gobble hole, which means you lose your ball. But there's a way to bring in a second ball before you do that. You can bring in a friend to help you is in the theme of the game.
    22:13
    So you can bring out a two ball, and then if you can crush that gobble hole while you have two balls in play, you get to keep playing. So there's a way to skillfully keep your ball in play, or you can just try to defeat like five, it's a five ball game, so you can defeat five vampires with single ball. So I've done that. I have not done more than five, so that's my next step. So there's good risk-reward in the game. It's very much a simple-to-learn, difficult-to-master kind of game. And if you want like an old-school feel mixed with modern tech, I think that Drain is going to be a big hit. The art is cool, I'll tell you that.
    22:51
    It's cool. That's all I'm going to say. I'm not going to give any more hints. I don't want to get in trouble with Nick, because I like Nick a lot, and he's a super cool guy. He does awesome work, so check out Drain. More coming soon.
    23:02
    The music is really good. If you like Castlevania, like 8-bit Castlevania-style music, this is right up that alley. Check that out from Nick Baldridge. And for amusement only games. He's got a new company name and they have a logo. The logo's not on here, but he's showing that online. So check out Drain. Very excited for everybody to get the handle on that. The software's very beta at this point still. Lots to come that he's posted. We have a little beta testers chat, so I have a glimpse of what's to come there from Nick. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what else comes in the game because it's already really fun. So good job, Nick. Keep crushing it on the P3. No pricing yet. No pricing.
    23:47
    Awesome. So there you go. So that's your sneak peek at drained. And thanks again to Nick for letting me do that. I get my initials as default high score initials on a pinball machine. I'm very excited about that. Is that what you get for shilling? That's what I get for shilling. That's right. Oh, I don't have the P3 shirt on. I'm sorry. I'm very confused about all my shilling today. I should have like a P3 pair of shorts or something.
    24:14
    What else? Oh, Stern. Let's talk about Stern. Nick can talk about Stern. Let's talk about Home Team. Oh, yeah. So Home Team came out since we last did a podcast, which must have been a while ago. It was like a month ago, yeah. Yeah. Home Team is both an obvious and very welcome feature from Stern. So I think a couple weeks ago, actually literally the day that I got my Godzilla or Martha's Godzilla, I should say, Stern updated like 18 of their games. Something crazy, right? And the gist of, like, all these games getting updated was the new feature, Home Team. And Home Team is pretty simple. So this is for the games with Insider connected.
    24:56
    You know, when you're at home and you've got to fumble around for your phone to log in, this eliminates that. So what you do when you set up your pinball machine, you enable the Home Team feature. It's in the settings. You've got to turn it on by default. It's got to be on free play, I believe, as well. You go maybe to the network setting, and you can log up to eight profiles in there. Think like Xbox, right? Xbox, you have your profile. Maybe you have other people in your house. They have a profile. It's like that. And then before you start a game, you hold down the left flipper. It will come up with those profiles. You select which profiles will be playing that game, and then you're good to go. You start the game up, and your profile's there. So you don't have to worry about scanning for a QR code anymore with all your home games. I love it. It's really nice. And the other thing that I don't think we've talked about on certain Insider Connected, which has been there, and this is not new, is that when you get a new game, instead of having to go through the menu system and, you know, input your router password, your Wi-Fi password and all that, all you do is scan this QR code from, like, another game, and it will just set up everything. So set up some breeze. I think they're really doing a good job with Insider Connected. I loved the tournaments that they've been doing. I think they're on like a two-week schedule.
    26:17
    I got lucky where, you know, last month, like, yeah, early July on the day I got Rush Premium, they had like a two-week Rush tournament, and then they had a two-week Mandalorian tournament, which was the other game I had just gotten.
    26:33
    That was really cool. I think they are doing Jurassic Park right now. I love it. I love Insider Connected. I think it's fantastic. You know, it's all for fun, right? There's nothing really on the line other than bragging. Sure, people have their games set up differently. They could, in theory, cheat. But a lot of the people that you see up at the top, you know they're not. You know they're legit people. And I think, like, the person who actually came in first and got, like, something ridiculous on Rush, which was, like, $18 billion, I think his game was filmed. So you can go back and watch that. But I love it, man. And I love – it gets me playing the games. It gets me just seeing how good I can do versus other people. It's such a cool thing, and it's such a thing that's like, yeah, of course, pinball machines should be connected to the Internet. Of course we should have that. But I think Stern's really crushing it now. They just need to make an app. They need to make some other functionality like being able to send friend requests. Right now it's kind of weird. If you know somebody's name, you can follow them, but they don't even get to see that. You're following them, and they don't get to kind of respond back. So there's still, I think, more that needs to be done, but I'm loving it. I ran a tournament on our machine at Masuda Chow's for Godzilla, and people really seemed to like that. I think I did, like, a three-week time period.
    27:52
    You know, I had, like, ten people play, which for us it's hard to judge if that's good or bad, but that's better than what we were doing for selfie tournaments towards the end. And I'm going to try to build off that, and I ordered some more Insider Connected kits. So I think Kev will do one on the Mandalorian at Community Beer Works. I get the venue to throw in some prizes. I think the top prize at Masuda Childs was like $20 for first place. So not a lot just because we don't have a huge turnout.
    28:19
    But, you know, for those doing a route, the owners of Masuda Childs, they commented. They're like, yeah, we saw people coming in, and they can tell that they were there to participate in that high-score tournament. So that's a lot of fun. And I think at some of these locations, and again, I'm kind of talking to operators, or even as a customer, you can ask your operator to do this or ask the barter to do this. What would be really cool is they have the functionality in there that you can just put up like a TV screen and just have that high score board up at all times. It's not really something that's easy to do at the venues that we have based on the layout and everything. I wouldn't go that far in asking them to invest in that. But there's locations in bigger cities that have more of a presence, and I just love it. I'm really happy with Insider Connected, really happy with the way it's developed. I was waiting for so long for them to come out with these features, and it's great that it's finally there. It makes me want to have all my games to have the Spike system with Insider Connected. I look at Walking Dead, and that used to be one of my favorite games. And it's like, to me, that game's like on the chopping block because I'm out of space. And if, like, another amazing game comes along, that kind of gets the nudge, right? When it's got the LCD, better stereo sound, and now Insider Connected is kind of starting to push out these older games.
    29:42
    Well, it's really the shame of the split ecosystems that the manufacturers have now. Like, everybody was able to agree on one standard, like, Scorebit or something like that. But, like, SCORBIT works on all machines, but CERN keeps locking them out, you know. So, obviously, they have invested all this money in CyberConnected, so it makes sense that they want folks to use their system. But it would be nice if there was one universal system where all these machines could be on there and then you could bring your Walking Dead online with online connectivity and things like that, you know. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I mean, I get what you're saying. You're absolutely right. I think Stern does it so much better than Scorbit that I've just you know when I was at your house I didn't once log into Scorbit I'm not saying Scorbit is the connection is the solution I'm just saying it would be nice if there was a solution that worked across all the games that everybody likes you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah you know what Stern again is was my complaint on Scorbit and you brought this up you were like you were giving me a hard time when we were talking to Attack and you were saying oh You said, oh, Nick, you told me one time on the podcast you'll never use this or something. And it's like, well, it's not exactly what I said. Like the score bit I don't think is good because they never like, at least when I was using it, or, you know, this was six months, a year ago, they weren't resetting scores, right? Like new updates come out. Well, Stern has figured out what they've done a good job of is having these like limited time tournaments and these like two-week brackets. So it's not this open-ended thing, right? Like, it's not just there forever. It creates that urgency, and you're like, oh, I've got two more days left if I want to get in the top 100 scores, right? And, like, both of the ones I played in Mandalorian and Rush, I was able to get in the top 100. I think Rush was, like, you know, the top 30. That's a lot of fun. Now, but if it was, like, this open-ended, like, this ongoing scoreboard that never changes, even when they have updates and never resets, like, it wouldn't work. It would be a big, it would be a huge failure. You'd have apathy set in. But, again, they're doing it right. And I think, I know, I mean, like, it's not like Jersey Jack doesn't have this, but you've got, this is the value of having tournament players right at Stern, right? Because they get that competitive mindset and some of these tweaks that they need to do to really get the most out of Insider Connected. Yeah, well, Jersey Jack definitely has tournament players, but. They're not just Scorbit, though. Scorbit's run by, like, a whole third party. Correct. It definitely, Scorbit, they came out strong, and they're, like, rolling out all these features, and they had achievements before Stern, and it really feels like it's stalled, like, features-wise. Like, they just got it out, they did all this stuff, and then it's like, that's it. They've just been fixing bugs and stuff. Like, I don't know what they're doing, so. Yeah. Hopefully they step it up. I don't think they can compete with Stern at this point, right? I mean, most machines out there are Sterns. Yeah. I mean, I guess it depends how much resources they have to put into it at Scorbit. But they're just a small team as far as I know.
    32:49
    Do they have the resources of a Stern? Probably not. So I guess stay tuned on that. All right. What else? Oh, Nick Lane, there's an epidemic in pinball. I know you've seen it. Everybody's seen it. If you've been on social media, if you've been on Facebook, Pinside, you've definitely seen it. Let's show you what this epidemic is. It's the towel dust cover epidemic. Yes. You know, if you've got a pinball machine, you've got to have a matching beach towel with the matches of the theme of the pinball machine. And Nick and I brought this up at one point. And since we brought it up, I see it all the time. So there's some nice – John Borg, speaking of Borg, he actually reposted this. That's how I saw this one.
    33:37
    And then we have this one, which is a – This was in response to, I think, the original dust cover. This guy's like, well, I'm happy with this solution, which costs almost nothing, because there's been a big uptick in interest in dust covers on your pinball machine. There's no shortage of it.
    33:56
    Where do we begin, Kevin? I mean, when did this phenomenon start happening? Oh, my God, I don't know. This is a yoga mat for those at home. This is not a matching towel. But then you've got this one, which is – so I was like, Let me go on Pinball Enthusiasts on Facebook and just search for towels. And this came up. So these are like the floor squares. You know what I mean? Those like interlocking floor tiles. That's worse than the fucking towels. So those are interlocking padded floor tiles on your towel machine. And then. Not just for standing on. No, exactly. There's a Star Wars with a matching Star Wars. Oh, God. It's so bad. Nick, please share your thoughts on towels, dust covers on top of your pinball machines. I thought you would never ask, Kevin. So I went into that first pic that you posted, and I was like, you know, just wait until these guys discover glass. Not only does it protect against dust, but you can actually see your game at the same time. What a phenomenal thing. Imagine that. Dude, it's dust.
    34:59
    They figured out that you put glass over the game to protect against dust, dirt, spills, whatever. You know how long it takes? First of all, how much dust is getting on your game where you're like, oh, my God, I've got to cover it up. I can't see my game. There's so much dust. Let's put a towel on top of it.
    35:19
    I think I mentioned this the last time, but I don't even say it again. I remember hearing when the P3 was just making its launch, and I've heard similar complaints about, like, LCDs and back boxes, like they don't look cool when they're turned off. It's like if you're just going to cover your pinball machines with blankets anyways, who cares what it looks like when it's turned off I will say when I had my old garage I did throw a tarp over my games because that garage was a hot mess so I would at least do that and there was windows and everything but if you got your games in a nice room there's really no reason to cover them up like that and then what do you do when the towels get dusty do you have towels for your towels you got another towel you throw in the towel yeah you gotta take your towels off throw them in the wash but then when you're washing your towels, your pinball machines are getting dusty, and then it all goes away. Yeah, or you have people over. You've got to take all the towels off. Where do you throw them? I mean, like, it's just a pain in the ass. And then you've spent money on towels?
    36:18
    Or you can just wipe it down with Windex or whatever cleaning solution. This is not a real problem you're selling for. And I say this as somebody who has severe, like, OCD when it comes to pinball. Dude, this was not a thing, like, more than two years ago. Nobody did this that I was ever known or ever aware of. I've never seen photos like this. This is like some weird new phenomenon that has, like, caught on. I don't get it. Now, Calvin, you gave your example when you threw a tarp. When I had my first game, it was in, like, a sunroom. So I put a whole cover over it because, you know, I remember seeing things like Johnny Mnemonic getting faded in the sun. and, like, look, there's sun damage. So maybe if you're doing that for sun damage, but I'm guessing in most cases that's not the thing. It's for dust. I think people are just looking for ways to spend more money, and this is a good way to spend more money. It's not a good way to spend more money, though.
    37:18
    You're right up to a point, Kevin. It is a way to spend more money, full stop. Does it take your money? Yes.
    37:25
    Does it make your game look worse? You spend $9,000 on a game and then you fucking throw a beach towel over it? Might as well hide it. I love, like, if I'm down in the basement, I like seeing the games. Like, I like seeing them. There's something about it. What a crazy idea. It's like a work of art, even when you're not playing it. Like, you can just see this work of art that looks amazing. People fucking buy bookshelves and they put Funko Pop and they put little dolls. Why? I mean, those are cheap, stupid dolls and action figures, but they want to show it off. Why are you not showing off a $9,000 pinball machine? It's like buying a stupid Funko Pop thing and then throwing a towel over so nobody sees it. It's going to get dusty. If you put the towel over it, your Funko Pops don't get dusty. There you go. Well, the Funko Pop doesn't have a glass enclosure, though. Yeah, they're in a box. It comes in a box. Exactly. Yeah. Except you can get, like, washcloths for the Funko Pops. I want to see somebody put out a treaty called In Defense of Pinball Towels Let go Let go I want to see a well piece on it You know what we need is like the response video on YouTube In response, the react video to this video. All right. You want to talk about our favorite topic on the podcast, which is non-manufacturer pinball updates. I think we need, like, an intro or a theme song for this. But this is our favorite returning topic. It's where we highlight all the people who say they're going to make pinball machines, and they're never going to do it.
    38:51
    Let's start with the newcomers. So last month we introduced you to John Greatwitch, who was seeking a whale, $100,000 whale investment for his pinball machine. They were going to make 10 machines. It was very confusing. None of it made sense. But it was revealed since then that the theme he had cornered was trailer park boys. And if you're thinking to yourself, what the hell is Trailer Park Boys, that's what I thought too. So apparently it's a show. I think it's a Canadian show. You've never heard of that show? No. I mean, I might have watched an episode like 10 years ago, but like it's always like appearing on Netflix. I don't know how you don't know what that show is. Yeah, I've never seen that. So, okay. Nick Lane knows Trailer Park Boys. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know them. Okay. We don't hang out, but I'm aware that it exists. So, okay. So that happened between last show and this show.
    39:44
    Let's take you over to Pinside.com. So this was six days ago. Update, 8th of August, 2022. This is from Great Witch. I thought they closed that down. Well, they closed the first one. This is the second thread. Okay.
    39:57
    They had to start a new thread. Say what you want about him. He doesn't give up, though. He's persistent. He should. A 63-page thread on Pinside that's on fire. So from August 8th, 2022, John Norris, you know, John Norris of Bad Girls fame. Oh, now you've got my attention. Is now publicly on board this adventure of Trailer Trash the Pinball Machine. Apparently that was the official name as the game designer. I was like, that's cool. John Norris does cool stuff. I look forward to seeing where this build goes in the next, in the six-month build time of September 1st to March 1st, 2023, for South by Southwest and TPF in Texas. limited to a max build of 10 prototype pro style pinball machines the price is ten thousand dollars us dollars to be paid during stages of the build please sign on now to the pod if interested i don't know what to the pod is um the deadline is august 31st 2022 so so time's ticking right yeah you got like less than a month to get in on this pinball machine thanks again john here's the list of previous games cool all right sounds like they're making progress maybe this will be a thing. All right. So that was six days ago. Oh, later that day, just got back from my three beers of Guinness and fine music. Got a cease and desist from the license provider of Trailer Park Boys. Maybe someone else was getting close to the boys since it was not me. At this time, we will not proceed with your offer to build. If we could. Oh, so this is actually from them, from the company who has the license. At this time, we will not proceed with your offer to build. If we could Please ask you to cease reaching out directly to the boys or additional team members at this time. They are aware that I am communicating with you and conveying this message. Do not proceed at this time. Thank you, Allison. Please stop harassing us. Let me just sum that up for you, folks. Apparently he's, like, emailing everybody who is on the show and everything like that. He's like, so I guess the TPB, the mall machine, died with me. Maybe someone else was going after it. You know, that falls under life comes at you fast. you know before you announce a license maybe you have a license it never ends alright if that wasn't enough we have yet another new entrant into the pinball scene really came in with a bang this is Turner Pinball I didn't know about this Whoa, man, if I got a story for you. All right, so I'm going to share this with the most – I watched the first video. I did not watch the second video. I don't know if I can hear it. Let me – hold on. I've got to pull up the Twitch feed so I can hear it. Well, I'm just going to tell you what happened. I'm not going to play the video. That's fine. All right. So Turner Pinball – I mean, the logo is just phenomenal. Look at that. It's a T made out of flippers. So you know it's a pinball company if there's flippers in a ball. Yeah, check, check. he bought deeprootpinball.com the domain after deeproot failed and put up this mystery like word search and made it a contest to see who could figure out the word search first or some nonsense like that please tell me turd's in there I'm sure it's in there multiple times dumpster fire so he somebody apparently figured this out and he awarded them a Raza back glass because although he claims in this video that he doesn't want to be associated with Deep Root, he has nothing to do with Deep Root, he was actually part of the software team that was working on Deep Root pinball machines. So, a couple things. You don't want to be associated with Deep Root. You're your own thing. Why would you buy DeepRootPinball.com and launch your pinball company on this website? Don't make that connection if you don't want that connection. Kevin, that kind of rationality has no place in the pinball designer business. I'm sorry. Crazy, crazy. And then you're giving away Rasa back glasses on your first video. Okay, so there's another connection to Deep Root. You're the one who did the software on Deep Root's pinball machines.
    44:00
    There's a connection there. Sorry. I have an idea for us, though. I'm sorry to derail you, but when lightning strikes. Go for it. Buffalo pinball, our first machine is going to be called Cognitive Dissonance. All right? The pin.
    44:18
    Work on it. Nobody steal that license from us. We will send it to you. No, absolutely. We trademark it. That's okay.
    44:25
    So, Nick, you want to take a tour of the Turner Live? So their original company is called Turner Logic. You want to see their experience, their portfolio of experience here? They bring your ideas to life. Web, mobile, hard, and desktop app development. We build hardware devices and drones, too. Okay. All right. So let's see what they've done. Here's our work process. Who cares? Our port.
    44:48
    What the? Bill Miller Barbecue Menu System? Oh, they did Bill Miller's Barbecue Menu System? Bill Miller's Barbecue Menu System. That's the lead thing. That's the first thing. Everybody knows. Everybody knows Bill Miller's Barbecue System. Bill Miller BBQ. Thank you. The web app for centralized management of in-store menus with a drag-and-drop menu editor. Man, if that doesn't scream, I can make a pinball machine, what does? You know what I mean? I haven't seen a portfolio this good since Bottle-Rama, you know?
    45:19
    Red's referrals. They made a web app for creating and tracking automotive car sales referrals. Smack-a-dot. Micromarket apps for self-serve markets that run on phone and tablet. and Warp Speed, a software-as-a-service platform for developers to configure VPSs and deploy code. Well, then, let's go Bob Biller's barbecue pinball machine. So, basically, they've done what a group of students do at a 24 hackathon, a group of college students do in a 24 hackathon. They've done that. Okay, fantastic. My first web project out of college, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's great. Well, they got Bill Miller's barbecue, whatever his name is. Yeah, this guy's ready to build pinball machines. You know, he's made the BBQ menu system. Clearly the next step is ramping up manufacturing, housing all this inventory, hiring people to build these FIMO machines, prototyping, software development, audio, video, all that. He's got it all under control. Yeah, and the best thing is he had a front seat to the Deep Root shitshow, and he's like, you know what? I got this.
    46:24
    What could go wrong? Oh, I should show you this, Steve. So this is, look at this guy. That's the guy. That's Turner. That's a nice guy. This is from This Week in Pinball. A little summary. Chris Turner, who is starting Turner Pinball, released a video answering questions about his plans for the Deep Root assets he purchased from the auction. So he purchased Deep Root assets, totally not Deep Root, though. He states that he plans to release Raza for public use. Again, totally not Deep Root, but he's going to release it. Every time you say a Deep Root related thing, I take a drink of my whiskey. Yep. But might be using the other game designs for future commercial, or in the future commercially, I can read.
    47:05
    Again, not associated with Deep Root, but going to be releasing their other game designs. Totally not Deep Root. So just FYI. So if you want to learn more about Turner Pinball, you can check out this video. But I don't really care that much. All right, Nick, you want to check in on our old friends at Ballarama?
    47:21
    What's there to check in on? Well, that's the question. They sold their house. This was a pinball show. I just want to remind people this is still a pinball show. July 10th was their last update.
    47:36
    Yeah, they sold the house and bought a house. There's a big headache out of the way. Oh, the blissful feeling of getting the job done, buying and selling your biggest asset. And bumper development has been a bit slow, but still bumper development. Sequential shots. What the fuck calls it bumper development? From the start till now. None of these words make sense. They're just words.
    47:59
    They're not put together in the right order. So there you go. There's Ballarama's update. Oh, they also, here was another one. This was from seven weeks ago. So I don't think we revisited this one.
    48:14
    Hi, happy followers. Tonight I'm soldering, soldering, soldering to put those pinball bits together. but a couple of nights ago it was a timeout and a break away from my day job and pinball and house selling winter weather broke for a day's fun and a rooftop bar then a show bloody brilliant keep enjoying everything all you do especially pinball ian and barbara they went to a show they went to see hamilton i think maybe we did talk about this but it never it never hurts to revisit the fact that they went to see hamilton you know that's that's their big update okay thank you Ballerama. Pinball? I was almost remiss in neglecting Pinball Adventures this time around. I didn't think they had anything to share, but our Pinball Adventures correspondent, Joe Cherovino, kindly sent me this amazing update, which, if this is not a metaphor for their company, I don't know what is. It's a dead-end shot to a stand-up target that says, gift from God.
    49:08
    Worth it. Nothing like a good dead-end shot, you know what I mean? Oh, God. You think the little crosses on there are coincidental or intentional?
    49:19
    He works in mysterious ways, Kevin. I don't know. He does. Because, I mean, when I think gift from God, I think Pinball Adventures, Pinball Machine. Yeah. It is, from a content perspective for our podcast, it is a gift from God. True. Yes. True. How many years have we been talking about Pinball Adventures and they still haven't shipped a thing? You know, I just get hit with this avalanche of self-awareness that I'm spending my life doing a pinball podcast.
    49:52
    And this is the shit we talk about. We've got Ian Barb going to Hamilton. But this is it. This is a quote-unquote new pinball company. This is their update. So you report it. It's news. That's the thing that happens in this hobby, in this industry. That's it. That's all we got. You know, most podcasts and things, anything on YouTube, People are putting out content multiple times a week, other pinball podcasts weekly, whatever. We fucking push it back once a month, and still, this is what we have. This is what you get. You get Nick Lane's hot tub, and the gift we got from Pinball Adventures. Next time I'm going to have people in the, like, Jeff could be in the hot tub in the background. I'll put the LED lights on. Yeah, now we're talking. Just watch the, you know, just people will rotate in and out. I love it. All right, it's time for some game room updates. Nick, you got some game room updates.
    50:41
    Oh, yeah, I do. So let's see what happened. I mean, this has been a hell of a summer. I've got a Mandalorian.
    50:51
    I got a Rush Premium. And then Martha really stepped up. We had a Godzilla became available, and she picked it up, man. I was going to get it, but I just bought two games. So, yeah, she's got one of the best games ever made. that got delivered almost two weeks ago now. And, yeah, people are like, Nick, how was that? You know, you always talk about your Stern new unbox experience. How was it this time? And you really kind of hit a high or a low point, depending on how you want to look at it.
    51:24
    So this really is 10 years of unboxing games from my personal collection from Stern, about 11 years now maybe, actually. Yeah, 11 years. And every game has had a problem. But this one, this one really took the cake. This one, when I went to turn it on, not only did it not turn on, but it killed the circuits and the rest of all the games on the line.
    51:47
    I wish there was a live camera just to have my expression on my face. I wish there was a live camera because I don't remember what happened for five minutes. This is a combination of rage and disbelief and kind of laughter, like kind of like when a lunatic laughs a little bit because they fucking broke me at this point. The game just wouldn't turn on. Wouldn't turn on.
    52:11
    I couldn't put it on and fuck up the other games on the circuit. I thought I was emotionally past this, Kevin. Apparently not. We're really opening some wounds here today. Yeah. So, and this is the part I dread because Zach's awesome, and I buy all my games from him now, He's a glutton for punishment at this point, and no good deed goes unpunished. So I messaged him immediately. I was like, well, my game's not turning on, and not only that, it's blowing the circuit. So this is like they've never seen this problem before. This is like another thing that I've had where they're like, I've never seen this. He's been selling games for years, never seen it.
    52:55
    So in our kind of chat of friends, I think Patrick called it right. He's like, I think something was switched in the power board, power box, whatever, in the game.
    53:07
    And Dave Sousa, who's a neighbor and local hero, he came up. He fixed it. He opened it up, and he opens up, like, the back panel where the power goes into the pinball machine, and he starts laughing. That's a picture of it.
    53:23
    Stern switched the ground in the neutral. and yeah so that was blowing circuits in my house and you know so that's Patrick, Patrick did like something similar when he was working on his game, I forget what it was a classic stern and he has an old house and it like blew up his furnace like it fucked things up and caused $3,000 of damage like my game room is like I had an electrician come in and he wired it for pinball, like the specific purpose. So thankfully, you know, the protections were in place, nothing bad happened.
    54:04
    And I've talked to people who are engineers, and they're just in disbelief, and they're like, yeah, if that circuit failed, there could have been major damage being done. So, you know, seeing the humor and things I go and I post this on Stern, I'm sorry, not on Stern, but on Pinside. What was my title, Kevin? Stern tried to kill me and burn my house down or something like that. Yeah, Stern tried to burn my house down and kill me. And I even put this as 50% hyperbole, and some people accuse me of mining podcast material. Like, that's what I want. Like, I'm fucking happy when I buy a game and I try to flip it on, and $9,000 game, it doesn't turn out. Like, I'm, like, rubbing my hands together and, like, here we go. Here's some content. I just want to fucking work. You're trying to mine for weekly pinball content because there isn't pinball content. No, that's what we say every month. There isn't enough content for a weekly pinball podcast, so we don't do that. This is a person who's never listened to our show and just wants to dunk on people.
    55:05
    Listen, if you think it's okay, Kevin, we're both in our 40s. Let me ask you this. Have you ever bought a product that, like, I can't remember a product that just doesn't fucking turn on?
    55:19
    I'm trying to think. We're just being wired incorrectly. like TVs and stuff like that. Sure. Something that's gone crazy and tried to blow my house. So, I mean, I can't. I struggle to get a straight answer online because people are like, oh, this won't burn your house down. Then I talk to other engineers. They're like, yeah, I don't want to get into a fight with these people on Pinside, but they have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. Like, this is not good. And then I start getting really upset because it's like, does Stern ever turn this game on? Right? Like, did they ever test that it works?
    55:47
    Anyways, I got lucky because I have a good neighbor. He knows what he's doing. But if that wasn't the case, like, how long would I have a game where they're swapping out node boards and doing other shit because no one in their fucking right mind would think that somebody on the line is switching that around?
    56:05
    Yeah. So, yeah, that takes the cake, Kev. That's a winner. So there's, like, some questions in the chat about, like, how did that even make it out of the factory? Good question. there was some speculation in the thread that maybe like stern's uh wiring and their their facility is not set up to like trip breakers when they i don't know i'm not i'm not an electrician so i don't know how this works but uh they're they're somehow wired up differently where this could have worked and not shown that it was an issue the other the other point i heard was like maybe they tested the play field in a different machine and then just put it in your cabinet and shipped it out. Who knows? Because you said you had noticed some, like, dings on the play field. So, obviously, there had been some play testing on that play field, right? Yeah. There was definitely, like, a dimple on there. So, it had been play tested. So, I don't know. I mean, regardless, it's totally inexcusable. Like, 100% inexcusable. That shouldn't happen. The user should not have to. That's not part of, like, the acceptable, like, oh, this, you know, you're shipping a pinball machine. Of course, the screw fell out. Like, I get that. Dude, I don't post everything on Pinside that's wrong with my pinball machines when I get it, because if not, I'd be very busy, and I do have a full-time job. I only post when I try to burn my fucking house down, all right? Like, I'll talk on the podcast about issues. We could talk about how, of course, like, you know, I have to go in and fix the fucking plunger because the plunge is not centered. Like, I didn't even bitch about that on Pinside. That's just like, oh, it's turning out. Of course I've got to go and fix this, which you should have fucking done at the factory.
    57:36
    Anyways, Kevin. Question from Mr. Hopwood in the chat. Did you contact Stern regarding this and let them know? What was their response? Oh, yeah. So I'm glad you asked that because I wanted to comment on this too. And also, this is a good point in the show if you're watching. Hit that like button if you think that Stern should test their games before they ship it out. You know, give us a like. We're almost burning the house down. We can use it. Also hit that subscribe button while you can. So, yeah, I don't have the – I don't know anybody who's in quality control. I don't know that this person exists. I'd like to know what they fucking do all day because quality control at Stern is a goddamn joke. All right? Like, I can't imagine how bad you have to be at your job to fucking do quality control at Stern. Especially, don't even get me started on, like, the rush scoops that were all fucked up.
    58:22
    So I, you know, Zach Sharp, I was like, Zach, can you just pass it along to whoever? Because they should know, right? Like, I'm just like, I'm upset, but I'm letting you guys know. Do you think anybody has reached out and said, hey, man, I'm sorry that happened to your game? No. Hey, man, thanks for letting us know so we can fix it. No, they don't fucking care. And I say this all the time. Like, Stern can say they care, but how does this keep on happening? Right? Like, actions speak louder than words. They don't care. They try to get away with what they can get away with. Now, this is not true. Let me caveat that. I know that the designers care. I know the audio people care. I know that people doing code care. these are some of the most caring people in pinball I fucking love them but there's people at Stern there's certain people at Stern that do not fucking care and will get away with what they can get away with that is true because I am after 10 years and I can detail all the games I bought they don't care their customer service is terrible they told me last year they were going to give me a Mandalorian pinball pro for alerting them that there was cracking on the machine telling them they should put a washer there they thanked me they said they were going to give me a Mandalorian pro playfield do you think I have it no because they don't care.
    59:34
    They don't care. Like, you can say you care all day long, but you don't. You're not showing it. Like, I'm not trying to mind shit. I long for the day where I can just be like, I've got nothing bad to say about Stern's quality control because my game got out of the box and it was working perfectly and everything's great, the clear looks good. It's all good. It's all gravy. Yeah. Look at this, Mr. Hobwood. I love my distributor in Australia. They open their new in-box shipment from Stern, test the games in their factory, and adjust and fix them before they send to the buyer. I love this service for this exact reason Nick is talking about. That's amazing, man. Yeah. The distributor is doing QC for Stern before they pass it along to the buyer. Yeah, it's smart because, look, what's more of a pain in the ass? The distributor, they ship it out to the customer. There's problems and the distributor's got to go out and drive out there and do back and forth.
    60:24
    They don't want to do this shit. They don't want to take it out of the box and do all that work, but it's just that's the easier path for them that makes sense. Yeah. What other product do you buy, Kevin? You've got to fucking do that. I can't think of one. Maybe a car? I mean, like, maybe it's just – I don't even – I don't know how much. Maybe a bike? Like, they take your bike and adjust it out of the factory? Yeah, I guess, yeah. Yeah.
    60:51
    I don't know. Pinball is the one I'm most familiar with. All right, so there you go. Anything else happening in your game room? Probably, but you put me in such an emotional state right now.
    61:02
    There's another issue of Godzilla that I'm not going to get into because I'm trying to resolve with Stern. So, you know, like I play fair. If they resolve to my satisfaction, I don't need to bring it up. And if they don't, I'm going to alert people to what I think is an issue. So I try to.
    61:18
    You wanted to show off your mods, right? Oh, fuck yeah. Let's do that. Thank you, Kevin. God, I get in such a like, I go into like blind rage. Where's your Godzilla towel, by the way?
    61:28
    It's coming. All right, so first shout-out, we'll go through this. This is from Chrome Candy Pinball. Highly recommend it. Chrome Candy's got a shop on Pinside. You can go to the Pinside. There's a cool thing in the marketplace in Pinside where you can look on lists of shops, and you can get this mod. This is from Dr. Ben Crane, my second favorite pinball doctor. He does fantastic work. This is the bridge mod. So I didn't – you can see in the front that chrome, right? I didn't put it in the back, which is kind of good because then you can see what, like, Sternshift and what Dr. Ben made. I didn't put it in the back because I heard – I guess it's pretty difficult to access that. He's got some good instructions. I know my limits. I was happy with just putting it in the front, so I kept it there. It's kind of cool with the original in the back. Yeah, Martha said she liked it. I'm fine with it too. Like, it's fine, right? Like, it works. I had to – on mine I had to put some Loctite because the screws were falling out a little bit. I mean, that thing's heavier than plastic by far, so maybe I didn't use enough muscle to put the screws in. But I love it.
    62:39
    Dude, that bridge is so cool in that game. We'll talk about Godzilla next month for sure. Okay. There's a review of it then. This is another – like, this is like a rooftop mod, so, like – Yeah, I like this one. Cool. Yeah, I like it too. And what I love about these mods My philosophy of mods is like It should look You shouldn't be able to spot it as a mod, right? It should just blend in seamlessly From the game like it should have been there all along This is like the rooftop Mod And again, this is on the premium Godzilla I kept the plastic underneath because like I guess you can keep it underneath Or you can take it out I thought it looked better with the plastic underneath too It looked a little weird with some space there But either way, it looks great. Yeah, I like it. Can I just say my favorite touch on Godzilla is the pop of carpet in the building. That's fantastic. I love that. It is for sure. This is like, that's what you call like attention to detail and caring about stuff. This is why like I'm very careful when I say Stern doesn't care because I know there's so many passionate, awesome, good, talented people there. This is the design team's are there. And this is the other thing. So this is like, this replaces the, there was just plastic there again. and this is the chrome on the Mechagodzilla thing that turns around. There's actually chrome. If you look on the left side, like the bottom part, that's actually chrome from Stern, and then they put, like, plastic on top, and the right side was all plastic. So this makes it look like, you know, I'm sure if Stern had more of a budget, this is what they would have done. It looks fantastic. Again, it's the kind of thing that it doesn't scream that, hey, I'm a mod, look at me. It just blends in seamlessly and looks great. It just touches it up with class, just like Dr. Bang.
    64:18
    That's it. Oh, and last but not least on this one. This is from Lear. You're a big fan of Lear. That's how I learned about Lear from you. And he likes you, man. He hooked me up. What's not to like? He makes great mods. This is from Little Shop of – you can go to littleshopofgames.com. This was a popular thing. I think everybody's grabbing this sponsor mod. I think mine's on a little, like, let's see if it's got a slope to it. I've got to tweak it. But, yeah, let's create the picture underscores how awesome it looks. And, again, I think what I like about the saucer mod here is that there's some other saucer mods, and I thought they looked cool, but, like, I didn't, you know, what was there was, like, Stern's crappy, like, plastic pop bumper. That's supposed to be a saucer, and the saucer has things in the game like destroying saucers. So it was way too understated just being a pop bumper. Like, nobody would even almost know that that's a saucer. So it needed something more. Like, this is a necessary mod. but you also don't want to have it be such an obnoxious mod that it's like, you know, drawing attention away from like the building or the bridge or Godzilla or Mechagodzilla. So I think that's a good solution, and it really shows the lighting effects when it changes color. Yeah, and I like Lior's mods because he doesn't 3D print stuff, so it doesn't look super jank and cheap. He does it in high quality, like resin casting and all this, which is really good. You can't see lines in it and stuff. Yeah, and that's, so I was looking at it like there's another saucer mod. I was like, that looks cool. But I can see like an air ball taking that thing out in a second, like the other mod I was looking at. And Lear's mod here is like, I think he put it in the ad or something that like, it's like this resin, like it can take an air ball and not break. Right, and that's like, that's what you want. Like I'm not, you know, not going to be buying mods all day. So really happy with that. So shout out to Chrome Candy and then Little Shop of Games. Check them out. I think those are great mods. They're very tastefully done. Awesome. Good game room updates from Nick. So I've got some game room updates too. So I got my Weird Al. You saw it sitting in the box.
    66:30
    It got delivered right before the last show. I've been having it in my game, been loving it. We had a tournament this past weekend and played it. we did the bro show on it so if you want to see more gameplay on there it's on our YouTube channel great game glad they're starting to crank them out I've seen a few more playfields shipping out super fun what else drained we talked about already I've got a loner Avengers Infinity Quest which I've been digging into Nick was asking me at the tournament how I like that game now that I've had it at home and it's as I kind of suspected it's a good home game because there's a lot to dig into. It's hard to kind of take it all in when you're playing on location. But when you can have it at home, have it on free play, you know, mess around with it, you know, watch tutorial videos, it gives you a chance to dig into it and really appreciate it. I don't think it would be a long-term keeper for me, but I do appreciate having it for a while.
    67:29
    The layout's cool. The art is really good. It's got the zombie yeti art on it. kind of the the common feeling on that game is it really doesn't have like i don't know like the animations and call outs are the the low point on that which kind of keeps it it holds it back because you know i think about godzilla one of the things i really like about godzilla is how fun it is and uh you know when you you tilt and it's got like the baby godzilla dancing around and stuff like that there's like all these cool little touches in it that make it fun beyond being an awesome game. I feel like Avengers has an awesome layout, and the rules are cool, but it doesn't have that next level that really push it over the top. So that's kind of what holds Avengers back. If you're looking for a deep game that is a modern LCD stern that is not going insane in price, Avengers is probably a good one to check out. Actually, everybody who's played it who has had a premium or plays a lot of the premium says they prefer the pro on this game. I don't have a lot of time on the Pro or LE, but, you know, Ben was over here. He owned an LE. He said the same thing. A couple people who were here for the tournament said the same thing. So check out Avengers Infinity Quest Pro. Apparently it's the one to get.
    68:48
    And what else? What else did I do? Oh, arcade-wise, my Dissertron. I shipped my monitor chassis out for repair to Arcade Cup. he's one of the like renowned arcade monitor repair people uh i paid for the priority service so hopefully i won't take too long to get back but once that's back the only i think the only thing i have to fix on it is the the speech that'll be the last uh remaining thing to track down on that game but i got the the mirrors installed uh oh and some of the some of the cabinet lighting i have to figure out too so we're getting there there's always something with uh with classic arcade games but um i'll be happy to have a nice stable monitor Toy Story 4 I had last month we talked about that last month still over there I was playing it before the stream here today still enjoying that anything else? I think that's pretty much everything for Game Room updates I have something else on the way that's not here yet it's cool it's not a game but it's Game Room related we'll talk about that more next month but Scott Denise hooked me up with the info on that that's how I got the it was supposed to be here today but it got delayed until Wednesday so thanks a lot FedEx And you got something else coming over. You're not talking about it, right? Yeah. I mean, there's a trade pending, but I won't talk about that until it's solidified. And I like what you told me when I asked you what it is and your response to me. You're like, what did you say? I was like, well, you know, I just had to mess with you a little bit. Yeah. I wanted to give you a hard time. I was like, yeah, do I fucking seem like the person who needs more of a hard time in life? Nick needs a hard time. Who looks at me is like, I'm going to, you know, Nick needs a little bit of a hard time. I wish it was the Velvet Jesus from D.J. Oh, my God.
    70:34
    That thing got swiped out from underneath us. Yeah. I think it's some bad actors that play, but we won't go there.
    70:42
    A couple Buffalo updates. I ran a tournament this past week at my house. We had capped it at 16 players. We ended up getting 12, and then Jeffrey bailed on us at the last minute, so we ended up with 11 players. I'm kind of surprised we couldn't get 16 people to come out and play a bunch of brand new pinball machines I mean I understand it's summer and it's nice but we've had a summer full of nice days so it's not like we've been lacking on them and people always ask us I remember when we finished up the team league oh what's next what are you guys planning next are you doing anything this summer I was like eh we'll see you know and then I was like alright I got a bunch of new games people probably want to try them I'll throw a tournament and then like nobody shows up so it's like That's why we don't bother doing this.
    71:28
    Yeah, dude, I am with you 100%. I mean, things just haven't been the same after the pandemic, at least in Buffalo.
    71:37
    I don't know what it is. For $15, $20, you can go in three and a half hours, play some of these amazing games.
    71:47
    I'm not complaining. And I was telling Martha, I was like, I feel like I should host a tournament. in and I was like, 16 seems like a good number. And she agreed. So maybe it will happen, Kevin. Maybe I can do one like in October or something. We can try it in the fall and have it be at your place, which is more towards the city. Maybe that will make a difference. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. But, yeah, it was fun. Thanks for doing a tournament.
    72:13
    I'm totally cool getting back to our roots of, like, doing these, like, home smaller tournaments. It's a lot of fun.
    72:20
    That was the first tournament I played in all year. and I forgot what it's like playing in a tournament. Well, that's not true. I was in Denver, and I played in the one-up tournament. I was on Denver for work, and I did pretty poorly and finished, like, middle of the pack. But it was a long day, but it was fun. They had 36 people on a Sunday night, which was awesome. Yeah.
    72:45
    Denver's awesome, man. Shout-out to anybody who lives out in the Denver-Boulder area. I want to go out again because I didn't get to Boulder because I want to check out Ryan's, was it Lions Pinball or whatever. Oh, yeah. We should definitely. Yeah. We should go out there. Denver is fucking awesome. Yeah, I've never been there. Great pinball scene, seemingly nice people. Do they do any shows out in Denver?
    73:09
    That's a good question. I'm not aware of any. But I would go there in a heartbeat. Yeah. Yeah, they have a bunch of tournaments. Nice.
    73:19
    Yeah, and we've got our league starting up. So if you're in the Buffalo area and you want to play in a pinball league, sign-ups are happening starting later this week. So join the mailing list on buffalopinball.com, and you'll get notified when those open up. There won't be many because we let last year's players get first divs on the new league.
    73:41
    But there's always at least a few spots that open up. All right. We got a big review of Russ. but you wanted to review The Mandalorian. We review it. Yeah, we're going to do a better job of getting, and this is when I say we, I say me, I've got to carve out some time and upload or clip some of our reviews and stuff. So I figured it makes sense to revisit Mandalorian from our review that we did last year. I can't remember what we gave it, probably like a seven or something. Like we played the pro. I gave it like a seven and a half. Yeah, I think our thing was like, yeah, it's fun, it's cool. It's nothing that I get excited over. Well, you know, I started playing it more because my office got one through my influence, I guess, in some ways. They were inspired to get a pinball machine, which is awesome. I love seeing new people get into pinball. But I really kind of got hooked on the pro, and I was really having fun with the game. And I'm sure the code had come along from when we first played it, which we were one of the first locations to get it back in May 2021 at Community Beer Works. You know, we did a stream, and then I kind of forgot about it. So I played it more and more, and then it was also around the time where I was like, I want to start moving some of the games I'm not playing or some of the games in my collection and freshen things up. I might as well get the premium because I already have access to the pro. And, you know, I'm trying to get better at having forever games or just having games in my collection, which are super old and stale. So I got a Mandalorian premium, and I'm really happy I did. I sold a Deadpool Pro, and I honestly think Mandalorian is the better game, at least from me and my perspective, primarily from a rules viewpoint. I think there's just more to do and more in there.
    75:31
    I'm going to justify it, but I'm going to put my rating up front. I would give the Mandalorian premium a nine. I think it is – I kind of work back now when I do ratings, like, why is it not a ten, right? and I think this game it's good to frame Mandalorian Premium because I hear people in the Mandalorian fan club on Pinside say that a lot of people don't like this game and I was kind of surprised I guess it's not it's like maybe in the 30s in terms of ratings so it's every new game that comes out it's in the top 10 right it's the most amazing thing so Mandalorian is not despite the fact that it's Star Wars and it's actually a really good Star Wars series in my opinion And, you know, so why do some people not like it? I was trying to think.
    76:21
    Well, I guess it's a hard game for some people who are just going to, you know, flap the flappers, right? Like, just this game needs to be defined with strengths and what it is. This is a game of control. It's a stop-and-shoot game, 100%. You start hitting the ball on the fly it not going to work You can do that in Godzilla Godzilla is a very accessible game You know and there something really smart about making an accessible game because then everybody likes it You make it accessible, casuals like it, and then you make it deep, and then, like, the more skilled players will stay around for it. Well, Mandalorian, I think, coasts a lot on the theme. And by the way, there's a Facebook group for pinball route owners, And consistently they say that Mandalorian is one of their best earners.
    77:14
    And I would agree. It's our best earner at CBW. So I'm struggling to say that the reviews of the game don't jive with the fact that casuals do play the game.
    77:28
    And I think it's a really good game. Okay, so let me just interject and say that. Yeah, please do. South Park is also one of the top earning games on location at all times. So earnings don't always equate to quality gameplay. I agree. That's fair.
    77:44
    So I don't know why some people don't like the game because I think it's really good. So what are the high points for me? One, I think the theme integration is really good on this game. Like, to me, this is Dwight's best game. He's got the scoring figured out, right? It's none of this, like, low-scoring weirdness of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that he was doing. It's not this, like, esoteric, you know, Star Wars multipliers things. It has multipliers in it, but they're easy enough to understand. They create moments in getting the multipliers. It's harder to get the, like, you know, 5X multiplier. It's easy enough to get, like, a 2X. and what the multipliers do in this game is it creates that urgency, that intensity, that stress in a good way to capitalize when things are lit on it. So that's good. I mean, one of the criticisms of Dwight is he's kind of playing around with multipliers and I think he really nailed it on this one in a way that I think is really fair, makes sense, and adds to the game.
    78:55
    You know, we could talk about, I'll come back to the rules, Let's talk about the layout. This is a fan layout. We've seen this before. I get some kind of Sopranos vibes, not necessarily because it's like a one-to-one of that, but it is a fan layout, and it's kind of a catch-and-shoot game where you're trying to control it. This is a game that a lot of the shots are pushed forward, so if you miss a shot, the ball is going to be out of control, and you've got to do recovery. So you want to take your time with shots. It's not a quote-unquote flow game, which that's my other criticism with people who are like, oh, there's no flow. I don't know about you, Kevin, but, like, not every game for a game to be good needs flow, right? Like, flow is something you could talk about game having, but it's not like if you create a game that's not a flow game, it is therefore bad. I think people don't understand that. A game doesn't have to have flow to be good. Absolutely not. Thank you. All right. So we can move on from that. So this is not like this is a flow. This is stop, trap, and shoot. With that said, the strength of a stop, trap, and shoot and shots that are kind of tight but findable is that when you hit a shot, every shot feels great. Like there's a sense of satisfaction. There's a sense that you pulled something off that's difficult and that's not a given. I'll contrast that with Godzilla a little bit because that's a hot game right now. I don't get that in Godzilla because that game, the shots are way more forgiving. They're wider. It's easier to make it. It doesn't make Godzilla any better or worse. It just kind of contrasts the intensity of it. So this is a game that I think thematically you're always kind of engaged. You're always on edge. I feel like there's an intenseness to playing it because if I know if I miss that shot, I might be done, right? There's no I'm going to be casual about it. and if I miss a shot, I'll have time to recover. That's the kind of feeling I get in Led Zeppelin. That's the kind of feeling I get in Godzilla more so.
    80:54
    Well, actually more so in Led Zeppelin. But this is a game where you're on the edge of your seat at all times. And I think that thematically that fits the fact that you're on an adventure and you're trying to make your way through this and you're fighting and you're battling. I think the layout matches the theme. And then Dwight just has nice moments with light choreography. You know, he's got some blinding moments, but it always works. And why I jettisoned Deadpool for this is that from a rules perspective, there's a there there.
    81:28
    You know, I find that in, like, Deadpool, Jack, everything's kind of really straightforward, really basic in some ways. Not bad, but just not a lot to him. I find on this game, though, that the multi-balls each feel really unique. Like, for example, the multi-ball where, I forget, like there's a TIE fighter flying around, you're trying to grapple onto it.
    81:52
    There's shots to hit where you're building up the jackpot, and then you can go up top to the moving play field, which is cool, and add a ball up there. And that's the other thing, Kevin, on the premium that's lost on the pro is the moving play field adds a lot to it. I'll get to that. But then that multiball rule and that particular multiball, when you drain down to one ball, then the super jackpot lights, okay, and that's that turnaround shot in the premium. And all the shots that you've hit has built up to the value on that.
    82:23
    And then imagine that you have a multiplier going. So, again, it creates a moment. It creates intensity of just can you hit that one shot with one ball rather than just being in a multiball and just kind of flapping the flappers and things happen, right? So there's more thought built up into it. Again, in that mode, that multiball that's incorporated with the scene, going up top, right, grappling into the upper play field. It's cool. And I can go on and on. For the sake of brevity, I won't. But I find that each multiball has a lot of thought put into it. The wizard modes are fantastic in terms of the way that they're layered and staged. the mini wizard mode where you're, that's associated with the encounters, you know, like the upper playfields called the encounters. On the premium, it starts off with the upper flipper on the upper playfield up, and you're trying to hit a couple shots, and you're trying to hit it up, and you're stacking the balls on that. Like, those are the kind of surprises that after playing so many pinball games in the last 10 years, it's just nice. And you can, every step along the way, I see an effort of trying to incorporate the show, The Mandalorian, with the game in a way that it's just not like we've got this license. Let's just, you know, throw some sounds, throw some clips from Mandalorian in there and then ship it. Like, no, no, no. Everything's been thought out of like, okay, this is happening in this scene. How can we mimic that on this play field? And that blows me away. I really think that this is one of the best choreographed, theme-integrated pinball machines that I've seen in a long time.
    83:59
    There's just a lot there. So, you know, how long does this last in my collection? I don't know, but I struggle to see how this could possibly be less than a nine, and I'm really happy that I've got it in my collection. So that's my revisitation of Mandalorian Premium. There you go. I don't have much to add. You know, I played it a little bit at your house. maybe this is a game that really shines when you get a bunch of time on it but I wouldn't change my review score I would keep it at a 7.5 I feel like it's a good game not outstanding I figure if the pinnacle is like Pirates or Godzilla or something like that, this is a step down from that so I would stick with my 7.5 it's fun art's good playfield's fun I didn't realize when we first reviewed it, the multiplier rules, James showed those to me. And once he showed those to me, I was like, oh, that's really cool. I do like that. So that's good. But, yeah, like Tess says, I'm a solid 7.5. Well, I mean, I feel like I'm doing a disservice because it's not a full review. But one other thing that it's worth bringing up and that might get lost, like the upper play field is cool and just how it tilts on the premium. And this is definitely the premium game for me, 100%. The pro, I might throw a 7.5 in there. I don't know how I would rate the pro. For me, that moving play field is important. The man makes cool. Also, the turnaround shot. But on the upper play field and the counters, one thing that's really cool to me is that they have, like, in the scoring, they have, like, an accuracy. So, like, there's shots that you need to hit up there. It's computing your accuracy and hitting those shots. And then after you complete the encounter, they'll give you points based on your accuracy. Like, I think that's cool. I can't think of another game offhand. I'm sure some games have done accuracy before, but I can't think of another game that's done that. And it's just there's these surprises that I still get to experience and see in pinball that they're just nice touches, and it's fun to go up there and hit those shots. So, again, I think Dwight did an awesome job. And, like, when you've got the play field multiplier maxed out and you go up there and you're crushing it up there, it feels great.
    86:08
    Cool. The chat room is all fired up about Mando. So there you go. We got him going. Let's get into our main review, our actual review of this show. It's going to be Stern Rush. We'll be right back after this sweet intro. Let's go.
    86:42
    It's rush. Except it's not showing rush on the screen. Why aren't you showing rush? Game. Let's switch back and go back here. Nope, it's not showing rush. Thanks for nothing.
    87:04
    Well, that's going to be a problem. We can't see the pictures. All right. You can do it, Kevin. Pull it up on the web screen. Let me pop it over here.
    87:15
    Please can go. I think it got confused. No, the stream was going too well. It was going too well. I made it full screen and it got confused. So let's see if that works. Nope.
    87:27
    Wait for it. Let me, Nick, talk about Rush. All right. So Rush. This is a game designed by John Borg. It was released in early 2022. Art by Michael Barnard. I don't know if he's done anything else. Kevin can correct me. Software by my favorite coding duo, Tim Suxton and Raymond Davidson. Both tournament players. Both know their stuff. And sound by Bob Baffy. Good old Bob Baffy. I love fucking Bob Baffy. That's a fucking name, dude. That's a good name. Not Robert Baffy. It's Bob Baffy. It's Double B Bob Baffy. I fucking love you, Bob Baffey. I don't even know you.
    88:08
    Pricing is $6,900 for the Pro, $9,000 for the Premium, and $11,100 for the LE. All right, let's talk about the art.
    88:19
    Full disclosure, I own a Premium. Yeah, that's what I told you, art-wise. Also, walking into this, was not a Rush fan. I didn't have much exposure to them. But I did not get this game because I'm a rush fan. I have quite the opposite.
    88:39
    All right. What do you think about the art? Rod Roddy. Rod Roddy here. Bob Bavy and Rod Roddy. And Dan Dean. Yeah, I like it. You're the guys with two first names. Alliteration. Yeah.
    88:55
    All right. Give us the rundown on the art. You feel good? Yeah. Give us the rundown on the art. You want me to go? Yeah. I mean, I feel like here we are. You own it. Yeah, dude. Yeah, yeah. So I really like the cabinet and the back glass artwork. I love the premium. I think that's my favorite artwork. I don't know why because maybe it's Buffalo and all we see is snow. So I put some snow in my basement. I'm also trying to powder coat everything white on there. So I think it's going to look badass. I saw Patrick. He did the same color. We picked it out together. It was really cute. and it looks fantastic, so I can't wait to get that done. But, yeah, I love the cabinet artwork. I love the backlash artwork. The play field, I think, is – you got a good shot of the play field, Kevin? Yeah, I'll pull it up here. It's not like – I love the owl, by the way, in the play field. I think it's okay. I think it's pretty good. Yeah. It looks worse in pictures than it does in real life. And I think that's to be said for a lot of them all, like when you stand in front of it at a school or at a picture. Some people don't like the characters. I think it's fine. I think this is a good artwork.
    90:03
    Actually, the pictures actually look a little better when it's all lit up, to be honest. It's weird.
    90:08
    I think they actually took good pictures of this one for a change. What do you think of the butthole on the playfield, Nick? It's not a butthole. That's what you see, Kevin. It's the Rorschach test. Everybody called it a butthole. Not everybody. Everybody on Pimfine. It's a cork coming out of a black hole. Okay, fine. so I like the I'm of the pinball playfield art perspective like sort of less is more like you know look at like Deadpool and you can look at him like oh the art's amazing it's too busy for me this is like good this is like functional solid is it amazing artwork that I want to get a poster and hang it up no do I love the characters of the Rush guys I can't help but think that there's, you know, better artwork that could have been done. I think the owl's pretty badass, so I like that a lot. So, overall, I'd say it's good.
    91:09
    Yeah, I think it's okay. Like, I don't know, I wasn't as offended by the drawings of the three guys as most people seem to be.
    91:17
    It's certainly not Stern's best art, but it's not their worst either. So, it's somewhere in the middle, play field-wise. The cabinets are cool. I think the Premium is probably my favorite. The LE has that steampunk kind of gear look to it. And then what's on the Pro? I can't remember. I suppose I could pull it. It's more like kind of characters of the band and stuff, which is cool and good in its own way. I think I wouldn't be surprised if people are pretty split on the art. Sometimes there's an art and it's like everybody likes the... Oh, right. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, I think it's cool. Yeah. I think it's cool. The premium is probably my favorite.
    91:59
    You know, I think all the art's solid, right? No issues. I'm the pro. That's cool with the owl. Yeah, the owl's cool for sure. I know. I think overall the artists did a good job on this. We should say that our buddy Ed Robertson was kind of like the creative director on this project, and he was like a dyed-in-the-wool, diehard Rush fan. Yeah. So he shared that picture, I think it was on the Barenaked Ladies Instagram, where he's like 10 years old and he's got his Rush shirt. He's in front of a wall of Rush posters and records and all sorts of stuff. So this is the guy you want directing this game if you want the full Rush experience. He put all these, you know, only really diehard Rush fans would get all these references and stuff that are in the game. So that's really cool. Yeah, and the band was involved, right? Like, this is not just somebody signing off in legal, like, yeah, you can go and do it. and then, you know, that's it, and it's got, you know, Aerosmith slapped on it. No, this is – Rush was involved. Ed was super passionate, was involved. And also, you know, they were making this game. He told me about this game in 2018. So this is – Ed told me that, like, this is a game that – this is the longest John Borg has had to work on a game, right? so I think it shows I think and we'll get to everything I think that wraps up the art what about the sound what do you think about Bob Baffey's sound I mean Bob Baffey did pretty good I mean if you have Bob Baffey and you got Jeff Worth that's a killer combination so you get that Red Bar Cheddar I think We're going to have to stream and just Red Bart shut it all day.
    93:48
    I bet that's Martha's threat. So, obviously, the music's really good. It's got a ton of Rush music. I think, what, I think like two hours worth of music in it. Oh, that's awesome. A ton of music.
    93:59
    I think the call-outs are hit and miss. They've definitely improved since the early code that we played where it was very repetitive, a lot of the call-outs. But, I mean, it's kind of the same thing on GNR when you have the band members do call outs they're not voice artists so while it's cool to have the the band members in there it's not really good voice work so it's kind of a trade-off right i think that in gnr at least you had uh um melissa who has done actual professional voice work uh and i know like ed did some voice work for those two like the the robot or something right yeah yeah so it's not all the band but i think i think the the band call it's cool they had the band in there but i don't I think they do really great call-outs.
    94:46
    I'm trying to remember, like, what the sound effects stand out. Do you have, like, a favorite sound effect or soundscape on this game that you really like? Well, I think what's funny about sound effects is that, no, the sound effects don't, like, the sound effects are good, but they don't stick out like Guns N' Roses, which is just they stick out for the wrong reasons, right? Like, you don't want the sound effects competing with the fact that it's a music band.
    95:16
    What is the – I can't think of the name of the song, but I really like one of the sound effects in one of the multi-ball.
    95:24
    Far Cry. Like, there's, like – there's some particular sound effect in there. It's got pretty cool spinner sounds, right? It's got good spinner sounds. It's got an opto-spinner.
    95:34
    Not as good as Led's out, but still solid. But I think, as you mentioned, Kev, I mean, number one is the music pin with 16 tracks. Like, that's like there's got to be some minimum. And thank God Stern's corrected, like, Led Zeppelin having 10. I'm sure that was more or less a licensing issue. But, yeah, I'm really satisfied with the tracks that are on the game. And I say this as a, you know, not coming into it as a Rush fan, but I really like the songs on there to the point where, like, now, like, I'd say, like, yeah, I'm a fan of Rush. Like, Martha's loving it. She was not a Rush fan. Went out and we got, we've got, like, two concerts now, Blu-ray concerts. We just finished watching one. Like, fucking, I'm like, I'm going to get another one. She's like, yep, go for it. Nice. So, I love, like, I actually. Martha would be the one woman at a Rush show then. Yeah.
    96:26
    Yeah, I think that's the really cool thing. Like, I'm really happy this game got made because, you know, I didn't grow up listening to Rush. I didn't know my friends listened to Rush. My dad didn't listen. Like, I was just really not exposed to them. So it's nice.
    96:40
    It sucks that I just, like, quote, unquote, discovered or, you know, got into them this late when I can't go and see a Rush show. That's a huge bummer. But at the same time, I'm really happy that this game got me into their music because it's phenomenal. Like, their music's amazing, and I'm really excited for it, and I think that adds to the last ability of it. um i i think like on the music point um i i know rush because like buffalo radio plays rush like crazy like classic rock radio so i heard a lot growing up uh so as somebody who's not like a hardcore rush fan but who's somebody who's familiar with the band i appreciate the song selection because there's enough like songs you would have heard on the radio so you know there's like working man and limelight and and tom sawyer and stuff like that so if you chances are you're probably going to have heard one of those songs, and then there's some deeper cuts in there for the superfans, too, so it's a good thing. Yeah, and probably in Canada they know this, and the fans, but, like, Subdivision's, like, I fucking love that song, like, Big Money, I love, like, the 80s sound, like, it's really good, and, like, Gay Lee has a call, he's like, this is a really good song, like, try to make the ball last or something. And I think, like, I know what you're saying about band call-outs, they're not voice actors, but I'll contrast this with GNR because that's the other game in recent memory that had band members do call-outs.
    98:06
    And there's nothing – like I've played your game enough times. There's not a single memorable thing from the GNR game, right? And like this game – Like call-out-wise or – Yeah, call-out-wise, call-out-wise, yeah. Well, I'm going to say when Frank says, Frank here. Yes, correct. But not in a good way. That's good. Not in a fucking good way, though.
    98:29
    I think, first of all, they've just even added, there's a lot of call-outs in this game. And they just added more in the update.
    98:39
    And I think it's authentic. And, you know, Ed said this, like, the band had fun doing the call-outs. And I can tell. Like, they're joking around in the call-outs, and it might not be delivered with, like, a professional – it's not Mark Sill, a professional voice actor, but it's authentic Rush. And I've got to imagine, like, the longstanding fans love it. And I can tell they're having fun. Like, it's fun. They're joking around in a lot of the call-outs. I can also see somebody who's not a Rush fan finding it maybe annoying. I get that, you know, because they're not professional call-outs. but it's still really good and it still makes it a super kind of authentic, passionate game.
    99:25
    That's fair. I mean, it's Rush. I mean, like, that's what you want. You want the band members. I mean, it checks the boxes, right? You want to hear the band members, and you also want to hear them doing it where they're not just phoning it in. And there's, like, you know, there's a couple cheesy lines. I'm not going to say that there's not, and maybe some that aren't. Maybe could have used another take or two. But overall, I definitely appreciate it. And the more I play and listen to the game, the more I appreciate it. Cool.
    99:52
    Toys. So the main toy is the time machine, right? Main toy is the time machine, yeah. Let me – I got a picture of that here. We can show off here. So on the Premium LE, the ramp in front lifts up and down, right? And in the Pro, it's just up all the time, right?
    100:13
    In the Pro, it's up all the time, correct. Yeah. And I think it's narrower on the Pro. Oh, really? I think so. Oh, interesting. I think that's what people have been saying, or it's like a little more forgiving on the premium slash LE. Of course, when it's in a down position on the premium LE, it's not forgiving. So I think it balances itself out. Right. The other thing is, as Toss Bishop mentioned in the chat, the clock is – I mean, the clock's awesome. I remember when people, when the game came out, like, there was sentiment in the forum, like, oh, I get pro or premium, I'm going to get the pro on. I don't see the point in the premium rally. And I couldn't disagree more. Like, first of all, the clock is on. Even though, like, it's not something that changes, like, it doesn't interact in the way the time machine does. And we'll talk about that. The clock is fucking awesome. What makes it awesome? Because I never notice it when I'm playing Yeah First of all, I think it's It's a nice toy It's a nice kind of Whatever you want to call it It's not a toy because it doesn't interact with the ball So it's just like a feature A playfield feature Like you can't hit it with the ball So in that sense It doesn't interact, but it interacts with the game Okay Like, you know It interacts with the game, right? It's always interacting with what's going on in the game. So when you're not playing, it will actually show the time in real life, IRL. When you're playing, you're trying to get to midnight. So when you hit the pop, like for a multiball, so when you hit the pop bumpers, it will make the minutes move on the thing, which is cool, right? You can look at that and say, oh, okay, this is how close I am to that multiball. It's got a counter on it. and then when we get into that multi-ball I don't even understand this I've got to go back and look at it but it actually works backwards and that's the value of the jackpots it's crazy and then in Working Man you progress from 9 to 5 every shot is 10 minutes and you can see the clock moving up I think it's a really cool toy to have on there no matter which way you want to classify it but it definitely interacts with the game, and the pro doesn't have that. It's not like that's in and of itself enough to say I'm going to jump to pro to premium. I think the way you justify that is the ramp that moves up and down is awesome. I mean, first of all, when I know the ramp's up, I know that that shot's ready, which is a nice indicator for sure. But it also changes the geometry of the game, which is one of my favorite things in the game. I mean, anytime you can change it. When it's down, it's like hitting a sparky shot, hitting the prison shot. It's the classic John Borg up the middle. It comes right back at you. And when it's up, it's incredibly satisfying because it's like the magnet from Lord of the Rings. It holds the ball for a second. So it gives you that kind of break and play. You can look at the screen. You can pat yourself on the back. Maybe you just pulled off a cool combo or it's transitioning to a mode. there's something oddly satisfying about hitting that shot the other big difference is the wire farm up kicker from that what on the pro is a dead end shot I don't know if this is probably the same for you I have not played a pro this game have you funny you should ask that was the first game I had to play out in Denver Oh, funny. Okay. And I got fucking two million on it, of course. Well, it's because it didn't have that return ramp on it, right? Yeah, we're getting one for a route, so you'll get to play it. Cool. Yeah, I really like the – that's like one of my favorite shots on the game is just like nailing that. It's a really good shot to hit.
    104:19
    It's a good bailout shot, right? Yeah, exactly. And you can just – it's like, oh, crap, I need to save this ball. Let's dunk it in there. and then you get a nice clean feedback to your flipper to work from.
    104:30
    So I think that's the biggest standout to me, not having played the pro, but it seems like that would be a huge miss, just having that be a dead-end shot with no – Yeah, the pro's got to be brutal trying to get through this game without – like, the dead-end shot's just going to come right back at you, right? Like, you kind of need that. This game is coded to be a long-playing game. My highest game is like $6 billion-something, and I was probably playing for like an hour. Wow.
    104:59
    That's a lot. So there's a couple other things. Maybe just one. I think the Pro has the diverter. I think it has it. Oh, the ramp diverter in the back? Yeah. I don't really understand that, how that works. How does that all work? It's just like always lit, and you can always change where it returns to. Yeah, you can always change it. And there's lamps to the left and right, so the flashing lamp will show if it's going to return to the left or right. Okay. I find it's nice to have. I'm glad it's in the game. I don't use it a ton. But, you know, you're playing a game for like an hour potentially. There's times when you're going to want to set up a shot. Yeah, it's good to have. If you know you want to hit a certain shot, you can set it up, right? Exactly. And like on, God, I'm sorry, Rush Grange, Levada, Strango, whatever the fuck it is. I'm sorry. I love the song. I fucking love the song. I'm sorry.
    105:52
    I want to join your club, guys. I want to be like you. I'm sorry for anything that I've ever said that was bad. I was misguided and I wasn't raised right. But on that mode, like, it will move it automatically. Like, that's such a cool mode because it's like a 12-piece, like a 12-movement song. So it will, like, have you hitting, like, all the shots in the play field, and the thing will switch on its own to hit what shot you need to hit. There's just, like, clever things like that. But the premium in LE also has the, we'll call it like the avatar lock, right? And that's behind what I would call the walking dead stand-up targets on the left. So that's nice because then you can, once you knock down those targets, you can hit it back there. It will lock the ball like in an avatar coffin, and then you can keep on hitting it over and over again to, like, you know, boost the jackpot, which is cool. Versus on the pro, there's just a stand-up target. It doesn't lock. It comes right back at you. So, again, look, my recommendation if you're interested in this game, this is definitely a premium for sure. Definitely a premium or rally. Word. I think that's it. Unfortunately, us premium owners, we got gypped on the lighting.
    107:07
    They still don't have those available, do they? Yeah, well, here's the thing. I'd say it's like a bill of materials thing, right? Like it was cost prohibitive. But, like, I got over that, but I can't get over the fact that it's not available for purchase still. Like, you can't buy it. That sucks, dude. Yeah, the game's been out since, like, January. Yeah.
    107:31
    I'm sure, like, Stern's frustrated. Like, they want to make money. But it sucks because I think on these concert games, these music games, those are nice touches. Like, they really are. Like, Led Zeppelin looks great. Like, I played it in James with those lights. It makes a difference. The first time I played Rush was on James' LE, and then I played Patrick's Premium, and immediately something felt like it was just totally missing. Like, you're at, like, 80% of what the game should be just based on lights, which is crazy, but when you think thematically, it makes sense.
    108:08
    All right. So let's say that was toys. Let's talk about the display and lighting. So we're kind of getting into the lighting here. Um, what else? Overall impressions of the lighting on a premium with, uh, without the expression lights. So fantastic. You know, I think Stern does, I think Stern's got lighting figured out. Um, one of my favorite modes and it's not like this is the first time this has been done. It's been done in Metallica. Um, but it's, um, what's it was, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed.
    108:40
    What's the owl song? Fly by night. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I'm new to the club. The owl. Fly by the owl. I love that owl. It says, when you get a shoot again, it says hoot again. Like, the owl flies through and hits the – like, that's the kind of, like, thing that you know, like, when you care – like, when there's care put into a game. I love that. But, yeah, that multi-ball, you hit shots and the game gets darker, and then the only thing that's lit is the time machine. Like, super cool. There's a lot of cool moments like that. Overall, the lighting's good.
    109:17
    There's no other – I can't say there's, like, a standout moment that is as good as that, but also I'm missing the expression lighting, which I'm sure I can talk a hell of a lot more if I had that. Come on, Stern. There's the hoot again for you. Oh, fucking hoot again. Oh, I didn't realize it says on the play field and it does in the animation. Like, the animation, it says shoot again. The owl flies through and, like, knocks out the S. Yeah. Love it. It's right there. We love you. Love it. I fucking love it. That's cute.
    109:48
    Gameplay. All right. This one's all you because you put a lot more time into this. I will say that this game, I liked it right from the beginning gameplay-wise. The layout is like John Borg's finest. He takes all of his ideas and puts them into a package that shoots the best. So I had actually, I think I talked about it last month, where I had that X-Men LE for a couple weeks, like about a month. It was a temporary thing until I got my Toy Story. And I've always liked that layout, but it's like it doesn't shoot great. It's a little clunky. This takes that layout and, like, perfects it. You can tell, like, you put the time and effort into, like, tweaking the geometry just enough to make it play nice and smooth. So when you step up to this game, it's going to be fun to shoot. And I think that's one of the first things you really want in a pinball machine. And it's like, okay, I like shooting it. What else is there? So you know the rules a lot better than I do, so why don't you talk about the rules and the gameplay? Yeah, so Kevin kind of summed it up. I've always said that I think my favorite John Borg layout is the X-Men layout. I've always liked it, but I didn't like X-Men. So, you know, knowing John Borg, he recycles a lot of his work or tweaks it. I kind of knew that I was going to get the latest iteration if it was a good game, and it certainly is.
    111:13
    This is not, you know, this layout is, God, it goes back more than 30 years, right, Kev? I mean, I think the first time we saw a layout like this kind of, like this style layout was at least Funhaus.
    111:26
    Yeah, I guess. I mean, this is a reverse. This is a reverse. It's flipped. But it's like that style. You know, there are similar shots.
    111:37
    You know, then you have Tommy, similar flips. Then you have Tron, okay, which is a lot more like those. And then you have X-Men, and this is an improvement on this, like, 30-year-old design. And I think, I mean, I love it. What I love about it is that the shots feel good. They're not gimme shots, right? Like, there's not, like, it's not easy, but they're findable, and when you kind of get locked into that flow state and you start hitting them, one of the best things is that you kind of hit, like, three shots in a row, and then you shoot the time machine, and it will hold the ball for a second, and it's like you just fucking did, like, an Olympic stunt. Like, you're like a gymnast, and you pulled something off, and you pulled the landing off. And that's the feeling. And I think that's like, that's a thing that's hard to articulate why you're enjoying it and why it's good, but what's baked into that, right? Like if these shots were easy and you're doing it constantly, the satisfaction is not there. Like let's say just flowing all around the play field. That's fine, and that can work with a theme. What's good about this is that the shots aren't a given. You've got to work for them, but they do flow together. But it gives you a break by hitting the time machine. So you're not like constantly like in this loop of like hitting 10 shots in a row kind of deal. You get a moment of hitting and stopping, patting yourself on the back, and then continuing that journey. You know, it's funny. I saw a review on Pinside, and somebody's like, this game has no flow. I was like, what the fuck game are you playing?
    113:20
    Like this game has no flow. If you're terrible at pinball, I guess no machine has no flow, right? And I don't know if it's like this idea that shots need to be easy. You know, like this game is a total flow game. And I think you – here's the thing. You want shots to be challenging enough so that you feel satisfaction. There's also the threat of danger, right? Like being able to land something and pull off a move and do it in a way that's fair is satisfying. And as you progress as a player and get better, that's your reward.
    113:56
    So, yeah, the game is fantastic. It's a long-playing game. You know, we've talked about the outlanes before, and I've debated. When James first got his, he immediately moved it to the position where the pros are. I think they're in the middle. They were, like, on the easiest settings. They shipped on the easiest settings for the LE and the premium. I kept mine. I mentioned this before. And my theory around the time is that this game is coded for where the posts are.
    114:31
    And I'm right. I mean, like, it's like Led Zeppelin, right? Like, these are long-playing games. With that said, I've also gotten basically to the end of the game. The wizard mode as of right now is not programmed in there.
    114:47
    But every game is not like that. I mean, I was attacking this game when Stern was doing the insider connected thing, and I'd have games where I'd get like, you know, $10 million or something or maybe $40, and I just couldn't do anything. And then I'd have a game that's like $1 billion and then a game that's $3 billion and then finally $6 billion after a month.
    115:05
    You know again that getting into the flow state and just you know as you get deeper you start getting extra balls and it helps But yeah in terms of gameplay the gameplay is just fantastic You're right, Kevin, you said it yourself. This is the best version of that. This is my favorite Borg layout. I think it's hard to imagine it done any better. And what's interesting, too, it's got those, like, walking dead lock shots. and this is where I get tripped up when that light is flashing and I can lock the ball for a multi-ball and I can't hit that shot. And I hear my inner voice like, just fucking ignore it, Nick. And I get stubborn.
    115:43
    And then I drain. So, like, that's cool as well. We haven't gotten to the rules yet. I just was tackling the gameplay because I wanted to do justice to, you know, one of my favorite layouts in pinball. Yeah, no, that's cool. I agree. I like this layout a lot. I think that's one of the best things it's got going for it is just, like, a super great layout, and it's hard to argue with that. I should say, Cab, this is a point to bring it up. I think Skip was chiding us for not mentioning the scoop and stuff. Let's talk about the issues. We'll talk about layouts, yeah. Yeah, this is the negatives, I think, about this game, and it's just some weird things, weird adjustments. So if you've not been paying attention, you're living in a cave. When this game first came out, there was an issue with the scoop. The scoops were getting bent. There's two scoops on it. The scoop protectors were getting bent. Yeah, so the picture you're seeing here doesn't have any protectors on it at all. And then, which is bizarre because, I mean, look, it's been in scoops forever, protectors. Well, I shouldn't say forever, but they've been doing it long enough. So it was really surprising that the scoop protectors were getting bent. And what's bad about that is that it was digging into play field and causing chipping and destroying some early gains around the scoop. So then Stern came out with almost like a 2.0 of the scoop protector, and that lasted a little bit longer, but still had issues. And then it came out with 3.0, which are these fucking nubs that change the geometry of the shot. It makes it a little harder to hit that shot because there's kind of walls around the sides of the scoop rather than scoops just being open.
    117:27
    And, you know, you know what's going on. You know that's not the way the game was designed. There was a problem with the scoops for whatever reason. They were shipping it out like that, and engineering quickly had to, you know, they can't stop the game on the line. They had to come up with a solution, and their solution was not exactly elegant. So this is the one that Kevin's got to put. I got the nubs. Yeah, I was putting it kindly. I got the nubs, and changing that out is like an hour-long task. Matt Taylor helped me out, which is awesome. Really appreciate it. But I want to play the game the way the designer intended it, so those nubs are not the way the game the designer intended it. They should be ripped off, and that sucks. It sucks to buy a new game, and you've got to do that because Stern messed this up pretty badly. Shout out to NinjaCampMods. He made a great mod. The mod's holding up. Everyone seems happy with it. Third-party people have to fucking solve these problems. But it's not easy switching those out. Not easy. It's an hour. It's a pain in the ass.
    118:36
    And then there's other issues. For example, you like that upkicker shot on the premium. Well, that gets a lot of rejects on it, So I had to buy another mod from Ninja Camp and kind of put a backstop. And even now, when I just wax my game and my game's fast, I get a bunch of rejects from that, even with the backstop on there. This is like the Ninja Camp mod, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the Scoop mod. Yeah. Okay. Yep. I played Heroes like this, and I played James of White. It's like, it's not rubber or something. I don't know what the material is, but, you know, it's like bendable, flexible, like, and it just works, right? Western can't do that. Western can't figure it out. The funny thing is it's probably even cheaper than what Stern was using. Go figure.
    119:20
    They should just pay him money and start putting out the games. I don't know why they don't do that shit.
    119:25
    So the up-kicker shot was you get a bunch of rejects from it. They should have put some padding or felt or something to detonate. That's another thing you've got to do when you get the game. More money you've got to spend.
    119:38
    Some people, I sort of have this problem sometimes, and sometimes I don't. I don't know what it is. But some people have the problem where you shoot the spinner, and they actually, on pin side, somebody had to do a slow motion video to figure out what's going on. It's coming through so fast that it's hitting, like, a wall and bouncing back before the gate can come down and prevent it from doing so. So there's just some annoying things about this game. And, oh, yeah, there's also, like, some rattle in the shooter lanes. They don't get a clean feed. Like, there's some annoying things that you have to do in this game where you have to invest more time and money to kind of get it playing like you want it to play. It's not the worst thing. I mean, God, there's so many better examples of games that are just trash out of the box. And there's probably so many people that have not done this and are probably having a blast playing it. But, you know, for people like us who know the way the game should be played and, you know, when something's wrong, you're going to have to invest some time and money fixing it. I found a picture of a mangled, this is one of the original Stern Scoopers. I don't know what the hell happened, man. Yeah, I don't know. That is so bad. That's so bad. People were getting them and playing them on location for, like, 10 games, and then here's what would happen. Like, the ball just gets stuck and hung up on it. I will say my game has, like, the best clear I've ever seen on a Stern game. It's phenomenal. There is a point where somebody in the factory screwed in. I see that condom on there.
    121:04
    There's that. What the hell is that? I don't know. There is that, you know, somebody drew a post and there might be some shipping on my game. I have no idea. I think it's fine. But, like, yeah, the clear's really good on this game, too, that I got. I'm trying to find it. There's some great photos of the mangled scoops. It just got wrecked.
    121:26
    All right, so why don't we get into the gameplay, or the rules. So there's a lot going on here rules-wise.
    121:35
    Yeah, a lot going on. I think it's simple enough to step up to the game and figure out what's going on.
    121:42
    The game actually gives a lot of information to the player on the screen. It's hard to see because there's not a lot of real estate on the Stern LCD screen, but to their credit, you know, they've got a lot of information presented on there. So if you could take a moment to look at that, you can kind of get a sense of what's going on, right? Trap the ball, see what's up. But it's pretty basic. You hit the record shots after you hit, like, I think three shots. The time machine's lit, and you start a mode. The mode will tell you what to hit, what shots to go for, what the shots to do, and then you play it. I mean, that's right there.
    122:15
    That's it. And then you shoot a time machine for multi-balls. But it's not that simple, right? Like, there's more to bite off, more to chew, more nuance, and that's why the game really shines. That's why, you know, Tim and Raymond as a coding duo, rule-wise, they're fucking awesome, man. You know, there's things in there for getting unique combos. And, Kevin, it's kind of like the star map on Pirates, how there's, like, unique combos in the game. And if you do, like, a combo that's associated with an album, it will give you, like, it's called a weapon. It's just like a boost you can use, like, either if it's during a multi-ball, if you've collected that album, it will add a ball. Or if you're in the song mode shot, it will complete some shots on there. each mode is cool and unique I think in terms of the way it's laid out I mentioned Levito was strong or whatever, I'm sorry again it's messing up, I mentioned Rookie Man Big Money is like you can keep on collecting the shot by hitting the time machine or you can hit other shots and build up like 2x, 3x and then hit the time machine which is cool Spirit of the Radio you can hit the spinner to increase the other shots in the game, hit the other shots, and then the up kicker shot will cash it out, whatever you built up. So you can build up to 5 million, 6, 10, whatever. I mean, you can keep on building that up and cashing it out.
    123:46
    And the rules are such that, like, you're trying to get from, I think it's 2011 to 2012. You're trying to get there. and, like, the way you progress through the game is, like, if you get, like, the double super jackpot in multiball, you go up five years.
    124:06
    Or if you play a mode and complete a mode, you go up, like, two years. If you get 100 million in a mode, you go five years. Right? So, like, you'll see the time machine, you'll see what year you're in, and you can see it going up. And then as you hit certain milestones in the game, it's, like, you'll unlock things like multiballs are now, like, one less shot to start. Right. So there's a lot of that. There's like instrument bonuses where it increased like the pop bumper. There's like six multi balls in the game to get through, not including I think the wizard modes. Then you get into the wizard modes, and one of the wizard modes like Cygnus book two is there's stages in it, and one of the stages where the flippers are reversed. One is that the flippers start up, and when you hit it, it makes it go down. I think Weird Al copied that shit. But I think I've seen that. There's a lot of games that have had inverted flippers before that. Inverted flippers. Yeah, I think, like, Octoberfest had it and stuff, you know. There's been gimmicky stuff like that. Yeah, it's just got a lot going on, man. And it's just a lot of care, a lot of attention went into this. There's no crazy, like, multipliers in the game, for better or for worse. I think, like, one of the best things for Zeppelin is, like, If you take out the multiplier in Zeppelin, yeah, the game does fall apart in many ways. Not having multipliers in Rush doesn't really hurt it.
    125:41
    But, yeah, there's lacking. You can multiply shots, for sure. Like in games where you pick a shot to be multiplied, that kind of deal. But, yeah, I think that's a good overview. I know you're not terribly familiar with it, so it's kind of. Yeah, I just know the basics, like start a mode, bring in a multiball. I know there's more layers there, and that's what you want for a game that you're going to have at your house, right? You want the base objectives and then the extra stuff to go for once you really get into a game. So someone's saying they need some streams from me. We'll do some brochures in the fall on all my new games. Oh, yeah. So we'll get rushed. I'll do a good tutorial.
    126:18
    It's a nice thing once I spend some time with it. one thing I should say that I really liked what they've done this is what the insider connected is that you can the Cygnus book one and two that's not available as a song selection but when you get to it you unlock it on your player profile so then you can select it in the beginning of the game but also anybody else playing the game with you can also select it like I love that I love I saw somebody whining on pin side that's not selectable it's like dude this is like the fucking video game stuff like you've you've you've earned yeah you gotta earn some stuff yeah that's what i i like about the profile system on the p3 is all right i can log in i can be logged into my account and then if i reach a certain objective on the game i can set a save state and then i can go back and play that but only once i've earned it right like once i once i get ready so it's like it's like those mini modes in uh adventures and Jurassic Park, but you have to earn it. And then it's like, okay, now I can practice it because I got there on my own. Yeah, and there's a lot of songs in the game, so it's not like you're starving for songs. So it's just a nice feeling of achievement.
    127:29
    I love that they did that. I think it's fantastic. Don't, listen, don't let anybody tell you differently because one person whines on Pinside. Fuck them.
    127:38
    You know, we can all enjoy the things we enjoy and, you know, without that, Like, I enjoy this meme, by the way. This is a good meme.
    127:46
    Yeah. You know, sometimes Spinside really comes through, and that's one of those times. All right, let's talk about last ability. So you said, I don't have this in my home, so I don't know, like, from a homeowner perspective what the last ability is. You said it's a long-playing game. You've gotten to the end of it already, but you can always toughen up games later to give it more challenge, right? So, we're going to see this game lasting long term. So, yes and no. I mean, like, the Wizard Mode is not programmed in yet.
    128:18
    So, I've got to – I didn't get to 2112. I got to 2111. Okay. And that sucks. Like, it sucks that, like, I've had the game for a month and I've kind of – I've gotten through everything that's in it already. Like, I don't like that. I failed to mention in my game room updates, I beat Led Zeppelin, like, two weeks ago. But that's after a year, right? Yeah, right. And once you beat a game, then it's almost like on the chopping block.
    128:46
    Look, I'm an exception. Like, when I'm reading Last Ability, I see people complaining on Pinside they can't get anywhere in this game. So, for most people, you can't compare it to what I can do in the game. And, you know, I can always, you know, if I do get bored of it, I like this game so much. And there's so much in there. And I haven't beaten it yet. so I can't count my one game that I did, and that was out of I don't know how many games I've played when I was really gunning for it.
    129:15
    I think it has great last ability. I really, despite all that, I really do, and even to the point that if I do get to the end, I'll just move the outlines and make it harder. I think the game is so fun. Like, I love music pins. It's not like I own every one, but there's something magical, and I think this is Stern's best music pin for sure. And that's the thing. I know people love Iron Maiden, but there's love and attention that went in with the band being involved. I think Tim and Raymond crushed it on the rules. There's a lot there.
    129:45
    The presentation's great. This is Borg's best design, I think. There's so much to love about this game.
    129:54
    And, you know, everybody loves Godzilla, and I like it. Like, if I had to, right now if you asked me, if I had to keep one game in my collection, either Godzilla or Rush, it would be Rush. And that's a close call. Like, ask me six months from now. I think that's the real thing. Do I like Rush or Godzilla better?
    130:12
    You know, maybe some people think I'm crazy, but I've talked to other people like James and Patrick, and they're, like, they're playing Rush more, and they're, like, they're leaning towards Rush, right? And everybody's different. I think, and I don't mean this to devolve into a rush versus Godzilla, but it's unavoidable in some ways because they both came out recently, and they're both phenomenal games. I think, you know, beginner players are always going to gravitate to Godzilla. It's very friendly. You can do cool things. I think maybe for more seasoned players, then it becomes a more interesting choice in what game is better. I say, listen, just buy both. They're both fantastic. I'm very fortunate to have both in my collection. Just buy both.
    130:54
    Easy. Easy and cheap and don't take up any space at all. Better than putting money in the bank. Well, that's for sure. Pinball, investment, let's go.
    131:04
    Yeah, so there you go. Let's put a number on it. What do you say numbers-wise? Get Nick at Rick and Morty, he'll never beat it. That's hilarious.
    131:13
    Yeah, this game is, I want to give it a 10. I'm going to give it a 9.5. Um, just because of some frustrating manufacturing issues. Um, just cause I think that 10 is a sacred number for a pinball machine. I don't know if I've ever given any game a 10, but my God, if there's any game that I give a 10, it would be this one, but I'll give it a nine per five because it's hard to find that perfect game. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if 10 is achievable, but you know, maybe someday, maybe, maybe Godzilla, once it has all its updates and everything will be a 10, but it's really got to, I think, you know, the, the art not being great keeps it from being a 10 too. like it would have to have like the best art ever it would have to have like the best art right and that's like no knock on the art like I mean 10 is just like how do you get to the that's like 10 is like perfect so 9.5 my god this is this game is awesome this game like if you've given it a look and you didn't get it spend some more time with it read the rules you know maybe it's still not for you but if you're not a Rush fan I didn't care for Rush going into it I think it's fantastic Rush is an awesome band I'm glad that they got a game that's up to their caliber as musicians. Kudos to Ed for his input and everything he did with it. I think it's awesome.
    132:29
    Martha loves it too. I think I asked Martha, and she owns Godzilla. I think she likes Rush Fighter. For whatever that's worth, anybody wondering about it. I think this falls into the – for me it falls into the solid game category. I'd give it an eight. So solid game. I don't think it's a one I would own maybe. I don't know. But I do really like playing it every time I get a chance to step up. Real solid game. Great layout from John Borg. And a really fun overall game to play. So, Tess Bishop is happy that you're stoked. So, there you go.
    133:04
    Yeah. Tess Bishop sounds like he likes it. She likes it. Yeah, the game's awesome. That is – that's going to do it for the main portion of where do you even talk pinball. but boy do we have a bonus for you I call it bathroom breaks we have a super sized topper talk with Goran coming at ya here's what he said about it it's with Ryan McQuaid he talks about the design and creation of Rollercoaster Tycoon his interactive topper that he made for it it's slightly longer if that's ok with you future topper talks will be back to their regular length the one with Ryan is really interesting though so So, figure out. It doesn't instill confidence.
    133:49
    You got to put a disclaimer in front of it. Oh, he's there. He's with the. He's there. That's a tough score. Yeah. Thank you for paying attention. All right. Until next month, we'll see you around. Stop by the stream Thursday, I think, is going to be the return of Small Town. This week, he's got something going on on Wednesday. But he might finally have his Godzilla to play for you on Thursday. So tune in for that and more streams coming up on the channel from me and from Dave at Dave's Arcade. And in the meantime, enjoy yourself some Topper Talk, and we will see you next time.
    134:26
    It's Topper Talk with Goran right now. Let's all have some fun. This is about plastic on top of your pin. Go and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly fill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Gorin. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Goren, the part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now, today, we're probably going to go over three to five minutes again, because Ryan McQuaid is back with us to talk about his roller coaster tycoon topper. So let's head into the office to talk about that now.
    135:14
    Okay, so here we are in the office with American Pinball Game Designer, Ryan McQuaid. Welcome back to the show, Ryan. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. How about yourself? I'm doing well. So last Topper Talk, we chatted about your wonderful custom Sonic Spinball Topper, but today we're going to be chatting about your custom topper that you made for Roller Coaster Tycoon, which is really interesting to talk about because with Sonic, you had made that pinball machine, and then you made a topper for it, but now you're taking an existing pinball machine and actually creating a brand-new integrated topper into the game. So let me share my screen here with some of the images that you sent me, and I'd love for you to chat a little bit about what's going on here.
    136:07
    Yeah, so this one we're going a little bit further back. This is before I had done any custom work or anything. I was still just doing restorations. That's how I got my background. I've been doing a lot of pinball restorations for a number of years. And one of the games that I've always wanted to do was Rollercoaster Tycoon because that was my, as I call them, pizza shop games. Everyone has that one game that they had down at the local bowling alley or pizza shop or wherever you used to play when you were a kid. And so that's the one you sunk all your quarters into, and for me that was Rollercoaster Tycoon. The local bowling alley only had one pinball machine, And if replay was set so low that I could play, like, reliably on four quarters, which is all I really had for quite a long time. And so I really grew to love the game. And I was able to track one down a couple years back. And so as part of the restoration, I decided I wanted to kind of give it a last little flourish on top and make this working roller coaster model. so to give you a little bit of a background of what this thing's made of so people always ask me like what did you what did you use to make this one and that's a valid question um so there is an old model roller coaster in a model remodel roller coaster i guess that's a that's a new term verb for you um this is an old roller old model roller coaster set called poster dynamics or made by a company called Coastal Dynamics. Unfortunately, for people looking to make holistic poppers, they're only doing Legos now, which is fine. They're doing some great products, but they don't look particularly realistic. So I had to kind of go back and try to find myself a set of these things. And I searched for months and months, and I was trolling eBay, and I was never able to get a hold of a kit of these Coastal Dynamics kits because they looked the right size, and And they looked really like they would fit the theme of a modern, like, metal coaster designs. And I'd seen some of the things that some of the people who had these kits were able to do with them. And I was like, that's perfect. That's exactly what I want to do.
    138:21
    So after a long time of searching, I was able to find a single incomplete expansion pack to one of these kits. So it was not a full kit. It was only, like, a few extra pieces. it was the lift kit a couple of tracks and a couple of the track holder pieces and then all those little spine bits that hold the rails to the actual track so I figured that was enough for me to figure out the rest I have a background in 3D printing and I'm just overall pretty handy so I'm like alright I'm just going to buy this and I'll see what I can come up with from there so if you want to move to some of the pictures of the construction. I can get into what it's made of other than that. So that's the finished car. And we're painting it. The baseboard is made of PVC pipe and custom printed flanges to hold those to the base along with a couple of braces in the middle and they're all topped with the original kit track holder setups. Luckily, the kit that I purchased had enough of those that I didn't end up having to recreate too many, but I did end up recreating some of those because I needed more and I was breaking a few of them. But because I had it in my hand, it wasn't that hard to recreate and start 3D printing some of those. So I was able to do whatever I wanted with it when I keep going through these pictures. So these pictures were, I had to pull them from quite an old archive, so I don't really remember a lot of it, so I'm just going to be narrating what I see. What's in it here? This right here is the drive gear. The drive gear was the Achilles heel of this entire unit. It was normally made of plastic, like completely plastic. In fact, one of the pictures I sent you is of this drive gear broken. I think we may have that at the end, because I wasn't sure. Yeah, is this it? That's okay. I sent these to you in a completely nonsense order. There it is. So that's the original drive gear for the Cluster Dynamics lift kit. And that was after maybe like an hour's worth of testing. Like the thing just snapped. It was so poorly made. It was just woefully inadequate to the task that they wanted this thing to do. I'm amazed that this was still like the way that it came and that it hadn't been redone. so the one you were just looking at was my attempt to make a metal shaft for that drive gear to try to make it stronger so I could use it and that worked for a little while it got me this topper was built and debuted at was built for and debuted at fantastic 2019 and it got me through two and a half days of that show before it broke down again and I couldn't get it running the plastic teeth of this gear started to strip out and it wasn't able to get up the hill anymore and unfortunately I haven't really been able to come up with a replacement since then so it only really worked for two and a half days but everyone was very excited for it for those two and a half days I was still on a quest for someone who can like machine me one of these or something I've had no luck being able to do it myself I'm thinking of trying to get it 3d printed in metal, but we'll see how that goes.
    141:51
    So I think a little later on there were some pictures of the initial failed designs that I had come up with for this. So originally I was going to have it do this big spiral on the way down and then do a little bit of wavy action at the end there, and it was nice and tall. And if you go a little further, what ended up happening as a result of this was my car would get stuck on it. So right there, that looks to you probably like a car that's in the middle of a descent down this track, but really that is a, it is completely bound up and not moving at all, and I can't even push it up and down the track with my hands. And it turns out, I thought it was because of my track design, and I thought I was bending it too much and all this other stuff, but it turns out it was a bad design of the car. So the car, I actually had to completely design for myself because I could not get any of the cars from the original kit. So I basically had to start from scratch and make something that could ride these rails.
    142:57
    And this was the first attempt, and I had the four wheels all in static positions. And the problem was that they weren't able to bend. So they were four wheels that were always in the same place relative to each other, and they could not adjust to the track's bending. So it just did not work. If you straightened out the track a little bit, it would roll down it. So that's what I thought the problem was. So that's why I did the redesign.
    143:23
    In the end, I'm glad I did the redesign because I like the classic loop. I didn't really like the spiral down design. I didn't really think it did much from a player's perspective. It didn't really have a lot of appeal from the player's angle when it was on top of the game. So we ended up redesigning all of this. So this went through quite a few iterations before it ended up being a working and functional piece. So I'm not sure if I have any other car iterations in the picture dump I sent you. But, yeah, there we are prototyping the initial, like the final design. We're scooting it as far left as possible so it kind of hangs off the pin a little bit. I kind of wanted to do that and to give it a little bit of danger. Yeah. You're falling right off, you're going straight toward the ground and it gives it a lot of momentum to make it around that loop-de-loop which apparently I have a thing for A little bit of a thing for loop-de-loops, huh? Yes, you do So later on, I finally figured out what was wrong with the cars and if you go back to the finished Again, I'm sorry, these are all out of order So now you'll see that we have individual two-seater cars that are linked together instead of the four-seater you saw before. And this allows the individual sets of wheels to twist relative to each other, and that way it doesn't care what the track is doing. It's able to follow it, no problem. two wheels don't have the same restrictions because they're the rails are always the same distance apart in that direction it was the other the third dimension that would cause the binding so once i came across this idea it really it really started to work out and then i ended up with the um the two wheels on top one retaining wheel um solution by actually looking at real roller coasters. Yeah, it's a real car design. That's really just what it is.
    145:36
    And once I got this design running, it really did work well, and I was really happy with it. So everything printed on this is printed in ABS plastic, and for that reason, I mean, the reason we're using ABS plastic instead of a more forgiving material like PLA or something like that is because you can see it's nice and shiny.
    145:59
    And that's not paint. That is actually all the original plastic color on the car right there. I thought it was painted to me. It's not painted and it's not clear-coated. So there's another picture in here somewhere of what looks like a rice cooker with these pieces in it. And that is called, that's a process called ABS Daper Smoothing right here. So what you do is you have, I have a little old rice cooker that was only ever used for this one purpose. You put your parts in there with a little bit of acetone, and then you turn your rice cooker on to the lowest setting, like just the keep warm setting, and that's enough to boil the acetone off into the air. And acetone actually melts ABS plastic. So what ends up happening is it melts the outermost layer, the vapor melts the outermost layer of the plastic, and it fuses it together, and it just gives it this nice, smooth, shiny, like, surface. And you can also see that I had the little yellow arm stop pieces as, like, on it as I was doing this, and that also fuses those together better than any glue ever could. So those are now one piece forever. and then you lose, which is positive, you lose the layer lines which I never really was looking at in the 3D part which this, for example, didn't have the process done, I'm guessing, and you can see each individual layer oh yeah, that was 100% a prototype there was a black, boring prototype of the working one too before I finally was like, right, this one works, let's make it for real right, but yeah, in the end yeah, it just looks like a solid piece that was not made by 3D printing. Yeah, exactly. So as for game integration, because you did manage to tell everybody that already, so this topper is integrated into the game. I hooked it into the switch for the yellow rocket ramp, which is kind of like the biggest shot in Roller Coaster tycoon that they always want you to hit.
    148:08
    It's the hardest shot to hit because it's from the upper flipper. It's a classic Pat Lawler design. And it almost always will give you whatever you need. Like, all the modes are, like, shoot, you know, shoot the pop bumpers, shoot this ramp, whatever. But the unspoken rule is always or the yellow ramp. Like, this mode is shoot pops or the yellow ramp. this other mode is shoot the blue ramp or the yellow ramp like they're all the yellow ramp just gives you everything always so like it's the best shot in the game and it's the hardest one to make so i figured i wanted to reward it um it also takes quite a while for your ball to get back to you from that shot so it has a nice long show of shooting up the vertical up kicker then it goes down a big long swooping yellow roller coaster type ramp and to a kicker in a ball lock in the bottom left of the game, and then it kicks back up and returns through the blue roller coaster ramp. So it's got all kinds of stuff that it's doing, which gives me plenty of time to allow the player, if they so choose, to watch the topper go off before their ball gets back to them. So actually, the whole thing is programmed with an Arduino. We're just waiting for the yellow roller coaster switch to release. I'm tapped into the normally closed side of that switch so that the game, I'm not interfering with the game's switch matrix at all. So we're using the normal ground but also every switch in a PML machine, as most of them do, have a normally open and a normally closed side. So the game uses the normally open side. So whenever you close the switch, it registers. We use the other side to not interfere. And so the game is the brain of the topper is monitoring a switch that is held down and whenever that switch is released is when it's activating.
    150:07
    So when you do that, there's a homing switch at the top of the lift ramp so you don't actually watch it go up the lift when you release it, it just starts on the track and it takes 8 seconds from that release to go down around the loop and back to the bottom where it makes its slow truck back up the ramp while you're doing other things. And I timed it in the Roller Coaster Tycoon game. It takes you 11 seconds to get your ball back.
    150:38
    So you have time to watch the topper or the ball, just depending on what you want, and not lose your ball. So, like, it's not just a, like, spectator kind of thing. That's awesome. That's really great because, yeah, most of the time you're not looking at the topper. So that's cool. Shall I pull up the video really quick so everyone can see what it does? Oh, yes, please. If you're using audio, be prepared for my friend Nick Sennett.
    151:02
    Expressing his enthusiasm in this video, he was kind enough to take the recording for me. I'll turn it down ever so slightly.
    151:10
    Here we go. All right. I'm going to hit play. Yeah, the video is nine seconds long. Yeah, this is that fantastic 2019. Awesome. Here we go.
    151:23
    yeah very there's my boat so yeah we have the lights it's just a couple of LED strips pointed up just kind of give it some up lighting and those flash when you set it off and then they just stay on for the duration of the show and then they turn off when like it's doing it's boring thing going back up the track that's awesome this is a really great topper if I had a roller coaster tycoon and you could get that gear and the proper parts for it, I may try to talk you into making another one. A lot of people have asked me if I would sell those toppers, and I would have. I probably really would have if I could get the parts. Get the parts, yeah. I'm able to reproduce some of them, but I can't reproduce them all, and I still haven't found a solution for that drive gear, so I just never ended up doing it. Got it. That makes sense. Well, overall, between last Topper Talk and this Topper Talk, we've seen two awesome toppers that you've created. And I really can't wait to see what you create at American Pinball in terms of game design. But, heck, maybe we'll even see a topper from you at American Pinball. I'm hoping to design a topper. I'm kind of going to just go kind of do that on my own and see if anyone likes it. And maybe we'll get some nice toppers from some of our American games. But I'm definitely interested in designing simple toppers, and I have a few ideas that I'm already very excited for. That's awesome. Well, when those happen, we'll have to have you back on Topper Talk to talk about them. Absolutely. I'd love to. Well, thank you again for coming on to the show, and we'll talk to you next time. Thanks so much for having me again. No problem. Have a good one.
    153:12
    Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of Topper Talk with Gorin. Tune in to the next Pro Show for another episode. And as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my topper talk.